by Amanda Milo
I felt her knees at my sides. One leg folded over my hip, then her other, and she was squeezing, pressing, forcing – more insistent than earlier - using her heels on either side of my tail to guide my hips to hers.
“Afraid tew squeesh mee?” she panted.
I wasn’t sure what she was saying, but I knew what she wanted.
And I wanted it too.
Was this wrong? She didn’t seem to think so. I was no fool. My princess gave me an order.
I took one hand off of the bed, balancing my weight on the other as I ripped at my suit. She let me pull back so that I could look down at our bodies.
I swallowed hard. Struggled for control. My cock was so hard it was painful and I was trying – unsuccessfully - to battle my sudden fear that I would not be able to service her for long enough.
“Holeeee shiiiiit,” she breathed.
I squeezed my cock, thinking, just last long enough to make this good for her. Now did I just shove inside of her? The thought made me groan.
“Herrre,” she whispered, and her legs dropped as she sat up, then scooted her hips closer to mine, her thighs spreading open even wider. So that I could see all of her, even plumper, even duskier than before.
She carefully planted her heels and moved up so that her rump was resting on the backs of my thighs. My toes dug into the mattress as I balanced my buttocks on my heels, and drug her hips higher, higher…
When the head of my cock slid along her heat, I snarled. I wanted to grab her by the throat – to keep her, to kiss her – to share this feeling, this excitement, this joy, this fear with her.
But I couldn’t look away from our near connection.
The crown of my cock looked huge as it snugged into a slick dip and instinctively, I did shove my hips forward.
And surged inside her warmth for the first time.
I called – the sudden burst of sound making her startled hands fly to my shoulders.
I had a heartsbeats to notice the line of her throat as she threw her head back with a gasp at my entry.
I gripped onto her rump and yanked her onto me.
I called her name and when she was looking into my eyes again I ducked my head so that I could reach her mouth now. And I kissed her and kissed her as I tugged her hips up, then jerked her back onto me. Again. Faster.
She began to pump her legs to match. Glorious.
She began to moan. Tevek! It was a beautiful sound. Higher now, higher as I moved her faster. My spine tightened, I felt a tingle of electric elation inside of me and I grunted with my efforts to-
She gripped the base of one of my horns and I exploded.
My vision went starburst.
When I came to my senses I was on top of her, panting like I’d run for hours, and only her fingers wrapped around my arms were outside of me. I was completely smothering her. I tried to jerk back, to pull off her, but my body was slow to respond. My reflexes downright sluggish.
I was internally horrified, but I couldn’t put it into words for her. I could barely function. She had fucked me senseless.
And I hadn’t even finished her properly.
Now I was really horrified.
What exactly had I managed to withstand? Six, seven thrusts? I was appalled.
When I looked down into her face though, she was grinning.
“Dohnt werrry beeg guy. Yull nehvar ehnjoy practeecing teel perrfict muhr than doohing theese. Promeese.”
I grunted and, still trying to catch my breath, dropped my forehead against hers.
“Owwch,” she whined, and I reared up with a groan and began to kiss her face.
“Mmm, I knowww how you can make it up to mee,” her smile was playful, but her hand was still pressed to her head.
But with her other hand, she grabbed my horn and gently guided me back, and down, down, down her body…
My eyes widened, and now a grin comes over my face.
Yes. Yes, I can make her forget the hurt.
We stayed in that room for three days. I meant to be on the move. I mean to get us off this planet. But I couldn’t make myself leave her body long enough to accomplish anything more than bring her sustenance.
The innkeeper came into our room on the second day. But one sniff of that telltale bonding scent, something everyone seems to have heard of even if they’ve never even seen a Rakhii, let alone smelled one that’s bonded - and her eyes couldn’t have gotten any bigger. She dropped our breakfast tray and nearly wept when the doorknob stuck. Then she fled and we didn’t see her until I paid our tab.
It’s stronger.
The urge to kill other males. It transcends territoriality over my female; it’s a pervasive, roiling monster inside of me that considers every leering glance a threat, and perceives every approach as an act of outright aggression.
