by Ruby Ryan
"It's okay. Sometimes fear comes later. When your brain finally has a chance to process what's happened."
And then he pulled away, and took a deep breath, and gently shook his head.
"Not fear," he said slowly. "All I feel is excitement. And lust, lust for the battle. I did not think I was bloodthirsty enough for the Sunken Pit, but I can still taste the blood of my enemies in my mouth!"
He spoke with such intensity, a new fire behind those bluish eyes, that I took a step back.
"I... understand," I said.
"Do you?"
"No," I admitted. "Not really." And I stepped up to him and put a hand on his strong chest. "But I want to."
Electricity seemed to shoot across the point where my hand touched.
"I was afraid of losing you," I whispered, looking down at the floor of the room. "I didn't realize it until you were in the Pit, but I was terrified that you would never return to me."
I was incredibly vulnerable in that moment, more than I preferred. More than I had ever been. Honesty didn't come easy for a woman like me, so once the words were in the air I felt surprised at my boldness.
And before I could feel embarrassed, Jerix nodded.
"I feared I would never return to you," he said. "That feeling gave me strength in the Pit. It was a constant furnace, pushing me to survive."
I looked into his eyes, and I knew it was the truth.
I knew a lot in that moment while our faces were inches apart.
"I thought Karak scouts were not allowed to mate with foreign species," I said, voice barely more than a whisper. "I thought it was forbidden."
Jerix grabbed my arms with both his hands and held me tight. "I am not a Karak scout anymore."
Our lips fell into one another with rapid need, a sigh and a sharp inhale all at once. His lips were soft and warm the way they were in my dreams, exactly the same, and even though it was our first time it felt like we'd been together forever.
Any weakness he'd shown before fell away like a discarded cloak. I felt strength rise up in him, powerful and urgent. The man who had battled in the Sunken Pit squeezed me tight, a warrior who needed another primal need fulfilled.
And it was the same one I needed too.
He pushed me away from him roughly, and I yelped as I fell backwards. But as I fell I felt the air behind me swirl and change, shifting the way the air shifted when Jerix created alcohol on our craft, and instead of hitting the hard ground I fell into a soft bed of sheets as light as clouds.
"Oh!" I yelped in surprise, bouncing softly on the magic comforter.
Jerix, my alien, my warrior, strode forward and removed his shirt in one swift motion, muscles along his core and side rippling from the effort. He let the shirt fall to the ground, and then his gaze fell upon me with desire.
Take me, I asked him with my eyes.
He crawled onto the bed slowly, reminding me of the way he'd loped through the battle while in the form of a wolf, lithe and graceful. His scent was everywhere, a curtain of peppery musk that stirred some animal within me. His body blocked the light as he hovered over me, the opposite of what his bright Karak form would do.
Jerix kissed me again, harder this time, and I shoved my tongue into his mouth just as forcefully. He groaned at that, a vibration deep in his throat like a wolf's growl, and I felt my sex throb in response.
He was a pure animal then, ripping open my police uniform and sending buttons popping across the floor, and he kissed the bare skin that was revealed beneath my bra, and squeezed my breast with one strong hand, pawing at me desperately, and I arched my back and moaned at his touch.
"You feel so good," I sighed.
He was at my waist instantly, tearing off my belt and ripping a loop in the process, but I didn't care because I needed him just as badly, with a bloodlust as strong as any of the carnage in the arena. I raised my butt to let him yank the pants off, cool air hitting the bare skin of my thighs.
I sat up and did the same for his pants, the jeans he'd worn on earth when he was only Jamie. And just like in my dreams he wore no underwear, and as soon as the pants came down his throbbing cock bounced into view, thick and magnificent.
I reached for it with impulse rather than thought, but he was shoving me back onto the bed before I could. His body smothered mine again, and he kissed my neck and collarbone while his hand ran down my back to cup one ass cheek. I ran a hand through his brown hair and kissed the place behind his ear, urging his own lips on with my nibbles. God he felt good, a strong furnace of muscle covering my entire body, protecting me, keeping me safe in a way I never knew I needed.
