Read The Swords of Gregara - Jenala, a sci-fi romance Online
Authors: Cynthia Woolf
The Swords of Gregara - Jenala, a sci-fi romance (9 page)
Lottie came over to Jenala and nudged her with her beak.
“Sweet girl, you did good, yes you did,” Jenala cooed while scratching Lottie behind the ears.
“I think this girl deserves a big treat, how about you?” asked Santro.
“ I agree.
Can you go get the raw emul from the cold keeper?
We were going to have it for dinner, but I think Lottie deserves it more.”
“Agreed.
She performed very well,” said Santro.
He went over to them and petted Lottie’s neck.
She nudged him just like she had Jenala.
He took the hint and scratched her ears, too.
Never in his life did he imagine he’d be scratching the ears of a snarlot.
Yet when Lottie started purring, Santro felt a contentment he’d not had before.
This was unconditional love and acceptance, all shown in one sound—purring.
He wanted to make Jenala purr.
He wanted the unconditional acceptance that she gave him.
But he wanted love, too.
She wasn’t repelled by his scar, as proven by her marrying him--without a theologian, no less.
He knew as did she that the marriage would not stand up legally, but for him it was binding.
As far as he was concerned Jenala was his wife, forever.
Now all he had to do was figure out how to get his wife to fall in love with him.
*****
Zlaten watched from a safe distance as his men were stomped and torn limb from limb by the snarlot.
The beast was supposed to be locked up.
How did Santro and the bitch escape from the house without being seen?
There had to be another way into the house and he had to find it.
Maybe it would also prove to be the entrance to the mine.
The mine that would be his, should have been his by now.
He’d spent all of his beras in the last six months, searching for the mine.
He had to have
this
mine.
The Delasa mine was legend.
It was rumored to have the richest vein of kalcion ever found.
Oliria Delasa found the mine ten years ago.
He had to have found the vein by now.
Must have.
If the silly old man had just given him the location of the mine he could have been rich by now.
Instead he was broke, three of his men were dead and he was no closer to his goal.
Damn Oliria Delasa and his demon seed daughter.
*****
It was easy enough to feed Jenala’s lust; he could have sex with her all day and night.
Love, though, that was something totally different and out of his realm of knowledge.
He’d never found anyone before he wanted to love him or anyone he thought he could love.
Jenala was that person.
He respected her and admired her.
Perhaps that was part of love.
Who knew?
The first thing he must do is show her is the kalcion cracks in the escape tunnel.
They looked like the kind of cracks he found in his mine just before he hit the big payout vein.
She would know then he was truly her partner and not there to take advantage of her.
Especially, now that they were having sex.
He was also kind and gentle and protective of her.
Tonight she would probably be too sore to make sweet, slow love to her but tomorrow she should be recovered sufficiently.
Tonight he would just hold her or give her oral sex.
Perhaps they could explore each other’s bodies.
Just touching, feeling, discovering.
It was still early, when they finished burying the bodies.
They went inside to have breakfast.
Santro had gotten coffee from his friend Sunev.
She made emul rehydrated in a sauce made from tingo root and fried up some fresh tequati that Lottie had put on the doorstep this morning.
The coffee was from a place called Earth.
Sunev had gotten it in trade.
Jenala liked the coffee but still preferred hot aeta.
“I have something to show you,” Santro said rising from the table.
“I saw some cracks of kalcion when we were in the escape tunnel and I think we should concentrate our efforts there.”
“There are cracks all over the mine.
What’s special about these?”
“They’re the same type of crack I found leading to the main vein in my own mine.
These cracks are single lines, with no branches coming off of them.”
“Okay.
It sounds promising and it can’t be any worse than what we’ve been digging.”
They went to work in the escape tunnel.
After a full day’s labor, Jenala had enough kalcion to by the new coat she needed, but that was more than they’d gotten before.
“We didn’t do as well as I’d hoped,” she said wistfully.
“I don’t know why I thought we’d hit the mother lode so quickly.”
“I, too, had high hopes but we must be patient.
Tomorrow we’ll start again.”
He dropped his tools and walked over to her.
“Tonight, however, we have another lesson in lovemaking.”
“I look forward to it,
after
we have bathed.
