Blue Light of Home (8 page)

He continued at once, not as fast as before, giving her a good two seconds between each smack and making sure he overlaid every tingling inch of his target with fresh prickling heat. As thorough as he was, Skye knew he wasn’t swinging as hard as he could. Hard enough, for sure—with each progressive smack, it was harder not to let go of the table and reach back to ward off these deliberate blows—but not as hard as he could.

It occurred to her then, grimacing and gasping as his hand poured careful fire over her exposed and helpless self, that Vala really was an excellent judge of punishment, even if he wasn’t that great with people. He never meted out more discipline than fit the crime, as he perceived it anyway, and he thought this one was pretty small potatoes. That said, he understood also that she was sorry, and he let her know it in a way she could feel, a way she could be proud of, and now they could go on, hopefully a little better than before.

Unexpectedly, the thought came to her that she hoped he’d keep her for her ‘services’ when the spanking part was over. Silly thought, because he called for her almost every night. Sillier, because…because…well, she didn’t know why, but it was.

Vala stopped, waited an interminable ten seconds while she struggled to control her tics and quivers, and then gave her a final two whacks just as he’d begun—right cheek, left cheek. His hand, a hand as hot as her bottom was, and for the same reason, came up to pat her shoulder. “You could,” he began, and then paused and amended, “
We
could both serve each other better.”

She nodded, her head still bent, breathing, just breathing.

His hand squeezed once, went away, and came back low to brush across the flames of her bottom. Right cheek…left cheek. “I wish I had more to give you,” he remarked, very lightly rubbing his scaled palm over her. “I’ve never known a woman who tried harder to please me.”

She managed a short, strained laugh that became an indrawn gasp as his fingers slipped between her thighs. He stroked there too.

“Do you need time to recover?” he asked, his hand easing back and forth.

“No,” she said, and blushed at how quickly she’d said it.

“Good.” The hand withdrew and she heard the heavy creak and rustle as he unfastened his armored pants. He didn’t need her to make him ready tonight; she didn’t need any extra treatment either, it would seem. Her groan as he entered her had nothing to do with pain. In a tight voice, he growled, “You serve me very well in most respects.”

He timed his thrusts with excruciating care, making her feel everything. Slow and steady, he claimed and reclaimed her, pausing now and then to grind against her burning bottom, stoking those flames high and driving them inside her to ignite in whole new ways. Shuddering, Skye closed her eyes and let it happen, let her breath align to the torturously unhurried rhythm he set. The table…she let go at last, reached one hand back, and pulled at his thigh.

He grunted laughter, his claws flexing lightly at her waist. “Do not presume to command my actions, woman. I move in my own time.”

“Please,” she gasped.

“Hm. Well.” He bent, and she thought for a moment he would nuzzle at her, expected it so completely that she could actually feel the phantom press of his strange mouth against her neck, even arched her own back to receive it. But he only said, “It pleases me to oblige you this once.”

He gripped her hips hard then, his thumbs searing deliberately across the rounded swells of her hot bottom, and gave her what she needed. Her second spanking began; his hips slapped against her fast and hard, and her rapture struck and took her with it right into the sun. On and on, in ways she hadn’t known could happen or ever be prepared for, and when she came back, there was Vala hot against her back, to murmur in her ear, “Someday we’ll have to try this without the fighting first.”

She laughed, gasped, and he began again.

CHAPTER FOUR

“Oh, you monkey-thumping son of a troll,” Skye said, almost without emotion. She followed this strange statement with several loud seconds of swearing and holographic-key mashing, then slapped both hands over her face and screamed into them.

Vala scrolled his way quietly through a number of geologic maps and selected two to upload.

“Stupid ice elves,” Skye muttered. “They got me.”

“So I gathered.”

“It’s not fair!” she wailed. “They freeze you in place for five whole seconds. Five! That’s practically a whole fight! And they’re immune to fire attacks. How does that even work? I invested hundreds of gold in fire enhancing enchantments, dammit! Why aren’t they melting?!”

