by Isoellen
The hungries acted as their clean-up crew. Treating their creations like inanimate objects, the Creators rarely treated any of them like individuals. Giving the carrion-eating beings one connected mind made them easier to control. Like the Orki, they were never meant to be able to reproduce.
But they did reproduce. They used a queen, she has consorts, she lays eggs. It disgusted Annabelle to even think it. To say the words out loud was to admit the stomach-turning pictures in her head she could not escape.
Every day in the blue room Eid explained more. "The hungries ability to reproduce is the result of an element on this planet. I have been studying it in hopes of understanding more. I have not yet been able to isolate it, but it is the same kind of element that helps you reproduce. Every human born here is affected by the planet's influences on her reproductive system—even the women in the steel cities. Living away from industry, pollution, and city infrastructure such as roads and building foundations increases the potential of a female to be a progenitor. Many Dorsus species self-create serums to speed and adjust the process. It is a very unique and beautiful phenomenon."
Annabelle was not sure if she agreed with Eid's conclusions. The complicated science used vocabulary and concepts far beyond her humble life education. Every statement the computer AI made sparked more questions.
The creatures were drawn and stimulated by death. But a battle had taken place, and there were many dead in Righteous Way and other towns where the raiders had scouted. Without modern means to incinerate the bodies, as done in the steel cities, the corpses drew the hungry pupae. Lodged in those corpses were the imprint of their memories, which somehow the pupae absorbed.
Connected as a hive mind, everything the pupae knew, the hunters also knew, and everything the hunters knew the queen knew as well. And because Annabell had resisted opening her mouth, they could not flush the transformation toxins immediately following the ambush; it took only one cut.
“A queen has her consorts. What I think happened is that with the death of their queen, activated by the heat of the two new Orki redress mates, and the presence of two other females, I think the hunters transformed themselves into consorts. The one who managed to cut you would have been your first consort. It was a small cut on your ankle. Just above the line of your boot. Your tightly laced boots hid the swelling that continued after Doku-ni applied Agent-five."
"Agent-five?" Annabell asked, not understanding. She knew now that Eid was not a real person but a very smart machine. The concept was not too difficult to grasp. She had used the school's computer interface more than any of the other students, asking it countless questions about geology, history, and the ecology of the world she lived on. She had to ask it a direct question in a complete sentence, and it would answer it as best it could. More than once, Annabell asked a question that it could not answer. Eid had no such limitations.
But she often made no sense.
"Agent-five is a healing salve for humans. It is extremely effective for all wounds. There is a simpler version of it in all the Peace River villages. The Orki trade it."
"The lavender healing ointment."
"Yes, that is a mild version.”
*
It felt like weeks of recovery, but finally, they left the blue room and Eid's presence after being declared healthy and whole. Doku-ni didn't want her to walk on her own, stand on her own, do anything on her own.
"I am well."
"Anna leave Doku-ni," he told her with a grim expression. "Disobey, leave Zerzer, see Ri's redress, risk self, risk life."
Doku-ni had said nothing of this while Annabell was in the blue room, but his words made it clear he had not forgotten she neglected to follow directions.
Annabell hadn't forgotten either. It had all been for nothing. "I risked my life and failed. But I had to try. You don't understand, how can you? Strong and made for war, you have never known indecision. Never known fear. Never faced an enemy that could kill you and everyone around you no matter which direction you turned.”
He stopped her where she stood, doing that thing, taking her over, and taking control with a single hand at her throat—tipping her chin back-boring into her soul. "Doku-ni's Anna talks like a fool. It is she who does not understand. There is One redress. One only. One treasure. One blessing. One relief from the empty, from pain that is never satisfied, for ache. Does Anna understand ache?"
His voice deepened, raw and angry in his correction. He spoke the mix of Orkis and common slowly. Every word pounding at her. There were things the Orkis had no word for, so he filled them in with common, and speaking to them harsh and clear. "There is only one Anna. Only one Anna Doku-ni walk from. Only one Anna Doku-ni failed twice. Doku-ni died in the battle to claim her. Shamed his redress, shamed himself, because he would not wait to ease the scar of living. Doku-ni failed, gave a bad offering to sons of men he knew were not men of honor. And men of honor, peace breakers, keep her. Doko-ni failed his redress."
"No. You did not fail."
With a slight shift of his hand, his thumb covered her lips. Silencing her. "Anna is short-lived child. Anna know nothing. Doku-ni die. Die in shame. No honor. No life. No living. Doku-ni die until it is time to hunt and die again after the hunt. Sons of men break Peace Law and Doku-ni hunt with Ri to find his Anna.
"You died? And your silence? Your loss of honor, your shame—that piece of metal in your throat that silenced you. I never asked that of you, never would have. I imagined you were doing your Orki things, that you had found your peace, found another, found something better than woe. I imagined you on all the adventures and discoveries in the Orki lands."
