Tales of the Adjaran: Kam and Dak

By Jory Strong

On the harsh desert planet of Adjara, Kam and Dak have little hope of acquiring a mate—until Naya arrives with her brother. Thinking she and Warrick are smugglers, they agree to a bargain.

But Naya is no smuggler, and she’ll do anything to save her brother’s life—including surrendering herself to Dak and Kam. But in trading her freedom for her brother’s health and escape from Adjara, she might well cost her two lovers everything they value.

Bonus content! Included with this novella-length story are previously published short stories Passion’s Song (Ellora’s Cave, Jewels of the Nile III anthology) and The Joining (Ellora’s Cave, Dreams of the Oasis I anthology). Please be aware that both short stories include male-male sexual interaction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jory Strong
• Release date: Aug 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370249671

Jory Strong

Jory Strong has been writing since childhood and has never outgrown being a daydreamer. When she's not hunched over her computer, lost in the muse and conjuring up new heroes and heroines, she can usually be found reading, riding horses, or walking dogs. Her stories have won numerous awards, as well as been national best sellers. She lives in California with her husband and a menagerie of pets. She loves hearing from readers. Visit her website at jorystrong.com or contact her at [e-mail].

Book preview

Tales of the Adjaran: Kam and Dak

Jory Strong

Tales of the Adjaran: Kam and Dak, Copyright 2016 by Jory Strong

Passion's Song, Copyright 2008 by Jory Strong

The Joining, Copyright 2006 by Jory Strong

Smashwords Edition

Thanks to Jennifer Kiziah for helping me make this the best story it could be!

Cover design by Syneca Featherstone

* * * * *

Table of Contents

Kam and Dak

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Passion’s Song

The Joining

About the Author

* * * * *

Chapter 1

Naya Summers placed the last of the small emeralds into a polished wooden box bearing the king's crest. She glanced around the tiny white room, checked beneath the workbench to be sure she hadn't missed a stone, then pressed the button that would summon the guards.

In the windowless room, it was impossible to tell how long it had taken to get through the pile of stones that'd been waiting when she arrived at building seven of the king's gem ministry. More and more often, each work shift felt as though it lasted an eternity.

She rubbed exhausted eyes with fingers that ached. Not a single emerald had been large enough, perfect enough when cut and polished to go to one of the king's treasure rooms. But for her, for the people she'd grown up among, any one of the gems would buy several weeks of food and shelter in Rendolo, the capital city of Vawter.

With a handful of the stones, she and her brother could live for two dozen moon cycles without worry about survival. And for the contents of the box itself, a cure could be had.

Maybe.

They'd have to find someone they could trust. And even then, the tampvata root that was Warrick's only hope would probably be counterfeit.

At the sound of heavy-booted footsteps approaching the workroom, Naya wiped suddenly damp palms against her white uniform. She fisted her hands then forced them to open and relax at her sides.

With a click, the door unlocked. She faced it, wanted nothing more than to get what would come next over with so she could get home.

The door swung open, revealing the leering face of the worst of the guards. He was a brute with large, rough hands and no neck.

She steeled herself not to react. Reminded herself that now, more than ever, she needed to contain the revulsion so she wouldn't be delayed.

The second guard was a beak-nosed man with a small mouth and jagged teeth. If she were big-breasted, he'd insist a second search was needed just to be thorough. But because she wasn't, he scratched his chest rather than enter the room where three steps would take him to the box.

The guard she loathed undressed her with his eyes then waved her forward, forcing her to come to him. She complied and the musky scent of his lust engulfed her like the rancid smell of meat that'd hung too long on the butcher's hooks.

She opened her mouth before he could painfully squeeze her jaw and force it open for an inspection. Heavy hands landed on her shoulders then groped downward.

Thick, rough fingers clamped onto her nipples. She stared at the ceiling but felt his gaze on her, willing her to look at his face and see the carnal fantasies scrolling through his eyes, to watch his lips part and his slug-like tongue emerge and trail across his mouth in a slimy swipe. She felt him willing her to whimper and cry out, though he didn't care whether it was with desire or pain.

Only the need to get home, to assure herself that Warrick hadn't gotten worse as she worked gave her the strength to endure the guard's stench and his hands on her body.

The second guard finally sauntered past, checking his stride and taking seven steps instead of three. The box on her work station would go to a counting station manned by other servants of the crown.

