Page 8 of Redeeming Captivity (Human Pets of Talin #7)

Chapter 8

Lena

Being outside and away from the threat of Higmun and other Talins, she felt free again. It was as if a weight was lifted and she could breathe again. There was a lurking fear, but it was easy to push back and focus on being outside and feeling free.

As he’d done earlier, Tarquin kept his stride short and the pace slow to accommodate her smaller stature. He didn’t need to do that quite so much. She could’ve walked faster, especially with her new boots!

They were much bulkier than the slim, delicate slippers she’d worn her entire life. They also made her feel powerful. They were the type of shoes Talins might wear, not a human pet. She could walk anywhere with these boots, even on the harsh stone debris that made up most of Wulnum.

“It will be time for the evening meal when we get back,” Tarquin said as they walked.

She was only mildly hungry at the moment, but by the time they finished the walk she’d probably be starving. It was nice to know Tarquin would make sure she’d be fed. That she knew her hunger would be satisfied and she wouldn’t have to wait and wait, hoping someone would come care for her.

“Don’t forget that I have the new coat,” he said, shifting the large bag hanging on his shoulder. By the time they finished in the store, they’d filled the basket bot and the bag the clerk had tossed at Tarquin from the backroom was almost overfull and had to be heavy. Her new coat was tied to the outside and matched the gray fabric the bag was made of.

After Higmun left, Tarquin’s normal, easy pace changed, and he almost rushed her through the store. She was happy to leave and get back to the footpath no one used. Now she was tempted to skip with joy at being out in the open with Tarquin and wearing fabulous new shoes.

A breeze ruffled her mane and made her wish she had some way to hold it back. She’d braided it in the store, but she couldn’t keep the braid secured, so it was unraveling.

“I’ve noticed you’re fussing with your mane, is it bothering you?” Tarquin asked, halting and turning to face her. She let go of his fingers to gather her mane again and re-braid it.

Casually, Tarquin broke off one of his long quills and presented it to her. “I know some of the humans can secure their manes with long narrow objects, would this work for you?”

She stared at the quill. It was a small but profound gesture. Talins didn’t like having broken quills. It wasn’t painful, but it could take thirty or forty rotations for the quill to grow back, and having anything less than a full set of quills was looked down on. The style to have long, perfect quills was so popular right now that the female Talins who weren’t born with quills were putting on false ones made of brightly colored metals.

Handing her this quill meant he cared more about making her comfortable than showing a perfect appearance. All the kind and protective things he’d done for her in the last rotation seemed to culminate in her mind with this quill.

Meeting his gaze, she accepted the red quill with a black tip glinting in the sun. “Beautiful.”

The word flowed out of her mouth without thought. It was the first time she’d voluntarily spoken in over a year. Her voice felt rusty, and no sooner did the word pass her lips than she started coughing violently.

“Easy,” Tarquin said, kneeling in front of her and dropping the bag to search through it. He pulled out a canister of sopa, cracked open the top, and offered it to her.

After a few sips, her throat felt better. Tarquin talked and purred as she got her breath back.

“I’m so proud of you for speaking,” Tarquin said. “I’ll always treasure your first word to me.”

She’d called him beautiful. Not only the gleaming quill, but him too. He should know that.

Opening her mouth, she tried to talk again, but the words stuck in her throat. Frustration made her frown and want to hit something, but Tarquin held out one of his hands to her.

“Your voice will come when you’re ready,” he said as she grasped his fingers again.

The smell of caramel was strong, and she couldn’t resist the urge to lean a little closer and put her face against his. Warm, viscous liquid covered her cheek and ran down to her neck. Tarquin sucked in a breath and shuddered as she rubbed the side of her face against his. She had the strange urge to press the front of her body against him too.

A cascade of tumbling rocks in the distance caused an odd echoing sound that startled Tarquin. Pulling his hand free of hers, he sounded a challenging rattle and turned to face the sound. After two years on this planet, she was used to it. This was probably the first time he’d heard it.

She made a soothing sound and petted his arm. He looked over his shoulder at her and sounded an amused rumble.

“You don’t seem scared or upset,” he commented. “I must’ve overreacted. I’m sorry, Lena. We were sharing such a tender moment and I ruined it.”

