by Viki Storm
“They’re not part of the invasion,” he says. “They’re financing it.”
“Financing?”
“Tos and the Guuklar couldn’t afford a fission beam. Their planet is one big bacchanal of violence. They don’t have governance or a treasury.”
“And the Rulmek do?”
“No,” he says. “But the Rulmek are greedy. They horde. They have coin. They bought the weapon and the ship. In exchange, once Tos and the Guuklar have their way with the planet, the Rulmek get to pick over the scraps—and keep the planet afterward.”
That makes sense. Before Bantokk stopped them, the Rulmek were planning to invade Lekyo Prime, not just to take slaves but to colonize the planet for their own. They terrorize various galaxies, but they do not have a home planet. They want one: Lekyo Prime. So they tried, failed, and now they’re paying the Guuklar to do it for them. Assholes.
“Any other information that could help us?” I ask. “Other than to prepare for a fission beam?”
“Just rumors,” he says. “Which I won’t share, lest they turn out to be untrue, as rumors usually are.”
“Thanks,” I say. Although I’m not exactly grateful for the knowledge that the Guuklar will soon be aiming a fission beam straight at Lekyo Prime—with the sneaky Rulmek waiting in the wings to take over after the dust settles.
“Any time,” he says. “Ready for your ride?” he says to Suse. Damn it.
“Absolutely,” she says.
“Then climb up the fence; it will give you a leg-up mounting Blackie.”
Zalaryns have a general mistrust of mounts, so I’m confused as to how Ghora can be so comfortable around these things. I grit my teeth and rest one hand at the handle of my weapon. First sign of trouble, this creature is getting a blast that will liquefy its vital organs.
Suse steps up on the cross-beams of the fence, then swings her leg over the top, straddling the fence as she waits for Ghora to get his animal over here.
“I used to ride horses when I was little,” she says. “Before…”
“Is the horse the fat one that makes milk?” I ask.
“Well, it makes milk, but I think you’re thinking of cows. A horse is born and bred to ride. And they’re bigger than a cow, especially for an eight-year-old girl.” I recall seeing humans ride on creatures that must be horses. Long faces, muscular necks, graceful runners. Not a suitable mount for a child… but if she is an experienced rider, then perhaps she will be okay astride a jec’h.
And I realize something as she waits, looking longingly at the jec’h. She used to ride horses when she was a child—before, she had described it. Before her mother was taken. Before her father joined the Three-Star Rebels and left her to raise herself. Riding this beast is important for her; it will be some emotional catharsis that I won’t pretend to understand. Humans—especially females—are very emotionally-charged. It’s part of what holds them back as a species, their inability to think clearly and logically.
Ghora brings Blackie to the fence, and before he can give her instructions, she grabs onto the thick scruff of hair at the animal’s neck and swings her leg around, pulling herself onto its back.
She gives it a gentle prod with the heel of her boot, and the jec’h takes off like a laser shot down to the other end of the pen.
“Hot damn,” Ghora says, laughing. “That girl is a natural. Tell me, how tight is your asshole clenched right now?”
“Very tight,” I say. I don’t remember the last time I was this nervous. Maybe never.
“She’ll be fine,” Ghora tries to reassure me.
“She’d better be,” I warn.
Suse races around the pen for the better part of an hour, and I don’t relax at all until she dismounts, her dark hair wild and cheeks red from the cold.
She looks more beautiful than ever, more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
It takes me a second, then I realize why.
She’s happy.
And in that instant, I know that I’m lost. Absolutely gone.
Because the rest of my life is going to be a single-minded pursuit of keeping her this way. Keeping her happy. Keeping her safe.
I’m addicted. Her eyes are so bright, her smile so casual, the ruddy, healthy glow in her skin.
I’m gone.
I will be good for nothing else as long as I live.
Today I feel good for the first time… Not ever, but it feels like it. I can’t remember the last day when I wasn’t worried, depressed or angry at my lot in life. Not to mention my recent foray as a slave laborer, where I can’t remember a day I wasn’t aching, exhausted or hungry.
