She blinked. Smiled and touched his jaw. “You have nice lips.”
Venomous laughed then soaped up a cloth to scrub her down as she lacked the energy to do for herself.
He washed her hair, her graceful back and shapely legs.
Skimming his lips over the outer curve of her hip and thigh, he was gratified to see, though bruised, nothing was punctured or broken.
As he washed her face, she tipped her face up.
Venomous covered her mouth with his then submerged himself in the firm glide of her tongue.
The moist rush of her breath, and her sweet sigh of pleasure blended with his groan in an abandoned melody of carnal wanting.
Heat pooling in his gut, he held the back of her head and deepened the contact, melded them, her fresh taste, musky scent and cool skin a riot to his senses.
The smooth texture of her tongue was a delight as it caressed his, her leisured sweeps rousing an intoxicating kind of desire.
This passion made him wonder how he had survived the solars of his lifecycle without it.
Lumen responded with a fervour of her own, rubbing her soapy body against his, wet spirals of hair slicking his flesh.
She wilted and whimpered when she broke free. “I’m sorry, babe.” She kissed the scales over his hearts. “I’m exhausted.”
“Yesss, I see this. We shall go to nest in our quarters after this.”
He managed to wash himself with her slumped against his front, her slender fingers tracing his lower abdominals as she dozed while standing.
Chest throbbing with the ache he associated with her endearing quirks, he lifted her up and cradled her.
Warm air dried them.
“Your hair is fluffy,” he murmured.
“Frizzy,” she mumbled then tugged at it.
She grabbed one of his quills and stroked it, ran it across her lips.
He quaked, feeling the touch to his marrow.
“Your quills are like silk ropes.” Her head lolled on his shoulder. “I need to go, babe.”
“Go where?” Hearts clenching, he held her tighter. “You stay with me. We have discussed this many times. You are mine, my Rä’Na, and we are going to Rök where we will be happy.”
She was quiet. “I meant I need to void.”
“Thsst! Where would you like to go?”
“Well, we’re in the bathroom. Where’s the, um, bodily waste disposal?”
“There is no bodily waste disposal.”
Another quiet moment. “Babe, I think you’re so cute, but now is not the time for jokes. I’m tired, I need sleep, and I seriously need to go.”
“But, my Lumen, where? Rä anatomy does not have such an inefficiency.”
“Are you saying you don’t void ever.”
“My appetite has increased because I am producing seed, and have matured, but never will I produce waste.”
“How does your body rid itself of impurities?”
“The shedding occurs when we take heavy damage or fall to sickness.”
“Shedding. Sounds like a snake moult.”
“Thsst! Krael moult chitin, Rä shed scales.”
“Does this mean you have no....”
She struggled, so he set her down, and she slid a hand along his flank to his buttocks then her fingers delved....
Brow scales hitting his quill line, Venomous made a pitched noise then went up on his toes.
Clasping her arm, he stilled the startling inspection that made the backs of his thighs tingle.
He did not mind her touching him, truth, he yearned for it, but it was the way she had done it.
It seemed forbidden.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Having a ‘my lover is an alien’ moment.”
“I am no more alien than before.”
“Yes, I know. It’s just you seem normal to me now. You’re not an alien, or Rä, you’re my Venom. So when I find out you have no anus it freaks me out. That explains why you were confused when you–” Her expression stiffened with rigor then blanked. She sighed. “You realise your human needs something permanent for wherever we live?”
“It will be taken care of,” he promised as they dressed then snapped off an oil vial to tend to his quills, rubbing the lengths in brisk sweeps of his palms. “For now use the container for the purification tablet then dump it in the waste receptacle.”
He showed her the chute aperture.
“Where does that go?” She grimaced. “You don’t dump it into outer space do you? Because that would be weird.”
“It is incinerated. The ash from a cycle of general waste is compressed into discs no bigger than my fist and stored. We jettison them into any sols we pass. The matter is obliterated by the solar flares.”
“Works for me.”
Breaking an oil vial in her palm, giving the lucid ointment an appreciative sniff, she ran it through her coiling spirals.
She used the excess on her face and body drawing his interest.
“Next time I am going to oil you up.”
She paused then slanted him a look. “Oh?”
“Yesss.” He gave her a mouth touch, suckling on her lips, reluctant to let her out of his sight. “Call to me when you are finished.” Venomous headed outside to where he heard muttering and pacing. “What are you doing here, Fiercely?” He leaned against the bulkhead then crossed his arms. He stretched his neck until he heard ligaments pop. “We can find quarters on our own.”
“I noticed you were gone and I ... I missed her.” The other male stopped. His jaw clenched and his brille narrowed. “What do you mean what am I doing here? You said you would not stand in my way.”
“Yesss, I recognise your claim, but you will not push her. This journey has been hard. Humans are not hardy like Rä. She needs time, and you will give it to her.”
“I never meant for this to happen.”
“You are fortunate it has.”
“Fortunate? You are the last male I expected to say as such.”
“Why?”
“She is yours.”
“Ours. You protected her when I could not. Put her first, and I will welcome you.” Venomous’ gaze flattened. “Hurt her, and I hurt you.”
