Damaged (Planet Alpha) (4 page)

“We do not have time for this,” he said.

She thumped her head against the side of the ship. “Shut up.”

He leaned down and took a nipple into his mouth, biting until she squirmed on his thigh. “Dammit,” she breathed, hands in his hair. From this angle, she could see the scars like decorative vines all the way across his back. She slid her palms down, smoothing over what she could reach. He shuddered, then went to his knees.

“What are you doing?” she asked, breathless.

In answer, he unbuttoned her trousers, sliding them down her legs. He stripped off her boots and flung them aside. When she stood nude except for her vest, he gripped her thighs and boosted her up in the air, back against the ship.

“Holy fuck,” she said, hands on his arms. “Are you crazy?”

He grunted, then nosed between her legs. His stubble scraped her inner thighs, but then his mouth found her clit and Cori didn’t care if he scratched her raw. He kissed her, then licked at the hood with his forked tongue, playing with her delicately. Too delicately. She could feel the suppressed energy in him as he held her up. Damn, he was strong. He nibbled at her, and she moaned.

“Do not move,” he said.

Yeah, right,
she thought, flushed.
Who is he kidding?
She flexed her fingers on his skin. “Come on, come on, come on,” she chanted, draping her legs over his shoulders. She arched up, pushing her pussy into his face. He licked her faster, the silver balls of his piercings rubbing the sides of her clit again and again. The fork in his tongue made her crazy. He wouldn’t lick the tip, just the sides.

“Reiyn, come on,” she begged, twisting her hands in his hair. She wanted more. She wanted him inside her.
Which is insane. You don’t even know him,
she mused, the edges of her vision blurring with pleasure.

He looked up, face tight, then sank his thumbs into her cunt. Cori cried out, so close to orgasm she couldn’t think straight anymore.

“Is that what you want?” he asked in a voice that was way too calm.

“Yes. Please stop teasing me,” she begged him.

He slid his thumbs in and out, flicking his tongue over her. Cori tried to get closer, but in this position, he held all the power. He tightened his hands, immobilizing her. Just when she was about to come, he abruptly dropped her legs and stood up. She almost fell before he caught her.

“Hold still,” he commanded, then flicked his pants open. Tape still covered part of his waist and hip, but his cock sprang out, thick and hot, distracting her.

Cori stared at him. He was huge. And he looked different, somehow, but she was too lust-hazed to figure out what was odd about him. His skin seemed darker.
More dusky than golden, perhaps,
she mused, confused, but then he surged forward, picking her up again. His dick slapped at her cunt, and then the tip of him was inside her. She threw her head back as he began to rock. He felt almost impossibly big, but he worked himself inside, little by little.

“Not going to fit,” she said thickly.

He smiled fiercely, then thrust harder. His cock surged deeper into her body, and she held on, panting. He was so big he rubbed against her clit as he moved, sending sparks of heat through her. He leaned down, kissing her neck. Cori shivered, legs around his hips and hands fisted in his hair. With one last, hard push, he surged the rest of the way in, his pubic bone pressing against her mound.

“Hold on,” he said,
and then he pulled out slightly and pressed a hand between them, playing with her clit. The other he had under her ass, holding her up with one arm.

Cori groaned desperately, but then his hips snapped forward and he slammed inside. She may have screamed when he did it, she wasn’t sure—the waves of pleasure shooting through her were too intense. He bent his head, nipping her shoulder
, and she arched her back, as he did it again. And again. He fucked into her harder with every jerk of his hips, thumb moving the entire time.

“God,” she breathed, feeling as if the top of her head was going to come off. When he bit her neck, she climaxed, her entire body seizing up as everything went white. He rolled his hips a little, rubbing her clit harder
, and she spasmed again, crying with the pleasure of it. She clutched at him, trembling. Her neck stung, and she thought maybe he’d drawn blood, but then he groaned and pulled out, the head of his dick swelling hotly against her labia. He moved both hands to her thighs and jerked her forward, fucking her hard enough to make her back sting where it rubbed against the ship. She didn’t give a damn. Sex had never felt this good. Never.

