by Viki Storm
“Stop,” he says. I freeze in my tracks. He mutters a curse and then seeks out his comm-panel from his waist pouch. He taps at the screen and then there is a deafening shoop sound and I see the air all around us shimmer and magnify. With an audible click, it goes still, everything back to normal. Or at least as normal as I’ll ever feel on this planet. “Okay, had to turn off the force field. The surrounding area is studded with sensors. When someone trips one, the force field goes up.”
“Would it have killed us if we touched it?” I say. The idea of some invisible barricade is beyond frightening. Would it boil us alive like the energy from the Magneto Spire or would it explode our eyeballs like the energy from an anankah?
“No,” he says. I see that he’s trying to repress a smile, so that must have been a dumb question. “It would have been like trying to walk into a very, very strong wind. So strong we wouldn’t have made it past.”
We go inside the dwelling and I am astounded when he grabs a torch from the wall and starts striking a flint stone against the wall to light it. The ancestral home of the Droka clan looks very much like the dwellings on Earth.
The only light is the fire from a wall torch. I see a lantern on a table and am relieved to feel the oil sloshing around in its base. I take off the glass dome and light the wick from the torch.
“You know how to use this old junk?” he says, confused.
“Yes,” I say and it’s my turn to repress a smile. There is a wash basin in the corner of the kitchen, a stove burner in the other corner. I know that wood is a rare and exotic good for the Zalaryns, but they must burn something in that stove, maybe coal or animal dung. “The old technology is much like what we have on Earth.”
“The legends say that the founders traveled far and wide, bringing back trinkets and technology from distant planets,” he says. “Maybe they brought back some things from Earth long, long ago.”
“Maybe,” I say. I settle in, heating water for a bath. There is a faucet in the kitchen, so at least I don’t have to pump from an outdoor spigot, but I will still have to heat it on the stove.
For all the nostalgia that this dwelling brings me, I miss the royal bedchamber. And not just because of that gigantic washbasin that I can fill with hot water with the touch of a button. I came to think of those chambers as my home. The place I shared with my mate.
Droka’s place is a reminder of a chapter of my life that is closed.
A place I am surprised to find that I don’t want to go back to.
Because even if I was able to go back to Earth, I’d have to go alone.
“How long do we have to stay here?” I ask.
“I will be leaving as soon as the discs lower at first sunslight,” he says.
“What?” I ask. “You said we would be safe here?” He’s leaving me alone? Oh no. I thought I lost him once and the pain almost ripped me in two.
“Yes,” he says. He puts his hand on my stomach. “We. Our child that is kindling in your womb. The product of you and me. We.”
“Child?” I say. This keeps getting weirder. “But how can you know?” We only had sex a few days ago. That first day he brought me home from the auction house and deposited his seed inside my opening, that was a few weeks? A month? Time is so fluid and unfamiliar here I honestly can’t say how long it’s been. But surely it’s too soon for that. Especially if we don’t even have compatible DNA.
“Oh yes,” he says. “I can tell. I can sense a heartbeat.” He points to the sensory nubs on his head.
“You can?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “I feel the thrum of a new life. Here,” he says. He takes my hand and puts it on his head. He pulls me close and kisses me. His tongue has those same sensory bumps, only smaller. My hand on his head, his tongue encircling mine—he is right.
I can feel it too.
I close my eyes and open myself to some other sense. I feel a rapid trilling. Faint but at the same time strong. Quick. It’s like a reverberating force between us. A physical manifestation of the bonding and the hormones and the chemicals. Like the force field. Invisible but incredibly strong.
There are tears on my cheeks. Once—and not even that long ago—the thought of one of these alien creatures growing inside me was frightening, repugnant. But now?
“I’ve never been happier,” I say. “I love you. I don’t know if you can understand it, but it’s like—”
“I love you too,” he says. “We don’t have a word for it, but I’m glad you humans do. I love you with all of my being. Whatever you want to call it. However you want to describe it. I can’t imagine my life without you. I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you—or our child. There is a feeling in my chest that’s not rut. Not lust.” He roams his hands down my body to cup my ass in his strong hands. “Though there is plenty of that. It’s like all the light of both our suns is inside my chest, threatening to explode.” He kisses me again and I can feel what he’s talking about. He transfers his feelings to me through his sensory nubs. Except he doesn’t need to. I know exactly how he feels.
Because I feel it too.
“I need to go to the capitol,” he says, breaking free of our kiss. My hand is on his head and I can feel his regret and his sadness. I move my hand, not wanting to spy on his emotions. Like I said, I don’t need to. I feel the same way.
“How long,” I say.
“If all goes well, I will leave at first sunslight and return for our evening protein meal.”
“Oh,” I say, immensely relieved. I thought he was going to stash me here alone for the entire duration of the Kraxx invasion. “I can deal with that.”
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you or our child. I promise. And the easiest way for me to keep that promise is to never let you out of my sight. But unfortunately, I need to go to the capitol. I will not tarry. I will return as soon as I can.”