He glanced her way, grunted, and continued to look at maps. “You’re quitting,” he observed.

“I play Battlehammer to relax, not get more stressed.” With a few frustrated stabs at the floating keys, Skye exited out to the title screen and then threw herself back in her chair. She watched Vala move to another terminal and begin the endless process of sifting through data streams for a few precious grains of information. Slowly, her indignation at suffering an ignoble demise at the hands of the prancing ice elves eased. Vala never lost his temper at the computer. “You can play if you want to,” she offered, knowing he wouldn’t.

“I have work to do.”

“Oh come on. I could sure use some pointers.”

“Vaaji warriors do not play silly games.”

“Oh.” Skye smiled at his stiff back. “So this level 68 lizardman warrior that popped up for the first time last month must have been saved to my account by mistake. I’ll just delete it.”

He threw her a withering glare over his shoulder, became distracted by something on his screen, and was soon absorbed in scrolling lines of text and WAV files.

She watched him work for a while without speaking—when he was like this, he wasn’t any good for conversation anyway—but when he started the lengthy upload, she figured it was okay to ask, “What are you reading about now?”

“China,” he replied, already at a new station.

“Still.”

“It has a lot of history.”

“Interesting reading?” she asked, toying with a loose thread on the knee of her sweat pants.

“Fascinating. I want you to purchase this book for me…this Sun Tzu book.”

“
The Art of War
? Sure. They’re not going to send it up here, though.”

“They will if I tell them to,” he said mildly.

He was probably right. Skye shrugged and twirled her chair around, watching the room swirl and spin. “Well, if you’re going to waste a million taxpayer dollars on a delivery launch anyway, make them send a pizza too. I’m sick of glop.”

“Since you bring it up, you’re losing weight.”

“Because I’m sick of glop.”

“That’s really too bad, because now you have to eat more of it.”

She stuck her tongue out at his back and twirled the chair again. “So…what is the ultimate goal here anyway? Do you think that if you just know enough about us, you’ll find a way to annex Earth without anyone noticing?”

It wasn’t the first time she’d asked so directly, but Vala had never answered with more than a grunt. Now, to her surprise, he flashed her one of his rare smiles and said, “Once I’ve finished collecting the histories of each of Earth’s nations, cultures, scientific and industrial progress, politics and religions, and thoroughly mapped your world’s resources, habitats, and areas of environmental crisis, I’ll send the complete report to the Empire’s tacticians. They’ll study it—this will take a number of years—and formulate a plan to achieve a unification of Earth’s nations.”

“Oh my gosh,” Skye said, laughing. “You honestly think it’s going to be that easy?”

“Yes, particularly since the Empire will ease their transition by offering certain strategic technological advancements.”

“So, you’re going to dangle a flying car in front of us and that’s going to magically cool down the problems in the Middle East, resolve creationists with Darwinians, and end racism?”

“Not with a flying car, but yes.” He leaned out to give her knee a pat, all his attention still on his computer screen. “Sometimes all it takes is the right incentive. Human beings aren’t unreasonable. With guidance, they can be brought together.”

“You sound awfully sure of yourself,” she said dubiously.

“You forget we’ve done it before.”

“How many times?”

Vala showed his teeth in a grimace of perhaps not unjustified pride. “Six.”

“How many times did it work out as painlessly as you just said?”

His smile faded slightly. “Four.”

“And the rest of the time, you what? Went to war?”

“Yes. But that won’t happen in this case.”

“Again, you
sound
sure…”

“I may not be a tactician, but I am one man in an airless environment. This vessel has no weapons system, but there is a defensive net in place around us. And in all the time I have been here, those defenses have never been tested. When a demand was made for one of Earth’s females, you were provided within the day.” He smiled again, as if this point were one she’d actually want to ponder in a positive light. “They recognize our superiority and that is a very good way to begin. Humans have much to recommend themselves. Once their imagination and ingenuity are properly harnessed, they’ll be a great asset to the Empire.”

The sad thing was, he thought he was paying her a compliment.

