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Chapter Thirteen

A liyah

Sirius has been so attentive since we arrived at the treehouse, I’ve been treated with all the devotion one would bestow on a visiting chieftain. Now that he’s hurt, I’ve ordered him to stay in our furs and I’m waiting on him, providing for his every need.

It’s a joyful experience. I love cutting him the best morsel of warux and fetching him a gourd full of water. I also like the way his eyes follow my every movement, like my most mundane behaviors fascinate him. When I return to our pallet after being absent for even the briefest moment he pets my head or cups my cheek as if he couldn’t bear to be parted.

I wish we could stay here forever, away from everyone. I love every member of the tribe, but the quiet isolation here is the perfect place to solidify our bond.

We’re sitting in our furs. I’ve just finished braiding his hair even though it didn’t need it. I know he savors this intimate caress, so I do it whenever I can.

“I want to know you better, Wanderer. I want to know about your Momma and Poppa and your home planet. I want to know how it came to be that you appeared here. I want to understand everything about you.”

His face falls and he shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have mated you without telling you. You wouldn’t have mated me if…”

“You did something so terrible you think I wouldn’t have mated you if I knew?” I scoff, “What could it possibly be?” There’s nothing he could tell me that would destroy my love for him.

I sit still as a stone as he tells me about being a geneslave on a genefarm. The concepts are all so foreign to me, but I try to understand.

“So they made babies by choosing poppas and mommas with certain qualities like Morrock does with the ernock birds he raises. And they kept you in a cage?”

He nods, then tells me stories of all the ways they hurt and teased him. He looks so sad and defeated, as if he thinks this will take away my love for him. This tugs at my heart so hard it hurts. It makes me love him more.

“Are you waiting for me to hate you for this, Sirius?”

He freezes like a statue for long moments, then he gives one quick nod of his head.

How do I reassure him? I’m certain words won’t help.

Smiling a tight, little smile I rise and rummage through a big basket at the back of the space. When I stay in Old Man alone I always pick the most beautiful rock I’ve seen during the day and carry it up with me at night. I’ve hidden my stash of rocks here for years. No one ever seems to delve to the depths of this particular basket because the rocks I’ve collected for many winters are all still here.

I find the rock I’m looking for just by feel. It’s an unusual combination of hard, dark rock that is smooth and shines iridescent colors of purple, blue and green in bright light. It’s a prized possession.

After pulling it out, I take it to the fire and hold it up to the flames so the shimmering colors are on full display.

“Do you like my rock?” I ask innocently.

“It’s a beauty,” he says, but I can tell he wonders how this could be my response to his belief that I hate him.

“Do you see the colors? The deep purple? The way it shines and changes with the slightest movement of my hand? It’s my favorite. But look,” I change my voice to a deep imitation of a male, “You’re a bad rock.”

I take the stick I use to turn the logs and smack the rock with it over and over and over until the stick breaks. Then I hit it some more with the broken piece remaining in my hand.

“You’re a terrible rock,” I repeat in my meanest voice. Then I hurl the rock into the fire and thump it with a thick log. I cover my little rock with ash and bash it over and over, all the while my voice rises louder and louder until I’m screaming at the top of my lungs calling it every awful thing my brain can make up.

I’ve been doing this so long and so vehemently my muscles are quivering and my throat hurts. I’m crying, as all the anger at the savages who did these things to him rises up and out of me through my body and my mouth.

And then I stop. I scoot the rock to the edge of the fire and flip it out onto the rock slab nearby. I pour a dipper of water on it.

Making certain it’s cool enough to touch, I pick it up and turn it this way and that in the firelight. “It’s still beautiful, Sirius. It did nothing wrong. It’s still… it’s still my favorite rock.”

Does he understand? I can’t tell him any more clearly.

Sirius

I lower my face and cradle it in my hand, covering my eyes, which are leaking. I have houses, and blocks, and entire cities of constructs inside my mind. I’ve built an entire system of looking at myself and the universe. Every new piece of information that comes my way gets shelved in its proper place according to those constructs.

