by Stella Cassy
I pushed her shoulders back so she was splayed open before me atop my heap of gold. I could smell it. The gold, the girl, the desperate air of lust that flew off our skin into the air to intoxicate us with a mutual desire so strong it could never be contained.
Pinning her down, I pushed myself against her. She rose up to meet me, pushing her hips, guiding me back inside that familiar but mysterious tight tunnel that bewitched me.
“Oh… fuck…” she moaned as I entered her fully. It was always hard to believe that she could take it, that somehow it would fit inside her. But it did, and with the force she gripped me with, it was like it was meant to be.
I held her tight by the shoulders as we fucked atop my heap of gold. Two sweaty, hungry bodies writhing and merging like intertwined snakes.
Before, we had held something back, tried to be quiet, tried to control ourselves. We had been wary of each other even when consumed by passion. But no longer. Now we moved with the abandon and freedom of two beings who didn’t care what the universe thought about them being together. We moaned and roared, growled and yelled, screamed and shouted as we worked our bodies into a frenzy of lust that knew no boundaries except what would give us pleasure.
“Oh… oh… oh…!” she screamed as I drove myself into her.
I did not use words. Instead I growled and roared, resorting to my baser state in the delirium of lust. When I roared deeply, it reverberated around the cargo hold, bouncing off the walls and out into the ship beyond. But my deep roars also reverberated inside her; in her stomach, her thighs, her quivering chasm.
When she came it was with a yell then a whimper, a scream of fuck and then an incoherent whine. I poured my essence into her, my dragon’s release more powerful than any I could remember.
Panting and squeezing and holding each other so tight I would have worried about injury if I’d had my senses about me, we gasped in the afterglow, not immediately able to move from our rough bed of gold, so spent from our violent lovemaking.
We had been reunited and rejoined.
But now it was different.
While she was still a slave, and I was still a Hielsrane captain and noble prince, there had been a seismic shift in our relationship. I had seen the wealth and power her father had on her poxy home planet. I had seen the strength of will, and power of determination she possessed, along with the cunning that had got her across the universe back home again.
She was more than a slave. She was more than a human. She was more than a possession to be used and traded around.
But I didn’t have a label for what she had become. Not yet.
I stood up, grabbed her around the waist and tossed her onto my shoulder.
“Come. While gold has its allure, it is not the most comfortable.” I began to march across the cargo hold to the door, and the ramp that would lead up to the other level of the ship.
“But… someone might see.” Her voice came from behind me, where her head was hanging just below my shoulder.
“I care not. If they see us, then let them look on us with jealous eyes. But I will waste no time clothing you again when I’m just going to unclothe you moments later.”
“I—”
Her words trailed off as I stalked through the ship to my quarters.
She knew I wasn’t going to consult her opinion in the matter. While I was now willing to receive her counsel in some matters, this wasn’t one of them.
We weren’t done yet.
And I wasn’t going to waste any time.
26
Talia
Talia
Despite what they said on Earth, I now knew that in space people can definitely hear you scream. Drakons can anyway.
The day before Rethryn had really let himself go, become free, no longer caring what people said or thought about us. Any pretense that he wasn’t… y’know… fucking me was gone. He didn’t care who heard about it. Literally. We’d been loud.
In the cold light of day it didn’t seem real. The night before was like a fever dream, or something I’d seen in a movie. But the muscle aches and bruises, and the look in his eyes, convinced me of the truth — everything that I remembered had, indeed happened.
Idly I squeezed at my thighs with a free hand, trying to knead out some of the ache in the muscle. What exactly had we done to cause that? It must have been when I was kneeling over him and…
I shook my head to clear it.
We were sitting in the rec room, the other crew members tossed out to get back to work, while we enjoyed breakfast together.
Actually enjoy might have been too strong a word. Drakon space-meals were edible, but any compliments beyond that would have been dishonest.
I had a metal tray in front of me, piled with some yellow gloop that was kind of like runny eggs, some brown bits and pieces that were kind of like potatoes — if potatoes came from a factory instead of the ground — and a hot beverage that could best be described as the opposite of coffee.
Rethryn had the same, but his portions were approximately a million times the size of mine. Actually that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A thousand times the size.
“So,” I said to him. I tried to put a lot of meaning into the word, so that he would really get what I was implying. It was a wasted effort.
“So?”
“Yeah. So…”
Any girl on Earth would have known exactly what I meant, after what had happened between Rethryn and I.
He gazed at me with his slightly reptilian eyes that seemed rather lackluster this morning. Maybe keeping him up half the night had dulled his senses.
“Yeah. I mean so. Like, so…”
“Did you lose your ability to communicate? Is your translator chip broken?”
I kicked him gently under the table.
“No! What I mean is – what I was trying to get at was – what’s going on?”
He frowned at me, shaking his head slowly.
