by Ashley West
Kratos smiled right back, pleased with the banter. "Ah, but I wasn't raised a warrior type. You have to be born into that kinda boring compliance. I've known my way around a woman for a while now. And I'm skilled with all of my weapons."
It was heavy handed, but it got the desired reaction. Namely the woman licking her lips and letting her eyes drop down to his crotch. Kratos had yet to disappoint a lover, and he didn't plan to start now.
The bartender put the drink in front of her and then disappeared again, and Kratos took another swig of his own drink. "So," he said. "Will I be blessed with your name? Or will I have to just call you the beautiful mystery woman for the rest of the night?"
Her green eyes sparkled as she looked at him. "I'm called Adir," she said and then smirked. "It would be a shame for you not to have anything to call out later tonight."
Oh, she was feisty. That was good. Kratos liked when women had some teeth to them. When they knew how to give just as good back.
"Are you implying that I'm the sort to pick up a woman in a cantina and then take her?" he asked, placing a hand over his chest as if he was wounded.
"Yes," Adir said, not breaking her gaze.
"Good," Kratos replied. "Because you'd be right."
Her laugh was like the sound of bells. "You are a delight," she said. "You know, people say that mercenaries are all hardened and vulgar, but I don't think you're like that."
"People say a lot of things," Kratos replied with a shrug.
"They do. I hear them. Do you want to know what I've heard?"
"About me?" Kratos asked, chuckling. "I don't know if I do."
"No, no. Just...gossip."
She seemed intent, and so Kratos nodded. "Sure. Lay it on me." It was odd to go from flirting to this, but he was willing to go with it.
"I've heard that the Alva are gone for good," Adir said.
"I've heard that, too." It wasn't mercenary work, and honestly, Kratos didn't think The Kilan could have gone up against the might of the Alva and come out of it alive. They had been a monstrous group, bent on destruction, and there'd been more of them than anyone had known. "Randoran took them down, didn't they?"
Adir nodded. "Yes. With some help, or so I hear. It will be quieter in the galaxy now, with them gone."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Kratos said. "There's always someone else waiting to cause trouble. It's a fact of life."
"And they weren't the biggest threat out there," someone else chimed in, and both Kratos and Adir looked up to see the bartender standing there, wringing her hands.
"No?" Kratos asked.
"No," she said. "There's plenty more bad people where they came from. Always someone wanting to cause trouble, like you said, sir."
Kratos laughed at the address. "You can drop the sir. I'm nowhere near respectable enough for it. And hey, if you ever need some help against some big bad guys, you know who to call, right?" He winked at her.
She just went red all over again and then hurried away.
"Strange," Kratos murmured and then turned his attention back to Adir. "Goes for you, too," he said. "If you need help, you know who to call."
"Mm, I suppose I do. Could you do it? Take on a race out to kill others?"
"Maybe not a whole race," Kratos admitted. "There're only so many of us. And the price would have to be pretty high for something like that. Dangerous getting involved in those kinds of fights."
Adir nodded. "Very dangerous. Let us hope it doesn't come to that."
"Was there concern?" Kratos wasn't sure where this was going, exactly.
“There is always concern.”
Not in a good place, clearly. Kratos was all for talking about end of the world scenarios being avoided and the ways he might play a part in that, but that was work, and this was not work. He didn’t want to be thinking about that now when there was a beautiful woman beside him.
“If the concern is always there, then it won’t mind if we...ignore it for a bit, will it?” he asked, giving her what he thought of privately as ‘the look’. It was something he’d practiced over the years, though he’d never admit that. Just an arch of one eyebrow, dark eyes smoldering, lips curved up in a smirk. There was no way to deny that it exuded innuendo, and women were never good at resisting it.
Adir seemed to be no exception because she smiled at him and leaned in closer. “I suppose it won’t,” she said, lowering her voice to a throaty purr that made his smirk widen.
“Excellent.”
She moved her hand to his knee and then slid it upwards towards his crotch, and he was glad he’d gone with the soft quillfin leather pants for this evening. The muscles in his thighs always stood out better in those, and he flexed slightly when she touched him.
Her lips parted, and he watched as she darted her tongue out and licked her lips slowly, deliberately.
Oh, yes.
The good thing about Skippy's was the fact that it doubled as an inn if you didn't care about space or cleanliness. There were five rooms over the cantina itself, and since Skippy wasn't in any shape to clean them out himself and was too cheap to fork over the credits to have someone else do it, they also doubled as storerooms. Boxes of spirits and glasses were pushed up against the wall of the room that Kratos and Adir stumbled into, barely covered with a dusty tarp.
There was a small bed under the window, barely large enough for one person to lay down on comfortably, but since no one ever really used these rooms for comfort reasons, it was fine. The floor was creaky, and the walls were thin, the sounds of the bustling cantina below clearly heard, but neither of them seemed to mind all that much.
Adir shoved him up against a wall, more strength in her small frame than Kratos had been expecting. The top of her head barely reached to his shoulder, and yet she didn't seem to have a problem pushing him where she wanted him to go and then leaning up to grin teasingly at him.
