by Lyn Brittan
*****
The old store didn’t stink as much as the other shops. Everyone carried the scent of the lotions and soaps, but the pheromones hadn’t been soaked into the walls and floors of the building.
He put people to work barricading doors and windows. Had they been OSA, he’d have separated them based on skill level. But that wouldn’t get him anywhere with a crew made up of families and friends. If a loved one screamed upstairs, he didn’t want any worries of abandoned posts as people ran to help.
“Allie, you were born to tell people what do—that’s a compliment. Put two family groups in each place. If things get rough where they are, it’ll give them motivation to keep fighting.”
“Rough meaning flying mutant spiders, or ruthlessly malicious crazy men?”
He crossed his arms and poked out his lower lip. “I’d say there’s a good argument for both. Not that we’re worried.”
“Just so we’re clear, this is going to cost you. I’m already salivating at all the credits you’ll have to spend to make up for this. Dinners at the space station. Top-shelf wines from Venus. I’m going to bleed you dry.”
“God, I hope so.” One of the Tans shouted near the weapons cache, and Vin threw a hand up in acknowledgement. “They need me. You got this?”
“I’ve been told that I’m built for it.”
He genuinely tried not looking back.
He genuinely failed.
But if he had any shot of making good on his promises, he needed to deal with the here and now first.
Because the here and now was up Shit Creek.
They had enough firepower to level the place, but that wasn’t on anyone’s mind for a whole host of reasons. Chief among them—the people left behind. The close and very real second was the threat of those juiced-up spiders.
Actually, he might need to move those to the first position. Just about every soldier shared the same sentiment—that any attacks from Graham would come in the morning. Even if Graham wanted a nighttime assault, they doubted he could convince enough Tans to do it in the face of eight-legged and winged danger.
As plans were whispered, discarded, and added to, Mike’s communicator flickered to life. A woman’s voice, young and strong, cried out his name. “I...I forgot I had it on.”
Poppy pushed her way over, abandoning her snarling hostage. “It’s my sister!”
Welp, here was his proof of the family/danger theory. Polly swiped the two-way device away, crying along with the girl on the other side of the connection.
With all the yelling and screaming from all corners of the room that Mike ought to stay the fuck where he was, the young man looked squarely at him in silent... what, question?
Nope.
Something in his eyes was final. Set. And there would be no changing of trajectory.
Mike wasn’t asking for permission to save Poppy’s sister. That was as good as done.
Vin handed him another charged weapon. “I’ll look after your wife.”
“It’s just... well... I owe Poppy. I won’t be able to look at her if I don’t try.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, soldier.” Then he turned to the rest of the crowd. “Anyone else have inside communication? We need to keep in contact with Mike.”
“People on or getting ready for patrol duty get them. I’d just collected my device when your wife spit on Graham.”
“She’s not...never mind.” Great. How big of an idiot was he to think luck might swing their way? Still, if the boy meant to go in, maybe it wouldn’t have to be alone. “If you have any regrets or anyone inside, now’s the time. Go with him. It won’t be easy, and I make no promises, but there is safety in numbers. Move fast, but move together. I’ll make sure the people who stay with me get out. We’re leaving here at first light. If you’re not here, you have my word that I’ll see the rest of them to safety.”
A few remained after that. The initial high of escape not enough against the knowledge that something had happened at the camp and maybe things were secure enough to return...
Or the opposite and help was needed, even at great risk.
The front door barricade was removed, and people slipped out under the weakening gaze of twilight. For the couple dozen who remained, silence cloaked them. Ears were pressed to walls and noses to windows as the backs of their comrades drifted out of sight.
They huddled together breathless, shivering, and in tears. If not for the weak here, he’d have gone with Mike and the rest of the Tans. It was a hell of a choice, but these people were dead without him. He closed his eyes and wished Mike and the small band well.
Judging by the shadows and how quickly the light slipped away, they had little time to get from the town to the compound.
As the invisible clock marched unrelentingly on, people retreated into small clusters near their posts. Some slept. Other seemed unable. The Tans stood ramrod straight at their assigned positions.
Allie floated from group to group until he caught her eye. He motioned her over to a secluded corner, and when was he close enough to whisper, she leaned in. “Thank you for being you.”
“No more hating me?”
“I’m mostly over it. Brace yourself, I’m also about to do something against regulation.” She popped to the tips of her toes to grace his chin with a kiss.
Heaven from her lips and maybe because it was so freaking good, he hadn’t noticed someone coming up behind them until it was too late.
Allie reduced him to a stargazed pubescent youth, one reacting too slowly from the scream leaving Poppy’s mouth.
His Inspector Ert’zod hadn’t.
In the instant he opened his eyes to see who or what this threat was, Allie lurched into action, sidestepping him and tackling Mama, now fully recovered from her stupor. Spittle ran down the sides of her contorted mouth, and for the first time since meeting the bitch, a few hairs were out of place.
