Page 64 of Tempting Fate

My translator fuzzed with static, then offered, “banshee.”

A shiver darted down my spine.

“Why did she lock you away?”

Orukem took long gulps of her drink. “Skik knows. And I wasn’t sticking around long enough to find out.”

I sat as Orukem talked, relieved she was mostly okay. Though not as common as kri’ith, nebaru, or shaa, we’d seen a few j’tzavi since being taken from Tathar. They were humanoid in the sense that tomatoes were fruit. Tall like most other sapient species, they walked on two legs with a strange gait and gave off a sense of the otherworldly. Okay, we were on another world. But other-otherworldly. There was something almost reptilian about the way they moved, but long horns curled round the backs of their heads like some kind of antelope. And they had some kind of I-don’t-know-what abilities. Mind-husker. Psychic? This one had attacked our friend.

Despite the afternoon sunshine, I shivered.

“You know the damnedest thing? The whole walk back I was worried how Airida was coping with you.” Orukem jerked her head at Grilahki, then winced. “Ouch.”

The dour woman pointed at me. “Ask the human.”

Everyone’s gaze turned to me.

“You’ve been his attendant?” Orukem asked.

“Just his friend,” I said.

Orukem skewered Daiytak with a glare. “It’s shaa’ith business. Let me get rid of this headache and—”

“Forget it, Ruki,” Daiytak said. “We need to get you checked over before anything else.”

Ruki? Cute.

Less cute was the idea of her touching Airida, and that was something I did not want to unpack right now. I should find out how long kalidi would last. I should tell Daiytak he’d asked me to stay till the end of it, but this wasn’t the right time. I didn’t want Orukem to feel offended, not when she’d only just returned.

“Does she pose any danger to the rest of us? What can we do?” Daiytak asked.

I sent her my silent thanks for changing the subject.

Orukem’s lips stretched in a sad smile. “Nothing except not go there again. She wanted to be left alone.”

Don’t get close to the mountain. Noted.

I slipped away and took a speeder to one of the nearby lakes, craving the peace and quiet—and solitude.

The warm sand scrunched under my feet, and I watched the waves lapping at the shore. The crystal clear water was inviting, but I knew better than to dip my toes in; the marine life could get excitable. But as long as I didn’t bother them, they didn’t bother me.

Dark heads bobbed up from small, white-capped waves, studying me with enquiring green eyes, but they didn’t come into the shallows.

How absolutely absurd it was that, at any moment, a beautiful man could text me for a hand job?

Ridiculous. Outlandish.

I gave a sharp laugh. It gusted over the lake, where extra heads popped out of the water.

And, god, why was I horny?

As if I have to ask.

Days. Days of this, of pretending he didn’t affect me. And it wasn’t even the feel of him under my hands. That would be easier to shrug off. No, it was the way he reacted to me whenever I asserted myself, the way he melted under my praise and caught his breath at my corrections, almost as if he were born for it.

Maybe he was. He was part shaa, after all. If he wasn’t a full ki’tsi—their designation most closely translated as submissive, though our word was an unsatisfactory substitute—then he definitely had plenty of it in him. And much as I’d tried to ignore it when I’d been with Ben, I needed someone like that. Someone who’d beg, who’d plead, who’d obey my orders and not just in the bedroom. Though the thought of that, fuck…

My pussy clenched on nothing, and I glanced around. No-one here but me, the speeder, and the lake creatures.