Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  “On her back. I’ll watch her face and play with her tits while I fuck her.”

  They flipped Maryam over quickly—but she no­ticed they were care­ful too. The mix of brutish play un­der­laid by con­sid­er­a­tion warmed and ex­cited her at once.

  They’re per­fec­tion, at least in the sex de­part­ment, she thought.

  Fine…they were won­der­ful out­side of sex too.

  That thought quickly fled at the sight of Der­gan’s feral stare. For an in­stant, real fear stabbed at Maryam. With his brow low­ered over nar­rowed eyes, his up­per lip pulling from his teeth, he looked as vo­ra­cious as the long-furred beasts he’d led to charge the at­tack­ing Earther squad.

  “Some­one looks scared,” he hissed, loom­ing threat­en­ingly. “Fight if you wish, but it won’t do you any good.”

  Mov­ing with the speed of light­ning, he grabbed her hips and pulled her to­ward his livid cocks. Play­ing the part he’d in­vited her to play, Maryam kicked while she tried to crawl back­wards to flee his lurid in­tent. Der­gan laughed at her at­tempts, yank­ing her ever closer to cor­rup­tion.

  “Go ahead. Kick. Scratch. Bite. It makes no dif­fer­ence.”

  She took him at his word, punch­ing and claw­ing at his chest as he read­ied to de­file her. His grin never wa­vered as he homed in on both open­ings.

  Then he was within her, rid­ing her, mak­ing her take ev­ery puls­ing inch of his lust. As he rut­ted, he pawed her breasts, pinch­ing and slap­ping to de­liver sting­ing pain that twisted all too read­ily to plea­sure. When she scratched hard enough to bring a cou­ple of drops of blood to his shoul­der, he chor­tled with glee.

  “That’s it. Show me the zibger you are.”

  They wres­tled with seem­ing vi­o­lence, though Maryam was care­ful not to break the skin when she bit. For his part, Der­gan in­tu­ited the per­fect level of hurt to make her re­spond with car­nal en­joy­ment, ap­pear­ing to use her self­ishly while an­gling his thrusts to pro­vide the most ela­tion, oc­ca­sion­ally stroking her clit so she cried out in ec­stasy.

  Or­gasm broke over her in a sur­pris­ing rush. Der­gan shouted in tri­umph, as if claim­ing vic­tory in bat­tle. Maryam was dimly aware of him watch­ing her face as she seized in rap­ture. He tugged at her clit as he con­tin­ued to fuck, draw­ing out the parox­ysms un­til she was limp on the bench.

  “You’re not done,” he vowed, grasp­ing her hips and pulling her onto him­self as he thrust.

  “In­deed, she’s not.” Kels ap­peared at her side, his fin­ger push­ing in her mouth as she panted in the af­ter­math. He re­treated.

  The feel­ing of some­thing dis­solv­ing on her tongue told Maryam he’d fed her a stim tab. Sec­onds later, her ebbing en­ergy zipped alive again, fill­ing her with re­newed vi­tal­ity.

  Arousal warmed her wom­an­hood once more. Der­gan chuck­led as she clenched around his driv­ing length. “There you are. Thought you’d get away from me, didn’t you?”

  He con­tin­ued to yank her against him­self, rut­ting like the beast he was. Though her strength had re­turned, Maryam could only ac­cept what he did. Be­tween him hold­ing her hips off the bench and his po­si­tion at the end of it, she couldn’t reach to at­tempt a de­fense. She couldn’t get a hand­hold to try to flee. Her part was that of the over­come pris­oner, left with no choice but to suc­cumb to her over­pow­er­ing cap­tor.

  As if to agree, her body sur­ren­dered it­self to cli­max yet again. Sec­onds later, Der­gan stiff­ened, mus­cles cord­ing as his jaw clenched. His cocks jolted with ev­ery spasm of her cunt, jet­ting seed to her­ald his vic­tory.

  When Der­gan stopped shud­der­ing, Kels tapped his shoul­der. With a sigh, the Nobek re­treated, splay­ing next on the bench next to Pana’s.

  Kels took his place, crouch­ing over Maryam. “My turn,” he whis­pered, pour­ing las­civ­i­ous threat into the two words. She whim­pered, the strength run­ning out of her at his hun­gry stare.

  He chuck­led, low­er­ing his head, sniff­ing along her neck. Lick­ing it with a long sweep of his tongue, as if sam­pling be­fore de­vour­ing her. He nuz­zled, suck­ing care­fully at her skin.

  Then he bit.

  Maryam had never noted any Kalquo­rian with sharp teeth, yet star­tling pain pre­ceded the sen­sa­tion of thin fangs slid­ing into her flesh. She yelped, shov­ing at his wide shoul­ders in an ef­fort to push him away. She was so busy try­ing to get the im­mov­able brute off her, she failed at first to no­tice the hurt had sub­sided.

