by Ava York
She eased me back until I was sitting on the floor, then clambered down next to me. Now that all the adrenaline was ebbing from my system, a host of aches crowded in.
The entire front of my leg was dark with blood, and Lila nudged at the edges of the wound.
“We should get you out of these pants so I can get a better look at everything.”
“You’ll be able to see everything alright.”
“Stop it.” She swatted at my arm. “I’m talking about the wound, Rekker.”
Together, we eased me out of the blood-soaked pants and she set about looking over the gash. Ripping a bit of fabric, she dabbed away some blood, but the worst of the bleeding was over. I used another bit of fabric to clean the rest of the Suhlik blood from my face and looked around the cabin for a some water.
As her hands wandered over my leg, I couldn’t help the gentle stirring of my fully exposed member. Even as she tried to focus on her ministrations, I could tell she was aware of the awakening, as well.
Her eyes cut to mine with a gently accusing slant.
“What?” I shrugged. “It’s not like I can control it.”
“Oh, no?” Her hand slid slowly up my thigh, forgetting the wound. “You seem to have pretty good control of everything down there.” Her palm brushed lightly along the side of my cock, coaxing it from an easy stiffening to full attention.
It’s amazing what being close to her could do to me. Even the mildest touch inflamed me and left me pulsing gently, begging her to brush against me again. Instead, she rocked back onto her heels, kneeling to face me.
“How long did you say it was until we reached the ship?” The implication in her eyes set my heart pounding.
“We have plenty of time.”
She gave a small nod and pulled her top over her head in a single, deliberate move. I was moving more creakily, but I stripped my shirt off, as well. Once my eyes were clear, I took a moment to drink in the smooth, intoxicating expanse of her skin.
The generous curve of her breasts prickled over with tiny bumps, puckering into the hard, pink knots of her nipples.
I followed their gentle sway as she shifted forward and pushed herself out of her pants, then kicked them aside on the floor. Every bend and swing of her movements revealed and obscured the dazzling facets of her body.
By the time her eyes met mine again, we were both short of breath, panting with hunger for each other.
“Rekker, I didn’t think I would ever see you again, that I would ever see anyone again. When you came through that door . . . ” She was at a loss for the right words, but the look on her face spoke the depth of her feelings.
“Knowing you were in that kind of danger was the most terrible thing I’ve ever had to experience. There was no choice, I had to come for you.” I leaned forward and took her hand. “If there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that nothing like that will ever happen again. You are my mate, and I will spend my life keeping you safe.”
Her eyes glistened around the edges, and she bent forward to press her lips to mine. It was more than a kiss; it was a promise that we were pledging to keep for each other. After a moment, she deepened the kiss, pressing more firmly into me and darting her tongue between my lips.
Lila’s hand found me again, more insistent this time. The gentle graze of her first pass gave way to firmer, more deliberate strokes. The dizzying tingle sent a shudder up through my body, and the aches which had seemed so present melted under her touch.
Pulling her lips from mine, she began to work lazily down my chest, marking her path with a trail of kisses. As she made her teasing descent, I hardened to near delirium, pulsing in her hand and begging for the inevitable attention of her mouth. In a moment, the firm slick of her tongue dragged from my base all the way up along the underside of my shaft.
I quaked under her, and she took my crown into her mouth, tracing along the contours and pulling me deeper with each suck. As her head bobbed lightly over me, I reached forward to run my hands along the splendid curve of her spine, ducking along the ridges of her ribs and under her to cradle the sensual heft of her breasts. As I worked them lightly, she let out a groan of pleasure and vibrated my pulsing member.
Ferocious with desire for her, I pulled her mouth back up to meet mine, encouraging her to straddle me as she settled into the kiss. Lila answered each instinct, settling herself over me and using my glistening head to tease herself with delicate pressure. Then, all at once, she sank down onto me, tipping her head back with a low moan as she pressed me deep inside her.
We began to rock with each other, indulging in the thousand tiny ecstasies we found in this slow grind. Our bodies answered each other, and we mingled our breaths in hot, hasty gasps.
It was a good thing Cedroc chose to stash the ship so far afield, because we both needed to make very intentional use of that time.
As it was, we barely had time to dress before we docked and met the crew.
Lila
While Javik and his tools might have been in the med bay, there was no way we’d fit all these people in that crowded room.
Heck, even if it was empty and organized, they wouldn’t fit.
Somehow, Javik and the crew had managed to put together pallets for everyone in the cargo hold.
Some managed to sleep, while others were wide awake and staring off blankly into nothing. Most of them were underfed and dehydrated.
Some children were crying and being comforted by their parents, while others didn’t have parents any longer.
I came over to one little boy who had an injured arm. I didn’t recognize his species, but he had light green skin and grayish-blue eyes. A pair of tiny horns stuck out from his forehead, too. The little boy cradled his arm with his good one, and looked at me with such glassy eyes, my heart ached.
“Hello, what’s your name?” I asked him in a quiet, soothing voice.
“Eroh . . . ” the boy mumbled, glancing down at his dirty bare feet. He had one extra toe on each foot.
