From the Depths

by S. J. Sanders

  Yael’s breath rushed against her ear. “If you insist.”

  There was no foreplay, or perhaps they were tired of too much of it. He sheathed himself in one thrust, and the force of it nearly took the air out of her lungs. Her toes curled involuntarily, and his vise grip shifted to her outer thighs to hoist them higher onto his hips.

  There was no way he was all the way inside of her, and judging by his shallow thrusts, she wasn’t the only one who had noticed the mismatch in biology. That didn’t stop him from hitting just the right spot, and Natlea gasped when he withdrew and snapped forward again. She clenched around him and dug her heels into his flanks when she felt a pulsing ripple begin at the base of his shaft and radiate upward.

  He had barely begun, and she was already close to panting for him to continue. That he hadn’t even bothered to remove his pants was lost on her until she felt the rough fabric against her buttocks, and—for reasons she would more than likely look at later under the influence of a large bottle of alcohol—that knowledge inflamed her even more.

  Natlea would deny for all eternity that her hips rose to meet his as their pace increased. She struggled to ignore the sensations coursing through her at first, intent on not giving in while he continued his measured thrusts, his expression never changing. They were in a battle of wills she had won so far.

  Her temporary victory was shattered when he lowered her hips and leaned over her, his mass blocking out much of the light above. She expected a snide remark, a reminder that despite her efforts, she had still ended up beneath him in the end. When the greedy pull of his mouth enveloped her breast, her expectations—as well as her inhibitions—flew out of the window.

  His hand kneaded her other breast, the tips of his claws biting into her skin. When he stopped moving, Natlea chose to ignore the change in pace, silently imploring him with each roll of her hips.

  He lifted his head, and she knew he was preparing to speak, but she was not interested in whatever he had to say. Not now. She feverishly reached up to hold his shoulders for leverage. Things fell apart when they tried to use words, and this was far easier.

  She threw her head back and allowed her body to find its own rhythm. She couldn’t take him in all of the way, but she didn’t need to. She was already spiraling, and she just needed a little more.

  Her mind glazed over, the combination of adrenaline, anger, and pleasure becoming a confusing maelstrom that eventually carried her over the edge. She came with a strangled groan, her nails digging into the meat of his forearms.

  The sound of flesh meeting flesh filled her ears and Yael’s attempts at appearing detached crumbled when he pressed his lips to hers. Her gasp of shock turned into a needy moan when their tongues met. Like swallowing tears, his saliva was saline, and his thrusts became erratic and halting before he stilled, burying himself as deeply within her as possible and spilling his seed into her womb.

  As their harsh breaths filled the room, the fire within her began to cool, and not a moment too soon. As if stung, he shot up, and even without pupils, she could tell he too couldn’t believe what they had just done. His eyes rapidly searched her face before he slowly withdrew, the movement punctuated by a muttered curse that shot straight to her core.

  He remained balanced on one arm as he tucked himself back into his pants, as a matter of convenience or to keep her from fleeing she wasn’t sure, but Natlea had no intention of fleeing anywhere. He avoided her gaze for a few moments, his eyes trailing up her body and leaving goosebumps in their wake.

  When they finally regarded each other again, a frown tugged at the corner of his lips.

  “Now you’ve gotten what you wanted,” she said, although she also needed a moment to gather herself after almost a year of denial. His expression changed from mild displeasure to cold appraisal. When she had become able to sense such mood shifts in a Dyriixian, she would never know, but as he leaned down toward her again, she almost wished to disappear into the mattress.

  She shrank back but had nowhere to go caged in between his arms.

  “Hardly,” Yael replied, “but it doesn’t matter.” He rose, and despite finding his body cool when they touched, there was a distinct lack of warmth as he pulled away. Natlea scrambled back, pulling the blanket back over her body. “We’re returning to my clan to dissolve our joining.”

  For a few seconds, she could only stare at him, as though her brain were taking far too long to figure out the meaning of the words as they left his mouth. He had been chasing her for over a year. Finding every hiding place she could think of on this side of the galaxy and some she hadn’t. At one temporary waypoint, she’d arrived to discover a filmplast of her visage at the main port’s entrance.

  As was his right as her betrothed. As would be her right had he been the one shimmying out of exhaust chutes and hitchhiking to whichever space port would have captains willing to turn a blind eye to a runaway augment.

  “Why?” she asked, and the question seemed to have come from someplace else besides her own brain, because she should have been ecstatic.

  Yael scoffed. “Why not? I’m giving you what you want. I’m tired of chasing you.”

  She gritted her teeth. “You wouldn’t have had to chase me if you hadn’t decided to bridenap me without my permission.”

  His nostrils flared. “You were receptive enough to my advances when we first met.”

  “I didn’t know what was happening!” Natlea shrieked, and her mind jumped back to the fateful night they had first met. A new mining shaft had just completed construction, and the higher ups decided to celebrate by taking the entire crew out for a meal. What started out as purely professional morphed into something else entirely as the night wore on and the booze continued to flow.

  Brandy, whiskey, Gerum… if it had a proof, it had a purpose.