“We’re eating breakfast, Talia.” He dug a spoon into his meal and shoveled down another large mouthful.
“I didn’t mean what are we doing now, I meant…” I dropped my spoon and spread my arms out wide, “you know, what are we doing?”
“Oh!” he said after swallowing. “I see what you mean.”
Satisfied, I picked my spoon up again, took another mouthful of the fake-potatoes and eagerly awaited his intelligent response.
I might as well have asked the smashed comms unit on the wall.
“We’re taking the hoard of gold back to Thirren, and we’ll see what kind of reward I am given for my success in the mission.”
I banged the end of my spoon against the plastic bench-table. Man, Drakon could be dumb sometimes.
“No! That’s not what I meant either.”
Having demolished enough food for six Talia’s, Rethryn stood up, picking up his tray to carry over to the cleaning unit on the other side of the room.
“What did you mean then?”
“I mean. About us. Rethryn and Talia. We’ve been getting pretty… close, haven’t we?”
Rethryn grinned at me, an almost lewd look on his face. “I’ll say.”
“So.”
“I’ve got to get to the bridge. We’ll talk some more later on.”
Frustrated, I took my anger out by chewing the potatoey things extra hard. It didn’t help. How long was Rethryn going to ignore what was going on between us?
I let Rethryn play at commanding on the bridge for a while. I mean, he was commanding on the bridge, but since we were in transit between really distant points, and most of space is completely empty, there wasn’t actually anything for him to do up there.
It’s like when you’re driving through the fly-over states, and the road stretches straight so far in front of you that you know it’s going to be at least an hour before you have to do so much as nudge the steering wheel again. Like that, but times a hundred. Or maybe a billion. Galactic distances confuse me.
When he finally took a break from t
he highly demanding task of standing-around-on-the-bridge, I was there to meet him.
“Hey!” I yelled in his ear as he stepped through the door out into the hallway.
Startled, it almost looked like he was going to step back inside. Luckily for him, he didn’t.
“You’re insatiable,” he growled.
I glared at him, poking him in the chest. “I’m not here for that.”
He gave me a knowing look. It was annoying because he was completely wrong. Not that I would necessarily turn down some afternoon delight, but that wasn’t why I was after him.
“Lunch?” he asked. “There’s purple as well as gray and brown.”
I laughed. Rethryn wasn’t a massive fan of space rations either. It amused him to call the foods by their colors, rather than their proper names. He said it was something he and his friends had started doing when they were in the fleet academy.
He had briefly explained to me what each of the foods we are onboard were, but it was all Greek to me. Alien Greek. Just using the colors was simpler for all concerned.
“Purple, huh? I could go for some of that.”
One of the best things to do on Earth when you’re bored is eat. It’s the same in space. Except the foods suck more, so you begin to regret your binge even sooner than you would lying in bed with your second pint of ice cream down on Earth.
I didn’t tell Rethryn that I’d actually had a bowl of purple already. I’d been that bored.
Back in the rec room, we had another fruitless conversation.
“So what’s going to, you know, happen?” I tried.
“We shall return to Thirren, and glory in our triumph. My triumph.”
“Are you going to tell them it was all thanks to me?”
That made him laugh, his broad shoulders bouncing up and down, wings fluttering behind him.
“No.”
“Figures.”
“And what am I going to do?”
Rethryn paused eating his gloop while he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. I was pretty sure it was a delaying tactic he’d learned from me.
“I guess you could stay on the ship and clean it.”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Gee, thanks. That sounds great.”
“Good!” he said. “That’s settled then.”
“Hey—”
He was already standing up and clearing away his bowl. It didn’t look like I was getting a proper answer anytime soon.
Just before he left the rec room to return to the bridge, he turned to me with a frown.
“I’m hoping for a ship upgrade though. Maybe I’ll have a bigger ship for you to clean. See you later!”
Glaring at his back as he headed back to the bridge, I almost thought I could hear him whistling. But Drakons didn’t whistle. At least I didn’t think they did.
It wasn’t until that evening that I finally caught him. I mean, really caught him. We were lying on his bed together, my head resting on his chest.
“So,” I said again.
“Yes?”
“Tell me. What are we?” I ran a hand over his chest and down to his taut stomach, feeling the soft warm flesh of his lightly scaled skin.
“I’m a dragon prince and—”
I balled my hand into a fist and smacked him hard on the stomach.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard all that before. I mean, what are we going to do? There’s something between us, Rethryn, we’re not just… master and slave.”
There was a long pause while he blew out a breath.
“There is truth in what you say. I suppose I’ve been avoiding it.”
“You think?” I gave him another well-deserved punch. Of course I wasn’t strong enough to hurt him, but it felt good to be able to unleash a little frustration and anger every now and then.
“There is something you need to know. I’m…” he paused, before finally getting out the final word, “…betrothed.”