"Doku-ni goes hunting with the Ri. Hoping. Hoping to find his Anna. Hoping she lives. We hunt the smell of shit and death from the cities to the Peace Lands–too late. Many dead. Grasping sons of men kill many for the hungries pupae to feast on. Anna live. Ri finds redress, Orki find succor. Luth-ni finds redress. Doku-ni takes his redress war bride, mounts her. Mounts his Anna. Takes his Anna." He pulled her into him, looked down into her eyes with every furious word.
Still without clothes, wearing nothing but the leather slippers he gave her, the hot tips of her nipples pressed into the heat of his lower chest. She felt the rise of his shaft against her belly, lifting the leathers of his loin covering.
With her lips pinned closed, she couldn't say a word as he did that thing, that dangerous, erotic thing. She trembled in anticipation, a trill of needy want down her spine. Clasping her throat with his fingers to press just so against a single vein. His grip tightened until he held her air. Her life and her desire. The crazed, insane pulse of her molten want beating in the palm of his hand. Her mouth gaping like a fish, hands twitching, reaching for his waist, clawing at him, he held her just like that until her eyes watered, until her heart screamed, until her core leaked down her thighs with his ownership.
With the barest movement, he gave her air and life back.
Annabell was his. Completely his.
She gasped, inhaling, her core clenching, the nub between her legs enlarged and tumescent with want. She could come. One twitch of his fingers. One word of command. One tiny signal on his part while standing in the quiet hallway with his hand on her throat.
She could come.
He shook his head back and forth—a deliberate negative.
Annabell whimpered, "Please."
"No."
The sob of surrender caught in her throat, held there. What was happening to her? What had happened? Why did she like this? Why did she like coming up against the hard of his unrelenting will and being trapped there like a mouse. Why did it inflame her?
She didn't know. Couldn't answer. And what did it matter? It was between them and who they were together. She didn't understand herself, but she liked it. Liked this complete mastery and losing herself in it. This possession was true. It spiraled through her, took her over, made her weak, took her to a place where she was not alone and where she didn't have to be the strong one taking c
are of everything.
She could trust him.
As if he saw her come to that moment of realization, he said, "Doku-ni takes his Anna and gives her his voice. His words. His honor. And his Anna redress says she sees him. What did she see?"
He waited for her answer. Annabell struggled for it, not knowing what he wanted.
"What did she see?" he pressed, his voice harsh rocky gravel, on the edge of that growl. On the edge of the precipice that would make her come.
"That morning, you told me of the hungries. You told me there were many and we would have to ride through them. I saw... I saw woe. I saw myself." The answer burst out of her, painful and ugly.
The Curse of Woe, isolating her at the center, the only person who could survive or do anything about it. They bonded the night before and she had woken feeling connected with him. But at the first test of woe, Annabell Roe reverted to type and stood alone.
"Anna saw woe. Not Doku-ni. Doku-ni failed to show her who she was. Failed to show her his heart. Failed to win her from her pain."
"No, it wasn't you. It wasn't."
He gave her that growl then, with more force than he ever used before.
And she came.
That hand at her throat, his wild breath on her face, she came in hard, painful, commanding spasms. Her body ruled by that sound, contracting over and over. Squeezing his hand, he again took her breath.
It was too much. Black crept in at the corners of her eyesight, hit hard by that sound only he could make for her; the air was knocked from her lungs as if by a blow. She couldn't inhale.
He held her there for minutes, seconds, eons. Until there was wet from her empty core to her knees and she heard the splatter on the floor.
"Anna no see. Doku-ni no speak. Doku-ni see Anna, hear, know his Anna," he said, stopping his growl so quickly, too quickly.
That growl had invaded like his spear, cut deep, the cause of her pleasure and pain. To cut it off in such a way reinforced his power, but also her need for him. If not for his hold, she would have hit the smooth stone floor hard enough to crack bone, but he controlled her fall, making sure she came to no harm, guiding her to her knees in front of him.
"I am not a child. I was alone for a long time. I can't change so quickly. My father died when I was seven, then my mother and Benjere," she said, defensive, looking at his legs, unable to meet his eyes. Defending herself.
"Is Anna no honor? Anna blind heart? Anna gives mother, father, nest-mates her choices?"
He wouldn't let her hide or make excuses. Wouldn't let her blame the red moon curse.
Anyone could walk down this hallway at any moment and see them. But they were alone, locked in their own space where nothing could touch them. Here, in this space where he owned her desires, dreams, flesh, and being. She surrendered. Let him unbind her life and show it to her in a new way. Balling her fists and squinting her eyes shut, Annabell didn't want to look at the picture he showed her.
She heard leather sliding on leather, before his waist covering fell between them. Only meaning to peek upwards to see what he was doing, she saw the pendulum of testicles between tree trunk thighs and the hard rise of his cock with the thick pink base where his knot developed to the demanding, painful-looking red tapered tip, dripping with the fluid of his arousal.