His lips moved down my chest, lingering in the place beneath my breasts, but as he moved farther down my navel I grabbed a handful of hair and pulled him back.
"I need you," I whispered, words thick with urgency. "Hurry."
I kicked my panties off and spread my legs for him, a human invitation that his human body recognized. His strong thighs pushed in between mine, spreading my legs even further, and he rubbed the tip of his cock against my soaked slit to coat it.
It wasn't fast enough for me, so I grabbed him in both hands, one on his ass cheek and the other on his shoulder, and pulled him into me. The ache was foreign and familiar, once again just like my dreams, and the flicker of pain from his girth lasted only a heartbeat.
"More, more," I begged.
"I'll give you everything I have," he promised, thrusting forward. His cock widened my walls achingly, wonderfully, fully, as he pushed all the way to the hilt, the brush of his pubic hair mingling with mine.
I tilted back my head and groaned into the air, not caring if any other Karak in the building could hear.
Jerix let out his own roar of lust, his fingers gripping my hips tight. The sound was something completely inhuman, full of emotion rather than thought. Like the wolf I'd seen in the arena.
I gyrated my hips against him, urging him on. He fell onto me again, bouncing us on the sheets. The weight of him was everything I'd imagined, everything I'd dreamed.
"More," I whispered.
He pushed up to his knees and began thrusting, slow movements that allowed me to feel every bit of him, each nook and cranny of his cock within my pussy as if I were running my hands across it. There was a fire deep inside my sex, and each pull and push of Jerix spread it farther and deeper than before.
He wrapped another arm around my back to hold me close. I felt weightless in his grasp, the way I'd felt on his spacecraft hold when I'd first stolen away. I kissed him, and our tongues danced again, and I ran a hand into his hair and pretended it was fur.
"Harder," I said, pulling away from his kiss. "Harder, give it to me harder..."
He pulled back far and crashed back into me, cock burying deep inside and shaking my entire body. I moaned with each rough thrust, a little bit louder each time, and before I could move my fingers to my clitoris he was doing it with his free hand.
"Ohh," I bit my lip. "Right there!"
His fingers rolled perfectly across my clit, back and forth at just the right pace. He stared down at me with hunger, devouring my pleasure with his eyes, watching what he was doing to my body.
"You feel so good," he groaned, clenching his eyes for a second. "Ohh Leslie..."
Soon I was arching my back and bracing against each moment, intensity and ecstasy building steadily. I wrapped my legs around his waist, guiding him faster and faster.
"Fuck me," I gasped, voice turning into a cry of pleasure. "Fuck meeeee!"
I never saw my orgasm coming; it was building slowly, and then suddenly it was there, a trembling vibration invading every bone in my body. I screamed a wordless scream, and Jerix clenched his teeth like a wolf and animal lust shone in his eyes as he came too, his huge cock shuddering inside my spasming sex, filling me with his warm seed, making the air itself tremble in our chaos.
12
JERIX
Ecstasy.
The lingering Wolvae consciousness in me too
k over as I climaxed with Leslie, the human, my human, wrapped tightly in my arms. The pleasure ran through all my consciousnesses simultaneously, human and Karak and the fading Wolvae, and even the primal Borelisk, intermingling like scents upon the snowy forest.
It was the same for me as in Leslie's dreams, an impossible joy at the way our bodies merged and fit perfectly, but to Leslie it was different. She was an order of magnitude more energetic, with heavy satisfaction in her eyes as she considered me after.
She pulled me down next to her, and nuzzled against my chest, and the feeling of that was even better than the mating itself.
I love you, the human thought pushed toward the forefront of my mind. I didn't even know what love was, except in the cold, logical manner. But if this wasn't love then what was?
I had delayed being with her for too long. Avoided it so as not to have disgraced myself before my kind. Yet I was cast down to the Dishonored nonetheless. What was there to lose by being with her now?