“Hold on,” he said again, sounding wrecked, so Cori gripped his hips with her thighs and shoved herself down on him. He groaned and snapped forward one last time, pushing against her womb. The pressure of him jerking inside her sent her over again. All she could do was hang on and hope he didn’t drop her as heat flooded her pussy. He leaned his forehead down on hers, eyes closed as his prick slowly softened.

When he finally slipped out, Cori let her legs fall. Reiyn slid her down his body, sweat and dust coating them both.

Cori tried to speak, but had to clear her throat before she could get any words out. “What the hell was that?”

Reiyn gently kissed the top of her head, then stepped back, not replying.

Cori stared as he hitched up his pants, buttoning them just enough to keep them from falling down again. He hadn’t even taken off his boots. His cock hung down, still half-hard, and Cori wondered what it would be like to take him in her mouth.

“We should leave,” he said, picking up her pants.

“Leave,” she repeated, still not thinking clearly. She glanced down at herself and flushed. She was a mess. When she looked back up, Reiyn was still holding out her pants.
Shit,
she thought, not sure if she should be angry or relieved. The sex was great, but she really didn’t want to get attached.
And it looks like he doesn’t, either,
she thought, as she snatched the leather from his hands. “Thanks,” she muttered, slipping them on.

He drew a cloth from his pocket and blotted at her neck. Cori frowned. When he pulled back, she saw spots of blood on the faded cotton. “You bit me,” she said, disbelievingly.

He looked away. “I did not mean to.”

Cori put a hand to her neck, but he caught her arm before she could touch her skin.

“Let it be,” he said, refolding the cloth and putting it against her neck again. “The wound will soon close.”

I guess that’s all the apology I’m going to get.
She sighed and pushed his hand away. “Fine. Let’s go.” She pulled the netting off the ship with one quick yank, then balled it up and stepped into the open hatch. She dropped the tangled net in a corner as soon as they ducked past the airlock, and then headed for the engineering bay, squinting in the low light. “Bring the fuel cell. It had a loose connector that needed repairing. That’s why I was late,” she explained, not waiting for him to follow her.

Footsteps behind her told her he’d heard her. “We should go as soon as possible.”

She stepped into engineering and headed for the fuel cell socket. There were two empty sockets, but the ship would run on one. The other was for backup. She didn’t have another, so they would have to hope the fuel cell she’d brought worked properly, or they would be up shit creek without a paddle.

“Do you have the—” she began to ask, but he was already crouched down with the cell in his hands. “Ah,” she said, watching as he carefully maneuvered it into place. “You’ve done this before.”

He spared her a brief glance.

Anger coiled around Cori’s spine. “Fine, don’t explain. Shove it in and let’s get moving.”

He grunted, twisting slightly to lock the cell in place. The lights blinked on, and then the ship’s systems began to power up. Cori pivoted and headed for the bridge. “Where’s your stuff?” she asked as she walked down the corridor.

“I left my bag in the sleeping quarters.”

She nodded, pleased when the door to the bridge sensed her presence and slid open. Things seemed to be working properly, which was always a gamble on a ship this old. “Fine. We’ll have to share the bed.” She glanced at him. “Or you can sleep on the floor.” Her ship was small, meant for at most three or four people. She’d stripped out the bunks and put in a soft mattress on the floor. It wasn’t a warship; it was a courier vessel. That was fine with her. She didn’t need anything bigger. She dealt in information, not weaponry. She plopped down into the pilot’s chair.

“I have the coordinates,” Reiyn said, sitting in the astrogator’s seat. The seat’s upholstery was frayed around the edges, like everything else on the ship, but it functioned well enough. The floors were worn metal, the walls were scratched and dented in places, and the computer system was outdated, but everything worked. More or less.

Cori glanced at Reiyn, then waved a hand at the display. He looked intently at the screen, then tapped at it as if he knew exactly how to work the controls. When the ship’s computer plotted a course, she rubbed her chin.
Clearly not his first rodeo,
she thought, both irritated and intrigued. He double-checked the display, and then leaned back in the chair.

