by Tahlia Black
I hear him spit onto his shaft, rubbing the head of it against my opening.
Another hand reaches between my legs and starts thrumming the sensitive bud at the apex of my slit.
My body responds. I am no longer aware of the strange warm-cold or rain, every sense narrowing down to the new sensation these fingers are finding.
New colors creep into my head. Arousal, like honey, begins to slicken the fat head of the Stratus’s cock. My hole loosens as the fingers grow faster in their circling. I grow looser, ready.
I don’t even notice Stratus’s weapon start to slip inside, waiting there half-in as I expand around him, too caught up in my own sensation to care.
My mouth moves. “Yes.”
This single, unbelievable syllable repeats itself.
I close my eyes and focus down on this sensation growing within me, threatening to take me in full. I need to be filled. Like the pills in the slave market, it’s all I can think about, the need.
I have already fallen past redemption. Should I not be allowed some pleasure in the process?
I tell the brothers this. Filth escapes my mouth I never even knew was part of my vocabulary. I press my hips outwards and the giant cock gains more ground stretching me out.
Another cock slides into my hand and my fingers curl around it, working it like a piston as I continue to beg, wishing now more than anything for release from the mixed pain and pleasure that’s coursing through me, betraying me in full.
Stratus’s fingers work faster and my release seems imminent.
Tyrus’s cock glows like lava in my hand, the rain picking up in intensity, the tempest rising around us.
I mutter nonsense, take Tyrus’s cock between my lips, moaning and drooling around it as Stratus’s colossal weapon slides forward, the head hidden now in my freshly fucked folds and the shaft about to make its grand entrance.
I want it. I want his cock to open me up, to split me wide and fill me, to fuck me as I deserve to be fucked, like the worthless human I am.
Stratus places a hand against my spine, presses down and, feet planted in the mud, presses his pole deep into my pussy.
The cock in my mouth pops free as I cry out, but this time it’s with pleasure as I’m stuffed to the brim, the giant beginning to slide in my warm confines, even Stratus himself complimenting how I take it.
My hips jerk every time he bottoms out inside me, his hips slamming into my own over and over and over until I shake like a madman caught in these weathered planks. The giant swings into me like a fortress wall, the stumps by my sides groaning in the ground against his girth. And all the while his fingers work, slipping and moving around in my arousal, the bud between them too much, too much sensation.
I’m losing my grip on reality. It’s too much, far too much to take.
A renegade finger scoops the wetness between our bodies and screws itself into my ass, pushing deep into my hidden fuckhole, only a thin wall separating it from the monster that rides my sex below.
It’s the final straw. An orgasm of untold proportions draws up and crashes throughout my body. I let out a stream of obscenities, hot seed filling my open mouth. Colors collide inside my head, my pussy clamping down and releasing violently around the giant’s still pumping member. The finger in my ass is given the same treatment as I lose control of my body and feel a wave of pleasure and ecstasy flow through me in single, steady stream that overwhelms everything else.
But Stratus’s cock grows and grows, my skin and body stretching unnaturally.
I cry out as the giant cock somehow seems to run ever deeper. Just as it feels like it’s about to guide itself right into my stomach, I faint, unable to summon the energy to stay conscious. With one open eye I see Tyrus’s hard cock in its master’s hand before me being prepared to ravage me once more.
I drift in a black void, loosely aware of weight, of cocks being pressed against me, my orifices filled, emptied, over and over, only hours ago so pure and tight being pulled loose and stretched wide.
I move and in and out of the waking world, through a dull and all-consuming madness.
I am under the dark water of my mind, men collecting into the murky depths of consciousness above.
I snap awake to clear moons drifting between fleeting clouds.
Strands of saliva and seed hang from my mouth, from the numb space between my thighs. My hair is matted and dry, thick with it.
My body no longer shakes, but quivers in loose spasms, a poor imitation of my earlier convulsions.
My head is foggy. Through the mist another man approaches. He is dressed in black from head to toe, a mask over his face.
It’s Death, I think. Come to claim me.
With a single blow, Death strikes the lock that binds the stocks and lifts the top bar away.
I’m too weak to move, too spent to lift my arms and head.
Death aids me, wrapping my arm around his neck and dragging me across the barren earth of the courtyard, lifting me by my bruised buttocks over his shoulder.
Everything blurs into a seamless stream of consciousness.
I’m aware of a fire, the wonderful warmth it provides. I am grateful for it, grateful for this chance to be warmed prior to my ultimate consumption, to be finally free of this life, but when the stranger crouches beside me, removing his mask and cape, I stare into his anvil-colored eyes, his smile, and realize that yes, I have survived.
It’s over—the Ceremony is complete.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EVE
Once more, I lie between the two brothers, but now in their own, generous bed. The room is warmed by two separate fires, yet no additional heat was required earlier. No, following the Ceremony I was bathed and fawned over, each brother taking turns to apply salves and healing hands. They stroked and calmed me, softly cooing into my ear as a mother would a child. The sex that followed was slow and sensual, a strange foil to the violent act of the Ceremony.
