Page 12

Razili giggled as Irul shoved into the shower with her, ruffling her feathers as the ions scrubbed them clean. She would give her right arm for a proper bath, in a massive tub filled with hot water, but this would do for now.

Her mood sobered. If one of the samples she’d collected didn’t prove fruitful, the Scozid would win the war. The threat of decimating all life on a planet was too great. The Alliance would have to bow.

She stepped out of the small enclosure and into a wall of warm skin. Warm, naked skin. She looked into Calyx’s heated eyes with a soft, “Oh.”

“This time, it’s me who needs distraction.”

She smiled and ran a finger down the center of his chest, following one of the silver lines that ran across his skin. “Am I just a distraction?”

“No.” He growled and scooped her into his arms. His lips met hers in a fiery kiss that made her instantly wet.

She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

He set her on the bunk and then broke away long enough to rumble, “You are my rhun. ” Then his mouth returned to her skin, licking and sucking down her neck and across her chest. He pulled one nipple into his mouth while his fingers plucked the other and she moaned at the pleasure spiking through her veins.

He nipped at the side of her breast as his fingers coasted over her stomach and slid into her folds. He groaned against her skin. “You are so wet for me, Razili. You set fire to my blood.”

He surged up and grabbed her hand, wrapping it around his cock. “Feel how hard you make me? I can barely think. All my focus is on you, and making you feel the same amount of pleasure you give me.”

She squeezed and he moaned, his eyes closed and his teeth gritted. “Make me feel it. Show me.”

Her breath stuck in her throat as he turned her onto her stomach, a hand under her belly lifting her hips. He leaned over her, surrounding her, dominating her, but she didn’t feel caged. She felt protected. Desired.

She felt the blunt head of his cock at her entrance and stiffened.

“Breathe, Razili.”

She did as she was told and willed her lungs to fill slow and smooth.

As she exhaled, he pushed inside in the same slow, smooth manner.

She reveled in the feeling of fullness, her pussy stretching to accommodate him.

The first zings of an orgasm shot across her belly.

She let her forehead fall to the mattress and he shoved impossibly deeper.

“Open your eyes. Look how well you take me.”

She looked and saw his hard length pull from her and slowly return.

It was coated in her juices and with every thrust, more ran down the inside of her thighs.

She watched as his finger trailed up her leg, not to clean her or stop it from hitting the sheet, but to arrive unerringly at her clit and press hard.

She screamed and shattered. Her vision dimmed at the edges, her muscles locked, her pussy spasmed through her release. She sagged as she returned to earth. Then startled as he moved again.

While his cock speared into her, pounding her into the bunk with each thrust, his fingers worked wicked magic on her sensitive bundle of nerves. She lost count of how many times she came. Every time he slowed, it was only to let her recover before he started again.

When he finally came, her muscles were spent.

Her clit throbbed from overuse and she knew she’d be sore.

But there was a grin on her face she couldn’t shake.

He had certainly made her feel. She knew, without a doubt, that he loved her.

He would stand beside her, support her, and protect her for the rest of his life.

Was that what love was? Support and protection and sex? She was out of her depth. She’d never had a serious relationship.

She cared for him, but was that the extent of the feeling she wanted for herself? Was she just a cold and calculating scientist who couldn’t feel a fairytale depth of love?

She shook her head and mentally chided herself. There were bigger problems than her love life. And she could do far worse than Calyx.

Alarms blared throughout the cabin and they both leaped from the bunk, pulling on whatever clothes they found nearby. Calyx made it to the controls first.

“What is it?”

“Scozid.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Strap in. They’ve found us.”

“How?”

“I suspect our pursuers called for those ahead of us to intercept.”

“So they’re between us and Alliance space?”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to be okay?”

He spared her a glance. “We’ll be fine, but you need to strap in and hold on to Irul.” He reassured her, even as his eyes told her they were in trouble.

She strapped in and grabbed Irul.

Calyx set all his nanites on the problem of getting them to Denchui space safely—or barring that, in as much of one piece as possible. The only viable plan wasn’t ideal by any means, but the Scozid wouldn’t expect it and that gave them an advantage.

