Chapter Five
Kadan had been worried about being trapped with Maia on Prya’s small military outpost, but for the first few days, he never saw her or any of the other women. They’d been quarantined, he was told when he asked about them. Subjected to a barrage of medical tests and procedures. He and his men had been kept in isolation as well, monitored for the first forty-eight hours.
“I have grave concerns about your judgment, Omega Kadan. Our medical personnel were horrified to discover you and your crew did not take proper precautions before coming into contact with this alien species.” Minister Breen, senior officer in charge on Prya, spat out the words. The man was once a warrior himself, resentful that battle wounds had relegated him to sending others into combat while he was forced to remain on the sidelines. He spoke from the other side of a nearly invisible barrier just inside the door. The microbial containment barrier looked like a shimmering curtain of air.
“Surely you know the law requires that before being introduced to our World, the bodies of alien beings must be cleansed of all potentially toxic substances. You could have been responsible for transmitting a disease that wiped out our entire civilization. They tell me you’re fortunate not to have suffered any ill effects.” He frowned, as though disappointed. “Based on the tests they’ve already completed, our medics have determined that once the cleansing process is completed, their species should pose no health threat. They have not been charged with any criminal offense either, so in a few days, they’ll be allowed to move freely around the base. Under guard at all times. Strictly for their protection.”
Breen headed out of the room, then stopped at the door. “When the Seneschal arrives, there is to be a feast in their honor. You will, of course, attend.”
Kadan had grown tired of the man’s superior tone. These weren’t the first aliens he’d encountered in his career. He wasn’t stupid. He’d sent a probe on board to scan their craft and their life forms before he ever set foot on the ship. It reported that their physiology was remarkable similar to that of his people. Their bodies harbored different microbials, but no serious biological threats were detected. He’d been in more danger of dying from the bite he’d gotten in a battle with those barbarians on Fero 37.
Breen had no authority over him and they both knew it. But knowing she was real and so close made him anxious to see Maia again. He wanted to find out if the flesh and blood female had as powerful an impact on him as the fantasy one did. Though he was eager to attend the feast, he wouldn’t let the other man think he could be ordered around.
“I’m busy. Send Raaz or one of the warriors training here. Whoever you choose, warn him he’ll have his hands full with that little yellow-haired one. I heard from one of your medical officers that their bodies respond to certain forms of stimulation the same way women from our World do. And they also seem to experience pleasurable sensations when their rear passages are probed.”
The minister refused to bite. Sharing salacious rumors might make it seem as though they were equals. “You found these aliens. You brought them to Prya. You will attend the feast. The Seneschal expects to see you there.” Breen strode away.
Kadan sank down on the narrow bunk in his room and buried his face in his hands, groaning. Ever since hearing that the female aliens responded positively to physical stimuli, he’d been imagining what the medics were doing to them. Well, not all of them. Just Maia.
Did they tweak her nipples until they puckered into dark red peaks like the ones he saw in his dreams? Did they fondle her pussy, then bend their heads and taste her juices? Worst of all, he tortured himself night and day wondering if they’d taken her in the ass. The anatomy of the females on Anteres could not accommodate the girth of an erect penis in that orifice, so in his World it did not come into play as a source of pleasurable sensations for either party.
He wouldn’t be surprised if they had. Hell, he’d fucked an alien in her bottom hole once, after hearing other soldiers brag about doing it. A female from Daaca at a Rapture Dome on the Girra Sola asteroid. The place was such a hellhole, the only way to keep soldiers from revolting while stationed at the outpost there was to bring in the most unusual prostitutes to be found in the galaxy. It was well-known that you could get anything you wanted on Girra Sola, from a Tesserian Trio to a whore from Vierga who could make her pussy vibrate around a cock so fast you could hear it hum.
As for Maia, though she came from an alien World, in his dreams her body and his were made for each other. Breasts so full they fit perfectly into his hands when he cupped them. Nipples puckering into tight buds he could draw into his mouth and suck. Skin warm and smooth, quivering under his palm when he stroked it. Pussy slick and tight. Curvy white ass, begging to be spanked. Her rear passage would be tight too. Tight and hot. And then to hear rumors that Earth women actually liked being stimulated there… His cock responded instantly, straining against his uniform.
