Her voice cracked.

Hruuzk and Zhuqa exchanged a maddeningly knowing glance.

“Very good,” Zhuqa said. He tapped her shoulder with two knuckles and turned around. “Come, Eshiqi. I’ll take you home.”

They walked back to his room together. He kept silent, acknowledging neither her presence at his side nor the salutes of the many guards they passed in their descent through the ruins. When he unlocked his door, she saw a lamp already burning on the table, which had acquired a plain metal cup and, more importantly, a wide-mouthed clay bowl generously heaped with roasted meat and charred roots.

The smell of the food struck her almost at the same instant as the sight of it. Her mouth flooded even as her back continued to throb and sting. She knew better than to take even one step toward it, but could not help staring.

Zhuqa followed the direction of her eyes as he unbuckled his harness. He did not remark, only smiled and undressed. When he was naked except for his loin-plate and the knives strapped to his biceps, he gestured at her.

She started to take her shift off, wincing as the coarse fabric pulled taut across her back, but he stopped her.

“In a moment. First, I want you to look there and see the plate I have set for us to share.”

She looked. Her stomach growled.

“I know that you are very hungry,” Zhuqa said behind her. “I see that you are tired. And hurt.” His hand slipped like slow hell down her spine. “But Hruuzk tells me you have been obedient and hard-working…most of the day. And I am inclined to forgive your foolishness there at the end, because it so warmed me to see my Eshiqi seeking her man’s aid. So. Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” she said, and said it again as best she could in dumaqi.

“I’m glad.” He took her arms and raised them over her head, taking the opportunity to nuzzle at her from behind. There, with his snout close to her ear and his hands like shackles around her wrists, he softly said, “Because if I find a weapon hidden on you, Eshiqi, I’m going to make you eat it.”

She started to look at him. He released one hand to catch a fisthold in her hair and yank her head back, so that she suddenly found herself looking into his face. Viewed this way, upside-down and from below, his eyes caught the light in a strange new way, almost seeming to glow.

“If you took something out of the workpit, bring it out. I’ll beat you,” he said calmly, “but I won’t kill you if you confess it now and beg my forgiveness.”

“I don’t have anything,” she said, truthfully enough. It wasn’t as if the thought had never crossed her mind, but the only knife she’d seen in the workpit had been strapped to the side of Dkorm’s left boot and he’d been staring at her most of the day anyway.

“Please yourself. But remember that I gave you this chance.” Zhuqa let go of her hair and pulled her shift off. He felt it out carefully, gave her a long appraising stare, then tossed it aside and resumed his impersonal search, this time on her body. He made thorough work of it: finger-combing through her hair, lifting her breasts, even thumbing at her belly-button. Unsatisfied, he then knelt to check between her toes, run his hands up her legs all the way to the crack of her ass, and once there of course, felt inside her pussy. “Take that look off your face, little liar,” he remarked. “You’ve opened for me.”

“Not open enough to hide a knife. Seriously, what are you thinking?”

He grunted and released her, his spines now flexed all the way forward, broadly smiling. “No weapons. Not even a splinter of wood to sharpen. Am I to believe my dangerous Eshiqi has been tamed?”

“Only long enough for Meoraq to get here.”

His spines came forward at once. “Was that a name?”

Amber shut her stupid mouth.

“No answer? So be it. You’re Zhuqa’s woman now.” He rose and walked over to seat himself at the table. “And Zhuqa feeds his loyal woman well.”

She didn’t let herself get carried away by relief at these words; he was altogether too pleased with himself. And sure enough, at her first cautious step forward, he patted his thigh.

She looked at his hand, then at his face.

He grimaced at her playfully (first saw that look on meoraq yeah the morning after we first made love he probably has no idea how freaky it makes him look but at least he tries o god where is he) and patted again. “I have only the one chair.”

“I don’t suppose sitting on the floor is an option.”

“You will sit to eat—” Pat pat. “—or you will not eat tonight, Eshiqi.”

She sat on his lap. He bumped his knee a few times, grimacing as she winced at the rough scour of his scales, then he pinched off a chunk of meat and held it up.

Her mouth snapped shut on a sudden river of saliva.

“This,” said Zhuqa, placing the morsel against her lips without any further torment, “is for sitting so immediately and so well upon your man’s knee.”

And oh but it tasted good. Tachuqi meat, she knew that at once, but the best damn tachuqi in the world. They’d actually braised it in something; the taste was richer and more tangy than mere hunger’s spicing. It was, in all honesty, the best thing she’d eaten since leaving Earth. Better than quite a few things she’d eaten on Earth.

He had a bite of his own while he enjoyed the sight of her trying (and failing) not to wolf it down in one swallow. Then it was gone and her hunger was fully awakened and clawing up her guts, and the real torture began.

“Put your hand on me, Eshiqi,” he said. “You know the way.”

Amber gave the bowl of food a pointed look and unbuckled his loin-plate. She cupped his groin impersonally and waited.

He tore off another chunk of meat. “That was neither immediate nor well done,” he said and ate it himself.

“Sadist.”

“Mm. It isn’t bad for camp food, is it?” He licked his fingers.

“Fucking sadist!” Her eyes fixed infuriatingly on his mouth.

He took more meat and must have felt her hand on him tense in expectation because he glanced down before snorting laughter at her. “No, Eshiqi. One bite for you, one for me. That is how we share our meals. And you forfeited your last bite. This one is mine. But keep moving your hand. When I give you an order, I mean you to go until I tell you to stop.”

She kneaded at him mechanically as he sucked the juice from the meat, pinched it off into smaller and smaller bites, and finally ate it. He started to reach for another, then paused, pretending not to notice her hungry stare, then held out his hand invitingly. “Taste?” he offered.

No way. No fucking way was she going to—

And then she grabbed his hand and sucked not just greedily, not just that…but gratefully.

Zhuqa rocked back hard, banging his head sharply against the back of his chair. Now his eyes were fixed and staring.

That’s right. They didn’t have lips. They could lick…they couldn’t suck.

“Well, damn,” mumbled Amber disgustedly, but she couldn’t let go of his hand.

And as long as she was sucking on it, he was in no hurry to take it back. But the taste of meat was finite, and the taste of lizard could not provoke the same gusto. “Enough,” he said, once her enthusiasm began to flag. He looked at his hand when she released it, flexing his wet fingers, and then at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “We’re going to be coming back to that, aren’t we?”

He picked up one of the roots—not a piece, but the whole thing—and held it up where she had to look at it. “I want your hand on my cock.”

His cock wasn’t out. Amber stroked his slit, which, despite his obvious effort to keep it tight against her, was already oozing beadlets of oil.

“You are such a slut,” said Amber, pushing her finger in to stroke his sa’ad. “Honest to God, that’s what you are. Big, tough Zhuqa. You’re just a dirty girl.”

He hissed through clenched teeth, then groaned, then finally gave up with a hoarse laugh and let himself extrude. As soon as she closed her fist on his shaft, he gave her the root. “Remember, you obey until I tell you to stop. Keep your hand busy.”