Zarik

by Elin Wyn

  I glared down at him as he tried to look at me in defiance. “I’ll spend my life being a happy ‘alien-fucking whore’.” I turned around, fully intent on leaving it at that, but something in the back of my head said that one more thing was needed.

  I heard Axtin pull Kyle to his feet, and I spun around and gave as hard a kick as I could, my foot connecting with Kyle’s ribs. A crack filled the air, along with the whumph of the air rushing from his lungs. I kicked him, again, in his tiny little crotch, then turned from him and walked away.

  Zarik was struggling to hold back his smile while I heard several members of the strike teams laughing. A few of the human guards were mumbling, but I could tell they were proud of me.

  The grin on my face was from ear to ear, and I truly enjoyed how sore my cheeks felt because of that grin.

  “Ready to go?” I asked Zarik as I walked up to him, holding my hand out for his.

  “That was impressive. Didn’t know you could kick that well,” he commented as he took my hand. “I mean, I knew your legs were strong, but, that,” he jutted his chin out towards Kyle, “that looked like fun.”

  I had to admit, it really was. “I didn’t know I could, until I had the urge,” I teased. “Now I gotta wash his stink off me,” I said with genuine disgust.

  Zarik leaned down to talk to me only. “I can help you with that,” he offered.

  “Ooh. Fun.”

  With an amused shake of his head, General Rouhr yelled out orders to all the others before calling for a rift to be opened. You know, I was determined to figure out who this Fen character was. I wanted to get to know everyone that Zarik knew.

  With a gentle squeeze of his hand, I pulled him towards the rift so we could go home.

  Zarik

  I had been called to the general’s office. He didn’t tell me why, just left a message for me to come to his office an hour after sunrise. So, there I was, sitting on the bench outside his office, waiting, and thinking.

  Two days ago, we had arrested a large number of humans that had attempted to attack the Puppet Master. They had wanted to somehow get its secretion that affected memory. They were trying to create their own synthetic compound to erase the memories of other humans so they could convince them that we were the evil ones, here to kill all humans.

  We’ve bled, killed, and had a few of our own killed to protect them and get rid of the Xathi threat.

  We blew up our own ship and dismantled another ship to help fix things here.

  But still, some people couldn’t see that.

  Some people, all they saw was the difference in our races, or species, or whatever they saw when they looked at us.

  There had been terrible wars between Valorni, Skotan, and K’ver peoples, many times simply because someone didn’t like the way someone else talked, or looked, or for what they believed.

  So, now that I was on the receiving end of the asinine bigotry and hatred, I understood how my own bigotry and hatred were stupid. That still didn’t excuse it, though.

  I sat there, trying to take my mind off all of that and focus on something else. Luckily, I had the perfect distraction.

  Miri.

  She was an incredible woman that did things for me, and to me, that I had never thought I deserved.

  I had made mistakes, mistakes that had cost an entire family their lives, and those were mistakes that I would never be able to escape.

  However, thanks to Miri, I now realized that I no longer had to atone for those mistakes to regain my honor. I simply had to learn from them in order to keep focused and not make the same mistakes again.

  Footsteps from down the hall brought me back to reality. I looked up to see Tobias walking to his desk in the lobby as he tossed a wave in my direction. I waved back, then stood as the general rounded the corner.

  “Sir,” I said with a salute as the general came close.

  “Easy,” he said with a smile. “Come in.” He opened his office and ushered me in. “Take a seat,” he offered, indicating the chair in front of his desk. I sat down, still wondering what this was all about.

  He poured himself a glass of water, raising his eyebrow in question at me. I shook my head. With a shrug, he sat down in his chair, took a quick drink, then took in a deep breath. “I’m going to assume you’re wondering what this is all about. Am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “Good,” he said with a smile. “I was wanting to keep you in suspense a little bit, figured you deserved the stress after what you’ve done the last few days.”

  Now I was really confused. As far as I knew, the last few days were good work by me. Why would I deserve stress? My face must have shown my confusion.

  Rouhr grinned, almost cruelly. “It’s alright. I’m having a bit of fun at your expense. I brought you here to tell you that I am very proud of what you’ve done.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said with trepidation. I was still confused.

  “You take good news so well,” he said sarcastically. He put his hands in front of his face, let out a deep breath, then stood. “Follow me.”

  He led me over to the couch, motioning for me to sit in one of the more comfortable chairs while he sat on the couch. “You surprised me when you volunteered to take this assignment. I wasn’t sure what you were up to, but you were convincing.

  “To be honest, sir,” I cut in, “it wasn’t terribly hard. I knew that not many of the others would have wanted to deal with an amnesiac girl, so I was trying to do you a favor. You would have had too many of the others complain.”

  “Hmm, you’re not wrong,” he admitted. “Most of them would have probably considered this as something beneath them. Which is why I’m grateful to you for stepping up. You took on something that should have been beneath you, that should have been assigned to one of the guards.

  “But, since you took it on, you went beyond the call of duty.” He grinned at me again. “A little further than beyond, but that’s another story.”

