by Anna Carven
“Oh.”
He materialized in her bed, his warm, sinuous body curving around hers. He flowed like water in the darkness; clearly, he was in his element.
“Why do you have such finely honed hands, Noa?”
“What do you mean?”
He took her hands into his and stroked her fingers, sending a blissful shiver down her spine. “You have long fingers and strong tendons. The small muscles between the fine bones of your hands are well developed. Your wrists are taut yet flexible.” He stroked her arms, his touch making her wet. “Despite your delicate appearance, your arms are strong, yet you are not a fighter.” He curled up behind her, wrapping his arms around her torso. Only the thin sheet separated them. He was deliciously warm. “Are you an artisan?”
Oh, how observant he was.
“A musician,” she corrected, “at least, I was, before I was abducted by my own people and given this.” She tapped her head. “We Humans aren’t supposed to be telepaths, but they said I was the perfect specimen. Years of musical practice had developed certain parts of my brain, parts they wanted to tap into. I still don’t understand what they did, but none of us were prepared for the aftermath.” She shuddered as she remembered those terrible early days, when she’d woken up from the surgery and everything had been different.
She hadn’t known who she was, or where she was, and she’d been terrified.
“A musician…” His voice was subdued and imbued with awe. “I have heard of this thing called music. You can create it… with your hands?” For some reason, that seemed to impress him a hell of a lot.
“And an instrument called a piano,” Noa added, suddenly longing for the feel and sound of the keys. “It’s a temperamental beast of wood and metal.”
“I would give anything to hear you do this… music.”
“I don’t know if I can play anymore,” she admitted. “After they did the surgery on me, I couldn’t hold a tune in my head for such a long time.”
“When we return to Earth, you will show me where to find the people who did this to you,” Ashrael whispered, his breath feathering her ear, “and I will kill them.”
“Oh, that’s, uh…” Rather sweet. And terrifying. He didn’t seem to understand that her species Generally didn’t think it was acceptable to go around killing whoever they pleased.
Ashrael nuzzled her neck, planting soft, tender kisses on her sensitive skin. He nibbled her ear, his sharp fangs grazing her skin but never breaking it. She moaned as their auras merged. She could sense his desire, and it stoked her need. She extended her legs and entwined them with his, their bodies meeting through the silken fabric of the sheets.
With a soft growl, Ashrael pulled the sheet away, and all of a sudden he was a millimeter closer to her, his bare skin pressing against hers.
“You’re naked,” she gasped. He chuckled softly, pulling her into him. His hard cock pressed against the small of her back, and his ka’qui swirled around her, a constant ripple of gentle, toe-curling energy that pulsated across their bond.
So are you. His voice was a dark rumble inside her head.
Almost, she agreed. She was in her underwear, but nothing else.
He ran his hands down her flat stomach, sliding them beneath the waistband of her panties, tracing tiny swirls across her delicate skin, running the pads of his fingers through the fine tuft of hair that covered her sex.
He ran a finger over her clit. She gasped, writhing in pleasure. He slipped his finger inside her and found her wet.
I know what you want, he said, his voice silky and self-assured. I can feel it. I can taste your pleasure and your arousal.
His mental touch feathered around the edges of her mind. Let me in.
She hesitated, unsure of herself.
It will be so good for both of us. He slid his finger back and forth, stroking her. All Noa could do was lean into his embrace as he moved deeper, faster, exploring her moist entrance with two fingers now, stretching her.
“Ohh,” she moaned, forgetting where she was, forgetting the terrible things that had happened to her. But she couldn’t forget who she was with. He surrounded her with his body and his scent and his unmistakable, undeniable presence.
He stroked her gently, taking his time, bringing his other hand up to her chin, caressing her jawline and her neck and her too-prominent collarbones before tracing a line down to her breasts. His fingers grazed one of her nipples, and it stiffened in response to his touch.
Noa’s back was pressed against his torso. He was like warm granite wrapped in velvet, impossibly strong and hard, yet sinfully soft.
He was drawing out her pleasure, awakening her long dormant desire. She could lose herself in his embrace and never wake up from this magnificent dream.
Noa sighed as he went deeper, a coil of pleasure unfurling in her core. He seemed to know exactly where she wanted to be touched. He seemed to know exactly how fast, how hard, and how long his sensual strokes should be.
“Turn around,” he murmured, the palm of his hand curving over her pussy. “I want to touch your face. I want to see you.”
He guided her gently, and she rolled over to face him, relying on touch more than sight. His fingers were still buried deep inside her. He was still caressing her, sending ripples of pleasure through her body.
With his other hand - his new hand - he touched her face, reverently taking in every minute detail. His engineered fingers - organic or cybernetic, she wasn’t sure - were warm and gentle. I never tire of seeing you like this, he whispered in her mind.
She stared back and saw only darkness, but she could feel him all around her.
He pressed a finger against her lips and she took it into her mouth, feeling the retracted point of his clawlike nail - harmless to her at present - and the callused pad of his fingertip. She teased him, making small circles with the tip of her tongue.
He moaned, a low, hoarse, primal sound.
