by Robin Lovett
I glance out a window at the end of the hall and see the sun high in the sky. “How long have you been out here?”
“Hours,” Anewtan says down the lineup. Her voice is dry with frustration. Grunts of agreement from the others echo her.
If I could feel embarrassment, I would. Shirking duty because I’m recovering from having sex with a human for hours in front of everyone—that’s…shaming. That they all believed me in mourning before they saw it is worse.
I clear my throat and stand taller. I have the urge to explain my behavior, to apologize for my appalling lateness. But I cannot think of what to say. I cannot say aloud that even though I am supposed to still be in mourning for another century and humans killed my mate, I am forming the Attachment for one. They already see it. My fangs would not be out if it were not true. It’s shameful. They have every right to judge me for my lack of respect for Tiortan.
They don’t show it on their faces and hide their outrage well. Saying nothing will be better than admitting how out of control of myself I am.
Yet the burning shame I feel standing in front of them is overwhelmed by the burning need to get back to Assura. I shove both feelings away, as my duty requires, and give my warriors the stare of authority they’re used to from me.
They watch my transformation and respond, straightening themselves, and there’s an almost audible sigh of relief among them. Too many days of leisure have weighed on all of us. We are more comfortable with discipline. That is our way of life.
Two days would have been enough. Four is too long. They are anxious for duty. That’s why they are here.
I need the same. My fixation on Assura stops, now.
“Pvotton, find Koviye,” I order.
“Yes, sir.” He stiffens to attention in gratitude and goes down the hall.
“The rest of you, wait outside. Take your leave of any Fellamana you see and express your gratitude for their hospitality.” I glance down the long end of the hallway. “I will find the human.”
“Sir,” Anewtan steps forward again. “I would do that for you.” There’s force in her words and nods from the others.
They do not trust me alone with Assura. I do not trust myself, either. But I cannot let go of the fervent need to speak with her. I have to know who is the other Ssedez she knows intimately. “I will do it.”
A few of them give me skeptical looks, but I order, “We leave in half an hour.” They turn and go in the opposite direction from me.
I search through the rooms and find them empty. I open a door to a stairwell and hear voices. One of them is Assura’s.
I launch up the steps, three at a time, exit through a door, and come to a halt.
She’s talking to a Fellamana female and wearing one of those clinging white suits. Her weapons belt she arrived with is strapped around her hips.
Her gaze begins with annoyance at the interruption but quickly morphs to something else once she sees me. Her eyes wander down my chest, and she shifts on her feet. I know that posture. It’s the same one she had while waiting for me on the stage last night.
My erection is trapped by my leather, and I cannot forget the question I need to ask her. In private.
“We have to talk.” I suspect she will protest.
Her breathing visibly accelerates, her breasts rising and falling. Her nipples are hardened beneath her suit. “Fine.”
She turns and walks down the hall.
I follow her, until we are out of sight of the Fellamana woman. The hall is empty, and I have no patience for getting inside a room.
I grasp her shoulder and steer Assura toward a wall.
She tries to ask, “What are you—”
But I trap her against the wall. My chest molded to her back, her body pressed to mine, I’m helpless not to run my hands down her hips and thighs.
She could fight me off, kick me, head-butt me, but she doesn’t. She groans and softens, her body accepting my weight. She rubs her ass against me, feeling how hard I am for her.
“Still haven’t had enough?” I breathe in her ear.
“Fuck you,” she bites in a whisper but sighs as I start to rub back against her, easing and stoking the physical ache and the clawing need to be inside her again.
“How did you know about the knife?” I grit between my teeth, though I am unable to stop moving against her.
“What are you talking about?” But she stiffens.
I grasp her hands. “Tell me. How did you know a knife would make me come like that? How did you know a Ssedez would do that?”
“I didn’t,” she protests, but it’s a moan. She releases her arms to me, and I anchor her hands to the wall beside her head.
“You have been with a Ssedez before. Who?”
“None of your business.”
“You admit it!” I snap, but I am so hard, my cock pulsates against her ass. I have to be inside her.
“I admit nothing.”
“Who was it?” I hiss in her ear.
“I’m not telling you.”
Anger bursts in my chest. My fangs are out, demanding to claim her vein, to make her feel so much pleasure, she never has eyes for another but me again. I drag the sharp points along her jaw. “Did you fuck him?”
“No,” she moans, breathless.
“You just made him come.” Which is worse, I do not know. My brain is too fogged with the one-track thought that, She is mine. Must be inside her so she knows it.
“No.”
I growl an animal sound of approval. I believe her. Though why I have learned to trust the word of a human, I do not understand. “What were you doing?”
She ignores me and taunts, “What would you do if I said I had sex with him?”
I press her harder against the wall with the full force of my weight. “I’d make you come so hard, you’d forget him.”
Her breath shudders. “Then, I fucked him.” She has no idea what her saying those words does to me, even though I know she’s lying.
It provokes the possessive beast in me so fiercely, I start to shake. “You want me inside you so badly, you would lie?”
“How do you know I wasn’t lying the first time, that it isn’t true?”