He hadn’t ruined it, only ended it abruptly. That didn’t spoil what happened before. Going on her toes, she reached out and put her hand on his cheek, gathering more of the liquid there. Bringing it back, she rubbed some on her lips and the rest through her mane. She didn’t know where the impulse came from, but it felt right and she was never questioning anything that had to do with Tarquin again.

Tarquin’s purr dipped into a sexy, thrumming rumble again that did strange things to her insides. It was almost like his rumble was stroking her in a deep, needy place she’d never acknowledged before.

“This is a bad place for this,” Tarquin said, his voice full of regret. “When we get back to the barracks you can touch me all you want. But out here, in the open, it’s unwise.”

She understood. Jafinium and his soldiers seemed to enjoy taking anything pleasurable away from her. If she was going to lose Tarquin, she’d rather it happened later. Hiding her joy in his presence was the best idea.

After using the quill to secure her mane at the back of her head, she grabbed his hand. Turning, she tugged him to follow and set a fast walking pace. He made a slight surprised rattle, then an amused one.

“Let me gather our things first,” he said, shoving the items he’d taken out of the bag to find the sopa back in. Hefting the bag back onto his shoulder, he sounded a cheerful rumble and they started walking.

Despite her desire to touch and hold Tarquin, when they got to the door of the barracks, she couldn’t make herself go in.

The paralyzing fear made her angry. What was wrong with her? She’d slept in there last night and no one had locked her in. Tarquin had carried her outside every time she needed it. Shouldn’t her brain realize it was safe?

Still, her feet refused to go past the open door.

She didn’t want this to be the end of a wonderful day. Except for seeing Higmun at the store, she’d had the best time. She’d even spoken a word!

Tears of frustration burned her eyes.

“I think we should eat the evening meal on our boulder,” Tarquin said. Untying the coat from the bag before tossing it into the room, he turned to her and held the garment open. “It’s also an opportunity to test your new coat. I know it’s not as good as an omnie, but I’d like to see how warm it keeps you. You’ll have to be honest about the test though.”

She slipped her arms into the coat then turned and let him activate the seal-strip at the front. She immediately felt almost too warm but snuggled down into the coat anyway to show her appreciation.

“It looks like a good fit,” he said. They’d been in such a rush to leave the store that she hadn’t tried any of the items on except her boots.

“You appear comfortable, and that makes me happy,” Tarquin said with a purr. He kneeled down and opened up his arms. Familiar with this gesture now, she stepped close and let him lift her up. It was a quick trip to the boulder where he set her down gently, then jumped back off. “I’ll be right back.”

She turned to watch him jog back to the room, disappear for a few submarks, then come back out with a bunch of pillows and blankets. He was quick to build a mini nest then lifted her and settled her in the center. Getting in behind her, he stretched his legs out on either side of her.

“I requested a food delivery to this boulder location,” he said. “I made the request anonymously, so hopefully no one tries to poison our food.”

His tone was meant to be funny, but she could hear the serious note. She leaned back against him as the sun started to sink below the horizon. Two of the five moons were already visible and almost perfectly lined up with the sun. There were no clouds but the colors were still gorgeous.

“I’ve never watched sunsets before,” Tarquin said, his steady purring vibrating against her back. The air was thick with the smell of caramel, making her both turned on and hungry at the same time.

It was a weird sensation.

Now that she was listening to her body, she noticed her feet ached a little and her legs were already feeling slightly sore. She’d exercised more today than the last solar and a half put together. It felt good and she couldn’t wait to walk more.

A delivery bot arrived and bumped up against the boulder, obviously confused. Lena giggled at the bot’s predicament at the same time Tarquin sounded a rumble of amusement. He slid off the boulder to get the food.

They ate dinner bathed in the golden light of sunset.

Lena never wanted the moment to end.

“That was a decent meal,” Tarquin said, dropping their empty tray onto the waiting delivery bot. The bot dinged, lowered the tray into its body, and trundled off. “Not a hint of poison.”

