Chapter Twenty-One:

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Markoss and several of his guards carried Dommik into the ship. Kat led them up to the medbay, using his metal frame to open the previously locked doors.

She didn’t trust the aliens and watched them warily. They set Dommik on the medical slab, where the Bins began to work on his broken metal, repairing him piece by small piece.

A compartment opened up at the back of the room for the Bins, housing everything a Cyborg could need for emergency assistance, down to low-grade replacement limbs and circuit boards.

Kat got to work cleaning his wounds, stripping him of his dirty suit, and sewing up the deeper gashes. She ran a cleaning cloth over every inch of him, every piece and part of his eight limbs, all while Markoss sat and watched her from the corner. Silent and eerie.

It was hard for her to breathe with him drilling his eyes into her soul.

This is not what I imagined.

One of the androids opened up a box, spilling forth a writhing flower and a bug that skittered across the floor. Kat jumped back as the flower crawled to her.

“What the…”

Markoss picked it up and examined it. “An O'lia flower, a real one. How intriguing.”

Kat looked at the bloody thing in his hand. “What do you mean a real one?”

“We harvested them to extinction centuries ago, Katalina.”

“I don’t understand?”

Markoss found a container and placed the flower within, slicing his hand to drip blood over its roots. Intrigued, Kat watched as the thing drank it and bulged up. Markoss placed a top on it.

“Katalina, Lina, the real O'lia were thought to be extinct. The stuff on the market now is a cheap imitation to satisfy the ritual. But this one is real, Katalina, very interesting.”

“You knew and you didn’t tell us?”

“Why would I?”

Yeah, why would he? Kat counted to five. Then counted to five again.

She followed the roach with a sigh and trapped it within her hands, placing it within the container that jailed the vampiric flower. She watched as it settled on the stem before wiping her hands clean. Her attention returned back to Markoss, the alien, where he hovered at her side, towering like Dommik.

“I don’t know if I should thank you or kill you,” she said.

“Neither. I deserve neither.” He bowed his head and went back to his spot in the corner.

Kat moved to sit at her Cyborg’s side and settled in to watch his body heal and the androids work their magic. When there was nothing left to do but wait she found sleep with her head resting on one his arms.

Her eyes fluttered open sometime later, feeling movement under her cheek, she lifted up to a body crooked and aching with pain and a stomach full of cramps. The first thing she noticed was Dommik’s limbs shifting, the second thing was that Markoss was gone.

Only one android remained and she knew it was Bin-Three. The metal spider turned back into a man with a ticking and a creek. Gone was the fluid silence of his movement. His eyes didn’t open.

“Is he going to be okay?” she asked the bot.

“Master Dommik is restarting. He is okay.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-four minutes and three seconds until completion.”

“Thank you.” She massaged the back of her neck. A sheet was placed over Dommik’s nudity when his extra limbs fully vanished inside his shell.

“Here is your dinner.” Bin-Three handed her a nutrition bar. Kat took it with a smile. Routine feels good. She placed it on the table next to her knocking her knuckles into a reader.

Her reader.

The one that had beeped.

Kat grabbed it and turned it on. She closed her eyes to find her buried courage, fear strangled her heart and closed up her throat. I’m fine. I don’t have the parasite. I can’t have it. I’m vaccinated. I don’t have it. Her body broke out into a cold sweat.

“Katalina, dear, nothing in life comes easy. You’ll find that your demons come back over and over. What you do about those visits is entirely up to you. Exorcising a demon is as hard as forgetting a memory.”

She opened her eyes and read her results.

***

Dommik woke up alone. Not alone. His eyes landed on the Trentian standing at the foot of his bed. His skin was cold but his metal interior burned him up from the inside. He flexed his muscles, registering his extra limbs locked within.

The next instant he had his metal claw around the alien’s throat, drawing blood. “What happened?” he growled.

The Space Lord remained still. “You came back broken. Katalina, Talina, and your robots repaired you, Dommik.”

“Did you touch her?” Venom rose up into his mouth.

“I did not.”

“Where is she? If she has come to any harm, I’ll kill you slowly, painfully. And your entire crew and gift your corpses to the flowers.”

“Dommik, she is fine, shook up, but here. Katalina took your prize and is housing it in an enclosure as we speak.”

Dommik threaded through his androids and saw her through their eyes down below. He stole their recordings of the last day away and uploaded them into his drives. It took him all of several seconds to review the material.

Her screams, her cries as she tried to get him inside. Taking his weapon and calling for help, shooting at the remaining pilgrims, and of Markoss and his men slaughtering them. He saw Kat crouch over him with a knife, preparing to fight to the death.

For him.

The surgery, the cleanup, her conversation with the Space Lord, the flower, and he saw her find the reader.

Dommik kept his hold around Markoss’s neck and checked the stitches on his arms and chest, already fading away. His eyes landed on the reader across the room.

He let the Trentian go. “Get off my ship.”

Markoss canted his head, twisting his lips. “She loves you.”

Dommik pulled out clothes from the cybernetics cabinet and dressed. “Get. Off. My. Ship. I don’t like liars, Markoss.” Throwing his words back at him.

The creeping chill of the Space Lord’s laugh could have given lesser men night terrors. It wheezed low and heavy until it filled his ears, the breeze before the storm.

All he cared about was getting to Kat, talking to her, forcing her to accept him, and kissing her into compliance before he yelled at her for putting herself into harm’s way.

