Destiny’s Mate

THIS STORY TAKES PLACE 20 YEARS PRIOR TO SINFUL MATE, AND FEATURES THE SPICY BACKSTORY OF ANTONY DRAKE BEFORE HE WAS CAPTAIN OF THE INTREPID. ENJOY!

CHAPTER ONE:  ANTONY

“Right there…oh, Goddess!” Thalia gasped.

I grinned against her cunt as I sucked the end of her three-headed bud into my mouth and fucked her with two fingers. Her hands clutched my horns, shorter than most Zorestran’s due to my human mother, and I groaned at the sensation that shot straight to my cock. She steered me as her hips flexed and she began to fuck my face.

“Oh…oh fuck…Antonyyyyyy!” she squealed as her release coated my fingers.

She rode the waves of it out against my face, her grip becoming so tight that I could no longer hold back my phallus from extruding from its sheath. The cool air of the shuttle hit the sensitive skin and I gasped against her.

“I just…why aren’t you in the ex-corps?” she breathed as she let go of me. “I could have that every morning if we were serving together.”

Ex-corps was short for Galactic Exploration Corps, the military of the Galactic Union of Planets. It had once been my dream to serve there, now the mention of it brought the threat of panic, which I quickly stifled, and I distracted myself by licking my lips free of her spend.

“I have my reasons, cheja. Besides, this is what makes shore leave special, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I love it when you speak Zorestran to me,” she chuckled and pulled me to her. “Now, did I see your cock extrude?”

I took in a sharp breath as her hand seized me. Her fingers ran along the ridged skin and down to the knot my sheath became when I was fully erect and extruded. Just the barest brush of her fingertips against me had my head rolling back as a long string of precum dripped off me.

“I love it when you make that face,” she whispered as her riju caressed my face and her sharp incisors nipped against my throat. “I can sense your arousal but seeing it is another thing.”

Thalia’s species, the Valtoshans, were empathic and when her riju, the two dozen long, smooth tendrils that flowed from her scalp brushed up against someone, her empathic skills were heightened. With six of them caressing my face and neck, I’d imagine that Thalia didn’t just sense how turned on I was, she was feeling it.

Which would explain the rush of wet from her nethers as she ran the tip of my dick through her.

“Where haven’t we fucked yet?” she panted as I nibbled on her breasts.

We’d spent most of her shore leave on my luxury shuttle, making a game out of seeing if we could fuck on every surface.

“The…ah, relsh va! Thalia, you-you keep doing that and I…”

She’d gone to her knees and was running her tongue along the base of my cock while her riju flicked against my knot. My knees were going weak from the burst of electric sensation through my body. Everything was over sensitized suddenly and I didn’t realize that I’d seized Thalia’s chin to open her mouth until my dick was half way into her hot mouth.

“You like that?” I hissed down at her, the primal part of my Zorestran heritage coming out to play as my mating instincts started to rouse. “You want me to fuck this pretty mouth until you’re weeping?”

Thalia moaned, eyes rolled back into her head.

I growled, low in my throat and bared my teeth. Her riju retreated into a subservient curl at the base of her neck and her hands went behind her back. Thalia had grown up in one of the seven holy houses of pleasure on her home planet. Instead of becoming a sacred concubine though, she’d chosen to the join the ex-corps. We’d met when we were both first year cadets and had been fuck buddies ever since. Only once I left right after graduation, things had shifted between us. Our stolen time together had taken on a different feel, one of desperation and something sharper; something I wasn’t ready to examine yet.

My forearm muscles bunched and my thighs tightened as I restrained myself from fucking her mouth like the brutal beast that was currently trying to escape within me. Inch by tortured inch, I fed my cock between her gray lips until I hit the back of her throat. Tears welled in her dark eyes as she stared up at me, waiting like the good little concubine she’d trained to be for me to retreat. After five years of playing together, we knew one another’s limits, but I still paid close attention to her face, the subtle change in her white skin as her air was cut off by my cock. Finally, I withdrew, the tip still between her lips. Tears fell down her cheeks as I shallowly thrust into her mouth.

Then I repeated it all, again and again until her supple body shuddered, her riju trembled in their submissive state at the back of her neck and Thalia’s face was wet with tears and saliva.

“So beautiful,” I thumbed away her tears as she stared up at me, my cock still in her mouth. “I want to make a mess of you. See my cum running down those tits? Use it to finger fuck yourself until you’re screaming.”

Her breath came out on a whimper and I grinned down at her.

I knew the picture we made as I held us both on a razors edge with those tiny thrusts into her mouth.

Me looming above her with my horns and salt and pepper hair that hung down my back. My light blue skin illuminated by the low lights in my quarters and casting a shadow over Thalia’s much shorter and delicate form, her white and gray skin dotted with sweat as she trembled, waiting for me to give her permission to touch herself as slick ran down her parted thighs.

The smell was delicious and I found my mouth watering, even though I’d just feasted on her cunt.

“You like it when I use you like my own fuck doll, don’t you?” I hissed.

She moaned around me.

“You want me to let you come, don’t you?”

Thalia’s dark eyes pleaded with me.

I grinned down at her, remembering the one place we hadn’t defiled yet. The one I’d purposely saved for last.

“Command deck, now.”

Her lips came off mine with a pop and she tried to run past me when my arm snaked around her and lifted her off her feet.

“You still wearing the special gift I got you?” I asked as I carried her to the front of the shuttle.

“Yes,” she rasped.

I reached between her perfect ass cheeks and pressed on the plug I’d bought her. We’d been playing with different sizes all week and now the thought of taking her ass was an obsession. She squealed and wiggled, more wetness dripped from her cunt.

“I’m going to plunder your ass before you leave me,” I bit her shoulder. “And you’re going to come as many times as I tell you to.”

“Yes!” she grunted.

I snagged the gold vibrator off a nearby table as we passed the completely destroyed dining room.

When we got into the spotless command room with the glittering control panel and two chairs, I couldn’t help grinning.

The ship Thalia served on was in view, and we would be contacted for docking information soon. Hopefully while I was pounding her ass and stimulating her with the vibrator. She loved it when we were semipublic and this was something I’d been wanting to try for a while.

“You bastard,” she said as I set her on her feet and she saw the ship.

“What’s the matter? Don’t think you can be quiet while I talk to your shipmates?”

“Oh, I know I can, but can you not sound like you’re balls deep in my ass?”

I pushed her down until her hands were braced on the console and gathered her slick on my hand.

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

I kissed down her back as I rubbed her arousal all over my cock.

“Are you ready?” I asked, playing with the plug.

Thalia arched her back, head up and riju writhing with excitement.

“Please, Antony,” she begged, “I’ve been waiting all week for this.”

“Me too, cheja.”

I pulled it out slowly and threw it onto one of the chairs. Then I ran my fingers through Thalia’s soaked folds, relishing the guttural groan she let out before taking more of her slick and massaging it around her tight rosebud.

The ship was getting closer by the minute, and a thrill shot through me at the thought of someone hearing Thalia’s breathy moans. She may have sold her soul to the ex-corps, but her body belonged to me in this moment.

I notched myself at her back entrance and slowly breached her. The sound that rolled up from her throat was obscene and matched the one I gritted out through my teeth.

“You’re so tight, Thalia,” I grunted. “You feel so perfect.”

“More…fill me Antony, pleeaassse!”

Not one to deny a lady when she asked so nicely, I worked a little more into her, before pulling out. Back and forth, I filled her more with each pass until my knot kissed her ass cheeks. Thalia was so turned on that her cunt was dripping; the clear liquid ran down her legs and was beginning to pool on the floor. Valtoshan females didn’t produce that much slick for just anyone. It was only those that they trusted, that they had the deepest feelings for. And all week she’d been producing more and more. It activated an odd sensation in me and I had a sudden vision of her belly swelled with our young, of filling her over and over with my seed.

No! She’s a member of the ex-corps. She belongs to them, not me.

I squashed the instinct to breed her and focused on the vibrator in my hand. When I switched it on, Thalia moaned in anticipation. At least, until I pressed it to her sensitive bud.

