by Amon Bieste
An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
Latharian Review
ISBN 9781419911132
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Latharian Review Copyright © 2007 Amon Bieste
Edited by Briana St. James.
Photography and cover art by Les Byerley.
Electronic book Publication May 2007
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Content Advisory:
S – ENSUOUS
E – ROTIC
X – TREME
Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).
The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This story has been rated E–rotic.
S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.
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Latharian Review
Amon Bieste
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Latex: Latex Foam International Holdings, Inc.
Porsche: Dr.Ing.h.c.F. Porsche Ag Corporation
Chapter One
The moment I looked at Corral Melhen, my whole body filled with fire and the temperature I exuded slightly tinted my skin suit. She was the kind of female that I could spend hours on, taking my time and my pleasure. Physically, she was thin, with small breasts and slim hips. Her features were delicate and feminine; by human standards, very appealing. I couldn’t care less about the appearance of a human. It was her energy, red-hot and radiating out from every pore of her body, that I was attracted to. But Melhen was an admiral and one didn’t just throw an admiral to the floor and mate with her. So I kept my place, working the gauges that manned the space drifter, Ecker3.
“Are you having a problem, Captain?” She addressed me in a strong but feminine voice after a few moments of observing the bridge of the small craft. Apparently, she’d noticed the slight change in my skin suit.
“Nothing I can’t handle.” But when she’d moved closer, I could smell her human sex, tangy and damp. I could feel her emotions. My telltale suit brightened.
“You look as though you need relief of duty.”
I inhaled deeply, sucking her scent into my chest. Duty was not what demanded relief. My body jerked, but I gripped the smooth round knob of the gauge and forced myself not to face her. Why in hell had they sent a human woman to review my drifter?
“You are Latharian, aren’t you?” she asked in an accusing tone. Our skin suits covered our natural forms—many times we were mistaken for humans. Apparently the admiral had noticed the slight differences in our skin suits and the bone structure of our bodies. Our faces were made of wide angles and our bodies, though varying in sizes, were slightly larger than most humans.
My heartbeat accelerated. I could smell the tiny droplets of sweat that gathered in her pubic hair now. It was a musky, salty smell that made me growl before I could stop myself. I gripped the gauge so tightly that the color of my skin suit whitened around my knuckles.
“Yes.”
“Is it true that Latharians have heightened senses?” She ventured closer and I could hear the curiosity in her voice, feel it in her emotions. There were few of us who interacted with Earth. It wasn’t uncommon that those we did come in contact with were curious. But they had all been warned of the Latharians’ appetite for sex and to approach with caution as cadets. Why wasn’t this female doing that?
“Some of us do.”
“Do you?”
I gritted my teeth together, trying to block against the fire that raged through me. “Sense of smell.”
She was silent for several long seconds, but did not back away. “What do I smell like?”
As long as she didn’t touch me, I could refrain from giving in to my natural urges. But she was so close that, even without contact, the skin suit thinned. “Sex.” My voice had tightened and sounded forced through my teeth.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The three of us have been away from civilization for several months. With all due respect, Admiral,” I drew a ragged breath, “you should not be the one to greet us.”
“I was assigned to this ship.” She sniffed, dismissing her curiosity. “You will allow me access to your logs and the proper disease tests will be run. If you are not pleased with my authority, you may take your complaints to Counsel in two days’ time when my review of you, your crew and your ship is completed.” She spoke in a professional manner that hinted at years of experience despite her age, which I guessed from her smell was close to thirty. Too young for that kind of experience, I thought to myself. Too young to have lived enough life to give her that experience.
“Of course.”
“Are the two men of your crew also Latharian?” she asked then. She had to know they were if she’d recognized me as Latharian. Humans asked stupid questions. Still I answered.
“They are.”
“Like you?”
“Some differences.”
“What differences are those?” Again, curiosity tinged her words. Damned humans.
At last she moved away as she waited for my answer. I shoved the gauge into auto-hover and faced her while she walked to my second-in-command. Karo kept his stare locked on the floor. He didn’t dare look up, but I could see him shaking, as affected by her presence as I was.
“Jaru’s differences are physical.” I looked to my right to Jaru’s large frame, then at Karo. “Karo is different from me in that he also has a heightened sense of taste.” Jaru didn’t look at the floor like Karo did. He was staring at the admiral as if he was going to pounce on her. I could smell both of their arousals as strongly as I felt my own. The urge to move as a pack was strong, tempting, but we all three held our ground.
