Snake Keeper by Alexandra Norton
CHAPTER EIGHT
I GAPED ATthe inner circumference of the massive ring around me as the black shuttle-like vehicle tethered to a golden cable took me and Xioumar slowly to another one of the planetoids in the inner cluster. Everything except its floor was open, protected by the same invisible barrier I had felt in the shuttle on our approach to the station. At first, I had to take a few minutes with my eyes closed, hands digging into the foam cushion on which I sat, to avoid throwing up from the vertigo.
Xioumar sat next to me.
***
WHEN ZEETHA TOOKme to the “cable shuttle” (the closest label I could find for it), he was already waiting. With his back turned to me, I allowed my gaze to linger on his body for the first time since the first night I saw him from afar at the “Introduction” event back home.
His pitch black hair swallowed the light. It had been sleeked back on his head, a different sight than the rowdy glimpse of tangles I got that morning. The collar of his black silkskin partly covered a long, strong neck. It flowed seamlessly along his body just as mine did, but unlike the skintight bodysuit the material had morphed into on me, on the Keeper the living fabric had been substantially thicker: a light armor of sorts covering his body. I wondered what that said about the war customs among Xiornian genders.
Xioumar made for a large, imposing figure; and yet, like the rest of the Snakes I had seen so far, there was an elegance to his proportions. His body was a coiled spring, a machine designed for strike. I saw it in his efficient movements, the eyes which missed nothing, and in the way the tight muscles of his thighs tensed and shifted under the material when he turned.
His straight, full lips remained neutral, but I could tell by the slight crinkling at the sharp corners of his upturned eyes that he liked what he saw as I padded across the floor with my styled hair, makeup, and jewelry.
Nerves coiled in my stomach when our eyes met. I was prey under his gaze. The gold jewelry twinkled, glinting across the glossy stone-like floor.
“Why don’t I get shoes?” I looked down at his own black boots.
“Kept don’t need armor,” he answered absently, “their Keeper protects them. Always.”
His gaze lingered on my rosewood-pink lips. He held out his left arm, palm down. Veins traced rivers up the back of his hand, one reaching all the way up his forearm before disappearing in the inner crook of his elbow. I held my arm under his own, once again hesitating as the heat radiating from his skin sent warm tendrils up my arm and down the back of my neck. It didn’t feel safe to touch him. I didn’t want to get lost.
But I steeled my nerves and brought my arm up to connect with his. We held our grasp of each other’s elbows for a few long seconds before he released me. I kicked myself for feeling the pang of disappointment when contact severed and the warmth of his skin disappeared.
I didn’t look at him on our way to the planetoid, forcing myself to think about anything but the tiniest glimpse of connection which managed to force its way through the cloud of fear and disdain for my captor. I thought instead about Dad, about home, and about my plan.
***
THE WHITE STONEwhich made up the Father’s dinner hall was veined with silver. He was a slight figure, sitting at the head of a familiar narrow table, flanked on either side by two female, blonde Xiorn. I had been expecting someone considerably more imposing. The Father’s silver silkskin matched his walls. The place really gave off a much different, more luxurious, artsy vibe in its design than Xioumar’s living quarters, which were almost entirely gray and black, utilitarian.
I followed Xioumar to the head of the table. The Father rose.
“Father,” Xioumar bent his neck. The Father held out his arm in the dominant position. I noted that he, too, had a black line trailing from a point in his inner wrist up into the sleeve of his silkskin. It seemed like all the males did. It reappeared from his collar and curved under his jaw. Xioumar clasped his elbow.
“My Kept, Emily,” Xioumar put his hand on the small of my back, nudging me to step forward. I did. I did not return the Snake’s smile. I ignored his outstretched arm..
“Forgive her,” Xioumar frowned. He took my arm firmly and forced it under the Father’s own.
“Oh buzz off!” I growled at him, refusing to curl my hand around this new Snake’s elbow.
