by V. K. Ludwig
“Come on, you guys,” Kael said and jutted his chin toward the archway. “We need to get you out of here before the Commander gives his statement; otherwise, the media will be all over you.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Melek took my hand into his and wrapped an arm around Grace, his voice faltering. “Home… we’re going home.”
Twenty-Nine
Melek
* * *
Earth’s sun disappeared behind the horizon, casting a red and orange shimmer across the surface of the water. I stared over the sand dunes broken up by tall grasses, the scent of leftover heat wafting around my nostrils.
“Oh my god!” Grace called out as she stepped outside. “This place has an infinity pool. I swear it looks like I could swim straight into the ocean.”
My ears pricked each time water rolled in with a fizz, putting traces of salt onto my tongue. “That’s the ocean?”
She lifted a brow at me. “You don’t have oceans where you’re from?”
“We don’t,” I said, licking my lips to get another prickling taste of it. “Bodies of water, yes, but they don’t move like this.”
Kael gave a pat against my back, for a change not accompanied by a sigh. “Eden made sure you have a food synthesizer since this sector is still under construction and off-limits to anybody other than the engineers. There are no stores. No neighbors.” He tugged on my collar. “Not that it matters since you can’t leave your habitat, my unlucky friend.”
A laugh burst from my throat. “Turns out, I’m not so unlucky, Kael. I’m fortunate in my misfortunes.”
“A CAT member wants to come by one of these suns and speak to you,” he said. “His name is Captain Balgiz, so please make sure you’re wearing pants when he shows up.”
“You forgot that Grace lives here as well.”
“Not much longer. She’s already on the roster for the healer stratum.” He stepped in front of me, staring at me as if he wanted to burn my features into his memory. “Next time we meet again, I want to see a bunch of hybrids clinging to you, understand?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, that smile of mine a painful one. “And I’ll hand them all over to you, because you’ll be young, with enough energy to entertain them.”
“And you’ll have wrinkles and saggy balls.”
“Eww… I heard that,” Grace mumbled and stepped back inside the habitat.
I grabbed his shoulders hard, underlining what I was about to say. “My offer still stands. I can talk to Katie, and we could take her in.”
“And have my best friend raise my future mate?” A smirk came and went. “By the time she’s mature, you’d probably refuse to hand her over to me. No… she’ll stay at this orphanage thing until she’s ready to join a stratum. It’s better like that. Healthier.”
He stared over the ocean his breathing heavy although he stood at rest. “I’ve waited my entire life to find her, what are another ten Earth years, right?”
“Right,” I said with a solemn nod. “When does your stargazer leave?”
“The moment I reach Seneca, I’m off to Dunatal. But I might check in once or twice. See if I need to bail you out from somewhere.”
I took a deep breath and gave him a hug. “I might get myself in trouble just to see it happening.”
We patted each other on our backs a bunch of times before he turned away, stepping out of my life not to return for a decade.
“This place is gorgeous,” Katie said as she stepped outside. “The kitchen is fully equipped with everything. Four bedrooms. Three bathrooms. A gym. A sunroom.”
I pulled her against me and placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Don’t get used to it. Eden arranged this for us, and I can guarantee you this is way above my pay grade.”
“If you show me how that synthesizer works, I’d like to make us something to eat. And I desperately need a shower after that.”
I nodded and stepped inside, the quiet of this place spiking my senses. Kitchen gadgets hummed in place of pleasure workers. Fans moved fresh air around instead of sweat and musk. Everything was clean, bright as if our time on Odheim had been nothing but a bad dream.
“You can choose between Earth recipes and set the amount,” I said, tapping through the holographic control panel of the synthesizer. “It will provide the containers for it as well. But if you’d like to cook something, you could simply have it create the raw ingredients.”
She sucked on her upper lip, a trace of pink lining her cheeks. “I’d love to cook you something. But maybe just Chop Suey tonight?”
I jumped onto the counter. “No idea what that is, but I’ll gladly try it.”
I watched her look up the recipe, her movement choppy in front of my eyes. Like three-dimensional frames only slowly coming together, transforming from a wish into reality.
There was nothing special about what she did. Katie rummaged through cabinets in search of plates. She opened and closed drawers until she found utensils. And yet it meant the world to me.
I studied her every move, so sure and certain. Her body must have been exhausted, and her nerves strained, but Katie powered through it because that’s what she’d done all her life. Until now.
“I take it I put them on the table?” I asked and grabbed the plates from her clasp, right along with the utensils.
A smirk moved over her features. “Even across galaxies, some things remain the same.”
“You make fun of me, but there’s plenty of stuff you’ll have to show me.” I held up one of the utensils. “Like… what is this? I’ve seen them in the common area before, and I understand humans use them to eat food. But what’s the name?”
“It’s a spork,” Grace said and grabbed them from me, helping to set the table. “A fork and spoon at the same time.”
I shook my head. “Which explains why you couldn’t make it back to intergalactic travel. What a waste of ingenuity.”
“Out of the way! Dinner coming through!”
