Alien Enslaved IV: Spoils of War

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Naturally enough the thought followed that that was why the guys were hanging around and yet hadn’t made any real commitment to her. They were waiting to see which of them had fathered her baby.

  She supposed she should take some comfort from that, but she didn’t.

  Not that it wasn’t good to know that they had no intention, apparently, of leaving her to take care of ‘her’ problem by herself. She thought if they’d been human men the odds would probably have been against them hanging around even long enough to find out—especially given the fact that they’d been forced to impregnate her.

  So she had to give them points for that.

  It didn’t make her particularly happy, though.

  Because, she realized, she loved them—all three.

  She’d been attracted to all of them from the very beginning and they had just been too good to her to make it possible to choose between them, to decide any single one didn’t deserve to be loved.

  And she was probably going to end up with none of them.

  Because she’d had sex with all three and they would never be able to accept that.

  Nothing lately, she thought glumly.

  But then they were all exhausted from working daylight to dark and it was hard to think about having sex with any of them when they were sleeping right under each other.

  At least, it was for her.

  She had to wonder, though, men being sex freaks in general, if they would be turned off at all at the thought of group sex.

  Probably not, but on the other hand it would just strengthen their contempt of her, she was sure, convince them she wasn’t worthy to be their woman, or mate, or whatever they called it.

  That made her realize she’d never discussed anything about their customs with any of them.

  Mostly that was because it was just too painful for her to think about what she’d lost and she figured it would be for them, too, but she also realized she hadn’t really tried because she was afraid that their customs would absolutely prohibit the relationship that had developed between them and that, secretly, they loathed her for allowing all of them to have sex with her even though she’d been forced, too—to begin with, she mentally amended when her interlude with Fayn popped into her mind.

  Instead of wishing it hadn’t happened, though, all she could think was that she wished it would happen again.

  She wished she could make love to Aidan—free of the constraints that had forced them to breed.

  She wanted to feel Jarek’s touch again—while she could, before he turned away from her.

  A lump formed in her throat at that thought. It swelled when she realized that they had all passed the point of no return long since. Nothing she did or said now was going to change a thing.

  But in a sense that freed her.

  Because she also realized that she might as well do as she pleased.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You can make soap with meat fat.”

  The statement, thrown out seemingly at random while the women were gathered to work on picking tidbits of meat from the bones of the last kill and scraping what they could from the hide to make a meal, halted all conversation. Almost as one, the women turned to stare at the woman who’d spoken.

  She glanced up from her work and did a double take when she realized she’d gained center stage. “What?”

  “What did you say?” Lori asked at almost the same moment.

  The woman, Gail, seemed to search her mind, trying to recall what she’d said. “About soap?”

  “Yeah, about soap!” Jill snapped. “You just throw that out there and don’t even remember?”

  Gail blinked at her. “Just saying I heard ….”

  May was frowning. “I don’t see it. Candles, I think. Or maybe lamp oil?”

  All of the women turned to stare at May.

  “Well, damn it!” Lori snapped angrily. “And nobody thought to mention this in all this time? When we’ve been throwing the damn fat away?”

  May looked uncomfortable. “Well, I heard it. I just never thought to mention it because … well, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know, damn it!” Lori said irritably. “Here we sit in this god forsaken place with hardly anything we need and you two know something like that and don’t say a word?”

  May glanced at Gail uneasily. “Well, honestly ….”

  “Well is it soap? Or is it candles? Or both?” Natasha demanded.

  Both May and Gail shrugged.

  “Ok. Well how do you use it to make soap?” Lori asked, focusing on Gail.

  Gail turned as red as a beet. “Uh …. I don’t know how,” she said testily. “I just said I heard you could.”

  “No, you didn’t!” Emily snapped. “You said you could make it with meat fat—like you knew how to do it.”

  “Well! I never said I knew how!” Gail said indignantly.

  Lori studied May. “I suppose that means you don’t know how it’s used to make the candles either?”

  May chewed her lip. “No, I don’t. I just heard it.”

  “Well! That’s fucking helpful!” Rebecca snapped angrily. “Way to go! Get everybody’s hopes up and then crush our dreams!”

  Both Gail and May looked like they might cry. As irritated as Lori was she felt the need to step in. “Ok, so they don’t know how, but they know it was done. Surely we can figure out how?”

  “Oh I don’t know,” Natasha said uneasily. “Isn’t that the soap they called lye soap? And isn’t lye like dangerous? And where would we get it anyway?”

  “From wood ash,” Lori said confidently.

  The women gaped at her. “Ashes? Just regular old ashes? Like where you’ve burned wood?”

  “Yep.”

  “Soooo … we’d have to figure out how to make lye, too? Oh my god! This is hopeless!”

  “It’s not like we have anything better to do with our time—like watch movies or go out to a fancy restaurant.”

  “There’s plenty to do around here and then some!” Jill snapped.

