Like he could read my mind, he added quickly, "If I'm under duress, the spray can poison my enemies but... when I'm mating it enhances pleasure sensors."
"Oh." I rasped with awareness and my mating loh throbbed with an expectation of feeling more of that pleasure spray and something more than his tail.
We were out the door and exiting the Den of Bounty when the junk trader stopped us. I squirmed, unsure of what Yueril would do if he knew she was who I sold my loh to. Not that the old Shol woman knew how painful the process was of removing a loh, or the lasting damage that resulted from it. She was the only one willing to speak with me or trade with me on this planet.
She had tried to convince me to be a spy and figure out what the trill were up to, and she guaranteed that she would find a ship that would take me home if I succeeded.
But a few kind acts from this strange male and I doubted everything. Here he was carrying me to find my radiation pack, and the only thing he asked of me was to hang out with him while he stayed on this barren planet. It could have been anyone. Why me?
The old shol spoke. "I've come into possession of some tarnpul. From the krelins, highly conductive. Great source of stable radiation! Heat your rations safely. Makes functional jewelry!"
Tarnpul wasn't tasty to eat, but it stored the radiation of the moon's rays and was sure to still have some left in it for quite some time. It's how my clan survived the storms inside the mountains when the moon's rays were blocked by the debris in the atmosphere. I clutched onto Yueril's neck tighter at the mention of it. He seemed to remember me speaking of the tarnpul earlier and asked the trader if it was native to Estreldez. Before she could even answer him, he faced her and said, "We'll take it." Not even asking how much it cost.
The trader handed him a heavy bag, and she gave him a strange hand gesture with her pinky and said, "In many we rise."
"It has been a while since I've been home and heard the greeting. You'll know then what I have to trade and may pick it up from my shuttle."
He dug into the bag and pulled out the black polished rock of tarnpul. A soft glow pulled between my loh and the rock as it got closer to my skin. The radiation sunk deep into my muscles and the raspy wheeze in my lungs eased as I began to process the stored power of the moons. It had been so long, I nearly wept again.
We made it back to the shuttle yard, and I finally got up the courage to ask him, "What do you trade?"
"We trade in many medical supplies. This tarnpul will barely cover the cost of a few vials. The trader knows she owes her boon to you, as the trill have far greater advancements not readily available this far out in the galaxy." He paused and stopped walking before he spoke again, but not to me. "Belder?"
I couldn't hear the other side of his conversation, but his nostrils flared, and he cursed—at least whatever words he said next did not translate.
He glanced at me apologetically. "I must return to the Den of Bounty. Where is this radiation pack of yours?"
Not wanting him to see where I used to sleep, and with the tarnpul so close, I didn't need it right away, so I shook my head. "I can come back for it later. The tarnpul may not be worth much to you, but it will save my life here. It feels like home." I held the rock close to my chest.
"Then you'll come with me?"
I nodded with a shy smile. Yueril still hadn't let me go, holding me in his arms like I weighed nothing. His tail was propped under my butt and wrapped around my inner thigh.
"I don't know what I'm walking into when we return." He eased me down his body until my toes touched the ground. He was only slightly taller than me, but not by much. Our foreheads touched, and he lifted the robe above his head and slipped out, leaving the large garment over me, the fabric now grazing the dirt.
I'd seen the horrors that happened to those who weren't cut out to be outlaws. It was a clan with a deadly admittance. The robe over my shoulders was used to protect others from Yueril, not to protect Yueril from his surroundings. I admired the way his scales shimmered in the dim light of the artificial beams surrounding the shuttle yard. This planet was more like an asteroid than a habitable home, barely in orbit of the nearest star. Its heat source was from beneath the surface.
He handed me the pack of tarnpul, and said with seriousness, "These are yours. It isn't normal for Belder not to respond, which means she was surprised by something... or someone."
A female? A twinge of jealousy heated my cheeks, but I hadn't even told him my name. I enjoyed the way he called me treasure too much.
"Pull the hood down over your face when I tell you to," he instructed, and we made our way back to the Den of Bounty.
The junk trader was nowhere to be seen, and that in itself was suspicious. I grabbed for Yueril's forearm. "This doesn't feel right."
He nodded. "I'd say my crew is being welcomed to the planet with a winner-take-all challenge."
I took a step back with fear and uncertainty. "I've seen what they do to offworlders that try to do business without using their services. I'm only alive because they are waiting for Lord Zorn to come and take care of me himself..." It went without saying that my time was limited to find a way off this planet before he returned, even if it meant sneaking aboard someone's shuttle and gambling where it would travel to, or if I'd get caught.
Borrowed time.
I took a deep breath and a deliberate step forward.
"Treasure," he reassured with a lick along his sharp teeth, "I won't force you to join me, but even if they ambush me, you will be the only one to survive it."
He flexed his claws, and his scales glistened like he was covered in the waterfall's mist from my home planet, and not off to enter a trap on an outlaw claimed rock. Muscles rippled beneath his scales, and a sharp thorn slipped out from the tip of his tail. He could have torn me apart, yet instead he destroyed me in a way that had me smiling at the excited anticipation in his dark eyes.
As we entered the Den of Bounty, there was no guard positioned anywhere to greet us. It was eerily quiet and empty as we moved through the halls, yet Yueril didn't pause to stop as he moved fluidly with determined precision.
