His Human Bride

by Anne Bordeaux

  “It’s not that simple—”

  Katharine held up an angry hand. Of all the women he might have picked up on Earth, she was the last one who would allow herself to be lectured on the horrors and intricacies of war. She knew them firsthand.

  “I was at war too, Breccon. Don’t forget.”

  “Yes. Of course. I apologize.”

  They walked in silence for a while.

  “So...” Katharine trailed off, rubbing raindrops out of her stinging eyes. “How does it end?”

  “How do all love stories end?”

  “Happy ever after.”

  “Oh.” Breccon stopped in his tracks, shooting Katharine a confused look. “Is that how they are written on Earth? On Rune-Yon they always end in the lovers’ deaths.”

  “What?”

  “A joke, Katharine. A joke. And will you look at that? It stopped raining.”

  For the last hour of the story, the drops had shrunk until they dissolved into a fine mist. Now, they were gone entirely, leaving them to walk in knee-high puddles.

  “Here. Come this way.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Katharine didn’t need to ask. As she came up behind him, Breccon pulled back a curtain of vines, revealing a paradise hiding behind them. Katharine lost count of the number of times this planet had caused her to gasp. It seemed that every few steps there were new mysteries to uncover. Rune-Yon had a lush, untamable beauty; nothing she’d seen on Earth even compared, especially not the desert she came from. Here, tucked away in some corner of this vast jungle, was an oasis. Twin waterfalls on either side poured water into a spring—not much bigger than a swimming pool, but infinitely more beautiful, with the swirling steam and mysterious golden light within—and where there was not water, there was an abundance of plant life and flowers. If Katharine had an entire lifetime, she probably wouldn’t have enough time to catalogue the flora and fauna crammed along the exposed, rocky edges of the pool. The cloud cover overhead was gone, but an inky night sky with a dominating, watchful moon hung over them, lighting the way.

  “Did you know this was here?” Katharine asked, breathless.

  “I heard the waterfall. I thought we would follow it and find something acceptable.”

  It was more than acceptable. With tentative feet, Katharine crossed over the patches of brightly colored petals and rich, green grass blades until she reached the edge of the water. She moved to put her feet in, but hesitated. Instead, she picked up a single flower and tossed it into the pool. When it floated and didn’t dissolve—after all, Katharine couldn’t just assume the water wouldn’t be harmful; for all she knew, it could have been clear acid instead of water—she placed herself on the nearest rock and dangled her dirty feet over the edge.

  She adored making love with Breccon. His touch lit her on fire. Their passions drove them together. But as she rubbed the caked mud from her feet—she’d taken her shoes off once the rain started to save them from water and dirt—in the impossibly warm, calm water, she thought perhaps that was better than sex. All of the grime washed away. A part of her was, after hours of torturous trudging, finally clean. He joined her at the pool’s edge. Only, he didn’t touch the water. He touched her. He reached for the clasps of her robe, his fingers dirty.

  “Breccon—”

  “You have to wash these robes out. And you have to wash yourself. You’ll die if you keep shivering like that. Were you going to do those things clothed?”

  She hated when he was right. Even worse, she couldn’t hate the way he unhooked the ties of her robes. Slowly. Sensually. Her stiff back relaxed as he brushed a tickling trail down the rapidly exposed column of skin he revealed. Her eyes closed and she leaned back against him. Her legs spread a breath apart, unconsciously hoping the juncture between them was his final destination.

  Unfortunately, Breccon disappointed her. When the ties came undone and the robe fell fully open, Breccon placed a kiss on top of her head and withdrew the robe from her body. Standing too far away to touch, he similarly relieved himself of his clothes. Impolite and forward though it was, Katharine couldn’t help but stare at his growing erection. A scintillating pride ripped through her, zipping straight down to her dampening center. He is hard because of me. He wants me. My body did that to him. Her shivering hadn’t completely gone away, but the heat he produced when he looked at her was enough to light a fire between her legs. And I want him too. He’s making me as wet as I’m making him hard. She glanced between him and the water, and she knew where she had to have him.