  “Ha. Ha,” I said flatly in response to his joke.

  He smiled. “Look, what I’m trying to say is that you performed admirably and beyond your duties. You did more than was asked and, in the process, you uncovered something that would have been devastating to all of us if you hadn’t.”

  “I’m sure we would have…” I started.

  “Found it all out?” he interrupted. “When? When it was too late to do anything? Or how about when they attacked the Puppet Master and harmed him? You’re right, we might have found out in time, but we might not have. With your actions, your determination, and your insatiable drive to try to prove yourself, you ended up taking this further. It was that action that gave us what we needed to shut down a potential catastrophe.”

  He leaned forward on the couch and fitted me with a hard stare. “Listen, you may not feel that what you did was important, but it was, and not only to me or Miri.”

  That caught my attention. “What do you mean, sir?”

  “You saved Miri’s life. You worked hard to help her regain her memories, and you were there when she had a panic attack when she did remember them,” the general said. He leaned back on the couch. “You pushed, you prodded, you were there when information was found, you were there when information was deciphered, you were the one that found the underground lab. So,” he said, holding up a finger to quash my forthcoming comments. “Because of all that, I wanted to tell you something.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of paper. “This paper, if we were anywhere near the rest of our kind and near proper military channels, would be my recommendation for you to receive the Silver Crystal.”

  I was stunned. The Silver Crystal was one of the highest honors a soldier could receive. He was recommending me for that? I couldn’t breathe.

  He leaned forward again. “You stepped up, and you did things that resulted in our safety and, if not a shut-down, then a serious slow-down of this anti-alien group’s agenda. You saved lives, you stopped a rebellion, an
d you acted phenomenally. You earned it.”

  “Th-th-thank you, sir,” I stuttered out. I was flabbergasted by what he was telling me.

  “Now, I have a question for you,” he said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do you want the official ceremony that is traditional for an award such as this?”

  And there it was, my snap back to reality. I was being honored for something. I had done something well, very well, and I had somehow fixed things.

  “I’m proud of you, as are the others. You deserve this,” he was saying.

  That was all I needed. I didn’t need the pomp and circumstance of everything. The rest of them knew I was worthy but, more importantly, Miri knew I was worthy and so did I. Maybe I hadn’t made up for my past mistakes, but I had certainly made things better.

  “No, sir,” I said. He seemed a bit confused, so I clarified. “I don’t need the ceremony, sir. I don’t want it. Your recognition, as well as my own improved belief in myself, is all I need. Thank you, sir.”

  I stood up, shook his hand, assured him that I was okay without the ceremony, and he smiled. “Very well. I approve,” he said. “If you don’t want the ceremony, then we won’t have it. I’m proud of you, and I back your decision. Go, enjoy your day off with Miri.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said happily.

  That was certainly something I could do.

  Miri

  “Mmph.” That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say when Zarik got out of the bed, but I had my hair in my mouth.

  “My, aren’t you the articulate one?” he cracked as he pulled his pants up, taking away my beautiful view of his nakedness.

  My disappointment in that actually hurt my chest. Wow, and to think, two weeks ago I was just a normal human girl with a job and—oh, shit. I had a job. Damn. Not sure I’m going to have that anymore. Oh, well. Where was I? Oh, yeah, staring at his incredibly toned body.

  “Well, when you have a mouthful of hair, it’s a little difficult to make a coherent sound,” I explained.

  “Oh, so what was your excuse last night?” he smiled at me.

  “AH!” I gasped. I threw a pillow at him. “You are such an ass!”

  He caught the pillow and came back over to me. He leaned over and kissed me on the head. “You love that, too,” he teased, then smacked me playfully with the pillow.

  “Ha. What are you getting dressed for?” I asked as I sat up, the sheet barely covering me.

  “I got a message to meet General Rouhr first thing.”

  Now I was a little worried. “What about? Did he say? Is everything alright?”

  He chuckled as he pulled on his shirt. “I’ll find out in just a few.”

  That had been our conversation this morning before he left.

  He had gone early, which wasn’t terribly hard, he lived in a tiny-ass room in the basement of the office building.

  If he had ever been late to a meeting, I wasn’t sure how.

  I occupied myself with getting some breakfast, then sitting in his room messing around on his datapad. I looked up the news, checked my messages, started looking up jobs, and just essentially trying to spend my time not thinking about what could possibly be happening upstairs.

  I mean, was he giving Zarik another mission? Was that mission going to be dangerous? Was there a chance that I could lose him right after I just got him?

  Oh god, what if that was it?

  What if he was being sent away on a mission that was super deadly? I started panicking, my breathing coming in short, rapid bursts as my palms started to sweat and I started to just freak out.

  My vision started to blur as I sat there and pictured all the terrible things that could happen to that behemoth of a man that I had found and fallen in love with.

  I needed to calm down. I forced my breathing to slow, to deepen, to go back to normal. He was a good soldier, he was a survivor, and he was careful.

