“I’ve wanted this,” he said. “From the moment I saw you I’ve wanted to come inside you.”
“I wanted it too but I was afraid,” she confessed. “The more I focused on hating you the hotter it became.”
“And you hate me now?”
“No.”
Though it come back to that easily enough. The gulf between them was still so great. She’d come to understand him and his decisions and she owed him her life but what would that mean in peacetime? Should it ever come to that…
Marax leaned back, concentrating on his powerful thrusts now. She could feel him tensing even as his cock grew thicker and hotter.
This was it. Dekalia could feel it. And she was going to come with him.
He cried out, releasing a sound more like a roar than a man’s cry.
She cried out too, feeling the soft waves exploding and washing over her. She could feel the thick and heavy jets of cum. So much more powerful than a mem’s.
Her pussy contracted to meet his throbbing pulses.
His orgasm went on and on and the whole time she kept thinking about the two of them…and about their baby.
Nyssa.
But that was absurd. Humans didn’t have babies anymore. Babies came from the gene soup. Perfect combinations for a billion job functions.
Dekalia collapsed beneath him. Spent. Conquered. Fulfilled.
He kissed her neck and back as his limp cock slipped free.
Were he a mem she would expect the sex was done but this was a primale.
As it turned out he was thinking of something other than sex however.
Marax leaned into her, speaking directly into her ear.
“You have to be ready. Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
“Good because we are going to escape.”
“But he’s right outside.”
“In that case it’s been pleasurable knowing you.”
Her heart slammed in her chest. “This can’t be the end, Marax.”
“Indeed we will find out.” Taking her hand, he yanked her to her feet.
Before she could draw another breath they were charging headlong toward the flap of the tent. She gripped him so tightly she could barely feel her own pulse.
It was as if they were one. No telling where he left off and she began.
Marax was obviously hoping for the element of surprise.
Unfortunately Martirus was waiting. Wielding his sword, he hacked into the flesh of their conjoined fingers. Or rather he struck at the place where their flesh should have been.
Instead she felt her own skin and body slip off like a garment.
Marax was gone again.
She could feel nothing and see nothing. Her soul was wrapped in something sticky. Like a cocoon but not the sort from which butterflies emerged from or even moths.
Panic gripped her. Without having been through the experience her mind told her what was happening.
It was bad. About the worst thing in the universe to be precise.
Dekalia was being digested in a Narthian bug sack.
* * * * *
Marax was separated from Dekalia. He was running down a long corridor. He ended up crashing straight into a wall.
The surface was thick and sticky like an amber gel. The smell was horrible. As if something dead and rotten had managed to die again, producing an even more rancid corpse.
He kept from vomiting by an act of sheer will. This was all so familiar. The smell was bringing it back. Like a nightmare too terrible to be a dream.
The hive on the Narthian ship.
He remembered it all now, the way he had escaped from the doomed guardian ship with nothing to protect him from the icy vacuum of space but the exoskeleton of the pod and how he had tried to make a safe landing on the hive ship only to lose the power of his steering jets, causing him to crash into the side at half the speed of sound, leaving him the sole survivor.
The capsule had ruptured instantly into a thousand pieces that had ricocheted off into deep space, leaving him fully exposed.
Marax should have been torn apart with it but somehow the hive ship had saved him. As if it had absorbed him through the membrane and spit him out into the interior of the hive itself, this same stinking, dark and complex maze in which he was now stuck.
But how had he gotten back here?
It was Martirus’ doing. Either the evil genius had created a form of holoid to trap him in or he was manipulating time and space to trap him in his own past.
Not that it mattered.
Whatever the source, reality or illusion, he had to keep moving. Narthian hive ships were not in the habit of conducting random rescues. He was there as a snack. Already the ship was hunting him and a still target was a doomed one.
The hive ships thrived on them. All too easily he would find himself stuck against one of the walls or worse still he would be ensnared and wrapped in the deadly tendrils of one of the thousands of webs, which pound for pound were stronger than exo-steel and a hundred times as dangerous.
The pounding in his head told him he was already wounded, a concussion most likely. Fresh blood would attract the hunter bugs. He had to avoid cuts or gashes.
The light was so dim, a sickly green color with the occasional purple flash.
Racking his brain, Marax tried to remember what he’d done the first time at Three Comets. How had he defeated the hive ship?
The queen.
Yes. That was the only chance.
But how to find the nexus of this particular hive? There had been studies completed based on examined wreckage but it was a known fact Narthians adapted. No two hives had ever looked alike.
A scream filled his ears. His blood chilled. It was heart-sickeningly familiar.
Dekalia.
Impossible. How could she be on the hive ship?
Unless Martirus had managed to trap her in the same horrible memory.
His memory.
Gritting his teeth, he summoned every ounce of will and began to run, weaving his way through the labyrinth, following that sound.
Dekalia was in pain. Nothing would stop him. No power in the universe.
