by Amanda Milo
“Watch!” Angie says excitedly. Arokh obligingly holds out a large hand, and Angie whips out a sweetener bottle, squeezing it like she’s going to drizzle it on him.
Instead, Arokh blows fire on the stream, and hot candies fall onto his palm.
“THAT is so COOL!” I exclaim, and I’m really happy that Brax can be here to enjoy seeing this.
You know, and take notes. We’re so making these for the girls.
We’re not the only ones taking notes. One of Beth’s guys—the guys who shot me (and made it so I can speak, and therefore get my girls back so I’m not holding a grudge per se, but I’m not going to forget it anytime soon, either)—chews on a piece thoughtfully, and looking impressed, and very interested in Arokh’s answer when he asks, “How do you feel about making these on a commercial scale?”
Arokh gives me his handful and I trot over to Brax, who insists that I hand-feed them to him. He takes the opportunity to convey naughty things using only eye contact until he’s got me feeling like the whole bay is getting too warm. “Behave yourself!” I whisper and start to back away from him, when he snaps his fingers at me.
I plant my hands on my hips. “Look, Your Highness, you can’t make me come on command! You know this, don’t you?”
He smirks, but he crooks his finger at me, and just like he knew I would, I do go to him. Our kiss is longer and a lot hotter than I was expecting or prepared for, but he also lets me go—reluctant but not fighting it—when I peck him one last time and pull away. “You’re doing so good!” I tell him, and he rolls his eyes even as he turns sunlight yellow at my praise.
He’s keeping himself chained (these are also thanks to Dohrein), but we’ve been able to transfer him to the cargo area where there’s another sturdy loop made just for this purpose (It’s a little scary how many places in this ship have built-in spots to chain a man down) so that he can join everyone. It didn’t take long for the formula to take effect, and now he’s not roaring, not bellowing—he’s not even dragging me to the closest object he can bend me over.
Not that I’m complaining about those times. Not at alll.
But I’m really glad he can be a normal person again.
Eeeeeeerrrrrp! Person?
A normal alien again.
But… he is a person to me. The alien part is only that: a part of what makes up Brax. Same for Tac’Mot. They are people to me now. Scales and chirps and all.
“So you had the sex to keep him mellow,” Gracie says, still curious about this aspect, apparently. “Which, I didn’t think was possible. Rakhii are kinda nuts. Did you have time to do anything else? And what about your Mate#1 here?” Her eyes appraise Tac, particularly his torso and legs. “Funky Monkey or Cowgirl?”
I blush.
She crows, and oddly, it’s not unlike one of Tac’s noises, which he takes note of, all of his spots disappearing. “Both!”
I eye her. “Yes. Both. It hasn’t exactly been a huge sacrifice: my thighs have been insta-toned with all the bounc—” I swallow, horrified that I started to overshare with virtual strangers. “Sorry. I get a chance to talk, and go full TMI.”
“Oh please. Don’t worry,” Angie assures. “This is nothing. Gracie here will climb on her guy and demonstrate, geez.”
“No shame,” Gracie agrees. “And it’s cool, Tara, trust me, I’m curious.” She grins playfully.
“That’s nice,” I say with wide eyes and I hook a thumb towards Brax. “At least a third of us would have a problem with that.”
“Make that half for certain,” Tac adds quietly, his feet thumping just a little.
“Halves, thirds. Thank fuck I'm not collecting a harem. I'm rotten at fractions,” Gracie comments. “I just don't get how they work.”
Dohrein’s voice is wry. “Cancel remedial math lessons: Noted.”
She bursts out laughing.
Angie leans over to look around Dohrein and ask her, “Aren’t you science-y? Science uses math with letters. How did you pass classes?”
Gracie sobers. “It was a damn miracle, I can tell you that. I would have just blown the teacher—”
Dohrein chokes on his piece of taffy.
