Tempest (Valos of Sonhadra Book 2)

by Poppy Rhys

  My nails dug into his chest, ripping a choked moan from him. His finger wedged in the rest of the way and my mouth fell open.

  It was so thick it almost felt like it wasn’t his finger at all, but something else. That couldn’t be right, but I was too delirious to care.

  My breath quickened, and I rode his finger wildly, the tip of my clit brushing against his hot skin every time I pushed back. When he wedged in a second digit, his other hand squeezing my ass cheek so hard it almost hurt, I came undone.

  My legs shook, my knees clamped against his hard body, and my hips bucked with abandon while a series of chopped sounds rushed past my clenched teeth.

  Just as quickly as the rush of my orgasm came, it faded, and I wilted against the shadowed stranger, the dream limbo disintegrating and the weight of my real body bringing me to full consciousness.

  I lazily opened my eyelids, squinting at the soft daylight, and Dason crouched beside me—

  I shot upward, shoving my haywire curls away from my eyes as I took in the scene around me.

  My knees tightened around a body—Zaid’s body.

  “Oh, no,” I exhaled, looking down at myself. My hemp dress was scrunched up around my hips, my naked lower half straddling Zaid who gazed up at me with whirlpool hurricane-blue eyes, all traces of black gone.

  His massive chest rose and fell with a fast breath, and he held up his fingers that were covered in slick—my slick!—and spread them apart, the wetness stringing between his digits.

  The heat creeping to my face felt like all the blood I had in my body rushed to my head.

  Lonan shrunk to his haunches, leaning in to examine Zaid’s fingers.

  “Oh no!” I moaned, realizing Kahn was there too, his cock erect and pointing in my direction like it was accusing me of something diabolical.

  They were all naked and aroused, and I was still straddling Zaid.

  “What is ‘grandpa?’” Dason asked, curiously, his eyes glued to my pussy as if he were in a trance.

  A shocked wheeze whistled past my lax jaw. I’d said that out loud?

  I scrambled off Zaid, yanking on the hem of my dress as I tumbled to the floor and half ran, half crawled to the bathroom where I promptly shut the door and collapsed against it.

  My chest quaked with my uneven breathing as embarrassment ate away at me. I shoved my face into my cupped hands.

  One of the finest orgasms of my life, and it was at the hands of Zaid—literally on his hands.

  My body slid downward, ass hitting the cold floor. I distinctly remembered sleeping on the couch last night. I remembered! So why the hell did I wake up in Zaid’s bed?

  I wilted against the door as I contemplated hitching a ride with an ero’ha to escape the four alien men who seemingly made it their mission to get under my skin.

  My brain waffled as I lay there trying to decipher why I even cared. Soon, the migration would pass, and Dason would take me back to the surface.

  I could make it a few more days.

  I could do it.

  I could.

  THIRTEEN

  ZAID

  “I’m so hard it’s painful,” Kahn groaned, scrubbing both his hands through his hair as I sat up, still examining the slippery lubricant on my fingers. “Did you see how she moved over Zaid?” He paced the room in my peripheral vision.

  “We all saw, Kahn,” Lonan answered, examining my fingers as well. It was a curious thing that neither of us had seen. Ghishwy had no warm, wet openings, but a genital vine that wrapped around our rods and vibrated and squeezed until we gave up wasted seed.

  The closer I peered, the more a whiff of something tickled my scent receptors. I drew my fingers close and inhaled.

  I was hard before, but now I was throbbing.

  “What?” Lonan raised a brow, a suspicious glint in his eye.

  I outstretched my arm, nodding once. “Smell.” He held off and I could tell he was about to give me hassle. “Just do it.”

  Hesitantly, he inhaled. His head snapped back on his neck, and the static in the room momentarily thickened. “Sweet Ghi,” he swore.

  I held my hand toward Kahn. “The scent is incredible!”

  He paused, regarding me as if I’d sprouted my fins. “I’m not smelling your fingers, Zaid.”

  Lonan swallowed hard. “Smell his damn fingers.”

