by Ashley West
He dragged those claws down her back, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough that she felt it, hard enough that her pleasure/pain response was triggered and she arched, going tight around him.
She didn't know how well sound carried in this compound, but she wasn't making any effort to keep herself quiet, crying out and moaning his name over and over again as she got closer and closer to coming.
With the white hot pleasure that was nearly molten at the core building up, she knew her orgasm was going to be strong and intense, and when it hit her, she nearly came undone, muffling her scream of pleasure in the mattress and going tight around him.
Roxy nearly collapsed as her arms started to shake, but Aedian kept stroking into her, his thrusts more erratic now that he was close, too. He muttered under his breath in his language, words that Roxy couldn't understand but that sounded fond and just a bit desperate to her ears.
And then he was hitting that peak with a snarl, pushing himself deep into her and losing himself, shaking and then taking care not to collapse on top of her.
In the aftermath, they laid there together, breathing hard and staring at the ceiling.
"We could do that every morning," Roxanne suggested with a wry smirk.
"I don't think your frail human body could handle it," Aedian replied, but there was a smile on his face.
She punched him in the arm and laughed.
It was a very good start to the day, all things considered. She left their rooms with a smile on her face later that morning, walking along the corridors with the vague intention of ending up at her car, but not really in any hurry to get there. If she was going to be living in this compound for, presumably, the rest of her life, then it made sense for her to know where things were, right? To know what there was to see.
Aside from the arena and the room she'd been bathed and dressed in, she hadn't seen much of it outside of the rooms she now shared with Aedian.
It was still relatively quiet, with not many of the Calphesians being out in the corridors. Those she did see looked tense and drawn, eying her before they quickly hurried away. That wasn't so strange, Roxanne supposed, after all, they didn't really know her, did they? And they didn't have any reason to, considering she was Aedian's prize and all that, but if she was going to live here, then it would probably be nice to actually know people.
But every time she made eye contact with one of them with the intent to smile and maybe introduce herself, they turned from her and rushed off. Maybe there was some kind of meeting or something, she didn't know.
What was truly worrying was the amount of them that she saw carrying weapons. Guns and axes and swords, just like when they'd arrived on Earth ten years before. And while Roxanne had never deluded herself that these beings were tame just because they lived on Earth now, she'd figured that there wasn't a need for them to be armed to the teeth anymore. But they were carrying the weapons to the same central location it seemed like, and the more of it she saw, the less she wanted to be there.
Her heart was racing in her chest, suspicions flying through her head, and all at once she turned back and walked quickly to her car.
Roxy sat there for a while, letting herself calm down. Just because she'd seen them with weapons didn't mean anything. It didn't mean that she couldn't trust them or that they were planning something. It didn't mean that she was in danger. They could just keep their weapons in a central location or be taking them to get cleaned or whatever. It could be weapon maintenance day in the Calphesian compound for all she knew.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, so she texted Samantha and then went to meet her for lunch at her apartment.
When her friend let her in, she took one look at Roxanne's face and steered her to the couch, making her sit down. In a matter of moments, a cup of tea was being pressed into her hands and Sam was sitting in the chair across from her. "Alright, spill."
"What makes you think there's anything to spill?" Roxy asked, trying to get a grip before she blurted the whole thing out.
"I've known you for five years, Roxy," Sam said. "I know when something's wrong. You look like you've seen a ghost or something. Is everything okay?"
"I don't...I don't know."
Sam scowled. "Did he do something to you?"
Roxanne frowned, glancing up. "Who?"
"Aedian! Did he try something again?"
She remembered that she had told Sam about what'd happened with Aedian when she'd stormed out on him, but she'd also told her about them making up. "No," she assured her. "No, he didn't. Things are fine with Aedian, actually. Better than I expected them to be, which is...weird."
"Weird how?"
"He's being...almost nice to me? He's..." Roxanne didn't know how to explain it. "We haven't really fought in days."
"That's a good thing, isn't it?" Samantha asked. "Why do you look like you just found out he's plotting to kill you?"
Her flippant words were a bit too close to home for Roxy's liking and she drank her tea, mind racing. They wouldn't, would they? It'd been ten years of peace, and she knew that Calphesians weren't used to it, but they wouldn't...
"They wouldn't break the treaty, would they?" she asked out loud.
Samantha looked taken aback, eyes wide and mouth open. "What?"
"I just. Aedian's being really nice to me. Well, I mean, not really nice, but nice for him, you know. And it was such an abrupt change. One minute he was practically trying to force himself on me and the next he was coming to my parents' house to apologize. I didn't even think they knew how to apologize, and then today when I was wandering around, I saw them gathering weapons. They all had them, Sam. Massive axes and guns just like they had when they came here. I don't know if there were any regulations placed on them about their weapons, but it looked like they were trying to be secretive about it. None of them would look me in the eye when I was there, and they all practically ran away when they saw me."
