Chapter 44

CHAPTER 44

ALINA

A lina was going crazy.

Sitting in the confines of her cabin, she had long given up on chiming Threxin with demands to let her out. He was not listening.

The silence was deafening. She paced. She swore. She had pretend conversations with Threxin in which she told him just how much of an asshole he was. It was as she was trying to wedge her fingernails into the seam of the door in a fruitless attempt to pry it open that she realized she was well past the brink of rational thinking.

Alina put on Guy Meets Girl and pretended to watch it as the clock in her augmented vision ticked on. But as morning dragged into early afternoon, she knew the critical moment was approaching: the moment of docking, when supplies would be transferred from the delivery vessel to Colossal . Threxin had told her the approximate timeline when pretending he'd let help keep an eye out. Fooling her into believing he'd let her be useful, like an idiot. She huffed out a little growl through gritted teeth, smacking an exasperated fist into her thigh.

If something was going to go horribly wrong, it was going to be soon .

Alina turned off the show and sat staring at the wall, her ears attuned to any noise that might come from the other side of the door. The soundproofing within private cabins on Colossal was more than decent, but Alina suspected serious commotion like shouting, shooting, or explosions would permeate. Wouldn't they?

She traced the band of her comms bracelet restlessly between her thumb and forefinger. She was so tempted to chime Threxin again, but it wasn't the time. He had to focus on what was happening out there, not on Alina's complaints about being imprisoned in her own cabin.

He really liked imprisoning people, didn't he? Per Halen… Barton… her… But it was better than killing them.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the clock ticking ever-upward in her mind's eye.

It was well past midnight when Alina's door finally opened and Threxin stepped through it.

"You fucking asshole."

He's okay .

He stood silent in the door, looking exhausted. His spikes lay limp atop his head, his apertures open in that way of tiredness rather than arousal.

His sigh was a tired rattle. Alina's plastic chair cracked in protest as he sank into it, kicking his feet out wide as he slumped against the backrest.

They sat there for too many minutes, looking at each other limply.

" Well? " Alina finally asked, eyes roaming his body for any sign of injury and finding none.

He's okay.

Threxin flexed his fingers on his knees. When he spoke it was with the tone of one making a bland report as opposed to giving her the scoop on a super fucking risky ordeal. "The vessel docked at your twenty-three hundred hours. One human occupant boarded to authenticate. She was… curious. But all played their roles acceptably. Forty-eight plasma pallets, twelve vats of Nutrigel, six hundred and thirty tons of drinkable water, one hundred tons of edible seeds, and two million liters of graywater to germinate them have been delivered onto the ship over ten hours. The delivery vessel departed and no suspicious activity has been detected."

Alina looked at him blankly. "So you're saying it worked."

"Yes, Alina. It worked."

It worked!

"You fucking asshole," she burst out, the tension of the entire day overflowing in one fell swoop as she jumped from the bed and advanced on him. Maybe not a great idea, doing that with an uhyre, but she couldn't help it—he'd kept her locked in there all damn day .

"You would not have heeded my command had I ordered you to stay."

Alina fisted her hands. "Of course I wouldn't have. I could've helped you!"

"I did not need help, Alina Argoud. I had video feeds transmitted at all times."

"But you don't know how to interpret our body language yet. You said so yourse?—"

"Nothing worth endangering you for."

He was so damn stubborn. She'd felt useless the whole day. He had made her feel useless.

"Haven't I proven myself enough?" she asked.

For a long time Threxin's only answer was an unblinking stare on his face, making her wonder if she hadn't overstepped her boundaries. He was doing this for her . To meet her demands. It's just that it could've all gone so wrong, and she wouldn't even have known it. What if he'd gotten hurt? What if she never saw him again ?

"Go to the bed, Alina Argoud," he said quietly.

"That's what you have to say? Just bossing me around some more?" She didn't like that look in his eye. She liked it even less when veined hands went to his belt and began to slowly loosen the buckle.

"Oh yeah, okay. What are you gonna do now, spank me?" Alina rolled her eyes.

She was being sarcastic, but when his expression darkened Alina backed up a step.

