Page 276 of Gladiators of the Vagabond Boxset

Da’vi

I had Arianna in my arms, my bare cock still nestled between us, her soft breasts pressed against my skin.

I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t minded a single bit; I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be the case with just any female.

I had gotten lucky somehow. Really lucky, since I still had her slick little cunt clasping the tip of my tail tightly in her wet heat.

She’d fallen asleep like that, her breaths softly filling the tent with their tiny sounds.

This was when I had to accept that my life had, once again, irrevocably changed.

I’d seen it coming. I’d felt the irrational urges, the desire for her company.

Avoidance hadn’t worked; I hadn’t really wanted it to work, anyway.

Would Arianna want to stay with me on the Vagabond?

Could I make her happy that way? Only one way to find out, but that could wait until we were back on the ship.

I gave in to my own tiredness, my body lax and sated after what we’d just done together.

Sleep took me for a few hours, until the light of dawn weakly filtered through the fabric of our tent.

Arianna stirred against my side; we’d rolled over in our sleep, my tail dislodged, but my arms had never let her go.

“Hey, Da’vi,” she whispered. “Did you sleep well?” I liked her voice, all soft and husky from sleep, and loved even more the radiant smile she gave me when she turned around to look at me.

Her lips were pinker than usual, still a little bruised from sucking my cock; the sight alone made it thicken eagerly against my belly.

“Perfect,” I said. “You?” I shifted my hand to stroke the pads of my fingers along her cheek and across her soft lips.

When I pressed just a little against her mouth, I hated that it was the metal of my prosthetic that touched her, that I couldn’t feel it with my own skin.

But there was something alluring about seeing her soft flesh contrast with the hard metal, too.

“Yeah, never better,” she responded, but I saw something in her eyes I hadn’t seen before—something I couldn’t decipher.

She sat up and started pulling her jumpsuit together, brushing out her hair with her fingers until she looked almost presentable again.

All right, time to get up, we should get to work anyway.

She and I needed to take the first load of ore up to the Vagabond so I could start fixing the ship.

Dressing, I followed her example, then led the way out of the tent.

The camp was quiet, but I saw immediately that Jakar was lying on a wide branch above us, arms crossed over his chest, while the second pair held on to the tree.

He was alert, his eyes scanning the woods around us and the cliff face.

I knew the tent had built-in dampeners that kept some of the sounds from inside the tent inside.

Still, Jakar would have probably heard us last night.

A look at Arianna told me she was calm and peaceful, not in the least bothered, not even when Jakar called out a greeting and waggled his eyebrows.

She just waved back and then set about searching for breakfast.

In less than thirty minutes, I found myself strapping the now-filled pack to my back, the ore heavily weighing me down.

Arianna was waiting next to Jakar by the woods, her eyes scanning the shade beneath the trees, a tightness in her shoulders that told me she was a little anxious.

“Are you sure you two will be fine making the trip alone?” Eoin asked me, breaking my attention away from my woman.

“Jakar and I can escort you, just to be sure…” His mercury eyes darted to Arianna, telling me that he’d noticed her fear.

“I can handle it,” I assured him. Even if fighting with this pack on would be difficult, I’d just have to shrug out of it if necessary.

I’d rather have Eoin working on getting the second batch; that way, we’d be much faster getting out of here.

If they had to escort us back to the ship, that would cost us almost an entire day.

If we wanted to have a shot at rescuing the other humans, we couldn’t afford to lose a day.

We said our goodbyes, and as I walked with Arianna into the woods, I heard Jakar make contact with the Vagabond, updating them on our situation.

I intended not to rush her, taking our time to make the walk back, since our activities last night might have kept her from getting enough sleep.

She set a brisk pace, however, the gloom of the dark forest not bothering her in the least. I found myself pointing out the little rainbow sightings the same way Jakar had done on the way here, delighting in each radiant smile.

I never lost track of our surroundings, my ears focused on the signs of a predator above us or on the ground.

