by Opal Carew
“Sarden!” I gasped, arching my back as he lapped me eagerly, like an ice cream he didn’t want to melt. “Oh, Sarden!”
He paused for a moment, his thumb taking the place of his tongue as he looked up. His mouth was shiny with my juices and his eyes were filled with a flickering, golden lust. “That’s right, sweetheart, give it up,” he growled. “Gonna make you come. Gonna make you come so hard now.”
“Sarden—” I wailed as he started to duck back down between my legs. I could feel my orgasm beginning—my insides tensed in a knot that was destined to explode as the broad pad of his thumb slid over my tender bud again and again and again.
He was right, I was going to come. Going to come harder than I ever had in my life while he tasted me with his long, talented tongue…
Just then, Al buzzed into the room, still in his firefly form.
“Master!” he said in his proper voice. “Forgive me for interrupting you and Lady Zoe while you are…” He paused delicately. “Well, I am not certain what you are doing. But—”
“Go away, Al,” Sarden growled, glaring at him. “Go away.”
But it was too late—the mood was lost and so was my orgasm.
Feeling ashamed of myself, I clamped my thighs shut and sat up straight.
“We weren’t doing anything Al,” I said, trying to make my voice sound normal.
“Yes, we were,” Sarden growled. He looked at me, his eyes still hungry. “Come on, Zoe—I was about to make you come.”
“Come where? Where were you going?” Al wanted to know.
“Nowhere, now,” I said and sighed. I looked at Sarden and shook my head. “Sorry. I just…can’t. But, um, thank you for, uh, healing me.”
“Fine.” He sighed and sat back, looking at Al. “What do you want? Spit it out.”
“Forgive me, Master, it’s just that Count Doloroso is here to pick up the collection of Assimilation medical artifacts. I have asked him to wait outside the ship but I cannot keep him waiting forever.”
“Frozen Hells—I completely forgot he was coming.” Sarden jumped up, leaving me feeling exposed. Immediately I started refastening the shirt I was wearing.
“Bring him around to the back entrance to the hold. I’ll meet him there,” he said.
So there was an exit from the ship in the hold! I bet myself I would have found it if I hadn’t been grabbed by the damn rapey tentacles. I wanted to go see exactly where this Doloroso guy came in at so I could get out if I wanted to. But I was steering well clear of that awful tank.
I hopped up but Sarden pointed a finger at me.
“You stay here.”
“What? Why?” I demanded.
“Because every damn time you leave this room you get into some kind of trouble or other,” he growled. “I mean it, Zoe—stay here.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go finish drying my hair in the mister if I can figure out the controls.”
“An excellent idea.” He gave me one last stern look and left with Al buzzing behind him.
Chapter 13
Sarden
I left Zoe in her room and went to make certain the Assimilation artifacts hadn’t been damaged by my hurried rush through the hold to get her out of the tank. I knew she was upset that I’d confined her to her room but it was for her own safety. She needed to stay far away from this area—especially now that the damn sensu-pods had gotten a taste of her. Who knew if they might want more?
They aren’t the only ones that got a taste of her, whispered a little voice in my head. What were you thinking, offering to heal her orally? What are you trying to do—form some kind of bond with her?
Right. As if I could bond her to me, even if I wanted to. It wasn’t possible and I knew it.
She was in pain, I argued with the little voice. What was I supposed to do—just let her suffer?
She’ll suffer even more if you let her form an emotional attachment to you, even if it isn’t a bond, and then you trade her to Tazaxx and never see her again, the voice pointed out implacably. And she won’t be the only one suffering.
Shut up! I pushed the voice away as well as I could. It was true that only bonded mates usually healed each other orally and I never should have offered it to Zoe. But I was just trying to keep her healthy enough to trade, I told myself. After all, Tazaxx didn’t take damaged goods. So there was nothing else I could have done.