"You are overstimulated. Go to the bed," Threxin repeated, and the way his apertures narrowed made her think he wouldn't do it a third time. Now she'd gone and done it, gotten too comfortable for her own good. What if he decided she was too much trouble? What if he canceled the Uploads? What if he left?

Keeping her eyes on him, Alina backed toward the bed in small, careful steps.

"Sit," Threxin instructed, and she lowered herself to the edge.

He nodded, pulling his gloves off one by one, revealing long, masculine fingers. She'd long since decided his hands were dangerous. Not just by way of the sharp talons that could slice skin to ribbons—she'd seen their effects. They were dangerous in the veins trailing up the back of them, sloping into thick, muscled forearms. And the way they expertly knew just how to touch her, as if they were built to drive her crazy.

She tracked those hands as they moved to unclasp the front of his trousers, at which point Alina ripped her gaze away. She couldn't look as he moved to ease his half-hard shaft through the front of his unbuckled pants. She forced her eyes to the floor between his legs instead, resisting the urge to peek.

"You will watch, human."

Alina's throat clicked with a nervous swallow. She wanted to, but she couldn't. How could she? She already felt like she wanted to disappear through the floor. Sure, she'd…. done things with Threxin. Things that were utterly stupid. Things that could ruin her life if he'd had less restraint. But it had always been… Not like this. She'd never had to sit there and watch him like this.

"Alina…" There she was, making him repeat himself again. His patience would run out eventually, and there wasn't a choice here—Alina sucked in a breath and forced her eyes up to his cock, wrapped in his hand. Even in his massive hand, the thing looked like an oversized spiked monster hardening in his grip. But a beautiful monster. A monster that wasn't the nightmare everyone thought it to be, and they'd know it if only they'd bothered.

Stop gushing over his cock, Alina.

Why was he doing this anyway? Did he get off on making her uncomfortable like this? Did he like watching her squirm as she was made to stare at the way his fingers pushed past the faint spikes beginning to emerge at the underside of his shaft?

But Threxin seemed to be doing that thing again, watching her too intently and analytically.

"What are you doing?" Alina realized her thighs had pressed together and tensed, seeking pressure, without her even knowing when it happened.

"I am evaluating."

Studying, she thought bitterly. Alina hated how she couldn't prevent vivid images of what he could definitely never do to her with that cock from surfacing even as she worried about his using her as a damn lab rat again.

"I am evaluating how much you want this."

Alina frowned. "H-how do you mean?"

There was a flash that could almost pass for vulnerability in Threxin's eyes and it looked so foreign on his uhyre features that she was sure she'd imagined it. Her attention gravitated back to his hand when his grip tightened. It was probably a good thing they could never actually have sex… That thing would never fit.

But I want it.

She couldn't restrain the small whine that left her throat at the thought, adductors tensing to squeeze her thighs tighter. Threxin noticed, his blazing gaze flicking down to the spot below her belly.

"Undress and touch yourself," he rasped.

"I don't…" she started, but the rest of the half-hearted protest stopped in her throat at the way his eyes narrowed as his hand delivered a long, lazy stroke to his cock. It made a fresh run of heat blaze between her legs. Alina shimmied out of her leggings, then pushed up the hem of her shirt, twisting it in on itself to hold it up over her stomach.

"I told you not to wear that useless fabric," Threxin chided at the sight of her black underwear.

"Yeah, well, I felt like it," she snapped back. Alina didn't need any shit about her choice to protest the day's captivity by choosing to wear panties just now. Alina suddenly felt like caving in to this man's perverted command was the last thing she should be doing. This was already so awkward. Which somehow made it even hotter… but so awkward .

"Remove it."

God, what a piece of work.

"Oh, shut up," Alina shot back without thinking. A mistake. Her eyes widened as the uhyre rose from his seat, engorged cock bobbing upright. She shifted backward by instinct as he cleared the space to the bed in one effortless step.

Threxin paid her trepidation no mind as he bent down and snapped the crotch of her panties with a quick, effective rip. Alina clamped her teeth over her lip, scowling. He bent over her with one hand propped on the bed, his massive arm looming next to her head. The apertures beneath his cheeks swirled with inner fire.

I want to taste them.

