Taken by Tryon Scavenger

by Alyx X

  The desert stretched as far as I could see, until it curved away. The only bright spot was The Glass City, with its usual cluster of black space ships in the atmosphere above it. They were like the little black flies that sometimes plagued us out in the desert, eating all of our food, and landing on our skin to irritate and bite us. I laughed at the comparison.

  “Are the shields up?” I wasn’t scared of the Terran Program, but I didn’t want to have to answer to them either.

  “Yeah, they’re up, but I’m not sure anyone’s monitoring the air space anywhere but that domed city thing.”

  “It’s where we keep the water,” I murmured absent-mindedly.

  It was the way it always had been. The last ocean lived under a dome so it couldn’t escape into the atmosphere like every ocean before it.

  “Come here,” Lyx said, his lazy voice sending a shiver of anticipation through me. “I’ve got something I want to show you.”

  This time I smothered my chuckle. “Are you sure you’re recovered enough for that? Do you actually want to defile the captain’s chair right now?”

  He grinned. “Not that.” Then he shifted. “But soon I hope?”

  I grinned. He was very predictable. Not that I minded. My love for Lyx was a deep, primal connection, and I enjoyed being joined with him physically. More than enjoyed. I craved it.

  “I want to show you this.”

  I walked away from the window after one last glance down, trying to pick out the patch of brown I called home. It was no good. I just had to believe it was down there.

  Lyx moved his chair back from his console of screens and patted his thigh, inviting me to sit, before he called up one of the holographic images I hadn’t found time to master before he recovered enough to come out of the sick bay.

  I wasn’t convinced he really was recovered enough. Sometimes I caught him breathing harder than I expected, but I also saw the way he looked at me when he thought my attention was on something else. I felt the same way. Just his presence soothed me and improved my mood these days.

  “What is it?” I looked at the surface of a planet where blue met green, and water and life were plentiful.

  “It’s how Earth used to look. Back before it started to die.”

  “No way.” I didn’t believe him, and I looked at the image again, flicking my fingers through it as I tried to turn the vividly colored globe to see more.

  Except maybe I did believe him. He had no reason to lie, and I had no way to disprove what he said. I’d only known Earth one way—dying.

  I laughed. “No, really, how have you made this up? It looks more like Tryon than any kind of Earth I’ve heard of.” Even Father’s stories didn’t describe anything this vibrant.

  “It’s Earth. There used to be all sorts of animals and birds, fish in the seas. But you’re right. It was a lot like Tryon in many ways. Look.” He pulled up a second holographic image, another globe that was green and full of life. “This one is Tryon before it was destroyed. Look how similar they are.”

  “But how do you know they were so similar?” I couldn’t hide my skepticism. We were talking about abstract theories and using technology I’d only just learned about to replicate a history I’d never even heard of.

  My life had changed more than I could have ever imagined.

  He laughed gently. “You’re my soulstar, you know?”

  My stomach swooped at the term of endearment, and I stiffened to hide my reaction even while I wanted to lean against him and curl up to his body. He’d started calling me that as he recovered in the sick bay. Said I provided the light inside him even in the darkest times.

  “He made the globe of Tryon bigger and zoomed in a little. “Can you see the vegetation and the trees? Our warriors used to hunt here.” Then he spun the globe and stopped over a vast swath of blue. “This was our biggest ocean, and from everything I learned about Earth when I was younger, your planet was much the same. You had the trees and the green, and the deep blue waters. Those deserts and mountains you have now are the old seabeds and dried, dead land.” He stopped. “I’m in awe of you, Piper. You survive there against the odds, even finding life where it almost shouldn’t exist. This… this was life.” He spun the image with his finger again, creating a swirl of color.

  “Can I see the Earth image again?”

  He obliged, replacing Tryon with the planet that could have been its twin.

  “I just can’t… I can’t imagine… I can’t see it.” I murmured. “I don’t know anything about that planet you say is mine.”

