Breeder (15 page)

Dak stopped outside a stall, and with a jolt, she realized it was
her
booth. Well, not hers—but the panna baker’s who had taken her sweetcakes on consignment. She’d spotted the sign requesting pastries during last week’s Market trip. With Corren gone and not devising a plethora of minutiae for her tend to, she’d whipped through her chores and by midmorning had little to occupy her time. She loved reading but could read only so much. She had surmised if Dak enjoyed her sweetcakes, perhaps others would too.

“What does the sign say?” Feigning ignorance, she’d pointed at the advertisement.

Dak had shrugged. “The vendor bakes bread but is looking for additional suppliers.”

“Like sweetcakes?” she’d asked.

He had narrowed his eyes, and for a moment she feared he’d guessed her secret. “Like sweetcakes.”

“I could bake them.”

“What about your chores?”

“I can do both.”

He’d conferred with the baker and had arranged for one of his men to deliver several trays of her sweetcakes early in the morn. She surveyed the vendor’s spread but saw only panna. Her heart sank in disappointment. Had the baker not put them out? Had the man delivering them dropped the trays?

Apparently the same questions arose in Dak’s mind. “Where are the sweetcakes that were delivered this morning?” he asked the baker.

“They sold out before the sun rose, Commander,” the man answered. “I divided one into small samples, and once they had a taste, people bought two and three at a time. A brawl almost ensued when I ran out.”

Omra widened her eyes. People liked her sweetcakes!

The baker produced a drawstring bag. Coins clanked. “Your share, Commander. I hope there will be more next week?” The baker looked at Alpha as he dropped the bag into his palm.

“That is still to be determined. I will inform you later of my decision,” Dak answered.

Omra hung her head in humiliation. Her misbehavior had angered him so much, he would not allow her to bake sweetcakes.

“Very good, Commander.”

With a nod, Dak set off at a pace requiring Omra to jog. The lock-ring swung between her legs, tugged at her still-swollen sex. Her shift rasped her tenderized buttocks. Several rows down from the baker, Dak stopped, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into an alley.

“You did well,” he said in a low voice and shoved the bag of coin into her hand.

She gaped at his about-face, but his praise lit a glow in her chest. “I am pleased people liked the sweetcakes.” She hefted the bag in her palm. “It is very heavy,” she commented and handed it back to Dak. Anything a female had belonged to her alpha.

He shook his head. “It is yours. You have earned it.”

She blinked and glanced from the bag to him. “What shall I do with it?”

“Anything you want.”

Alpha had allowed her to keep her earnings! Of course the sum was small to a man as wealthy as he, but the gesture was huge. She had never owned anything. That he considered her worthy of wealth and granted her the freedom to use it as she desired caused her eyes to well up anew, this time with gratitude. Love for him.

Dak’s nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed. “Do not behold me in such a manner,” he growled.

“In what manner, Alpha?”

“Like I have bestowed upon you the riches of the world.” He scanned the crowd, then stared at some point over her head. His chest rose and fell. “I am not worthy of such regard.

“Come.” He gestured for her to follow. “Let us select our food for the week before it sells out like your sweetcakes. Then we have one more stop before we leave.”

The détente did not erase all tension, but hope supplanted misery. She would work harder to please him, to fix the damage she had caused.

Omra selected game, fish, and fowl, tubers and vegetables, and fruits along with a large sack of milled grain and a container of leavening agent. After what Dak had told the baker, she held her breath when she requested the latter items, but he said nothing and directed the vendors to deliver the staples to his domicile later that afternoon. They moved on.

At the Market’s far corner, Dak approached a large freestanding tent that hadn’t been there the previous weeks. She widened her eyes when she read the sign over the entrance.
TERRAN ENTERPRISES, LTD
. Many Parseon males milled around outside, their reluctance to enter as obvious as their curiosity.

Like a collective Parseon sucked in its breath all at once, and a hush fell over the crowd as Dak strode to the tent. Omra skipped after him, her heart racing with excitement, despite the scrutiny and the ups and downs of an unnerving morning. She would get to see real Terrans! She’d never met an alien before. How would she communicate? She did not speak their language—save for a few words she wasn’t supposed to mention in public. What kind of commodities would they be selling?