Alina didn't think her face could burn any hotter, but that thought did it.

"Touch yourself, human." He looked at her as he said it. Then his burning eyes lowered, honing in on her exposed flesh. She shook her head and pressed her knees together tighter, craving pressure but refusing to be toyed with like this.

He had told her to touch herself, and damn it she wanted to so badly, but she also wanted to persist in her defiance at being treated like this. And every time she defied him, he just got closer and looked hungrier. Alina did know better than to try an uhyre's patience.

But I trust him.

The thought hit her like an asteroid. It was all fucked up. She trusted him, but he thought it was appropriate to lock her in her cabin for an entire day just because he decided it was the best way to keep her safe. She trusted him, but he killed people.

Alina stared up at him as he loomed over her, icy eyes glowing and glazed over as his shoulder jerked. She tracked the movement, panting quietly as she trailed the length of his body down to his hand pumping his shaft above her. It was entrancing, the way the row of spikes began to engorge and pop out harder one by one beneath his machinations. Soon they were sleeking the way for his movements with a coat of glistening ebony.

Maybe even more than she craved to touch herself just then, she wanted to touch him.

Alina realized she'd been pinching her lip between her teeth, eyes glued to the uhyre's motions. Shit, she was half-naked on the bed panting over this alien as he jerked himself off. Alina closed her eyes, cringing at herself, her hands moving to cover her naked crotch. The low groan that reached her ears as she attempted to shield herself from view forced her eyes open and up to his face. She wanted to see his arousal.

And it dawned on her then, in the way his jaw went slack, that this was the part he was enjoying most—seeing her uncomfortable and wet and unable to do anything about it.

The alien bastard was taking advantage of her rebellion.

Her shyness didn't matter to this creature at all. It didn't matter how nervous, how anxious he was. How stupid and awkward she felt being watched—and watching—like this. Alina's brain could be running wild and he would still be looking at her like he wanted to devour her.

And if he could gape at her like she was nothing as he jerked himself off, so the fuck could she. Alina exhaled a long breath as her fingertips found her clit. Her knees parted for room, outer thighs nudging against his legs on either side of her. Saliva pooled on her tongue as she took him in, her index finger rubbing slow circles on her clit. She was already close, damn it. He was so close. The weight of his all-consuming gaze had gotten her there, and now she had to hold herself back if she really wanted to take advantage of the situation.

So she paced herself, slowing her movements as she drank in the thick veins trailing up from the base of his cock, interweaving between the engorged spikes there. She moistened her lips as she followed his hand up the shaft, black exorin seeping between long fingers. It would drip soon, and in that position it would drip directly on her thigh.

But that was safe… He wouldn't be doing it if it weren't. She didn't have to worry.

"You are not to orgasm, female," Threxin grunted above her, making her eyes fly up to him.

" What? "

But I'm so close!

"You heard me," he bent the elbow propping him above her to deliver the slow command so close to her face that she could feel the blue fire radiating from his apertures.

Why was he doing this to her?

Threxin snarled into her ear in a way that would have been terrifying not so long ago, but she knew now that he was in control. He was trying to intimidate her into compliance.

But it only made her want to push him more.

"Fuck you," she snarled, staring down at both their hands working at themselves. But in the corner of her eye she saw the bastard smirk.

He wanted this. He wanted her to defy him. What kind of twisted consequence was he setting her up for?

She wanted to find out.

Alina's hips shifted up into her fingers as she watched Threxin palm over the engorged head at the top, working pointed pressure between thumb and forefinger. It drew a thick drop of precum that made Alina swallow instinctively before Threxin slid his hand back down to the base. The sound that escaped her throat was more of a whimper than a moan, and when she realized she'd broken their adversarial silence, their eyes darted instinctively to each other and locked on like heatseeking missiles.

That was what did it, really. Her brows drew together, breath hitching as her finger rubbed quick circles in her slick clit. They didn't break eye contact, though in her peripheral vision she saw his jerking arm pick up the pace. It only took a few seconds, and then her hips bucked up at her hand. The orgasm was almost violent, a spasm washing through her. It made her finally break eye contact and squeeze her eyes shut. It was a moan this time—a real one—as her thighs shook against his thighs, legs bracketing them.

