by V. K. Ludwig
He ran a hand down his shaft, wide, flared head jerking at the touch. “You’re licking your lips.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
No, I hadn’t. Had I?
“Are you just going to stare at my cock or are you going to sit on it?” Well-conditioned muscles flexed as he placed one arm underneath his head, the wound I’d left on his stomach crusted over. “Do you remember how good it was? How I eased your pain; how you collapsed against my chest?”
My cheeks heated, and the more I denied the need sweeping through my womb, the more it melted my resistance. I stared over the handsome features of his face, that strange beard where our males were smooth, the broad shoulders, and strong legs. What he was should have repulsed me.
The enemy.
A handsome, virile enemy, making my sex weep with hunger.
“You’re a demon,” I snarled and darted my tail at him.
He slapped it away, thrust himself up into a squat, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me down onto him. “Then come here and drive it out, kuna, and perhaps, I’ll purge that constant hissing and yapping of yours.”
A strong arm wrapped around my middle and held me tight. The Vetusian pulled me off him just as he lifted himself up, flipping me onto my stomach before his weight pressed me into the webbing of my nabu.
“Do you believe I’m not torn?” he murmured, pinning my tail underneath his shins while he fumbled the leathers between my legs aside. “What makes the pain go away, kuna? Tell me, hmm? What makes it better?”
Your seed, my mind screamed.
His cock nudged my entrance, slick with lust. He lowered his weight down, disabling all fight, lips brushing over the shell of my ear.
“Go on, take from me. You have no honor, anyway.”
“Females who strike and claw don’t deserve such an indulgence,” he growled, hand gripping my hip as he held me still. “I won’t rape you, kuna, but I promise if you don’t invite me in and beg for my seed, I will feed your pain. I will spill my seed on your breasts, your stomach, and wherever else it won’t bring you relief. Until you beg.”
His words ripped a whimper from me, and even that came vibrating low with need. A need that increased with each second my body had this male pressed against it. A male who offered respite, no matter how temporary.
I clenched my eyes shut, ignoring the foreboding tightness inside my chest. “Do it.”
“Nobody orders me, kuna.” And as if to prove it, he rolled his hips, wetted his head on my sex, but offered no advance. “You choked me, clawed me, cut me, scratched me, used my body, robbed my seed, and then pushed me into the water. Now, you’ll beg.”
I hissed, tossing until the webbing of my nabu seared into my shoulder. “Deny me, and—”
“You’re not in a position to threaten me, kuna; although, I will confess that it gets me harder than I’ve ever been before. Beg!”
“No!”
“Your pride be damned,” he growled by my ear. “If you won’t give me your desperation, give me your name instead.”
“Naney.”
“It’s true, then.” He tortured me with long moments of silence, fingers playing with my braids before he breathed, “Naney.”
A careful roll of his hips and he entered me, stretching me almost painfully, though he kept his movements slow, gentle even. “Open for me, Naney.”
His breath caressed my neck, calloused hand stroking up and down my side. Thrusts deepened, the upward motion of his hips when he retreated robbed me of my breath, stole my resistance.
“Yenakta kuna,” he moaned in accented Yalut. Beautiful female. “Do you find release as I do?”
I was moments from it. “No!”
“Your lies would be harder to detect if you quit barking them.”
He focused on his consistent rhythm, and my sex flooded with tingling heat. I sensed my peak tightening my womb with each stroke. When it shuddered through me, the Vetusian groaned in pleasure.
“That’s it,” he rasped. “Such a nice cunt clasping my cock so tightly. I want to enjoy this for as long as I can, but I won’t ask for it if your pain is too severe.”
What an odd concession for one who slaughtered my kind. “Your seed is all I need.”
“For now.”
Arrogant prick.
His lips suckled my neck, cock pounding hard and insistent until first tingles betrayed the pleasure I refused to acknowledge. But it persisted, showing itself in pebbled skin, hard nipples, and my moans putting the howls of nearby beasts to rest.
