Alliance: An Intersolar Alien Romance, Book 6

21

Fásach pressed himself into the far wall of the Buoy, whimpering, his eyes fixed on Roz sleeping on his bedroll.

His.

He licked his teeth as his cock grew harder.

Fuck,he needed her body like he needed air. The compulsion to lick his own hand again goaded him as he clenched his fists. Her scent and taste were all over those fingers. Maybe on his bedroll.

He needed every drop he could get.

With a groan he slid to the ground, trying to convince himself that he”d somehow broken both of his legs. He couldn”t take advantage of her, but the need was all-consuming. His heart raced and his pulse thumped in his antlers. Rut, rut, rut.

RUT. RUT. RUT.

A painful cramp seized his groin, and he crunched over himself with another groan. Gasping for air, he ripped open the latches of his pants, scooted them down, and withdrew his cock from his velvety prepuce. It was already weeping, his sac as hard as hailstones at the base. His hand brushed the sensitive balls, and they stung like punching someone with a bladder too full to piss.

He stared at Roz”s sleeping face, her hips hidden beneath the blanket he”d draped over her like a gentleman. Snarling, he realized he should have left the blanket off so her scent filled the room. He fisted his shaft and pulled hard, clinching it in the vise of his grip. He spat on himself to lubricate his length, then pumped in earnest with his other palm pressed to his nose.

The first orgasm came within seconds. Mindless, berserk, so needy he panted and whined and begged. He took the time to spit in both palms for the second round, the channel he mimicked making lewd, wet noises as his scalloped head swelled again and his sac drained halfway.

He squeezed his balls the third time, almost to the point of pain. He imagined Roz bent over his bed back on Huajile, her throat in one palm, spine bent as he fucked her hard from behind. His imagination featured multiple angles, watching her full breasts swing to his rhythm, pressing one into the cup of his claws as he held her in submission.

It wasn”t until he opened his eyes from the fantasy that he realized Gil was there. He blinked, pushing himself up straight against the wall. Then he cleared his throat to speak. To apologize.

”Don”t sweat it,” Gil said over their shoulder, being respectful not to watch as Fás tucked himself back in his prepuce and latched his pants. A few towels had been laid next to him, and he gratefully cleaned himself and the floor.

”Sorry,” he rasped, throat sore.

Gil grinned, turning around at the sound of Fás getting to his feet. They shrugged their shoulders and closed their holotab. ”If you think that”s bad, you should see a shil barracks.”

Fásach laughed, letting some of the humiliation go. He went to rub his tresses but decided to wash his hands first.

Gil stopped in front of Roz and made a show of looking down at her sleeping form. ”Ah, shit. That”s pretty cute,” they admitted.

”Don”t—” Fásach bit off his threat. ”Don”t get too close. Just for right now. She smells like—”

”Sex?”

Fásach started panting like a pup salivating over dessert.

Gil chuckled under their breath. ”Come on. I know what”ll take the edge off.”

They opened the door to the crisp winter air, donning their coat and harpoon gun, then gave Fás a wink.

”Let”s go kill dinner.”

?

Fásach flexed his toes, balancing on his haunches on the ice. He huddled over himself wearing nothing but a pair of thermal pants, the claws of his feet keeping him in place as the snow-laden sheet bobbed in the waves and the wind buffeted his hackles.

He brushed his hand over his nose for the dozenth time. Only hours had passed since Roz climaxed on his fingers, and she was lodged in his senses. Like a little firework, each time he brushed that hand over the velvet of his face, her scent bloomed before the wind carried it away with a cruel whistle.

What did she look like with her legs spread open?

He’d been behind her, so he didn’t know, which made it worse. Because every time he blinked, he didn’t see a still image of her cunt. Rather, his hands remembered how soft and slippery it was. The fine little ridges, the layers… And his chest remembered her weight, the shudders of pleasure. His tresses too. How she pulled on them, taking everything she deserved for herself.

Fásach refused to blink now. Gil had invited him out to hunt when they arrived back at the Buoy and found him plastered to the far cabinets, whining, staring at Roz while she slept. They’d recognized his rut in the shilpakaari way of a frenzy and knew he needed violence. He’d needed it more than anything, caught in such desperation and agony.

