Another hour or so passed, and I drew to a halt.
“What’s that?”
A noise underlaid the soft thuds of our footsteps and the sound of our breathing.
Nad glanced over his shoulder at me. “I think we’re reaching the end of the tunnels.”
“We have?” I replied, doubt wavering my voice.
I couldn’t see anything other than black ahead. There was literally no light at the end of the tunnel, but I didn’t think it was dark outside. We’d left in the very early hours of the morning, and daylight should have broken by now.
With each footstep, the noise grew louder, and fresh worry filtered through me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought we were about to cross a trainline, with the train roaring down the tracks.
Finally, I spotted light ahead, but it wasn’t the scorching, steady glow of the Tradrych sun. Instead, the light came and went in flashes that each only lasted a second. The roar that had been increasing in volume with every step continued as well. It took me a moment to understand what was happening, but then it dawned on me.
“My God.”
The noise was the roar of the wind, and the flashes were lightning. The sunlight was muted by the sand the wind had whipped up and was now whisking past the tunnel entrance.
It was the electrical sandstorm, and it was right above us.
“We can’t go out in that,” Nad shouted above the racket. “The sand will shred our skin from our flesh.”
My body turned cold at the image his words thrust into my head.
“What about coordinating with the others?” I asked. “We need to have reached the facility by sundown.”
“There’s no other way of reaching the facility,” Nad said, shaking his head. “According to the plans, we have to go across the dunes. If we had a vehicle and no storm, it would be a simple enough excursion, but not in these conditions.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked, looking around at them.
Diarus raised his voice to be heard above the wind. “We don’t have any choice. We’re going to have to hunker down and wait this out.”
I bit my lower lip, worried about the delay. “We’ll be giving Borys’s guards more time to catch up with us.”
The Athion shrugged. “I’ll be happy to hear any other suggestions.”
No one spoke, and the wind continued to howl.
“How long do the storms normally last?” I asked.
“Could be days,” he replied.
My mouth dropped. “We can’t just sit here for days. We’ll miss the timing to set off the device, and we haven’t brought enough food and water.”
“I don’t think we have much choice.” Miko dropped the pack he’d been carrying on the tunnel floor. “Besides, the other teams will be struggling against the storm, too, though I imagine it’ll be more sheltered among the Edge Forest, and those at the Unmade Territories won’t have the problem of the sand dunes that we have, since it’s mostly rock out there.”
He was right. We didn’t have a choice.
We made ourselves comfortable, rolling out the mats we’d strapped onto the backpacks and taking out food and water. At least it wasn’t cold here, and I was thankful for that small blessing. It would be pretty miserable if we were all shivering, with our teeth chattering. Nad’s tail slipped around my shoulders, pulling me against the side of his body, in the same way a human man would put his arm around a woman.
I let out a sigh and dropped the side of my head against his shoulder.
Despite being reassured about the safety of the device Nad was carrying, I also couldn’t help worrying. That thing could evaporate us all if it was activated accidentally. The possibility of suddenly no longer existing was terrifying. Would we even know what was happening? Perhaps that would be better than the utter terror of knowing the device was counting down and that we wouldn’t be able to put enough distance between ourselves and the blast to save our lives.
I didn’t want to lose any of them. When I could think of the worst-case scenario, the thing that made my heart feel as though it was breaking in two, it was losing them. That was more important to me than even going home. Aleksy had asked me earlier if I’d choose to stay, should the question ever arise, and now here, sitting in a tunnel with a storm raging and an explosive device that could vaporize us, I discovered I would choose to stay.
“I choose you,” I said out loud.
Miko frowned at me. “What?”
“I know none of you asked me, but if I was given the option to stay on Tradrych and be with you all for the rest of my life, then I’d choose that.”
Nad shifted around to face me. “You would? Even if you were given the option to go home?”