“I could do this every night if you would just quit being so stubborn,” he whispered, his throbbing cock stalling for a moment before his thrusts continued. “Could ease your pain as you go through this heat. Nobody will know.”
“I will know,” I snapped, except that it came out a moan.
His hand slipped underneath my chest covering, kneading my breast while his tongue licked between my shoulder blades until my muscles contracted. Too many suns of agonizing pain rippled through me.
So many chants.
So many prayers.
Instead of Mekara’s guiding hum, I heard him panting against my ear.
“The price you pay for the ability to kill me.” He grunted each time he fucked me to the hilt. “You won’t ever best me as long as a kick to your stomach disables you as it did that night. Let me make you better. And once you are, kill me.”
I braced my knees against my nabu and lifted my pelvis, grinding against him as much as his weight allowed. “Do you have a wish to die, Vetusian?”
If he sucked in a breath to confirm or deny it, I would never find out, because he released the air as he released his seed. Spurt after spurt, he calmed my womb, sated my hunger, and pacified my body. What a twist of fate for this Vetusian to offer what Mekara had denied.
He grabbed me and rolled us onto our sides, the nabu only slightly swinging against the weight of two bodies still joined.
“A sun ago, I rode south.” His fingers ran along my braids.
I swatted behind me. “Don’t touch!”
But he only chuckled, as if amused by my reaction. And no matter how often I turned my head, bumped my horns against his temple, or swatted at his hands, he continued. Almost as if he didn’t care how I reacted as long as I did.
“I rode south,” he repeated. “Your sun cast down strikes of bright purple, which swirled up the ash, like a gray cone veined with fire. It was absolutely—”
“I don’t care what you saw.”
Clinging to the webbing of my nabu, I wrapped my tail around the branch above us and tugged. The Vetusian rolled to the edge, flailed his limbs, and hit the ground.
Thud.
“Go home, Vetusian.”
Naked and splayed, he stared up at me.
And smiled?
“Very well, Naney.” He rolled onto all fours with a groan. “I will return—”
Flares of light blinded my eyes.
A deafening roar followed, which shook my nabu and the branches holding it. Sudden heat licked the nape of my neck. A glance over my shoulder, and fear gripped me tight at the sight of purple flames devouring the foliage.
“Get out of that tree, Naney!” the Vetusian shouted, his spine straight, his arms wide open. “Jump! I’ll catch you.”
My eyes flicked between where a heat flare must have struck the tree and the male who was my enemy.
I tossed his chest holster to the ground.
Then, I jumped into his arms.
Seven
Naney
The moment my chest collided with the Vetusian’s, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me tightly against him. “Shh… I have you.”
After he grabbed his chest holster from the ground, he slipped us into the yoni. The cold emanating from the stone offered immediate relief from the hot lick of the flames roaring outside.
He lowered me to the ground and dropped his harness. “What was that? Ragna?”
“Heat flares.” I slowly cr
ept toward the fissure and stared at the chaos raging outside, my shoulders jerking with each thundering strike that shook the ground as branches broke off and rained down. “They will ravage the area until Mekara restores the balance.”
“How long will it last?”
“Hours, suns, moons.” I shrugged and retreated deeper into the yoni, my limbs heavy from how Mekara refused me answers. “We’re stuck here because of you.”
“Because of me?” He lifted his arms before he let them drop noisily against his naked thighs, the male once more bare, his uniform likely ablaze. “Believe me, the last thing I wanted was to get stuck with a Jal’zar female out to kill me now that her tummy ache is gone.”
I scooted along the rock wall to the spot farthest away from him and sunk to the ground. “Mekara is enraged over what we’ve done.”
The Vetusian claimed the boulder across from me, his colorless eyes narrowing on me. “Shouldn’t she strike us dead then, instead of locking us in this cave together?”
