by Marie Dry
He tensed, became rock hard against her. Then he pulled her flush against him, his arms tightening around her. “Why do you want to know that? You are my human.”
“I’m just a bit nervous. I didn’t know how to tell you that I think you are really well built. You have an impressive physique.”
“I am very strong as well. The strongest cyborg on this ship.”
Again, she trailed her lips over his chest to hide her reaction.
Sometimes she wanted to find the explosives they confiscated and plant some right under him. Then at times, like this, he was so endearing.
“You like kissing my chest?”
“Yes, I do, I like your broad shoulders and the muscles in your chest.” She stroked the tattoo that always came to her hand, as if it recognized her and approved of her touch. “I like your tattoo as well.” He stiffened, and she moved her hands up to cup his cheek. “Why don’t you like me talking about your tattoo?”
“It is called ryhov, and if I had a soul my ryhov would’ve covered my whole body and it would have blue components. The Tunrians turned on us because I had even this much. Because it did not cover my whole body and didn’t have blue, they could deny that we were people and so they could hunt and kill us. We did not have souls, therefore, we were machines and could be killed without consequences.”
She frowned. “I’m glad you escaped that dreadful planet, Balthazar. They had no right to hurt you and treat you like that. You are a person, and I believe you have a soul.”
“We do not talk about souls now,” he said, and she let it go.
It would take a long time for him to learn he would have a soul when he believed.
“Can I take off your pants? I want to bite you and lick--everywhere.” She glided her tongue over her lips. She’d said it for effect, but it was true. She wanted to see him naked, wanted to leave love bites all over him. His taste lingered on her tongue, and she wanted more.
He tensed. “I will kiss and bite you--” He paused, as if thinking about that. “--softly. When you are relaxed and full of pleasure, you may take off my pants.”
Her heart sank, and the sizzle in her blood flattened out. How different was he? What did she commit herself to here? Visions of monstrous penises flashed through before her eyes.
“I will take off your dress,” he informed her. Firm, as if he thought she might object.
She pointed to the decorative braid on the bodice. “This pulls apart.”
Obviously, the idea of divesting her of her cumbersome garments excited him. Using his thumbs and forefingers he gripped the top of her dress and gently pulled. The first stud loosened. His eyes changed, the color deepened, and he growled. He moved on to the next and the next.
It was unbelievably erotic. His appreciation, as each bit of her embroidered undergarment was revealed, was almost charming.
She’d been tempted many times to leave off some of the cumbersome layers. The love of tradition, all the members of the foundation had, stopped her, and she’d been walking around dressed like a Mediaeval noble woman for so long it almost became normal.
Balthazar reverently pushed the dress down over her breasts, his hands palming her hips on their way down. She stood in a pool of shimmering velvet and gold braid.
“I will lift you,” he said, still in that thickened voice. He lifted her with his hand under her arm and set her down next to the dress.
Balthazar fingered the embroidered under dress. “This is like Tunrian linen, only better quality.” He traced an embroidered flower laying on the slope of her breast. “This is prettier.”
Her breath hitched. That warm finger moved on, tracing every flower covering her breasts until she wanted to tear off her clothes and tackle him down to the bed.
“How does this one come off?”
She showed him the thin concealed ribbon, lacing the garment closed in front. Some of the garments closed in back, but she preferred not to have to have assistance in dressing.
He found the knot hidden in her cleavage, slowly unraveled it, and then, one by one, pulled the ribbon through the hidden loops. It’d take forever to put back, but his obvious enjoyment of the process made it worth it.
“I approve of these clothes you always wear.”
She’d promised herself the day she found Ter, she’d take off these cumbersome dresses and never put them on again. But Balthazar made her feel feminine and desirable in them.
She was humbled at his gentleness. The time and care he took to take off her clothes. Stroking and petting her through the layers of cloth until her breathing was ragged, her heart racing.
“How many more dresses?” he asked.
She loved that he sounded as if he could undress her for the next hour without losing patience.
“One more.”
The last was a very delicate shift, sheer even with the embroidery covering it.
He stared down at it and then very gently gripped the hem and pulled it over her head. He gazed down at her naked body. “You are beautiful.”
His hand moved from her breast down to the juncture of her thighs. She’d been supposed to seduce him, but he was the one who seduced her until she was so ready for him, she moaned with pleasure when he parted her folds and inserted a finger deep inside her.
He abruptly withdrew his finger and scowled down at her. “We will not fit,” he said with absolute conviction.
“We will. My body will stretch to accommodate yours.”
He pushed off his pants, and she stared at his aroused flesh. He was big, but not monstrous. His ryhov moved to cover the heavily veined penis. Guess what? It wants to join in, she thought with macabre humor.
He took his penis in one hand and pointed to it with the other. “You are two inches too small inside. I refuse to do you harm.”
She giggled. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. He stared from his penis he still clasped in his hand to her, and she laughed harder at the confused look on his face. Leaning her head against his chest, she shook with laughter.
She swallowed her laughter and drew him down on the bed with her. “If I am aroused enough, I will only feel pleasure.”
