Chapter 14

The team rushed across the plain in a body to surround General Duncan. Everyone talked at once. "We were lost! We were attacked by a dragon in mid-air! Have you been searching for us? One of the Krataks saved us. That's Clan Assan. They came out to meet us and brought us in. We haven't even been inside their Keep yet."

General Duncan held up her hands for silence. "We haven't been searching for you. We didn't even know you were lost. We thought something happened to Sheena, but we never thought the rest of you were in any danger."

Jasmine frowned. "Then why are you here? Don't you want to preserve the integrity of our study?"

"Your study has been canceled. I'm here to recall the team. The Command has decided to abort your mission and move ahead with diplomatic protocols. All of you will evacuate with me. I'm going to pick up Team 1 as soon as I leave here."

The friends exchanged glances. "Aborted? But we haven't even started yet."

"That will make it all the easier for you to withdraw. Gather whatever gear you have and load into the shuttle. We're lifting off and returning to the Command Center."

Sheena detected a stiffening among her companions. No one wanted to contradict the General first, but no one wanted to withdraw, either. Jasmine broke the silence. "I'd just as soon stay, General. I was looking forward to this study."

"You can't stay. I'm ordering you to withdraw."

Jasmine squared her shoulders. "Every one of us here, with the exception of Sheena, went through months of specialized training and seven weeks of quarantine to prepare for this mission. Most of us postponed or resigned advanced career positions to accept places on this team. None of us wants to give that up just because the Command changed its mind. The Allies still needs accurate information about these people and their customs, and we haven't even scratched the surface. We can still accomplish our mission without jeopardizing the Allies' agenda here."

"You can't stay. You would be cut off from all communications with the Allies. We would have to abandon you here. Is that what you want?"

"You just said the Command will go ahead with diplomatic protocols. If that happens in the next year, we'll be in communication with the diplomatic teams. They can arrange transport off the planet when we complete our research."

General Duncan studied the ring of faces surrounding her. "Are all of you absolutely certain you want to go through with this? This could be your last chance to leave for a very long time."

The team members nodded, and some smiled at her.

"I can see you're determined to stay. I'll probably live to regret this, but I'll give you my tentative permission. If the diplomatic teams find any irregularities in your conduct down here, they'll have orders to evacuate you immediately. Is that clear?"

"Very clear. Thank you, General."

General Duncan sighed. "You better go on with your new friends then."

At Jasmine's signal, the others backed away to join Warku on their way up the long slope into the Keep. The patriarch and matriarch came down to meet them and escorted them toward the entrance.

At the last moment, Jasmine took Sheena's hand. "I'll see you on the other side, Sheena. I'll bet you're happy to get off this planet at last."

Sheena stared down at Jasmine's hand in hers. She couldn't exactly tell Jasmine or anyone else that she was on her way to her own funeral. Now that she separated from the research team, her last shred of hope died. Where she was going, no one else would understand what she went through or how she felt about what happened on this planet.

She would go through the standard psych evaluations to check her fitness to return to active duty. Some psychologist would ask her a million questions about her experience, but they wouldn't be able to decipher from what she told them exactly what caused the change in her attitude toward her life.

She was going back to the Allies. She was going back to a living death, millions of light years from the only life left for her. No one would understand when she broke off her relationship with Rollo. No one would understand why she couldn't continue as Commander of the Allies Air Wing. No one would understand when she resigned from the Allied Command entirely.

What choice did she have? Where could she go? She would spend the rest of her life searching for Fawks and never finding him. She couldn't support the Allies anymore when she harbored a deadly secret that could destroy them on this planet.

Jasmine pressed her hand one more time and retreated toward the Keep. The long line of Assans led the way, and the whole group disappeared down the dark entrance into the mountain's heart.

General Duncan watched them go, but Sheena didn't bother. That way closed to her forever. The whole world closed around her and left her no avenue of escape.

The General turned back to the shuttle. “Come on, Sheena. Let’s go.”

She stepped up the ramp to the door. Sheena took one step to follow her when overwhelming emotion took hold of her. She broke away from the torturous force drawing her into that shuttle. “I'm sorry, General. I'm not coming with you. I have to go.”

The General whirled around with a gasp, but Sheena didn't stick around to talk about it. She ran from that shuttle, from Assan Keep, from everything dragging her away from the forest. She tore across the plain and dove into the trees. She ran for her very life in search of the one thing that could make life worth living.

She swept the woods with her eyes even as her feet crashed over rocks and fallen branches. Where was she going? She didn't know or care. She was moving toward him, toward Fawks. She prayed to high heaven he was still near enough to find her in these woods. He could be flying far away by now. She could be lost in these woods forever and never find him, but even that was better than getting in the shuttle and leaving Kratak.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flash of white and headed for it. She found him standing not far inside the tree line. He gave her his inscrutable nod. “There you are, Sheena. I've been waiting for you.”