His fighter was smaller and more nimble than even the smallest craft in the Scozid fleet.

He also had the cloaking technology, but that would need to be saved as a last resort.

If they engaged the cloak while in eyesight of the Scozid, they would blanket the area with fire in the hope they would hit them.

They were still too far from the border for any help to arrive in time, but he sent a distress message anyway. If they didn’t make it back…

No. He shut down that line of thinking. They would make it back. They had to.

He directed every bit of energy he could spare to the shields. They weren’t much, but they would help. His ship’s design prioritized offense and lacked robust defensive capabilities. But they would need all the advantages they could muster.

The enemy ships came into view on the forward screen and he quickly assessed what they were up against. Half a dozen light fighters and a mid-size destroyer. The destroyer was the largest problem. The six fighters were easily within his capabilities, but his fighter couldn’t disable a destroyer.

He would need to keep it distracted.

He fired two long-range missiles targeting the outermost fighters. As soon as they hit, he dove beneath the others.

The destroyer couldn’t follow, but it rolled to train its guns on them. The remaining fighters engaged.

Calyx piloted their ship between and around the fighters to bring them closer. The destroyer wouldn’t fire while its own were vulnerable. Their arrogance that they could overpower any combatant would work in his and Razili’s favor.

The ship shuddered as one of their bolts hit its mark.

He gritted his teeth. He needed them closer, but another hit like that one would take out the shields.

The tighter they were in a radius surrounding his fighter, the better.

His return fire was sloppy. He didn’t want to actually incapacitate any more of the vessels—he needed them as cover.

Another hit shuddered the fighter and Calyx knew they were out of time. He could see the Scozid pilots, and had to hope it was close enough.

He engaged the cloak, then pointed the craft upward and threaded his ship through the others and toward the destroyer. Tucked on top of the larger ship, he watched the Scozid fire in all directions in confusion. Even the destroyer let loose a few bolts.

With seconds left before their cloak ran out, he pushed his ship as hard as he dared in a straight line away toward the border.

If his calculations were correct, he’d managed to maneuver them closer during the fight, and the Scozid themselves would have taken them closer still while searching for them.

If the stars were with them, they were close enough to the border beacons.

He didn’t dare look at Razili. All his focus needed to be on getting them to, and across, those beacons.

The beacons flashed red as they scanned for authorization and signaled their arrival in Denchui space. Calyx eased his grip on the controls.

He expected the Scozid to break off now that their prey made it to safety. Instead, they followed them across.

The beacon guns fired behind them, taking out all four of the smaller fighters. Calyx didn’t ease the engines. He couldn’t outrun the destroyer’s large guns, but he could get far enough away to make them a hard target.

“Are you in need of assistance?”

The modulated tones of a Trader vessel rang through the cabin. Calyx grinned. “Yes. Assistance will be rewarded.”

He held his breath but a specific credit amount didn’t come. He’d expected it to be an outrageous sum, given they were in a vulnerable position. Instead, the lumbering vessel appeared on their port side in the telltale flashes of blue lightning that hallmarked the end of a jump.

Several streaks of red curved to the Scozid ship, setting off a powerful explosion when they met.

Calyx opened a video channel to Trade. “I am in your debt.”

The forward screen crackled and an Inqruil sporting a gentle smile stared back at him. “We are trade in service to Vaphrir. There is no debt.” The thin teal alien bowed its head. “Fair skies, Trelxak.”

“Distant stars, Trade.”

Only then did he look at Razili. Razili pressed her head into the back of the seat, her eyes closed. She wrapped her arms around Irul in a grip he imagined wasn’t very comfortable for the creature.

He released his restraints and kneeled before her. She jumped when he placed a hand on her knee. “Are you okay?”

Her shoulders raised and fell with a deep breath. “Yes. I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? We just went straight into a flock of Scozid ships, with weapons trained on us, got hit twice, were close enough to a massive Scozid warship to see the rivets on the outside—”

He thought it wise not to point out Scozid ships didn’t have rivets on the outside.

“—raced across the border into Alliance space and right when I relaxed I realized they followed us across , and then another ship appeared from nowhere and blew them out of the sky.”

