Chapter 10 Scythro
Sweet Goddess, this storm is thick.
If I had any sense at all, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be caught in an ash cloud like this one, but I couldn’t get those footprints out of my mind, and I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t find out who made them.
At least I had the foresight to borrow some extra items from the caravanners before I left them for the screechers. I have Qelth’s heavy cloak to protect my body from the wind and grit, a scarf for my face, goggles for my eyes. My long Hassaith ears are taking a beating, but I’ll survive.
Goddess knows, I’ve survived worse.
The real problem is with the tracks. Or rather, the lack thereof. The wind has long since erased them, and now I’m hunting blind. The swirling clouds of ash have got my visibility down to a tail’s length in all directions. All I can do now is keep going straight and hope the storm breaks soon.
I smile beneath my scarf. Look at me, trudging through a damned ash storm in search of some creature I’ve never even seen before. And all because of some footprints in the dust.
I must be losing it. Ul has finally broken me.
They say it happens to everyone sooner or later.
The Empire sends its toughest criminals here, and one-by-one the planet grinds them all down.
If it’s not the ore pits that do it, then it’s the blinding monotony of the plains.
Or else you smoke so much dreamweed you go to sleep and never really wake up again…
I freeze.
There’s something up ahead. Something big. Even with my nighteyes, I can barely see it through all this damned ash. The tinted lenses of my goggles don’t help either.
I lift my ears and listen carefully. I can hear something too. A sound that is not very big at all. A soft whimpering, barely audible beneath the loud rush of the wind.
Could it be…?
Just to be safe, I draw my dagger—the one Qelth so generously bequeathed me—and I advance toward the large, dark shape ahead.
Longstrider. It’s the hollowed-out shell of a dead longstrider. A fine shelter for a storm such as this. It would seem my mystery creature is a resourceful little fellow—assuming he’s the one producing those plaintive tones.
I can’t imagine who else it could be. I’ve never heard sounds quite like this in all my life. My member starts to swell inside my pants.
Down boy. We haven’t even gotten a look at him yet.
With my dagger in hand, I crouch beside the neck-hole of the carapace and listen. The sounds are definitely coming from within. Such beautiful, enticing sounds.
It occurs to me that this could be bait. Images flash across my mind’s eye. I see myself halfway through the opening getting bludgeoned over the head and robbed of all my ore.
I’ll have to be quick about it—quick and careful.
Clenching the naked dagger between my teeth, I slip inside as swiftly and silently as I can manage. The wind drowns out much of the sound. The creature’s cries cover the rest. Once I’m through, I remove my goggles and wait for my eyes to adjust to the new, deeper darkness within.
It does not take long.
The first things I see are the feet, small and delicate with five perfect little toes.
Oh yes, those are the feet I’ve been searching for.
And the legs to which they are attached are better still.
Plump, smooth, and wide open. But it’s the thing between them that really gets my attention, and a single thought sets my heart racing.
Female.
This creature is a female.
My cock goes fully hard inside my pants, aching as it strains against the confining leather. My tip leaks a substantial quantity of preseed fluid. My sacs feel like they will explode.
Great Goddess, I haven’t seen a female in ages. Not since before I was condemned. Females aren’t allowed here on Ul. They aren’t even allowed to work on the guardships orbiting the planet. The reason for that is simple enough. Population control. The Emperor doesn’t want the inmates breeding.
Once the initial shock wears off, I suddenly remember what a precarious situation I am in. I dart my eyes around the space, searching for any signs of danger.
I find none.
There is a figure lying off to one side of the shelter—an Ysbarrian, if I had to guess—but he won’t be giving me any trouble. He’s obviously been dead for a long, long time.
A second inert figure is propped against the wall beside the alien female. It almost looks as if it could be a neonate of her species, except it has wings, and part of its face has been torn away, revealing the machinery beneath. An automaton of some sort. Offline, from the looks of it.
My, what curious company this little female keeps.
I return my gaze to her body and that beautiful little cleft between her thighs. She is rubbing it frantically with her fingers, and wetness is seeping from between the pink folds, trickling down her flesh to moisten the ashes below. Her whimpers grow louder, more desperate.
I quietly remove my cloak and scarf.
Then I creep closer.
My gaze travels up the female’s body—a soft, curvaceous body, built for large, strong hands like mine.
