Mik'kal looked around the remains of the office. It was little more than a debris-covered platform now, the ancient roof and the glass walls gone and open to the stiff breeze.
If Mena was here, she was buried under a vast weight from the fallen ceiling.
He never should have left her. When he’d realized something was strange, he should have taken her with him. He’d listened to his arrogance instead of her, and he was going to spend the rest of his life regretting that decision.
The wind picked up the edges of the left-behind cape, but it was still caught, and did little more than flutter weakly in the breeze like a forsaken symbol of past glory, now weakened and dying.
Although they knew no one could have survived, the workers struggled to move debris carefully, searching under each segment of the stone that had stood for a thousand or more years.
Eventually, they freed a chunk, which released the fluttering cloak, and before anyone could grab for it, the wind picked it up, and it sailed away. Mik'kal watched the red and black material disappear from view, a symbol, he hoped, of blowing away the corruption of his people and their planet.
A shout brought his attention back to the stone. A worker was pointing to the place where the cloak had lain—where a pale foot emerged from deep under the stone.
He bolted across the floor, slipping and sliding, ignoring the shouted attempts to call him back to safety. He dropped to his knees, his hand hovering in the air, unsure if he could bring himself to touch that which he knew would be cold and lifeless. He forced his hand lower until the fingertips brushed the skin…
And the foot jerked.
“Mena? Mena!” He frantically dug at smaller chunks of stone, flinging them away from the ankle, then the leg…
“Mik'kal?” A weak, faint voice rose from the darkness. In a heartbeat, his world went right again. The workers were at his side in moments with lifting repulsers, and within a few moments, two slabs, forming a protective tent over her, had been pulled aside.
She laid on her back on the carpet, reddish stone dust covering her face, but her eyes opened, and she smiled up at him.
“I knew you’d come,” she whispered as he pulled her carefully into his arms. “She told me you wouldn’t leave me.”
He held her tight while a guard knelt down to release her arms, still pinned behind her back.
“Who?” he whispered absently, lost in the feel of her soft curves and her silky, dust-covered hair.
“The nirza. She told me you weren’t dead, and you’d find me.”
He looked down at her, certain she must have been dreaming.
“Little one, the nirza doesn’t speak, and it isn’t feminine. It’s just… there.”
She smiled, her eyes closed, her head nestled in the crook of his arm.
“Yes, she does, and yes, she is. She told me she sent the storm to the city because she was furious the Kaziri were trying to wipe out the humans again.” She opened her eyes up and looked into Mik'kal’s. “Did any other part of the city get damaged?”
“Well, um, it doesn’t seem so, just this office.” Which had stood for a thousand years, built into the side of the cliff. The floor below was fine, and the rest of this floor was undamaged. All the storm’s wrath had been expended right in this room.
She closed her eyes again. “I like when you called me ‘little one.’”
He hadn’t even realized he’d said that, but he decided he liked it, too.
She twisted in his arms to look up at him.
“Are my people okay?”
He nodded. “A few injuries, and one, uh, unfortunate accident. I’ll tell you later.” He wondered if the captain’s death had been brought about by the nirza as retribution for selling his people into slavery, then decided it was probably just bad luck. Slavery wasn’t the issue; the destruction of the humans was.
“Well, little one, since it seems you escaped any injury at all, I’m going to take you home.”
She smiled up at him again. “Yes, take me home.”
He wondered if it was possible for his heart to burst with joy.
Epilogue
Mena
The tip of his cock touched the swollen and wet folds of her breeding channel from behind, and she let out a cry, partly in surprise and partly in fear. The cry didn’t stop the advance, but it did make the large man behind her chuckle.
The cock continued its journey forward. At first, the sensation was merely tightness, then the tissues stretched beyond anything she could have imagined. He took his time, sliding in and out with gentleness, making sure he gathered her wetness to ease his way forward.
She was panting to ease the stinging, when he paused.
The same green doctor she’d met after arriving, who was in the middle of changing to her male form, had assured her yesterday that the liquid given to Mena would relax her cervix long enough for Mik'kal to get in without causing her harm. The doctor had spoken as if it was Mena’s fault humans’ cervixes were closed so tight, compared to other species.
“It’s a wonder you ever reproduce with all that wasted sperm rolling around inside ,and dripping out, instead of going where it’s supposed to go.”
She’d forgotten to ask if it would still hurt. She twisted around and looked up at Mik'kal to ask him.
“It will, Little One. I’m sorry.” He stroked her cheek. She whimpered and almost begged him to find another way. “But you’ll bear it for me without words or protest because I’m your master, and I order you to, right?” His dominant words brought forth a rush of slippery wetness to meet his invading member and welcome it inside.
“Y-yes, Master,” she stuttered, bracing herself for the worst, sure in the knowledge that when it was over, he’d hold her and wipe her tears.
“I’m going to enter you now.”
