And she loved every minute of it.
Finally she lifted her head, opened her mouth, and took his cock inside. His heartfelt groan of pleasure made her lips curl around his width. Bobbing her head, she squeezed his balls with careful delicacy.
“Jane!” he gasped, and began to pump his hips in short, shallow thrusts.
She felt so wet, so desperate to have him strong and hard and deep inside her. But first, she wanted to show him what she was capable of.
Baran clamped his right hand hard around his left wrist to keep from reaching down, grabbing her, and plunging himself in to the hilt. She felt so damn good as her mouth moved up and down over his shaft, sucking the sensitive head and rolling her tongue over it as though it were something juicy and she wanted to draw out every last sweet drop.
He groaned in need.
He was far too close to just shooting right down her throat. Briefly, he considered telling his computer to help him back off the pleasure, but it just felt too good to give up. Instead he gasped, “Jane, I can’t last too much longer!”
She lifted her head, depriving his cock of her hot, sweet mouth. “No?” She smiled slowly.
Baran wanted to howl. “Jane!” Goaded, he started to grab her.
Her brown eyes flashed. “Hands!”
He considered showing her just what he could do with those hands. But God, it felt so good lying here, letting her use that incredible mouth on him. He growled and clamped a grip on his wrist again, suspecting he was leaving bruises. He didn’t give a damn.
But instead of bending over him, Jane rose to her knees and straddled him again. She took his aching cock in those small, soft fingers and aimed it upward at her entrance. Feeling velvet lips even softer than the fur he lay on, he shuddered.
Then slowly, taking her time, she slid down over him, one bare fraction at a time.
She was so wet, so tight.
He tossed his head on the pillow. She came on, taking more and more, plunging him by fractions into the sweetest heat he’d ever known. Until, at last, her silken little butt rested on his thighs.
“There,” she said. She was wearing that siren’s smile again, but her eyes were very wide. As tight as she was to him, he must feel huge to her. He smiled smugly.
He lost the grin in a hurry as she began to rise, slowly, slowly, silk and cream and fire.
Too slowly.
He needed to plunge deep.
But her cheeks were flushed and lovely, and her eyes sparkled with triumph. He knew she relished being in control, feeling him yield, for once, to her.
He could stand this.
Maybe.
Still, Baran couldn’t resist arching his spine, lifting her on his pelvis. She braced both hands on his tightly laced abdomen and threw her head back. Dark curls slid around her shoulders. Her pale, perfect breasts lifted and fell with her quick breathing. Her nipples were dark pink and stiffly erect.
“Let me taste you,” he demanded hoarsely.
With a soft, arousing moan, she bent forward until Baran could reach one exquisite tip. He suckled it, caught halfway between the pleasure of her taste and the frustration that she’d had to rise half off his shaft to reach his mouth. Her hair tumbled around his head in a sweet silken cloud.
Suddenly she wrapped her arms around his head, gathering his hair into fierce little fists. “For a while there, I was afraid I’d lost you,” she said. “I was afraid they’d taken you away.”
He released her nipple and encircled her body with his arms in a hard, comforting hug. “You’ll never lose me. I’ll always come back to you.”
Then he rolled her over on her back and plunged his cock in to the hilt.
It was all Jane could do not to scream as Baran began riding her. His strokes were long and strong and powerful, yet she had the impression he was carefully gaging their depth and force to make sure he wouldn’t hurt her.
He’d taken her before, of course, but this was different. Before he’d claimed her, overwhelmed her. This time he seemed to be giving himself to her with every hot, mind-blowing plunge. With a whimper of pleasure, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his muscular ass, opening herself, surrendering herself.
Returning his gift.
His gaze met hers. His eyes were blazing again, but the fire no longer seemed alien. There was too much love in them.
By rights, her own should be glowing right back at him.
“Jane,” he said, his voice low, intense. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she gasped. Such common words, such simple words, but she realized suddenly she’d never really felt them, never really meant them, until this moment.
And she’d never felt so loved in return. Never been so loved in return.
Then he drove in his deepest thrust yet, and threw her headlong into fire. She screamed, barely aware of his simultaneous roar.
Writhing together, they tumbled into heat and light.
Jane lay draped over Baran’s damp, heaving chest, limp as a scarf. Her entire body still twitched and vibrated like a plucked violin string from the violence of her climax.
Baran had one arm wrapped around her. Judging from its weight, he felt just as wrung out as she did. She sighed, aware of a niggle of uncertainty. “Where are we going to go from here?”
“Before I came down,” he said softly, “I told Command I wouldn’t be taking any more wet missions. General Jeffers offered me a command post.”
She lifted her head to look up into his eyes. “That’s wonderful!”
Baran shrugged. “He’d mentioned it before, but I’d always turned him down. I had too many monsters to kill.”
Jane smiled and cuddled into him. “But all the monsters are dead now.”
He closed his eyes. “Yes. We got ’em all.”
They lay together another long moment, deliciously content. Finally she roused herself enough to ask, “What about Frieka?”
“He’ll be my aide. We’ve been together too long to break up.”
She took a deep breath and expressed the fear that had been lurking at the back of her mind. “And what about me? I don’t know a damn thing about this time.”
