Strange Love Read online

  “Your fur…what purpose does it serve?”

  She hunched her shoulders, feeling a hot flush crawl up her neck into her cheeks. Settle down. He doesn’t know what hard nipples mean. Still, the reaction was disconcerting, especially when he seemed clinically curious about her physiology.

  “To be honest, I have no idea. It was probably to keep us warm during the Ice Age. Now, it’s more of a fashion statement. People cut their hair in different styles, color it to be more attractive.”

  “Ah, it’s a mating enticement,” he said. “Like our colors.”

  “I guess you could see it that way.”

  “Your fur is very soft. I like how it feels. Do you enjoy this?”

  Before, she wouldn’t have said that she was particularly into having her hair stroked, but something about the way he did it—with such singular intensity—made it feel different. When he sank all his claws into her hair and drew them through, an irresistible shiver rolled over her, and tingles traveled down from her head, pleasure so deep that it was almost sexual. This shouldn’t seem like foreplay, but it did somehow, and the most embarrassing aspect was that he had no idea. There was a soft buzz in her clit, just the softest start of arousal, a tender tease along with her tight nipples.

  Then he pulled away, his curiosity evidently sated. “Thank you for permitting me to explore. You have my consent to do the same if you wish.”

  “To…touch you?” Since he didn’t have hair, there was no direct way to reciprocate, but she was intrigued by the neck-ruff that seemed to show his emotional responses.

  “Yes.”

  Wow, maybe she was alone in this reaction, but it was incredibly hot to have free rein. She tried to seem confident when she reached for his neck, touching the skin above his shoulder plating. Not human skin, she had no parameters for this comparison. Not dolphin, closer to a manta ray, maybe, like one she’d touched at an aquarium, but that wasn’t quite right either. Alien skin, right beneath my fingers.

  She kept her touch very light, tracing above the webbing that flared into the ruff that fascinated her. When he didn’t stop her—he was standing very, very still—she touched the frill itself and it rose beneath her fingers, lifting until the ruff was fully flared. Zylar hissed, but he didn’t look angry, so she thought hissing meant something else to the Barathi.

  “Is this okay?”

  “Yes,” he said again, but this time, there was depth to his voice, a certain strain.

  Beryl took the word at face value, enraptured by the silky feel of his neck ruff. This part of him was like a butterfly wing in comparison to the hardness of his chitin. She ran a fingertip all the way around, stroking each curve and flare, until she noticed he was visibly trembling. Alarmed, she pulled back.

  “Was I hurting you?”

  “No.” It seemed as if it took some effort to get the word out. “That is… Nobody has touched me there before. It is…”

  “What?”

  “A mating overture,” he finally said.

  “Oh my God! I’ve been fondling an…erogenous zone?”

  “Well. Since I gave permission, I withstood it for as long as I could, but I’m not accustomed to—”

  If her face had been hot before, because of the hair-touching, then it was on fire now, fit to cook a waffle and fry an egg. Mortified, Beryl pressed her palms to her cheeks and looked everywhere but at Zylar. This is officially the weirdest date I’ve ever been on. Secretly, though, she was making notes. She still didn’t know how an alien hookup might go, but at least she’d learned one of his hot buttons, if they decided to go there. She stole tiny glimpses, hoping to figure out what sexual arousal looked like among the Barathi, but his silhouette remained unchanged. From his reaction, though, clearly there had been some internal combustion.

  Fanning herself, she took a few steps back to let him regain his composure and pretended great interest in what Snaps was doing. She spotted him across the garden, busily digging in an empty patch of dirt. The soil even looked different here, paler in hue, and when she knelt to test it, it felt more like sand, though on Earth, this consistency of dirt wouldn’t have been good for growing much of anything.

  She heard Zylar approach, but she didn’t glance up from her intent inspection. He crouched beside her, legs angled in a way that would have been impossible for a human, more proof that their bodies didn’t operate in remotely the same way. Peering up at him through her bangs, she said, “Sorry for…you know.”

  “It was a little fast,” he said softly. “But it was…pleasurable. I had given you permission; I just never imagined you would be so bold.”

  “I didn’t know!”

  “Yes, I realize that. Your grabbers are quite deft and delicate. I had no fear while you were exploring me.”

  Why did that sound so much like a sexual voyage? Beryl let out a shaky breath and dropped the handful of dirt she had been holding, then she straightened—since Snaps was happy as hell about the hole he was making, even if he didn’t have anything to bury. He was talking to himself too, just as she’d imagined dogs did.

  “Whoa, look at that. This hole is done! Done! Done!”

  “Is something wrong?” Zylar asked.

  This time he touched without permission, lightly tilting her chin so she gazed up at his face, all angles and hollows, sharp planes and inhuman features. He didn’t even have lips, so why did it feel as if he were lifting her face for a kiss? That was a purely human interaction. His bodily fluids might even be toxic to her. That was an issue they would need to investigate before taking things to the next level.

  She put her hand on his talons, intending to remove them, because it was a little unnerving to have tiny, organic daggers so close to her throat, and then she felt the soft, thin skin between, and she had no words for the spark that brightened her whole body, because his skin there was like the velvet on deer antlers, or like newly fallen rose petals. Stilling, she investigated with a careful fingertip, touching each little seam between his claws.