  Kels re­fused to budge. He re­mained at­tached to the side of her neck, a stub­born leech as she shoved, kicked, and pum­meled. His weight kept her trapped be­neath him, with no hope of es­cape.

  A strange calm in­vaded her brain, slack­en­ing her strug­gles. Not just calm, but bliss, the en­dor­phin hit of all en­dor­phin hits. Her mind, then her body, hummed with plea­sure. And arousal. The sen­sa­tion of Kels hold­ing her pris­oner while im­pal­ing her with fangs was one of in­cred­i­ble de­light. His sexes, sand­wiched be­tween their bod­ies, were hot and heavy against her mound. She spread her legs and raised her hips, invit­ing them in­side her.

  Kels quit bit­ing her neck, ris­ing over her to gaze into her heavy-lid­ded eyes. Maryam watched as long, slen­der fangs, emerg­ing from be­hind his in­cisors, folded to the roof of his mouth.

  Funny. I didn’t no­tice them when I kissed him.

  “Feel­ing good? Ready to serve your mas­ter?” he asked with a wicked grin.

  The ques­tion sent a bolt of pure need be­tween her legs. She pawed at him. “Let me.”

  “You don’t care why you’re des­per­ate to do so?”

  Maryam groaned. His slick erec­tions were close to her wom­an­hood, and her ef­forts to slide them where she needed them to go failed. His in­sis­tence on quizzing her in­stead of fuck­ing was frus­trat­ing.

  “Put them in me,” she begged.

  “You want those cocks, don’t you? So much, you haven’t no­ticed you’re drugged.”

  Drugged?

  Kels nod­ded. “It’s the bite. Pits at the base of my hol­low fangs sent a nat­u­ral in­tox­i­cant into your sys­tem. It has the ef­fect of an aphro­disiac, leav­ing you ea­ger to make love.”

  Mak­ing love was ex­actly what she needed him to do to her. She was des­per­ate for it. Maybe he wanted her to be open about it. “Fuck me, Kels. Fuck me, Mas­ter.”

  “I feel you, try­ing to force me do so. Twist­ing and turn­ing be­neath me.” He teased her cru­elly, not car­ing how much she ached for him.

  Maryam ut­tered a stran­gled sound as she tried to force her hands be­tween them, so she could grab his shafts and lead them to where they be­longed. When he laughed, she punched his shoul­der. Then she ca­ressed all of him she could. Then she hit him again. She al­ter­nated be­tween try­ing to hurt him for not giv­ing her what she ached for and coax­ing him to have pity on her.

  “Tell me again what you want.”

  “Fuck me. Please, fuck me.”

  “You wish for me to fill your pussy? Your ass?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you wish me to come in you? Fill you with my seed?”

  “Yes!” She was al­most sob­bing, won­der­ing if he’d never grant her what she craved.

  “You ask a lot.”

  “Kels! Damn you!”

  “All right. If you in­sist.” He lifted his weight off her, hov­er­ing inches above. “Put them where you need them.”

  She was al­ready reach­ing for those burn­ing lengths be­fore he fin­ished speak­ing. She grasped the slip­pery shafts and tugged, tilt­ing her hips to con­sume them. He al­lowed her to en­fold the tips, but re­sisted fill­ing her.

  She squealed in frus­tra­tion. Kels made tsk­ing sounds.

  “Now, Maryam. You haven’t said how you want me. Should I be gen­tle? Harsh? What do you want me to do?”


  “I don’t care. Please, just fuck me.”

  “No, no, that’s not the right an­swer. Think about it. Think hard.”

  She was wrig­gling again, fight­ing to get him within. Noth­ing she did ac­com­plished what her en­tire body screamed for.

  “I want you hard.”

  “Hmm. That’s not cor­rect ei­ther.”

  “Gen­tle?”

  “No.”

  What else was there? Kels wore a mad­den­ing smile, a leer that said he could wait un­til she died of crav­ing be­fore he’d grant re­lease. What did he want?

  Wait. Was that it?

  He’s in charge. It’s not what I want—

  “I want to fuck how­ever you want to fuck.”

  “That’s ex­actly right.”

  Re­lief filled Maryam to hear she’d found the an­swer. She barely had a mo­ment to bask in her suc­cess be­fore Kels plunged into her.

  She arched be­neath him as a crescendo of min­gled hurt and de­light re­ver­ber­ated through her. He gave her no chance to re­cover, but con­tin­ued to jack­ham­mer, his hips ris­ing and fall­ing with ag­o­niz­ing speed and force.

