The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (28 page)

Diem crept closer in silence.  Another moan echoed.  Diem was certain he was about to come upon a woman being planted unwillingly by a Houseman.  His blood boiled at the prospect.  It used to be that Diem correlated every woman with Karma, but it was Maeve that occurred to him now.  His fists curled. 

He didn't care if the Hold House's individual custom allowed for taking women with pain, Diem wouldn't have it.  He knew that disrespecting another House's customs could, at worst, bring death upon him, but it didn't matter.  Diem would beat a Houseman bloody if he had to, so the man couldn't recall the Rha's identity, and so the offender would think twice of ever abusing a woman again.  It wouldn't be the first time Diem had taken matters like this into his own hands.

His arms quaked with the adrenaline and anger at what he expected to find.  He prowled around the edge of the
gorne thicket until he found a clear vantage point, near a huge boulder, to look in.  A narrow path, only shoulder wide, led into a hollow center.  The gorne stood tall, so the sunlight had to dance down from among the upper leaves to shimmy upon the Earth's floor.  The soft light flickered across the bodies entwined on the ground.  After a moment of deciphering the tangle of bodies from one another in the sporadic light, Diem realized there was a makeshift bed of blankets spread beneath the couple. 

This was an intentional liaison.

Diem stood frozen, trying to allow the adrenaline to subside.  He watched the man and the woman, who lay naked and kissing and completely unaware of Diem as he crouched behind the rock.  Diem had come upon men and women before—it was common.  The proper thing was to ignore it and move away, but, for some reason, this couple intrigued him.  He hadn't spied on a mating since he was a boy, passionate to learn the mechanics, and then, the techniques, of planting a woman.

This coupling was tender.  The woman on her back, the man's hips lay beside her even as he leaned over her body, locked in her kiss.  The man's head churned sensually, as if the woman was a delicacy and he wanted to savor the taste of her.  She slid her hand into the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to her, deepening their kiss.

The sight spread tingles through Diem's legs.  Observing a woman mate a man she wanted was powerful.  

The man broke the kiss, sliding his lips down the sensitive expanse of the woman's neck.  She arched to him and the hum of her enjoyment softly tickled Diem's ears.  

The man eased down her body slowly, his black hair dusting the globe of her breast.  The gentle sounds of his mouth suckling her, conjured other images in Diem's mind.  He saw his own jaw on Maeve's breast.  The woman in the clearing moaned again, but Diem only heard Maeve's timbre in the erotic sound.  His flex punched to attention and Diem nearly gave himself away with his own heady groan.

As shameful as it was to continue watching, Diem could not move away.  He was transfixed by the sight and mesmerized by the sound of them because, in his mind, all he saw and heard and felt was his imagination come to life
—he and Maeve, paired on the ground before him.

"Garrett," the woman sighed as she gently grasped the man's black mane.  Diem imagined himself laving the tender bud of Maeve's breast with his own tongue, licking her flesh, sucking up her nipple between his teeth.  He wanted to make Maeve writhe like that.

The man's muscles moved beneath his skin like chain.  He kneeled between the woman's legs.  She drew up her knee, exposing herself, and Diem envisioned Maeve on his own bed, her legs splayed before him.  He traced the petals of her intimate skin in his mind, recalling the bead of her own glistening lubricant that helped his fingers slip inside her. 

Diem tried to touch himself, but the contact only jettisoned
him out of his imagination, back to the couple in the clearing and back to the humiliation of his voyeurism.  He could only get to his vision of Maeve without contact, so he stood in swollen misery, listening as the man whispered his adoration of the woman's body against her skin. 

The woman drew a long, intoxicating breath as the man penetrated her.  It was an unusual tenderness, the man's hips savoring each stoke into her with a sensuous rhythm.  The woman called out the man's name, but Diem only heard Maeve calling his own.

The woman rose up on her palms, meeting each of the man's thrusts with a gratifying synchronicity.  Perfectly fused, the man lifting her closer, her legs twining around his hips, her bottom balanced on his thighs.  Her voice was soft as she begged him, and the man complied with thrusts so hard and deep, the woman's lips fell to his shoulder, tenderly biting his flesh. 