Skye let it drop and gradually, Vala’s attention was recaptured by his monitors. There were days when she had to work hard at reminding herself that she wanted him to talk to her.

No, that wasn’t fair. Considering he’d only had about a month to work at it, Vala had turned out to be a decent conversationalist, as long as the topics under discussion were the philosophy of the warrior, the history of the Empire, or, surreally, the artistic works of the post-Impressionist movement, with an emphasis on Van Gogh. And of course, he could listen to Skye talk about herself for hours, even though getting him to grunt a simple yes or no answer about his own past could be a day-long exercise in frustration.

But he was talking. And apart from the first few days, when he’d so obviously been uncomfortable about it, he kept her company fairly well. (“Is it hard for you to do this?” she’d asked one night, as they’d been comparing what little she knew of the Trojan War with something he called the Siege of Praxus. “Not so much anymore,” he’d replied, “I just pretend you’re a man. Until I have sex with you.”) And knowing that he was making the effort solely for her comfort ironed out a lot of the awkwardness. Oh, nothing was going to make the time she spent up here pass quickly, but it was definitely better than it had been.

She kind of liked it here, most days. Except for the awful food and the tiny rooms and the never-changing view and her damned limited wardrobe and all the little things that came with living in a capsule out in space, it wasn’t so bad. She guessed that they weren’t just trying to be friendly anymore; somewhere along the way, they’d actually become friends.

It was really difficult to see this intelligent, patient and hard-working amiable person as the sort of guy who could get himself exiled out to the edge of nowhere on a crap-job like this. What on Earth…or wherever…had he done?

“You’re staring at me,” Vala remarked. He would never ask why or order her to stop, he just stated the obvious and waited for her to explain herself. That was his experience with Vaaji women again. They who prided themselves on being able to anticipate their man’s wishes.

“I’m thinking about you,” Skye said.

He gave her a narrow look and redoubled his efforts to identify the origins and techniques of agriculture in pre-dynastic China.

“You’ve been at that for a while.”

He grunted and opened another window, chasing down some trivial point of research, no doubt.

“You could probably use a break.”

“Trade out your fire enhancement runes for frost resistance,” he said distractedly. “And switch to a melee weapon. Ice elves are dangerous only from a distance.”

“You know, my life does not revolve around Battlehammer,” Skye announced, and closed out of the title screen of her game to prove it. “Maybe I was going to suggest you go for a run.”

He started to smile, but stifled it under a severe frown.

“A Vaaji woman would never dare to suggest her man’s recreations, huh?”

“No.”

“Probably falls under presuming to know his mind.”

“Probably.” He moved to another terminal, now right next to her.

She took the opportunity to stretch out her bare foot and give his a playful rub. “I happen to think you’ve got a nice body, for an alien,” she said. She tried to pay him a compliment every day. “Maybe I just want to watch you work it.”

“Do you?” He swung his chair around to face her, smiling again. “Yours is a fair body, for a human. Perhaps you’d like the first hour on the incline for my pleasure?”

“The difference being, you actually
enjoy
going for long runs, because you’re crazy that way.”

“It’s a small ship and a long assignment. Physical and mental stimulation are essential to one’s well-being.”

“I’ll stick to Battlehammer and sex.”

He snorted. “Yet I see you are trying to show me respect. It pleases me. What is it you really want to say?”

“What did you do to get sent here?”

His good humor dimmed, but didn’t fade away entirely. That was a good sign, she hoped. “It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got, what? Eight months left? At least? You can just tell me a word a day if you want to, and I’m betting you still get it all out.”

He grunted and turned back to his computer.

That was all for a while, and she expected him to drag the moment out until he could pretend the question had never existed. She expected it and it didn’t really upset her if he wanted to handle it like that. He always had trouble with personal questions and this one was more personal than most. So it was actually something of a surprise when he said, “To begin with, you must understand that the bloodline passes through the male, but that only women rear the children of the Kor’Mor caste. A warrior of the Empire can afford no such distraction.”