by Emma Vance
I sucked him again, bobbing my head up and down, flicking my tongue along his shaft. I did it a few more times before he grabbed me roughly by the shoulders and yanked me up to face him.
“Enough.” He crushed his mouth to mine, sucking on my tongue, mimicking the movements I had made on his cock. He released me, and a smug smile was painted on his face. “Now it is my turn. It has been a long while since I have tasted your cunt.”
He set me on my back, then moved down my body. I was so wet I’d probably soaked through the blankets we laid on. But it was nothing compared to how wet I became when he fastened his mouth over my pussy and sucked on me greedily. When he gripped the cheeks of my ass to open me wider, I swear I saw stars.
I moaned loud and threw my head back, my hands clutching his dark hair. He alternated between suckling my clit and lashing it with his tongue, prodding my delicate bud until I writhed with pleasure.
“Otun,” I called his name and bucked against his face. I was drenched. When he slid two fingers inside me and began pumping them in tandem with the rhythms of his tongue, I came apart under his mouth. I screamed my orgasm, my nails digging into his scalp as he nuzzled my pussy, drawing out the last ebb of my pleasure. Even though I had just woken up, I collapsed in an exhausted heap underneath him.
He clambered over me, nudging my legs wider apart with his muscular thighs, and settling his cock against the slickness of my pussy. I shivered at the contact and met his gaze.
“I need you to come again, Nisha.”
“I don’t know if I can,” I said, weakly. Despite my words, I felt the anticipation building inside of me, causing my legs to spread just a little wider.
He grinned, his fangs showing in the morning light. “Yes, you can.”
He moved his cock up and down along my slit, coating his cock in my juices, building the tension inside me once more. Otun then clamped his lips around my nipple, sucking it as he moved his hips.
“Yes,” I said, knowing he had me. I could feel the crescendo building again. He chuckled against my breast and positioned his cock at the entrance to my core. He waited a beat, working his cock into me with little thrusts, knowing how much my pussy had to stretch to accommodate him. He was half-way in when he popped his mouth off my breast and gripped my thighs. He then thrust fully inside me. Otun groaned my name, and beads of sweat popped out along his forehead.
I groaned as he thrust hard, setting a fast past that had my body slipping up and down on the fur blankets, my breasts bouncing with the force of his momentum. When he moved it felt as if he stroked every part of me.
“Gods, you are the most beautiful female,” he said through gritted teeth as he pounded into me.
He palmed my pussy, flicking his thumb over my clit, and growling low when I moaned at his touch.
“I’m going to fuck your tight cunt so I’m the only male you’ll ever think about. The only one you’ll ever crave. The one who will see to all your needs.”
“Yes,” I gasped, my nails digging into the blankets below me.
I was crazy for him. I felt like I was hanging on by a thread that he held the tether to. He anchored me to him, and the point where our bodies joined was the only thing that mattered right now. With each thrust, with every rub of my clit I was more and more his.
He pumped into me, his hips moving wildly, the sounds of his breathing growing more and more harsh until he was roaring, exploding, filling me with his hot seed. My own orgasm burst through me with the hot pulse of his cock, and I clenched around him.
We laid together in the aftermath and he pressed his lips to mine in a quiet kiss. I laughed against his lips.
He lifted his head. “You are laughing at me, human?” His tone was teasing.
“You just fucked me so deliciously hard, and then gave me the sweetest kiss at the end.” I chuckled. “It was incongruous.”
He tilted his head, his eyes glinting. “I like to be surprising sometimes.”
When we’d caught our breaths, we dressed, and ate some of the provisions that were left in the cave.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad that beast guy was here,” I said, as I ate a pack of something similar to granola. “Where did he get all this stuff from?”
“Likely salvage from ships,” Otun said, looking at the silver packets that contained the food. “Food packages like this are usually from long haul voyages. My father would sometime use goods like this on his ships to mask what he was smuggling. They’d last for years and he wouldn’t have to replace them very often.”
“Well, it’s better than nothing,” I said, chewing the cardboard-like flakes. At least I wouldn’t be hungry.
“It’s much better than nothing,” Otun agreed. He stared at the bag of supplies left in the cave. “I’m not sure how much longer we can stay here. We need a plan. Fast.” He scrubbed a furred hand over his face.
“I’m sorry.” He said, meeting my eyes. “I’ve let you down.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I promised you I would fly that ship out of here, and instead we are stranded in the middle of the desert, with barely any food and water. What little we do have is by chance.”
I shook my head and then leaned over to cup his face in my hands. “You have nothing to apologize for. We will figure something out.” I thought for a moment. “Why don’t we check the ship for other supplies?”
“That’s a good idea. The patrols should be gone by now.”
I had no idea what our plan was from there, but maybe we could salvage some things and get out of the immediate danger of starving to death.
We climbed over the ridge and hid behind the rocky outcrop to check out the ship.
It was quiet.
No patrol ships, no guards.
Otun nodded at me, and we headed towards our crashed ship. Things looked much different when there wasn’t a sandstorm disrupting your vision. The ship was broken in half, with the larger end sticking out of a mountain of sand close to us. The other side lay flat, further away.