According to Breen, soon she’d be able to move around at will. He could find out her whereabouts any time he wanted, arrange to run into her on the base.
He shook his head, remembering the truth. So far, no female he’d ever been with had lived up to his fantasies. Kadan made up his mind. First chance he got, he’d volunteer for guard duty. Take Maia somewhere private and fuck her till he’d had his fill. Claim her in every hole. Rid his mind of her constant presence, so he could get back to concentrating on his Quest.
* * *
When they arrived on Prya, the women were immediately separated. She’d been led away, locked in a windowless room by two silent aliens clad in similar metallic suits. Her quarters contained nothing but a single bed and a metal table, where she found a tray bearing a carafe filled with a syrupy white liquid. She glanced around the room. Grayish-white walls and ceiling, gray floor made of a substance that looked like concrete or stone. No windows. A single door fit seamlessly into the wall, without any knob or handle to open it on her side. The room was lit with a soft glow, but she couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. It seemed to be everywhere at once.
She paced the room, trying to locate hidden monitoring devices. Though she couldn’t find any, she was certain she was being watched. Finally, out of sheer boredom, she picked up the carafe and sniffed the contents. An elusive odor, slightly familiar but not unpleasant. It smelled a little like one of the exotic spices from Namidya she used when she made special treats for the Winter Solstice celebration. Maia took a tiny sip. Pleased by the burst of sweetness on her tongue, she took another. Before long, she’d finished the entire container.
She hadn’t noticed till then but the light in the room had slowly dimmed until it was only a pale glow. The last few days had been stressful and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to curl up on the bed and rest.
* * *
She awoke with a start. It was impossible to know how much time had passed but the room was brightly lit again. She didn’t remember getting undressed, but she was naked under a thin coverlet. Her clothes were gone and so was the tray with the carafe. Instead, the table bore a pile of garments made of a slick white fabric.
Maia sorted through them. Head covering with a clear eye panel. Then, unlike the one-piece suits the aliens who brought her here had worn last night—was it last night?—she found separate pieces for her upper and lower torso, detachable sleeves with gloves for her hands, and two leg sections complete with booties to cover her feet.
As far as she could see, she had two choices—wear them or greet her captors naked. Maia normally chose simple gowns that flowed over her body and didn’t restrict her energy flow. She struggled with the unfamiliar garments. To her surprise, the segments automatically fused together when she put them on, encasing her completely.
She’d barely gotten dressed when the door opened and three aliens came toward her. Shorter, less muscular than Kadan and his crew. All three clad in the shiny metallic garb. It covered every inch of them, so only their eyes were visible. She assumed it was protective gear, worn when dealing with unknown life forms. They brought in a metal table with wheels. Before she could react, they’d lifted her onto it and strapped down her wrists and ankles. Maia struggled to free herself, but the garment she wore tightened around her body so she could barely move a muscle.
“Stop! Wait! Where are you taking me?”
Instead of answering her, they addressed each other, short utterances in an unintelligible tongue. They wheeled her out, down a long gray corridor lined with doors, and then into another, larger room. Brightly lit, with strange machines lining the walls.
This was not what she’d volunteered for. The diplomatic mission to Tyrendia 3 was supposed to be a cultural exchange. An opportunity for Earthers and Tyrendians to share knowledge and customs. Their people had never learned to harness the healing powers of the Universe and she’d been selected from among hundreds of volunteers in her area of expertise to conduct seminars and demonstrations.
The idea of going to a world whose inhabitants were unable to project their thoughts and emotions into each other’s heads was especially appealing after what she’d been through with Jarod. Her teacher, her mentor—and her ex-fiancé. When her abilities started to surpass his, he’d fucked with her mind as well as her body.
The worst of it came when a troubled young man committed suicide a few months after a session with her. Jarod used that bad experience to implant doubts and fears in her head. Rather than share the young man’s long history of mental illness with her, the bastard tried to convince her it was her fault. She was ready to give up her calling, frightened that she’d end up harming her patients rather than helping them. He almost crippled her before she realized what he was doing.