Even the love of this fine woman was shelved in the “improbable fantasy” section. The genuine affection of her Poppa? I labeled that “probably a trick.” The acceptance of all the fine people of the tribe? Categorized under the “they want something from me” section.

Aliyah and her dracking rock? Her silly story and bashing that stone? The entire foundation of my world just fell apart and is sitting in rubble at my feet.

How can a person survive when everything they ever thought they knew, everything they believed, has just been reduced to debris?

The sweet female who shares this space with me sits gently on a stump near the fire and gives me complete silence. Good. I’ll need it to reconstruct every concept and every opinion I’ve ever had.

I knew this. I knew it on many levels. I even shouted it out loud the other day. But to feel it? Really feel it? It took my Aliyah to decimate the last walls of the putrid city the Feds built inside me.

And it all comes down to three simple, but not so simple words—I’m not broken.

A liyah sat silently with me for hoaras , leaving me time with my thoughts. She banks the fire and slides under the furs to go to sleep, but doesn’t snuggle next to me like she usually does.

She’s still giving me my space, but I don’t want it anymore. I slide behind her and sling my arm over her waist. I’m so close to her there’s not a molecule of air between us.

“You’re the best mate a male could have,” I whisper into her ear. “It will take time, but I promise I’ll work every day to feel like I deserve you.”

She turns to face me and traces my eyebrows, touches my nose, pets my velvet soft ears, not avoiding the notch where I was hurt—another imperfection.

“I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, Wanderer. You’re magnificent.”

“I’m working on it.”

She slides her fingers over the number on my forehead. “You never told me about this.”

I tamp down the immediate reflex this evokes which is to feel dirty and broken. “It’s a number. Nine hundred and seventy-two. My slave number.”

“There were almost a thousand of you?”

“The highest number I ever saw was two thousand two hundred and twelve. There might be more.”

Every muscle in her body tightens. If her eyes were lasers they’d shoot flames.

“ Drackers! Cheedung, kreffing drackers !” She takes a deep breath, then resumes cursing, a long torrent of words I didn’t think she knew. “I want to kill them, Sirius. I want to kreffing kill them slowly. I’m so mad I can’t see straight.” She huffs out a long stream of breath.

“Me too, but the anger does no good.” I nip her shoulder. “I know ways to get your mind off this.” I want to own her mouth with mine, penetrate her in one of the only ways I can. Possess her. But I wait. Perhaps she needs to stay in her anger.

It takes her a moment, then she gives me the slyest, sexiest smile while never taking her eyes from mine.

“What ways Wanderer?”

“There are many ways.” I rub her bottom lip with the pad of my thumb, waiting for her to open to me, then push my thumb in.

“We could run a race.” I circle the tip of her tongue until her eyelids flutter closed.

“We could sing a song.” I dip my head toward hers so slowly she impatiently reaches her arms around my neck and forces my lips to hers.

“You could teach me one of your tribal dances.” I pull her on top of me so she’s straddling my belly.

“I have a better idea,” she says as she pulls my hands up and presses my palms against her nipples. They’re hard as pebbles, and the way she’s writhing against me, they’re aching for my touch.

I lick my palms and circle them on her lush, pert peaks. She presses against them, her hips dancing in rhythm with my hands.

She’s so beautiful, her head thrown back in pleasure, her breasts upthrust against my touch. It’s dim in here, the fire mostly banked. Even so, I can see her feline smile.

She slides closer, her slippery core already dripping for me, perfuming the space.

“Make me feel good, Wanderer,” her voice sounds deep and breathy.

I pull her up and seat her on my face. She sucks in a surprised breath and her hands reach the hewn-wood wall behind my head to support her.

I nip up her inner thigh, pointing her attention like an arrow to the spot already aching for me. She’s wriggling, whimpering, moving to get my mouth where she wants it. I love teasing her like this—and I love fulfilling her pleasure, too.

I suck her bud into my mouth and moan. My enjoyment and the vibration ramp up her response. I flick and suck the tender nub until her noises escape deep from her throat. When she’s almost there, I slip a finger inside her—I found this intensifies her pleasure.

