by Renard, Loki
“Faith,” he repeated. She heard his footsteps coming closer, then felt the bed sink down as he sat next to her. “I have spoken with Ephemera. And I owe you a great apology.”
“Yes,” she agreed with a sniff. “You do. But I don’t think it would mean anything even if you did.”
“What do you mean?”
It was her turn to be unable to look at him as she buried her face in damp sheets. “I mean you instantly thought the worst of me. You didn’t give me a chance to explain. You shut down and wouldn’t even hear it, because you thought you knew me so well that you didn’t need to hear anything. So thanks, for that, Serkan. Thanks for nothing.”
“I am sorry, Faith,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Even if you had told me, I would not have believed you, it’s true. I can barely believe what I heard from Ephemera just now. Is it true? Did the council really force you to take the stone?”
“Yes,” she muttered into the sheets. “They did. And they were nasty about it too. They’re not as evolved or as enlightened as you think, Serkan. They’re just old.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, perplexed.
Faith pulled her face from the bedding and stared at him. “You don’t understand why trapping a bunch of people’s minds in a tablet and making them tell everyone what to do for hundreds of years might be problematic? Or you don’t understand how I was right and you were wrong. Or maybe you don’t understand that you can actually trust me, you stupid fucking…” She melted back into tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What else could I think?”
“Yeah, what else could you think,” she said bitterly. “I’m just human trash, aren’t I.”
“I never said that. I thought you had gone rogue. You didn’t tell me anything before it happened. You sulked around, but you never said a single word.”
“I couldn’t. Ephemera would have had you killed. It’s evil, Serkan. That chip is fucking evil, and the sooner we destroy it, the better. If your super advanced civilization can’t work out that a leader who constantly asks them whether they want fries isn’t the best leader, then they’re not as smart as they think.”
There was a very long pause and a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Faith. I am sorry I failed you so terribly. You’ve had so much weight on your shoulders for so long and I was no help. You deserved better. I am sorry I was not there to protect you as you needed.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” She sat up and glared at him.
“Oh, no, I don’t what?” He looked just as miserable as she felt.
“Don’t you pity yourself,” she snapped. “You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself. Hell, you haven’t done anything wrong anyway. You saved me, twice. The first time on Earth, you saved me because you thought I was an innocent. The second time, you saved me thinking I wasn’t. There’s one common denominator there, Serkan, maybe you didn’t trust me, but I know I can trust you. Even when you think I’ve committed some ultimate sin, you’re there for me.”
As her tirade turned into a speech of appreciation, Faith wasn’t sure what to do with her conflicting emotions. God, she loved this man with everything she had. They weren’t enemies. They never had been. And even though he hadn’t listened to her, and hadn’t believed she’d had good reason to take Ephemera, he’d saved her life anyway.
Serkan reached out and caressed her cheek with a tenderness she had missed. “I will always be there for you, Faith. No matter what you do. I promise you that. I love you with everything I am. I love you more than anything.”
“I love you too,” she said, her eyes filling with tears of a different nature as they reached for one another, closing the painful physical distance. They embraced and kissed deeply, their tongues entwining with renewed passion as they sank down onto the bed together, lips and tongues and hands roaming one another as their clothes were pulled and torn from their yearning bodies.
They were naked in a matter of moments, cloth no means of resistance to their passion. More than anything, Faith wanted to lose herself in Serkan. She straddled him, looking down at his handsome face with eyes of pure love. It had been far too long since they were intimate, not just physically, but emotionally. The toll of the secret Ephemera had made her bear had weighed heavily on her, making her loneliness compound. For the first time since being called into that awful chamber, she felt connected to Serkan. There was no doubt about his love or his loyalty. There was no doubt about anything anymore. She wanted him inside her, wanted to be joined with him in the most essential way possible.
He was hard already, his hands massaging her breasts as she ground her lower lips along the length of his eager shaft. She was teasing him, and herself along with him, drawing out the moment when they would be joined again with a rolling motion of her hips that made him let out masculine growls of need. He was hot and hard against her sex, his throbbing rod already secreting the juices of his desire.
“Faith…” he moaned her name. “Enough… brat.”
She grinned as her hips ground against him, her pussy tormenting the tip of his cock with slow gyrations that just barely touched the slick head of him. His growl rumbled through her, his need as urgent as hers. When she could stand it no longer Faith rose up, his cock following her pussy to stand erect, the flared head of him finding the wet slit and the tight little crevice between her folds as she sank slowly down on his cock with a long sigh of pleasure.
They made love long and slow, Faith riding him with languid motions of her hips, her eyes locked on his, his hands cupping, teasing, stroking her body as they joined in their most powerful sexual moment. This was more than rutting, this was far beyond any kind of treatment. This was pure need for one another, expressed in essential physicality.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
They said the words over and over as their motions became more urgent, mouths meeting as she leaned down and was pulled against his chest, his hand wrapping in her hair as he held her against his body and his cock plundered her pussy, his hips urgent and fast in their motions as his hard rod sluiced in and out of her eager sex, propelling them both toward a long awaited, much needed mutual orgasm.