“So, we’re not going to talk about what happened?” she asked sharply, watching him look everywhere but at her.

“There is nothing to discuss,” he replied, closing his eyes.

Cori took a deep breath and calmly initiated the sequence for liftoff. “Of course,” she murmured, suppressing the hurt that threatened to overwhelm her. It was just sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Less than nothing. She stared at the side of his head, wondering what the hell he was thinking. His expression gave nothing away. He could be a statue, for all he showed.

Not that it matters,
she told herself.
It was just sex. Right.

Chapter Four

Kyuk stared out the viewport. He was nearly out of oxygen. He could initiate cryo-sleep, but the procedure was quite dangerous. Statistically, his chance of survival was only fifty percent. No one had managed to perfect the technique for bringing people up out of the induced coma-like state.
Of course, your chances of survival without cryo-sleep are approximately zero,
he mused. He had no food or water left. No way to power the pod. He closed his eyes, wishing he’d just stayed on his ship when it exploded.

A few minutes later, he had the cryo tubing out and attached to his arms. This was going to hurt. When he pushed the button, the automatic needles pricked his skin. Cold liquid seeped into his veins on one side while his blood flowed out the other, into the cryo storage unit. As darkness closed over him, his last thought was of Reiyn.

****

“We are approaching the coordinates,” Reiyn said.

Cori jerked in her chair, waking out of the doze she’d fallen into shortly after takeoff. They’d left in late afternoon and she’d been exhausted, but hadn’t been willing to leave Reiyn alone on the bridge. Of course, now she had a damn crick in her neck. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes wearily. “How far?”

“Ten minutes.” He tapped the display, enlarging the route and setting it to overlay the larger star-system map on her screen.

“Where the hell are we?” she asked, rolling her shoulders to loosen the muscles. She didn’t recognize the pattern, and she thought she knew all the systems close to Earth.

Reiyn glanced at her, his expression shuttered.

She frowned. “Fine, don’t tell me. Even though this is my ship.”

He pursed his lips for a moment, then relented. “We are close to Xyran. Two systems over, in Quadrant Four.”

Cori sat straight up in the chair, adrenaline pushing through her like a tsunami. “Are you crazy?”

“I would have purchased your ship. You would be safe on Earth.”

She laughed. “Earth isn’t safe.” She tilted her head at the display. “This is worse, though. Please tell me you know who we’re rescuing.”

He sighed. “No, I do not. But the signal is a priority pulse from one of our best pilots. No one has ever met him.”

“If no one’s met him, how does he rescue people?”

Reiyn swiveled his chair to face her. “From what they say, he wears armor from head to toe.”

“Armor. Of course. Because that’s not weird at all.” She sighed and tapped a few commands into the computer. “All right. It’s my turn to run the show. Taking the ship out of auto, on my mark.” In her peripheral vision, she saw Reiyn brace himself. She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “Three, two, one, mark,” she said, tapping the command. She grabbed the yoke and eased the ship around, getting a feel for it again. It had been at least six months since she’d taken it up. Fuel cells were expensive, and the remnants of Earth’s security forces as well as random Alphan patrols made joyriding dangerous. She was lucky she had a ship at all. If Jaxt and Zoen hadn’t given it to her… She shook her head. No sense speculating on what ifs. “Where to?” she asked Reiyn.

“Five klicks to starboard,” he said, enlarging the display even more. “There, do you see that?”

She peered at the screen. “Looks like a rock.”

“It should. It is camouflaged.” Reiyn unbuckled his restraints. “We will have to dock with it.”

