Four
At the docking bay Tsor-Vaal watched the last of the cases of EM plasma cannons loaded onto the shuttle. He took hold of the Krakkan commander’s two top left tentacles and they communed for fifteen seconds in harmony and trust, so that both knew that they had traded in honesty. Then he watched the commander ooze into the shuttle and depart across the void to the trading vessel riding alongside them, at ten relat’s distance.
He turned and with a pellet of anticipation in his belly, he walked quickly back to his chambers. When the doors slid back he stopped dead, regarding the scene before him.
Eika, Sorka and Fiana were watching in delight and amazement as Katie, dressed now in her blue jeans, cowboy boots and black sweatshirt, demonstrated Tae Kwon Do high kicks. The three maidens immediately turned and offered their master a small curtsey. Katie heard his thoughts, curt and a little annoyed. “Leave us.”
When they had left Katie crossed her arms. She spoke aloud. “I wasn’t done explaining to them. My primitive species would consider what you just did to be rude.”
“Why are you dressed like this? I gave you silken robes.”
“Because I am not your plaything. You don’t get to choose my clothes and you don’t get to tell me what to wear. My body, my clothes, my choice.” She stepped up to him and pressed her finger against his chest. She said, “I have some news for you, pal.”
She looked up into his dark blue eyes and was surprised to discover that he did not look angry. He looked curious. He was searching her mind, trying to understand what was driving her. She offered him a lopsided smile. She spoke with her mind, “Can you hear me?”
He answered with his mind, “Of course I can.”
“Do you understand me?”
“Of course.”
She spoke with her voice, “How about now?”
She focused on the steel wall, the blind gleam of its surface, its cold, impenetrable texture. She watched his eyes, keeping her thoughts in the darkness below the surface of her consciousness, allowing him only that hard, impenetrable wall of steel.
With a speed born of almost twenty years of hard training, she dropped into the rider stance and delivered four powerful blows to his floating ribs. Tsor-Vaal double up with a painful retching sound. Before he could recover she slammed her right knee into his face and as he staggered back she plowed into him with a charging side-kick that hurled him against the wall, sending a table and a lamp spinning across the room.
She didn’t go after him. She did a little Bruce Lee dance, and with her mind snapped, “Get up, Tsor-Vaal, I’m going to give you a lesson in respect and good manners.”
He sat on the floor and stared at her. A trickle of blood seeped from his nose. He wiped it away with the back of his hand. His eyes were alive with anger and excitement. He rose to his feet. She thought that he looked magnificent, but she kept it below the surface. She felt his mind push against hers. He was trying to speak to her. She said, “Not listening, bozo!” and charged.
She delivered a scissor kick to his face. He dodged at the last second, stumbling back, but as she landed she punched twice at his belly and spun into a back kick. He blocked the punches and dodged the kick, but he was clearly rattled.
He probed again and she screamed a kiai and delivered a stinging roundhouse to his thigh with her instep. He grunted and backed away.
She danced a little more and smiled. “You getting it yet? You beginning to understand?”
He snarled and charged. She had never in her life experienced force like it. He was unstoppable. He rained punches, blows and kicks on her. She parried, ducked and weaved, striking back any time she saw an opening, but she could not stop him coming.
She swung a right cross at him. He weaved and suddenly he was inside her guard. He grabbed her in a bear hug and began to crush the air from her lungs. He roared and began to laugh. She held her breath, but she knew she could not hold out forever. Yet if she exhaled, she would not be able to inhale again. She drew back her fingers to form cups out of her palms and slammed his ears. He bellowed and released her, staggering back, holding his head. She leapt and drove a thundering right into his solar plexus. His hand flashed and he had her wrist in an iron grip. He spun her around and held her from behind, imprisoned in his arms. He lifted her off the floor and again began to squeeze.
She gritted her teeth and pummeled his legs with her heels. He seemed not to notice, crushed harder and began to walk towards the bedroom. Her eyes widened. Her heart was hammering on her ribs. She said, “What are you doing? What are you doing?”