His aura softened and swirled, indicating that he found her actions most pleasing. Emboldened, she reached down and took his cock into her hand.
It was wet at the tip. She gently slid back his foreskin, thumbing the smooth head of his cock, making slow, sensual circles.
He quivered, his aura turning into the psychic equivalent of molten caramel, delicious and sinful.
When he felt good, she felt good.
She understood it now. Their pleasure was mutual. She just needed to allow his responses to guide her. She could feel his reaction to her touch through their bond.
He growled as she took his erection into her hand, curling her fingers around its hard, ridged length.
“Oh, my,” she whispered, stroking him with tenderness and strength. In return, he fucked her gently with his fingers. She basked in the warm glow of his presence, reveling in the sounds of his pleasure.
His voice was low and deep and as smooth as honey, and she loved it when he groaned with pleasure. It was music to her ears.
Still, she wanted more.
She moved closer, taking his dexterous hand by the wrist. Even though it pained her to do so, she gently withdrew his fingers from her pussy. For a moment, she rubbed them against her clit, stealing little jolts of pleasure before she withdrew his hand altogether and brought herself closer to him. She guided the tip of his cock towards her until it teased her entrance, grazing her throbbing clit.
As they connected, his energy surged through her like a current of electricity. It was insistent and demanding.
Let me in.
At last she understood what he meant. Her body was tuned to his blissful frequency, and she was ready to let go.
There was no effort involved. She simply followed her instincts and allowed bliss to fill her mind.
With a low, guttural groan, he grabbed her by the hips and surged forward, slamming inside her with a sudden wild intensity that took her breath away.
Searing pleasure shot through her, and she lost herself in his presence as he thrust deep, claiming her wit
h a long, passionate kiss as his hard length moved back and forth, the ridges of his cock gliding against her clit, making her whimper and moan.
He moved faster and faster, his strong hands caressing her back as he ground into her, and Noa knew nothing but the darkness and the brilliant light of his soul.
She twined her fingers into his braids, running her hands through his hair and down his neck, down the muscular, sinuous planes of his back, pulling herself into him, drowning in his aura, his warmth, his power.
They moved back and forth, their bodies entwined, their energies surging together as they moved as one, their wild, sensual dance taking on a life of its own as they fed off each other’s pleasure.
Ashrael gripped her ass, his fingers digging into her soft flesh, his cries becoming louder as he gave her what she so desperately craved.
He gave her himself, and she responded in kind by letting go completely. She opened up her mind to his presence and to the endless darkness. She felt the energy swirling around them and she felt his need, his pleasure, and the climax growing inside him. It mirrored hers and she knew exactly what to do.
She wrapped her legs around him, allowing her body to move to his rhythm.
Faster. Faster.
Harder. Harder.
Their thoughts became one. Their auras surged, joining together at some deep, primal level.
They fucked. They drowned in each other. They climaxed together, crying out in speech and in thought, and what was left unvoiced was the most powerful, for the bond between their minds came full circle, connecting them beyond the physical.
For one short, sublime moment, they connected with the energies of the Universe and they ceased to exist, and there was nothing but infinity and silence.
Then the stars came crashing down around them, and Noa was in her bed again, coated in a fine sheen of sweat, held in the arms of her dark, sensual lover. Ashrael let out a growl of deep satisfaction and held her tightly, and Noa wondered how the hell she could ever have been afraid of losing herself to him.
Losing herself to him wasn’t a bad thing at all.
Chapter Twenty-Four
As the days passed, she stopped counting them as days and began to consider the passage of time as units of distance. Things moved at a different speed out in the far reaches of space. Here, day and night didn’t exist. There was just the endless expanse of the Universe, dotted with distant, glittering stars.
And every time they reached a new sector, they would orbit around some random outpost - a planet, or sometimes, a moon - and pick up supplies, sending sleek, dark vessels landslide to pick up their cargo and carry out whatever business the Kordolians needed to do.
To Noa’s surprise, the General’s people were everywhere, and they weren’t just Kordolian. Aliens of all races would appear at their docking locations, and various goods would be exchanged; food, medical supplies, and most importantly, weapons. But the Kordolians weren’t accumulating weapons, they were distributing them.
In all of her wildest dreams, she’d never imagined she would one day find herself on a giant Kordolian battle cruiser headed towards the center of the Nine Galaxies.
“Where are we going?” she’d asked more than once.
“There is something we Kordolians have to do,” Ashrael had answered. “Trust in me. I will keep you safe.”
Where the other Human women had argued, demanded, grumbled, gossiped amongst one another, and negotiated with their mates, setting firm terms and conditions, Noa had just accepted it. She’d lost everything. She’d had no place to go and no attachments on Earth. She’d become a different person; the people who had once known her thought she was dead, and if they met her today, they probably wouldn’t even recognize her.
So she’d followed Ashrael and the Kordolians into the unknown, searching for something, or someone, who could anchor her to reality.
Her anchor had come in the form of a sightless killer who had consumed her with his body and his burning soul and given himself to her in return. He’d become her constant silent shadow, a mysterious, dark, reassuring presence who found every excuse to be at her side.