I’ve never been privy to this kind of deep love before, a love and tenderness so at odds with the pain the brothers can summon on command. Spent, the brothers sleep in perfect peace. Not a breath escapes their lips.
How funny, I think, to live on a planet with an atmosphere yet not be able to breathe the air that surrounds you.
I imagine there are many things I am still to learn about Dothkhan. The picture of myself and the two brothers firms in my mind. I no longer feel like a captive here, a foreigner on an alien world. I feel like I’ve come home.
It’s crazy to think what has eventuated ever since my ship was shot down. My entire world has been upended and thrown into chaos. Everything I thought I knew as truth has undoubtedly been a lie, but with this new understanding has come fresh purpose and possibilities.
I wake parched, and lift Stratus’s arm from my belly. I slowly slide from the bed and put on my tunic, padding out of the room and making my way towards the kitchen, smiling.
The ache between my legs so prominent following the Ceremony has dulled to a soft murmur, a reminder of the brothers and their ample appendages. I smile again, practically skipping, and don’t think I’ve ever been this happy, ever been so truly free.
I’m halfway down the hallway when there’s an almighty explosion. The force of it throws me sideways into the wall in a shower of rock and debris.
I try to brush rock and dust from my chest, but my hand is shaking and I cannot hear a thing but a high-pitched ringing that drowns out all else.
I’m confused, dizzy. Lights cut through the haze. Shapes emerge. Dark figures.
As they come into focus I pull back against the wall, shouting “No! No!” but not hearing the sound that escapes my lips.
The first Alliance soldier, a member of my father’s secretive Headhunter squad, holds his plasma rifle high scanning the area, two more emerging behind him.
I’m still protesting when they lift me under my arms, weak but doing my best to kick free and shout.
I read the soldier’s lips in front of
me. “You’re safe,” he’s saying. “We’re taking you home.”
No.
Something cold is pressed against my neck and I don’t need to hear the telltale hiss to know a sedative is being injected into my body.
It takes effect immediately as I’m slung over the soldier’s shoulder. My limbs turn floppy, my vision narrowing down into a single, solitary tunnel.
My body jerks as the soldier’s plasma rifle fires down the hall.
Dimly, I see Tyrus with his weapon raised, firing in our direction.
A soldier flanks around our right and kneels, sending a volley of shots down the hallway. A bolt strikes Tyrus in the leg, sparks showering off the bone. I see his mouth turn into a horrible grimace and he goes down onto one knee, continuing to fire but getting smaller and smaller even as Stratus emerges to drag him away. They’re outnumbered, and outgunned.
The sedative pulls me further under, beckons me to sleep.
The last thing I see is the sleek Headhunter ship hovering outside, the ramp extended and the soldiers taking up the perimeter as I’m roughly hauled inside.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVE
The acrid stench of plasma and explosives is gone. It’s replaced with a sterile, alkaline smell that tells me immediately I am no longer on Dothkhan.
I come to slowly.
“Welcome back.”
A doe-eyed Alliance medic I don’t recognize is attending to a cut on my forehead, dabbing at it with a skin wand.
“You’re likely to be disorientated from the sedative, so take your time.” She switches the skin wand off. “All done,” she says, standing. “The Grand Commander is waiting to see you, but there’s no rush. There’s a fresh uniform on the table there, a blast shower to your right and toiletries if you want to freshen up.” She crouches, hands on my knees. “I understand you’ve been through quite an ordeal, but you’re safe now. You’re home.”
I take it in silently as she stands.
How did it come to this?
“The soldiers outside will see you to the Grand Commander when you’re ready. Good luck, and again, welcome home, Lieutenant.”
The door closes behind her leaving me in a vacuum of thought.
I’ve been rescued, I realize. Damn it, I’ve been saved.
It takes me a while to find my feet and dress. There’s still a distant ringing in my ears from the explosion, the sedative continuing to dull and blunt my senses, but perhaps this is how the Grand Commander, my father, wants me—compliant in front of his powerful friends and allies.
He’s not going to get it.
I sigh under the mist of the blast shower, running my hands over a body that no longer feels my own but the property of my Masters and lovers. I close my eyes at the memory of the plasma bolt cutting through Tyrus’s leg, the pain so clear on his face.
My father—this whole cursed war is his doing, my father was ready to send me to slaughter to further his own agenda. I don’t intend to let him get away with it, with the web of lies he has woven over this entire galaxy. It has to stop, and if I, his only child, have to bring it all burning down, so be it.
Dressed, the soldiers lead me through the ship. Others stop in their tracks and salute me with the official Alliance greeting, reaching out to wish me well and smile. It makes me sick.
I’m led into the ship’s antechamber where the important Generals are gathered and those most close to my father’s golden bosom. It’s all a show. I know very well the men gathered in his room have never seen a battlefield, have never seen a human body literally torn apart atom by atom by Tathrian weaponry.
My father enters the antechamber wearing his full battle armor, the gaudy gold always a little too over the top for my liking but providing him an air of authority all the same.
He embraces me, but it’s more for the show of Generals gathered. “Eve, my Dearest, Praise the Alliance you have returned to us, safe and sound.”
I hold him back. “You lied to me. You’re lying to everyone.”
