by Viki Storm
It’s nice to be admired, to be wanted.
As I soak in the bath, he sits near the tub. “Is it customary for humans to groom each other?”
“No,” I say. But then I consider it. “Sort of. Brushing each other’s hair. Or rubbing oil on someone if they have dry skin. Lancing a boil with a needle.” He laughs at that last example and I admit it’s not the mental picture I wanted to have either.
He has a cloth in his hand and dips it into the water. He starts to scrub my back with it and it’s very nice. I feel like I probably have a layer of grime an inch thick all over me from that seedy auction house. He lets the cloth float in the water and uses his huge hands to wash my arms, my shoulders. As his fingertips brush my collarbone, I’m shocked to find myself arching my back just a little, inviting him to go down a little lower and wash my breasts.
He teases me and I’m pretty sure he knows it. His fingers travel down lower and lower, exploring the top curves of my breasts, but then just as I think he’s going to strum one of my nipples with his fingertips, he pulls his hands away.
What is he doing to me? How is it even possible that I want him to put his big weird red hands all over me?
The bonding? The chemicals? The hormones? I’m not even sure what that means. Because he jerked a big load of his DNA into my opening earlier, I’m all of a sudden under his spell?
But I don’t even care. I just want him to do to me again what he did earlier today. The thing with his mouth. His tongue between my legs and his thick fingers inside me.
Maybe something else inside me. I wonder what it would feel like to be filled up with something that big. To be broken open and stretched out completely. By him. Hard and ready and with that hungry, famished, look in his eye.
But whatever he says, I am not going to ask for it. That’s too much. After all I’ve been through and experienced, that’s just asking a little too much from me.
“Touch between your legs,” he tells me. “Is it lubricated?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Don’t call it ‘lubricated,’” I say. “Lubricate is what you do to a rusty bicycle chain with a dented old oil can.”
“Are you wet?” he asks. “Is it slippery?”
I don’t think I can touch myself while he is watching. But his eyes are boring into me, commanding obedience. My arm doesn’t feel like my own, but I move it under the water and run a finger between my lips. A moan escapes my lips as my finger brushes against my swollen clit. How good it felt when his tongue was on it, warm and eager.
I don’t know what to think. Part of me wants him to lift me out of the bath and throw me on the bed. The other part of me wants to put on the robe no matter how itchy it is and cover my naked body.
It must be the chemicals or hormones or whatever. Why would any part of me want to spread my legs for him? I hardly know him. I hardly know anything about this insane planet.
“Are you wet?” he asks again.
“Yes,” I whisper. I pull my hand away, knowing that if I keep it there for a second longer I’m not going to be able to stop touching.
“Good,” he says. He stands up and I see the huge bulge underneath his pants. I remember what it looked like earlier, so big and hard and seeming to thrum with raw masculine power.
He walks out of the wash room.
I’m frustrated and confused. What sick game is he playing with me? Teasing me like that, that’s just cruel.
Cruel? Not touching me? Not forcing himself on me? Not taking my virginity that he rightfully paid for. That’s cruel?
What a weird way of looking at things.
I finish up in the bath, mindful not to touch myself between my legs again.
When I go into the main chamber, I see he’s in bed already. He’s nude, I can tell from the way his erection is tenting up the thin blanket.
“Let’s rest,” he says. I climb in bed. He is close to me, his strength a comfort in all this craziness that is my new life. But he keeps his word. He does not force himself on me. He does not grope or demand that I service him. And we sleep. Because I will not ask him to do that to me. Whatever he thinks about me, he’s wrong.
I don’t think I could form the words if I wanted to.
And I definitely don’t want to.
It’s still dark. This time of year, the shades are up longer, blocking the suns so we can get more rest. Theoretically. Normally I pay no attention, since I don’t wake until after most people have eaten their second meal.
Not anymore.
Not if I’m supposed to be the High King. With my sweet queen by my side.
