by Presley Hall
Oh god. Fuck.
I should shake myself out of this fantasy, I know that, but my body feels hot and flushed now, aching with desire. My arousal is slick between my thighs, and I’m soaking wet in a way that has nothing to do with the shower.
Brushing my fingers over my nipple with one hand, I feel it tighten under my touch, hard and sensitive. I imagine Druxik carrying me into the cockpit and shutting the door behind him. In my fantasy, he sets me down as he kisses me again, pulling my shirt over my head so he can see my small, naked breasts.
I imagine his long fingers tracing over my nipples, his other hand yanking his loincloth free so that I can see all of him—that last part of his body that’s been hidden away from view while everything else is always on display.
I’ve always been curious about it, and I’ve heard enough whispers from the mated women to have a picture of what his cock might look like in my head. Long and thick and hard, jutting up from between his legs and waiting for me to touch it. I can picture the grin on Druxik’s face, his seductive whisper, his hand taking mine and drawing it to his rigid shaft, asking me to stroke him.
I need you, Cora, he whispers in my mind, his hips thrusting forward, desperate for my touch. I want you. Let me fuck you, please.
No, that’s not quite right. I swallow, pressing my fingers against my clit and moving them in slow circles as I imagine it, gasping a little with the pleasure that shoots through me. Claiming. That’s what they call it. Let me claim you, Cora.
God, those words.
They seem so much more primal, somehow, more passionate. More permanent.
Fire licks through my veins as I imagine Druxik lifting me up, sitting in the captain’s chair, and setting me in his lap, his thick cock pressed between my legs. I imagine his broad hand fisting my hair, drawing my mouth back down to his, his other hand guiding his shaft between my legs.
You’re so wet, he whispers against my mouth, his muscular body shuddering with desire as his fingers slide over me, pressing against my clit in the same place I’m touching myself now, the rough fingertips teasing my aroused flesh. Gods, Cora, you make me so hard. I need to be inside you…
I moan, sliding two fingers inside myself as I move my other hand faster, needing desperately to come. I’ve forgotten about the shower, forgotten about everything except the fantasy in my head.
Druxik’s calloused hands grip my waist in my imagination as I straddle him, his thick cock buried inside my pussy, bigger than any man I’ve ever been with before. He fills me completely, claiming me as surely as he said he would, possessing me with every hard stroke.
But I’m possessing him too, riding him as I clasp his face in my hands, kissing him wildly as I feel my orgasm approaching, every nerve in my body alight with pleasure.
It’s so good, better than anything I’ve ever felt, better than I could have ever imagined it could be. His cock inside me, his fingers against my clit, his tongue tangled with mine…
“Oh god, oh… oh!”
I moan aloud when the orgasm hits me, gasping out Druxik’s name as I come hard. My knees go weak, and I lean forward, pressing a hand against the wall as my hips buck, my body clenching with need, wanting more. Between my legs, my hand moves frantically, trying to draw out the last of the sensations. But the pleasure is fleeting, and I sink back against the shower wall after a moment, panting.
It’s all I can do to finish washing myself off. My legs feel like wet noodles, and my heart is pounding in my chest. I can’t help but think that if I can climax like that just from imagining sex with Druxik—what would it be like in reality?
Don’t think about it, I tell myself firmly.
It’ll never happen, and for my own good, I need to stop feeding my own fantasies.
I rinse the soap out of my hair, quickly finish scrubbing the rest of my body, and get out of the shower to dry off. There’s a small mirror in the bathing room, and I turn toward it as I reach up to dry my hair.
My gaze catches on my reflection, and I pause. Then my hands drift downward instead, my fingers brushing across my abdomen and over the long, thin scar below my navel.
My heartbeat slows as I trace it, the adrenaline rush of my fantasy fading as I come back to reality. I’m still thinner than I used to be, my hair shorter than it once was. But all of that pales in comparison to the complex relationship I have with this narrow mark on my skin that changed me forever.
I’m alive because of it.
Yet I also lost something on account of it.
I close my eyes, fighting back the memories of my cancer. Of loneliness and sickness like I’d never felt before. Of all my friends drifting away one by one, as if my illness were somehow contagious.
I remember losing my hair and pretending that it was okay, that it was just an excuse to buy fun, brightly colored wigs. And I remember throwing the wigs away when they came in the mail, hating them from the minute I saw them because the hot pink and mint green and navy blue fibers just reminded me that I was sick, that I could be dying, that I wasn’t me anymore.
When the doctor told me I’d have to have a hysterectomy, it wasn’t even a question that I would say yes. After all, I wouldn’t have been able to have kids anyway if I was dead. The surgery would save my life, she told me, with deep wells of sympathy in her eyes. The only question was how soon I could schedule the appointment.
Biting my lip and blinking back tears, I push the memories away. Those months were the darkest ones of my life. Most days, I feel good for having beaten cancer, for coming out on the other side. I’m proud of myself for going to therapy, for going back to school, for living my life, even if it didn’t look exactly like the one I thought I’d have.
People said I was brave, but I didn’t really feel brave. What else was I supposed to do?