Up the stretched landscape of his body, his eyes roared with fury, shooting sparks of color and escalating emotion. Mouth stretched in a feral snarl, he said, "Anna is not alone. Anna is not wife of man. Anna is not daughter or sister. Annabell is gone. Anna is redress war bride of Doku-ni Orki Spear. Will remind Anna, show Anna, silence all the lies and false."
His words were a mandate.
"Hands behind back," he snapped the command.
She jerked as if he yanked a string, obeying before her mind translated what he said. Every impulse to resist ceded to the compulsion of a male who knew what he wanted and planned to take it. Winding his hands in her hair, he fisted the strands until her scalp stung.
"Eyes, who Anna see now?"
"Doku-ni, I see Doku-ni," she moaned.
"Open mouth," he said.
Another command. Her mouth snapped open.
Widening his stance and pulling her up, he bumped his length against her cheek, smearing her face with the warm, viscous spice of his essence. Eyes blinking, mouthwatering, Anna inhaled the powerful musk smell of him, her own hidden monster of want waking up to full awareness.
This. Him. Them. Yes.
She became a hundred yesses. Her white Orki wanted to put his cock in her mouth, down her throat, fill her up, take her voice, own her eyes. And she was going to let him. She would crawl through fields of horror if she had to. She would do anything to have this with him. Shaking with lust, gulping in breaths, she kept her mouth open. Clawing at her own hands behind her back to keep from touching him, Anna stuck her tongue out to steal a taste of his scent and precum.
He wanted none of it. Jerking away from her attempt, then thrusting forward. Past her lips and right to the place where she would gag. It was all she could do not to bite down in reflex.
"Eyes!" he demanded.
Eyes watering and about to roll back in her head, she obeyed, meeting his gaze. Stretching her lips around her teeth to keep from biting, she pressed up on the fat underside of his cock with her tongue, while he moved right into the most sensitive spot in her mouth. She gagged and gagged again; her body seized with uncontrollable reflexive tremors. All the flavors of him leaked onto her tongue, hot spice and male. Her brain fractured with conflicting signals of spitting him out and drinking him down.
Leaning into the storm of her Orki, she took what he gave.
"Anna is redress. Treasure. Beginning. Ending. Anna is reward for sufferance. Payback for pain, for empty, for night screams and killing. Anna is mine. All of her. Anna pleasure and pain—to own, keep, hold, protected, taken by Doku-ni."
Releasing his hold on one side of her head, his hand slapped the wall next to them. Changing position, he angled himself over Anna's mouth, twisting her hair in his fist so that her back arched, taking over her ability to keep her balance. Her thighs strained, knees hurt, and calves burned. But his cock sank forward.
Doku-ni opened her up and claimed her.
Crude and base beyond belief, she surrendered to his fury, let herself be reduced to his woman and his pleasure. He fuckeed her face with his cock, brutal thrust after thrust. Her eyes watered, but she never blinked, his possessive focus as he watched her sinking deep, past every layer of resistance. He gave himself to her, the whole of his being. They were two wholes bent into a new thing, connecting.
He beat them together with the hammer of his will and body, molded them like a blacksmith over the fires of their shared passion. The blast of his force overwhelmed her in every way, but should he have dared to stop, Anna would have wailed at the loss, a half-formed thing.
He had to finish this, take them to their ending.
Thrusting into her mouth, over her tongue, past the squeeze of her body's reflexive response, Anna swallowed and choked him down.
This was a taking and an exchange, nothing about it comfortable or beautiful—yet the freefall of it became instant, obsessive addiction. She would want this now. Crave it. The luscious profane of his taking of her, where and when he wanted. Bruised and pushed to the point of hurting with the extravagant greed of his appetite for her and her alone.
Shunned and invisible, blind without realizing it for years, but now she was seen and could see. She was needed and felt need. She was part of a whole.
He thrust forward at the same time as he pulled her forward, slamming her face down his thickness in repetitive battering plunges. They were a single heartbeat, climbing toward pleasure. Her face hot, wet with tears, filthy with their combined essences, down to her naked, bobbing breasts, he rode her mouth. Growling, he gave her that sound that made her womanhood convulse. The tones changed, low, furious, pure Orkis words, morphing so deep they became a baritone that she
felt more than she heard.
His body stiffened to steel, and he pulled her head back and kept her there, so that just the head of his cock was in her mouth. She felt it swell, expand, widening to remind her he was definitely not human or like any man. One throbbing pulse, her tongue testing his slick texture, before his semen pumped free, and he found his pleasure with a roar.
That noise he made, the sound of him—without touching a single area on her body, bent back over her legs, helpless in all ways—the sound and taste of her lover's peak brought on Anna's climax, her body twitching and shaking all over. He spilled into her mouth; she couldn't swallow fast enough, couldn't breathe through the gout of it as waves of her own bliss rolled through her. His cum went in her hair, on her chest, dripped down to her belly and the sparse curls of her mound. She was a mess. She hurt.