Although I’d taken two down, I didn’t think I would be able to eliminate all of them without help. The four of us had planned to start at opposite sides of this piece of jungle and move toward the middle, trying to herd the mutants ahead of us. I still had seen no sign of the little creatures, the little beings we were attempting to rescue.
Even if we did, there was little to stop the Rydek from destroying the planet, except that they seemed to prey on the defenseless and having Gd4 under our protection might drive them to easier places. My breathing was loud in my ears, my footsteps as well, but it probably didn’t matter since the mutants knew I was here. I’d just killed two of them, and that probably made them extra cranky.
The oppressive heat sucked my energy, the smells my will to live. I didn’t know which of them was toxic in the long term, but they were all horrible, except that flower.
I’d only seen one so far. Maybe on the way back, after the battle was over, I could grab it and take it to Shee-ah. Maybe it was a rarity, and I shouldn’t. First things first. I stopped, panting more than I wanted to, and trying to listen for the mutants. They didn’t look capable of tiptoeing, but I knew so little about them.
And what was that? A scuffing sound followed by a muttered curse. Impossible. I turned to face the direction I’d come from, waiting, and sure enough, there she came, running lightly and avoiding most of the obstacles I’d tripped over and sat in. Except whichever one she had crashed into and cursed over. But there were so many, one could be forgiven.
Damp curls clung to her forehead, a knife was tucked into her belt, and she gripped the hilt of a sword in each hand. Swords? Why not? Everything else about this scene was surreal.
“Shee-ah, I had better be hallucinating from the fumes around here.”
She came to a stop at my side, not at all out of breath, but she wrinkled her nose. “Pretty nasty, isn’t it? Ugh.”
“How did you ever manage to get here?”
She shrugged. “I stowed away in your cargo hold. Just in case you needed me.”
“You’re only wearing a ship’s uniform. Weren’t you frozen?”
“A little.” As she spoke, she rested lightly on the balls of her feet. “And now I’m overheated. But I guess if you’re going to tour the galaxy, these things will happen.”
“Just go back to the shuttle and make sure it’s locked down tightly until I get there.” I paused. “If I don’t. If something happens, do you think you can fly yourself out of here?”
She lifted the swords and crossed them in front of her, defiance in every bit of her body. I wanted to strip her naked and take her up against a tree. But her lack of protective clothing was enough of a problem without exposing her to more danger. “I won’t need to fly it, but just to put your mind at ease, yeah. I can fly it. If you like, I’ll fly us both back to the ship and prove it.”
“So you could have flown it away, to the nearest Federation port. Especially now that you know where we are.”
“Yes.” She held my gaze as she answered. “I could have done that. But I hope I have more honor than to leave you on a less-than-habitable planet at the mercy of the zhu-bajie. Or something close enough to count.”
“It’s a good enough name for them.” My little warrior. “It’s my job to keep you safe, Shee-ah.”
“Good, and I will keep you safe, and the two of us will save the carbellas and walk out of here to fight another day.”
“If I order you back to the shuttle?”
“Then I will have to defy you, Master. Because no way am I leaving you here to fight those things on your own. I grew up defending myself against feral beasts. I was almost one myself. Therefore, I think I have the advantage here. As we speak, the zhu-bajie are preparing to attack in a group. It’s how animals work. Usually.”
“Do you, in your wisdom, know how many there are?”
She shook her head. “Not a clue. But however many there are, we have to kill them. Otherwise, the beings here will die. And never get to harvest however much of their crop you and your men did not run over. They’re going to want compensation, you know.”
“We’ll see what we can do. After we save them.”
“We. Sounds good.” She rose on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to my lips. “Thank you for allowing me to help.”
“You defied me, and I don’t have time to take you back to the shuttle.”
“Uh-huh. And I know you’ll spank me for endangering myself and defying you and anything else you can think of, but as long as we accomplish our mission here and return to the ship intact, I’ll just sit on a big pillow for the duration.”