When the pointed tip of his cock slid into the valley of her closed cervix, she grunted in pain. When he pushed forward, though, the hurt was a thousand times worse than she thought it would be. She screeched, yanking at the restraints on the breeding bench she was bent over.
She cried out again as he forced the tiny canal open a little more. She knew the baby they hoped to create would come out the same route and be much bigger, but she really hoped she’d be thoroughly drugged for that event.
Another sensation crept into her awareness. One of his fingers was lazily circling her clit, transforming the pain into something else. Her body responded, her hips pushing up and back as far as the restraints would let her go, and though she knew she was impaling herself, she no longer cared.
She hadn’t had an orgasm since the one she’d stolen before the storm. As punishment, he’d decreed her next one wouldn’t be until it was time to breed, and until then, she was going to be edged until she was out of her mind. She’d wailed, certain it would be a long, long time. She’d even begged him to punish her another way, but in true dom style, he’d informed her if she didn’t like the punishment, that was the point.
That had been some five lunars ago, so when he’d brought her to the bench a little while ago and bent her over the declined platform, the fear of how it might hurt was heavily mixed with anticipation of finally getting to come.
His fingers took mere minutes to bring her to the edge. The muscles of her vaginal wall were clamped tight around his cock, and she knew his moans well enough to know he was close to erupting as well. She had no doubt just the sight of her body restrained over the bench—head lower than her ass, hips and back firmly strapped in tight, ankles spread wide and chained to the supports, arms bound behind her, high on her back—would have brought him more than halfway to completion.
He lightened his touch as she was about to spill over.
“Master! No! Don’t stop!”
He grunted and thrust deep, and the piercing pain triggered the most intense orgasm she’d ever had in her life. She screamed again, but this time, she was drowning in bliss, her soul flying apart, and her body jerking so wildly, she would have risen
off the bench if not for the restraints. She dimly heard his own cry as he stiffened and trembled. She was pretty certain she passed out for a moment.
When awareness returned, he was leaning over her, gasping for breath. The pain was back because he was still lodged up inside her cervical canal, and now his knot had swelled up inside her vagina, keeping his cock there as a plug to keep the sperm up inside and give them a fighting chance. This was why the pregnancy rate for the Kaziri people was so high.
She whimpered and moaned, trying to find a comfortable position.
“Shh.” He stroked her back and her hips, kissing up and down her spine, and on her bound hands.
“Please, can you let my arms loose?” she begged.
“Soon. I like seeing you like this, and your suffering pleases me.” His soft words melted her objections, and she stayed silent as the minutes passed.
“Master, may I ask you a favor?” She tried to distract herself from the pain.
“That depends. What is it you want?”
“Will you find out where my friend Addy is? We were so close for ten years, and she’d be so excited to know I was pregnant. But I don’t know what happened to her.”
“Your friend’s name is Addy?” There was a note of surprise in his voice.
“Yes. I-I’d really love to see her sometime.”
“Yes, little human slave, I think I can do that for you.” He dropped a kiss on her back, and she shivered.
He held her close, his warmth so soothing that despite the pain, she almost fell asleep. But she forced her eyes to open, loathe to miss a moment of this event. They were in a sun-splashed room filled with plants that had been a delightful discovery in their new home. As soon as Mik'kal had been sworn in as Dirac, the furniture of the former Dirac had been removed. Mena was having fun shocking her mate by decorating the mostly empty house with human-inspired themes. The room they were in opened out to a large lawn of tiny little pink and blue flowers that sprang back up when walked over. Someday, she hoped she’d see more than one little brown four-fingered child racing up and down the hill.
“Lots of room for a child... or children.” He read her thoughts as he tucked an errant curl behind her ear and out of her face. “Would you like a girl or a boy?”
“I-I would like whatever you would like, sir.”
He chuckled. “Good response, my slave, but since I don’t have any more control over the outcome than you do, it’s okay to say what you’d like.”
“A girl,” she ventured softly. “Is that okay?”
“Of course it is! I hope she has hair like yours and even five fingers. I think I’ve finally gotten used to your extra one.” They laughed as he kissed each of her pinkies.
“Sir, what do you want?”
“I want to make you happy.”
She choked back a sob, thinking of the life she had fallen into and wondering what joy the future held for them.
“You’ve already done that.”
Watch for Addy’s story, coming soon!
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Memories of Surrender Chapter 1
The Book
Lydia wasn't sure how it had come to rest in her hands. She'd successfully ignored the large volume for weeks on the shelf as she dusted and cleaned her master's study, even though the gilt lettering and the cover of deep blue called to her. It was forbidden. And yet, somehow, she was holding it.