Waking up next to her is both the best part of my day and the worst. Her warmth, her pleasant smells, the way she murmurs softly when I stroke her arm. The last few weeks, every morning, I just want to lie next to her and relish that feeling of contentment and ease—even if it makes me turn a deeper shade of purple.
But it’s also the worst. Because I have to get up. Pulling back the blankets and leaving her behind takes a monumental act of will.
I’ve charged into battle with my anankah raised high, poised to strike down my foes. I’ve spoken to the High Council, my words deciding the fate of our entire race. I’ve flown my ship into an asteroid storm, low on fuel and no guarantees I’d make it back home.
And leaving the bed each morning is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
The comm-screen next to my bed begins pinging urgently, incessantly early. With one bleary, half-closed eye I see that it’s Droka.
That startles me awake. If anyone on this planet knows that I’m most certainly not awake at this early hour, it’s Droka. That’s a bad sign.
“What?” I say as I tap the comm-screen. My little human stirs beside me and I lower my voice. “What’s going on?”
“You need to come quick,” Droka says. “Third level below.”
“Okay,” I say. I don’t bother asking questions. If Droka says I need to come quickly, then I trust him. I roll out of bed, wincing as my feet hit the cold floor. I can’t wait until I get back tonight and I can wrap Resa in my arms.
I’ve decreed that when we are in the bed chamber, she go nude. I’m the High King. I can decree whatever I want, and I want to watch those large round breasts of hers sway as she walks. I also decreed that she keep the hair between her legs shaved. I enjoy looking at her soft mound when I get back to my chamber after a stressful day. I don’t want her hair to obstruct my view of that delightful little pleasure button. It drives me crazy, knowing that with a few expert strokes, it will cause her to go into a fit of writhing pleasure.
Not that we’ve done anything like that since the first day I brought her back from the auction house. Not until she begs me for it. And she will, I am confident of that.
But I like looking at her. Sometimes, that little button is just a tiny pink flash between her legs. Other times, it swells and protrudes, glistening in the light and covered in her essence.
I want to touch it, want to hear those sounds again, want to feel her squirm and push against me.
But no. Not since that first day, which now feels like eons ago. That first day was a mistake. I shouldn’t have stripped her. But I had to complete our bonding. The exchange of genetic material had to be complete.
I promised her that if she wanted to do anything like that again, all she had to do was ask.
She hasn’t.
Even though I can tell that she likes the way I look at her. She likes walking around without her robes on. I notice how she purposefully drops things on the floor so she can bend over and pick them up, arching her back and presenting her sex to me.
But I will not take the bait. I will not have it said that I forced myself inside her. Her virginity is intact, and it will stay that way until she decides otherwise.
I walk down the empty, dark corridors, finding the tele-lift and pressing the button to take me to the third level below. If the High Council chamber at the top of the seventeenth floor is hot, then the third floor below is swel
tering.
Below the surface of our planet, deep into the ground’s core, it is pure heat. All the energy absorbed from our two suns is stored in the ground, radiated outward. Underground levels are sweaty, stuffy, miserable.
So that’s where we keep the dungeons.
I see Droka standing outside a cell at the end of the row. As far as I know, the dungeons are currently empty. We don’t use them much. If we capture a prisoner, we adjudicate their crimes and then we either let them go or execute them.
There’s not much middle ground.
The cells are carved into the earth, dank and raw, the dusty air clogging everyone’s nostrils. We keep the cells bare. A hole in the ground for night soil is the only luxury. For fear of tampering with our comm-panels, we keep our dungeons locked in the way of the founders—with iron bars fashioned with a specialized key.
“Droka,” I say. “Fifty neus,” I say, beginning our traditional greeting. He ignores me.
“We caught him inside the fortress,” Droka says. I look into the cell.
A Kraxxoid.
I have heard the stories. My father boarded a Kraxx ship during the Earth Raid. Nine feet tall. Heads flat, covered in thick armored plates, prehensile tentacles snaking out from the base of the skull.
