by Calista Skye
Ki's eyes blinked to when she felt the Kalet's hand cover hers, and she turned to lock gaze with him, instantly falling into the depth of his eyes with a sense of growing wonder that was beginning to make her wonder how she couldn't fall in love with him. His gaze was probing, but there was a gentle concern in his drive to know more of her mind that eradicated even a sliver of perceived intrusion.
He made her feel like her thoughts and concerns were shared, not stolen and analyzed and set up for reconditioning into someone else's way of seeing things. She couldn't remember ever having felt so completely accepted, and she found it scared her in a way she couldn't have anticipated. The Kalion people were truly remarkable. If she wasn't very careful, she was sure she would soon grow so comfortable amongst their fold that she would forget the world before... forget the Ki of before.
Averting her eyes, she fought against a pang of rebellion flaring her gut, gritting her teeth against the first series of quakes to follow.
"Hold fast."
Ki pushed hard against the panic heating her chest, unsure what to make of the quakes that made the pod feel as if it might be ripped apart any second. The turbulence might be normal for all she knew, but it was alarmingly violent, and she was finding it quite difficult to be brave.
She could be grateful, at least, that they were strapped into a secure system. The Kalion were master-engineers, and even if the pod was shred to bits, they'd still be attached to the wall, even as it floated in space.
"Just another chrono-tick now," the Kalet assured, his voice rumbling with the formidable shaking of the pod as it plummeted downward with a speed that made them feel like the engines had given out, and they'd actually begun free falling. Like Alice in Wonderland without the assurance of a safe, grounded landing.
Ki managed a nod, her neck snapping back as the speed of the plummeting pod increased. As her head was pushed back with a centrifugal force that would rival that of any formidable strong man at the cosmic circus, her thoughts turned to her mother and her brothers, just as her consciousness started to slip in her panic.
And then, the speed of the pod's descent normalized, and Ki was roused back to consciousness to the scent of an alien spice that had her eyes fluttering open with alarm.
"We've made it past the worst part of the journey, Ki. If the acquisitioners dare follow us along that route, it's doubtful their vessels will survive the drop."
Ki grunted and touched a hand to her neck, wincing at the nasty crink that made it difficult to turn her head too far from a face-forward position.
"Are we there?" She croaked out, her throat uncomfortably dry.
The Kalet smiled at her, like she was the most adorable thing.
"Not quite, yet. But the rest of the journey will be a treat if I bear any weight in the matter."
Ki smiled back at him, a sure warmth flowing through her.
Four
After an all-clear from Max, the AI, the Kalet asked him to prepare an upper deck Ki had not yet caught glimpse of. There was a ring of romance to the gesture, and she couldn't help but wonder what awaited her now. The glimmer in the Kalet's eyes told her he was already quite proud of himself for coming up with whatever surprise he had planned.
When he took her hand again, another surge of passion shot through her limbs, tracing a circuit of warmth and desire from head to toe, and there was no hiding her reaction to it, even as she attempted to avert her eyes.
Their walk along the ramps to the upper deck of the pod was a more leisurely one than they'd enjoyed earlier, and she found his close proximity immensely comforting. All seemed very well in their part of the galaxy then, having evaded the acquisitioners, by all indications, and making it past the most arduous part of their route to Kalion.
When the doors to the upper deck slid open before them, her eyes were met with floating lights and a seeming Holo wild of the Kalek's own that was designed to make the deck look like it was floating in open space. It was more than beautiful. It was perfect, and the ambrosia lined along the table waiting at its center, seemingly set just for two, made her mouth water when her eyes fell upon it.
She turned to him, a smile flecking her cheek as they locked eyes, before she turned her attention to the lush display of alien fruits and savory dishes from many worlds laid out before them.
"I do hope it meets your approval."
"It's... perfect."
"As is its inspiration."
His words nearly took her breath away, but the pull of his fingers quickly called life back into her lungs. Her eyes flirted the overgrown, alien vinework creating a forest against a backdrop of stars in the simulated wild. Her heart warmed her chest as her eyes widened with the wonder of a child at carnival.
She'd be lying at that point if she acted like she didn't want to delve deep into his world and learn all of the strange, wondrous ways of his people, and she didn't quite know how to react to that realization at first. But he had to have seen it in her eyes, all the same. The way he looked at her nearly made her clothes melt off of her, her skin fevering with the unspoken promise.
She stuttered her breath as he drew close, his breath warm and sweet as he stood before her. His energy coursed over her in waves, so palpably it made her heartbeats race in response.
"I feel you, Ki Long," he told her.
"I... feel you, too... Kalet."
"Bastian."
His name rolled off of his tongue like candy.
"Bastian."
She felt strangely vulnerable sharing this intimacy with an alien king, but it also felt more right than anything she'd done or said in a long time, and that instantly began to set her mind on a deeper course than the moment warranted.
At the feel of his fingertips grazing her cheek, her gaze lifted to meet his.
"Let me feed you."
