by V. K. Ludwig
“But… what game, Adrin? What do I do?”
“Nothing. You just stand there. Don’t move. I’ll defend you. Whoever challenges me will try to steal you away. If he succeeds, then…”
My heart skips a beat.
Why did his voice trail off?
“If he succeeds what?”
“He won’t.”
How reassuring. “Adrin, if he succeeds, then what?”
His fingers clasp my chin, bringing my gaze to meet his as he repeats, “He won’t.”
Pushing me behind him, back onto my X, he takes a fighting stance, and throws his arms up, shouting, “Who challenges me for this female?”
This guy isn’t a dork.
He’s a nutcase.
The crowd roars loud enough my ears ring. Limbs and tails tangle as everyone pushes toward the raised stage, males shoving each other away until one manages to climb up.
He straightens to an impressive height, taller than Adrin, his onyx horns short but straight and terrifying. “I will claim this female.”
Oh shit. “Nobody claims me!”
Adrin reaches behind his back and swats at me. “What the female meant to say is that only the strongest will claim her.”
Another roar sends a vibration through the stage, rattling straight into my bones. Or perhaps I’m shaking? A loud grunt follows and, without warning, the male storms at Adrin.
My squeal drowns underneath a clank as their horns collide, hooking into each other. Stance wide, back rounded, muscles swelling with the strain, Adrin backs his opponent toward the edge with several, well-timed thrusts.
Every now and then, the other male frees his horns, though it almost appears as if Adrin lets him go. Whenever he attacks from another angle, Adrin is quick to let their horns clash again, his fists throwing punches while tail claws cut through the air with a hiss.
I stand rooted. Rooted and fascinated.
Where did the Vandalar go who ruined an entire ketuni performance, and can’t fingerfuck without falling into some sort of panic-mode seconds from my orgasm?
That male defending me? He sidesteps without hesitation, dodges every attack, and is toying with his opponent like a predator with its prey. His shoulders twitch with energy. His entire body hums with confidence.
The fight ends minutes later, when Adrin yanks the black-horned Vandalar to the ground, yelling, “Nobody takes what’s mine!”
“Claim her!” many in the crowd shout.
My throat thickens.
Claim me… how?
Walking up to me, Adrin brushes a loose strand out of his face. He wraps his arm around my middle faster than I can follow and pulls me against his chest.
I gasp. “Don’t bite me!”
Damn, he has a gorgeous smile.
“Do I look like I wanna go to jail?” he scoffs. “Nah, those times are long gone.”
With a hand on my nape, the other on my waist, Adrin’s mouth presses down on mine. His lips taste like salted caramel, sweet, but mixed with a hint of sweat from the fight. It’s all over in less than a second.
“Let me help you down,” he says, lifting me off the platform as if he didn’t just kiss my knees into a boneless goo. “Give it five minutes, and they’ll line up.”
Back at the bar, he slumps onto the stool, using the edge of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “That was fun. I haven’t had one of those in a while.”
Guess that makes two of us because I haven’t been kissed in a long time. Limbs shaky, I struggle myself back onto the barstool, adrenaline rushing through my system. “What was all that about?”
“Guess it’s our way of holding on to times where males killed each other over a female,” he says. “We always had few of them. If you wanted one, you had to fight in order to claim, and probably for the rest of your life to defend her.”
“That sounds barbaric.”
“Exactly. Which is why, at some point in the past, our ancestors figured we should find a more civilized way. Old texts suggest the constant aggression got in the way with technological advancement. I took a history course a few solar cycles back.”
“Really?” That’s actually quite interesting. “What else did you learn about the time before?”
He leans over, his intense eyes locking with mine. “See, here is where I gets interesting. A Vandalar sociologist—”
“Hey,” a male says as he walks up beside us, his smile reaching all the way up into stunning, green eyes. “I saw you at the saikhmenti the other day. Izzy, right?”