“Why would I hurt her?”
“Lumen is not Rä. Her differences unsettle you.”
“That is natural.” Fiercely thumbed his brow gold. “You cannot tell me you did not find yourself confused or dis...concerted when she made you male.”
“Truth, I was confused.” Venomous blew a blustery sigh. He shook out his quills then confessed, “I took her the old way.”
Fiercely lost colour. “Barbaric.”
“That place was hell.” He dry washed his face. “I barely knew what I had done until it was over. She seems at peace with it. I do not think she knows it was ancient custom.” He paused to click his teeth. “That might be why she is jumpy around you. She might think you mean to carry her off for clutch. Truth, Fiercely, yesss, I was disconcerted but never disgusted, which is what you meant to say. I was foolish enough to think her ugly and dim-witted because she is not like me.” Humour lifted his mouth for a moment then his expression grew clouded. “Never was I revolted. I accepted her as mine, wholeheartedly, and what we have has grown from it. My acceptance ushered her own.”
“I no longer feel that way.”
“So quickly?”
“How long did it take you to no longer see disfigurement when you looked upon her?”
Shameful as it was he once thought her less than himself, primitive, Venomous refused to lie. “Less than half a rotation.”
“So quickly?” Fiercely echoed with a sneer, embarrassed it took him near a cycle to see her for what she was.
“Do not be jealous. There is no need.”
A flush of colour dappled his emerald scales and betrayed any repudiation he wanted believed. “I am not.”
Venomous snorted. He pushed away from the hull. “Give her time. Accept her, and she will steal your hea
rts as she has stolen mine.” He frowned. “How long does it take to void?”
Fiercely balked. “How am I to know this? Nāga took care of that.”
“It cannot take so long, surely?” Venomous stepped inside to find his Lumen curled up on the floor fast asleep. He knelt then picked her up. She smelt fresh with a chemical bite from the disinfectant in the purification tab. “Come, dearest.”
Despite his agreement to keep his distance, Fiercely shadowed them to their quarters.
Muscles losing tension, the tip of his claw followed the curve of Lumen’s cheek when they stopped to part ways. “In two rotations, we reach home world. I will visit.”
“Very well.”
“Have you considered who to select for her lesser male?”
A twinge of doubt thrummed in Venomous’ chest.
With it came memories of Yofk, and he near staggered under a wave of sorrow.
He stowed his grief.
Time would come when his fallen allies were avenged.
“No,” he replied at length.
“I know of an honourable Rä’Vek. He is Master for the Hunters Caste. He, Cobra that Strikes would make a good lesser mate for Lumen of the Stars.”
“I warn you, our Rä’Na is not receptive to the custom.”
Fiercely looked troubled. “Are you to deny a widow protection, Venomous One?”
“It will be dealt with. Good parting.”
Venomous entered the habitation enclosure he had been immobilised in before the Dei San attack.
This time he glanced around with more than a cursory eye.
The modest space comprised of two interconnected domes, stark walls and furnishings, clean lines and sharp edges.
The foremost dome held a seating area with a curvilinear divan facing the ovoid holoscreen, a squat table, a cookery area, a miniature replicator, and a wall mounted console that had limited access to the Trekker’s communications hub.
Less a separate space and more an alcove, the minor dome was filled by a circular platform covered in the dense fur pelts of the goodbeast, and padded by a synthetic mat.
The contrast of the austere, sterile lodgings with his rough, clay and dirt lair on the slave planet was laughable.
Neither were his preference, but soon, he’d have his Rä’Na safe at home in his lair, and all would be well.
Sensing a change in her environment, Lumen stirred.
Her eyes opened and the corners of her lips turned up. “Babe.” Her gaze slid around. She yawned then stretched her arms overhead, legs kicking out. “Is this where we’re staying?”
“Yesss.” He set her onto her feet.
She seemed awake and refreshed from her nap.
Brow scales bunching, he noted the air pushed through the vents was cold, the ship cooling from its earlier sweltering temperature.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked fearing her catching cold.
“I am. This softsuit is amazing.” She flashed him a grin over her shoulder as she wandered to explore. “Definitely the comfiest piece of clothing I’ve ever worn. It feels thick like wool but breathable like cotton. Is it woven from animal hair?”
“No, a species of plant called kakt-kakt. It is native to Rök and grows abundant even in the dry heat because it stores water in its hollow stems. The smallest kakt-kakt grows as tall as you. We boil it to break down the rigidity then spin it into thread that is bleached or dyed.”
She eyed the divan then jumped onto it, bouncing slightly. “Your hardsuit is made from the plant too?”
“No. It is a synthetic alloy infused as it is tempered with a vanadium isotope, a rare chemical element created during supernova nucleosynthesis then coated in compressed carbon atoms mined from our ring system. It enhances our strength and acts as ancillary protection when our natural armour plating will not suffice. Warriors and hunters wear hardsuits. Rä in non fatal professions wear softsuits or robes.”
Lumen had frozen.
She pivoted to face him, expression bare, lips twitching. “So hardsuits are badass.”
“Thsst! Yesss, bad as ass.”