“But she was a mean old bird and never would’ve gone for it, so I was all by my pretty little lonesome with fractions.” Then she cuts a sly look at Dohrein. “My Anatomy 101 class though, now that guy—”
Tac and I jump back as Dohrein’s wings snap around her, making both of them disappear into a private cocoon.
Angie faces me and Tac. “Don’t mind them. They don’t take long when she gets him worked up like this.”
CHAPTER 74
TARA
Beth gets right to the point. “What’s your plan?”
I start pacing. “I’ve been trying NOT to freak out about it—and I have lots of plans, but I’m kind of limited as to how to carry them out, you know? I’ve got no I.D., no cash, no cards, no car, I don’t have a cell phone and I don’t even know who has my kids!” Tac’s hand rubbing my back helps me calm down enough to lower my shaking voice. “And no idea what I’m going to tell them as to why I’ve been gone. The authorities are bound to have questions and… I keep thinking I’ll say I was abducted—not a lie so I can keep that part straight and as long as they think it’s a person they’re not going to lock me up in a psych ward, but I just… I can’t see it going over well. I just need to grab my kids.”
Essentially, that’s what I’m doing. I’m grabbing my kids and leaving Earth. I’ll never feel safe in the world anymore.
I look behind me, seeing my two aliens.
I’ll never feel safe again, unless it’s with them.
And my girls… they won’t be the only human children in an alien world. This human colony/preserve/reserve/wildlife park—whatever you want to call it: they’re having babies there. Beth’s raising her baby on a pirate ship. A pirate spaceship.
(I can’t decide if this is the coolest childhood location to grow up or the scariest, but one thing’s for sure—you don’t hear that everyday.)
“What are you going to do about your guys?”
“We’re together,” I say. I can almost hear the guys relax behind me.
She smiles. “I meant to get around on Earth.”
We all look to Tac.
The look in his eyes when we all turn to stare at him? I’m moving to him before I can think about it. Brax’s chain squeals as he comes to an abrupt halt behind me.
Tac gathers me up, and we’ve gotten used to the fact that his knees are angled in such a way that when he’s sitting up like this, if he hugs me in a front-carry I can sit on his lap. As he stands.
Hello, Kentaur.
I don’t think about it: I just move in to do it. But when I look around, it’s to see everyone’s curious face watching us.
Better get used to it.
I twist so I can see Brax. I know better, but I reach my hand out so that we have a connection. He takes my hand, and of course, begins to haul me closer. “Ow,” I say without heat or censure, just reminding him not to pull on me.
Immediately, he stops, but his eyes are going a little bit crazy.
That’s when I feel his tail tugging me. I didn’t notice it had managed to thread between Tac and I until it tightens, and I’m nearly hauled backward.
Until Tac squirts Brax in the face with the formula bottle.
Tail loosening enough that I’m not being dragged towards him, Brax takes a deep breath, eyes back to normal, and nods to me.
“You’re welcome,” Tac says to him.
Slowly, I start to speak, but I’m still blinking at Brax. “Annnyway, I’m afraid to have the guys go with me, but considering the police are bound to have a couple questions for me, I…” I hug Tac, who already declared he will stay on the ship because he considers himself too conspicuous, which is laughable when he’s standing next to Brax, but it’s going to take time to make him believe he’s no weirder than anybody else.
“I just need a way to get around without
having the National Guard pay us a visit.” I turn to Beth’s incredibly resourceful team of men; yes, team—she has five aliens, and thanks to her, I feel no self-consciousness whatsoever as I turn their attention to my second alien mate—and I wave at his horns. “Do you have a way to hide these?”
Beth gives them a critical look. “You know what? I think I’ve got it figured out. We just need to find a couple of pawn shops.”
CHAPTER 75
TARA
TODAY’S THE DAY.
Our ETA on landing is seven and a half “Earthen hours”.
Beth’s men have all the calculations.
Seven and a half hours. It’s nothing. Compared to how long it’s already been…
I have to squeeze my eyes shut at the thought.
Compared to how long it’s already been, this is a blink of an eye. But it feels like forever, and I can barely hold still.