  He hissed again, and she was starting to understand that it was a pleasure sound, a reaction he couldn’t control. “No, I’m fine. But…is this…” She couldn’t find the words to finish and hoped he could extrapolate from context.

  Zylar arched his neck, the membrane flickering in both eyes, and his neck ruff frilled again, but he didn’t pull his claws away, letting her slip a careful fingertip along every inch of that inner softness. His voice did that gravelly thing again when he replied. “We don’t do this. Our claws don’t allow it without injury, so it’s not a mating overture, but it makes me feel…that way?” The last two words came out sounding like a question.

  “I’m happy about that,” she said. “There are things that feel sexual to me but might not to you. This gives me hope that we can find a median path and devise something that’s unique to us, perfectly ours.”

  “Ours,” he repeated in the gorgeous subharmonic that gave her goose bumps.

  This wasn’t just something that had happened to her anymore. Before, this was a means of survival, the best of bad options. But now? She wanted each new revelation, each whisper of deepening connection. It had been so long since she felt this way, that she couldn’t bring herself to pin an emotional label on her feelings, but her heart was warming to Zylar. Though it was impossible to say where this road led, she would follow it to its end gladly.

  [ 8 ]

  It was difficult for Zylar to pull away. But with each inquiring touch, he became more drawn to Beryl Bowman, and it would break both his hearts if they failed in the Choosing at the final stage, or worse, if she succumbed to someone else’s blandishments and picked a different partner in the second phase.

  He mustered his resolve and withdrew, putting some distance between them. His pulses pounded in tandem, reminding him how little he had been touched since he reached maturity. With an uneasy churr, he set off to find Snaps and occupied himself by filling in the holes the fur-person had dug. While he didn’t think anyone would compla
in about this use of the garden, he could never be certain about Ryzven. Perhaps Zylar was overly sensitive, but it had seemed that Ryzven disliked him especially, though he wasn’t fond of any nest-mates. His closest kin might divert attention from Ryzven’s own accomplishments, and that would never do.

  Finally, Snaps trotted over to Beryl. “I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. I’m done.”

  She put the cord back around his neck and turned to Zylar. “We can go back now, though we should figure out what we’re doing with him tomorrow. You said there are five stages in the first round?”

  “That’s correct.” Zylar led the way back to his quarters, expecting that Snaps would be more efficient this time, but he still lingered to smell various random objects, and Beryl permitted him these digressions with patience he would have admired more if he hadn’t been tired and hungry.

  She must be as well.

  It spoke to how tolerant and gentle she would be, if they should be lucky enough to end up with nestlings of their own. Her facial fur contorted as she followed him, an expression he had no ability to read. Then she said, “That means…four more days of round one, right? Is there a break between the rounds?”

  “There is. Competitors require time to rest, as the contest can be grueling.”

  “Okay, so it’s probably about a ________ for each stage?”

  “The translator did not provide a full understanding of what you said.”

  They were approaching his quarters, and Snaps trotted inside. Beryl waved away the technological issue, seeming ready to change the subject. “Can you get Snaps more water? He drank what you set out before, and I don’t know how to work the manufacturer.”

  “I’ll show you. Apologies, I should have already.”

  To produce such a simple formula, it was only a couple of buttons. Creating a more complex profile required more skill. Zylar only showed her once, then she filled the container on her own, repeating the process with respectable acuity. More impressive when he considered that she couldn’t read the instructions on the display at all; Barathi writing must be unintelligible to her.

  We’ll work on that.

  Kneeling, she set the drink on the floor for Snaps, and he put his face in it, very different from how Beryl Bowman processed her fluids. The biggest difference between them came in their appendages, he decided. Snaps had the posterior one while she lacked such a feature altogether—a pity, as it might have proved useful in the Choosing—but she had far more agile grabbers, so those might compensate for her lack of a rear extensor.

  “Normally, we don’t eat all our meals in one bite,” she said, then. “Snaps and I are hungry again, even if we don’t need anything nutritionally. And it’s bad for our metabolism to only eat once a day. Our stomachs have acid, and dogs barf up bile if their bellies go empty for too long.”

  “Your food intake needs to be adjusted?” he asked, making sure he’d grasped the core of her request.

  “That would be good.”

  “How many meals are optimum?”

  “Two at least. Three if possible. And it would be nice if we could adjust the flavor of the nutrition cubes.”

  “Changes can be made,” he said at once. “But I’m unfamiliar with your palate.”

  “Trial and error it is.”

  Since he wanted her to be pleased and content with the nest he’d created—and that included nourishment, he tried asking clarifying questions. “Do you prefer sweet or savory?”

  “That depends. For the main meal, savory. For _________, sweet is better.”

  He churred, annoyed with the simplicity of the translation matrix. Yet he doubted anyone had ever discussed dietary preferences with their pack beast, so this was probably working as well as could be expected, based on the design parameters. “I didn’t understand all of that.”