“It’s alright,” The Father’s voice was lighter, almost boyish compared to the Keeper’s deep baritone, but there was a hint of ice underneath, “You may take your seats.”
I rolled my eyes with silly exaggeration and jerked my arm from Xioumar’s grasp, rubbing my forearm with my hand where his fingers dug what would surely be bruises into my skin. I spun on my heel and plopped down on a sitting cushion next to one of the blonde females. She turned to face me, lips curled in an eyeless smile. “I’m Zora,” she chirped.
“Nice to meet you, Zora. I’m Bored,” I cringed internally at my own behavior. It was hard to force myself to act like the most obnoxious bitch I could muster. I wouldn’t dream of speaking this way back on Earth. But the situation called for drastic measures. If this “Father” would not grant approval for my pairing with Xioumar, surely they would send me back to Earth. After all, part of the deal the Federation had made with humans was that the human representatives would be returned unharmed. And if this match was to fail, what use was it to them to keep me around?
When Xioumar sat across from me, he looked more worried than angry.
“Good,” I thought, “Let him watch his little captive toy slide right out of his grasp.”
I picked up one of the bulbous fruit of the kind I drank from at his own table the previous night. I looked him straight in the eye as I dug my own thumbnail into its flesh, repeating what I had seen him do yesterday, and brought it to my lips.
“Mmm,” I mused as I sucked the hydrating juice and licked the spillage oozing down my arm.
More Snakes drifted in, taking up the rest of the seats at the table. Xioumar remained a silent statue until the Father picked up a slice of meat from the plate next to him and presented it to the lips of one of the blonde females, who accepted it with a flourish of the forked tongue. I gagged a little, not bothering to hide my disgust.
“Let us eat!” The Father clasped his hands.
It was only when the bustle of plates and conversation untranslatable to me filled the dining chamber that Xioumar lashed out like a viper to grab my throat. Nobody paid him any mind as he dragged me forward across the table, face inches from mine. His vertical pupils were so thin they were barely visible: “Do you want to die?”
I smirked, sucking a wheezing breath in his grip: “Are you going to kill me?”
The Keeper jerked his head toward the head of the table in a movement so quick I doubted anyone else would see. “He will.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “You can’t do anything to me. The Federation guaranteed to bring us back unharmed. May as well send me home now, considering I’ll make sure your little ‘Father’ won’t approve of me.”
Xioumar blinked for a moment. I smiled, enjoying seeing him speechless, cornered. Then, he released my neck and… laughed. He laughed. His white teeth glinted cruelly in the light. I hoped with all my heart that he was simply laughing with the admiration of a game well played, with the joy of being outwitted.
It took a minute for Xioumar to speak. He put on a straight face and reached for a thick chunk of meat from one of the bowls. It looked raw, blood staining his fingers. I wrinkled my nose.
“The Federation’s promises are reserved for species that matter: other members of the Federation,” Xioumar turned the bloody meat between his fingers. “Unless the human race actually passes the integration period and is invited in, your ‘deal’ with the federation is meaningless. If the Father does not approve of you, you won’t be sent back on the first ship back to Earth. You might be traded to another Federation Keeper. But more likely you’ll be executed for being unfit and put a strike against integration for your entire species. So…”
He brought the bloody chunk to my mouth. “Do you ever want to see your own planet, your father, again?”
I hate you I hate you I hate you, I screamed inside. I batted away tears welling in my eyes. I would not let them fall. My mind grasped for any other card I could play, running through scenarios, options, like predicting moves on a chess board. I was never good at chess. How stupid was I to think this could work? How stupid was my species to believe these monsters? I shook with rage even as I opened my mouth and took the offering, my lips sliding against the Snake’s warm fingers as the taste of iron seeped onto my tongue. I wanted to vomit, but forced myself to chew the tough chunk of flesh. I stared down at my hands as I swallowed, fighting not to retch.
So it was all a lie.
“Delegate”, I scoffed to myself. We were slaves here. If I wanted to live, I would have to do whatever the Snakes said. Did I even want to live?
