Moon Struck

by Heather Guerre

  The young woman froze in the doorway, her eyes wide. “Oh—” She stared at the admiral. “I thought—”

  The admiral’s big gray hand shot out to grasp the back of an upholstered seat. Fabric tore beneath his grip. “Get her away from me!” he snarled. He flipped the seat out of his way, taking a heavy stride towards the woman in the tunnel.

  Asier lunged at the admiral, catching him in the chest, and tackling him to the ground. Lyra spun around, shoving the young woman back down the tunnel she’d appeared from. Hadiza stood in the middle of all the chaos, staring blindly as Asier and the admiral grappled. She flinched as a low hassock was kicked over, and backed away from them until her shoulders hit the stone wall. Snarling exclamations and the impact of stone-hard flesh against stone-hard flesh echoed within the room. The sound of of a door slamming shut echoed down the length of the tunnel.

  The admiral threw Asier off with a rolling maneuver and surged to his feet. Asier scrambled after him, catching an ankle, and bringing him down again—hard. The admiral roared, fangs bared. He flipped onto his back and slammed one booted foot towards Asier’s face. Asier ducked the blow, but had to release the admiral to do it.

  The admiral was on his feet again. A wide settee was overturned as Asier managed to tackle the massive, enraged Scaeven again, just before he reached the tunnel where Lyra and the other woman had disappeared.

  Lyra emerged—alone—from an entirely different tunnel, startling a yelp out of Hadiza. She carried a large stoneware urn. Water sloshed as she ran, soaking her silk tunic and splashing the floor. Stopping a safe distance from the grappling Scaevens, she tossed the contents of the urn. Water arced through the air and landed on the Asier and the admiral with a crisp slap, dousing the admiral’s face and chest.

  He froze. His pupils were dilated to thin black slashes. Yellow irises ate up his eyes, making him look more alien than anyone else in the room. Asier sat astride him, a forearm pinned to his throat. He growled something in the Scaeven language. After a tense moment, the admiral nodded. Asier released him.

  The admiral rose unsteadily. His raptor gaze turned to Lyra. “Apologies,” he said haggardly in the Creole. Without any further ado, he turned and left.

  A long stretch of silence reigned in his wake. Asier stood beside Lyra, breathing heavily. Blood streaked his chin from a split lip, and his left eye was already swelling shut.

  Finally, Lyra broke the silence. “Well. That was exciting. I guess the admiral learned a thing or two about his supposed self-control.” Her words were glib, but her gaze was severe as she turned to Asier, laying a pale hand against his iron jaw. She looked from his split lip to his swollen eye, her expression darkening.

  “I can take a look at his injuries,” Hadiza offered faintly, still pressed against the wall on the far side of the room.

  Lyra and Asier looked over at her, then back at each other. “She’s a doctor. Let her take her a look,” Lyra commanded, pushing Asier towards one of the seats that still remained upright. He let his human mate manhandle him, feigning reluctance. Hadiza suppressed a smile. If a creature of that size didn’t want to be moved, there was nothing a mere human could do about it. When he was sitting, Lyra dropped a kiss on his cheek.

  “I have to go to check on Sofie,” she said. Her cream-pale skin blanched even fainter. “She almost—he could have—”

  Asier reached up, grasping her arm. He tugged, forcing her to look down at him. “It didn’t happen. It won’t. I promised you I’d protect her.”

  Lyra regarded him quietly. Finally, she nodded and dropped another kiss on his brow. She straightened and walked away, disappearing down the tunnel.

  Hadiza stepped around the overturned hassock and stopped in front of Asier. “I know your kind heal fast,” she said. “But if you’ll humor me, it’ll give me something to do with all this adrenaline.”

  The corner of Asier’s mouth lifted, revealing the tip of one fang. “I know the feeling.”

  He submitted to her ministrations, following her finger with his eyes, assuring her he could hear her fingers snapping on both sides of his head, allowing her to check for broken fingers. But when she tried to test his reflexes, his skin was too hard for her to trigger the reflex in his arm.

  “Well. We’ll just assume you’re fine,” Hadiza allowed, feeling unprofessional and inadequate.