Diem felt the moan of their combined release rip through his own chest.  The man finally laid her back, tenderly, on their makeshift bed
.  He collapsed beside her and the two of them murmured softly and laughed to one another, as his finger lazily traced patterns on her belly.  He bent to kiss her.

Diem stumbled away quietly, ashamed for having watched, excited for having seen.  He felt as though he'd just witnessed his first own mating with Maeve, and he was both confused and anxious that
he could want anyone so much.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

Hot Season Six, Year 2095

Thankfully, the walk to Hold House was long enough that Diem was no longer showing signs of having viewed the tryst in the woods.  But, unfortunately, a nagging anxiety took its place as Diem wondered how he was going to convince Rha Shown to vouch for Maeve.  He understood that what he wanted didn't always happen, but this was no longer a trivial desire.  The oracle of his soul whispered that he needed her and it unnerved him.

Worse, the corroboration of Maeve's fabricated ties to Hold House wasn't all Diem needed Rha Shown to agree to.  He needed an alliance that Shown had no reason to give.  Diem needed to secure surplus dragons to cover any shortages in his quota, but since Hold House was the only House without quotas, it was likely that all the other Houses would approach Shown for the same alliance.  Diem wondered what the others would offer and if he could offer anything more.  Fly House would no longer be the most prosperous House.  That title would belong to Shown now.

Diem finally spotted the Hold House in the distance.  House grounds were fairly the same.  The house was the epicenter of each lot, a bustling conglomeration of rooms, tacked to the main house, with children scurrying from corners, women tending to food and cleaning inside, and Housemen coming and going between shifts of work. 

Life buzzing around made the Houses always appear welcoming, even if the inhabitants weren't always so.  Like the woman on the porch who saw Diem coming and began to scream at him to go away.  She flailed her arms as if she could scoop his direction away from the front porch, and as he came closer, the woman
continued to shout at him.

"Git!  Go on!  We can't feed you!  Go
back to where you came from!" she shouted through the long strands of her hair.   A man wandered around the corner of the porch, apparently summoned by the tone of her voice.

"Share...Share," the man tried to soothe her.  The woman didn't respond until he said, "Charlotte, it's okay."

The man spotted Diem and once the two met eyes, they knew each other immediately.

"Ah! Blessings, Rha Diem!" the man said.

Diem returned, "Blessings to you, Rha Shown!"

"Give me just one moment," the Rha said.  He turned to the woman, who was humming through pressed lips.  "Go on in the House, Share.  Iris is in the kitchen and she'll get you something to eat.   She'll let you hold the baby, if you go."

The woman grunted at Diem, but finally hobbled off, the door slamming behind her.  Rha Shown turned back to Diem once she was gone.

"Sorry about that," he said. 

"What is wrong with her?" Diem asked.  The Rha sighed.

"She is...oh, what's the word?  Loose?  Loose in the mind.  No worries, though.  She's harmless.  We just don't let her hold the babies.  We do, however, let her hold a
gorne stump in a small dress and it satisfies her.  I suppose that is why she came with us."

"With you?" Diem shook his head, confused, but Shown just har
rumphed.

"She chose to come with us...uh...through the Scorching, I mean," Shown said, but it didn't sound like that was what he meant.  It was things like that that always made Diem a little anxious when visiting the Hold House.  They were all a little odd here and had never eschewed the archaic, as the other Houses had.   

But, when it came to business, Hold House was always honest and reliable, whether or not those traits were appreciated by the other Houses.  Diem hoped Rha Shown's honesty wouldn't get in the way of the favor Diem had come to ask.

Shown pulled up two chairs with upward-angled cres
cent moon slats instead of peg legs.  Shown motioned to sit and Diem complied, but the chair lurched beneath him.  Diem planted his feet down hard, so he wouldn't fall backward on his head.  He'd never seen a chair like this one.  Shown chuckled. 

