by Viola Grace
Fiona held onto him as he shook and bucked into her.
The door opened, and she heard a voice. “My lord, there is a visitor for you... oh, do excuse me.”
Fiona didn’t bother looking at Miskaro. Her attention was fixated on the shocked expression on Aarak’s face. She could smell the musk and feel the extra moisture seeping out of her. It was definitely a new sensation.
Aarak looked at the intruder, and he shouted, “Out!”
Fiona was held in place by his weight. His hips twitched, and he shuddered a final time. “Easy, Aarak.”
Flickers of pain began to make themselves obvious. Her neck ached, her breasts were sore, and there was a deep-pressured throb inside her that was going to be there for a while.
He looked down at her, and his expression was bewildered. “That should not have happened.”
She stroked his cheek and ran her thumb over his lower lip. “It happens. It doesn’t matter. I am birth controlled within an inch of my life.”
He frowned. “I think my body forgot about that.”
He was still inside her, but she decided that she had his full attention. “Did my post-Ekadi scans ever come back? That was quite a bit of energy in that stone.”
He cocked his head. “Come to think of it, no. I am going to withdraw now.”
She stroked his cheek again. “Thanks for the warning.”
He kissed her softly and pulled out, leaving a trail of strangely warm fluid on the inside of her thighs. She was pretty sure it was semen, but Aarak was green, so she was slightly leery of the sight she would face during cleanup.
He helped her sit up and fastened her dress again. He licked her shoulder and the top of her breast. “I didn’t mean to bite.”
“I didn’t notice. Well, now that you have tucked yourself in and I am relatively decent, I believe you have a guest?”
He nodded. “Please, open the door.”
She walked to the door and swung it open. “Miskaro, he will see you now.”
He walked past her, and his expression was prepared to say something snide, but his nose twitched, and he bowed. “Thank you, mistress.”
She was stunned. She returned to the desk and chair that Aarak had had installed in his office, and she tried to get back to her studies.
The head of medical from the ship charged in, waving a report. “My lord, she has been contaminated by radiation.”
Aarak looked over to Fiona, and he smiled as if sudden understanding was washing through him. “Has she?”
The physician paused and inhaled, stopping sharply before turning to Fiona. “You are in...”
The medic rifled through the reports, and the slick sheets fell from her fingers.
Aarak smiled. “Let me guess, she is in heat. The radiation is benign, but it has altered the mechanical arrangements that she had initially.”
The medic nodded. “I was going to say she is dangerous.”
“I would say so; she is triggering my rut early. If all goes well, there will be another of my kind here in the next two years.” He cocked his head. “I wonder if it will be a son or a daughter.”
The medic went from pale green to blue to a weird grey.
Fiona murmured, “I think you can go now.”
The medical officer literally ran out of the office.
Aarak nodded. “The information has come late, but it is not unexpected. There was a reason that the creature made you hold the crystal for hours when it could have held it as well.”
“Well, she did think that I was sick. That came through.”
“Did you understand what was said?
“My birth control has been nullified, and I am fertile, which is setting you off. Sorry.” She grimaced.
“Don’t be sorry, I just wasn’t expecting this for a few more years.” He smiled. “If you quicken, we will welcome it. But, in the meantime. I have found an occupation for you.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “What?”
“Magistrate for your people. They are getting rather anxious and irritating the other species that make a home on Idel.”
She nodded. “Right. What am I allowed to do with them?”
“You are going to keep them alive, right?”
“Of course, but I have not made it through the bondservant regulations for Idel.”
“Ah, let me send them to your tablet. Can you begin tomorrow?”
“I can try.” She winked. “As long as I get some sleep tonight.”
“I make no promises, but I promise to mutter regulations into your ear as you doze off.” He winked in return, and the mood in the office was jovial if not anticipatory for the rest of the day.
Fiona was never going to admit it, but the change in her chemistry after Aarak’s donation had done wonders for public relations with the Idel. They were polite and civil to her now. It was a nice change.