She vaguely heard, through the rushing in her ears, his deep groan. She felt heat splatter on her thigh, then higher. Unthinking, she reached up to yank her shirt up higher, giving him more skin.

Cover me.

She almost said it, but it didn't need to be said. She opened her eyes and watched him paint her belly with silver cum and exorin, his hips driving into his hand, sack drawing up as it emptied.

"Insubordinate, petulant human," Threxin rasped in her ear, and she felt flicks of what could only be exorin hit her skin. "Turn the shoq around."

Alina's heart jumped into her throat with both trepidation and excitement. Her pussy still ached with wet heat that her first orgasm hadn't dissipated. She flipped to her belly underneath him eagerly, feeling his cum spread between her skin and the bedspread.

The heat of his presence so close above her suddenly dissipated and she just felt so cold. Relief flooded her brain as contact was reestablished in the form of a rough hand on the back of her waist. She gasped as Threxin yanked her down until her knees were on the floor and her ass up in the air. She cringed at being so exposed, her ass sticking up to the air. It was ridiculous, of course—she just rubbed herself to completion in front of him, and now she was getting shy?

She needed to shake this off, assert herself before this went any further. She couldn't just let him distract her into compliance like this. "You shouldn't have locked me in, Threxin."

"I do not like putting my possessions at risk," Threxin said from behind her.

"I'm not your possession ." She turned her cheek to the bed to look back at him, ignoring the inexplicable twist in her chest. "You can't just lock me in whenever you please. That's not how autonomy works."

The smack that he delivered to her asscheek was so sudden, so sharp, and so loud, that for a moment Alina didn't even register that it had happened. All she could do was gasp a lungful of air and stare forward at the wall in shock as her mind caught up.

"Autonomy," the luxurious roll of his chuckle made her close her eyes, a shiver running down her spine, melting with the remnants of the burn from his slap.

"Y-yes. You can't just decide everything for me—" But it would be so relaxing. "I'm not an animal."

Threxin cocked his head.

"You can be my animal." Threxin's voice held an awful smile.

"Fucking hell," Alina began to shove herself up on her elbows. This little game was over. He clearly was not getting it.

"Hush," he chided. The next crack reached her ears before the burn did. It made her jump forward, hips smashing into the edge of the mattress. "I will be your animal too."

Alina opened her mouth and closed it, all arguments out of reach as she tried to process what he said—what he meant.

"Spread your knees, little animal," Threxin commanded with a low, toe-curling chuckle, and already Alina's legs were betraying her, her knees shuffling sideways as instructed before she could even think to hesitate.

Alina shoved her face into the bed between her outstretched arms. She wished she could just melt through the floor and disappear already. Instead, the lingering burn in her stricken skin built into a pulsing sensation that radiated all through her body, igniting every nerve ending in a way entirely foreign to her. It crawled into her chest, expansive and prickly. It slithered up her throat and behind her eyelids, worming into her brain and, once there, made something inside her pool into blissful nothingness.

Maybe she was disappearing after all.

It felt fucking amazing.

"You see?" Threxin's words reached her from far away, though she vaguely felt his lips brush her ear. The light contact skittered down her neck and flared through her from her spine, unwinding every muscle until she was slumped limply over the bed. "Everything feels better when you just stop fighting."

There was something meditative in that deep tenor. Alina closed her eyes with a sigh, her spine feeling like it was melting right into the bed, her knees the only thing still holding her up. Her pussy clenched at the new sensation of pressure gliding down her opening. If Alina had stopped to think about it, she'd guess it was a talon, but she didn't. Her aching body had turned to supple mush beneath the uhyre's manipulations, too far away to recognize anything as trivial as bodies or digits anymore.

Something pressed to the most sensitive parts of her, eliciting a long, drawn-out sigh. Something entered her, making her contract desperately around it. A chill pressed at her back, followed by sharp points running down her spine and ribs, over and over, making her back arch into the sensation.

Alina was a pool of wet nothing. There was nothing around her except the physical sensations being administered and the deep baritone speaking words that had no meaning. The sound burrowed into her soul, each low mutter invoking bliss. When the touching stopped, Alina frowned and forced her heavy lids open, turning her head to look for where it went.