“Oh, oh, oh…yeeeessss!”

I was not at all surprised that the orgasm hit her that fast. She’d been panting for it since I first cut off her air with my dick. But now, watching her come apart was like a drug. I wanted as much of it as she could possibly give me.

I started to fuck her ass faster, not giving her a moment’s reprieve from the pleasure of the vibrator.

“Again,” I ordered, my knot slapping against her butt.

She cried out as another hit her. By now I was hanging on by a thread, longing to unleash, but I held back.

The ship was now in range. They should be hailing us any second.

I couldn’t speak as I picked up my pace, the sounds of our panting and the slap of skin deafening in the small space.

Another orgasm hit her so strong that Thalia’s body sagged. I wrapped one arm around her waist as I reached the end of my restraint.

Still, she didn’t tell me to stop, so I kept it up until I was ready to explode inside of her. At the last possible moment, I pulled out and emptied streams of white cum all over her back, shocked that it just kept pouring out of me. The sensation ripped right through my body until I was snarling and roughly jacking myself to expel every last drop. I was so lost in the feral pleasure of painting her body with my release that I didn’t notice that I was still pressing the vibrator to her cunt.

“Antony…no more…please…”

The sound of her voice cut through enough for me to drop it to the floor, where it landed in a puddle of her slick. I roared as I unloaded another stream onto her. This one pooled between her ass and ran down her legs. The perfume of our mixed release was intoxicating and it made my knot pulse. If we hadn’t been about to receive a hail from her ship, if this wasn’t the last moment of her shore leave, I would’ve knotted Thalia for the first time and locked her in my arms for hours as I filled her with my seed.

The instinct was so strong that I was terrified of losing control and I stumbled back, desperate to get a hold of myself.

My mind was clouded in the haze of a mating instinct I didn’t even think I possessed roaring to life along with the strongest orgasm my life. It was for this reason, I suspected, that it didn’t occur to me to worry that we hadn’t been contacted by Thalia’s ship.

“Antony,” she panted, “something is wrong.”

The thick sound of worry in her voice pulled me back from the edge of the mating frenzy and I swung my gaze to her.

Thalia was still bent over where I’d pinned her, covered in my spend. We were both breathing heavy but the glint of passion had faded from her eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

“They haven’t contacted us, there’s been no attempt at a tractor beam or offer to dock alongside.”

I may have dropped out of the ex-corps a year ago, but I remembered protocol enough to know that this was indeed a strange situation.

“You go get cleaned up,” I said, snagging a robe from a nearby closet, “I’ll hail them and see what’s going on.”

Thalia began to stand and gasped as thick, cooling spend fell down her back and legs. Her eyes widened in shock when she looked at me and I turned away. She’d been taught the sexual habits of every alien species that she might come across when she’d been training as a concubine. And even if she hadn’t, Thalia had been with me enough to know that this was unusual.

“Antony,” she whispered.

“Later.” My voice was too sharp, but I couldn’t help it.

If she asked me, I might just unravel and we couldn’t afford that right now.

“We need to figure this out,” I nodded at the ship as we slowed alongside it.

She stared at me a moment longer. Thalia didn’t need to touch me with her riju to know what I was feeling. I’d always been an open book to her. But this time, I needed to be a mystery. So I closed myself off and refused to look her in the eye, busying myself with getting the coms up and running.

“Right. Of course,” she finally said before walking away.

I closed my eyes and shoved away the storm of emotions that was threatening to tear down the walls I’d built over the last year. Every instinct had told me that seeing Thalia again was dangerous, that it would bring up things I had been running from ever since I’d walked out of the cave on my father’s home planet. But I’d missed her, more than I cared to admit. So I’d agreed to the rendezvous and until now, I hadn’t regretted a single moment of it.

This has to be the last time.

My chest burned and twisted at the thought and I clenched my jaw.

Having a mate wasn’t in the plan any more than returning to the ex-corps. I was suddenly grateful for the excuse of trying to figure out why the ship hadn’t contacted us. I could focus on that and get everything under control before saying good-bye to Thalia.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and hailed the ship.

“Science Frigate Gallileo, this is the shuttle Rembros, come in?”

There was static on the other end and a strange high pitch whine that came and went.

I tried again with the same results.

We were close enough that there shouldn’t have been any sub space interference to the coms, and if their communications were down, there should’ve been a beacon saying so. I studied the outside of the hull that I could see and didn’t notice any damage. The ship appeared a little darker than I would’ve thought it should, but nothing that indicated distress.

I need more intel.

My shuttle was mostly a pleasure cruiser but I couldn’t help splurging on a few upgrades. Some of which weren’t exactly legal.

Like my scanning array.

I brought it up and proceeded to scan the ship for life signs.

“What the…?” I breathed. “That can’t be right.”

I ran the scan again and the same results came up.

One life sign.

That was it.

A science vessel like this one should’ve had at least one hundred crew and researchers aboard, give or take a few. But this was showing only one living being on the ship.

I piloted my shuttle around the ship, slow enough to allow me to examine it for any signs of attack. There was nothing. No torpedo damage, no blast burns. I couldn’t see any hull breaches or debris.

The frigate was simply there, orbiting an unknown planet with half of the outside lights dimmed, no distress beacon, no attempt by the computer emergency systems to hail us. It was as if I were looking at a ghost ship.

So much for dropping her off and getting the hell out of here.

There was running from a destiny I didn’t want and there was running from people who may need help. I was fine with the former, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did the later.

CHAPTER TWO:  ANTONY

After confirming the scans one more time, I hurriedly cleaned up and dressed in the atmo suit I had stashed. It was the newest version, with nanotech built in to monitor vitals and whatever kind of atmosphere we’d find on the Galileo. The nanobites would adapt the suit to about a hundred different kinds of hostile environments if necessary, I just hoped that we wouldn’t have to use that feature. I had an extra that I made Thalia wear, who had been shell shocked to hear the report.

Now we were waiting for the emergency air lock that I’d secured between my shuttle and the Galileo. I glanced over at her, my protective helmet made the turn of my head clumsy and all I wanted to do was hold her.

“You okay?” I asked through the connected coms.

“No. I wasn’t okay when you asked five minutes go, and I’m not okay now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

She paused while checking the settings on her pulse rifle, a somewhat cumbersome weapon that had a limited amount of charges, but packed a variety of punches from ‘here’s a headache’ to ‘here’s a hole in your sternum’.

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “There was something off about the mood on the ship when I went on leave.”

“You never found out what?”

She shook her head.

“When I asked my direct CO, she simply said that they were going to explore a new planet and the crew had a lot on their mind.”

“Was it that one?” I asked, pointing at the white and green planet below us.

“I don’t know. They told me to meet them at these coordinates when my shore leave was over but that was it. Honestly, I was disappointed to be missing the mission to a new planet. I hadn’t even requested shore leave, they’d just given it to me and I was so tired I didn’t even think to question it.”

“Hey,” I put my hand on her slight shoulder and squeezed, “that’s not your fault. If your own CO wouldn’t tell you what’s going on, what were you supposed to do?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

Thalia was the kind to torment herself over something like this for ages and I worried about how she’d react to what lay within her ship. I’d gotten a bad feeling the moment scans showed only one life form. And now, as we watched the emergency hatch seal release, that feeling had grown teeth and was digging itself into my gut.

A second later the emergency hatch popped open. Thalia and I clicked on the power source of our pulse rifles and made sure they were set to stun.

She looked over at me, breath flaring on the face plate of her helmet, fast and hard.

“Hey, you’ve got this,” I said, forcing strength into my voice.

“I scored average on my combat training,” her laugh was nervous. “I’m a scientist with a specialty in xeno psychology, not a soldier.”

“Well, today you are a soldier. So take a breath, and get your ass through that air lock. I’ll be right behind you.”

Her head whipped back to the door, which showed a corridor bathed in shadows. Emergency lights flashed on and off in quick jolts, showing glimpses of…

Blood. There’s blood smears on the wall and floor.