She couldn’t see the bot as it moved down the footpath. It was fully dark now and getting cold. She was sure he’d suggest they move inside now, but instead he parted his legs and invited her to sit between them again. She snuggled up against this body, and he drew one of the heavier blankets around her. Between her coat and the blanket, she was perfectly warm. Soon the other moons would start coming out. If they stayed out long enough to let her get sleepy, she was sure it would be easy to walk back into the barrack.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about trust,” Tarquin said after a few submarks of silence. She remained still, interested in where this was going. “Trust is a difficult thing. I’ve been asking you to trust me, but it’s all been one sided. How can I expect you to trust me when I haven’t shown that I trust you?”

Trust her? What was he talking about? Maybe he was referring to her biting?

“I’d like to share some information with you. I have secrets that, if you repeated them to the wrong people, would result in the deaths of many Talins. This knowledge would also mean many humans would lose their partners and, in some cases, their offspring. By telling you, I’m giving you the power to destroy entire communities.”

What could he possibly be talking about? Was he an assassin preying on other Talins? Was he working for an enemy of the Talin Empire? Whatever it was, she refused to think badly of him. If Tarquin was working against the empire, then it had to be for a good reason!

“It’s more important than ever that I tell you because of what you make me feel,” he continued. He stopped purring and pulled in a deep breath.

“There are groups of Talins, notably on the colony planets of Sorana and Kalor, that see humans as equals. The humans on these colonies work if they want to, as if they were anywhere else in the universe. They build, fix, or grow. They read, write, and analyze. On top of having jobs and careers if they want, many pick Talins for a mate. If they desire, the humans and Talins of these colonies can practice natural birth. Not only that, but they raise their children.”

Her mind whirled as Tarquin spoke. There was so much, but he wasn’t finished.

“Some of those children are Talin-human hybrids. All of this is possible because we have the endorsement of the entire Prime Family, who are actively trying to support the Reformist platform and want to tear down the Traditionalist laws and practices.”

Even if Lena could speak, this information would have rendered her speechless. Talins in relationships with humans? Having hybrid children?

She’d grown up among Talins, with their strict laws and taboos. When she was young, she’d felt bad for her owners who couldn’t even raise their own children. Her owners spent more time playing with her than they spent with their own offspring.

When she was a young teenager, her parents had explained that Talins used artificial wombs and paid for their children to be raised by a cresh. It wasn’t until the child was in the adultlette stage that they left the cresh to live with their parents. From there they decided whether to join the family business or picked a different career path.

She remembered thinking it was a cold, harsh way to grow up but then never gave it another thought. Her life had been happy and fulfilled until she was sold to Jafinium.

How could she have dismissed the Talin lifestyle so easily simply because she wasn’t directly affected by it? It made her feel a little ashamed, not that there was anything she could’ve done to help anyone.

Not until now.

With only a few paragraphs of words, Tarquin gave her more power than she’d ever possessed. Humans weren’t a low- intelligence species like the Talins’ literature said they were. If used maliciously, there were a lot of things she could manipulate with these facts.

Except she would never.

It was only at this moment that Lena realized she loved Tarquin. It wasn’t only because he rescued her. She was grateful for that, but there was more. It made her think of what her father had said when she asked how he knew he loved her mother.

When that person is the one, you simply know.

His words bounced around in her head. She’d been attracted to Tarquin, but pushed it away because she didn’t think it would lead to anything but rejection. Now that she didn’t have to ignore her impulses, she could acknowledge that Tarquin was her one .

Sitting up, she pulled away from him. He went silent and still as she dropped the blanket and wiggled around until she was on her knees, facing him. That put them eye to eye.

She cupped his cheeks with her hands. Warm, viscous fluid built under her palms, and the scent of rich caramel filled the air.

It was bonding oil. She’d heard about it but never seen it. Never experienced it. Now she understood why there were ancient Talin poems dedicated to bonding oil. She had to fight the urge to rub it over her face, lips, and neck.

No, that would be later. She needed to focus on her words.

“I…I…” she licked her lips and swallowed. The words were right there. They wanted to come out. They were ready, but she was so out of practice it was proving harder to voice them than she expected.

“You don’t have to tell me anything now,” Tarquin said with a soothing purr. “I’ve given you a lot of shocking information. It might take time to process all of it.”

She moved one of her hands to cover his lips. She loved the sound of his voice, but she needed to concentrate on her words. She pulled in a breath and pushed her thoughts out.

“Love you.”