by Naomi Lucas
Her ears pricked when she heard Dommik’s familiar footsteps outside. The room was too small to rush the door but she managed to put her clothes in order before it opened. She reached for him just as he took her into his arms, his face grim.
“What happened?” she asked as he led her into the hallway, undimmed now and startling. Her eyes caught the cascade of rainbows first, hundreds of colorful dots ran down the walls, blinding...and so very wrong for the interior of his ship.
The spider didn’t have color. Unless it was the red glow that it bled out as light and pretend light was not the same as true color. Her life was black and white, just like Dommik.
That’s when she saw the Trentians. Dommik gripped her arm, holding her close enough to know she’ll have a new bruise within the hour.
“Hello, little one. What is your name?” The intimidating one with the weapon that blinded stepped forward. He spoke to her in a heavily accented Earthian. She looked up at her Cyborg expectantly, he nodded.
“Katalina. Kat for short,” she narrowed her eyes. “If I like you.”
The alien laughed. It didn’t lighten the mood, it only made it worse. “Kat. Katalina. A catch-all of a name, beautiful and robust, Lina and Katal and Talina for short. It is very Earthian but I could see our women enjoying that namesake. Katalina.”
Um.
“Thank you.”
“Shall we talk privately?” he asked.
Dommik’s hold on her tightened and it was then she noticed he was wearing only his bio-suit. “No,” he answered for her.
“No?”
Kat pushed away. “Yes. We can talk privately.” She had the full use of her mind now that her pain was gone. The alien bowed his head. Her curiosity wouldn’t be denied.
Dommik pulled her close, his hand tangling in her hair. He whispered into her ear. “Don’t let him touch you. If you need me, I’m a breath away. A heartbeat. A flinch and a whisper.”
They were being scrutinized.
She twisted away. “You got into a fight. I can fix this,” her hand waved at his attire. “I’m not an idiot and I don’t plan on dying this day.” She turned toward the Trentian. “We can speak in the hold. Have you seen it? There are some very interesting creatures we’re traveling with.”
The men let her through as she led them back to the enclosures. Dommik and the guards waited as she and the imposing leader left the group behind.
Kat wasn’t going to impede this mission if she could help it. If she had to shmooze safe travel, she would. It’s not like she wasn’t already living in a very un-gilded cage. The Trentians knew of her existence now. The androids milled about. Dommik could see through their eyes. It was safe.
“Dommik has shown us the creatures and has assured us that his hosts will not interrupt any of our ecosystems or be set free on any of our habitable planets.”
Kat turned to the godly alien, he startled her like his rainbows, and if her heart hadn’t already been taken away, she might’ve not been opposed to an abduction. She also wanted to hold his scythe.
“What’s your name?” she asked, meeting his ethereal gaze.
“Space Lord, Markoss.”
Her heart sank and she hugged herself away from him. “Lord Markoss,” she bowed her head in the way he bowed his, “what do you want to talk about?”
“You and your captain have a way of getting to the point. Talina. Katalina.”
“Yes.” Kat was nervous but tried not to show it.
“Are you here by free-will?”
“Yes.”
The alien clasped his hands behind his back.
“Has the Cyborg hurt you in any way?”
“No.” Damn him and his stupid roaches and plants. She lied.
Markoss gifted her a chilling smile. “Are you claimed? I do not see a ring on your finger.”
“Yes. Not by marriage.”
“By Dommik?”
Kat sighed, “Yes.” Yes, yes, yes.
“Your eyes are green.” He walked around her and she shifted uncomfortably. “So are mine. It is a fine trait to have, Katalina.” Markoss stopped again before her. “But I have no intention of taking claimed females even if they are claimed by liars. You see, Katalina, Cyborgs cannot have children which I can only assume…”
“I don’t understand?”
“That you seek refuge.”
Her confusion grew. “I’m not here for refuge,” she said, unsure if she meant it as a question.
“Would you like to stay aboard this ship or would you like to seek refuge on mine?” The Space Lord reached his hand out, offering it up to be taken. Or left cold and undisturbed.
Fine ghostly fingers cupped into a shallow half-circle before her with beautiful braids of green veins that matched his eyes. Touching his hand would be life-altering and she wasn’t sure why. Only that the creep of unease that prickled up her spine said so. Curiosity can kill the cat and despite her nerves, she found herself compelled to grasp it.
To be bound by it.
To be beloved and beholden to its grip, forever.
Her hand remained at her side.
“I choose to stay here.” His hand disappeared in a blur back into his glove.
“Very well.”
Kat half-staggered to the door. It zipped open to reveal Dommik’s arms. Her confusion drifted away when he cocooned her in steel. She needed him, wanting him to know she chose him, and that, maybe, she would always choose him.
She had chosen him at the port, at Ghost, and now far into space, it was a revelation that sat unwell in her heart. Would he choose me? It hadn’t mattered before.
They rode up the elevator together in silence, her arms banded around Dommik. He stopped them at the alcove. “Wait here,” he let her go.
She wanted to bury her face into her hands and forget all about the aliens.