I pressed my lips together in a tight smile, trying to hold back the emotion swirling within me. “I don’t want to say there’s nothing on Earth for me now, because I have friends there who I care about deeply, but the idea of having to live without any of you is unbearable.”
Miko moved from the opposite wall to sit on the other side of me. I turned to him, and he took my hand.
“We feel the same way about you, Tara. If you went home, it would break us.”
“It would?” I turned to Diarus. “All of you?”
Diarus nodded. “I know it’s different for me. I’m a visitor here, too. I don’t know what my future holds since I’m still a member of the Athion military, the Custos, and I’m here on their command. I know we’re not going to fix this overnight. Even if we manage to destroy the facilities in this area, Tradrych is a huge planet. We can’t predict what’s going to happen. I might be relocated to a different area, or I might be ordered back on the ships, or I might even be commanded to go back to Athion.”
Tears filled my eyes at the possibility of Diarus being the one to go. It had never occurred to me that someone would leave me, rather than me being the one to return to Earth.
I pushed myself to my knees and reached across the floor of the tunnel to the Athion. He was so different to Nad and Miko, with his quiet strength and his way of observing rather than rushing in headfirst like the Trads. He helped to balance us, and I couldn’t imagine how we’d be without him.
“There must be something we’d be able to do to keep you here,” I said, suddenly desperate.
He shook his head. “Honestly, I’m not sure. If the Custos demanded for me to work in a different area, I wouldn’t be able to say no. It would be treason against Athion.”
“Then what would happen?”
“I’d be cast out. I’d never be allowed to return.”
I dipped my chin and blinked back tears. I wouldn’t do that to him, ask him to give up his nationality for me. It was too much. Even if I said I would stay with the Trads, I couldn’t imagine being told I’d never be able to go back to Earth, even if I wanted to. If something changed on Tradrych which made him unwelcome here, he’d be left with no home.
Diarus took my face in his hands and pulled me in and placed a kiss to my lips. “Let’s take this one day at a time, Tara,” he said, breaking the kiss but keeping his palms against my cheeks. “We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few days, never mind looking ahead weeks, and months, and even years. I hate to see you upset about something that might not even happen.”
I sniffed and nodded and pressed my forehead to his. He cupped my face with a little more pressure, just enough to tell me he also felt and understood the emotions going through me. A hand touched my back, and I sensed Miko shifting closer to my left, and then Nad on my right. The three of them surrounded me, and I felt lifted by their presence, calmed and loved, and reassured by them.
A tail wrapped around my shoulders, another around my waist. Miko pressed a kiss to the back of my neck. Diarus’s hands left my cheek, his fingers stroking up my temple to push through my new short, dark hair. Nad kissed my shoulder, and a fresh stirring came alive inside me.
Sex joined us. It wasn’t only about pleasure—it was about reaffirming our co
nnection.
I knew our current situation was far from perfect. We were in a dirty, dimly lit tunnel, a drift of sand creeping closer and closer toward where we sat, the wind whipping the grains around the entrance, while it howled and shrieked like a living creature. But, for the moment, we forgot the threats that followed us, and only thought of each other.
Kisses and licks teased my skin, sending a rash of pleasurable goosebumps up the back of my neck. Diarus kissed my mouth again, and our tongues met. I was lifted up, though I didn’t know whose hands held me, and I sat across Diarus’s lap, my knees either side of his hips. Hands reached around me, cupping my breasts, and the now familiar tip of a tail slid down my lower back, beneath the waistband of my pants, and between my ass cheeks. I groaned and squirmed, the ridge of Diarus’s erection pressing against my pussy.
“I want you,” I told him. I glanced over my shoulder. “I want all of you.”
“We want you, too,” Nad growled.
Hands tugged at the waistband of my pants. I knew I could free myself from them in this position, so I lifted myself again, giving the males room to pull the clothing from my hips and whip off my boots.
The Athion rose to kneeling, and I reached for his pants, wanting to get to the hard line of his cock beneath. I yanked down the zipper and reached inside the gap to free him. His erection sprang out, hot and hard in my palm.
