Axxios and Braxxus Read online

  The three of us leave the little shop and huddle in an open space between two stalls. I remember when we were young enough to play with blocks. I recall toppling a building and using the very same blocks to construct a completely different structure. That’s what I feel like right this minima—like I’ve been cracked apart, disassembled and I’m in the process of being completely rearranged.

  Brianna’s hand finds mine. I open my eyes to see her clutching Braxx’s hand in her other. Braxx throws his arm around my shoulder and I mirror his action, careful not to hurt his back. The three of us are in a circle—connected. Perhaps I’m hallucinating, but I feel energy circling between the three of us. The speed and intensity rises with each circuit.

  “Whoa!” Briana says. “I feel like I drank a pint of whiskey.” She pulls her hands away and puts her palms to her cheeks. “Maybe I’m getting sick.”

  I don’t want to tell her I think this is the bond. I think it would alarm her. Besides, this isn’t the time or place.

  “Maybe it’s the heat,” I suggest while fanning her with my hand.

  “Yeah, I think I’m already feeling better.” She takes a deep breath and grins. “All in favor of Axxios being able to call Brie ‘Brie’ say yes,” she says, smiling at me like she could kiss me right here in front of a thousand aliens on this dirt path.

  “Yes!” the three of us shout at once. Then she kisses me. She just stepped right over, reached up on her toes, tugged my head down to hers and planted her lips solidly on mine.

  I pull her farther back between the stalls. I want this kiss, I want it to be good, and I want it to be private. Braxx stands between us and the main pathway, but he doesn’t turn his back on us to allow privacy, he watches. If Brie was more familiar with Mythrian ways, she’d include him. But that would be too much to expect.

  I tune out everything but Brie. I pull away for a moment and allow myself the luxury of drinking in the way she looks. Her curves in that dress could wake the dead. Her hair, braided into a crown accentuates the green of her uptilted eyes. And those eyes, they are looking at me impatiently, with longing, in a way they never have before.

  We’ve known each other for two months and rutted many times, but I’ve never seen this look on her face before. A look that says she can’t wait to be in my arms.

  I lift her up and crush her to my chest. Before I kiss her again, though, I whisper in her ear. “I apologize for any wrongs I’ve done you, Brie.” Her name tastes like honey on my lips. “I gave you everything I was able. I will always give you everything I’m able.”

  Now I drag my lips slowly across her velvety skin from her ear to the corner of her mouth. Funny, sex always felt like a sprint before, like a race to the finish line. Now I want it to be a marathon. I want to enjoy the journey along the way.

  I nibble the corner of her mouth, then work my way inward so slowly I feel her impatience. I slide my tongue along the seam of her lips and am elated when she opens herself to me. The tip of her tongue flicks mine, then we engage in mock battle. I learned these moves in captaincy school, but my studies were never this enjoyable.

  Advance and then retreat. She makes a low moan in the back of her throat when I retreat, then she advances into the warmth of my mouth.

  “You taste delicious, Brie,” I moan against her lips. “I apologize if I never told you that before.”

  I kiss her closed lips, then enjoy breaching her threshold again. There are other thresholds I’m dying to breach, but this is a marathon. We have all the time in the galaxy for that. The three of us do.

  I reach my hand into the long, thick, brown hair that was never pulled into her braid. I’m kissing her more forcefully now, plundering and taking my pleasure from her. From the low moans she’s emitting from the back of her throat, I’m giving as well as receiving.

  Her hands move from where they’ve been planted on my shoulders slowly down my back to rest on the exposed globes of my ass. She presses me against her, my engorged cock captured against her belly.

  “Two security guards on hovercraft are approaching,” Braxx interrupts. “We should probably get to the mronck exhibition if we’re going to attend.”

  I pull away to catch a look at Brie before she shutters her expression. She looks mesmerized, lost, with a faraway expression in her eyes. I know this female. Is she going to doubt herself? Re-examine her own emotions? Question her decision to let me in?

  “All in favor of going to the mronck show say ‘yes,’” she says.

  “Yes,” we all reply, then move back into the path toward the arena.

  “Um...all in favor of never mentioning what just happened say ‘yes,’” she says.

  Other than her voice, neither of us chime in.

  “What’s happening is wonderful,” Braxx says with authority. “We don’t need to name it, or quantify it or do scientific experiments on it. Let’s just let go, explore, and see what happens.”

  Brianna

  That kiss must have put us behind schedule because we’re almost jogging to the exhibition. There are so many people on the pathway it’s hard for the three of us to push our way through the press of flesh—and spikes and scales.

  I’m holding both their hands, Axx in front, parting the sea of people, Braxx behind. This gives me a moment to contemplate what just happened back there.

  I’m a bit hazy and confused; that happened before the kiss. I glance ahead at Axx, his golden skin glistening in the sun—and there’s a lot of it exposed in the loincloth and skimpy black leather outfit he’s wearing. It’s no secret that I’m attracted to him, I thought he was gorgeous the first moment I saw him. Well, not the exact first moment I saw him. That moment was filled with terror. I’d just been kidnapped from my bed and thrown into a cell with a huge metal-looking alien.