She sucked a breath through her teeth. “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

Adrenaline threatened to send her into a full-blown panic. She tried to slow her breathing, but couldn’t manage it. Calyx pulled at her hands tightly clenched around Irul’s breastbone until he successfully separated them enough for the beast to escape.

He filled the now empty space with his torso, which she clung to just as tightly.

“I’m a scientist! Not a warrior!”

She shook as he chuckled.

“Says the woman who took out a dozen Scozid single-handedly.”

She could feel the post adrenaline crash coming. She sniffed. “You killed one of them.”

“Eleven or twelve. It was still impressive.”

She felt anger returning. “I was angry.”

“Hold on to that feeling. Use it. Expand your anger until fear has no room.”

Razili pulled back and looked into Calyx’s eyes. “Is that what you do? How you stay so calm?”

He shook his head. “No. Trelxak have a cheat code. Our nanites redirect our adrenaline so we can use it.” His finger brushed down her cheek.

“Make no mistake, Razili, I was afraid. Not for myself, but for you. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, and when circumstances have the outcome beyond my control, I am afraid every second.”

She cradled his face in her hands and kissed his lips lightly. “Let’s not have another circumstance like that, okay?”

He turned his head and kissed her palm. “I wasn’t the one who got us into that situation. I should be asking you not to steal my ship again.”

She shoved his chest and he fell back on his ass, laughing. She wanted to stalk away in a fine huff, but the ship just wasn’t big enough. He caught her and spun her in his arms, kissing her with all the emotion she felt after their close call.

His tongue demanded entry and she opened for him, greedy for the feel of him. She wanted to wallow in his touch. Was it rhun or something deeper driving this all-consuming need? She didn’t care. She just wanted to give in.

“We have twenty minutes before we reach Corix 23’s atmosphere.”

She nipped at his bottom lip. “Plenty of time.”

“There is no amount of time with you I’d classify as ‘plenty’.” He chuckled. “But I’ll make do.”

He didn’t waste time on soft preamble. They were naked in seconds, and he had her splayed in front of him on the bunk.

“Gorgeous. Do you know how perfect you are?”

She wasn’t, but she squelched the inner voice that cataloged her flaws as he stared down at her in awe. When he looked at her like that, she believed him.

He dropped to his knees and her head fell back when his nose dragged through her folds, opening the way for his tongue that followed. He circled her clit, and she whimpered, wanting more, needing more.

She felt his teeth scrape across her nerves before his lips closed around her, and he sucked.

She nearly came off the bunk. The orgasm was swift and powerful. Her vision blacked behind her eyelids and all her muscles locked in place. It seemed to go on forever before she drifted back to earth. Calyx smiled at her from between her legs.

“My turn.”

She sat up. “What an excellent idea.”

She grabbed his hips and jerked him around, pushing until he lay on his back. His cock jutted from his stomach, long and thick. She licked her lips.

His expression was one of confusion until she leaned in and licked him from root to tip.

“Fuck, Razili.”

She smiled. “I intend to, but first…” she wrapped her lips around him, sinking down as far as she could.

She wrapped her fist around the rest of him and her fingers and mouth worked in tandem.

She slid up, swirling her tongue as she went, and then sucked him back in.

She was rewarded with more cussing and moans before he sat up, growling at her pout.

“Maybe one day I’ll be content spilling into your pretty mouth, but today is not that day.” He pulled her into his lap, lifted her and speared her on his dick in one smooth motion that left her breathless.

She’d never been on top before, but always wanted to try.

She didn’t waste the opportunity. She bounced on his lap until she found a rhythm.

Leaned forward and back until she found the angle where he hit all the right places.

And just when she thought it couldn’t feel better, he reached between them and pressed on her clit.

She threw her head back in ecstasy. The tip of her braid tickled her ass as she rode wave after wave of pleasure. Her walls gripped him tight, and she was rewarded when his cock grew thicker and his orgasm rocked through her.

She sank against his chest, her arms wrapped around his neck and their breathing slowed.

He laid them down on the bunk. “Rest now. I’ll pilot us in.”

He drew the blanket up to her shoulders and whispered in her ear, “I love you, Razili.”

She pretended to be asleep, like the coward she was.