by T. J. Quinn
“Why not using the flying pod?”
“It might escape their radars, but someone could spot it. It’s too risky.”
“I have to admit it’s a good plan. If we had most of the tribes on our side, it would be a lot easier to get rid of the Dreshanians,” Krug admitted. “But how would you find them? You don’t know these woods.”
“No, but Neela does. She grew up in them, and she trained herself for the hunting games. I’m sure that together we’ll be able to find the tribe unharmed.”
“Is she the golden Athean?” Krug asked, curiously.
“Do you know her?” a hint of sheer jealousy crept into Ethan’s heart.
“No, I don’t. But I’ve heard of her. She was the first Athean to resist the hunt for so long,” Krug explained. “It made us think the Atheans were not as submissive as was first thought.”
“Despite her efforts, she was still caught,” Ethan sighed.
“Just because the Dreshanians play dirty. By the end of day two, it had become a matter of honor to capture her at any cost. They doubled the amount of men hunting and used everything they have to find her. She didn’t stand a chance,” Krug explained. “Some even say they caught her after the time was up when she was theoretically free.”
“Why that doesn’t surprise me?” Ethan snorted.
“But going back to what concerns us – if you’re with her, then, you do stand a big chance of succeeding.”
Ethan chuckled. “Is there a way for me to communicate with you, once I’ve talked to the tribe?”
“Yes, I can give you a communication device. You’ll have to keep it disabled all the time since it has tracking devices and only enable it when you get to our walls. Just send me a hello message, and I’ll know where you are,” Krug explained.
They discussed a few more details, and soon it was time to get ready for the gathering.
“Make sure you bring your woman with you,” Krug suggested when they were leaving his office.
“Won’t that upset Vlyse?”
“She’s no longer under his orders, my friend. She’s legally yours,” Krug reminded him, with a naughty grin. “I would love to meet her.”
Ethan let out a small laugh. “Then, I’ll see to it.”
Chapter Sixteen
When Ethan reached his bedroom, he was surprised to see the room empty. He was expecting to see Neela there waiting for him, and her absence worried him a bit. He was about to turn around to go looking for her when she barged into the room with a lovely smile.
“Hi, there, Sarya told me I could find you here,” she said smiling.
“Where were you?” he asked, taking her hands and pulling her closer to him.
“Sarya invited me to have a cold beverage. I met her last time we were here. She’s Krug’s sister, a very nice woman,” she explained, stepping even closer to him and wrapping her arms around him.
He kissed her forehead. “I’m glad. Were the other two women with you?” he asked, curious.
“Yes, they were, but they left earlier. Sarya told me Krug would let her know when you were done talking to him.”
“I see, well, would you like to go for a walk? We have some time before the gathering.”
“That sounds great, but I’m sure we could find something a lot more interesting to do with our spare time, without even leaving the room,” she suggested with a naughty grin, pressing his chest with her index finger, making him walk back, towards the bed.
“Uhmmm that sounds interesting, tell me more,” he encouraged her, grabbing her finger and gently biting it.
Her eyes locked on his. “We could stay in bed. You must know some fun games we could play in bed,” she continued, taking off the tunic she was wearing, revealing her naked body.
He growled revealing his arousal and picking her up in his arms, he took her to bed, getting her on her hands and knees, as he discarded his own clothes.
He kneeled behind her and leaned over her to cup her breasts and tease her beaded nipples with is fingers eliciting sighs of pleasure from her. Then he straightened ran his fingers lightly up down her back a few times, as his cock pressed against her buttocks.
“You’re so beautiful I can hardly think straight,” he confessed, reaching under her to draw his fingers over her folds to see that she was wet and ready for him. Resting the tip of his cock in her entrance while lightly stroked her clitoris.
She let out a loud moan as pleasure rushed through her body. “Oh, please… please…” she begged.
He pushed his cock deep inside her with a single thrust, growling his pleasure.
“You were made for me, you’re my perfect match,” he murmured, thrusting in and out of her, increasing her pleasure with every thrust, making her come repeatedly.
Grunting, he increased his speed until he finally came too, dragging her with him once more, to the flood of that ebbed and flowed. He poured his essence deep inside her, shuddering and heaving before he collapsed next to her in bed.
“Oh, yes, this was definitely better than going for a walk,” he assured her, pulling her into his arms.
“I knew you would agree with me,” she said with a naughty grin.
He kissed her forehead. “We even have time for a rerun,” he said, jumping out of bed and picking her up in his arms, he took her to the bathroom and into a spacious bathtub, filled with bubbling warm water.
Once they were in the water, he pulled her to his lap and made her straddle him, face to face. She could feel his hard cock already poking her.
He smiled at her. “I’m hard again for you, in fact, I believe I’m starting to think I’m always hard for you,” he confessed.
She brushed her lips over his. “Is that a complaint?” she asked, rubbing her eager pussy over his cock.
He groaned. “No, never, you’ve given me more pleasure than any other woman in the whole universe,” he assured her.
She kissed him again. “That makes me happy,” she said, with a naughty grin, lifting her hips, trying to capture him between her legs.