And my body responds accordingly.
My muscles have gotten even bigger. A snarl is always about my lips. Suddenly no one will take me on in a simple arm wrestling match. They don’t dare to.
Because they can see it. Smell it. They know.
As do I.
And then we start to get these odd stares. Knowing stares. As if people were warned about us. Are on the lookout for us.
As much as I want to believe it is because of my brothers asking around about us, I’d think they’d be able to leave me some clue or some word – with someone, somehow. It just… it just feels different than that. Threatening.
Like we are being hunted.
Since the opportunity for wrestling income has suddenly dried up, I am back to looking to bigger opportunities. Riskier. Because males love to watch a good fight. And they love to watch Rakhii. We are notoriously strong, brutal.
But a bonded Rakhii? I’m not going to use it as a selling point, but I wonder if the agent will. I just need to secure one. At this point, we need money. I need to try to hold off my worry over how I will manage to keep Angie safe. Keep her safe while I’m in the middle of the ring.
Distracted. In the middle of a fight.
And if she is threatened?
But it isn’t an if - and I know it.
I’m beside myself with frustration, and concern for her wellbeing.
And my agent wasn’t paid enough. Attempting to secure a fight has been exhausting, thankless, fruitless work.
And not only is Angie in constant danger - everyone around her is too.
Because I will kill them.
I growled at what I’d hoped had been a viable patron, making him scramble off his stool and scuttle away. Tevek! But right before he’d stared too long at Angie, he had given me another lead. I lifted Angie off of my lap and held her arms until she was steady on her feet; she’d been half asleep on me while I attempted to drum up this match.
She blinked up at me with a hesitant smile. I sighed and shook my head at her. She may not know what my purpose is, but she can understand I am desperately searching for something, and not finding what we need. She strokes my chest and murmurs soothingly to me in her pretty way.
And it’s like all the rage in my body is encased in warmth, and light, and the soft, sweet sound of her voice. My lids lower halfway, and my chin drops on top of her head.
I am nearly purring now.
That is, until movement makes my body go taut. Eyes. Eyes all around us, and I don’t think it’s paranoia brought on by my bond to my female. I believe this bond gives me a new perception, this sort of new sense.
And it tells me we need to flee. Now.
I have the name I need anyway. I take her hand and stare everyone down as we swiftly exit onto the street. I feel better when we enter the thoroughfare of yet another market. With one ear, I listen to the growing list of grumbles my Angie is making. My other ear is pricked and flicking, picking up alarming words in the tongues that I can recognize. Rakhii. Gryfala. Stolen. Bonded.
Their other words are drowned out, falling through my translator's abilities without an upgrade. An upgrade! I snort. If we had a way for me to obtain th
at, I’d be outfitting Angie properly. We could finally communicate. Oh, to be able to speak to her! We pass a pet tent, with all manner of little household critters for sale, and all the over-priced supplies and gadgets new owners could be duped into buying right along with them.
A thought strikes me and I wheel us around to give the pet tent a closer examination.
“Perfect,” I breathe as I pull the hand tooled smartcollar from a peg. I looked down, finding her in what had become her default setting out of necessity: gripping my belt loop and fairly plastered to my side. I didn’t mind her closeness in the least. I knew for a fact that I already needed it. I smiled at her, she returned the gesture with a bright, puzzled expression – but then she narrowed her eyes and balked when I brought the collar to her throat.
My hearts sped up. “You recognize this. Have you been forced to wear one? Did they use one of these on you before?” Anger bled into my system at the thought. I took a deep breath. One thing at a time. I held up a palm. “I meant no insult.” When her eyes stayed narrowed and glued to the collar, I tapped her on the chin so that she would meet my gaze instead. “Look. This is the best I can do for now.”
Her face set in a mulish expression of disapproval, but she held still while I adjusted the collar to its smallest setting. It hung on her tiny neck, the throat prongs not even close to touching her skin. It wasn’t ideal, but she could pull the collar up and hold it to her throat every time she wanted to speak. But then I realized the flaw I’d missed in my excitement: just how was she supposed to understand me? Stupid. I sighed.