  A splash followed behind her as she tossed herself into the pool, submerging herself in its warm depths. For a moment, it was like being suspended in time, cut off from the cold world above. When she resurfaced, she didn’t immediately look to Breccon with come-hither eyes, though that’s what she wanted. Instead, she swam to the nearest waterfall.

  “Where are you going?” Breccon called.

  She was going to drive him wild. The water of the pool naturally came up to just above her breasts, covering her modestly. Their sex was usually exposed and unashamed; a bit of modesty would pique his interest. Katharine ducked her head under the waterfall, making a show of washing her hair and looking up at him from under her eyelashes. Water clung to her exposed skin, dragging his eyes down her chest until they hit the water’s edge instead of her breasts. There was no barrier of politeness in his eyes. He stared at her like something to be devoured, something to hold on to and never let out of his sight again. She wanted to be possessed by him; every part of her body begged for his touch. The warm water may have finally stopped her shivering, but Katharine’s knees shook.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game, Ress,” Breccon warned.

  “First game I’ve ever wanted to lose.”

  Her fingertip brushed against her own nipple, hidden beneath the waterline. Lightning bolts of want shuddered through her. Her eyes rolled back in her head and the signal of her desire proved too much for Breccon, who was in the water faster than Katharine had ever seen him move.

  Something strange happened then. As Breccon came up for air and headed straight for Katharine, her amulet began to glow—hot and bright, and when he moved towards her, something stopped him dead in his tracks. He pulled back, then tried again, only for the same result.

  “I can’t—”

  Katharine furrowed her brow and tried to move towards him, only to be blocked by some invisible force. It kept them apart, holding them just out of one another’s reach. Katharine glanced down. It was the amulets. It had to be. They were going to face another task. The only problem was that Katharine’s pussy clenched around an invisible cock, wanting some sort of relief, wanting to come. Her nipples hardened without being touched. She didn’t believe in dramatics, but not touching him in that moment seemed like a worse fate than death.

  “Breccon, I have to—”

  He knew what she wanted before she finished. A single nod rewarded her, and she watched his hand reach down below the waterline. He focused intently on her, biting down on his bottom lip to keep the sound bottled inside. Without the ripples caused by his hand’s moving, she wouldn’t have ever known he was pleasuring himself.

  Those ripples, the signal that he was stroking his long, thick shaft sent her into a flurry. Her fingers danced along her chest, teasing the wet skin, coaxing her pussy to slickness with flicks and brushes against her sensitive nerve endings. She struggled to keep her eyes open when all she wanted was to slide them closed and revel in playing with her own body. But she couldn’t stop staring at Breccon. Every twitch of his lips and shake of his shoulders corresponded to an equally physical response in her.

  She slid her hand lower now, resting at her entrance. She hated the waiting, but she wanted to drag it out. She wanted to swoon at the pleasure she brought herself with only a finger. More than anything, she wanted Breccon to see what he was missing. Just as s
he longed for his cock to fill her now, she wanted him to desire her tight walls around his length. She ran her fingers along her lips once, then twice, and on the third pass, she found her clit.

  “Fuck,” she cursed, slamming her eyes shut involuntarily.

  Her finger danced on the hard bud, delighting in the slick she’d managed to accumulate through nothing more than her own touch.

  The ripples Breccon created picked up speed. Katharine followed suit, rolling her clit under her fingers. She’d taught Breccon how she liked to be worshipped and he followed instructions brilliantly, but her own fingers knew just the spots, just the tempo, just the pressure to make her back arch and her toes curl. Her stomach clenched with each motion, tighter and tighter as her pussy begged for more.

  “Mm,” Breccon groaned. A sure sign that his own climax was close. He was trying to hide it. He wanted to wait, she could tell. But she wanted to see him. She wanted to know that she’d been the cause of his pleasure, even if he hadn’t been able to touch her.