He was utterly obsessed with her, and he didn’t care who knew it. At the same time, Noa reveled in his quiet strength, his warmth, and his fierce protectiveness. Their bond was stronger than ever, and they’d grown comfortable in each other’s company.
“Your connection is uncanny,” Abbey had told her once, just after they’d left a port called Haridor, a giant Kordolian-occupied stone outcrop on a water-planet. It existed in the middle of an orange sea in which strange red fish-like animals swam in giant schools. Noa had been eager to explore and stretch her legs, so she’d been spirited away by Ashrael in slight breach of the usual protocol. He had taken her to a bustling market where they’d bought deliciously fragrant oval-shaped blue fruits.
They’d attracted strange looks from the locals and Kordolians alike, but with Ashrael by her side, nobody had dared to mess with them.
“You two have become like those identical twins that complete each other’s sentences ,” Abbey had told her upon their return. “You’re so in-sync it’s almost scary.”
“There’s nothing identical about us, though,” Noa had replied, because really, she and Ashrael couldn’t be more different.
But she was changing. Every day she grew stronger, and she’d started to understand the ka’qui. Both Elgon and Ashrael had become her tutors, teaching her control, discipline, and strength. And what they couldn’t teach her - because so much of this power was mysterious - she began to discover for herself.
At one point during one of their scheduled stops, Elgon and the General had conducted a sneaky and strange experiment on them. Unbeknownst to her, they’d sent Ashrael down on a transport to a red-dust planet called Teluron-5. She’d only realized once they’d shot out of the departure dock, his aura growing fainter as their bond was stretched by distance.
She’d been surprised when he’d been able to set foot on the surface of the planet and reach her with mindspeech. They had to be thousands of kilometers apart.
It was sure proof, he said, that their bond had grown exponentially stronger.
It was different now. The bond was as necessary to her as breathing; it was a natural extension of her senses. She felt it even in her sleep, and she felt it now as Ashrael approached.
She stared out of the viewing port of the lower observation deck as a sleek obsidian cruiser returned to Silence, entering through a hidden docking bay.
“We’ve almost reached Sector One, haven’t we?” She knew Ashrael was there before she even saw him. His presence had become an extension of hers.
“We are close,” he agreed, leaning in and wrapping his arms around her. He smelled good, like morning in a pine forest after a cool spring rain.
“And remind me again, what exactly is the reason we have to travel all the way to Sector One? Kythia is a hostile planet, isn’t it?” Her suspicion grew. All of the Kordolians, even Ashrael, had been infuriatingly tight-lipped about where they were going and what they were planning. It had turned into a bit of a sport amongst the Kordolian Wives’ Club to try and trick the males into divulging snippets of information.
The males were all hiding something, and when questioned, they all gave the same generic response. “It’s for your safety. Silence is the safest place for you to be until the threat has passed.”
Stubborn males. Jia’s words echoed in her mind. She was right. They could be extremely stubborn.
Even General Tarak, who was rumored to be uncharacteristically indulgent when it came to Abbey, had put his foot down. He wouldn’t budge. The Human women were confined to Silence until further notice, and they had no say in the matter. They were effectively prisoners, albeit very pampered and well cared for and doted upon prisoners.
At least they had the run of their section of the ship. They were quite free as long as they didn’t venture into the military areas. Arin and Sera had taken advantage of the
training room, using it to work out, although Sera had refused to spar with Arin and this had baffled everybody until she began to show, the sly fox.
Sera was pregnant, and she and Xal were going to be parents.
Riana had acquired various bits of alien technology and appeared to be building her own personal datacenter, Jia had somehow infiltrated the mech workshop, and Abbey was busy developing a bio-plant and looking after Ami, who was growing rapidly. The star-kissed child had recently discovered that she could babble all kinds of sounds, and she’d turned into a very vocal little monster.
“Ash,” Noa prompted impatiently as he nuzzled his face into her hair, inhaling her scent.
“Your hair has grown,” he murmured. “I like the way it feels.”
“What happens in Sector One?” Noa asked again. She wouldn’t allow him to distract her this time. “Why have you been acting all quiet and dark and brooding recently?”
At times, his aura would grow bleak and stormy, and she’d struggle to reach him through their bond. It had been happening more frequently of late, but Ashrael was as good at guarding his secrets as he was at seducing her.
And he had many, many secrets. Of that she had no doubt.
“It is not for you to worry about,” he replied, going still. For a moment, he simply held her as they watched the distant stars. In a short while, I will have to go to Kythia.
“To Kythia?” A chill entered Noa’s heart. For some time now, a sense of foreboding had been creeping up on her. It had to do with Ashrael’s growing quietness, his pensiveness, the way he looked at her sometimes, as if he were trying to absorb every last little thing about her. It was the stillness in his aura, the wistfulness in his voice. “Why do you have to go to Kythia?”
There is unfinished business on Kythia, and I am a part of it. Do not worry about it. You will be safe.
And what about you? She didn’t like the thought of him going into danger. She didn’t like it one little bit.
I know that place like the back of my hand. I will be gone before they can even comprehend what has happened.