Saved by the Beast (Kindred Tales)

Makenna came at once, clutching her torn gown closed with one hand. Her other hand was planted firmly on Tiny’s back. Just as he had thought, the Ya’greer’s head was higher than hers when both were standing, even though Tiny was on all fours. She looked more like a girl with a pet horse than a pet dog, Bard thought distractedly.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly, hoping she wasn’t thinking what an old lecher he was. “Uh, do you want some food?” Seeing her look of incomprehension, he rephrased it. “Makenna eat? Eat?” he repeated and pointed to the food and then to his mouth.

Understanding broke over her lovely face.

“Eat! Eat!” she said, nodding rapidly. “Makenna eat good.”

She put a hand to her belly, which had the unfortunate effect of letting her gown gape open at the top, showing her full, ripe breasts.

Just as before when she was sitting on his lap, she barely seemed to notice that she was exposed. Bard looked away quickly, willing himself not to get hard at the sight of her firm young flesh.

“Eat,” he said again and pointed to a chair. “Sit. Eat.”

Makenna climbed obediently into the chair—and she really did have to climb. All the furniture in his suite was built to accommodate a male his size, not a petite female. When she was seated, her feet swung inches above the floor and the tabletop reached just above her chest.

Well, at least it hides her breasts, Bard thought to himself. He started dishing things onto a plate for her, giving her some plochnick stew from his own home world of Rageron as well as some of the other food which was Earth cuisine called “cheeseburger and French fries.”

He had cut the cheeseburger in two and he gave her half, along with half of the crispy, salty fries. It was one of the Earth foods he liked the most himself, so he had a stack of meal cubes that contained it.

Makenna seemed to enjoy it as well, especially the crispy French fries. She ate every one, though she only nibbled at her half of the cheeseburger and the purple stew.

“You done?” Bard asked her, when she sat back from the table. “Uh…full?” he asked, putting a hand to his own flat stomach and raising his eyebrows when she frowned in confusion.

“Oh…full.” She nodded and put a hand on her own belly. “Makenna full.”

“Good. Well, I have one more thing for you.”

Bard pulled the pouch containing the translation pill out of his pocket and opened it up. He shook the large, pink pill out into his palm and reached across the table, offering it to her.

When she looked at it uncertainly, he offered it more insistently.

“Makenna eat,” he said. “Makenna eat.”

Tentatively, she picked up the pink pill—which looked even bigger in her small hand—and put it between her lips. Then, before Bard could stop her, she bit it in half.

“No, wait—” he started, but she had already crunched up the first half and was making a face.

Quickly, she picked up her water glass and took several deep drinks, presumably to wash the bitter taste of the medicine away.

“Not,” she said firmly, putting the second half of the pill on the side of her plate by the barely touched cheeseburger.

“Shit,” Bard muttered. Now what was he supposed to do? Would half the pill do her any good or did she have to take the full dose for it to work? “Makenna eat?” he tried again, pointing at the other half of the chalky pink pill.

She shook her head.

“Not,” she said politely but firmly. “Makenna not eat.”

Bard sighed. Well, so much for that. He supposed he would have to wait and see if half of the translation pill did any good. In the meantime, she must be tired and would probably want to get cleaned up. The least he could do was offer her a shower and a change of clothes before he tried bringing her back to the Med Center. Of course, he didn’t have anything that was her size but she could wear one of his shirts. She was so small, it would probably fit her like a dress.

He rose from the table and she rose with him and helped him clear the table, smiling hopefully at him as she did so.

“You don’t have to do that—you’re my guest,” Bard tried to tell her, but she only shook her head and smiled some more as she followed him to the meal prep area—what the humans called a kitchen—with the dirty dishes.

After that, she followed him to the fresher. Bard was just about to show her the shower and try to explain how it worked, but then she saw the bathing pool.

Every Kindred suite in the Mother Ship had been built with both pleasure and comfort in mind, so they all had a fireplace and a bathing pool. The pools were set into the floor and were much larger than the human vessel called a bathtub. They could easily accommodate two people, even when one of them was as big as a Kindred warrior.