Chapter 10

CHAPTER

TEN

ARKAN

I worry that my tiny female is in shock. She stares at nothing, a blank look on her formerly expressive face.

I think that perhaps the plan to crash land on the nearest planet with a breathable atmosphere is too much for her to process. Considering she has never been in space before, much less crash landed on purpose, I cannot say I blame her.

Still, it is worrisome.

It is also worrisome how quickly I have gone from being the most feared of the Zerinian striker force to so wholly obsessed with a soft female's well-being.

Most Zerinian females would have nothing to do with me. It is well-known that my team's members are anything but desirable mates. We are too morally ambiguous, chosen just because of that, too emotional, too quick to anger, too selfish, and too likely to disobey orders to be considered for mating.

This strange little female, however put off she is by our fresh life-debt bond, does not see me as an unfit mate.

I can tell by the delicious and unmistakable scent of her arousal. I long to bury my mouth between her legs and taste the source of it, to lap at her sweet nectar with her thighs clenched around my neck.

My cock grows hard again.

This constant need is beginning to become a bit troublesome.

Grunting, I shift, trying to turn my attention away from the female I so fiercely desire and focus on charting a course for the planet as quickly as possible. The sooner we have landed, the better. The sooner we are rescued and Maggie feels safe, the happier she will be.

The happier she is, the more likely she is to let me?—

I swallow the thought, forcing myself to keep my gaze off her, no matter how difficult a task that proves to be.

Patience, never truly a virtue of mine, will be the key to unlocking the puzzle that is the lovely little female.

I shift, uncomfortable and in desperate need of release.

"You look worried," she pipes up.

"Not worried," I correct, then stop myself. As much as I would like to relieve the aching in my balls, I do not think now is the time to tell her of the real focus of my thoughts. "Are you worried?" I venture instead.

How my brethren would laugh to see me now, piloting a stolen Kryger cargo ship, obsessing over the soft, tiny female next to me. How they would be amused to know she's already grabbed my sensitive horns, causing me to nearly come as her hot cunt straddled my back.

Well, I decide, what they do not know will not hurt them.

"Of course I'm worried," she says, a warbling laugh finishing off the admission. "I'm not a survivalist, for crying out loud. I'm a lingerie buyer for a fancy store. I am in no way, shape or form ready for any of this, including crashing this alien spaceship, and not excluding waiting to be rescued."

"Lahn-jur-aaaayyy," I pronounce slowly, trying to figure out what the word means. "Lahnjurrayyy buyer? This is something you have many of? You are a merchant… who buys things?"

"No. Yes? No. Not exactly." She frowns, waving a hand in front of her face, that pretty pink bloom in her cheeks again.

I tilt my chin, my tail flicking behind me. "What is it you bought? It must have been very important if you did this for your chosen profession."

A strange, disgruntled choking sound comes out of her, her cheeks turning redder as she squirms. I sniff, and the scent of her arousal growing yet again takes me by surprise.

"Lingerie, is, uh, something people on my planet wear."

"You are wearing lahn-jur-aaaayyy now, yes?" I search my mind for the word the language mapper should have given me. "Clothes?"

"Er, no." She looks positively… uncomfortable.

I blink. "Why are you so bothered by lahn-jur-aaaayyy? Was it not your profession?"

"I thought it was going to be," she mutters, twisting her fingers together. A lock of hair falls over her face. She glances up at me from her long lashes, and I'm struck again by the otherworldly beauty of this little creature.

"What is it about lahn-jur-aaaayyy that has you upset? I will destroy this lahn-jur-aaaayyy."

An uncomfortable chuckle comes from her throat. "Er, well, I'm not upset. I went on leave to take care of my gran—my grandmother—" She adds the explanation after noticing my confused expression, then pauses. "I thought it was going to be the perfect job, you know? I was in the big city, I was working for one of the best stores with the most expensive brands…" A sigh stutters from her lips as she trails off.