  She had been happy. Finally promoted to lead reactor operator, she was one of the few augments not relegated to scrounging for scrappers. Natlea was on top of the world. Her crew were a diverse, rowdy, bunch of humans and Dyriixians joined by their quest for good work and better pay. It was her first multi-species assignment. How the hell was she supposed to know what “accepting a pearl” meant?

  The warm ocean air smelled like seaweed, wet wood, and salt spray when he approached her in the water. Two sheets to the wind and surrounded by friends, their parties easily converged. His, a crew consisting primarily of his kind, and her own motley team. They swam, laughed, and joked. She couldn’t even remember what they discussed, but she could remember those large, black eyes, like the void between stars, and she was caught.

  Banter followed introductions, and she had allowed him to touch her, take small liberties with the tips of his claws beneath the water before her crewmates pulled her away to retire for the evening. What little she saw of him after that were run-ins around port. He seemed friendly enough, jovial if not a little secretive, never divulging much about his profession, but ever boastful about his prospects, and with a confident smile few females would be able to resist.

  He vanished after she accepted the pearl. It was a trifle. A tiny thing she he must have found during one of his dives. She did not know much about Dyriixians, but their species were known as ravenous treasure hunters. The next time she saw him, she was tumbling out of a stasis pool. The ululations of Dyriixian females ricocheted off of the smooth sandstone walls, and he stood before her, triumphant and proud.

  Her situation was explained to her in halting standard as she was bathed. Oils were poured over her head. Incense was waved around her naked frame. They were honored she had accepted the pearl. She was lucky to have been kidnapped in such a grand fashion. She remembered the anger and terror that knotted in her throat as foreign hands redressed her.

  It was those emotions that caused her to run away the first time. The second time, she loathed the way her body reacted when he’d pressed her against a dark station wall. By the third, it was pure spite.

  “The chieftains have not ruled in your favor
,” he growled. “You agreed to abide by the mandates of the Clans of Dyriix when you accepted employment on our planet.”

  “Is that how you hoped to trap a partner, Yael?” Natlea snapped in response. “Through a technicality? Did you ever stop to think about what I want? I don’t want this or you!”

  She was a basket of words today, and like chaff they fluttered further and quicker than she could control them. She did not want him, and she reminded herself of that when her thighs involuntarily squeezed together, their combined essence sticky between them.

  He tensed, and his mouth fell open for a few moments before he replied, his voice low, “Then this arrangement will work best for everyone.” He turned his back to her and walked to the door. “Access code 394-Y.”

  “Voice command override activated.”

  Her head snapped up. So, they were on a ship.

  “We’re leaving soon,” he said, his back still to her. “You’ll be expected to earn your keep.”

  The door slid shut behind him, and for a moment, Natlea had to gather herself and take stock of her situation. For all intents and purposes, she was a free woman again. With the binding dissolved, she would be able to return to her old life. Her lips twisted into a sneer. Or what was left of it. The codes of the clans were viewed as eternally binding. Anaxas was a Dyriixian corporation, and by the time word reached the higher ups that she had fled a betrothal, she had been out on her ass faster than she could blink.

  She clenched her fists, and tears threatened to brim over to accompany a dam of emotion ready to burst.

  All of this, just for the third time to be the charm.

  She rose from the bed on shaky legs and grimaced when his seed slipped out of her, a rapidly cooling reminder of their union.

  The room was barely furnished, with the bed being the only other piece of furniture besides a table under a comm panel. She walked to the door. “Open.”

  Nothing. Not that she expected anything, and it was a waste of time considering she had heard him issue the override. The door would only open for him, and a scan of the room showed no possible exits save a covered ventilation shaft in the ceiling. She rummaged through the pile of clothing on the floor and pulled on the first shirt she could find.

  That it was the one he had recently removed didn’t elude her. It still smelled like him, a combination of the sea and grease that overpowered the stale scent of recycled air. Finding the bathroom was easy enough, it being behind the only other door in the room. It made sense to make use of the available facilities. She didn’t want to appear before the clan’s elders smelling like the back of a Rykma after all.

  By the time Natlea made it back to the bed, her limbs were heavy and relaxed from a long, hot shower, and she was ready to allow exhaustion to carry her away. She faced the door, unsure of whether Yael had any intention of returning. If he did, she would be ready for him.

  She was awakened by a gentle shake and the same pair of large, almond eyes that seemed to haunt her dreams. When she opened her eyes to meet Yael’s, it was as though nothing had changed from one state to the next.

  Natlea was unaware of the time or their current position, but she was keenly aware of his large hand wrapped around her shoulder, the tips of his claws easily felt through the shirt’s material. Her eyes drifted back to his face, and she frowned. She could never really read him. Even in these silent moments when they were alone, he seemed locked off to her, a puzzle that refused to be cracked no matter how hard she tried.

  “You’ll be shadowing Alixyn in engineering until we arrive on Dyriix III.”

  “Engineering?” Natlea asked, still groggy from sleep.

  Yael withdrew his hand and crossed his arms. “Did you think I was going to have you scrubbing floors?”