If I was to be Dishonored, I would enjoy it while I could.
"I could stay here forever," Leslie said, breath hot against my chest.
I nodded. "Me too."
We couldn't stay there forever, but we could for now, and that was good enough for us both.
13
LESLIE
It was better than my dreams.
Because of course it was. A dream was only a dream, and this was the real thing. But the dreams had felt so lifelike, and his touch just now so familiar, that it didn't feel the same as a fantasy.
Who gives a shit, Leslie? Shut up and enjoy it.
I sighed against his chest and decided never to let go.
"Was that good?" Jerix asked after a time. All I could do was giggle.
"That's not an answer," he said.
"Because it was a stupid question. Yeah, it was frigging good! Did you think I was faking it?"
He spoke with a monotone, a trait I'd learned meant he was reciting a fact he'd stored away somewhere in his Karak brain. "I learned, on my scouting time in earth, that women do indeed fake it. Often, in fact."
"This wasn't faking," I said firmly. "That was everything I knew it would be."
"And I," he said, kissing my hair softly.
We breathed together for a while, neither wanting to move away from our bed, a foreign object in a foreign place.
"I meant what I said earlier," I whispered.
"That you wanted me to make love to you harder?"
I poked him in the ribs, which make him wince. I nodded in satisfaction.
"When I said I was afraid I'd lose you. While watching you in the Sunken Pit. I knew, in that moment, that losing you would be something I could not recover from."
"I could feel it, even down in the Pit," Jerix said. "Without that need, the intense desire to return to you, I fear I would have perished."
"I dunno. You looked awfully powerful as a wolf."
"I would have been more powerful if I had been permitted to train," he muttered.
I twisted and smiled up at him, though all I could see was his chin. "You were good enough. I'm sure the Dominion Lord wouldn't have sent you into battle if you couldn't handle it."
He flinched as if I'd poked him in the ribs again, and I wondered what I'd said. Maybe talking about the Dominion Lord was a sensitive subject for the Karak. Like the way Jews couldn't say Yahweh out loud.
"I'm glad you chose to be a warrior instead of settler," I said instead. "You were incredible to behold. My warrior."
My warrior. Yeah. I liked the sound of that.
He nodded, but didn't say anything more.
A memory from before flashed into my mind. "Hey. When the guard led me back, he referred to this as a cell."
"Cell?"
"Like, a prison cell."
Jerix hesitated, then shook his head. "Cell can mean a lot of things. Don't put much thought into a translation."
I shrugged it off. It was remarkable that Karak could speak telepathically at all, invading our brains and inserting words at will. The fact that some words didn't come across perfectly wasn't surprising.
Jerix squeezed me tighter, getting a good whiff of my hair. It probably didn't smell great after four days without a shower, but he sighed like it was the sweetest perfume in the galaxy.
"I'm beginning to understand why Arix remained on earth."
I snorted. "I'm beginning to understand why Jo ran off with her alien boyfriend. You make good lovers."
"Only good?"
"Solid C plus," I chuckled. "We can work on that. And before you give me a look, that was just a joke. You're fantastic in bed." I stretched out like a cat, savoring the soft silk of the sheets on my skin. "Speaking of that, thanks for creating this. Can you do the same for food? You Karak do eat, right?"
"Actually, Karak subsist on photons from our two suns alone." Jerix pushed up on one muscular elbow, and looked at me lustily from beneath his eyebrows. "But my human body is starving."
He did his neat shifting trick again, summoning beef stroganoff with egg noodles from the air--the one meal I'd cooked for him when we were back in Elijah. The only meal I could cook, but he didn't need to know that.
"I thought you could only shift something you'd scanned," I said, rearranging my body into a sitting position in the bed, taking care not to disturb the plate of food. I could have asked him to make a table and chairs, but I liked this way just fine.
Jerix nodded and said, "I scanned this when you made it for me. It was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten."
