by Viki Storm
His skin winks again and little red pinprick spots appear all over his torso. This close he smells so good, like a rainy, verdant forest.
“No ideas.” I choke out the words, not daring to say more lest I start rambling and accidentally spill some of my dirty thoughts.
“Then I guess you’ll have to do boring things like check nav-charts and send comms for me.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Are you disappointed?” he asks. “Do you wish my demands were more… carnal?”
I almost say yes. Stupid body. Stupid alien. Why is this huge, violent monster making me so aroused? What kind of girl am I that he’s turning me on so much? He’s a monster. But he’s right: I am disappointed. I expected him to demand that I strip nude and bend over, giving him the free use of my body so that he might take his pleasure.
“I will gladly perform administrative tasks for you,” I say. “It’s the least I can do, helping you on your mission. I owe you my life.”
“You owe me your life,” he repeats. “Interesting concept. I’ll remember that… for later.” That smile again. His fangs look like they could rip out my throat… or nip at my clit while he sucks and licks me.
If I could have a non-dirty thought, that would be great.
“I do have one condition,” he says. That hopeful heat swells between my legs again. He’s going to leap on me, tear off my clothes, hold me to the floor and ravish me.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“The cargo crate,” he says, motioning to the crate of antiviral premix. “I need to see what’s inside.”
Chapter 5
Auvok
If this female thinks I'm letting her go, she's crazy. She's stranded here, no ship, no comm, nothing. Except me. The exiled warrior who just found the most interesting prize in the universe.
She’s stunned by my demand, and I use the brief moment of shock to take her crate. Her face is dirty from the crash and her scuffle with the pirate. Half of her hair is gone, and the other half is a wild tangle. Despite what she’s just been through, her eyes flare with stubborn fury.
“You said you didn’t care what was in the crate,” she protests. Where most females—and males too—would plead or whine, Vela commands. Void take me, I love a female with an iron spine.
“I don’t,” I say. “I have executed many successful smuggling operations. And if I’m going to execute another one, I need to have all the information.”
This isn’t about the crate or her little smuggling job on Mutza’s World.
It’s about her. Vela.
I can’t let her go so easily.
When I applied the salve to her burn and injected her swollen ankle, something inside me woke up.
A Virixian warrior’s lust is ferocious. A lesser male would not be able to control it. The more skilled with a weapon, the more deft of a fighter, the deadlier the male—the more powerful his desires for a female. On Virix, it’s expected that a named warrior requires frequent mating—but there’s a catch. There always is. Named warriors are forbidden from taking a mate. It’s a conflict of interest. Our only allegiance should be to planet Virix. Mates and offspring make a male fearful in battle, make his priorities shift.
Lucky me that I’ve been exiled.
This female right here on my ship? She’s fair game.
I won’t let her go until she succumbs to my desires. I’ll bend her over the instrument panel and make her scream until her lungs ache. I’ll take her in the captain’s quarters, spreading her legs wide and pounding into her until she’s delirious from orgasm. I’ll squeeze the two of us into the bathing cabinet and caress every inch of her slippery, soapy body. When she finally leaves the Vulp, she’ll be ruined. No other male will ever be able to satisfy her after I’ve thoroughly subjected her to my base desires.
But until then? She’s not going anywhere.
“I’m not asking you to be involved,” she says.
“Nonsense,” I tell her. “You’re asking me to take you to Mutza’s World, are you not? Where you’ll neglect to declare the contents of this crate to customs officials and pay tariffs?”
“You don’t need to do anything except drop me off,” she says.
“I’m opening the crate,” I say. I’ll help her with her smuggling job, but not quite yet. Not until I’ve completed both my mission objectives: finding the jewel and getting inside this sweet little human’s innocent cunt. I pop the latches and flip open the top.
“It’s nothing bad,” she says.
“Of course not,” I say, expecting to find something very bad indeed—but the universe is full of surprises. The crate’s packed full of antiviral premix powder.
“See,” she says.
“Very noble,” I say. “You should join the Federation Intergalactic Aid Corps.”
“Shut up,” she says. I laugh because not even the biggest, strongest male on Virix would dare speak to me like that.
“What’s funny?” she says.
“You’ve got too much sass,” I say. “A female like you needs a strong male to put you in your place.” This time, she laughs.
“Oh yeah?” she scoffs. “And what’s that? What’s my proper place? Cooking your meals and scrubbing the skid marks out of your undershorts?”
“I’m fully capable of performing basic survival and sanitation tasks,” I say. “I don’t need a female for that.”
“Then what—” she cuts herself off, her cheeks going a shade of red that I find utterly irresistible. It’s the same flushed color that she’ll be after I’ve exhausted her with countless orgasms.
“A female’s proper place is submitting to a strong male’s lust,” I say. It’s not like me to say something so forward, to show my intent and emotions like this, but the words leap out before I can think better of it. I don’t like how Vela’s making me lose my composure, but there’s nothing to be done about it except mate her and get it out of my system.
“Oh brother,” she says, but she keeps her eyes cast down on the tabletop.