Threxin was reaching down behind her, shoulder shifting in front of her face as he dug around in his pocket. His hand returned with a sealed silver vial.

"What's that?" she heard herself mutter.

Threxin leaned back slightly and then his other hand was there with an injection gun in it. He clipped the vial into the cartridge and aspirated it; a silvery droplet oozed from the tip of the needle.

Why the heck was he coming at her with a needle?

Only he wasn't coming at her with it. He was drawing away, the effect of the tension between them dissipating as questions had room to rise to the surface.

"Threxin?" She flipped onto her back, staring up at him. Threxin's jaw was tight as he tracked her with a stony intensity.

"You wanted autonomy," Threxin's words were cold, controlled as he watched her. "So tell me. Do you want to be safe from my exorin?"

Alina's mouth went dry as he held the injection gun up for her to see, a clear liquid loaded in the frosty cartridge within it. It took her a few attempts to speak. "Threxin, what is that?"

"It is a vaccine which will make you immune to the side-effects and addiction of exorin, if you choose to take it."

She'd been dreaming for this. Yearning for it knowing it could never happen. And now it was here, and all Alina could be was terrified.

How much would it hurt? How long would it take to work? What if it didn't , and how would they know? Would there be tests? Had there been tests? How did they know it would even work? And… if it failed… what would happen to them? A hundred questions that flapped through her head, crowding out everything else. Alina wished she could just turn around, put her face back in the sheets, and drift out of herself again.

She opened her mouth to ask, then closed it.

Threxin would not be offering this to her if it weren't safe and effective. That she knew in her core by now.

She was so tired of questioning.

Alina held her arm up and offered her bicep. "Do it."

Threxin frowned. He must have expected more. More questions, or hesitation or something. "Alina, you must thi?—"

"I'm sure," she cut him off. "Do it."

He must have been satisfied with the resolve in her eyes, because Threxin stepped forward. The heat of his long fingers soothed her as he held her outstretched arm steady. He positioned the injection gun at her bicep, cool metal chilling her skin.

He looked at her once more, and she met him with a nod.

The sting hurt a lot, but Alina barely flinched. The sharp pain soon morphed into a dull ache deep in the muscle.

It was in her now. Really in her. A vaccine. The thing she'd been fantasizing of since before she could even admit to the fantasy.

Alina's mind raced, but all the questions she had fell away as soon as they appeared. None of them mattered anymore, because whatever the consequences, there was no going back for any of them. Because this wasn't just for her . An exorin vaccine could fix everything… a lot of things, anyway. It would make sharing a planet with the uhyre, especially this new, calmer, logical, evolved version of the uhyre, so much smoother and more practical. If they could normalize human-uhyre relations in this new reality, maybe they could stop hiding too.

If he wanted to.

"How long until it works?" Alina asked. She was lying there in a torn shirt and no bottoms, Threxin looming close above. Her thighs were slightly sticky with her own moisture. She felt the sudden urge to sit up and cover herself, to grab the quilt from the edge of the bed and pull it over her.

"It already has."

Alina's heart skipped. "So fast?"

"The RNA nanozymes are powered by microcontrollers. They will have already circulated through your body and induced replication of protective enzymes."

Alina's eyes fell to his mouth when his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip above her. It left a trail of black in its wake. Alina's hand trembled as she reached up, flinching slightly with the pain of lifting her injected arm. Threxin remained still as she pressed a fingertip to the center of his lower lip. It came away black on the pad, and she twisted her wrist to see the thin film of exorin pool into her fingerprint.

Alina looked up at him tentatively, hesitating. Threxin's breathing was even, chest rising and falling slowly, but she could feel the tension roiling from him in waves. Alina parted her lips and pressed her marked finger to the flat of her tongue, closing her mouth around it. She closed her eyes too, as her first ever taste of exorin seeped onto her tastebuds.

Iron. Bitter with a hint of sickly sweet, like narines. Blood too. Something that instilled a certain chill. A sense of dread. A warning from her body.

What if it doesn't work?

Alina pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth and swallowed.

And then he swallowed her.

