by V. K. Ludwig
The Vetusian startled awake, his eyes mostly a pale blue with green specks sitting here and there. He mumbled nonsense just like expected, nothing but noise pushing through gritted teeth.
The nutri-sphere quickly rolled out of his unreliable clasp. I ran behind it, wiped it off, and handed it to him again, helping jittery hands to guide it toward his mouth.
Katie stood motionless beside my bag as if her body had become one with the germ-laden stone underneath.
I worked myself along the junkies, the sequence always the same: kick, wake up, eat, kick, wake up, eat. Sometimes two kicks, depending on how recently they got high.
“What happened to them?”
“They’re addicts,” I said. “Twenty-one percent of Vetusians are addicted to souldust. And that’s the official, pretty number. I try to come here after you guys go to bed. Give them some food. Take care of wounds if they have any.”
Katie stepped up closer and squatted down in front of one, her head tilting from side to side as she examined him in detail. The scars on his face from passing out against the edge of something. The bald patches on his head from pulling his hair out. The scabs along his neck from scratching after a comedown.
And I counted.
Three. Two. One.
Her eyes caught mine, telling me she’d figured it out all on her own. “They all have two-colored eyes like you.”
“Remember the night you said I’ve got pretty eyes?” A scoff wormed from my chest at the memory of her words. “Well, they immediately give me away as the junkie I used to be. Eight solar cycles ago, I sat lined up right here, pissing and shitting myself without noticing.”
I immediately grabbed the last nutri-sphere and turned away from her, unable to bear her judgment. “That young Vetusian who died? I killed him, Katie. Because I was fucking high at the time I diagnosed him. Got tried, stripped of my license, and kicked to the streets with nothing left but that haunting urge for my next line. Adora took me in. Fed me. Cleaned me up. Gave me work. Fuck…”
The weight of every single wrong decision crushed my chest, putting hairline crack after hairline crack onto the surface of my heart. I was never really rid of my addiction. Always carried it with me in the form of blue-green eyes and an itchy scar on my wrist.
“Whatever I made, I bought drugs with,” I continued. “But Adora didn’t judge as long as I kept it together enough to take care of her workers. Those three things you don’t want to associate with? I am all three, Katie.”
I kicked against the gravel, letting it roll through puddles of urine before it clashed against uncaring bodies. “I am drugs. I am crime. And in a way, I am prostitution as well because…” I breathed down that shame clinging to the insides of my lungs. “I had no troubles seeding a Jal’zar during mating season back then if they dangled drugs in front of me.” If I’d still gotten it hard.
Everything around me spun, that itch on my arm unbearable. No matter how hard I scratched, it always demanded more more more.
“That’s why you got so upset with me that day,” she mumbled. “When we talked about Brot Adnak.”
I didn’t turn around.
Couldn’t face her.
“I wasn’t upset with you. I was upset with myself,” I snarled. “As soon as they announced Garrison Earth, I submitted myself into rehab. Turned myself into the new and improved Melek 2.0, ready to be the best male a female might ask for. But of course, we had to end up on Odheim, where I can’t even fucking pretend that I’m worthy of you.”
There. All the ugliness was out.
For a moment, everything turned silent aside from the occasional groan coming from the Wall. Did she leave? She must have. Which female wouldn’t?
Tap. Tap.
I turned around, tears building behind my eyes unchecked. Katie stood in front of a Vetusian and tapped with the tip of her shoe against his sole, a bunch of nutri-spheres stacked on her arm.
“You didn’t bring enough,” she said. “If this is a credits issue, let me know, and I’ll chip in.”
“Female, did you listen to any of that stuff I just told you?”
“Of course I did.”
Then why are you still here?
She continued to hand out food in an almost sarcastic calmness, stepping over puddles of piss as if there was nothing to it.
When she handed the last one to a Vetusian, she brushed her hands on her dress and walked over to me. Her hands clasped my face, her blue eyes catching with my muddled ones.
“Are you clean now?”
