Page 19 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

The next few days were busy but pleasant. Novak was hypervigilant, blending in with the shadows and ignoring conversation. Sath ignored him in return, so I did my best to do the same. My safety was his job, after all. It would be foolish to distract him.

So I focused my attention on experiencing Hja Qiyua and the friendship I was forging with Sath. He was funny and easy-going, not at all the stick-in-the-mud stereotype. He laughed with me when I tripped over cobblestones or sneezed, making a playfully disgusted face as he dodged the blast radius. He even let me poke his eye “for science”

when I worked up the guts to ask about them. They had a hard shell like contacts with a glossy lubricated surface to keep them free of dust. If you cut one open, it apparently looked like the inside of an orange with six pupil clusters made up of dozens of optical nerves each.

When I grimaced and admitted that I kind of wanted to dissect a hjarna eyeball, he shrugged and said, It’s okay. We kind of want to dissect you too.

Two days later, I was still laughing about it.

And he really knew his stuff. I learned so much about Renata’s place in the Union, what we could expect in the future, and the common problems colonies often faced. When he didn’t know something—like the history of an old city wall or how much dissolved oxygen they injected into their aqua farms below the surface if their stocking density was so high—he made a show of pulling up his holotab and pretending to be an expert.

Most of the time, I forgot that Novak was trailing behind us. He remained aloof and cold. Even if I asked him a question, he’d only nod his head or twitch an ear. If I was really pushy, he’d grunt out a few words.

Then we’d sit down to eat in some little alcove of a small restaurant, and all that changed. Novak would slide in next to me to taste test my food. He never stayed for the full meal, but poured my water and patiently arranged side dishes with his four-fingered claws so that the ones I liked were closest. How he knew, I could only guess, but his intuition was spot on. Maybe his colear? could detect what type of salad dressing I’d liked eight years ago.

Jharim’s warning words about his tail kept me from enjoying what I’d otherwise mistake as flirtation, though. Under the privacy of a restaurant table, Novak’s tail brushed up the back of my calf or squeezed my ankle. Once it slapped at my braid like a cat’s paw, and I snorted right into my water. I kept out of its range once we were back in the sun, surrounded by people that might notice.

If the wrong person realized he could find me anywhere, what would that mean?

But it was hard to remember that I was in danger, dangling like a silk-draped worm in chummy waters. The paranoia faded, replaced with historical sites, professional conversations, and delicious food. I felt like I was at the galaxy’s bougiest convention as a guest of honor, which was exactly how I was supposed to act. Play the part of an endlessly curious tourist? Give me my BAFTA Award. This role was made for me.

Visiting the La?we swarming channels had been especially fun.

“Thank you for giving me a tour. I’m sure it’s not something you do for acquaintances under normal circumstances,”

I’d said pointedly when Sath met me at the Canal, the entrance to each family cluster’s spawning channels.

“It’s my honor.”

He’d worn a pleated skirt with a loosely woven tunic that gave glimpses of his marigold chest. A golden chain and fob hung from his crest, which he’d powdered with bronze glitter that smelled delicious.

Hjarnas had wide hips and narrow chests, the sort of build that suggested they were made for belly-dancing. Sath wore his skirt low on his hips where it swayed as he walked. They weren’t a sexually-driven species, but part of me wondered if they’d learned courtship through centuries of cohabitating.

Because Novak had been right. This was definitely not the sort of tour one gave their new colleague.

Sath’s open-hearted smile glowed brighter throughout the day. He offered me assistance when we crossed the channel, hovered his hand over my head when we ducked through some crystals into the family’s spa, and set up a thick blanket with several samples in glass cylinders on a short table.

They were the cluster’s genebank. Samples of eggs and milt dating back almost a century. The cluster withdrew a few of them with each spawning now to reintroduce genetic diversity to the population. Perhaps it wasn’t a romantic sort of date, but it certainly was an intimate peek at hjarna life.

Afterwards, I found Novak at the Canal entrance leaning on the archway with his iridescent scales fanned open in the sun. Some sort of soft fur or downy was bright orange beneath them, popping against the lapis lazuli dunes and marbled sandstone.