“Thank you,” I say to Orlon as we are leaving the jec’h ranch. I know he was frightened of the beasts, loath to let ‘his mate’ climb onto one. But he let me do it because he realized it was important to me. And it was. There’s no way to describe the feeling of freedom that comes over you when you’re clinging to the back of some wild animal, racing with the wind whipping your hair and stinging your eyes. Everything else melts away, every other thought in your head is gone, replaced by the concentration needed to stay astride your mount.
More important than that: when you’re riding on a creature like that, you realize just how insignificant you are.
You realize that humans—and the myriad other intelligent races—are not really as important as we all think we are. That there’s a system of plants and animals and geography on every planet that will outlive any of the technology that the intelligent races create. These planets were here before us. They will be here after us. The planets have their own system, their own sustainability, and we’re all just along for the ride, clinging to the reins and hoping we don’t fall off.
Orlon grunts something that might be ‘You’re welcome.’
We get back to our room, Orlon seeming to be even more frustrated than when we landed on this ice planet. I’m not sure exactly what is going on—all I know is that the Guuklar are bent on war and destruction.
And I’m responsible.
If he knew, would Orlon still have risked his life to save me from the Trogii? Would he tremble with worry when I ride a jec’h if he knew that this entire mess with the Guuklar invading Lekyo Prime is my fault? Would he still insist I’m his mate?
Probably not.
“Did you learn anything valuable?” I ask. I kick off my boots and shrug out of my heavy coat. It’s cold in our room, but I’m sweaty from my ride and the walk back. Orlon bought me some pants, shirts and my own properly fitted spacesuit for travel. Plus I have a few of the Zalaryn-style plain white robes that I got on Zalaryx. I take one of them from my travel case and start to go into the bathroom to change.
The thought of stripping nude and changing clothes in front of him excites me a lot more than I’d like to admit. I’m already feeling swollen and tingly between my legs just thinking about it. However, that’s the best reason not to do so. I can’t trust myself around Orlon. Exposing my body to his greedy gaze, feeling his heat and barely restrained passion… I would let him take me. I would willingly surrender my virginity to this alien brute. And that’s definitely a mistake. Whatever weird libido thing I’ve got going on, I need to master it. Letting him take me to bed is only going to solidify his crazy notions of bonding.
“Not really,” he says. “They have a fission beam, that’s news. But it doesn’t change anything, not in any practical way.”
My stomach sinks, the guilt almost too much to bear. A fission beam? That thing can do major damage. Real damage. It can change the landscape of the planet, give any survivors crippling deformities and chromosomal abnormalities.
All because of me. Because the Rulmek captain asked me, Do you want to be sold to the Guuklar warlord or go work in a factory?
And the thought of being a member of the Guuklar warlord’s harem, knowing what he would do to me, how he would defile my body in the most painful ways imaginable… it scared the hell out of me.
I decided then and there that I’
d do whatever the Rulmek captain asked.
I didn’t think he’d ask me to start a war.
Destroy a planet.
“What are we going to do?” I ask. No one wants to stop this invasion more than me. If I can help him in any way, I’m going to do it.
It’s the least I can do, considering that I started it.
“We?” he asks, a slight smile grazing his lips. It’s such an inviting smile… or maybe it’s his lips that are inviting. I remember our kiss, the ripple of pleasure that tracked down every cell in my body.
“Well, yeah,” I say. Suddenly I’m not thinking of Lekyo Prime or a fission beam anymore.
I’m thinking of Orlon. Taking me into his arms. Putting me on the bed.
“I have some ideas,” he says. Am I imagining that his smile is getting more devious? It’s like he can read my thoughts—and he knows exactly what I want him to do.
“Some ideas about the impending invasion?” I ask. “Or ideas about something else we could do?” I’m not sure how I’ve gotten so bold. Probably it has to do with the fact that for the last year I’ve been kept in near-death, grueling conditions. Now I’m experiencing an overload on life. Or maybe it was riding the jec’h in the bracing cold, the feeling of pure freedom.
