Blade (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  “So what’s in this mind cache? Some deadly military secret?”

  “I can’t open it without destroying it. It is information of some sort. You can open it, I believe. Here it is.”

  And he felt a strange touch fathoms deep within his mind, and saw where the cache lay.

  “I suggest you muse upon this before trying to open it.”

  They’d returned to where Thorn waited and Doctor S raised his arm.

  Led walked onto her shoulder again. “We have to go to Skrull.”

  “Yes. Skrull is where your band of intrepid heroes must journey to if you wish to find this genetic surgeon. He is the best in this corner of the galaxy. His name is Bob Stardrake Phd, DaTASS, MWoW, FRAGS – Fellow of the Royal Academy of Genetic Surgeons, and he has various other degrees.”

  “Bob?” Thorn appeared to be skeptical but Led had already done a fast retrieval of evidence, and the man was a plain ol’ human with an extensive medical and surgical background.

  “He’s real,” he said directly to her ear, after blowing away some strands of her white hair.

  “Then, I guess we are going to Skrull. The final leg. Though I am a little annoyed about being relegated to observer considering it is my life being decided here.”

  The doctor made a strange noise. “I had important stuff to say.”

  “I’m sure you did.” Such great sarcasm in so few words. “Besides, I need to see what has been done to Smorg.”

  “I am here and I am well, oh puny organic ones.” The mellow and resonant voice had Thorn and Jocelyn both twisting to see who this was.

  Led peered around Thorn’s chin and there stood a gray bot with various BSoD and FATAL ERRORS stickers peeling off its square head. Smorg? It also had faded red markings, two stumpy legs, and two arms with multi-purpose appendages. It was taller than Thorn but shorter than Jocelyn.

  “Bow before me? Joking! Just joking. Yep, it’s me.” Smorg held up a hand, made a fist. “I have an absolute, fucking, kraken-ton more memory room in here. Can I say thank you? I can’t recall if I’ve ever said thank you before.” He moved to step closer, tripped over both his feet and toppled face first into the floor with a loud thud. “I’m okay! Just, I may need some practice. At walking and stuff.”

  Thorn swept back her hair with one hand, brushing some over Led. And what a lovely bare neck it was close up. “We need to get to the spaceport fast to catch that shuttle. Walking practice will have to happen on the way back. Nobody fall in a pool again. Please.”

  “I...” Jocelyn declared, “shall carry Smorg where necessary.”

  Smorg looked at her as she hauled him to his feet, and Led wondered if he would refuse. “Kinky. I like this idea.”

  “I carried you the whole way up here,” she pointed out.

  “Oh...now you’re spoiling it. When we get down the bottom I swear I’ll carry you.”

  “I’m too big. You can’t.”

  “You look just the right weight to me, though your ass is bigger than I remembered.”

  “Bots don’t have an ass, Smorg.”

  To preserve his sanity, Led decided to stop listening to the two of them.

  “Safe travels,” the doctor said.

  He had to ask. “Sir, are you truly blind?”

  “I have nothing like eyes on my body, however I do receive visual input from many devices. I can see you all just fine.” He bowed slightly to Thorn then Ledderik. “Might I request the honor of officiating at the wedding? I’ve never done one before.”

  “Wedding?” Thorn sounded strangled. “Jocelyn and Smorg?”

  “No, you and Ledderik.”

  In disbelief, Led shook his thwibble head, which meant he almost dislocated his thwibble spine.

  The walk out of the building was strained by a surreal tension.

  “I said nothing to him. I have no idea –” he began once they were on the trail.

  “Me neither.”

  Yet he could see the blush on her neck.

  The march down the mountain and back to town let him think and think until he possibly wore holes in his brain.

  The lost art of talking.

  Look in the mirror.

  You are the prince taking the princess on a long, arduous journey.

  Everything was coming to an end on Skrull, and maybe he’d lose her. He didn’t want that. It had become ever so clear he needed to do something more.