He smiles and gestures the others gathered to leave. “Privacy, if you will. My daughter’s been through a lot.”
The Generals bow and retreat until it’s just my father and I.
I come right out with it. “The whole thing is a fabrication, isn’t it? The Dothkhan didn’t attack us. We attacked them, and for what? To mine and plunder their planet, strip it to the bone like we did on Tathra, Xantor… Who knows how many more.”
He takes me by the shoulders. “My daughter, you are under the influence of Dothrakian brainwashing techniques. It’s common for someone held in captivity for so long to grow,” he struggles with his words, “attached to their captors.”
I shrug him off and step back. “Oh, I know my captors well, and I know exactly who you are now. My eyes have been opened.”
His tone sharpens. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Eve.”
“You deliberately sabotaged my fighter. You handed me to them. What is it all for, Father? What do you plan to do with these riches? When will it be enough?”
He ignores the accusation. “My first and only priority is always the safety of those under the protection of the Alliance.”
“Bullshit,” I spit. “It’s to line your pockets, to carve more and more of this galaxy out as your own, a twisted legacy where only the Alliance remains. Isn’t that so?”
“You need rest. I’m pleased you’re home, but you need time to clear your thoughts and reorient yourself to your objectives. You are a soldier, Eve. Do not let these Dothkhan animals get to you.”
He signals his personal guards to enter the room. “Please take my daughter to her quarters. She is not to speak to anyone. She is to rest appropriately.”
So he wants to shut me up, does he? Without thinking, I blurt out, “I let them use me, you know, happily.”
He was walking to the door, but my father stiffens in surprise around like he’s just taken a plasma enema up the ass. He turns. “I’ll have the medics look you over.”
“Happily,” I repeat, “let them fuck me in every hole I have.”
I see him swallow hard. “Out!” he screams at the guards. “She is not to leave her quarters until my say so. Understood?”
The guards nod like the silly grunts they are, taking me firmly around the arms and leading me away, my head ringing.
I’m thrown unceremoniously into my quarters, the door closed and locked from the outside. I slump against the wall and settle down onto the floor staring at the porthole and the dark void beyond where, somewhere, Stratus and Tyrus wait.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
STRATUS
I’m tight with tension. No calming exercise or centering spell can quell the storm of emotions that rages inside me.
I stand in front of my brother. A healer is attending to his leg, but I know the prognosis is not good. Still, I ask, “How bad is it?”
The healer looks up to me with a sullen expression on his face. There is no lying on Dothkhan, no untruths. He will tell it to me straight. “The plasma bolt has shattered the bone. I can piece it together, but I’m afraid your brother will never fight again.”
At this, Tyrus smashes his fist down on the med-chair. “Vex! Vex, Vex, Vex.”
I walk over and place my hand on Tyrus’s shoulder. “Fear not, brother. All is not lost. You still have your cock, do you not?”
But even this can’t bring him out of the dark cloud that has fallen over us all. “And what good is a prick with nothing to put it in?” he sneers. “Eve has been taken from us, right from our very clutches, and we were powerless to stop it. Fight? What’s the point?”
I’ve never heard Tyrus talk this way. I crouch down before him while the healer works. “We will get her back.”
Tyrus shakes his head, looking to the arched roof but finding no solace there. The emotion strains at his usually composed features. I hate seeing him like this, weak and defeated.
“How?” he asks. “The entire Alliance flee
t stands between us. She’s no doubt under her father’s protection. What are we going to do? Simply fly up there and walk onto the Alliance mothership demanding her release?” He laughs.
But I’m considering his words, a thin plan sketching itself out in my head. I start to smile myself. “Actually, brother, that is exactly what we’re going to do.”
*
It’s strange being back at the market again. My stomach knots as we pass the cells, at the memory of Eve looking back with her deep blue eyes, so fragile and delicate yet so strong at the same time. I wanted her from the first time I saw her, but Eve is nowhere to be seen.
Instead, we stop before a cell where a middle-aged human male sits, eyeing us with contempt.
Tyrus limps up beside me, the top of his leg in bondage. “Is this the one?”
I nod. “It is.” I address the slave-master that has joined us. “How long has he been here?”
The slave-master checks his records. “A human year, My Lord. I have far better female specimens. If you’d just allow me to—”
I put my hand. “No, this one will do. Have him cleaned and prepared at once.”
The slave-master, beaming at the sale, nods. “As you wish, My Lord,” whisking himself away.
I stare into the cell, at our one hope of getting Eve back.
Tyrus steps in front of me, whispering. “This is suicide, Stratus.”
It could be, but we have to try. I won’t allow Eve to live up there with her monster of a father and the lies she now knows have been perpetrated against our planet.
Cleaned, the slave-master leads the human into a small room at the back of the market complex and applies his bonds, silently passing me the mental key to unlock them. “Will that be all?” he asks.
“It will,” I reply.
“A pleasure doing business with you again, My Lords.” The slave-master bows and makes his leave, the door sealing closed behind him.
I approach the prisoner. “We are short on time, so let me be brief. Do as we say and you shall have your freedom. More, you shall be returned to the Alliance. Nod if you understand.”