"Never sat in a rocker before?" he asked.  "You won't tip over.  It's called rocking, like what a mother does with the babies.  You don't have them over at Fly House?  We'll have to have Brandon...Break...make you one.  They're the bomb.  Watch.  This is how they work."

Diem didn't understand what the bomb was, but he watched Shown work the chair and relaxed in his own.  In a moment or two, without his feet leaving the porch (he still didn't trust Shown knew 100% certain that he wouldn't land on his head) he was rocking.  Diem found it mildly enjoyable, but rocking wasn't why he had come. 

"I've come to discuss some business with you," Diem said.  Shown interlocked his fingers over his belly with a sigh. 

"I'm sorry, Rha Diem, but if you've come about the Hope Market, my position stands.  Hold House wants no part."

"Although it's hard for me to understand why that is, that is not the business I refer to."

Shown lifted his eyebrows.  "Alright then, what have you come to talk about?"

"Gra Breathe sent me."

Shown's eyes warmed pleasantly.  "How is your grandmother?"

"She's well," Diem said, encouraged by the inquiry.  Shown's friendship with Breathe might persuade the Rha to help.  "Have you spoken to your overseer recently?"

"Recent enough," Shown laughed.  "Last week...or, I should say, a quarter season ago.  He is still on leave to Ice House.  He had some business with Phart."

"It may be the same as what I've come to talk with you about," Diem said darkly.

"Oh?"

Diem stopped rocking.  "The Plutians are increasing their quotas for us each season..."

"Ah. I thought they would at some point," Shown said.  Diem expected the Rha to accuse Diem's Hope Marketing as the cause, but the man only said, "I'm surprised it hasn't come sooner."

"They want nine dragons a season."

"Nine?  That's ridiculous.  I can't imagine they thought that through."

"They're thinking of making up the shortages by harvesting humans," Diem said flatly.  "They've decided to market humans to the planetary systems, as well as dragons."

Shown's rocker stopped dead.  The frolicking cries of the children drifted over the porch, mixing with the sounds from the house, of women laughing and the low murmur of men. 

"Hold House has no quotas," Shown said.  His face was pale.

"Blessings," a man's voice rang out and Diem turned to see the couple, the same ones he'd watched only a bit ago.  They walked hand-in-hand toward the porch steps.  The man had the bag of ground gorne, the one that Diem had seen partially spilled, slung over his shoulder.  The couple only seemed to be announcing their arrival as was respectful when there was a close conversation being had, but as they neared, the man, who was nearly identical in looks to Shown, peered closely at his Rha.  "What's going on?"

"Rha Diem, I don't know if you've met my brother, Generation, and his Link, Nature." Shown's tone was distant.  Diem recognized them now and felt the burn of his blush, but it went unnoticed.  Generation ignored the introduction, focusing instead on his brother, as did the Link.  Diem was relieved, since it was difficult to the look at the pair and not think of them as they were in the tree clearing.

"What's the matter, Sean?" Generation asked, setting down the bag of food on the porch.  It was an odd pronunciation of Shown's name.  Diem felt the conversation constrict to something more intimate.  It was a discussion belonging to this family, a silent communication of eyes.  Diem sat respectfully still, without making a sound.

"Rha Diem came to tell me about some new developments," Shown finally said.  "The Plutians are planning to harvest humans.  They are doing it by setting dragon quotas so high they cannot be achieved and then asking that the differences be made up with human beings."

Generation hissed a curse.

"What does it mean for us?  We don't even have a quota.  We only care for the overflow," Nature said.  Then she bit down on her lip.

"That's what worries me too," Shown said.

"Where is Phart?  What does he know about it?"  Generation asked, but behind him, Nature snorted.

"Like he'd know anything about anything," she said.

Suddenly, the great, white Cirrus dragon flashed down from the clouds, into the House yard.  Diem leapt from his chair as the dragon roared past the House, shaking the slats of the porch as it flew by.   The tips of the dragon's wings nearly grazed the House.  Its belly was so close, it sucked dust from the ground and the s
ound of the rider's joyful Wooohooo!!!  trailed behind it as it zipped back into the sky.