She sounded out the title, using the new skills she'd taught herself. The Ancient Ocean. Oh, that sounded interesting. Was it full of tales of imaginary sea creatures? Or full of information about the real wonders of undersea life? She scarcely breathed as the book opened almost by itself to a drawing of a magnificent sea creature. Above the drawing, she puzzled out the caption, letter by letter, until she knew it said E-nor-mer-ipod. She let the unfamiliar word roll around on her tongue.
"Lydia!" A horrified gasp came from the doorway that she'd not heard open. She shrieked and the book spilled from her hands onto the carpet, still open to the page she'd been studying. She stared at Bena who stared back. The older woman opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to warn her, but it was too late. Her master's large frame filled the doorway.
Lydia stared for one brief moment into his shocked face before she threw herself to the floor, bowing so low her face flattened the carpet fibers, her arms thrust forward in supplication.
"Master!" she cried out. "I – I'm sorry! It was just so beautiful and I tried to ignore it and I don't know why–-" Terror had taken over her small form and she began to shake.
"Lydia." His voice was stern but not angry. "Lydia, look at me."
She lifted her head up but couldn't look him in the eye, so she left her gaze on his feet.
"The book is beautiful, isn't it?"
She gave a tiny nod. "Yes, Master," she squeaked, tears now gathering in the corner of her eyes and threatening to spill over.
He walked over to the book, still lying on the carpet, and looked at the page that lay open and accusing. "Oh, yes. That was one of my favorite creatures, too. My father gave me this book when I was ten."
He bent over and closed the book, picked it up, and put it back on the shelf. Then he sat down in the large desk chair. He swiveled around to face her still-prostrate form.
"Lydia, you know what the rules are, and you know what the consequences are." It was a statement, not a question. She'd known the rules since her earliest memories as a child. She trembled, her head once more buried in the carpet as though humility could save her. "I think, however, it's possible that you were only holding the book, not looking inside, and that it didn't open until it fell to the floor."
Lydia could scarcely believe that he was going to lie to lessen her punishment. "Master?" Now she did raise her head to look at him, blinking to clear the tears. "Th-thank you." Her voice was so soft she didn't know if he'd heard her. Holding a book was bad enough, but opening it to look at the pages more than doubled the penalty.
He leaned over to cup her chin with a gentleness she didn't deserve. "I'm afraid I need to go enter your name on the list for Punishment Day. And I'm forbidding you from cleaning in here anymore. You'll only clean rooms without books from now on, and if you come across one by accident, instead of just cleaning around it, you'll leave the room immediately and notify one of the male staff to resolve the situation." He shook his head as he stood up. "I'm just glad you can't actually read the words. That would be horrible." He left the room.
Lydia struggled not to throw up on the expensive white carpet.
James Morel sat up in the chair so abruptly it almost tipped over. "What the fuck is taking so long?" he groused.
"It's only been a few days, and you know I can't tell them why we want access. In their minds there's absolutely no hurry to approve an off-worlder's request for time in the university lab." Raym Dukeren was sprawled on his stomach on the hotel room bed, reading something on his small computer and erupting into sporadic laughter.
James made a noise of disgust, but he knew Raym was right. His former college friend had to be very quiet about the reason for James' visit to Midros. If any of Raym's pharmaceutical competitors knew why James was here, they'd block every move he made, and then offer him more money than he could dream of to come work for them.
It was a good thing James was an honorable man. And it didn't hurt that Raym had made a very lucr
ative offer to share the profits if and when James could figure out the decades-old problem that Raym had asked his help to solve.
"All right. In the meantime, let's head back down to the Archives."
Raym made a face. "You really want to go down there again? It's dusty and smelly and dim."
James laughed. "You are such a scientist! Not happy unless you're in a clean, bright lab."
"Gah!" Raym waved his hand in dismissal. "Midros' history is dirt-poor poverty! It's full of superstitions and weird ways. Until paeolate came along and made us rich, there was nothing here worth writing down to remember. I doubt any of those books are more than a hundred years old."
"Hey, dumbshit, you asked me to come here and see if I could find out why Oblita won't work anywhere else but on Midros. I happen to think the people of the past have a lot to teach us, and since you told me that legends say Oblita used to work in other places, you get to help me dig around in old books and translate. Why your people ever decided to start writing books in Br'ini, instead of the Basic that everyone else in this universe speaks, is beyond me. I'm still struggling with it."
"Give me five minutes to finish this," Raym grumped, and turned back to his computer.
A growing noise outside caught James' attention as he waited. With a curious glance at Raym, who didn't seem to notice, he rose and walked over to the window.
From the tenth floor he looked out over a large open area of grass, walking paths, and fountains that were tucked between the massive high rises in the medium-sized city that was the capital of Midros. Small trees with pink blossoms dotted the sidewalks all over town, softening the sharp edges of the urban landscape. Overlaying the whole scene was the faintest tinge of pink, courtesy of the paeolate dust glistening in the sunlight that bounced off the walls of blue glass buildings.
Tribute: Captives of Kazir Page 19