“You’re really something, you know that?”
“Back atcha. Now, if you’re willing to listen to a humble female and a former feral child, I’ll pass on the wisdom Kitty taught me so I was able to survive in another jungle long, long ago.”
“Educate me,” I ordered.
She did just that, described the strategy the lions used to take down animals bigger than themselves. Of course, the lions were just hunting for food and not trying to kill every animal in the jungle, but we were different hunters. There might well be other predators on this planet that the little humanoids faced, but the ones we sought had been planted there to kill them.
“All right,” I told Shee-ah after she finished talking. “Let’s hunker down and wait for them to come to us.”
“They will,” she said. “Don’t you think this is just another one of their ‘wreck things’ actions? Just causing harm for harm’s sake?”
“I don’t know. They could be built to tolerate this world, but it’s not better than others they’ve attacked.”
Shee-ah stepped away and swung both swords. “Just limbering up. I haven’t used them in a while.”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“I had a gym on my ship that— Shh.” She held up a hand. “Listen.”
She heard them first, but I did right after. The jungle floor shook with their hoofbeats. “Shee-ah, you can’t face them with swords. I have blasting weapons.” I reached for my belt, but she shook her head.
“No. I prefer to fight with blades. As I learned from the Tuareg people.” She winked at me before standing in a ready posture. “Since I don’t have claws.”
I blinked before taking up my position at her back. “I’m not so sure of that. You’ve dug grooves in my flesh on more than one occasion.”
A soft gasp made me smile. “Just be ready. These zhu-bajie want to do far more than leave you love scrapes.”
“Love?”
Before she could retort again, the thundering grew louder and the first of the mutants burst through the threes and undergrowth, heading right for us.
“Just in case, Shee-ah, I’m glad I selected you. I don’t think many of those sleeping females would be here with me now.”
“Not with a chance to walk away.” Her steel rang, the swords coming together before she began to shred the mutants, finding the vulnerable places on their throats and slashing through them. She’d said not to go for the heart because we didn’t know for sure where it was. “Die, you evil bastard.”
I stood so I could see her in my peripheral vision. The female was magnificent.
I shot over and over, trying to get them before they got close and could fall on us. My leg ached, and I sank deeper into the mushy jungle floor. The zhu-bajie, as she called them, just kept coming until I feared I’d run out of charge and be unable to shoot anymore.
Shee-ah shouted, and I glanced to see one of her swords stuck in the body of a mutant and her grabbing the knife from her belt. I couldn’t believe how many there were, but after a while, there was just one.
And I ran out of charge.
The foul beast ran at me, ready to gore, and I tried to shove Shee-ah aside, but she turned, dragged her knife from a slumped zhu-bajie, and spun then planted one foot on my shoulder and launched herself into the air. She caught the mutant mid charge and slashed it from shoulder to shoulder, nearly sev
ering its head.
It fell to the ground with a thump.
And it was still.
Shee-ah and I stood side by side, arms around one another’s waists. She still held the knife, both swords somewhere in the gore surrounding us. We were out of breath, covered with whatever served as blood in these things, and my leg was throbbing.
“Commander, Commander, come in.” The voice of Vank. “Commander!”
“I’m here. Are you all right?”
“We’re fine. We all worked our way to the center of the trees and found the carbellas huddled in some very tall ones. They’re fine, too, or the ones we located at least are. But we haven’t seen the mutants.”
I turned to Shee-ah. “They haven’t seen the mutants.”
“I heard,” she said. “Tell them, there are no mutants.”
“Vank, I think you’d better see this before you head back to the ship. Use the headset locator.” I turned and pulled my female into my arms. “Mantsk’s men can come in and make sure there aren’t any others lurking around.”
“I hope they’re not far away,” she said. “I want to go home.”
“Home?” I hugged her. “I hope I can do better for you than my quarters in time.”
“I’ve never had a conventional home, you know, just a series of situations. Your quarters feel like home to me, Master.”