  I wandered back to the windshield, missing Lyx’s touch as soon as I stood up. I looked out over the planet in front of us. My Earth. The one where my tribe and family probably waited for me to return. I vaguely wondered if they thought I was off on some weeks-long hunting trip, or if they suspected I’d been kidnapped. Or killed. All were possibilities in the harsh lives we led.

  “I only know this view, although not usually from this perspective. I only know the scorching gust of the desert wind, heated by an unrelenting sun as it races unimpeded across a barren desert.” I laughed at my burst of poetry. “I only know dust in my eyes and grit in my hair... That other planet must have been amazing, though.”

  “Oh, it would have been.” Lyx’s eyes took on a faraway stare. “When I was a boy, birdcalls echoed from the trees on Tryon, and soft rain fell from the sky. Winds could be gentle breezes or gusts of rage. I wish you could have seen it. I would have liked to introduce you to my home.” His gaze softened further as he looked at me, and my heartrate picked up at the promise in his eyes, the one that couldn’t be fulfilled because that chance was long gone. Lyx no longer had a home.

  But I did. I pressed my palm against the glass again, looking for a connection to what was past and what I now knew. It wasn’t there, though. Nothing bound me to a green planet when my only memories were of one that was brown.

  I leaned my forehead against the window, looking out, looking down.

  “That Earth you just showed me looked amazing,” I whispered as I scanned my gaze across the desert planet beneath us. “But I prefer this one. The dead one. Because it’s my home.”

  He didn’t respond, and when I glanced behind me, his head was down, his shoulders bowed.

  “Lyx?”

  He looked up, and although his lips curved into the familiar shape of a smile, his eyes shone with something desolate and lonely. “Yeah?” His voice was quiet and dry. Cracked like so much of the sunbaked earth of my desert home.

  My heart ached to see him so sad and I walked back toward him, slowly. Although, not like I was stalking him. He wasn’t prey. And I wasn’t his prey anymore. We were mates. Equals.

  Though, I was still hesitant because I was being pulled two ways. I could see my home, and I wanted to go there, but if that meant leaving Lyx or him leaving me, I didn’t know if I could. I sat back in his lap and his arm curved around me automatically. He held me against him as his chest rose and fell with every breath he drew.

  “Lyx?” I phrased his name like a question for the second time and he sighed and rested his cheek against my head.

  “Yeah?”

  “Earth is my home, but it isn’t all home means to me anymore. Home is a word that means you’re there.”

  He shifted, drawing me closer still, and I continued.

  “I’d be lying if I said I’d wanted to be abducted.”

  A small laugh escaped him. “I can imagine no one wants that.”

  “But I get why you did it.” I said the words quickly. I no longer blamed him like I had in the beginning. Not since I’d seen Satyan and witnessed the way he hated Lyx and intended to use me.

  I could understand Lyx’s desire to change and mold his life to be something better. “I used to feel like something was missing. Like there was something in my life I couldn’t quite reach. I searched for it, and threw all my energy into helping my people, wondering if that was all I was meant to do. I didn’t find what was missing until I
met you.”

  His chest tightened as he held his breath.

  I took a deep breath of my own and plowed on to the hardest part of what I needed to say. “I believe in two things, and they don’t always belong together, but I believe in them anyway. Fate is the first thing. Everything happens for a reason, and you took me—me, specifically—because we were meant to find each other. Even across the vastness of space and two ruined planets, we were brought together. The second thing is change. Humans needed to adapt on Earth to survive the harsh changes.” I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe one thing can’t happen without the other. Maybe my two beliefs go together.”

  His arms held me tighter, like he never wanted to let me go.

  “Will you come home with me, Lyx?” I asked the question in the quietest of voices. “We have three ships now, and I have people I know I need to lead. We could do it together. We could have our own colony, a group with our own means and ways to reach the stars. A different kind of civilization, one where we wouldn’t both have to struggle so hard to survive.”

  He was quiet a beat too long, and panic unfurled within me. I didn’t dare look at him, but I flinched as a drop of water fell onto my cheek.