I haven’t been able to sleep. The room is dark, I’m in bed, I’ve got an alien keeping me warm, but I’m juiced. My thoughts are racing. Amy had been crashing on my couch. The State or whoever handles children whose parents… they’d have let her keep the girls. She’d stay at my place, and watch over them. So the last place that we lived is the first place I am going to check.
I keep telling myself this, trying to keep myself calm. But it’s the next part, the ‘what if’ that has kept a perpetual lump in my throat, and a knot in my stomach. Not to mention keeping me from sleeping now. If they’re not there…
I’ll figure it out.
I’ll figure it out.
Somehow, I’ll figure it out!
“Have you gotten any rest?” comes Brax’s rumble. Tac left a bit ago to help with preparations but he tweet-croaked when I tried to get up with him. He’s got the right idea: I need sleep.
I just can’t catch it.
Brax doesn’t wait for me to answer. He begins to massage my muscles, working out some of the knots, and growling whenever I unconsciously tighten up again. When he can’t seem to make headway, he sits up, dragging me to stand on the bed next to him.
“Wha—
“Here,” he says, “And here.”
He just used his tail to pick up each one of my hands, and place them against the wall. I look at him over my shoulder, and I’m about to make a face.
But his hands circle my hips, and then he’s nosing under my skirt.
“Right now? Really?”
He directs his answer to my pussy, his voice going all sexy-affectionate as he rumbles matter-of-factly, “Well, if you’re going to squirm around, it might as well be on my face.”
Well, then.
So, I squirm around on his face.
A few days ago, I finally told Brax why I don’t want him to go down on me.
I know some women have tried it with multiple lovers, and have found by process of elimination, that oral just isn’t their thing.
I can now confirm, it is my thing. It just took me several flinches (like, a lot) before my body could accept that no teeth were going to attempt to sever my clit.
My ex was fine in most aspects, but he could be a dick when he didn’t want to do something, and the first and only time I’d had someone go down on me was an experience I’d thought I’d never have the nerve to repeat.
Brax’s first reaction to hearing this wasn’t to dive his face between my thighs. Instead, it was to aim creative curses at my ex. I was particularly fond of “BY MY FLAMES I WILL BRAISE HIS ORGANS IN HIS OWN BLOOD!” and “I will feed him every one of his teveking teeth!”
It took him a long while to calm down. I’d have fallen asleep, if he could have managed to lower his ranting volume. If he’d had Grake’s wings, I’d have suggested we give him a space suit and chain him to the outside of the ship, because his rage alone could power us to Earth.
I thought about that suggestion quite a bit. And I mostly convinced myself it was impossible.
Mostly.
After asking if I would allow him the honor of learning my body in this way he assured me that despite never having done it, he wasn’t a fucking dick.
Those weren’t his words. His words had lots of clicks and no translation so I’m guessing and supplying what I feel are appropriate conversions. He spent all night slowly showing me how gentle and gooood he could make it feel.
And when Tac heard about it later, he showed me sweet.
The grateful wonder on his face. It made me feel…
Desired. Special. Cherished.
Loved.
After everything we’ve done prior, it’s a surprise that an act, this act, could bring us closer. Maybe due to the level of trust involved, there’s a tenderness that’s sprung up now, it’s even more tangible than before, and it’s not just with Tac and I.
Brax is kissing between my legs now. Lapping, and nuzzling, his fingers pressing firmly into my thighs, keeping me braced but still allowing me to move on him. He’s been an excellent learner—heck, he’s been an excellent teacher. At first, I was afraid to get too excited as I didn’t want to hurt his nose, or suffocate him, but he reassured me, he helped me move on him, helped me find out what I liked, and so now, he knows just how to give it to me, and he’s got me rocking on his face, almost there, I can feel it, I’m close, I—
*CRACK!*
My muscles jump, and the unbearable tidal wave of tension releases in a burst so sudden I’m left stunned, nerves firing, body boneless, and I’m nearly sliding down the wall.