Thalia must’ve seen them at the same time I did because she took a step back and shook her head.

“I don’t–“

I took her shoulders in my hands and spun her to look at me.

“You’re a member of the ex-corps, you did the same training as I did, and if memory serves you scored higher than me on threat assessment and strategic thinking. Right?”

She nodded.

“Okay then. You may not have anticipated doing this, but you can do it. And I’ll be right beside you, just like at the academy. The two of us, together.”

She licked her lips and let out a long breath.

“Together. Yes…I can do this.”

“Damn right. Now lead on Ensign…”

It took a long moment of staring out into the dark before she put one foot in front of the other and stepped onto the ship. I was hard on her heels, trying not to crowd her, but wanting Thalia to know that I was right there with her. It probably didn’t matter if she took lead or not; it wasn’t like they would censure her for letting me go first. But she was the officer here, not me. This was her ship, her mission, and something told me it had to be her that did this. It had been a long time since I’d needed to listen to my gut, and the sensation was odd. Like coming back to a part of myself that was at all once foreign and precious.

Our boots thudded on the floor of the ship and my suit immediately took atmospheric readings. The blue lights on our weapons illuminated the blood on the walls and floor in garish detail. There were dark red and green smears, as well as some blue. Scorch marks from blaster fire was mixed in with the fluids, and I started to wonder if the one life sign I’d detected was the one who’d done this.

“The atmosphere is breathable,” Thalia said as the indicators in the helmet went green. “Let’s lower the helms for better visibility.”

I grinned at how in command she sounded and obeyed the order.

“These blood smears indicate a dragged body,” she pointed a particularly thick one on the floor.

“Maybe someone trying to help a fellow crew mate.”

“Sick bay is this way.”

I followed her at a slow, steady pace. I could tell that she wanted to run and that she was scared by the way her riju quivered around her head, but that was now the only sign as she led us down the corridor. A science frigate like the Galileo had wide hallways that would’ve been brightly lit under normal circumstances. The ship would’ve smelled clean, fresh from the air filters and cleaning bots, but instead there was a nauseating tang of blood from several different species hanging in air that was stale and warm. It didn’t take long after stepping foot on the ship for us to begin to see bodies.

Two human men were slumped against the wall, with dried blood on their faces, throats and down the front of their uniforms where it had run from their eye sockets. Thalia mumbled a word in her tongue that I vaguely recognized as a swear word. I crouched down to examine them further, hoping for clues as to what did this. Blood was also evident from their ears but I saw no other wounds to indicate a struggle or other types of injury. It appeared that the injuries were likely sustained internally, which made my stomach coil tight. What kind of alien or weapon could do this?

I took a med scanner out of the small first aid kit at my waist and scanned the first man. The readings were minimal but still confusing as hell.

I scanned the other one and got the same information.

“What’s wrong?” Thalia asked.

“These readings make no sense.”

“Why not?”

“Well, according to this they died of cardiac arrest brought on my acute trauma to the brain. There’s no outer wound, nothing to indicate head trauma, but the scan says that both of them have had their anterior insular cortex fried, along with the surrounding tissue. Like something got into their brain and killed them.”

“Your shuttle didn’t detect any kind of airborne entity, correct?”

“Correct, but Thalia, what else could it be?”

I was holding panic back by the thinnest of margins as we both looked around the dark corridor. It wasn’t as if we’d be able to see an airborne entity or parasite, and if this was an undiscovered virus or life form it could be undetectable by the scanners in our suits. Not that it really mattered; at this point we’d likely been exposed. Still, I desperately wanted proof that I wasn’t going to die with blood pouring from my ears, nose and eye sockets because my brain was burned out.

“Wait a minute,” Thalia said, taking the scanner from me. “The part of the brain that was burned out is the area that processes empathy on humans.”

She ran over to an Atavarian crew mate laying against the wall, his hands coated in green blood.

“Same area on the Atavarian,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea, but they were bringing samples up from the planet below, maybe something got out?”

We both looked around at the carnage, and I was trying to process how samples could kill an entire crew, when a groan echoed down the dark hall and I jumped.

“Defensive position,” Thalia ordered.

The instincts I’d honed in the academy snapped into place and I turned my body so my back was to hers. I’d taken every combat training class and seminar they’d offered but standing here, with the flashing lights making it difficult to see and dead bodies all around, it hit me that there was no level of training that could replicate the terror of a real life or death situation.

I swallowed down the ball in my throat and checked the settings on my rifle. These weren’t military issue, and as such, they had a limited amount of power for the pulses. I sent up a silent hope that whatever was coming at us wouldn’t need much to bring down.

I blinked in an attempt to get my eyes to stop reacting poorly to the strobing effect of the lights when another long moan reached us. Only this time, there was a dragging sound too, like something heavy and cumbersome being pulled slowly.

“It’s coming from ahead of me,” Thalia whispered, the ends of her riju curled in on themselves.

“Adjust your setting to maximum stun.”

“What if it’s a survivor?”

“What if it’s the thing that did this?”

“Ungh! Uuuungh!”

Now the moan sounded more like a garbled yell.

“Oh Goddess, help us,” Thalia whispered.

I spun around in time to see the source of the strange noises, and Thalia’s shock. Around the bend of the corridor came a lumbering figure in a torn uniform. The flickering lights gave their movements an odd sort of jerkiness that was as nearly as horrifying as the blood coming from their eyes and dripping off their chin. Their feet weren’t quite working so they dragged them along the floor, smearing blood in their wake.

“That’s Commander Chelsea,” Thalia said.

“Has she always been a zombie?”

Thalia ignored my question and started to move forward.

“I need to see if she needs help.”

I gripped her arm and yanked her back just before she got too far.

“Are you nuts? We have no idea what’s wrong with her. It could be a disease that’s transferred by touch or proximity. We have to find the lone survivor and get out of here!”

“It might be her!”

“Have you seen her? The way she’s moving, the blood on her face? Whatever is going on, she’s not going to last long and the life sign I found was a bit on the weak side but it wasn’t half dead.”

“She might still be in there! You have to let me reach out empathically, at the very least.”

I pressed my lips into a thin line. There was no way I could convince Thalia to let this go, and while it made my skin crawl to think of touching that woman even telepathically, I nodded all the same.

“I’ll cover you but the first sign of trouble, I’m shooting and dragging you out of here.”

“No arguments here.”

I stationed myself beside her at an angle where I could see Thalia but also have a clear shot of the commander. I needed to be able to tell if something went wrong with the empathic link as well as make sure that thing didn’t get too close.

Thalia’s dark eyes went completely white and the ends of her riju began to glow. The commander stopped her shuffling walk toward us and went stock still, causing a shiver to run up my spine. Her chest didn’t move, there was no sound of breathing or even the smallest flicker of a finger. She looked like an upright corpse.

Most people thought Valtoshans could just see anyone’s emotions and thoughts, like reading a book or looking at a picture. But the truth was that most Valtoshans got impressions; like feeling an item with their fingers but not being able to see it. They could see the outlines of every day emotions, and stronger Valtoshans could telegraph things about the one feeling it, but most trained hard to turn off the natural gifts that allowed them to do this so they didn’t cross boundaries with anyone.

What Thalia was doing right now was rare, and only done in emergencies or with express permission because it was intrusive in the extreme. Strong empaths like Thalia had the ability to plumb the depths of someone’s emotions and memories, to see moments in time through their eyes, even walk among their memories. Valtoshans with this ability couldn’t do it for too long because their consciousness could get lost in someone else’s, and for that reason I was counting the seconds that Thalia was connected to Commander Chelsea. If I had to, I’d stun Thalia to get her back to her own mind and damn the consequences for the commander.

No one, not a single person on this ship, was worth Thalia.

It shocked me to realize just how much I meant that and tried to lock it away. But the way my heart tightened at the thought of losing her, the possessive growl that I barely stifled, all told me that I was a hairsbreadth away from dragging Thalia out of here and running away. It was ridiculous; I had nothing to offer other than a life of lazy indulgence.