Whatever passes for a conscience in their long, flat skulls is nothing more than a greedy little lizard. They take pleasure in suffering. Their favorite music is the wailing grief song of a mother cradling a dead son in her arms. Their preferred elixir is tears.
Their planet is a small one, orbiting a long-dead neutron star. They have no light, no warmth. No love.
When I thought that bad news was in my future, I had no idea.
“What are you doing here?” I ask the Kraxxoid. He looks up slowly, lips pulling back to reveal a smile of razor-sharp teeth.
“He was in the docking bay,” Droka says. “We can’t tell if he just arrived or if he was trying to make an escape.”
“Who sent you?” I ask. I know it is pointless. The Kraxx are a race that would prefer to see their own entrails strung about the room like holiday bunting before they divulged a secret.
He smiles. It’s infuriating.
“Have you tried to persuade him?” I ask Droka.
“No,” Droka says hesitantly. “I thought it wise to keep this knowledge to myself. Only one other person—Ayvinx—knows of this intruder.
“Good,” I say. Droka has proved himself wise and cautious. We need more of his kind on our planet. “We cannot let anyone else know.”
“That is what I thought,” Droka says. “Your rivals on the High Council could use this incident in any number of ways against you.”
“Yes,” I say. He is absolutely correct.
High Weaponsmith Uctin and High Sheriff Traxu could use this to prove our planet’s weakness. If the Kraxx are preparing for war, they would say, then they must think we are weak. We must strike fast and hard. Prove that we are not easy targets. That’s what they would say and that sort of talk gets a lot of support in the taverns after men have drank more than a decent amount of freykka. They would use that as a pretext to invade Fenda and take the qizo minerals.
We could not fight a protracted war with two planets at the same time. Not a chance.
“What shall we do?” Droka asks.
“Where are his belongings?” I ask.
“He had none,” Droka says. “Except for the small comm-panel in his pocket. I wanted to ask before turning it over to the High Electrician for investigation.”
“You might be the only man on this planet who can keep a secret,” I say. I place a hand on his shoulder, glad for his friendship.
In that moment, the Kraxx spy begins to convulse violently. He goes rigid, groaning and gasping. He is suspended for a split-second, then he collapses to the floor, shaking and seizing. Behind his ear, almost invisible among his thick scale plating, I see a thin rod.
“Thrice-damned void lovers,” I spit. The rumors are true. If captured, the Kraxx will remove a small vial of toxin from a hidden place, either a hollowed-out fang or from inside a nostril the stories say. They will plunge the vial into the delicate spot in their scales behind the ear. The toxin will work, slowly but surely, and they will never be able to spill the secrets of their race.
“What do you suppose they are up to?” Droka says.
“War,” I say. “That’s the only thing the Kraxx are ever up to.”
It’s true. They take pleasure in their violence. They raid planets with nothing to offer, just because they like to bathe in the bloodshed.
“Ayvinx was the one who caught him,” Droka says. But it’s what he doesn’t say. Ayvinx is a faithless mercenary. There are plenty of Zalaryns who hire out their services to other planets. Strength and the expert wielding of an anankah are our planet’s chief export. He is close to High Merchant Noxu, often hiring out his mercenary services as a way to broker one of the High Merchant’s trade deals. And while the High Merchant claims to support me during the council meetings, his only real allegiance is to his own wealth.
“Bring him to me,” I say. In many ways, what to do with Ayvinx presents a much bigger problem that what we do with this lifeless Kraxxoid corpse.
The council cannot know about this until I unravel the Kraxx plan.
“Yes,” Droka says. “What about this creature,” he asks, pointing at the Kraxxoid carcass on the cell floor.
“Burn it,” I say. “Then find his ship. Send one or two men that you trust with your life to find it. This ugly bastard landed somewhere.”
