“Let it go, Vivien,” he whispered into her ear.
He trailed his lips, his wet tongue down her neck. She shivered in response. She tilted her hips, but release remained elusive.
“Let what go?” she whispered.
“All of that muck you’re holding onto. You have to respect the choices of others. Not hold it against them,” he said.
She ached her back as he slid his shaft backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, gasping with the nearly-there height she was looking for. “I’m not holding it against them.”
“Yes. You are. And that’s not fair. To them.”
He kissed her long and deep, making love with her mouth the way she wanted with the rest of his body. She wrapped her arms around him. Her legs around him. Opened that secret part of herself that was slick with need. Pressure. Building pressure with nowhere to release. She clawed his back, groaning as need bordered on pain.
She was holding back? She’d opened herself to him. Her body was ready and waiting to be filled. By the tension ramping through his body, she knew he had to be on edge too.
She panted. She wanted to touch herself to tip over the edge, but his body was in the way, and he wouldn’t budge. If she didn’t find release soon, she was going to… to… she didn’t know what. She tossed her head from side to side. Anything to find release.
“How!?” she screamed.
“Imagine if it was your team that was being tortured, and not you...”
The thought was too horrible to imagine, but the image of them, broken, bleeding and suffering was thrust into her mind. She sobbed. She knew what it was like to be that.
She’d been that.
“Exactly, Vivien. Wouldn’t you do anything in your power to stop their torture...even if it meant your sacrificed your life for theirs?”
Her breath caught in her throat, eyes flying to his in a moment that could have been forever. She knew the answer before she found the word. Knew it in her soul in such a profound and deep manner, it couldn’t be wrong.
Yes. Yes. Yes. She’d sacrifice her life in a heartbeat. Of course she would. They were family. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for family.
“Then what makes you think they should have done anything different for you?”
Enormity of meaning broke that living, dark, seething thing inside her. “Because...”
“Because why, Vivien?” Striker snarled, thrusting long and hard, grinding against her, building pressure. Pressure. Pressure. “Tell me, Vivien. Why should they not have sacrificed for you?”
She didn’t want to tell him. Too hard. Too… painful. But that building pressure…she’d do anything to find release. “Because I’m not worth it, okay?” She glared at him, heat singeing her cheeks, rage burning an inferno inside.
He slid inside her to the hilt. She was so wet, there was no resistance. She gasped with the gratifying invasion, welcoming him inside her. He planted himself in her and stilled. Only when she came back to herself and sought his gaze did he withdraw and return, “You are worth it, Vivien. Say it.”
She shuddered, as though her entire body fought those words. “I can’t.”
“Look at me.” She couldn’t look away as he slowly withdrew and returned, “Feel how much you’re worth it, Vivien. Feel me inside you, showing you just how damn much you’re worth it. Say it, Vivien. Tell me how much you’re worth it.”
She could only shake her head, the words sticking right where her soul should be. Gasping little sounds were choked from her throat when she tried. “No,” she gasped.
He withdrew and slammed back hard enough to jostle her body with his thrust. “You’re worth it, Vivien. Know this. Feel me.” He thrust again. Again. Again. “Feel me. Let me show you. Worth it, Vivien. I see you, Vivien. I see you. Worth it.”
Exquisite pressure built, more than pain now, straining against a barrier she couldn’t touch or feel. He slid in and out, his skin slick with perspiration, his breath shaking as he moved. There was a dam inside, the walls too thick to break. He had to stop; otherwise, she was going to snap in half with the force.
The pressure was too intense. Her team. She missed her friends. The only family she had. Her father was only a biological donor. Why didn’t he die? Why didn’t she die? Why was she left with the burden of pain and loneliness? What had she done to deserve that?
“You’re wrong, Vivien. Looking at it so wrong.” Long, slim fingers threaded into her hair on either side of her face. Forced her eyes open. She wrapped her hands around his wrists, feeling the rawness of his gaze punch right through her. “Worth it. Say it.”
Each word was punctuated with a clenched jaw and demanding thrust. A drip of perspiration ran down his hairline. He was so intense. So focused. And she was the sole object of his attention.
Worth it. Say it. Worth it. Say it.
Something cracked inside. It wasn’t much, but enough to see the truth and honesty in those words. Not just the words, but the conviction behind them. He watched her like she was something to be cherished. Something precious.
She fleetingly wondered what she’d done to deserve such consideration from a man like Striker, but then the crack split like an open wound and revealed the meaty, bloody, naked insides. Opened bare without protection.
She understood.
Clarity obliterated the rest of the wall. An internal wave crested.
Worth it. Say it.
“I’m… I’m… I... am...I am worth it!”
A deep, ingrained sorrow she couldn’t hold back rose from her darkest depths, crashing through her body, obliterating the suffocating guilt that stained her heart. Her lungs sucked a great gulp of air, and when she sobbed out loud, all the pent up grief, despair, anguish pain, suffering and old, outdated mental scripts were released with it.