Unless I rejoined the ex-corps… No, I’ve already been down that path and I saw how it ended. I’m not doing it.

I shifted my focus from my worry back to Thalia, preparing to sting her in a few more seconds. The silence around us was absolute yet filled with questions and blood. I glanced at the commander and jumped back as tendrils of white fog started to collect at her feet.

I blinked hard, thinking it was a trick of the weird light but the fog was still there.

“What the hell?”

Beside me, Thalia took in a sharp inhale, her eyes came back, and her riju fell flat to her head. Her head swung in my direction, a look of abject terror and grief on her face, right before she screamed, “Run!”

She didn’t need to tell me twice.

We took off like a shot in the opposite direction just as I caught a glimpse of the commander’s mouth opening so wide I wondered if her jaw unhinged, and then an ear splitting metallic screeching sound poured from her.

I jumped over a body in the middle of our path, while Thalia nearly fell on her ass from a puddle of green blood. I caught her just in time and pulled her up.

“Down there, the lab,” her voice trembled.

The screech sounded again, further behind us but still loud and terrifying.

I swung around, intending on shooting whatever it was that pursued us, and saw the commander coming directly at us. She moved like a marionette with half her strings cut, motions fast but jerky. Her arms were outstretched, mouth gaping open, and her eyes were now completely red from the blood pouring out of them. A thick white fog surrounded her, getting denser by the second.

I froze at the sight, my mind caught in a net of horror as I tried to process just what the hell I was seeing.

“Antony, move!“ Thalia screamed.

A tendril of the fog separated from the cloud surrounding the commander and looked like it was about to come at me when a blue blast from Thalia’s gun collided with the tendril. It reared back and I swear that faceless mass of white looked furious. The commander let loose that metallic screech again, and it jolted me out of my dazed state.

Thalia yanked on the neck of my atmo suit and got me moving again on shaky legs.

After that, I didn’t dare slow down or stop, despite the fact that the closer we got to the labs, the more bodies there were, and the thicker the blood was on the walls and floor. The lights in the corridor where the labs were had a different emergency system and as such, the lights here weren’t flickering but they were low and red. Now, instead of everything being lit up in a momentary flash of white, the gore was cast in a thick, amber light that somehow made it all worse.

Bodies were everywhere; some bloodied, others with heads at odd angles. This was the first place I’d seen any outward injuries that indicated death by a different means than the person’s brains being fried.

“The door is locked,” Thalia said. “I need to manually override the security.”

“I’ll cover you.”

“Setting four. It’s the only thing that will work.”

I wanted to ask how she knew that, but wasn’t about to waste time. I switched the settings on my gun to an unusually high power output in the stun spectrum and readied myself.

The commander didn’t appear, though the fog was definitely starting to move in, low to the ground and imperceptible unless you were looking for it. It was painted in the color of the lights, a mist of blood red death. My body tensed, while my heart jolted painfully behind my ribs, but I fired anyway. The fog reared back, only to curl as if it were going to come at me, so I shot it again.

Again it retreated and I started to think that maybe I could hold this thing at bay when suddenly it shot out in six different directions, down into the open mouths of six of the crew.

No…no way, that’s…

The bodies twitched and right before my eyes, all six of them sat up and struggled to their feet.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I exhaled.

“What?”

“Get that door unlocked. I’ll handle this.”

Thalia let out a scream when she caught one of the cadavers out of the corner of her eye and let loose a wide shot, followed by one dead center.

“The door, Thalia!” I yelled as I took down another.

“There’s more over here!” she screamed. “I almost have the door, but I can’t do both.”

I took her rifle and stepped out into the corridor so my back was once again to hers. Being half Zorestran, I was stronger than a full blooded human so I could hold both rifles and fire them with accuracy. When I’d been training in the academy, it would’ve been nothing to keep this up as long as necessary. But the quick-building burn in my shoulder muscles had me realizing just how lazy I’d become.

“Almost!” she shouted.

I didn’t speak because I was gritting my teeth in an attempt to keep my arms up. The possessed corpses were going down fast, but the fog was getting thicker the more I shot, as if it were expelled from the bodies to linger on the ground. By the time I heard the hiss of the lab door opening, I couldn’t see the floor because of the mist, which lay silent and softly undulating. It reminded me of the chest of a great monster, rising and falling in slumber.

But I didn’t take time to examine it; I ducked into the lab with Thalia.

She locked the door immediately, and we both slid down onto the floor, breathing heavily. I closed my eyes, trying to get my bearings as my mind spun out of control with fear and questions.

The door behind me was cool to the touch, but when I sat my hand down on the floor, it came away sticky with green blood.

That’s when I opened my eyes enough to get a look at the lab, but what I saw made me start to think that we weren’t going to get out of here alive. It was obviously the main lab, due to its sheer size. The room was easily as large as the bridge, maybe bigger. There were 3D printers and various bio tubes to grow tissues, though both were smashed and covered in limbs and chunks of flesh. What I assumed had once been chemical processors and various other delicate equipment, used for analyzing, extracting and duplicating bio matter, were shattered, parts strewn throughout and coated in viscera. The smell of death was thick in here, and it was the first time I ever remembered feeling sick at the sight of blood because there was just so much of it. On the walls, the floor, coating every bit of equipment. All the shades of different species mixed into a sickening kind of paint. And among it all were the bodies of the dead, torn apart and left to rot by that thing out there.

“What happened here?” I gasped as I got to my feet.

Thalia stood beside me, her eyes wide.

“I knew this happened but…I just hadn’t expected…”

“Knew what happened? Thalia, what the hell is going on? What is that thing and why did we need to come to the lab?”

Instead of answering me she made her way to the computer console to our left. Her feet slid on the slick blood on the floor, and she used her sleeve to wipe away more viscera before she could access the buttons.

I tried not to be annoyed that she’d ignored my very reasonable questions, and double checked the lock on the door.

“That thing,” she said as her fingers worked on the wet buttons and keys, “is a new species of alien called a Vil’rahn. It’s from the planet below us.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“That’s an excellent question.”

The screen came up with the face of the commander who was now bleeding out of her eye sockets out in the corridor. Without all that blood, she was a fairly attractive human female with pale skin and bright blue eyes.

“‘Mission log, Commander Chelsea at Vil Prime. We arrived without incident once again and after extensive scans of the planet have discovered that the ion storms that made large craft landing difficult in the past are still raging. This could indicate a permanent weather system which means that future teams will need to be sure they have sufficient atmo suits and small shuttle craft. Our previous trips down to the surface have given us enough good data that I believe we will be able to extract a specimen this time. While other attempts at containment have resulted in crew casualties, we have learned from those experiences and I am confident that we will have the first specimen in the lab by end of day. We have been instructed by the Galactic Union to ascertain whether or not the life form on the planet can be contained and controlled. All previous interactions indicate that this is not an intelligent species, but more like an animal in its ability to interact, but preliminary tests and information gleaned from previous crew casualties indicate it is also a formidable adversary. It could be a very powerful tool in the hands of the Galactic Union if we can get enough data to train it to serve. We will know more once we get it to the lab. End of log.'”

I stared at the screen, frozen on the commander’s face as my mind reeled.

“I thought you said no one had been to this planet before,” I said.

“I did,” her voice was rough and strained, “because that’s what I was told.”

Thalia’s shoulders slumped and for a moment I thought she would silently take it in. Then she slammed her fist down onto the console and screamed.

“How could they…? I don’t understand!”

“Don’t understand what?” I asked.

“This whole thing! The log, what that Vil’rahn said to me. The entire senior crew and research team had been acting funny around me for weeks before my leave, but I just thought it was them being them.”

“You think they were trying to hide this trip from you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? And now this,” she waved her hand at the screen, “combined with what that the alien told me…Antony, it’s not good. Not good at all.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“Talk to me, what’s going on?”

She swallowed, a sick twist to her lips, like she was holding back vomit. Her riju were writhing and curling behind her and I let two of them coil around my hand, sharing what little emotional equilibrium I had with her.

After a minute, her shoulders relaxed a bit and she took in a deep breath before meeting my gaze.