The arctic air had done nothing to abate it either. So he stared at the sliver of black water between sheets of ice, even while frost collected on the velvet beneath his nose and his lungs stood still. The world reduced down to its rhythm, slapping the ice like choppy obsidian. His body became an inevitability, and therefore felt no aches or chills. Just a deep sigh that engaged every muscle.

Then the sea bowed out like liquid glass as a corrugated brown fin caressed it from beneath.

Fásach exploded forward like a bullet, digging his right claw into the meat of the shark’s tail. It thrashed as he heaved its back half from the water in an icy spray of coppery blood and sea foam.

“Fásach, wait! That’s a—chudthi!”

Fásach’s war chuckle rose to a screech of excitement as Gil fought to keep their balance on the upending ice sheets, loading their harpoon gun on one knee. True, the shark wasn’t the buradha mother and pup he and Gil had stalked out to sea, but Fásach needed a challenge.

Needed to drown out the chimes of harmony.

The call to Roz was too much to withstand now. Like walking into the cavernous halls of a yiwreni monastery bathed in the purest chords of worship. Her voice was so pure, perfect, godly, that if Byddie were still alive, he’d mistake her for a spirit of its forests. He wanted to fall to his knees in supplication and beg her to make those sounds again. To pant his name. To sob with ecstasy. He’d gladly abandon their journey for a month between her thighs.

The coalescence of his transition, his rut, and her harmony was too much. He’d fall into her and never resurface, let her swallow him whole like the sea beneath his feet eagerly awaiting the shark’s victory.

So he needed to take each day one by one, to keep their goals in mind. A better life for Quiopha’s daughters, himself, and Roz. Today? The torpedo of pure muscle and teeth snapping for his limbs. Violence and victory. Tomorrow?

He would worry about tomorrow when the sun rose.

The shark twisted and Fásach slid sideways, digging his claws into one of its dorsal fins. He ripped its brown speckled skin open in a river of bronzy orange that stained the ice like rust. Snarling, his tongue lolled as his lips withdrew from his black gums. He stretched his mouth open over his jaws, dug the points of his hands and feet into the shark’s head and side, then rose over its far eye socket.

Fásach wedged an upper fang in the shark’s round, flat eye, then cranked his jaws closed. His teeth pressed through its skin like tire rubber, then caught on a ridge of its skull.

It struggled harder as the pressure grew, nearly catching Fás’s hand in its own saw-like maw. When its skull cracked and the taste of brain matter, fat, and blood filled his mouth, the leviathan jolted in hot pain.

Its strength faded breath by breath. Its long, rippling gills gulped at the air for want of water, and its gums bulged from its ruined head as its lips retracted in death. The massive creature twitched long after it was dead, instinctively scooting towards the water, pushing its own puddle of blood off the ice in a swill of snow and sharkskin and clumps of amber fur.

“You absolute chudthi bastard,” Gil panted, as Fás dislodged his fangs and licked his cheeks in long, rough passes to clean them. “That was fuckin’ incredible!”

Fásach still crouched on the shark, all four sets of claws gripping its flesh, and gave Gil a vicious, bloody smile. The shilpakaar smirked back.

“I’ll never look at those teeth the same way again.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Fás chirped, relishing the return of his predatory state. He was nearly the bruiser he’d been before Quiopha’s passing. Gil engaged the safety lock on their harpoon again and punched him on the shoulder.

“You should. Saved me a bolt. Can’t get it off the ice in one piece though. We’ll have to prep it here.”

Gil grabbed one pectoral fin with both hands and swung the carcass around to a better angle. They opened the toolkit on their thigh and withdrew a sharp fillet knife, swiping several times along the back of the head to slice the shark open.

Fásach stood behind them as they worked, watching over their shoulder. The hunt had taken the edge off his possessive streak but hadn’t eased the erection in his pants. He adjusted himself and turned away, seeking out the shore nearly a mile away.

The hunt curbed his carnal appetite. It was a good solution for today.

But tomorrow…

Rut, rut, rut.

The steady march of obsessive heat in his blood was driving him insane, even at a distance. What would happen when she laughed? Or gasped, or sighed, or—

“If you need to take care of that, I won’t judge,” Gil threw over their shoulder, fitting their fingers into the neat cut.