“Oh, I’m sure it does, my little elf, though perhaps I should call you my little sorceress. I’m sure you cast a spell on me,” he said, capturing her lips in a passionate kiss while guiding his cock to his rightful place – inside her.
She let out a muffled cry when he slid all the way inside her, stretching her walls to fit him one more time.
“This shouldn’t feel so good,” she mumbled, leaning her head back, her face expressing sheer rapture, as she started to ride him, going faster and deeper each time.
He rested his hands on her hips and helped her up and down until they came once more, with wild waves of pleasure crashing over them.
She collapsed in his arms and stayed still, with him still buried inside her. “I could stay here all day,” she said, sighing.
He chuckled. “I know exactly what you mean.”
She sighed once more. “I guess you need to get ready for the night meal.”
“Yes, we need to get ready,” he agreed, emphasizing the ‘we’ in the sentence.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” she asked, raising her head to look at him.
“Krug invited you. He wants to meet you,” he explained with a smile.
“Why would he want that? And won’t that cause you any trouble with Vlyse?”
“He heard about you during the hunting games, and he has always wanted to meet you. As for Vlyse, he no longer has a say in what you do or not, remember?” he explained.
“Even so, he might feel insulted with my presence,” she warned him.
“I don’t care. Our host invited you, that’s all that matters,” he assured her.
“Are you certain of this? I would hate to cause you problems.”
He cradled her face and kissed her. “You won’t. Now, let’s get a shower and get ready for the gathering.
Half an hour later they were entering the palace’s main room. There was a huge crowd gathered in it, with people from every colony in the
planet.
“They invited the Kallasians,” Neela pointed out when she spotted their ruler.
“Yes, I can see,” Ethan immediately concluded that Krug was covering his tracks. He couldn’t invite just his friends, it would easily raise suspicions amongst the Dreshanians. “It seems they invited the whole planet,” he added, with a scowl.
Krug met them just a few moments later. “Ah, finally. It’s a great pleasure knowing you, Neela,” he said when Ethan introduced them.
“Thank you. It’s my pleasure,” she replied, feeling a bit awkward with his exuberance.
“You’ve become a legend, my darling, with your endurance and resilience during the games,” Krug told her with a smile.
“How’s that even possible?” she asked, surprised.
“Well, the hunting games receive a lot of propaganda but not all is as good as the Dreshanians would like,” Krug explained. “You stood out from the beginning, with your golden hair and your green eyes. One by one, they captured the women, some alive, some dead, but there were no signs of you, and that increased your fame.”
She was astounded. “I had no idea.”
“When the deadline finished and you were still free and unaccounted for, we all cheered. But our joy didn’t last long. They finally caught you, and though it was obvious they were cheating, there wasn’t much we could do about it,” he explained.
“I shouldn’t have trusted them. Knowing the Dreshanians, I should have known they wouldn’t follow the rules, and I shouldn’t have lowered my guard, but I did,” she said, with a sad smile.
“Well, some things happen for the best, and I dare to say this was one of them,” Krug said, with a naughty grin, looking at her and Ethan.
“You might be right,” she admitted.
“Come, there’s a lot of people here that want to meet you two,” Krug said, with a smile.
The next couple of hours was a turmoil of activity. They met so many people and ate so much food that by midnight, Neela was feeling a bit dizzy.
“I need to have a word in private with some of the colonizers. Would you wait for me here? Or would you rather go back to our room?” Ethan asked, whispering in her ear.
“If you don’t mind, I would rather go back to the room. There are too many people here,” she said, with a faint smile.
“Very well, I won’t be long,” he assured her, kissing her gently.
She nodded and watched him disappear down a hall before she headed back to the room. She was about to reach her room when someone smashed her against the wall.
“You really think you’ve escaped me, don’t you?” a man whispered in her ear, with a mumbling tone, but she recognized him immediately – it was Vlyse.
“I have no idea what you mean, counselor,” she replied, struggling to get free.
“I should have taken you when I could, but Typsea kept telling me you weren’t worth it. I should have known the old bitch was just jealous,” he mumbled some more, still pinning her against the wall with all his strength.
“Let me go… you can’t do this…” she yelled, using all her strength trying to push him away from her, to no avail.
He was trashing her tunic, and she was sure he would rape her, right there, against the wall, if she didn’t do anything to stop him.
Sobbing, she opened her mouth to call for help, but he didn’t give her a chance, smashing her head violently against the wall, making her feel dizzy and nauseous from the excruciating pain.
When she was starting to think all was lost, Sarya showed up at the end of the hall, accompanied by three burly men.
“Ah, Neela, there you are, I was looking for you. There’s someone I would like you to meet,” Sarya said, in a calm tone, as if she hadn’t found Vlyse about to rape Neela in the middle of the hallway.
“Can’t you see she’s busy?” Vlyse snarled, still pinning Neela against the wall.
“I’m sure whatever you’re doing now can wait for a more appropriate moment, councilor Vlyse,” one of the men said, in an ice-cold tone. “My brother bought a special beverage just for you. Have you tried it yet?”