Novak threw a glare our way as Sath stopped me in the shade just outside the gate. He apologized, needing to return the La?we genebank to its vault. When he bowed farewell, the shimmer decorating his crest blew little dust devils into the air. Novak looked away, squinting at the horizon and rolling the scales along his neck.

Later, I found the powder glittering on my skin and clothes. Was it a sort of dry lotion or suncream? When I washed it off, my skin was supple. It was either a desert miracle or alien science.

The ensuing days were a dream. Sath took me to a private tea with some of his colleagues. HIXBS Director Caher Bi?dou treated me to dinner and music. I was invited to enjoy beautiful hanging gardens on the surface and to inspect the massive farming operations underground. Millions of mushrooms, mollusks, and seagrasses. The scale was astonishing.

Each person we met had something to give or gain. One wealthy woman was just a big nerd for humans. An entrepreneur wanted to talk to me about products humans missed from Earth and how he could develop similar things. And there was a doctor that desperately wanted to take my temperature to confirm her research. There was always a give and take, even if it was pleasant.

But the shine wore off as a pattern emerged. Agent Gaul accompanied me everywhere, but not always inside. Sath would wave him in after sharing a look with restaurant owners. He touched nothing, ate nothing, never sat except to taste test my food. I understood not entering the Canal and taking up a post outside the director’s office, but they hadn’t permitted him into the gardens either.

When it happened outside a women’s boutique, I swore with exasperation. How was he supposed to be a bodyguard if he couldn’t guard me? He claimed it was an advantage. Looking ineffective would make space for an opportunity. I saw the merits, but I hated it. Agent Gaul wasn’t inept. Advantage or not, people shouldn’t be treating him like “the help.”

After how John had made me feel, I wasn’t standing for it.

I started planning late night walks on the third day, hoping that I could swing the ineptitude meter towards me instead. The naive human with a billion-dollar price tag taking a jaunt at midnight? I even turned up the music on my linguitor and hummed off-key. Did it twist up my guts with anxiety? Sure, I practically pissed meself nightly. But doing my part to protect Novak’s reputation felt worth it.

Then we were stopped at the security vestibule of the HIXBS aquatic xeno-ecology lab.

“Dr Faxou!”

Sath beamed, brushing his knuckles against the back of another man’s hand in greeting.

“It’s my honor to introduce you to Charlie Halloway. She has a masterful degree in ichthyology, emphasis aquaculture. Of course, I thought of your lab…”

Dr Faxou was an older gentleman with a kind-hearted set to his round shoulders. His crest was magenta at the top while the rest of him was a rosy pink. Wide smile lines stretched around his thin mouth, and they stacked upon each other as he took my hand in both of his.

“Hello, Master Halloway.”

It was so sweet how often they got this wrong, and I couldn't bring myself to correct him. He rubbed my knuckles between his thumbs, long fingers clasping my forearm closer to my elbow. Appreciating the labor of someone’s hands was considered a formal greeting.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Dr Faxou,”

I said, brushing my fingers over the back of his hand with a bright smile.

“I’m so excited to see what you do here.”

“Lovely, yes? Just lovely,”

he tsked, smiling and tapping on my callouses.

“The pleasure is all mine, Master Halloway. Perhaps I can run some numbers by you as they pertain to our Earth samples, hm?”

My heart skipped.

“You have samples from Earth?”

“Nothing primary,”

he said, gesturing me through security with a wave of his hand.

“But estimations of a select few environments. We printed them with newly acquired funds related to the institute’s recent emphasis on human outreach.”

“Merit collar?”

security asked behind me.

“No,”

Novak said as he stepped through the door, his ears twitching this way and that. He was focused on the exits, vents, and cameras as he checked in with security, cataloging the lobby as I preceded Dr Faxou inside. I was gushing information in an excited torrent.

“I’d love to take a look!”

I said breathlessly.

“What regions have you simulated, if you don’t mind me—”

I turned around to find Dr Faxou’s hand on Novak’s chest. He waved his fingers to push Novak back from the building with a terse shake of his crest. Sath saw it at the same time I did and leaned down, trying to distract me from the scene. Whatever he was about to say, he never got the chance to say it.

“Hey!”

I barked, putting myself between Novak and the elderly researcher. He blinked at me out of sync.

“I’m sorry, but Novak is my bodyguard. He stays with me.”