“May I see your arm, Eroh?” I asked him.
The boy nodded and allowed me to look at his arm. It looked like it had a pretty bad fracture. While I tended to it, I asked him in a small voice, “Might I ask . . . are your parents around . . . or any relatives?”
The boy’s mouth trembled as tears tumbled down his cheeks. Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything. I bit down on my lip.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
“My . . . my parents . . . they protected me from those monsters . . . ” the boy whimpered. “They protected me and . . . I couldn’t do anything.” The boy sniffed and wiped tears from his eyes with his good hand. “I . . . I do have an aunt and uncle back at the outpost. Are we going back there?”
“Yes,” I confirmed with a small smile, but I knew it wasn’t enough to comfort the boy.
“Good.” A ghost of a smile appeared on his tearstained face. “What’s your name?”
“My name’s Lila,” I answered him.
“That’s a very pretty name.”
“Thank you.”
“Does it mean anything?” he asked curiously.
“I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “Probably something to do with flowers, back on my homeworld.”
My homeworld. Funny how easily that rolled off my tongue.
And how different that was from my ‘home’.
“Flowers are pretty. Can I call you that?” Eroh now asked as he tilted his head. His grayish hair fell over his eyes but he brushed it off.
“Sure.” I chuckled and finish up tending to Eroh’s arm. I wrapped it in a cast with a bandage slung around his shoulder. He appeared a bit more contented than he did before, but there was such sorrow in his eyes. I wished I could do more for him.
Glancing about the room, I spotted a few children around his age sitting on a bed together. They were playing with a small ball as they tossed it to one another. But they did so calmly and quietly so as to not disturb anyone.
“Why don’t you hang o
ut with those kids over there?” I suggested as I gesture to them.
Eroh hesitated for a moment, but he finally settled for a nod and hopped off his bed. He gave me a quiet thanks before he went off to say hi to the kids. Soon enough, they allowed him to join their little game.
After making sure that Eroh was settled, I tended to the other patients. I made sure that they were comfortable as I checked in on them and tended to their wounds, but as I did that, exhaustion kept reeling me back.
I had to sleep so badly, but I need to help these people more
And then, the next person I saw was a human woman.
I jumped back in surprise, and she did as well.
“How did I miss you before?” I gasped.
She pushed back the fold of cloth she’d draped over her hair until it fell away completely.
“I wasn’t really paying attention, I think.”
Messy black hair framed a fair, freckled face and fell to scrawny shoulders. Her face was dirty and her hand covered her right eye, her good eye was a deep, deep forest green. She smiled despite the pain she must’ve been enduring.
“I’m so glad to see another human here,” the woman said in a quiet voice. “My name’s Coco, and you?”
“Lila,” I answered.
She sighed gratefully. “It really is nice to see another human . . . thank you so much for helping us. Thank you. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Can I see your eye?”
Coco nodded and placed her hand on her lap. Her eye was bruised and bloody, a sick combination of red and purple. The air got trapped in my throat, but I managed to get it together, as usual, and started cleaning it up.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you or anything,” I told her.
“You’re fine, thank you again. Thank you.” She had a very sweet and soft-spoken voice. She must’ve been around my age, if not a bit younger.
Coco was small, too, especially since she was hunched on the bed with droopy shoulders. Her body trembled slightly as I applied the medicine, but she kept calm and had a timid smile on her lips.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, but there was something in her good eye that indicated that something was troubling her. “No . . . actually, um, so back at Silva I was visiting with a Mahdfel soldier, my mate . . . um.” She cleared her throat, but tears built up in her eyes. She started to tremble more and I rubbed her shoulder.
“I’m worried that he . . . he might’ve been killed when the Suhlik came.” Coco sobbed and she covered her face. I brought her into a hug, and she sobbed quietly into my shoulder. I kept patting her back in hopes to comfort her, but it wasn’t enough.
I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I’d lost Rekker.
She sniffled and hiccupped, but soon she pulled away and I looked into that bloodshot eye of hers.
“Can I get you anything? Water, maybe?” I asked.
“Yes.” She nodded and I quickly left to get her some water.
When I returned, I handed Coco the cup and she gulped it all down before sighing heavily.
She had stopped sobbing and was breathing in and out slowly to keep her composure. She huddled her torso with one arm while the other held the cup.
“I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine,” she repeated quietly, mostly to herself. She placed the cup on a nearby crate, but she almost tipped it over due to her still trembling hand. She used both arms to huddle herself now.
“Can you tell me his name?” I asked quietly. “Maybe I met him on Silva.”
“Yes, it’s Tuiru. He’s very nice, and sweet, and . . . oh, I wish I could see him again.”
“I’m sure you will.” I smiled to Coco and patted her hand.
Coco smiled back but it was small and tight. “Thank you . . . thank you again.”
I patted her hand again and glanced at the empty cup. “Do you want some more water?”
“I think I’m good, thank you,” Coco said. She cupped her hand over mine, her hands were a bit cold. The coldness nearly caused me to flinch.