Two people would count the emeralds it contained, neither of them knowing if they were the first to count, or the second. Their tallies would be compared to the number entered into a journal kept locked in the overseer's office. Any discrepancy and the King's Justice would be summoned.

She shuddered and the guard pawing her swept his hands downward over the white uniform that added to the impossibility of smuggling gems from the building. He thrust a hand between her legs, prodded at her opening but was prevented from raping her with his fingers by the tight fit of the uniform.

It was the only time she was grateful to be wearing an outfit that was one piece, ending at her ankles and wrists with a sturdy zipper at the back, its tab part of a clasp that required the attendant stationed in the bathroom to unfasten.

He wasn't the first of the king's men to take liberties with her body. She'd endured similar groping with great frequency since she turned twelve and the testing revealed her talent for looking at raw stones and seeing how they might be transformed into beautiful gems.

Die, she willed as the brutish guard repeatedly ground his fingers against the fabric shielding her sex. Hate and fury rose with each of his prods, making it nearly impossible to pretend to be unaffected by the mauling.

How was it fair that men like this one held a higher station, never worried about food and shelter, lived in fine health while her brother had been struck down? How was it fair?

It wasn't. But then life wasn't fair. At ten she'd learned that stark truth when the King's Bailiff and his men had come for her parents and taken them to the spaceport.

That memory of her parents haunted her. The terrible things that might have happened to them in the time since they were sold into indentured servitude were a crushing weight.

The guard with jagged teeth lifted the box and returned to the doorway. Repulsive hands dropped away from her body, the violation over though it would invade her sleep as a nightmare.

Outside the workroom, the box was placed on a conveyor belt in the center of the hallway and responsibility for her was turned over to a boy of twelve or thirteen, one of the guardsmen in training

In silence he escorted her down endless white hallways. Her uniform matched the walls, proclaimed that inside this building she wasn't an individual, wasn't even a person in the eyes of the king. She was a tool, an interchangeable, movable element in one of the places where his gems were cut and graded.

Like the guards that'd entered her cubicle, the boy wore purple trimmed in royal blue. The king's crest was emblazoned above his heart and already there was an arrogance about him, a sneer marring what might otherwise have been a handsome face. You're nobody, his silence said. Less than nobody.

Reaching the building's front room, the guard-in-training unlocked the door, then relocked it once she'd passed through the doorway.

Shoes lay in piles along the walls. She found the pair she'd worn to work, slipped them on and left the building that felt like a prison.

Some of the ever-present tightness in her chest eased. She breathed deeply, taking in the scent of freedom, her eyes lifting to the sky.

When she was younger she'd look at the distant planets and hope her parents were alive, their debt worked off. She'd dream they were accumulating wealth, enough of it to one day send for her and Warrick.

But now…

Her gaze went directly to one planet. Adjara.

That one planet had become the focus of all her hope, all her fear.

In another week she'd be paid for her work for the last four-moon-cycle and be allowed a short break. She and Warrick could sneak onto Adjara then, and search for the tampvata root.

There was no choice but to go to that forbidden, inhospitable world. But if she and Warrick were caught—

We won't be.

But if you are? A silent voice persisted.

She had no answer, except to believe that somehow, someway she could trade herself for Warrick's health and freedom.

The men on that closed world were said to live in fierce, warring tribes, to fight with short, curved sabers and knives so often that their bodies, including their faces, were left scarred. And though they rarely traveled to other planets, when they did leave their world to trade gems and race horses, they wore headdresses and long robes that hid everything but their eyes and hands.

Naya shivered. It was also said that when the Adjarans returned to their planet, they took women with them, and those women were never seen or heard from again.

It doesn't matter.

There are worse fates than enduring a man's touch, she whispered. Much worse.

Watching Warrick grow more hopeless and helpless was one of those fates. Coming home from work to discover that he'd killed himself or turned himself over to the crown for termination, that would be far worse than ending up the possession of an Adjaran man.

If cruel, then that man's scarred features would merely be a reflection of who he was on the inside. And if kind, his inner beauty would shine through and maybe, maybe one day there'd be love, children…

She didn't let herself continue that line of thought. That future didn't belong to her, not yet and maybe not ever.

She alternated between walking fast and running, the need to get home growing more intense with each step.

Her chest tightened. Dread built and she felt as if she was racing time.

