"It's what they are. I'll tell you about it soon, I promise."
"Lissa Beth, why do I get the idea there's more here than even I suspect?" He pulled my head against his shoulder.
"Because you're a smart man," My voice was muffled against his vest.
"Have dinner with me in your suite."
"All right. You just want me to feed you, don't you?" I pulled away to watch his face.
"You know it." A cheeky grin followed that remark.
"What are we having?"
"Lamb, I think."
"I hope it's cooked."
"It is."
"Good."
* * *
"Honey, I don't know that you can swallow this. Let me take it off the bone, first." Norian, in his lion snake persona, was impatiently waiting for me to feed him. I tore off pieces of tender lamb and fed him by hand. He kept his fangs back and ate what I offered. He was also dipping his forked tongue in a wineglass.
"What am I supposed to do with an inebriated snake?" I asked. He was getting into the wine pretty good. When he was finished eating and drinking, he draped himself over my shoulder while I ate.
"You're not finished already?" I'd pushed my plate away and now had a naked Norian Keef draped over my shoulder. His arms came around me as he kissed the side of my neck.
"I'm not very hungry," I said, attempting to shrug away from his embrace.
"Yes you are," he coaxed. He moved around until he was sitting on the small table I had inside my suite. I had to avert my eyes from certain parts of him. "I can feed you," he offered.
"Norian."
"Lissa Beth. Breah-mul. Cheah-mul. Deah-mul. If I don't take you back to Le-Ath Veronis in excellent health, all the people waiting for your return will have my head."
"I wouldn't want to be the one trying to take it," I answered honestly.
"Come on, eat a little more. Then I want to sleep with you."
"Uh-huh."
"You know I do. And sleeping isn't all I want to do." He was back to kissing my neck and trying to unbutton my blouse.
"What if I'm not ready?"
"I'll get you there."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"I know." His breath fanned my temple as he deftly unbraided my hair. "I think I'll have to feed you later." He had a hand on a breast, pushing my bra aside and stroking a nipple.
"Norian?"
"What, love?"
"If you're already undressed, what am I supposed to do?"
"Play with this." He placed my hand himself and kept on kissing.
* * *
What do you say when your Ra'Ak host is there, smiling as if he'd won the lottery the following morning at breakfast? Hi, how are you? Yes, we fooled around? Norian was piling a plate with food and shoving it in front of me.
"Honey, I can't eat all that," I protested.
"You didn't finish your dinner last night."
"I was hoping you'd forget."
"Lissa Beth."
"Norian."
Ildevar Wyyld faded from the room like a shadow at twilight. Norian was kissing me between feeding me rolls and bits of ham. He turned, allowing his clothes to drop away, and I was feeding him. He loved being hand-fed in his lion snake form. I wondered if that went back to his childhood, somehow. Did his mother feed him like that? Maybe I'd check on it, if I could get Norian to answer questions. I ran fingers over his head and down his body. He really liked that.
We were interrupted moments later by mindspeech from Lendill. We know how Trell was destroyed—it was a Ranos Cannon, held by the Liffelithi, he sent. The Agency located their ship as it was leaving the Alliance, and we have coordinates. Norian turned in a blink, and I was standing, ready to go. Norian dressed quickly, and Lendill joined us in seconds.
"Are we going?" Lendill asked. He was ready to go; I saw that right away. He had a weapons belt strapped around him and looked to be all business.
"Let's go," Norian nodded to me. We went.
* * *
The Ranos Cannon was carried inside a monster-sized ship, which was making its way toward Liffel as quickly as it could. The ASD had located the ship as it was speeding toward home, and I'd folded us to it after Lendill showed me where it was on his handheld. The three of us stood inside the ship's cargo hold, which had been renovated to contain the nastiest weapon ever.
While we stared up at the huge cannon that could obliterate an entire planet in seconds, Norian explained conversationally that there was an old saying about Liffel—that two Liffelithi couldn't get along for more than two ticks. After that, they were enemies, until other enemies came along.
Lendill then did his best to describe ranos technology to me—how it worked, who'd invented it—all sorts of things. I was only interested in one thing, though. I was about to take it apart. Then we'd deal with the ones who'd blown Trell to bits. As it was, the ship's sensors had finally discovered us and sirens were going off everywhere—that meant the security team was on its way. I had the three of us shielded quickly and was prepared to turn to mist if necessary.
Shots were fired initially as a horde of Liffelithi dwarves descended on us, but the laser blasts were ricocheting off my shield and bouncing into the hull, which didn't do it any good, actually. I was proud of Norian and Lendill—they hadn't drawn a weapon and stood calmly beside me, cool as the proverbial pre-pickled vegetable while chaos occurred outside my shield.
Somebody was shouting for weapon-toting dwarves to stop shooting in less than a minute. I watched the one who'd shouted the command—a rather short Liffelithi dwarf, wearing a very large hat. Napoleon came to mind as he swaggered toward the perimeter of my shield and poked it with a finger. Norian glared at him as I moved to the inside of my shield, standing opposite the captain.
"Can you hear me?" Napoleon poked my shield again.
"I hear you, all right," I said, crossing arms over my chest.
"Good. Come out of there, give yourselves up and we'll consider allowing you to live."
"I could say the same to you, except I don't want to lie," I told him. "I don't intend to let you live."
"I don't know what's holding this shield up, but it has to run out of power eventually," Napoleon said while running his hands across the invisible barrier. "We'll have you then, and since we're being truthful, you won't live either." His teeth were good—I saw that when he offered a nasty grin.
"Well, gee, that's too bad, huh?" I snapped. "Before I kill you, I want to know who's behind the Trell massacre. Go ahead; tell me it was Black Mist." I somehow had the idea that Black Mist had provided protection or shields on the way in, and then canceled their efforts on the way out. It was a signature move for them.