Chapter Nineteen
Vyken
When my eyes open a pain sears through my entire body, a heat and an ache deep within my muscles. The medical serum we use to inject into soldiers mere seconds from death. It has a combination of epinephrine, heavy-duty tranquilizers, and something so very technical and Firosan that I would never be able to wrap my comparatively primal brain around it.
Essentially, it wraps itself around your very cells and prods each and every one to work at maximum capacity. Or, I have no idea -- but that’s definitely what it feels like. It feels a lot like a tough internal web of electrical wiring.
I grunt and every movement it takes to sit up is a crunching, straining ordeal. I work up the effort to stretch as hard and as long as I can, knowing full well that makes it feel a lot better. Finally the pains give way to a more dull ache and I can work through it. I get up, rock on the balls of my feet to the heels, testing my weight. The last time I was under that kind of treatment I was knocked out for four days. I have no way of knowing how long it was this time, or how much muscle definition I might have lost.
“Morning, sunshine!”
I wheel around to see Roxie sitting in a chair in the medbay, right near to where I was lying, and yet I didn’t see her right away. Her feet are up on a sterile white counter and she is flipping through a manual for transforming rubber gloves -- medical gloves that will transform fit any known species in the universe. I smile and she grins back.
“You made it, General,” she adds, getting to her feet and strolling towards me.
“How long?”
She shrugs, looking around and squinting. “Two days? Just under?”
“Could be worse,” I grunt.
Her smile doesn’t falter, and she gently reaches up to caress the back of my neck. Her touch electrifies. “I dreamed about you,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around her waist. She nuzzles into my chest and it feels right.
“It was boring travelling through space without you,” she says, and then pulls back to search my eyes for a reaction.
“We’re travelling?” I repeat, moving from her grasp to open the shutters and gaze upon the blackness of space.
“Turns out the ship has an autopilot function -- we’re going straight to your home planet. How cool is that?” She looks so proud of herself for figuring that all out without my help, but I struggle to see it like that.
“Back to my planet,” I repeat. “We…”
“...saved an entire species,” she finishes for me, closing the gap between us again to lace her fingers through mine. I inhale deeply, getting a lungful of her scent, and instinctively I pull her closer. “They have to forgive you. Us. Whatever. We were working under the Oracle’s orders and we saved them; we gained your people one of their strongest allies.”
She’s not wrong, but there still exists a pang in my gut and it isn’t from the serum that saved my life.
Noting my reaction, Roxie smiles. “It’s OK. I brought along a passenger. He’s going to set the record straight. Alright?”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, and for a moment I am afraid that she has done something astonishingly stupid and somehow tried to bring the Oracle along on this journey back to Paxia with us. Of course, it would lose all of its powers -- and the Ferathorns would be rendered almost useless without access to them through its pseudopsychic root system…
But no, of course she hasn’t done that. My girl is headstrong and impulsive, but she isn’t stupid.
The Ferathorn who ducks to get into the medbay bows briefly and I mimic it, deepening it further when I realize which one is on board my stolen vessel.
“Prince Rsharr,” I say, stunned momentarily. “What an incredible honor.”
“We considered sending a lesser Ferathorn,” Rsharr says, slowly raising himself up and stretching after his bow, “but given the gravity of the situation, I felt no one but me could accompany you.”
“Yes?” I say, crossing my arms over my thick bare chest.
“When we tell your superiors of what happened on Fera,” Rsharr says. “Your fated one filled us in on everything that happened, from start to finish, and it is a tale indeed.” I chuckle. He’s right. “I look forward to the look on your king’s face when we tell it over honeymead.”
I had forgotten how obsessed the Ferathorns are of Firosan honeymead -- it’s a funny quirk. They lack the ability to distill it themselves, so all of our tactical meetings would involve gallons of the stuff.
“Of course,” I say, wondering how bizarre it would be if I sent an advance message for my people along the lines of, ‘I know I am a fugitive, but I am arriving shortly to explain away my crimes. Ready the honeymead.’ I probably won’t do that, but I do want to make sure Rsharr has my unending thanks for coming with me to back up our story.
He bows again, and I spot the beginnings of a bud or two on the ends of his branches. I smile as he leaves, pleased more than words can say that I was able to save them.
When he is gone, I take Roxie into my arms and press my lips against the hollow of her neck, drawing in her heat, her scent. She presses against me, interlocking with me like the world’s most arousing jigsaw… And I’m still not great with words.
“We saved them,” I say, correcting my inner thoughts aloud.
“You were unbelievable,” she whispers. “But you know the whole thing was the Oracle’s plan.”
I run my fingers through her hair. “Of course it was.”
“Finding me. Everything. The Oracle knew I would be pulled under by the roots down there. It knew that the only reason you’d drain your blood until you were seconds from death was … well, for me. That’s what was implied, anyway.” She clears her throat, averting her eyes. “Is that ridiculous or what?”
I don’t laugh. It isn’t ridiculous at all. “I have been a warrior all my life, and I thought fighting for my people was the most honorable life I could lead,” I tell her, and I gesture to my upper body. It is crisscrossed in fine scars. “If I told you the story behind these cuts you might very well faint. And I always accepted I would die someday, but it never occurred to me for what. What would be worth my life.” I pause, swallow, wishing I was better at speaking. “The answer is you.”
She opens her mouth, but I shake my head, pressing my lips against hers -- hard. They are so soft, so delicate, but so firm and sure of what they want. Our tongues seek each other out and the taste of her makes me hard in an instant. My cock presses against her stomach and I feel her moan ever so slightly into my mouth.
I love her. I know this for sure, but I still don’t know how to say it. I have never said it to anyone else. Instead, I try to quell the roar of lust in my ears by nipping at her lower lip and lifting her by the waist. I have been passed out, healing, regenerating, for two straight days. My cock hurts, I need my woman so bad. Rsharr called her my ‘fated’ -- is that just their word for the one I have chosen, or is it something more?
For the first time, I truly think about what Roxie said, and I wonder -- did the Oracle choose her because we are meant to be together? Because she is the only one I would die for?
The thought, far from giving me pause -- and I am a man who has spent my life dragging my feet on important decisions because the thought of someone relying on me or vice versa was horrifying -- makes me even harder than before. I let out a growl I can’t hold in as I lift her and set her down on the cold slab, driving my tongue further between her lips, rubbing my hand between her legs, my cock straining and aching against my clothing…
She is the one for me, made for me, destined for me, and I don’t care how I know it -- I just do. And I intend to show her, bit by bit, working over her entire perfect body, for as long as she will let me.