Katie walked over with a platter between her hands and placed it onto the table, swirls of steam rising from foods I’d never seen before. But curiosity got it onto my plate, and hunger drove it down my throat.
We sat there quietly for a while, digging in at first, but our appetite seemingly slowed at the same rate as our sporks scratched over the plates.
“It’s so quiet,” Grace said from a lowered head.
Katie rubbed over her back. “It’ll take us some time to get used to this. Perhaps they can visit us some time?”
When her gaze trailed to me, I gave a limp shrug. “I’m sure they’ll allow travel eventually. But I doubt that’ll happen soon.”
I took another bite of my Chop Suey. “This is pretty good.”
Katie and Grace barely managed to quirk up a smile, and Katie sighed before she said, “Adora’s cooking is better.”
“Yeah, her food’s pretty damn good.”
Grace pushed her plate away, her shoulders slumped. “I miss Takel.”
This transition would hardly be smooth, but I took her plate along with all the others and carried them over to the kitchen. “Didn’t he say he applied for Garrison Earth? Until then, you can contact him through the cosmikin.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“I’ll set it up tomorrow,” I said and pointed toward the stairs. “But before I do anything else, I’ll need a shower.”
Grace cleaned up the platter. “I’ll do the same in that super sweet en-suite of mine, and probably head to bed right after.”
“Do you need help with anything else?” I asked Katie, but she only shook her head with a soft smile, taking care of the kitchen as if it was a treat.
I walked up the stairs and into the large bedroom overlooking the horizon. The sun was nothing but a red speck now, about to drown, casting its final rays against the wall across.
Careful as to not get my shirt caught on the arrest collar around my neck, I undressed and stepped into the cleaning chamber.
Instead of the corner, the shower was located at a wall but luckily activated with a voice command.
Hot and drumming, the water rinsed over my exhausted muscles, washing the weariness of the past few suns down the drain. But it didn’t take long until arms wrapped around me from behind, and small hands glided over my chest.
“What is it about you and interrupting my showers, female?” I asked, water dripping from my flattened hair.
“Oh, I can leave if you don’t —”
“Absolutely not.” With my hands on top of hers, I guided her palms down my chest and across my stomach. “I was hoping you’d come, just didn’t want to ask in case you were exhausted. Which, I guess, we all are.”
I turned around and undid the bun on top of her head, letting her hair cascade down onto her shoulders. It clung to her wet skin, and the way it twirled around her hard nipples asked me to suck them into my mouth. With a push against her hair, I draped it behind her shoulder, feasting on the warm flesh of her breast.
Katie reached her hands up and ran them through my wet hair. She rubbed my scalp in gentle circles, making me moan in pleasure and lust alike.
“Let me wash it for you,” she said, grabbing behind me before she squirted soap into her palm. “You need to lower down a bit.”
I lowered myself all the way down to my knees, where I trailed my tongue over her stomach as she lathered my hair in soap.
Her hands turned tight in my hair, holding me, guiding me toward where she needed to be touched as my craving for her built.
I crouched down and pushed my tongue between her labia, letting it search for that hard piece of flesh that had her groan the moment I found it.
Her fingers strained my scalp. A pain I embraced if it resulted from her pleasure. Her mating cleft spread its essence over my lips, mixing there with whatever drops of water made it down her pubic bone.
I tilted my head back, finding her lips parted with lust, and whimpering in pleasure. She was sensitive. More so than usual. Growing more and more in-tune with me with each day we spent together.
My cock hardened with the need to enter her once more. Jerked each time a drop of water pounded against the sensitive head.
When Katie finished washing the soap off my hair, I rose and pulled her underneath the water. I stroked my fingers through her hair, sensing how it turned heavier in my palms.
“What do I use?” I asked.
After she squeezed a blob of soap into my hand, I ran it over her hair. Washed off the pain, the grief, the injustice.
My lips sipped at hers, and my cock swelled against her stomach in demand. I bent my knees, sliding my flesh between her legs as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
Katie tilted her head back and groaned, her legs parting slightly as if she prepared for me to enter her. There was nothing like the way she gave herself to me, accepting my body, my past, my failings.
“You’re mine,” I whispered with demand on the undertone. “Say it.”
Lifting one leg up, she let her hand trail between us, the way she grabbed my shaft sending electric impulses through my body.
“I’m yours,” she whispered, her voice strained with how she tilted her head back, letting the water run down her neck.
Short thrusts opened her, prepared her for our mating. She dug her fingers into my skin as she moaned.
Her hand wandered to cup my cheek, and she stared right at me. “Such beautiful eyes.”
The words whispered through me as I drove deeper, and I wrapped my arm around her thigh to keep her sturdy. Eventually, I picked the other leg up as well and wrapped them both around me. I lifted her up only to bring her deeper onto my cock, while Katie rotated her hips.
“Do you like it when I’m inside you?” I asked.
Her cheeks flushed from more than just the heat of the water, her eyes glistening with a hunger only I could satisfy.
“Yes. Yes, I like it. Love it.”
“And what about this…?”
I lifted her up and pulled back, only to thrust deep into her when I dropped her onto my shaft. She arched her back, sucking water through the gaps of her teeth as she hissed in a breath.