“I saw everything they put it through. The glee on their faces when they’d captured it, the cold indifference to its pain and fear. The Vil’rahn are a collective consciousness type of species, and this one has been cut off from its collective family group. It’s in constant pain and it is slowly dying in this environment. The only way it has survived this long is by taking possession of hosts.”

“That explains the zombies.”

“Yes, and the burned out empathy centers of the brains because it was trying to communicate. Now it’s just trying to survive but the hosts are incompatible and it can’t stay in them very long before it has to find a new one.”

“So it needs to go home. How do we do that?”

She looked away from me, biting her lip and I could tell she was holding back.

I cocked an eyebrow.

“Thalia, what aren’t you telling me?”

More of her riju wound around my wrist, and her hand went to the back of my neck, her deft fingers massaging my tense muscles there. This was something she’d done since our early days together, the touches helping to ground her when Thalia would feel overwhelmed by any number of things.

I leaned forward until our foreheads touched and breathed her in. I didn’t want to like this, much less find my own comfort in it but I didn’t have the strength to stop myself. Thalia had always been my port in a storm, and I hers. It was just who we were to one another, and I was beginning to suspect there might be more to it that I would not be able to fight very soon.

“It needs me,” she whispered.

My eyes flew open and I jerked back. There was no way I heard what I thought did. No way that she was saying…

But with one look into her eyes, I knew the truth like a jagged stab to the heart.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, “you can’t…Thalia, no!”

“It needs someone whose brain can handle the interface and that’s me.”

“Just because you’re Valtoshan? That’s a very thin basis for this hypothesis.”

She gave me a wobbly smile and straightened her shoulders.

“Maybe, but this is why I joined the ex-corps, to help all species.”

White hot fury shot through me and I paced away from her, ignoring the squish of flesh and blood under my boots as I did. I knew more than most about the dirty dealings that went on behind the scenes with both the Galactic Union and ex-corps, but in spite of that, I’d once shared Thalia’s belief that more good than bad resulted from their actions. That both groups were more than the sum of their parts.

But then I had my kohmen, the ritual that every Zorestran went through so the ancestors could reveal our cosmic destiny. What I’d seen in that cave forever changed me and my view of ex-corps. I resigned the very next day and proceeded to travel through the universe to every pleasure destination that would take Universal Credits, and a few that didn’t.

I had been raised to believe that our ancestors showed us the path that would lead to what we were most meant to do. We all vowed to follow the vision, no matter what the ancestors told us. Arrogantly, I’d assumed greatness waited for me. After all, I’d been raised to believe it from my first breath. I was from the best of humanity and Zorestran – how could I not have a glowing destiny?

The truth had been full of fear and pain, nothing glorious. I could still taste the grit of the atmosphere as I bled out, the bitter terror of being alone in my final moments. So I ran, and I’d been running ever since, even though I knew it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with me. One way or another, that was where I would end up.

I clenched my jaw and shook my head. Maybe my destiny couldn’t be avoided, but what Thalia was about to do sure as hell could be.

“No,” I said again, turning around and marching toward Thalia. “We are going to find another way, and we will get that thing home, but you’re not playing host.”

“Antony–“

“I’m not losing you.”

“This is my choice.”

“No!”

She took my face between her hands and kissed me. It was soft and gentle, it was every moment we’d ever shared and every one I’d once hoped we would. It was hello, and good-bye, it was her refusing to allow someone to suffer when she could sooth them, even me.

“I want to do this,” she whispered, still holding my face in her hands. “I want to help them, to fix what my crew mates broke.”

“You can’t though, there’s nothing that will ever really heal it.”

“Maybe not, but I have to try. And I need you to help me.”

“Help you kill yourself?”

“Give me a little credit,” she said with a chuckle. “This is my area of expertise.”

“Being possessed by sentient mist?”

“Empathic joining. But, if you prefer, possession by mist.”

“I can’t stop you, can I?”

She shook her head.

It had been a foolish hope. Thalia had always gone her own way, no matter the cost. She was ten times braver than me and even more kind.

Maybe I can still protect her. If she starts to show signs of trouble, I can use the stun setting four and get that thing out of her. Then we leave. I don’t give a damn if she’s angry about it.

“Alright,” I said, “what do you need?”

“The Vil’rahn is scared and angry, I don’t think we will be able to get through it reasonably. When I was probing its emotions, it saw you as the prime threat, so it will try to hurt you before it will consider joining with me.”

“So we need to entice it to take you before it kills me.”

“Correct.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Well,” she took a deep breath and brought up the schematics of the ship, “the lift is close. We take it down to the shuttle bay and get the shuttle the crew used to capture it up and running. Because the Vil’rahn is empathic, it will sense us and follow.”

I nodded. It all sounded simple but I braced myself for the catch.

“Then you’re going to lock me in the cargo bay of the shuttle and let it take me.”

I sucked in a sharp breath and turned away, trying and failing to calm my furious heartbeat.

“It’ll be fine,” she soothed and I didn’t miss the hitch in her voice.

I would need to lock myself away in safety while that thing took her over, leaving her to face it alone and frightened.

“And then?” I asked, my voice strained.

She let out a shaky breath and painted a tight smile on her face.

“You’ll need to pilot the ship that the crew used to capture the Vil’rahn and get us to the surface. Then I should have enough time to expel the mist before the environment starts to affect me.”

“Should?”

“I don’t have all the answers here. This is new and I just need you to trust me.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her back to me, until our bodies met and I captured her lips once more. This time, I pushed all my fear and longing into it as our mouths moved in a familiar symphony together. Without hesitation, I opened myself to her, my feelings, my thoughts. The need for her to understand why I was being so obstinate was suddenly the most important thing, even if I was still trying to process it myself.

When I finally released her, Thalia was trembling in my arms, her riju curled and glowing at the back of her head.

“Antony,” she breathed, “I…you…”

“Just a little incentive for you to fight like hell to come back to me.”

CHAPTER THREE:  ANTONY

Both of the pulse rifles were nearly depleted and the emergency power settings wouldn’t let us charge them up in the lab. Not that I really wanted to try and clean bone fragments from the charging station anyway.

The lift was right around the corner from the lab, an easy distance when there wasn’t killer mist after us and dead bodies lying in our way. I took point this time and led us at a quick pace to the doors, which refused to open.

“Lock down,” Thalia said, her fingers flying over the lock pad.

A wheezing sound reached us in a few seconds and Thalia’s shoulders stiffened.

“I’ve got this, just get it open,” I said.

“Not too many bolts, it’s already weak.”

I said nothing, because I could not promise her that.

The wheezing was getting louder and just as the doors to the lift opened, a very tall human male came around the corner. We ducked into the lift before it could get close enough to do anything, though I saw the white fog start to spill out of the corpse.

“Why isn’t it moving?” I asked, my palms slick on the rifle.

“It’s the lock down,” Thalia said with a growl. “Give me–“

Something heavy banged against the door and made us both jump.

“It can’t get in here, can it?” I asked.

“It shouldn’t be able to but–“

Another bang, and this one came from above us then against the door again. I had seen it split itself up but I hadn’t thought it would do it at a distance like this.

“How did it travel into the maintenance tunnels?” I murmured as I kept an eye on the ceiling and the door.

“Air vents possibly?”

It was then that the same thought occurred to both of us as we slowly looked in abject terror at the one above us. It was entirely possible that it hadn’t discovered this one yet, which was why it was using dead bodies to try and break in. But how long before it figured it out?

“Thalia?” I asked as the banging got worse.

“This door is more difficult. It’s meant to keep diseased persons contained so it’s not easy!” she snapped through gritted teeth.

The banging up top stopped abruptly and a second later thin, white fog began to filter through the vent at the roof. I fired without hesitation and the mist stopped pouring out. But I knew it would be temporary.

“I got it!” she said and the lift dropped.

We both screamed in shock as it began to plummet.

“What the hell?!” I yelled.

Thalia shot at the wall below the control panel, creating a hole, and began ripping wires out as I braced myself against the wall, my stomach in my throat. It felt like forever before she was able to get the lift to slow.

