by Bex McLynn
Giving the ship her stink-eye, Vedma growled in frustration. "This ship. It ain't right, Dyr."
Wasn't the first time she'd told him that in the past handful of days.
From inside the console, he gave his standing reply. "Brooding isn't going to solve our problems, Sarda. Focus on the mechanics of the issue."
Again, with the 'Sarda.' She just huffed, doubly annoyed that he had a valid point, but that still didn't stop her thoughts from twirling. About Fuckles. About the ore extractor.
As if he could sense her persistence, he said, "TerTac doesn't operate thinking ships." He'd said as much before. Still didn't settle her. "With all the spirenoughts in the fleet, you'd think one of them would speak up if it was able to do so."
"What about the Koterilis Rebellion?" Her cohort had been the last group of students to cover that bit of history. The Academe decided to remove Koterilis Rebellion studies from the curriculum, citing its irrelevancy to modern day concerns.
Utter bullshit. As if anyone would even bother to ask her.
Dyr tsked at her. "That war was generations ago."
"So?" she grumped.
A century ago, a group of technopaths had declared themselves genetically superior, then tried and failed to subjugate the entire Tendex. Very little recorded data survived that period in Dominion and Tendex history, but marvelous tales persisted. Unverified stories contended that the ships had moya, the Athelasan word for 'soul,' and that they sided with the resistance, not the technopaths. That tidbit, right there, always weakened the veracity of the account for Vedma.
Dyr pushed out from inside the console. She expected to see exasperation on his face, but he surprised her with his engaged demeanor.
By Unholde, were they actually conversing and not snipping at one another?
"What do you think happened to the ships, then? Why aren't they communicating with us now?"
Leaning away, she narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you askin' me?"
She knew she sounded ruffled, but no one ever sought her input on an academic issue. Or a political issue. Or a social issue. Hell, no one sought her opinion on anything. Right now, Dyr didn't toss ridicule back in her face as a rhetorical question, and he seemed to genuinely seek her thoughts.
She fumbled but managed to utter connected words. "Other Athelas have been documented sayin' they hear voices through their technopathy."
He wiped his hands on a cloth, but keep his gaze trained on her. "Do you? Hear anything? With the barge?"
Wide-eyed with amazement, she shook her head. "No."
Then he smiled, and it became a forward assault on her person. Her chest constricted, and her belly toppled.
"Because I would fucking love for you to communicate with the barge and tell it to extend the ore extractor again." He reached out, curling his massive hand around her boot. Gave her a playful jostle. "Get us back up to the pipe so we can start repairs. You'd save the day, Sarda."
Her eyes locked on his clade-inked hand clasping her boot, feeling her sensitive instep flare with awareness. That time, the nickname didn't rattle her so much.
Covered in dust and grease with tattoos kissing his neck and popping with the corded tendons on his arms and the backs of his hands, he looked just like the grunts she'd spent her childhood with, grubby Unsworns who mined space rocks the size of tiny moons. The comforting illusion of home was only dispelled when his wandering or intensely focused mind conjured that Teras Ero accent.
Except when he said her name. He resonated like the horns from Direis's voluntary, blasting a note in her chest when he called her Vedma, or even Sarda, it now seemed.
His smile brightened. "You'd be a godsdamn hero."
"I'd be a godsdamn hero," she echoed, mesmerized.
"Definitely be my hero." He knocked her on the shoulder. Then his smile slipped as he dipped his chin, trying to get a good look at her. "You look beat."
She resisted the urge to run her hand through her hair and raged like a berserker to beat back her blush. No blushing allowed while Dyrastur fucking Borac smiled and gazed at her with earnest concern.
Her mouth pulled down into a frown, and her hand reflexively waved him off. "Nah. I'm good."
He jostled her boot again, and the vibrations shot up her leg like a damn caress. "Go lie down. I'll finish this up."
Her brain fired, transmitting snaps and flashes of commands to her limbs. Lunge at him. Twine herself around him. Capture his lips with her own. She shook her head, and the scattering of those thoughts left her lightheaded.
"Aye," she mumbled as she gingerly took to her feet. "I'll go lie down."