“Try this.” The petshop owner was suddenly at my elbow, holding a scruffy vaardsi that barely looked to be weaning age. My brows furrowed. He waved his other hand, then opened his palm to reveal a tiny spiked disc.
“Is that—“
“They are very popular for the auction item that doesn’t share her owner’s speech, yes?”
I glowered at his choice of words. “Will this let the item speak as well as listen?”
He nodded. “All three major languages of the capitol and it is programed to understand all outlander tongues too.”
“All? Really?” I scoffed as I plucked the chip out of his hand. “How much?”
After he positively gouged me in the last of our coin, I moved my female to the back side of the tent for some privacy. She looked at me in question.
I gathered her tightly to my chest, and grimaced. “I’m sorry, sweetness.”
14
ANGIE
I was concentrating so firmly on his lips pressed sweetly to my forehead that I didn’t fight it when his fingers touched behind my ear. That is, until, it began to hurt. “Ow! Ow! Ouch!” I jerked, knocking my skull into his rock-hard chin. I twisted and instinctively brought my shoulder up trying to squash the burning sensation that streaked lighting jolts right into my brain. I reached up to rub at it, but he stalled my hand just as my fingers brushed over the little metal thing he’d just paid for. “For future reference, buddy; earrings go into earlobes – not behind them - and they don’t feel like someone’s jabbing an ice-pick into their grey matter,” I seethed.
“It’s only for a moment,” he said.
“Easy for you to say! You bloody bast-“ I broke off. “Hey! I got that! I totally know what you said!” I bounced back to look at him and I gave a shriek of pure relief. “Finally! Oh, thank God.” I grabbed my chest and sagged in relief. “I’ll never take communication for granted again.”
His smile was blinding. “Grace be to the Creator. I was afraid I’d have to resort to shadow puppets to get my meanings across.”
I laughed. I even got a joke!
Pointing to my ear, he raised his brows. “Forgiven?”
I gave a haughty nod. Then I grinned in relief. “It’s like Charlotte’s Web. ‘I can talk-talk-talk!’” I half-sang. His brows scrunched up, but then he shook his head and chuckled. “You have been taught strange phrases - a stranger’s language, too. But it is good we can speak now. Come, sweetness. There is much to do.”
And his ‘much to do’ was much the same as we’d been doing all morning. Arokh was searching for a someone. And between the times when he interacted with others, and he kept me as unobtrusively plastered to his side as he could manage - we talked. We talked a ton. We talked enough to almost make up for all the days we’d spent together when we couldn’t understand each other.
All in all the chip-stabbing helped out bunches, but it wasn’t perfect. I’d say a word and it dropped right out off my tongue in my language instead - no translation for it, apparently. Then the rest of the sentence would come out feeling very odd in my mouth and throat (I could click like a wizard now, woohoo!) and he understood me and even I understood me.
Ahh, technology. It was a beautiful thing. But, I still had to piss in a bush, because FML.
Another cool thing? I now understood other aliens too. Well, most of them. Arokh said his translator was programmed with many – but not all – languages, but there were some he had only partial downloads for – therefore, he had some roadblocks with understanding a few.
I could now fill in the blanks. Better, anyway. Some words, especially from Arokh’s side of a conversation, had no translation in any language. Like tevek. It seemed to be used the same ways I-the-earthling would say fuck – but it just came out tevek in my ear; not fuck. So, words dropped from his tongue too, even if I thought I knew what they’d pretty much match in mine.
“Now that we’ve caught up a bit, let’s get to the most important question: when do we get out of here? How? And do you know what happened to the other women?” My throat did that thing when you say your words too fast and your mouth gets the signals for “swallow” and “speak” confused so that you just end up sort of choking.
Arokh gave me a concerned look. “Gryfala? The others?”
“Gryfala…” My brain told me this was a female with… I shook my head. “Translation errors, I think.”