She’d trusted Jarod, allowed him into her mind—and her heart. By the time it ended, she didn’t even want to be on the same planet with him. When the offer came to join Qui Jin Chang’s mission, she jumped at it. By the time she returned to Earth, he’d have been gone—and she’d hoped the ache in her heart would be gone too.
Suddenly Maia was faced with the fact that she’d gotten exactly what she wanted. She was in a strange world, with no idea what the inhabitants believed and held dear. No hint of what they were thinking.
“What are you doing? Where are the other women?” Muffled by the headgear, her voice sounded weak. Weak—and powerless. She was alone on this alien outpost, cut off from her companions. Strapped to a gurney, unable to communicate with her captors. Maia tamped down a stab of sheer terror.
Ignoring her outburst, they went straight for her tits. One of them began rolling the tip of a glowing yellow rod over her chest. The slick fabric disintegrated everywhere it was touched. Simply disappeared, leaving her right breast exposed. Embarrassment warred with the fear.
He put down the rod and reached out with one gloved finger, poking and pressing it.
With the rest of her body still restricted by the garment and the restraints, she couldn’t do a damn thing to stop him. She tried reaching out with her mind, communicating directly to him with her feelings, but it was like projecting her thoughts onto a stone wall. No connection. No response. She realized how much she’d relied on reading the thoughts and emotions of others in her life. Being in a world where her gift was useless made her feel lost and vulnerable.
The second male stepped forward and joined in. At least she assumed it was a male, from the low grunt she heard when her nipple hardened as he tweaked it. She hadn’t seen any females other than her companions since she Awakened.
They exchanged glances and moved aside, allowing the third one access. He swept the rod over the rest of her chest, baring it completely. He seemed fascinated by the fact that her right nipple stood out, tightly puckered, while the left was soft. Deliberately, he ran his gloved fingers over the hard peak. He fondled it, then gave it a pinch. She jerked as a jolt of heat shot straight to her clit. Ashleigh’s not the only one who hasn’t been laid in a hundred years.
Her immediate response brought an equally swift reaction. They formed a huddle, murmuring among themselves in that unintelligible tongue. Then the one who pinched her came around the side of the table. He took the stiff peak between two fingers, rolling it back and forth, squeezing just hard enough to make her eyes widen. She bit her lip, trying to ignore the sudden throbbing between her legs. Her nipples had always been highly sensitive. Apparently not having them touched for a century only heightened her responsiveness.
He motioned another of them to her left side. That one began teasing her other nipple until it too stood out. All the while they kept up a running dialogue. One of them waved his arm in the air and a clear screen popped up across the room. She heard a low hum as clusters of white lights began flashing on and off on a holographic image of her body.
The third alien walked to the end of the table by her head. He ran his palms lightly down her chest and over both breasts, cupping them, fondling them. His gloved hands must have had some sort of electrical devices built into the fingertips because everywhere he touched, she felt a mild tingling sensation.
He motioned to the others and without a word they backed away immediately. This one must be in charge.
Slowly, deliberately, he slid his fingertips across one nipple.
She gasped. Definitely some sort of electrodes. Now, instead of a mild tingling, they sent a pulsing current through her. Colored lights appeared on the screen over her nipple and her pubic area, flashing in time to the pulses. Yellow, red.
He came around the table so he could stare into her eyes and grasped both nipples between his fingers and thumbs. She squirmed, then let out a little cry. He’d ramped up the current, so it was right on the edge between pleasure and pain. Shooting through her body, hitting every erotic nerve. She squeezed her eyes shut but she could still see the lights strobing on the insides of her eyelids. Now they were everywhere on the screen’s image. Pinpointing the pleasure centers in her brain, her breasts, her clitoral area. Even lighting up the path of her vaginal canal when her pussy spasmed. Yellow and red with bursts of hot purple, flashing brighter and faster as her arousal built.