When he heard Vedma retreat down the corridor and turn toward berthing, he hurled the torque spanner across the deck. The metal clamor struck at his sensitive hearing.
The fuck all plan was fucked.
He wasn't a damn systemsmaster. He wasn't a systems technician. Wasn't even commissioned. He'd fled Fleet Academe as a cadet, and House Jahat took him anyway. Posted him to Prykimis as an enlisted grunt, no specialization. They let him pilot because, as a thane's son, he'd been piloting shuttles since his praal budded. That, and he knew the pointy end of a sword.
All because he was a thane's son.
Gods, his pride—pride that reared its head and snapped its jaws almost a decade ago—just damned them.
He lacked the knowledge and training needed to fix the barge.
Dyr wasn't a complete incompetent. Given enough time, he'd trial-and-error his way through the mess, learning from mistakes through observation and adaptation. He knew he could get the ore extractor working. Knew once he reached the pipe, he'd ply his methodology again to enact repairs. What he didn't know, what hounded him like a foaming mongrel, was how much time he really had. His progress dragged along like a slug dredging uphill, and tomorrow, or within the next hour, or within the next few minutes, either the Gwyretti or kidnapping conspirators could return.
That grim factor—the uncertainty of time—knolled again and again inside his head. So with a foul curse, he retrieved the torque spanner and shoved himself back under the console. Grating out his own advice, to work the mechanics of the issue, he wrestled with the components until the pain in his neck radiated down his arms, causing his fingers to fumble, nearly snapping a connector.
Defeated and hungry, he huffed out a dry laugh as he realized that his very grit needed a balm and that his thoughts immediately turned to Vedma.
Vedma, who passed him tools that her palms had chilled, transferring that shock of cold into his hands.
Vedma, who 'eched' and griped at the phantom moya of the barge.
Vedma, who held her tongue while his hands grew slick with the immensity of the task before him.
Vedma, who had spent hours sitting next to him on the frigid deck, not because her rotation duty or clade-sworn obligation demanded it, but because she wanted to.
She had wanted to, hadn't she?
As he stood, snapping and stretching his body, he sighed. Food. An hour or two in the cot. Then he'd be back at it.
He stowed the tools, shouldered his sword, and shuffled off to berthing, letting the barrage of unending failure reports and alarms run over his technopathy like a tainted shower. He stepped through the hatch of their shared cabin, caught sight of Vedma, and blustered out a gusty groan.
"Gods, Sarda! Again?" He turned away, but damn his eyes. They saw. They memorized. They flashed explicit images of her masturbating behind his eyelids. "It's like bunking with a bunch of cock-fisting cadets."
With his eyes closed and her musk permeating the room, her voice wrapped around his cock like succulent lips. "Shut it, thane's son. You're ruinin' my concentration."
Gods, this lady.
He laughed and slid his sword off his shoulder, setting it by his cot. "If you need to concentrate, then you're doing it wrong."
He heard her exasperated mumble, then the whump of her body hitting the cot. He could just envision her flowing from how he encountered her—kneeli
ng upright with her legs spread wide—to flopping flat out onto her back with a jolting bounce. She only wore an undershirt that, regrettably, covered all her good bits, and her pillow had tousled her plait.
Her panted breaths tightened his skin. "And how'd you do it?"
Funny how fatigue and frustration swallowed their croaking, like froshes in the reeds, when his cock started stalking.
She wanted to know how he would do it? By Unholde, it'd be his absolute pleasure to detail the finer points of how he'd fuck her. He constructed at least thirty-six different scenarios since he had first found her with her fingers buried to her last knuckles inside her cunt. In fact, scenario number seven started eerily similar to this, with her asking him how he'd take her.
He couldn't help the smile that curled his lips, instinctively baring his teeth. He raked his eyes over that unfortunate undershirt. His gaze trailed to her toes, then retraced their path to lock with her green-gold eyes.
He stepped toward her. "Well, first I'd strip you down."
"Ech!" Her foot snapped out, connecting with his thigh and halting his advance. "I mean, how'd you," her eyes flick to his crotch, twisting the coil in his loins, "do it?"