Vin jumped into the frenzied ball of fists and screaming, but by the time he pulled Allie to safety, she’d solved the problem.
Others ran over. Yet the sole sounds in the room were the clanging of the knife falling from Allie’s hands and Mama’s dying body gurgling for air.
Allie blinked over and over again in rapid succession. Even in this dim light, he saw the tears glistening.
Vin pulled her close, holding her shuddering body as he nodded for the Tans to carry the corpse away. “I don’t care what you do with it.”
It. Not her.
That woman lost all claims on humanity when she ascended her jacked-up throne. Vin dismissed Mama from her mind with that single thought. Compartmentalization, a long ago learned survival tactic once again put to good use.
“Vin? The blood. So much blood.”
He put his energy in Allie then, carrying her to a storage section in the back of the facility. She stripped the second they were alone. He gave her some semblance of privacy—searching for old, rather modern clothes, in the abandoned stacks. He found bags of water too and knocked on the half-wall separating them before holding his findings over the ledge.
She didn’t take them.
He peeped around. Allie was huddled in the corner opposite her blood-stained clothes, with her arms wrapped around her legs.
He approached slowly, one foot in front of the other and pausing every half step. “You still with me?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“You are but not about this. Do you want to talk about it?”
“While I’m crouched and naked? No. After I’m not naked? No.”
“I have water and some clean clothes.”
“Drench the clothes with the water and throw them over.”
“But, Allie—”
“Just do it.”
He did as requested. This time she took what was offered.
“Don’t insult my intelligence by reminding me that I’ve been inoculated against everything known to man.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He was totally about to.<
br />
“Or that I never had much of her blood on me to begin with.”
That too.
“Or that I didn’t have a choice. I know I that.”
Roger.
“I don’t need to hear that what little blood splattered on me was absorbed by the dress.”
See, that was one thing he hadn’t planned on saying.
“And I don’t need to hear—”
“Thank you.” He squatted with his back toward her. “You needed to hear that. Killing someone isn’t easy. Believe me, I know, and it’s a lesson I learn each time it happens. But when what you do is right and I happen to think saving me was, it matters. So thank you for being Allie Ert’zod.”
Hands latched around his back, and a kiss burned through his shirt. “Shut up and turn around.”
The loose one-piece suit he’d given her lay abandoned on the floor.
“Allie—”
“Shut. Up.”
“You’re still naked. Very naked.”
Then she shut him up, reaching her hand behind his neck and bringing his lips to hers. The kiss was tentative—unsure.
She wanted permission.
He gave it.
Their tongues warred—desperate, angry, eager, and wanting. He thumbed her nipple until it peaked beneath his touch. Everything about her amazed him—the way her skin pebbled and the shallowness of her breath. The way she asked. The way she took.
With any other woman, he’d have made a joke by now. Something to fill the air.
Not with her. He didn’t lack for words because they didn’t need them. And as for jokes...
She awoke within him something base and feral. He wanted to take her. Own her and only because he knew that at some later time, he’d sure as fuck let her own him. He just needed one thing first. “Say yes.”
Well... she didn’t so much as say it as grab his cock through his pants and drag her hand from the base to a very needy tip.
God bless her.
Tomorrow, he’d mention it.
Tonight...
He bit at her lip, dick hardening even more at her little yips of pleasure-pain. He hadn’t expected that of her and pinched her nipple harder still, to see how much she could take.
More moans.
More flicks.
Flicks turned to twisting, and twisting turned her moans to grinding, guttural soul-destroying grunts.
Fuck.
His chest tightened, and his balls tensed each time she bucked.
“Open your legs.”
She instantly obeyed.
He rearranged himself enough that her pussy started to coat his thigh. It ought to be downright illegal, what that did to a man. Makes him lose his mind. Obsessive. Makes him want nothing else than to keep the juices flowing.
He slid his fingers inside her, and she moaned against his neck. Vin dipped to take one dark areola in his mouth. He’d tasted something like this before—rare and sweet—like nectar from Enceladus or Mars.
Her fingers tightened, pulling his hair. “Yes.”
Amen.
Vin hoisted her up, grabbing her under willing knees and shoving her against the wall.
Sliding into her body was like going home. Warm and welcoming.
Tight.
Slick.
His.
They fell to the floor, legs crisscrossed and his manhood never leaving the core of her body. As far as he was concerned, it never would. He’d let her use him like a two-credit whore.
Fingers cupping her face, he tilted up her head. “Next time we’ll do this the right way, with a bed and everything.”
“Who says there will be a next time?”
She’d laughed when she said it, but on the odd chance this was their first and last time together, he’d make sure she never forgot it. He’d bury himself so much and so deep into her flesh that his touch, his cock, would be with her forever. “You want to ride me? There’ll have to be a next for that.”
He flipped her, driving his dick in the deepest regions of her body, drilling for that pleasure that only she could give him.