I squeezed him, and he sucked in air over his teeth.
All the while, Nad and Miko behind me hadn’t stopped touching me. Both used their tails to slide and probe between my folds.
I bent to Diarus’s cock. It jutted out toward me, the blue hue of his skin slightly darker than the rest of him. He fisted his fingers in my hair and exhaled a groan as I closed my mouth around him. In this position, my backside was pushed out, toward the two Trads behind me.
The two tails touching me down there drove me crazy. Miko’s tail teased my asshole, and Nad’s slid between the folds of my pussy. I groaned around Diarus’s erection, and he hardened further at the vibrations.
I did my best to focus on sucking Diarus while the tip of Miko’s tail pushed inside my ass and Nad’s breached my pussy. I sucked and lapped and bobbed, breathing hard through my nose, while my arousal tightened at my core.
The flexibility of the Trads’ tails was mind-blowing. The girth, together with the ridges of the scales, and the way the tip could twist and stroke and pump, was like nothing I’d ever felt before being brought to Tradrych. Something that would have horrified me only weeks ago now made me crazy with lust. If people on Earth could come up with a vibrator that worked in the same way, they’d become millionaires overnight.
I came hard with my mouth still wrapped over Diarus’s dick, my ass and pussy pulsing around the two tails working deep inside me. I shook and shuddered, my cries muffled against Diarus’s skin as pleasure washed through me with wave after wave.
Diarus pulled me up, and Nad and Miko slipped their tails from my body. “It’s my turn, Tara. I want to be inside you.”
I climbed back onto Diarus’s lap, dizzy and high from my climax. He hadn’t orgasmed while I’d been sucking him, even though I knew it must have been hard for him to hold back. But he had, and he’d held back because he’d wanted us to be fucking when he did come.
“I’ve been wanting to be inside you for so long,” Diarus said.
I stared into his amber eyes. The head of his cock nudged my swollen slit and spread me open. I stretched around him as I sank right down to the root.
He let out a groan of pleasure, and I pressed my forehead to his and then kissed him. He grabbed my ass and supported me while I rode him.
“Oh, Laird, Tara,” he gasped. “I can’t believe how incredible you feel. So hot, and wet, and gripping me so perfectly.”
This was the first time we’d had full sex, and, because of the lack of females in the Athion society, too, I figured it was probably the first time he’d ever had sex. He was so strong and tough, but that vulnerability made me love him even more.
“I can’t...” he groaned. “I don’t think...”
“It’s okay,” I encouraged him, moving faster. “I want you to. Come inside me.”
We kissed again, and he half lifted me, laying me down on my back on the tunnel floor without ever leaving my body. I was aware of Miko and Nad watching, too, and I loved it.
Diarus fucked me hard, his hips slamming to mine. He grasped my hands with his and pinned them over my head. I gave in to him fully, allowed the pleasure to build with every stroke.
“Oh God, yes. Just like that.”
He released one of my hands to reach between us and stroke my clit. He thumbed the small bundle of nerves with fast strokes, while his cock thrust in and out of me.
I was already insanely swollen and sensitive from my previous orgasm, and it didn’t take much. I unraveled, my back arching as I came. Diarus grew harder in response to my pussy milking him. His hips jerked, and then he groaned, low and guttural, holding himself deep, filling me.
“Laird, Tara. That was intense.”
He slipped from my body and pulled me to sitting. Our mouths met, gentle, teasing kisses, and his arm wrapped around my shoulders as we propped ourselves against the wall. I knew Nad and Miko hadn’t had the chance to climax, but this had been a special moment between Diarus and me, and it didn’t seem right to turn my attention to either of them right now.
I exchanged shy glances with them both, and they nodded and returned the smile, showing me they understood. They nestled in around me instead, and, with the wind still screeching outside of the tunnel, we settled in to wait.