“You’ll learn. You’re up to the challenge.”
“Hell, I know that. But what do I do with the rest of my life?” She grinned wickedly. “Other than have frequent, mind-blowing sex with you.”
He grinned back. “Anything you want. I’ve just got to program that personal comp for you, and it’ll teach you whatever you need to know.”
Jane rested her chin on his chest as a thought occurred to her. “Do they still have writers? Storytellers?”
He looked down at her, lifting a dark eyebrow. “Well, of course.”
“That’s it then.” She nodded in satisfaction and nestled into the curve of his shoulder. “Because I’ve got a hell of a story to tell.”
Warfem
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Several good friends helped me with this story by diligently checking it for logic holes. Any I failed to plug are my sole responsibility.
My thanks to Martha Punches, Morgan Hawke, and Katherine Lazo, as well as my wonderful critique partner, Diane Whiteside.
And as always, thanks to my agent, Roberta Brown, and my wonderfully patient editor, Cindy Hwang.
One
The thugs followed Alina Kasi out of the bar. Three of them. Two were obviously muscle—a big, beefy blond and a wiry rodent of a man who looked like the kind who’d carry a blade. Then there was the one she figured for the brains of the trio, a thoroughly unremarkable brunet with a pleasant smile and cold, cold eyes.
Alina, planning her trap, was careful to give no indication she’d seen them. Instead she strolled down the pedwalk, tilting her head back like a woman enjoying the cool evening air. Zipcars ghosted overhead, sighing softly in the darkness. Across the river, Jarnalda’s two moons rode high over the arches and spires of the city skyline. It was all pretty enough for a tourist trid, if not for the three men sku
lking along behind her like a trio of wolves.
Just out for a stroll, boys, she thought. Come try your luck.
Rajin would be outraged, of course. The Femmat aristocrat would expect Alina to tuck herself safely away in that miserable hotel Kasi House had booked for her. After all, Alina was only scheduled for a one-day layover on this planet, waiting for the jumpship that would take her on to Calista. She shouldn’t be out looking for trouble.
All true. A responsible courier working for a responsible employer would never take this kind of chance with a file. But Alina wasn’t working for a responsible employer, and she was just frustrated and pissed enough not to care. Besides, these three were no real danger to her.
They were, at best, entertainment.
The trio had been shadowing her since she’d arrived that morning, except they’d changed height, weight, and even species with every encounter. Alina figured they were using some kind of imagizer to project disguises over their true forms. Must be using high-end equipment, too. The illusions would have been good enough to fool her if her sensors hadn’t told her the same three men had been tailing her all day.
All of which added up to data thieves. She wondered how they thought they could get the file out of her computer implant. The comp wouldn’t give it up even if they killed her, so they must believe they could force her to upload it to whatever storage unit they had.
Idiots.
She did hope they didn’t have a data stripper, though. In theory, one of those devices could bypass her comp’s security and gut its files. Of course, to use the stripper, the thieves would first have to hack open her skull, since her comp wound through her brain in a mirror of her neural pathways.
That wouldn’t exactly be easy, because Alina was a Samurai Class Warfem, genetically engineered for combat. Her bones and muscles were so heavily reinforced, she was stronger than all three of the men who stalked her. And given her battle computer and the sensors implanted throughout her body, she could also out-think and out-fight them.
As she would shortly demonstrate.
So what are they carrying? Alina thought to her comp.
The leader and the blond have stun batons, while the small dark one has a nano-knife, the computer replied in its soundless mental voice.
That all? Every other time data thieves had jumped her, they’d been armed like men going after a Soji Dragon. Alina had still protected her files, but she’d had to work at it.
There are stiff penalties against carrying beam weapons on this planet.
Which means nothing to data thieves. Any interesting talents? Cybernetics?
Standard human. No apparent implants beyond data jacks.
She frowned, wondering if they might be setting a trap of their own. What kind of fool would send three standard humans to take a Warfem?
Fools or not, though, they were getting ready to try for her. Alina could almost smell it in their sweat. Go to full alert.
Instantly, the implant began readying her body for the coming battle, preparing the chemical dump she’d need if she decided to go into the berserker state called riaat. She didn’t think it would be necessary, but one never knew.
As the comp did its work, Alina took a moment to decide on her next move.
It was 2500 hours, almost midnight on this planet. Alien constellations spilled overhead, the star population thinner out here on the galactic rim than back home on Vardon. Stores and shops rose to either side of the pedwalk, utilitarian boxes built of ferocrete, square and unimaginative compared with the soaring, curved shapes back home.
Trid signs, some of them amazingly lewd, gave the scene what color it had. Women, strutting eternally in midair, wearing some designer’s idea of the latest fashion; men posing in jump shoes and very little else; an alien doing…whatever that was. All of them cooing come-ons or chanting their respective stores’ hours.
But the only sound that interested Alina was the scrape of her pursuers’ boots on the dirty pedwalk behind her. There were no other footsteps. Despite the illusionary company of the signs, she was alone with them.
Which was exactly the way she wanted it. She needed room and privacy to break a few bones and get a few answers. Who were they, and who were they working for?
