“Here you go.” I fluffed it up a bit, whipping it into its usual shape. “Looks good.” I placed a kiss on the corner of his smiling mouth. “Devastatingly handsome. Like always.”
“How about this?” He swung his soggy tail into my hands.
“You want me to groom all of you?” I tilted my head, raising an eyebrow.
“Could you?” His smile grew teasing. Mischief twinkled in his eyes, brightening their burnt-orange color.
“Well...” I pretended to be annoyed but wrung the water out of his tail with the towel. “If you insist.”
He smiled wider. I enjoyed touching him, and I knew he treasured it. Deprived of any physical contact most of his life, he soaked in my attention like a sponge.
From the base of his tail, I moved the towel to his chest, trailing it down his chiseled abs and lower.
The grin slipped from his face as my fingers brushed by his erection. It immediately jumped from half-mast to fully erect.
“Now what?” I glanced up at his face.
He lifted an eyebrow at me, expectantly.
Dropping the towel, I stroked him with my hands. The dark, hard ridges swelled along his shaft, making me tingle with anticipation, for I knew how tantalisingly sweet they rubbed when he was inside me.
“Now, it’s my turn to do some grooming,” he growled, rolling me onto my back. “Only, I’ll do it with my mouth.”
He dragged his long tongue between my legs, and I rolled my head on the pillow, moaning deep in my throat. Heat flooded me, prickling my skin with pleasure and making my toes curl.
We had things to do this morning. I knew we did. Only I could no longer remember what they were. Nothing seemed to matter.
Even as an inexperienced virgin, Vrateus had been able to make me feel things no one else ever could. Now, after a month of eagerly learning everything he could about my body, he masterfully played it like a well-tuned instrument.
Easing out his claws, he lightly scraped along the skin of my thighs then up my sides to my breasts. I moaned louder as he found my nipples, squeezing them lightly between his fingers.
He swirled his tongue inside me, and my hips jerked as pleasure rushed through me.
Promptly sliding up my body, he fitted himself between my thighs. I opened my legs wider, lifting my hips to meet him as he slipped inside me.
“It’s like coming home, Svetlana...” he murmured in my ear, starting to move. “Every. Single. Time.”
I was his home now, and he was mine.
Hugging him closer, I let the pleasure roll through me with his every thrust.
After a few pumps, he flipped me to my stomach. I bent my knees, lifting my hips up for him, and he entered me again, from behind this time.
The ridges along his length tugged and rubbed all the right places inside me. The soft fur of his tail brushed around my thigh. Then the tip slid between my legs, finding my most sensitive spot.
Vrateus growled, gripping a handful of hair on the back of my head. The sting at the roots spread pleasure along my scalp and the rest of my body, making me groan in delight.
He thrust harder. The growls of his pleasure mingled with my loud moans. The intensity was building up as he pumped his hips with increasing speed and ferocity.
“Oh, yes...” I breathed out as the orgasm exploded through every cell of my body.
Throwing his head back, he growled through his clenched teeth as his release rocked us both.
When he collapsed next to me, I held him close. Raking my fingers through his fur, I whispered, “We’re going to build a good life here, Vrateus.”
At that moment, I truly believed that it was possible. We had found our kind of happiness on the Dark Anomaly. As long as we stayed together, everything was within our reach.
That was how he made me feel—happy, even in the middle of hell.
IN THE AFTERNOON, VRATEUS took me out to the surface of the Dark Anomaly. He needed to check the power supply panels. They converted the Anomaly’s lights into energy, which was used to power the life inside it. One of them seemed to be malfunctioning, possibly requiring some repairs.
Dressed in spacesuits, we exited through the airlock, then walked along the surface of the giant disk, just a few feet away from the edge. Vrateus checked the connection of each panel, while I fell behind.
Stopping between two power panels, I took out the two shiny metal balls I’d made from some parts collected from my ship.
I made sure that the camera on my helmet was on and that it was connected to the computer on my arm. Lowering myself into a crouch, I set one ball on the surface. With the tool I’d brought with me, I shot the ball to roll toward the center of the Anomaly with a pre-determined speed. It bounced and hopped over the uneven surface, rolling to a complete stop about a hundred feet away from me.
The gravity along the circumference of the disk seemed to be the same as it was inside.
I glanced up, toward the bulging center of the Anomaly. Far in the distance, it rose from the disk as a smooth, perfectly rounded dome the size of a mountain, completely black. Not even the vivid dancing lights around us reflected in its hemisphere.
Setting the second ball on the ground, I shot it to follow the exact trajectory of the first one, with a higher velocity. The second ball rolled faster, slamming into the first one and knocking it forward.
Brought back into motion, the first ball rolled toward the center, slowing down again.
When it reached a certain point, however, the speed of the first ball increased again. Speeding up, it rolled faster and faster, until the shiny, silver shape of it blended far in the distance with the bulging mass in the middle.
On the surface of the disk, the Anomaly pulled things to its center. I took a note never to wander past the power panels, lest I be dragged there myself.
I made sure that everything I’d just done had been recorded on the camera on my helmet. I had already inputted the exact mass and dimensions of the two balls. And the computer now calculated the speed and rate of increase in their velocity.