Ah. Synthesis. A scenario he hadn't even contemplated.
She flashed her own teeth at him. "Would you strip down?"
Rhetorical or inquisitive interpretations be damned, he treated her question like a demand.
He whipped his undershirt over his head. The reactionary hitch in her breathing had his cock kicking against his shorts. Gods, they acted and reacted to each other like a lusty chain reaction.
Grasping the jumper sleeves that dangled at his waist, he tugged down, threading the fabric through his fists.
Her eyes flashed, and she laughed. "Don't embellish."
Her amused, feminine rumble goaded his wariness, chasing it off to retreat further. Her mirth pumped blood into his extremities that were numb from hours of work. That were numb from his dejected circumstances. He hadn't braced with a woman in years. Lassies—Athelasan sexbots—held no appeal for him. He'd had nothing but the touch of his hand until Vedma pressed the sole of her foot to his thigh.
Wanting her flesh to connect with his, even if she only permitted this little bit, had him tackling his knotted sleeves. Wrestling with the fabric, he cursed his too tall height that had forced him to tie the sleeves like a belt because he'd been too long in the torso to wear the jumper over his shoulders. Something tore, and the jumper sagged lower on his hips.
"After I got you bare, I'd follow suit." He shoved the jumper and his shorts down, kicking free of them.
Again she laughed. "Bare yet suit. Clever. But this's supposed to be 'bout you."
She had lifted her foot when the jumper came down, and now she reclaimed her spot on his leg, gaining ground, even, as she slid her foot toward his straining cock and protruding anthers.
He bit back the groan that started deep in the mantle of him, not wanting to be so exposed.
"Why?" He wrapped a hand around her ankle, holding her in place while he caressed her. "If I make it about my partner, then we both benefit."
He desperately wanted to feel more, yet he couldn't bring himself to take himself in hand. How could he do something so base—tug at his own cock—when his hands had a far better place to be. On her, exploring her praal.
He gave her a heated, pointed look, making sure she watched as his eyes honed on her exposed cunt.
"Vedma.” He drew her name out long and low, not even abashed that he pleaded with her.
Her chest rose and fell, picking up the pace. "Gods, the way you're lookin' at me, Dyr."
He clenched and released her ankle, kneading it with a keen focus. If he'd only get this patch of flesh, he'd shower it with the entirety of his focus.
But she wiggled free from his grasp. The sting of rejection tensed his muscles until he saw her scoot down the cot, closer to him. With her leg still raised, she hooked her heel behind his thigh and drew him near. Just a tiny tug and she toppled him. Had him crumpling gracelessly on top of her and pressing between her legs. He gathered her plait into his fist, aligned her chin just so, and dove into her mouth.
"Sarda," he breathed across her lips.
Her fingers sank into his thick hair.
"In, dammit. In." She squirmed as she yanked on him.
He rose up, his breath blowing hard. "Vedma, you choose this?"
She struggled to remove her undershirt, her body pressing and writhing against him. "Yes. I choose. In. Get in me."
Dyr rolled up onto his feet, pulling her up as he stood. She growled and thrashed, her undershirt caught up in her limbs, bunched like a sack over her head.
"Shit!" she hissed.
With his cock throbbing and his anthers anxious, Dyr put his hands on her hips, held her at arm's length, and enjoyed the show. She writhed like a kite ribbon in the wind, knocking the air from his lungs as he squeezed out a gasping laugh.
"Fuck you, Dyr."
"Gods, I hope so." But even he could only wait so long. "Stop. Just stop. I've got you."
He pulled the shirt free. Her hair stood on end, transformed into its own storm cloud complete with tendrils of black lightning.
She glared at him and his chest clenched. His heart expanded as something fierce banded about it.
"Gods, you're brilliant," he told her as he pulled her close.
He sank to his knees and dragged her down with him. Settled her over his thighs as her hands anchored on his shoulders. Without a brace—a house seat with straps and stirrups to stop a man from penetrating too deeply—they'd have to be careful.
He dipped his chin to gaze into her eyes. "We'll move at your pace, Sarda. Always your pace."