“Hell to the no, Mr. Crazy,” Cori said, appalled. “I have an EV suit.” She looked him over. “Actually, I have two. One should fit you. This baby doesn’t have docking apparatus. Never did. It’s a courier vessel, not a warship.” She patted the console in front of her. “Plus, that pod isn’t big enough to have an airlock, anyway. We’ll go out and grab him. I doubt it would fit into my minuscule cargo hold, even if we had a way to grapple with it, which we don’t. I have a med-sack we can stuff him into to get him inside.” She adjusted their trajectory to match the floating rock and reset the auto-pilot, then stood up. “I’ll get the monkey suits. We can put them on in the airlock.” Reiyn looked to be the same size as Jaxt, so the larger one ought to fit him. A sudden flashback to Reiyn jerking his hips into her flashed through her, and she flushed, immediately shoving the memory aside. Even so, the sensation of what it’d felt like to have all that male strength pleasuring her lingered. It had been quick and dirty, but he’d made sure she enjoyed it.

And what does it say about you that the first guy you have sex with in years resembles Sky’s mates?
she mused, swallowing hard.

Reiyn stared at her for a long moment, eyes flicking down to her lips, then back up again. “Very well,” he finally said, standing up, face still blank as ever.

****

Reiyn turned his back as he undressed, not wanting Sky to see his hip. The gems embedded into his flesh would give away his origins faster than anything else, excepting his skin changing color, but his control over that ability was absolute. The tape he’d used to secure his communicator to his abdomen hid the gems, but he had no intentions of risking his identity with careless behavior. He’d played human for twenty years now, with not one slip-up.
Perhaps I should have the gems removed,
he thought, not for the first time. It would certainly make his life on Earth easier, except, he couldn’t bear to take them out.

All Xyran males had gems embedded somewhere on their bodies at birth, even slaves. It was status and culture and cruelty, all wrapped up into one barbaric package. A fortuitous oddity of Xyran healing meant that they could embed things into their skin with very little risk of infection. Most Xyrans had gems placed in their flesh as they grew older and gained status, but Reiyn had escaped with his mother at too young an age to acquire the taste for it, or to have it done to him by the male who’d impregnated his mother. Instead, he’d done it himself. The diamonds he’d chosen were very similar to the ones embedded into his childhood friend, Kyuk. Reiyn had placed them in his skin in memory. Diamonds were exceedingly common on Xyran, and all Kyuk’s low-status warrior father could afford were three of them before his untimely death.

For Reiyn, getting his hands on enough diamonds for this use had meant years of work, and it had established his cover as a gem smuggler. Ironically, here on Earth, diamonds were still expensive and rare, mostly because Xyrans controlled the illegal gem trade. His acquisition of them meant he had a foothold into the market, and thus contacts that helped him work to free Xyran captives.

“I see it fits,” Cori said, distracting him from his musings.

He finished fastening the front seams of the suit and turned around, the neck flaps hanging over his shoulders. “It does.”

Her hair was still braided around her head, though the edges of the style had frayed a bit. Once again, he wondered what it would feel like to undo them and run his fingers through the strands. Their encounter just a few short hours ago had been too frantic for such things.
Although you had enough time to bite her,
he admonished himself, disturbed once more at how easily she’d aroused his most base instincts. He wanted to do it again, and again. The sex had already boosted his power levels to the point where he’d almost lost control of his emotions. He wanted to mingle their blood and make her his bondmate, regardless of the insanity of such a thing. No Xyran willingly bonded to anyone.

And you have already lost one blood-kin, remember?
Fleetingly he wondered if Kyuk was still alive. Probably not. As a child, he’d been very low status and had been small for his age—not useful qualities for survival on Xyran. They’d sworn blood oath to each other anyway.

Cori grunted and handed him a helmet, not knowing the direction of his thoughts. “This should work.” She put hers on and tightened the neck seals, then hit the power button. The faceplate was scratched and worn, but clearly still functional.

Reiyn followed suit, activating the power as soon as his helmet was completely fastened. He moved his head from side to side, making sure the seal was good and he could see clearly through the visor.

“Can you hear me?” she asked him, face lit by the helmet’s light. While he was adjusting his suit, she’d picked up a porta-lock, a disposable airlock bubble, and strapped it to her forearm. The package was small, but once fastened to the outside of a ship, it would seal and inflate, creating a portable airlock, good for one-time use only.

He nodded, picking up the med-sack. “Yes. I am ready to go.”