When she did, the velocity was normal but I couldn’t seem to get my hands to stop shaking.

“Well,” she said with a long exhale, “that was bracing.”

“Something like that.”

We both looked up at where the Vil’rahn had been trying to come in through the vents, but it was all clear. The fog didn’t even remain on the floor like it had in the corridor.

It must be getting weaker. Maybe it won’t need her to be a host after all.

Shame burned through me at the thought. I may have been raised with privilege and wealth, but one of the core tenants every Zorestran was taught was to value life and serve those weaker than you. And wishing an alien dead just because I didn’t want to risk a woman I may or may not want to be my mate wasn’t service. It was selfish. It was beneath everything I’d been taught.

So is running from my destiny though. What would the ancestors think of what I’d allowed my life to become?

I didn’t need another vision to know that they were likely not pleased with me at all. Regret mixed with the shame like a sour medicine. This was why I didn’t allow myself to think of these things, why I’d been running. Because I knew the moment I stopped and let myself feel anything but pleasure and escape, I’d have to face who I really was.

Not all the exterior identities I’d crafted over the years. Not who everyone thought I was.

But who the vision had shown me – a leader that would stand in the breach between the weak and the strong.

A destiny like that didn’t come with safety or assurances of glory. It came with exactly what I was shown. Sacrifice.

For the first time since I ran out of the cave, I longed to turn around and take it all back. To surrender all of my fear and anger at the feet of my ancestors and accept what they’d given me.

But the jagged barriers I’d constructed within me weren’t that easy to scale and I grasped at the one thing that could buy me more time: the job at hand.

There’s more important things at stake. Now isn’t the time for an existential awakening.

The lift stopped and the doors opened into another dark corridor, lit once again with the flashing lights from before. Luckily, the door to the shuttle bay was in front of us and open.

Just as I was about to step out of the lift, Thalia’s hand gripped my wrist and pulled.

“Are you alright?” her riju lifted toward me, her forehead wrinkled in a frown of concern.

“No, I’m about to trap you in a shuttle with a psychotic alien so it can take possession of you.”

She cocked her head to the side and rolled her eyes.

“Not what I meant and I think you know that.”

My shoulders relaxed a little and I covered her hand with mine where it still rested on my wrist.

“I’m scared of losing you.”

It might’ve been a truth, but it wasn’t the truth she was searching for. But instead of pushing, she just planted a soft kiss to my lips and smiled at me.

“You’re going to owe me a very expensive bottle of wine when this is over,” she said.

I chuckled as I stepped out of the lift and checked the hallway.

“Oh really?”

“Yes, because I’ll have proved that I know what I’m doing and that your fears were unfounded.”

“That’s one bet I wouldn’t mind losing, cheja.”

We made it into the shuttle bay without encountering any zombies or the Vil’rahn but I couldn’t relax. Every second brought us closer to Thalia letting herself be used like a taxi for this thing and it made every instinct I owned roar in resistance.

Still, she was her own person, with her own choices and her own path. It wasn’t right of me to take that from her. All I could do was help her and hope that I could protect her if things went sideways.

“Which one is it?” I asked.

“I’m guessing that one,” she pointed.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach when I saw the battered shuttle in front of us. There were scorch marks on the sides, and the blast shield was up over the front, which indicated possible structural damage.

I would’ve asked if she was really sure about this, but I already knew the answer.

“Let’s fire it up and see what we’re dealing with.”

A screeching yell, like metal scraping against metal echoed toward us and we both jumped.

“I’ll stay out here and lure it in,” Thalia said, handing me her rifle.

“Don’t let it get you until you’re in the shuttle. I don’t want to have to wrestle possessed you.”

“Yeah, we both know I’m slippery when I want to be.”

I laughed in spite of the fear trying to claw at my mind and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before running off to the shuttle.

The screeching was closer now, the sound caused my heart to jump and pound behind my ribs. I needed to have this up and ready quickly so that I could get that damn thing home and out of Thalia as soon as possible.

She’s going to be fine…she’s going to be fine.

I jumped as another screech echoed through the shuttle bay and I didn’t need the scanners to know that we had company.

The shuttle engines came online fast, which was a good sign, but initial diagnostics showed hull compromise, and sensor damage. It also showed that several proton bolts were missing, and I wondered if that was because some of this alien’s collective had fought back to keep them. Had they lost family down there? Was that one reason they were alright with just running through the crew?

And would that be a strike against Thalia?

There was a plasma screen that had been rigged up originally to hold the Vil’rahn. It took up most of the cargo bay of the shuttle and was still functional. I turned on the coms and projected out into the shuttle bay.

“When you get into the cargo bay, go to the back right corner or as close to that as you can,” I said to Thalia. “I can trap you both in there.”

“Okay,” her voice shook and scans indicated that her hearts were beating so fast that it looked like she’d been jogging.

“Thalia?”

“I’m fine…I’m fine.”

Visuals were off due to the blast screen in front of me, and fuel was good, but I didn’t want to waste it on activating the external cameras.

“Yell when you’re–“

“Here we come!”

I flipped on the sensors for the cargo bay and picked up her heat signature the second she was in there. There was an infrared setting and I flipped it on, hoping that was the right one to detect the Vil’rahn. My finger hovered over the button that would activate the plasma screen, sweat dripping down my back under the atmo suit, and I swear I could feel my pulse in my head.

The infrared flared extremely cold and Thalia stepped back. I triggered the plasma screen and then bolted to the cargo bay at the back of the shuttle.

The plasma screen was clear enough for me to see into the bay though I wished it hadn’t been. The sight that met me would be something I’d have nightmares about for years to come.

Thalia’s body was convulsing violently as the mist descended into her open mouth. Her eyes were rolled back and her riju were glowing bright, spasming around her head like I’d never seen. It seemed to go on for ages, my heart squeezing in terror at the thought that I was watching her die.

Then as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. Her tendrils went dark and she fell with a thump to the floor.

“Thalia! Thalia, say something!”

I pressed my hand to the plasma screen. A zapping buzz flared up my arm but I couldn’t have cared less.

Was I imagining it or was her chest rising and falling? Were her riju moving? Did her hand twitch?

“Thalia!” I screamed, pounding my hand on the screen.

Her eyes snapped open, but instead of the rich, dark pools I was used to, her eyes had become a crystalline blue, multifaceted and faintly glowing.

She stood with an unnatural grace, tendrils curled and undulated around her head, the tips pulsed with light. Thalia/Vil’rahn cocked its head at me, a cruel smile slashed across her face.

“You,” Thalia’s voice hissed and popped. “You…will take me…hoooommmme!”

“You’re damn right.”

I pivoted on my heel and started to run for the cock pit when I heard something that stopped me cold.

“Captain…Drake,” the voice crackled. “You…will save us…you will save many…Captain Drake.”

“I’m not a captain,” I snapped, my voice wavering.

“Not yet.”

I whipped around, fury raced through my blood.

“I’ve had enough of you!” I screamed through gritted teeth. “You massacred an entire ship, Thalia’s colleagues and friends, and yet she’s willing to risk everything to help you. Now you stand there and think you can scare me? I’ve seen far scarier things than you!”

Thalia’s/Vil’rahn’s smile widened and it took everything I had not to cower at how unnatural it was.

“She knows,” it hissed at me, “she knows…Captain Drake. The man who runs…selfish…spoiled.”

It was nothing I hadn’t been thinking about myself not a half hour ago. But it was different to hear those words spoken in that horrifying voice through someone I…

Loved. I think that I love her. And if I don’t get this shuttle going, this thing is going to melt her brain.

“You don’t know me,” I pointed my finger at it, “and I don’t give two shans what you think of me.”

“You’re afraid of the end,” it went on as if I hadn’t spoken, “but you never considered…what lay in between. How many will owe you their lives…how many will have their existence enriched by knowing you. So much good at your fingertips…and you run.”

“What do you know of good? You’re a murder.”

I turned away again and stalked toward the cockpit.