She could feel his mind, pushing, probing, trying to penetrate hers. She thrashed and kicked and struggled and screamed, “No no no no nooo!!!”
The bedroom doors opened. He carried her in and hurled her on the bed. She lay staring at him. She was exhausted and her lungs ached. Her concentration was slipping. She would not be able to hold him out much longer. She remembered Eika. She said, “Talk to me. I want to hear your voice.”
He undressed her with his eyes. He smiled. “You are primal,” he said.
She struggled to her feet, bouncing slightly on the mattress. She said, “Fuck you. Come and get me.”
He lunged. She fell. He fell on top of her. Next thing she was ripping off his robe and he was tearing at her sweatshirt. She pulled down her jeans while he yanked off her boots. She hurled her pants across the room and he threw her boot after them. They stared at each other, naked and hungry. She snarled, “Come here you fucking beast…”
He growled and lunged at her. She sank her teeth into his shoulder and clawed his back. He ravaged her body, biting savagely at her belly and her breasts, burying his face between her legs, feeling the silk smoothness of her thighs on his cheeks, devouring her, drinking her. She screamed, pushing hard into his mouth. The exquisite ecstasy seemed to go on forever, until she collapsed, exhausted on the bed, all her resistance spent.
He rose over her, like a lion ready for the kill, but as her mind opened to him he paused and smiled, reading her thoughts. She watched him, smiling, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. He cocked his head, a little surprised, and spoke with words. “Eika…?”
She grinned and nodded. She whispered, “I have never felt that before. But she is so cute, so…” She searched for the word and he said, “Servile?”
Katie nodded. He came down over her, inhaled the scent of her skin on her neck and whispered in her ear, “Then let us share this. Let her serve us together…”
She heard herself gasp. It was more like a whimper of pure pleasure. And as he took her mouth with his she heard the doors open. He rolled over to lie next to her, and she saw Eika standing at the foot of the bed, her eyes cast down. Katie’s breath was shaking. She said, “Speak to me with your voice, Eika.”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Have you ever been with a woman before?”
Eika shook her head. “No, Mistress.”
Katie could barely form the words. Her own terror and excitement were constricting her throat. “Does it scare you, Eika?”
Eika nodded. “Yes, Mistress, it does.”
She felt Tsor-Vaal’s hand tighten on hers. She said, “But I am your Mistress, and you must do as I tell you.”
“Yes...”
Katie turned to Tsor-Vaal. “You may only watch.” He smiled. She swung her legs off the bed and sat. She said to Eika, “Come, take off your robe and kneel in front of me, between my legs.”
Eika let the robe fall. Katie allowed her own inhibitions to fall away with it and openly admired the exquisite beauty of the young woman before her. She saw Eika smile and avert her gaze. Katie opened her legs and, as Eika knelt before her she took her delicate face in her hands and gazed into the oceanic green of her eyes. Then she kissed her, long and deep. She felt Eika tremble. She moved her mouth to her delicate ear and whispered. “I command you, to kiss every inch of me…”
Then she lay back on the bed and abandoned herself to the pleasure as Eika took her ni
pples between her delicate, tender lips, and played her small, pink tongue over every inch of her, sensitizing her skin until she could contain herself no longer and, clawing at the bed, she screamed, arching to Eika’s loving, searching mouth. An electric shockwave exploded through her. Wave after wave of pleasure, more intense than she had ever imagined possible, pulsed through her body. She looked up and saw Eika’s perfect face coming down on her breast, taking it in her mouth, as Tsor-Vaal rose over her and penetrated her.
She cried out, and then she and Tsor-Vaal were one single being, fusing, blending in an exquisite ecstasy that transcended time and space. And she collapsed.
She was adrift in an ocean of pleasure beyond anything she had ever imagined possible. She looked down and saw Tsor-Vaal’s head rested on her right breast, his eyes closed. On her left was Eika, curled up against her. Her cheek resting on her left nipple. She stroked both their heads, closed her eyes and sank into deep, exquisite sleep.