She stopped short and caught her breath. “How did you know I would come back?”

“I've been watching you ever since you left with the Assans. Were you tempted to leave?”

“I couldn't leave. I don't know what came over me, but I knew I couldn't leave. I have to.... I have to be with you.”

He took a step closer. “Are you sure you're ready to go with me to my city? Is that what you really want?”

“I don't know what I really want. I only know my way lies with you, toward you. I can't move away from you. Wherever you go, I'll go. I can't take a stand against you to fight with the Allies. If I have to choose, I choose you.”

He put his arms around her. “I'm glad you came back, because I couldn't leave without you. I would fight the whole Assan Clan to stay near you.”

Sheena succumbed to his kiss, and the maelstrom of tempestuous emotions and sensations swept her away. This was her life now—nothing else. His kiss brought her out of that desperate stupor in which she passed the dreary time since she left him behind. She would never leave him behind again. She could leave behind anything and everything, but not him.

He took her by the hand and led her deeper into the forest, far away from prying eyes and threatening Krataks. He led her far back along the path they followed to get here until a bubble of safety surrounded them and cut them off from any pursuit.

A whine caught Sheena's ear, and the rocket shuttle zipped overhead and beyond the horizon. Sheena smiled at it. That was her old life flying away from her. General Duncan gave up on getting her back. She got tired of waiting and flew away. Sheena rejoiced. She was utterly alone on this planet. The diplomatic teams to follow would never find her and would never bring her back.

She looked down from the sky to find Fawks regarding her. She smiled at him, too. If he wasn't sure of her before, he must be now. She was his alone now.

Deep in the dark forest, he pulled her down on the grass and stretched his long body next to her. He didn't grab her and take her, though. He gazed into her eyes, and they swam in pools of understanding and long, delicious kisses. She tasted him for the first time in the complete realization that they would stay together. Nothing could separate them now.

Fawks questioned her with his eyes. He doubted and found his assurance in her unvarnished gaze. He made himself vulnerable to her instead of holding her at a distance. He stroked her cheeks and pushed her hair back from her forehead.

Even when she lay on her back with him looming over her in all his raw animal power, she could command his heart the way he commanded hers. She held him in the palm of her hand. He found his completion in her the way she found hers in him. They were nothing without each other.

All the times he dominated her and forced her to submit to his pleasure, all the times he seized her and bent her to his will, he was really giving himself to her. When she exposed her heart and soul to him and let him touch her most secret places, she owned him as surely as he owned her.

His fingertips followed the line of her cheekbone, down her jaw to her neck. He raised goosebumps on her skin with his feather touch. He kissed her behind the ear until she seethed in burning fury.

She smashed herself to pieces against him. His slow movements drove her crazier than his rabid domination. She dreamed of everything he would do to her until he did it. He traced the neckline of her shirt, but he wouldn't venture below it even when she thrust her breasts against his chest and tried to catch his hand to touch her.

In everything, they remained locked together at the lips and eyes. Their souls married into one cosmic being tumbling through space. She saw it all play out in his ice-blue eyes and he watched it happen in her.

The steaming desire rising from her sex didn't explode in torrential cataclysms, but built on itself to its inexorable conclusion until she couldn't hold it back anymore. He didn't have to touch her. She erupted in spontaneous orgasms from the mystical union of their minds in the wilderness.

Beyond the crazed frenzy of her climax, she settled back into his arms. He gave her shelter from the storm of her own delight. He accepted anything she did and everything she could become. He folded her in a loving embrace that sparked greater hunger and devotion than any touch could.

When he closed her in his powerful arms, she threw herself into him with great good will. She had to have him. Her desire escalated until she couldn't lie still and wait for him to act. She would grasp what she wanted.

She wrapped one leg around his hip and ground her twitching mons against the bulging mass between his legs. He could hold himself at a distance, but she would nudge it to its limit until it needed her as much as she needed it.

Ragged groans escaped between his lips, and she sipped them into herself to feed her passionate mania. She never beheld any beauty like the blood rushing to his cheeks. His sighs and groans made heavenly music to her ears. She attacked his growing prick with her pelvis to send him into the stratosphere.

He wouldn't submit to that for long, though. With a massive effort, he threw himself on top of her and pinned her to the ground with his weight. All his reserve vanished in the tornado of erupting passion.

Sheena rejoiced in his weight on top of her. She clasped him in her arms. Now she would meet her destiny. He would take her there on his ivory wings, and she would live her life in bliss.