He drew her closer to the table then, the beats of her heart thudding hard in her ears as he gestured her to a pillowed settee before the wild array of delectable food he'd had prepared from her. A smile quirked her mouth as she pictured the AI, Max, in a chef's hat and apron, sauteeing the alien mushrooms and green plant spears glistening now in an undoubtedly heady sauce, chopping the gargantuan fruits into medallions arranged like accordions at the table's middle, and arranging the berries dripping with their own sweet reductions in bowls rimmed in dancing, electric lights.
The Kalion ate their meals much as earth people ate food buffet style when there were still a myriad of restaurants standing to accomodate them. Courting the curious palate, their way allowed for the complete sating of whatever cravings rose to the surface of the tongue, delighting with just enough of the savory and sweet.
The Kalet watched her with a quiet admiration as she dipped and dabbed the strange foods arranged for her, swooning until her eyes slid closed with culinary ecstasy, and at times, politely swallowing foods she learned she had no desire to sample again.
Bastian himself ate little, seeming somewhat preoccupied, his eyes occasionally glancing the wide panels allowing them to bathe in the brilliant stars of his home space as they drew closer to the planet's surface.
At the sound of a thundering crash, Ki's eyes followed Bastian's to those same panels, the small plate of alien shrooms she'd been holding dropping from her fingers and crashing to the floor.
"Run to the vines, Ki. Run now," the Kalet whispered carefully, his eyes never leaving the red-eyed glares staring back at him.
There were two acquisitioners, hanging from pikes that had ably penetrated the panels, from the inside. Somehow, they were in the first layer just out from them, having breached the pod's defenses quite soundlessly.
With a sneer, the fiercer of them, drove the pike in deeper, yanking it out with a show of strength that caused the veins to pop from his pale neck. Quickly injecting a tube attached to what looked like a carrying bag beside him, he reached to rotate a coil and lock it into place.
The Kalet's eyes widened with surprise then, and Ki barely quelled a squeak of terror, trapp
ing it in her own throat with strain. She instinctively covered her mouth as a deep, red fog began to leak through into the upper deck, and the Kalet spared her a glance as she tucked herself into the nearest tangle of vines. He seemed to sense exactly where she was, and that gave her a small burst of hope.
She watched his fingers produce a keyboard panel from within the table's surface, entering something into it with lightning speed. Then he was covering his own mouth, his eyes quickly reddening like someone who'd gone days without sleep.
Bastian rose from the table then, as the sound of a drill sent a chill through her, and he made his way toward her with a dignity that shocked her. Even as the pod's inner panel cracked wide, sending Selein glass shattering to the floor behind him, he maintained his poise. The potency of his empathic sense made itself unequivocally clear then as he turned to the first of the aquisitioner-footmen to slip in, and the blow he sent crashing to his head assured he was already a master of the martial realm of the arts.
Incensed at the sight of his struck partner, the second footman breached the panel with double-speed, failing to land a blow as the Kalet turned to face him with a roundhouse kick to the neck, his body agile as it leapt the air with machine-like effiency.
Undeterred, the acquisitioner attempted a stunning kick to the Kalet's gut, crying out as the underside of his knee was thrust away with a blow to its soft crease. Snorting with rebellion, he spotted the weakening in the Kalet as the royal Kalion's movements slowed under the effects of the gas.
As the other footman rose with a groan, the Kalet realized his growing vulnerability and turned promptly to Ki, summoning up as much of his remaining strength as he could as he sped toward her and quickly snatched her hand. He drew her out with speed, the strain of his steps making her push well past her limits as they ascended the ramps, evading the lumbering footsteps behind them, dogging them in pursuit. Outpacing them by several feet, Ki and the Kalet pushed on, fighting the urge to fall-out, until they reached the entry doors and slipped fully beyond the reach of the fiends. A pull of the manual lever and a release of sleeping-gas flooding the chamber that the lever now sealed assured there'd be no more trouble from the acquisitioners who'd crashed their private party.
Five
Ki drew her knees to her chest and settled into the wall-straps as Max set the pod to hyper-speed, following the Kalet's prompting, her legs reduced to jelly in the aftermath of their haste. She'd been a hair's breadth from coming into the capture of acquisitioners, and the prospect still haunted her as she watched the AI turn his attention to the Kalet's reaction to the red gas he'd been exposed to. It hadn't seemed to affect Ki, at all, but her host's body was fighting it off with a fever that reddened his eyes and drew a slick sheen of sweat to his skin.
Ki watched him with worry, her feelings for him deepening faster than she was comfortable with. The prospect of potentially losing him utterly shook her, even though they'd only met in the last week. It was madness, but it was more powerful than nearly everything she'd considered normal before him. Gritting her teeth as the engines shifted into hyper-thrust, she kept her eyes trained on the Kalet's prone body as Max drew a bio-reader over the full length of his body. It was several moments before he delivered the verdict. Until that moment, they had no idea what sort of gas the Kalet had been exposed to, and what it might do to him as a result.
"You have been exposed to Ansim800. An irritant of the Ateran family of gases, known-"
"Garden variety as it stands."
The AI paused, seeming to compute Bastian's words before responding.
"Yes."
"My symptoms will pass within the next thirty chronoticks."
"That is an accurate assesment, Kalet."