When she retrieved a small detector from her review pack, I frowned as she lifted it to scan the length of Jaru’s body. “We’ve no diseases,” I told her. “We encountered no race of life to contract disease from. And we practiced strict rules of conduct when taking the samples of the new planet’s environment.” I retrieved the small Ecker3 palmlog and held it out to her with a shaking hand. “These are our logs. It shouldn’t take you long to review them.”
She stared at me evenly, then clamped the detector closed, satisfied we were not carrying any foreign disease. “You are trying to rush my review. It is because I am a woman. You want me off your ship.” She reached forward to take the palmlog. “I’ve encountered males like you before. You think you are superior. Fortunately, you have no authority to make a decision about my presence here. And all of my reviews are thorough.” Again, matter-of-fact professionalism defined her voice. Pride and determination reached out betwe
en the waves of hot energy.
I moved with the speed my species is known for, bringing my face within an inch of hers. “I am trying to save you, Admiral,” I hissed through my teeth, ignoring the tickle of fear I was met with in her energy. “Latharians respect whatever authority comes with the title you hold. Your being female does not change the respect you deserve, but it does make a difference in the way our bodies react.” This close and my skin suit bloomed brightly. And even though it was Karo who could taste her energy on the air in the confined space of the drifter bridge, my own tongue tingled and forked at the tip.
Her eyes widened and realization washed over her expression. Most were surprised by the ferocity of our reactions. She jumped backward, away from me. “You mean…”
“You smell like sex,” I finished. The last word came out in a hiss that I had no control over. The scent from her cunt grew stronger and my stomach clenched, nearly doubling me over. Jaru growled from the left of me and across the small space, Karo was visibly shaking. Both of their skin suits had turned the bright color of the blood the change of her temperature had brought to their surfaces. I knew my own mimicked theirs. I inhaled loudly, hungrily devouring her smell.
“Go below and review the logs,” I told her after exhaling. It was a command—one that shouldn’t have been given to an admiral. I was in no position to order her about; I was just the captain of a tiny ship. I was desperate, however, to regain control of myself and my crew. And I couldn’t do that with her standing there in front of us.
She opened her mouth as if to argue and then thought better of it. Her mouth clamped closed and she exhaled through her nose with frustration. That breath drifted through the small space and created another knot of tension in my gut. But she turned on her heel and leaned down to lift the hatch to that led to our sleeping area. Once she climbed down and closed the hatch behind her, Karo exhaled violently and Jaru exploded in a line of Latharian curses.
“A human woman!” Jaru bellowed so loudly that I knew she had heard him. “What kind of organization would send a human woman to greet us on our return? Have they no minds with which to think?”
I placed my hands on the console. My chest constricted as I tried to draw air into my body. My stomach twisted with pain, but I blocked against it. I didn’t know how we would manage to be tested without assaulting her.
“Ganslought humans!” Jaru swore again. Karo had sunk to his knees, his skin suit changing from bright red to a muddy orange. He felt ill. He needn’t say it. His body temperature said enough.
“What are we going to do? She can’t perform the tests!” Jaru began to pace, his thick legs stamping around in circles.
“We are stronger if we are together.” I had finally pushed the beast back away from the surface and was forcing my body to return to normal.
“We are also more dangerous, Captain,” Jaru warned.
“There is nothing else to be done.”
“There is! She can march her ass back to Counsel and demand they send someone else!” Jaru’s deep voice vibrated through the drifter.
“She cannot do that until the tests are completed. You know that.”
“Ganslought!”
“Karo, take a deep breath,” I instructed the youngest of my crew and he immediately followed my command until his skin suit color began to return to normal.
“You were ready to move on her yourself,” Jaru continued his ranting. “You are the strongest of all of us.” Of course he would look to me for example. I was their captain.
“We will do what must be done and then I will address the counsel.” I raised my voice slightly and Jaru offered no more verbal rants, though his glare said enough. “Three Earth days is not a long time. We can manage it. We will have to.”
“Or what?” Jaru voiced my own thoughts. “It would be their fault. We would not be blamed. The Latharians are never blamed for the human mistakes. And it is their mistake.”
“And what of that woman down there? She is only doing as she was told.” I faced Jaru.
“Ignorant if she did not know better than to board a Latharian ship.” Jaru crossed his thick arms.
I wanted to hear no more. Jaru’s reasoning made too much sense to me. “Stay here,” I told them and lifted the hatch. As I descended the stairs, I saw her sitting on Karo’s bunk, hands folded in her lap, the palmlog at her side. She’d been sitting there, listening to us. I wondered what she must think of the exchange, if she realized the severity of the situation.