"I do not understand. You did not enjoy buying the… lahn-jur-aaaayyy?" I frown, still confused. "My mapper is telling me this is clothes. You were a clothes… merchant? What kind of clothes? Armor?"

She makes a small, amused noise from her nose, the delicate nostrils flaring as she presses her lips into a thin line. "Armor… of a sort."

"I could help you sell armor. That is a very useful trade." What a worthy enterprise.

Her hands cover her face. "That's not what it is, not really. Good grief. This is more uncomfortable than when Gran explained the birds and the bees to me."

"You had to have your planet's fauna explained to you?"

Another choked sound. I am unsure if it is laughter or something else. "Lingerie is used mostly, er, before sex. You know, to er, make the other person aroused. Although I also bought regular, serviceable undergarments too. But mostly I stocked our stores with high-end teddies and lace bras and underwear. Then we did that vegan fur and leather line last fall before the Christmas rush…"

Her words have bunched and bundled together so quickly that I struggle to follow, though I do pick up on one thing very, very clearly.

"You are an expert at the sexual arts," I say in wonder. "You taught others to wear these… lahn-jur-aaaayyys to entice their mates." I stroke my cock eagerly, unable to keep from touching myself.

"That's not, no, that's not it, please don't do that to yourself, that's not polite." Her gaze is firmly fixed at my groin, where my hand is also firmly fixed to my likewise very firm cock.

That's all it takes to send me over the edge, and I groan as I come in my trousers.

"Oh my, oh my goodness gracious," she says, and when I glance up at her, slightly shamed at my entirely unbidden response, her lush lips are parted.

Blunt white teeth bite at her lower lip, and another spurt of cum erupts from my tortured cock.

My lensla suckles at nothing, my trousers caught in it as it yearns to give her a release of her own, all the better to milk my cock with.

"It is for you," I groan.

"That is… what is that thing?" she asks, still gaping at where my lensla attempts to find purchase on the key to her pleasure… even though she is so far from me.

"This has not happened since I was a youth," I mutter, embarrassed but still too enchanted with her obvious interest in my cock and lensla to do more than weakly stroke at it. It's already growing hard for her again.

Slowly, it dawns on me what she has asked, and my hand falls away from my cock as I stare at her. Does she not know what a cock is? Has she never…

I blink, one hand going to my horns in dismay as my tail curls around the chair.

"You do not know what a cock is? You are a sexual expert but have never seen a cock?" Horror makes my jaw drop as another possibility looms before me. "Do your kind… do you not mate like this?" I gesture to my now flagging cock and cum-soaked pants, deeply disturbed. "Please do not tell me you are an egg layer."

I shudder, and she doesn't answer, simply stares at me.

"Still, I have faith that I could please you," I soldier on, "even if you do lay eggs. I will do what is required to bring you to completion."

Her eyes narrow, and the corners of her mouth twitch slightly. "Egg laying."

I nod, disappointed but unwilling to let her down. "No wonder you said it was impolite for me to touch myself." I cast my mind back to the very little I know about species that lay eggs.

It was not covered as much as I would have liked in my school years.

"I will fertilize your eggs."

"I honestly don't have a reply to that," Maggie tells me, her face completely devoid of any expression.

I dip my head in acknowledgement. "It must be hard for you to see something like this."

My chest clenches at the realization. My cock is not what her species is used to, neither is my lensla, and my certainty at being able to please her as a mate has fallen lower than it ever has before.

"I can learn how to please you," I tell her gravely. "I know that oviparous species are different, and we may not be compatible in some ways, and I am confused about what?—"

"I don't lay eggs," she interrupts.

An alarm goes off on the control panel.

I ignore it. "You do not have to lie, my lovely little hope. I promise to tend to your needs?—"

"I don't lay eggs." She sounds out each word slowly, painfully, her eyebrows raised so high and her cheeks hollowed out. Her shoulders shake, and for a moment, I think she's going to do the water-making thing with her eyes again.

Until a giant laugh billows out of her. She claps a hand over her mouth.