Twenty humans were milling around the magistrate’s office, and when her guards parted them, she heard the sneers before she saw the faces.
She took her seat on the elevated chair and looked at the tablet on the equally high table next to her.
“Excuse me.” She looked at the gathering, and they were ignoring her. Right. Fiona reached into the pouch she had brought for just this purpose, pulled out the polished orb, and she smacked it down onto the table with a loud crack.
All of the heads turned toward her.
“Right, we are here today to address the issue of nine counts of refusal to do assigned work that falls within the terms of the contracts, three petitions to begin a human neighbourhood within the city, and two requests for dismissal of the bond.”
One of the men that she recognized said, “Where is the freak in charge?”
“Ah, you mean Lord Aarak? His is the name on your contracts, and you owe him for getting you off the station and onto a world where you can breathe actual air again.”
Corporal Wellin smirked. “Of course you would say that. You are getting off easy, and a lot from what I hear.”
She was expecting that. She looked around and addressed the group. “So, you are all aware that I am the intimate bondservant of his lordship?”
Smirks filled the room, and several women looked revolted.
Fiona cocked her head. “Who among you chose to be either labour or domestic bondservant? You got to pick your assignment, of course.”
The smirks faded a little.
“Let me just lay it out. I did not choose this, nor did I choose the life that I ran from. Your bonds have definitive endings. You know when you are going to be released. I do not have that luxury. I have a bond so expensive that I would have to live to be over a hundred and fifty and acting as a magistrate that entire time before my bond was paid. I don’t get to go free. I go where he goes, travel where he travels, and sleep where he sleeps. That is the situation.”
She straightened. “Now, as for the two requests to dismiss the bond, denied. The occupation can be adjusted, but the bond itself will stand.”
Two women at the back of the crowd slumped their shoulders.
“The request to create a human settlement within the city. Denied.”
The folk who had come with that intent blinked in shock.
“Now, as for the nine who have arrived here and refused to work, you signed a contract. You acted of your own free will to leave a dying world, and you signed a contract to trade a portion of your lives for a chance at survival. You did not have to get on that shuttle, you did not have to take the education offered, and you certainly did not need to sign the final bond contract. This location was not your choice, but when you finish your bond, you can go where you like. Now, as for your refusal to work, that is easily dealt with, for three days’—four including today—refusal to work, you will have double shifts in the Mlia berry fields, harvesting the berries. I would warn you, the Mlia berries have a neurotoxic effect on humans. You will get aroused, your brain will overload, and you will di
e in a burning hell of your own making.” She smiled tightly.
The crowd muttered darkly. She looked politely at them. “Did any of you have any genuine concerns?”
A young woman at the back of the crowd came forward. “Ma’am, the business that I was assigned to work for is a brothel. They keep trying to get me to act as a sex worker, even though I am just domestic service.”
“That is something I can do something about.”
“Oh sure, you know all about whoring.”
The orb cracked down again. “Come here, Corporal. I have some questions for you.”
He sneered and swaggered forward.
“What was my job on the day of impact?”
He puffed himself up. “You were the senator’s whore.”
“No, I wasn’t even his employee. My boss was his assistant, and she died that day from the dust and gas in the air. I was trapped with a person I didn’t know in a place I had no place being. I was an administrative assistant.”
She looked at him again. “What did you have to pay to get your daily rations?”
He frowned. “They were issued to us.”
“Who took them from you?”
“No one.”
“Who beat you if you didn’t follow orders? Who starved you? Which officers looked the other way so that they could use you, too? When did you have to start using your body just to get water?”
He blinked and backed up, the others in the room looked uneasy. “Sorry, Ma’am.”
“So, when you sneer at my position, remember that here I am given what I need to live, I survive with the help from those around me, and none of them are humans. My own people believe me to be lowest of the low for simply surviving, but I am alive, and I am telling you all that you will abide by the terms of your bond, you will spread through the city and learn the ways of this society.”