When I got back to the library, I would add all this data to what Vrateus and I had collected so far. I’d also add the new calculations I was planning to do.
I’d left Earth to explore the unknown. Crashing here was a tragedy. But it gave me the opportunity to be closer to the Anomaly than any human had ever been. For as long as I lived, I would study it.
I would never stop exploring.
EPILOGUE
VRATEUS
“There is the man I love,” Svetlana greeted him as soon as he entered their room.
She looked stunning. The bright, flowery dress she wore made the lights of the Anomaly behind her pale in comparison. She had always been the most beautiful thing to him.
A warm trickle of pleasure rippled down his skin at her words. This was the first time he heard the word “love” from her. Judging by the gaze she gave him—her dark eyelashes fluttering like the wings of a bird he’d only ever seen in videos—she knew what she’d said, and she meant it.
“I love you, too.” He gathered her into his arms, burying his face in her hair.
She sank her fingers into the fur on the back of his neck, stroking down his spine. The pleasure of her touch flooded his groin with heat. It happened so much more often than it used to before her.
Nuzzling the side of her neck, he nibbled on her skin.
“What took you so long? It’s way past dinnertime,” she murmured. “I was starting to worry.”
Every now and then, he still forgot about dinner, getting caught in one of the many tasks that needed to be done in order to keep life on the Dark Anomaly going.
“Sorry, I lost track of time. How are the gardens?”
“Good. The flour we made from the laahon grain worked out amazingly well.”
The only reward for saving Vrateus from the poison that Malahki had asked for was to spend more time with Svetlana. The request puzzled Vrateus, but Malahki had explained he needed someon
e knowledgeable and trustworthy to help with gardening.
Svetlana had readily agreed to that, eager to learn more about plant life on the Dark Anomaly. Vrateus had spent several days with them until he was completely satisfied he could trust the damirian to protect Svetlana. He felt comfortable leaving them alone for a couple of hours a day.
Besides the gardening, Svetlana had also taken over meal preparation on the Anomaly, under the condition that no one except for Vrateus or Malahki would be allowed to enter the kitchen.
Taking these two tasks completely off his shoulders and helping him with many others, she’d considerably lightened his workload. Now, he even had some free time, which he always preferred to spend with her.
“Hungry?” she leaned back, smiling. “I made pizza for dinner.” Delight sparkled in her dark eyes.
“Pizza?” he asked, confused. He wished to share in her excitement, but the translator failed to deliver a word he’d understand.
Svetlana had been gathering various bark, seeds, and roots from the garden. She then used them as ingredients while cooking different dishes and experimenting with flavors.
“Look!” She proudly gestured at the low table she had set with pretty dishes he had collected from various storage rooms for her.
A bunch of large, bright flowers stood in a jewel-encrusted carafe. Berry wine glistened blood-red in two crystal goblets.
“I have been playing with this recipe for a week now, testing different ingredients from the kitchen and the garden.” Svetlana pointed at the flat disk of dough covered with black melted goo that suspiciously reminded him of tar. “It’s a bit scary-looking,” she admitted, with a slight frown. “But it tastes just like a real pizza from back home, I swear.”
He must have been staring at the offensive disk a little too long, since she shifted uneasily. “If you don’t like it, I have some stew from the kitchen, too.
“No. I’ll try it.” He drew some air in through his nostrils. “It smells delicious.”
After a lifetime of eating some variation of the same dish, trying all her cooking experiments felt exciting. Even if they turned out truly inedible sometimes.
“Let’s have some pizza.” He took her in his arms again. “Just right after I do this.”
He lowered his mouth to hers.
A rush of familiar calm and pleasure descended upon him as he kissed her.
“Just like coming home.”
“HEY, CAPTAIN! THERE’S another crash!” Valmo panted, out of breath and choking with excitement. “Nocc and Wyck are fighting over the female. And they’re not following the rules!”
Immediately, Vrateus thought of Svetlana being the female in question. Wrath and terror flooded him, making his heart skip a beat.
He had left her in the gardens with Malahki just a little while ago. Had something happened he’d not accounted for?
“Where are they?” He dashed out of the storage room, leaving Enkail to service the spacesuits on his own.
“On the very edge of the habitable segment, past the gardens.” Valmo was running slightly behind him, struggling to catch up.
The main corridor seemed endless as Vrateus rushed from one end of it to the other. His heart burned with worry, threatening to burst out of his chest.
“Malahki!” He yelled into the entrance of the gardens as he passed by. The damirian was nowhere to be seen, which only intensified his panic.
He rushed further.
Around the last bend in the corridor, he nearly tripped over the cutting tool left on the floor. The outer wall gaped with a freshly cut opening. A couple of his crew members stood by, peeking inside it.
“Svetlana?” he asked, shoving them out of the way.
“She returned to your room a while back,” someone said.
“She did?” Vrateus turned to face the speaker, Xoqaek.
“Malahki said she left,” the second one, Gahot, added.
She was safe.
He let the thought trickle through his mind with a calming bliss.
“Malahki? Where is it?”
“Um...” Gahot looked around, confusion spreading on his face. “It was just here...”