  Or­gasm swept through Maryam within sec­onds. She hung onto Kels’s shoul­ders as vi­o­lent grat­i­fi­ca­tion stam­peded, swiftly fol­lowed by an­other vi­o­lent cli­max. Then an­other. The ruth­less ec­stasy throbbed with­out pause, fed by the venom he’d poured into her veins and con­tin­u­ous thrusts that in­creased rather than eased her pas­sion.

  Only when fe­ro­cious shud­ders pos­sessed him and he howled with his own re­lease did the fierce lust pos­sess­ing Maryam re­cede. She slowly be­came aware of the groan­ing man blan­ket­ing her, of the blood welling from his clawed shoul­ders, of the qui­et­ing throbs of his cocks as they ex­pelled the last of his de­sire.

  At last, her body eased its clam­or­ing. Sated as she’d never been be­fore, Maryam sighed in grat­i­fi­ca­tion.

  Kels shifted so he could gaze at her face. The Dramok’s ex­pres­sion, usu­ally too grim, too se­ri­ous, was peace­ful. Con­tented, as she was. He pressed a ten­der kiss to her lips.

  Some­thing within Maryam clicked, as if a fi­nal part of a jig­saw puz­zle had been put where it be­longed. Maybe it had. Maybe her heart had been try­ing to force her to see the truth these past few days, though her head had in­sisted oth­er­wise.

  Per­haps she was wrong to let the af­ter­glow blind her to bet­ter sense. Yet in­stinct shouted that yes, as crazy as it was, the pieces of her des­tiny had fallen into place.

  Chap­ter Eigh­teen

  Is this hap­pen­ing? Is this real?

  Look­ing into Maryam’s eyes, Kels hardly dared to be­lieve he’d won a sec­ond chance to love a woman. Af­ter fail­ing with Briel, af­ter the harm his ac­tions had done to her and Maryam, it shouldn’t have been pos­si­ble. Yet the re­mark­able Earther was gaz­ing at him with an ex­pres­sion that sug­gested he was a lucky, lucky man af­ter all.

  His sur­round­ings, his very be­ing, felt shaky, as if they would tear free from re­al­ity and spin off into some void. He was over­whelmed that Maryam would con­tem­plate him with such warm re­gard.

  Given time and a lack of him fuck­ing up again, she might learn to love him as he sus­pected he al­ready loved her. Hope had sparked, and Kels hud­dled close to it, star­ing into its beau­ti­ful prom­ise.

  “Spy­ship four-seven-two-five to Kalquo­rian shut­tle. Do you read?”

  The un­fa­mil­iar voice broke into his thoughts, scat­ter­ing apart the breath­less mo­ment of pos­si­bil­ity. Kels jumped to his feet and hur­ried be­hind Der­gan to the cock­pit. The Nobek clicked the com on.

  “Com, coded an­swer. This is Dramok Kels, spy­ship. We read you.”

  De­spite his ex­cite­ment to hear a sum­mons from a friendly ves­sel, Kels glanced over his shoul­der to check on Maryam. His body still thrummed in the af­ter­math of the plea­sure she’d gifted him, and his mind was ab­sorbed in the po­ten­tial of a re­ward­ing re­la­tion­ship. He had to force him­self to turn away from the sight of her strug­gling to throw clothes on, as if fear­ing the com might be vid-en­abled.

  It was not, and re­lief washed through Kels when the voice speak­ing Kalquo­rian emit­ted from the speak­ers again. “It’s ex­cel­lent to find you alive, Dramok Kels. This is Cap­tain Rosark. You have im­ple­mented code to keep us from be­ing over­heard?”

  “I have, Cap­tain. I wasn’t aware any of our ships were near enough to reach us so soon.”

  “We were pulled off our reg­u­lar pa­trol by Coun­cil­man Se­bist. We came as fast as we could, keep­ing quiet so as not to be­tray our pres­ence to your pur­suers.”

  “There are sev­eral shut­tles that es­caped our de­stroyer. They’re scat­tered over this moon and the planet it or­bits.”

  “I’ve been in con­tact with Cap­tain Odak and am aware of the sit­u­a­tion. We hope to help the de­stroyer crew, but my ship’s pri­or­ity is to save the preg­nant Earther with you. Is she all right?”

  Kels glanced at Maryam again and smiled when she winked at him. “She is. I’d be eter­nally grate­ful to get her out of here.”

  “We are in or­bit over your po­si­tion. Start head­ing our way, and I’ll send squads of fight­ers to pro­tect your shut­tle. Just a mo­ment—we’re read­ing dam­age to your shut­tle? You’re us­ing a con­tain­ment field to coun­ter­act a hull breach?”

  “We can make it as long as we’re not shot out of the sky,” Der­gan re­ported. “The con­tain­ment will pro­tect us for fif­teen min­utes once we leave the at­mos­phere.”