  “I trust your expertise, Doc,” Lyra said, emerging from the tunnel, followed by her sister. She carried an infant on her hip, and Hadiza realized with a start that it was a Scaeven child. “Dr. Hadiza Moreau, meet my sister, Sofie Hallas, and my son, Orion Lyr-Asier.”

  Hadiza got up from where she was sitting beside Asier, and grasped wrists with Sofie.

  “Oh!” Sofie said brightly, fumbling at first, before grasping Hadiza’s wrist in return. “You’re a Kepleran.”

  “Ah, that’s right. You Englishers do it like this.” She took Sofie’s hand in hers, palm to palm. Holding hands felt uncomfortably intimate, and she quickly let the other woman’s hand go. While the inhabitants of the English-speaking regions of the Interplanetary Alliance exchanged handshakes as a matter of course, it had always struck Hadiza as an uncomfortable gesture. Though not as uncomfortable as the Kepleran upper-classes, who greeted each other with kisses to the cheek.

  She turned her attention to Lyra, and stared with open fascination at the child she carried. There was nothing human about the boy. He had stone gray skin, elliptical pupils, and a head full of thick, ice-white hair. His eyes were baby blue, but streaks of amber foretold a change to the yellow-toned irises of Scaevens.

  He stared back at Hadiza with scowling infant skepticism, clinging tightly to his mother.

  “How old is he?” Hadiza asked, tracing a finger over the back of his plump hand. His skin was not as hard as that of grown Scaevens, but there was still an unyielding firmness that surpassed human skin.

  “Uh… Let me think.” Lyra’s eyes closed.

  Orion grabbed onto Hadiza’s finger. She watched nervously as he brought her fingertip to his mouth. Fortunately, his teeth had not come in, and his simply gummed her finger.

  “He’s about three weeks old? I think? Scaevens keep time by the rotations of their gas giant—Scaevos. They don’t call them days—but when Asier tried to give me a translation into the Creole it was too many words. So Sofie and I have been calling them ‘rotations.’ And they amount to approximately three Earth standard days. And we’ve been here… ugh, I don’t know. He was born at Copernicus station, and we were there for a few days, then we were aboardship coming from Copernicus to Scaevos and we’ve been here for… what?” She glanced at Sofie. “Four rotations?”

  Sofie shrugged. “You’re the math wiz.”

  “This is a three-week-old infant?” Her fascination ratcheted, and Hadiza stooped to look into the Scaeven baby’s face. He regarded her with a stern, owlish look while he gnawed toothlessly at her fingertip.

  “So, not to be the one who’s always making things awkward,” Sofie began, giving Hadiza a cautious once-over. “But are you about to have one of these, or what?”

  “Tactful, Sofie.” Lyra shot her sister an exasperated look. After an awkward beat, she turned back to Hadiza. “But are you?”

  Hadiza straightened, pulling her finger from Orion’s grasp. “I… don’t know.”

  “So… there’s a possibility?” Lyra asked gently. “Did you and Sin-Haros, uh…”

  Hadiza flushed.

  “I think that’s a yes,” Sofie said cheerfully.

  “Sof, get out of here,” Lyra said.

  Sofie grinned. “Excuse me, I’ve suddenly remembered an urgent appointment.” She swept out of the room, leaving an uncomfortable silence behind her.

  Asier began righting the furniture. Dull thunks echoed through the room as Lyra guided Hadiza to sit with her on the thick, broad settee. Lyra settled Orion on her lap, letting him gnaw on one of her fingers. Hadiza sat next to them, sinking deeply into the upholstery, feeling smaller and more out
of place than she had ever once felt in Errol’s company.

  “Look, I know this is awkward, but I have to ask you about what happened with Sin-Haros,” Lyra said.

  The last seat righted, Asier discreetly hied from the room. Hadiza let herself relax minutely. It was one thing to discuss your sex life with a friend. It was an entirely different thing to discuss your alien lover with a woman you’d once staged a prison break with, while her alien lover hovered awkwardly in the periphery.

  “Did he—” she hesitated. “Did he force you?”

  “No!” Hadiza said, shocked at the very idea. “If anything, I… I mean, neither of us really meant…” Hadiza dropped her face into her hands, mortified.

  “Okay, it’s fine. Don’t be embarrassed. Because the next question is harder. How do you feel about him?”

  Hadiza lifted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if you’re not matebonded to him, do you want to be? And if you are matebonded to him… do you want to be?” Lyra regarded her somberly.