I have some questions about lovemaking,” she leaned back in his arms, trusting he would not drop her.
“Can I put my mouth on you, as you did on me?”
He almost dropped her!
He was startled and inordinately pleased.
She wanted to make love to him with her mouth.
“Yes, you can.
I’d be a very happy man should you desire to do so.”
She grinned up at him.
“I do, but not till after we have both bathed and taken a swim in the hot springs.
We are filthy as allorats and are starting to smell like them, too.”
Santro laughed.
“That we are.
Let’s go.”
He wanted her more powerfully than he’d ever wanted a woman.
He’d had women throwing themselves at him since he was a green boy, but he’d never wanted one like he did Jenala.
That’s the real reason he’d wanted to marry her.
She wouldn’t have him any other way and he wouldn’t force himself on her but he’d
had
to have her, to brand her, to make her his and his alone.
This time when Santro entered the steam room, he did not hide himself but let his towel drop and let her look at him.
Fully aroused and ready for her.
And look she did.
Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips.
He nearly came then and there.
Lucky for him he had supreme self-control.
Santro was wonderful to look at from his dark auburn hair and incredible chest to his impressive cock standing at attention.
He was every girls dream or at least this girls dream.
And he was her husband to boot.
How lucky could she get?
If she could have all that and his love, then it would be perfect.
She was no fool.
She knew their ‘marriage’ would never stand the scrutiny of the law but she didn’t care.
Santro would keep his word.
It was his law and his honor.
And she would keep hers.
She had no desire for another man.
She’d
never
had a desire for anyone before him.
Wanting Santro blindsided her.
It was totally unexpected and unplanned.
Perhaps it was because he saved her life or because of their close proximity to each other, whatever the reason she wanted to be with him more every day.
Now here she was sitting in a hot spring looking at him with his fully erect cock and she wanted only to take him into her.
Into her mouth, into her vagina.
Any way she could get him to be part of her.
“If I didn’t already know that we fit together, I’d have thought you too big for me.”
“Ah,” he chuckled.
“That explains the fascination.”
“Come in the water.
It’s nice.
I want to feel you next to me.
Actually, I want more than that but first let’s have the warm water relax our muscles…before we exert them again.”
She hung on to the sides of the pool, while her body floated up, giving him what she hoped was a tantalizing offering.
No sooner had she uttered the invitation than he dove into the water.
The next thing she knew he had her legs and was pulling them down and wrapping them around his waist.
She was fully open to him.
“Can you feel me, my sweet?
Feel how much I want you.
Even the hot water doesn’t diminish my desire for you.
My need for your warmth not that of the water.”
He thrust into her, strong and powerful.
She gasped with surprise and delight.
Unexpected or not she was ready for him.
Always.
Just thinking about him made her hot and wet.
She almost came just picturing him fully aroused, coming into her as he was now.
She met him thrust for thrust.
Jenala leaned back and braced herself on the side of the pool or she would have floated away.
He kissed her, this tongue mingling with hers.
In and out to the rhythm of his thrusts.
He kissed and tongued her neck, his whiskers made her shiver with pleasure.
For just a moment he sucked the side of her neck, surely leaving a love bite, marking her for all the world to see, as his wife.
He lifted her legs, one over each arm and carried her from the pool.
He stayed in her and with each step gave her a gentle shot to her body as her clitoris rubbed up and down against his base of his cock.
They fell together onto her bed.
He began driving into her in earnest, hard, in and out.
He suckled her breasts, intensifying the pleasant sensations, settling at the very core where her body met his.
He reached between them and rubbed her clit.
She moaned with pleasure as each movement of his finger brought her closer.
She held him close to her breast.
“Suck.
Suck hard.
Take all my nipple into your mouth and suck me.”
He did and she came.
Shaking with her release, wave after wave of pleasure washed over her.
She swore the stars overhead shone brighter, as though they too shared her climax.
His eye was heavy lidded.
He thrust harder and harder, then one pump and he was buried to the very tip of her womb.
He shouted and pumped into her again and again as his climax overtook him.
He collapsed on her and she welcomed his weight.
She was closest to him, not just in body, but in mind, after their lovemaking.
