Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
AIRIK
Three days passed. Airik could not be bothered that they squandered their food supplies—only wanting to explore the depths and intricacies of Nora’s body.
He learned that if he licked her left nipple with a twirl, she’d, without fail, lift into his mouth, begging for more.
He learned that if he used the tip of a fang to graze her clit, she’d cry out his name and pull his hair until magnificent little explosions tingled through his body.
And he fucked her. On her back, on her knees, on top of the moraziri oath in the smooth stone shelter floor.
Each oath shattered with hard thrusts into her perfect cunt, drowned out by her moans begging for more.
Nora rode his cock, his face, his hands, and every part of his body he offered like it had been born only for her pleasure.
He fucked her like Ed’un was theirs to repopulate.
She claimed her implant wouldn’t allow a child, but he forced its bounds, filling her with so much seed her thighs, breasts, and lips might as well have been stained in his blue glow.
She would fall asleep on his chest as he rubbed her back and thighs, unwinding all the intensity with which he had taken her.
When he finally managed to sleep himself, it would be with Nora resting her head on his arm, her back to his chest, and his hand cradling a breast. Sometimes during the night, she’d turn, murmuring words he did not know, then press her lips to his heart.
This would be the closest he’d ever come to feeling the divine. His body within Nora’s, itself a wonder of nature that made him question whether perhaps there wasn’t a god who’d made her just for him.
Or, more likely, if he hadn’t been made to suit her. That by being born wild, his design was as intended—to serve Nora.
He delighted, to an unsettling degree, in how she fussed over him—pouting if he didn’t let her clean the cuts on his hand or back after he tended to hers.
It astounded him that she simply wanted him near.
She’d command him with a smile, a word, or merely a glance, and he’d stop whatever he’d been doing and go to her.
She’d hum, combing out Lucky’s fur or checking his leg.
And Airik didn’t know what to do other than remain with her, fighting the impulse to fuck her or to flee from her.
In those moments, he didn’t dare blink too quickly or speak out of turn, believing that if he did, he’d wake from this dream too soon, in a field hospital just outside of the Lemides’ orbit.
Airik was lost in one of those moments, watching her as she rubbed healing gel into Lucky’s leg, when she said, “I thought you said he’d get better soon.”
Airik snorted, passing his fingers through Nora’s hair, preparing it to braid. He cut a deadly look at Lucky, who seemed content to laze on the stairs so that he could continue to bask in Nora’s attentions.
“He can walk,” he said. “Just slow. It will take him longer to be as he was. But he is…okay.”
“Is that right?” She made her voice soft as she chided the manipulative little creature. “Are you just pretending? I saw those vicious teeth of yours. I bet your leg can do the same thing.”
Airik smiled, feeling as though he stood at a cliff’s edge, before a horizon where dreams and nightmares met.
Here lay paradise. With Nora—and if he were honest, Lucky, too.
And above them in the sky and below them in the moraziri oath carved into the ground, a storm churned, culminating into one question: Why had the Veynari still not come?
But they will come. And you will be destroyed as you deserve. Untouched. Untaken. Unconquered. At least your father had the courage to defy the oath in the face of the Veynari itself.
He clenched his jaw, enduring the thoughts as he twisted Nora’s hair into a braid as she continued to tend to Lucky.
She’d be his until they set foot on Vorakon. Then…he didn’t know what. At best, the Veynari would place her in an observatory habitat, with only minimal contact with researchers.
But the thought drilled hard, impossible to ignore, that the Veynari would not find it sufficient to watch Nora. She’d be forced to breed.
Airik’s heart choked, his heart stopping, blood dead weight in his veins.
They’d breed her. Maybe more than once. That was the True Father’s vision—to merge all his progeny into a single being.
The only reason it hadn’t happened yet was that the Algorithm hadn’t issued the command.
The previous mission to Earth, conducted outside the Algorithm’s orders, had ended so poorly that it renewed the Ourex’s faith in the Algorithm’s logic, which drew on divine protocols.
Even so, the Ourex had talked of preparing for humans, knowing the Algorithm would order it soon.
Aelior often complained about it. She had a particular hatred of Earth and the psychotic species that called themselves humans.
Nora would be the final piece, coming into Veynari possession by Airik’s own hand.
I will open the vault in exchange for her. If she’s mine, in my arms, I know I can open it. I will be the one to breed her. I’m still ti’rosi even if I’m wild. I was worthy to be a morazir—I am worthy of her.
He tied off her braid with a strip of cloth, then brought her hair to his cheek, needing the feel of her to calm his fraying nerves.
Swallowing down the dire thoughts, he pulled her hair over her shoulder. The twists were evenly spaced and tight, yet they still let the texture of her hair show. “This is the best braid I’ve made. I deserve a kiss for this.”
She chuckled, running a hand along its length, humming a melody that made his skin tingle with pleasure. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten it this perfect.”
Her lips met his, soft, like snow falling on his skin and melting, as he remembered it from when he was a little boy. He hadn’t seen snow for so long—never on Vorakon long enough.
Leaning far into the kiss, he explored her mouth. His tongue, always searching for her now, licked across hers and along her teeth, learning every bit of her he could reach.
Closer…closer…closer.
Until there is no me or you.
She broke away, breathless, her eyes half-lidded. “I’d say that’s a perfect kiss, too. How are you good at everything?”
He gently pushed her against the railing so he could lie across her lap. He turned toward her belly so he could smell her and not be faced with the moraziri oath. Lucky made an unhappy sound but crawled away so Airik could stretch his legs.
“There is room for you, too,” he said, pulling Lucky’s tail between them.
Nora laughed, tangling her fingers in his hair before smoothing it back from his face. Her muscles relaxed beneath him, and that little hum of hers began again—she enjoyed this. Maybe he’d grow his hair longer for her if she wanted.
For a long while, she did this, the little ovals of her nails against his scalp, sending him into absolute bliss.
The Veynari will not take this from me. I will keep her. I will fix everything.