I sacrificed a part of my body, giving up the chance to bring another life into the world, in order to live myself. And I knew I could find fulfillment in other ways. I’d always wanted to be a mother, but I could have other dreams.
It’s the same way I approached my new life on Kalix once I realized that we weren’t going back to Earth. I didn’t feel particularly brave or strong for not running and screaming in terror when I found out aliens were real and that I was going to live among them—it was just how my life was playing out. The cards had been shuffled yet again, and this was how they’d fallen.
I’m lucky, really. I lost the opportunity for one life, the ordinary kind of life most people live, and gained the opportunity for an adventure, a life most people could never dream of.
But the one part of this life that I know I can’t have—that I can never have—is the mate bond.
I know from everything I’ve learned about the Kalixians that the entire purpose of the mate bond is offspring. That’s why they’ve embraced it, because it means their species won’t die now, despite the genocide of the Orkun. Their warriors mating with the human women means a future for their people. But I can’t be a part of that future—because I can’t have children anymore.
My hand falls away from the scar, and I lift my chin, looking at my reflection in the mirror. I let the knowledge settle over me, reminding myself that there’s no point in dreaming about things I can’t have. No point in torturing myself with it. I know Druxik was right about our supposed “bond,” and I would have told him exactly the same thing if he hadn’t said it first.
It was just a mistake.
Nothing more.
10
Druxik
The next morning, I’m already out of bed when the lights come on in the med bay. The healing pod might not have been able to regenerate my destroyed arm, but it did an excellent job with my overall recovery.
I feel healthy and well, although the robotic arm still feels strange, as if it’s not really a part of me. Osynth has said it will take time, but I feel anger and impatience flaring in me every time I try to use it and fail. It’s worse that it’s my dominant hand, making me feel even more clumsy and us
eless than I anticipated.
Zhori comes to see me as I leave the med bay, insisting I resume my captain’s duties and take my place as the leader of the mission now that I’m healed enough.
I can do that, to an extent. As long as I don’t have to manually pilot the ship, I’m capable of setting controls and giving instructions. As the day wears on, I try not to isolate myself too much from the other warriors—they need to see their leader to maintain confidence in our mission. But I eat my meals alone so that they won’t see me fumbling with the utensils or struggling to eat.
For their parts, the other warriors acquit themselves admirably. No one comments on the robotic arm, and they don’t look at it strangely or treat me any differently. It’s clear that none of them think any less of me for the loss. In fact, they all make it plain that they’re grateful for my actions in the engine room.
I try to take it in, to accept their gratitude and believe it myself—that I’ve done well, that I’m worthy of their continued respect. But every time I think of it, I’m immediately reminded of my father and his expectations.
For all of my childhood, all the way up until the beginning of the Orkun war and well into it, until his and my brother’s deaths in battle, I was compared to my brother constantly.
My father was demanding to a fault when it came to Verek, pinning all of his expectations and hopes on his oldest son, driving him incessantly to be better, stronger, faster. And always, in every training session, after every battle, even in front of Tordax, my father would compare me to Verek, telling me in what ways he’d excelled, how he’d been better, how I needed to work harder.
The one thing at which I excelled was piloting. Not even Verek could match my skill in flying. In the cockpit, it didn’t matter that Verek was taller and outweighed me, that no matter how hard I trained, I was still not as broad or as muscular. In the captain’s chair, what mattered was wit, quick thinking and dexterity, and I had all of those qualities. I had courage too, and the cocky kind of confidence that gave me an edge over other pilots.
That was what, at last, earned me my father’s respect—just in time for him to die in battle, two years into the war.
He died taking down the same Orkun who killed my brother, that monster’s blade still dark and wet with Verek’s blood when my father ran him through.
My father was speared in the back by another Orkun, I was told, and died next to Verek and his killer.
Though I live with that grief daily, it’s no different than the stories of every Kalixian. Some of them have tales of loss far worse than mine. At least my father and brother died in battle, defending our planet and our home. And I have the knowledge that in the end, I earned my father’s respect.
But now everything has changed.
In one moment of blinding pain, I lost more than just my arm.
I lost my sense of purpose. My sense of self.
After the evening meal, Cora comes to my quarters as she promised, to help me with the robotic arm. I still can’t quite think of it as my arm.
I wondered if she might not come, and also wondered if that might not be better. I’m not so foolish as to think that it’s wise to spend time with her like this when the bond still exists between us.
Still, my heart jumps with excitement and happiness when I hear her tentative knock on my door. As she steps inside and I see her delicate face, her shoulder-length hair pulled back away from it, a rush of emotions flare up inside my chest. It’s a combination of powerful lust and a deep sense of caring, of attachment and need.
I want to pick her up and fling her on the bed, ravishing every inch of her body until there’s no bit of skin I’ve left untouched or untasted. And at the same time, I want to sit and talk with her for hours, learning everything about her until I know her completely. I want to impale her on my cock and take her until she’s so sore that she’ll feel the ache of my hard shaft inside of her long after we’re done. And I want to gather her gently into my arms, caress her face, kiss her softly and whisper to her how much I care for her, that I never want to let her go.