  “What does it matter? If I am, I’ll stay here. If I’m not, then I have to leave.”

  “But what do you want, Hadiza?”

  Hadiza hesitated. There was an urgency to the question that made Hadiza feel certain her answer would change something important. “First tell me why you’re asking.”

  Lyra took a breath. She glanced back at the tunnel Asier had taken. Lowering her voice, she said, “Sofie and I have been talking. There are matebonded human women who don’t want to be here. Scaevens won’t do anything about it. But there might be something we can do about it. So tell me, Hadiza—what do you want?”

  She couldn’t bare her soul to Lyra when she hadn’t even done it for Errol. “I want… I want whatever Errol wants.”

  Lyra sat back, contemplating that. “Well,” she said thoughtfully. “Since I think Sin-Haros would rather not spend ten solars in an outer rim penal colony—”

  “What?”

  “—it’s probably a safe bet that he wants you for his mate.”

  “A penal colony? What? How do we stop it? We have to get him out! How can we—”

  Lyra’s contemplative look relaxed into a knowing smile. “There’s the answer I was looking for.”

  Hadiza spluttered into confused silence. Then, “Did you just make that up to goad me into a reaction?” she demanded angrily.

  “Oh, no. The penalty for human contact is severe. Sin-Haros’s only hope for exoneration is if you’ve matebonded to him.”

  “If I’m pregnant.”

  “Yes.”

  Hadiza’s hands settled on the flat plane of her stomach. “Huh.”

  “Asier got the message about you and Sin-Haros very shortly before the admiral brought you here. We didn’t have long to talk about it, but Asier was certain that Sin-Haros wouldn’t have done anything you didn’t want, and so we worked out a plan.”

  “A plan.”

  “To make certain the matebond is there. To save your Scaeven.”

  Hadiza nodded slowly. “Okay. Yes.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was strange, sitting on the other side of the glass in an Enforcement holding cell. He’d had a few visitors—other Enforcers who couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea that Errol Sin-Haros had done something to land himself here.

  Asier Mor-Talis appeared late, long after the others. He stood quietly in front of the cell, gaze distant. He’d come bearing bad news. “There’s nothing concrete, but it’s widely known that the Sahr patriarch is Renier Kir-Thoran’s patron.”

  The admiral—Renier Kir-Thoran—was directly connected to the same patriarch whose forces had been tracking Errol on Daalinalikiniri-din-kaal and whose marked ships had been waiting for Errol and Hadiza after their first jump off of the market planet. And the current Sahr patriarch, Elos Dal-Sahr, sat on the justice council. He had Errol fucked from every which way.

  He scrubbed at the needle sharp pain blooming just above his left eye and sighed tiredly. “Will you make sure Hadiza gets safely back to human territory? I trusted Kir-Thoran with her safekeeping to Varan, but he can’t be trusted with her once his master has the time to think about what can done with her.”

  “What if she’s bonded to you?” Asier asked.

  Errol lifted his head long enough to fix Asier with an impatient scowl. “You know how unlikely that is.”

  “Humans are more fertile than other species.”

  “Even humans need more than one long fuck to—” he cut himself off with a savage snarl. “Forget I said that. I didn’t speak about her that way. She’s more than just—” he shook his head, at a loss.

  “More than what?” Asier prompted.

  “More. She’s just… more. She’s everything.”

  Asier was silent for a long time. He took a slow step back. “Don’t give up yet, brother. You’re in Enforcement’s jurisdiction now. The Sahr and his pet admiral are powerful, but they’re not omnipotent.”

  Errol let out a humorless bark of laughter. “They’re damn close to it.”

  The lights dimmed in the holding cells, leaving Errol in a quiet, timeless twilight. He stretched out on the narrow bunk, staring blankly up at the ceiling. He wasn’t even close to due for a sleep phase, but he closed his eyes anyway, letting his mind wander. He thought of Hadiza, and tried to imagine her safely aboard an Enforcement vessel bound for human territory, but his treasonous mind kept putting her in his home. She was holding a Scaeven child in her arms. Her son—their son. She smiled down at the boy, and then up at Errol, love shining in her beautiful eyes, and she was safe, and she was his.