  Dason knelt over the bed, giving my hand a whiff. In a speedy move, he grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand to his nose to deeply inhale a second time, clutching my limb as if he was going to tear it off and run away.

  I shook him loose and he fell back on my bed. “Don’t be an idiot, Dason.”

  His mouth dropped open and he spread his arms in shock. “You’re the one demanding we smell your fingers.”

  Kahn leaned in, reluctantly scenting my hand. His arms instantly blazed, the currents roving over the bright glow, causing Dason’s hair to stand on end before he smoothed it down and manipulated the humidity around us.

  “Knock it off before you catch something else on fire,” Dason complained.

  “I believe I’d like to bury my face between her legs,” Lonan groaned, standing and staring at the bathing room door.

  We all gazed in the same direction, silent, hoping she’d come out and repeat what just happened.

  Dason shrugged, breaking the spell when he mused, “I’d like to know what ‘grandpa’ means.”

  I DRAGGED MYSELF OFF the floor when I finally recovered. Once I got my thoughts about me, it wasn’t so bad. I’d only rode an alien’s fingers in front of his three roommates and called the trusty steed below me Grandpa.

  I stared at the ceiling, and then shook it off. I’d be fine, but I wasn’t going back out there until I was clean and could face the day fresh.

  When I approached the stone tub, the circular window above it cast a soft light into the room, illuminating just how huge the tub was. A small pool, almost.

  Figured it had to be big to fit the aliens it belonged to.

  I preferred showers—they were harder to drown in—but I could manage making it through a bath without freaking so long as the water wasn’t deep. Dason had shown me how to operate the unconventional faucets yesterday, but I hadn’t touched it yet.

  A hammered, flat, metal faucet and matching lever protruded from the wall. I lifted it, water gushing into the tub like a mini waterfall. I hurriedly plugged the drain, and messed with the strange circular dial that had no indication of which direction was hot or cold.

  “Too cold, too cold!” I whisper-chanted, turning it right, then left, trying to find a happy medium before I ended up with a freezing bath.

  I sat my dress aside and stepped in, letting the water fill just until it covered my thighs before I turned it off. Once I wet my hair—groaning over its growing knots—I snooped around, lifting the lids of the few pots that sat around the edge of the tub.

  If there was an alien version of sandalwood, they’d captured it. I dipped my finger in the one that smelled the weakest, testing its texture, and rubbing a small dab between my palms. The suds were minimal, reminding me of the outrageously expensive, homemade herbal soaps the high-level residents loved to purchase back on Earth.

  Factory soaps had worked just fine for me and my wallet. What was a free chemical peel every now and then?

  I grinned to myself, taking a bigger dab and scrubbing at my skin. I made quick work, and even though I’d washed my hair, the knots just wouldn’t give. I needed conditioner—badly.

  It was strange, looking at my body and not seeing hair anywhere. Everything below the neck had been lasered off due to body mite infestation at the county jail before my sentencing.

  Wasn’t sure how I felt about having a bare pussy. The hairless armpits were nice though.

  Cupping water over my body to rinse the suds away, something felt off. I scratched at my chest, stopping short when my fingers caught on a sliver of skin.

  I gingerly pressed, feeling the thin lines, wondering if I’d scraped myself i
n my sleep.

  On my next breath, the cuts moved.

  I wasn’t one to panic—panicking never helped in any situation—but the fear of the unknown tightened my scalp as I stood, careful not to slip when I got out of the tub and went to the mirror.

  I leaned forward, peering closer at the dark, red, irritated skin just below my collarbones.

  Six slashes, three under each collarbone, twitched. Water droplets from my hair rained down the sides of my neck, dragging rivulets over the slashes.

  On my next breath, they opened.

  I jerked back from the mirror, my air rushing from my lungs, the cuts shivering and sealing.

  What was wrong with me?

  My hand trembled when I touched the slashes again, my pulse thundering in my ears, and they twitched open, revealing the crimson flesh underneath and beating twice with my unsteady breathing.