I snarl in her ear. “Sneaky bitch.”
“The sneaky bitch you want so bad, you’ve forgotten she’s your worst enemy.”
I have enough rationality left to think I should deny her. If she wants me badly enough to provoke me like this, the best torture would be to leave her unsatisfied. But it would be torture for me, too.
“Are you scared?” she mocks.
“I’m scared of nothing.”
“Then shut up and fuck me.” She arches against me, like a cat in heat.
I grit my teeth and fail to remember that her being my worst enemy isn’t even more of a reason to bang her senseless.
Her voice comes out keening and desperate. “Do I have to beg?”
“Yes.” I want her to.
“Please, Gahnin,” she whispers desperately. The need in her voice cuts through my resistance. I’m incapable of leaving her wanting like this.
I pull at the back panel of her suit. My fingers shake, unable to find a zipper somewhere, anywhere. I’m an instant away from ripping the fabric. Panting, she unbuckles her weapons belt, drops it on the floor with a clang, and reaches for buttons.
She wrenches it open, and her sumptuous ass is exposed.
I swear, staring and yanking at my fly. It’s like her suit was made to give me access to her. Knowing the Fellamana, it probably was.
She spreads her legs, props her bottom in the air, presenting herself to me. “Hurry.” She bounces, making the firm muscles jiggle.
I groan, pull out my cock. And thrust inside her.
We both cry out. I grip her hips, digging myself as deep in her as I can go. She’s so wet, it’s like all the come I filled her with last night is still inside her. Probably is.
She rocks her hips, greedy for me to move. I do. I drive into her so ha
rd, my skin slaps against hers. I do it again and spread her cheeks so I watch my cock sink inside her.
It exposes her other opening, and wanting to torture her more, I press my thumb to it.
“Yes,” she moans low in her throat, and I press harder.
She’s so wanton for everything I give her, I want her to beg for it more.
I drive into her, fast, her body shaking with the force of my lust. Her hands press against the wall to keep her upright.
She keens in her throat. But her cunt—her insatiable, velvet, soaked cunt—does not spasm around me. All the other times she has started to orgasm by now.
Because I’m not pressing the spot in her front she loves so much. But I want to punish her for lying to me. For thinking she could manipulate me.
For succeeding.
I lean forward and growl in her ear, “Touch yourself.” Her eyes fall closed, and she drags her palm down the wall.
I resume my thrusting, intending to make it as hard for her as I can, wanting her to work for it. But her hand disappears between her legs, and I see her arm moving, performing the circles I know she needs.
She tightens around me, her ass arching into me.
I have a thought that I want this to last. That I will not get to do this again. Once we leave here, we will go back to our duty, and I will not touch her anymore.
But it’s as though the thought makes me more desperate for her, makes me more aware of her, makes it feel better, sharper, clearer.
I orgasm, pleasure shooting through my nerves like sparks, short-circuiting my brain, as though I will never think again.
She climaxes around me, the force of my thrusts aiding her. I pump into her in aftershock spasms. My reflex inserting every drop of come I have into her. Then we’re still, the only sound our breathing…
…and other people talking around the corner of the hall. One of them with a Ssedez accent.
Damn it.
They had to have heard us. Or even seen us. I jerk away from her, backing up until I hit the opposite wall. This is insanity. After how many times last night and the night before, I’m so mindless for her, I do her in a hallway without any thought of onlookers.
She does not look at me. She keeps facing the wall and bends down to pick up her weapons.
That she dropped them like that…no warrior treats their weapons so carelessly. She searches them, inspecting them, obviously shocked she tossed them.
Her voice chimes low and guttural, harsh with warning. “We’re not doing this again.”
It feels like I’m gouging out my chest to say it, but that is all the more reason why I should. “No, we are not.”
Chapter Thirteen
ASSURA
I’m still breathing hard, still unable to put my legs together, I’m so tender. But I can’t look at him.
I examine my blasters, check my explosives and my knives, exasperated. So careless. My weapons are my life, my first line of defense when under attack. I treat them with respect.
Not like a pair of socks!
At least the voices in the hall have stopped, and we’re alone now. We must have been loud enough to scare them away.
His tone is subdued. “We leave for the Origin crash site in ten minutes.”
“Okay.” His come is seeping down my thighs, so I can’t close up the “fuck panel” in my suit. That’s my new name for it. Because that’s obviously what it’s for.
I thought it was just for taking a piss.
Apparently not.
“I have to clean up, then I’ll be down.” I’m not traipsing through the jungle today with a soggy suit reminding me with every step how I begged him this morning.
Damn it.
I am a soldier. Not a fuck buddy for a Ssedez. I don’t care if I’m supposed to be making things right with his species after the crimes I’ve committed. It does not shirk me of my duty. We’re getting back to the Origin today.
“Why do you need to clean…” he whispers, then obviously sees his copious amounts of silver come glistening on my thighs. “Oh. Right.”
Sick of him staring at my ass, I turn around. “From here on out, I am a soldier to you and no more. Got it? I am not even female. If I catch you staring at me, talking to me, or treating me like we’ve had sex before, I will…”
I’ll… What? Stab him with a knife? I can’t. His skin won’t allow it.
