Snake Keeper by Alexandra Norton
CHAPTER FOUR
I CAME TOon a warm surface, roused by a gentle rocking sensation. I peeled my tear-crusted eyes open and came face to face with a black floor.
“Good, you’re up,” a female voice came from above. “We’re docking now.”
"What did you do to me?” I pushed myself up on my elbows and rose on wobbly knees, working to catch my balance as the shuttle rocked slowly to and fro like a crib.
“The shuttle demands equilibrium. You needed to calm down.”
My head was too heavy to argue. My eyes gradually adjusted to the dim ambient lighting in the dark space. I saw no controls or buttons anywhere in the small space. The two Snakes stood nearby, hands sliding across the smooth walls in inexplicable gestures. They must have been controlling the ship, but to me they appeared to just be tracing arbitrary patterns in wide, arcing gestures on the wall.
The rocking slowed, then stopped. I blinked hard as the wall before me shifted. The black material swirled before my eyes. A round opening formed once again before me, as though molded from play-dough by invisible hands.
The light from the other side burned my eyes. I put my hand up to my face.
“Come,” said the female.
“What happens now?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Now,” she said, “it is time for us to leave Earth; for the Kept… you and the other delegates… to go with their Keepers. You will travel to your new home. We will transfer to our own ship and set off for our home station.”
I sucked in a shaky breath through my mouth, my nose still blocked from crying. I had lost a lot of fluids, and my parched throat felt like I’d eaten gravel.
“Do you have any water?”
“Not yet.” The female nudged me toward the round exit. “Your first meal must be with your Keeper. It won’t be long.”
Of course.I stepped out of the shuttle.
There were multiple, nearly identical shuttles in the long landing bay. From each of them emerged a very similar sight: a human flanked by two aliens of various kinds. I saw a mixture of emotions in the crowd: excitement, fear, a few tears.
I exchanged looks with a sobbing woman who couldn’t have been much older than I was. She hugged her golden shroud to herself, stumbling on teetering heels as our small groups formed a line. Her tears smeared her golden eye-shadow and brown liner down her cheeks. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, which had been covered in intricate henna patterns.
Was she also a “surprise” last minute representative like me? No; her dress and makeup had been carefully prepared like most of the other people I saw. Even the male representatives had been dressed to the nines. Did the crying woman at some point volunteer, her sobs just last-minute nerves as her decision sunk in? Or had those in power in her part of the world “volunteered” her without her consent? For how long had she been dreading this moment?
We exchanged knowing nods as we walked through the landing bay and into a wide hallway.
They led us into a cavernous chamber three groups at a time. At the opposite side of the room sat our Keepers, waiting. A soft, disembodied voice brushed through the chamber, announcing us. The girl in the golden shroud went first: “Priyanka Mehta, Kept of Kithuin.”
The two aliens flanking Priyanka brought her forward to the center of the room. They had slightly hunched, wide shoulders with mane-like tufts growing all the way down their upper spine. The female alien’s arms were lean with muscle, the male’s bulky and thick. I noticed claws digging into Priyanka’s skin from their fingertips as they led her forward. Was that a streak of blood splattered across the back of her golden shroud?
My eyes shifted to her Keeper. He sat cross-legged on a black dais near the back wall of the chamber. Kithuin’s bare torso bulged with overgrown muscle. His snow-white eyes glowed, accentuated by the near-blackness of his skin. He scratched his hairy forearm with thick, silver claws. I sucked in a breath. What was in store for Priyanka?
As though reading my mind, the female Snake tightened her hold on my upper arm.
“You are right to be afraid for her. Be glad that you are paired with Xioumar and not Kithuin,” she whispered in my ear.
Next, it was the turn of a young man about my age. He looked relatively content to be there, more excited than fearful. His eyes darted all around, drinking in the alien surroundings. He followed his escorts willingly as they led him forward to his Keeper.
“Jonas Hägren, Kept of Raija,” announced the soft voice.
The alien Raija looked like a goddess. Dressed in a seemingly weightless, flowing silk gown, she sat with feet neatly tucked under her at her dais. Her white hair floated freely about her head. She looked like should she wish, she could push off of her seat and float about the room at any moment. She smiled, beckoning to the man with a lithe, elegant hand, and Simon Hägren was more than willing to comply. He quickened his step.
I glanced to my sides when I felt both of the Snakes tense. They gave no further hint of their discomfort, but I wondered what Simon Hägren had just signed up for.
