a Pleasure Rites, #1 by Ines Johnson (reader novel .TXT) 📕

peered over his shoulder, gaping at Khial. Khial felt Dain's tension expand from the back seat. Khial's nose stayed elevated. With a regal flick of his wrist, he motioned for his card. The officer obeyed, letting them pass without another word.

He could see the girl's look of surprise from the passenger seat. Apparently, she still clung to the racial stereotypes of the twentieth. He had no desire to explain himself or his status. After all, she would be departing from them shortly.

Khial navigated the clean city streets. Boys left the schoolyard after a day of learning. Young men gathered in fields for a few hours of sport before last meal. Grown men locked up storefronts and factories on their way home to their lovers.

That's all Khial wanted at this moment: a hot meal, a cool shower, and the feel of his lover's body beneath his own.

A young family strolled by. One father pushing a pram, the wife hanging on the arm of the other father. The baby's carriage was the green color of the earth, indicating that the child inside was a girl. Men and women on the street oohed and aahed from a distance. A look of deep affection passed between the child's parents. That look, some might call it love, was rare in triad bonds. But, so were baby girls.

When Khial pulled up to Dain's manse, he saw that they would not yet be afforded the simple luxuries he craved. But they would be getting rid of the girl sooner than he expected.

"Wait here," Dain placed a hand on the girl's shoulder before exiting the conveyance.

Khial saw the hostile figures in the archway. A bag slung over one shoulder, caught in the act of fleeing. Throughout the long drive, Khial had held his tongue, knowing this moment would come one day soon. The people on the step would put an end to the designs being drawn by both Dain and the girl, and Khial need do nothing but stand aside and soothe his lover after the fallout. He would be held blameless when Dain realized he'd have to part with his latest stray.

"Is everything all right?" the girl asked.

Khial glanced at her. Those liquid gold eyes threatened to pull him under once more. Dain had designs on keeping her. She had designs on staying. When she learned what lay behind Dain's family's wealth, she would be sure to run far away from them, along with the rest of polite society. Hell, when she met Dain's extended family and saw their greedy, hateful ways, she was likely to wake from the fantasy she'd dreamed up about Dain.

"Everything's just fine," Khial smiled. He heard the raised voices of the intruders from inside the car. A break every now and then meant Dain tried to reason with them, in his charitable way. Khial realized he probably didn't have to revise his plans of simple luxuries after all. He'd simply reverse the order. First, hold Dain against his body to comfort him. Then draw that bath for the both of them. And finally feed his lover in their bed.

Khial reached for the handle and got out of the car, sure that the girl would follow.

"We were so worried about you when we heard you'd gone into the Wasted Lands." Bil's voice dripped with false sincerity. Bil was flanked by his mate, Mikel, and their wife, Syndra. Bil and Mikel wore shirts from two seasons ago, while Syndra was dressed in today's finery.

"We thought you might not come back," Mikel's tone was laced with disappointment.

Khial saw the gleam of china sticking out of Mikel's bag. He saw Dain's eyes flick to the bag as well, but he said nothing. Dain turned a deferring smile on the older man.

"Thank you all, for your concern," Dain said. "Khial and I were just..." Dain hesitated, eyes glancing askew at the car and the figure still inside. "We were just curious to see the Wastelands. I'm sorry we worried you."

"Nonsense," Syndra came forward and placed a hand on Dain's shoulder.

Khial shuddered, and thought of the bath where he would scrub the poisonous mark from his lover's person.

Syndra continued, "There's no need to hide it any longer, Dain."

Dain stiffened under her touch.

"We know exactly what you were doing out there," Syndra said. Her hands paying undue attention to Dain's bicep. "We think you should turn over every stone in search of a cure."

"My wife is right, nephew," said Bil. "The thought of losing you is..." Bil put a hand to his chest.

All three, Bil, Syndra and Mikel, sighed. The sigh was not sad, it was full of anticipation. Bil was Dain's only living relative. When Dain passed on, Bil stood to inherit all Dain's wealth, as Dain's mother's only other living relative.

Just the thought kicked Khial in the gut: when Dain passed. It was the thing that kept Khial up at night. The thing that sent him into the Wastelands on a fool's journey. A fool to be sure, because he would do anything for Dain.

Dain was sick, and modern herbs and medicinals were having no effect. Khial had dragged Dain out to the Wastelands in search of outlawed chemical remedies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But they'd come back empty handed. And the three grubbing bastards knew it. Khial clenched his fist. His body coiled, seeking release.

Just then, the car door opened and shut.

Bil, Syndra and Mikel visibly recoiled.

"What in the name of the Goddess is that?"

"I think it’s a... girl."

Khial turned in time to see Chanyn shrink back just a bit. She ran one self-conscious hand over her disheveled hair, the other over her travel-worn dress. He saw nothing of the strong woman who'd fired between the eyes of a boar and then gutted it. Nothing of the woman who'd survived nearly two decades in the wild with only her cunning. Under the beady eyes of Bil, Syndra, and Mikel, she shrank down small.

Dain made a move toward Chanyn, but Khial beat him to her.