by V. K. Ludwig
“Did you eat the lunch I brought you?”
I had watched the food go stale on the bench, as untouched as the pizza of the previous day, or the fried chicken from before that. She refused the meals I brought her with almost as much determination as the pleasure of our matings.
It was fine.
We had an agreement.
An unwritten contract.
My pleasure was necessary. Hers not.
“You don’t need to bring me lunch,” she said, sitting down at the edge of the mat with her notebook draped over her legs.
I worked myself into another pull-up. “Alright. So what would you like me to bring you tomorrow?”
She shook her head and flicked her eyes toward the ceiling. “You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Law of large numbers,” I said with a smirk. “One day, you’ll accept the food I bring you.”
“Like I’ll swoon over you one day?”
“Yes.”
My naked soles flapped against the mat, and I walked over to the edge, lowering myself onto my back in front of her. Ankles crossed and arms folded behind my neck, I continued with crunches.
Her eyes trailed over my torso before they fell into a frown. “Well, don’t count on it.”
“Which one?”
“Either. Both.” A sigh and a headshake later, she opened her notebook and read over her notes. “Okay, let’s get started.”
I gave a voice command into the room to decrease the gravity slightly.
“Yuil.” Crunch.
“Amniotic fluid.”
“Crid’he.” Crunch.
“Heart.”
“Drean’adh yuil.” Crunch.
“Drain amniotic fluid. Hilarious!” She kicked toward me, but her foot came to a stop before it reached my ribs.
I rolled onto my side with a laugh. “If you know what it means, why would you continue to push the button?”
“I get confused sometimes,” she said, tugging on her knee to retrieve her limb, her body so much weaker than mine. “Vetusian would be a lot easier if you’d remove all those swirls from your alphabet.”
Another command and the gravity lowered to only slightly above Earth, giving Eden a chance to claim her leg and fold it back underneath the other.
I didn’t miss having her around during the day, now that she worked at the Vault. Just like I didn’t have pride well in my throat over how she tried to learn my language.
“How long have you been working out?”
“Close to two hours.”
“At Cultum gravity?” She scoffed. “You’re insane.”
“Not insane. But well aware of the fact that there isn’t much room left on my skin for more scars.”
The moment I had said it, her eyes wandered over my glistening chest. Touch me. Feel your mate.
She knew better than that and put her notebook aside. “You never told me how you got them.”
“You never asked.”
“I’m asking now.”
“No, Eden.” I sat up across from her, working my arms into a stretch behind my back. “A question sounds like this: how did you get those scars, Torin?”
Eyes squinted and lips pursed, she reached out her hand and let her fingertip hover over the largest one. “How did you get this scar, Torin?”
“Glad you asked, Eden. I got this scar when a Jal’zar general ran his tail claw down my chest, while he tried to invade Earth.”
“They wanted to invade Earth? Why?”
“Earth is rich in a biomaterial needed to create DNA-based nanites.” I reached the back of my hand to her, letting a small patch of black nano-armor form around my skin. “It has a great many medical applications, but it’s an important warfare technology as well.”
She grabbed my hand, the unexpected pleasure of it making my nanites retreat. “Where did it go?”
“They’re part of my DNA,” I said, intertwining my fingers with hers, willing the armor to appear around them, letting her skin brush against the rough scales. “We promised Earth leaders we’d fight the Jal’zar off in exchange for one thousand females per solar cycle, all coming from poverty to make their transition easier. We never saw a single one of them.”
“Hmm,” was all she said, then quickly changed the subject while she ripped her fingers from mine. It must have been so hard for her to see me as something other than an intruder. “So how come you deal with Cultum gravity like it’s nothing, while I probably couldn’t even stand upright?”
“Evolution. We have a higher bone density and two additional vertebras.”
“And your eyes? I could swear they’re less vibrant each morning you get up.”
“It’s because of a mineral deposit in our groundwater on Cultum. Purely environmental. We are not sure how much they’ll fade.”
She tapped her foot against the edge of the mat. “Can I go on it now?”
At my nod, she stepped onto the mat, a frown hurrying over her features the moment she noticed the slight increase in gravity.
Eden walked over to the rod and jumped with her arms above her head. Fingers wrapped around the metal, she pulled herself up with considerable strength.
“Don’t tear a muscle,” I said with a grin.
“You kidding? My dad took me to a playground every Saturday when I was a kid, and he wasn’t deployed. I was in second grade when I finally figured out it wasn’t a playground. It was a damn PT field.” She crossed her ankles and fell into pull-ups. “Kick it up a notch, would’ ya?”
I set the gravity to increase in short intervals and walked up to her. Her form was near-perfect, her strength perhaps above average for a female.
“This is Cultum gravity, right?” Her pull-ups slowed, the tremble in her arms undeniable.
“Far from it.”
“Turn it off!”
I grabbed her hips and deactivated the system, letting her slide down along my body. We had mated in the morning already. A fact my penis ignored, defying even the highest gravity setting.