“Emily Richardson, Kept of Xioumar,” the whispering voice spoke my name.
I jerked my shoulders to shake the Snakes’ arms off of me: “I’ll walk myself.”
They exchanged half-smiles and agreed. I stood tall. My face was swollen from crying and I wore a ragged old sweatshirt, leggings, and combat boots, but damn it if I would not muster my last shred of dignity in front of these creatures.
Xioumar sat still on his dais, a coiled serpent waiting as his prey was delivered to him on a platter. He wore fitted attire made from the same material as the clothing of the other Snakes: a black second skin of sorts shifting over his body; only thicker, more substantial. The black material shifted subtly around broad shoulders, coating arms which dipped and bulged with muscle. It covered his long legs in a close-fitting, matte coating. The armor protruded in rows of small spikes running down the alien’s thighs and the backs of his arms.
He fixed his crimson eyes on me. It took all of my willpower to meet his gaze and hold it. Inside, I was a deer aching to bolt. My heart beat a rapid pace in my chest, protesting against any further proximity to this creature.
Soon, I stood before him. Xioumar the Snake offered me his forearm, facing down, inviting me to greet him from a position of submission. I hesitated, but thought it best to play along here, surrounded by his kind. He remained expressionless as I slid my arm under and against his. I gasped a little as the electricity I’d felt before shot through me. I had almost forgotten. The aliens who escorted me had no such effect. It radiated into my skin and traveled up my shoulder, snaked up my neck. I had to work my shoulders as it moved down my back.
The Keeper stepped down from his dais and released me for but a moment, allowing me some brief relief. He stood next to me and re-clasped my arm firmly at the wrist. He led me through a doorway behind the dais, into yet another part of the ship. I despised the hold. With my wrist in his grasp, he led me like a child. I balled my hand into a fist, but kept my mouth shut as we walked down the corridor, footsteps muffled against the floor. I breathed deeply to try to ignore the electric crawling under my skin.
If the Snake noticed the effect that this contact had on me, he showed no reaction. I counted our steps in my mind, wishing each would be the one that he would release me and stop this disquieting sensation. Surely this was my body’s way of protesting against any contact with this foreign creature. It had to be. And yet, the most unpleasant thing about it was not the physical sensation itself. It was the forced admission that once I willed my shoulders to relax against the tingling undercurrent, it didn’t feel bad. If anything, the warm knot forming in my core was that of a quiet, shameful longing. I blushed and stared at the ground as we walked.
He led me to yet another shuttle, another shapeless black rock. Once again, I lost consciousness as soon as I stepped through the round entrance. When I came to, I was on the floor, familiar rocking motion willing me to go back to sleep. The shuttle did something to my mind. I felt as though I was a child in a crib, being rocked into unconsciousness.
I lay on my back and lifted my bare arm in front of me. Bare arm?
I looked down at my body. Naked. Something weaved itself on my skin. Protests bubbled up, but were muted by the dull haze in my mind. Was this a dream? I couldn’t seem to feel the fear which knotted in my chest, but I knew it was there.
I tilted myself this way and that, examining the silky white fibers rapidly coating my body. The tendrils worked fast, tightening themselves around my waist, slithering over my breasts. They formed into an off-shoulder skintight coating around my torso, pushing my chest up over the low neckline. I put my palms over my chest to hide the subtle cleavage.
When I picked at the fabric with my fingers, it stretched with my touch.
When I released, it remolded itself once again to my skin in its original shape. Looking lower, I watched the tendrils mold around my hips and form into a one-piece suit of sorts. The design weaved into a high opening above my hipbones. I frowned. I slid my hands down and tugged the fabric lower over my rear and hips, to no avail. It stretched and remolded itself like water, reforming into its original shape around my body.
I looked around through half-closed eyes. The two Snakes who escorted me before were busy drawing invisible gestures on the walls like before. The Keeper sat nearby. He leaned his head against the wall, large forearm propped against bent knee. I noticed, once again, that black line which stretched under his jaw. It trailed down his neck, disappearing underneath his own black, living armor.
He looked down at me as I examined myself, my surroundings, him.
I licked my dry, shriveled lips and swallowed, cleared my throat to speak.
“Why did you do this?” I whispered. I knew he’d hear.
The Snake lifted its head from the wall. “You are more compatible with my kind than the one they offered.”
“I hate you.” I turned away from him to stare up at the ceiling: a black, endless void.
“Good.” his voice was close, though he had not moved. I could have sworn I felt his breath against my ear. I shuddered. “I can use that.”