Eban's Command: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Science Fiction Alien Romance) (Survival Wars Book 2)

by Hana Starr

  Fourteen were dead, Tullia amongst them. Two were children, and five were elders. He knew every single one of them and their families, and had personally overseen every ingle funeral as the bodies were placed into the earth. No condolences were given, because that wasn’t their way. He wasn’t going to lie to someone about something being okay when he knew it never would be. Long after everything else was fixed, those fourteen would still be gone and buried.

  It was two days before he could even manage to take a break like this, to simply breathe and stay in one place. He hadn’t had a chance to check on Saffron and hoped she would understand. Even with her strained neck, he had heard that she was out amongst the general populace and helping them with anything they might need.

  Deep affection for her filled his chest. She was exactly the sort of person he needed at his side. Not just as a companion or lover, or a friend, but as his true mate.

  His gaze slid across the command room to where Karree was watching him. That was a little bit odd, but now that their eyes met, she started to wander over under the pretense of checking out the rest of the row ahead of her. He tried to smile for her, but he knew from her expression that this was going to be trouble.

  “Sir,” she said, coming to stand silently at his side.

  The last thing I want to do is explain to her that there’s someone else in my life but I’m going to have to sooner or later. Sooner, probably.

  “Yes, first mate?” he asked, trying to make his voice sound light and keep this thoughts from breaking in. “What are you thinking about?”

  She hesitated, looking down at the tiles beneath her feet. “Times like this make me think that merely having a commander to keep them hopeful isn’t enough. They need specific events for that.”

  Eban snorted a little, hoping that he could head this off at the pass. “I already tried that, remember? Yesterday was supposed to be a day of feasting but who wants to eat when the whole ship smells of fire and death?”

  “Something more concrete than that,” she insisted, and then looked up at him. Her eyes were shining with the same sort of emotion that he felt inside himself when he thought about Saffron. “Maybe it’s time that our beloved commander started a family.”

  Her hand slid into his. It was warm, practically burning with heat, and utterly soft. It was also so terribly wrong that he jerked away without meaning to.

  The softness with which she looked at him rapidly evaporated. “By the flight,” she swore, her face darkening with anger. “I can’t believe you! You would rather mess with that pitiable human than one of your own kind?”

  Stiffening with anger, Eban glared at her. “It is not for you to decide my future.”

  “I trusted you,” she choked out.

  “And I will always trust you,” he said pointedly. “This has nothing to do with trust because I have betrayed nothing. I never once hinted to you that I wanted to be your mate.”

  It didn’t matter what he said, which he knew. She turned away from him and went away, her shoulders tensed up as if she was trying to shield herself. He turned away too and went back to examining his monitors. This was exactly what he’d needed, a sideways sort of validation for his own feelings.

  That night, he crept through the sleeping quarters and knocked very lightly on Saffron’s door. With the lights so fully dark, he expected her to be asleep but her soft voice came to him through the walls. “I’m coming.”

  Then, she was standing before him in only her underclothes. His member hardened in his trousers, pressing his sensitive, swollen tip against the rough fabric. She was just as beautiful as he thought she would be, even with the slight bruising on her arms where she’d collided with a flight hoop on her way down. Her breasts were perfect handfuls, barely held in check. And her legs were smooth and supple, and he couldn’t help but to imagine how they would look wrapped around his waist.

  “Were you expecting someone else?” he asked blandly.

  She looked away and blushed, which he loved. “No, you’re exactly the man I was looking for. Do you…want to come in? Can you come in?”

  Eban didn’t answer, instead choosing to just walk inside. Saffron shut the door behind them, and then looked up into his eyes. “You have no idea how often I daydreamed about this,” she whispered. “And yet here you are. Finally for real.”

  He stepped closer to her, so close that their thighs touched. They were very nearly the same height and shape, which meant that he could look right into her eyes when he kissed her. Their lips met, softly, sweetly. He savored it, feeling the hardship of the day slowly melt away as his whole world narrowed down to only one person.

  “You’re so wonderful,” he whispered, his lips rubbing against hers as he spoke. She replied by sliding her tongue into his mouth, and the taste of her was sweeter than even his favorite fruit. His dick throbbed harder for attention and he nudged his hips toward her, trying to grind them together; her legs spread, she reached around and wrapped her hands around his butt to pull him against her so that his engorged member rubbed right against her pussy.

  They stayed like that for an eternity, staring into each other’s eyes as they ground their bodies together and shared a gasping breath or two between hungry, needy kisses. Eban felt so wonderful, like he was flying. He felt so far away from everything else but this woman in his arms, digging her nails into his butt and clawing at the fabric like she might rip through.

  When he could stand it no longer, he moved her back step by step to the edge of the bed. Smiling mischievously, she kept holding onto him and fell abruptly back against the mattress; Eban broke the fall with his hands and then looked down at her. Her hair was spread out everywhere, and her eyes glowed with magic before she closed them.

