by Stasia Black
“Um…sure?” Juliet says, a confused smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“You can leave now, Ezo,” I cut him off before he can continue with his nonsense. I am the one Juliet should be smiling at, but since I pulled her from the cage, she has barely looked my way.
Ezo takes one look at me and chooses wisely. “I have to go in for a treatment session. But it was great to meet you, female. Goodbye.” He extends his hand, shakes it in her face, and then is out the door.
The door closes but still Juliet will not look at me. Her eyes are trained on the floor.
“You didn’t have to chase him off like that.”
“Juliet, we must converse.”
She finally looks at me, her eyes flashing and angry. “Oh, now we must converse? After you’ve gotten what you wanted and knocked me up?”
Why does she speak in riddles all the time? “How have I knocked you?”
“Got me pregnant, spread your seed, put a damn baby inside me and done this to me.” She thrusts her arms out towards me.
Some of the human skin has peeled away completely, exposing delicate golden scales. It is not everywhere, though. Only on the outsides of her upper arms and her forearms, and then it grafts quite naturally back into her human skin.
I reach out to touch the scales but she jerks her arm away from me.
I shake my head in wonder and then meet her eyes again. “Juliet, I had no idea that such changes would occur in your body. And I did not expect you to become pregnant at all. You said that your con dom would prevent such a thing.”
“Yeah right,” she scoffs. “You knew it wouldn’t work.”
I grit my teeth. Normally I would not allow an accusation of lying to go unchallenged, but Juliet does not know my world. So I will try to explain. “How would I know that? All we know of humanity is what we have seen from afar. I am the first to venture into the wilds of your world.”
“So you say,” she shoots back.
“I tire of your accusations.” I’m growing frustrated in spite of myself. “I never spoke false to you.”
She scoffs again and so I continue, “Yes, there were omissions. I did not tell you the Draci’s true intent when coming to this planet. Our sun went dark. We had no choice but to flee and try to find a new home.”
“So you are here to take over the planet.” She looks at me in horror.
“No! Not like you are thinking.” I shake my head. “It was not just that our sun and planet died. As a race, we have become infertile. No babies have been born to our kind in two hundred years. I told you we were here so we could integrate new genetic material and that is true.”
She frowns and I continue with what I know might be the hardest for her to hear. But there is nothing else other than to say it.
“We hope to breed with your race so that we might continue ours. It is our hope that we can integrate with your population and help this precious planet with our advanced technological resources so that it may last many more millennia than it might have if we never showed up. We are reversing your global warming, do you not see? We can each help the other have a long future. Is that not something worth fighting for?”
She is quiet, biting her lip as her head shakes quickly back and forth. Finally, she looks up at me again. “Why should I believe you? You lied about everything. You aren’t some poor man struggling in a lower caste. You’re the son of the king.”
“I’m the bastard of a king,” I explode, turning away from her, unable to watch her response to my greatest shame. “Shunned and reviled. If I had not exiled myself, I would have been killed in some palace plot or other. The Queen has always wanted me dead.”
And then the final truth. “The only reason I was allowed to take on this mission is because I am completely expendable.”
I look out the window to the earth below. “Should I succeed, then the first of the new race would be of the King’s blood. But should the experimental combining of DNA have failed, my death would be of no great loss to anyone.”
“God, Shak, don’t say that.”
I frown, finally looking at her. “It is nothing but the truth.”
She shakes her head. “Well my truth is that I was never meant to have kids. You want this thing inside of me so bad, you can have it. Just get it out of me!”
Then she covers her face with her hands. “All I’ve ever done is get with guys who treat me like shit. I should know by now never to trust my guy radar. Last time it led me into the nest of a motorcycle gang and this time I’m in even deeper shit.”
She drops her hands, laughing mirthlessly. “And I always swore I’d be nothing like my mama. Ha!”
I do not understand all of her words but one thing I hear loud and clear. “This child is no mistake,” I growl, my voice low. “And you would abandon it? You care so little for the life growing inside you?”
Her eyes flash. “I don’t want it!”
“As my mother and father did not want me.” I step into her, backing her against the wall. My chest brushes hers and her breath hitches at my closeness. It is not from fear. I am beginning to scent her on the air. My closeness affects her as much as she does me. “But I will not have my child grow up so. You are mine. Both of you. And you will not abandon us.”
Her nostrils flare. “You arrogant bast—”
She moves to shove me away and I silence her with a kiss. Her lips are hard and unmoving underneath mine.
She smacks at my arm and chest so I release her. “You’re a total jerk! I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t want— I can’t—” Her voice breaks off and when she looks into my eyes again, I see that in spite of her strong words, she is confused and afraid.
And it slices me to my core. “Juliet,” I whisper and cup her face in my hands. “I want to comfort you.”
She breathes hard, her chest heaving up and down. She shakes her head rapidly back and forth. “You can’t do that. You can’t go and be sweet when I’m so pissed at you. I thought I knew you and then—”
“You do know me.” I grab her hand and press it to my chest. “You know me more deeply than any ever has before. And I know you the same.”