Kill him? As if I’d light him on fire.
But there has to be something I can threaten him with. “I’ll…” Then I remember his secret I learned last night. How he asked me to hide the vulnerable tip of his cock when he ejaculated on me. It’s cruel, but the potential he has to harass me for what has happened between us, combined with how little I trust him, rationalizes it.
“I’ll tell Jenie and every surviving member of the Origin’s crew about the Ssedez’s weakness in their armor.”
His nostrils flare, and he glares fire at me. “You would not. You have more honor than that.”
“I do. But I have less trust for you. You treat me with the respect I deserve, and you won’t have a problem. Otherwise…” I leave the threat hanging in the air.
“You think so little of me?” He steps closer. “You think I’m so without integrity that I would treat a female warrior as lesser?”
“I don’t know you. I have no idea what you’re like with females except when you’re fucking them.” Every Ten Systems military male I know, if they’d found out I was female, likely would’ve tried. Their jokes and dialogue betrayed it. That’s why we wore armor and helms at all times to hide our gender, along with voice scramblers.
He straightens. “Your Ten Systems army was cruel.”
“Duh. We had no choice. Once the Ten Systems deemed me soldier material, forcing me to take tests I didn’t want to, I became their slave. Rebellion was the only way out. That’s why our group risked our lives to escape.” He doesn’t need to know that it was pretty much due to my plan and action that we escaped. That I succeeded only so far as to get us away, and not to free General Dargule’s prisoners, including one Ssedez who, after over a hundred years of captivity, is still chained to a wall aboard the military starship, the Hades.
He gives a heavy sigh and glances at the floor. “There are female warriors among my Ssedez. If you require reassurance, they would gladly answer your concerns.” He lifts his eyes to me. “But I swear to you, I will not treat you ill for what has happened between us. And if I do, I would expect no less than for you to reveal the Ssedez secret.”
Hearing him say it relieves a tension binding my chest. I take a deep breath. I want to believe him but don’t know if I should.
His face softens, and he grasps my shoulders. “Assura, you have my respect as a warrior.”
“What about as a human?”
He jerks back from me like I’ve poisoned him. “Humans killed my mate. I will never have respect for your species.”
I don’t know what slogs me harder in the chest: the fact that he had a mate, the fact that she’s dead, the fact that humans killed her. “I’m sorry.”
He stiffens, his whole body hardening in a way I’ve not seen. A coldness enters his eyes, but he doesn’t respond.
He walks away, saying over his shoulder, “You have five minutes.”
The trek through the jungle has me on edge. I’m plagued by memories of when I was struggling, wounded and alone, burning with the fever of the desidre. I was also injured with a stab wound that would’ve been fatal if I hadn’t had the escape pod’s emergency supplies. Those didn’t save me from infection, but they stopped the bleeding so I didn’t die.
Enormous trees like something out of Earth’s Jurassic period span as far as the eye can see. A quarter mile into the jungle, and all signs of the Fellamana town disappear.
A group of seventeen, we trek up a road, then cut onto a single-track dirt trail. The vigorous undergrowth blanketing the ground in plants with blue, purple, and green leaves brush our legs as we walk.
; The suit the Fellamana gave me keeps the plants from cutting into my skin. Unlike the suit I arrived with, which was in tatters by the time I found my way out of the jungle.
Animals chirp and buzz in the trees overhead, but all of them are hiding in the foliage.
The group of Ssedez warriors chat alongside the Fellamana. The Fellamana each wear enormous packs on their backs that I assume contain supplies for my friends. Many of the Ssedez seem to have learned far more of the Fellamana language than I’ve managed to, but I console myself that they had time to do so while I was unconscious in the hospital.
Gahnin speaks quietly in the lead with his second in command, Pvotton.
I chat with Anewtan, one of the female Ssedez warriors, taking Gahnin up on his suggestion to ask about how their culture treats female warriors.
“We are of much value,” she says. Her attire is no different from the Ssedez males, except for a leather bra she wears, which seems to function for support and no more. Her skin is as glittering gold in the sunlight as her male counterparts’. “There are many leadership skills and tactics that a Ssedez female may possess in greater strength than a male.”
I’m grateful to talk to another female for the first time in over a week. I’m eager to see Jenie and anyone else who has survived. There are many names I’d mourn if I learn they are gone. “How come so many of the Ssedez know the human language?”
“We spend our entire military training studying everything we know about the Ten Systems, including your language.”
“I’m grateful you’re helping us,” I say, still surprised they seem to have buried their hatred of our species so easily.
“Our commander tells us we made a mistake in attacking your rebellion. He is mated to your General Nemona now.” She steps over a large tree, and I follow.
“They’re mated, like forever?” I can’t really fathom that. Committing a lifetime to someone, I don’t know what that looks like. Spending an eternity with Gahnin…
My breath stops, and I have to let the thought go to start breathing again.
“Yes, forever,” Anewtan confirms. “He bit her, and she turned Ssedez.”