"Well, considering my only competition was the microwaveable meals you'd been eating at Harry's bar, that's not much of a compliment. But I'm touched nonetheless."
We dug into the meal like the two ravenous bodies that we were. It was surprisingly tasty; maybe even better than how I made it, though it was probably an exact carbon copy. Hunger was the best spice.
"So, if the only thing you can create for me is beef stroganoff," I said around a mouthful of food, "I'm gunna go hungry pretty soon on this planet."
Jerix shrugged one shoulder. "Karak do not eat, but many of the other species in the Dominion do. I can create a variety of foods from their planets if you'd like to try--"
"Nope," I said, holding up a hand. "I'll avoid the alien food as long as I can. Thank you very much."
"Suit yourself."
I cocked a head at him. "Suit yourself. You're getting good with those human idioms."
"Scouts are nothing if not studious learners," he grinned.
Two additional plates of stroganoff later and I was feeling content, two of my most basic needs both met by the same gorgeous man. If our room had a better view I could have called this a vacation.
"So now that you've won your battle," I said, "what happens next? Do you fight again at your own leisure? Do gorgeous Karak women feed you grapes while statues of your likeness are erected around the planet? What is the life of a great Karak warrior?"
I could immediately tell that the question made him uncomfortable. He was the kind of winner that felt awkward about his success, in a timid way. I brushed it off as strange Karak humility.
"Most warriors don't get statues," he finally said. "Dyonarix, the greatest dragon warrior alive, has a crystal statue on the highest peak on the planet. But beyond him..."
"Wait, dragon warrior?" I asked. "Like, the same kind of dragons we have in human folklore?"
"Oh yes," he said simply. "They visited your planet long ago, but abandoned it once they saw how limited your species was."
I scoffed. "Limited. I doubt they'd say that if they saw the nukes we had now."
"...but yes, dragon warrior." Jerix shook his head. "But no, most warriors do not get statues. And as for my next fight, I do not know when it will be. Weeks. Perhaps days." He got a distant look in his eye. "I fight at the pleasure of the Dominion Lord. I will train, and prepare, and be ready for his call."
I could tell there was something he was hiding. A half-truth he'd told
somewhere along the way, which he wasn't quite ready to reveal. But I didn't want to press him, especially not in that wonderful post-coital daze we still shared.
"Well, no matter when it is, I can't wait to watch you fight again." I gave him a reassuring smile. The kind a loving human should give their partner. "So long as you stay alive."
He took my hand in his and squeezed it gently. "I intend to."
*
We slept (actually slept), and when I woke Jerix was gone.
It wasn't hard to find him. I took the lift up to the ground floor and followed the sounds of exertion: grunts, mixed with the sound of metal on metal. That led me down a hallway and into an open courtyard, with the first sun's light shining through the glass structures all around.
Jerix remained in his human form, and wore what looked like a Roman Gladiator's garb. Which was to say, not much at all: a leather skirt cut into ribbons for easier movement, with another brown leather collar protecting his neck and shoulders. A round shield was strapped to one arm, bronze and polished to a shine, and a short sword like a gladius hung from his waist.
The beast he was fighting was something out of frigging World of Warcraft. It pranced around the courtyard on four legs; the hind legs and rump were like a lion, claws tick-ticking on the stone as it moved. Everything else was bird-like: the front legs with curved talons, an eagle's chest and head, and wide wings of varying shades of brown and white.
A gryphon. Half lion, half eagle.
The gryphon opened its beak and let out a blood-boiling screech. It charged Jerix head-on, folding its wings close to its body. Jerix was ready for it, and rolled sideways away from the charge. As he regained his footing the gryphon swung out with one leg, talons slicing through the air, but Jerix's shield was back up and deflected the blow expertly.
The gryphon screeched with fury, then leaped into the air on strong hind legs, wings pumping once it was at its peak. I watched as it climbed into the air steadily, then circled above its prey. Jerix held his shield high and walked backwards in a circle, always keeping the beast in his sights.