She’s uninhibited in her release as she moans, then screams, her muscles clenching in bliss. I ride out the crest of her orgasm until she’s limp and panting, then I start again. I move the heel of my hand to her pleasure spot and slide two fingers into her channel. The slightest circular pressure I apply tips her over the edge and she hurtles into another screaming release.

When I attempt a third, she mumbles “no,” and slides next to me under the furs.

“No more?”

“Give me time to take a breath, love. One moment to recover and then I’ll be ready for the next match.”

She nips my pectoral near the scar from the spear. It’s already healed.

I’m stroking her back from waist to neck, and kissing the top of her head when a feeling I’ve never felt before slams through me with the force of a laser cannon. My whole body is on fire from the inside out. It’s not pain and it’s not pleasure. I can only describe it as strong and compelling. No, a better word is need.

Raw, forceful, demanding need. Eager thoughts assail my brain. Flashes of sex, intercourse, pounding, taking, seizing, and owning invade my brain and capture my full attention.

I’m irritable and want to scream, to smash things, to grab, to destroy. I know without looking that my cock is hard for the first time in my life. It’s like pounding, throbbing, insistent rock.

I don’t want to call Aliyah’s attention to it. I need to understand what’s happening before I alert her. But I’m breathing like I ran a long footrace—panting. I remove my hands from her and fist them at my sides.

My mind is trying to make sense of this, but the more I think, the less my thoughts compute.

My cock throbs now, insistently making itself the center of attention. I can’t put it off another moment. I slide my hand down and encircle it. The mere act of touching myself causes me to hiss a harsh breath.

I slide my fist up, and merely moving to the head of my shaft causes my whole body to tremor.

“Sirius?” Aliyah leans up on an elbow, her uptilted, blue eyes wide in question.

I don’t trust myself to speak. It’s as if I’ve been dropped into a new body and have to figure out how everything works. I capture her hand and press it around my erect penis.

Just her gentle, questing touch causes me to spurt my release. The spasms tear me apart, wrenching deep, surprised grunts from the back of my throat. The waves of pleasure rolling through me are so all-consuming, so forceful, so rapturous I forget who I am for a moment.

I look down to see my large hand on Aliyah’s small one—both surround my cock. As we watch, it takes on a life of its own and bounds back to life—fully engorged in less than a minima .

I’m the one who says, “I don’t understand.”

Aliyah avoids words altogether. She bends to replace both our hands with her mouth.

Licking the tip, she looks up at me and moans, “You taste so good,” as her eyes almost roll back in her head.

Her swirling my tip with her tongue jolts me with so much pleasure I’m sure I would have spurted into her mouth if I hadn’t just spent myself.

Keeping her fist firmly at my root, she sucks the head of my cock into her mouth. Circling and suction along with her moans of appreciation remove all self-control, and the twitch in my balls signals impending release.

I try to pull her off of me, but she resists. I jet into her and am startled at her appreciative moan as she swallows my essence. This orgasm was not only physically intense, but the spiritual connection, the giving and receiving of the sexual act itself is pure bliss.

I pull her up and kiss her long and deep. To taste myself on her lips makes my body hum with pleasure.

I lay back onto the fur pillows, trying to suss out what just happened to me, but Aliyah isn’t done.

Leaning down, she uses the flat of her tongue to lick me from base to head, then swirls the tip. A few more moments of this and I’m hard again.

“ Anck me, Sirius.” She lies on her back and tugs me toward her. Her legs are wide and welcoming. Tapping my forehead with one finger, she says, “Turn this off. Stop questioning what and why and how. It’s another miracle, my love. I want you to fill me.”

She gives me a sweetly sexy smile and pulls my shoulders toward her. Between her provocative request and my cock’s insistent, lusty drumbeat, I don’t resist.

I don’t know what miracle has happened to override my genetic programming, and I can’t expect it to ever happen again. This may be the only time in our lives I can fulfill my mate in this way.

I’m going to make it memorable.