"I don't lay eggs," she finally wheezes. "Humans are mammals. I have eggs. Inside me. But that ain't how it works." She points to the white terror beast. "That animal, the females at least, they lay eggs. Geese lay eggs." She points a finger at herself. "Humans bear live young."

I lean back, relief making me limp all over. Limp all over, and all too aware of the wet spot between my legs, which is quickly turning cold. The fabric is stiffening too, and suddenly, I'm uncomfortable with how I have behaved and what I have assumed.

"You are angry with me. I have brought embarrassment upon myself." Not that that is new. "This is why I do not have a mate already," I tell her simply. "Female Zerinians know that those chosen for missions like mine are not worthy mates. We are considered too… impulsive, and without honor."

Her eyes flash, then she squints as she frowns deeply. "I don't believe that."

My heart throbs with shame. "It is true. I am considered unworthy. All of us on our team are not worthy of females."

"Don't talk like that about yourself," she says, jutting her chin out. "Everyone on god's green Earth…" she trails off, glancing out the window. "Well, we're not on Earth anymore, are we Ken?" Her mouth twists to the side.

"Arkan," I correct.

She sighs. "The goose is Ken. I was talking to the goose."

"Oh. Please continue."

Maggie scrunches her nose up at me, then rakes a hand through her hair.

"Everyone is worthy of love. Every single person. Or alien." She looks pointedly at me. "Whoever said you weren't was full of shit. And an asshole."

"An… ass… hole. Full of shit," I repeat, squinting at her, trying to understand.

The language mapper is not giving me much to go on. "If they were full of shit and an ass… hole, would that not mean that they would be empty… of shit?"

Her cheeks hollow as though she has bitten down on them. A shudder goes through her, and a moment later, I realize she's laughing.

Perplexed, I raise an eyebrow, shifting in my seat, only to remember belatedly that I am sitting in my own spend.

"I'm sorry," she finally manages, regaining control of herself. Her hands press to her sides as she continues to laugh. "It's an expression. You're not wrong. It just made me laugh. No, Arkan, no. It means they are rude, and wrong, and full of, er, inconsiderate ideas that no one likes."

I blink, considering her words, then stand to make the simgenerator create a new pair of trousers for me.

She said my name.

My tail flicks to the side, then goes tall, curling at the end.

"You are defending my honor." It comes out so quiet that at first, I think she will not hear me.

"Well, I mean, yeah, I guess so."

"No, you are. You defend me, and that is more than another female has ever done."

The machine chimes, signaling it's done creating the new trousers, and I quickly change, depositing the soiled clothing in the dematerializer to be recycled.

"I honestly think it's awful they've made you feel like that," Maggie says sternly, and when I turn back to her, in my clean trousers, she looks downright angry, her lush lips in a thin line on her face. "What did you do to deserve it? Huh? Just because you are… different?"

Her gaze goes to the horns curling from my scalp, and my cock starts to rise again.

"I am not circumspect." I pause, considering my words. "I am ruled by my instincts."

"Who isn't?" Maggie's eyes flash with contempt. "Ken certainly is." She jabs an angry finger at the beast in the corner.

"That is the problem. Zerinians prize all the traits that keep them evolving away from our ancestors. Improving." I struggle to land on the correct description. "I… and the males that make up the team for our mission, were chosen because we are expendable. Because we do not think like the rest of them."

"Well, fuck that," she says loudly. "You are not expendable, and neither am I, and neither are the females, er, human women, that those assholes abducted. So let's crash this damn ship, call your boys for back-up, and save the freaking day."

I nod, grinning at her, already half in love with this fierce survivor of a female. She is nothing like the aloof females of my species. She is fire and spice and hope.

"We will make the assholes less full of shit," I say, taking my place back at the ship's controls.

"Ah. Hmm. Well, okay, when you put it like that." She shrugs a shoulder, and I can tell she's fighting laughter again.

I find I do not care that she laughs at my mangled attempt at her idioms.

I like that she laughs. I like it a lot.

It's the sound of hope.