Their limbs fought for control as their mouths collided. Hard and haphazard, the kiss was a desperate grasp. His tongue dripped black with his arousal, spiked with his hunger, and it left its mark on her mouth. It scraped against her own tongue, driving in faint scratches and filling them with bittersweet iron. The exorin was thick and heady, engulfing her senses, blacking out the room. Threxin's hands were at her temples, shoving her head to one side as he twisted his to the other, forcing her mouth open wide to take the kiss delivered with the twisting of tongues and clashing of teeth. Until Alina could take no more, overwhelmed by the volume of this new thing seeping down her throat.

She came up for breath, nausea creeping up. She twisted her head away and his teeth followed, nipping along her jaw and down her neck. Alina's stomach settled while Threxin put one knee up on the bed, then the other. He shoved an arm beneath her waist, lifting her effortlessly as to drag her farther up.

She parted her knees for his hips to nestle between them, but he did not stay there. His talons raked at her sides as he slithered down the length of her body to position himself between her legs.

Alina couldn't help it—her hand was at his head, grasping his spikes, her knees parting as he let her pull him toward her.

But just as she felt the heat of his breath on her clit, she hesitated, holding him in place by two spikes on his head. His eyes were shrouded in blue fire when he looked up at her from between her legs.

Shit, she hadn't showered. And she… She hadn't done that in a long time. She never even particularly felt comfortable receiving like that—Alina had much preferred to give.

"You don't have to do that," she whispered.

Threxin hissed frustration through his teeth, the flash of fangs making her even more nervous. She tried to shift her hips up the bed, but he grabbed her thighs and yanked her into place.

"I don't have to do anything, Alina Argoud." His growl wormed into her gut, buried itself in her soul, made her fall limp and open for him in its assertive certainty. "I mean to devour you."

When the dripping spikes of his tongue finally pressed against her, her brain short-circuited, a million sensations flooding her at once. Her mouth gaped open as she threw her head back, the pressure on her swollen clit spiking tendrils of ecstasy up the length of her body to culminate in sparks behind her eyes.

Her body melted for him as it finally received this fuller extent of his touch that it had been craving for weeks.

And it was safe. He was safe. Her eyes flew open, hands clutching at his spikes when his tongue pressed past her folds and into her pussy. It stretched her, filling her with wet heat—damn, uhyre tongues were longer than she'd expected! She doubled over, shoulders curling off the bed when he thrust the appendage deeper still. The texture of his tongue rubbed against her upper wall, freakishly strong and seemingly under his perfect control.

She had already been so wound up for him, for weeks, that it took no time at all for the telltale pressure to build in her lower belly.

"I'm clo?—"

She gasped her disappointment when his tongue withdrew, her gaze flying down to see what was going on, why he just left her hanging there. Her eyes widened at the sight of him—the entire lower half of his face was coated in black, as were her inner thighs.

But far from freaking her out, the prospect of finally having him like this—fully, with all it entailed—only turned her on more.

"You will use my name when you come on my tongue, female," he rasped, making Alina suck in her breath.

"Th-Threxin," she stuttered. Fuck, it felt way too intimate? Her cheeks burned as she uttered the name of her invader.

He grunted approvingly and kept his eyes on her as he lowered himself back between her legs, brow furrowing slightly to maintain the contact. He waited.

"Threxin." Her next whisper ended on a moan as his tongue raked up the length of her.

His eyes flashed with carnal satisfaction. He hummed and the vibration made her knees shake and her hands fist the sheet at her sides.

"Threxin," she gasped as he latched his mouth to her clit, air stuck in her lungs. Threxin kept his eyes locked on her, and she knew what he was doing. She didn't resist as he dragged her into his stare. She went willingly, slipping into him.

When he nipped firmly at her swollen flesh Alina's hips bucked into him and electricity jolted from her clit up her spine. She lost track of how many more times she cried out his name as his mouth, fangs, and tongue picked her to pieces. He gripped her ass as she writhed beneath him, eyes still locked inside his stare. His talons making her shiver as he pricked the skin, keeping her in place beneath his mouth.

