Queen of Hearts

by Michael-Scott Earle

  Zea let out a surprised gasp, but Eve could read my mind and was already pushing her lips into mine. My fingers found the zipper to her flight suit, and I pulled the skin-tight garment off her while Zea busied herself taking off my suit. Then, when Eve and I were both naked, we took turns kissing Zea’s mouth and body as we pulled off her suit.

  Then I picked both women up in my arms, carried them to my bed, threw them on it, and fucked their brains out.

  Chapter 5

  I dreamed, but it wasn’t about fighting the SAVO or saving Persephone, or giant black panthers with fangs. In this dream I was young, maybe twelve Earth years of age, and I was walking with my sister home from school. The cities on Ganymede used artificial lights to create a feeling of day and night, and our journey through the tunnels and streets were lit with the orange glow of the sunset.

  Cicadas chirruped and crickets fiddled, but the noise was fake. Wind whispered past our necks, but that too was crafted by the environmental systems. The engineers did their best to make this place seem like Earth, but I had never actually set foot on our species’ home planet, so I didn’t know how close they had actually gotten with their attempt.

  “What will you do when we get home?” Hanekawa asked as she skipped over a crack in the asphalt.

  “Work.” I fought against my reply because I knew it was a dream but also wanted to experience it.

  “You are always working,” she hissed.

  “Trying to help Mom.” I shrugged.

  “I want to help,” she replied.

  “Just be a kid,” I said.

  “You are a kid, too,” she moaned.

  “Naw, I’m a man.”

  “Yeeeaahhh,” she snorted a giggle, and I laughed along with her.

  “You are sick too much,” I said. “You need to get better before you can work.”

  “Bah, I’m fine.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she coughed and then winced at me.

  “See?” I asked with a shrug.

  “It makes me mad,” she said. “I’m always sick. Sometimes I just want to run and be free.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I looked away from her. The lights were going out on the distant roof to indicate that it was night. The spaces in between the beams were made of a see-through ultra-tough material, and as the lights dimmed, I could see Jupiter’s storms twisting.

  “It looks like an angry ocean of blood,” Hanekawa growled, and I turned to face her. She was no longer a girl though, she was a walking tiger-woman wearing my sister’s school uniform. Her golden-yellow eyes fixed upon me, and we stared at each other a few moments.

  I knew she intended to kill me.

  “I’m not scared,” I said as she stepped toward me. “Back off.”

  “You should be scared,” she hissed as her lips pulled back from her mouth to expose a maw of razor-sharp teeth. “You were always weak. You won’t survive, but I will.”

  “Shut up,” I said as I felt my shoulders bunch up. I didn’t want to run from her, but I was just a boy, she was twice my height and probably weighed four times as much.

  “Run,” she growled, but I didn’t move. I was frozen. It wasn’t really from fear, I just didn’t know why she would attack me. This was my little sister, but it was obvious that I had pissed her off somehow.

  The tiger-woman leapt toward me, but then her head snapped back as blood sprayed the sidewalk behind her. The snap of a gunshot reached my ears half a moment later, and then the sounds of the crickets and cicadas halted.

  “Well shit,” a woman’s voice said from behind me, and I turned to see Juliette cross the street. My friend had her red hair tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a tight pair of jeans, cowboy boots, blue blouse, leather vest, and a cowboy hat. She actually looked as if she should be on a horse somewhere smoking a cigarette.

  “You killed her?” I asked as I pointed toward the corpse of my sister. The sky seemed to darken, and the sounds of the fake insects resumed.

  “It wasn’t your sister,” another voice said, and I turned to see Sivaha sitting on top of the brick wall. The Nordar woman’s long silver hair cascaded down one of her shoulders like a waterfall. She wore a red gown with pearls stitched across the fabric like stars. The dress covered her legs down to her ankles, but her feet were bare and her toes were painted red. A thick diamond choker wrapped around her slender neck and I saw her lips twist into a smile when I gazed at the piece of jewelry.