“Are you going to hold a council meeting?” I ask. This is as close as I can come to asking if the Kraxx are still coming.
“Stand before the council and admit that my trusted advisers have gone behind my back? Is there any bigger sign of weakness?” he asks.
I can’t answer. I am from a weak planet, destroyed by the Kraxx then dominated by the Zalaryns. I am not one to be giving political advice.
“But you may be right,” he sighs. “I need to send Droka on a mission. If he can take out the High Merchant before they start to amass their raiders, we might have a chance. The idle Zalaryn males are restless and want to raid. But they will scatter if their leadership is eliminated.”
“Or you can unite them,” I hazard. “Give them true leadership to follow. Roust the Kraxx once and for all.”
“You have more faith in me than I do in myself sometimes,” he says and kisses me again. “But let’s leave this talk behind. I need to clear my head.” He pulls off my robes and sweeps me into his arms. He picks me up like I weigh no more than a sack of apples.
He puts his mouth on my breast, running his tongue over my nipple. I feel myself get hot, the pulsing starting between my legs. Are all women this easily aroused? I heard girls tell stories about fumbling boys pawing at them. Or old women talk about their inattentive husbands, concerned with nothing but a quick release in the dark.
I reach down and feel his hard length underneath his breeches. It excites me just thinking about that thing of his, how it feels like he’s splitting me open with it, stretching me out to my limits. Then the pure pleasure as he pushes it in, stroking some secret spot deep inside me that will reduce me to a drooling and screaming creature of lust.
He repositions me so that I am clutching his chest, my legs wrapped around his muscular torso. He unlaces his breeches and kicks them away. He lowers me just a little bit so that my wet folds are resting right on top of his erection. He pushes it against me and the sliding feeling against my swollen clit is amazing. If he does this any longer, I’m probably going to explode.
“The bedroom,” he says. “Any bedroom. Now.”
“My bathwater,” I say, laughing. “It’s on the stove.”
“Let it evaporate,” he says.
He carries me to the bedroom. Every step he takes rubs his hard cock against me, driving me insane with desire. I want it inside me maybe even more than he wants to put it in.
There is an old mattress on the floor. He tosses me on it and a cloud of dust puffs into the air. The mattress is lumpy, probably filled with scraps of fabric. Nothing like my mattress at home.
Home. The chambers in the fortress. That’s my home now.
The mattress on the floor is exactly like the thing I slept on back on Earth.
But that is not my home anymore. Not even in my memories.
He gets on top of me, making me feel so small, but also so lucky to be under his protection. I feel the truth in his words earlier. He would kill to protect me and the child. And I feel the truth in the words he didn’t say: he would die to protect us too.
As he enters me, I float away into a sensory fugue. It is so intense, I cannot explain. The feelings in my head and my heart and my loins are all merging to eclipse my rational thought.
We are one. Bonded. Mates. And I understand what he means, even if he didn’t.
He says that this is love, that our races just have two different terms for it. But that’s wrong.
This isn’t love.
It is so, so much more.
I find Droka at his post. He has not slept at all, but his face is stoic and gives nothing away. He is wearing his Imperial Guard insignia and is stationed at the entrance to the grand hall, where the High Throne is kept. Where the king is supposed to sit and give audience to petitioners and foreign envoys.
Where I will soon sit.
If, that is, the High Merchant’s plan is foiled.
“She is okay?” he asks me. “Resa?”
“Yes,” I say. I have to fight to repress a shiver that goes down my stomach right to my cock when I think about her. And repress a smile, thinking about how we sullied the mattress in Droka’s ancestral home. “She is resilient. She has much of the Zalaryn spirit in her.”
“She will make a proud queen,” he says.
“That is my hope,” I say.
“Hope?” he asks.
“We have uncovered the High Merchant’s plot, but he is off-planet regrouping as we speak.”
“About that,” Droka says. “We decoded another transmission, it seems like they’re calling it the Great Raid and they’re amassing on the outer moon of New Pallas.”
“Is there anything out there?” I ask. I was under the impression that New Pallas had been abandoned.
“There are a few struggling settlements on the nearby planets,” he says. “The moon, however, was never inhabited.”
“Until now,” I say.
“They have set up camp with some of our rogue warriors and Kraxx. They are feeding off the ill-gotten protein reserves.”
“And human females stolen from the auction house.”
“And them,” he says. “Are you going to speak to the High Council this morning?”
The question everyone keeps asking. The question I can finally answer.
“No,” I say.
“No?” he asks, truly surprised.
“I need a little more time. If you can bring him back, bring back the evidence. It will stop the Great Raid and clear my name. All we have is a few decoded message transmissions. Half the elders on the council won’t even understand your explanations of the routing and encryption process. We need real proof.” I thought long about the matter and this is the conclusion I decide on. Who knows what other tricks the High Merchant has up his sleeve? He might have planted other evidence against me. I need to clear my name with something more substantial than a few electronic strings of code.
“The longer you sit on this secret, the more you risk becoming an actual traitor yourself,” he says gravely.