“This, Captain Drake. This is good…you saving me…this is good.”

Those words were an energy bolt right to my chest and I nearly stopped again.. It was right, this was good. Saving this thing, when all I wanted to do was keep running, was good and right.

And just like that, crack went the walls around my heart.

Because as scared as I was, as furious as I was with this Vil’rahn, this was the first time since I ran that I felt like I was right where I belonged.

CHAPTER FOUR:  ANTONY

It turned out that the shuttle was in worse shape than I’d thought. The moment we entered the atmosphere, it was near impossible to control. We dipped and veered to port and starboard so wildly that I worried for Thalia’s/Vil’rahn’s safety in the empty cargo bay. If I had trusted that thing inside of her, I would’ve had it strap into a seat in the compartment behind me. But no matter what it had said to me, no matter the face it currently wore, I could not bring myself to trust that it wouldn’t kill us both if given the chance.

So I prayed to the ancestors that Thalia was alright as the ship shuddered through the atmosphere.

Breaching the upper layer was a bit better, but the controls still fought me as wind and ionic interference began to mess with the navigation. I was following the last trajectory in the computer, hoping that it was the correct place to drop this thing off. In all honesty though, I didn’t care if it wasn’t. I’d get it out of Thalia one way or another.

All around me censors were thrown off and I didn’t see the ground until we nearly smashed into it. As it was, we hit the rocky landscape far harder than we should have and red warning lights went off all over the console. We’d lost some more navigation, and the under carriage shields were now down to twenty percent.

We better be able to make it back to my ship.

Once I’d secured the shuttle, I went back to the cargo bay to find Thalia/Vil’rahn staring at the door.

“Hoooommmme!” it moaned.

“When I open that door, you’ll release her,” I said.

My hand stalled half way to the control panel when Thalia/Vil’rahn turned toward me. There was trickle of blue blood falling from Thalia’s nose, her breathing was erratic, and a sheen of sweat coated her face.

“You’re killing her! Get out, now!”

“Not…yet…”

“You’re home, you don’t need her!” I roared. “She willingly put herself in harm’s way to help you, and this is how you repay her?”

“I…wish to repay…you.”

“Relsh toh!!“

A wheezing laugh came from Thalia’s mouth as the blue blood dripped off her lips.

“I look forward…to sharing your vulgarities…with my collective, Captain Drake.”

“Let. Her. Go!”

“Your destiny does not end…on that planet,” it said.

My heart stopped in my chest and my blood ran cold.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do…it is…my gift. The death on that planet…is only the end of the beginning of your journey. But…you will not get there…if you don’t stop…running. Good-bye, Captain Drake.”

I hit the door release for the cargo bay, keeping the plasma screen in place just in case. Thalia’s mouth opened wide and the white fog poured out of her, thick and sparkling like stardust. I was mesmerized by the revolting sight and it wasn’t until the Vil’rahn was out of her and Thalia fell to the floor in a heap, that I closed the cargo bay door.

I may have imagined it, but I swear the thing looked back at me, the hint of a face very much like Thalia’s within the brilliant white. And then it flew out of the ship. I glimpsed a barren landscape of white and green, pockets of clouds hanging low to the ground before the door snapped shut behind it.

I couldn’t get the plasma barrier down fast enough and ended up grazing the top of my horns against the last of it in my haste to get to Thalia.

“Cheja, open your eyes,” I begged as I held her to me. “Please don’t go, stay with me.”

The terror of losing her was a weight, crushing me from the inside out and I started to cry.

“Please, Thalia!”

My chest heaved with broken sobs as I pressed kisses to her forehead and the base of her front riju. Our story couldn’t end this way, it couldn’t.

I cradled her body against mine, willing her to open her eyes, to breath more than the few shallow movements I could sense. It was forever before I felt something soft brush against one of my horns. It slid from there to my hair and then to my cheek. More of her tendrils joined the first one and I breathed out a jagged sigh of relief.

“Antony…?” she croaked.

My throat was closed with tears and all I could do was hold her and sob.

Her head tilted to the side, and her eyes, now back to their beautiful dark pools, slowly looked around. Every movement was sluggish, weak. She licked her lips several times and I glimpsed more blood on her tongue.

“We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “It told me that their collective will hold back for a little while, but others may not. We have to go before they attack.”

I nodded and scooped her up in my arms. Thalia didn’t protest at all; not a good sign with someone as head strong as she usually was.

Once I’d gotten her strapped into the co-pilot’s chair, I transferred some auxiliary power to the lower hull heat shields and the guidance systems. The shuttle groaned to life and heaved itself off the ground with a rattle. My arms ached from holding the ship steady on arrival, now they screamed at me as I forced the yoke into a climbing position.

Red lights and alarms blared the higher we went, the ion storms batting us around like a giant with a ball.

I wanted to reassure Thalia but all of my energy and focus had to be on getting us out of this atmosphere, or we were goners.

The muscles in my neck and shoulders strained as I tried to keep the shuttle steady. More alarms went off and I reached over to move the last of the auxiliary power to the heat shields.

“We aren’t going to make it,” she breathed.

“Come on now,” I said through gritted teeth, “don’t you know I’m too pretty to die?”

She laughed and I caught a glimpse of her riju out of the corner of my eye as they reached for me. The tendrils were telling me that she needed reassurance, connection, but I needed both hands to steer.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said instead. “I’ve got this.”

“You’re a very good pilot.”

“Damn right I am. Best at the academy.”

The ship listed to port and Thalia hissed in fear.

“Except for–“

“Do not bring up Monroe, I will turn this shuttle around right now.”

She huffed out a tired laugh and the tightness in my chest started to loosen when beeping and a buzzing sound precluded the popping bang of an explosion to starboard and the ship began to slow. We were losing the engines and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Come on…just a little more…

Suddenly, we were free of the storms and aggressive atmosphere. The alarms still blared and the shuttle trembled as I guided us back to the science vessel, but now the engines didn’t have to fight against the weather and gravity of the planet. We were going to make it.

“Well done…Captain,” she said.

My head whipped around at that title and my stomach turned over. Was that thing still inside of her? But all I saw was Thalia, giving me a sad grin as tears coursed down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Antony,” she said. “I couldn’t regulate my empathy while it was inside. I saw everything it did, felt everything. Including what it knew about you.”

I looked away, not knowing quite what to say. What happened in the ritual was supposed to be private. I was well within my rights to tell no one what I’d seen. But that’s not why I’d kept this from Thalia.

I’d kept my secrets from her because I feared she’d be so disappointed in me, that she’d judge and not understand the brutal truth I’d seen and what it had done to me.

But now I realized my foolishness.

Of anyone in my life, Thalia was the one that could understand.

I set the shuttle to autopilot as it limped toward the Galileo, and knelt at her feet. Thalia’s tendrils reached for me once more and I let them wind around my fingers and wrist.

“I won’t begin to understand how that thing knew my secrets,” I said. “But it was right. I have been running.”

“I used to be so hurt and angry by what you did,” she whispered. “When you left the ex-corps, it felt like you’d left me too. I couldn’t explain why until…until our time together but I realize now that I care for you, very deeply.”

My heart lurched and a tremble went through me. She felt the same way I did, that we had something more than casual fuck buddies. But what did that mean? What did she want?

She gave me a breathy chuckle and shook her head.

“I am very weak and you are very loud with your emotions. It’s like you’re screaming them at me.”

“Sorry,” I started to pull my hand out of her riju when they tightened around me.

“No, it’s alright. I like it, this new honesty between us.”

She cupped my cheek against her cool palm and I nuzzled it before turning to press a kiss there.

“You’ve carried such a heavy burden all alone,” Thalia whispered. “Will you let me help you? Let me understand?”

Even a week ago, this question would’ve had me closing off and pushing her away. But now, I longed to share this with someone I could trust to put me first above whatever supposed destiny I had.

“Here,” I whispered in her ear, “because I trust you and because…I need you to know why.”

Like a river bursting its banks, the memories flooded me one after another in a quick succession that had pain shooting from behind my eyes. It was the same pain I’d felt when I’d seen the vision the first time, and every time after. It was my future, apparently unavoidable.

