by Ashley West
"Tell me you want me," he murmured. It seemed to be as much for him needing to hear it as him wanting her to say it, and she smiled.
"I want you." As if that wasn't abundantly clear from the way she was presented for him, stuffed full of his cock, and ready for more.
"Good," he said, and then drew out slowly.
Every nerve ending inside of her fired all at once, making the slow, sweet friction of his cock sliding out of her all the better. She curled her toes against the tiled floor of the bathroom and glanced at her reflection in the mirror.
She looked like she was his.
He was holding her, his free hand winding into her hair to pull her head back and force her to look at the picture they made in the mirror. Each time he pushed forward into her, she slid forward, taking him and pushing back to tease him into doing it harder.
The teasing had its desired effect, and Abby couldn't hold back the swearing that burst from her when Sorrin started thrusting into her in earnest.
Their bodies moved together in perfect time, as if they were made to do so, and Abby couldn’t hold back the noises she was making for him. White hot pleasure pooled in her, growing hotter and deeper the longer it went on.
She worked her hand down between her legs, playing with her clit as Sorrin kept moving. Even when she called her out his name and came for him, he kept pistoning into her, holding on tight and making her shiver with the pleasure of it all. The stimulation made her come again, and the tightness of her body milked the orgasm from Sorrin, sending him over the edge right after her.
Together they panted in place, and Abby knew she was going to be sore for the rest of the day. Their breathing was loud in the bathroom, and Abby winced when Sorrin pulled out of her slowly.
“Now I need a shower,” she said, giving him a smile in the mirror.
“That can be arranged,” he replied. “It seems like I went and got dirty again myself.”
They held that eye contact for a long moment, and something unfurled inside of Abby. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was just yet, but it was a pleasant, warm feeling that made her wiggle with muted delight.
They’d discussed not doing this again, but clearly that hadn’t worked well.
It continued to not work well when they ended up in the shower together five minutes later, Abby’s legs wrapped around his waist as he pounded into her under the spray of water.
Abby couldn’t bring herself to be too concerned about it, though.
"You have a problem."
Abby jumped as those words came seemingly out of nowhere, and she glanced around wildly, looking for the source of them. She wasn't all that surprised to see the Camador woman from the warehouse come melting out of the shadows. She’d gone out to get more food from the grocery store, and now she was standing near the car, her heart pounding.
"I do?" Abby asked, not wanting to sound ignorant, but she really had no idea what she was talking about. Well, to a point.
"Yes. The Caran is not happy with your progress. The warrior gets too close to victory."
"She's been watching me?"
The Camador inclined her head. "Of course. She wouldn't trust you to be able to handle this on your own. You are a human. She sent me to check on you."
"And that's what you're doing here," Abby said, it all finally making some modicum of sense. "I thought you were hiding because you didn't agree with the Caran's plan."
The woman looked nonplussed. "Perhaps that is why I accepted the job of being your minder."
Abby sighed, dragging fingers through her hair. "Fine," she said. "So the Caran's not pleased. I don't know what she expected."
"She expected you to be on our side."
"So she could make everyone on my planet into slaves!" Abby exclaimed. "That's not something I want."
"You would rather they all die?"
"No!"
"Then you don't have another option."
"Yes, I do. Yes we do," she said, taking a step forward. "We can fight." She hadn't been expecting this to go over well with the Camador woman, but the tinkling laugh that met her pronouncement only made her cranky. "What is so funny?"
"You cannot fight the Camadors," she said. "They always win."
"They always win because they always have the upper hand. Not this time."
The woman arched an eyebrow. "Why? Because your little warrior beau is going to stand up and raise his sword to us? We know who he is. We know how he was broken the last time he tried. It will be a repeat of that, only this time, he will die along with everyone else."
"So you're on board with the plan now, then?" Abby asked. "The humans don't mean anything to you?"
"The humans never meant anything to me," the woman snapped. "I just...don't think this is the answer to our problems. Subjugating one race so that we can rule from a planet that isn't ours. It's a bit extreme."
"A bit? Really? Only a bit?" Abby was past the point of caring if she was being rude or not. Right now the only thing that she was concerned about was figuring out if she was about to be exposed for what she was doing.
"You're being hysterical," the woman said, obviously not caring. "I don't blame you. When he finds out that you've been working for us, it will not go well for you."
Abby swallowed hard. "How do you know he doesn't already know?"
The woman laughed her wind chime laugh again. "He doesn't. If he did, then you wouldn't be alive. He hates us. He hates anything to do with us. And with good reason. We burned his family and slaughtered his friends and didn't spare a second thought for what it would do to him. We would have killed him as well, but he escaped. The Caran didn't care all that much. 'Let him live with it', she said when Gollen Par burned. He will never forgive you for being on our side."
"I'm not on your side!" Abby shouted. "You're not even on your side. You're going to lose, and you're right, Sorrin is pissed at all of you. I already kept you from dying once, do you think he'll hold back a second time? Because I don't."