“Yeah.” My head bounced up and down. “Been for several solar cycles.”
She eyed me for a long moment, then said, “I once gave Grace up for adoption. When she was around two I… I just couldn’t do it anymore. I never went through with it, but to this day, I’m so ashamed of it. Please don’t tell her.”
I took a deep breath and shook my head. “I won’t, but… that hardly compares to the things I just told you.”
“Oh, you haven’t heard my super-secret yet,” she whispered, something light sitting on her tone.
“Super secret?”
She lifted a playful brow. “Yeah.”
“What’s that?”
She stepped up closer and gave a few tugs on my arms until I leaned over, then whispered, “I once went to Walmart, and the pacifier I wanted to buy slipped underneath the baby carrier. I didn’t notice it until I put Grace back in the car, and then I was too scared to go back to tell them because I thought they might arrest me for shoplifting.”
I could neither hold back that chuckle bursting from my lungs nor those tears lodging from the corners of my eyes. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because we all made bad choices in our lives, Melek. We all hit rock bottom at some point or another.” A quiver started on her lower lip and extended down her chin. “I see what kind of male you are. See a guy who works way too many hours. And you know what? I don’t think you’re doing it for the pay. You’re doing it because the workers have nobody else to turn to. You’re their hero.”
A sigh burst from my chest, and I ripped my face from her caress. “I’m no hero, Katie. There’s nothing noble in me, so please stop looking.”
“You’ve been mine plenty of times,” she said with a smile, which slowly sunk into pursed lips accompanied by a frown. “Melek, you said you can’t even pretend you’re good enough for me. Why? Why show me all this?”
I let my hands disappear into her hood, stroking those soft strands she only carried open at night. “Because I wanted to kiss you that night. Because I want you to be mine. But it wouldn’t be fair to take this any further if you don’t know who I am.”
Her heel scrunched dull over the street. Katie rubbed a hand over her sternum, her eyes everywhere but on me. Her lack of reaction had me torn between letting a scream shatter the night and squeezing myself between the sgu’dal’s and grunt.
“You want me?” she asked from a lowered head.
“More and more each day,” I said, but quickly added. “At your pace. I made many mistakes in my life but rushing you won’t be one of them. However long you need.”
Her eyes came back up, hunger glistening behind them. Hunger and something else. Affection? Was there a chance she wanted me too? Sensed this undeniable bond between us no matter how weak or strong?
She wrapped her hand around my neck and rose onto her toes, gazing up at me. I dipped down, stroking my lips over hers like I had done it before, offering her a kiss.
And she fucking took it.
Shy at first, uncertain, she let her lips nibble on mine as if she’d never kissed before in her life. But she quickly grew bolder, swiping her tongue across. The way she moaned slightly made my cock swell inside my pants.
I wrapped my arms around her middle and pulled her against me. When she gasped at the sure touch, I let my tongue search for hers, turning our kiss heated. At that moment she wanted me, the word inadequate nothing but white noise.
She let go o
f me with a giggle. “You’re too tall. I can’t stand on my toes for that long.”
My fingers dug into that beautiful hair of hers, my heart pumping harder at the touch. This moment would have been perfect to come clean. Tell her the truth, because there was no way I’d bond her to me without her knowledge, which was only a matter of time from here.
But what if she wasn’t ready?
One wrong move, one trigger word, and I might scare her off for a while or forever. Considering what happened with her first match, who could blame her if she’d run the moment a second one showed up?
Shit. What was I supposed to with that?
I was at a crossroads here, staring at the two paths before me, filling my chest with pure anxiety. I didn’t want to lie to her. But neither did I want to risk what was growing between us.
A heave sucked through the street.
Beside us, a Vetusian thrust himself onto all fours, grunting, neck popped with veins. His spine rounded until his vertebras protruded from the thin fabric of his shirt.
I ripped my hands from Katie and ran over, clasping his chest tightly from behind. “He’s choking on a nutri-sphere.”
