by Roxie Ray
“Would it be possible for me to get one?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don't see any reason why not. I can't blame you, either. It must be difficult, being surrounded by people without being able to readily understand them.”
“Not just difficult,” I replied. “More like dangerous. If we're going to keep pursuing Torqa, I'd hate to find myself in a situation where the bad guys were talking amongst themselves and I couldn't understand what they were saying.”
“You make a fair point.” Zark walked over to a section of the wall and pressed on one of the red marble squares. It slid aside, revealing a glowing keypad. He tapped a few buttons, then slid it shut again. “There. The request has been submitted, and should be authorized and completed by the palace personnel relatively soon. Until then, I believe I have an idea of how we might pass the time.”
“Oh, I'm sure you do,” I said, batting my eyelashes at him.
He laughed. “Although I like the way you think, I had something quite different in mind… for the moment, at any rate. Would you care to follow me?”
I walked downstairs with him, curious about what he was planning. He took me to an archway leading to a large octagonal room. The walls were black and textured, almost like tire treads. There were small, glowing, evenly spaced red spheres installed in them, up near the ceiling.
“What is this?” I asked, looking around.
“This is where you will learn how to properly operate a blaster.” He opened a hidden compartment in one of the walls, producing a pair of sleek-looking laser guns and handing one to me. “Just in case the next enemy you encounter doesn't happen to have a multi-phasic detonator conveniently hanging from his belt.”
“Um, I'm not sure this is such a good idea,” I said uncertainly. “Not in such an enclosed space, anyway. What if I accidentally shoot you? Shouldn't we be doing this outside? You know… shooting at bottles and cans, that kind of thing?”
“There's no need to concern yourself with that. These are merely training pistols. In essence, they're little more than colored beams of light. They'll only affect the targets… assuming you actually hit any targets, of course.”
“All right, wiseass, challenge accepted,” I shot back, putting my finger on the trigger.
“Splendid!” He produced a handheld remote and entered a series of commands.
The red spheres dislodged themselves from the walls and drifted down to floor level. When they got low enough, holographic images sprang to life around them – a trio of fish-like humanoids, wearing battle armor and carrying wicked-looking tridents. I recognized the race from my days in The Vein.
“The modules are still programmed to resemble Mana shock troops,” he explained. “We haven't gotten around to re-programming them since the war ended.”
The Mana holograms advanced toward me menacingly. I pointed the gun and squeezed the trigger – I missed the first two completely, and barely nicked the shoulder of the third before their laser-tridents all fired at me at once. The beams of light hit me square in the chest.
“So much for round one,” Zark said with a smirk. “Shall we proceed to round two? And this time, may I suggest aiming the blaster before you fire it?”
“Har har,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Go on, reset it.”
The Mana returned to their starting positions, marching toward me again. I decided that my mistake the first time around was trying to blast their heads – it had seemed like the best way to go, since the armor on their torsos looked so thick. This time, I decided to cut the legs out from under them. That way, following up with lethal blasts to their heads would be easier once they were on the ground and unable to stand up again.
They sidestepped the blasts easily, and my lasers hit the floor harmlessly before the Mana zapped me in the chest again. Even though they were essentially flashlight beams, it was almost as though I could still feel them burning into me.
Probably just my embarrassment.
“Perhaps the mistake was mine,” Zark said, mocking me good-naturedly. “I suppose I should have clarified in advance that you're supposed to shoot the Mana, not the floor.”
“Hey, I told you when we were on Egone that I'd never had any experience with guns before!”
“Even so, I might be able to offer you an incentive,” he suggested, keying a new program into the remote. “It occurs to me that you might not be as determined to shoot at the Mana because you don't have anything against them personally. But what if your target looked more like… this?”
The three Mana vanished, replaced by a single figure: Nos, leering and hobbling toward me as he flexed his long, clawed fingers eagerly.
“That's more like it,” I said, raising the blaster again.
As I took aim and prepared to fire, Zark stood closer to me, doing an eerily-perfect impression of Nos's sibilant voice: “Yesss, come one, come all! You want naked bosoms on display, yes? You want to give them a honk, yes, determine quality? Make a bid, name a price! Quick, before I crawl back under my rock to pick my nose and stick leeches up my ass, yesssss!”
“Stop it!” I cackled. “I can't aim if I'm laughing too hard!”
As the image of Nos grew nearer, I fired multiple times. Most of the shots missed him, but one hit his left knee, and another blasted his stomach. It was satisfying to see his face twisted in anguish as he went down, falling face-first on the floor and fizzling out of existence.
“That's more like it!” Zark cheered. “Well done, Miranda! Still, your form is a bit loose. You need to brace the weapon with both hands in order to steady it properly while you aim, at least at first. Also, it'll help you conserve your shots, instead of releasing a hail of laser fire… these guns have energy batteries, which are capacious, but still finite. Here, allow me to assist you.”
“I have to say, I find it interesting that you just happened to have a holographic Nos available for target practice.”