  Chapter 21

  Skrull was a high-technology planet in perfect condition – the reverse environment to COG 101.

  It was almost embarrassing how much he wanted to keep this girl with him, how much he wanted to hold her hand, not just now but for the rest of his and her future. To do that it seemed he would have to talk to her.

  He was a killer cyborg, and talking about the future and love...all that shit was the opposite of bold and masculine. Scary.

  Yet knowing where he’d originated, that he’d once been almost dead – not quite or they couldn’t have used the body – it reinforced that he had nothing left to lose. Almost dead back then. Doing LoL had been like killing himself.

  After this? He’d talk to her, he’d buy a loaner for good, somehow...

  And what if she said no and rejected him? This was a kind of fear he did not know how to handle. He couldn’t shoot, stab, or rail-gun this fear. It was the ultimate in frustration. He felt useless and clumsy, but he had made a plan and stuck to it.

  He’d chosen what to be. The LoL on Skrull had a full range of species.

  He chose mollok.

  They were big and macho.

  They seemed more sensible than most, though they had chased him across the galaxy. The cache in his mind had Created by Mollok Industries written into the first wall of the data, and he figured that was a sign. He hadn’t poked at it since. Still didn’t know what was inside. He needed to open it and read it soon because it was likely the reason violence had followed him from planet to planet.

  Be thine enemy? Or whatever it was the molloks were.

  And plus, big plus, these guys had tentacles.

  For once, he looked in the mirror.

  He waved them above his head. There were all these eensy little suckers he’d never noticed before. This one had the usual square jawed face, mid-length black hair, and humanoid frontage. His back sprouted the wriggly bits.

  The long coat that came with this body was a red paler than Thorn’s though the lack of buttons meant his naked chest and the lines of his muscles showed. A belt would’ve fixed it but something told him Thorn might like it. Mollok females did.

  Part of the mating ritual for molloks was the capturing of females then carrying them off to the male’s lair. Was lair the right translation? Home? Nest?

  Then he would keep her in his nest until she showed her pregnancy. If he could. Mollok females sometimes ate the males. Gruesome family politics there.

  The coat was tailored at the back to accommodate his blue-black tentacles. Six of them, scary as fuck, and his.

  He couldn’t wait to try them.

  He cracked his knuckles and grinned at his reflection, tossed his hair over his shoulder. The strands even writhed a bit like Thorn’s when she hit a cycle, though his weren’t exactly hair.

  When he stepped outside the LoL center, with the doors hissing shut behind him, she was there, waiting with her hands clasped behind her and head craned back. He yanked the last of his tentacles forward just in time to avoid them being squashed by the door.

  The pale blue dress she wore was short enough to show a hint of ass under-curve, and for once she had no tights, just bare skin. Bare her. And ankle boots. The dress flared at the hips into the perfect shape to accentuate her femaleness, and he was close to salivating. Then she shifted her hips to the side...

  The swish of skirt and tail, and those curves rearranging on her.

  Gah. He swallowed.

  Excruciating to tear his gaze away, but he managed.

  Up there, on the side of a mountain, the office of
the genetic surgeon Bob Stardrake thrust into the sky – white, spear-like, and sparkling. The man’s profession obviously paid well. The white road leading up to it was visible from here, several spoc-klicks away.

  “You have an appointment?” He arrived at her side, curving two tentacles around her feet and messing with her tail. A natural response, this, even though the tentacles were new. Being a mollok made his possessiveness and dominance want to rise to the top.

  It was a heady feeling. He could deny it, or let it loose. To protect her he needed to be close.

  He tightened the curl of his tentacles, lashing one around her ankle.

  She flinched and sent him a startled look. “Heyyy. I see you have the necessaries for being a mollok. I know you said you were going to be a mollok. Those are cute, I guess? Spiky though.” Thorn shook her head, tsking.

  It was true, in places they did have spikes but they were fleshy and not sharp. She found them mildly threatening?