It was as though they both let go and their bodies were completely honest with each other.
No pretense, just raw passion.
Chapter 5
He watched every day.
Watched and waited.
Zlaten couldn’t wait any longer.
He was out of beras and his men were grumbling about the danger and their lack of payment.
There were only three of them now and two were still injured from the attack by the snarlot.
No it had to be now or it would never be.
He’d been watching.
Every day now, they were starting to dismantle the barn.
That in itself was odd, since they’d taken great care to rebuild it as much as possible for the vicious beast the bitch called a pet.
Now they were tearing it down, board by board and taking the boards into the house.
It finally hit him.
He’d been looking in the wrong place for the entrance to the mine.
All this time.
Lost.
The entrance was in the house.
The crafty old man had hidden it from the world.
In plain sight.
Santro and Jenala never left together.
One would stay in the house while the other got the wood.
They must be working the mine and they must have found the mother lode, otherwise they wouldn’t be taking apart her beloved snarlot’s home.
There had to be another way in.
Oliria was too smart to make only one entrance and he remembered that they had just appeared the last time he’d attacked the house.
But he’d been looking for it for six months to no avail.
He needed to take action.
Santro and Jenala always left the house separately.
They’d gotten complacent since he hadn’t done anything for the past three weeks.
He’d let his men heal and he watched.
Always watching.
He knew their routine now.
The next time Santro went to the barn for wood, he would enter the house.
He could take Jenala, especially in close quarters and if he was really lucky, she’d be in the mine and he’d kill two salies with one stone.
*****
They’d found it.
The mother lode.
Jenala had never seen so much kalcion in her life.
The cracks that Santro found in the escape tunnel led to the biggest vein either of them had ever seen.
It was two feet across and who knew how deep.
They chipped away at it.
Filled buckets and bags.
This large amount couldn’t be handled by the exchange in Rucem.
It would have to go to the next kalcion market at Sepiwa.
Lottie was going to have a ball scaring the new people at the kalcion market.
By that time there would be a new little Baltin.
What would Santro say when she told him?
Would he be happy?
The market was seven months away.
Jenala couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when Santro captured or killed Zlaten.
Either way he would have to take him back to the Otula tribe.
He would again be their champion and able to challenge to be the next Valmud.
It was an honor, something he’d worked for.
Been trained for all his life for.
She couldn’t blame him if he chose that life.
The problem was it wasn’t what she chose for her life.
Her life was there in the valley.
The life she chose for her child was here.
But she would not force Santro to accept this life.
He was born for greater things.
It didn’t matter how much kalcion came out of the mine.
Her home was and always would be the valley and the house under the dome.
From behind her she heard the hiss of a sword being slid from it’s scabbard.
She turned shovel in hand and blocked the first blow, then a second and third.
The shovel was unwieldy and she was tiring quickly.
“You couldn’t face me like a man, Zlaten.
You had to sneak up behind me like a coward?
Is that what you did to my father?
Did he trust you or did you catch him unaware when his back was turned.
Did you lie in wait for him like the zogamac you are?”
“Insults will only get you killed sooner, bitch.
You should have sold to me.
The Delasa Mine belongs to me.
I want it.
I offered to buy it.
But your father laughed at me.
It was the last time he laughed at anyone.
He was a stupid man.
You never turn your back on your enemy.”
He struck another blow, this one breaking the shovel handle.
Jenala dropped the shovel’s scoop and used the handle as a sword and blocked the next blow.
“Zlaten!”
Santro appeared behind him in the tunnel.
“You can’t fight me like a man, so you attack my wife.
Turn and defend yourself or I will run you through where you stand.”
Zlaten turned.
Attacked.
Their swords clashed again and again.
Jenala stood transfixed.
She watch Santro play with him, watched as Zlaten tired quickly his strokes slower and less powerful.
“Jenala move!”
Santro yelled at her as Zlaten turned slashed his sword downward.
She dropped and rolled, his sword missing everything except her arm, giving her another wound, though not a serious one.
Santro jabbed his sword, hitting Zlaten through the right side.
Zlaten dropped his sword and fell to his knees.
“No.
This can’t be happening.
I never lose.”
“You’re wrong.
You always lose.