Chapter Nine
Nadeusz
WE’D DOZED, WAITING for the storm to pass, propped up against the tunnel wall and each other’s shoulders.
When I blinked open my eyes, it was the silence that struck me first. The wind had finally died down, and the light was steady. A thick drift of sand had encroached upon the exit of the tunnel but luckily wasn’t enough to block it completely. The idea of digging through sand to make our way out didn’t appeal.
Tara stirred beside me.
Miko lifted his head from Diarus’s shoulder and then frowned at Diarus, who’d also woken.
“You look more comfortable than you feel,” Miko joked, rubbing the side of his head.
“At least you didn’t have a horn stabbing you in the ear every time you leaned the wrong way,” Diarus replied.
I grinned at them ribbing each other.
Tara yawned and stretched and pushed herself to her feet. She stood with her hands on her hips, peering toward the exit. “The storm is over.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “though the wind hasn’t fully died down. It’ll be a good idea to keep our faces covered as best we can, but the danger has gone.”
She nodded. “How long will it take us to cross the dunes?”
“A few hours. Maybe more, maybe less. It’ll depend on how much the storm has shifted the dunes. The sand will be loose, and it’ll be hard to walk on.”
Miko clambered to standing and reached down and tugged Diarus up with him. The Athion brushed himself down, and then shook the sand, dust, and grit from his hair.
“I wonder how the other teams are doing,” Tara mused. “Do you think the storm will have slowed their progress as much as ours?”
I twisted my lips, bringing the image of the plans to mind. “Aleksy’s team at the Unmade Territories will have been more sheltered and won’t have been hit by the sandstorms like us, and Geharz and the others at the Edge Forest will be the same. Even though the distances they had to travel were greater, they won’t have lost time like we have.”
Miko straightened his shoulders. “We’d better get moving then. We need for the devices to be detonated at the same times, or we’ll alert Borys to what’s happening. We can’t afford for him to send in the guards and stop one of our teams.”
I agreed. “Let’s go.”
I led the way and stepped out of the tunnel
exit and into the desert. A haze covered the sun. It was caused by the amount of sand and dust that had been churned by the storm, so the glow was a reddish light. It was hot, too, the heat trapped by the layer of dust.
We trudged across the dunes. For once, due to her lighter bodyweight, Tara was finding the going easier than us. Both Miko and I sank into the loose sand with every footstep, dislodging dunes and sending landslides of sand rolling down. Sweat beaded on my upper lip and trickled down my spine. My clothes clung to me, and I cast a glance to Tara, appreciating for a moment how the material of her top hugged her form, and the pants molded to the shapely curve of her ass. It was still strange seeing her with her blonde locks cut short and dyed black, but the change looked good on her. It was as though she’d thrown aside the captive, pregnant woman we’d first met and was now a strong, free warrior who was ready to break the system. I was insanely proud of her.
She must have sensed me looking as she cast me a glance and lifted an eyebrow.
“Anything you like?”
“Yep. All of it.”
She grinned and nudged me in the side. I wrapped my tail around her waist and gave her a squeeze before releasing her again. It was too hot to be touching, and I doubted she’d appreciate the extra weight.
We kept the necklines of our shirts pulled up over our mouths and noses, keeping the worst of the dust and sand out of our lungs. We walked with hands capped over narrowed eyes. Minutes turned to hours, and we pushed on, only stopping to take sips of water and wipe the sweat from our foreheads. The heat of the sun showed no signs of waning.
“What’s that?” Tara asked, drawing to a halt beside me and pointing in the direction we were heading.
I frowned into the distance. At first, I couldn’t see what Tara was talking about—the horizon vanished, still masked by the haze that had appeared since the storm. But then I saw it, and my stomach dropped.
“Nadeusz?” Miko said, worry in his tone.
Diarus took a step back. “Is that what I think it is?”
“What is it?” Tara looked between us all. “What do you think it is?”
The Tradrych Strain- The Complete Series Page 30