Twice the hive nearly cornered him, tendrils rising from the floor in front of him, the walls closing in to squeeze him tight. Both times he ripped the tendrils free, using them as weapons.
The second time two hunter bugs tried to decapitate him with their ugly black pincers. He managed to rip the antennae from the first, effectively blinding it. From there he ripped off its head.
He took care of the second using the mandibles of the first. Snip, snip like garden shears, to cut the second to shreds.
More bugs appeared as he got closer to the queen’s chamber.
This was a good sign. In a manner of speaking.
Marax let out a roar. It was a bloodcurdling sound.
Not even a Narthian, cold and bloodless, could avoid its effects completely.
The brief second of hesitation on the monsters’ part was all the time Marax needed.
He drew one big breath and he didn’t breathe again until he reached the huge, round opening, large enough to fit a dozen men through.
In this case it would take only one.
Dekalia was barely able to turn her head but she could see the commotion to her left. Something was happening at the entranceway to the sack chamber.
So cold and dark. Everything recessed in shadows. The bright white of the other pods gently swaying. Upside down like her.
She struggled, dimly aware of her own screaming voice. Something scuttled across her brow. The only part of her that felt uncovered.
It was alien and insectoid. The stuff of every child’s nightmare.
But she was very much herself, every bit the adult Dekalia.
What was going on exactly? Someone or something was breaking in.
Marax.
Her heart leaped. He had come for her. But was he too late?
She felt her stomach lurch as the inse
ct fingers returned, probing and now lifting her. They were going to move her.
Like hell.
Stopping her screaming, she changed her tactic. It was time to fight back.
The next thing she knew she felt her teeth sinking into something spongy. Then she heard a new screaming. That of the insect. She must have bitten off one of its tendrils.
Go Team Dekalia. Make that Team Earth. With its co-captains her and Marax.
“What took you so long?” she cried out as he reached her side, his hands feverishly working to take her down from the pod sac.
“Hold still,” he commanded, though she’d been unaware of any movement on her part. Residuals of the fight, she supposed.
“Where in blazes are we?” she asked now, though he had yet to answer the first question.
“Anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?”
“You. All the time.” She gave him a peck on the cheek as he took her in his arms. It felt good to be right side up. No more blood rushing to her head.
Better still, it felt good to be held. By a pair of guardian arms. Primale arms. Marax’s arms.
She wrapped her own arms around his neck. “Are we beating him?”
“I’ll tell you when we get out of here.”
She meant Martirus and she clung for all she was worth. Please, she prayed, don’t let him separate us again.
Marax felt Dekalia shivering in his arms. Her body wet from the fluids of the sac. Her hair plastered down but her spirits high.
She had drawn blood using her one and only weapon. Her teeth. So much bravery and determination. Like a female version of himself.
But she wasn’t like him. She was fem, and at the moment, that implied a fatal vulnerability.
It was up to him if they were to live. He had promised her it was a done deal.
I’ll tell you when we get out of here. Easy enough to say.
The trouble was a thousand Narthian hunter bugs stood between them and any exit.
He could try to kill the queen as he had planned before but if he let go of Dekalia the bugs would tear her to shreds.
“To flee or not to flee,” he heard the voice of Martirus. “Whether ‘tis better to take up arms against a host of bugs or suffer the stings of sack digestion.”
“Your Shakespeare is appalling,” he announced to their erstwhile enemy whose presence frankly was becoming more than a mild nuisance. “Almost as bad as your morality.”
Martirus, his face superimposed on the body of a six-legged bug some five-feet tall like a grandiose multicolored spider, managed a healthy laugh. “That’s the trouble with you primales. You are always such straight arrows. And to think I came here to make you an offer.”
“We aren’t interested.”
“Oh, but you will be, trust me.”
The bugs were multiplying. Surrounding them. A swarm on the ground and others in the air. Winged versions of the hunters with silver double blades like helicopters and great big shining eyes above their razor-sharp teeth.
The better to see and eat them.
The real hive ship hadn’t been like this. Had it? Or was his memory failing him?
Martirus’ face shifted suddenly now along with the form of his insect body. He was taller now and more slender. He was turning into the queen.
Not good. Not good at all.
“I had really planned so much more for you,” Martirus said with an almost believable sadness. “I had wanted romance and magic and of course a nice long life.”
Marax was busy studying the options. The moves he would need to make. They were not dead yet no matter what the madman thought.
“Don’t tell me, now we have to suffer for our sins, right?”
“You will make sex here on the hive floor,” Martirus said with a cruelty no Narthian could ever manage. “You will conceive my child for me. Then you will die and she will die too as soon as the birth is complete.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Then I will extract what I need from you both and do it myself. And I assure you that would be a most painful process.”
“Primales are born to pain,” he said.
“Yes but she isn’t and don’t tell me you don’t care because it’s too late for that.”
Marax tensed. “I will make a bargain with you.”