Except for the canyon behind us, we were surrounded by miles and miles of desert.
When I was fourteen, before my parents died, we’d visited my mom’s extended family in Australia, and we’d gone on a camping trip in the outback. It reminded me a little of that, with endless stretches of flat, red earth. I felt dwarfed by it.
How would we survive in this?
We walked towards the smaller piece of ship, the one that laid flat. It looked like the back of the ship.
We climbed into the torn wreckage of the ship and Otun helped me step over a twisted piece of metal. Once we were inside it was a little easier to navigate.
We were in what looked like the old dining hall of the ship. Shelves lined the back wall. They opened to reveal more silver packets of the same kind of food we were eating in the cave.
“Thank God,” I breathed. We wouldn’t starve.
Otun grabbed a knife from the cutlery drawer as I bent down and picked up a bag I could fill with the food packets. When I lifted it off the floor, I spied a latch on the floor of the ship. I frowned and reached for it. But I didn’t get the chance.
“What are you doing?” a commanding voice shouted.
I turned.
A Stryxx guard was standing at the entrance to the dining hall, his blaster raised and pointed directly at us.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Otun
When I heard the guard’s voice, my mind went blank. I’d surveyed the area. I hadn’t heard anything approach and hadn’t seen any patrol ships.
But I’d been wrong, and now I had made the colossal mistake of putting Nisha in danger.
Even so, it was just one guard. He had a blaster aimed at us, but one guard I could handle.
I leapt forward, grabbing Nisha and plastering her against me.
“What—”
I clamped my hand over her mouth.
“Brother,” I said, forcing a feral grin on my face. “Thank the
Gods. I found this human on the ship, but the others left without me. Tell me you came in a patrol ship and we can get the fuck out of here.” I walked towards him with confidence.
His blaster wavered. Half the guard’s face was covered but I could still see the confusion written all over it. After a tense moment, he lowered his blaster.
I had him.
“How could they leave you behind?” he asked, voice filled with uncertainty.
I channeled my father like I never had before. He had been a master at talking himself out of situations with officials, Alliance patrol ships and everyone in between.
“Gods if I know. I was searching the ship for the human escapees and the next thing I know the patrol ship was taking off without me. Then I found this female. Let me catch a ride with you and I’ll even split Bardoa’s reward with you.” I gripped Nisha to my side.
The confusion on his face had all but disappeared. “Or perhaps we can share her before we return,” he said, with a sly smile. He walked towards us. “Bardoa’s only going to kill her anyway. Seems a waste of a perfectly good cunt.”
He lifted a hand to stroke Nisha’s face, and rage exploded in my chest. I’d rip the male’s hands off before I let him touch her. Nisha shivered beside me, and I knew she was scared. I squeezed her arm, trying to communicate reassurance.
I touched the knife I’d hooked in the belt of my leather lappets, the one I’d grabbed when we’d come in here.
The male took a step closer, his lips twisted into a leer as he stared at Nisha.
I acted so fast the guard didn’t have time to blink. I pulled out the knife from my belt, jutting it upwards. I thrust the blade into his throat.
He gripped my hands, a silent scream bubbling from his mouth. Blood poured from the wound, thick and black. I released Nisha and gripped the male’s helmet, twisting the knife further into his neck before wrenching it free again.
Blood sprayed and he fell to the floor, his body twitching as he bled out.
“Come,” I said to Nisha, taking her hand. “We need to get out of here. There will be more guards.”
We ran from the room, down the corridor of the ship towards the light of the desert beyond.
I scanned the open area, but nothing moved. But there wouldn’t just be one guard, there’d be more. If six guards walked in here pointing blasters at us, I wouldn’t be able to do anything at all.
My feet sunk into fresh sand as we stepped outside the mangled ship. I stopped short at the movement in the distance. Something stirred by the outcrop of rocks near the cave. I put my arm up to silence Nisha as four guards walked from behind the rocks, their blasters ready.
“Shit,” whispered Nisha, following my gaze.
I grit my teeth. We could circle around the ship, hoping they didn’t look in our direction, or we could go back inside and hide, hoping they wouldn’t find us, or the body of their fallen comrade.
That was a lot of hoping. I didn’t like leaving our fate up to chance.
I turned to usher us back through the ship. If we could hide, then maybe we could wait this search party out.
But the charge of a blaster stopped my heart.
“He found one!” I whirled around at the sound of the voice. Another guard stood at the edge of the ship’s entrance, directly in my blind spot.
That made five guards. I couldn’t fight five Stryxx soldiers with blasters. Not if they threatened Nisha’s life. Thank the Gods I was still wearing my guard uniform.
“Bardoa will be pleased with you. Now there’s only one more missing. Where was she?” The guard gestured to Nisha, his eyes traveling her body.
I cleared my throat. “Hiding in a storage locker.” The other guards headed our way.
I wrapped my arm around Nisha’s, as if she were my prisoner. She was shaking, and I didn’t blame her. I didn’t have a plan for how we were going to get out of this. But if we didn’t want to die now, we needed to let this play out.