Either way, I’m waiting for him to kiss me again. And if he does, I think I’m prepared for whatever else he was talking about.
The claiming.
I don’t know about the whole bonded mates thing, but I do know what he means by claiming me. I know he’ll tear off my clothes and spread my legs apart and—
I should know better. I know that I shouldn’t be trusting him so fully yet—especially with something like my virginity. I mean, he said it himself. He only took me from the Trogii because he thought I knew about my father’s supposed rebel operations.
The Rulmek took me to extort my father, then the Trogii took me for my small, nimble human fingers. Now this Zalaryn takes me for my supposed rebel knowledge.
All these aliens, they use humans as pawns in their schemes.
Still, what I know in my head is like a faint whisper when the knowledge of my body is a primal scream.
“I only have one idea about you and me,” he says. “And I don’t think you’re ready for that. Yet.” He steps closer to me. My stomach drops, and a light tickly feeling starts to roil low in my belly.
I want to protest, want to insist that I’m ready for him to take me right now in this cold rented room. But I can’t seem to make my mouth cooperate. My lips part a fraction, but no sound comes out.
“But I think I have something that you are ready for,” he says. He’s another step closer. I can smell him, a raw and compelling scent. It’s making me hungry, but not for food. For him. For more of that scent to fill my nose and my lungs.
He fists the hem of my shirt, yanking me towards him. My hands fly up to his arms, my fingers wrapping around his biceps like they’re magnetic. A little gasp escapes my lips, but it only serves to encourage him.
“Yes,” he says. “I can sense that sweetness gathering between your lips. Right here.” He presses one of his fingers between my legs, and the pressure against my clit makes my knees threaten to give out. He starts to slide his finger back and forth just a fraction of an inch, and I moan, not caring that this alien has melted me completely. One little touch was all it took. I would have liked to hold out longer, but there’s not much I can do to resist his touch. Maybe he’s right; maybe there’s something deeper, more powerful, at play here. The Universe? Fate? Maybe.
It feels like I’m a pawn—but not his, not the Rulmek’s. A pawn in a greater scheme of the Universe.
“Does this feel good?” he asks me. His face is so close to mine, our lips almost touching. “Do you like it when I touch you here?”
I manage to nod my head. I definitely do. I’m wearing too much clothing; I need to feel the heat of his fingertip against my spread flesh. The slick glide as he dips his finger between my folds to coat it with essence before he starts to rub me.
“Good,” he says. “Because your little cunt belongs to me now. And I take good care of my things.”
He takes his finger away, but I can still feel the lingering ghost of it, the phantom fingerprint pressing against my swollen nub.
He sweeps his hands underneath my shirt, taking each breast into one of his huge hands. I wrapped up my chest in the muslin strip, and again, this barrier between us is driving me insane.
A purr of pleasure starts to leave my mouth, but his lips are on mine, and instead I just moan into his mouth. His palms sweep back and forth, teasing my nipples into beads. When they’re hard, he starts to gently tweeze them between his fingertips, the wispy muslin sliding between his fingers as he grips my nipples.
I have to break away from his kiss to catch my breath. Orlon takes this opportunity to pull my shirt over my head. I unwind the muslin wrapping as fast as I can, and my breasts tumble free. I arch my back, pressing the peaks of my nipples against the hard plane of his chest. He threads his hands into my hair and pulls me close for another kiss.
I’m dying for his touch, for stimulation, but he’s purposefully denying me, keeping his hands chastely on the back of my head instead of on my breasts where I want them to be.
I press harder into his chest, trying to rub myself against him, hungry for the feel of our skin touching.
And all of a sudden, I get the feeling something is wrong.
Terribly wrong.
I pull away from him, realizing what it is. The only thing that could pull me out of this lust-filled trance.
I put my hand to the hollow of my throat. It’s gone.