Every time you fight less than honorably you lose.”
“You’ve killed me.”
He took his bloody hand away from his side.
“If only I had.
Unfortunately, you’ll live.
We’ll take you to the nupenian in Rucem.
He’ll use his wand on you and you’ll be like new when you stand trial for the murders of Kreston Baltin and Oliria Delasa.
I wonder how many others there are that we’ll never know about.
How many more innocent people have you murdered?”
Santro turned to Jenala.
“I have to take him in for justice to be served.
I know I said I’d kill him but I can’t in good conscience.
He is unarmed now.
I’m not a murderer.”
“I understand.
It was the honorable choice.
But,” she clutched her shoulder, “right now I need you to bandage my shoulder.”
She removed her hand and blood seeped from the wound.
“Take this cloth hold it tight against the wound to stem the bleeding.
I’ll get the liquid bandage.”
He nodded toward Zlaten who lay passed out on the floor.
“Watch.”
Santro poured water on Zlaten’s head.
He sputtered awake.
He shook his head and sprayed water everywhere. “Killing me isn’t enough, now you’re going to torture me too?”
“If only I could.”
After caring for Jenala, Santro moved over to Zlaten.
He closed his wound with the liquid, just enough to stem the bleeding.
Then he bandaged and wrapped the wound.
Zlaten would stay alive to meet his punishment from the council and the local authorities in Rucem.
Now Zlaten had to go meet Lottie.
She would have to carry them to Rucem.
It did not go well.
Lottie stomped and snorted, nipped at him with her beak but in the end, she allowed him to ride her with Santro along.
“I’m not going with you.”
Jenala said.
“Why?”
“Someone needs to stay here to protect the mine.
Zlaten may still have men out there and--“
“All the more reason for you to come with me,” argued Santro.
She put her arms around his neck and leaned back, looking up into his beloved face.
“I must stay.
You know it.
I won’t leave my valley to marauders and thieves.”
“That’s right,” sneered Zlaten.
“My men will get you.
Just wait and see.”
Santro’s fist shot out and landed square in the middle of Zlaten’s face breaking his nose.
He turned back to Jenala.
“How can I leave you here alone?”
“I’ll be fine.
You forget I’ve been alone before.
Even when father was alive I was alone often for months at a time.”
“I know.
But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
He bent his head and kissed her.
“Oh, pweeze.
Can we go, ‘fore I bweed to deaf.”
Zlaten said, his head tilted back to stop his nose bleed.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll hit you again.”
Zlaten backed away.
“All wight.
All wight.
Don’t hit me again.”
“Now that he knows he’s not going to die, he’s going to be a pain in the ass all the way back to Rucem.
I’ll send Lottie home when I get there.
She should be back here by tomorrow morning.
In the mean time, stay inside, keep the alarms on and the entrances all locked.
Okay?”
He leaned down and kissed her again heedless of Zlaten and his protests.
“Promise me.”
“I promise.
Until Lottie gets home, then she will protect me as she always has.”
She saw a shadow cross his face.
Uncertainty.
She strove to remove it.
“I’ll
be fine.
I promise to be especially cautious.”
She wanted to ask him if he would return, but was afraid she wouldn’t like the answer.
Afraid he would choose the Valmud over her.
She couldn’t face that, not now, not with her secret.
*****
It had been six months.
She’d heard a few times from Santro.
Letters he’d sent to Brenton and he’d forwarded to Jenala.
He’d gotten Zlaten to Brenton, who’d sent him to the new town doctor.
A young woman named Riza Lamrona.
Zlaten was tried and found guilty for the murder of Jenala’s father Oliria and then was extradited to the Otula.
Once there, Zlaten was again tried for murder and found guilty.
The council sentenced him to life on the prison planet Solara.
She knew after the trial Santro would be champion of the Otula again.
It would be his place to challenge for the Valmud.
He would win, she had no doubt.
Jenala rubbed her still expanding tummy.
The baby, her baby, kicked as though to tell her to ‘leave me alone’.
Jenala laughed and rubbed her belly again.
“What makes you laugh, wife?”
Santro stood in the doorway, his large body casting a shadow over her.
Jenala turned and faced him.
The result of their lovemaking evident for him to see.