by Maia Starr
But it was the most electric thing I had ever experienced.
The high of the kiss kept my body humming and riled up for the rest of the week. While I was officially assigned to be her keeper, I spent much of the week away from her, though I’d watched as she’d come and gone from Jareth’s laboratory.
I noticed a group of Vithohn who would follow her back to her tower, and it infuriated me. They felt the same pull I did, no doubt. They wanted to touch her and spread her legs.
But they would never get to chance.
I put Lele on watch when I wasn’t able to be around: a strong mech who could handle her own against us, as much as I would never say it out loud.
In the meantime, I had the clasp removed from my tentacle, and I felt a renewed energy rush through my body. It made me feel that same aggression I had before being removed as a Voth.
I felt the pull of violence and struggled to control it: the weight of it heavier than I ever remembered. I could barely even think anymore: my mind always buried with my desire to fight and defend.
The pull of the Kilari became stronger then, too.
I began to wonder if what I had with Reina was real or not. Whether it was my weakened state that had made me susceptible to her.
A representative of Sylas came out from the black tower in the city center, and the crowd erupted with cheers: a roar heard in an echo across the entire metropolis.
He told me that Sylas would be back any day, but that I should be rewarded for my capture as soon as possible, especially considering the war.
The red Vithohn announced to the crowd that I was once again a Voth: a warrior of the highest order. The crowd resumed their cheers and cries. The noise was so powerful, I felt the stone shaking beneath me.
I knew Reina was watching from her tower. It was too dangerous to bring her down, with all the Vithohn around, lusting after her body. But I wanted to see her: to show her what I could do now that I was reinstated.
I entered the stateroom and was immediately taken aback by the immense black brick oval window that sat in the center of the spire. I’d seen this room from the ground before: the one with the scrawled writing on the outside listing all the fallen Vithohn from the war.
Reina looked up at me with a familiar need, and I sidestepped her, walking to the window’s ledge.
“I’m happy today,” she said as I looked out over the glowing city. You could see the roadways and the deep interconnecting squares—pockets of city—perfectly from up here.
“Good,” I said with a smile and turned to see her: my Reina looking anything but ginger for once. There was a smile that crept up the side of her face that I couldn’t put my finger on.
Then all the sudden, I felt a weakness in my body that was accompanied by a sick, white-hot pain. What was she feeling happy about? Being with Sylas today?
“I’m still pissed that you expect me to go be with that thing,” she said with some hostility.
It wasn’t about Sylas, then. Good.
“That thing,” I corrected slowly, not turning from the immense view of the city; I had missed it so much since being banished, “is my leader.”
She bit her lip, and I could hear her resolve as she said, “I won’t do it.”
I turned around then, taking in a heavy breath. I walked over to her and ran a hand across her cheek and cupped it. She fell into my touch, and I knew she wouldn’t argue with me.
There was a curiosity that welled up in me suddenly: a confusion as she shook her head to me, her eyes speaking of her protests.
Sylas loved her. He would care for her. She would never have to worry about being killed, hunted by the Vithohn, or being attacked by the Kilari. She would be safe.
I swallowed and felt the corners of my eyes crease as I looked down at the small girl in front of me. “But… he loves you.”
Reina laughed, stepping away from me and throwing her hands into the air. “He doesn’t love me, Oron. He doesn’t even know me!”
“He felt you,” I argued and then felt my own desire for her come forward as I watched the light hit her: the way he clothes flowed away from her small body. “He called out to you from the start. How can you deny that?”
“I don’t want him,” she said evenly and then walked back up to me, taking my hand into hers.
I nearly flinched. This wouldn’t go over well with Sylas. If there was ever a moment to convince her that she needed to be with him, this was it. Yet, I couldn’t muster up any more protests.
“So why are you so happy?” I said, calling back to the beginning of our discussion.
“Because…” she said lowly, placing my hands on her hips. My favorite place. “I figured something out today,” she said proudly. “You’re different from them.”
“The Vithohn?” I asked, and she nodded. I squeezed her hips and grew lost in the sight of her body. “Yeah, because I was banished,” I offered with a laugh.
“No.” She shook her head. “Everyone else is so, well, unhinged. But not you. You're put together. You have a silence inside you. A calm.”
“That’s called shame,” I laughed, and she continued to bring my hands farther up her body. “Disgrace.”
“No,” she said, moving my hands up to her breasts and pressing them against her. “It’s because you like me.”
I blinked rapidly, feeling a choke in my throat at the feel of her body: the soft mounds my hands encompassed. “What?” I stammered.
“You came to me when I was crying,” she said, bridging the gap between us even more.
“You were being loud,” I shrugged: toneless.
“You slept in my bed,” she dared, reaching a hand up and tracing the dots that lined my face.
I swallowed several times and heard her sticky breath go heavy. “You were… being loud.”
“You helped me find Lele’s parts,” she argued in a whisper, stepping up on the tips of her toes and counting on me to use my hands to balance her, which I did.
I smirked, leaning down to meet her face. “I was bored.”