  I glanced up at his face, his eyes screwed tight against more tears, and I cupped his cheek before capturing his lips in a soft kiss. “Are you okay?”

  His arms tightened again, and he nodded. “I just didn’t think…”

  I kissed him again, pouring all my reassurance through our bond. “I love you, Lyx, and I don’t want to be without you.”

  When he opened his eyes, the hazel depths sparkled with happiness, and I glanced at his muscular chest. “You might have to start wearing some clothes down there, though. Don’t want all the human women chasing some tail that doesn’t belong to them.”

  He sat back, his mouth open, and I laughed. Then I glanced at his chest again and leaned in closer as I spotted one word I could read. In delicate cursive script, there it was. I traced my finger over the ‘P’.

  “My name,” I whispered, and he nodded.

  “Right where it was always meant to be.” He pressed me to him and kissed me with a passion and fervor that took my breath away. I didn’t hesitate to respond.

  His tongue flicked against mine before he drew away. “Let’s defile this chair,” he murmured.

  I swung my other leg over his, so I was straddling his lap. “If you insist.” I didn’t wait for him to say anything else as I reached for his cock. I didn’t need to be asked twice.

  Dropping my head forward, I breathed him in. Then I kissed his neck and reached slowly around his back before I pushed my hands into his waistband and massaged the base of his tail.

  He tensed.

  “Is this okay?” Maybe I’d hurt him. I should have checked he was really ready.

  He nodded and pressed his teeth to his lower lip. “Fuck, yes.” He groaned and lifted his hips toward me.

  I slid from his lap and knelt between his legs as I unfastened his pants and freed his stiff cock, licking my lips as I contemplated my next move. His tail moved restlessly in the leg of his pants, and I met his gaze.

  “Free it.” I spoke just the two words, but his cock twitched.

  He grimaced a little, and I half stood. He narrowed his eyes. “Get back down there,” he growled, but his gaze held only teasing.

  “I just wondered if you needed any help…with your tail.”

  “Any time you like.” He sounded quite definite about that, so I drew his tail out of his pants and he wound it around his waist so it lay stiff against his belly like his cock. “What are you doing to do with two of them?”

  I leaned back and pretended to consider. “Well, I have two hands.” I waved them in front of him, and he nodded. “But only one mouth.” I drew the corners of my lips down to show him my disappointment.

  “Why don’t I close my eyes, and you can surprise me?” He stretched his legs out and tipped his head back.

  I leaned over his cock and blew a lazy breath, watching him shiver and his balls tighten. Then I opened my mouth and drew the head of his cock inside, using my tongue to swirl a lazy circle around the tip.

  His tail wrapped around the back of my head and he tapped the end of it against my cheek.

  I grinned and hummed over his cock, and he rewarded me with a deep groan of pleasure. As I lowered my head further, taking it deeper, I wrapped my fingers around his tail and stroked it. I wriggled against the seam of my pants seeking my own friction. My pussy throbbed, but I wanted to love Lyx first.

  “That’s… fucking amazing,” he gasped as I stroked his tail in a firm rhythm.

  I sucked for a while, his scent and his gasps stoking my desire. Then I let go and let his cock spring from my mouth. He flicked an eye open.

  “Close ‘em.”

  He grumbled but closed his eyes again and I pressed the flat on my tongue to his tail, licking it right to the very tip. His cock twitched and he gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white. I bobbed my head over his tail, sucking on it and taking it like I’d just taken his cock.

  He lifted his ass out of the seat, seeking more sensation as I switched my hands to his cock, stroking and tugging gently, smearing his precum over the head.

  “Piper,” he groaned. “Piper… I need to be inside you.”

  But even sucking on his tail released all the drugged-up feeling into me, and I just wanted to keep licking.

  He pressed his fingers into my hair, holding me steady as he worked his tail in and out of my mouth. “Never felt… Never…” he gasped, but he didn’t finish his sentence before he released me and drew his tail back.