  “Well, I’ll do the experimenting,” Lori volunteered. “I would love to have soap and I think it’s worth it—for the health benefits of having something to kill germs and comfort to actually feel clean when I’ve bathed! If everyone would just focus and wrack their brains to see if they can shake lose any information they might have run across that would be helpful, I’m sure we’d all be grateful.”

  That said, she got up to look for something to gather up the fat. For all the complaints about having ‘nothing’ they had actually accumulated a fair bit of stuff over the last couple of months.

  Well, the men had.

  She didn’t like it—at all, but they seemed to go to the ‘pirates den’ as she thought of the hodgepodge settlement of thieves and slavers fairly regularly to raid for useful things.

  Well, she didn’t like the guys risking their necks for ‘things’. Sure it was convenient to have. It made life on the alien planet worlds easier, but it wasn’t worth risking their lives.

  She was getting used to doing without or making do and she thought that was easier than it would be to get used to not having the guys around.

  The thoughts of the guys prompted a helpful thought.

  May’s man, Boruc, was damned good with herbs and such. He spent much of his time searching for plants that had properties that he was familiar with. She thought he would be the most likely person in the entire village to have the skills they needed.

  Her first impulse was to seek him out right away.

  Thankfully, it occurred to her that May might not like it if she discovered Lori had left the group and hunted her man down.

  She went back for May and explained what she wanted to do. May seemed to debate whether she really wanted to get up and hunt Boruc or not, but it was actually brief.

  Lori knew exactly what was going through her mind when May looked her over.

  Not that she looked any better than May, she was sure.

  She had n
o more idea of how far along she was than any of the others did, because they had no damned way to mark time and a lot of ‘vacancy’ in the memories of the time when they were impregnated anyway. All she knew was that she’d gone beyond ‘showing’ and was rapidly reaching beached whale stage.

  She couldn’t imagine why May was worried about Boruc containing his lust.

  Anyway, she wasn’t interested in May’s man that way. She had three men she was lusting after already and hadn’t managed to fix the interest of a single damned one of them. She didn’t have time to mess with anyone else’s ‘property’.

  It just seemed to her that it was a good policy to be careful about possibly inspiring jealousy and possessiveness. They had enough issues as it was. They needed to be able to get along and work together for the good of the community.

  They lucked up. Boruc had just returned to their hut from a plant gathering expedition.

  May found as comfortable a spot as she could to observe and Lori settled to trying to explain what she wanted to do. It wasn’t easy. Despite the fact that all of the Hirachi had gotten pretty damned good at speaking English by this time, there were certain words that just didn’t translate.

  Like soap.

  And lye.

  He grasped that she wanted to make something useful fairly quickly, though, and that it was done by extracting certain properties from each of the ingredients.

  And, thankfully, he at least seemed familiar with lye once he saw she planned to use the wood ash.

  They didn’t have as much fat available as she would’ve liked, but she took it philosophically. They had to figure out the ‘recipe’ first. And Boruc did know what lye was. He told her it was dangerous and that they would use a smaller ratio to the fat. They did four experiments, starting with a ratio of one fourth lye to two parts fat and then working up to one and a half to two parts.

  It actually looked like soap when they finished.

  It didn’t smell particularly good, though.

  Boruc laughed at her expression and went to look through his collection. When he came back, he poured an oil over the cakes they’d made and worked it in.

  It had a spicy sort of scent that Lori approved of.

  She would’ve liked something flowery, but she thought the guys might not. This scent was more gender neutral.

  She discovered when they finally finished that Jarek had come at some point to find her, she supposed, and that he did not looked pleased that he’d found her shoulder to shoulder with Boruc.

  He exchanged a long, challenging look with Boruc.

  Boruc looked away first and went to help May up.

  Feeling more than a little outdone, Lori joined Jarek. “I need to wash this off.”

  He pushed away from the tree he’d leaned against and fell into step beside her as she headed for the creek to wash up. “What is dat?”

  Excitement immediately ousted her discomfort. “I hope it’ll be soap! Nobody knew how to make it, but May and Gail remembered it could be made with fat, so …. Well, I know Boruc does a lot of stuff with herbs so I thought he might be able to help figure it out.”

  They’d reached the banks of the creek before Lori realized Jarek was more than a little displeased with her or the situation or both.

  Jarek looked angry.

  Thankfully, he spoke before she could express resentment that he was annoyed with her.

  “I know dat dere is much you miss—we have so little and life is hard here. But I swear to you dat it will get better. I will make it better … for you and de child we make together.”

  A lump instantly formed in her throat. Impulsively, she slipped her arms around his waist and hugged him. “None of the … difficulties are your fault,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to feel like I don’t appreciate all that you’ve done.”

  Jarek grasped a fistful of her hair at the base of her skull and tugged at it until she looked up at him. He shook his head at her after staring at her for many moments. “You confuse me, Earth woman. You a witch. You make spell on me dat I no want to break … It makes dis life one dat is worth living—to me.”

  A thrill went through her at the confession.

  It seemed to her that he was telling her that he cared about her.