"Do you like it when a woman takes charge, Kratos?" she asked, and he could smell the sweet scent of her breath and feel the heat of her skin through her clothes and his. "Or would you rather have them follow your lead?"
He smirked and let his hands settle on her hips, pulling her even closer with a quick movement. "Not picky," he said. "I just like to go with the flow."
Adir smiled and leaned up to kiss him.
There was nothing chaste or shy about it, and he had to admire a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to go after it. One hand fisted in his shirt, and the other slid up his chest and then back down. His abs contracted at the feel of her touch, and she hummed lightly into the kiss.
Her lips were soft and full, and he kissed her back, allowing one of his hands to grab her pert bottom roughly.
She didn't complain, but pressed herself closer.
His body was already getting interested in this, and Kratos was sure she'd be able to feel it through the thin leather of his pants. When she rubbed against him shamelessly, he knew he was right.
Before he could suggest moving to the bed, she was sinking down to her knees in front of him, holding eye contact the whole time.
Kratos swallowed hard, a cocktail of eagerness and arousal buzzing through him as he watched her work his pants open.
"I wonder," she said, still in that alluring voice. "If you're all over in proportion."
"Wouldn't it be a disappointment if I wasn't?" he replied, just smirking and letting her get on with it. She'd find out for herself soon enough.
And it didn't take long before she had him in her hand, testing the weight and girth of his cock with her fingers around it. Her lips twisted into a smirk of her own, and she held his eyes as she leaned in and licked a hot stripe over the head of his cock.
Kratos groaned and closed his eyes, head thunking back against the wall. No small number of women had gone down on him before, because they'd wanted to, because they wanted to see if they could, but it never failed to be an enjoyable experience. There was no such thing as a bad time when there was a mouth around his cock (
well, there had been that one time with the woman with all the teeth, but actually, in the end it hadn't been all bad, so the point still stood).
His fingers tangled in that thick, dark hair like they had been itching to do since Adir had come over to join him, and he tugged lightly, pulling her mouth closer to his crotch.
"In a hurry?" she teased.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. Her hair was silky and smooth between his fingers, and her eyes were still just as bright, but clouded with lust as she looked at him. "I don't think I can be blamed for that," he pointed out, and was rewarded by her swallowing half of his cock in one go.
He was thick and long, definitely in proportion to the rest of his body, and he swore in three languages when she began to bob her head, sucking him down to the point where her hand had to pick up the slack and then pulling back.
She made lovely moans around him as she worked, humming and generally making it clear that she was enjoying herself.
And he appreciated that. A man liked to know that he was a treat for a lady from time to time.
"Yeah," he breathed, hips bucking slightly into the warm wetness of her mouth. "Just like that."
As she built up momentum, she moved her hand away and started taking more and more of him until she very nearly had a throatful of his length.
The swearing returned.
But he hadn't wanted to finish like that. Sure, watching a beautiful woman lick his release from her lips was one of the hottest sights he'd ever had the privilege to see, but Adir had a gloriously curvy body that promised wicked things to someone who could get her clothes off, and Kratos wanted to give it a shot.
His cock bobbed in the slightly humid air of the room, still hard and primed for more. Kratos helped her back up to her feet and kissed her again, lips firm against hers as he chased the taste of himself in her mouth.
With one hand still buried in her hair, he let the other one begin the task of undressing her, finding the sensor on the back of her dress and sliding a finger across it to unlock it.
These sorts of dresses were the latest fad in this quadrant, and as Kratos leaned back to watch the dress melt away from Adir's body to pool on the floor at her feet, he could see why.
She was gloriously naked under that dress, no under things to speak of, and he let his hands roam over warm skin, teasing over her nipples lightly and watching as they hardened for him.
Adir made a breathy sound and arched her back slightly, pushing her breasts harder into his hands. With her clothes off, he could see that there were fine scales on either side of her neck, leading down to her collar bones before tapering off. They were the color of gold, glinting in the sparse light from the window. Unable to help himself, Kratos reached up and trailed a finger along the path on one side, eyes widening for a second when Adir gave a full body shiver and moaned.
“Sensitive?” he asked.
“You have no idea.”
It didn't take him long to get an idea, though. He pushed her back to the bed, hovering over her so he could drag his tongue down one of those sensitive trails, delighting in the sounds she made when he did.
Giving a woman pleasure was a part of the fun for him, and he groaned as she bucked upwards against him.
Kratos let his mouth move down that line of scales to her collar bones and then lower, taking a peaked nipple into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue for a bit before biting lightly. A stream of moans and truly delightfully filthy comments fell from those perfect lips of Adir's and Kratos drank it all in, still hard where his cock jutted out from his pants.
It took no time at all for him to line himself up, balanced on one hand while the other moved down in a line to his cock, gripping the base so he could tease around her entrance.