She was out of breath when she reached the four-room shack crammed among equally small shacks. She went inside, the tightness in her chest easing at seeing her brother sitting on a thread-bare green couch.

Tattered electrical manuals were on the cushion next to him. Spaceship wiring diagrams were spread out on the floor in front of him.

I solved the problem! he said. It'll be an easy fix.

She regained more of her breath, answered his excitement with a smile. I knew you would.

He lifted the manuals and set them on top of the wiring diagrams, then patted the sofa cushion. Where she was blonde, blue eyed and small, he was brown-haired, tall and broad-shouldered, well muscled and handsome enough to turn heads, not that he cared about attracting female attention now that he intended to marry Calla.

At least the disease hadn't taken Calla from him, Naya thought.

If Warrick would agree to the ceremony, Calla would marry him immediately, even knowing she might soon be a widow. She loved him enough to sell everything of value, trusted in a future together enough to turn those funds over to him so he could buy and repair a junked spacecraft.

Naya dropped onto the couch. She leaned into Warrick's warmth.

So much had been taken from him, starting when he was fifteen and their parents were sold into servitude. He'd given up his chance to escape Vawter so he could take care of her. Otherwise, she'd have become one of the king's wards when she was ten-years-old, and that was often a fate worse than death.

Warrick's arm went around her shoulders. Want me to get you something to eat?

The question made her aware of the hollow emptiness of her stomach. Anxious to get through the gems left on her workstation, she'd skipped eating though meals were provided because there was money to be made in taking the cost out of wages instead of paying guards to search lunch baskets coming in and out of the building.

In a minute, she said, content to be home.

All quiet at work?

Yes.

Good. His arm tightened across her shoulders. They caught one of the king's wards at the spaceport today. He'd snuck onto a ship from Iyon and was cutting diamonds.

She shuddered. What was the punishment?

A public lashing. They did it right there, near the food court. He passed out at fifteen strikes but the King's Justice continued whipping him until no skin remained from his shoulders to his knees.

He must be a high talent. In addition to being male.

The king liked making examples. His favorite for someone with an ability to work gems, someone who could only work legally for the crown, was to cut off a hand.

High-talented, or just very, very lucky, Warrick said.

Naya shivered. She wouldn't want to rely on luck or the king's mercy. Is Calla coming over?

No. She went to Meinzer with her father.

She's in trouble?

Warrick sighed. You know he doesn't approve of our relationship. It's his way of keeping us apart.

He'll change his mind when you're well. She couldn't allow herself to believe that he wouldn't get well.

They would go to Adjara. They would find the root. They—or at least Warrick—would return to Vawter. And then—

Across her shoulders, her brother's arm went suddenly rigid and her heart thump, thump, thumped its way into her throat, lodging there as a pulsating ache.

She held her breath, silently counted, silently willed the rigid muscles along Warrick's arm to relax.

Instead he gasped.

His back arched.

Fear freed her breath, speeding her inhalations.

He began to shake like an old spacecraft engine.

He gasped again. And again.

His arm left her shoulders. His hands went to his throat, his chest. He clawed. His eyes rolled and her fear turned into terror.

He couldn't breathe!

He couldn't breathe!

Naya scrambled to her feet and pushed Warrick onto his back. She pressed her palms against his chest, thinking to work his lungs like a bellows.

His chest didn't yield. Beneath her hands, solid muscle had become rock.

She knelt on the couch. Touched a knee to his chest and pressed down with the majority of her weight.

There was a little give, not much.

She put a foot on the floor and used it to push upward, so she could bring her knee down on his chest with more force.

Lift. Press.

Lift. Press.

Lift. Press.

His chest gave a little with each jab of her knee but his lips slowly turned blue.

No! No!

This couldn't be happening.

Not now!

Not now!

Please, she whispered. Please don't die.

Tears dripped onto his shirt.

Her brother stopped moving.

The trembling ceased.

A heartbeat passed. A second one.

His muscles relaxed.

Frantically she pressed her palms against his chest but couldn't tell if his heart was still beating.

She compressed, released.

Compressed, released.

Over and over. She compressed, released.

Please! Please! Not this! Anything but this!

An eternity passed.

He gasped.

Gasped again.

Gasped a third time and opened his eyes.

Okay, he said, his voice raw, hoarse. I'm okay.

But