She smiled. “When you survive, and you can tell your children, and there can be children with the Idel. We are compatible. You will tell your children about how you survived your world, society, and home being destroyed and how you came out as proud citizens of a new world. They will tell their children, and the humans will make their way through history.”
She sighed. “If we can survive here, and other humans can flourish on other worlds, we might just make it into the future in a way that no one could imagine. We can reach the future the long way around.”
The humans weren’t all happy, but after she got the particulars from the one young woman working in the brothel, she closed the session and got to her feet.
In a corner, the recorder got to his feet, and he smiled. “Excellent first session, Mistress. His lordship will have the data file within the hour.”
She nodded. “Good. I hope to ratify that brothel incident this afternoon.”
“You are doing it yourself, Mistress?”
“I am the current expert on a human with an alien-based sex life. I think I am qualified.”
Her guards snickered.
The brothel discussion was a non-event. The owner had simply been trying to free the young woman of her bond as quickly as possible. She was young, exotic to the Idel, and could have paid off her bond in a week.
Fiona explained human ideas about sexuality and morality, and the brothel keeper nodded briskly. No further offers would be made. If the human changed her mind, she would have to initiate the conversation.
Fiona went over the details with Gwen, and once the girl understood, she was no longer nervous about returning to work, which had been very interesting and pleasant until the offer was made.
With her guards, she returned to the great house, and she found that she was rather smug.
In Aarak’s office, he looked up and raised his brows. “You sent them to harvest Mlia?”
“Yeah, with a full warning. One week of doing that and they will return to work. Or, they will be transferred to the farms permanently. Either way, nobody shirks on my watch.”
He came around the desk and hugged her. “It was a wonderful first try. I am very sorry about the water.”
She blinked at him, and then, the reference clicked. “Well, it was stuff like that that drove me off my world and into your arms.”
“Then, I am not quite as sorry.” He grinned and leaned down to kiss her. “Only a hundred and fifty years to go.”
She grabbed his hair. “But will you wear out first, or will I?”
Their kiss was a friendly battle, which turned into a friendlier wrestling match on the desk. It was an excellent end to a really good day.
Epilogue
Fiona walked through the fields of Ekadi, and she looked to the sky. It was nearly at the three-year mark, and the creature should be getting ready to return home.
Fiona closed her eyes and sent her thoughts to the sky. A moment later, she felt something in return.
She waited in the middle of the field, and after a few minutes, the huge creature appeared and approached.
When she was able to, she climbed the extended frond and settled on the dark-rainbow-hued skin. “Well, I just wanted to introduce you to my daughter. Balea, this is the creature of Ekadi. When you next meet, you will be taller, and she will have a daughter of her own.”
Her daughter waved her lime-green fists and sucked one of them. Her wings were tucked against her back, and the carrier that strapped her to Fiona kept her snug and safe.
Balea had been the product of eighteen months of gestation and a lot of apologies on the part of Aarak. She wasn’t the first human-Hmrain crossbreed, and she wouldn’t be the last.
The creature shared a giggling joy and flew them through the sky. Aarak was waiting until they passed over the city, and then, he would join them.
This part of the flight was just for the girls. They had earned it, after all.
Author’s Note
Well, finally. Lethal Impact has made its appearance, and my brain seems to be coming back online after about eighteen months. Yay!
I am working on a third Shattered Stars book, but this one will be a little different.
Thanks for reading,
Viola Grace
About the Author
Viola Grace (aka Zenina Masters) is a Canadian sci-fi/paranormal romance writer with ambitions to keep writing for the rest of her life. She specializes in short stories because the thrill of discovery, of all those firsts, is what keeps her writing.
An artist who enjoys a story that catches you up, whirls you around and sets you down with a smile on your face is all she endeavours to be. She prefers to leave the drama to those who are better suited to it, she always goes for the cheap laugh.