Male pride filled my chest at the desperate humps she gave against me, searching for friction, searching for that delicious pleasure I gave her.
“Again?” I asked.
“Mmh…” was all she hummed, followed by a scream when I dropped her onto my hard shaft again.
My cock throbbed like a second heartbeat inside her mating cleft, her walls so tight around me I let out a growl.
Our moans mingled with the gush of water and the slapping of wet skin, resonating the cleaning chamber in an orchestra of lust and need.
Each time I lifted her up and pulled back, Katie arched her back and tilted her pelvis away, only to meet every thrust. Hard, powerful strokes, tightening my balls with need to release.
Her arms slipped from my neck to wrap around my head as a low cry built at the back of her throat. She nuzzled the side of my neck as she suddenly exploded, her mating cleft pulsing all around me.
And I was right behind her, allowing myself to release now that she had reached her peak. I drove into her, my legs shaky underneath me as my seed spurt inside her, coating her walls, claiming her as mine.
Mated, claimed, bonded, and satisfied, I held her for a good while longer, there underneath the shower on Earth. I was squeaky clean now. Melek 3.0, and I didn’t even have to fake it.
Thirty
Katie
* * *
Squawks and croons pushed through the gap in the glass sliding door as I stood by the kitchen sink. Through the window, I watched seagulls circle the beach before they dived down in search of food.
The water from the faucet trickled warm down my wrists, and I pushed the dish brush to the bottom of the mug. We had a top-notch dishwasher, but something about turning the brush across gray stoneware soothed my soul. It made this moment more real, evident in the way my fingertips turned wrinkled and waterlogged.
“Hand it to me,” Grace said as she walked up beside me, grabbing a rag from the counter.
“Did you pack everything?”
She leaned against the counter and dried off the mug, staring at me from a lowered head. “It’s not like I had much to pack, but yeah, I’m ready. Super nervous.”
“You stitched together Jal’zar females for almost two months.”
She gave a one-sided shrug. “Still. All the Vetusian healers at the stratum have been doing this since they were toddlers. How am I supposed to catch up with them?”
“Hard work and perseverance,” I said and handed her a plate to dry. “You might be behind the Vetusians, but you’re way ahead of the other humans who are joining.”
“Thanks to Melek.” She placed the dried dishes into the cabinets behind her before she turned for the next one. “What’s he doing anyway?”
“From what I can tell, I’d say he’s feeding the seagulls again. He developed some sort of fascination for them and the ocean.”
“But he still won’t go in the water.”
I chuckled. “He says he doesn’t trust moving water, but I think he’s more concerned about our collars. The moment we step out of the boundary, they’ll sedate us. Not a good thing to happen while you’re exploring the ocean.”
I handed her the last plate and pulled the drain stopper, letting the water gulp and swoosh from the sink.
After three days at our habitat, we all learned to appreciate the silence and peace of this place. Another temporary stop until the media calmed down, but I didn’t care. For the first time, we weren’t surviving but living.
During the day, we spent a lot of time at the beach, and Melek asked us all sorts of questions about every animal and plant he came across. We spent the evenings on the patio together like that patched-together family we were. Nights passed in Melek’s arms while we listened to the monotone rumble of the waves.
“I’ll get my bags,” Grace said, not tossin
g but actually folding the rag before she placed it onto the counter. “Stacking them in the hallway is probably a good idea. That way I can make sure I’m really not forgetting anything.”
Drying off my hands, my ears pricked at the hum of fusion panels. I walked toward the front door, where a Vetusian in a black uniform climbed off a motorcycle that hovered inches above our driveway.
He glanced over the empty neighborhood for a moment, most habitats still under construction, before he stepped toward me.
“Katie?” he asked.
“Yes?”
A hand wiped down his uniform pants before he reached it out in Earth fashion. “My name is Captain Balgiz. I’m the commanding officer of the Counter Abduction Team and was hoping I could speak to you and your mate.”
“Sure. Officer Kael told us you’d stop by.” I stepped aside and waved him in. “Melek is at the beach.”
He followed behind me, and we left through the sliding door which led us onto the patio. From there, a pathway of wooden boards brought as all the way to the beach.
“This is beautiful,” Captain Balgiz said. “I’ve never been in such an environment before.”
“Melek!” I called out.
My mate stood, as expected, up to his ankles in the ocean, holding potato chips up for the seagulls to grab. Before the next wave retreated and pulled back into the ocean, he gave a wave and hurried over to us.
“This is Captain Balgiz,” I said. “The CAT officer?”
“Yeah, right, I remember.” Melek dipped his head. “How can we help you?”
Captain Balgiz parked his hands onto his hips and nodded. “I have a couple of questions. But before we get to those, I’m happy to share with you that the department has received the DNA results back. Warrior Kidan has, indeed, never been linked. But the results confirmed your Gaia link, of course.”
Melek scoffed. “That’s not exactly news to us, but thanks for sharing it anyway.”
“They asked me to remove your collars.”
“Now that’s some news I can be happy about,” Melek said, tilting his head back the moment the Captain approached his neck.
