Dark Matter: SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE

by Jessica Loft

  “No. No it’s too much,” she said, backing away from the table of food. “I can’t do this. I have to get out of here. I have to find Katy. Or Emily. Please, I need a human to talk to, Twila.” Her heart was going into overdrive and her breath was coming out in heavy, wheezing drags. Suddenly she wanted the king to come back into the room so that she could both kick him in the groin then find comfort in his arms.

  Twila walked towards her, her hands held out in a soothing motion. Clara had no idea that Twila was an empathy stealer, a species of humanoids that could absorb emotions and place them into something else. With her hands up, she drew the panic out of Clara, and pushed it into the wall. For a moment the room trembled, groaned and shook as it absorbed the stress. Finally, it filtered through all of the elements of the castle, and dispersed.

  Clara was surprised at how relaxed she felt, and though there was a tear in her eye, she smiled softly down at Twila. She didn’t know what had just happened, but knew she felt better because of something the shorter woman did for her.

  “Please, Miss Clara, do calm down. Your species has weak hearts you know. Several that I’ve seen have already given themselves heart attacks, and we certainly don’t want that for you,” Twila advised. “Now, as for your friends, I cannot promise anything, but I can send a guard or two out to look for them. It has only been a day or so on this planet since you have been here, so even if they were bought by a foreign family, we should still be able to look for them.”

  She walked over the vanity beside the large bathtub, and from the center drawer pulled out an eight by ten mirror. She placed it gingerly in Clara’s hands as Clara looked to her quizzically. How was a mirror supposed to help her?

  “It’s not as it appears,” Twila explained, as if she could read her thoughts. “It looks like a mirror, yes, but it is actually, among other things, a memory keeper. Whoever places their hands on the silver side can transport their memories from their minds to this device. Put your hands here and here, that’s it. Now, close your eyes, and picture their faces.”

  Clara did as she was told, and squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of Katy first, her dearest and oldest friend. She remembered every detail of her face that she could, and then slowly opened her eyes. She gasped when she looked down into the mirror and saw Katy’s face looking back at her.

  “It works!” She breathed.

  Twila chuckled and shook her head. “Aye, I told you. Now, let’s just do this,” she explained, tapping the image on the screen. A list of options scrolled down in English, and Twila pressed ‘share’. It opened another window where she selected security.

  “There, now it’s been sent to every guard in the city.”

  Excited, Clara once again closed her eyes and pulled Emily’s face from her memory. As before, Twila repeated the process, and sent the image out to the guards.

  “Not everyone can look for them, Miss Clara,” Twila advised, “but I can definitely ask a few guards to attend to it. In the meantime, you should really try to adjust to your new life. I can promise you, it will be vastly different from the one you just left.”

  Clara felt a wave of nausea and a slight jealousy wash over her. She looked down at the bed, and wondered how many courtesans had been ravished on those sheets. A shiver of disgust went down her spine, and she shook her head.

  “How um, how many courtesans has your king been through?” She asked, trying not to sound overly curious.

  “None, Miss Clara,” Twila answered. “He’s had lovers I’m sure, guests that come to pleasure him in his quarters. However a courtesan has not lived in these rooms since his father’s reign. That was nearly two hundred years ago now.”

  Twila stood watching as relief flooded through Clara, and she even revealed a small smile. She fell back onto her bed, wondering what the life of a courtesan would be like on an alien planet. If she was going to be his and his alone, perhaps it would not be all that bad. He was incredibly handsome, and though chauvinistic at times, he did seem to have a gentle side.

  Her mind began to roam through dusty hallways of long ago romances, and she didn’t like what she saw. She didn’t want or need to think about that, she decided, shaking her head. Needing a distraction and a work out for her brain, she picked up the mirror like device.