Her body peaked. Her mind opened. Striker buried himself inside her and bowed backward. The damn broke. She flew up and up and up as glorious golden, purifying waves gushed all around and through her. As she peaked, Striker tipped his head back and roared, seized in his own release.
She was helpless to do anything but cling to Striker as she weathered the internal tempest, all the time wondering how the hell one man – one only Hexonian man – had changed her forever.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I’m not even going to ask what you two were doing.”
Vivien floated to awareness, surprised she was still encased in Striker’s arms on the cot in the middle of a room of quietly crying human women. That wasn’t the first thing she noticed, however.
The first thing was the moment Striker opened his eyes and his gaze immediately sought hers. She raised her palm to his cheek, stroking his skin with the pad of her thumb.
This was the man who had seen every part of her. Her deepest secrets. Her deepest fears. The deepest way she thought about herself and then accepted all of them.
He cupped her hand, and the most brilliant smile lit his face. Gone was the cocky alien she’d first laid eyes on. Here was the raw, unfiltered man underneath.
She liked what she saw.
She like the way she felt even better. Lighter than she had in, well – ever.
There was just one question in her lips.
“My Lady.”
She startled, looking about. She’d forgotten all about the tree creature. Then she noticed a thin vine trailed loosely around her wrist. She looked at it blankly.
“Vivien, meet the Callisteans.” Striker smiled.
She blinked. And again. The tree was still there. It moved into what could only be a very graceful bow. “My Lady.”
She didn’t hear his voice out loud, but instead it came from inside her mind. She gaped at it, a hand held loosely to her ear.
“That’s the way they communicate. They have to touch, and they speak inside your mind,” Striker said.
“They?”
Striker gestured to the room with a sweep of his hand. “The Callisteans.”
She sat a little straighte
r, eyes widening as she gazed about the room. “Why are they all bowing? Is it a custom?”
The Callistean rose to its height. “You are our Saviour, Lady. We bow with respect.”
This was getting more and more bizarre by the second. She glanced at Striker, then back to the tree – errr, the Callistean. “Can you tell me how I’m your saviour?”
“It seems not just the Callistean saviour, but the hope of the universe,” Striker said.
“You’ve got the wrong woman,” she said flatly. “I’m the hope of no one.”
“On the contrary, Lady. We wouldn’t be here if we had ‘the wrong woman’,” the Callistean spoke into her mind. It was strange, but she felt as though many voices spoke as one.
“They do,” Striker said, but she hadn’t seen his mouth move.
His mouth curved into a smile, and he held up a vine-wrapped wrist. “As long as we touch, we’re connected.”
She looked up at Striker helplessly. “Like an electricity grid?”
His smile widened into devastating. Her heart gave a little flutter. “Exactly. A natural one.”
She inwardly groaned. She was just about ready to get off this roller coaster, but she suspected it wasn’t ready to have her off yet. His arms tightened, and she curved her body against his, accepting his strength.
“You will not have realized it, but you’ve saved us all.” He leaned and whispered in her ear, “Me too.”
Her breath hitched. The flutter in her heart felt like angels' wings brushing with a gentle touch. She placed a hand to her forehead, shaking her head, not believing for second she had done anything of the sort.
“All I know is that I was trapped in a dark place, caught in a light I couldn’t get out of. All around was a thick darkness. There was nothing else there.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t know what it was. I just know it was evil.”
“There was another entity there. You felt it because you are connected. All humans are, but you in particular are strong,” the Callistean said.
She’d just traded one potential catastrophe for another. Another tree creature – Callistean, she mentally corrected – approached. “You have a deeper connection. It is the human ability to connect to a less dense reality.”
“Less dense reality? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Vivien said. This conversation was a long, long way out of her comfort zone, plus they could be speaking another language for all she understood.
“Your body is not just flesh and blood, but also a grid work of light and energy that electromagnetically links your multidimensional self to an infinite universe. It is this connection the Reptiles and that which controls them seeks to exploit. As of now, as the entity that controlled them has been cut off from its influence, they seek you for guidance,” the Callistean said.
Vivien held her hand in a stop gesture. “As I said, you might have been saying words, but they have no meaning.”
“Look at the Reptiles, Vivien,” Striker said.
She peered past his shoulder to the group of Reptiles. She worked a shiver from her spine when fifty sets of black, beady eyes locked on her. Waiting. For her.
“Test them, Earthian. They await your order,” the Callistean voices prompted.
“It wasn’t my imagination. I did control them.” She hadn’t been completely sure. She’d just wished for the Reptiles to unstrap the women, but – she shook her head mentally. This was ridiculous. She looked at the leaf-lined face of the Callistean, to Arix’s, and finally to Striker. She didn’t find any hidden joke. Just serious belief. She peered back to the Reptiles. “How?”
“Your multidimensional self consists of thought energy,” the Callistean said.
Riiigghhhtt. That made no sense at all. How the hell was she going to get them to move? Or do anything? She might as well have them tap dancing for all she knew this would work. The silly thought popped into her head, and she imagined the whole group dancing on their toes.