“I’ll help you with your job,” I remind her. “If you provide me sufficient aid during my mission.”
“And your mission is more important than this?” she says, gesturing to the medicine.
“Of course,” I say. “My ship, my fuel, my mission comes first.”
“What if I say that I don’t want to wait?” she says. “That I don’t need your help?”
“I don’t doubt you can complete your mission on your own,” I say truthfully. “However, you do need my help getting off this rock—whether you like it or not.”
“So, what, I’m your captive?”
Oh, female, you have no idea how right you are, the things I have in store for you. Just you wait…
“Not at all,” I lie. “You can leave whenever you want. Go ahead.” I gesture to the hatch. She knows I’m right, knows that she’s stuck on the Vulp until I say she can leave.
“Just drop me at the nearest planet,” she says.
“No,” I say. “I’m making no more detours on account of an ungrateful human.”
Her chest rises and falls quickly, in frustration I know, but I can’t help imagining her breasts underneath her spacesuit, jiggling free as she pants while my face is buried between her legs.
“Fine,” she says. She lets out a long sigh and her face softens. “Thank you for saving me. Thank you for letting me come with. And I’m sorry for putting you in danger by bringing the stolen goods onto your ship. It’s just that on Mutza’s World, all the people who live there get infected by the drinking water. The settlers who came, they brought a cat who was the reservoir for an enterovirus and—”
“Me? In danger?” I ask. I can’t stop the derisive laughter that follows. “I told you, I don’t care about this stolen cargo. Someone wants to arrest me or search my ship? Let them try. I’m exiled, but I’m still a named warrior of Virix.”
I let that knowledge sink in.
“Oh shit,” she whi
spers. It’s obvious that like most humans, she’s stayed on human settlements most of her life. Humans don’t like to branch out. They’re relative newcomers to the Universe at large, only leaving Earth a couple centuries ago. On Earth, they were self-satisfied, pleased at their own ingenuity and wit. When they first terraformed Mars, their smug pride grew. But when the Federation made First Contact, the humans had to face the fact that all the things they prided themselves on—intelligence, arts, technology—other alien races did those things, too, only so much better.
They were out-humaned by a bunch of aliens. It’s pretty funny actually.
“Still think one of those cut-rate pirates is going to board my ship, bonk me on the head and take the medicines that rightfully belong to the hardworking peasants of Mutza’s World?”
“I’ve heard tales about you guys. Is it true that for your final test they made you eat a puppy that you’d raised from birth?”
“Do all humans believe whatever someone tells them?” I ask.
She considers this for a second, then answers, “Yes, pretty much.”
“We are not required to eat anything as part of our final trial.”
“But it’s really hard, isn’t it?” she asks. “Only one percent make it through?”
“More like twenty-five percent,” I say. “But I’d rather forget the Final Trial, if at all possible. It was an ordeal.”
The annoyance I’d seen so clearly in her eyes has now been completely replaced by fear. It brings me satisfaction to know that she’s been taken down a few notches by this revelation. If she fears me, it will be that much more challenging to get her nude and wet and begging for my cock.
And I love a challenge.
“Last question,” she says. Without waiting for me to give her permission to ask it, she says, “Did you say that you were exiled?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Oh great, on a planet where their warriors eat puppies, they decided that you were too much for them?”
“No one eats puppies, you daft human. We don’t even have any of the canidae species on Virix. Humans are the ones who ingest the conceptus of avians.”
“Eggs?” she asks. “Those aren’t babies.”
“You know what we had to do for the Final Trial?” I ask her. I don’t know why I’m telling her this. Actually, I do. It’s to erase the air of revulsion that I sense around her. I’m fairly certain that she’s joking about the canine-eating thing, but her initial fear of the Virixian warrior is being replaced by the disgust she feels over the tales of our violence she’s heard.
“No,” she says. I’m sworn to silence regarding our training and the Trial, but still I continue.
“First, they take us at age eight. That’s the age a Virixian is expected to know right from wrong. Any child with prowess, with physical strength, with cunning intellect—they’re taken. The chieftains go from village to village conscripting the children. We aren’t allowed to take anything—not even our name.”
“Auvok isn’t your name?”
“It is now,” I say. I haven’t thought of my first name in a lifetime, the name my mother spoke when I skinned my knee, the name my father spoke when he approved of my antics, the name my brother yelled when I broke his toy.
“After we were taken,” I continue, “we were relocated to a remote moon where we trained for eight more orbits. They dropped us out of ships into the ocean, they buried us in sand six feet deep, they blindfolded us and led us deep into icy caverns and left. Those who survived were invited to participate in the Final Trial.”
“I think eating puppies might be less hardcore than all that stuff,” she says.
“The Final Trial was eight rotas. Each of us was given a different task to complete.”
“What was your task?” she asks.
“We are forbidden from discussing the Final Trial,” I say. I thought I could discuss it, but I was wrong. It’s been twenty orbits and I’ve never spoken of it to anyone.
“You’re the one who brought it up,” she says.