Vrateus glanced inside the opening, into the interior of a brightly lit ship he had not seen before.
Only now Valmo’s words about the crash had fully registered with him. Then, the understanding for the reason for the fight rushed in.
An unknown human female crouched low by the far wall of the room. Lesh kept hissing, tied to a piece of wreckage nearby. Wyck stood over her, his chest heaving fast and heavy, his gaze unhinged, and his knuckles bloody.
Standing on one knee, Nocc glared at him, blood trickling out of his nose and down his face.
At least two more humans lay on the floor behind them, their heads twisted at unnatural angles. Either they had died during the crash or had been killed shortly after, but they were obviously dead now.
“What is going on here?” Vrateus climbed inside, adjusting the grip on the guns in his hands.
“This does not concern you,” Nocc rasped, smearing the blood on his face with the back of his hand. “You already have a female. You can’t have them all.”
A familiar combination of annoyance and worry rushed over Vrateus.
Another female.
He didn’t talk to her. He refused to spare her a glance. A wave of fear and resentment rose in his chest. This female was not just a threat to the barely re-established order, her mere appearance here put the relatively safe existence of Svetlana into danger all over again.
He had managed to force his crew to view Svetlana as their superior. There were no more weekly sessions in the mess hall. With the new arrival, they could easily revert to treating her as an object to relieve their sexual tension—not to mention the disturbance that was already happening.
“So, you have fought, I see.” He moved his gaze from Nocc to Wyck. Judging by their positions, Wyck had won the last round. However, if Vrateus didn’t stop them now, there could be many more. With the others now coming in, aggression buzzed in the air.
If he let the situation slip out of control now, many more of his crew might end up joining the dead humans on the floor.
“Wyck won?”
Wyck nodded as Nocc leaped to his feet, raising his fists.
“He is not getting her!”
“He did best you.” Vrateus turned to the two at the entrance. Xoqaek and Gahot had entered, with many more of his crew climbing in or poking their heads through. “Was it a fair fight?” he asked Xoqaek and Gahot.
“Um... Sure.” They nodded.
“It’s not over yet!” Nocc roared.
“I say when the fight is over around here!” Vrateus raised his voice and his weapons. “And I’m saying this one is.”
“Wyck can’t have her,” Enkail rumbled. The dimo obviously hadn’t stayed behind to finish servicing the spacesuits. Vrateus made a note to discipline him later for not doing his work. “If she is the prize, then we all have to get a chance to fight for her, too!”
That was met with a loud rumbling of approval from everyone.
“No one is getting the female!” Vrateus shouted over the noise, lifting his arm to call for silence. “No one!”
Glares clashed with his as he turned around the room.
“The rules will stay the same. The female belongs to no one and to all of us.”
“What do you mean?” The same question came from many mouths.
“She will be brought to the mess hall, weekly.” The solution had worked well enough before. “You’ll be getting your entertainment back!”
Svetlana had disliked the sessions in the mess hall. He had reasons to believe the new female might not be fond of them either. However, the priority was to dissipate the aggression crackling in the air.
And hopefully save some lives.
Another wave of rumbles rolled through the room. To his relief, it was thick with approval for his decision.
It occurred
to him that the presence of another female on the Dark Anomaly might work to his benefit. Ever since he had discontinued the sessions in the mess hall, he had overheard plenty of comments and caught enough disgruntled glances tossed Svetlana’s way. Having another female to resume the sessions would take the attention from Svetlana and ease the tension.
An unpleasant feeling scratched inside him, as if he were tossing the female to the pack of predators. And in a way, that was very much what he was about to do.
For Svetlana’s peace and safety.
He would do anything for her.
“I won’t be the one touching her, though,” he said to his crew.
“Who will?” the crowd perked up, expectant.
Vrateus gave the new leader of the errocks an assessing stare. Younger than the rest of his brutal group, Wyck still shared most of the characteristics of his kind. He was just as aggressive, hot-minded, and rebellious as all the errocks on the Dark Anomaly. Since the death of Crux, Wyck had also shown signs of hostility toward Svetlana.
How long would a human female last in his care?
He glanced at Lesh. The ill-tempered mahdi had been one of several dozen of the animals, chained and caged in the cargo hold of a yourlu ship. It had crashed about nine years ago. All the mahdi had been killed and eaten within days. Some had been forced to fight each other—bloody, brutal battles instigated for entertainment. Both winners and losers ended up being butchered afterwards.
Only after Vrateus had taken the power had Wyck come to him with Lesh. He told Vrateus that he had saved the animal, hiding it in one of the side tunnels. He had fed it, trained it, kept it alive, and in return, the mahdi gave him his undivided loyalty.
Could Wyck’s patience and kindness to the animal be translated into better treatment for the female?
There was no way to tell for sure, but Wyck was the best choice Vrateus had. Wyck had the authority and the strength to defend someone in his charge. He would also have Vrateus’s full support in doing so.
“As the leader of my personal guard, Wyck will have the honor of taking care of the female,” he announced, loud and clear, making sure that none of the doubt he felt made it into his voice.
Gravity (Dark Anomaly Book 1) Page 20