I dug my knee between his shoulder blades and kicked, while letting my fingers climb into his mouth. Panicked and delirious, his teeth ground down on my knuckles.
I pushed one finger down his throat, along the bubbly sphere. Then, with another kick of my knee between his shoulders, I wiggled my finger and dislodged it from his throat.
The sphere popped from his mouth and onto the street, and the Vetusian collapsed underneath me. I dragged him back to the Wall, then wiped my hands on my pants and walked back to Katie.
Gone was the moment.
“I’m sorry about that, but it happens more often than you would think.”
Katie raked her fingers through my hair. “How patient are you?”
For the first time in so long, my hand didn’t itch.
Just like that, Katie offered me complete acceptance.
I was a sgu’dal. Recovered. And she saw it.
“For you?” I pressed my forehead against hers. “I want you, Katie, and I don’t care how long it takes until you’re ready. A sun, an Earth month, a cycle. Whatever cosmic time measurement you need, you’ll have it.”
Her next exhale came out stuttering with relief. “That means a lot to me.”
I wrapped my arm around her, led her back toward Brot Adnak, grabbing my bag from the ground.
Silence turned to glass between us, each breath whistling through my nostrils making me fear I’d shatter it. I glanced back, trying to see if traces of that perfect moment followed behind. They didn’t. Instead, we had a wall of unspoken words keeping us apart, my core void of any bravery to tear it down, fearing she might change her mind.
It was fine — as long as I reminded myself that I couldn’t bond her to me without her knowledge.
Fourteen
Katie
* * *
I guided the hover tray over to the booth in the corner, sensing Melek’s eyes all over me from afar. A glance over my shoulder confirmed it. He stared at me, taking in that body he wanted to touch, but wouldn’t until I gave him permission.
The way he held back amplified that trust I had in him. It returned a sense of say that Kidan had ripped from me. We did things at my pace. And right now, that came in the form of kisses stolen before he started his shift. Some gentle. Some heated. All staking the growing boundaries of my desire for more.
I placed the Dakonian Strider in front of Galat and gave the Cultum ice berry wine to his mate, who sat beside him. “The house is bursting from its seams tonight. K’terra should be here soon and take over for me.”
Galat took his glass and pointed it toward the bar. “Your mate?”
I didn’t need to turn around to realize he’d pointed at Melek. Ever since the incident with Tanass, patrons remained at a respectful distance. Things turned downright civil whenever he came downstairs.
“I wish,” I said, the truth of it bitter on my mouth. “But he isn’t my match, so he can’t be my mate.”
Galat exchanged a confused look with his mate, then narrowed his eyes at me. “Katie, are you at all familiar with the Gaia Split Case?”
“Never heard of it,” I said, placing empty glassed and tumblers on the hover tray.
“Interesting.” A single IC appeared in front of me on the table, along with Galat’s voice. “The most famous human female in all the galaxies and she knows nothing about it.”
My hand shook above the credit, my fingers suddenly too stiff to take it. “So, you found out that I’m wanted…”
A beat, and then laughter. “Katie, please, I am a High judge. Did you truly believe I was oblivious to the fact? You are the reason I returned to Brot Adnak. An establishment that holds little satisfaction for me.”
“Why? You can’t arrest me.”
“Even if I could, I probably would not want to.” He leaned into the backrest and folded his hands on his lap. “The curiosity of a scholar, perhaps. I am just so very interested to see what will happen next. Perhaps you might want to use your tip to purchase a hologram of public announcements.”
I stared back and forth between him and the chip, no knowing what to make of this.
“Alright, you can leave now.” K’terra walked up beside me, grabbed the empty bowls which previously held berries, and placed them onto the hover cart. “Sorry I’m late, but I had a patron that just wouldn’t finish. How I hate when they drag it out.”
I excused myself with a nod and made my way back behind the bar, my feet aching, except for my toes — they’d gone numb an hour ago.
Melek slipped off his stool and walked around the bar behind me. “Are you done?”