He held her in place with his body while his hands grappled with her clothes. He stripped them off and laid bare her breasts and belly and hips. He forced down her pants, and she kicked them free. Her legs split of their own accord to latch around his waist.

He rocked back and forth against her, and that rhythm made its waves through her being to urge her to greater peaks of rapture. His very nearness gave her more pleasure than anything. His presence penetrated her soul to ignite her hunger.

No sooner had he removed her clothes than he attacked her body with all his ferocious energy. He mouthed down her neck to the breasts laying so long neglected under him. He bit her nipples to make them stand on end, and he sucked them with long, loving strokes.

Sheena writhed in his arms and moaned out loud in open lust until the nectar dripped from her naked gash. It ran down her ass into the planet beneath her and sprouted into some new life form, half Kratak and half human.

It sprang up between her legs to bind her to him at the waist, and he stroked it and encouraged it when he found it alive and growing under his hand between her legs. Her cocktail of effervescent juices coated his hand and swallowed it into her glowing hole.

He flexed his hips to propel his fingers into her livid pussy, and his rhythmic rocking made his hand pump her full of his exploring fingers. Icy fire sparked from his fingers on her G spot and titillated the cries of delight from her soul.

Her crescendoing climax blasted from her pores to the farthest reaches of space. She couldn't lie still under that treatment. Her orgasm shot her off the ground to hurl him backward on the grass. She tackled him onto his back and threw herself on top of him.

Fawks splayed out beneath her with his arms outstretched, but he didn't fight back. He submitted to her hands covering every inch of him. She slid his shirt and pants off to lay his white skin bare. He gleamed in the sun under her delicate hands. She followed the chiseled lines of muscle over his chest and heard the sharp intake of breath when she stroked down his stomach to his hips.

The thick member of his sex pointed up along his hips, and it spasmed in her hands when she handled it. She examined it at close range and watched the hot blood beating through the vessels under its surface.

She choked off its pointed head with strong fingers and popped it into her mouth. Fawks craned his neck back and groaned through clenched teeth, but Sheena let herself go wild, free to ravage him with all her strength. She sucked against the swollen head and tasted the salty spunk gliding from its tip.

He groaned again when she released it from her crushing grip. She slid her fingers down along its length to the base and let the whip snake find its way into her throat. His hands petted her cheeks, but when she attacked it once again with renewed hunger, he laced his fingers into her hair and tightened them into fists.

The harder he pushed her down on that shaft, the deeper she took it into her throat. His tortured whining urged her on. She would give him all the pleasure he gave her. She would hear him roar in her ear in lusty agony.

He stroked his rigid cock into her mouth, and the bump of its head against her gullet excited her beyond measure. His cock in her mouth and the driblets of cum stinging her sinuses brought her close to orgasm. She hung on tenterhooks. She wrapped her legs around his knees and rubbed her aching clit against him, but it wasn't enough. She needed that cock inside her to reach her full potential.

All at once, the raging thing in her hands and mouth gave a massive pulse. It went off in her hands and shot its hot load into her throat. She gagged at first, but a moment later, she caught his spunky ejaculation and gobbled it with gusto.

He forced her head down with destroying power and thrust his cock to its limit into her throat. He growled through his teeth. “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, suck it hard. Oh, yeah.”

His words sent her into a frenzy of sucking. She massaged his balls with one hand and stroked the base of his shaft with the other until the spurting cum flowed to a stop.

He let her go and she took the cue to sit up. She moved up toward his head. He guided her to his lips, and his eyes drilled into her being. “Do it. Do it now.”

She needed no second invitation. She caught hold of his thick tool and guided it between her legs to find the pussy ready and open for his passage. She swirled the head around her opening and joined her own saliva with the slippery honeydew around her cleft.

He nodded to her and steered her hips down on him with his hands. He took control of her hips, but he couldn't move her faster or harder than she moved herself.

She sat down hard on that stiff thing, and she moaned in deep satisfaction when it took its place inside her. All was right with the world. Nothing could ever be wrong again. God, it felt so good! How could anything feel so impossibly good? How could she survive such mind-blowing pleasure?

Her pussy closed around the wicked member buried inside it. Her juices gave it all the lubrication it needed to stroke her from the inside out. She spurred him to a swift trot, and he pumped his hips up into her from below.

She bucked her clitoris against his pubic bone, and her delicious ass slapped his thighs when she dropped down on him. His meat stabbed deep into her being and completed anything left unfulfilled in their long love-making. He satisfied her deepest cravings and set right any wrong she could comprehend.

She orgasmed again and again, without end. Every intrusion of his shaft into her glorious box sailed her over another peak and caught her on the way down the other side to bump her higher. She let her head loll back and her mouth open to the skies. She let her chorus of blissful delight sing to the trees. She was complete in him and with him and around him.