  “We’ll do our best to keep any pur­suers from at­tack­ing you.”

  Der­gan was al­ready in the pi­lot’s chair, tap­ping com­mands to the shut­tle’s sys­tem in rapid-fire bursts. The en­gines came on line, hum­ming steadily as the craft lifted into the air.

  “Use all seat re­straints, just in case we’re in for a bumpy ride.”

  Kels ver­i­fied Pana and Maryam were seated with ac­ti­vated re­straint fields, along with phys­i­cal straps. Then he slid into the co-pi­lot’s seat.

  “We’re on our way, Cap­tain Rosark.”

  “I’m de­ploy­ing sin­gle-man fight­ers now. They’ll in­ter­cept you in a minute and a half.”

  Kels stared at the win­dow vid be­fore him, watch­ing as the jun­gle and ru­ins dwin­dled be­neath the ves­sel. They dis­ap­peared from view as the shut­tle nosed up­ward and hur­tled to­ward the sky.

  Al­most im­me­di­ately, warn­ing pings alerted him to hos­tile ships head­ing their way. Der­gan con­firmed. “We have in­com­ing.”

  On the heels of his state­ment, an alarm beeped. Kels scowled at in­stru­men­ta­tion flash­ing yel­low. “We can’t hold top speed. Struc­tural in­tegrity is com­pro­mised where they blasted the hatch.”

  Der­gan swore. “Stupid ship. It didn’t in­di­cate there was any such prob­lem when we flew into the jun­gle.”

  They’d left the com open to the spy­ship, and Cap­tain Rosark was quick to in­ter­ject. “Hold on as best you can. Fight­ers are thirty sec­onds away.”

  “I see them on the read­out. Earther ships are clos­ing fast though.” Kels’s mouth was dry as he watched the mon­i­tors.

  “They’ve ad­justed tra­jec­tory for our head­ing—let’s throw them off the scent.” Der­gan’s fin­gers danced over the con­sole, mov­ing faster than Kels’s eyes could fol­low.

  The shut­tle abruptly shifted, go­ing into a nose­dive. The jun­gle be­low filled the vid, in­di­vid­ual trees grow­ing large as they hur­tled down. Kels’s stom­ach shot into his throat. Be­hind him in the cabin, Maryam cried out and Pana yelped.

  Kels dragged his gaze from the jun­gle rush­ing up to claim them, forc­ing him­self to con­cen­trate on his read­ings. Staving off the urge to retch, he told Der­gan, “You threw them off, all right—and have me close to t
hrow­ing up.”

  “If you must, please avoid the con­trols.” Der­gan was tap­ping again, and the shut­tle be­gan to level off. Kels learned to breathe again.

  He even man­aged to chuckle when he checked the read­ings. “Your lit­tle ma­neu­ver worked. The en­emy failed to get a lock on us be­fore fac­ing off with the spy­ship’s fight­ers. Earther fight­ers are out­num­bered. They’re re­treat­ing.”

  “Are we safe?” Maryam called.

  Kels looked at her. Her voice had a tremor and she was damned near snow white, her freck­les glar­ing against the al­abaster skin, yet she wore re­solve like ar­mor.

  An­ces­tors, he adored her.

  “We’ll make it to the spy­ship, thanks yet again to Der­gan.”

  “The man who al­ways has a plan.” Maryam ap­plauded.

  “He has to earn his keep some­how.” Kels clapped his Nobek on the shoul­der. Der­gan grinned as he pi­loted them into the black­ness of space.

  When they reached the spy­ship, they were wel­comed on board by a low-rank­ing of­fi­cer. Kels didn’t mind. The Earther bat­tle­cruiser had en­tered the sys­tem, and Cap­tain Rosark was fo­cused on avoid­ing it.

  “We’re cloak­ing and tak­ing the spy­ship out of fir­ing range. The plan is to an­tag­o­nize the Earther at­tack­ers. We’ll also lift off as many mem­bers of the de­stroyer crew as we can un­til more help ar­rives,” Lieu­tenant Eser told them as he es­corted them to sleep­ing quar­ters.

  It had been Maryam who’d an­nounced she’d be bunk­ing with the clan rather than tak­ing sep­a­rate quar­ters. Kels no­ticed how the young of­fi­cer kept steal­ing glances at her. Eser’s ex­pres­sion was suit­ably awed, and his bow to her as he left them in their lodg­ings was deep enough that he might have kissed his kneecaps.

  When the door shut, Maryam twisted about in the tiny space. Much as reg­u­lar quar­ters had been on board the de­stroyer, the room was filled with a sleep­ing mat and fur­nished with a few shelves.

  Her gaze lit on the door to the lava­tory. “Tell me I can shower.”

  “You can shower.” If only Kels could grant all her wishes so eas­ily.