I lower my face to hers, only a breath away. She’s still shaking her head but her eyes fall to my lips. “We can’t…” she whispers.
But this time when I kiss her, there is only a moment’s hesitation before she is kissing me back, harder and more furiously than ever before.
“You,” she says between kisses, “are a total jerk.”
Her words say one thing but the intrusion of her tongue in my mouth says another. And by the ancients, I have missed her taste. I’ve been starving for it. I cannot imagine a single day without her in my arms when even just the hours I have been away from her have been torture.
She sinks against me and my double shafts descend and harden immediately. The memory of being inside her slick, wet heat is almost enough to have me spilling where I stand.
Our words have been contentious. We cannot seem to understand the other.
So let us go to the place where there are no words. Let her peer inside me and see my deep truth. She and this kit are all that will ever matter to me. I would lay down my life to keep them safe.
I drop us gently to the bed, supporting the back of Juliet’s head as I lay her down. She stops her furious kisses only long enough to tug off my shirt, exposing even more of her shimmering golden scales. Her teats are untouched, but on her upper chest, covering the space over her heart, now the scales shine through. They have appeared in the places where Juliet’s human body is most vulnerable, covering her like a shield of armor.
But I do not spend much time in my examination. There are more important things to investigate. Such as her lovely, ripe teats.
I begin to suckle one and the tip hardens to a stout little nub. Meanwhile, Juliet lets out a high-pitched keen and arches her back before slapping a hand over her mouth. I’m happy to assist with that.
I descend and nudge her h
and away, then cover her mouth with mine, absorbing her cries.
Then she is the one urging me to be rid of my leg coverings.
As soon as I do, I try to position myself between her legs, but she rolls out of the way.
“No,” she says, panting heavily. “We do this my way.”
“And what is your way?” I ask warily.
“Like this.” She crawls down the bed, urging me to lie back. I frown down at her in confusion. Until she takes my top erection in her hands and begins to stroke it.
Ancients, I die at her touch. “What are you doing?” I manage to hiss.
She arches an eyebrow at me. “What? You don’t like it?”
“I do,” I manage to sputter. “But is such a thing done?”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t you do this to yourself?”
“I—” I break off. And yes, I have touched myself like this, but only very recently. They have supplements to suppress this kind of thing since such impulses are only for reproduction and our race had become sterile.
With Juliet, though, I am beginning to see the point. She is already pregnant and yet I cannot wait to mate her again.
Apparently she would rather torture me with her touch, though. She strokes down and then up again. A shudder runs throughout my entire body. By the ancients, that feels good. So, so good.
But it turns out, I do not even know the meaning of the word.
Because a few moments later, Juliet bends over and takes me in her hot little mouth.
“Do not,” I say in a voice an octave higher than my usual. “Juliet,” I groan, my hands dropping to her hair.
Her hands clench on my thighs and she moans around my shaft. Oh, oh, yes. Just like that. It is so good.
I do not say these words out loud, but Juliet responds to my every thought. If only I could know hers.
Which is when it hits me. I cannot feel her because I am not tasting of her essence. She is tasting mine. Some dribbles out even as my arousal begins to harden my shafts.
She is feeling me even now.
Feeling my pleasure and my desire for her.
“Touch yourself as you are touching me,” I command. She continues to pump the base of my erection as she feeds the head in and out of her succulent mouth.
I focus on her face, on the image of her taking me in her mouth, her eyes closed and fluttering with pleasure. She is also reaching between her own legs.
I cannot hold it anymore. Not with such a sight before me.
“Juliet,” I try to warn but she only sucks with more intensity as my seed begins to pump out of me and into her waiting mouth.
“Juliet,” I groan as she slurps up my essence, some of it sliding out of her mouth and down her chin. She hungrily urges it back in her mouth with her thumb and then continues to lap at my cock with her tongue until I am perfectly clean.
But the sight of her cleansing me has only made my second erection all the more painful, even while my first is still stiff.
Juliet’s eyes are dilated. “I feel how much you want me,” she whispers. “Oh God it’s a rush.” And then she wastes no time clambering over me, moving my top shaft against her belly and then arranging the bottom one at the apex of her sex.
My eyes are wide as they meet hers.
“I need this,” she whispers. “I want to disappear inside you for a while. To escape from all this.” She gestures around us at the ship then at her gleaming golden scales. “Please. I don’t want to think. I want you to fuck me. I want it to be dirty. I want to forget about the whole fucking world for a while. Can we do that?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, Juliet. I will fuck you and dirty you with my seed.”
She shakes her head at me, a small smile appearing on her lips. My heart soars to see it. Perhaps not all is lost between us. My Juliet is smiling at me and sliding her sweet, wet cunt down on my erection.