His words took me aback, and I suppressed a flinch. For some reason, Mekara kept bringing this Vetusian into my life. Why would she chase me into the arms of my enemy?
“Perhaps she wants us to settle this once and for all,” I said. “See whose corpse will stink up this yoni by morning.”
He pulled one leg up, bracing his sole against the boulder, his flaccid cock on full display. “You should know, kuna, being a shaman and all.”
Chips of bones clanked on my chest covering as an old crack of grief opened beneath my ribs. White hair, purple eyes. I had the look of a shaman, yes, but I was not.
Not anymore.
“Who told you this?”
He wiped his hand along his length, brought it to his face, and smelled the remnants of my wet lust. “A few nights ago, a young warrior snuck around the yoni in search of you.” There was a twitch on his upper lip before he added, “He told me many things.”
My pulse quickened and an itch formed along one side of my neck. “Did you kill him?”
“No.”
He should have.
Dead warriors spilled no secrets.
I’d heard about how Vetusians tortured our males, ripping information from them one fang at a time. Several groups of young males hid across the north, waiting for an opportunity to travel to the city Noja under the cover of storms. They would never reach the spaceport if the Vetusians learned their locations.
“Did he escape?” I asked.
His jawline tensed. “He said he wanted to chase you down.”
“So, you captured him?”
“Stab you with his tailclaw and claim you as his.”
A nervous energy coursed through my limbs at how he ignored my questions. “What’s his name? Are you holding him captive?”
“You seem rather interested in him,” he growled. “Do you want him to claim you?”
For a moment, something dark came over the Vetusian’s face. Even from a distance, I could tell his nostrils flared. Aggression rolled off him, zapping the air between us. Did the idea of a male claiming me bother him? Why? What was I to him but a hole to slake his lust?
“What my mind wants matters little to my body when I’m in heat.” My eyes flicked to his cock, and I shuddered at the memory of how my screams of pleasure had scared even the ushtis away. “My womb lusts for his seed to calm my heat.”
“His seed?” He muttered something underneath his breath and inwardly shook his head. “You seemed plenty calm with my seed dripping from your cunt.”
My muscles tightened in an instant, and I shot to my feet, my tail flicking behind me. “If it was not for the war you brought to my home, I wouldn’t need that foul seed of yours!”
“There she goes yapping again.” He pushed himself off the boulder, rolling his shoulders as each stride of his long legs shrank the distance between us. “Does that stop once I spill into your mouth? Because I’m getting the feeling that I’ve used the wrong hole.”
I gave a warning hiss. “Don’t come near me or I will—”
“What? Kill me? Fuck me? Both at the same time? Your hormonal antics are getting on my nerves.”
His hand shot forward.
Pain seared my arm.
“You better guard your words, Naney, because we Vetusians are a weird bunch,” he said. “Has it crossed your mind that each of your death threats might actually turn me on?”
I stabbed my tailclaw into his upper arm, forcing him to release his grip. He grunted in pain and eyes burning with rage snapped to me. His chest seemed to swell even more, if that was possible, and thick veins lined where anger pumped underneath his skin.
His foot lifted.
He aimed at my tail.
A sidestep bought distance from his massive form, and I dodged how he swung his leg at my ankle to rip the ground out from underneath me.
But he was relentless and faster than one might expect from a male of his stature, and he dug his fingers into my braids. He yanked me to him, his breath a menacing snort against my earlobe.
“Before this night is over, I’ll jerk off into your mouth until you choke on that foul seed. Then I’ll gag you with your own tail.” A tail he snatched with a grin the moment I thrust it at him, all my weapons disabled. “And once I’ve done that, I’ll fuck you until you pass out and finally shut that hateful mouth of yours.”
Whatever rage coursed through my veins clotted at the fear mixing into it. Scalp strained underneath fraying braids, tailclaw numbing between his tight grip, skin pebbling against his hard breaths…
Had I ever stood a chance to kill him?
