Chapter 18
- Nora -
The cabin holds a pleasant heat. Starlight spills across the wide viewport in slow silver bands, painting the edges of the big bed and the curve of my bare hip. I lie open for him, needy as ever, yet the edge of desperation has softened into something deeper and more deliberate.
Krix’vorr lowers himself with a grace that belies his size. Eight feet of living armor and restrained strength, yet every movement is measured. His antennae drift over my skin first, feather-light, tasting the salt and warmth of me.
Then his hands follow. The softness of his fingers trace the line of my collarbone, the soft underside of my breast, the yielding give of my waist. He makes a low, continuous sound in his throat, half click, half murmur, as if translating the feel of me into his own language.
“So soft,” he rumbles. “No shell. Only this… warm give.” His mouth follows the path of his hands.
The textured length of his tongue drags slowly across my ribs, dips into the hollow of my navel, then higher again to circle a nipple until it tightens under the careful pressure.
He lingers everywhere the light touches, mapping the differences between us with almost reverent attention.
Where his tongue has passed, he leaves a cool trail with a clear destination, but he meanders going there, not rushing.
When he reaches the dark hair between my thighs he pauses. One antenna brushes the curls; his eyes narrow in quiet wonder. “This covering is strange. Soft as the rest of you, yet different. Hiding, not really protecting.”
He strokes it with the pad of a finger, then lowers his mouth and draws the strands between his lips, tasting, learning. The sensation is so unexpected, so intimate, that a shiver runs the length of me.
He notices. A deeper sound vibrates through his chest. “You like when I touch it.”
He does it again, slower, while his free hand slides along the smooth inner surface of my thigh, spreading me wider.
Every place his mouth and hands travel feels newly discovered. The cool smoothness of his carapace contrasts with the living heat of his tongue. The careful strength in his grip never bruises, only claims. I feel intensely seen, almost unbearably.
My bare human body is turned into something worthy of this slow worship by the most dangerous creature in the known reaches of space, and that's a thrill all its own.
By the time he settles between my legs I am trembling for an entirely different reason.
He shows me himself once more, the intensely exotic and alien shaft that can make me feel so good.
I'm writhing with need, but I appreciate the unstated question. “Yes, yes. Take me!”
He presses forward with exquisite care. The first stretch is a long, deliberate claiming. His alien cock sinks into me inch by textured inch, giving my body time to open around every contour. When he is fully seated he holds still, antennae brushing my temples, green eyes locked on mine.
“I love how you take me,” he murmurs. “How perfectly you shape yourself around me.”
He begins to move. The rhythm is unhurried, almost languid, each withdrawal a slow drag of ridges across sensitive places, each return a deep, complete filling.
I try to hold myself at the edge, to stretch the moments, to savor the impossible reality of being opened and cherished by him. Yet his skill is relentless in its gentleness.
He angles just right. The broadest bulb of his cock presses exactly where the pleasure gathers brightest. What he is, what his kind has done, what the galaxy whispers about creatures like him - it should repulse me.
But here and now, it only heightens every sensation.
Because he has this side to him, too, and only I know.
That he chooses to move inside me with such focused tenderness is its own intoxication.
“Ooh…” My control slips. The climax rises in a long, rolling wave rather than a sudden break, gathering force until it overtakes me completely.
I cry out against the hard plane of his chest, body tightening around him in powerful, rhythmic pulses.
He continues the same measured thrusts through the whole of it, drawing the pleasure out until I am shaking and soft and utterly open beneath him.
Only then does his own release take him—deep, controlled, a series of heavy throbs that fill me while his wings quiver once and settle.
He remains joined to me afterward, forehead resting lightly against mine, antennae stroking the damp strands of my hair as if still marveling at their texture.
Outside the viewport the stars keep their silent watch. Inside, there is only the slow shared breath, the residual heat of his body, and the quiet certainty that I have been thoroughly, lovingly claimed. And I don't know if I can live without this.
Krix'vorr's arm remains draped across my waist while the Beast's pulse moves through the walls around us.
The steady rhythm makes the chamber feel alive in a way I still haven't grown accustomed to.