  It was shortly after my pumping adrenaline slowed that I realized how gorgeous he is. But that kiss just now? The one I initiated? That was amazing. I’ve never experienced that level of intimacy with him before. I shake my head as we run through a muddy area strewn with hay.

  And Braxx? He just stood back and watched us kiss for goodness sake. Does this mean I’m falling into a relationship with the two of them?

  There’s no time for me to explore this further, the circle of flags billowing in the wind up ahead must signal we’re almost there. Axx pays our entry fee, then wends his way toward the front. The stadium reminds me of the setup for a rodeo back home. There’s an oval area a little larger than a football field that’s filled with leveled, red dirt. Rows of benches surround it, stepped up higher and higher so all the seats have a good view.

  But Axx seems intent on procuring the best seats. We arrive at the front row, which isn’t full. There’s a little amphibious creature standing in front of the seats, facing the crowd. I can’t tell whether it’s male or female. It’s in a gray jumpsuit with a horse’s head logo on it.

  “How much?” Axx asks.

  “For three? One-hundred twenty credits.” It sticks out a warty, khaki-colored hand, and the transaction is completed in a second.

  “Did you just bribe him for these seats?” Why this, out of everything I’ve seen today, surprises me I have no idea.

  “Yes, nothing but the best for Brie,” he emphasizes my name, like he loves the feel of it on his tongue.

  “All in favor of paying extra credits for the good seats say yes,” Braxx says.

  “Yes,” is shouted by two male voices.

  “Brie’s outvoted. Let’s enjoy it,” Braxx pronounces.

  I’m too antsy to sit, so I go to the stockade fence a few feet in front of us and look out at the arena. Not much to see but red dirt at the moment. When I turn around I see my two guys flanking my spot on the bench. They’re both looking expectantly at me, like I’m the most interesting thing in the entire arena.

  My stomach does an interesting somersault in slow motion, my hands and jaw clench. Is this really happening? Am I entering into a relationship with two guys? Two gorgeous guys who have b
een nothing but sweet to me? I gaze into two sets of turquoise eyes. They’re not looking at me like a man on the street looks at a woman he wants to proposition. No, they’re looking at me the way a man looks at a woman he likes, and admires, and enjoys and...wants to propose to.

  Fear arrows through me and goes straight to clench in my belly. I never saw this coming.

  I hear the blare of trumpets and take my seat. A silver hand grabs my right, and a gold snags my left, and then I focus on what’s happening in the arena.

  Four green-skinned males dressed in colorful silk slacks and shirts play a rousing rendition of peppy music on large brass instruments as the huge crowd hushes itself quiet.

  “Males and females,” a hidden female announces, “welcome to our exhibition.”

  And with that, a procession of amazing animals and people enter the arena. The mroncks look like horses in every way except they have six legs. It takes a full minute of watching their feet move before I can focus on anything else. You’d think they’d look clumsy or stumble, but their movements are graceful.

  For a moment I’m reminded of that scene in The Wizard of Oz when they finally arrive at Emerald City and they see “a horse of a different color,” because that’s what I’m seeing. There’s a stunning green one with a mustard-yellow mane and tail, a blood-red with midnight black mane and tail, and a cobalt blue with turquoise hair.

  “Wow, guys, they’re so gorgeous,” I say without taking my eyes off the spectacle. And it is a spectacle. The trumpets are still blaring, and the people are leading the horses by their bridles. The males and females in the arena are every shape and size, all wearing silky uniforms of every color and description. The whole extravaganza is total eye candy.

  The first act consists of six of the animals, each with a male and female pair standing on top of its back. It starts out slow and graceful, but by the end, they’re racing and zigzagging so fast I realize I’m clutching the guys’ hands in excitement.

  For the next act, they let about twenty mronks loose in the huge arena. At first, they just mill around, nosing the dirt for a blade of grass. Then a willowy female, maybe six feet tall and one hundred pounds is carried in on a fancy litter. Dressed in a gauzy dress, she jumps down and stalks around the arena like she owns it. The animals immediately lift their heads, focus on her, and walk toward her.

  Then the animals, begin to move in unison with no discernible cue from the trainer. At first, they simply move from one end of the area to the other, as if pulled by invisible strings. Then they do increasingly complex tasks like walking in a circle, then in unison, changing direction.

  By the end of the act, they’re galloping in perfect formation. The final task is what we used to call “thread the needle,” where horses come from opposite directions. When they merge, they alternate who goes first with perfect precision. Of course, I’ve only seen this before where there were human riders giving the cues. My mind is boggled that the animals are doing this without riders and seemingly without physical or verbal direction of any kind.

  I tear my eyes from the spectacle for half a second to check on the guys, and see both of them are watching me with amused expressions on their faces. They’re getting more of a kick out of my enjoyment of the performance than the performance itself.