  She winced and sat up, rubbing the knot of tension out of her shoulders. She’d had no idea what he intended to have her do, but she had imagined it would be something humiliating. Being placed in engineering was dangerously close to acknowledging that she was more than just an acquisition.

  He motioned toward the single table where a pile of clothes and a small, covered tray sat waiting. “You’ll want to eat and get dressed.”

  Now that he mentioned it, she was starving. She made quick work of the few slices of meat and bread on the plate and downed another cup of the sticky sweet liquid she’d been served before. “What is this?” She asked, swirling the last remnants of the beverage at the bottom.

  “Kyrisk,” he replied, retaking his spot next to the door.

  His answer wasn’t helpful, but she had a feeling he wasn’t in the mood to indulge much of her curiosity. She redressed quickly, doing her best to ignore the fact that he made no move to turn his back while she disrobed.

  There was a tense silence as he led her out of the living quarters and into the hall. The bright lights matched those of the room she’d just left, and the same aroma of recycled air at least made the environment consistent. Consistency usually calmed her nerves, but there was nothing normal about this situation. Natlea was still uncomfortable, and it was for that reason that she thought to ask the question that kept popping to the forefront of her mind.

  “Why are you ending this now?”

  For a few seconds, Yael didn’t respond, and she wondered if he was going to leave her question hanging in the air between them, a final mystery ending to a saga that had continued without resolution for more than a year.

  “You have made your feelings plain through your words and actions,” he finally said, motioning for her to turn down an upcoming hall.

  “I did before, as well,” Natlea replied, weaving out of the way of a crewmate headed in the opposite direction. “That didn’t stop you.”

  Yael exhaled in exasperation. “There is no more sport in this, and I have little desire for a reticent bride.”

  “Sport?” she yelled, stepping in front of him to stop his progress. Her raised voice caused a few passers-by to turn in bewilderment. She worried, for a second, that they would intervene, but Yael gave them a brusque nod. The two Dyriixians exchanged glances before scurrying down the hall as fast as their feet could carry them.

  She was more than ready when he turned back to her. “You completely usurped my life. Kidnapped me. Chased me halfway across the galaxy , and you think this was all sport?”

  He growled low in his chest, and the fact that she could hear it was enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. There were other reactions occurring due to the sound, but she was dead set on ignoring those. Natlea took a step back, but Yael’s hand closed around her arm, pulling her closer to him.

  “Is that what upset you after Rimonia?” His voice was a low purr and conjured a swirl of memories that set her blood simmering. “From what I recall, you were practically grinding that hot, little snatch against my leg when I cornered you.”

  Natlea’s mouth fell open, and before she could stop herself, a harsh sting shot through her hand as it connected with the chiseled plane of his cheek. Were her russet skin capable of portraying a furious blush, she would sure as shit be glowing red right about now. Of course, he zeroed in immediately on the very incident that hastened her last escape attempt.

  Rimonia was a shit planet with barely two trading posts to its name, but he had still managed to find her, somehow. He was undoubtedly furious, but that anger morphed into something else entirely when their bodies connected, and she was just as quick to forget her reasoning for fleeing in the first place when the rush of capture turned into that.

  He had been the one to stop them. To complete their joining in a dank station hallway, shrouded only in the shadows of broken lights wasn’t how he wanted to claim what he had won.

  That fact only added insult to injury.

  At a loss for words, she could say nothing when he released her arm and stepped around her. “The crew is expecting you. Get moving.”

  She whipped around, intent on giving him her best death glare only to be met with his retreating
back. He was intent on maintaining the upper hand, although she failed to see what he was so upset about. To end this now meant he could have ended this at any time. She followed behind him, intent on not giving him the satisfaction of knowing he had won their latest round.

  That her desire for him conflicted with the circumstances of their union was what kept her running in the first place. She was a modern woman. She was educated, strong, a testament to the prowess and capability of augmented humans. The last thing she needed, or wanted, in life was a big lug who thought he could beat her over the head with a club and drag her back to his cave. Ship. Whatever.

  They passed through a pair of doors, and she quickly realized it was the ship’s bridge. The Viridium engine’s dull hum was familiar enough to her from her own travels, and although the circumstances of her presence may not have been ideal, she couldn’t help the thrill of excitement that rushed through her at getting to be in the seat of operations.

  No one’s focus was broken from their respective tasks until Yael drew their attention. “We’re heading out. Begin preparations to surface.”

  Natlea was confused for a moment until the viewscreen was activated and the ocean floor surrounding them came into view. Dyriixian ships were the only ones capable of traversing both sea and space. To be onboard such a vessel spoke to the competency of the crew. Not just any piloting riffraff could keep a Dyriixian vessel running.

  A male similar in stature to Yael approached them, a small smile on his lips. “Glad you could make it, Captain,” he said. “We were beginning to think you’d abandoned us.”

  “I’m sure you have better things to do than gossip about my love life, Graesen.”

  The one known as Graesen raised his hands in the universal sign of surrender. “We’re cleared to surface and leave the planet’s orbit whenever you’re ready.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me you are the captain of a ship?” Natlea murmured, once the other male was out of earshot.