Markoss tilted his head in her direction. “It was nice to meet you, little one, Katalina, Katal, Lina, Talina. Congratulations. Kat?” They left her before she could respond and deny her abbreviated name. His voice remained in her head, it snaked through and left only confusion in its wake.
She watched as they disappeared down the hallway until the rainbows faded into the dark.
Kat twirled her wristlet and mulled over her first interaction with an alien being. Earth had made it seem so very scary, and so unreal as if they were mythical, or an elaborate hoax played by the government to explain the significant amount of losses in deep space. It wasn’t until the silence returned that she realized she was alone.
Kat looked around for Bin-Three and saw only empty shadows.
With the rush of adrenaline fueling her she darted into the forbidden part of the ship.
Chapter Seventeen:
---
She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, only that she had never been down these passageways before, had never been this deep into the ship. If someone had knocked her out and dropped her in one of the corridors blind, she would wake up thinking she was outside her quarters, that is, until the walls expanded twofold and the atmosphere became commercial.
A door popped open to her right, showing her the medbay. She peeked in to see the reader was still lying forgotten on the table. Kat made a note of it and continued.
The metal sheets, painted in pristine strips, glinted under the lowlights. The quality improved to make the crew’s quarters look primitive in comparison. Perfect symmetry. Perfectly boring. She glanced back to find the way behind her looked like her way forward. Don’t get turned around.
Dommik was going to find her, she was sure of it, but hopefully, she would find what he was hiding first. Over half the ship was off-limits and there could only be two reasons: he needed his space, or there was something he didn’t want her to see.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder, pushing her into the wall. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The cold wall seeped into her cheek. “Exploring. I wanted to see what you allowed the Trentians to see...but no
t me.” Kat shivered. He spun her around to face him.
“I didn’t bring them here,” he hissed over her face. “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble and I’m wondering if you’re worth it.”
Kat pressed her hands into his chest. “You know everything about me, all my dark and terrible secrets. I’ve let you inside my body, I’ve let you cum all over my chest and you still hide away. I trust you, Dommik, and I shouldn’t. I’ve wanted you the moment I saw you but the Space Lord…”
“What about him?” he growled. “Choose your words well.”
She looked away but he gripped her chin and tilted her head back. “He made me confused.”
“That’s all? Because that doesn’t explain your trespassing.” His frame blocked out the small amount of light.
“It was strange, almost compelling, and for a moment I really wanted to go with him. But then whatever juju he did vanished and I wanted to stay with you. He said some things,” she swallowed, “he congratulated me and I have no idea why. I saw my opportunity to reassert myself and took it.” Kat lifted her face. “I’m not sorry.”
“I have rules for a reason and if I wanted you on the upper decks, I’d allow it. But I don’t,” he stormed. “I have not and I will not have you disobey my word.” Kat winced as he took her arm and led her back to her jailed section and into the facility. He took the wristlet off her arm and crushed it in his fist. Bin-Three appeared at her side.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, hugging herself.
“You just said you weren’t. False-fucking-bravado. Bin-Three will be at your side at all times. If you need to leave this room only it can allow you to.” He turned away to leave her.
She surged forward to stop him. “Please, Dommik, I am sorry! I won’t go up there again. I just...”
“Reflect on how badly you want to live, Katalina, because you have an idiotic tendency to play with your life.” And then he was gone. “Even I can’t save you from some things,” his voice faded behind the door.
Kat looked around almost mystified that there weren’t a thousand rainbows anymore. She glanced at the closed walls far and deep, the giant glass, to an empty zoo of enclosures and beyond to the few plants and animals, they were safeguarding. The closed door to the roaches, now beyond her reach, and the androids who ignored her, lifeless and yet observant.
She rested her gaze on Bin-Three.
Maybe she had made a mistake, maybe even a few of them, but she couldn’t pinpoint one exact moment that changed her, considering there were a few of them.
But her mind wandered back to the upper decks. What’s up there?
She hadn’t seen anything off-putting, only the same series of doors over and over. If he was hiding something it was deeper in.
If the Trentians had seen something, it hadn’t bothered them. Kat reached to grab the key-chip in her pocket, only to realize it was still in her room. With a second glance around the vacuous, empty menagerie, she walked to the console room to work, only to find that the network connection had been disabled.
She was just a girl, just an assistant, just another person traveling through space. Her skills wouldn’t help her here.
She rested her head on her hands and waited.
Kat woke up sometime later. Her eyes cracked opened as a quiver ran down her body from the chill of the room. She lifted her head and winced, finding her neck tight and crooked, her arms red from leaning on them, and the groggy feeling of loss as sleep left her.
The light was dimmer than usual, lowered to accommodate that the day shift had ended. Bin-Three was a statue out of the corner of her eye. Kat stretched and stood up, turning to face her android guard.
She jerked and gasped as Dommik stepped out of the shadows instead, wearing nothing but a set of faded pants and his long, blue-black hair that fell over his chest. A stalker in the night. Her butt hit the table as he came upon her, his mouth hard and rough against her own. He caught her up against his chest as he set upon devouring her.
Kat was being eaten alive.
His heavy tongue thrust between her lips, demanding entrance. He licked her tongue, mimicking sex. Her body heated, readying for more, urged on by his thick bulge pressed into her stomach. Dommik jacked himself off with her entire frame.