They entered the tent, and she found it was divided into smaller stalls, much like the Market itself. An emporium within an emporium, containing strange foods sealed in transparent bags, metal items that appeared to be worn on the body, judging from the pictures, impractical uniforms sewn in colors not used on Parseon. Pottery. Glassware. Household implements. Recognizable, yet different. Other items, she had no idea what they were, or what they were used for. Unlike the main Market, the rows were mostly clear of shoppers, which was fine by Omra. The emptiness gave her a clear view of the Terrans manning their booths.

“Terrans!” She gawked in awe. Dak had told her their two races looked very similar, but that the Terrans were a smaller people, and that was true, she noted—but their bearing, their mannerisms, their dress—different. They
smiled
at the few customers who passed by their booths with no intention of purchasing anything. They
smiled
at her!

Dak met her gaze. “I thought you might enjoy this.” He swept his arm in a broad stroke. “This section of the Market is an experimental trade venture with Terra, the first time our allies have been permitted to sell their wares on Parseon soil. I need to speak to the overseer. Would you like to explore while I do?”

Her pulse raced. She nodded.

“Stay inside. You will be safe enough here. I will collect you when I am finished.” Dak signaled to an armed man standing by the door. She’d spotted him tailing them in the Market. He’d followed at a discreet distance on this day and others. His insignia revealed he was one of Alpha’s guards.

“She may go wherever she wishes inside the tent, but she is not allowed to leave.”

“Understood, Commander.” The man saluted.

Dak pivoted and disappeared into the crowd. Omra spun in a circle, uncertain where to begin.

She glanced at the guard. Dak distrusted her so much he had stationed a sentry to enforce her obedience. But the frisson of hurt that ran through her did not erase the tingle of electrified excitement. She was free to browse in the Terran bazaar. And she had coin! She clutched the drawstring bag to her chest.

She ricocheted down the center aisle, bouncing from one booth to another. She didn’t know how long Dak’s business would keep him, and she wanted to see as much as she could. With the Commander gone, the guard followed more closely, almost matching her step for step. For a time, she played a child’s game, straying left to make him go left, then veering to the right. She was tempted to hop on one foot to see if he’d do the same. But the novelty of toying with him soon palled under the thrall of so many spectacles and amazing displays.

Many booths employed both males and females, who worked with seemingly no differentiation in status. In some instances, the females seemed to be in charge, issuing orders while the males scrambled to obey. When Omra strayed close to a booth, the vendor would greet her, an oddity in itself for a female to be so addressed, but in accented Parseon, it contributed to the overall foreignness. She felt as if she’d been transported to Terra itself.

A display of sparkling insignia captured her attention. Rings and loops with oddly fashioned dangles crafted in metals she hadn’t seen before. Doubles of each one.

“Honor to the brave,” said the vendor, using the greeting of Parseon males. No corresponding salutation for females existed in the language.

Uncertain how to react, she mumbled the words back and ducked her head.

“Can I answer questions? Show you something?” the man asked. His hair fell to his shoulders, while other male vendors had had hair of varying lengths. Short, long, and everywhere in between. Were there no standards on Terra? Alphas wore their hair cropped short. Betas typically had longer hair, almost to the jawline. Not demanded by Protocol, but suggested. The only commonality in this vendor’s dress to the other Terrans was that his uniform shirt covered his entire chest and both shoulders, but the similarity ended there. They had no dress code either. One vendor had worn a long-sleeved blue shirt. Other Terrans had short sleeves. And the colors! Green, yellow, brown,
red
—even striped in multiple hues. So different from the Parseon regulation monochromatic dark gray for alphas, brown for betas, and tan for females.

She studied the insignia, paired into doubles. Did Terrans pierce both nipples? But how would one determine status if the entire chest was covered by their shirts? And there were so many different insignia laid out on the tray, surely they did not have that many levels of social status? “These are nipple rings?”

“Uh, no. These are earrings.”

His accent was so strange, she wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. “
Ear
rings?” Omra clapped a hand to the side of her head. “You pierce your ears?” She gaped, aghast at the barbaric practice.