Five
She awoke with a jolt and sat. Eika was gone. She felt a wave of relief. Tsor-Vaal was not there either. She was possessed by a sudden, urgent need to get the hell out of there. She climbed out of the bed and found Tsor-Vaal in the living room. He was staring out of the window at the universe and drinking something that smelt suspiciously like coffee.
She knew that he knew she was there. She didn’t even try to hide her thoughts. She was sick of bullshit and just wanted to go home and cut all the crap. She said, “I need a shower.” She somehow sensed the movement of his mind, like he was drawing mental breath, and said, “Cut the shit, Tsor-Vaal, just talk to me like a person. I don’t want a fucking sunken bath with nubile wenches from another planet. I want a shower. Then I want to put on my jeans and my sweatshirt and my boots and I want to go home.”
He turned to face her. He spoke with his voice. It was deep and resonant. He said, “That is not possible, Katie.”
“Why the hell not?” She was close to tears, but told herself she would be damned to hell before she cried in front of him. She stepped over and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “Why? Because I belong to you?”
He frowned. “Did you not have pleasure when we were together?”
She gaped at him. “Yeah. Yeah, you know what? I did. But just because I’ve been on some freaky sexual bender since I got on this goddamn craft, it does not mean I am just going to roll over and be you fucking sex slave!
He shook his head. “I do not want a sex slave…”
She ignored him and went on. “And let me tell you something else, something you don’t understand about my primitive species in general, and me in particular. However much power you may think you hold over me, however much you may think you control me, you will never own me, my mind or my soul. And as long as you keep me a prisoner here on this goddamn ship, you had better stay on your fucking toes, pal. You better have eyes in the back of your fucking head. Because the first chance I get, I will cut your throat and get the hell out of here. Do you understand me.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
He watched her a moment with narrowed eyes. He cocked his head on its side and she realized somehow that he was listening to her body.
She said, “What the hell are you doing?”
He said, “I am listening to you.” Then he added, “There is a shower cubicle in the bathroom where you bathed with the maidens. I must go to the bridge. We may have a problem. We are being pursued by Naga ships. We will talk afterwards.”
In that moment his words didn’t register. She felt a strange turmoil of emotions which she did not understand. Anger, disgust, grief, loss and frustration all stormed inside her. She turned and walked back into the bedroom.
She stood under the powerful jets, bizarrely aware of him as he crossed the room and stepped out through the door into the passage. She sobbed and burst into tears. “How? How can I know this? How can I know that he is sad? How can I know that he is stepping through a door when he is in another room? How?”
She pounded the walls of the cubicle with her fists, as her tears of frustration and confusion mingled with the water and were washed away.
Tsor-Vaal strode from his chambers and made his way to the bridge. He found Votan-Vaal sitting in the Captain’s chair watching three Naga battle cruisers through the observation panel.. The bridge crew were assembled at their battle stations. As Tsor-Vaal entered Gunnar-Vaal was saying, “Torpedoes locked and ready, Captain.”
Votan-Vaal said, “Stand by. We will not engage unless it is necessary.” He glanced at Tsor-Vaal. “Nice of you to join us, Commander. Have you finished playing with your new toy?”
“What is our status, Captain?”
“We are held in a cube. We have Naga above, below and on four sides. If we attempt to escape they will vaporize us.”
“Why haven’t they done so already?”
The communications officer, said, “Captain Skral, Sir. Shall I put him on the screen?”
Votan-Vaal raised an eyebrow at Tsor-Vaal. “We are about to find out.” To the communications officer he said, “Yes, on the screen.”
The obsidian communications screen on the wall flashed and revealed the image of a saurian humanoid with vertical black pupils set in amber, ophidian eyes. Votan-Vaal spoke without rising from his chair.
“Captain Skral, how can I help you? You have boxed us in. Your actions seem decidedly hostile. Do I need to contact the Office of Galactic Treaty Observance?”
Captain Skral’s voice was surprisingly sweet, more like the singing of a bird than the hissing of a snake or a lizard.