"You think they're planning to break the treaty?" Samantha asked. "Why would they do that? There's no benefit for them. They need us, don't they?" But she didn't sound so sure, and the idea was already running away with Roxanne.
"What if that's why he's being so nice to me? Because he's trying to lull me into a false sense of security. What if that's what they've been doing this whole time?"
The room was silent for a moment and then Sam shook her head. "I don't know, Roxy. I mean, I know you tend to think the worst about them, but that's bad even for them. And I'm not sure planning is really their thing, anyway. Maybe you should just ask Aedian about the weapons before you get all worked up about it?"
It was a fair point. After all, she didn't know enough about them to say for sure what they were doing. She just had the sinking feeling that something wasn't right.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I guess that's a good idea."
Unless he lied to her, of course. She'd never had any reason to trust them before, after all, and Roxy was a bit surprised that she'd forgotten that so easily. Apparently the sex had gone to her head.
They changed the topic of conversation, but Roxanne knew that Sam knew that she hadn't forgotten about it. When she took her leave, she promised that she'd talk to Aedian before doing anything rash, and she meant that.
Well, she meant that she wasn't going to do anything rash. Wandering into a situation she couldn't get out of was a terrible idea, and she didn't plan on doing it. But she needed more information either way.
So she took to watching them, claiming that she wanted to learn more about them and the way they did things, she made a point to be out in the corridors more. She talked to the other human women she met along the way, asking them about their dealings with the Calphesians. The three women who had been chosen five years before had their children already and didn't seem to think that the Calphesians were a real threat. The two who had been chosen with her were less sure, but also seemed to think that they were safe.
It should have been enough to ass
uage her, but it wasn't.
She knew what she'd seen, and as the days passed, she saw more and more of it. Hilts on their waists, axes strapped to their backs, guns being charged and loaded and gathered. It was all so blatant, and she knew that they didn't excel at subtlety, but she didn't understand.
There was something going on, and she was going to get to the bottom of it, one way or another.
Chapter 10: A Matter of Transparency
If Aedian thought they had been making progress before, it was like they had gone back to square one over the next several days. He was on edge because of what he knew and couldn't tell Roxanne, and there was obviously something bothering her. She was snippy and rude to him when he spoke to her, and he found that she would watch him when she didn't think he was paying attention, but he couldn't figure out what she was looking for.
It was almost like she thought he was hiding something from her, which he was, he supposed, and he didn't really know what to do about that. The head had decreed that the humans weren't to be told, and going against the word of the head wasn't something someone did.
But he found that he was more bothered than he'd been expecting to be by the way she seemed not to trust him. If there was one thing a Calphesian had, it was honor, and perhaps hiding things from his soon to be life mate wasn't the way to behave honorably.
Maybe she was hiding something, too, though.
Roxanne would leave for longer than she used to, seeming to sneak around the compound like she had a secret. When he asked where she was going, she would snap at him that she wasn't a prisoner and she could go wherever she wanted and there wasn't anything he could do to keep her there, unless he had some reason to want to have her caged.
And then she would wait to see if he had a rebuttal, which he never did, and she'd leave, returning some hours later, looking wary and convinced of something.
He didn't understand her or humans at all, for that matter, but he didn't think that this was normal behavior, and he didn't think that it was a coincidence that it'd happened right when he found out about the Platoks.
But there was no way she could know that, was there? She hadn't been at the meeting, and unless she'd heard it from someone else, there was no way for her to have found out.
It wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that one of the other champions had told their women and they had in turn told Roxy, but when Aedian saw them, they didn't look like they were worried about anything. They certainly didn't seem like they knew that their planet might soon be invaded, at the very least.
So it was baffling and annoying to feel like he didn't know what was going on, and it made him snappish and rude right back.
When he came back from sparring one day to find Roxy talking to one of the other human women, he marched right up to them, looming over them with narrowed eyes and folded arms.
"Oh!" said the woman, whose name Aedian didn't know and was sure he'd never been told (not that he would have remembered it anyway). "Hello."
Roxanne whirled to see who she was talking to, and her face when she saw that it was Aedian made him sure that there was something going on. She hadn't even looked that unhappy to see him when she'd been presented to him all those weeks ago.
"What do you want?" she asked, folding her arms in return.
Aedian felt irritation flare hot in him, but he kept his composure, not wanting to lash out right there in the corridor with another human watching. "I was going back to our rooms and wondered if you would accompany me."
That wasn't an unusual request. Sometimes before when she'd see him sweaty and fresh from sparring, she'd decide that she wanted him, and that was just fine with him. But it had been a while since they'd done anything, really, which convinced him that there was definitely something wrong.
If there was one thing he'd learned, it was that he needed to trust his instincts, and this, whatever this was, was probably no different.
"I'm busy," Roxanne replied, turning back to the woman who was staring between them with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open.
"You could be less busy," Aedian offered, trying for patience.
"You don't own me," she said.