She staggered on a shout of laughter, waving a hand as if telling him to stop then dropped onto the divan to sit. “Babe, you crack me up”
He contemplated her words.
She was not, in reality, cracking, so he deduced she made a humour reference.
His chest puffed. “I am hilarious.”
Clutching her middle, she laughed harder. “I love hearing you talk like this.”
“It is better,” he agreed thinking of the communication troubles they’d overcome.
Venomous watched Lumen with a faint smile as she exclaimed over the fixtures, prodded buttons and lifted lids.
He should be exhausted, want to curl up in his nest alone to sleep a full rest phase uninterrupted, yet he craved the touch of his Rä’Na.
So much so, he was maddened by the ache between his legs.
Their kiss in the cleanser had ignited his ardour, but he wondered if she was too tired for clutch.
She’d been through much and was bruised.
Head canting, Venomous drank in her paradoxical appearance.
Though he’d kissed her the human way, stroked her soft flesh to dam her leaking and had fingered her wet sex, still, he experienced jolts to his system when he realised the alien female was his.
At a glance her body was lush and soft, yet her limbs were long and lean hinting at flexibility.
While many might see her plump breasts and flaring hips to be fleshy and disconcerting, as he once had, he now saw her curving lines as lush, her roundness parallel to ripeness.
She brought to mind sweetness and life.
Fertility.
He knew he could hold her hips tightly as his claws pricked her skin.
Round buttocks would bounce and push up against his groin and lower stomach.
His hard thighs would rub against her soft ones as he sank deeper into the hot, swollen wetness that made his claws curl and his fangs drip.
Lumen was designed to bear the weight of a male; his weight.
Protruding yet neat features that she scrunched into adorable shapes or stretched into hilarious snarls of anger held him rapt.
Her face was enigmatically unique, expressive, but held a delicacy that left him breathless.
Remarkable to him was the rarity in which she succumbed to despair.
For all she’d suffered through, always did she recover and seek happiness.
Lumen often appeared timid, even afraid of him and the Rä warriors, but the moment she felt pushed or saw a wrong being done to herself or another, she was stubborn, bold, and, Grandfather help him, exploded with a passion impossible to quell.
Often he found he had no desire to manage her piques as her magnificence grew in tandem to her confidence.
To him, there was no more splendid a sight than his female exerting control through the power of her mind and the haunting exquisiteness of her body.
Though, he admitted, it would be a moontide before he slept without seeing the Dei San dragging her away.
The burst of self-sufficiency had been ill-thought indeed, even if it had resulted in their liberation and saved them from a fate worse than death.
Unknowing of how her male lusted for her, Lumen rolled her head on her neck with a low moan.
She stretched her arms over her head then yawned.
As her back bent, her breasts thrust forward and her buttocks pushed out in invitation.
Venomous struggled to draw a full breath.
Her waterfall scent intoxicated him.
The swelling in his stem turned painful, and he found himself looming behind her, staring at her backside in agonised rapture.
She turned waving a hand towards the nest. “Time for ... uh ... sleep?”
Watching the bulge in his hardsuit grow, Lumen’s eyes were big as he clasped the nape of her neck.
Venomous grazed his lips over hers.
Another soft touch
to her luscious mouth caused a needy sound low in her throat.
He slanted his mouth fully to hers, and moist, clean musk greeted him.
Gladly, he let his tongue slide deeper into the slick depths.
The taste of her exploded in his brain, and weakened his knees to the point of collapse.
He groaned into her mouth then tugged her wilting body into the shield of his embrace.
Small hands unfurled on his chest then clenched in a violent spasm as he licked the tip of her tongue.
She moaned. “The things you do to me.”
His kiss became hers.
She aggressively plundered his mouth, nibbled his lips.
The sides of her fists pressed into his muscle, demanding more, insistent.
Her hands uncurled to reach up and clutch his shoulders, nails digging in.
Breaths growing slight, rapid, the frenetic panting matched the hammering of her pulse at the base of her throat.
Pressure throbbing through his shaft grew unbearable.
He rocked his hips, shuddering when the underside of his stem rubbed against her yielding stomach.
That difference in itself thrilled him.
Rä were hard, humans soft.
The dichotomy of their bodies crushed together, joined as one, seemed profound to him.
The rounded tip of her smooth tongue found his then caressed the sensitive spot between his bifurcation and piercing.
Venomous grew still, fearing he’d spend if he so much as breathed too hard.
Lumen pulled back, licked her lips, eyes locked on his mouth. “You taste good. Like gingerbread dipped in icing. Love me some gingerbread.”
“I need.” His nostrils flared. He groaned in anguish. “I scent your sex musk. You invite me.”
“Well.” A sweet kiss to his collarbone. “You started it.”
The hand on the back of her neck released to flex then gripped her again, tighter, possessive, and he controlled the urge to manhandle her to the floor, splay her legs then thrust.
Bite and suck until delirious with it.
Buck, grind and plunge until her body juddered from the force of his body rending hers.
Her hand cupped around his shaft.
Raw desire surged through his veins, searing spangled nerves until his body sensitised to her slightest movement.