  I screamed.

  Terror clenched my gut, my fingers curled as I waffled between wanting to scratch the cuts and not wanting to touch my skin at all.

  The door burst open, banging against the wall as Zaid rushed in. The others crowded into the room, their reflections filling the empty space in the mirror.

  “W-what is it?” I sputtered, my body shaking with the burst of adrenaline coursing through me. “They’re moving!”

  The cuts opened and closed when more water droplets ran over the slashes.

  Dason gripped my shoulders, turning my body.

  When Kahn reached out, Lonan grabbed his hand, lifting it just before his buzzing skin touched me. “Careful.” His calm and collected tone eased my full-blown panic down a notch.

  Zaid leaned in, his thumb brushing across my irritated skin, the sensation tickling and urging me to scratch until I bled.

  “What is it?” I repeated, hearing the hysterical edge in my voice.

  Zaid’s hurricane eyes locked with Lonan’s stormy white orbs, which only served to make my anxiety rocket.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “They’re gills,” Zaid finally answered, his expression more curious than fearful.

  “What?” I turned back to the mirror, my fingers running over the slashes with new examination. “But I’m human!”

  My pulse continued to thump-thump through my body, and I could feel the thrum in my fingertips.

  “This isn’t possible. This isn’t possible!”

  They twitched again, and I jumped back like I could escape the slashes on my chest, my body knocking into Dason’s. I didn’t even care when his hand settled on my side, his thumb brushing back and forth, attempting to comfort me.

  The water on my body started to rise in tiny droplets from my skin and hair like a reverse shower, pulling the excess moisture from me until I was dry. The act distracted me enough to calm my speeding heart from might-stroke-out to slightly-fucking-terrified.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled.

  “You’re welcome,” Dason responded lowly.

  Kahn swiped a folded cloth off the shelf and held its length wide. I noticed he was normal again, no violent electricity running over his arms.

  The realization that I was naked hit me, and I hastily stepped into the proffered hemp-like towel. Kahn wrapped it around me, and I lifted my arms before hugging it close.

  I was ushered to sit on a bed, my movements feeling a little mechanical as my brain raced.

  Flashes of my time on the Concord blinked in and out at a rapid rate. I’d been perfectly normal until they started taking me to the lab. All those injections—having no idea what was in them—were my first suspicion.

  I’d been afraid it was poison to begin with—honestly, it could’ve been—but it was pointing in a different direction now.

  The bite of Dr. Hale’s fingers as she craned my head to the side and said, ‘they haven’t manifested’ moved front and center in my memory.

  Was she looking for gills?

  I touched my chest. They’d been looking in the wrong spot.

  No, they weren’t there before. I’d been completely human, completely fine, until I got here.

  “What happened after I passed out?” I directed at Dason who sat across from me on Lonan’s bed. “When you pulled me underwater.”

  His black eyes darted to the ground, and he roved his hands back and forth over his thighs. I could see the guilt in his actions. “You weren’t breathing,” he finally uttered, flashing his gaze my way. “Zaid pushed the water from your lungs, but you didn’t reanimate. Kahn shocked you before I could stop him.”

  I felt a sting come to my eyes, my body telling me I hadn’t blinked in a while, so I did, and the sensation dissipated.

  I drowned.

  They’d performed an alien version of resuscitation on me, but I had drowned.

  Dr. Friedrich and Dr. Hale had never killed me. That was the only difference. My chest had started itching shortly after I arrived here. No wonder I was tired—my body had morphed.

  I didn’t know if that was truly why, but given the evidence, it was a logical idea about what was going on with my body.

  What else would happen to my body? Would my legs start fusing together and sprouting scales?

  If I started growing fins, I was gonna be pissed.

  “Growing fins?” Lonan tilted his head to the side.

  Shit. I must’ve said that out loud.

  “Nothing.”

  I just hoped this was it. I hoped Friedrich’s experiments didn’t manifest anything else. I could barely function like a normal human being as it was—regular people didn’t mentally separate society as targets and non-targets—and I didn’t really need anything making my life more complicated.