  “It comes with a leash,” Sivaha said as she reached behind her neck with her fingers to pull out a long band of corded silver. Diamonds dotted the rope, and she gestured for me to walk toward her so that she could hand it to me.

  “No thanks,” I said as I looked down at the corpse of the tiger-woman that had come at me. As soon as I looked at it again, I realized it wasn’t my sister, but if this wasn’t my sister, where was she?

  “I am for you,” Sivaha sighed. “Take me. Please.” She dangled the rope that was attached to the choker in my direction, but I didn’t move toward her.

  “He’s just a kitten,” Juliette said as she came to stand next to me.

  “No,” Sivaha scoffed. “I’m his kitten.”

  “Where is my sister?” I asked them both as I pointed to the dead tiger-woman.

  “Here, Adam,” Hanekawa answered from behind me, and I turned to see her standing next to Calvin Yu. They were both holding each other like lovers, and I felt rage begin to build in my stomach.

  “Get away from him,” I said to my sister. She was a woman now, not a girl, and she looked human. Both of them wore skin tight gray flight suits with black stripes on the arms. They were the suits that we had on Persephone, and the sight of Yu wearing them made me want to tear his fucking face off.

  “Adam, Adam, Adam,” Yu tsked as his arms tightened around my sister’s shoulders. “You have so many women. Can’t I have one? Besides, kinda weird to want you sister.”

  “You fucking piece of shit,” I growled as I stepped toward him. I realized that I was no longer in a boy’s body. I was now in my shifted tiger form, and strength flowed through every muscle in my massive body.

  “I’m joking,” he said with a laugh. “Besides, I’m not your enemy. Never was. You need to fight your real enemy.”

  As if on cue, the city fell into complete darkness, and all I could see was Jupiter spinning in the sky past the ceiling of the city. The planet’s massive red eye turned toward me as if the orb was alive, and then I heard laughter echo in my mind.

  Then I startled awake.

  It took me a moment to realize I was in my bed on Persephone, but once I did, my heart stopped slamming in my chest, and my tense muscles relaxed. The dream was already starting to fade from my memory, so I forced myself to replay it a few times so that I would remember as much as I could.

  Eve and Zea both lay to my left on the bed. The two naked women were holding each other, and Eve’s long black hair wrapped around their bare shoulders like a shawl.

  I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but memories of our last bout of lovemaking came to me while I admired their beautiful bodies. The sheet of our bed had been pulled off them, so I gently tugged it around their shoulders before I slid off our bed and sneaked to the bathroom.

  I didn’t know how long I had been asleep, but I felt no trace of the exhaustion that I normally felt after I recovered from shifting to my tiger-man form. I’d even delayed sleeping and commanded Persephone in a battle against the Black Hat squadron. I should have needed to sleep for a day or two.

  Was my quicker recovery time because of the advice Kuroda gave me?

  I closed the door to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and then jumped in before it had a chance to warm up. The water was only cold for a few seconds, but it helped focus my mind on the time I’d spent with the dragon-man. I’d done as he asked when we fought Elaka Nota and fought without my women, but that couldn’t have been the only reason I wasn’t tired.

  I grabbed soap from the dispenser and washed. I almost e
xpected Persephone to make an appearance and whisper in my ear, but the dark-angel with the platinum hair didn’t contact me.

  There was a knock on the bathroom door as I was brushing my teeth, and I opened it to let Zea in.

  “Hey, you,” she whispered as she stepped in and closed the door behind me. “Eve is still sleeping. You wore her out.”

  “Looks like I didn’t wear you out,” I said after I spit my toothpaste into the sink.

  “Oh, you did,” she chuckled, “but I heard the shower and woke up.”

  “Hmmm,” I said as I let my eyes roam over her naked body. Zea was tall, slender, and had perfectly small breasts. Every inch of her pale skin was delicious, and the sight of her was making me hungry again.