Grimacing, the Kalet made to adjust his body on the uncomfortable bench of the small medical bay, and Ki finally relaxed when his eyes set themselves upon her, and she saw the redness tingeing them fading off.
"We can retire to our quarters once we make it to the Sian quadrant. We are secure, Ki. The intruders are sealed into the upper deck with no way to escape. They will be dealt with when we are planet-side."
Ki gave him a wholly relieved smile.
"That's very good news."
The time passed fast as the speed of the drop pod sucked them back toward the wall seats and medical bench the Kalet was strapped to, and Ki finally let her eyes slipped closed, very thankful for the promise of sleep to come. Not so much because she was tired, but more because she needed the unmatched comfort of silence. The comfort of anything, really. She hadn't expected the first attack on the main ship, let alone the second, and an escape from the thoughts the breeching acquisitioners inspired was beyond welcome at that moment.
When the drop ship finally slowed to a manageable pace, and Max signaled them that it was safe to remove their belts, the Kalet was looking to be on the mend, and he slid down from the raised medical bench to assist Ki with the wall-unit strapping her in.
Their eyes met as his skin grazed her cheek, and the electricity it sent through her system woke something she utterly failed to put to rest, even as he drew her down the ramps to the small sleeping unit reserved for the royals of their planet. The compact chamber was lushly furnished, almost looking the part of a very different sort of ship.
Thick drapes of deep purple fell down over the bed, allowing whomever slept there to close themselves away from the panels opening a wide view of the star-riddled sky. Drinking it in, Ki half-jumped at the brush of fingertips on her shoulders.
"There is a bath behind the panel farthest from the bed. You'll find robes there that you can utilize until I can have a proper dress produced for your arrival. I'll leave you to your rest. You've no need for straps now. We're very close."
Ki's heart thuded in her ears at the prospect of being left alone in the room, and she turned quickly, without thinking, and draped her arms over his shoulders, her eyes searching his.
"Thank you."
Looking slightly taken aback, the Kalet was a moment answering.
"You're quite welcome."
Ki felt his hesitancy, but she knew the electricity that had flooded her system with a surge of desire had affected them both. She couldn't stop herself from communicating her readiness, even before she knew what she was even ready for.
"Where will you sleep?"
"Sleep?" He chuckled. "There'll be no sleep for me. This is the only bed, and there is plenty of work to be done."
Ki's eyes took on an imploring depth.
"Stay."
The words flew out of her mouth before she could catch them, but she found she didn't regret them, and the darkening of the Kalet's eyes told her it was rightly timed.
"It is... out of sync with the courtship process."
Forcing herself past her fears, she took his hand in hers, biting her lip as their skins touched, and the kindling of passion between them expanded its girth, fully taking on the feel of a bonfire.
"How could this feeling possibly be out of sync with anything?"
The Kalet's breathing grew rougher as his eyes searched hers, and for the briefest moment, she was unsure if he would give into the desire magnetizing them to one another. Just as soon as the thought crossed her mind, he inclined his head and claimed her lips, the soft velvet wet of them accelerating the already maddening pace of her heartbeats. Bastian pulled her close, his alien skin taking on a strange glow that could have only signaled high arousal, and his eyes danced with the most beautiful ripple of colors, planets, and stars she'd seen in them, yet.
Arms tightening around her, he lowered his lips to claim her kiss once again as he moved toward the bed, gesturing her forward as their tongues danced. His hands finding their way beneath the ample globes of her backside, he lifted her in his arms, the fire between them impossible and insatiable as her lush thighs closed around him.
He lowered her to the plush surface of the bed, quickly setting his fingers to relieve her of her garments as she kicked of her hover boots. The scent
of him engulfed her, like cinnamon, and vanilla, and a myriad of other strange, alien spices too different to name.
Nipping at the full swell of his lips, Ki's fingers explored the wild, terrain of his inky hair, a surge of pleasure fluttering in her core as he freed himself of his clothing and pressed his naked body against hers. The sensations coursing through her body were almost too intense for her to maintain, the gargantuan reality of his manhood becoming lucidly clear as her hips made wanton circles against him.
Bastian's nostrils flared, as if he was catching her scent, and an almost savage response took him over then, one he visibly attempted to restrain, even as Ki's lusty response asked him for every bit of it. Their lips locked again, kisses deepening as anticipation coiled Ki's gut, and Bastian's kisses lowered to suck in bits of her flesh until his mouth claimed her blushing aureoles with gentle attention, enveloping them in the warm, wet of his mouth. Ki loosed a guttural moan, and her hips rocked wildly against him, stilling slightly as his hands found her waist.
The Kalet pulled her closer then, lifting his head to search her eyes, his gaze boring into her with unequivocal claim.
Shivering, she felt the hard heat of him split her sex, his lips covering hers with wild abandon as a flood of desire welcomed him. Tongues dancing hungrily, they eased into one another's rhythm as something like electric sugar trailed every inch of their skins from head to toe. His thrusts were maddeningly slow until he sensed her comfort with his size and drove himself deeper into the soft wet of her, groaning as she gripped him, clinging to him with each thrust until he dripped with their union.