  “Come for me,” she demanded.

  He obeyed. His roar shook the trees. Breccon yelled her name in orgasm.

  It was, all at once, too overwhelming. Spots filled Katharine’s vision, leaving her with a million sensations of touch and sound and tightening muscle. Water rained down from the fall. Her pussy clenched and her stomach curled. The tide ran over her nipples. It was all too good. Too good. She couldn’t wait any longer.

  The orgasm tore her apart before stitching her back together again, rattling her bones and bringing her down again soft as clouds.

  The amulets darkened. Breccon and Katharine locked gazes.

  “That was it?” She glanced down at her own dull stone, her voice still uneasy from the power of her climax. Even trying to swim to Breccon proved impossible, given how weak her knees were. She waited for him to join her on her side of the pool before hitching herself up around his waist and taking his lips as her captive.

  “Well,” Breccon chuckled, pulling away, “I do not know about you, but I thought it was fairly wonderful.”

  It had been wonderful. He was right. But, Katharine thought as she took his lips once more, it would not be enough. The water would ripple all night with their lovemaking. She would make sure of that.

  Chapter Four

  The next day, they returned to their march. As much as Katharine wanted to stay, hidden like Adam and Eve in that paradise forever, their tasks called them, and they had no choice but to answer. Katharine couldn’t have been more grateful for the weather. The rains and clouds bowed and gave the suns full access to the sky. A cool front moved in, keeping her freshly washed clothes from sticking to her skin with sweat.

  As they walked, Katharine noticed a subtle change in Breccon. It was small. She wouldn’t have noticed it if they hadn’t had only one another for company during their time on the ship. The farther they walked, the more Breccon glanced in his peripheral vision. His hands, which insisted so often on holding hers, now kept their distance. One wrapped around the hilt of his nuuja blade, the other rested on his stomach. These were little changes, but that almost made them more obvious. Breccon was a creature of consistency, of reliability and habit. What did it mean that all of a sudden he acted so strangely? It was like a fly in a cup of milk; Katharine spotted it instantly.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No.”

  He scanned the perimeter. Katherine couldn’t imagine he didn’t realize how differently he was behaving, but it was possible. The only thing she was less sure of was if she had a reason to be frightened. With her training and Breccon at her side, she thought she could fight off anything. It was the unknown of it all that set her on edge. What was out there that could make the warrior abandon his cool resolve?

  “You seem nervous.”

  “I am not nervous. I have—”

  “Battled ten Yicardi with one hand tied behind your back, while hopping on one foot.” Katharine rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard it.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “Because it doesn’t change the fact that you seem nervous.”

  “I am not nervous.” He spit the word like a bloody, knocked-out tooth. Katharine pressed her luck.

  “Then why are we walking so fast?”

  “Because we are close to the Temple.” The rage in his voice told her she was on the right track. No one who spent most of their life in battle wanted to be told they couldn’t handle pressure. If the tables had been turned, she would have gotten equally frustrated with him. They’d both been through war and earned their cold masks of indifference even as the world crashed and burned around them. He had to be as insulted as she would have been had he accused her of being nervous on a perfectly lovely sunny day. “It’s less than a day’s walk if we’re quick about it.”

  She could have accepted that and swallowed the distraction if she hadn’t been distracted by something else entirely. When Breccon lifted his hand away from his stomach to point at the gradually clearing horizon, he exposed an angry red patch of infection. Her stomach dropped. Her throat dried. Her ears rang too loud to hear anything else he was trying to say. It loomed larger than life in her vision, and a tiny patch of infected flesh less than an inch wide expanded until she could imagine it covering his entire body, draining him of life. He’d caught the infection. The illness had finally gotten to him. A shaking finger pointed at it.

  “What is that?”

  “What?”

  “That. On your stomach.”

  He rushed to cover it up, as if that would make any difference to her terror. Katharine had to have known, on some level, that Breccon would eventually contract the illness if she didn’t work fast enough. The reality of it just didn’t sink in until he was standing before her in all of his primal glory, pocked by something that could so easily kill him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We have to move.”