  “You are terrible,” she giggled as she noticed my eyes devouring her and reached her hand up to brush her short blonde hair out of her eyes. “I’m going to jump in the shower and get ready. I think we’ll hit Ganymede in an hour and--”

  My mouth closed over hers and interrupted her sentence. Her hands roamed over my shoulders and mine locked closed around her narrow waist. We didn’t speak, I just lifted her up, set her on the counter next to the sink, and then spread her legs apart. She was ready for me, and we both let out soft moans when I penetrated her.

  Her blue eyes held mine while I thrust into her, and I watched her beautiful face shift through the various stages of bliss before we climaxed together. To keep from screaming, she dug her nails into my arms and bit her lip, but her eyes never left mine. When our shudders finally stopped, we kissed again, and I raised my hands from where I held her ass so that I could cup her face.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I love you too,” she replied before she kissed me.

  “Meet you on the bridge?” I asked when our lips parted.

  “Yeah,” she gasped as I slid out of her. “I’ll wake Eve up after I get out of the shower. That is, if you don’t go in there and wake her up. You are still rock-hard.”

  “I don’t think I could go again,” I hissed when her fingers closed around me.

  “Pretty sure you can,” Zea giggled as she squeezed me. Then she let go of my erection, gave me another kiss, and stepped into the shower.

  I entered my bedroom and then closed the door to the bathroom behind me. Eve was laying on the bed facing me, and her red eyes seemed to glow in the dim light.

  “Ahh, you are awake,” I said as I moved to sit on the bed beside her.

  “Apologies,” she said. “I was performing some voyeurism. I woke up as soon as Zea left me.”

  “You were along for the ride?” I asked as my lips turned into a coy smile.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “It was good for Zea to have time alone with you, but I still could not help myself from knowing both of your minds while you pleasured each other.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. Then I bent down to kiss her. Our tongues danced for a few moments, and then we parted with a regretful sigh.

  “I need to get to the bridge,” I said as I stood from the bed.

  “I will shower with Zea and then join you,” Eve said as she pulled the sheets off her body and stood.

  I watched her bare ass sway as she walked into the bathroom, then I briefly considered following her back in there so that I could take both of them in the shower. I actually turned the idea over in my head a few times, but then finally decided that I should get back to the whole “saving the galaxy” thing, which was going to happen after I did the whole “saving my mom” thing.

  A few minutes later I was in my suit and walking down the hallway to the bridge. There wasn’t anyone sitting in the gunner’s stations by the map, but I found Nikki and Sivaha at the front of the bridge. The pilot was in her usual position at the helm, but Sivaha was sitting in the chair Eve usually occupied.

  Neither of the two beautiful women had been speaking, but they both seemed a bit surprised that I was here.

  “Greetings, Adam,” Nikki sat up in her chair and nodded to me.

  “Hello, Husband,” Sivaha purred. “I was hoping that you would come here.”

  “Nikki, how long until we reach Ganymede?”

  “Forty-two minutes,” the blonde woman said.

  “Have you been here since I left the bridge?” I moved to my chair and sat next to Sivaha.

  “Yes, Adam.”

  “When did you last take a break?” I asked.

  “Break?” she asked, and the corners of her mouth twisted up in a very un-Vaish looking smirk.

  “Take some time off. Zea is heading to the bridge, she can pilot us into Ganymede’s port. I’m confident we won’t get into a dogfight.

  “Ahhh.” Nikki nodded her head and seemed to consider.

  “That’s an order,” I said with a laugh. “You need a break. I can’t remember the last time I saw you out of that chair.”

  “Fair enough,” she shrugged. Then she stood from her post, nodded at the two of us, and walked out of the bridge.

  “Good,” Sivaha whispered as soon as the pilot had left us. “Now we are alone.”

  “You will need to move when Eve comes to the bridge,” I said as I turned to face the woman I had forced to submit to me.

