Marax sat himself down on her bed, which unlike his, was soft and cozy.
It took the smart foam a moment to adjust to his weight.
He patted the space next to him, signaling for her to come to him. “The sooner we start, the sooner we get this over with.”
“No,” she said, trying not to sound like a petulant child. “I will not.”
“If I have to retrieve you, your sentence will be doubled,” he said, his voice full of promise, not threat.
Reluctantly her feet began to move in slow motion, padding across the room. “What if I say I won’t do it again,” she bargained. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No, because we both know you will do it again if I leave you the objectifier.”
Two questions loomed even as he reached out and grabbed her waist, his hands circling it with a grip of steel.
First, why bother punishing her if he thought it was useless? And second, was he really going to take her objectifier?
“I will protest this through channels,” she said as if that would in any way alter the prospect of being brought across his lap for a punishment both hot and erotic.
Why was he doing this? Stars, he had to know what the contact would do to both of them. Wasn’t he already fighting hard-ons?
Marax had nothing more to say as he turned her now and brought her across his lap, her bare belly sliding over his thigh, her breasts squashed, her nipples burning as he positioned her.
She could feel his cock directly beneath her sex, her naked, burning sex. If he should smell her scent she would die of embarrassment.
Of course he can, primales smell everything.
How was she going to live this down? His lap was hot and she could feel the swell of his cock, so large, and he wasn’t even hard.
She could hardly breathe. She was out of her mind. How did obedients manage sex-making with these creatures? Much less enjoy it as they obviously did—not that Dekalia wasn’t curious and full of ideas of what it would feel like.
“Stop squirming.”
“I’m not,” she protested.
His hand settled firmly and possessively on her bottom, sending a shiver through her body. He was merely resting it there but it already filled her body with unbearable heat and fire from her loins to the tip of her toes.
And he hadn’t even begun the spanking.
Spanking. The word filled her with dread and anticipation.
“Has it occurred to you,” he said now, lifting his hand for a moment, “what might have happened if your would-be assassins managed to locate us using the signal from your homemade comm link?”
“I thought you said it wouldn’t have worked,” she said, risking his further irritation.
“But if it had…” he replied, not bothering to finish the thought.
The time for talking was done. The pain exploded through her body as his hand lifted and then returned hard and fast, his palm delivering a firm and punishing blow.
She tried to hold still. “That’s enough, Marax, I get the idea.”
Marax spanked her again, searing her flesh, the soft flesh of her bottom feeling like gelatin against the relentless energy of his swat.
“Do you? Because it seems to me you have a death wish, first wanting to stay on Earth waiting for another bomb to go off, and now this stunt. I can only do so much to save you.”
“This is not saving me!”
The thwacking sound of his hand filled the air yet again. Dekalia did not know how much she could endure.
“Please, Marax.”
“What if that crash landing we made was an act of sabotage?” he wanted to know, delivering yet another spank, the hardest yet.
She hadn’t thought of that. She had been so preoccupied trying to outwit him.
“Was it?” The words came out in a stab of breath.
Marax stopped spanking her. “I can find no evidence of such.”
He gave her no time to gloat.
“But your enemy is capable of much, Dekalia. We already know this.”
She felt a new kind of pain, like a rush of stars to the volcano heat already washing over her, wave after wave.
He was pinching her bottom, lightly enough, though it hurt like hell under the circumstances.
“Please,” she whimpered.
“Displeasing me in the future will result in this type of punishment or another, each and every time.”
Those two words “or another” chilled her to the core even as they heated her loins to boiling. What would he do next time and how would she react? Did he really expect her to live as his slave?
“I’m not your obedient, Marax.”
“But you will obey, Dekalia.”
“Can I get up now?” Her pussy was thrumming against the surface of his lap and unless she missed her guess he was getting harder by the minute. Was the spanking turning him on as much as it was her? Duh. He’s primale. This is frigging foreplay for his kind.
“I want to hear your acknowledgement, tell me if you will obey.”
“I will.”
“You are lying,” he decided.
Like he wouldn’t in her shoes? Not that she had any shoes on or anything else for that matter.
“I’m under duress, what do you expect.”
“I expect you’ll continue attempting to do as you please.”
And I’ll succeed too, she thought. Because now you’ve made it personal.
“Which is why I am instituting changes, Dekalia.”
“You mean my objectifier, right? How do you expect me to live without it?” she exclaimed. Objectifiers made clothes and food and they provided medicine, and entertainment and pretty much everything else in the known universe. Except comm link parts apparently.
“You can use mine.”
“How?”
“When you move into my quarters.”
He released her now, allowing her to return to her feet. She did so wobbly but duly outraged.
“What do you mean move into your quarters? What am I supposed to do, hang on the wall like one of your swords?”
“It’s not your concern. You need to focus on what I told you. You have one object in life for the foreseeable future and that is to please me.”