“What can I say? Ever since I first met that disgusting little toad, I've fantasized about vaporizing him. No doubt you can relate.”
I nodded as Zark positioned himself behind me, putting his hands over mine. As I felt the cool touch of his skin, I opened myself to him, and the contents of our minds and hearts rushed together once more.
I could feel his affection for me, and more – his strong need to keep me safe at all costs, thinly disguised by the playful interaction of this shooting lesson. He may have been joking, but his intent was deadly serious. He was willing to do anything to keep me from being defenseless… and from having to watch helplessly the next time someone like Zurum grabbed me.
He wanted me to be a warrior for him, with him.
Well, I could do that.
He kept my arms stiff in front of me, one braced against the other so I could sight targets more accurately. His chest was pressed tightly against my back, and I could feel his heartbeat. I could also feel his cock getting harder against the seat of my pants, and the sensation filled me with a surge of lust.
“You're trying to distract me,” I murmured.
“You're easy to distract. Besides, when you're in a real gunfight, there'll be distractions all around you.”
“Yeah, but not that kind.”
“Even so. Get ready. Concentrate. Here they come.”
He keyed the remote once more and the three Mana re-appeared, trudging toward me, their heavy boots clanking against the floor. Inwardly, I marveled at that level of detail in the holograms.
Then I fired: once, twice, three times.
The first two went down with smoldering craters in their chest plates. The third lost its arm just above the elbow, dropping its trident. All three fell to the ground and promptly vanished.
“See?” Zark whispered in my ear, tickling my lobe. “So simple, even a human can do it.”
I balked. “Even a human can do it, huh? Well, let me show you something else a human can do, smart guy!” I reversed the blaster, aiming it at his face and pulling the trigger.
�
�Argh! You shined it right in my eye!” He staggered back against the wall, blinking and rubbing his face with his palms.
I advanced on him, laughing and continuing to fire at his head and chest. “Pow! Zap! Blam! Take that, cosmic invader! And that! And that!”
“Oh no! The Earthlings are too strong!” Zark clutched his chest with one hand, putting the other to his forehead dramatically. “Our plans for conquest have been thwarted!” He slumped against the wall and slid to the floor, playing dead.
“My God, what have I done?” I wailed, making a show of looking at the gun in sheer horror. “I've killed the charming alien prince, just as I was starting to have feelings for him! Sure, he was a smug bastard and his jokes were horrible, but still… how can I possibly live with myself? Goodbye, cruel world!” I pressed the blaster to my temple and triggered it, flopping down on top of him.
Zark looked up at me with a lopsided grin. “So, my jokes are horrible, are they?”
I nodded. “The worst.”
“Well then, I suppose I shall have to dazzle you with my other qualities.”
He reached up, putting his arms around me and pulling me down into a kiss. The feel of his lips and tongue against mine sent electric tingles through my entire body and I straddled him, pinning him to the floor beneath me.
We were so close, our beings intertwined through our psychic abilities – was it just my own desire I was feeling, or his, too? Were they the same? When two streams joined to make a river, did it matter which drops came from which sources?
Or did they simply become one single body of water, stronger together than they'd ever been apart?
I didn't know. I only knew that I needed him.
Just as I need you, Miranda. His voice… not just in my head, but in my core, my soul.
I undid the latches of his tunic and pulled it open, caressing his smooth chest with my mouth and feeling him shiver with delight. I knew he was far stronger than I was – he could overwhelm me easily, pull himself on top of me, satisfy his craving for me whenever he wanted. But he didn't. Instead, I could sense how turned on he was, allowing me to dominate him physically.
It was an exercise in pure self-control, and he was loving it.
So was I.
I could feel myself getting wetter for him with each passing second. How long could I keep grinding against him, teasing him, making him ache for me? Our pheromones hung between us like some heady, musky perfume. There was sex in the air, as damp and intoxicating as morning dew. I hung my head over his, letting my long hair brush lightly against his forehead, his face.
I kept moving my hips against his, hearing him moan, feeling him writhe under me. I reached down, cupping and stroking the bulge in his pants until it seemed like it would tear right through them. Even though the rest of his body was cool, heat was radiating from his crotch. His eyes were wild with passion, and I knew he wouldn't be able to last much longer.
I undid his pants, releasing his cock and marveling at how tall it stood – reaching, quivering, desperate, like the thick stalk of a flower that was hungry for sunlight.
“Please,” he breathed, his normally pale cheeks flushed. “Give yourself to me.”
“We'll see,” I giggled. “Maybe. If you're good.”
I lifted myself off him just long enough to slide my pants off, then lowered myself onto him again – just enough to let his tip gently tickle the lips of my pussy. I moved back and forth, back and forth, driving him into a frenzy, taking him all the way to the edge…
Until he couldn't take it anymore.
Zark grabbed me and rolled me onto my back, kissing me again, harder, as though he were drowning and I was his only source of air. He slid two of his fingers inside me, and I let out a long, low moan of pleasure as they pressed my G-spot firmly. They were still deliciously chilly, and their touch felt like diving into an ice-cold pool during a blazing hot summer afternoon.