Soon enough I was in the hold and calling for lights. A few of the medical artifacts had been pushed aside to make a path to the tank but none of them looked that much worse for the wear. Even the tank itself wasn’t damaged although much of the yellowish slime inside it had slopped over the edge when I’d dragged Zoe out. The many-tentacled sensu-pods were sulking in one corner. I tapped the glass but they barely stirred. No doubt they were angry at being deprived of their meal.
“Master, Count Doloroso is asking for admittance to the ship,” Al told me.
“Let him in,” I said. “Then send a household droid to clean up this slime—it’s damn slippery.”
“At once,” Al said and buzzed off. No doubt responding to his order, a rectangular door opened in the far wall and one of the small, silver household droids which are usually kept dormant within the interior of the ship came whirring out. A pink mop attachment which looked a lot like a tongue shot out and began lapping up the slime from the floor. Good, at least now no one would slip in the mess.
The door at the far end of the hold slid open, revealing Doloroso’s angular form, framed in the bluish light from the spaceport.
“Sarden,” he said, waving at me. “So good to see you again. I’ve come to transfer the credit to your account and take possession of my new collection. I hope you don’t mind—I brought some moving droids to do the heavy lifting.”
“That’s fine.” I picked my way over to him through the medical equipment. “But don’t you want to examine everything first?”
“I’ll take a look, of course. But the chip-drill and sensitivity tank are the two items I’m most interested in.” He stepped inside, followed by several lumbering moving droids, each with a shell on their backs capable of lifting and holding items weighing up to three metric tons. He would need them—the hold really was crammed full of the Assimilation equipment.
“So…the tank?” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “Or would you like to show me the chip-drill first?”
“The chip drill is this way.” I wanted to give the household droid a little more time to clean up the slime. We made our way around the perimeter of the room with Doloroso commenting delightedly from time to time over the “priceless collection” and “wonderfully preserved artifacts.”
I was glad he liked what he saw—I wanted him to pay and get the hell out as soon as possible. My feeling from The Suck Hole had only grown stronger—though he was paying an exorbitant amount for the medical equipment and had been nothing but courteous, I didn’t like him. Not one damn bit.
“All right, now where did I put it?” I looked on the shelf where I’d last seen the chip-drill but it wasn’t there.
“Is there a problem?” Doloroso looked concerned.
“No. It’s here somewhere, I know it is. I must have misplaced the damn thing.”
Exasperated, I looked around—where in the Frozen Hells could the chip-drill be?
“Ah-ha!” Doloroso said from behind me. “Here we are—it must have fallen and rolled—the bottom part is round, you know.”
I turned to see the round blue bottom and twisting curved metal end of the drill at his feet. He was just bending over to pick it up when a familiar voice cried,
“Stop!”
“Well, well and who have we here?” Doloroso murmured, picking up the chip-drill by its round, bulbous blue end anyway.
I turned to see Zoe standing in the doorway to the hold. She was wearing another one of my formal shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the black material made her pale, lovely face glow like a distant star. Her long curly hair was a wild mass of ruby re
d around her shoulders and her bare legs were both shapely and tempting.
All in all she looked fucking gorgeous. I felt a surge of possessiveness fill my chest—I didn’t want Doloroso seeing her like this. Or at all, for that matter. Zoe, however, seemed oblivious to the way he was looking at her.
“Really, get rid of that thing—you don’t want to touch it,” she said, gesturing to the chip-drill in Doloroso’s hand as she came forward. “It’s extremely dangerous. Look—see what it did to me?” She pointed to a long scratch across her cheekbone which I hadn’t noticed earlier. I would have to heal it for her later—if I didn’t kill her for disobeying orders first, that was.
“I see. So this is your blood, my dear?” Doloroso asked, examining the end of the drill.
“I’m lucky it wasn’t my eye,” she said. “Another inch to the side and it would have been. Just don’t get it too close to your face—it stabs out with no warning.”
“Zoe,” I growled, feeling another surge of possessiveness fill me. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay in your room.”
