Claimed By The Warrior

by Roxie Ray

  Good. I wanted him to feel tall and powerful.

  I took his cock in my hand, kneading it, working my fingers up and down the shaft as the purple frill around the tip quivered. I could feel him getting harder, his cool skin warming up in my palm. With the index finger of my other hand, I stroked his scrotum, relishing the way the skin there rippled and pebbled into goosebumps.

  “I've never felt this way about anyone before, Surge,” I whispered.

  He reached down like a god extending a hand to a mere mortal, cupped my chin in his hand, and looked into my eyes with his sparkling emerald orbs. “If you mean that – then show me.”

  My breath trembled on my lips as I leaned forward, taking the tip in my mouth and sucking on it tenderly. My tongue tickled the underside playfully and Surge exhaled slowly, arching his back and closing his eyes with delight. The purple ridge moved rhythmically against my lips, teasing them, almost as though it had a life of its own.

  I took a deep breath and enveloped his entire cock, feeling it pulse against my tongue. The membrane around the tip brushed against the roof of my mouth, tingling. I moved my head back and forth, breathing in his intoxicating musk and massaging his hips and ass. His physique was so magnificent, like a classical alabaster statue that had somehow come to life. Maybe I was the one breathing life into it, like Pygmalion and his creation.

  “Paige,” he moaned hoarsely. “No one has ever made me feel so alive.”

  I answered with a gentle hum, letting the vibration of my lips and tongue drive him wild.

  His movements became sharper, more urgent, his cock reaching the back of my throat and pushing against it hard. He tangled a lock of my hair around his long fingers, tugging it firmly. The pain and pleasure mingled, sending electric tingles down through my entire body.

  He was close. He was ready. I could feel it.

  And God, just knowing that made me wetter than I'd ever been before.

  I felt his lower back begin to twitch, and moments later, his climax filled my willing mouth – cold and refreshing, with a faint salty tang, like the brisk taste of ocean air on my tongue.

  He leaned down, pushing me onto my back on the floor and hovering over me. His long fingers undid my uniform and pushed the lower part down, exposing my trembling legs. When he saw that the lips of my pussy were glistening with anticipation, he smiled, sliding two fingers inside me with such strength and certainty that the breath was stolen from my lungs.

  His other arm wrapped itself around the back of my neck, pulling me closer, tighter, as his fingertips pushed on my G-spot urgently. His eyes burned into mine fiercely – I arched my back and closed my eyes, but he tugged on a lock of my hair sharply, forcing me to open them again. His stare said it all: He needed for our eyes to remain locked until he was done with me.

  So I kept them open until they watered, gasping and crying out with each new thrust of his hand until my lungs ached and every muscle in me spasmed with delight. His fingers knew exactly how to reach into me and find the parts of me that needed him most, until my whole body shook violently, my orgasm crashing through me with all the strength of a dam breaking.

  I sighed happily, holding onto him tightly. He was mine again.

  But was that enough?

  I desperately wanted it to be, but so much had happened so quickly that we hadn’t expected. He'd demanded so much of me, put me in a position where I had to fully commit myself to the idea that there was no way he could fail. And now not only had he been imprisoned in the seg cells once, but he'd have to willingly return to them so his absence wouldn't be detected if we had any chance of still succeeding.

  All of our careful plans, every action we'd taken to expose and defeat Karaak, seemed to be rapidly trembling and falling apart beneath our feet like a house of cards.

  What if Karaak saw through all of Surge's schemes and killed him, leaving me even worse off than I was before?

  Jesus, what was wrong with me? How the hell could I have sacrificed so much of the relative security I'd had in here for some alien I barely even knew, just because he name-dropped Sharon and convinced me he could take me away from all this?

  Before I could find a way to voice any of these concerns, though, there was a heavy series of knocks on the door. We both reacted, startled.

  “Paige?” Lozar slurred. “Are you in there?”