It’s the most confusing mixture of feelings I’ve ever experienced. I feel like a beast and a lover all at once, both like a rutting animal and a man who wants to cherish his beloved. I’ve never known such a conflict of desire, or how the two things can live side by side—passionate lust and tender devotion all at once.
It was the right thing to release her from the bond, if it can be done, I remind myself firmly as she walks into the room. It’s right to deny it, instead of trapping her with you when you can never be a worthy mate to her.
I believe that. I do. But my body rages at me that I’m a fool, aching with lust, and my heart aches in a different way altogether. It’s only my mind that perseveres, insisting that I’ve chosen the best path. The most honorable one.
“Thank you,” I tell Cora as she comes to sit down next to me. “It’s kind of you to help me with the arm.”
“Your arm,” she tells me gently. “You have to think of it as yours if you’re going to make the connection that Osynth said is necessary. If you continue to think of it as something separate, you’ll never be able to develop a symbiotic relationship with it.”
I frown. “It’s hard to think of it like that,” I admit. “Just look at it. It’s not flesh and bone. It doesn’t even work properly.”
“It doesn’t work properly yet,” Cora insists. Her expression is soft, sweetly encouraging. “You know the tech is excellent. It works just fine. And so do you. You just have to learn to work together.”
“It’s an arm.” I cock an eyebrow at her. “I don’t think it has an opinion.”
“No.” She laughs. “But you do. So tell me. What are you afraid of?” She winces then. “I’m sorry, that was a very personal question. We don’t really know each other that well yet.”
“No, it’s all right,” I reassure her quickly.
I want to know you. To know everything about you.
I want to know her inside and out, physically and emotionally. Every part of her. I want to know her dreams and fears, what she wants out of life, what she hopes for her future. I want to know the sounds she would make when I kiss her everywhere, the sound she’d make when I slide inside of her. I want to hear her whisper that yes, she wants me. Yes, she wants the bond. To be my mate, to stay with me forever.
But I know better. That’s selfishness.
“I’m afraid of not being the pilot that I was,” I say, answering her question with simple honesty. “It’s impossible, with this—with my arm.” I correct myself when I see the expression on her face.
“But you’ll be able to fly again,” Cora insists.
“Not at the level I did before.”
She presses her lips together, then sighs. “Well, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” she encourages. “Let’s start more simply. What does your new arm feel like?”
“Strange. Heavy. There’s no sensation in it yet.”
I barely pay attention to my own answer. I’m having a hard time focusing on her questions, or even on the goal of achieving better use of the arm. It’s impossible not to lose myself in Cora’s presence. In the sweet, musical sound of her voice, or the curve of her mouth, or the scent of her skin.
She smells so deshing good.
I can remember viscerally what her skin felt like under my hands, how soft she was, how willing. How she leaned into me with more desire than I’ve ever felt in a woman’s body.
You could only touch her with one hand now.
My jaw clenches at the thought, my chest constricting.
“Osynth said that for there to be any sensory input to your brain, you need to achieve a connection with the technology,” Cora says. “So think of that as the goal. When you achieve that, when you manage to accept it as a part of yourself, you’ll begin to feel sensation again.” She smiles at me and points to a small glass on the table beside my bed, just out of my reach. “See if you can pick this up.”
&n
bsp; I frown but attempt to do as she asks. The fingers of the robotic hand brush against the glass, twitching in an effort to curl around it, but I can’t grasp it. I yank my hand back, grinding my teeth in frustration.
“It’s okay,” she tells me gently. “On Earth, people sometimes have injuries that make them forget how to do certain things, or have difficulties like you’re having now. We have doctors to help them, special therapists. It’s a slow process, but it comes back eventually.”
“I have to be better than this.” I clench my jaw, sucking in a frustrated breath. “I can’t lose the respect of my men. I have to lead them, and to do that, I have to be strong.”
“You are strong,” Cora murmurs, her eyes flicking up to meet mine. “And brave. Maybe shoving your hand into a spaceship engine is par for the course among Kalixian warriors, but I’ve never met a man before who would do that.”
“Perhaps it’s good that you left Terra then,” I grunt, glaring irritably at the glass. I’ve never hated an object so much.
“Maybe.”
Her voice is much softer, and I feel her gaze on me. But I don’t look up. My emotions are too close to the surface, and I’m afraid that if I meet her eyes, I’ll lose control. That I’ll do what I want to do most in the universe right now and kiss her.
And I can’t bear the thought of her cringing away from the touch of metal fingers against her warm skin.
“How long have you been a pilot?” Cora asks, changing the subject quickly.
I notice that she doesn’t ask it in the past tense but the present. Gods, how can this sweet woman believe in me more than I believe in myself? Is it just her nature? Or does she truly see something that I don’t?
“I started training very young, nearly as soon as I joined the Alpha Force,” I tell her, keeping my voice neutral. “I was always good at fighting on the ground, a capable warrior, fit and tough. But only as much so as the other warriors. I wanted something to set me apart, to make me… more. My father was very demanding, and my brother Verek was one of the best of the Alpha Force. I wanted to make my own way in the world, such as it was.”