  “Twila, would you please help me figure out how to use this thing?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Ajax scowled at Riordan from across the dining table. He had been talking to him for several minutes, and just like in the war council, he wasn’t paying attention. This new girl was a troublemaker, and though they’d only met once, he was starting to despise her. Annoyed, he picked up his fork and tossed it onto Riordan’s plate, making a clashing noise. Riordan finally turned to him, and asked if something was the matter.

  “You tell me,” Ajax seethed. “Are you sure that female is only human? Perhaps she’s a witch, the way she steals your mind as she does.”

  Riordan chuckled, and picked up his leg of roasted meat. “Are you jealous old friend? You shouldn’t be so ill tempered. I gave her the tin of salve you advised and it worked wonderfully. I have you to thank for calming her down.”

  Ajax rolled his eyes and got up to retrieve his fork. “She’s ill tempered, Riordan. I didn’t want you going in there without some sort of peace offering. Now tell me, seriously. What is so special about this human female? You’ve never kept anyone in the white room. Your father did, sure, but you’ve never really believed in courtesans. A pity, yes, but true nonetheless.”

  Riordan raised his glowing onyx eyes to Ajax, and gave him a lopsided grin. “Actually, I’m not sure that I want to use her for that,” he explained. “I was talking to her, and reading her mind, and for a human, she’s incredibly intelligent.”

  Ajax bared his fangs, not liking where the conversation was going. “I don’t like intelligent females of any species,” he remarked, his voice nearly a growl. Riordan ignored his comment, and kept going.

  “I thought perhaps she could better serve me and our planet if she had a job where she could put her intelligence to work. I’ve decided to make a seat for her on my cabinet.”

  Ajax’s jaw dropped, his sand hued eyes going wide with shock. “A woman? A human woman on the king of the Guardianites’ cabinet? You’ve gone insane! She’d betray us, you must know that! That’s why we make our captives slaves instead of citizens, so that they’re not in positions of power!”

  “That was my father’s way,” Riordan shot back. “It may not be mine.”

  “Riordan,” Ajax replied, his tone begging not just his king, but his friend to listen. “This is how we have survived. This is how are people have flourished and lived for eons while others have combusted.”

  “How do we know that when we’ve enslaved every planet we’ve captured? We destroy their males, capture their women and children in hopes of breeding, and then fall into failure again.”

  “We have successfully mated with Earth human females,” Ajax countered. “We have hybrid children- female children. Our race can continue now.”

  “And you want to reward them by enslaving them?” Riordan asked.

  Ajax opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He could feel the rise of testosterone in the room and he knew that there was no winning against the ultimate alpha. Instead, he sighed, and shook his head as he stood.

  “I leave to go back to Numia’s ship in three days time,” he said, his voice holding a thread of defeat. “I’ll be gone for at least a week. Please, I beg of you, not as your ambassador, but as your friend, do not make any rash decisions until I get back.”

  Riordan said nothing as his friend huffed out of the room. Many thoughts rushed through his mind at once, and he sat at the dining table for nearly two hours trying to filter them out and organize them. He knew Ajax had a point. They had survived for a reason, and it very well could have been because they enslaved their enemies. However, the reign of pure blood Guardianites was officially over. If it weren’t for the hu
man Earth women, then their race, no matter how skilled at battle they were, would have been wiped out.

  In between his thoughts of his father’s past and his own future, Clara kept popping into his mind. He thought of how her body, soft, warm, and pliant, felt in his arms as she laid with him in his sleeping chamber on the ship, and again as she cried in her new quarters. He thought of how her lips wrapped greedily around the opening of the water bottle he had held for her at the auction, and how, despite her fear, she had held her chin up high and proud as she was being inspected by several hundreds of his men. She was a strong woman, despite her species. Her human men did not deserve her, and despite what Ajax said, he could not allow her to just end up as a courtesan-even if she would only be his and his alone.

  CHAPTER 7

  Twila looked over the device in fascination, not believing what Clara had just done.