  17

  Surge

  Paige and I exchanged tense looks, and inwardly, I cursed myself. Had we been too loud, not careful enough? Had I been wrong to come to the infirmary after all? What if Tetro had been right in telling me it was too risky? Had I doomed the entire mission just for another precious moment with Paige? My instincts had told me that it was the only possible course of action at the time – but what if my instincts couldn’t be trusted right now? I’d never had a reason to doubt them before, but then nothing about this mission was shaping up to be like anything I’d experienced before.

  “Yes, Doctor,” Paige I called out. “Just, um, tidying up!”

  “Well, open the door, you idiot!” he roared. “I need to grab some vials of plasma, an' you need to get your lazy pink Earthling ass back to work! We have patients out here in need of medical attention.”

  “Just a moment!” I could tell that she was terrified by the interruption despite trying to sound casual, and I couldn't blame her one bit. I refastened my coveralls, looking around the closet for a place to hide. Given the size of my frame (and my wings, for that matter), I didn't have many options.

  And Lozar was still pounding on the door and cursing loudly.

  Paige reached into one of the supply crates, grabbed a handful of plasma vials, and opened the door just a crack. “Here,” she said, handing them to him. “I'll be out in just a second.”

  Lozar stuffed the vials into the pockets of his lab coat, staring at her suspiciously with his bleary red eyes. “What the hell were you doing in there, anyway? Come on, open up. I wanna see.”

  I withdrew into the shadows, as I had on so many other missions – becoming one with them, letting them envelop and conceal me.

  “Nothing! I wasn't doing anything. I'll be right out,” she insisted.

  Based on everything I'd heard about Lozar, I expected him to give up and stumble back to his office so he could glug down the plasma, chase it with rax, and nod out again. But instead, Lozar actually seemed concerned, and he pushed his way farther into the opening between Paige and the door.

  His veiny, runny, irritated nostrils flared as he scented the air. I hoped all the rax he'd smoked and snorted had damaged his mucous membranes enough to make them useless, but...

  “You've got someone in there, haven't you?” he asked.

  “No! Of course not!”

  “Stop playing games, you human trash. Open the door. Now.”

  I had hoped I'd be able to get away with conserving the remaining energy in the portable cloak, but it was no use – if I didn't activate it, I could be easily discovered, and that wasn’t a bet I was willing to make. I hit the button and watched my own body shimmer and disappear, bitterly aware of the fact that I still wasn't intangible. My mass still filled half the closet, and if Lozar conducted anything resembling a thorough search (which he almost certainly would, now that his curiosity was piqued), he might end up inadvertently touching me and seeing through my ruse.

  “Fine,” Paige I said tightly. “You want to know the truth? One of the Sives is in there.”

  I couldn't believe my ears. What was she doing?!

  “What?” Lozar's patchy eyebrows almost leaped off his forehead. “What's a Sive doing in our supply closet?”

  “I don't know. He gave me some rulas and told me not to disturb him until he was done. Whatever it was, it seemed pretty important. So important that if someone did interrupt him, he'd be inclined to send a bunch of his friends here to punish that person severely. But if you feel like taking your chances, then by all means, step inside.”

  She opened the door wider, gesturing for him t
o enter. Lozar squinted at me for a long moment, and then waved his hand dismissively.

  “Well, whatever the hell they want, tell them to hurry up about it. And however much they paid you, I want a taste.” He turned and tottered off toward his office.

  I deactivated the cloak, stepping forward. I couldn’t believe that the entire mission had come so close to crumbling, so stupidly. I was filled with a rush of anger toward myself, and toward the mating instincts that had led me here. What the hell had I been thinking?

  “That was too close,” I rumbled. “And now, the energy meter on my cloaking device is dangerously low. It might not have enough power left for me to safely return to the seg cells.”

  “Maybe, but the important thing is, you weren't discovered,” Paige said shakily. “We're safe.”

  I shook my head – knowing what I had to do, hating that I had to do it. If I didn’t, though, the next time we might not be so lucky, and I wasn’t willing to put the mission further at risk that way, let alone what could happen to Paige.