He stopped us and tucked us out of traffic in order to search my face. “I thought I smelled more females when you showed me that ring the morning after your auction. I…” He growled with frustration. “I hoped I’d been wrong. There were so many scents layered that I- how did they capture them all?” His eyes focused on me, intense, and tortured. “How did they capture you, my Angie?”
Aww, wasn’t he sweet. I liked how even his words were as adorably possessive as his actions. I shook my head and my shoulders nearly met my ears when I shrugged. “I don’t know. Trust me – I’ve tried, but I don’t remember a thing. I just… woke up and… there was no coffee, and...” My voice trailed off as I remembered waking up in that pen. And then after I was snagged out of the pen and the bidders scrambled over others to collect me…
I shuddered.
Arokh rumbled low in displeasure before crushing me to his chest. “Think no more on it now, princess.”
I nodded and breathed him in. Despite not having anything nicer than a washcloth and some questionable liquid to scrub up with, he smelled utterly divine. I’m not sure I could say the same for myself. I tried to self-sniff.
Ick.
Arokh had pulled back enough to watch me do this, and I knew his expressions well enough now that I was pretty sure he thought I was odd– but he liked me anyway. I bumped him affectionately with my shoulder – and because he was a friggin’ giant, that meant I made contact, oh, somewhere around his ribs.
“You’re my Knight in Shining… Spacesuit… Armor,” I told him. “Saving this Princess.”
He smiled at me. At least, he tried to flash a smile at me – right before he whirled, snarling, and sent some aliens scrambling away. When he turned back, I decided some light, inane conversation might cool him down. My alien had turned seriously moody since we left our little hotel.
I think he missed not walking.
Or maybe he missed napping.
Or maybe he missed fucking.
I sighed. I missed all those things too. And the bucket and
rag to wash with. I think I missed that more than the bed. Okay, they were tied. And if I didn’t stop thinking of them, I was going to start crying, because Arokh had already told me we couldn’t afford another hotel stay unless he found who he was looking for.
Time to distract us both. “You know, your word for princess seems to mean the same thing for your people as my people.”
His brows furrowed. “Of course.”
“An endearment-“
“Your title,” he corrected.
I shrugged a little absentmindedly. “Uh huh.” #TranslationIssues would be my new hashtag. If I ever got home to use a hashtag again. “Are you a knight?”
I was keeping it all light and maybe a little teasing, but he seemed to be growing more agitated with every word out of my mouth. Worried. And his manner had grown serious when he answered. “I am a gladiator, and travel far for the games.”
“A gladiator. A fighter? We had those, a long time ago,” I shared.
His head tilted and his mouth parted, but he closed it instead of speaking. I filled the silence. “I felt bad that we couldn’t rescue anyone else from those cages. That was horrible,” I said, and I felt my heart plummet as I spoke the words, spoke the thought that had been plaguing me no matter how far we walked from the auctions. “Except for that one.”
“My sister.”
I’d labeled her as family when I’d seen the way they’d interacted. But still. “How did she end up in an auction?”
“She was taken when she went offplanet to watch one of our brother’s matches. It is why females rarely leave the planet.” I could tell he was wondering how I’d been snagged. You and me both, buddy.
“It is so good that you got her back! But… why couldn’t you let the others go? There are so many-“
His fingers were suddenly holding my chin. “I want to. You think I do not?” His eyes were sad, haunted. “I would never succeed.”
“But some would escape! Like we did!”
With his other hand, he took one of mine. “It is legal here. To sell. To buy. Once they get here, anything goes.” His head jerked sharply, cutting off what I was about to say. “No, I don’t agree with it either - but I am just one male. I cannot save all the females. And what of the males bought for the same thing? Should I try to free them all? Even if I wasn’t set upon and killed before I could finish – and I promise you, if I stayed at the pens releasing auction chattel they would catch me – then what do you think would happen when the next ship touches down with a full cargo bay?” He shook his head, quills rising in frustration. “They get new cargo in every few clicks. This is a mass auction planet. Many planets shunt prisoners here to dispose of them. Some people enter themselves to escape from worse fates at their home.”