"What is your point?"
"My point is that you don't have to stand with them. The Caran won't protect you, and you know that."
"And you will?"
"I already did once."
The woman seemed to take that under consideration. She drew in a breath of air and played with the ends of her hair. "You want something from me."
"I want you to play double agent," Abby replied.
"I do not understand."
"That's alright. I have time to explain."
It was one of those ‘by the seat of her pants’ plans, but when she’d finished explaining it to the woman, she actually seemed like she was considering it. It was important to remember that not everyone in a given culture was terrible. If they could get inside help from one of the Camadors, then they would have a huge advantage.
Maybe that would be enough that Sorrin would be able to forgive her for her dishonesty, even if she hadn’t actively been working against him. She could only hope.
“If I do this,” the woman, whose name was Kaleth, said. “I will never be able to go back to my people.”
“Better than dying with the majority of them,” Abby pointed out, using Kaleth’s logic against her. “You’ll be able to stay here on Earth when it’s over, though. You’ll be safe.”
“Can you promise that?”
Abby shrugged a shoulder. “Probably not. But you’d be on our side.”
It was a large step in the right direction, one that would probably make it easier for them to stand more of a chance against the Camadors. But it made one thing very clear.
She was going to have to tell Sorrin the truth. About everything. Just thinking about it made her want to hide under a blanket because he was going to be livid. But he was about to risk his life for this, and she had to let him know before that happened. Hopefully there would be something left to salvage at the end of this.
Chapter Eleven: Shatter
Sorrin was unused to feeling so divided.
The point was, nothing had been ambiguous. There was no point where he'd looked up and realized he wasn't sure how the rest of his life was going to go. Granted, that was mostly because he'd been sure the rest of his life wasn't going to be very long, so it didn't really matter, but still. It wasn't a problem he'd been overly concerned with.
Now, though. Now things were different.
Now he had a human woman who he was feeling more and more possessive over. Not in a controlling way, but in a way that made him want to keep her safe. He wanted her far from this conflict. Sorrin wanted to put her on that ship and send her back to the planet he'd come from, or to Gollen Par to be protected by Halphia. Anything that kept her from being used like cannon fodder down here.
Because there was no doubt in Sorrin's mind that this was going to be a fight. The Camadors would not give up their domination of this planet easily, and Sorrin was willing to bet that he'd have to kill a fair number of them in order to make sure that they got the message that they weren't welcome. Maybe even all of them.
The idea of it made him happier than he wanted to admit, and he sighed, rubbing at his face. Life had become more confusing than he liked, of late.
The one bright spot was Abby. Another two weeks had passed since they'd first kissed, first touched, first been intimate. And then intimate again and again, and it never lost its spark for him. Things were chaotic and sometimes Sorrin wasn't sure where they stood, but holding her in his arms at night was an amazing feeling.
Sorrin had meant what he said when he'd mentioned that they would be a liability for each other, but he couldn't seem to bring himself to care. How long had it been since he'd had something worth holding on to? Worth protecting?
If it meant that he would have to fight harder to keep her safe, he was willing to do that. He would let her help him up to a certain point and then send her away so she wouldn't have to participate in or witness the fighting.
Something about the way she'd stopped him from killing the Camador woman in that warehouse stuck with him, and he wondered what she'd think of him if she knew how many people he'd killed in his time. Or how many Camadors he planned to kill before this was all said and done. It was a kill or be killed situation. Us versus them.
He fully intended to be on the winning side this time.
A week ago, he had put in a call to Halphia.
If she'd seemed surprised to hear from him, then she hadn't shown it. She was all smooth professionalism, straight backed, her hair cascading over her shoulders. Sorrin could just picture her in her office looking calm and put together no matter what she was feeling inside.
Luckily, he knew her well enough to know that most of that was just an act. She was very good at seeming unruffled, even if she was completely taken by surprise. So her cool "It's good to hear from you, Sorrin" hadn't fooled him for a second.
"It's good to see you, Halphia," he'd said in return and then favored her with a smile.
The smile had thrown her, and he understood why. In the days before the Camadors, Sorrin had been one of the more easygoing warriors in Senator Halphia's detail. He took his job seriously and never wanted to convey otherwise, but when he was off duty, he was often found flirting or playing dice or card games, goofing off and being silly. He flirted and teased, smiled and charmed, and he'd been very good at it.
That was a part of him that hadn't been seen in a long time, and so he understood why Halphia squinted at him over the comm link, looking to see what had caused this change in demeanor.
Sorrin gave nothing away.
Instead, he detailed a plan to her. "The Camadors have never stopped being a threat," he'd said. "They hid after what they did to our city, but they were plotting. I think they have some new powers and they have a new plan. With Earth as a base of operations, and with the humans as their pawns, they could become much harder to stop."
Halphia had sighed. "They're already hard to stop. I don't think any of us can handle it if it gets harder."