  The image in his mind cut to the more probable future—Errol, standing under a black sky on the penal colony Yrrth, as fat flakes of corrosive ash rained down on him and his fellow inmates. After ten solars of harvesting the chlorine ash, his skin would be scarred and pocked, his eyes glazed blind, his mind broken. He’d be weak and useless, halfway to dead, but unable to finish the job.

  The sound of sliding glass startled him upright. He clutched the edge of the bunk, watching dumbly as a small, shrouded figure stepped into his cell. The cell door closed. She was completely covered in a Ravanoth Thumatx priestess’s purple robes, with metallic thermal fibers obstructing her scent. Errol could only stare at the indistinct shape in front of him and wonder if he had slipped into some sort of isolation-induced hallucination.

  A pair of delicate human hands emerged from the many folds of the robes, pulling at the overlapping sashes until the entire vestment collapsed heavily upon itself, tumbling to the ground in a heap. And then there was just Hadiza. Her soft, sweet scent was real. Her big brown eyes were real. And her soft, lithe body, clambering up onto his was real.

  His hands closed on her tiny waist, slid over the buxom flare of her hips. His cock stiffened beneath her soft weight, pressing urgently against the hot core of her.

  “What are you doing here?” he gasped.

  She rose up onto her knees, bringing herself nearly eye-to-eye with him. “Making certain that we’re matebonded.”

  He prized her gently away. “You could be hurt. After what happened on the shuttle—”

  “If we can’t break through the intoxication on our own, the thermocontrol has been programmed to drop the temperature to freezing in one half-zeitraum.”

  “But—”

  She bit his bottom lip, pulling a growl from deep in his chest. He had nothing more to say. She was soft and warm and willing, and damn him, he wasn’t noble enough to stop her from sacrificing her freedom for his. He wanted to keep her forever. He wanted to take her kindness and generosity and goodness, and keep them all for himself. He wanted to be the monster that he was always holding at bay.

  She wore only a plain linen gown, and he ripped it from her body. She gasped as he picked her up and pressed her down onto her back on the narrow bunk.

  “Errol, I—” her voice cut off into a breathy cry as his mouth closed over the lush mound between her legs. His tongue swe
pt through the seam of her flesh, tasting her. She arched against him, whimpering. She wet, so wet, so ready for him. He needed to be inside her, now, now, now.

  He reached down for the fastenings on his trousers while his lips and tongue traced the slick, hot contours of her sex. He took his erection in hand, stroking once, twice. He broke away from her perfect little body with a gasp.

  “I need to be inside you, rourra. Can you take me?”

  She arched her back languidly. “Yes, please, Errol. Come inside me—fill me up. I’m yours.”

  He spread her thighs wide, and placed the blunt head of his cock against her slick folds. Slowly, slowly, he eased into her. Her body remembered him, stretched for him, welcomed him. She allowed him all the way in, so deep into the hot, sweet core of her that Errol nearly lost his mind. She watched his face as he pushed into her, her big eyes heavy lidded, her full lips parted and glistening.

  He pulled back, all the way back, watching the play of hunger and ecstasy across her beautiful face. “How are you still here with me?” he asked, stunned at the sight of her, at the feel of her, at the very existence of her. “You put your mouth on mine. The toxin—”

  “Kiss me again, let’s find out if it’s working.”

  He leaned down, still working his cock into her with long, slow strokes, and took her mouth. Her lips parted against his and her tongue slid between his fangs, tangling with his. Her teeth snared his bottom lip again, tugging. The taste and scent of her filled his senses, and yet he was still present. He felt everything, heard everything. He stroked his hand down the length of her body, feeling the soft yield of her flesh, the curve of her hip, her waist, her plush breasts. He closed his thumb and forefinger on her nipple, pinching gently, making her cry out. There was a nearly-painful acuity to their coupling that hadn’t been present the first time.

  “It’s too good,” she sobbed against his mouth, her hips rolling up to meet each one of his powerful strokes. “You feel too good inside me.” Her thighs clamped onto his flanks, her heels dug into his back, her fingernails curled into the skin on his biceps. He kissed her again, stealing away her gasping cries, swallowing her whimpering sighs. His hips worked a faster, harder tempo. She met him, stroke for stroke, with the roll of her hips, the arch of her spine. He reached down between them, finding her clitoris and pressing down with the pad of his thumb.