“Why don’t you rest?” I suggested. “You look exhausted.”
“You do, too,” she noted as she peered closely, blinking quickly with her good eye.
“I can’t right now, there’s still a lot of people I need to check up on.”
“You’re so kind, Lila . . . helping all of us, you’re so kind.” Coco stood up, straightened her shoulders. “Worrying about things I can’t change isn’t going to help anything.” She nodded towards Javik. “I’ll take a turn as his assistant. You go get some rest.”
Weariness ran through me. “Thank you.”
I was about to leave, but Coco asked, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Don’t you have a mate, too? Rekker, right?”
My cheeks heated up and I sat down on the bed. “Yes, that’s right.”
Coco giggled and she straightened her clothing, pulling her hair back from her face in a quick braid. “Tell me about him.”
I felt even more flustered, but I got myself together and said, “Well, he’s also very kind and sweet, and he saved my life back on that ship.”
“That’s wonderful! So, you think you two are truly meant to be?” Coco asked as she leaned forward with anticipation.
“Well, he is my mate, after all, so yes,” I answered.
Oh.
It was the first time I had acknowledged Rekker as my mate.
My heart fluttered, and butterflies swarmed my stomach. He was my mate. Rekker was my mate!
He was mine and I was his.
And I needed to tell him.
Rekker
“We’re going to land soon, so hang on tight,” Cedroc’s amplified voice boomed through the speakers.
Exchanging a knowing glance with Lila, I leaned against the wall and watched as she addressed the crowd of liberated prisoners.
“Just a few more minutes and you’ll be home,” she said, her words brimming with enthusiasm. “Hang on to whatever you can during the landing, just so no one gets hurt.”
With a smile still on her face, she climbed down the stairs that led into the cargo hold and started helping the more vulnerable ones sit down.
The Calliope wasn’t designed to carry this many people and, as such, we’d had to place all the Silva inhabitants in the cargo hold.
They didn’t seem to mind. The trip back to Silva wasn’t long.
Besides, a few hours of discomfort in a ship’s cargo hold sure beat a lifetime of slavery at the hands of the Suhlik.
Pushing myself off the wall, I leaned against the railing of the upper deck and watched as Lila worked her magic.
She waltzed between the survivors with effortless grace, distributing smiles and kind words to everyone she could. Everyone seemed to be enamored by her, but that didn’t surprise me.
It was Lila, after all.
Wrapping my fingers around the railing, I held on tight as the ship lurched. A few of those on the lower deck yelped, but it seemed like Cedroc was being extra careful this time around—aside from the initial lurch, the ship stabilized with expert smoothness.
“Landing procedure is completed, Captain,” Cedroc said through the comms unit.
“Can I open the ramp?”
“Affirmative,” he replied. “But it’s going to be chaos. There’s a crowd coming our way. I can already see them from up here. Should I send someone down for extra security?”
“No need.” Placing the comms unit back on my belt, I held one hand up and waited until I had everyone’s attention. “I’m going to open the loading ramp, but I want you to make an orderly exit.”
There were a lot of nods and mutters of agreement, but they didn’t mean much. The moment I punched the button that opened the Calliope’s loading ramp, it was just like Cedroc had promised—absolute chaos.
Anxious to be reunited with family and friends, almost everyone rushed toward the exit, even as the townspeople were pushing to
get on board.
People were crying and laughing, and the atmosphere in the cargo hold was vibrant with joy. A small, somber cluster stood in one corner with Javik, as he confirmed the loss of their loved ones.
It was awful, but could have be so much worse.
Thankfully, people seemed to be mindful of each other.
Despite being in a hurry to get off the ship, there was an effort not to push people out of the way and risk trampling others.
Pushing her way out of the departing crowd, Lila climbed up the stairs and stood beside me, her eyes alive with happiness.
“This is quite a sight, isn’t it?” she asked, softly laying her right hand on top of mine. I felt her delicate fingers against my skin, her touch warm and pleasant, and my heart started beating just a little bit faster.
“It sure is.”
“Is this why you enjoy being a soldier?” Looking up at me, she smiled. “It must feel great to help people out like this.”
“It does feel great, but it’s not always like this. Most of the time it’s just senseless fighting. And we don’t always make a difference.” As I held her gaze, I found myself returning her smile. “But, from time to time, we get lucky. Sometimes we do make a difference.”
“Then let’s enjoy it.” Grabbing my hand before I could react, she dragged me down into the cargo hold and toward the exit ramp. We stopped atop the ramp, too stunned to continue down. The crowd was so large that it surrounded the entire ship, and everyone seemed to be completely ecstatic.
Most people never really thought those the Suhlik had taken would ever return, and they were reacting to all this as if a miracle had happened.
Truth be told, they weren’t that wrong.
A lot of things could have gone wrong on this operation.
The Suhlik could’ve gotten away, or we could’ve caught up to them only to find that they had already unloaded their ‘cargo’.
They could have kept Lila.
We had gotten lucky.
“Rekker, Rekker!”
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to find whoever was calling my name.