And, Creators, Aedian was so tired of hearing her say that. He was trying. He treated her with respect the only way he knew how, and he'd thought he was doing an alright job, but now every other day she was throwing that in his face, and it was completely irrational and annoying.
"Fine," he bit out and then turned to leave.
As he walked away, he could hear the other human woman murmur in a shocked voice: "I can't believe you talked to him like that."
He couldn't see Roxanne, but she sounded like she didn't care at all. "Well, if he's going to deserve it, then I'm going to do it. Now, are you sure you haven't seen anything?"
The rest of their conversation was lost as he turned the corner, but his brows were furrowed. What would the other woman have seen? What was Roxanne looking for?
If he were more irrational than he was, he might have assumed that she was having an affair with another of his kind, but since she seemed to barely be able to stand him, he was willing to bet that it wasn't that. Which didn't put him any closer to figuring out what was going on.
He was just going to have to ask her. It was going to risk him getting his head bitten off most likely, but they couldn't continue like this. Any day now the Platoks could come and make their stand, and the Calphesians would have to make theirs in return. Aedian didn't want to have to worry about fighting with Roxanne while that was going on. He wanted her to trust him enough to know that he would keep her safe.
Because he would. She was his as much as she insisted that he didn't own her, and he wasn't going to let a Platok get its filthy hands on her. Not in this lifetime.
The pattern continued like that until one night when Aedian was preparing for bed and realized that Roxanne wasn't there. He hadn't seen her all day, so wrapped up in meetings and gathering weapons and practicing with the others. As one of the champions, it was expected of him to be on the front lines. It was his job to help defend his people, and it was an honor to have that position.
To a Calphesian, fighting and dying in battle was more honorable than hiding in the back and surviving. There was nothing to be gained from that in their eyes, and so Aedian, while not ready to die at all, would take his place where he belonged. And that meant long hours of training and making sure that his skills were sharp enough to prove that he could handle it.
So he hadn't been around much that day. Roxy seemed to leave more days than she didn't, but she was always back by the time they went to bed. She always laid down in their bed beside him, even when it seemed like she didn't want to be there.
But now it was late at night, and there was no sign of her.
With narrowed eyes, Aedian put off his bedtime preparations and stalked out to the place where Roxanne usually parked her car. To his relief, it was gone. That at least meant she wasn't somewhere in the compound with someone else. If she was cavorting with another Calphesian, then Aedian would have to fight him for her, and he didn't have time for that. None of them had time to be fighting amongst themselves right now.
That still meant he had no idea where she was, though, and he sighed, leaning against one of the pillars. It was probably stupid to be worried. It wasn't like she'd been snatched by an enemy of his, and he trusted that she could handle herself out in the human world. She'd been doing it for years before he'd shown up in her life, after all.
But she wasn't there with him, and that was the problem. He tried not to think of her as a possession because there was nothing to be gained there and it just made her angry, but he was used to her presence by now. He was used to having her there when he laid down to sleep and the fact that she wasn't there just made things odd.
Just as he was considering turning around and going back into the compound to wait for her, the bright beams of her headlights swung around, and he shielded his eyes from the glare to watch h
er park the car.
At first, she seemed not to see him, muttering to herself as she got out of the contraption and shut the door with a bang.
Her face was drawn down into a frown, and she was tugging absently at one of her curls. She would walk right past him if she continued like that, and the thought of being ignored when he was standing there waiting for her made him angry.
Before she could pass completely, he reached out and grabbed her arm.
Roxanne yelped and whirled, eyes wide and hand raised. He knew first hand that her hits didn't hurt that much, but she was mid swing already when he ducked back. "Stop that."
She frowned, squinting in the darkness, and then she scowled when she saw it was him. "What is your problem?" Roxy demanded, trying and failing to tug her arm out of his grip.
"I could ask you the same thing," Aedian hissed, tightening his fingers just a bit.
"Me? You're the one sneaking around in the dark. What were you even doing?"
"I was waiting for you!" he snapped. "And I was not sneaking around. Calphesians do not sneak."
She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Oh, that's right. Silly of me to have forgotten. You just march in, weapons drawn and start making demands and killing people. You're hurting my arm."
Aedian dropped her arm like it had burned him. Hurting her wasn't what he wanted to do, after all. He didn't even want to fight with her, really. Mostly he just wanted to pull her over his shoulder and cart her off so that they could go to bed. But judging from the look on her face, that wasn't going to happen.
"Where were you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
"Why does it matter?"
"Because I want to know. You were gone all day, and it feels like you're hiding something from me."
Now she laughed outright, turning and walking off in the direction of the stairs that led to the living quarters. "I'm hiding something. Okay. Sure. We'll pretend like that's true."
Frustration and anger and exhaustion were warring inside of him, and Aedian decided all at once that he'd had enough. They'd been dancing around this for over a week now, and there was no telling when the Platoks would show up, and he was tired of it. He didn't have time to be bickering pointlessly with her, and he didn't even want to. Not when things were so dire.