“Tell me another thing about your childhood,” I said, holding her tight against my drenched body.
“We moved around a lot,” she said, trying to wiggle away from me as always. “Let me tell you, joining a classroom in the middle of the school year isn’t fun. Being the new kid is tough.”
“Is that why you always act so strong?” I brushed my lips against the corner of her mouth. “You can be weak with me from time to time. I am here to take care of you.”
“Do I look like I need taking care of?”
“Stubborn leska,” I snarled, running my fingers through her soft hair. “Let me kiss you.”
“We talked about this,” she said in annoyance.
“You kissed Earth males, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why not me? Am I not doing it right?”
“Your kisses… are… too… stiff.” Came with huffs as she finally freed herself from my embrace. “But even if they weren’t, you and I only have sex. That’s it. Just sex.”
“And you never kissed a male you had just sex with?”
Not much rendered Eden speechless, but her mouth fell into a perfect oval at my question. She stared up at me, uttering word fragments before she cleared her throat. “It’s not part of our deal.”
“We will renegotiate.”
“Ugh, your sweat is all over me now.”
I stepped away from her and grabbed my shirt from the resistance tower beside me, rubbing my sweat off along with her rejection. “Why are you not pregnant yet? Your profile said you’re healthy and very fertile.”
My voice came out harsher than intended. Why did I long for her kiss? Have the desire to mate her for hours without releasing my seed? Why expose myself this way to her refusal?
“Guess they didn’t tell you it can take months for a woman to get pregnant. Even a healthy one. And I wouldn’t even know what very fertile means.”
“Your body often releases two eggs instead of one,” I said
. “It’s stated —”
“Let me guess, in my file?” She grabbed her notebook from the ground. “I could have done without a dissection of my menstrual cycle, thank you very much. Just so you know, pressure isn’t helping. You gotta be patient.”
“I didn’t mean to sound impatient.” Slow steps shrank the distance between us, and I trailed my fingertips over her arm. “I enjoy this time we spend together.”
“Don’t get used to it,” she said with taunting cheerfulness. “Trust me, I can’t wait to get pregnant, either.”
I didn’t feel that roil in my stomach just now. “So you can get rid of me. Am I really that hard to stand?”
“Does it matter?” she asked, her stance easing. “You said at the Vault that you wouldn’t know how to raise a child. I guess that’s why you agreed to leave in the first place.”
“No matter how little I understand of raising a child, I would still want to be part of his or her life to the best of my ability. I can learn. You could teach me.”
She clasped her notebook tighter, as if my words surprised her. “So why did you agree then?”
For once, she didn’t shrink back when I walked up to her and took her hand into mine. My fingers intertwined with hers, and she fixated her eyes on how I let my nano armor form and retreat around my hand, something which seemed to entertain her greatly.
“I agreed because I didn’t know then just how fascinating you are,” I whispered. “There’s a whole different woman underneath that fierce creature who shot me. And I like her. A lot.”
She flicked her eyes upward. “You treat me very well, Torin, but let’s not make this more than it is, because I could never treat you half as good.”
Her gaze dropped at the same time as she sucked her lips in, her fingers slowly retreating. “I’ll go to bed now.”
At that, she left, her footsteps fading.
I turned around, my molars aching with the way my jaws clenched. The idea of walking away from Eden became increasingly troublesome, the thought of breaking my promise more appealing with each day.
If I restrained my roughness when we mated, why wouldn’t I be able to give her everything she deserved? Raise my child alongside her and witness it grow?
“Hey.”
Eden’s voice made me swing around.
She stood in the door once more, her thump scratching along the edge of her notebook. “I just wanted to say that there’s a whole different Torin underneath that guy who fisted my hair and wrestled me to the ground. I like that one better. He’s an okay guy. I just, um… wanted you to know that.”
Yes, I liked that Torin better as well.
Chapter 15
Eden
“The engineers completed your habitat,” Torin said, leaning against the headboard of his sleeping pod while he swiped through star charts. “It’s located in sector thirteen, which means you will have to decide if you want to continue at the Vault or move. I am perfectly capable of providing for you.”
“I’d rather make my own money.”
His features remained unmoved as he said, “Which is exactly what I expected you to say. But that doesn’t change the fact that travel time will be approximately one Earth hour from the habitat.”
I gave another tug on the neckline of my nightgown, the fabric too constrictive around my breasts lately. “Each way?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s a lot.” I climbed into bed next to him and rubbed my thumbs down along my calves. “The babies only need a few more weeks until they reach gestation, so I’d rather stay on Ardev Five until then. If that’s okay with you.”
He rotated his wrist and scrolled through holographic reports, rubbing the stubble on his chin whenever his pupils sped through lines of relevant information. “Your choice. As per our agreement, my quarters are at your disposal.”
“Not sick of me yet?”
“That depends.” One brow raised; he gave me a judging look. “Are you going to continue to leave your dresses all over the bedroom?”
“Probably,” I said with a playful grin. “If you’re lucky, they might soon extend to your office. The way I remember it, our deal didn’t require me to be orderly.”