“Let us not waste time, Votan-Vaal . Your communications are being jammed. You can communicate with nobody, and even if you could, you know perfectly well that we would have every right under the Piracy Treaty to try you and execute you and your crew on any of our colonial planets.”
Votan-Vaal turned to Tsor-Vaal and frowned. “What is he talking about?”
Tsor-Vaal shook his head and spoke up. “What are you talking about, Captain? We know that pirates operate in this sector, and sadly we acknowledge that some of them are Vaalhans. But we ourselves are a peaceful trading ship. We know nothing of piracy…”
Votan-Vaal continued. “I am sure you have confused us with another ship. Please allow me to offer our help in tracking down these pirates. They are as much a danger to us as to anybody else. In fact, when we detected that you were in the area, we were going to ask for an escort on our way to Proxima B. We could use your protection.”
Skral was expressionless, even for a Saurian. He said, “It is true what they say about Valhaans.”
Votan-Vaal smiled agreeably. “What is that, Captain?”
“That your creator, Osheen, endowed you with mind-speak because you are such incurable liars and hypocrites, it was the only way anyone would ever know if you were telling the truth or lying.”
“I am wounded, Captain. We seek only to cooperate in the spirit of the Galactic Treaties.”
Skral cut across them with a shrill whistle, “Enough! I shall waste no more time in futile verbiage with you. We know you boarded our transport ship in the Krishhana Sector, and we know you took the EM plasma cannons. You have half an hour to return them to us. If you do, you may go on your way. If you do not we will board you, take them and vaporize you. The choice is yours.”
The communications screen went black.
Votan-Vaal sighed and stood. “It was the only way that particular meeting could have ended.”
Tsor-Vaal crossed to Gunnar-Vaal’s command desk and viewed the positions of the Naga ships. He counted twelve, not so much in a cube around them, as in an orb. He said, “Our only chance is to strike at Skral’s ship.” He turned to face the captain. “We could offer to let them come and inspect our hold for themselves. Either he approaches us or we approach him. When he is too close for the fleet to risk opening fire, we blast him and jump to hyperspace…”
Votan-Vaal shook his head. “It is too risky. Our chance of success is minima
l.”
Tsor-Vaal shrugged. “We are Valhaans, we do not surrender. We go down fighting…”
“There is another option, Commander.”
“What option?”
Votan-Vaal pressed a button on the arm of his chair. He said, “Bring the human from Commander Tsor-Vaal’s chambers.”
Tsor-Vaal shook his head. A hot pellet of rage burned in his belly. “No.”
Votan-Vaal said, “It is six thousand years since the Ael kicked the Naga off the Earth. It is very, very difficult for the Naga to get hold of humans. Have you any idea what the price for a human female is on a Naga world? More than six volumes. Much more.”
“You cannot. She belongs to me. We have bonded.”
“Do not tell me I cannot, Commander. I am the captain of this ship, we are buccaneers. The only things I cannot do are the things forbidden by the laws of the cosmos. Everything else is open to me.”
He laughed. The bridge doors hissed open and Katie was brought in by two guards. She looked bemused. She saw Tsor-Vaal and said, “What the hell’s going on. Is this because of what I said to you…?”
She saw him shake his head and stopped. Tsor-Vaal stepped over to the Captain. “Captain we have a code. It is the code that has bound all Valhaan buccaneers since the times of Danaan. The Earth woman Katie is my bond. It is forbidden to break that bond. It is a betrayal, not just of your commander, but of the whole crew.”
Katie looked from one to the other and said, “What?”
Votan-Vaal roared, “Silence!” He looked around at the members of the bridge one by one. They carefully avoided his eyes. He turned back to Tsor-Vaal. “The survival of my crew and my ship is more important than your bonding, Commander.”
Tsor-Vaal’s face turned crimson, his neck swelled up and he bellowed at the captain, “She is mine! You cannot trade my woman as though she were Krakkan cattle!”
Katie’s jaw dropped. “What?”
Votan-Vaal growled, “Again you are telling me what I cannot do? Do you intend a mutiny?”
Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel Page 51