“You protected me from the Kilari, from the Vithohn, and you physically look ill when Sylas gets close to me.”
“So?” I asked, and she reached up and grabbed my lips with hers, sending a flurry of passion through my body.
Our lips danced against each other, clumsily at first and then faster and more desperate. I knew if the kiss didn’t end soon, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“You like me,” she said in between our kisses. “You told the Vithohn I was the only human when we both know you saw two more of us and you know I have a base to go back to.”
I snapped my fingers and laughed through our lips. “I knew you were lying to me,” I whispered triumphantly before dipping my tongue into her mouth. I felt hers swirl up against mine, tasting me hungrily and watching as her eyes rolled back.
The smell of her seemed to intensify, and I knew that she was mine—my chosen—my calling. I’d fought against it all this time, and now, with her body pressed against mine and her teeth biting my bottom lip, I couldn’t think of a good reason why.
“You like me,” she reiterated, pulling away from me with a wicked smile: more flirtatious and seductive than I’d ever seen before. “And that’s okay… because, while I can’t stand you,” she teased and began unbuttoning her shirt, “I want you just as badly.”
Chapter Nine
Reina
Oron leaned in and met his mouth with mine, furiously releasing the pent-up sexual aggression we’d been feeling toward one another since he saddled up next to me in the tent so many nights ago.
It was that night I started to feel a fondness for him: an attraction and a safety that I couldn’t shake.
At first, I thought it was some kind of attachment people get to their captors. Willow had explained it to me once from a book she’d read, so I ignored it. I tried to push it aside. And then when we got to Bolmore I realized that I’d never felt this alive before—not since Oron came into my
life.
Oron had left the tent without a word, and I assumed he was probably patrolling the area. As afraid as I was to be away from the mountain town, resistant to being someone’s whore back in Bolmore, I felt strangely alone without Oron in sight.
So I sat for what felt like hours inside the impressive shelter until poking my head out, looking for him.
Then I knew I liked having him around.
“Keep going,” I said desperately as he began to slow his pace and he quickened again, keeping a steady rhythm that created friction between our bodies.
I didn’t know what it was for him, what I meant to him, or if he meant anything to me, but it all felt amazing.
He pushed me down onto the bed and forced his heavy, muscular body onto mine. I writhed up against him with our clothes on, already feeling wet and eager to cum.
I let out a drawn-out moan as he started kissing my neck and pulling my hair back and down towards the mattress.
My hands were in a flurry, trying to unclasp the intricate belts and ties on his armor. It reminded me of when we were in the clearing: me, desperately trying to flip the Ixu and screaming out in frustration when my hands wouldn’t cooperate.
He must have sensed my frustration because he laughed and pulled his sticky lips from mine and started slowly unfurling his clasps and removed his clothes.
“A gentleman and everything,” I mocked. “Who knew?”
He threw his clothes to the ground below so I could get a good look at him: green and yellow shades creating a warm gradient along his muscular physique.
I ran a hand along his abs as he slid his body over mine, unbuttoning my shirt and splaying the shirt open to reveal my breasts: medium-sized pillows of softness that he touched with reverence.
It was evident he’d never done anything like this before by the way he touched me: ginger and careful as his fingers grazed my nipples, his mouth exploring them before wandering down my navel and further still.
He pulled my pants down with his hand, sliding them the rest of the way down with his foot when he could no longer reach.
“You look amazing,” he whispered: breathless.
“I have wanted this for such a long time,” I whispered and he seemed to get even harder at the sound of my voice. I could feel his penis up against me, large and thick, and I craned my neck up to kiss him.
He pressed his lips against mine and our tongues danced around one another a little while longer before I reached down, stroking him—more for curiosity than to further our interaction.
Oron moaned at the action and started breathing heavily into the crook of my neck.
“You have?” he asked, just realizing I had said something to him.
“Are you kidding?” I said, thinking that my desire for him had been apparent all this time. Maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe Willow was right, and I was just as bad at flirting as she claimed.
Oron swallowed, and I could feel him smile against my skin. “Is that a yes? Or…”
“Of course I have,” I whispered.
“You’re all I think about,” he said in a strange moment of sincerity.
I met his eyes as I guided him inside of me and we both gasped at the sudden sensation. His eyes went wide and then glazed over with lust.
I grabbed his hips and started rocking them against me, guiding him over my body. It didn’t take long for him to find a steady rhythm.
“I thought you hated me,” he said, running both his hands through my hair and holding them there.
“Me too,” I said wryly and then pressed my finger against his lips. I’d have enough talking for the evening.
I closed my eyes and let the passion he exuded wash over me like rain, writhing against himself and wondering if I should try to climax or if he was going to finish soon.
But he didn’t, so I stopped him and got on top, dropping down on him and guiding his hands to my breasts as I ground against his cut pelvic area.
The noises he made put me over the edge, causing my body to tense and tighten against him: feeling my body fill with warmth and tingles before hearing an airy grunt leave his body.