“Your turn.” he shoved the bowl toward me.
The stacked gold rings and bracelets glinted as I picked up a piece of the same bloody dish and put it quickly in his open mouth. I shuddered as I felt his forked tongue swirl around my fingers, sucking the meat’s juices from my fingertips. He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand and nodded with approval.
“I love to see a pairing feed!” The Father exclaimed from his seat as one of the blondes tossed a strip of something into his mouth. His smile was too big for his face.
Once the feeding was complete, the Father rose from his seat and approached me with an outstretched arm. “Dance with me, Kept.”
I glanced Xioumar, who gave me a small nod that said “… or else”.
The strange wind-chime “music” began playing once again out of sync as The Father led me from the table. A few other pairs of Snakes joined us. I allowed the Father to guide me in the dance, making a forced effort to follow. If Xioumar was telling the truth, my life might just depend on it.
“Your eyes are full of anger for him, but he’s all you look at,” the Father mused
“I’m sorry,” I forced out. Did he expect me to not be angry at the monster who abducted me from my home and my family? From my planet?
A knowing smile played on his lips. “Don’t be. This is what we want to see.”
“Anger?”
“Spirit. The strongest matches are often forged in adversity. An overly complacent partner doesn’t quite...ignite a spark.”
He guided me around the room as the music smoothed and fell into sync slowly, delicately. I was grateful that the trance that got hold of me during my reluctant dance with the Keeper the night before was not materializing tonight. When the Father turned me, I noticed another female enter the room and turn her eyes to Xioumar: a tall, lean brunette in crimson silkskin that showed off her impossible legs and ample bosom. An intricate black necklace rested around her neck, sweeping geometric patterns across her sharp collarbone. With a sharp lionesque nose and emerald green eyes, she was something out of a fantasy movie.
Xioumar’s eyes were trained on her as she approached. Who was she to him?
I watched their elbows clasp delicately. They exchanged words and smiles. His eyes softened. Her lashes fluttered. Xioumar rose and led her into the dance. I couldn’t help but steal inconspicuous (I hoped) glances at the pair. They looked like a perfect couple spinning, swooning, writhing on the floor. She dipped, he caught. He stepped, she followed. She turned, he clasped her hips and slid his chest against her back.
“Are humans a monogamous race, Emily?” the question snapped me out of my staring.
“Yes. No. It’s complicated,” I brushed him off as he spun me. I felt rigid in his arms; I was an uncoordinated mess compared to the brunette gyrating a few feet away.
“Complicated how?” he persisted with boyish curiosity in his soft voice.
“From an evolutionary standpoint, no. From a societal standpoint, yes. For the most part.”
“My people, the Xiorn, are monogamous. Fiercely so,” he glanced to his left, toward Xioumar, “after we pair-bond.”
Why is he telling me this? I don’t care.
“Is Xioumar pair-bonded withher?” I asked purely out of academic curiosity.
The Father gave me a look that I wanted to brush off as condescending, but which in truth was simply full of knowing.
“If he was, he could not take a Kept. My daughter Zoe was a potential, but I decided it wasn’t a good match. I know you do not want to be here, but I also know with a strong hand guiding you, you can be a good fit for Xioumar and for my people. I strongly suggest giving your Keeper a chance.”
Was there a threat in those words?
The Father brought his hand to my cheek. I made to flinch away, but the touch reminded me of a comforting gesture my own father would make; something I realized I hadn’t felt since I was taken from my home and transported hundreds of thousands of light years away.
It became clear that if I had any chance of getting back, I would have to resign to my fate… and make the best of it.
The Father steered us toward Xioumar and Zoe: “You may take charge of your Kept now, Xioumar.”
The Keeper released the female from his caress, red eyes sliding from me to the Father.
“Thank you, Father,” he nodded. Nothing more needed to be said. I could tell that this was the moment in which this match with the Keeper received the necessary approval. Was that relief on Xioumar’s face?