Neela could feel the confusion of the man behind her. He wanted to send the others away, but he also knew it would be a mistake. After all, he was attacking someone else’s property, and that wasn’t acceptable, not even for him.
Vlyse released her suddenly, doing nothing to prevent her from falling to the floor and straightened his tunic. “No, I haven’t. Why don’t you show it to me?” he said, walking towards the man that had spoken.
Sarya helped Neela to get on her feet, and they waited until Vlyse was too far to hear them. “Oh, I so hate that man. I’m so happy I came after you when you left the main room. When I saw what he was doing to you, I went to call some of my brothers,” Sarya said with a faint smile, as she guided Neela to her room.
“Thank you… you saved me…” she mumbled, as she opened the door.
“Nonsense, you would have done the same.” She turned to look at her brothers. Neela had been introduced to them, but she couldn’t recall their names. “Thank you, brothers, we’ll be fine now.”
They nodded. “Just keep the door locked until Ethan is back. I’m not sure we can keep him away for much longer,” one of them advised.
“We will, thank you,” Neela said.
The men left the room, and Sarya locked the door behind them.
“This will keep him away,” Sarya said, with a firm tone.
“Why were you looking for me?” Neela asked, taking a seat on the bed.
“I saw when Vlyse went after you. Of course, I had no idea what his intentions were, or I would have taken my brothers with me from the start,” she said, scowling.
“Thank you very much, you saved me from a terrible situation,” Neela said once more.
“I know. I’ve been there myself when the king first saw me. He thought he could buy me, as easily as he buys everything else,” Sarya told her, taking a seat next to her.
“How did you manage to escape that situation?” Neela asked, astounded.
“Well, I almost didn’t. The king caught me alone and off guard in the palace gardens, and he seemed to think that being the king gave him the right to demand whatever he wanted,” Sarya recalled, with a scowl. “I refused, of course, but he didn’t seem to understand my words, as if he had never heard the word no.”
“What did you do?”
“I played the innocent and managed to get free from his grasp. When I did, I ran back to the palace as fast as I could and right to my brother’s office. I was still explaining what had happened to him when the king found me,” she let out a bitter laugh. “He was offended I had run away from him, and it took my brother quite some time to persuade him he didn’t really want me.”
“I’m surprised that worked,” Neela said.
“Well, my brother was forced to offer him a few things the king decided he wanted more than he wanted me,” she explained, smiling.
“I’m glad you manage to escape him. He’s mean, evil even, not someone I would desire for my worst enemy,” Neela said, shuddering.
“I know what you mean.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan was amazed at the way Krug organized the secret meeting. Since he had invited several people from every colony, it wasn’t that hard to take just the leaders from the gathering and take them into a secluded conference room.
Without wasting any time, he and Krug explained their plans to the men assembled in the room, pointing out the importance of being ready to act when the king decided he wanted more from the colonizers.
They all agreed the time was coming since the king seemed to be losing control over his desires a lot faster than expected and that could only mean trouble for all of them.
Krug transferred the credits to Ethan’s account immediately, and they settled a secret code to be used during the conversations between them. Ethan would buy enough weapons and possibly even a couple of vessels, as soon as he left the plan
et, right after he contacted the Athean tribes.
“Have you discussed your idea with Neela? Has she agreed to take you to the tribe?” Krug asked, at some point.
“No, I haven’t, but I’m sure she will when I explain to her just how important this is,” he replied, very confident.
“It’s also very dangerous,” one of the men pointed out.
“I’m aware of that, but we’ll be armed and equipped. I’m sure we can pull this off,” Ethan assured them.
“We depend on you,” Krug said. “With all the restraints we have here, we haven’t the means to fight back if the king decides to change the rules of the game.”
“I know and I’ll everything I can to help you,” Ethan said.
“Why are you doing this? This isn’t your fight,” another man asked.
“I know it’s not my fight, but I was created to fight for freedom. I guess we could say it’s something embedded in my genetic code. I can’t simply walk out when I know there’s something I can do to help,” he explained.
“Where are we going to store the weapons once you have them?” someone else asked.
“I believe the best solution would be to hide them in the woods. While I’m in the woods, I’ll look for a deep cave. With the right arrangements, we can turn it into a suitable hideout,” Ethan replied.
“That’s a good idea. The Dreshanians only visit the woods during the hunting games, and we’re still plenty of time away from the next ones,” the man agreed.
“I have the feeling that’s a rule the king is about to change,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “To get what he wanted from Kiegor, he gave up almost all of his women. I’m sure he’ll want to replace them as soon as possible.”
“Damn, that isn’t good news for us,” a man in the back ranted. “Last time they came to collect their taxes, we were warned we would have to pay double or surrender another of our women to the games.”
“Another?” Krug asked, in a stern tone. “So, it’s true they have been asking for women from the northern colonies?”
“Yes, it’s true. We’ve been doing our best to meet our quotas, but they keep raising it, and as you know, our colonies aren’t the best around,” the man confessed.