He smoothed his hair back from his face, and she stared at a small yellow metal ring in his left lobe.

She shifted her gaze from his face to the insignia and back again. “So why are all the
ear rings
in pairs? Is one a spare?”

The vendor smiled. “These are women’s earrings. Almost all women on Terra pierce their ears, and they do both. Many have multiple piercings.” He traced the outer shell of his ear with his finger. “Maybe one-half of men wear an earring, but typically only one. Some men do both, though.”

So there was some difference between the sexes on Terra. She frowned. But why would any man copy what a female did by piercing both his ears? Unless piercing did not define status.

“What is the purpose of ear piercing?”

“Self-adornment,” he answered. “To improve one’s appearance.”

Omra choked. How could piercing one’s ears enhance attractiveness? And what a frivolous pursuit anyway. Courage in battle mattered. Adherence to Protocol. Not beauty. She thanked the man for his time and moved on. She had no need for
ear rings
. She shook her head at the crazy Terran accoutrement.

But a thrill coursed through her. She’d spoken to an actual, real-life Terran! And it had been easy, even though she had to pay close attention to understand what he’d said due to the accent.

Emboldened by the experience, she approached other booths that caught her eye, but so impractical were the items, she saw little that inspired her to spend her newly acquired wealth. Their ewers, bowls, and other crockery were functional, but Dak had everything of that nature already, although she had to admit not quite as beautiful. One bowl decorated with flowers tempted, but in the end, pragmatism won out. She did not need a bowl, no matter how attractive it was.

Then she happened upon a fabric booth, manned, as it were, by a female. The fabrics in somber shades were far more suitable than anything she’d seen, but it was the dazzling female herself that lured her to the booth. She stood about Omra’s height, so they were eye to eye, but all similarity ended there. The vendoress’s hair was a frizz of bright pink. From a distance, her right arm had appeared purple. Up close, Omra discovered a spray of pink and blue flowers
painted into her skin
wound from shoulder to wrist. As the Terran female marched around the stall in boots similar to those worn by Parseon warriors, her short black skirt flounced against her thighs. A sleeveless thin lavender shirt covered both breasts in the typical Terran fashion, but its tightness revealed her nipples were unpierced. Not so her face. A ring perforated the septum of her nose, another her brow, and multiples through the auricles and lobes of her ears. Exactly like the vendor had described. She knew she was being rude, but Omra couldn’t help but stare.

“Hello!” The vendoress smiled. What was with these Terrans that they went around grinning for no good reason?

But Omra recognized the greeting for what it was and repeated it back as best she could. Even to her ears, it sounded like she’d said “rellow” instead of “hello,” but she’d learned the salutation was used with males and females, and though foreign, it felt more comfortable than
honor to the brave.

“My name’s Terra,” the female said.

Omra frowned. “Like the planet?”

The vendoress laughed. “I guess it sounds like that, but Tara, my name, is spelled differently.”

Very confusing, Omra decided, but introduced herself. “I’m Omra.”

“Pleased to meet you, Omra,” Tara answered back. Her gaze glanced off Omra’s nipple insignia. “You are an alpha’s breeder?”

Omra raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Yes.”

Tara laughed. “I did my homework before I came. I studied Parseon Protocol.”

Apparently she had. The somber and subdued fabrics were much more in line with what would appeal to Parseon people. “Your wares are very suitable,” Omra said.

“Thank you,” Tara said. “Are you looking for anything in particular? Can I help you find something?”

Omra shook her head.

“Look around as much as you want. If I can answer any questions, let me know.”

“May I touch the textiles?” Omra eyed a bolt of shiny beige cloth.

“Certainly.”

She stroked the fabric. Her hand slid over the material the way one’s feet lost purchase on icy ground. The fabric even seemed cooler than the others. She trailed a swath of it over her arm. It flowed like water over her skin. It reminded her of Dak and their coupling, how their bodies moved against the other, how his erection slid inside her. The head of his manhood felt smooth like this fabric. Her sex—her
pussy
—the Terran word had never seemed more appropriate than it did now—pulsed.