  “No. The important thing is, I could have been discovered. And if I had been, the entire mission would have ended in disaster. You would no longer be allowed to work here in the clinic... you would be reassigned to terraforming duty, or locked in a seg cell. Tetro's subterfuge would be found out, and he'd become a prisoner here, after he and Sharon worked so hard to escape.

  “I would have failed. My people, my planet, my blood ruler, and the poor souls who are forced to endure unspeakable tortures in this place every day until they die. I would have failed them all. Such a prospect brings me more shame than I can bear. And for what?”

  “Hey, stop it, okay? Nothing like that happened, and it won't. You're being too hard on yourself.” Her chin was trembling, and it took everything within me to hold back from reaching out to caress her cheek, to comfort her. “Besides, what do you mean 'for what?' It was for me, for us. I thought what we had was important to you.”

  “It was my duty to resist my own urges, to put my assignment first no matter what my personal feelings were. Instead, I risked everything and compromised my mission to satisfy my cravings for you – to lose myself in some silly fantasy of love and acceptance and a happy life together.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks, and I looked away. “Surge, what are you saying?”

  I summoned all of my willpower, knowing that what I was doing was for her benefit as much as Valkred’s. “I am saying that I have been alone for my entire life, and it has allowed me to serve my empire with distinction, and I have no intention of failing in my duties now, just because of some foolish mating ritual that my body is driving me to. I am saying that, although you have been most helpful up until now, I must proceed with my mission alone rather than endangering you further.”

  “But you can't!” she pleaded. “We're supposed to be in this together!”

  “No. We are not. From this point forward, it would be best for you to pretend that I had never approached you, or revealed my true identity and the nature of my mission. You are not a spy or a warrior. It was unfair of me to put you in this position to begin with. And for that, I apologize.”

  Before she could protest further, I pressed the button on the cloaking device again and vanished, pushing past her and leaving the closet. Moments later, I was back in the corridors of Karcerikus, on my way to the seg cells.

  At that moment, the thought of being locked in one of them with the dimensional emitters cranked full blast was more appealing than remaining to witness the pain I'd inflicted on her.

  18

  Paige

  My tears were flowing now, streaking my face as my breath hitched in a painful sob.

  I felt like someone had suddenly hit me in the chest with a battering ram. Just a few minutes ago, we'd been kissing and holding each other, so happy to be together again. And now this? I'd waited so long to find someone who made me feel like I wasn't alone anymore.

  Now the loneliness had seized me and dragged me down all over again.

  It wasn't fair.

  I wiped my face, tried to regain control of myself, and proceeded to one of the exam rooms where a Kroteian Carnage Rider was waiting with a gash in his arm that he'd sustained in the machine shop. He gave me the usual crude flirting and double-entendres I'd come to expect from the space bikers whenever they came in, but I barely heard him as I used the dermal generator to heal his injury. Instead, I was thinking of all my previous daydreams about living on Valkred with Surge when this was all over – now hopelessly dashed, gone forever.

  What was left for me to cling to?

  Not much, it seemed. Maybe Surge would succeed in his mission and I'd be freed along with all the other human slaves, like he'd promised. Or maybe he'd fail, and life would go back to the way it had been before he'd gotten here – except that this time, I'd have to wait and see who the next leader of the Sives would be, and hope like hell I could work out some arrangement with him (or her) that would keep me safe.

  But even then, it had seemed like the Sives' days as the most powerful gang in Karcerikus were numbered before Surge had shown up to take over.

  All in all, my prospects looked pretty fucking bleak.

  As I saw to my next patient – a Drekkir with blood matted on his fur after surviving a knife attack from a Manaean in the cafeteria – I considered Karaak's offer again. Given what had just happened, it seemed like the most solid option for me. There was even some small part of me that hated Surge for the things he'd said to me... that wanted him to suffer for them. The warden's pitch to me had been mysterious, but compelling.

  Power.

  The power to help people on a grander scale than I could have previously imagined, he'd said. Enough power so I'd never have to feel alone or helpless ever again. Enough power so I'd never have to rely on the whims of men like Surge or my bastard of a father, only to be inevitably let down.

