Stolen Desire

by Robin Lovett

  She glares at me. “How am I supposed to know it wasn’t all just a grand scheme to win me over so I’d fuck you?”

  Anger, bitter and sharp, forms in my gut. I won’t be misunderstood by her. “I admit, when Assura told me you were intimate friends, I thought about how much you might like to see her again.” I narrow my eyes at her. “But I don’t just want to fuck you. I resent that statement.”

  She scoffs. “Then what do you want?”

  “To make love to you.”

  “Love to me?” she balks. “You said the Fellamana do not fall in love.”

  “Ah, the language distinction.” I hum over which of her words to use. “I will give love to your body and will love pleasuring you. Sex is an experience of communion and intimacy. Not something to be done quickly and sloppily in mere lust.” I shiver in disgust.

  But rather than the arousal or affection I expect to see in her eyes, her face blanches in fear before she covers it with anger. “Never.” She marches away from me. I take a step after her, but she shouts over her shoulder, “Don’t follow me!” and leaves.

  I’m frozen in my steps. I thought this would help. I thought she might soften toward me. I thought she’d begun to accept the needs of her body, her attraction to me, my genuine need to care for her.

  Apparently not.

  The commlink on my wrist blinks.

  I hold it to my mouth and snap, “What?” in my Fellamana language.

  “The council requires you,” the male voice of Povape sing-songs in the pitches of our native speech. “We need a report on the humans.”

  “Not yet. I’m still gathering information,” I lie. Or not precisely lie, but I’m here for my own aims. My pursuit of Jenie is far more important than any report for the council.

  “Your presence is demanded at the meeting this nightfall. This is the official message from the elders.” He clears his throat and mutters in a more familiar, guttural tone, “Koviye, cousin, whoever in hell you’re satisfying the desidre with, feed and get back here to do your job.”

  “Povape, cousin,” I mock him. “I’ll come back whenever I feel like it. Don’t waste yourself worrying.”

  “I’m the one who has to suffer the complaints from the council until you get back.”

  “Tell them to get their reports from the other Fellamana returning to town. It doesn’t have to be from me.”

  Povape’s frustration increases to an order. “Come back now. Or give me something to say to them. Anything.” He may be older than me, and on track to be a member of the council in the years to come, but I’m not answerable to him or anyone. No one outranks me.

  I don’t want to inform him of my plan. I don’t want to tell him anything. I just want to focus on Jenie. “You don’t need me. Their dependence on me is a farce.”

  “You possess the Exstare. You’re the only one they trust. It is your biological inheritance.”

  The Exstare. The Power.

  My biological inheritance.

  It’s why so many call me their Sex God.

  Those phrases make me cringe and visibly twitch. All Fellamana can read each other’s emotions, but my ability to transfer energy, to send comfort to Jenie with a touch isn’t something every Fellamana can do. I can also give orgasms with the touch of my hand, and I have some other handy skills that are useful in a fight. It’s the Exstare that’s passed down through the generations of my ancestors and has mythological associations. I’m the only one of my twelve cousins who inherited the ability from our grandfather. I’m the lone Fellamana with the ability, right now. The Fellamana believe somehow that because I can do this, it means only I am equipped to take over the leadership of our council. As though I’m the chosen one or some bullshit, when I have no desire or discipline to lead anyone.

  They rely and depend on me more than they should. They have too much faith in me. It’s undeserved, and they’d be better off promoting someone dependable and interested in leading the Fellamana, like Povape.

  “Please, Koviye,” he groans. “Make up something for me to tell them. I don’t care.”

  I decide to mention the ship I brought to Jenie. “I borrowed a speeder.”

  “Uh—what for?”

  “A rescue mission. One of the human soldiers and one of the Ssedez were taken captive aboard the Hades when it left the planet.”

  “You’ll need permission for that, Koviye. You can’t just take it. You can’t leave the planet without a proper escort.”

  Demons in hell. Escort, my ass.

  Which is why I didn’t ask and why I didn’t want to mention it, and why I should’ve said something else, anything else. Damn it. “I’m using the offer as a gesture of goodwill at the moment. I’m not leaving the planet.” Yet. I will if that’s what Jenie demands at sunrise if Assura hasn’t made contact. But Povape doesn’t need to know that I’d break every one of our protocol regulations if Jenie asked.

  “All right, that’s something.” Povape sighs loudly. “Be back by daybreak.”

  “That’s when the Origin crew’s negotiations for the hostages are taking place.” It sounds official if I say it that way. Nothing is getting me to leave Jenie’s camp tonight on the off chance she wants me or gives me permission to enter her dreams. I’m not taking the hike through the jungle back to town if she might desire me here.

  “I give up,” Povape seethes through his teeth. “Your choice.”

  He’s not stupid. He knows part of the reason I won’t come back is because I don’t want to be on the council. The other is because I’m feeding the desidre with someone. Which…I haven’t done since I met Jenie over a week ago.

  The toxin builds in my blood, too. Just because I’ve grown up with it doesn’t mean I’m immune to it. I’m overdue. There’s only so much I can do with my own hand and my fantasies of her. My body can only be satisfied alone for so many days before the toxin will start to drive me as insane as it will Jenie.