  “Please take me?” she begged. “I’ve waited so long for this. I don’t know how much longer I can…”

  He shushed her with a finger stroking over her soft lips. “You won’t have to wait any longer,” he said breathlessly. “Just stay right where you are.”

  With that, he slid off the edge of the bed onto his knees. Grabbing her thighs and spreading them gently, he breathed in her beautiful scent of musk and desire; swallowing hard, he started trembling and realized that he wanted to eat her, to devour her, to suck her juices and savor her like he would his favorite treat.

  You will be my favorite treat now, he thought, and slid one hand up from her thigh to her pussy. Her juices had soaked down all the way through her panties and were trickling down her soft inner legs. Reverently, he slid her panties all the way down so they puddled down onto the floor. Tossing them away, he kissed his way from her knee and all the way up.

  Her pussy was so pretty and swollen-pink, and her clit was just begging to be sucked on. He wanted every single bit of her all at once, so he opened his mouth as wide as he could and took in as much as he could. Immediately, Saffron grabbed at his hair and started to whimper, begging him on wordlessly. A wicked smile curled on his mouth, and he started to suck on her noisily, pulling as much of her juices into his mouth as he could.

  She started to moan in earnest, and he flicked his long tongue out to lavish attention on her clit. Her hips started to raise up, her butt shaking with tension as she pressed herself against his mouth as hard as she could. His own excitement grew and grew, an he felt his seed start to climb up his shaft in a burning wave of heat. His own body shook in unison with hers, his heartbeat so loud he knew she could hear it, and he moved his mouth to wrap around just her clit while his finger slid deep between her hot pussy lips.

  “Eban!” she cried out, completely abandoning the need for silence. And he let her, joyfully sucking on her needy clit while fucking her roughly with his finger as deeply as he could reach.

  Very quickly though, he couldn’t stand anymore of that. He was throbbing, about to burst, and he wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

  Quickly, he released her clit and yanked down his pants. Her mouth opened in a cry of disappointment as he pulled away, but it qu
ickly changed to one of pure pleasure as he leapt back on top of her and slammed the full length of his shaft right inside her. There was no teasing, and no drawing it out. He took her mouth with his and adjusted his angle as he thrust in again, the swollen and gleaming tip of his cock ramming right against her g-spot.

  Her pussy tightened around his shaft, her muscles gripping him as her body shook and bucked in orgasm. The sensation of being squeezed was so glorious that he cried out with her, begging and moaning soundlessly into her mouth as his seed filled her and began to overflow. There was nothing in his mind but light and freefall, his every sense strained to perfection.

  When it was over, Saffron slid out from underneath him. Eban glanced at his new mate. “What are you doing?”

  In answer, she reached for his spent member. Already, he started to harden again and knew that their night together was far from over.

  Chapter Eleven

  The wailing of furious alarms awoke them.

  Saffron leapt to her feet and grabbed her clothes, and was halfway dressed before she even realized what she was doing. Beside her, Eban was doing the same.

  She panted, “What’s going on? What alarm is that?”

  “I don’t know,” he growled, his lean face stark with worry. His hair was irreparably mussed and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, visible in the low light of the ship’s early morning hours. “I have not ever heard it before. Not at all. I have to get to the command room. Come with me.”

  “Okay,” Saffron agreed, finishing pulling on her pants. There was no time to straighten herself or even fasten the pants correctly. Eban was already hurrying out the doorway. The other doors down the sleeping halls were opening, other members of the Icari also stumbling out in equal states of disarray. Many of them were grumbling and incoherent, but the others were bristling and brandishing far more weapons than they’d had prepared for the invader attack.

  Just seeing the light flash off so many dull kitchen knives made her heart hurt for them. That attack was such a loss of innocence. The bakery was even in a current state of hiatus, the family reeling from the loss of Tullia. The farming plots had also taken a hit; as much as Saffron tried to grab the reigns, she had no idea how to manage anything and was thoroughly lost on where anything was or even what Tullia had been doing as far as keeping track of growth and output. No one seemed to know where her records were, or even what state they’d been or how they were written so that she could try to keep a new record until the current ones were found. No, she just had no idea. It had been just one tragedy after another, and now this?

  Someone bumped into her, and she fell back a little bit. Eban’s head bobbed ahead of her, and she could still see him, so she didn’t really mind when he disappeared down the halls without her. She wasn’t going to argue with him at a time like this, but she was still a little hesitant in the back of her mind about just showing up uninvited.

  Then again, she had to remind herself still that she wasn’t just one of them. She was more important than just another average member of the Icari, and her presence in the command room would only upset Karree.

  Much to her surprise though, she nearly ran into Eban when she ran out into the atrium. He caught her in his arms, scanning her up and down very quickly. “Are you alright?” he asked briskly. “Stay with me, okay?”