“You are right, that’s why I’m sending you to dispatch the rogue. It shouldn’t take you long.”
“Me?” he asks. This is the other conclusion I’ve come to.
“There’s no one else I trust. No one else who is capable.”
“Me?” he asks again. I can tell this was the last thing he expected me to say to him.
“Ayvinx asked some of his more unsavory contacts. He found the location of a ship leaving for the New Pallas moon tonight. You must disguise yourself. Once there, you are to get onto the High Merchant’s raiding party. When the time is right, apprehend him. Alive if possible, but dead if necessary. Apprehend him and send a signal beacon back here. I can have a ship to pick you up within a few hours.”
He is at a loss for words, but I know he will do this. He is a storied raider and a resourceful warrior. “Who will guard the fortress?” he asks. I laugh. So loyal a friend.
“The threat is out there,” I say, gesturing to the sky. “That’s how you can best defend us.”
He nods and I relieve him of his post. He will have many preparations to make before tonight’s voyage. I give him a scrap of paper with the location of the rogue ship. Paper is rare and we don’t have much use for it, but this is too important to trust to our comm-system.
“A few neus at the most,” he says, clasping my hand. “I’ll be in touch.”
I get back to the Droka family dwelling before the discs go up, as promised. I deactivate the force field and bring my vehicle inside. The vehicle is laden with things from our chambers and comforts from the capitol, as well as protein bricks and a hen I just happened to see in the market. I don’t know why she likes to fry up the ova of a primitive bird, but she does. I also have three apples and something she calls a bread.
I got lucky and saw a market stall with a vendor from one of the Earth colonies off-planet. Those fools cling to their old ways of life, struggling against all odds to grow half a basket full of small, sour apples. So inefficient compared to a hearty brick of protein.
There’s also a large crate towed behind my vehicle. I’m going to need her help to steer the tele-lift that’s holding it.
“Resa,” I call out. I hated having to leave her today, but it was necessary. And as much as I know she is safest here than anywhere else on the planet, I am still consumed by the irrational fear that the dwelling will be empty.
My heart lifts when I see her come outdoors, nude and smooth as the day I first laid eyes on her. Except now she is smiling and her eyes twinkle with the happiness that I know she feels. Because I feel it too.
“Put on your robe,” I say. The sunslight is too strong for her soft human skin. “I need your help.” I bring in the apples and the bread, but am unsure what to do with the chicken. It is in a small wire cage and has already polluted the inside of my vehicle with a runny green waste byproduct.
“Is that a chicken?” she shrieks. She picks up the cage and examines it. “Where did you find a chicken?”
“I am the Crown Prince, soon to be High King,” I say. I stick out my chest and deepen my voice. “You think I cannot find a chicken for my mate?”
She sets it back down and throws her arms around me. Her body is soft and lithe and I want to claim her again. Something about knowing that our child is growing inside her—a living manifestation of our bond—is making me desire her even more.
“If you’re that impressed by some foul-smelling bag of feathers, then you will really be impressed by this,” I say. I gesture to the tele-lift behind the vehicle. The contents is still crated and I will wait until we are inside to unpack it. I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to make it work properly, but I will try. It can’t be that hard to figure out.
The tele-lift hovers just slightly above the ground and Resa controls its direction while I push it from behind. There is no sensible place to put it, so we guide it into the large bedchamber towards the back of the dwelling.
We set it down and I pluck out the pins holding the crate together. The sides of the box fall one by one and I know that she recognizes it for what it is
when I hear her squeal in delight.
I was right; she’s much more delighted by this than the chicken. I admit, it’s opulent, but I love hearing that little squeal of delight come from her and I would do anything to hear it again.
“You brought the bathtub?” she says in disbelief.
“I brought a bathtub. What do you think, I removed the one from the fortress?”
“I don’t know how these things even work,” she says, but she’s running her hands along the side of the basin, obviously pleased.
“I’m not sure either, but I think we just need to connect it to the water pipe.”
“We?” she says. “This is your crazy idea. I’ll just hand you tools.”
“I don’t know if I can let you use it if you don’t play a more crucial role in its installation,” I say and grab her waist, pulling her close. “Maybe you can hand me tools and massage my aching muscles when I’m done.”
“I think I can do that,” she says, slinking her arm around my chest.
“And then pleasure me orally,” I add. She hits me playfully on the chest with her tiny fist and it’s amusing how small and frail she is.
“For a hot bath every night, I think I can do that too,” she says. She parts her lips and licks them just so, her soft pink tongue looking so inviting. I have not taken her in that way but now that the idea is in my head, I don’t think I can rest until I know what it feels like to have her lips wrapped around my shaft, that smooth human tongue gently rubbing against the sensitive underside.
“Then let’s get started,” I say. She looks at the bathtub appraisingly, but I pull her away from it. “Not on the bathtub,” I say.
“On the pleasure,” she says, her voice low and breathy.
We kiss and even though I know that the ordeal with the Kraxx and the Great Raid is only just started, I feel like I can handle anything as long as she is by my side.
And she will be. Forever.
The End
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