“My locket,” I say. “It’s gone.”
When was the last time I noticed it around my neck? At the ranch? Later, when we ate lunch? Did I even have it when we landed on Irrok? My head is spinning right now, the adrenaline flooding my system and making everything hot and frantic.
“Did you take it off?” he asks.
“I never take it off. Ever.”
“Alright,” he says. “Let’s look for it. We’ll find it.”
And for some reason, I believe him. Just a moment ago I was convinced that it was gone and I’d never see it again. Now I actually think he’s going to find it.
He starts pacing the room, looking on tabletops and underneath shed articles of clothing. I find my tunic and slip it back over my head.
“When was the last time you remember having it?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. I try to think, but I don’t remember. “I had it in the shower this morning.” I do remember that because when I was washing myself, the locket left a deep groove in the cake of soap.
“That’s something,” he says. “Let me send a comm to Ghora. There’s daylight here for quite a few more hours; he can search the ranch.”
“Thank you,” I say. I wander around the room, looking in the same places over and over. I listen intently as Orlon talks to Ghora and even more intently twenty minutes later when the retired old Zalaryn comms back and says that he didn’t find it. He insists that it hasn’t snowed today, so it wouldn’t be buried under new snow. I’m not so sure. The jec’h enclosure was a muddy mixture of ice and dirt, and it would be hard to find a small necklace on the surface, especially if one of the beasts stepped on it and pushed it deeper into the slush.
“Suse,” Orlon asks me. “What is the metal composition of the locket?”
“Gold I think,” I say. One of the more worthless metals, but gold is a sentimental material for humans descended from Earth.
“Run a scan for nonferrous metals over your perimeter,” Orlon instructs his friend. “Target for Au-79.”
He ends the comm and I return to waiting, the potential results of the impending scan giving me hope.
“Let’s go,” Orlon says. “Retrace our steps.” I follow him through the city, relieved that he’s taken control of this situation. I know it’s just a locket, but its loss has completely unnerved
me, and I would be absolutely unable to function without him right now.
Yes, I survived capture and forced labor—but this is too much for me. Sometimes you’re strong, and sometimes you’re not. This is one of the times I am not.
We walk our earlier path, both of us scanning the ground, me jumping at every small shiny object I see. “I never noticed how much stuff is on a typical street,” I say. “How many bottle caps and scraps of foil wrappers.”
We walk all the way back to Ghora’s ranch, and I wade through the muddy slush of the animal pen, even after he assures me that he used a detecto-drone to scan his property. My hands are numb and I can’t bend my fingers, but I still search until Orlon takes me by the shoulders.
“It’s not here,” he says. “Come on. We’ll find it.”
I want to believe him. He sounds so sure of himself. But this is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystack at least would narrow it down a little bit.
We retrace our steps back to the restaurant where we ate lunch. It was a small place, just a few tables and chairs and a surly barkeeper-cook behind a counter. We came in here to warm up after the ranch. I ate a bowl of stew with some sort of meat that was rich and swimming in a thick, dark broth. It was delicious, especially with the hunk of soft, warm bread the barkeeper-cook served alongside it. Orlon said that this planet’s bread was no good, that the native single-celled eukaryotes used for leavening agents are inferior and produce an unpleasant waste-gas that sours the baked goods. I disagreed, and he grunted, letting me eat his piece of bread, too.
“Did you find a necklace at our table when you cleaned up earlier?” Orlon asks the barkeeper. The man looks up, puzzlement wrinkling his forehead. As if the idea of cleaning up after us never crossed his mind. As if cleaning up after anyone never crossed his mind.
“No,” the barkeeper says.
There’s a lone alien sitting at one of the tables. I don’t recognize his race, but he’s got the flaky, scaly appearance of a lizard, brown skin mottled with dark patches and eyes that sit atop his skull so they can rotate 360 degrees. It’s late, and even though the sun is still shining, most residents of Irrok are turning in for the day.