“Well, I got hungry,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest which caused her creamy cleavage to become more prominent in the v-neck of the shirt. “So I was going to make something in the food-sim but just as I was passing by the hold—”
“The food prep area isn’t anywhere near the hold,” I pointed out.
“As I was passing by,” she went on, ignoring me pointedly. “I saw your, uh, friend here about to pick up that extremely dangerous stabby-stabby corkscrew thing. I was just trying to warn him—you don’t want him to lose an eye, do you?”
“I assure you, my dear, I am quite safe. I collect antiquities and oddities like this for a living.” Doloroso gave her a greasy smile I didn’t like a bit and set the chip-drill down on the shelf to hold out his hand. “Might I know your name and planet of origin? It isn’t every day I meet such an enchanting creature.”
“Oh, well…” Zoe gave him her hand—the one with the inhibitor on it—and I saw Doloroso look at it sharply though he made no remark about it. Instead, he bent over the back of her hand and kissed it wetly, as though he was a Gods-damned courier from the Court of the Divine Empress on Femme 1.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” he murmured, looking up to smile at her as he licked his lips, almost as though he was tasting her skin.
“Uh, thank you.” Zoe smiled uncertainly and took her hand back as soon as she could. I saw her surreptitiously wiping it on the side of my shirt when she was certain he wasn’t looking.
“And you are from which world in our fair galaxy?” Doloroso asked.
“From—”
“Salex Prime,” I said quickly, before she could finish. “Not many people know it—it’s on a far arm on the other side of Femme 1.”
“Ah—close to the court of the Empress. That would explain why you look so radiantly divine,” Count Doloroso said smoothly. “And tell me, how do you like life on Salex Prime?”
“It’s, uh, nice,” Zoe said, frowning at me.
“Very nice,” I said. “And now, if you’d like to see the tank, Count Doloroso…”
“What?” Zoe interjected. “You’re going to let him get close to that thing? I nearly drowned in there!”
“You were in the sensitivity tank today?” Doloroso gave her a sharp look. “Were you being tested?”
“An incomplete test only,” I assured him. “And an accidental one at that. Zoe wandered out here to the hold—where she doesn’t belong…” I glared at her and she glared back. “And the sensu-pods apparently grabbed her and dragged her into the tank.”
“Where they nearly drowned me,” she repeated stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest again. “So be really careful around it. In fact, if I were you, I wouldn’t even go near it.”
“Oh, don’t worry my dear—it won’t hurt me.” Doloroso gave an irritating, tittering laugh. “But I would be most eager to hear what happened during your little, ah, attack.”
I felt a jolt of possessive rage surge through me and had to fight to keep my features calm.
“You know damn well what happens during sensitivity testing,” I growled. “There’s no need to ask her to rehash it for you.”
“Ah—forgive me. I misspoke.” The Count made an elaborate bow of apology in Zoe’s direction. “What I meant to say was, I’d like to know the events that preceded the attack. The sensu-pods, you see, don’t normally reach out of the tank and take a subject of their own volition.”
“Well, this time they did,” Zoe said, frowning. “One of them kissed me on the cheek—well, that was what it felt like anyway—my cut cheek, here…” She pointed to her wounded cheek again. “And then the next thing I knew, they were dragging me into their tank. Ugh!” She shivered.
“So first the chip-drill stabbed out at you and cut your cheek and then the sensu-pods tasted you and liked you so much they pulled you in?”
Doloroso’s eyes were bright for some reason and I really didn’t like the way he was looking at Zoe. There was a hungry, avid light in his shiny eyes that made my protective instincts kick into high gear.
Mine, an angry voice whispered inside my head. He can’t look at her like that—she’s fucking mine.
“Yes, I guess so. That’s pretty much what happened.” Zoe nodded.
“But my dear, do you have any idea how extraordinary that is? What a unique specimen you must be for both the drill and the sensu-pods to react as they did to you?”
He took a step towards her but I put myself between them. I was damned if I’d let him touch her again.