Adrin pats the other male’s shoulder. “Where are my manners? Izzy, this is Zorvik. He’s an engineer for the biggest shipyard here in Sunhaven, and about to graduate as a top scholar.”
I return his smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“I need some fresh air after this fight.” Adrin slips off his stool. “You guys get to know each other. Just find me or Odrin once you want to go home, Izzy. Okay?”
He leaves me behind with a gorgeous Vandalar male, but my gaze still follows the one who claimed me with a kiss.
Five
Adrin
A knock on the door rips me from sleep, followed by Odrin’s voice. “Hey, you awake? Open up!”
I roll over with a groan and glance out the window toward a sun barely illuminating the tips of the Keneshu mountains. “Vek off, asshole!”
Whomp. Whomp. Whomp. “Get your ass up! She’s got a surprise assessment planned today.”
That word pulls my muscles tight, and I roll out of bed before I stumble toward the door, ripping it open. “What are you talking about?”
“Get dressed.” He storms my room, heading straight for my closet where he rummages through my stuff. “The vek, Adrin. How about you fold your shit? Everything in here is wrinkled.”
I wipe the sleep from my burning eyes. “Folding laundry is overrated. Pulls itself straight as I wear it.”
“Why were you still asleep? You’re usually out for a run at this time.”
“I had training and sparred until late last night.” I grab the pants he hands me and slip into them. “What assessment? Bodyworks?”
“Worse,” he says, fumbling my shoes out from underneath my sleeping pod. “Earth Women 101. I heard Prof Smith mention it to mentor Kresh’nit when I passed them in the hallway. Something about circling.”
After less than two weeks? “Shit. If I would have known, I would have stayed in to study the workbook last night.”
Odrin is an annoying veker for sure, but one couldn’t ask for a better brother, considering he’s even preparing the tooth cleaner over by my cleaning capsule. “Can you pass?”
That would require the model to indicate sexual release. “Not sure.”
Yesterday excluded, I went to Izzy’s estate every night, practicing so many circles I’ll develop arthritis in my fingers within the next decade. And while I’m getting better, she never reached an orgasm, though sometimes I believe she’s purposely holding it back as not to put pressure on me.
“Smith’s class isn’t until eleven.” A quick glance at my com. “If I skip phys ed, which I’ll pass anyway, I could visit Izzy at work and practice more before the assessment.”
“Do it.” Odrin heads toward the door. “I’ll tell the mentor you’re preparing for the tournament. Maybe he’ll cut you some slack.”
The moment he leaves, I slip into my shoes, haphazardly tie my hair into a bun, and freshen up before I head toward the squad. At this time of day, it takes less than a minute to get a public drone, plus ten more until I reach downtown.
Pretty sure Izzy won’t be too happy about me showing up at seven, asking to get my hands between her legs. She’s a grumpy thing in the mornings. And I should know, because I fell asleep at her place once, waking up to a creature incapable of speech beyond grunts until she had breakfast. And she rarely eats breakfast. So I head into a bakery first, getting her a box of pastry spheres filled with sweetened flower petals. She loves those.
It takes a bit of
roaming the streets until I find her work and enter the brightly lit corner office. “Good morning, alien beauty.”
Sitting behind a desk, eyes still half-lidded, Izzy lifts a brow at me. The corners of her lips twitch, but I hand her the box before she manages a grunt. “I brought you breakfast.”
She takes the box and grinds out a chopped, “Thanks.”
“I need your help.” And there is that grunt. “Smith scheduled a surprise assessment today, and it would do me good if I can get more practice in before.”
She chokes on the first bite of her pastry. “Jesus, Adrin, I slept a total of three hours last night, the damn coffee maker in the back is broken, and now you want to fingerfuck me at work? At seven? That’s preposterous.”
She’s so cute when she’s grumpy. “It might improve your mood.”
“It will make me fall behind on work.”
“I’ll throw in a massage after.”
She quirks up. “Ten minutes of massage?”