Brax eases me to the bed, and when I’m stretched out, limp as a starfish, still struggling to recover, he stalks over me, smug, and smirky, and proud. “’You know this, don’t you?’”
Smug, smug, smirky and he’s not asking, he’s quoting me, so I don’t answer him. But my traitorous body starts shaking with silent, suppressed laughter.
He leans in and breathes into my ear. “I believe the words you’re searching for are ‘Your esteemed Highness, you can make me come on command’.”
***
He’s on his back, his horns keeping him from fully reclining, but he says it doesn’t hurt. He invited me up onto his chest, something he has probably seen Tac and I enjoying, I realize with a little start. He isn’t jealous about it though, I just think he must have thought, ‘Hey, that looks nice’.
And it is. The side of his big thumb sweeps along the muscles of my neck, making it so I can’t be bothered anymore to keep my head up. My cheek is sticky with sweat so it feels like it sticks to his scales a little, but neither of us are complaining. I try to answer his question. What had he asked about? Oh. “One day, he decided he didn’t want our life anymore. We tried things—or, I tried things to make it work, but when we found out I was pregnant with twins? He left.”
His magic-thumb massage stops. I can hear him gaping down at me. “What a fool.”
Like my neck is broken, I don’t exert the strength it will take to lift my head. I just roll enough until I can see him, and I’m snickering. “Yeah. He was a tool.”
His ear raises a fraction. “I said fool.”
“Oh. We say ‘tool.’”
Brax’s mouth pulls sideways and his nose scales bunch in confusion. “Tools are useful.” Then he seems to consider this. “Ah, but only for one thing.”
Oh my land, he’s thinking of sex. About me having sex. With another man. A man he wants to flame broil.
“Yet, for a fact, I know he wasn’t ‘useful’ in this either. Only ‘successful’,” he snarls.
If Brax were a crayon, right now his label would be changing from California Gold to Blackened Amber.
I cough, and try to redirect. “You know, it disgusts me that he was…”
“Weak.”
I am so pleased with Brax’s support, I’m suddenly feeling magnanimous. “Actually, If he couldn’t handle it, it was better that he cut and run early, I guess.”
“You did not leave.”
Now it’s my turn to gape at him. “I couldn’t—I had kids that needed me.”
“H
e had offspring and a mate that depended on him. Worthless male,” he sneers, his lip curled up so high it exposes one long white fang. Even agitated, his stroking hands stay light. “We are true mates. We will never ‘cut and run’.”
‘We’? He just referred to Tac and himself in the same sentence and recognized that he as well as Tac share ‘matehood’ with me. Will wonders never cease!
“They say ‘third times the charm,’ where I’m from. It only took me two tries and three guys,” I say, grinning.
Brax’s smile for me is fond. But it disappears quickly. “This would imply you had a first time. But this ‘ex’ was nothing more than a brief, underwhelming coupling.” He curls that lip again, showing angry fang. “And that’s giving him too much credit.”
...He’s still angry about the clit-biting thing.
Fair enough. My clit’s still angry about it too.
I tug on our cuff. “I’m glad you are a proper mate. I love that you and Tac are proper mates.”
He bumps our noses. “I’d miss you. I’d miss you fiercely.”
One side of my mouth kicks up. Now that he has a translation upgrade, he knows what this really means. But it’s become its own little endearment. I say it back to him. “I’d miss the heck out of you too.”
His big hand cups my cheek gently, and that's the last thing I remember before Tac and Brax are on either side of me, peering down at me, both of them gently taking my shoulders and more massaging than shaking me awake.
They’re touching me at the same time. No growling!
Dohrein’s formula is the stuff of magic.
So is this moment. “Is it—”
“It’s time.”
CHAPTER 76
TARA
“People see what they want to see. We tell them we’re shooting a movie. They’re going to believe all this,” she waves to Brax’s horns and tail, “is all special effects. They’ll pull out their stupid little phones and film us, and all the Youtube comments will say, ‘It looked so real!’ but no one will actually believe it's real.”