“Master Halloway, we have several female staff here that—”

“Of course,”

Sath rushed to say. He joined us in the vestibule where a security agent glared at Novak like he caught him cheating at cards. Workers in the lobby hushed, staring at the commotion.

“We can make an exception.”

He turned to Dr Faxou.

“Novak has been respectful. He’s important to Ms Halloway’s sense of comfort.”

I gaped.

“My comfort?”

Novak’s tail squeezed my ankle twice. I turned around to find him unloading his utility harness.

“It’s alright, Ms Halloway,”

he said in a detached tone.

“This is standard procedure.”

“See?”

Sath said with a relieved sigh.

“Why not show her the lab floor while we wait for the security screening, Dr Faxou?”

I let them pull my attention away, glaring skeptically one last time at the checkpoint. Sath squeezed my shoulder with encouragement and the look on his face was genuine. He murmured assurances that Novak would be right behind us like he always was.

I took a deep breath and let Sath’s good nature soothe me. I was genuinely excited about the aquatic lab and didn’t want to miss it.

The lobby was two stories above the most colorful collection of tanks I’d ever seen. Each tank was as long as a football pitch, but none of them were the same shape. Some folded over themselves, while others were straight and narrow. I instantly felt like a child staring at the tubes in a waterpark, trying to choose which color I’d slide down first. The one with ice-encrusted black rocks and salt stalactites in choppy wintergreen waters? Or maybe the pink waves lapping at red beaches with coral trees that stuck out of the surf like succulents?

I swore breathlessly. This was my fecking Disneyland!

Dr Faxou cleared his throat, pointing one of his long fingers at two tanks near the end of the row.

“We’ve two Earthly experiments based on Lake Bykahl, yes, and the ah, Verday Island Passage. I hope we’ve interpreted their names correctly,”

he said.

“One fresh water, one salt water. But we hope to produce more funding. Your homeworld is the most diverse we’ve seen, Master Halloway. It’s a study in terraforming, yes? There is so much to learn…”

He continued down the line, describing each experiment and what they were hoping to achieve. Some water runs, as he’d called them, had been built decades ago and were stable ecosystems. Others like the blackened plague water from Byd Farrwel were examples of their ongoing development of genetically modified mollusks for specific clean-up endeavors.

But my attention drifted to the shiny reflection of Novak in the glass while Faxou spoke about the good work they were doing. Both he and Sath smiled with enthusiasm, chuckling about the cute way the Dharateen frilled clams spit. They were willfully blind as the security guard forced Novak to open his mouth. He grabbed the top of his muzzle and pressed his thumbs into Novak’s venom sacs while the agent’s tail jerked, his scales raised like hackles.

“They’re so curious,”

Faxou chuckled, wiggling one finger good-naturedly.

“You can tell when they’re hungry by the way their little blue feet stretch for the surface. Sivi tells me I’m more dedicated to feeding them breakfast than myself.”

“Excuse me,”

I cut into their charming story. I desperately wanted to enjoy it with them, but couldn’t while Novak was getting his sensitive colear? crushed right behind us.

“I need to use the restroom.”

Sath’s shoulders jolted, smile pinched with concern.

“Certainly! It’s just this way. I’ll take you—”

I held up my hand, turning on my heel towards Novak. The guard was now stuffing his tail into a bag clipped around his waist like a straight jacket.

“No,”

I shut Sath down.

“Thank you. It’s a vulnerable process for a human and I want my bodyguard.”

Novak’s ears were turned backwards as he hid his muzzle from view with his hands and adjusted his fangs and tongue. He caught my eye, a crease in his brow.

I grabbed his wrist with my nose upturned, adrenaline forcing my heart into a sprint.

“The loo. Now.”

“The what?”

I dragged him down the hallway to a series of private restrooms, uneasy glances following our heavy steps. As soon as the door shut, I pulled open the bag on his thigh, smashed the privacy puck he kept in it, and tossed it in the sink with a huff of trembling fury. It flashed with light and my ears suddenly felt muffled as if we were in a blanket fort.

“What the bloody hell was that?”

I hissed, baring my teeth.

He raised one brow, giving me an unimpressed shrug.

“A security checkpoint.”

“No, that was a cavity search. He had his hands in your mouth, for feck’s sake!”