"Aye," she huffed impatiently as she rose up.
She descended over him, her slick cunny lips parting around his girth and closing over him in bliss. Her clyccana undulated, ushering him into paradise.
Transfixed, he groaned as she took him inside. Watched her slide down his cock as she clutched him. Sliding and clutching. All the way to his base. His anthers tucked instinctively.
As ecstasy rocketed up his spine, cold alarm spiked through him. She took him all. Seated him fully.
"Wait!" he barked. "Wait!"
Vedma froze as her arousal sizzled and evaporated like water droplets on a hotplate. The tight coil in her belly that had promised to release in core-clenching climax had flash-rusted into a jagged hunk of rubble.
"Vedma, wait, wait." Dyr went rigid beneath her, as if afraid he'd upend her. "Gods, you're deep. Too deep."
"I..." Stunned, she had nothing else to say.
Not surprising that her words had gone dry. She'd always scaled toward action as her initial response mode. So, unlike Dyr, she didn't hesitate to move. She rocked her hips, drawing forth an astounded hiss from him.
He clamped his hands on her. "Gods, Vedma. Stop. Too deep."
By Unholde, she did have him all up in there, didn't she? Her legs splayed over him with her ass cheeks pressing down on his bunched thighs. Not a lick of space between them. His anthers, now untucked, had fully entangled with her clyccana, much more than just the tips caressing and stroking their corresponding counterpart.
More baffled than shocked, she gazed down at where they fused together and wiggled her hips again. Dyr lurched, barking in alarm as his hips reflexively thrust, shuttling his cock in even further.
She huffed in amazement. No pain. Fluttering tingles, though.
The implication blowing hard and fast toward her stunted her processing speed, silencing that nagging little reminder to never have sex with Dyr. Rather, she got stuck on the notion that taking a cock to the root meant something. Didn't it?
"Fuck, Vedma! Are you crazy?" Dyr wedged his hands under her ass and started to lift her off of him, which proved a delicate maneuver because their tangled-up genitalia resisted separation.
Vedma watched in detached fascination as his anthers and her clyccana reacted insti
nctively and reached for one another as if determined to fulfill their evolutionary imperative to perpetuate the species.
Oh good gods, that was it, wasn't it? That's what it meant.
She heard Dyr speak, but he sounded so very far away. "Vedma, are you?"
She blinked and her eyes struggled to focus on his shifting clade tattoos. "Am I what?"
His hands rested on her shoulders, the weight of them anchoring her. She knelt on the deck, her heels pressed under her backside. He'd set her down so gently, she hadn't even noticed.
"Are you pregnant?"
Hearing the word burst her hazy bubble. She laughed, a sharp cackle that stabbed at her belly like a blade.
"No," she told him and laughed. "Gods, no."
He frowned at her, then glanced down. "You took my entire cock."
"Because I'm brilliant?"
He growled at her. "Vedma."
She reached up and patted his shoulder reassuringly. Gods, he was a big bastard, wasn't he? Growling and looming over her even though they both knelt on the deck. With his eyes darting over her and his brow pinched, Dyr looked like he staggered into the fright of his life. He wavered like a man longing to be soothed but didn't know how to go about it, so he just nipped and tugged at you instead. Would maybe rub along your shoulder and back, combing for idle affection.
But she wasn't a hugger, so she gave him a stiff punch on his hulking shoulder. "I'm sure it ain't nothin'."
He gaped at her for a moment, then gave himself a shake and surged to his feet. "By Unholde, Vedma."
Ignoring his own nakedness, he started tearing through the crates in the cabin.
She moved to stand, her legs as wobbly as a cowling's. "What're you doin'?"
Dyr roughly shoved a crate aside to access another one. "Somewhere on this ship is a MediCune scanner. I'm going to find it."
Her heart hammered, and in response, her temper snapped out. "How 'bout a workin' transport first? Or workin' extractor console?"
"Damn straight," Dyr said, absorbing her nasty barbs without detracting from his ransacking of the supplies. "Should've fucking scanned us both the first time I found that damn—got it."