Curses and gasps heralded the tremors that swept them both, drawing Serkan’s seed deep inside Faith’s bare pussy, flooding her with his juices as she ground against him, her clit pressed hard against his pubic bone, her pussy gripping his cock with a milking motion ensuring that every drop of him was taken deep inside her greedy sex.
“God, I needed that,” Faith moaned against his lips. “And I need you. Forever.”
“You have me,” Serkan growled. “No matter what. Forever.”
Chapter Fifteen
“The ship’s cannon stands ready,” Serkan said. “Time to dump the cargo.”
Faith held the chip in her hands. It was quite beautiful, sleek silicone etched with an infinite number of tiny channels containing the consciousnesses of the creature that had called itself Ephemera. She was still awed when she felt how light it was, and how simple it looked. “I wish we could see it actually, you know… break up into a thousand pieces and melt in the sun.”
“We’ll have to watch it on the ship’s screen,” Serkan said. “But we should be able to get a good view of Ephemera’s last moments.”
There was a weight to his tone that gave Faith some pause. “Are you… regretting this?”
“No,” he said. “But you have to understand what we’re doing. We’re not just destroying the people who threatened our lives. We’re destroying the beings who have been at the center of Svari culture for centuries. It is an occasion hundreds of years in the making.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Faith handed the tablet to Serkan. “You should do it.”
He turned the tablet over in his hands. “It’s not too late,” he mused, almost to himself.
“Too late for what?”
“We could send them back to Svari. Return them to their prison in the temple. That would be a more fitt
ing punishment than the oblivion they seek.”
“You’re being vengeful,” Faith smiled. “I like it. But… think what you’d be doing to the Svari people. They’ve been slaves to this thing long enough. And think what Ephemera would do to us. They’d make us a prime target.”
“So we shoot it into the sun, destroy them, let them get what they wanted?”
“Or we shoot it into deep space and let them find out what eternity really feels like,” Faith suggested.
“And risk them being found and returned? No. This is Ephemera’s last wish. And even though they don’t deserve it, I will grant it.”
He put the tablet in the slot, twisted the barrel, and pushed it home.
“Locked and loaded,” he intoned. “Come up to the bridge. We fire from there.”
They went up to the bridge, where a monitor showed a view of the Svari sun. Serkan pulled Faith onto his lap so they could both sit in the captain’s chair and share the load of their task.
“Any last words for Ephemera?” Serkan put his thumb on the launch button.
“No,” Faith said. “Let’s just do this.”
Serkan nodded and pressed the button. There was a rumble and then a judder as the cannon fired and a streak entered the monitor’s field of vision. The tablet was tiny against the sun, visible only as Serkan turned up the view distance and made it visible as a dark speck against the golden heat. It flared white as it drew closer, then exploded in a shower of blue sparks before being lost to view entirely.
They both let out the deep breaths they had been holding.
“That feels almost… anticlimactic, doesn’t it,” Faith said. “Just like that, the new gods go the way of the old ones. Assuming the old ones also got fired into the sun.”
Serkan nodded solemnly. “I hope Ephemera finds peace at rest, and I hope the Svari can avoid descent into chaos.”
“So we’re not going back?”
Serkan shook his head adamantly. “Svari is no place for you, Faith. And it is no place for me either, anymore.”
“We’re not going to clean up our mess?”
“Ephemera’s mess,” he clarified. “What’s happening there is not your fault and it is not mine. There is no need to present ourselves as sacrifice for what will soon be an angry mob, I am sure.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Whatever we want,” Serkan said, pressing a kiss to her cheek and drawing his arms tight around her body. “The universe is ours.”
Epilogue
“Settle down, Furry, unless you want all your holes sewn up.” Faith’s drawl cut through the chaotic conversation of an interstellar bar in which twelve languages were being spoken at once, mostly over one another.
She was speaking to a humanoid covered in dense blue fur. He had been bleeding from a gash in his arm and was now biting down on a piece of leather, in between cursing and swearing as Serkan threaded stitches through his skin. They were out of high-tech supplies and were back to the simple medical fixes, thread, needles, and a shot of high-octane liquor for pain relief.
“So once Serkan finishes stitching you up, you come see me,” she said as Serkan finished up the stitches. “You need a service circuit, I know how to get them without getting holes shot in me.”
“Cut it out, Faith,” Serkan growled. “You’re out of the game. We provide medical services and nothing else.”
“Yup, got it on our business cards. Medical services and nothing else,” she smirked as he clipped the end of the stitches.
“That will be sixty Furvolli credits, or their equivalent in any of the recognized currencies,” Serkan said to his patient. “Try not to get shot or stabbed. We’re only in this station for another twenty-four hours. After that, you’ll be on your own.”
“Thanks, Doctor,” his patient said, pushing a stack of silver coins across the table. “You saved my hide.”