We kissed then, and as I heard the guys crashing through the underbrush, I broke the kiss and tipped her chin up. “So, are you sticking around, then?”
“I belong to you, Master. I can’t leave.”
I stroked the damp curls back from her forehead. “You had every opportunity to leave. But you stayed. Why?”
She looped an arm around my neck and pulled me close again. “Where else am I going to find such adventures?” Shee-ah rose on tiptoe and brushed her lips against mine then murmured, “We belong to each other.”
Chapter Seventeen
Xia
Heart pounding, I stripped off my uniform.
Joran hadn’t said much on the way back to the starcruiser. He’d wrapped his arms around me, pulling me onto his lap and holding me like he’d never let go while I piloted us home. When we arrived, he took me aside before debriefing the other officers.
“Go straight to our quarters and prepare yourself for punishment. When I come in, I want to see you waiting for me on your knees. Naked.”
The stern tone in his voice sent a shiver through me. I knew I’d earned a spanking for what I’d done. Ignoring his orders. Stowing away on the carrier. I’d been willing to risk whatever punishment he doled out if it meant saving his life.
I knelt in the center of the room with nothing to do but think.
Being with the alien had changed me. In the past, I would have raged against the injustice of getting punished for what I did. I’d have told him he should have been down on his knees, thanking me for saving his ungrateful life.
As a warrior, I knew how close I’d come to death. But I’d never looked at things from his point of view before. He was angrier than he’d ever been—and for a good reason. He’d already suffered so many losses. And I could tell by the desperate way he clung to me after the battle that he’d been afraid he’d lose me too, right there before his eyes. His fury—and his fear—were proof of how much he cared.
When he finally stormed in, I had to repeat those words to myself over and over. The separation hadn’t improved his frame of mind. He ripped off the metallic suit, revealing a color I’d never seen before. A dark reddish hue covered him head to toe. The color reminded me of molten lava simmering just below the surface. As red-hot as his anger.
He marched to the bed and sat down. “Get over my lap. Now.”
“Yes, Master.” With the expression on his face, I figured a little sucking up might be in order.
I draped myself over his thighs, trying not to react when his cockheads pulsed and swelled. This time I didn’t think I could distract him with sex. We’d fuck, of that I was certain. But not before I got the spanking of my life.
A moment later he proved me right. His hand cracked down on my backside. Hard. No warning, no warmup. I gasped. Before I could catch my breath, he followed it up with another harsh whack. And then another. He’d spanked me many times, but never with such intensity. My backside was on fire, and I figured he was determined to turn it the same red-hot color he was.
He hadn’t spoken since he entered the room and barked the command, so I tried to reach out. “I…I’m sorry…Master,” I stammered, trying to hold back a whimper of pain.
I didn’t think he could smack me any harder, but I was wrong.
“Sorry?” he thundered. “You little fool!”
Once the floodgates opened, the words poured out of his mouth—punctuated with stern spanks.
“You defied me!” Whack.
“You ignored a direct order.” Double whacks.
“You stowed away on my ship - and nearly compromised the whole mission!” he yelled. The flurry of swats accompanying that statement had me squirming on his lap.
“When that beast charged, you threw yourself in front of me—with only a knife …” His voice broke. “You could have been killed. Right in front of my eyes. And there was nothing I could do to save you.”
He sank back on the bed, pulling me into his arms. “I thought I’d lost you.”
And with that, my big strong alien captor buried his face in my hair, shoulders heaving.
Were those tears I felt? I didn’t think his species ever cried.
I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight. “Joran, don’t you understand? I wasn’t taking foolish risks. I did it to save my own life. If the zhu-bajie killed you, I’d have no reason to go on living either.”
I didn’t say another word after that. I couldn’t. Joran rolled on top of me and crushed my mouth with a kiss so fierce it shocked me. A kiss that carried all his pent-up anger, all the fear beneath it—and the love he’d hidden until now.