His muscles flexed and held there for a moment: both his hands still cupping my breasts before dropping down my torso, leaving a trail of sweat behind them.
“So…” Oron smiled, still breathing heavily as he pulled me down to kiss him. “That was sex.”
“Correction,” I quipped, tapping his nose and realizing I was finally free to touch him, to feel his face and hair and horns and do whatever I liked. “That was sex with me.”
We lay there, in my bed, in the exotic black tower with its jagged architecture, entangled in one another.
“What’s your best memory?” I asked, twirling my hands through his hair as he laid on my chest.
“Hello,” came a female voice, Lele’s, as she brazenly walked through my door. Instead of averting her eyes to our nudity, she simply shut the door behind us and said, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
I laughed, loudly, and grabbed the blankets, pulling them up to cover our bodies.
“Yes you did,” I chuckled out, waving for her to turn around.
She gave a playful roll of the eyes and turned around while I threw my clothes on, haphazardly.
Oron looked stunned as he scrambled to dress. It was then I realized how very, un-human he was. Every teenager back in my village had all experienced the fearsome thrill of racing to get your clothes back on before your parents walked into the bedroom or sneaking someone out a window after sex.
Or, maybe that was just me?
“Decent?” Lele asked impatiently, and I looked at Oron, still trying to get his complicated belt-hooks done up.
“Yeah,” I said, pre-emptively.
Oron stood when she turned around, throwing his armor on and making for the door.
“Reina,” he said slowly, and I began to giggle. “I, uh… I will see you… Later.”
And with that, he gathered his things and clicked the door shut behind him.
“Romantic interactions fascinate me,” Lele said, walking over to my bed and taking a seat.
“It’s not romantic,” I said through a laugh.
Lele looked at me with her deep eyes beaming, a mocking humor to her tone as she declared: “Does not compute,” in her most robotic tone.
She did this a lot to try and make me laugh. She had a sarcastic humor that I enjoyed. I wondered if someone had programmed her that way or if it was something she picked up on her own.
I’d never been friends with a robot before. I knew they weren’t supposed to have feelings. Not really. But there was something inherently real about Lele and the way she presented herself. She was someone I could get along with easily: share my secrets with.
“Oh, stop it,” I said, waving her off as I stood and walked up to the embellished mirror on the wall. “It’s not romantic. Don’t get your wires in a twist.”
“A stress reliever then,” she said flatly.
“I don’t trust him,” I shrugged, fixing my hair behind my ears and using my finger to squeegee off my teeth in the mirror.
“A way to pass the afternoon,” Lele continued mechanically, accounting for what the meaning of our sex was. “A lesson in betrayal to his Voth. A way to blindside Oron and secretly escape.”
I spun on my foot, feeling the cold brick floor against my skin and relishing every second of it.
“No! None of those things,” I protested, drawing my brows together. “I mean… maybe all of them, but not purposely.”
“That makes it better then,” she mocked.
“Except that last part. What do you mean, escape secretly?”
“Blindsided Vithohn,” she said, crossing her legs while she sat on my bed, bouncing one over her knee so that the whole bed shook. “While full of rage, they are also easy to control once you’ve…” She seemed to think on this, smiling wickedly as she drew a hand over the wet spots on the bed. Then she looked back up at me: a
blush furiously crossing my cheeks. “Once you have given yourself to them.”
“That’s not why I did it,” I said, shaking my head, bemused.
“Well,” Lele said, still looking down at our mess of blankets. She had a look cross her face that I could only slightly place, and that was only because I had spent so much time with her these past few days. She looked amused but perplexed by our decision.
I wondered if she knew what sex was like or if that’s what she was thinking about. I wondered if she was so used to computing probabilities for success that she couldn’t wrap her mind around our very human, very emotional actions.
“Might I make an educated statement?” she asked suddenly.
“Sure,” I said, gesturing towards her to go ahead.
“You are analyzing your feelings far too much for someone who allegedly has none invested in Oron.”
“I don’t trust him!” I repeated with a defensive laugh.
“So you say.”
“We have this…” I shrugged, unsure how else to say it. “Connection!”
“Sex,” she lamented.
“Something deeper than that, I think.”
“Not a great basis to start with,” Lele said and slowly stood up from the bed. She reached into a leather satchel she carried and pulled out a laser pistol with an extended charge and handed it to me.
I took it from her absent-mindedly, not questioning why she had it in the first place.
“I feel this connection to him that I can’t explain. I feel… sick, when he’s around, but in a good way.”
Lele walked up to me, wrinkling her adorable nose at me.
“Commonly called ‘butterflies,’” Lele said, handing a blue vial to me and pressing my fingers shut over it.
“…what’s this for?” I finally asked.
“For…” she blinked and narrowed her brows at me, “your escape?” She set her hands on my shoulders and continued, “Have I been talking to myself this whole time?”
“Um…”
“Jareth wants to escape. If we leave now there is a sixty-percent probability of success.” She paused. “Possibly sixty-five-percent if Oron is now on board.”