Faith scooped them up into her pocket before anyone else could. It was that kind of a place. Pretty much every place they went these days was. They were making their living by going from station to station, helping those in need. She loved it. And Serkan was damn good at it. No matter who the patient was, he was able to handle them. Some of the rowdier species needed to be dealt with firmly, but he never had any trouble doing that.
“Be more careful,” she said to their latest patient. “Or someone will turn you into a rug.”
“You,” Serkan said, crooking his finger at Faith as he stood up, wiping his hands with sanitary gel. “Come here, we have to talk.”
“We can talk here,” she said, recognizing the look in his eye. He never liked it when she teased about going back to making a career of her light-fingered skills. Their agreement was that she didn’t steal, and he didn’t drag her to any hyper-moralistic societies. So far, it was working.
Instead of repeating himself, Serkan reached out, scruffed her by the collar, and walked her to a quieter corner of the bar.
“If you don’t cut that out, I’ll take you over my knee right here,” he threatened, his silver eyes boring into hers as he leaned over her, one arm extended against the wall as she pressed herself up against it by way of protecting her ass.
“I’m just selling our services, well, my services,” she pouted.
“No, you don’t steal anymore, Faith. You know that. You’re my assistant.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “You’re supposed to help me with the patients.”
“You mean the outlaws you treat ‘cause they’d go to prison if they went to a colony hospital. They get to do crime. It’s not fair that I can’t.” She gave him an overly dramatic pout that she didn’t begin to mean. The truth was, Faith no longer felt any need to steal. She had everything she needed looming over her with his brows drawn down in a scowl.
“I mean my patients,” Serkan repeated himself, running his other hand down the side of her body, tracing the line of her hips and cupping her rear. “You brat. I think it’s time I gave you another dose of treatment.”
“But your treatment doesn’t seem to be working, Doctor,” Faith laughed. “It never has. I’m more of a chronic condition.”
“That won’t stop me from trying,” Serkan replied. “One of these days, you’ll climax your way into behaving yourself, I’m sure of it. Until then, we have the prototype on board.”
“Oh, no…”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Come on, Faith. Back to the ship. Now.”
Faith found herself naked, standing in front of a machine that was not nearly as sleek or aesthetically pleasing as the one on Svari had been. One of the first things Serkan had done once they’d gotten a bit of money together was get parts for a homemade disciplinary treatment device. It looked cobbled together, bits and pieces from star ships, motor mowers, and a kitchen sink all stuck together somehow with wire and sheer determination. Serkan was proud of it though, and he’d added some additional tweaks that could make a treatment session intense as all hell.
“Leaving you unattended at all seems to be almost impossible,” he lectured. “You are the essence of trouble, distilled into human form.”
Faith grinned and squirmed as he picked her up and laid her face down on what had once been a medical bed. It was now modified so the rear of it dipped at an angle, making her bottom available for Serkan’s most ingenious methods of punishments.
“You’re so dramatic,” Faith said, her hips lifting almost imperceptibly in anticipation of what was to come. This version of the treatment machine did not have any of the straps of the first. Serkan had decided he didn’t need them. He was more than capable of keeping her in place, his large hands pinning her down as the machine did its work.
Subject is stage two , the machine blared as it completed its scan. Resistance and rebellion detected .
“Am not,” she argued with the inanimate object.
Inserting probe
“Oh… god… Serkan…”
She felt the machine begin to spray lubrication, the warm, slightly sticky fluid cascading f
rom small jets, covering the crevice of her bottom and the mound of her pussy. Two levers slid up and out to hold her cheeks open for the lubricant, a procedure Faith always found embarrassing as it exposed every part of her in the most crude of ways.
Select anal or vaginal stimulation
“Hmmm,” Serkan said. “What do you most deserve after trying to turn to a life of crime again?”
“You’re an asshole,” Faith said, her choice of words ironic given…
Anal , the machine declared. Initiating anal penetration
She was totally helpless, held fast by Serkan as the machine slid a thick rubber probe toward her bottom. She couldn’t see precisely how it was shaped, but she could feel that the tip of the thing was tapered. That was some small mercy as it touched the tight little bud between her machine-spread cheeks and then began to turn very slowly, pushing and drilling into her body.
Her anus never stood a chance against the finely calibrated intrusion. She let out little gasps for clemency as the probe slid into her bottom, slowly but steadily. Fresh warm lubricant was being applied regularly over the shaft of the probe as the flare grew thicker and her body struggled to take the girth of the thing.
Subject is resisting , the machine elaborated. Muscle resistance detected, initiating punishment
“No!”
Two whippy strokes from yet another attachment landed vertically across both cheeks at the same time, sending hot flashes through her squirming cheeks.
“Serkan! This isn’t fair!”
The probe was plunging deeper now, moving back and forth in a rhythm that left her in no doubt as to the fact that she was being taken by the machine. It was fucking her bottom slowly, but firmly, enough pressure to make her feel her bottom hole stretch to accommodate its every thrust.
She felt laid bare, all her little inner secrets taken and displayed for Serkan to see. Not that he needed the machine. He’d had an instinct for finding where the truth lay with her from the very beginning.