  “You’ve gotten it.”

  “Katharine, this is not the time.”

  It was a warning. Katharine did not heed it. She pursued him as he nearly ran towards the horizon, reached for the hand clutching his stomach.

  “Let me see it.”

  “No.”

  All of a sudden, it became clear to her. The reason Breccon’s mother banished her. The reason Mayyalka forbade them to be together. It wasn’t because she didn’t like Katharine or wanted Breccon to be with a Tallel woman. It was because if Katharine remained on Rune-Yon, Mayyalka would eventually have to swallow her pride and accept help to conquer the disease. Pride was essential to the Tallel. It was written in the fabric of their culture. Accepting Katharine’s help was unthinkable, even if the alternative was death.

  “You are scared. You’re scared just like your people.”

  “Do not bring my people into this,” he snapped at her, but Katharine couldn’t stop turning over the realization in her head.

  “That’s why they wouldn’t let me join. They don’t want to admit that they can get sick.”

  Breccon reached back with one hand to grab her. He tried to pull her forward but she couldn’t budge now. The only part that didn’t make sense was Breccon’s commitment to this. He came to Earth to find someone to cure them. His pride couldn’t be the reason.

  “We have to move. Now.”

  It was a battlefield order. Katharine recognized the tone from her days at Telept Airbase. But she would not answer it. If he was taking her to the battlefield, she would gladly accompany him there. On the battlefield, her patients’ safety and health was her top priority. Nothing would get in the way of her treating him. She used his momentum to pull him into her, oblivious, at first, to the panic in his voice.

  “Not until you let me examine it.”

  In the back of her mind, Katharine realized their amulets were glowing, but Breccon’s condition and his rough commands distr
acted her.

  “This is the borderlands. Yicardi are always waiting for—”

  Thwack! Katharine and Breccon’s tussle came to a halt as an axe embedded itself in a tree just over Breccon’s shoulder. Everything happened too fast. A series of battle yells from behind Katharine. Breccon pulled the axe from the tree and shoved Katharine to the ground as pounding footfalls barreled towards them, the force shaking the very leaves beside her head.

  “Hey!”

  “Stay back!”

  Then, she saw it. Everything came into focus. From her place on the damp ground, Katharine watched as Breccon took on two soldiers at once. They were locked in a battle for their lives. These creatures had to be Yicardi. Their Carvings were gold, and they shimmered as their arms pulled their axes high to meet Breccon’s blows. Her heart thundered. Breccon ducked and wove, evaded and caught blade edges when he could, but the advantage stood firmly with the two Yicardi. Breccon was all muscle, all skill, but even the best warrior struggled when faced with two enemies. Breccon charged forward, pressing the advantage of his height. But the Yicardi raised their instrument wildly underhanded, managing to snap Breccon’s axe out of his reach. He moved for his sword, only to find himself kicked into the nearest tree by the closest soldier.

  “Breccon!” Katharine screamed, unable to help herself. The fight became more intensely physical as the Yicardi threw away their own axes. It had to be a fair fight, it seemed. Or maybe they wanted to feel Breccon’s blood on their skin. They were warriors, after all.

  Fists flew and Katharine’s spell broke. She’d fought Nazis and won. She was going to let Breccon get attacked by these wild things? Breccon might not have been able to take on two soldiers alone. But if Katharine could make a distraction... She formulated a plan and set about it as the Yicardi landed punch after punch, punctuating every throw of their fists with another word.

  “For my father! For my brothers! For my mother! For my—”

  The first one stopped dead as Katharine brought a rock down on his head as hard as she could. Slam. The skull crunched under the crippling blow, and blood splattered over Katharine’s robes. He slumped off Breccon, lying limp on the ground, but Katharine knew she hadn’t done enough to kill him. After all, she’d taken an oath to do no harm. She had to assume that extended to aliens, too.