Like yesterday, it was quiet, and our walk was almost peaceful.

Once we spotted the clearing with the shuttle, both of us broke into a jog, eager to feel the meager pink sunlight of the Zosma Y sun on our faces.

“Ready for the trip back?” I asked her as we climbed aboard. I eagerly stowed the heavy backpack filled with ore. My shoulders ached from carrying all that weight, and if not for the deadened nerves in my hands—covered by the prosthetics—I would have had numb hands too.

“Sure,” she responded, sitting down in one of the seats and carefully strapping herself in.

There was a wistful look on her face as she stared at the viewscreen, which showed the trees lining the clearing.

She’d been awfully quiet all morning; she hadn’t even said much as we ate a quick lunch while we walked.

It was so unlike her that I was starting to get worried.

Was she regretting what we’d done together last night?

Had I been too rough? I knew I could get a little domineering in the bedroom, but I’d always been told by my previous lovers that they liked that.

I ran the shuttle through its preflight checklist quietly, my thoughts churning.

I couldn’t get the words past my mouth to find out what was wrong; each time I tried to speak, all the saliva would disappear.

Fine, I’d call the Vagabond to let them know we were on our way, I could figure this out on the way there, or later…

Though to be honest, it was going to be later.

I was terrible at these kinds of conversations.

Kitan answered cheerfully, letting me know they were ready to receive us, hanging in stationary orbit above us.

I turned around as soon as the call disconnected, irrationally giving in to the urge to check Arianna’s safety harness before I took off.

It was a good excuse to skim my hands over the straps, and her, and measure her response.

When she smiled a sultry little smile at me, something unclenched inside my chest.

Lifting off from the planet, we got a good look at the endless forest that covered it, interspersed with massive, sharp-edged mountain peaks that climbed thousands of meters.

It was no wonder that anything on the ground was covered in shadows; the soggy, mossy earth was perpetually wet since the sun never reached it.

We were just exiting the planet’s atmosphere, the small shuttle still without its gravity generator, when a reading from one of the sensors made me do a double take.

Oh shit, that was bad news. “How the fuck did they find us?” I demanded, staring for a moment at the blip of a ship that had just entered the solar system at its furthest edge.

“Da’vi to Vagabond, are you seeing them?

” I demanded as I opened a com channel to the ship above us.

It was still quite far away, and leaving the atmosphere completely would make us extremely visible to any ship sensor.

Right now, Zoyma’s atmosphere was hiding us.

Making a snap decision, I leveled off the nose of the shuttle and cruised at high altitude around the curve of the planet.

Kitan was again the one to respond. “I see them, looks like our Kertinal pals from last time. I suggest you hide behind that moon; we’ll make them lose interest.” The Sune male was as calm as could be, and I wholeheartedly agreed with his suggestion, it was our only option.

The Vagabond had no FTL drive; we couldn’t outrun them this time, so hiding it was.

“Will do. I’ll have to cut power,” I warned, but Kitan broke the connection without answering.

I urged the small shuttle to greater speed, swinging it out of the atmosphere at the last moment, when we were hidden behind the planet from the approaching vessel.

Our gravity generator kicked in, thumping me back into the seat; I spared a quick look over my shoulder to check that Arianna was fine.

She didn’t say anything until I was flicking the last switch and the shuttle filled with darkness.

I’d turned off everything I could to lower our energy signature, allowing just enough engine power to keep us in place behind the moon, enough to maintain gravity for now, but little else.

In the dark, she said, “So, explain to me why you are being chased. I want to understand.” She didn’t say it out loud, but I could hear it, she felt she had a right to know at this point. She wasn’t wrong.

Unstrapping myself from the pilot chair, I took the two steps needed to get in front of her.

Kneeling at her feet, I gently started undoing her straps, my eyes on her lap as I began to speak.

This wasn’t a pleasant memory for me, but if I wanted her to stay with me and share my life, she needed to understand.