  “Like it, Brie?” Braxx asks, his voice deep and low near my ear.

  “I love it.” I have a huge smile plastered on my face.

  I enjoy the rest of the show, but that was definitely my favorite act. I still can’t figure out how she did it. Maybe she had telepathy with the mroncks. When I get home I’ll have to ask Tyree, who's psychic, if he can communicate with animals.

  When the show is over, we wait until the stands empty out. We’re in the front row, no need to fight through the crowd to leave.

  “That was fantastic!” I gush. “Did you guys see this when you were kids?”

  “I couldn’t get over the female communicating with the mroncks all those years ago,” Axx says, “and I still don’t understand how she does it.”

  “It’s the same female?”

  “Looks identical, but maybe it’s her daughter.”

  “There are so many things in this universe I don’t understand,” I admit.

  “Thirsty, Angel?” Braxxus asks.

  I nod.

  “I think you’d like premmod. It’s tart and sweet and quenches your thirst.”

  “Sounds like lemonade. That would be perfect.”

  The three suns are all high in the sky and look close to converging, even though they all started far from each other this morning when we got off the ship. I hadn’t noticed because I’d been so fascinated by the performance, but I’m melting in this dress.

  “Let’s get a drink and find some shade,” I say as the crowd thins out.

  As we’re walking up the steps to leave the arena I notice two of the deepest cuts on B’s back are weeping.

  “Braxx, you’re bleeding,” my voice is alarmed.

  We stop and both Axxios and I inspect. We don’t want to pull off the plas-film to look closer, we have nothing to replace it with.

  “It doesn’t look serious to me, what do you think Brie?” Axxios asks.

  “It was a lot worse a few days ago, but I don’t think it should be bleeding at this point in his recovery. Should we call Dr. Drayke?”

  “I think we should just make our way back to the ship,” Axx pronounces. “We’ll take our time, take it easy.”

  “Do I get a say in this?” Braxx asks.

  “No,” Axx and I reply in unison.

  “I’m not ruining Angel’s day because of a trickle of blood,” Braxx insists.

  “All in favor of returning to the ship say yes,” I say.

  “Yes,” Axx and I respond.

  “Braxx is outvoted. Let’s get a drink and work our way to the Slacker.”

  The two guys are looking at each other seriously, not taking their eyes off each other. I’m going to have to get some clarification when we’re back on the ship. Are they having a silent psychic conversation? Is this the Mythrian twin thing Axx kept talking about?

  We’re sitting on a bench, drinking our premmods, which are indistinguishable from lemonade, and eating an intergalactic version of something resembling fried okra. I have no intention of investigating the nature of its ingredients.

  The guys forgot to distract me and have me seated directly across from a stall with a huge picture of a reven. I never thought Axx knew me very well, but he was right on the mark when he tried to keep me from getting an eyeful of the poor thing.

  It reminds me of that scene in The Fly where some animal goes into a machine and comes out dead with half its insides on its outsides. The reven looks inside out and hairy and bloody and gross. I shiver. It’s repugnant.

  Until I saw it I had my eye on a cheesecakey-looking thing at one of the other booths, but I’ve lost my appetite. I’m still shuddering when we hear a commotion from our left.

  It takes my brain a few seconds longer than the guys to grasp what’s going on. It sounds like explosions!

  Axx and Braxx have pulled their guns and are already standing before my brain is fully engaged. “Braxx, take point!” Axxios yells over the din of the explosions and cacophony of people yelling. Axx pushes me in front of him and the three of us take off at a run toward the ship.

  I hear screaming behind us. It’s clear from the noise that people are being hurt, possibly killed. I don’t spare a minute looking backward. I just keep my eyes focused ahead and follow B.

  “Jog left,” Axx orders from behind. I assume he wants us away from the herd so we don’t get trampled. He’s directing us back to the more sparsely-traveled paths we came in on.

  Lasers have a high-pitched whine when they’re fired. That’s not what I’m hearing. It’s more like the bombs or mortar rounds I’ve heard in movies about Vietnam. Fear spikes up my spine. I’m worried not only for myself but for my guys. Braxx’s plas-film is now filled with blood, and so
me is trickling out the bottom. There’s no time to mention it and nothing we can do about it. We just have to keep running.

  I smell smoke and something terrible I assume is alien gunpowder. I hear the surreal sound of people shouting behind me. The muscles in my calves are burning from running without a break. I’m trembling with terror, but still moving forward.

  I realize Axx put Braxx in front for a reason. He’s the weakest link, and that person should always be at the front of the line so he doesn’t fall behind. His pace is slowing and he’s leaning on his staff harder with every step.

  I have no idea how far it is to the ship, I’m just following Braxx’s bloody back and trying not to totally freak out. Braxx stops in his tracks and turns around. When I follow his gaze I see Axx is down on the ground—he’s been hit! Braxx must have felt Axx’s pain through his twin bond.