“You will still be two inches too small.”
Laughter threatened again, and she bit her lip hard so that she could talk without laughing her head off. “You can withhold two inches,” she said demurely.
He froze, and his eyes narrowed on her. Tenderness overwhelmed her. He truly cared that he might hurt her. She could see how aroused and eager he was, and still he took the time to ensure he didn’t hurt her. When the time came, betraying him would kill a part of her.
His eyes became fixed, in the way it did when he accessed information through the CPU in his head. “That is logical. I have cross referenced the manual with Earth customs and am assured that I can provide you with much pleasure even if I withhold two inches.”
He leaned down and kissed her, a slow, deep, leisurely kiss. He tore his lips from hers and kissed and licked her neck, her breasts--spent so long suckling them that she was a disjointed mess of pleasure by the time he moved down her body. She moved her hands down his muscled back, cupped and kneaded his buttocks. He made an incoherent noise of pleasure when she cupped his behind, and he lingered to lick and nip at her slightly rounded belly. She widened her legs, and he moved down, carefully parted her. “Your hooha is warm and also beautiful,” he told her in all seriousness.
“Thank you.” Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, she chanted to herself.
He leaned down and replaced his hand with his lips and kissed her. A hot intimate kiss that made her hips surged off the bed. He sucked and licked until she was a mindless puddle of pleasure. “Please, oh please, Balthazar.” She wanted him to stop, to never stop. To fill her so deep they could never again be apart.
He entered her slowly, carefully. “Are you uninjured, my runner?”
“I’m good, please don’t stop.”
The tender way he called her “runner” made her blink back
tears.
If she ever had to betray him--when she had to betray him, she corrected--she would lose the best part of her soul. There had to be a way out of this web she was caught in.
He continued with his slow, careful thrusts until Aurora didn’t have a coherent thought anymore. “Please, Balthazar, more. I need you to move.”
He moved faster, his hips pistoling, going deeper with each thrust. Aurora threw back her head and every nerve in her body tautened with pleasure until her whole world consisted of Balthazar and the connection in their bodies.
She came to herself still clutching him to find him frowning down at her. “You were too fast,” he said, obviously put out that she climaxed before him.
She stroked his calf with the sole of her foot. “That doesn’t mean you have to stop, Balthazar.”
His eyes brightened, as if a flame was lit behind them, and slowly he started to move again until pleasure spiraled through her again. She moaned and moved with him, caressing any part of him she could reach.
This time they reached the peak together, his roars mixing with her moans of pleasure.
Aurora lay boneless in Balthazar’s arms. Her impression of the Tunrians were accurate. They were a pleasure-loving people and had made having sex into a fine art. Somehow, some of that must’ve been imprinted on Balthazar. It had felt as if his lovemaking was a way to honor her. A lot about the statues in their room made sense now.
***
She woke with the strong feeling of being watched by a predator. Her eyelids flew open, and she stared into orange and green eyes. He leaned over her, and she had the strong feeling that he’d been staring at her for hours, waiting for her to wake.
“You will give me my soul now.” The tender lover of the night before was gone. His face had no expression. His eyes looked glassy, impenetrable.
She’d planned to lie to him, pretend to give him a soul. Instead, the truth rushed out of her mouth. “I lost my soul the day I lost my sister.” No, she corrected, I threw it away the day I betrayed my sister. “I have nothing left to give you.”
“Siblings share souls, too?” He didn’t sound curious. He sounded like a cyborg who wanted to pound something.
Guilt ate at her. How could she have enjoyed last night when she had a pretty good idea what was done to Ter every day? Her determination not to enjoy anything that Ter couldn’t had ruined the two relationships that she’d had. She didn’t want it to ruin what she had with Balthazar. And that made her feel like the worst sister in the world.
He leaned down, his eyes burned into her head, his body threatening. “You will take back your soul from your sister and give me mine.”
She was tempted to tell him that he’d have to find Ter to get his soul, but who knew if he could even find her, or what he’d do to Ter to get his soul?
If he was human, she could’ve talked to him, explain how she felt--that one person couldn’t give another a soul. Lying there with him leaning over her, the smell of their lovemaking still clinging to their naked bodies, their differences hit her. They were alien to each other. She loved how he smelled and tasted, but those sensations were alien.
“It will take time for my soul to heal Balthazar.” Not a lie.
“How much time?”
She missed the gentle lover of the night before who took his time to remove her clothes, the cyborg who’d made her forget why she was seducing him. The man who seduced her, instead. “I don’t know. In the meantime, we can get to know each other. Enjoy making love.”
His shoulders relaxed. She ran a finger over his tattoo that hovered over his chest. His heart. She needed him to focus on something--anything--else but souls.
“Have you ever showered with someone?
“No, we will rectify my inexperience.”
She’d have to teach him the joys of showering together, she thought a few minutes later. He scrubbed himself with ruthless efficiency. Like a soldier getting ready for battle. When he eyed her, she quickly finished. Too much ogling his amazing body--alien, with skin with a weird texture and a roving tattoo, but so fine. Afterward, he helped her braid her hair. Her heart nearly stopped when he picked up her hair pins. “Where did you get these?”