He never stopped kissing me. Not when he nudged my knees apart and his cockheads surged, twisting and writhing into me. He rammed them deep inside, muffling my screams with his tongue. Fucking my mouth while he rode me hard and rough.
I wrapped my legs around him, meeting his thrusts and taking him deeper. But when I raked my fingernails over his back, he growled then seized my wrists in one big hand and pinned them down above my head.
My Controller.
That’s all it took. I exploded, pussy clenching around those probing heads. I felt one of them pulsing against the sweet spot inside me and came again as it spurted, bathing my inner walls in jets of hot cum. By the time the second and third heads pumped his seed, I was soaring away, skyrocketing through an endless orgasmic universe.
We made love twice more, both times starting out soft and gentle. But with Joran, it never ended that way. As soon as he ordered me to spread my legs wider or squeezed my ass, awakening the addictive pain/pleasure of his spanking, soft and gentle morphed into dark and decadent.
I gave up control that night. I surrendered to my master, body and soul—and discovered my true self.
Epilogue
Xia
Joran came up behind me, slipped his arms around my waist, and drew me against his body.
“What’s wrong, little one? Can’t sleep? Did you have a bad dream again? Come back to bed. I’ll sing you another song,” he offered.
I leaned back and rested my head against his chest.
“I’m just wondering…where do we go from here, Joran?”
We. I’d used the word so freely, so naturally. The realization came as a shock. It’s not just me anymore. I can’t imagine spending the day to come without him by my side. Or tomorrow…and all the other tomorrows. For the first time in my life, it’s we.
I’m not sure when I quit thinking about escape. If I was honest with myself, it was long before I made the split-second decision to put my life on the line for him back on Gd4. It may have been the night I truste
d him enough to tell him my story. That was the night I fell in love with him. The memory of my hulking seven-foot tall alien captor rocking me to sleep while he crooned a lullaby still brought a tear to my eye.
“Where do we go, sweet Shee-ah? Anywhere we want.”
Joran led me to the blank wall across from our bed. Laid his palm against it. I had a heart-stopping moment of terror when the wall disappeared, leaving me tottering on the edge—nearly plunging into the black void of space.
I let out a shriek, grabbed him, and hung on…then smacked him when he started laughing. “You son of a jackal! You could have warned me.”
“And spoiled the surprise? Not a chance.”
I reached out, ran my hand over the clear surface. “This isn’t a hologram!”
“No. It’s a window.”
The wonders of space stretched before me. Endless stars twinkling in the darkness, entire galaxies so far away they were mere smudges of light. Nebulas unfurling in rainbow swirls of colors so brilliant I didn’t even have a name for them.
“All this time you had a wall-to-wall window hidden away in your quarters, and you never uncovered it!”
“I thought it would be…” He stopped. When he went on, something in his voice tugged at my heartstrings. “When I found out you’d been captain of a starcruiser, I thought it would be cruel. Once, you could explore the cosmos. Then, you were my captive, held against your will. I hated keeping you here, but I had my orders. My people needed females to carry on our race. It was my duty to mate with you, produce offspring. Showing you this day after day, the universe that was once yours to explore, the wonders you might have discovered if you’d been free…well, when I put myself in your shoes, it seemed cruel.”
“And now you’re showing me.” I put my fears, my uncertainty aside, and asked the question. “Why?”
“You said ‘we.’”
His answer shocked me.
“What?”
“You said we. ‘Where do we go from here?’ I’ll admit, at first, I didn’t want a mate. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. At least my cockheads did. But a mate and then offspring…all that responsibility…it weighed on me. I’d been chosen to lead the hunt for the Rydek. Avenge my people and see that they never harmed innocent beings again. I was dedicated to my mission, and you were a distraction.” He smiled. “But I’m a male. When you fought me every inch of the way it turned into a challenge. I decided I would tame you, no matter how much punishment I had to dole out to do it.”
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