Novak’s tail lashed at its bag like he wanted to smack it on the ground.

“You don’t need to be concerned about our arrangement, Charlie. Nobody suspects. It really was standard procedure.”

“Nobody suspects,”

I scoffed, putting my hands on my hips. I stepped into his personal space, my lip trembling where I bit it between my teeth.

“Honestly? I don’t care who knows. I’d rather they did because I had a grand time. Up until you said it wouldn’t happen again while my skirt was still hiked over my arse. Classy, that was. What I do give a shite about is how you’re being treated like a fecking animal.”

Novak stared down at me, shock and confusion playing across his brow. His nostrils and colear? flared. I gestured at his mouth gently, brushing my thumb over his lip. He parted his jaws as I checked the roof of his mouth for bruising.

A tear fell from my eye and I breathed through it.

“They put caps on your fangs.”

I pulled them off like the rubber ball on the tip of a new ballpoint pen.

“Their fears are valid,”

he whispered as I tossed the caps into the corner of the room.

“Right, and I’m a bloody princess.”

“Advenan males would use their venom to coerce their quarries in the past. It was common when we still had a homeworld. Instinct.”

“Oh yeah? How long ago was that?”

I asked, crossing my arms in anger. His ears fell back.

“Dystropos has been gone for two hundred years… Advenans breed and disappear. We don’t stay. We just… hurt them. Our quarries.”

I scoffed.

“I’m your quarry and I’m not hurt. You haven’t left me. You didn’t rape me either.”

He growled.

“This is different—”

“Is it? Hate to break it to you, but my pussy isn’t magical. I’m not an exception to the dine-and-dash rule.”

I scurried my fingers across the air and his ears twisted back.

“So was it actually everyone or just a handful that soured the barrel? Has it happened again? What about outside of the Union? Is it common there? If it’s instinct, then it’s gotta be common there.”

Novak swallowed hard. “No.”

My heart broke. Novak was good. Sure he’d been cold, but the aloofness was starting to click into place. The secrecy. He was attentive, dedicated to his mission—to me—and playful when he loosened up. But the Union had decided that being an advenan defined him more than who he was.

“Did you know that I was married once?”

I asked, my voice tight, words garbled. I hated talking about the second half of my life.

“I married my high school sweetheart when we were twenty because I got pregnant. Miscarried her halfway through. My cycles turned to rubbish after that. The pain was so awful, I couldn’t get out of bed to change the sheets. My shite husband told me it was in me head. That I was making excuses to not have children.”

Novak growled.

“Veshda??,” he spat.

“After a while, I believed him. Kept trying. Lost four more after that. The day I scheduled my hysterectomy, I brought home an adoption application. John was furious at my supposed ‘sudden change of heart.’ He hadn’t noticed my pain because I wasn’t human to him. He thought a wife was made to serve her husband, and I’d foolishly reinforced that for years before getting wise.”

Novak creased his brow.

“I’m sorry.”

I stepped up to his chest so that he had to tuck his chin to meet my glare.

“Why do I get the feeling our stories aren’t so different?”

He grimaced, scales flaring up.

“It’s true that advenan males don’t have as many freedoms—”

“Men. You mean advenan men.”

“...Yes,”

he said in a daze. He ran his hand over his snout and ears. They popped back up as he paced, gnashing his teeth.

“We donate sperm to fertility clinics and let them drain our venom once per satbit in exchange for Union citizenship. The Union needs us for diversified procedures, so we’re tolerated, but not trusted. Most establishments that have female employees or clients don’t permit us entry without a merit collar since we’re officially registered as dangers to society.”

“So as long as you serve it up for diversification, you can live free?”

I asked with skepticism.

“And don’t sire our own neolates, yes.”

Bile rose in my throat. They couldn’t build families. Just one step left of sterilization. All that smooth talk and confidence… Was I actually his first? Our arrangement suddenly meant so much more. Novak wasn’t just putting his reputation on the line, but exile. A black mark on his people. Mass panic, even. All for the sake of protecting humans.

“I appreciate your concern, Charlie, but we’ve lived with this for a long time. It’s not changing anytime soon.”

He brushed his hands over my arms and gave me a nonchalant shrug.