When wave after wave of violent orgasm began to subside, Threxin crawled back up her body, releasing her gaze. He trailed black from his mouth as he crawled back up her body. His hands smeared it on her ribs, her breasts, her lips as he raked them over every part of her.

She watched in a blissful daze as he positioned himself at her apex. His pants were long since gone—she hadn't noticed him remove them. His cock already dripped, lengthened and engorged, terrible spikes glinting in the shadows of the underside and veins writhing up the sides. The head pulsed, a bead of precum squeezing out to join the black exorin below.

That is going to hurt.

Her belly clenched with anticipation. Threxin had already pressed himself against her pussy and, with a quick punch of his hips, pushed the head inside her.

Alina's heart jolted into her throat, constricting her breathing. The sudden stretch of a huge foreign object inside her brought a painful realization that this was it. He was inside her.

Finally.

Alina stared down at the point of joining between them. She studied the monstrous shaft with veins and spikes pulsing on its surface. She wanted him to take whatever last shreds of doubt she had and fuck them out of her.

"More," she whispered.

A low sound escaped his throat and exorin splattered on her cheek, but she didn't look up. She ground her teeth, growling out a muffled scream as he pressed forward, the first hard spike stretching her as it disappeared inside.

The pain blanched her vision and ripped away any room to doubt. It was soon soothed by a rush of tiny effervescent sparks that cascaded pleasurably under her skin, transforming the pain into her reward. Alina dug her heels into the bed and shoved herself up, suppressing another whimper as the next spike, bigger than the last, forced room for itself inside her. They weren't sharp—not like the ones on his neck that could cut skin, nor like his talons. They were hard and textured, but not pointed enough to rip. And the exorin leaking from them eased their way, not that she needed any more lubrication. Already Alina could see her own juices coating his shaft at the edges of their meeting point.

When a glob of exorin landed on her lip, she didn't think, only licked it away and swallowed it.

"Shoq," Threxin grunted above her, and with the next hard punch of his hips he didn't stop at a single spike. He buried himself in her to the hilt, making her eyes water and a scream rip from her throat as all the spikes filled her at once.

With a throaty growl, Threxin collapsed atop her and sank his face into her neck. His body curled over hers, blocking out all light except the blue glow of his apertures dancing across every surface. He held himself on his elbows at either side of her, fingers tangling deep into the roots of her hair. With a hard yank, he forced her chin up, baring her throat for access to run the flat of his tongue along the column of her neck. His fangs nipped at her chin, breath ghosting up her cheeks before his lips found hers and his tongue pried her open.

All Alina could do was take him as he consumed her. She felt nothing except the hard fullness of him, pressing deep enough to nudge at her cervix. His bulging arms were shaking, she realized, with the effort of keeping himself still, and soon that effort failed because his hips began to move.

He started with short rocking thrusts that soon lengthened into long strokes. When he pulled out just enough for the spike at the base of his shaft to pop from her pussy and then plunged it back inside, the pain wasn't so bad anymore. Not that it didn't hurt, just that the subsequent zing of pleasure coalesced deep in her core, overwriting the sting.

Whatever last shreds of restraint he had seemed to be abandoned just as soon as she punched her hips up to meet his. Threxin fucked her in earnest then, grunting a string of Uhyreish above her, the only word of which she understood being a healthy amount of shoqs. It was then that Alina finally ripped her eyes from the view of his cock ravaging her insides. She followed the gaping, wide-open apertures lining his bunching muscle up to his face.

It was as their eyes met in the middle of another full, violent thrust, that everything changed.

He darkened. His apertures snapped shut. His jaw ticked and his teeth bared in a monstrous black-fanged snarl, strings of exorin stretching inside his maw. Threxin's hands in her hair tightened to fists that ripped at her scalp.

He was in that moment completely unrecognizable. A monster.

Alina's muscles coiled, but before she could do anything Threxin was already tearing himself away from her, his back crashing loudly against the wall on the opposite side of the bed. He launched himself to the floor, backing away to the very edge of the room. Scrambling as far from her as he could in the confines of the tiny cabin.

Something froze deep in Alina's chest. She scrambled upright, yanking the quilt from the edge of the bed and covering herself with it.

