by Zara Zenia
"May I?" he asked.
She didn't need to ask him to clarify. She nodded and was immediately crushed in another kiss. He pressed her against the wall as he devoured her mouth, his hand sliding up her thigh, pushing her skirts up around her hips. The other held her up, securing a possessive grip of her backside that left her breathless.
He tugged the front of her dress down to scatter kisses over and between her breasts. His hips between her thighs rolled against her, sending a shock of excitement through her. His hand slid under her skirt to graze over her underwear, and she gasped, pushing up into the touch.
"Please," she begged, shameless with need.
He rolled the palm of his hand against her, making her squirm and whimper with desire.
"Please!" she begged again, and he answered her prayer, tugging her underwear down until they dangled from one ankle. His fingers slid delicately between her lips, spreading the wetness already gathering there. She whispered his name, her legs straightening, biting her lip, toes curling, as he rolled his thumb over her clit, sending sparks of pleasure rushing through her.
He paused when her whispers escalated to breathless gasps to unfasten his own pants. Amber froze, for a moment worried about what she would see. What if she didn't recognize it?
Her eyes widened as his pants opened, surprised, but not for the reasons she'd feared.
There were two.
They were long and tapering, a similar shade to the dark grey of the rest of him with a blush of dramatic orange. Arranged side by side, forking at the base, they reminded her of photos she'd seen in her biology courses of sharks and certain reptiles.
She pressed herself harder against the wall as he angled her hips up and aligned one of his cocks with her, letting it slide between her lips for a moment to lubricate it before he began to sink in.
Amber gasped at the first gentle stretch of penetration, closing her eyes and biting her lip to concentrate on the feeling of him slowly filling her. It felt different from anything she'd ever felt before, the texture smoother, the taper spreading her slowly.
The second shaft slid over her lips, rocking against her clit as he rolled his hips, slowly pushing deeper inside her. She groaned, her arms around his neck as he filled her to the hilt, then pulled back almost all the way to the hilt just to drive back in again, striking her deep enough to make her see stars.
Amber clung to him, her back chafing against the plaster of the wall as he took her hard enough to steal her breath and leave spots dancing before her eyes. She swore softly at the flashes of pleasure as he struck deep within her, his second cock grinding against her clit.
He kissed her, his tongue plundering her mouth as deeply as he was filling her, making her feel dizzy and overwhelmed with pleasure and a kind of wild awe. She was having sex with an alien. Probably the first human to do so. And it felt amazing.
He grabbed her hips, bringing them down hard against his own in time with his thrusts with a hard slap of skin against skin, and Amber cursed as she felt the pleasure building like a coiled spring within her.
Holding her tightly, he rolled his hips to push deeper within her, grinding against her walls as his thumb found her clit again, kissing her long and hard until the stimulation was too much. She tightened around him with a shout as pleasure washed through her like a wave, leaving her shaky and starry-eyed.
He pulled her closer into his arms and carried her toward the bed. She knew he hadn't finished, and she had a guess why.
He lay her back on the bed, kissed her cheek, and was about to retreat when she caught him by the shirt and pulled him in for a more thorough kiss.
"I want them both," she said plainly and saw his cheeks flush orange, his eyes alight with desire.
She pulled her skirt up above her hips, her legs hanging over the edge of the bed, and he moved between her thighs. She was so wet from round one that she doubted it would even be difficult. She began to change that opinion as he held the twin shafts together and began pushing them slowly into her. Alone, each of them was only of about average girth, but together was something else.
The fact that they were tapered helped, but Amber still cursed a bit more vehemently than before as she felt them slowly stretching her, opening her up wide. She threw an arm over her eyes and bit her lip, trying to breathe through the burn.
“It is too much,” Atropos murmured, seeing the way she was gripping the sheets. “I should stop.”
“Don’t you dare,” Amber snapped quickly, moving her arm to glare at him in warning. “Fuck, please. Keep going.”
He didn’t fight her but brought a hand to rub slow circles over her clit to ease the way as he pressed deeper. Amber made a choking noise of mindless pleasure as she felt him in places she’d never felt anything else. By the time he was fully seated within her, she was practically drooling, trembling with the strain. It burned, yes, but in a way that was deeply satisfying.
“Are you all right?” he asked, breathless and straining himself, resisting the urge to take her as he wanted to. “I can still stop if you need me to.”
“It feels amazing,” Amber told him, meeting his eyes with her own slightly dazed gaze. “You feel amazing. I want you, Atropos.”
His answer to that was to pull out halfway and hammer home so hard and fast that Amber’s hips left the bed. He hid his face in her throat, covering it with kisses and little bites as he plowed into her with dizzying strength and speed. Amber felt like a ragdoll in his grip, being used to exhaustion, and she loved it. She rocked back against him as much as she was able, but her attempts seemed superfluous in the face of his raw power and need.
She ran her fingers through the strange, soft filaments of his hair as he kissed her chest and bit the soft skin of her breast just hard enough to leave a mark, a little token of his claim. She wanted them everywhere.