Dekalia glared. She had a goal for him, all right, and it involved anything but his pleasure.
“Am I expected to answer or is the point moot?”
“It’s a done deal,” he concurred.
“Wonderful. Now can I least get dressed in peace?”
“No,” he said, setting her belly aflame all over again to match her posterior. “You may not.”
Chapter Five
Marax had paid a price for the spanking and it wasn’t just his sore hand. His heart and pulse had raced, forcing him time and again to control the blood flow to the various parts of his body. Especially his aching nether region.
Self-control was supposed to be a given for primales, but for every member of the subspecies there was an Achilles’ heel as it were, some one or two females capable by chemical and emotional quirk of getting completely under their skin and breaking down their resistance.
Except it should have been an obedient doing this and her immediate and total submission, whoever she happened to be, should have allowed him to restore control. This too was chemical, and Dekalia was ruining it all, disproving every fact and time-honored tradition to boot.
Primales were immune to the charms of fems no matter how attractive or attracted to him that fem might be. Spanking her should have restored the balance, instead he was battling his DNA even more. Thus had he backed himself into a corner.
Marax wanted to possess her and own her completely. If she were an obedient he might have claimed her already, placing his stamp, marking her and committing himself. Primales were monogamous, unlike mems and fems. Once a mate was chosen, that was it until death did they part.
What a waste, he thought, watching her saucy, reddened bottom as it swayed in front of him, the woman chastised
but not beaten. If anything she was prouder, more determined walking to his quarters and away from everything she had known of her old life, the few scraps left by this unfortunate but necessary exile.
Marax told himself he would keep it all business. He would have to keep her close at hand. He couldn’t trust her.
Which meant he would have to trust himself. Every punishment, every touch, even if it came down to disciplining her through sexual contact, he would profit nothing, enjoy nothing.
Sexual contact? What was he thinking? As if he could afford to tease her with his cock and make her beg for mercy without himself giving in to the ultimate urge to plumb her depths. To push deep inside her, his cock sunk to the hilt, his hands holding her wrists, pinning them, his lips consuming her breasts, devouring her nipples, breathing her scent, forcing the moans of surrender and desire from her throat.
By the Guardian Oath, it would nearly kill him to resist such pleasure but there was no choice.
He would do what it took to bring her around to a reasonable attitude. Otherwise she would kill herself yet, and him too.
Hopefully he was right and the crash had not been sabotage. He had told her it was not and indeed there was no evidence of anything more than coincidence, but how much did coincidence count for in a universe like this, one which put humanity in the direct path of swarms of virtually indestructible space locusts?
“I don’t see why this is needed,” she said now as he palmed open his door lock to bring her inside. “What more trouble can I cause?”
If she only knew.
“Consider this part of your punishment if that helps any.”
What would help him though, being in proximity of her flesh, so close, so totally nude?
Dekalia rolled her amazing eyes and tossed her silky, dark hair, black as midnight.
Utter perfection. He could have devoured her on the spot if not for his years of training.
“You will sleep here on my bed. You’ll have access to my objectifier when I decide.”
“Goodie. Will I have to set it to make one of those nifty uniforms of yours, or does it make anything else?”
“You can make any garment you like. Any other use is restricted.”
“What about soap?”
“We will work that out.” His head was throbbing. She was so damn beautiful and so potent in this small space. He hadn’t counted on her filling the room this way.
Marax needed fresh air. “You will be locked in. I will return shortly.”
She snorted. “You’re leaving me in this pathetic cave of yours?”
“It is perfectly acceptable. If you are bored, I have holo pops.”
“Wow, I bet your suckers are delish, totally orgasmic, the Rise and Fall of Rome, How to Subvert a Galactic Democracy.”
Sucking a pop was a common slang for digesting any tiny memory flux information in pill form, though under the circumstances she made it sound downright risqué.
“In your situation,” he informed her, “any sensible obedient would be significantly more sober about the situation.”
“You mean catatonic, don’t you?”
Marax had nothing more to say, nothing constructive to say. “I have work to do.”
“I’ll just bet you do.” She had the last word as he opened the door and sealed it behind her.
With a mix of confidence and deep foreboding, he sealed the palm lock, putting it on two-way security, maximum setting. He hated to leave her alone like this, but he had his holo cams to keep an eye on her. It would not be spying. He would check every so often, nothing more. No pleasure in seeing her, none at all.
Marax sighed. Maybe it was time to call in to headquarters. Was it possible the threat had been removed and he simply hadn’t been informed yet? Maybe a rescue ship was on the way and he didn’t even know it.
Yeah, right. He was desperate and he knew it.
A quick drink was what he needed. A brace of old-fashioned alcohol. And that was something he hadn’t done since the front. Just before the Battle of Three Comets and right after it too.
Fighting fems, apparently, constituted war as well, a front of an entirely different kind.