  She was wearing one of her black dresses with the twin slits on each side that showed the entirety of her perfect legs. The low cut of the dress also showed off her cleavage, but I was able to keep from staring at her skin there. The left shoulder of the dress was adorned with a fancy black lace flower studded with gleaming white pearls, and other matching lace flowers flowed crossways down the dresses’ front to lead the eye toward the top of her bare thigh. The garment looked ridiculously expensive, and I wondered why she had decided to wear it today.

  “Very well.” Her brown eyes narrowed at me for a second, but then she nodded and smiled sweetly at me.

  I was used to being surrounded by beautiful women, but Sivaha seemed to use her sexuality as a weapon. She tilted her head a bit to show her long neck, brushed aside her long hair in a fluid movement that drew my eye to her skin, and then closed her eyelids as she ran the tip of her tongue across her lips. She had long pearl earrings dangling from each of her lobes, but the bottom sphere of each one looked to be a three-carat diamond.

  She was absolutely gorgeous, but I’d just had a great session of lovemaking with Eve and Zea, and then had a quickie with the blonde hacker. Sivaha wasn’t making my mouth water.

  For now.

  “I think you sh--” I started to say, but she interrupted me.

  “May I come with you?”

  “Come with me?”

  “Yes, to Ganymede. You are going to find your mother, I would like to accompany you to the surface.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?” she asked, and even though there was no emotion on her face, I could feel her trying to control her anger.

  “I don’t trust you. Last time I gave you a chance, you disobeyed me.”

  “Yes,” she admitted with a nod. “I did speak quickly, and without consideration for your wishes. However, did I not get you what you desired? Did you not meet the emperor of this territory and defeat him in combat? Did you not become more powerful? You are angry at me because I accepted his invitation to his party before consulting with you, but you would have accepted it anyway.”

  “The point is that I told you not to speak out of turn, and you did it anyway.”

  “And you punished me,” she said, and I felt her sadness through our bond. “You killed my husband, you kill--”

  “You didn’t give two shits about your husband,” I growled.

  “I did not love him, no,” she said. “He was loyal to me though. He was a good man, who did as I told him to do. Then you killed him, along with two of my other lovers, wrapped your fingers around my neck, and made me submit to you.”

  “And you planned to kill me and take my kingdom.” I turned away from her and moved to get up, but her fingers wrapped around my bicep, and she held on with surprising s
trength.

  “Yes, I was wrong.” Her brown eyes stared into mine and I could feel her remorse. “Please, Husband. I am here on your ship at your mercy. You have not given me a gram of affection. Perhaps I do not deserve it, but I am submitted to you. I feel what you feel, and you feel what I feel.”

  I took a deep breath and met her gaze. Her emotional connection to me wasn’t as strong as Madalena’s, or maybe it was, but I just wasn’t as used to Sivaha as I was to the Prime Valkyrie. Either way, it would grow stronger with time, and I’d eventually have to figure out how to deal with the beautiful seductress.

  “You just want to come with me to the surface of Ganymede?” I asked.

  “I want many things, but I will take that.” She nodded.

  “What else do you want?” I asked, and I almost regretted the question as soon as it left my mouth.

  “I want to cook you our wedding meal. I want to consummate our marriage on our bed. I want to sit in this seat at your right hand since I am your wife and Eve is not.”

  “None of those will be happening anytime soon,” I said.

  “You once promised me that I could cook for you,” she countered with a frown.

  “I said I would think about it,” I said with a shrug. “then you fucked up.”

  “So, you have not forgiven me?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  I closed my mouth and carefully thought of my response. When Madalena and I had first struggled through our relationship, the Prime Valkyrie pushed the boundaries I had set over and over. I had eventually given her a few centimeters, and then she’d taken hold of my heart.

  Madalena had never tried to kill me though. She had told me she wanted to love me the second she saw me. She said that I was given to her by Odin, and the Prime Valkyrie had no doubt in her mind we should be together.

  Sivaha was crafty. She was a coiled snake that was always looking for an angle. It could be as she said, and she just wanted a chance to let our relationship grow, but Eve told me she really wanted to position herself as the wife who had my ear and all the power.