  The idea of turning into an actual fish scared the crap out of me. I wasn’t trying to be vain, but I was born human and I preferred to stay that way.

  What had they been doing in that lab? I highly doubted they were just looking for gills. Recalling the other prisoners filtering in and out of the lab when I was present, no one else was being waterboarded.

  Granted, it was hard to pay attention while trying not to drown, and who knew, maybe the water station was used on others when I wasn’t there.

  Why was the number one question.

  A private prison, utilized by every world government, was experimenting on the worst of the worst.

  I chewed the inside of my bottom lip. There were so many things that could go wrong. Someone was fucking with the natural order, and if a superhuman army was their end game, Earth was damned.

  Only a piece of the ship—alpha pod—had crashed here though. Where was the rest? Back on Earth? Scattered over Sonhadra?

  What kind of mutations had the doctors been cooking up? Some of those inmates were rabid dogs as plain old humans—they didn’t need extras!

  And Preta was out there, possibly running around a planet that wanted to kill her, and prisoners that might not be fully human anymore. Was she one of them now?

  The muscles bunched up between my shoulders.

  Dr. Friedrich had mentioned losing the previous patient before me. What if Preta’s mutation had manifested and backfired? What if she was dead because of the illegal human testing the IPS Concord had done, or worse, running around out of her mind like some feral animal?

  “Are you all right, Charlie?” Kahn’s hand rubbed up and down my back.

  I nodded. “I’ll be fine. I just need to find my sister.”

  Lonan’s brows inched upward. “Is that why you need to leave?”

  While that wasn’t the only reason, I didn’t feel it was necessary to divulge that information. So, I nodded again. “Yes.” That was one reason.

  I swallowed.

  I didn’t know why I felt guilty for my omission. Telling them that I planned to never look back once I left just seemed...

  Cold.

  But Earth was my home, and it was at the top of my list to get back, right under finding Preta.

  I realized the likelihood of getting back to Earth was probably extremely low with
only a piece of the prison station, but it was a thread I held onto, because the alternative was... I didn’t want to think about it.

  My fingers drifted across my chest, and I pathetically wondered if I’d ever feel sexy in lingerie again.

  I didn’t even feel guilty for hoping Friedrich and Hale got eaten by the shrieking centipedes.

  I just want to go home.

  “HOW DID YOU GET HERE?” Lonan quizzed me from the other end of the table as we all sat around it for dinner, which consisted of more purple-shrimp things—traded, not stolen. Zaid made sure.

  “To Sonhadra?”

  He nodded.

  I was wondering when that question would come up, and dreading it. What would they do if they knew they’d been putting up a criminal? Or with the knowledge there were other bad-bads running around their planet—who may not be fully human anymore.

  To be honest, I didn’t even know how many people survived, or what other sections of the prison may have landed on this planet besides alpha pod. Or who made it out of the attack alive.

  My gaze moved to each of them, and between eating their clacking shrimps, they were waiting for me to say something.

  Any other time, I wouldn’t care if they threw me out—in fact, I’d prefer to get back to the surface—but the barracuda-sharks were out there. It wasn’t a good time to get ousted, and the other valos in this city didn’t seem to like me much.

  “I crashed here.”

  They paused, and it was comical. I’d laugh at any other time, except I was nervous about getting the boot.

  “In a ship,” I added.

  “You have a ship?” Dason set down his shrimp and regarded me with new interest.

  “It’s not mine.”

  “Whose, then?”

  Why didn’t I just lie? I’d be gone soon, and it wouldn’t matter if it was mine or someone else’s.

  I knew why I didn’t lie. Despite the fact that I’d be gone as soon as the ero’ha moved along, lying to these guys almost felt dirty.

  Especially after today.

  They put off their ‘day jobs’ so they could stay home and care for me. Zaid rubbed a salve on my... my gills—god that sounded weird—and I didn’t have the urge to scratch them until they bled anymore.