  I had to understand that he was going to be sent out on missions on occasion, and that they would be dangerous. I was going to worry about him, but I had to trust in him, in his skills, and in his ability to live.

  I’d seen him fight. He’d be unstoppable.

  I dragged another lungful of air in.

  Still shaky.

  Of course, he might not be getting a mission right now. He might have just been called into the general’s office to give a report or something.

  Yeah, that was it.

  He was just doing his job and everything was going to be fine.

  I just had to believe that.

  Two hours after he left, he came back. Two hours of me trying to occupy myself and driving myself into a momentary panic, and he came back with a look of complete shock and joy on his face.

  “What happened?” I asked as he came in. I wrapped my arms around him, determined to make him feel better if this was bad news…or to make myself feel better if it was bad-for-me news.

  He wrapped his big arms around me and bent himself down to kiss the top of my head. “Uh,” he started to say, then his body shook a bit.

  I looked up at him, scared, but when I looked into his eyes, I saw pride, joy, elation, and a measure of accomplishment that I hadn’t seen before. He was shaking from excitement and happiness.

  “What?” I asked.

  He looked down at me and I saw the beginnings of a tear welling up in his left eye. “I,” he looked away from me, then looked back. “I went upstairs.”

  “Uh huh,” I said, trying to prod him on.

  “General Rouhr gave me the Silver Crystal,” he said reverently. “That’s the highest military honor a soldier could receive without dying. He said he was proud of me.” His voice started to break only slightly before it regained its strength. “The men congratulated me, Rouhr is proud of me, and I did things right.”

  I pulled him close, holding onto him as hard as I could. I was so happy for him. “You’re amazing, love. You are.”

  He pulled away and looked down at me. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, his voice husky. “You gave me something I thought that I had lost many years ago.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a sense of compassion and emotional connection that I have with you, that I have with others now, because of you,” he told me. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be locked up in my head here, obsessing about my honor.”

  “And now you’re down here, sharing this insanely small room with me,” I said sort of perky-like. He smiled.

  “Yes, that I am.” He leaned down and kissed me, hard. “I like that.”

  “I do, too. You saved me, Zarik,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him pick me up. “You saved me from death, from being part of that shit my cousin was involved with. You gave me life, Zarik. I love you.”

  He cocked his head to the side a bit, then smiled. “I love you, too,” he said.

  He planted a kiss on my cheek, then trailed kisses down the line of my neck until he reached the neckline of my blouse. His hands reached for mine, and our fingers laced with one another, held on top of my head. He held my hands there with one hand and unbuttoned my blouse with the other. Then he explored my exposed skin, trailing his fingers from my stomach up to my collarbone as he backed me toward the bed and lowered me to the mattress.

  “I love you more,” I whispered back, and stretched to kiss him again.

  I slowly opened my legs around him as he settled in between my thighs. I could feel his cock pulsating inside his pants as he pressed against my wet core. His lips left my mouth, made their way to my breasts, and feasted on my nipples.

  He flicked them around with his tongue, soliciting moans from my pleasured body, while he slowly ground his hips against mine. I continued to moan, the fabric covering my pussy was getting wetter by the moment. My hands grasped at his back, trying my best to tempt and entice him.

  It seemed to work, as I felt his cock stiffen even harder against me. He took off his uniform, leaving nothing but his pant
s, that I unzipped with fumbling hands. I tugged at them, pulling them down to his knees together with his boxers, and revealed his massive cock.

  It sprung out of its confinement, its head teasing the wet folds of my pussy. Zarik grabbed it with one hand and rubbed it hard against my mound. I let out another series of moans as my body tingled with the immense pleasure spreading all throughout.

  He finally pulled down my panties and positioned his head between my legs.

  “W-What are you doing?” I asked, my head fazed from all the sensations.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  He didn’t give me enough time to reply. Instead, he spread my legs even wider with his strong hands, pushing me down on the bed as his tongue licked my very center. I arched my back, my loud moans filling the small room.

  He continued to play with my small button of pleasure and nibbled gently on it, which again sent waves of lust from my legs up to my head.

  Suddenly, he broke away and moved into position on top of me. He grabbed his cock again and placed the tip inside my slick entrance.

  I held on to his back with every push, and he got another inch of his cock inside my pussy. He pushed it again one more time, my hips arched higher to receive him, and, with one last thrust, he managed to fit his huge cock into my small and quaking body.

  “Oh, God,” I moaned, my body felt so full of him as he filled every inch of my pussy.

  “Are you alright?” he asked and kissed my forehead.

  I nodded and kissed him back. “I want more of you.”

  He smiled down at me and started thrusting. I gasped at the feel of him shoving his shaft through my wet folds.

  Zarik panted above me, with his mouth near my ear to let me know how much he delighted in making love with me. I held my arms around his back, and with the little strength that I had, I pushed his ass towards me and begged him to fuck me even harder.

  He quickened his pace and wrapped his arms around my tiny body. My legs trembled with every thrust of his massive cock as he hit my sweet spot with its head. He was building up the pressure inside my body, and if he continued, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to hold my orgasm back.