I pulled the hatch closed securely, then faced her. “There has been a mistake—”
“There was no mistake,” she interrupted. “I was purposely assigned to this ship. It was done out of anger and cruelty.” I stared at her as her words sunk in. Someone had placed her here purposely, knowing the Latharian way?
“By whom?”
“Counselor Aves.”
His fleshy face was conjured by my memory. “Why?”
She sighed heavily and her breath reached out for me. “Because I would not sleep with him.” I have always thought the humans’ terms for mating were absurd. If done correctly, there was no actual sleeping involved. So why call it that?
I stared at her, putting together what she was confiding. “So you were punished for rejecting him.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Why did you not submit?” I remained where I was, not daring to inch closer when I did not have the others with me.
“I’m not attracted to him and he likes to do things I wouldn’t ever do.”
Human females. “What things?”
“Nasty things.”
“What things?” I repeated. I had to know what I was dealing with.
“He said he wanted to use my mouth.” She turned her head slightly, apparently embarrassed by her words. “I told him it was disgusting. He said I would not think so when I came back from my next review. I did not know what he meant until later.”
“Then you were sent to us by the counsel to learn how to mate with Counselor Aves in the manner he wishes.” My skin suit began to burn again at the prospect of what that meant. If she was sent to us for the right reasons, we could have her. Our torment would be ended.
“I am an admiral.” She shook her head. Again I felt that stubborn pride that filled her. I could not help but to admire that.
“You are a female first,” I told her. “A Latharian female would have never rejected a Latharian male. A Latharian female would have obliged a male, especially one in power.”
“I’m not Latharian and I have never seen a Latharian that was old and wrinkled.”
I stilled. “Then you know of Latharians and took the assignment anyway. Why did you pretend you didn’t know of our culture?” For a moment, she only stared at me. Then she exhaled a long breath.
“I took the assignment because I was given no choice. I pretended ignorance, hoping I could avoid what was to happen.” She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she explained. “But you deserve to know that you are being used as pawns in Counselor Aves’ calculated scheme.”
“Why didn’t the counselor force you?” Humans often tried to force their females to do as they wished. It was a disgusting display over another sex and I’d heard of it happening often. In Latharia, females want to mate as often as males do. Neither forces the other, both enjoying the desire for mating.
The admiral’s lips pressed together, forming a thin line. “He wants me to submit. He thinks if I submit, then he has won. Forcing me would not make him feel he had mental power over me.” She shook her head. “I’ve fought men like him my entire career. Their lust for control is not a physical matter. Just because you take something doesn’t mean you own it. He wants to own me.”
The hatch above us opened, causing her to lift her eyes. I stood there waiting, watching her. I could see the aggravation she felt with what she’d revealed as Jaru bounded down the stairs, followed by Karo.
“You aren’t going to believe this, Captain. We receive
d a transmission from Counsel.” Jaru began speaking before he reached my side.
“From Counselor Aves?” I asked. I kept my eyes locked on the admiral.
“Yes.” Jaru halted.
“Commands us to teach the way of Latharian mating to the admiral.” I saw her breath catch. She no longer looked like an admiral. She now waited to hear the command of her next few days, her control gone.
“That was the command,” Jaru affirmed. For a moment, defeat washed across her expression, then was pushed aside for a fleeting expression of excitement. That was what had stirred us to begin with, that underlying passion we all sensed about her the moment she stepped on board.
My body reacted as strongly as Jaru’s and Karo’s, heating instantly. “We are bound by a treaty to follow Counsel’s command. If we do not, it would breach our agreement of peace between peoples.” I watched her wince at the reality of the words I spoke. It was all political and meant nothing. But it had to be said before we could do as we wished.
“I know.”
“I give you the choice to leave now if it is your wish.” Latharians do not rape females. We just dominate them.
She tilted her head slightly, seeming surprised that she was given a choice. “You would give me a choice, even though you have your orders to do as you wish?”
“Latharians do not believe in force.” I wanted her to know that, despite the politics, we remained true to our own Latharian way.
Her gaze dropped and washed over each of us. It was easy to see what she was thinking. She was weighing the possibilities, deciding if she was curious enough of us to stay. The three of us waited pensively.
After several moments of silence, she lifted her gaze and looked at me. “I will stay.” Karo released a breath of relief.
“Then you understand what will happen?” My suit bloomed and I advanced a few strides. Jaru and Karo eagerly took their places at my sides. I could smell their arousal, their anticipation. It fueled my own.