  I can go longer, but not forever.

  But I’d rather go insane than pressure her with my needs. And though it goes against every instinct I should have as a Fellamana, I’d rather starve than find pleasure with anyone else except her.

  It’s a strange sensation. I know it’s temporary and will likely only last another few days. I’m as capable of monogamy as I am of growing wings and flying.

  Chapter Five

  Jenie

  I stand in the communications shelter, staring at the sonar vid. Koviye’s Fellamana colleagues hooked up our systems to their Fellamana satellites. The Hades is so massive, it’s still visible in the images transferring to us from the satellite telescope. She’s stopped moving. Which means something is happening on board. Maybe Assura has managed to escape her prison cell and take over the ship.

  Captain Dargule could just as easily be planning a sick trick to re-attack us for some perverted reason. My palms are sweating. Little drops are dripping down my back. It could be from anxiety over the situation or the heat of the jungle around us.

  But my training has taught me to keep my head straight rather than give in to agitation over the situation with the Hades. And there’s a cooling apparatus in this shelter. No, I’m sweating because my body is so overheated with this gods-damn mating bond urge and this forsaken desidre.

  My mind is clouded. My judgment is impaired by my obsession with getting to Assura. My hormones are arousing my body to the point of pain. I can’t be in command when I’m like this.

  But our General Nemona left with her new Ssedez mate, Commander Oten, heading to the Ssedez planet for supplies to repair the Origin. Though that’s fruitless now. She’s now unrepairable since the Hades attacked, but they’ve gone too far on their way for us to contact them directly and tell them as much. Which means I’m in charge until they get back. I do have lots of backup and help, so I’m far from alone in my leadership.

  “What do you think?” Tanery stands next to me, and excitement brims in her voice. “Is the Hades regrouping for another attack?” S
he may be our head of communications, our techie with a mind for gadgets and computers, but she loves a good fight.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The corner of my mouth quirks in a smile.

  “I want to kill every one of those bastards. The sooner we can eradicate the Ten Systems, the better.” Tanery is ambitious and skilled; we recruited her for our mission because of her brilliant mind and her sense of justice. I can’t blame her for wanting a battle, but this situation is much more complicated than that.

  “Most of the soldiers on that ship are as much slaves to the Ten Systems’ military as we were. They had no more choice to join than we did.” Every one of my fellow soldiers from the Origin’s crew was tested by the Ten Systems government, found to assert the certain aptitudes they desired for the military, and forced into service. Too bad for the Ten Systems’ command that their tests never looked for independent thinking and a penchant for rebellion.

  She considers the truth. “But the officers. We could kill them.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “You and I were officers. As were General Nemona and Special Operative Assura.”

  She sighs. “Damn it. I like fighting. I’m not just trained in tech. I know how to fight, too.”

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “There will be fighting. Lots of it. But our primary mission, which our crew chose together, is research. The discovery of the intelligent life the Ten Systems has spent its existence trying to conquer.”

  She sighs in acceptance and recites the first half of our rebellion motto, “The freedom to discover.” And I give our answer, “The value of life.”

  A wave of heat rages through my body, arousal so demanding and hot, it scorches my gut like literal flames burning me from the inside out. I cling to Tanery’s shoulders for balance, but nausea overtakes me, and spots cover my vision.

  “Jenie?” She grabs my arms, trying to support me.

  But I double over and moan through the pain, “Get…Ilena.” The doctor’s antidotes are my only relief option.

  Well, with the exception of someone else, and I won’t even think his name. Even the idea of him has me remembering his hand on mine. The moment’s reprieve he brought me with just that one touch, better than the antidote, the only true pain-free moment I’ve had in days. I want to cry with the need to feel that again.

  I collapse against Tanery.

  She holds me up. “I’ll take you to the medical shelter. Put your arms around my neck.”

  I do it, shaking with the effort. She leans down and puts an arm behind my knees and lifts me.

  Her strength is as enhanced as mine. Despite the horrible things the Ten Systems made us do, the bioengineering they gave us is mostly not a bad thing.

  She carries me out of the shelter, calling for help as she walks. I cling to her neck, concentrating on breathing, inhaling her scent. A week ago, I might have found her scent arousing. But since I met Koviye, whether because of the desidre, this mating urge, or who knows why, I’ve only wanted him.

  Maybe it’s because of how he touched me when I met him. He held my arm in the way he said was “the greeting of his people” and did that energy thing he does. Except it was much stronger. It wasn’t soothing like it was a few hours ago. It was stimulating, erotic. It felt almost like an orgasm building to climax, but I let go of him before it got to that point.

  Even though inhaling against Tanery’s skin isn’t sexually attractive, it’s still comforting, and I focus on it instead of the burn searing my nerves.

  I hear Ilena’s voice. “What’s wrong with Jenie?”

  “She collapsed,” Tanery says. “She’s in some sort of pain.”

  “In here,” Ilena says, and Tanery carries me into the medical shelter and places me on a bed.

  Another surge of agony rages up my spine; between my legs, I am clenching on emptiness. I need sex. Gods, I need it. I want to be fucked, hard. I’m assailed by images of his cock pounding inside me, pouring his come into me, me feeding on his orgasm, and me coming around him so hard, all this pain disappears.