  Naturally, I was tempted. Anyone in my position would have been.

  But for all of my anger toward Surge for pushing me away so coldly, I still knew I couldn't betray him like that. In doing so, I'd also be betraying Tetro, who'd risked his life by coming back to Karcerikus so he could save me and the other inmates here. For that matter, I'd be betraying Sharon, who was waiting for Tetro to finish his mission and get home to her safely.

  Most of all, I'd be betraying the other prisoners here. I'd be just another rotten snitch who screwed over her fellow inmates to get preferential treatment from the warden.

  I'd seen what happened to other people who'd done that. It wasn't pretty.

  The thought of giving up on Surge now that I'd found him was like tearing off one of my own limbs, but I had no choice left. I'd just have to keep my head down like I always had, and hope for the best. Unfortunately, “hoping for the best” in Karcerikus rarely ended well.

  Just as I was finishing up for the day, Lozar shuffled in, rubbing his red eyes and sniffling. Jesus, how could one person ingest so much fucking rax and still not have overdosed by now? He must be some kind of medical curiosity, I thought.

  “Sorry again for the disturbance earlier,” I told him, sorting the medications in the cupboard. “The Sive found what he wanted and left. I don't think he'll be coming back, either. Anyway, I guess I'll see you bright and early for my shift tomorrow, huh?”

  Lozar stared at me for a long moment, and then shook his head slowly and went to the medical cabinets, looking for his next fix.

  Strange. Usually, he'd take the time to berate me. Was he behaving this way because he still suspected I'd been lying to him about the closet earlier? Or was it something else? There was something strange and unfamiliar about the look in his eyes – I couldn't quite identify it, and it made me extremely uneasy. I tried to tell myself it was just the effects of the drugs he heaped into his body on an hourly basis, and left to return to unit seven.

  When I got there, Suzanne was sitting on her bunk, staring at a corner of the cell with a pensive expression. It seemed like odd behavio
r for someone who was usually so sharp and animated, but I had too much on my mind to give it much thought. Besides, it wasn't like we had TVs or books in our cells, like we would in an Earth prison – in Karcerikus, there wasn't much to stare at except the walls.

  When she looked up and saw me, her eyes narrowed immediately. “Jesus, hon, what happened to you?”

  I opened my mouth, ready to lie, to tell her I was all right, that nothing had happened... and instead, I burst into tears, clapping my hands over my mouth so the other prisoners wouldn't hear my sobs. Karcerikus wasn't a good place to demonstrate that kind of weakness, even in the relative privacy of one's cell.

  Suzanne led me to my bunk and sat me down, putting an arm over my shoulder. She patted my back gently, waiting patiently for me to regain enough control over myself to tell her everything that had happened from the moment Surge had arrived to what had just occurred in the infirmary.

  I knew it was probably unwise to reveal his secret identity, but at that point, I didn't care. I needed to be able to open up, to trust someone now that Surge had shoved me away. Suzanne had never given me any reason to believe she would hurt or betray me, so I chose to put my faith in her now. If she was surprised by the truth behind Surge's presence in Karcerikus or the plans we'd made to defeat Karaak, she gave no sign.

  Then again, why would she? She'd proven time and again that she wasn't easily rattled. Maybe that was another reason I felt like I could lean on her now.

  Once I finished telling her, she shook her head, her lips drawn into a thin line of contempt. “Men. Seems like they're pretty much the same on any planet... they wait until after the sex to break things off. So what are you going to do now? Sounds like this asshole's put you in a pretty tight spot.”

  “At this point, there's not much I can do,” I sniffled, wiping my tears away. “Whatever he's planning next, he doesn't want me involved. All I can do is keep going on like everything's normal, work my infirmary shifts, and hope he succeeds and it all works out somehow. If he does, then maybe he'll still do right by me, and the rest of us, too... although now, frankly, that's kind of seeming unlikely given his behavior. And if he doesn't...”