“So done. This shift was crazy busy.”
He reached behind the curtain and grabbed my cape, draped it around my shoulders, and tugged the hood into place. “Brot Adnak is blasting. And you just never know what you’ll find in those hallways when all rooms are occupied.”
He led me through the curtain and into the storage room, but we didn’t even make it past the second shelf before he pulled me against his chest. His palm cupped my cheek, his thumb tracing my jawbone before we kissed, stoking that fire raging in my body.
“Fuck,” he moaned. “It’s killing me to stare at you all night when all I want to do is taste these lips.”
I threw my head back and moaned, his cock immediately growing hard against me. It brushed over my hip bone, but only once before he tilted his pelvis away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, restraining himself as he always did.
“It’s okay,” I whispered against his lips. And as if to prove it, I wrapped my arms around his waist, pulling him against me. “I can handle it.”
He let out a weak chuckle. “But I can’t, female.”
His hands dug into my hips as he claimed them and lifted me onto a stack of crates. “You’ll tell me if I’m taking this too far, okay?”
I let my palms trail over bulging pectorals and down his stomach. “Promise.”
“Your pace, Katie,” he whispered, thick flesh grinding over my pubic bone. “By the Three Suns, you have no idea how sexy you are.”
What would have made me giggle a month ago now had me moan. Touch by touch, Melek woke something within me. His gentle hands unwrinkled my pruned-up parts, peeling back the mom-layers and exposing the woman underneath. And that woman had a woman’s needs with their own pulse beating between needy legs.
Adora’s green head poked through the slit in the curtain. “Didn’t I give you six rooms to choose from upstairs? Surely one of them has to be nicer than this storage area?”
Melek laughed and slipped me off the crate. “Sorry. We’ll take it elsewhere.”
We left the room through the back door, laughing, bouncing through the hallways as if we owned them. Melek wrapped his arms around me from behind, our steps an uncoordinated mess as we passed workers stumbling and snickering.
A Vetusian leaned against the wall, his cock on full display whenever the Jal’zar female pulled her lips back over his crown.
“Oh my god,” I said, my voice powered by shock and something else. Lust, perhaps?
They paid us no mind, but my body convulsed at the action. Reminded me of the many ways I hadn’t touch a man in so long. But before I could shrivel back into the comfort of a thirty-three-year-old spinster, Melek turned me around and pressed my back against the wall.
“Why so flustered?” he asked, that grin tugging on his mouth searing into my core. “I’m pretty sure you’ve mated with plenty of Earth males.”
“Not in a very long time,” I confessed, my cheeks fiery hot.
He clasped my chin and brought my gaze to meet his. “I haven’t touched a Jal’zar ever since I got out of rehab, because I don’t approve of the way the Empire abused them. Needless to say, I’ve never touched an Earth woman before.”
“But you have pleasure droids.”
“That we do,” he said. “But they aren’t free, and I decided to save all my credits for Garrison Earth instead of wasting them on something that isn’t real. I’ve had enough of that in my past.”
A tingle crept into my stomach and manifested there as a ball of dread. It wasn’t as though I had body issues. With a nice ass and four years of weekly spinning classes… yeah, I still had it. But did I remember how to put those curves to work?
“What’s in that head of yours, huh?” He stared down at me, pressing his palms against the wall to my sides so he could lower his mouth to my ear. “Once you’re ready to mate with me, it will be like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, Katie. I will rock in and out of you with strokes so soft and gentle, you will forget every rough hand that ever touched you. You will forget every bruise that ever bloomed on your skin. I swear I’ll make it all go away and replace every single memory.”
A quake wrecked through me at his words.
Not the scared kind.
Not even the uncomfortable kind.
I wanted him to do all those things to me, and I didn’t give a shit about his past. He fell for drugs when he was young. I fell for a guy who whispered sweet nothings into my ear, never to show his face again. He called himself a whore. People at church had called me worse things behind my back. He was a killer. So was I.