The question roused a torturous moan from me. My nipples hardened the tighter he held me, the longer he dominated me. Nothing but instincts that fooled me into thinking he was a male of my kind who’d chased me, strong and worthy of the claim. Not once had he made use of that armor I knew waited beneath his skin, yet here I was, once more, defeated.
He clasped the base of my neck between his teeth. By Mekara, the way they clamped down on the side of my neck… He broke no skin, yet he made certain it hurt. The pain excited me, and my core hummed at the thought of a male who would rut me through this damn heat.
Would he bite and leave a mark?
Was that how his kind claimed a female?
It didn’t matter.
He did none of it.
Instead, he pushed me to the ground, right beside his chest holster. “Our scholars keep preaching about how we need to be gentle with our females once we have them. With you, I’m not certain that’s the case.”
He brought my tail to my horn and clasped both tightly. His other hand pulled a gun and knife from the leather strapping, which he used to tie me up. It burned into my wrists as he brought my hands behind my back and competently worked my tail into the knot.
Parched and aching, my throat scraped all fight from my voice. “You should have killed me that night in the yoni.”
“Think of us whatever you wish, but we’re not so honorless that we kill innocent females and children. We might be occupying this planet, yes, but we have protected many others.” He picked me up and carried my bound body toward the wall, where he carefully placed me onto my side, shoulders propped against the rock. “I will defend myself. I will tie you up and gag you. If the time ever comes when one of us has to die, it will be me.”
I couldn’t help but stare at this male. How could he come to my home and pull the trigger on fathers, brothers, sons? Then use those same hands to kill the ushtis, catch me from an inferno… tuck a stray braid behind my ear?
None of this made sense.
All of it confused me.
I tensed when he kneeled beside me, his fingers working the laces of my leather covering. “What are you doing?”
With one tug, he lay my sex bare. “Staying alive. For now.”
Looming over me, he tied one end of the leather around my horn. The other, he strapped to the knot behind my back, shattering all chances at ramming.
Resis
tance futile, I relaxed my muscles to take the strain off my body. He’d bested me with no true effort, which meant he could have done it sooner. I was at the mercy of my heat and now, also of my enemy.
An atrocious combination.
He searched for my gaze and once he found it, let his eyes guide mine to where his hand prodded my knees apart. “Twice, we’ve coupled. Not once have I truly seen you. Let me see you, Naney.”
His fingers climbed my inner thigh, sending flickers into my womb that shamed me deeply. Without a single cramp plaguing me, what excuse did I have to react to his touch?
“You have no hair down there.” He crouched between my legs, head angling this way and that while his fingertips grazed my pubic bone. “All smooth skin. One set of labia. How did I make you peak?” I must have bared my fangs because he tsked. “Uh-uh, don’t deny it. Your cunt squeezed my cock so tightly, it was almost painful.”
“Our males have a knot that swells... mmm…”
He dipped his finger inside me, letting my thick cream smack before he added another and stroked deeper. “Don’t care about your males. Whatever it is, I’m doing something right. I’m just wondering where… Ah, I believe there it is.” His fingers curled, raking over a spot that sent tendrils of pleasure across my body — one I sometimes touched when I was alone. “How does this feel? Good?”
I didn’t dare shake my head lest I would somehow nod, betraying everything and everyone that was dear to me, just like my body betrayed me.
“Your clitoris is on the inside,” he whispered against my cunt as the tip of his tongue trailed around his knuckles. “They teach us these things, you know. In preparation for our females on Earth.”
His comment pricked me somewhere. “Pack your things and go to Earth then, Vetusian. Leave us be.”
He pulled his fingers from my sex. They glistened with my cream and remnants of his seed, which he stroked over my lips. When I made no attempt at tasting it, he dipped down. He suckled my lower lip between his and groaned, but it turned into a low chuckle when he jerked away from my bite.
“Try that again and I’ll placate you with another load of my cum.” His warning purred across the shell of my ear. “Have you ever been with another male before me?”