“I did,” I concede. “To let you know that you don’t have to worry. You’re safe.”
“I don’t feel very safe,” she murmurs.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” I say. “But we’ve lollygagged long enough. Let’s get out of here in case that pirate has buddies on the way.”
I try to make my way to the cockpit, but she leaps off the bench and snakes around me, blocking my way through the corridor.
“My cargo,” she says. I’m still holding the crate. I’ll be damned, this female still has the nerve to challenge me after what I’ve just told her. It’s a refreshing change from the usual fearful acquiescence I get from my dealings with males and females alike.
There’s no way I’m letting her keep the cargo. If I’ve got her precious medicines, she won’t sneak off in an escape pod while I’m asleep. This is my insurance policy, my collateral.
“I’ll hold onto it,” I say, “for safe keeping. We wouldn’t want the poor bastards on Mutza’s World to suffer without their medicines.”
“You are keeping me captive,” she shrieks—and to my astonishment, she tries to take the crate from me. I lift the crate above my head, easily putting it out of her reach.
“Settle down,” I tell her. I start to tell her to strap into her harness and prepare for takeoff, but I get a strange sensation.
Another part of our training was sensory deprivation. The healers gave us a draught that temporarily deactivated the synaptic system in our visual and auditory system. We were made completely blind and deaf and made to spar against a non-handicapped opponent. It developed our extra-sensory perception. Not mind-reading, not precognition, but sensing energy. You can feel the heat of a foe; the air will ripple with their muscle contractions, their movements.
I can sense something now. Not from Vela. From the crate. I rest it against my leg and paw around inside. I stir around the small mylar pouches of antiviral powder premix, not knowing what, exactly, it is that I expect to find.
Until my fingers close around it.
Something small, hard, pointy. Something that should be cool to the touch but feels like it’s been in the sunlight all afternoon.
A jewel. The jewel.
This smuggler, she’s got the Jewel of Supreme Power.
Chapter 6
Vela
Holy fuck. Auvok just pulled out a big-ass motherfucking jewel. It’s the size of an apple and just as red. It’s been cut, beveled and faceted. It’s hypnotic, the way the light bounces and sparkles.
How the hell did I not know that was in there? Did Ason know about this? Is that why his wife was trying to warn me? These and about a hundred other questions run through my head too fast for me to contemplate any single one of them.
“Have you lied to me, female?” Auvok asks. I’m seriously scared. I mean, a named Virixian warrior just accused me of lying to him. They kill for less than that.
I force myself to look him in the eye so that he can see the truth for himself: “No.”
“No?” he says, but the corner of his mouth twitches, and I know that there’s a smile hiding underneath.
“No,” I say. “I’m just as surprised as you.”
He sets down the jewel inside the crate but uses his foot to push the crate away, as if he’s afraid I’m going to make a mad dash for it and jump out the window.
“Are you?” he says. He takes a step towards me, but he’s so tall, his legs so long, that one step is all it takes. I’m backed against the wall, his body a fraction of a centimeter away from mine. “You act all innocent about wanting to help the poor hardworking people on Mutza’s World, meanwhile you’re hiding one of the most valuable historical artifacts in the galaxy.”
He leans in closer, the hard plane of his torso pressing against me. The tips of my breasts stiffen, turning my nipples into hard beads.
He’s too close, coaxing a reaction from my treacherous body. His slitted eyes bore into me. His chromatophor
es wink and he’s come over with a shade of red so deep it’s purple.
He grips my wrists and with one quick jerk pulls them over my head, pinning them tight against the wall. His other hand, he slides it into my hip pocket. His rough warrior’s hand. A hand that’s taken lives, that was bred to hold a weapon.
“What else are you hiding?” he says, his hand roaming my waist to check my other pocket.
“Nothing,” I say.
“I should strip you nude,” he says. He leans in close, the tip of his nose burrowing into my hair as his lips brush the tender lobe of my ear. “Take you over my knee and check every single place on your body. Then spank your bare bottom red for your impertinence.”
I shudder involuntarily as his words tickle my ear. His voice is little more than a growl, primal and full of hunger. His fingers find the zipper of my spacesuit. It’s primly zipped all the way up to my neck, and he slowly pulls it down, stopping before he reveals my chest.
He cups my chin in his huge hand. His fingers grip the side of my face firmly, and he tilts my head up so I’m looking right at him. “You’re a professional smuggler,” he says.
“I am,” I say.
“It’s your job to hide things.”
“I told you I didn’t know that was in there,” I repeat. “I’ve done the Mutza run so many times, I got complacent. I didn’t check the cargo. It’s my fault for being sloppy, but I didn’t know.” Even as I’m pleading my case, I get the feeling that this isn’t about the jewel or the cargo or the Mutza run.
This is about me and Auvok. Together on this ship.
“I’m going to search you,” he says. “There will be no more surprises.”
He pulls the zipper down a little more, exposing a little bit of cleavage.
“I’m telling the truth,” I say. He leans in close and kisses me. His lips are rough, like his hands. They’re insistent, hungry and completely break down my defenses.