Movement rippled through the group. Legs and feet kicked awkwardly, as much as their joints allowed. Tapping sounded as the boots connected with the floor. She watched, almost hypnotized by their awkwardness. Several gasps bounced through the women as the Reptiles attracted the attention of everyone in the room.
“What are they doing?” someone asked.
“I think… I think they’re… tap dancing,” another woman answered, disbelief lacing her voice.
It seemed as though they were, but what if it was just a fluke? Just because she thought something and they did it, didn’t mean they acted on her thought alone – did it? With a fascination she didn’t dare believe, she imagined them holding their arms overhead and twirling. One by one, they lifted their stunted, clawed arms and spun in loping circles. She didn’t even feel her mouth fall open.
A pregnant silence held the room when someone smothered a coughed laugh. The sound of twittering and whispering engaged the room.
“But they… wanted to hurt us,” someone said; a diminutive woman with wild, knotted white-blonde hair and wide blue eyes.
“But not now,” someone else answered.
“Why?” the blonde asked.
Vivien moved from Striker's hold, turning to the women. “This is going to sound unbelievable...”
“Just as unbelievable as waking up to find yourself on another planet with giant lizards strapping us to a table and then being rescued by Star Wars?” a brunette at the back of the room asked.
Vivien saw the confusion, but also the tough resolve in the deep brown eyes of the young Thai girl perched on the side of her cot. She looked about the entire room, really taking in the woman who had been stolen, just like her. They were all crumpled, mussed, round-shouldered, bruised and dishevelled.
Each had the same hollow, exhausted look in their eyes that was more than likely mirrored in hers, but there was also steady resolution and the beginnings of acceptance. They’d possibly only just woken to find themselves in this situation. She’d had days. Maybe she’d just need to start to accept it as well.
“I won’t beat around the bush. I think...” She swallowed hard. “I think I can control them by… by thought.”
She winced, glanced at blank faces, waiting for someone to speak. Anyone. It was the blonde. “What else can you make them do?”
She blinked several times. That, she didn’t expect. Laughter. Ridicule. But not this. She drew in a deep breath. “What do you suggest?”
“Get them to touch their toes,” the Thai girl said.
Vivien imagined the Reptiles doing just that. One by one, they stopped twirling and bent to scrap the tops of their boots with their claws.
“Holy shit,” the blonde muttered.
Vivien ran shaking fingers through her hair. “Just what I was thinking.”
“Line 'em up against a wall, and let’s show ‘em exactly what should happen to them,” a red-headed woman with freckled skin spoke, hurt and anger colouring her voice.
Vivien considered it. The Reptiles certainly deserved punishment, and everyone deserved retribution. An urge; the intangible pressure of a thought brushed around her; an awareness of more that wasn’t hers, totally foreign and filled with cold malice. Shuddering, she forced it away. The emotion was foreign, unlike any she’d felt before, but very clear. It wanted control. There was a deeper reason for the Reptiles’ actions. She made the Reptiles stop bending to touch toes they’d never reach, to stand once again in a neutral position.
“They are mind-enslaved to you, Vivien. Just as they mind-enslave others,” the Callistean said.
She shuddered, thinking of the awful implications. She didn’t want to be a master of anyone. Not the same could be said for that entity that had captured her body and mind. “Until we get the answers we need, they’ll help us,” Vivien said. At least she could use her position for good. They were going to right their wrong and rebuild an entire planet.
A murmur of discontent went through the group. “They are not a threat anymore, I guarantee
that. But they didn’t act on their own. Yes, they’re guilty, but only partly. There’s something bigger – more evil – at play here.”
After a moment of pause, the blonde spoke. “I believe her. We don’t know what’s going on, and she looks like she’s in a better position to give us answers. I say we see how things play out.”
“As long as we can go home,” the Thai girl sighed.
A heavy feeling settled in Vivien’s chest. That was one of the questions she had no answer for. She turned to Striker, caught the small shake of his head. The heavy feeling plummeted into her gut. Striker caught her hand in his, vines wound around their wrists.
“We don’t know if your Starship we can get back. When the Reptiles opened the inter-dimensional door, the wormhole shut down,” the Callistean said.
“What?” She didn’t think her nerves could take any more.
“What does that mean?” a women asked.
“It means that we’re stranded. For the time being,” Striker said.
“How far are we away from Earth?” Vivien asked.
“We are in a galaxy not accessible without travel through a wormhole,” Striker said.
“How far is that?” a woman asked.
Striker sighed, “Two hundred light years.”
Gasps of horror went through the women, Vivien included. She opened her mouth. Closed it again. So stunned she had no words.
“We will try and help you find a way back,” the Callistean said.
“They have the technology to help,” Striker said. He glanced at his crew. “There’s a lot we need to discuss, but there is a time and place for everything, and these woman are in need of medical help. My crew will aid them, but they need to remain calm.”
He was right. They needed calm. Hell, she needed calm. And time to process everything. She felt as though she tilted on a precipice. She wanted so badly that this was the end, but the truth was, she knew deep down it had barely begun.
She let out a long sigh. She was so drained. There was barely anything left to give, let alone the answers to questions that were far too hard to deal with.
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