“You’re engaged? To who?”
“I don’t know.”
That got him another smack.
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I know who she is, her name. But I don’t know her. It was a marriage arranged when I was a hatchling. We are to marry when I turn thirty, and that is when we’ll meet.”
Great. So I was up against competition he’d never even met. How do you compete with that?
“So that’s what you’re going to do? Go back to Thirren and marry this dragon chick you don’t know?”
Rethryn let out a long, slow sigh.
“I don’t want to.”
My ears perked up, a little smile on my lips.
“No?”
“No. Actually, to be honest, what I was hoping was that this mission would be a success, and with my newfound status I could find a marriage partner with more social standing. A royal. Someone who could move me up the line of succession.”
My heart fell back down, and I gave him another, big smack in the stomach.
“Are you serious?”
He shrugged, which was an awkward gesture lying down.
“Well as I said, that’s what I was hoping. But things can change.”
He was insufferable. How long was he going to torture me?
“So? What about now?”
Rethryn rolled over, then he was atop me, pinning me down by my wrists.
“I think I’ve gone off the idea of arranged marriages.” He let out a low, purring growl. “I’ve now reached the conclusion that it’s more warrior-like to take the mate I want, instead of having it arranged by outside partners.”
His mouth hovered over mine, his hot dragon-breath heating my skin and making my own breaths turn fast and shallow.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His voice was more growl than words. “And I’ve decided I’m having you.”
That was it.
That was all I wanted to hear.
It was all I needed to hear.
His hands were down between my legs, spreading me apart, hungry for me yet again.
“And I want you,” I whispered up to him.
When he entered me, our bodies locked together, and I knew it was more than just physical.
We were now inseparable.
27
Rethryn
Rethryn
She was so quiet when she slept. There was just the gentle in and out sound of air from her slowly rising and falling chest, barely perceptible over the background hum of the ship in the dim light of the room.
I stood there for some time, just watching her. So small, yet so perfect. She was like one of the mythical flame-nymphs from our fairytales, who could flit about the universe causing mischief and seduction wherever they went.
I’d nearly lost her, nearly given her away to her father and her planet. But I couldn’t do that — not to her, not to me. It wouldn’t be right. Especially not with what I was planning.
It’s hard to leave the comfort of a cabin with a beautiful, naked, human flame-nymph lying atop your bed in the dead of night. But sometimes honor demands it.
When I arrived in the rec room, it was empty. There would be three of my crew on the bridge still — not that anything was likely to happen out here in the dead emptiness of outer space — and the others would be resting in the small crew quarters. I had the rec room to myself and it was quiet as a morgue.
But over on Thirren, it was not night. Due to the vast distances we had travelled, it was a different time of day back on our home planet. It was still evening, and the perfect time to call the person I needed to speak to: Ranel Hielsrane, current but reluctant head of security back on Thirren. The same guy who’d tried to get me to apologize to the soft-bellied bankers of Minapolis.
The remaining video screen in the rec room quickly allowed me to place my call, and within short order the distant face of Ranel appeared on the screen, a look of mild concern on his face as soon as it connected.
“Rethryn. We have not heard positive news from Minapolis
. It seems you avoided their offer of an escort down to the planet?”
I snorted and growled, trying to control my temper.
“I did not trust them. They were clearly going to capture and embarrass us. I made alternative arrangements to secure our funding.”
“Alternative arrangements?” Ranel’s look was suspicious, but his tone was curious. He didn’t quite know whether to trust me or not.
“Yes. I have secured fifteen tons of gold, and there is no need to indebt ourselves to bankers.”
Ranel stared at me, probably wishing we were meeting in person so he could better assess whether I was telling the truth or not.
“You have the gold? You’re in possession of it?”
“I do. In the cargo hold of this ship. And we are in debt to no one. The Drakon remain free and independent, unyoked by the shackles of the bankers and merchants.”
A small smile played across Ranel’s lips. “If this is true, then it is excellent news. I’m impressed, Rethryn.”
If this is true? Phshaw!
“It is true. Our honor is maintained, and our resources are secured. But I am not calling to gloat over my magnificent success.”
A crooked smile played across Ranel’s lips. I did not understand why, he should have been strongly acknowledging the majesty of my success and my pride in achieving it.
“Oh? Why are you calling?”
“I have need of information, and perhaps a little support.”
“Go on…”
“There is a small, insignificant planet that has wronged me. Sullied my honor. On behalf of the Drakon race and the Hielsrane fleet I would destroy them. I desire to bring swift and terrible justice for their insolence.”
Ranel nodded his head slowly in understanding. He did it much like Talia did, and I wondered whether the particular nuances of the gesture were ones he’d picked up from his own human mate. Yvette, I believe was her name. The human females seemed to be having small effects on all of us who spent time with them.
“A small planet? Any significant defenses?”