I straddle her, my gaze bouncing from her lovely face to the improbably rigid cock pointing at her, pulsing with every beat of my heart. She grasps it and strokes slowly, a lazy smile on her lips.

I lean to kiss her, plucking her nipples while my tongue penetrates her mouth. She shakes her head and pulls my hands away.

“I don’t need to be primed, Sirius. I require no additional preparation. Anck me. Fill me up. I want to be well and truly mated.”

My cock cannot ignore that invitation. I nestle him next to her dripping core and press forward. Sliding my hands under the globes of her ass, I position her to the best angle and gently thrust into her.

As lust-filled as I am, I keep my gaze trained on her lovely features. At the first sign of pain, I’ll stop. But there is no expression of pain. Her beautiful face shows… bliss. She’s chanting my name with every thrust, her head pressed back against the furs.

She’s panting in pleasure, pressing me into her harder with the heels of her hands. I close my eyes and lose focus on my sweet mate. The physical rapture is too consuming. I never had the audacity to even dream of this before, and yet here I am fully seated in the female I love.

My body is swimming in wave after wave of pleasure. I’m sheathed in the warm, wet, welcoming channel of my love. It’s lust, and pleasure, and excitement. I feel like I conquered an army and like I’ve come home for the first time.

I adjust the angle of penetration and hear the immediate catch in her breathing. Her hips roll to meet my thrusts, her moans intensify, and she comes. Her inner walls clench around my rigid cock, then my balls twinge, and I jet into the depths of my female. Spasms of release create a rolling tide of pleasure from my toes to the top of my head. I bark out a noise of fulfillment loud enough to cause every bird in the forest to squawk in disapproval.

I don’t know how, but I’m laughing and orgasming at the same time. It’s joy and physical bliss and heartfelt love all rolled into one.

I bask in euphoria for long moments before I spiral back to the present and gaze into Aliyah’s bright blue eyes.

Aliyah

Beautiful Sirius pants by my side, then leans on his hip and stares at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” I lazily shake my head. When his eyes widen in dismay, I laugh and add, “My throat hurts from my screams of pleasure.” I smile into his interesting eyes.

“Good information.” He nods solemnly. “I’ll never do that again.”

I punch his shoulder, then snuggle closer.

“That was an interesting surprise.” I pet the short, soft fur on his back.

He nods. “I think I know what happened.”

I lift an eyebrow in question.

“The Feds implanted a tracking device under the skin near my shoulder blade. Remember I showed you?”

I nod.

“Born cut it out on our trip to retrieve the firesticks. Before he destroyed them, he showed me not one but two tiny capsules. I assumed their tool accidentally deposited two of the devices and didn’t give it much thought.

“But now I’m wondering if the second capsule was something else entirely. I wonder if it contained a long-lasting slow-release testosterone suppressor that was inserted annums ago.”

I shrug, having no idea what he’s saying.

“A chemical designed to drip into my system over time to kill my sex drive. The drackers like to implant things back there. You can’t see it. Even if you knew it was there, you couldn’t dig it out yourself.

“Perfect. Diabolical. Population control. Why have slaves who get distracted by their biology? Just strip away every single iota of joy they could possibly possess. Not even the brief pleasure of stroking yourself in your lonely cell. No. We were allowed nothing.”

Sirius

I can’t look at her right now. There’s so much hate in my soul I’m certain it must show on my features. I don’t want her to see me like this. I want to kill every single one of them.

They bred a killer, but nothing they did could make me want to kill. Not the vids of the atrocities committed by their “enemies” that they ran on a continuous loop in our barracks—I was savvy enough to know all of that could be faked. Not the rewards they gave me for doing their bidding. Not the punishments they meted out if I refused their commands.

But right now? Right this minima I could kill anyone wearing a red-and-black Federation uniform. I could lay waste to the planet Malego until it was smoking in ruins. Taking away the one pleasure our bodies provide so they could exert better control over us—I’d strangle them all if I could.

Aliyah keeps petting my back slowly, casually, even though she knows I’m so mad I could burst into flames. I found the perfect mate. She always supports me, loves me beyond measure, and knows when to give me a moment alone with my thoughts.