"Agreed. Which is why we need to stop them now."
"'We' is it?" Halphia asked, arching a perfect eyebrow. "I was under the impression that you worked alone these days."
Sorrin fidgeted under her gaze. They weren't even in the same solar system at the moment, but he still felt like she could see through him. Something he always managed to forget with her was that for as well as he knew Halphia, she knew him just the same.
"I do. I did," Sorrin conceded. "I have...discovered that this is bigger than I am. There's more at stake now."
And there was that perceptive look again. She narrowed her eyes like she was reading his mind, leaning forward so she was closer to the screen on her side, to get a better view. After a long moment, in which Sorrin tried not to feel like a child who was about to get caught doing something he shouldn't have been.
There were no rules against being with humans, not in the Independent Colonies or on any of the other more modern and progressive planets. And even if there were, Sorrin was a free agent at the moment, owing allegiance to no one.
But he knew Halphia would have an opinion, and strangely, he was afraid to find out what it was.
"You have changed," was all she said, though, and she leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers together. "You need my help."
It wasn't a question.
"Yes," Sorrin replied, because there was really no getting around that part. He had no back up and no forces of his own, and since he'd resigned from Halphia's service, she was under no obligations to send the others to help him. He didn't doubt that she would send them, but she was clearly going to make him sweat a bit first. He supposed that was only fair.
"When last we spoke, you seemed determined that you didn't need anyone's help. That you intended to make this your last stand. You were going to go out fighting the Camadors, I thought. What has changed?"
Sorrin had wanted to roll his eyes at her heavy handed line of questioning, but instead he'd kept his face open and sincere. She'd know about the eye roll whether he did it or not, and it was best not to tick Halphia off while he was asking for her help.
"Many things," Sorrin admitted. "I didn't know what the Camadors' plan for Earth was before. If they get it, then my efforts will be for nothing. I don't want that."
"And what else?"
"And I don't want the humans to be killed or used. That is what will happen if the Camadors have their way."
"The humans." Halphia tapped her full mouth, a smile playing in the corners. "I see. I didn't think you cared about what happened to them."
"They don't deserve the same fate our people suffered," Sorrin replied in the common language of the colonies. It was a bit of a low trick, but it did what it was meant to.
Halphia's face softened, and she inclined her head graciously. "No," she agreed. "They do not. No one does. Very well, Sorrin. Tell me what you would have of me."
It was quick work to explain the plan, the way he was going to use the humans and Halphia's warriors to defeat the Camadors without them suspecting a thing. Halphia had told him that she was sure some of the other Senators would be willing to lend some of their warriors to the cause as well, and to expect them within the next half cycle.
That had been a week ago, and the time for the reinforcements to arrive was drawing closer. Abby had told him who among the humans he needed to speak with to get their cooperation, and he had spent one very stressful day going to the high ranking humans in the city and telling them his plan.
Abby hadn’t gone with him, and it had taken the human leaders some time to trust him, but when he spoke of his vengeance and the Camadors’ plan for Earth, it had been enough to get them to act. All the firepower they could come up with would be his to lead if he managed to keep the people safe.
Sorrin promised he would try.
When they weren’t strategizing
and trying to fill any holes in their plan, they were together. Sorrin had discovered that there were few things better than wrapping himself around Abby at night and holding her close to him. She smelled lovely, and the warmth of her skin did wonders to soothe him when he was agitated. The beat of her heart calmed him when he woke from bad dreams, the images of his friends and family lying broken and bleeding haunting him until he snapped awake. Then she would let him lay his head on her chest and stroke his hair, murmuring soft words of comfort to him until he fell asleep once more.
There were times, though, when he would catch her looking uneasy and almost unhappy, staring off into the distance with a frown marring her lovely face. There was something bothering her, that much was clear, but he didn’t know what it was or how to broach the topic with her. Finally, a few days after he’d spoken to Halphia, he stepped in to speak.
“Abby,” he said firmly. “I want to talk to you.”
For a moment, alarm flared in her eyes, and she swallowed hard, but when Sorrin offered her his hand, she took it and seemed to calm down. Sorrin supposed that ominously declaring the desire to talk was anxiety inducing in any culture. “It’s not bad,” he promised her, as he led them both to Abby’s couch.
It was a nice couch, and Sorrin had spent many a sleepless night sitting on it before he’d found something better to do with that time. He sat on it now, and pulled Abby into his lap.
"Something is bothering you," he said, cutting right to the point of things. He didn't see the point in pretending like he didn't have something he wanted to say to her. Dancing around the pit, they called it where he was from, wasting time when you really needed to just jump in.
Abby sighed and tucked her head under his chin. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that you've been looking like someone has died for days now. There's something wrong. Is it... Have you spoken to your family?"
"What?" She seemed surprised by that question.
"Your family," Sorrin repeated. "You have one still living, don't you? Do they know you're alright?"