Meanwhile the other two ran their rods over her arms, baring her skin. The boss man, as she thought of him, moved his attention to those areas. Lightly, delicately running his fingertips over every inch of her skin. Though he’d backed off on the strength of the current, she flinched when he explored her armpits. The current tickled. Her reaction seemed to intrigue him. He came back again and again, testing her response there against other areas of her arms and upper body. Maia clenched her teeth, not wanting to give him any reason to continue, but the flashing lights gave her away.
She’d never thought her armpits were an erogenous zone but their leader proved her wrong. One at a time he unbuckled her wrists, raised them over her head and fastened them to the table again, giving him total access to the highly sensitive area. Then he increased the pressure of his fingertips, going from a feather-light tickle that had her struggling to avoid it to a slow, sensuous stroking. At the same time, the pulsing current strengthened a notch. Her eyes drifted closed and she allowed the waves of sensation to flow through her.
Dimly, she was aware that the other two were performing various procedures on her upper body. Running violet light wands over her bare skin, taking tiny snips of her fingernails and her hair. Her eyes popped open when the cool air of the room hit the soles of her feet. They’d moved the yellow rods to her lower body now, baring her feet, then her ankles. The garment disintegrated as they slid the rods higher. Calves, knees, thighs.
I hope he runs that pulsing glove over my clit. The thought popped into her head, followed by a silent shout. Maia, pull yourself together! They’ve done something to you. Drugged you, or hypnotized you with the lights and the pulsing current. These are aliens and you’re letting them do whatever they want to your body!
The realization shocked her into full awareness. Her eyes flew open and she began straining against her bonds, shouting at the top of her lungs.
“Let me go! Help, someone!”
“Stop it!”
The harsh command startled her into silence. With one flick of a glowing rod, the hood disappeared from her head. Shocked, she stared up into the eyes of the boss man and said the first thing that came into her head.
“You speak English.” Her tone went from surprise to accusation. “You speak English!”
“Yes. Since you and the other members of your species arrived, I have taken steps to become conversant in your archaic tongue. Now lie still and be quiet. These scientific and medical procedures are necessary if you wish to be released from quarantine and move about freely among our people. Your defiance will only make our task harder.”
“Harder?” She glared at him, fear replaced by an unaccustomed flash of anger. “You’re damn right, I’m going to make it harder. I’ll make it impossible! This is not a medical exam. You’re nothing but sick bastards, drugging me then groping me to get your rocks off.”
“Your statement is irrational.” He waved a hand at his suit. “You can clearly see there are no rocks on us.” His voice was expressionless. “As scientists, we are simply doing our job. Protecting our species against possible threats from alien beings.”
“Exactly how does tying me down and fondling my tits protect your species?”
He ignored the sarcasm in her voice and started delivering his explanation in a calm tone that only fueled her anger.
“Long ago, our people were nearly wiped out by a highly contagious disease introduced by an alien species that visited our world. Both males and females could transmit the disease though mating, although only the females suffered its effects. Over time, it rendered them sterile. There were no outward symptoms and our birth rate dropped to nearly zero before we discovered a way to detect it early enough to administer a cure.”
She still wasn’t buying it. “You expect me to believe that pinching my nipples and watching the colored lights flash when they get hard is an accepted diagnostic procedure?”
“Yes, I do. This disease attacks the pleasure centers of the brain first, slowly diminishing the female’s ability to respond to sexual stimulation. Since every alien species has evolved differently, we routinely examine every possible erogenous zone of female aliens, tracking their levels of arousal, to make certain we do not unwittingly contaminate our people again.”
His mouth formed a grimace she guessed was his version of a reassuring smile.
“As for drugging you, our gloves have been coated with a mild substance found to reduce anxiety in subjects from other worlds while we examine them. If you prefer, we will not use it again. But only if you agree to submit to the rest of these procedures without further resistance, including the necessary cleansing to remove any alien microbial life forms from your body.”
Maia narrowed her eyes. “Exactly what do these procedures involve?”
His response shattered the last vestiges of the rigid control she’d always kept over her own emotions. Maia thrashed against her bonds, shouting out every curse word she’d ever learned.