Her chest is garbed in a flimsy-looking piece of material that was once white, but has since been soiled by the ashes of Ul.
I find myself yearning to see the anatomy beneath, and as if reading my thoughts, the female shows it to me.
She pauses her rubbing just long enough to pull the top off over her head.
Then she goes back to pleasuring herself with one hand while she massages her chest with the other.
The female appears to be mammalian. Her milk glands are large and round and tipped with the prettiest pink nipples I have ever seen. My fingers tingle with the desire to touch her. My lips burn.
Sweet Goddess, she looks so soft, so smooth.
I reach for her, and my hand hovers for a moment just above her bare breast. I pull it back at the last instant.
The female gasps. For a moment I fear she has sensed my presence, but a quick glance at her face reveals otherwise.
She is wearing what appears to be some sort of breathing apparatus, and behind the transparent bubble of the face mask, her eyes are closed.
A riot of pale hair surrounds her head, a lovely shade of golden.
I move in closer, bringing my face right up to her mask. My breath fogs the glass.
Well isn’t she just the sexiest little thing I’ve ever seen? Perhaps that’s just my female-starved brain talking. Most likely. Then again, perhaps not. Her features are so soft, so impossibly delicate. And the way her lips tremble when she parts them—sweet Goddess.
And yet…
Something is wrong.
Though the woman is obviously pleasuring herself, her expression is one of pain. Her brow is knitted in frustration, and water is leaking from beneath the fringed lids of her eyes. For most species with tear ducts, weeping is a sign of distress.
I move around in front of her and lean in close, positioning my face between her open legs and holding my breath, lest she should feel my exhalations on her naked skin.
I examine her anatomy more closely. There is fur around it, the same golden shade as the mane on her head.
Two plump outer lips frame darker inner petals, and nestled between those wet folds I can just make out the entrance of her mating orifice.
Yet that hole is not the focus of the female’s efforts.
Instead, her fingers are rubbing a little swollen bump at the top of her cleft.
For a moment I think she has been bitten by a bug or some other type of small vermin, but the nub is too perfectly centered to be an anomaly.
It is part of her natural anatomy, a pleasure center of some kind.
Fascinating.
Before I pull away, I allow myself one brief inhalation of the little female’s scent. That is a mistake. The problem is not that she smells bad. Quite the opposite, in fact. As soon as her savory aroma enters my body, it is all I can do to keep from coming inside my pants.
I lean back, heart pounding, struggling not to groan. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to tear my pants off and rut this alien female into oblivion.
But I’m better than that.
I’m a professional.
Here on Ul, I am a thief, stealing love and ore where I can find it, but once upon a time, I was more than that.
Much more. There were those who looked down on me, of course.
They called me a slattern, a harlot, a whore.
I preferred to think of myself in more therapeutic terms: a provider of pleasure in an often painful universe.
I served both males and females alike, as well as all the sexes beyond and between.
I turned none away. Perhaps I should have.
Maybe then I wouldn’t be imprisoned here on Ul.
I move around beside the weeping female once more and study her agonized expression. I long to touch her so badly, to take away her pain. I want to explore every detail of her exquisite little body. I want to discover what makes her feel good.
Her eyes open wet beneath her mask, but she does not seem to see me.
If she does, she shows no reaction to my presence.
When she speaks, her voice is soft and strange.
Her language is one I do not understand, but something in her face mask translates it for me, rendering it into flawless if somewhat flat Znthian, the common language spoken throughout all of the Empire.
“Please,” she begs. “Help me…”
For a moment, I think she’s actually talking to me, and my heart almost leaps right out of my chest. But she isn’t looking at me, she’s looking through me. Her pretty eyes are blind in the darkness that encloaks us.
“I need to come,” she whispers. “I need it so bad. Please…”
Whoever she’s talking to, they aren’t here now. But I am. I can help her. It will be delicate work. I will have to take things slow, lest I startle her.
I will have to be gentle.
I begin, as usual, by purring—so softly at first, she probably can’t even hear it, then with gradually more volume, until my voice is just barely audible beneath the wind howling outside. The female closes her eyes again. The corners of her mouth turn up in the faintest of smiles.
“Yes,” she murmurs. “Yes…”
As I continue purring, I move my hand down between her open legs, not touching her at first, just letting my fingertips soak up the heat emanating from her exposed center.
Then, with endless subtlety and infinite care, I sneak one of my fingers in amongst her own.