The children squealed and shouted and a woman appeared from the House doorway, laughing, but Generation hollered after the dragon, as if his voice c
ould be heard at a distance, "DANG IT, MARK!  QUIT BUZZING THE DAMN HOUSE!!"

"He's just showing the kids a good time," the woman in the doorway said.  She resembled the two men strongly, but she had eyes that turned to crescent shapes when she laughed.

"It's not the time for it right now, Iris," Shown said.  The woman glanced at Diem and her smile faded. 

"I'll leave you to it then," she said.  Then, to Shown,  "Let me know what's going on later."

"Of course," Shown said. 

"I'm coming in," Nature said, as the other woman stepped away from the door.  "Are we getting ready to feed the kids?"

"Yup," Iris said, and Diem started at how much they sounded like Maeve when they spoke.  Once the women were gone, Generation came up on the porch to lean on the rail.  Shown began a rhythmic rocking again.

"I'm here for another reason, as well.  A woman came to us and this is hard to explain, but Gra Breathe thought that since you knew the archaic Earth, you might understand the circumstances with which this woman arrived."

Diem was surprised that the Rha didn't immediately question how a woman could arrive.  Diem assumed the other Rha was so distracted with all the awful possibilities that his own House might soon face, he might not even be listening.  But Shown's eyes were on Diem, as if he had the Rha's full attention, so he continued.

"Gra Breathe said you might remember a place called the Archive?"

Shown thought for a long moment before shaking his head.  "I'm sorry, I don't."  He turned to Generation.  "Do you, Gare?"

Another odd pronunciation.  But Generation only shook his head.

"Breathe said it was a place where people were preserved, underground, before the Scorching.  The woman who came to us," Diem said, slowing his words in hopes of gauging the other Rha's reaction, but Shown only maintained his quiet rocking. 

A burst of children shot from the front entry.  Their squeals and shrieks were particularly sharp, but Shown and Generation waved the children away with genuine smiles, directing them to play around the back of the House.  They scurried down the steps and aro
und the side of the House obediently.  Their laughter muted, the only other sound, besides the steady rock of the Rha's chair, came from within the House.  A whole group of women were talking of women things, amidst the clatter of banging of pots and pans.  Diem took a breath and began again, in a hushed tone.  "The woman who came to us is from that underground place."

Diem paused to let it sink in.  He waited for the reactions he expected: suspicion, shock, fear, absolute disbelief.  Something.  But Rha Shown just rocked and Generation only rested his palms on the rail.

"What is your concern?" Shown finally asked. 

"Concern?" Diem echoed.  A woman had appeared, out of the dirt.  He realized abruptly that this probably wasn't the moment to have mentioned Maeve, in the face of the news he'd just given the Rha about the human harvest. 

"She didn't come from any of the Houses," Diem repeated, sure that the detail had been overlooked.  Still, no reaction.  "Since she's unaccounted for, we are concerned about her welfare in regard to the Plutians."

"Understandably," Shown said. "Especially under these new circumstances."

"Since your overseer is not particularly present, we were hoping that..."

"We might say she is one of our House," Shown finished for him without even a pause in the steady motion of his rocker. 

"Well, yes," Diem said.  "I understand that with this other news, it might create a hardship for Hold House.  In return, I would be willing to offer your House a gift of any one thing it wishes so long as I can acquire it."

"Oh no," Shown said.  "This woman is human, so she is one of us, even if she is no one we know.  We will vouch for her, but we are not interested in payment."

Diem expected castigation from the other Rha, for Diem's involvement in the Market and for the Market's part in creating the deficit which led to the human harvest.   Instead, Shown steepled his fingers and rested his lips on them.

"But," Generation spoke instead, "we are interested in protecting what is ours."

The two brothers exchanged glances and Shown nodded. 

"I suppose we've gotten ourselves into another fight," he said, and the two brothers, in unison, turned their eyes to Diem.  Shown said, "Maybe it is time that we discuss larger objectives.  Maybe we need to consider plans for taking back our planet."