She tried to calm her crazy heartbeat, took a few quiet deep breaths when she saw what he had in his hand. “The first one was gifted to me, and now I search through antique shops for them.”
He carefully placed the glass pin with the picos into her intricately braided hair. “Come, we have to go to the mess hall.”
***
She sat down and was dwarfed by Balthazar on the one side and another soldier noticeably larger than the others on her other side. “There’s more soldiers here than last time.”
Balthazar stiffened and then made an obvious effort to appear relaxed. “They work and eat in shifts. This is a quiet shift, which allows more of them to come and eat.”
“I see.” And she did, though she doubted he realized that her eidetic memory would make it difficult for him to convince her she was dining with different cyborgs every time. Only four cyborgs were new. She’d found a weakness without even trying. They had very few cyborgs for a ship this size. She looked down at the plate in front of her, and her stomach groaned with hunger. Lately, the food had been much better.
A movement in the kitchen caught her eye. Brown hair, human hair, and a pale human face disappeared so fast Aurora blinked, doubting what she saw. Surely they didn’t have another human on board. Had they taken her words about kidnapping a cook serious and actually done it?
“You have more humans on board?”
“Only one female,” he said as if it was of no consequence.
“I’d like to see her. Who is she?”
“She is our cook.”
Guilt settled on her. First Ter, and now some unknown woman. “And I suppose you went to her with a job offer?” With all the things that happened, she’d forgotten about her suspicions of them stealing a cook. Giving them the idea made her cringe.
“No, we searched Earth databases for a female who can cook. One that wouldn’t be missed. She applied online for a job. We went down to Earth and grabbed her.” He stopped eating, appeared thoughtful. “My cyborgs reported she screamed a lot.”
“She screamed?” This was unbelievable. “No one stopped you? I haven’t seen anything on the news about a woman grabbed by tin--cyborgs.”
His eyes flickered at her slip. “We are trained soldiers. We did not want anyone to see us, and they didn’t.”
“Do you have cloaking devices?”
He stared at her.
“I watch sci-fi movies.” She rubbed her brow. “Never mind about that. You have to take her back. You can’t just grab humans whenever you want. People have rights.”
“No, you enjoyed her food.”
“You said you never wanted to be slaves again, hated how the Tunrians made you do what they wanted with no regards for your feelings. How can you do the same to this poor woman?”
He shrugged and continued eating, politely finished chewing before he spoke, “We are now the masters. What does it matter?”
She sighed. “We definitely need to talk about what a person doesn’t do. May I talk to her?”
He looked toward the kitchen and a cyborg, holding the short plump woman’s arm brought her over. Aurora’s heart ached in sympathy. The woman had black curly hair that was all over the place. Dressed in blue jeans and a dirty white sweater and sneakers, her dark skin had a grayish tint.
Aurora tried to get up, but Balthazar held her down with his hand on her upper arm.
“Hi, I’m Aurora, and I’ve been a captive here a bit longer.” Balthazar’s chest rumbled at the word captive, but she ignored him. “It’s not so bad when you get used to it.”
The other woman burst into tears. “My little Tansyn is only four, and she’s all alone. They won’t bring her to me. What if she’s hurt? She must be starving by now.”
Everything turned black in front of Auror
a. It took a long time before she could see and hear again. She came to and realized she’d balled her hands into fists, so tight her nails cut into her palms. She turned to Balthazar and slapped her hands on his chest. “You send someone to get her daughter now.” He didn’t budge, and she didn’t care. She pushed at his chest again. “Now!”
“We do not need--”
“Right now,” she screamed in his face. It was Ter all over again. She didn’t care if they didn’t understand about families. No one would leave a child behind on her watch, ever again.
“We do not need a small human who cannot contribute to the function of the ship.”
She jumped up, and the bench rocked. “I don’t give a shit. You do not separate a mother from her child. Get her back here right now,” she screamed over the cluttering sound of the rocking bench. “You better do it, or we will both scream and scream until you do.”
The other woman opened her mouth and screamed. Aurora joined her for good measure. This might be childish, but she’d do anything to get the woman back with her child.
“Stop doing that,” Balthazar bellowed.
She got on her toes and screamed in his face. If he didn’t agree to take the woman to her child or bring Tansyn here, Aurora would go on a hunger strike until he listened.
Balthazar glared at her, but the cyborg cook ran out. Within twenty minutes, a ragged-looking young girl clung to the human cook while they both cried.
“You will cease screaming and crying now,” Balthazar ordered.
Aurora stopped screaming but went over to the woman and her child and steered them to an empty bench where they’d have some privacy. Her glance dared Balthazar to stop them. It took a long time for mother and child to calm down enough to talk to her. They clung to each other, both looking as if they didn’t believe they were together again.
“What’s your name?”
“Marysol,” the woman answered while she held the little girl as if she was afraid the cyborgs would tear her from her arms.
“I’m Aurora.” She smiled at both mother and child. “These guys are not that bad once you get to know them.”