The metal skeleton of his chest opened up, shifting and hot-as-hellfire to her skin, fraying her shirt off just as his second set of arms ripped it off her. Dommik leaned away to pull down her bra, thrusting her breasts up to his gaze, her nipples pert for his attention. Kat’s eyes drifted down to his concave torso, no longer in its human shape.
She reached out to explore the metal inside him, the wires and the cords, where organs should have been but were not, having been replaced by parts.
He pulled the rest of her clothes off, shredding them until she stood there trembling in nothing but her bra. She reached forward to release his shaft.
“No.” Dommik caught her hands and turned her around, he kicked her legs apart and bent her over the table. “What am I to do with my little fairy? She lost her wings along the way.”
Kat shivered despite the heat of his body, her core already wet and ready enough to feel her essence drip down her thighs. One of his hands scraped down her back, two held her in place, gripping her hips.
Something warm touched her sex. “What’re you doing!?”
It penetrated her, thin at first. A finger? Until it got thicker and wider. Curved and clawlike.
“Fairies don’t get to speak,” he snapped, clasping a hand over her mouth. “Goddamn, you’re ready for me.” He fucked his claw in and out of her, over and over, until it shifted inside of her, and left her at the mercy of two thick fingers pushing at her g-spot.
Kat arched her back and moaned into the hand clamped over her mouth, she stood on her tiptoes to relieve the pressure building inside. The hand on her back reached under to press into her pelvis, making her ready to explode. To squirm. To buckle.
“That’s it,” he said. She writhed under him, feeling him hook over her, his long hair tickling her back. “That’s how a fairy gets her wings back.” Her palms pressed into the table.
Kat screamed as she climaxed from his words.
Her body lit on fire as he forced his onslaught, pressing and pushing her, rounding her clit and pinching, milking every clench and moan from her soul.
And then his fingers were replaced by the sound of a rip and the hard rod of his dick. It conquered her. It destroyed her. It filled her to the brim and forced her submission.
The table shook beneath them as Dommik’s thrusting lifted her butt up into the air, his body a shell hunkered over her, breaking her contact to everything but him. The console crushed under his hand and pushed to the side. Sparks flew with every forced fuck.
Kat rode the waves of her Cyborg.
She was vaguely aware after her second explosive orgasm, that her essence wasn’t just her own anymore but a mixture of his seed and her priming. Her legs, the table, even the pads of her feet felt like they were slick with sex. Dommik kept cumming.
Kat moaned and let her control wilt to become his ragdoll. She pushed herself harder against him, taking her own pleasure.
She shrieked as another orgasmed was pulled from her just as she felt his body shift again. He changed while he fucked her. She braced as he pulled her to the floor and lifted her hips high up to display her core, her ass. Kat looked back to find a monster. Dommik thrust back into her as her eyes roved over his outline. She saw four legs, four legs instead of two.
He took her again as his limbs pinned around her, trapping her in a pistoning cage. She closed her eyes and held onto a set of his wrists above her head. The prickle of sharp teeth raked across the back of her neck.
I’m-I’m being fucked by a monster. A spider...
She came again and collapsed into the embrace of eight limbs and the smell of sex, metal, and Dommik.
***
He nuzzled her neck, her hair, her skin and lost himself into her erotic s
cent. He couldn’t get enough of her. Dommik lifted her into his arms and pulled her close, relishing the feel of her soft body against his hard one. Kat looked up at him with hooded eyes, specks of green irises that could bring him to his knees, framed between long brown eyelashes.
She was everything he wanted, everything he had been searching for throughout the galaxies. His home, his world, his very life was held by her hands and by her words.
He had taken her like the beast he can be and saw the exact moment on her face when she realized the extent of the creature he was. And she had shattered from it.
Something roared in his head and drowned his heart. Katalina looked at him now with satiation and even a glint of mischief.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned, pleased.
“I’m sorry too.” She stared at him. “What’re you hiding in the ship?”
Dommik laughed, “Myself.” He shifted his second pair of legs back into him before she could get a real eyeful. To darkness could hide a lot but it couldn’t hide everything.
“I wish you would show me,” she made a point of looking at his body. “I’m not easily scared away.”
“Oh, I know, I’m not sure I could get rid of you even if I tried.” He looked at her and stilled, knowing he had to tell her.
You’re carrying my child. He couldn’t bring himself to say it. We can have children. Dommik lifted her into his arms and walked them to the lavatory where her bathed them. I bred you without you knowing…
He watched his seed trickle over her thighs and go down the drain.
After they dried off, he took her to her quarters, where he uncharacteristically joined her in the small, single-sized bed. Their limbs twisted with a giggle and a grunt before they settled in. The bed held.
Kat poked and caressed his skin. “I can’t find your seams. You’re perfectly smooth. It’s almost like you’re an entirely different person...er...Cyborg when you change.”
“I am. Were you scared?” he rubbed his chin over her wet curls.
“Startled, I don’t know, shocked maybe? With everything that’s happened, I’m pretty desensitized. I liked it. Seeing you like that. Have you shown yourself to others?”