As he moved, she clenched around him. Her hands in his hair. Her legs around his back. Her inner walls closing around his cock.
It took an act of God to last while she all but milked him. But he waited, stalling his ultimate pleasure as she writhed and shimmied, muffling her screams between huffs of air and hands slammed over her mouth.
When her hands fell away and she dissolved into a smiling mass of giggling content, he drove himself into her as far as nature would allow. His balls smacked against her while she whispered the best filth in the universe into his ear.
He would never doubt the awesomeness of the regulation department ever, ever, ever again.
His balls tightened. His heart thudded.
Allie’s woman’s magical lips stifled the noise of his release but only increased the intensity until he emptied himself inside her, drop after glorious drop.
Belatedly, he realized he’d collapsed on top of her and tried to pull out.
Not happening. She was in control now, and the knees around his back tightened once again, She gave his ass a not too gentle smack. “Not yet. Let’s just stay here a little while longer. That’s an order, soldier.”
*****
She’d fallen asleep in a state of bliss, but screams and splintering wood ripped that away.
Allie scrambled to her feet. Alone.
The suit Vin had brought earlier was next to her and on top of it, a charged blaster ready to go. She jumped into the uniform and ran out into the fracas.
People gathered near the front with weapons raised for action, but she couldn’t see why. Her Vin, already taller than most, jumped on a table and demanded calm. “Hold your positions! You, coming downstairs, go back up. Keep those windows secure. Don’t come down again unless you need backup. And you over there, go. Help them reinforce that door. Use your back if you have to. Everyone else, quiet down!”
In the lull as people obeyed their newfound leader, the telltale hissing noise she’d heard in the doctor’s office filtered through.
She knew precisely who’d had direct contact with the creatures—they were the ones whose eyes looked as big as hers felt. Despite the chill, she wiped sweat from her brow and triple checked the charge on her gun.
Something slammed against the door. Vin went toward the noise while others shrieked and backed away. He didn’t turn at her approach, though he called her out by name. “If I ask you to get a safer distance back...”
“Shut up.”
“You like saying that, don’t you?” Both of his hands were pressed against the splintering wooden door, but he turned to throw her a wink. “It’s the follow-up that matters.”
Another thud against the door and he was all business again, shouting a mixture of orders with accolades, giving them all much needed wisps of bravery because of it.
To her left, a small glass window cracked and two furry digits snaked in.
“Hack it off,” someone shouted, and those nearest to it started poking and slamming any and everything they could into the creature’s legs.
They had the best of it. The thing screeched and pulled away, but another beast entered from the other side of the window.
While they worked, a third creature pulled a lady in green across the broken glass. Her body shred before their eyes as man and monster pulled at her from opposite ends. Her screams cut off with a yelp as her body morphed, swelling and turning a sickly shade of purple.
“Venom!”
Who said it she didn’t know, but it was enough to make the people holding onto her legs let go. She was dead before her feet crossed the windowpane.
Allie swallowed thick bile but forced herself to keep looking. There needed to be a proper accounting of things. Every death would be another notch against Graham’s freedom. By God, she meant to take it from him.
Vin called out a new holding pattern. “Tans, drop your pride. I need my big boys here on this
and that other door. Ones with heft. Smaller guys, take that window. Shoot with all you’ve got.”
From above, someone scrambled halfway down the steps. “We need help up here.”
And of course, Vin ran to give it.
As the night crept on, two of the things entered that broken window—never fully. One they repelled outright. The last, however, claimed another victim. Mandibles spread, it reached in and, before anyone could grasp what was about to happen, hooked itself in the pliable skin of one of the Tans and scurried away with its meal.
And on and on it went.
Things quieted as the promise of a new morning broke through the pain of the previous night. When all the scurrying stopped, the tired and worn warriors collapsed. Chests and backs heaving, they rested against whatever wall or table was close enough to hold them up.
She squatted on a step, desperate for a moment to relax, but her eyes snapped wide open at Vin’s thunderous shout.
“Get up. Everyone up! You’ll rest tomorrow. Hell, you’ll rest tonight. But for now, you run and you don’t stop.”
The weary were instantly rejuvenated and the tired and injured carried as they ran towards the woods and the shuttle that waited impossibly far away. For as much as they had done to survive the night, a new threat came with the dawn.
“Get on my back.”
She took a swig from the bottle in his hand and wiped her mouth. “I can manage, Vin.”
“We don’t have time for this,” and that was the last he spoke before hurling her up and taking the lead. She could either fight him and slow them all down or hold tight while he fulfilled his promise to get her home.
Their advantage, if they still had it, was that no one back at the compound was sure of where they’d landed their shuttle.
Perhaps.
And if, perhaps, their luck held on, they needed as much distance between themselves and the town.
So they ran.
All of them. Allie called out directions as best she remembered, using the last of the stars to orientate herself.