  And when he kissed her, she knew.

  It was full of passion, but it went beyond the thrill of discovery and conquest.

  She felt love and protection in the way he held her.

  When he broke the kiss, he pulled her down onto the spongy moss that covered the bank and drew her close to explore her carefully, but thoroughly, with his hands and lips.

  It did flicker through her mind that they were exposed where they lay together, but that concern was easy enough to dismiss with the distraction of his touch.

  Particularly when she realized that, even if anyone did happen upon them, they’d surely go away again and allow them privacy.

  She dismissed the flicker of concern when he pushed her onto her back and shoved her top up to explore her swollen breasts, massaging them carefully and then teasing the distended tips with his mouth and tongue.

  His exploration was almost leisurely, despite the sense he conveyed of urgency, as if he was at war with the need to appease his hunger as quickly as possible and the desire to go slow and savor.

  It wove a thread of uneasiness through her, the fear that she’d failed to grasp something of vital importance to her, but she was too far from having full possession of her facilities to even attempt to reason it out.

  She allowed it to fall beneath the wave of heated need he created inside her, gave in to the desire to simply feel all that she could and enjoy it to the ultimate conclusion.

  And because she did, and possibly also because she’d had a long dry spell, she came much faster than she would’ve liked.

  She barely managed to even set a rhythm when he had rolled onto his back and lifted her up to impale her on the stout shaft protruding from his belly. She was halfway there by the time she’d managed to engulf his flesh and take him deeply inside. And so completely enthralled with him that she felt the tension gathering even as she focused on the feel of their joined bodies and leaned forward to brace her palms on his broad chest to help her balance.

  He shifted his grip to her hips when she did, lifting her as he undulated his hips and drove deeper.

  Goosebumps broke all over her and raced around, invigorating nearly invisible hair follicles that made her feel like a mass of electrified nerve endings. Her nipples puckered tightly in response. The muscles along her channel clutched at him and rippled, as if she was swallowing.

  He uttered a grunt as if she’d punched him in the belly rather than grasped his cock tightly with her body, shuddered, and then urged her to set a rhythm by pulling at her hips and then pushing.

  As dizzy as she was, as close as she felt to reaching her goal and lost to any sense of coordination, she managed to catch the rhythm he had set and move, building the delicious friction inside until the bubble of ecstasy abruptly ruptured.

  It snatched her breath away.

  She gasped to gulp air into her lungs, shuddering with the waves of exquisite sensation that inundated her and swept her away so that she was barely aware when Jarek followed her into bliss.

  It warmed her, though, in a way that went beyond sexual satisfaction, made her feel a sense of belonging that filled the void that loss had left inside her. In those moments, she felt like she’d found a new home, a place where she fit in, found love and comfort, and the sense of being anchored by her heart.

  Weak in the aftermath, she flattened herself against him, delighting in his scent, and the sound of his heartbeat.

  He rolled after a few moments, depositing her gently on the prickly moss.

  Amusement flickered through her, but she was too weak, had expended too much energy to be greatly disturbed.

  She drifted lazily for a time, enjoying the feel of the warm sun on her skin and the brush of cooling breeze that whipp
ed the heat away just as if began to feel uncomfortable.

  “We need to talk.”

  More than half asleep and drunk with it, Lori jackknifed upright, her eyes as wide as saucers with shock and horror when she heard Aidan’s voice. She was on her feet before she even realized she planned to get up when she saw he was sitting comfortably on a rock not more than three yards from where she lay with Jarek. “Oh my god! You were here the whole time? You watched?”

  Aidan sent her an assessing look and then glanced around. “It is a public place. One might be excused for thinking you either did not care whether you were observed or not or, conversely, that that was the objective.”

  Lori gasped in outrage, but she felt her face redden with discomfort. “We didn’t have an audience. I thought if anyone came up they’d know we expected to be alone and would have the decency to leave again! I damned sure hadn’t expected to … amuse anyone!”

  His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening. “I was not amused.”

  She gaped at him. “I meant entertain.”

  “That either,” he said tightly.

  Lori blinked at him rapidly and then glanced at Jarek. “I … uh … guess I’ll leave and let you two discuss whatever it is that you need to discuss.” She stalked off then.

  Jarek and Aidan watched her go.

  She could feel their gazes even though she didn’t look back to verify whether she was right or not.

  Jarek glanced at Aidan, who was still watching Lori’s departure. “What did you need to discuss that could not wait?” he asked in Hirahi.

  Aidan responded in the same language, dragging his gaze from Lori with an effort. “There are whispers in the wind that the slaves are on the verge of revolt.” He looked at Jarek then. “I do not believe we could count on a better time to strike. We will be no more prepared a week from now than we are today. We should go now and be ready to throw everything we have in with their efforts.”

  Jarek could see the logic of it. He felt the familiar rush of imminent battle, a combination of anticipation and fear rolled together with heart pounding excitement.

  But he felt some reluctance, as well, anxiety he was not familiar with.