Happy first day of July! Karenna Colcroft interviews Kimber Vale today here, where they discuss sushi, alcohol, wingdings, and M/M romance.
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Here’s an early excerpt from Moro’s Price, picking up after the last one, as Val and Moro begin to set the parameters of their, ah, experiment…
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The youth winced. “I know. The worst pickup line ever. But you’d have an almost perfect chance of infection and very low odds of survival. Patrona Cama’s picky. Maybe one in ten thousand outsiders passes her tests. Few of them try anymore.”
Another silent glare from Dogleash made the boy snort.
“What’s in it for me? Are you dim? Just my luck, you’re beautiful and you want to die. I haven’t had a real lover for six years. No human dares on this damned planet. None of them want to chance death from even a kiss. And it’s not like my own kind want to get near me!”
Dogleash gripped the youth’s upper arms, lifted him up, and moved him to one side. Owl-boy was heavier than he looked.
“Wait! Don’t you understand? I’m Camalian,” said the youth.
The thugs had called him “demon spawn” and “elf-whelp.” His spit turned to fire, his blood to poison. What was he?
The youth exhaled a deep sigh. Then he said quickly, “My people carry a sentient colonial symbiont that gives us, er, certain abilities. We can pass it on to non-Camalians. Most often it kills. Sometimes it claims. But if it claims you, you’re a Camalian citizen from then on. You want to try?”
Dogleash looked down at his unlikely liberator. He’d seen the youth’s earlier slyness, had known then what the cost of help would be: Dogleash’s damaged body.
“Look,” said the Camalian. “I promise not to be cruel, not like what’s already been done to you. I just want to touch another human being for an hour or two. You wanted suicide? A few seconds after you die from this, every cell in your body will burn apart to its component atoms.”
Dogleash glared at him, insulted. The fiery spit had been some chemistry trick after all.
“No trick. Watch.” Owl-boy reached up and pulled a hair from the blond forelock half hiding his face. “When it remains within range of its Camalian host, the symbiont is stable.” He turned, his eyes catching the lamp glow when he glanced over his shoulder at Dogleash. Walking backward toward the gladiator, the Camalian opened his hand.
The glittering wisp fell. Tiny gold sparks kindled along its lower edge and flared up in another rush of snuffed-out stars. Not even ash hit the rooftop.
“If they’d killed me, it would have been the same. Just bigger. Maybe a scorch mark on the roof,” said Owl-boy. “No one can bring you back from Cama’s Fire. On the rare chance you survive, you won’t be a slave. You’ll belong to yourself and Cama, and she’s an easy mistress. If you still want to walk off a roof afterward, I won’t stop you. I swear by Patrona Cama herself.” He held out a hand. “I’m Val.”
Dogleash considered him. The youth was rich and beautiful, and probably too inexperienced and high-strung to be much of a trial in bed. So what if Owl-boy lied to gain a few hours of sex? His wealth might keep Dogleash out of Lyton’s reach just long enough for the gladiator to ensure his own permanent escape. I won’t go back to Lyton, Dogleash thought.
Words were useless and just left Dogleash shaking. Words weren’t what Owl-boy wanted. So Dogleash knelt in front of him in stylized obeisance, head lowered, wrists offered up to invisible bindings. A slave’s gesture he’d not often willingly used. Most of his conquerors had had to beat him down first.
The younger man gasped.
For a moment Dogleash wondered if he’d misjudged. Then the youth’s hands gripped Dogleash’s wrists together tightly, fingernails digging into his skin. So Owl-boy knew about arena bonders and their training. Not surprising, given his location so close to the Vaclav 17 casino. Some savior, thought Dogleash. Had Owl-boy seen tonight’s matches and Dogleash’s latest humiliation? Would he recognize him?
“Do you yield to me?” Owl-boy asked, his tenor voice low and rough, his warm hands locked on Dogleash’s wrists.
“I-I-I y-yield,” said Dogleash, amazed to find his aching, exhausted body responding as much to the youth’s voice as his touch.
Owl-boy released him. “Then I claim.”
Glancing up, Dogleash saw the youth twitching a fold of his ragged gray coat around himself, trying to hide the erection pushing out his trousers. Dogleash read shame and doubt on his face.
“I-I y-yield w-with j-joy,” Dogleash said, still kneeling. “M-my ch-ch-choice, V-Val.” When Val looked back at him, incredulous, Dogleash smiled.
Val swallowed. Dogleash saw the effort the youth made as he forced his mind back to business. “We can’t stay here,” said the youth, nodding toward the two float-cycles. He rubbed his hands together as if they stung him. “This part’s easy enough,” he muttered, reaching for something on his black belt.
Dogleash knelt beside the sprawled bodies on the roof. He rifled their clothing for hard-credits, identification, or communicators. He was relieved not to see Lyton’s stylized palm-tree logo anywhere. Why had they been after Val?
Had it been ten minutes since he left Kott? Twenty? He heard nothing from the garden he could no longer see, but the ever-present wind might cover alarms. He left the bodies for the moment, walked over to the float-cycles hidden behind the turbine.
Val worked beside one. Pieces of control panel dangled from wires as he reprogrammed the vehicle.
“W-w-why t-t-target you?” Dogleash asked Val.
The youth laughed, leaning his forehead against the vehicle. “Lots of people would. I’m Camalian on a League planet and running around without my mask. I’m in Cedar University. I embarrass my family at least once a month. I drink more than I should. I have a thing for strays and lost causes. The sun rises, the galaxy spins, and more people hate me. Please don’t be one of them?” he asked, his right hand drifting out again as if unsure of its welcome. He looked up at Dogleash almost shyly.
Dogleash let himself be charmed. “I-I’m M-M-Moro. Moro.” He forced the stammer out of his name and clasped the offered hand. Val’s warmth helped calm his own shudders. Val didn’t seem to notice the jerking, shaking contact. Because it felt proper, Moro bent and kissed Val’s fingers.
I’m Moro again, he thought. I’ll live or die, as Moro!
“Moro,” said Val, huddling against the cycle and holding the kissed hand to his chest. His pale gold eyes softened, pupils wide and stunned.