  She was about to answer but all he did was snag her hand and start off again. He was much faster than her. If they had been back on earth, she would have fallen flat on her face but in this low gravity, her feet glided out from underneath her and he could very literally just tow her around behind him as much as he wanted.

  Once they reached the command room though, he dropped her hand and ran ahead to have the doors open automatically so they wouldn’t both have to pause and wait. “What’s going on?” he called, visibly forcing himself to be their calm commander and not a distressed member of society.

  Karree dashed up, her mouth open, but she clamped it shut when she saw Saffron hanging back. She straightened up and her whole demeanor changed, stiffening and closing down. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Karree!” Eban reprimanded her, clenching his fists. Other than a sharp voice and those tensed fingers, he gave no sign of anger but it didn’t take a professional mindreader to pick up on their bodily cues. They’d had quite the altercation, probably about his relationship status, and Saffron wanted no part of it so she just stayed where she was in the doorway. Behind her, the motion-activated door was still open and she was half a mind to escape right back through it to see if she could help calm down the general population. Even with so much distance between this room at the front of the ship and the middle atrium, she could hear them. Such terrible weariness even in their fear…

  If looks could kill, Saffron would have dropped dead when Karree pierced her through with a stare. As much as she didn’t want to get involved, Saffron just looked back. She tried to keep her expression neutral, even though she was distinctly aware that the other woman was about a million times stronger and perfectly capable of snapping her neck, or shooting her, or stabbing her with that knife at her belt…

  Eban stepped between them, his head lowered like a bull about to charge. “That’s enough,” he said angrily. “She is here because I trust her. Everyone here is, and I don’t see you trying to threaten Garem. Focus and we can all discuss this at a later point in time.”

  Please, no. Let’s not.

  “Fine,” Karree snapped. “And for your information, I have no idea what’s wrong. By the flight, why is everything falling apart at once?”

  This was the only time in Saffron’s life that she refrained from launching into her customary speech about everything happening as it was supposed to. Tullia had accepted it, but this was neither the time or place –and definitely not the right person- to be explaining her philosophy to.

  “That’s what we need to figure out,” Eban said calmly. “Why can’t we see what’s wrong?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Karree said, incredulous. “Were you simply not present for the explosions? We had only just begun to clean, much less repair! Half of our monitors are out of commission. And only a few of the screens that will show up are even capable of registering the system.”

  “So, we follow protocol,” Eban replied, still utterly calm in this time of emergency.

  Karree shook her head. “What protocol, Eban? We don’t have any procedure for this.”

  “So we treat this like any other disaster!” he insisted. “I don’t care how you do it but summon all active, resting, and volunteer members of security for crowd control. Have them keep all members of the Icari within the center of the atrium. Block all halls and exits. No one must fly.”

  “Got it,” she said. “After I dispatch them?”

  “Then come back,” he growled, and then pointed past Saffron. “Go!”

  The other woman raced past, head down and face grim with determination. She didn’t even look up or pay any attention to Saffron at all as she went by.

  “Saffron,” Garem called. “Come over here!”

  Eban gestured for her to go, and then he turned and dashed up his ladder. With nothing else to do, she gladly grabbed onto a chance to have something to do and so went straight over to him. “What is it?”

  He thrust a soft, supple brush into her hand. “Be careful. Help me start clearing some of this ash away from the uncleared monitors. The ash is poisonous though, so try not to breathe in any of it.”

  Only a few minutes after that, her lungs lightly aching but not at any dangerous sort of level –or so she grimly assumed, anyway- there came a call from high up above. It was Eban, his face tortured and pale. “I found the problem.”

  Saffron tried to catch his eyes for moral support but he wouldn’t look at her. He wasn’t looking directly at anyone, just gazing out over her head.

  “Well?” someone called, just as Karree entered. The first mate noticed what was going on and stood stock-still, poised and waiting l
ike all the rest to hear what their beloved commander had found.

  “It was our sensors that have sustained damage. They are offline, completely in-operational. Basically, the whole ship is down. We didn’t notice the change in engines, because we normally drift anyway.”

  “What does this mean for the ship?” Karree called up. “Can we mend it?”

  Eban looked stricken, like his mind had broken even worse than it had at the arrival of the invaders. “We can, but we cannot fix the…collateral damage. Without our sensors, we were incapable of detecting a majority of major problems. Ah, that is…to say…”

  Oh, no.

  “I managed to access our systems through a side channel, rather than taking a direct route through the sensors. I checked all of them. It isn’t good. Our fuel ports were damaged and leaking this whole time. That is…we have none left. Our backup stores are safe but the energy the ship takes up just operating the lights will quickly drain that. That means…eventual darkness. No water, unless we fetch it by hand from the well store. Our air system will eventually fail.”