“It’s hard for me to believe your father is a military man, considering he instilled no sense of order in you.” One dismissive wave of his hand and the holograms disappeared. “Should that have me concerned about my own child?”
My stomach clenched the way it always did lately whenever the baby subject came up, and Torin’s strained smile only amplified the sensation. He wanted to be part of his child’s life and had only agreed not to because I’d insisted.
The night he’d saved me from drowning, Torin had been nothing in my eyes but the enemy invader. With his posture relaxed and his eyes filled with an affection he didn’t bother hiding, Torin was nothing like the guy who had captured me anymore. Hadn’t been in a long time.
I’d had no clue that the agreement would throw us into an actual relationship. A weird one, yeah, but one working its way underneath my skin. We each had our routines and went about our days, only to watch each other get ready for bed in the evenings before we had sex, watched a movie, and then fell asleep.
The familiarity between us was… concerning.
And as if Torin wanted to supply proof, he grabbed my leg and draped it over his lap. “You need to stop picking up extra shifts at the Vault. You’re working more than me.”
My muscles screamed the moment he dug his thumbs deep into my calf, rolling the strained fibers between his fingers. “Mmm.”
That moan was all it took to make his eyes catch with mine. He stroked his fingertips down my shins, only to let them return along the back, kneading away the pain.
I watched his erection grow against the underside of the blanket. “We already mated today.”
He grinned, pulling my other leg across his thighs. “Right now, I’m only helping my mate to feel better. That I am aroused does not change that.”
“Tell me something,” I said. “Might help keep your thoughts from wandering off.”
“What do you want to hear?”
I sunk my back into the pillows, folding my arms behind my head. “Whatever I don’t know about you yet, which is… kind of a lot.”
“Let’s see,” he said with a pout. “My sperm donor was Targus da taigh L’naghal, who served as the Warden of my house before me.”
“You ever met him?”
He shook his head and switched to my other calf, sending another of my moans into the room. “A Jal’zar assassin killed him before I was harvested. I never looked up the female who supplied the egg. Nifal took care of me for the first twenty-five Cultum sun cycles before I joined the warrior stratum.”
“Why warrior?” I asked. “Why not healer, or scholar or whatever other stuff you guys got going on?”
“Each stratum has certain requirements, and I happened to have the physical constitution for it. High muscle and bone density, height, quick metabolization of proteins, fast reaction time.”
When he remained quiet for a few minutes, I dug my heel into his thigh. “Come on. Keep going!”
“I don’t remember much of my childhood, Eden. It’s… blurry.” A heavy sigh came from his chest, and he shrugged. “The life of a Vetusian doesn’t compare to all those stories you have to tell. We get up, we work, we go to sleep. I’m not the best marksman but resilient and with the ability to act quickly when needed. My endurance is above average compared to other warriors, and I broke my arm once when I was a teenager.”
“How?”
“Tried to climb up a tree, and the branch cracked.”
“Bad climber, huh?” I let out a snort, teasing one of those rare sincere smiles onto his face. “You’re telling me all that stuff about your muscles and whatnot. What about you? What’s your favorite meal?”
“Nutri-spheres. Quick, easy, everything my body needs.”
I groaned at his response. “Okay, let’s try it again. What�
��s your favorite color?”
His eyes squinted. “Black? I guess?”
“Troubles thinking outside the collective? Assuming black isn’t an option. Which color would you choose?”
He threw himself next to me into the pillows, the mattress vibrating as he grabbed a strand of my hair. “Whatever you call this color. It seems to be changing.”
The way he twisted my strand, watching how the light reflected differently from it depending on the angle, made an alarming tingle shoot through my stomach. “It’s a bright auburn in summer, but usually goes darker in winter.”
“Auburn,” he said, letting the ends brush over my cheeks. “I liked it the instant I set eyes on you. Had me so fascinated, I stared at you for the longest time.”
“Stared at me when?”
He shifted closer, melting the distance between us. “While you rummaged through the shelves at the pharmacy. But I could have grabbed you when you climbed out of the vent.”
His words had a way of making the memory sound almost romantic. “Why didn’t you then?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged and rolled onto his side, the warmth of his chest reaching across. “First, I wanted to ignore you and simply send another squad into the area. But I just… couldn’t. I assume fate told me to follow you.”
“There was another woman with me, at the —”
“Restaurant,” he said. “Yes, the squad I sent in found her collapsed on the stairs. She needed medical attention due to an asthma attack.”
“Is she okay?”
“From what the squad reported, yes.”
I kicked my legs underneath the blanket and tucked the edge across my shoulder. “Guess I don’t have to ask if you believe in fate.”
“Let’s say it like this.” His chest expanded in a deep breath, stretching his pause to a degree which made me think he had changed his mind until he continued. “The moment I saw you, I knew there was something different about you. And yet I dropped you off at the intake module, giving it the benefit of the doubt. Half an hour later, you bumped into me after you reportedly broke a healer’s nose.”