Praying she understood, I pulled her along with me, following the lead of the other soldiers.
We boarded their patrol ship. Luckily, not all five guards came with us, and only two joined us on the ship. The others stayed behind to search the other ship for the human they said was still missing. I gripped Nisha’s arm tightly as we took off into the sky.
“She can’t run off,” said the guard who found us, with a laugh. “And if she tried to escape, we’d just shoot her. Bardoa’s furious with this group. They say he can’t wait to get them in the pits.”
I clenched my teeth. There was no way Nisha was ending up there.
The guard seemed to expect some kind of response, so I nodded. “Fools.”
But it was true.
I should have never agreed to go along with this stupid escape plan. All the years I had been planning and I followed a group of empty-headed gladiators who didn’t know their arses from their mouths. I risked my life and Nisha’s because of it, and now I didn’t know how to get us out of this predicament.
“Can’t disagree with you on that,” the guard chuckled. “No one ever escapes Bardoa. Think the last one was the gladiator who died in the desert trying to outrun patrols.”
My thoughts skittered back to the beast who’d helped us. Could he be the one they spoke about?
I didn’t have time to dwell on that. The patrol ship was small, like a smooth silver egg with barely enough room in the cockpit. I didn’t have room to outmaneuver a skilled fighter if they put a blaster to our heads, but we were getting closer to the ship docks. If I didn’t figure out something quick, Nisha would be dragged to the pits as soon as we landed.
Luckily for us, two guards were better than five.
My blood-stained blade was still strapped to my belt. I had moments to kill these two guards and take over the ship. The element of surprise was the only advantage I had.
I slipped the knife from its sheath. The guard who spoke was sitting in front of me, and the other guard was piloting the ship. He had his back to us.
Leaning forward, I soundlessly gripped the guard’s helmet in front of me and lifted his head back to expose his throat. In one smooth motion, I slashed the knife across his skin. He cried out, but the sound was a croaked whisper.
Unfortunately, I didn’t factor in the blood spray.
It drenched the cabin of the cockpit and sprayed over the guard piloting the ship. He turned in surprise, and for a second we just stared at each other.
Then I lunged, fangs bared, knife pointed towards the male.
Nisha screamed, but I tried not to focus on her—if I got distracted that could mean death. As I dove, the pilot blocked my blow so that I sliced him across the palm instead. I anticipated that and curved the knife downwards, catching him in his stomach on the way down. The knife plunged into his gut and the male cried out, kicking wildly. He fumbled for his blaster at his waist, but I got there first.
I shot a full powered blast into his chest and he collapsed—dead.
Nisha helped me pull him away from the pilot’s seat so I could take his place. Strangely, we still flew on an even keel. The ship hadn’t dived out of control when I had plunged my knife into the pilot.
Dread sank in my stomach, and I scrambled for the controls.
“Otun? What is it? What’s wrong?”
I pushed the pilot aside and tried to override the master controls. I tried to move the ship off course.
Nothing.
I turned to Nisha. “Stryxx has control over this ship.”
She blinked at me, confusion crossing her face. “Which means?”
“I cannot override the controls. The ship is programmed to fly straight back to the docks, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
“So, we are flying straight back to Bardoa?” she said, covering her mouth with her hands, her horrified eyes wide.
“Yes.” I looked down at the bodies at my feet. “With two dead guards in our ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Otun
&nbs
p; How could I have been so stupid? I knew Stryxx had the ability to lock their ships I just didn’t think it would be activated on these patrol ships, or that I wouldn’t be able to easily override it. I slammed my fists down on the control panel, shaking the front of the patrol ship.
I roared my anger and hopelessness. Not fear of what would become of me, but Nisha. As our ship pulled in closer to the docking station, my mind whirled. There was no way out of this. We would be captured and then thrown into the pits.
“Can we jump?” Nisha asked, putting her hands gently on my shoulders. I shook my head, not wanting to face her. “I have no way of lowering the ship closer to the ground so we wouldn’t die, and patrol ships don’t have life chutes.”
There was a beat of silence, and her hands lifted to my shoulder and stroked it. I crushed her to me, and she wrapped her arms around my waist. We stayed like that for a moment, as I tried to memorize the feeling of her against my skin.
She lifted her head and looked up at me. “What about the bodies?”
I blinked at her, then understood.
Of course.
The viewing screen showed we were still a few leagues away from the docking station, and we still crossed the endless desert. We were over a craggy canyon, much smaller than the one our cave was in, but still useful.
I pulled the pilot’s body over to the hatch, piling him on top of the other guard.
“Hold on when you open it,” I said to Nisha, gripping the shoulders of the dead guards.
Nisha controlled the door, and when it popped open, I heaved the bodies out of the hatch and into the abyss below. We mopped up the blood as best we could and cleaned up the ship, hoping we’d done enough to hide the fact I’d killed two males in there.
Then, we sat, and waited for the ship to be reeled into the docking station. I gripped Nisha’s hands in my own and tried to soothe her trembling. I had a plan, but I just hoped it worked.