I could feel goose bumps rising on almost every inch of my skin, and I spread my legs wider, letting him reach even deeper into me. His thumb danced and swirled against my clit, making me feel like the room was spinning around me.
His touch. My God, his touch was like heaven.
He withdrew his hand, grabbing the front of my shirt and tearing it open savagely. A cry of surprise escaped my lips, and he lowered his head, taking one of my nipples between his fangs and sucking on it. As he did, he lifted my legs up onto his shoulders, opening me wider than I'd ever been before – and then he was plunging into me, over and over and over, with the unrelenting force of a runaway train.
I squeezed my pussy lips against the base of his shaft as hard as I could, trying to hold him, to trap him, to keep every inch of him inside me. I wanted to say his name, to tell him how good it felt and beg him for more – but my words were broken and jumbled, and all I could manage was a series of animal sounds, groans and growls and purrs as he drove himself into me like a dagger.
I reached up and grabbed several locks of his long purple hair, twisting them in my fingers, pulling his face down until it was inches away from mine. Our eyes were locked, our breath crashing together in rough gasps.
It was the most intense moment of my life.
We were one. Inseparable.
He shuddered, and I felt him climax, pumping every last drop of his cold and beautiful essence into me. His chest and stomach were shiny with my sweat and juices as my orgasm ripped the breath from my lungs, my voice rising to a pitch too high even to hear, my insides coming apart and tumbling back together again like tectonic plates during some prehistoric earthquake… shifting into a new continent, a place just for us, where we could forget the rest of the galaxy even existed.
Then we were sprawled in a tangle of arms and legs, holding each other and panting.
“I think I'm going to need a new shirt,” I said, giggling.
13
Zark
I left Miranda in the target room while I flew up to my chamber and retrieved something for her to wear, so she wouldn't be forced to hold her tattered shirt closed during the long walk up the marble steps. Then we went up together and curled up in my bed for a while – we both wanted to sleep, but our combined thoughts were too active to let us relax as we'd hoped.
Torqa. Her private army. The book. The curse. Respen.
These things kept whirling and circling in our minds like a flock of Aldorian Tooth-Bats, screeching, insistent, refusing to be put off or ignored.
Would we triumph in the end?
And if we did, would Miranda want me to honor my promise and bring her back to Earth?
I could sense that Miranda heard the question in my head – but I couldn't sense any clear, decisive response from her. Clearly, she was wondering the same thing. Part of her longed for her home, as any creature would. But the other part…
My ruminations were interrupted by the door chime. “Come in,” I called out.
The door slid open and Khim, the palace healer, entered with a universal translator in her hand. There was a faint air of disapproval in her eyes as she peered at Miranda. “Well, we certainly seem to have our share of human visitors these days, don't we?” she said in Valkredian.
“Since when do you deliver implants?” I replied in our native tongue. “That hardly seems as though it would be within your purview.”
“Generally speaking, it isn't. However, it was brought to my attention that the Blood Ruler's brother might have need of my insights, given his current state. You should have come to me at the start of all this, Zark, instead of keeping it a secret. The longer a curse sits within someone, the deeper it roots itself, and the harder it is to remove it.”
“In truth, Khim, I had hoped that somehow, I'd be able to handle this embarrassing situation on my own without troubling anyone else about it.”
Khim looked at me balefully. “Stubbing your toe is an ‘embarrassing situation.’ A Lunian curse is nothing to be trifled with. But first things first, I suppose… we can't have our latest Earth dar
ling feeling left out of conversations like these, now can we?”
I turned to Miranda, speaking to her in English. “Miranda, this is Khim, our resident healer. She's going to install the implant. It'll hurt for just a second, and then you should be able to understand all the known languages of the galaxy.”
“Thank you,” Miranda said to Khim.
Khim didn't answer – she simply stepped forward, holding up the oval device. It was the size of the nail on Miranda's little finger. Khim pressed the top of it, and six spindly silver legs sprouted out.
“Hang on,” Miranda said, wincing. “That thing isn't going to crawl down my ear canal and into my brain or anything like that, is it?”
“No,” I assured her, “and again, the discomfort is extremely temporary.”
Khim placed the implant just behind Miranda's ear and it immediately burrowed under her skin, creating a tiny bump. Miranda let out a sharp yelp, then composed herself. “Okay. Wow. Yeah. That sure stung.”
“But you can understand us perfectly now, correct?” I asked in Valkredian.
Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “Oh my God, I can! That's amazing!”
“These humans,” Khim sighed, rolling her eyes. “So easily impressed.”
I was worried that Miranda would take offense at this, but instead, she laughed. “I guess we probably are. Where I grew up, just having reliable running water and electricity was kind of a big deal. Anyway, did you need to speak to Zark privately? I know you really came here to ask him about the curse, and see if you could help remove it.”
Khim's eyebrows shot up. “How did you know that? I was under the impression that you didn't speak Valkredian.”