I can’t help but smile. “Fifteen.”
“Fine,” she says, expanding the holograms above her desk with a swipe of both hands. “But I was supposed to hand in this report last night. Steph will be up my ass if I don’t finish this now. After that, I’m all yours.”
I steal one of her pastries fast enough that she can’t smack my hand away and toss myself onto the black couch standing by the wall of windows. “So, how does this work? Saikhs come in here to apply for estates on Earth?”
“We don’t have estates, and I already told you we don’t usually have more than one male. Saikhs come in here and apply for a matchmaking program. We find them a woman that suits their personality, as per assessment, with the hope that they’ll become mates.”
Now I choke on the pastry. “Mates?”
“Don’t act stupid. I told you that.”
“No you didn’t.” That is certainly something I would have remembered. A woman like Izzy as a mate? The thought alone shifts the universe around me. “What about younglings? Don’t you want them?”
“Humans and Vandalar are compatible.” This is getting more interesting by the second. “Two of my friends are pregnant with hybrids. One’s about to pop. The other, my boss Steph, will come to Sunhaven next week with her mate Varac.”
That name rings a bell. “The Varac?”
The first smile of the day twitches over her lips. “Yes. The Varac.”
Damn. If a master saikh like him scored himself a human female, they must be a treasure indeed. “Could I join the program?”
“Sure,” she says with a shrug. “But you need to be a graduated saikh. It’s what contracts are based on.”
My parents would probably never speak to me again if I took a woman as my mate. Not that I’d care all too much.
I get up and grab a pamphlet from the glass table in front of me, skimming through the pages. Photographs of Earth, bullet points, and frequently asked questions, along with a basic outline of what Earth women want from a male. It’s all rather basic stuff, except…
“What’s pizza?”
Izzy hovers to the shelf to her right, fingers combing through files. “It’s like a flat, round bread made with yeast, topped with tomato sauce and cheese, then baked. Steph keeps saying ‘marry the guy who brings you pizza when you’re on your period’. Marrying is taking someone for a mate.”
Good thing I’m not half bad in the culinary department. “How come you didn’t sleep much last night?”
“I went on a date with Zorvik,” she says, and why are my fingers clenching? “For some reason, I couldn’t fall to sleep after. Took me hours.”
“Do you like him?”
“He’s nice, but he keeps talking about all his skills and achievements. I wish he would tell me more about his hobbies, or his work.”
“His work?”
“How secure it is. How much he makes.”
My stomach tightens. Every female has her agenda when choosing saikhs. Some are in for the pleasure. Others collect those with superior skills like trophies. In Izzy’s case, she’s in it for the luxury, which explains her perversely large estate.
“Can’t say anything about job security, but he makes good credits.” Nothing compared to me, of course, but it’s not like we’re competing. “I’ll introduce you to Cordey next time. He’s the heir to a massive tech company, so you can live in that luxury you want.”
Guess that didn’t come out right, because her sharp eyes cut to me. “Did you just call me a gold digger?”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Izzy.” Not on Vandalheim anyway. “We put our females on a pedestal and want them to enjoy the luxuries we provide. Most of them don’t even work.”
“But I work, don’t I? And I started working before I was old enough to tie my shoes. I spent most of my time on Agari II scraping space gunk from the hull of ships, coming home with cuts all over my arms, and wormhole particles chewing my hair off.”
She slips off her chair with enough annoyance it hovers against the white, built-in shelves behind her. “The break room has a couch. Last door to the left. I’ll lock up really quick.”
I don’t dare say another word and scurry away. By the time she joins me in the small break room, a cluster of electrified air prickles around her. Her skirt goes up. Her panties drop.
Like that, she sits beside me on the couch. “Go ahead and do your thing.”
I slip behind her, kneading the tense muscles of one of those rare females holding a job on this planet. “I’m sorry for what I said.”
Truly, I am.