“And why should I bargain with you now?” Martirus sneered. “When I’ve already won?”
“Because,” he said. “I can promise you something more than you can manage on your own. Twins.”
“Marax, what are you saying?” This from Dekalia who he knew would be momentarily struggling to get away.
Let her trust me, he thought, just one more time, let her believe in me.
At the same time he had to fool Martirus. And that would be no easy enterprise.
“Twins? And how would you manage that, my dear Marax?” Martirus’ voice dripped sarcasm but Marax could tell he was intrigued.
“By joining hands, all three of us.”
Martirus scoffed. “What kind of idiot do you take me for?”
“One who knows what physical proximity can do inside a holoid when two or more real persons make a flesh connection.”
It was nothing short of fireworks and young couples frequently employed the technique to augment their sex-making experiences.
“You’re insane,” said Martirus.
“Yes,” agreed Dekalia, for once siding with the real madman of the trio. “I don’t see what this can accomplish.”
“Everything,” said Marax. “Or nothing.”
He set her down, grabbing her right hand.
She seemed to calm down from the contact of his flesh.
“What do you have to lose, Martirus?”
“It’s your death either way,” Martirus said.
“That’s the spirit,” Marax quipped.
Martirus wriggled his tentacles. “Are you sure you fine upstanding humans won’t mind holding a bug’s hands?”
“Actually I was hoping you’d change back,” said Marax.
“And why is that?”
“So we can be sure the material transfer works.”
Martirus thought a moment and then turned himself back into human form.
“Uglier than ever,” Marax taunted.
“There’s one thing I want to know,” said Martirus. “Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not,” he said truthfully. “I’m concerned for my unborn offspring. If there are two of them they will be able to defeat you.”
“Impossible.”
Marax shrugged. Hopefully Martirus would die way before it came to that.
“You and I must join first,” he said to Dekalia.
“But…”
He knew her objections but ignored them, taking both her hands in his. Instantly he felt her heat and warmth pervade him. The light of her energy. Good and intelligent.
They were awash on a distant shore. Unlike the planet they had been on and unlike Earth too. It was a world of oceans and seashores. A purple sky with constant flashing lightning.
So much energy. The birth world.
The words came into Marax’s mind even as he heard the cry of the lone bird, huge and red, as it skimmed the water’s surface. The ocean was teeming with life. This he knew too without having to see below the surface.
“Where…are we?”
It was Dekalia. Transformed by the alien light. Even more beautiful if such a thing were possible.
He took her into his arms. She was nude and the curve of her breasts fit exactly against his chest. He could feel her nipples swelling.
Marax lifted her onto tiptoes, planting a kiss.
This is it.
His cock rose against her. She murmured, sighing. He could feel within her body a combination of peace and anticipation. Want and desire. And utter contentment.
“I need to be inside you,” he whispered fiercely in her ear. “Now.”
“Yes,” she concurred. “Take me.”
H
e lowered her to the sand, letting his lips follow. She arched her back instinctively for him. He suckled greedily. One nipple after the other.
Then he kissed her belly and slid his tongue lower. To the apex of her thighs.
She parted her legs and called his name.
Marax gently kissed her sex. How he’d love to linger, licking these lips of her, working her sex to fever pitch but he had a promise to fulfill.
She wanted to be taken. And if they did not do this thing now he would never be able to trick Martirus afterward.
Marax moved on top of her. They were the only two creatures in the universe. No other beings. No worries.
Their eyes locked. Speaking everything words could never say.
He paused just an instant, keeping the tip of his cock at her moist and pulsing slit. Letting the anticipation build to point of explosion.
Martirus was nowhere in sight.
Good.
Dekalia moaned as he lowered himself now, inch by inch. Filling her. Completing her.
He could feel her muscles clenching tightly, yielding and then retracting, inviting more and more. Soon he would be fucking her for real. Pounding her the way he knew they both needed.
Their fingers interlaced. He held her hands down on either side of her head.
His.
The only possible way for a primale. Complete possession.
But Dekalia was a fem… And this was not a real act of emotion between them. It was duty…mixed with lust.
Dekalia bit into his shoulder.
Marax reared back and sheathed himself once more.
Soon. Very soon.
She rose to meet him, pressing her body as best she could. Marax felt the rhythm rise and began to work himself in even steady strokes.
Above the lightning seemed to echo their frenzy. The tide was rising. Saltless seawater licking at their toes, tiny drops splashing their extremities.
Dekalia groaned, clutching his body. Her nails dug into his forearms as he took her breast in his mouth.
It was happening. No stopping it now.
Marax’s orgasm flooded her, the white-hot spurts awakening Dekalia’s nerve endings and sending surges of pleasure through her female center.
Her own climax followed his and joined it, raising a crescendo of pleasure between them. She felt the waves inside her one after another. It was like no sex-making she’d ever known.
Dominating Dekalia Page 13