And in the process, they’d hopefully put up a good enough fight to let Alina blow off some steam. After years in the emotional cage Rajin had built for her, she needed it.
They were almost close enough. One…Two…Three…
“Kaaassssi!” Lifting her voice in the ringing battlecry of her House, Alina spun and charged.
She caught them completely by surprise. Somebody shouted as she slammed her fist into the big blond’s jaw. He rolled with it at the last moment, so the punch didn’t quite land as hard as it should have. Still, backed by her genetically engineered strength, it put him down.
In the same smooth motion, she grabbed the right wrist of the rodent-faced one as he went for his knife. Spinning him around, she seized his left shoulder and cranked his right arm up and back until the joint gave. He howled in agony, and she shoved him aside.
Pain sliced into her ribs, ripping her breath away. Instinctively, she whirled and rammed her fist into the cold-eyed leader’s nose, winning a howl. His stun baton lost contact with her ribs, and she could breathe again.
Her computer snapped a mental warning, and she ducked the blond’s roundhouse as he came at her again. Pivoting on one foot, she slammed a knee into his balls, then gave him an uppercut that clicked his teeth together. He hit the ground. He wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
Her comp confirmed it. Opponent unconscious.
“Fuck this.” The rodent man reeled off. Apparently the dislocated arm had discouraged him. She turned her full attention to the leader.
He bared his teeth at her, his nose streaming blood. “If you’re smart, you’ll give the file up now.”
“Got a better idea, thief.” She bounced on her toes, her blood singing with the raw enjoyment of a good, clean fight. Finally, something she could hit. “You tell me who sent you, and I won’t break every bone you have.”
The leader only smiled.
Alert! the computer howled. Tevan combat cyborg, closing fast from the rooftop!
“Told you,” the thief mocked, evidently reading the instant alarm on her face.
Blazing hell, it was a trap. Alina snapped into a spinning kick that slammed into the side of his head. His jaw broke with a wet crack clearly audible to her enhanced hearing.
Then she whirled and ran. No way was she going to try to fight a Tevan cyborg. One of those bastards could take on a Warlord and win. He’d beat her into paste.
Worse, if the Tevan had a data stripper and got his hands on the file, Rajin would take out her anger on Galar.
Should have thought of that before you went after these fools, she thought, furious with herself.
The Tevan hit the ground behind her with a meaty thud. “Warlord’s slut, get back here!” His rumbling roar made her blood chill. Big boots boomed on the pavement. She put her head down and ran faster.
What have we got?
Tevan cyborg, 2.3 meters tall, two hundred and ninety kilograms. Skeletal structure reinforced with titanium laminate. Nano-cybernetic muscle implants give him strength superior to a Warlord in riaat. And he’s gaining on you. Eight meters…7.9…Seven meters…Those pounding footsteps grew louder.
Give me riaat. I need to outrun him. She certainly couldn’t outfight him.
Fire flooded her consciousness, as the computer released a wave of neurochemicals from reservoir implants throughout her body. In seconds, the chemicals did their work, quadrupling her strength and decreasing her ability to feel pain. Euphoria replaced her fear with a hot, feral joy she knew was an illusionary product of riaat.
Time to make things a little tougher on the Tevan. She lengthened her stride, bounding now, feeling as light as if somebody had suddenly cut gravity in half.
The Tevan is still closing. Four met
ers…3.8…
A low building stood off to her left, no more than three stories, its gray face gleaming ghostly in the light from the two moons. Alina veered toward it and leaped. Her feet hit the roof, knees bending to absorb the impact.
Something heavy slammed into the side of the building behind her with a crunch. Before she could jump clear, a massive seven-fingered hand clamped around her left ankle and spilled her to the roof. She rolled, trying to kick free. The reptilian bastard hung on the edge staring at her, his four yellow eyes glittering with battle madness. Before she could kick him in the head, he plucked her off the roof and slung her across the pedwalk.
Alina twisted in midair, tucking in her chin and saving herself from a headfirst collision with the building. The impact still knocked the breath out of her.
Stunned, she hit the walk with a teeth-rattling jolt. This time she did see stars.
Up! the computer demanded, its metal voice as strident as an enforcer’s siren. The Tevan is closing!
Alina lifted her spinning head. Blood poured hot and wet from her nose, and her scraped face stung. She glimpsed the Tevan’s armored boot drawing back, aimed right for her head. She flung herself clear as it flashed by.
Panting, bleeding, Alina reeled to her feet.
The Tevan stalked her, two meters plus of muscle, orange scales, flame-red armor, and cybernetic implants. He had a short, bearlike muzzle, with a crown of spines that protected his four small yellow eyes. His hands and feet were broad, with seven thin, agile digits on each. Peeling back his orange lips, he revealed a mouthful of razor teeth. “Surrender the file, and I won’t kill you,” he rumbled in Standard, his voice a chilling basso growl as inhuman as the rest of him.
“Blow that,” Alina snarled, knowing if she lost this fight she was dead. And worse, so was Galar. “You want it, you’re going to have to bleed for it.”
“Warbitch, I’m not the one who’s going to bleed.” He lunged.
Warlord Page 28