  “Yes, I do have an appointment. Tomorrow morning. I’ve sent a tissue sample over as they requested. I hope this works out.” She shivered. “Jocelyn and Smorg are off seeing the city. I gave them some funds. They remind me of a pair of teenagers on the verge of their first cycle.”

  “Yes. I pray they don’t spend it all on drugs and cyber-raves.”

  Thorn chuckled. “We are talking about Smorg here, but Jocelyn will keep him in line.”

  “I’ve been wondering what to do with Smorg.” A smart-ass sword was not the same as a walking entity.

  “Maybe we should free them both?”

  “Yes. They need to earn a living, though. I wouldn’t want them to end up on COG 101.” The down-on-their-luck freed bots seemed to end up there.

  A shadow passed over them. The black-and-gold air-flitter he’d booked, along with a hotel, lowered itself to the nearby grass strip. Its door lowered and turned into steps.

  “I have reserved for us at the Elvedor. It’s expensive but a favorite with tourists from off-planet. I thought, why not experiment?”

  “A hotel experiment? Sure. I don’t care where I stay tonight.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  They boarded the flitter cab and sat beside each other. He dwarfed her as much as or more than the dalk. The cab took off, heading for the Elvedor.

  This genetic surgery would daunt even a thrassian or a cyborg. “You need your mind taken off this. Worrying won’t help.”

  “I know.” Thorn subsided into the soft upholstery, seeming to barely notice the slide of his arm and tentacle behind her along the back of the seat. “I was trained to handle myself in the midst of tragedy, war, major losses and disasters. Even so, I feel...anxious.”

  “I’ll take the burden from you, this day. Forget what’s coming. You can’t alter the outcome.”

  “Thank you. If only it was that easy. Don’t you see?” She looked into his eyes. “I must worry. I can alter the outcome. Assuming he can help me, I have to decide who I will be for the rest of my life – s’kar or siren.”

  “Hmmm.”

  This was the crux of what was worrying him. The talking that Doctor S advised was his final hope of swaying her decision. The mollok way had a lot of alternate appeal – drag her into the nest, fuck her, get her pregnant.

  If only. He sighed and tried not to scowl. Decisions must be made.

  The reception at the Elvedor was in a vast underground chamber reached after descending broad stone stairs that curved in a half-circle. Ledderik wondered if he should check the room images to see where they were likely to end up.

  No. Being surprised would be interesting, and he already felt as if he knew what a mollok would like.

  Their boots echoed on the polished stone floor. The lighting was low, red-tinged, and amorous – made him want to fuck somebody already, and he knew which body that’d be.

  The desk awaited them at the opposite wall – what seemed an hour’s walk away.

  Thorn finally broke down and asked. “You booked a mollok hotel?”

  “Of course. We need to talk.” Shit. He’d said it. “Considering what I am today, this felt best.” He sneaked a tentacle across her back as they walked, curled it across her neck and down her front, beneath the top of her dress. It brushed at her cleavage.

  That she only glanced then ignored it...

  “I should’ve realized. I need to think. More talking...I don’t know.”

  “You’ve had plenty of thinking time. Several planets-worth of it.” It came to him that this lack of talking was not just his problem, it was hers too.

  “Huh. Have I now.” Did he imagine it or was her voice huskier?

  “Hey.” She plucked at the tentacle now slumbering curled across the lower curve of her breast. Though hidden by the bodice of her white dress, both he and she knew the very tip was happily sucking onto the areola on the left.

  He didn’t budge and only smiled down at Thorn when she sharply angled an eyebrow.

  “Greetings.” The desk attendant was a humanoid bot.

  He recalled why. Molloks came here with their sexual partners and were often unhappy at seeing other males. To avoid arguments, they kept them apart, would not let them even see another male. Unless of course polyamorous accommodation was booked.

  “Your sucker print, sir.”

  He laid his primary tentacle across the glass panel. It buzzed in acceptance.

  “Room five, sir. Down the left stairs and through the tunnel with the five above it.”