  “My Lady,” she awed, “this is fantastic! How did you know how to do this?” With nothing much to do but wait for Riordan to return, Clara had taken a whack at figuring out the odd mirror device. She was surprised at how similar it was to a human iPad, and was able to hack into it fairly easily. Smiling, Clara shrugged her shoulders and picked up a piece of fruit from the platter Twila had just brought her.

  “I’m an engineer. Figuring things out is what I do. Now that I’ve scanned Numia’s database of faces with the renderings that’ve come up, we now can narrow the search down from the entire city to the just a few houses. Of course there were some women who look strikingly similar to Emily and Katy, but once the guards go inspect the houses, it should be quite easy to figure out who is who.”

  Twila clapped her hands. “Well done My Lady,” she praised. “That is quite a mind you have on you there.”

  Clara thanked her, and out of boredom stripped from her white gown and stepped into the pool of warm, crystal clear water. She sighed as she sank down into it up to her neck, and for the first time admitted to herself that being captured so far hadn’t been so bad. After all, it had been three days since she had found out she was going to be the courtesan to the king, and he had blissfully, annoyingly left her alone. At first she was grateful. Being used as a sex object was not high on her life goal list. But then when he hadn’t come by the second day, she realized that she was starting to look towards the door, expecting him. She wanted his company. Needing a distraction, she had threwn herself into the alien iPad and began to work.

  “How many Guardianites are there, Twila?” She asked suddenly.

  “Oh, about two billion I would say, give or take a million or so.”

  “And how many of them are women?”

  Twila laughed, and Clara cocked her head to turn towards the Hectian alien that had been captured just like she had.

  “There are very few left My Lady. Maybe a million or so, and none can bear children.”

  “Are they utilized?” Clara asked.

  Twila raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  Clara turned over so that she could lean her arms on the lip of the tub, her bare bum floating close to the surface of the water. It was deep enough the she could kick her legs lazily to keep herself afloat.

  “What I’m asking is, what are their jobs? What do they do to contribute things to society?”

  “Oh, that. Well it depends,” Twila explained. “Some work, like Numia. She helps her husband run the import and export of the new species that come into Guardianite control. The late Queen, King Riordan’s mother, sat on the cabinet with her husband before they passed.”

  “So there has been a woman in power before?” Clara asked.

  Twila shifted on her feet, suddenly uncomfortable. “My Lady,” she said, her voice low, “I should not be talking of such things. It can be dangerous.” She looked over her shoulder, as if she were afraid someone was listening. “There are certain members of the cabinet, in this castle, that would hear of no such talk or questions from a female slave.”

  Clara winced at the word slave, and opened her mouth to object. However, she saw look in Twila’s eyes, and shut it again. She wasn’t sure what was going on with the women here, but she’d have to find out. Without asking Twila.

  ~

  An hour later Twila was called away by a new slave who needed her protection, and Clara was left all alone to her thoughts. She wished she’d had a book to read or the alien iPad to fiddle with. But Twila had taken it to show the guards where to look for Katy and Emily. As always, the light from outside of the high window slowly slipped away, filling the room with the first darkness, then a soft, blue glow, much like that of Riordan’s markings. She had tried to stand on the furniture to reach the window and see outside, but it was no use. Without her high heels, she was just too short.

  In a last ditch effort to get some sleep, she picked up the tin of salve that Riordan had left her, and opened it. As soon as she lifted the lid the scent of lavender and mint filled the room, making her smile. Her hand had healed almost immediately after she applied it, and she hadn’t the need to use it since. But, along with healing she recalled the feeling of calm it had given her. Curious, she dipped her finger into the salve, and smeared a small amount onto her throat, and held it up to her nose to take a deep inhale.

  Clara gasped at how quickly the salve worked, and she let her body fall, relaxed, into the pillows of her bed. Immediately she felt every small tick and stress melt away as she stared up at the soft glowing blue light. She felt the walls of her brain begin to lower and couldn’t help but giggle as she found the thoughts that she had been trying so hard to push away.