  “Hey,” I moaned. “I was enjoying that.”

  “Take off your pants.” He took his cock into his hand and stroked it, and my knees weakened. “Take them off,” he said again when I didn’t move.

  I could smell the warm heat of my arousal, and I flicked my pants open. I hooked my thumbs under the waistband, about to pull down.

  “Slowly.” It was a command.

  I fixed my gaze on the hand on his cock and wriggled my hips as I pushed my pants down and stepped out of them.

  Lyx crooked a finger. “Bring that hot, wet pussy over here.”

  I straddled him again and poised his cock at the entrance between my legs. Then I waited, and he hissed.

  “Why are you stopping?” He watched me playfully, and I grinned.

  “Just checking you’re ready.”

  “I’ve never been more ready.” He cupped the back of my head and pulled me close, probing my lips with his tongue, then stroking the inside of my mouth.

  I hung in the moment, waiting, and he teased my pussy with his tail, pushing it in and getting it wet with my juices. Then he withdrew it and curled it around my asshole as I stiffened with delicious anticipation.

  “Fill me,” I murmured against his lips. “Fill me. Make me cum.”

  He ran his thumbs over my nipples, and sparks of heat skittered along my every nerve ending to my core.

  “You’re so wet,” Lyx murmured, his voice low and sexy, and I pressed harder against him, waiting for the moment he stretched me wide and filled me, claiming me.

  I breathed out a long sigh as he slowly pushed upward, teasing me with tiny movements. I pulled back from his kiss and flashed him a quick grin before pushing down, taking him in one quick move.

  He groaned, and I rose up again, taking control, making the rhythm my own. I arched my back and pulled my shirt up and over my head, before ensuring my nipple rubbed over his lip every time I lifted my body.

  Two could tease apparently, because the tip of his tail pressed into my ass. I gasped. The extra pressure was just what I needed, and my pussy clenched as pleasure washed through me. With the added sensations his tail was giving me, everything immediately intensified. My muscles quivered, my hips begged me to pump faster, and I watched Lyx’s face mirror my own. We were both so wrapped up in each other that we practically raced each othe
r toward climax.

  He could feel it building too, so Lyx began to thrust his hips with greater urgency. Even more heat built inside me. There was an eruption coming, and I was riding the wave.

  Not wanting the feeling of being with him, my mate, to go away, I slowed. Lyx whipped his face up, mouth popping open in protest. “Ah, ah” I said, placing a finger over his mouth, “Just trust me.”

  Slowly, I began running my hands over every part of him. I knew that most of his pleasure was derived from his tail, which still pumped into me at a slower rate, so I spent a few moments exploring other parts that could increase his pleasure. I ran my hands over his soft green skin, surprised that it had never turned me off. I’d have thought green skin would be strange, but when it was wrapped around his hard-muscled body, I didn’t mind it at all. I even preferred it now, probably due to the mating bond. I lowered my mouth to his neck, trailing a line of kisses to his jaw and just below his ear, maintaining the slow pumping all the while. He caught his breath at the tender kisses, his fingers digging into my hips where they lay. I smiled, now rubbing my hands over his chest and arms. He really was so fucking sexy.

  Then, without warning, Lyx claimed my mouth again. He kissed me with renewed intensity. Every emotion we’d been through in the last few weeks was conveyed in that kiss. All the loneliness he’d felt up here in space, all the pain I knew he felt over making the decision to take me, was channeled through our entwined lips. Through the kiss I felt his regret, his shame, at what he had done to me, and the kiss somehow deepened. I had already forgiven him, but as our bodies became impossibly wrapped up in each other, begging to never be separated, I understood that he needed it. He needed to show me he was sorry, and I knew that he would probably spend years of his life trying to make it up to me. I almost smiled at the thought that we would have years together. Almost, because at that moment Lyx returned to our earlier pace.

  He yanked my hips onto his cock, pounding me with both it and his tail. I careened back to the edge of orgasm, panting as my entire body became electrified. I wanted it to last, fought to drag it out...