He pushed her legs up higher, catching her under the knee, and the new angle left Amber almost mindless with pleasure. She knew she came, but he was still going, and the pleasure was so intense that she couldn’t keep track of where one orgasm ended and another began.
His tongue against her collarbone, his finger digging into her thighs, the glorious sensation of fullness whenever he drove into her, it all left her head spinning, her mouth open and her eyes hazy, shaking with ecstasy. She knew she was near her limit, but if he could take her like this, she might have to find new limits.
His hand found her clit again, wringing one last shaking orgasm from her as his thrusts lost their pace, becoming rough and feral. His wings flared behind him, the color dazzling Amber’s unfocused eyes as she felt him growing even larger within her, throbbing as he neared climax.
He thrust deep into her one last time, his hips meeting the back of her thighs in a way that made her eyes roll back. She felt the warm rush of his finish and flushed with surprise at the amount. There was so much it filled every remaining space within her not filled with him, and then it ran out around him. It was hot, and it tingled effervescently somehow, almost like carbonation or mint toothpaste.
He stayed where he was as they both caught their breath, sweaty and shaking and wrapped tightly around one another. Amber slowly began to regain her better sense and had a moment of embarrassment for how rapidly she’d rushed from first kiss to first double-penetration.
Erin would have had a field day. But she couldn’t hold on to the shame. It had felt too good. It still felt good with him settled inside her, his head against her shoulder, occasionally pressing dazed little kisses to whatever skin was in reach.
But gradually, the mess between them began to cool and become uncomfortable. He pulled out slowly, making Amber groan at the stretch and the feeling of emptiness he left behind. Slowly, her back complaining, she sat up and looked down at the substantial puddle they’d left on the sheets.
“I’m really glad the computer can just replace this,” she said. “I would hate to have to try and get that out of the mattress.”
Atropos chuckled a litt
le tiredly where he’d stepped away from the bed and was absently trying to fix his clothing.
“I’m not going to get pregnant, am I?” she asked, suddenly worried.
“Of course not,” he said reassuringly. “The Gifting ceremony requires the implantation of a lab-grown cloned zygote. We are infertile on our own.”
“Good,” Amber said with a sigh of relief, leaning back on her hands.
“You do not want children?” Atropos asked, giving up on his clothing and sitting down beside her.
“I don’t know,” Amber said, not sure how to reply. “Not yet, anyway. I’m still in college. I want to work for NASA. Having kids would make that a lot harder.”
Atropos frowned quietly, looking away.
“So you still won’t consider staying here?” he asked.
“You agreed that we have to set everyone free,” she said, worried.
“Of course,” Atropos said at once. “We will. But you could still—”
“I’m part of everyone,” Amber said firmly. “I care about you, but I’m not going to stay here like a pet. I have a life and a family. I have things I want to do.”
He looked away, accepting it but clearly hurt.
“You are more than a pet to me,” he said, his voice the only sound in the quiet room. “I thought that was obvious.”
Amber shifted on the bed, pressing her thighs together, suddenly feeling cold.
“Maybe after this is over,” she tried, “you could stay on Earth. With the flower shop.”
“I must stay with my brother and my flight,” Atropos replied, looking away. “I, too, have a life.”
Amber didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to leave Atropos, especially not after what had just happened. But she couldn’t choose him over her entire planet and future, could she? That was too much to ask for after everything she’d already been through because of him.
"We'll figure something out," she said at last, shaking her head, and then she turned to catch his arm and pull him down to press a kiss to his cheek. He looked a bit startled as she met his eyes with determination. "Okay? I wouldn't have done this with you if I didn't want to figure out a way to stay together. For now, let's focus on getting those people safe."
He smiled, squeezing her hand, and nodded, though there was still sadness in his eyes.
"But first, I'm going to take a shower," Amber continued, looking down at herself. "And then we can start planning."
Chapter 12
While she washed and changed, Atropos examined a schematic of the ship, which floated in the air on the holographic screens the ship used. As she emerged, drying her hair, he waved her over.
"The Gifting ceremony is tomorrow evening," he said. "Every person on the station will be matched with a human host and donate their genetics. The computer will combine that with the genetics of their mate, if they have one, and clone a zygote which is implanted in the human host, where it grows into an egg."
"We have to get them out of there before the implanting," Amber said firmly. "We can't send them back to Earth with an alien egg in them, and we can't wait for them to be removed. Actian's planning to bring a bunch of humans back with him anyway. He might just leave before the eggs are even done incubating."
She saw Atropos frown and knew he was thinking about the loss of an entire generation, a loss that might mean the end for his species.
"We'll find another way," she promised him, taking his hand. "There has to be a better way than this."
"I know you are right," Atropos said. "I just worry that a single generation might not be long enough to find that way. We have been searching for years."
"I still think that's strange," Amber said, frowning at the thought. "I mean, that you haven't found any other way after all these generations of searching. Even if we have to tell Earth about you and ask for volunteers, we'll find a way."
"Do you really think humans would do this willingly?" Atropos looked doubtful.