Izzy never mentioned her childhood, but that shouldn’t have prevented me from realizing how different she is from a Vandalar female. Not only does she work, but she puts a lot of effort and thought into choosing her saikhs based on who they are, instead of what they can offer. A rare occurrence for sure.
“Don’t judge what you don’t understand.” Harsh words, but she delivers them with a voice now void of strain and lets herself fall back against my chest. “My dad taught me how to crack drones when I was six, because I was small and fit between the AI panels. I’ve worked shitty, greasy jobs all my life because I got my first misdemeanor when I was fifteen and can’t go back to Earth. Just once, I want to be taken care of. Is that so bad?”
Shame crushes my chest, and yet I pull her tighter against me, massaging her arms the way I know releases her tension. So it was her family who let her down, willingly or not. This female isn’t out for the luxury, but the safety three males can offer where others failed her.
“Not at all. And the three saikhs you choose will take the best care of you.”
Until then, I’ll be the one doing it.
And I sure as vek won’t introduce her to Cordey. Sure, his family is rich, but he travels for work a lot. That’s not what Izzy needs. She needs a male who’s there when she needs someone to lean on.
“Give me your hand.” The moment she offers it up, I take the digits between mine, pulling them, rubbing her knuckles until she moans. I do the same with the other. “They’re so cold.”
“From swiping through the holograms,” she rasps, propping a leg onto the couch just as she guides my hand between her legs. “What is she going to assess?”
When she wets my finger on her entrance, a lump forms at the back of my throat, and it takes a fat swallow to dislodge it. “All varieties of circles, most likely, until I trigger an orgasm.”
“You guys are so weird,” she says on a giggle. “Start circling then.”
My pulse goes wild as I work her little bud. Something I’ve done so many times now, but never with her pressed against me, her head sitting right above my collar bone, only a barrier of fabric between us.
Dear gods, her eyes flutter shut at her first moan, tongue trailing over lips I enjoyed kissing more than I should have. The way she receives my touch, aches for it, makes me swell against her backside.
I circle her clit with increasing pressure, breathing my cock back into flaccid compliance. Br
eathing exercises lay the groundwork for any saikh, and they work. Usually. Just not now, because every inhale fills my nostrils with the scent of her citrusy bodywash.
“Easy,” she says, one of the few feedback words we settled for instead of her beating me up, so I slow down. “Just relax and close your eyes.”
Vek no.
How am I supposed to watch the rise of her sternum with each pant, or the blush creeping onto her cheeks? Not to mention those lips she tortures. What would those lips do if she came? Press together? Pout? Curl?
It sparks a hungry curiosity.
I picture it all, hard flesh struggling against the constraints of my pants. It takes immense willpower not to thrust. That would overstep a line, crossing into something we didn’t agree on.
“Can I make you come?” I whisper against her ear, enjoying how her skin pebbles, so I send another hush of breath over the column of her neck.
“Think you can handle it without falling apart?”
I chuckle. “Have you been holding back just for me?”
“Maybe.” I knew it! “But it’s not going to happen like this, especially since we’re on the clock here.”
“How then?” I brush my lips over the shell of her ear. “Show me. I swear I’ll pass with flying colors today if only you come against my finger. Good for the morale, you know.”
“Pinch it.” She guides my fingers to torture her clit, shivering when I squeeze it, groaning with each tormenting touch.
When I fall into a pattern of alternating circles and working her clit into a swollen, thrumming knot, the breaths surrounding her moans turn gloriously uneven.
My muscles tighten with determination. By the gods, she has to come. This is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in all my life.
“Come for me,” I whisper, suckling her earlobe, my fingers growing slick with her arousal.
Pressing her hand down on mine, she braces one foot to the ground, the other against the couch. Her back melts into my chest as she sucks in a sharp breath, and I ease back on the way I work her sex as she gifts me her orgasm.
And her lips? They pout underneath the force of her peak, her moans guttural, muffled.