  Closing her eyes, she gave her body over to the euphoria of salve-induced sleep. Dreams carried her to where she had been trying not to go. Riordan’s onyx eyes glowed with a gold ring around them as he stared down at her, his heavily muscled chest heaving with each deep breath he took. As usual he was naked from the waist up, showing off his intricate glowing blue tattoos and muscled stomach. His well-fitted black leather pants slung low on his hips and between his legs she could see the rather large bulge of his cock straining against the fabric.

  “I shouldn’t want you,” she whispered, feeling her nipples harden as she said the words. “I don’t want to want you.”

  Riordan took a step towards her bed, his hand deftly unsnapping the buttons at his crotch as he moved closer to her.

  “Perhaps it is not about want,” he replied, his voice incredibly deep and arousing. He sounded like pure sex against her ears, and she couldn’t help the tremble of desire that flowered through her as she heard it. “Perhaps it is about need. I need you, Clara.”

  His hands, both warm and calloused, grasped her ankles gently, and tugged her down until her legs dangled over the bed. A sound of approval came from deep within Riordan’s throat as he witnessed her lying, deliciously naked on the bed, her legs spread wide for him.

  “I’ve wanted you,” he continued, his hands traveling from her ankles, slowly up her calves and over her knees. “I’ve needed you since I first saw you. You fill my senses; make me think of nothing else.” His fingers dug suddenly into her thighs, scratching her flesh in such a way that made her gasp from both pleasure and pain.

  She had wanted him too, more than she ever liked to admit. She was supposed to be mad at him, infuriated with him. His people took her captive after all, and yet all she wanted to do was have his mouth travel all over her body until she could barely breathe from the pleasure.

  As if he could read her thoughts, he chuckled darkly, and dropped to his knees on the floor. His lips, soft but firm, kissed the delicate flesh of her inner thigh, making her tremble and moan. His breath felt hot against her flesh and she by no means wanted him to stop. Ever.

  Though she could only see him by the ethereal glow of his blue markings, she imagined his pink tongue darting out to taste her pale flesh as his sharp fangs scraped teasingly over her femoral artery. She was a practical woman, one who never really fantasized about sexy vampires or testosterone driven werewolves.
Yet, as she felt Riordan’s lips, teeth, and tongue creep ever closer to the apex of her legs, she couldn’t help but feel like a damsel who fell under the thrall of the beast.

  Riordan’s deep moan of pleasure reverberated through him as his tongue finally reached her warm, wet lips. With a simple flick he parted them to draw forth her sweet honey that came gushing so eagerly towards his parted lips. He moaned as if he had never tasted anything sweeter than Clara’s juices, and his apparent approval only brought her more pleasure.

  Clara splayed her legs willingly for him as he took his time tasting and suckling every part of her womanhood. When he finally reached her clitoris, she shuddered and moaned. Over and over he drew the engorged bud into his well-practiced mouth until she thought she would shatter into a million pieces. Then, right before she thought she couldn’t take anymore, he’d divert his attention to her hot center, dipping his tongue deep into her honey to draw out any that had run. It was a beautiful torture, but also an endless one.

  By the fourth time Riordan brought her to the precipice of an orgasm and quickly backed down, she sobbed in carnal frustration, and begged him for deliverance. It was only then that he took her wrists into his hands and brought them down to his short black hair. Immediately she burrowed her fingers into the soft tresses and pushed her pelvis forward into his mouth. He moaned in joy at her assertiveness, and this time did not back away from her thrusting hips and quivering thighs.

  “Don’t stop,” she breathed, her body winding so tight she could barely stand it.”

  “Never,” Riordan moaned, his tongue, like magic, still seemed to flick endlessly as the word escaped his lips.

  The intense orgasm swelled up and flooded over Clara at long last. She felt Riordan’s hands dig once again into her thighs, preventing her from escaping his wicked tongue as he drew out every drop of her come that he could. He held her as she mewed and bucked against his mouth, not able to control the pleasure that her body was exuding over and over again at his ministrations.