"Yeah, plenty of them," Amber agreed. "Just offer them some of those computer-made gemstones maybe. But I think there's a handful that would do it for free. Humans are weird."
"Indeed." Atropos nodded, then gestured back to the map. "Our best opportunity will be tomorrow during the Festival. The work to prepare for the Gifting will be finished tonight so that everyone can participate in the celebration. Everyone will be in the center gardens and the humans will be unguarded."
"Will there be locks or passwords or anything?" Amber asked.
"No," Atropos replied. "The chamber where the humans are kept is sacred. No one would go there and risk contaminating the hosts, especially not to release them. It is unheard of."
"I guess we're going to make history then," Amber said with a nervous laugh. "And returning everyone, can we do that? Will it be safe?"
"The return process is automated, as everything is. The hosts are usually returned slowly over the course of a week or two. Sending them back all at once won't cause them any danger, but it will be more noticeable."
"I think being noticed by Earth is the least of our problems," Amber replied. "We'll worry about that once everyone is safe."
They spent the rest of the evening planning, though truthfully, there wasn't much to plan. It really would be relatively simple. Crime of any kind was unusual among the flight, so there simply wasn't much in the way of security or defenses. What security there was were automatic safeguards put in place by the computer, which Atropos had the authority to override.
When they could think of nothing else to figure out, Amber had the computer replace the bed, and they lay together, Atropos on his stomach, his wings fanned out over them and moving with his breathing as he lingered in the strange pseudo-sleep of quiescence. Amber lay beside him, his arm over her stomach, looking up at the ceiling as her thoughts turned in circles through her head.
Wondering what this was with Atropos and whether she was doing the right thing by endangering his species to protect her own. And what would happen if they were caught. She'd looked into their justice system, such as it was, and though crime was rare, the consequences were nothing good.
And there was no precedent at all for something on this scale. Atropos might become the first victim of capital punishment in his species’s history. To say nothing of what they might do to her, an animal with no personhood or protections.
When she did eventually sleep, she slept restlessly and dreamed of the Immortal’s red hands tearing at wings and flesh, silent and remorseless.
She woke as the sound of music and cheering filtered into her dreams. She sat up slowly, blinking and confused, and saw the door to her little room standing open. Beyond it, Atropos stood at the balcony, the curtain partially open.
She gathered herself enough to go and join him, her eyes widening as she looked down into the ship. It had been colorful yesterday, but today, it was a riot of color she could hardly believe. Flowers and streamers and decorations in every color of the rainbow hung from every available surface or drifted unmoored through the air.
Music was everywhere, loud and bright and joyous. The air was full of Lepidopterix, moving in pairs and trios, smiling and laughing, their wings bright and shining. Amber hadn't seen much of the darker colored Lepidopterix before, but today, there were just as many as the brighter ones and as a result, the sphere was packed.
All the public balconies were full of events, games and food and artists’ displays. There was nowhere that something amazing wasn't going on. Amber was utterly dazzled and stared wide-eyed for a long moment.
"It's incredible," she said.
"I wish we had time to enjoy it," Atropos replied. "We will at least be able to fly through it on our way. We should be seen there anyway."
Amber nodded in understanding and went to get changed. She chose clothes of loose sable brown to match her hair and the winged cloak, the better to blend in. But Atropos stopped her.
"There is no reason to hide today," he said. "Everyone will know who you are becau
se you will be with me. And once we're past the Festival, there will be no one to see us anyway. You might as well be dressed for a party."
He offered her instead a cape. The wings were a brilliant sapphire blue, coming to about to her hips in the back, just below her sternum in the front. The dress he gave her to accompany it was a beautiful golden yellow, tea-length and lacy, with a full, fluffy skirt. Amber felt so bright and vibrant it was almost embarrassing.
"You look wonderful," Atropos assured her when she looked down at herself uneasily, kissing the back of her hand. "You will be the envy of all who wish they could change the color and pattern of their wings so easily."
"Well, hopefully, I don't attract too much attention," Amber said with a small laugh. "We do want to be able to slip away at some point."
He took her hand and they descended into the cheerful maelstrom of the Festival.
There was a wonder everywhere Amber looked. People floated by in outrageously colorful traditional clothing. Professional dancers demonstrated intricate and complex routines. The smells of rich, delicious foods were everywhere, as omnipresent as the music, all bells and percussion and high chiming strings.
Amber could hardly resist the urge to stop at every balcony they passed to run her hands through the heaps of brilliant flowers, the spills of shimmering fabric, the decadent impasto of paintings where the paint seemed almost as though it had been piped like frosting.
It was a sensory overload of the most magnificent kind, and as she and Atropos descended, pointing out the wonders to one another as they passed, Amber could almost forget what they were here for. But then she would notice the people staring at her, patronizing and acquisitive.
Once, through the crush, she glimpsed the Hymenopteran, lingering near a sweets stand and watching her. She couldn't afford to forget what she needed to do. Too many people were counting on her.
They reached the bottom of the sphere and quickly lost themselves among the gardens, shaking off the gazes of the curious crowd.