Adir gasped, her legs falling open wider, and Kratos smirked at her. She was so wet just from what they had already done, and he had no trouble at all slicking himself up with it, stroking his hard flesh through her arousal before he started the slide inside of her.
She was tight, so tight, and he grunted and swore as he pushed in, that hot flesh clinging to him like a velvety vice.
"Stars," she groaned, her hands on his shoulders, fingers biting into his skin there. Kratos had always liked having the power to make women cry out to the heavens. He pushed in harder.
By the time he was fully seated, they were both breathing hard, and she was moving against him with little waves of her hips, begging softly for more.
Stamina had never been a problem for him, but he didn't want to spill himself as soon as he started moving, so he took a moment, breathing deeply and mastering himself before he started to move within her, hips rolling as he picked up speed gradually.
The bedframe banged against the wall, and the sounds of the cantina below were drowned out by Adir's moans and swears. Kratos grunted his own pleasure, dipping his head to kiss her mouth, her neck, those fetching scales.
He lost track of time as they moved together, and when she came around him, tight and hot, he fisted his hand into the sheets and let her milk him of his own release.
For long moments neither of them moved or said anything, both seeming to need some time to recover from their climaxes. Then, softly, Adir began to laugh.
Kratos looked down at her, one brow raised. "What's funny?" Laughter was not the best after sex reaction, after all.
"Nothing," she assured him. "Just, I'm sure no one is going to believe me when I tell them about this."
He cracked a smile. "What? People don't think you could seduce me? Your friends don't give you enough credit, then. All you had to do was walk over."
"Mm, but is that a testament to my powers of seduction or how easy you are?"
Now he laughed, shaking his head and pulling out of her so he could get to his feet. Sex was all well and good, but he didn't do the afters. The cuddling and what not. Especially not here of all places, when chances were they'd be interrupted by some other couple (or triad or quartet, knowing this place) looking for some privacy.
"Either," Kratos replied. "Both."
He stretched his arms over his head and considered going to get another drink before heading back to the ship. The night, after all, was still young.
Chapter Two: Fear
“You have got to be kidding me!”
Kirstie jumped where she was pouring herself a glass of wine, slopping the pink liquid over her hand and the counter. She frowned and reached for the dishcloth to wipe it up. “What?” she called into the living room where her two roommates were gathered in front of the television.
It was a Friday, which meant it was movie night, and they were supposed to be going through the Netflix queue to pick something they hadn’t seen yet. She had her doubts about what they were actually doing, though, and she grabbed her glass and the rest of the bottle before heading back into the living room.
The television was turned to the local news, and they seemed to be running a serious story if the look on the reporter’s face was anything to go by.
“What’s happened?” she asked, stepping over Anise’s legs to get to her spot on the couch. “Somebody get murdered?”
“If only,” Cara said with a sigh. “Wait, they’re going over it again.” She turned the volume up, and Kirstie settled in on the couch to watch as they rehashed the story that was apparently the breaking news of the hour.
As the woman explained what was going on, Kirstie could see why.
Earth had been having bad luck with aliens recently. Five years ago, most of the planet was doubting their existence, and now in the last couple of years, it had become all too clear that they were real and very dangerous when they wanted to be. Parts of the state where they had touched down were still rebuilding after the hostile invasion of the Alva, and even with the help of the aliens who had come to clear them out, there had been massive damages and loss of life on a grand scale. It was one of those things that would be in the history books in ten years probably, and it was weird for Kirstie
to think that she’d been around for it.
Not that the aliens had bothered her. She was lucky enough to live in a different state altogether, and so most of her knowledge of the situation had come from the news and what she’d read online. Overall, it sounded horrific, and she was glad to have missed out on it.
Most people thought that it was over now. Apparently there had been some official statement, issued by the royalty of another planet, which was weird enough to think about, that the Alva were done for. That had been good enough for them, and they’d gone about rebuilding and living their lives.
Until now.
Once again, crafts had been seen on the horizon, and no one wanted to wait around and see if they were friendly. The military was waiting for permission to blast the crafts out of the sky and solve the problem once and for all.
Kirstie shook her head. “This is a mess. Why do they keep coming here?”
“Maybe they’re good aliens,” Cara said. “Like those ones who came to help last time.”
“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” Anise muttered. She’d had family who’d been killed the last time aliens had attacked, so Kirstie didn’t blame her for being skeptical. “It’s probably another invasion.”
“But what do they want?” Kirstie asked. “It’s not like we have anything for them. They’re probably a hundred times more advanced than we are, and I can’t think of anything that they could want here.”
“Revenge maybe?” Anise opined. “For what happened to the other ones?”
“It wasn’t humans who killed them. It was another alien race. The...Rando somethings. Shouldn’t they take it out on them?”
“You’re looking for logic from aliens?”
Kirstie shrugged and sipped her wine. “I don’t know, Anise. I’ve never met one before. I don’t know what to expect.”
The anchor promised that they were going to keep an eye on the situation and that the government had been alerted. Of course, they hadn’t even said where the crafts had been spotted, probably not wanting to incite a panic.