“My life is fulfilling. I run my own guild on Huajile and adopt a lot of orphaned youth into the hall. I’m the first advenan covert elite in the Union, and thanks to you, I’ve been on the Hunt.”

He leaned into my neck with a teasing smirk.

“If I weren’t so honest, I might say that your chemia is fading so that I could Hunt you again.”

It was meant to distract me from the horror of how he was treated with a dangerous taste of flirtation, but I didn’t smile. I didn’t rise to the act he’d probably used to smooth things over a thousand times. I wanted him to know that I saw him and would stand with him like a fortress wall because I wish I’d had that when my life had turned to shite. If I had, maybe I’d have lived for me a lot sooner.

I shook my head, eyes locked on his.

“You don’t have to pay for my attention like that, Novak. When we were in Renata, I invited you back to mine because I fancied you. We got along. If it were just a thrill, I wouldn’t have. That’s a bit too vulnerable for me.”

The grin slid off his face while I held his stare.

“And for the record, you were the best shag I’ve ever had. Your venom didn’t make me forget meself. I said yes before you bit me. Anyone that suggests it’s never consensual is a jealous, gaslighting arsehole that knows advenans do it better.”

The tension in Novak’s face eased, one corner of his long mouth lifting up. He swallowed hard, and I felt certain he was gathering his courage. His claw brushed my hair, not tucking it behind my ear like I did out of habit, but curling it into a spiral that made my thighs tremble.

“Imagine what I could do with a little more practice…”

Heat blasted through my veins, but his eyes drifted to my hairline with a crease in his brow. He pushed my ear forward gently, breathing me in.

“What’s this from?”

he asked, stepping back from the intensity of it all.

“You’re bleeding.”

I pressed my fingertip against my skin and it came back tacky and red. Not much, just a spot.

“Can’t say.”

“But you didn’t feel it?”

I shook my head.

Novak held my chin and pushed back my hair. I craned my face away for him so he could press his colear? to my skin. His muzzle scales tickled my throat as he flexed the hidden organ.

“Nothing smells out of place,”

he rumbled thoughtfully, his voice vibrating through his muzzle and into my flesh.

“The parumauxi have already closed it. No bruises.”

“Maybe I scratched meself.”

“Maybe…”

He breathed me in again deeper, then licked the drip with a slow drag of his tongue. Its slender prongs stuck to my collarbone and chin as he tasted my blood with the thicker base. My stomach tightened, adrenaline spiking through my heart.

“If not, then our goal might be creeping closer.”

The restroom lock pulsed blue, drawing both our eyes. Novak picked up the puck from the sink, turned it off and slipped it back in his thigh pouch. Sath’s voice was instantly louder.

“—arlie! Are you alright? Answer, please, yes?”

“Sorry!”

I gasped, slapping my cheeks and rubbing my hand over my mouth in a sudden frenzy. I leaned on the sink and waved for Novak to get the door.

“I was feeling sick!”

Sath walked in with a slight panic, his fists balled at his sides. He glared sharply at Novak, but said nothing, running immediately to my side. I washed my mouth out with water from the tap as if I’d just thrown up and gave him a sheepish smile.

“My stomach’s been at me since we ate lunch,”

I admitted.

“Novak has a privacy puck, so he turned it on then held my hair back while I threw up. Humans make terrible vomiting noises. Don’t we, Novak?”

The lads shared a look of gross and helpless distress that would have been amusing if the stakes weren’t Novak’s trustworthiness. I had no doubt after our conversation that Sath dreaded the worst.

“I must apologise, yes?”

he said, blinking fast.

“I had no idea gheele might make you sick. It is universal, but perhaps the garnish…”

“Nevermind,”

I said with a slap to his chest that made him jump.

“One little toss and I feel fit as a fiddle. Now, about that tour? I want to see everything.”

So it might have come off a little flippant, but what would Sath know? Maybe humans sprang back up after food poisoning instead of wallowing in their flats for a week and losing five kilos. I was the alien here, and they had to take me at my word.

“If you’re sure?”

he asked hesitantly. I pushed him out the door.

“I’ve never felt more sure,”

I insisted.

“As long as Novak is around in case he needs to hold my hair back again. I’ll not traumatize you too.”

My bodyguard hissed with amusement, following us out into the lobby.