Threxin stared at her, panting, one hand gripping his temple. He shook his head violently. Alina jumped as he slammed a fist into the wall behind him, his face twisted into a terrible grimace.

She knew what it was now—the limiter, holding him back.

An uhyre on a leash.

Alina was on the verge of tears as she gathered herself. For a few seconds, she let herself be scared and see the monster from all those childhood stories. The one who had just been inside her… was still inside her. She swallowed, exorin still tangy on her tongue.

Then her allotted moment of selfishness was over. She wrapped the quilt around herself and crawled slowly off the bed, suppressing a wince at the pain between her legs.

"Threxin," Alina crooned softly, searching his face for traces of the man behind this lost thing he appeared to be now.

He shook his head again and shoved the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. He recoiled against the wall as she approached, but Alina didn't stop. She moved slowly, quietly, each step closer a tiny victory until she could reach out her hand and put it on her uhyre's chest. He shivered beneath her fingers.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked, mentally cataloguing everything she thought she could remember from her medkit, searching for something that might help.

She thought she knew.

"Wait," she said, and padded over to her hydrastation. She still had some rations left from the day. She fished out her stash of peppermint tea… another soothing mechanism that didn't really help her anxiety all that much but was better than nothing. She popped a bag into a shot glass and filled it with hot water.

"It can't be boiling," she said as she prepared the drink. "Boiling burns it, see?"

She glanced over her shoulder and found Threxin staring at her, his eyes still blank but at least tracking her movements.

God, it hurts.

The thought was for her body too, but really it was just that her heart had been stabbed. But Threxin needed her, and it was not the time to fall apart.

"Sit." She motioned to the bed, and when Threxin hesitated she sighed and stepped back. "Please. I won't come close, don't worry."

He sat, and she held out the tea, not coming closer as she waited for him to take the glass. When he did, she sat in her plastic chair, ignoring the ache in her belly when her body folded into the position.

Threxin stared at the shot glass in his hands. Alina had expected him to protest and say his kind doesn't drink.

Instead, he brought the tea to his lips and downed it in one quick gulp.

That… wasn't really the idea, but it was better than nothing. She wished she hadn't smoked all his hak.

"Alina Argoud. My limiter…" His apertures were nonexistent slits in his skin, tight and withdrawn like the rest of him. "Something went wrong."

"Does it still hurt?" Alina asked again.

"It always hurts," he muttered, shaking his head. "Lately it always. Shoqing. Hurts."

She yearned to be able to do something. Help make it better somehow. But Alina was no medic and certainly no engineer. She had no idea what to do in this situation.

"Can we… can we find a way to improve it? You found a way to improve our jump drive. Surely an implant…"

Threxin flicked his fingers, dismissing her. Apparently it was not the time for helpful suggestions.

Alina wrung her hands, then decided to take a chance. She rose from her seat and came to him. He tensed visibly, but permitted her to be at his side on the bed.

What was the point of the vaccine if this is still keeping us apart?

"Can you stay here tonight? With me?"

Threxin hissed through his fangs. "You do not understand what I almost did to you, human."

"But you didn't. And you look calm now," she said. "Please. I don't want to be alone… Not like this. "

It was a lie. All she wanted was to be alone. She wanted to coop up in her cabin and cry and feel sorry for herself. Alina felt broken and used. She had wanted this so much, and it had gone so horribly wrong.

Alina choked back her self-pity and instead reached up to stroke the sloped spikes at the nape of Threxin's neck gently. She yanked her hand away when the spikes snapped flat against his spine with a loud crack, threatening to pinch—maybe sever—her fingers. He looked up and turned to her, eyes narrowing.

"Do not do that, human," he snapped.

"Do what?"

"I am not blind," Threxin hissed in her face, fangs bared. He rose suddenly to his feet, making her draw back. "Stop trying to take care of me. I do not require your care. Nobody on this shoqing ship requires it."

Alina took a shaky breath, trying to fight back the familiar overwhelmed sensation. "Threxin, you have an implant in your head that's hurting you. Let me help and?—"

His nostrils flared, fists clenched, and for a moment Alina thought he might snap again. Instead, Threxin jerked his trousers back up over his hips and buckled himself. Then he turned mechanically on his heels and left her cabin.