“How the hell did he land without the nav-alerts sounding?” Droka asks.
“No idea,” I say. “Probably landed out in the waste.” We have a few large cities on our planet, plus the scattered protein farms and farm reserves, but a lot of the surface is nothing but dust. It would be easy enough to land a light spacecraft. Walking all the way through the waste and into the capital, however, that’s a feat of strength worthy of song.
“Any chance that he was a rogue agent?” Droka asks. His face is so honest and loyal it almost breaks my heart.
“No,” I say. “This means only one thing.”
“What?” he asks.
“The Kraxx are preparing to invade our planet.”
I really thought it would only take a couple weeks to restore the first statue. I can’t blame my odd perception of time on this planet’s orbit either. I just had no idea what a project of this magnitude would consist of.
Xalax got the enthusiastic vote of the council to restore the towering statues of the Founders. When he came back to the chambers and told me, I was thrilled. I’m all for history, but when you let something that significant crumble and decay, it sends a bad message to the people.
Then he told me that I am going to lead the project. Lead? Me? Is he crazy?
Apparently yes, because here I am with a team of six Zalaryn females, balancing on these frightening, hovering platforms that he calls tele-lifts, trying to match pigments and textures.
I’ve been working for almost three weeks, but in Earth time that’s even longer. I’ve been trying to get Xalax to teach me about his planet. He’s knowledgeable, but what he doesn’t know he researches for me, since I can’t read their language. Yet. I’m having him teach me that too. I’ve come to really enjoy our time in the evenings together. He seems to genuinely like passing on the lore and history of the Zalaryn race. And I am an endless well of stupid questions. One neu on this planet is the equivalent of 89.5 Earth hours. But then, what they refer to as an hour is only 45 Earth minutes. I can’t keep it straight. Especially since they use binary place value for their entire number system.
Honestly, I just keep time by my stomach.
That’s another thing. He’s gone through great lengths to have the servants in the fortress (he insists it’s a fortress and not a palace) prepare food that is more palatable for me. It’s not, but I can’t bear to hurt his feelings. The Zalaryns aren’t big eaters. He explained tha
t all food tastes pretty much the same. They will sometimes eat fresh meat or fruit for special occasions, but mostly they eat protein bricks or that thin gruel that I drank on the spaceship voyage to this planet.
When I asked him about his tastebuds, he was confused.
He has thick, pointy bumps on his tongue. It’s mostly the reason I can’t stop thinking about how it felt when he was licking me.
I assumed those bumps were tastebuds but was surprised to learn that they’re not. He says that they’re sensory, but not the sense of taste. He says that they can detect fear, panic, rage, air pressure, heat. He tried to explain it, how it feels when your tongue is filled with the sensation of an enemy’s cold terror and it filled me with a sense of cold terror.
They mostly eat protein bricks that are farmed in the less populated regions of the planet. They are small savory, oily little nuggets, dense and tasting like a hardened brick of butter. I can only take a few bites at a time, but he assured me for someone my size, that’s all I need. They’re surprisingly filling. He brought me an apple one day and I cried.
I press the control buttons and lower my tele-lift back to ground level. I have to brace myself and remember to never look down. It zooms me so high in the air to work on the statues, then when I’m ready to go back to the ground level, it drops with a sickening speed that makes me want to lurch my few bites of protein brick.
“Fifty neus,” I hear. “And fifty nights.”
I turn around and it’s High Builder Huxi. He’s older and smaller than the other males and his hands are covered in scars. “Fifty one to you and yours,” I say, giving him the traditional response. That was another thing I have learned, the greeting comes from the Founders War, when the final, epic battle was won on the fiftieth day. Or neu as they call it.
“This is looking marvelous,” he says.
“You are too kind,” I say.
“Zalaryns are many things,” High Builder Huxi says, “but we do not practice false flattery or kindness for the sake of being polite like you do on Earth.”
“I’ve noticed,” I say. “So thank you.”