  “Savory,” Beryl said. “Let’s start there. You make a few tweaks to the recipe, and I’ll give you feedback. Chances are, Snaps will like it, no matter how it tastes. He’s been known to eat things that aren’t even classified as food.”

  “Does he suffer from a rare disorder?” Zylar asked.

  “No, it’s part of being a dog.”

  He accepted that reply, though it explained nothing. “Then…I’ll make something that fills you without adding much to your caloric intake, and starting tomorrow, I’ll program the manufacturer to halve those values, so you can eat twice. Will that suffice?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Zylar changed the formula, increasing the heartiness of the flavor, and the resulting product came out dark brown. The texture was different as well. Maybe they would find this more pleasing? Hesitant, he offered the food to Beryl first, then Snaps, who gobbled it up with every evidence of enjoyment. She hesitated, turning the square over, then she put it in her mouth, and he could hear the crunch of her grinding it up.

  “It’s like a _________,” she said.

  Cursed translator.

  “Is it better?”

  “Definitely. A little weird, but better. I’d rather have this than what you made before.”

  It wasn’t glowing praise, but her appreciation warmed him nonetheless. “My nest is prepared for a Tiralan nest-guardian, so please let me know your preferences. I will do my best to accommodate them.”

  “Now that you mention it, humans usually sleep with fabric, something soft to lay on and to cover up with, if it’s cold.”

  “You require materials to build a nest?” That was unexpectedly adorable.

  “I guess you could say that. Where I slept last night is mostly fine, but it could use a little augmentation.”

  “Soft fabric,” he repeated, trying to decide what to procure for her.

  Even on her person, she wore coverings as his people did not. Their colors offered sufficient adornment, and their natural chitin obviated the need for further protection. Would natural materials do, or should he look for something in the storehouses? His perplexity must have shown, because she touched his forelimb, just above the joint.

  “Could I come with you to look at my options? Snaps is fine now, and we shouldn’t be gone long.”

  “Yes, that would be preferable. This way. I’ll show you the repository.”

  “Sounds fancy!” She fell in behind him, so close that he could smell the sweet-and-sour scent of her skin, more alluring each time it teased his senses.

  He remembered how boldly she had touched his neck ruff and the way she had found a hidden pleasure point between his claws. It wasn’t time yet—he hadn’t earned the privilege—but Beryl Bowman was making him want to ignore the protocols. They’d both be banished if they got caught exchanging genetic material before they received approval.

  None of that.

  This was probably why primitive races were normally proscribed from the Choosing, however. They had no sense of decorum, no education in what was suitable or proper. A Tiralan mate would never dream of touching his neck ruff this early in the competition. With this human, he knew too little as well, and it was dangerously tempting to seek out forbidden pleasures.

  This errand took them down to the lower levels of the holding, an area where various goods were stored, freely available to all members of Kith B’alak. The lights kindled automatically when the doors opened, and Zylar gazed around, wondering what she made of their accumulated wealth. Some of the objects were incredibly valuable, and those were guarded well—with motion sensors and pressure panels.

  Zylar pointed. “Anything on that side is freely available for use. The last row over there is restricted access. You can probably tell by the lights.”

  “Is it okay if I go in deeper to look?”

  “Certainly. Let me know if you have any questions. If what you require is too much for us to carry on our own, I can summon a drone servitor to assist.” That offer gave him a fierce twinge, because if he failed in the Choosing this time, that would become his role.

  Beryl Bowman could try four more times, if she wished. That pained him as well. Bef
ore, he’d never allowed himself so much hope or so much desire, but it seemed inherently wrong that she could Choose anyone else.

  As he watched her peruse the goods, a foreign thought surfaced, rare but inexorable. She’s mine. I stole her. I’m keeping her.

  I’m at alien Costco.

  Beryl choked back wild laughter, as she tried to make sense of the sheer volume that surrounded her. Things weren’t sorted neatly in aisles, and most of the stuff, she didn’t even know what the hell it was. Some of it was shiny and oddly shaped, and though she had been wandering around for a while, she still hadn’t seen anything that could pass for bedding.

  Finally, at the very back of the storage area, she found a pile of slippery fabric and she pounced on it, gathering up a big armload. Zylar came up behind her, churring in what might be protest or concern. “That’s worthless,” he said. “We use it to cover valuable shipments and prevent damage.”’

  So it’s basically a tarp. Whatever.

  “But it’s the only thing that could work. Can we go back to the garden briefly? I have an idea.”

  “If you wish.”

  While they were there, she’d seen lots of soft, fallen petals and pods, perfect padding for a makeshift mattress. He was quiet as they traveled up in the lift and then retraced their steps. Beryl hurried forward and gathered up the fallen puffy pods and scented petals, wrapping them in the silky fabric she’d scavenged. Zylar seemed vaguely unsettled as they returned to his quarters.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Others may judge if they discover that you prefer to nest in refuse.”

  She rapped gently on the chitin that armored his side. “Don’t look at it that way. Instead, consider how frugal I am and how good this is for the environment.” Since he was simply staring at her, she went on, trying to get her point across. “You know, it’s better to reuse stuff, isn’t it? Make something from nothing?”