Almost immediately, once she is seated, I am hooked in again to the connection between us. I feel all that she is feeling and it is a torrent. A tumultuous sea. And I must be her anchor.
I roll us so that she is beneath me and I am her shield above.
I will protect you. I will shelter you from all storms.
I hold her close and feel her pleasure when my first shaft, still stiff from the continued stimulation, strokes perfectly against her button even as I plunge deeply inside her with my second.
“Oh God,” she cries before biting into my shoulder with her teeth. They are dull and do not feel like more than a pinch.
What I love is knowing that she cannot help herself. She is getting her wish. She is losing herself in the moment’s ecstasy.
In me.
I open myself to her and hold nothing back.
And in return, I see her.
She is afraid. Afraid of so many things. It is a fear that goes a long way back. Before I ever came into her life. Before even that other male who abused her.
In a flash, I see a long, rectangular dwelling place. The coloring on the outside peels and the home looks barely inhabitable. The entire structure is up on blocks and the porch sags deeply in the middle.
There is shouting from inside and then the door slams open.
A small, dark-haired girl who looks like a younger Juliet hurries out the door, clutching the hand of an even younger girl.
They flee across the dirt yard, past many other structures almost identical to their own. Before I can see where they go, the scene disappears.
I am back with Juliet as her pleasure ramps higher. When I open my eyes, I find her staring at me, her hands bunched in the muscles of my arm, fingernails digging in.
Did she take a journey as well? What did she see in my head?
“Shak,” she whispers. She lifts a hand tentatively and cups my cheek. It is the gentlest touch of my entire life, I think.
“Did you see?” I ask her. “Do you see my truth? How you changed my world?”
Tears crest her eyes and she nods.
Then she kisses me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Juliet
I do see his truth. It scares the fucking living daylights out of me, but I see it.
His chest warms and he feels an inner fire of joy whenever he sees me. It’s not just infatuation either, or even lust. Although there’s plenty of that too, to be sure.
It’s… I can’t even describe it.
Liar. You know exactly what it is.
No, it can’t be. It’s too soon.
I kiss him harder and try to ignore the jumbled thoughts in my head. He can’t lo— I mean, we just met.
But I felt that too—how when he first saw me in the coffee shop, first touched me, something clicked for him like a puzzle piece locking into place. He thinks I’m what he’s been missing his whole life. It was as if he could smell it…as part of my scent. Like a chemical reaction.
Is that all this is? Some crazy interspecies biological chemistry?
I’d love to write it off as that. I’d love to write him off.
Because if he is what he appears to be? An actually good guy? Honorable, loyal, and kind? Then I’m bound to fuck this up.
And there’s too much at stake already. I have to be able to walk away. I always need an exit strategy. Now more than ever. This is too much and I was never the strong girl. Look at how long I stayed with Robbie. The few times I’ve tried being strong in the past, I only made things worse. So much worse.
But does that stop me from kissing Shak or pulling him as close into my body as I can get him?
No.
Because I’m a horrible person. And he feels so good. Like the last time we had sex, I’m caught up in his frenzy.
He’s on the edge but holding back. Wanting to prolong the aching beauty of his unreached climax and our shared connection.
But right now all I want is to barrel over that cliff. I want him as lost and out of control as I feel.
So I clench around him and feel the pleasure from both sides, his and mine. Oh God. I fuck h
im from underneath, shifting my hips back and forwards so that I slide against not only the shaft inside me, but against his long, ridged length that is squeezed between us. It scrapes so perfectly back and forth against my clitoris.
“Oh fuck yes,” I hiss. My legs quake with my coming orgasm. Layered on top of that is Shak’s pleasure, and oh, oh— My spine lights up with a pressure at my base, different from the swooping in my belly.
I can’t—
How am I supposed to—?
“Juliet,” Shak gasps. “My Juliet.”
The way he says my name. It’s worshipful. It sends me over.
I spasm around him and bow my head to his chest as I hold on for dear life.
Then everything fractures. I’m split wide open. All is white, bright, and there is only me and Shak and please God, can I just stay here forever?
We hold on for one moment, two, three—
And then it begins to dissipate. The real world comes back in the ever-present hum of the ship around us, the smooth chrome of the walls as my eyes crack open, the roughness of Shak’s linens beneath us.
But what doesn’t change?
Shak’s arms are still around me. He hasn’t gone anywhere. And if everything I felt while we were connected was true, he won’t be anytime soon.
You don’t have to be alone anymore.
I press the side of my face into his chest so he won’t see my tears. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing or what I want.
Because even though I know I shouldn’t, a big fucking part of me wants to stay exactly where I am. I wrap my arms more tightly around his middle and squeeze him close.
Then all of the sudden, the doors to his small cabin open.
It’s the purple guy who kidnapped me. I yelp and scramble back even as Shak moves to block me.
“What do you want, First?” Shak asks, his voice far calmer than I expect. I yank his shirt back on over my head.
First? Is that the purple guy’s name?