The squid man kept a straight look on his face.
“No, she wouldn’t, Director,” he said. “She said she knew that my lovely wife, Channa, and I were bound to win the Trials because of me being so handsome and virile. Then she said, ‘I’ll fix it so you can’t win!’ She reached into my pants and pulled out my shaft and started washing it with that caustic stuff you Rigellens call ‘soap’ which melted my protective slime layer and put huge pits in my sensitive penile tentacle—all so I couldn’t compete in the Third Trial!”
Em could feel her outrage growing by the second, but somehow she held her tongue, knowing she would get her turn.
Rarev, however, could not hold his.
“How can you listen to this outrage and treat it as any kind of truth?” he demanded, his voice rising to a roar that shook the room. He leapt to his feet, facing the judges. “Look at the marks that bastard’s tentacles left on my female!” He pointed at the red sucker marks around Em’s lips and the red, whip-like lines around her wrists where Om’bobla’s tentacles had held her captive. “He hurt her—tried to force her! There is no greater shame for a male—he does not deserve to live! And yet you sit here, listening to his filthy lies and acting as though what he says could be true!”
“Rarev, it’s all right. I’m all right.” Em tugged at his arm. She could feel that the muscles under his silky fur had turned to iron and his golden eyes were red again—a sure sign of Rage in a Kindred warrior.
“Excuse me, Chief Commander Rarev, we will give Minister Oxley a chance to speak on her own behalf,” the Mining Director said, frowning. “But we must follow proper protocol and that means allowing all the parties involved in this case to speak.”
“Besides—anything she says about me ‘attacking’ her is false. It was she who attacked me! I am innocent—completely innocent,” Om’bobla burbled.
Em wondered if the idiot had a death wish. Couldn’t he see the way Rarev was glaring at him with murder in his eyes? As she watched, the big Monstrum made a fist and four razor sharp claws slid from their sheathes at his knuckles.
“Rarev,” she said, shaking her head. “No, please—let me handle this.” She was afraid if the big Monstrum actually went after Om’bobla during the “court” proceedings, they would both get kicked out of the Trials. “Remember why we’re here,” she told him urgently. “Remember that Earth is counting on us!”
His big body was trembling with a low, menacing growl and his claws stayed out, but slowly Rarev sat back down again. Em was glad she was able to reach him, even in his state of Rage. Though to be honest, she felt fairly murderous herself, at the lies the squid man was telling.
“All right then, if we’re ready to proceed…” The Mining Director turned to her and raised his eyebrows. “Minister Oxley, what do you have to say about this?”
Em rose from her seat and started to state her case. But before she could get out the first word, Channa exclaimed, “This is all a lie from start to finish!”
“Excuse me?” The Mining Director turned to frown at the mermaid woman, who was still in her floating water chair. “What did you say?”
“I said Om’bobla’s lying,” Channa snapped, casting a glare at her husband. “He’s always after other women, trying to seduce them or ‘stealth fuck’ them with his disgusting roving dick tentacle! He caused a disturbance at the First Meal table so he could go after Minister Oxley without her mate, Commander Rarev noticing. And once he was in there, he probably tried to fuck her—with or without her consent,” she added, with a sneer of disgust.
“What? How can you say such things about me? I’m wounded—you wound me, Channa!” Om’bobla burbled, putting a hand to his heart and widening his orange eyes dramatically.
“Because it’s exactly what you did to me!” Channa shouted at him. “And what you’ve tried to do to countless other women for years! You’ve been unfaithful to me so many times I can’t even count them all! I don’t blame Minister Oxley for melting your dick—you got exactly what you deserved!”
“Well!” The Mining Director raised his eyebrows so high they nearly met his hairline. On his chest, his slime-wife’s purple eyes were wide as well.
“What she’s saying is true,” Em said, lifting her chin and speaking loud and clear, the way she did at World Council meetings. “Om’bobla attacked me and tried to…tried to rape me.” Her voice faltered a little on the words but she cleared her throat and continued. “I repelled his attack with the only weapons available to me,” she said. “Not because I was trying to put him out of the running in the Trials, because I was defending myself in the only way I could. I have nothing further to say.”