Fásach chuffed helplessly. “I might enjoy the chill, but my prick will still freeze if I pull it out.”

Gil chuckled, shrugging their tendrils as they cut a guiding line over the long arc of gills. “Fair enough. Guess we can’t all be deep water shils, can we?” They winked back at Fás. “We fuck best in the cold.”

Fásach swallowed hard then knelt at the water’s edge. He dipped his claws in, the saltwater so cold it hurt, and washed his hands. The rest of him was a lost cause until they returned to the Buoy.

“We haven’t,” he admitted with a tight throat. Gil continued to work, forging long, deep strokes of the knife beneath its liver, letting Fás vent. “We haven’t slept together.”

“Yet?” Gil asked, the notes of their voice supportive and honest. Fásach nodded, a hopeful heat bristling his ears.

“Yet,” he confirmed, one corner of his mouth ticking up. He swiveled his ear to abate the tingle and walked back over to his kill. Its size finally registered with him. The shark was more than twice his height in length. Slender, with barbs along its belly and lower pectoral fins. Long whiskers around its mouth were secreting a neon yellow substance into the snow. Toxic, no doubt.

He could have died in this fight.

A sudden boyish need to show Roz came over him.

He stood back and opened his holotab to get a snap. Gil stayed in frame but hopped to the far side of the shark, so it appeared bigger.

“Operator for scale,” they teased. “Gotta make sure your priya rewards you. You know, with a good yet, heh!”

Fásach rubbed his antlers, letting a smile really spread across his face. “Yours too. Let me send this to you.”

“Thanks, she’ll flip.” Then Gil handed him the knife. “Do me a favor and haul up that fillet while I cut. Don’t wanna nick the intestines, you know?”

“Thought you gutted fish all the time.”

Gil rolled their eyes. “Right, slain dozens of mootha saraa. I’ve never seen anyone kill one of these before, let alone with their bare hands. She must really be getting to you.”

Fásach’s smile fell. He rubbed his antlers again. They itched constantly, and in the hours since they’d emerged, they had grown nearly an inch.

“Roz is special,” he grunted, lifting the meat and spine as Gil cut away the head and organs. “And this is my first rut.”

Would be nice if it were my last one too.

If Roz was serious about giving him a chance… How long would his rut last? His tadau’s antlers had grown for decades.

Fásach panted with anxiety, arms bulging from holding up such a massive weight. How had his tadau survived this for so long?

“If it’s anything like a frenzy, you must be in agony.”

“Something like that.”

“My advice, not that you asked for it, is to enjoy it. Ruts, frenzies, whatever you wanna call ‘em. They’re the dessert of life. Especially with a priya that appreciates you.”

Fásach’s ear twitched again, the words hitting the same as Lugh’s during their sparring sessions, except that Gil’s were born of mischief and knowing rather than cold calculation. There was a warmth in the shil’s voice that dismantled Fásach’s walls brick by brick.

“I might—” love her, an echo of his mamau’s threadbare voice whispered. The unfinished sentence left him shocked, staring out at Svargapan Samudr’s bristling white surface with eyes as wide as saucers and his ears straight up at attention.

Gil snorted. “Be drowning in pheromones? Well, no shit. The Buoy’s so thick with the two of you that I’m afraid to look at the place under a blacklight. Not that I can blame you.”

“What do you mean?” Fásach asked in a stiff tone.

“Just that she’s beautiful and you’re smitten. I’ve been there. Still am. Hey, scootch that way for me. It’s time to cut the belly.”

Their conversation turned back to the shark and its meat. Which organs would a yiwren want to eat? How much did they want to take with them once the snow stopped falling? Should Gil just call them in as a rescue so they could get back to the colony faster? No transpos in or out during a storm like this, but the skies were clearing and the winds dying down. It wouldn’t be more than a day or two. Comms might have thawed by now.

And the colony was a good three weeks away if you hiked hard.

Fásach listened more than he spoke, his thoughts fighting for space, making his heart race. But he listened. Harder than he ever had before.

Because Gilladh knew where the colony was.

That it was too far for some hikers.

And their tone had soured when they’d called Roz beautiful.