When the others stepped aside, Xioumar began to lead me in a dance of our own, shifting my arms with his. I would have none of it. I would not follow that woman, the image of perfection itself. My skin crawled with the thought of touching him after she did. I was a lump of clay compared to her diamond, a clumsy fool.
I shook my head and stepped away. “I don’t want to dance.”
Xioumar must have seen me glance at the brunette. He smiled and steered me instead toward a larger foam cushion in the corner of the room.
We watched the other Xiorn gyrating in their odd, hypnotic dance for a few minutes. The wind-chime waltz awakened the memory of my limbs moving of their own accord with the Keeper’s the night before. My heartbeat quickened. My body wanted to move like that again, even if my mind did not. I folded my hands in my lap.
“Why did you have to take me?” I asked, watching the Father spinning with one of the blondes who had sat next to us at the table.
Xioumar’s knee touched mine as he shifted on the cushion. He kept it there. I didn’t move.
“The other human girl would never have worked. You had a resistance in you that she did not. She wanted nothing more than to be here, but she was not strong. She would not fit. Not with my kind.”
“Is that why Zoe did not fit?” I looked at the brunette, who was sitting on a foam cushion at the table, fluttering her impossibly full lashes as she accepted a slice of meat from another male’s palm.
I saw Xioumar turn to me from the corner of my eye, but continued to look straight ahead.
“No,” he answered after a long moment. “Zoe did not fit because she has been earmarked as a Keeper.”
My heart pounded, and I looked at him excitedly. “There’s another human here?!”
“No,” he put a large hand over mine for a split second. Then, as if realizing what he’d done and expecting my reaction, he sighed and let go, “I’m afraid not. Each candidate species only gets one representative per Federation member. Zoe is destined as a Keeper for the next civilization we find.”
“How many do you find?”
“Maybe one every hundred years. It varies.”
“So won’t she be dead by then?”
“Not likely. Zoe is 94 now. My people’s average lifespan, for unbonded Xiorn, is 570.”
I let the words sink in. These things live for almost six hundred years? How old was Xioumar?
“I am 220 years old,” he answered, reading the question in my awed expression.
“Well, shit,” I gasped. “What do you mean, for an ‘unbonded’ Xiorn?”
“A pair-bond creates a rejuvenating link between the mates. They can heal each other. Depending on the fitness of the bond, they can extend each other’s lifespan drastically. Some live for more than one thousand years. With luck, Keepers like Zoe, and I, will bond with a mate after our duty is done. But that depends on their age when the next species is discovered. She may not have the time.”
When I gathered my thoughts, another question sprang to mind: “What was the last race you found before us?”
Xioumar leaned back in the cushion, propping himself up on an elbow. He stretched out his long legs. His body relaxed as we fell into what might just be our first “real” conversation. “That was the Soba, about ninety years ago. They didn’t make it.”
“So where are they now?”
Xioumar shrugged. “Most of them dead. Pillaged.”
Dread twisted my gut. “What was the last race to make it?”
“The Sylvi. Before my time.”
The last time another species actually made it into the Federation and did not die was more than 220 years ago. It was only in that moment that what exactly was at stake dawned on me. The chances of humanity surviving this were minuscule, and I was just a cog in the selection machine. What were all the other representatives told about this? Did they know our people’s entire future rested on our shoulders? How many of us had to “pass” these next five years for humanity to make it?
Heat flooded my hand as he engulfed it with his own once more. He squeezed firmly, not pulling away this time. “I suggest you not dwell on it. It won’t do any good.”
This creature was telling me that his people and his Federation were about to be wholly responsible for the demise of my family and my planet. Yet, somehow, the warm magnetic buzz of his skin on mine, radiating from his long fingers to my palm, induced a sort of relaxation in my body.
I lay back and did my best to reconfigure all of my impressions and expectations of the arrangement. I wasn’t safe. We weren’t likely to make it. And if I failed, I would not be seeing Earth again.
As I tried to come to terms with this new reality, I realized I had been squeezing his hand as well.