“Hey, Sarden! We were talking,” she protested, trying to get around me. I blocked her with one arm.
“Zoe, go to the food-prep area and make me that cakecheese concoction you made last night,” I ordered her. “I’m hungry and I’ll want to eat as soon as Count Doloroso and I conclude our business here.”
“What?” She poked her head around my arm and glared up at me. “Did you just do the alien equivalent of telling me to get to the kitchen and make you a sandwich?”
“Whatever you call it, go make it,” I growled. “Please.”
“Fine.” Zoe stormed off—I could hear her little bare feet slapping against the metal floor as she went and knew she as angry. But I couldn’t stand to have Doloroso lusting over her. I didn’t like the way he looked at her—not one fucking bit.
“But Master, I thought once this deal was concluded we were going to try and find a mechanic?”
It was Al again, this time in his shipboard form. I had to have a talk with him about interrupting. Lately he was showing up at the most inopportune time possible, damn it.
“Al—” I began but Doloroso interrupted.
“If you’re looking for a mechanic who deals with unattached males, I’m afraid I have bad news for you—you won’t find one on Gallana. Such services are strictly monitored by the Majorans and they refuse to deal with any male without a female. Luckily…” He smiled at Zoe’s retreating back. “You have a lovely female to accompany you and make the deal for whatever repairs you need. And I happen to know of a fine and reputable shop who will give you an excellent discount if you mention my name.”
I ground my teeth at the idea of taking Zoe into Gallana. In the spaceport proper and wearing traditional Majoran garb, she would stand out with her pale skin and vivid hair. Her beauty would shine like a star and I was afraid it would attract all the wrong kinds of attention.
Then again, I didn’t know if I had a choice.
I sighed. She’d probably be thrilled to see the port and as long as I kept a good eye on her, no harm would come to her.
I’d see to that myself.
Zoe
Of course there was no way in hell I was staying put in my room. Especially after I heard strange voices down the long hallway. I’d meant to just creep quietly over and peep into the doorway to see who it was. But when I saw the tall man with blue hair bending over to pick up the stabby-stab
by corkscrew, I had to say something. Strangely though, it didn’t try anything with him. Maybe it was all stabbed out and I had been its last victim.
I hadn’t loved the weird way the new guy—who I guessed was there to buy all the strange medical equipment, which looked more like torture devices—had looked at me. The way he kissed my hand and then licked his lips was kind of creepy too. But at least he was polite, damn it! Which was a hell of a lot more than I could say for Sarden, the big red jerk!
And here for a little while I’d actually begun to think he had some kind of feelings for me. I mean, after the way he was so patient and kind—the way he held me in the purple bathtub tank and soothed me when I started to panic because of my bad memories.
And don’t forget the way he healed you, whispered a little voice in the back of my head. My brain tried to show me an image of the big alien kneeling before me, licking my nipples and then moving lower…what if Al hadn’t come in at just that minute? I would have come for sure. Come all over his face, just like he wanted me to…
Stop it! I ordered myself sternly, pushing the naughty images out of my head. He was probably just healing me because Tazaxx doesn’t take damaged goods.
Sarden wasn’t a nice guy at all, I told myself. He was a big, sexist alien jerk who’d ordered me to go to the kitchen and make him a damn sandwich!
“Asshole,” I muttered to myself as I stomped back to the food-prep area and slapped one of the sticky pads from the food-sim against my temple. “He wants a sandwich, let’s make him one.”
I tried to think of the worst combinations I could and since the food-sim was still messed up, it didn’t take much work on my part. I had managed to make a crème brulee with the flavor of pepperoni pizza, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs that tasted like pistachio ice cream, and a ham sandwich which tasted like a nasty-ass batch of oatmeal raisin cookies—(I hate raisins)—when Sarden finally came sauntering in.
“Zoe?” he said cautiously, approaching me as though I might bite. Well I felt like biting, damn it! But I plastered a smile on my face and turned to face him instead.