“Before I go, I want to thank you, Dommik. Dommik, thank you for killing the heretics, Xanteaus would not allow me to kill them until they drew first blood.” He ended on a patronizing, “Dommik,” before he vanished outside the door.

Dommik followed after him, only to find the passageway empty. He continued down through each door wedged open and kicked them closed behind him. Kat and his androids were down below, placing the O’lia flower away with the roach still alive and well on it.

He stormed past them and went to the still-opened hatch, closing it to a scene of countless Trentians readying to reap Xan’Mara with its own inquisition. Heralded by a thousand splintering rainbows.

“Bin-One, ready us for take-off,” he called out. “We’re headed for Earth.”

He felt the chinks and gaps in his frame as he approached Kat, she looked at everything and nothing except him.

“You’re covered in filth.”

“Thank you for your observation, I know that already.” She turned to walk away.

“We need to talk,” he followed her.

“Not right now.” She stopped at the door to her quarters. It didn’t open.

“Yes, right now. You’re upset and you could be hurt, you need to go to medical.”

Kat turned to him launching into a spit-fire rage as she started to hit him, pummel him, claw at him in any and every way that she could, screaming all the while. He let her use him, let her cry and hit him until the furor simmered to anger. Until her body shook with exhaustion.

She leaned her forehead on his chest and he reached up to pet her hair, “You knew. You knew and didn’t tell me. Why?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” Dommik sighed.

“When? How did it happen?” She trembled against him. “How did it happen? I haven’t slept with anyone but you. Wh–who raped me?” Her words broke into pieces.

My heart bleeds.

He cupped her face and forced her to look up at him. “No one raped you, Kat.” And caught her tears with his fingers. “It’s mine. Ours.” His hold on her tightened. “I would never let anyone harm you. Never. You’re mine, forever, whether you accept it or not. You chose me and I took you. I would–will destroy any man who touches you.”

Dommik willed her to look at him, willed her back to him, willed whatever they had between them to survive. He needed her to see the emotion in his emotionless eyes. Maybe I ask too much.

“I chose the job over Ghost, not you and not this baby, you’ve taken all my choices away,” she hissed, pulling herself out of his arms. “I hate you!” Kat moved away from him and stood next to her door, waiting to be let into her room. “Please, please just let me go. I can’t think. I can’t feel, I can’t feel anything. I’m numb! You made me numb!” Her hands closed into fists at her side with the gleam to strike him again. He was ready to take whatever she gave him.

“Kat…” I don’t know what to say.

“You don’t get to call me that, not anymore!” Instead, she hit the door and screamed. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you! You are a monster!” Each word accompanied with the loud thunk of vibrating aluminum.

Dommik’s eyes narrowed as she retreated from him physically, mentally, the wild look of her gone and the green dimmed to dust in her irises. Her clothes soiled and torn, dirt and dried blood on her skin, and the copper curls now straight and plastered to her face. “No,” he reached for her and pushed her against the wall where he devoured her unresponsive mouth until she devoured him back. “No.”

They fed off the chaos. He fed on his desperation. She bit his lip and took his violence. Dommik gave her everything with rage, his metal body, and his soul.

He pinned her, pressing hard, needing to feel every curve and contour of her body against his and felt her hands reach between them and tug at his pants. He peeled hers off as she worked his down. Her hands found his tightening cock and gripped it.

“No,” he growled and ground himself into her. Kat tugged at his hair sending prickles through him. Dommik smelled her arousal as his fingers dipped between her legs to find her clit.

“I need,” she threw her head back. “I need…”

“What do you need?” He rubbed her in sure, slow strokes, finding his own pleasure as she buckled.

“To come, please,” she panted. “I thought you were dead. I hate you.”

Dommik lifted her and hooked her legs around him, she held on as he returned to her pussy, her pussy that clenched around his fingers as he penetrated it, rubbing her g-spot and scissoring to stretch her tight walls to take him. He was desperate to get inside of her, to fill her up, to fuck her wet slit into oblivion.

To be the only insect within her, to be the only parasite she had to endure. He was it, he was hers.

“I hate you,” she said again as he replaced his hand with the thick head of his cock.

“I know.” He sank into her slowly, coveting every inch she gave him and he took. It was too much. To explosive. And too close to the brink of pain for either of them. She embraced him and held on as he filled her with every single inch. When they reached the apex, all sense left them, and a frenzy took its place.

He bottomed out inside of her.

Dommik ravaged her against the wall, bumping and jerking, as she screamed into his mouth and he swallowed them up. Sliding her wet sheath over him with each thrust all while he repeated, No no no.

They came together as he picked her up and held her in his arms, watching her lose herself riding his bulge with no leverage but his body. He watched as his fairy rode out her climax in mid-air. Each used the other for their own gratification.

It was over before it had begun and the high of uncontrollable desire dissipated, leaving them quiet and cold in each other's’ arms. In a pact, silent, and brooding while they both tried to hold onto the fantasy for a minute longer. A second. Their bodies flushed and overheated.

Kat’s legs unhooked. She slipped from his arms and tucked her hair behind her ears, “I hate you,” she repeated again softly. “I want to hate you. I need to hate you.” She kicked her pants and hugged herself. “So, please, just let me hate you.”

Dommik watched as she drifted away from him, leaving a thousand words unspoken. He reached past her and opened her quarters. Her eyes became hooded as she stepped inside.

“Kat,” he took a step after her and laid his heart on his sleeve. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” And the door shut.