  “Thank you.” He released her breast, slid from her neck, but when he turned toward the stairs, he found Thorn had not moved.

  “One room only?”

  “Yes.” Several of his tentacles uncurled and rose at his back – molloks, he decided, were great at being threatening. Thorn pretended to ignore the display.

  “I want two. So I can think in peace.” She eyed him, dead on.

  “Hmmm.” He let a few of his thoroughly flexible bits inveigle their way between her feet then up her leg in a slithering spiral. This loaner body was fun. “No.”

  “Watch where those are going. And yes. As I said, I need time to think –”

  Something cracked inside him.

  A tentacle looped up and wrapped over her mouth, around her face, sealing in any further protests, while with another he held her about the waist.

  “You’ve had enough time. I’ve followed you across half the galaxy...fended off evil, bullets, and siren-sucked-in admirers. I’ve protected you from dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. I’ve been your rock and your friend. We shall talk together. Today. Tonight. Until this is thoroughly settled.”

  “Mmmpfffh!” She managed to say, and he had no doubt she was angry.

  “No. To whatever it was you said.”

  One wayward tentacle, that must have a mind of its own because he hadn’t directed it, happened to lift the edge of her dress and he glimpsed what lay beneath before it shoved between those thighs. To the bare female mons of a s’kar. Pale pink panties so small and transparent they showed everything. The hint of an erect clit where the split of her sex began. The panties were gloriously wet where they’d molded to her slit – stuck there by the attraction of wet cloth to wet flesh. Wet cunt, if he was technical.

  He rather liked being technical.

  “You are aroused.” His voice had become subterranean, burrowing through the shadows, for a female was in sight and in scent.

  He let his eyelids lower, and below something protruded that did the unutterable. A secret of the molloks. My, my. These guys had adaptations upon adaptations. Okay he was going to utter it. Later, when he had her in his thrall.

  Molloks had more than a mating tentacle, they also had a cock, which was currently bending itself into a convoluted and agonizing shape inside his pants. Adroitly, he adjusted it with one hand.

  This cock did not impregnate, it had another function.

  He went full-on mollok, pushing his tentacle beneath her underwear, fol
ding the edge of the panties aside. Using the smallest of his suckers, he teased her in that most delicate of places.

  Thorn held her breath for a long time before she squirmed, spluttering past what gagged her mouth.

  “The tentacle between your legs has grown strangely moist, as if some female has exuded mating fluids. I wonder who that might be?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Mmmmpfffh!” she managed, again.

  The desk attendant piped up. “One room, sir, yes, but I need confirmation of the consensual ravishment. Your companion must sign here, please.”

  The sign-in pad glowed again.

  “A hand print will do, sir.”

  He smiled at Thorn. “Shall we?”

  Chapter 22

  Thorn first regarded her nemesis, Ledderik, then the sign-in pad. Her eyebrows were probably doing a dance, she was that dubious.

  The problem was she agreed with him. About the talking. It needed doing. It had just been too much to imagine talking to him on top of everything else, right now, right here.

  He stirred the tentacles between her legs, though unwinding the one over her mouth. Another tendril caressed her ankle, sliding, slithering, grasping her then releasing.

  She sucked in her lip, a teensy bit awed.

  This was a new side of Led, a more forceful one.

  Her swallow was meant to be stealthy but he noticed.

  “Talking? Yes?” She kept her eyes very open. She was indeed getting ever more aroused and was not quite sure why.

  “Mmm.” A rumbling agreement. Black, curling and uncurling tendrils of hair, eyes ringed with dark, and that formidable presence that would likely either end wars or start them.

  The anticipation of something both bad, and very, very good was making the fine hairs stand on end, up and down her body.

  “Okay. I suppose I will agree then. Umm.” She raised her hand.

  His silent scrutiny of her intensified.

  Without moving her focus, because looking away from Led in the mood he was in seemed dangerous, Thorn placed her hand on the pad.

  It buzzed.