  Koviye.

  Ilena places a cool tube to my mouth. “Drink, Jenie, drink. Please, darling.”

  I realize my teeth are gritted, so she can’t give me the antidote. I force my mouth open, my jaw shaking.

  The antidote pours into my mouth, and the coolness brings relief to the fiery pain. But not like Koviye’s touch. His hand on my skin gave me something like peace in addition to relief, almost like pleasure in my sensations, in myself. The medicine merely stops the pain.

  I stop shaking and open my eyes to see Ilena’s concerned face. “Thank you.”

  “It’s your third dose today. I don’t know what the effects will be. You’re in danger of overdosing.” She places her hand gently on my hands, which I didn’t realize are between my legs, rubbing myself, trying to ease the ache.

  She whispers, “I can ask for privacy and share an orgasm with you now.” She smiles gently. “It would be a pleasure. I haven’t fed my desidre yet today.”

  I pull our hands away from between my legs and rest them beside me on the bed.

  I wish so much it were that simple. I wish with all my heart that I were not cursed with a mating bond urge; then I could merely enjoy this with my crew mates. Then I could indulge in Koviye’s offers of love-making as well as Ilena’s.

  “Oh, Jenie.” Ilena wipes tears away from my cheeks that I didn’t know were there. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t. I—” I want to tell her. I need to tell someone. Holding onto this secret only makes it worse. But I don’t want the whole crew to know.

  I glance behind her. A medical assistant and Tanery are hovering over her shoulder.

  Ilena catches my meaning and says to them, “Could you give us some privacy?” They both give me words of encouragement and leave, closing the door behind them.

  The metal shelter echoes with the hum of the cooling unit, other medical equipment, and the reflection of the harsh fluorescent lighting. But Ilena’s face offers all the comfort the place lacks.

  I can trust her. She would never betray my confidence. “I have a medical problem that makes feeding the desidre impossible.”

  “What is it?”

  I pinch my lips and take a deep breath. “I’m not fully human. I’m part Ulreya.”

  Her eyes widen. “Have you inherited the mating bond drive?” She’s studied the species, thank gods. I’m grateful I don’t have to explain the biology of my mother’s people to her.

  “It’s been paining me for about five days now.”

  “But you’re so young. It’s usually a midlife thing, if I remember my research. You can’t be more than thirty.”

  “I’m twenty-nine.”

  She squeezes my hand in support. “It’s the desidre, isn’t it? It’s triggered the bonding process early.”

  “I think so.”

  “There has to be a way you can satisfy the need for an orgasm and release the toxin without activating the mating bond. It seals on penetration, right?”

  This is the part I wanted to keep to myself. I don’t want to talk about this, but I’ve started and now I have to.

  “This is very personal.” She kneels closer to me. “But do you know how explicit the penetration must be? Is it only if it’s a male—”

  “No. It applies to any gender. Penetration of any kind can trigger the bond.”

  Her face pales. “Even fingers?”

  I nod, trying not to cry from embarrassment and frustration at how horrifyingly sensitive my reproductive urges are.

  She tilts her head, trying to understand. “It makes sense you wouldn’t want to trust someone else, then. But surely you can satisfy yourself. It doesn’t completely get rid of the desidre, but it should help.”

  “It won’t be enough. I’m terrified if I start, I won’t stop. And then I’d be really unsuited for command.”

  She inhales a moment, thinking about it. “I could assist you. I could sit with you and help you
stop.”

  “No amount of assistance from anyone is going to save my mind from dissolving into insanity from the toxin, in the long term, if I don’t satisfy it with someone else.”

  “True, that’s true. Well.” She sits back, humming over the dilemma. “There are a couple options. Do you think getting off planet might send your mating bond into remission again?”

  “That’s the best option right now.”

  “We’ll have to arrange it somehow. We can talk to the Fellamana. Koviye must have a ship.”

  I wince hearing his name.

  Ilena pauses, thinking, “Unless…was there something else in my research…? Isn’t there another way to stop the bond?”

  I knew there was, from my aunts who begged my mother to do it after my father left her. She refused and became so depressed she no longer found joy in life. I don’t want that to happen to me. “It’s only possible after the mating bond has already formed for a specific person. But there is an herb I can take that will break my bond to someone.”

  “Well, that’s good. If it happens, you’ll have some choice. What was it called?”

  I shake my head. “It’s native to the Ulreya planet. You won’t have it.”

  “But I can make a synthetic. I’ll comb through our Ulreya research files. The Ulreya have been thoroughly studied. There’ll be notes on it, I’m sure.”

  I hope so, though I’m not optimistic. It would be nice to have something I could take if the worst were to happen, if my self-control were to shatter and I did have sexual intercourse with someone, and the mating bond forged. If Ilena could make a synthetic herb, one that actually worked, I’d have options.

  She pats my hand. “For now, we need to get you off this planet and away from the desidre. Until then, I can help you satisfy it without penetrating you in any way or activating your mating bond.” She lets fall her professional demeanor, and there is desire in her gaze—a desire for me.