After everything that's happened today, the battle, the wreckage, Sophia, and the impossible intensity of being with him, my body is finally beginning to relax.
For a while neither of us speaks. I trace one finger across the warm plates of his chest. The movement starts as idle curiosity, but my thoughts keep returning to the wreckage chamber and the burned remains of Sophia's ship.
Every time I start drifting back toward the pleasant haze of the present, her face appears again.
Eventually I lift my head. "If Sophia survived, what happens to her?"
Krix'vorr’s hand moves through my hair once before coming to rest behind my neck. The hesitation catches my attention because certainty usually comes as naturally to him as breathing. "I don't know."
The answer unsettles me more than I'd expected. "You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"
His mandibles tighten before he replies. "The Gzet are difficult to predict. They don't think like my people."
I prop myself up on one elbow and study him. "What does that mean?"
For several moments he appears to be deciding how much to say. Eventually his gaze drifts toward the ceiling. "My people harvest worlds. We take what we need openly. The Gzet collect things."
The choice of words makes my stomach tighten. "What kind of things?"
His eyes return to mine. "Creatures. Species. Curiosities. Living things. Anything they believe has value."
The warmth from a few moments ago begins to fade. "You mean slaves?"
"That’s one word for it. Sentients are a particular favorite of theirs."
I stare at him for several seconds while I think through the implications. Part of me already understands where this conversation is going, but another part keeps hoping there's some explanation that will make it less awful. "What do they do with them?"
Krix'vorr exhales. "They sell them. Trade them. Display them. Alter them."
I don't like any of those words, especially not the last one. "Alter them how?"
He thinks for a moment. "A creature purchased by the Gzet is rarely considered finished. Buyers have preferences. The Gzet make adjustments."
I push myself a little higher. "What sort of adjustments?"
"Whatever increases value at their auctions. Or whatever a prospective buyers might want. Some buyers want servants. Some want laborers. Some want companions. Some want trophies. The Gzet modify bodies and minds to satisfy those demands."
A knot forms in my stomach. "They brainwash people?"
"One of their specialties, as I understand it."
The simplicity of the answer makes it worse. "And if somebody wants something worse than that?"
For the first time during the conversation, Krix'vorr looks genuinely displeased. "Then the Gzet provide something worse. Whatever the customer wants. Whatever will sell."
My thoughts drift back to Sophia. I remember training exercises, arguments with instructors, and the stubborn determination that seemed woven into every part of her personality.
A month ago she was flying a scout vessel away from Earth.
Now she might be trapped somewhere waiting for strangers to decide what she'll become. "We're going after her."
Krix'vorr watches me. There is no surprise in his expression. "We are indeed."
I raise my eyebrows. "You already decided that?"
His hand moves slowly along my arm. "I decided when you identified the wreckage. Well, before that, really."
I study him for several moments. He's completely serious. Somewhere in his mind, the search has already become another objective, another challenge waiting to be solved.
The strange thing is that I believe him. Because every impossible thing that's happened since I met Krix'vorr has ended the same way. He decides to do something, and then he does it.
His arm tightens around my waist and pulls me closer. "We'll look for her, Nora."
The certainty in his voice settles something inside me. Sophia is still missing.
The Gzet are still out there. Nothing about the situation has improved. And still I feel sure that everything will work out.
Krix’vorr gets up. “Put your tape on. We’ll start the search for the other alien.”
I get out of the alien bed and pick up the old tape. Now it’s more like a long strip of plastic, with no stickiness left.
I pick up the roll of tape. “Can you cut some pieces off this?”
Krix’vorr draws his sword, and I pretend to not see the congealed blood of the locust he killed after the battle.
He cuts six inch-long pieces from the tape, and I use them to fasten and secure the non-sticky strip of tape that I wind around myself.
By the end, I look much like before I took it off, but now it only sticks in a half-dozen important places and I’m sure I can get it off on my own.
“If you come across actual fabric, I’d love to get some,” I tell Krix’vorr as I adjust the still ridiculous covering. “It doesn’t need to protect me that much against meteorites and assassins. It just needs to fit me.”
The locust touches my hip with two fingers. “I would prefer it if it did both.”