She pressed her lips together. “Well then. Let’s do this.”

****

Cori touched the outside seam of the escape pod and motioned to Reiyn to move closer. Their jump from her ship to the pod had gone smoothly, thank goodness, but now came the tricky part. As soon as Reiyn was close enough, she hooked her feet around his waist, ignoring his startled look.

“We need to be close if we’re both going to fit inside the porta-lock,” she said, frustrated that she had to explain this to him. What would he have done if she weren’t with him?
Probably tried to dock with the pod,
she thought, disgusted. Had the lack of gravity scrambled his brains?

He finally nodded, pulling her closer. Even in the damn suit he looked good. Angry with herself, she leaned over his shoulder and attached the porta-lock, then pressed the activation button.
Polyester film billowed around them, and she grabbed the edges awkwardly, helping to guide it in place. She hated this part. Having material so close around her made her feel like she was going to suffocate, and it was doubly unpleasant with another person jammed inside here with her.

If I’d had the opportunity to practice this sort of thing more often it might not bother me as much,
she mused, but learning how to maneuver in space wasn’t a priority when it came to survival. Equipment and tech was expensive. She made do with what she could afford or steal, and had to manage with that. She was one of the lucky ones. She had a home and resources enough to help others. She wasn’t a slave. As soon as the material sealed, it inflated around them like a balloon, and she breathed a sigh of relief. If it had failed to seal, they would’ve had to glue it on manually.

“We will need to burn the hatch open,” he said, reaching for a laser cutter.

She let go of him and floated in the tiny space, trying to keep her heart rate steady. The close quarters bothered her more than she wanted to admit. It reminded her of when she’d been a slave and thrown into tiny cells with too many other girls. She took slow, steady breaths as she reminded herself that she’d chosen to be here. She was no longer a captive.
But you’re a little damaged,
a tiny voice at the back of her mind murmured. She ignored it as Reiyn adjusted the nozzle of the cutter.

“Careful you don’t nick the porta-lock,” she said, watching him work.

He nodded, but didn’t speak.

She clamped her mouth shut and let him work, knowing how frustrating it could be trying to concentrate with someone looking over your shoulder. The least she could do was keep quiet.

A short time later, he pried the hatch open. The interior of the escape pod was dim and cold.

“Is it empty?” Cori asked, aiming the light on her arm into the compartment.

“No.” Reiyn drifted into the pod, blocking her view.

Cori bit her lip, hoping they weren’t too late. “Is he okay?”

Reiyn didn’t move. He didn’t reply.

“Reiyn! Is he alive?” Cori didn’t know why he’d stopped, but they didn’t have a lot of air left. They still needed to get the man into the med-sack and maneuver him back to the ship. “Reiyn?” She pushed forward, touching him on the arm. He wouldn’t feel it, but she used it to shove him to the side so she could see. When her eyes landed on the cryo setup, she cursed. This would complicate matters. They had to revive the man before they stuffed him into the med-sack because they couldn’t fit the equipment in there with him. Reiyn still blocked most of her view, so she had no idea if the man was dead or alive or somewhere in between.

She glanced at her companion’s face. Even through his helmet, she could tell he’d gone pale, as if he’d seen a ghost. “Reiyn, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but we need to get moving.” She pushed him away a little further. He didn’t even look at her as he drifted, then bounced gently off the side of the pod.

What the hell?
she thought, then her eyes landed on the person they’d rescued and her heart seized up. The man in the escape pod wasn’t a man at all.

He was a Xyran.

****

Voices woke Kyuk.

He blinked, trying to see past the fog, but everything was so cold he couldn’t concentrate. Frost decorated his vision, and he closed his eyes, ignoring the hands shoving at his arms. Someone, a female, touched his cheek with hands so warm they burned. He tried to move away from the pain, but it followed him and he may have cried out. He didn’t know for sure. He thought maybe he was dead, and relief flooded through him, soft and chill, like snow blanketing icy stone. Death would be welcome. Quiet.

He sighed and let go. Colors shifted across the darkness like exploding stars, and then he knew nothing more.