* * * * *
Dekalia was itching to try to open the door. But what was the point? He would most likely hear her trying with his super-auditory powers then he would chase her down and she would be facing discipline all over again.
Discipline. The word still reverberated in her head.
He expected her to please him, he wanted obedience. Well, then he could bloody well find himself an obedient, couldn’t he? She had a lot of work to do and he was in her way.
He hadn’t even let her put clothes on! How humiliating. He wouldn’t break her though, not even close.
She would never beg or plead, never surrender. She had begged though, hadn’t she, when he’d spanked her? Wouldn’t anyone do that, though, in the same situation?
“I do not want to make sex with that primale,” she said aloud, no one to hear her but the swords, the battle portraits and the holo pops.
Just for the heck of it, she went to his pop stash. He had a round, cylindrical container full of them. They looked like tiny colored marbles, every hue under the rainbow. How strange there was no organizational rack. He must have had some classification system known only to him.
What was she supposed to do? Select at random?
A figurine caught her eye on the tiny nightstand next to his bed. It stood some eight-inches tall and represented a Guardian officer in dress blues, a glistening one-piece suit with silver boots and collar. The medals were gold all across his chest.
At the foot of the statue she saw what she thought was an embedded jewel. A closer look revealed it was an amber capsule, a holo pop. She took it out and another one appeared in its place.
That was the thing about holo pops. They reproduced themselves so the information was never lost.
She knew she had no business swallowing. The statue was personal. It said “Hero of the Battle of Three Comets”.
To her knowledge that was a battle in the Narthian War, said to be the turning point, preventing an all-out bug rout of Earth forces in the last invasion.
Or so the Guardians said.
Dekalia popped the pill. She had to find out.
At once her vision was clouded and she felt the need to sit down, as sore and red as her bottom was at the moment. Blood pounded in her head. This was stupid. One never did holo pops without knowing their exact nature.
He had told her to feel free to pop at will but she doubted he intended her to be doing this.
Thunder tore through her brain. She put her hands to her head. She was no longer on this or any other planet. Gasping, she tried not to panic. She was on a ship in deep space. A Guardian battleship to be precise.
Looking at her hands, she saw how big they were. She flexed her biceps and breathed the air. Dekalia was no longer herself. She was hosting inside Marax. The holo pop was a recording of his memories from the Battle of Three Comets.
Her augmented brain knew that name intimately now, remembering its contours, the ins and outs, the pains and agonies.
And the victory.
But at what price?
Suddenly the ship seized. A sound filled the air, like metal twisting on a cosmic scale as though they were little more than ants in an old-fashioned tin can.
“Narthian beam attack,” shouted a man, another primale in similar uniform, lower ranking. “Full power.”
“Evasive action, full on deflectors,” she shouted back, though the sound came out as the voice of Marax, rich and deep and at most times so very soothing.
The only comfort now came from the knowledge he was doing his best, following his duty and the others were depending on him, totally confident in his abilities. Though this confidence guaranteed nothing.
There were more sounds, the metal grinding noise again, though this time there was a snapping sound too. Whatever it was could not be good.
&nb
sp; “Hull breach,” the subordinate called out.
Dekalia looked about. They were on the bridge, a large room of view screens, control panels and heavy square metal seats designed for practicality, not comfort. The room was bathed in the red of a warning light.
That single word, breach, clearly signaled the end of the ship.
“Emergency destruct sequence,” called Marax. “All personnel to the pods.”
It was not about escape. In these smaller ships the battle would be continued, each man assuming his place as a kind of cocoon of attack, harassing the enemy, carrying the battle to them.
The last view outside the main screen as it went blank was of a silver horizon, the moon above which they were fighting and above that the flames of Earth ships, three large ones, tailing in parallel formation, arcing and leaving their trail of deathly vapor.
Three comets.
Not real comets, but the appearance of such from out of the wreckage of the Guardian Navy below, on the moon’s surface, other fires exploded, slow motion and without noise. This was space, no atmosphere and no sound waves.
The auxiliary screens came up.
A bug-like appendage appeared, sticking to the corner of one of them. Thump, thump sounds echoed over the cracked hull.
Narthians!
“Hand to hand,” commanded Marax.
He and the others slapped the masks over their faces, the internal breath generators that would allow them to sustain the loss of oxygen in the decompressing ship. The cold of deep space was another matter, this they would be able to endure only a matter of minutes.
If they survived even that long with the bugs at large.
A horrid shriek sounded in the corridor and the bridge door blasted open. Pieces of it flew by Marax, injuring some of the others. No one cried out, no one fell down. They kept moving, as if in formation, except there was no way any man could think beyond his own survival at this point.
A large snakelike appendage whipped across Marax’s view field and then another. Bug legs, segmented, hairy and hideous. And a body to match.
He leveled his blaster now, pumping energy at the appendages, severing them from the body before finally decapitating the thing itself.
Dominating Dekalia Page 7