Profoundly alone, dying and branded a traitor by the GUP for doing the right thing, for not allowing an entire planet to die. That’s my future. Court martialed for saving lives, hunted through the galaxy until I die on a gray, windswept planet.

I relived the fear and betrayal. It seared my bones and left me gasping for breath as it all caved in around me.

I would rise so high, only to fall, utterly alone.

Or at least that’s what I once thought.

The words the Vil’rahn had said to me before it had left were like a ghost, peeking around the corner of my memories. What it meant I couldn’t even begin to guess, but I grudgingly let it give me hope.

I’d never shared myself with Thalia like this before – nothing withheld, nothing masked.

And she took it all.

She drank the bitter poison that I’d numbed myself with all this time and gave me freedom to see the wound I’d inflicted in myself.

When the memories faded, Thalia let out a shattered sob and pulled my mouth to hers, the sweet tang of her tears a welcome balm.

“Thank you,” I sighed. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to share that with someone.”

“I will keep this close and never breathe a word, I swear by the Goddess.”

We stayed like that, holding one another, her empathic abilities soothing the jagged edges of my fears and resistance until I could admit that I knew what came next. It was time to stop running.

CHAPTER FIVE:  ANTONY

“Cadet Drake,” said the stuffy admiral in the middle of the tribunal, “you took it upon yourself to go against the orders given by the Commander of the Science frigate, Galileo, and allowed a dangerous alien species to endanger Ensign Thalia Malik. You claim that the damage done to the frigate by said alien caused catastrophic damage to the engine core, resulting in the destruction of the Galileo and the convenient loss of any data that would prove your story.”

I swallowed down the words I wanted to spit at the self-righteous ass. Admiral Lawrence had never liked me and was downright gleeful when I’d resigned. But now I was back, seeking reinstatement based on my previous performance at the academy and my actions during the incident on the Galileo. Thalia had made a statement to the tribunal, but he’d discounted most of it as either her attempt to help her ‘boyfriend’ or delusions due to her interaction with the Vil’rahn. I’d been tempted to publicly decry the admiral as the misogynistic, xenophobic asshole he was, but Thalia talked me down.

She and I had agreed to rig an ‘accident’ on the ship to destroy it and any data that had been collected about the Vil’rahn. We knew that there was a chance that the previous missions had already sent on their findings, but at least this way, no one would have the information about how the Vil’rahn operated or if they had any weaknesses.

Nothing I said was going to make a difference to the admiral, so I had to play to the other two on the tribunal.

One was an ambassador from Atavar, named Gav’Ahn. He was over seven feet tall with jet black hair, inky black eyes and dark red skin. When he spoke, I could see his sharp incisors, once used to drink the blood of their prey and those they conquered. Now, Atavarians were renowned for their cool logic and unemotional demeanor, both apparently the remedy to their once literally blood-thirsty history.

“We have Ensign Malik’s testimony that confirms what happened,” Gav’Ahn said, his deep voice rumbling, “and I have confirmed the truth of it with my telepathy just this morning.”

Admiral Lawrence’s thin lips became thinner as he pressed them together.

“And the records recovered from previous missions to the planet in question, along with the results of the research from those missions, make what the cadet has said very plausible,” said Professor Kosh, an Ordnach.

Tiny aliens no more than two feet tall, with huge eyes, and covered in red and black fur, they were mostly seen in their Ord Suits, as most of us called them. Large robots with long thin limbs, a round head with eyes and the semblance of a mouth, and a transparent torso where the Ordnachs sat in an environmentally controlled space. This helped them live outside of their planetary atmosphere, as well as be able to serve in a variety of places, including a starship. Each Ord Suit was programed specifically to an individual Ordnach and controlled by neuro links. Most considered their suits to be extensions of themselves. They even felt pain if the suit came under damage. The Ord Suit also acted as a kind of microphone for the Ordnach, especially helpful since most of them had voices as small as they were, and it was damn near impossible to hear them without the suit.

This particular Ordnach was showing her age with white fur around her eyes. She had her tiny paws folded in front of her and the suit, a beautiful bronze color that matched her fur, was mirroring her.

“Yes,” Gav’Ahn said, “the cadet’s story makes logical sense when taken with the information we have previously obtained.”

“But his record of behavior unbecoming a cadet, his constant flaunting of authority and the fact that he left a year ago, but suddenly finds himself in the middle of a classified research mission, all add up to someone who should not be trusted,” Admiral Lawrence insisted.

“If I may?” I said.

Admiral Lawrence opened his mouth, but Professor Kosh cut him off.

“Proceed, Cadet.”

“Admiral Lawrence is correct.” It took every ounce of self-control to say that in a calm, self-deprecating tone. “I was a terrible cadet when it came to my behavior. I was arrogant, rebellious and I did resign right after my kohman. I think I needed time to process what I’d seen. It changed me, as only something like that could.”

Professor Kosh’s expressions softened and I was pleased to discover that she knew about the kohman.

Point for me. Now to get the Atavarian on my side.

“Helping the Vil’rahn return home reminded me of why I had wanted to join the Union Exploration Corps. I didn’t take any of it lightly, not the risk to Ensign Malik’s safety, not the loss of life on the Galileo or the subsequent tragedy of losing that knowledge. It all helped me see that to keep running would be the most selfish thing I could do. To serve, when the capacity is within me and the opportunity presents itself, is the highest act one can do.”

Ambassador Gav’Ahn’s eyebrow flicked slightly and I hoped that meant he was impressed with my understanding and recitation of the Atavarian Prophet, Fidd’Aern’s treatise on service.

“I just want a chance,” I continued. “A chance to prove that I am changed and that I can serve the Union Exploration Corps. I am asking the tribunal to please look at everything when deciding my fate. Not only the behavioral history that Admiral Lawrence has mentioned, but also my performance elsewhere in the academy and with the Galileo.”

“Thank you, Cadet,” Professor Kosh said with a smile. “Would you please leave us so we may deliberate your request?”

I nodded and walked out, the high collar of the cadet’s uniform I’d been issued scratching against by neck.

My salt and pepper hair had been trimmed to ex-corps requirements, and I’d agreed to retake all my final exams last week, which I passed with flying colors. This was the last thing standing in the way of my return to the GUP. In any other circumstance, I might’ve been afraid of being rejected. But my kohman was a blessing in this case. I knew I would be reinstated. The question was, in what way? Would they force me to repeat my final year in the academy? Would they assign me to the worst ship in the fleet?

When I stepped out into the wide hall, my parents were sitting off to the left. The tribunal room was on the third floor of the Academy Main Hall, a gold and brown building with tall winding stair cases, imposing doors that led to even more imposing rooms, where the business of the academy took place. Most were here because they genuinely cared about the ex-corps and the cadets. Then there were those like the admiral who resented being shunted here when they really wanted to still be relevant to the GUP.

The thick carpet absorbed my steps as I made my way to my parents. A massive sculpture of earth hung in the open space around which the staircase curled to my right, and the soft sounds of people talking in hushed tones came from the other side of this floor. I wondered if any of them were talking about me and my family. I’d had a colorful reputation when I was a cadet here, and my parents’ mating was still a source of fascination to most. A bona fide love story like some of the classic Earth vids, they had hated one another at first. Their marriage had been purely political to cement the entry of Zores into the GUP. But somehow, they’d fallen in love. Now they split their time between their duty to both planets and as such, I’d grown up with a healthy dose of both Earth and Zores.

“Antony,” my mother said, giving me a relieved smile, “you were in there a while, I was starting to worry.”

She had a few more wrinkles around her green eyes than I remembered, and her jet black hair had started to go gray around the temples. When I first saw her on my return to Earth, it had shocked me how much older she seemed to me than the last time I’d seen her at my kohman. I still hadn’t shaken the guilt of that, so I gave her a hug.

“Everything alright?” she asked.

“Of course, can’t I hug my beautiful mother?”

She giggled at that and hugged me tighter before releasing me.

I turned to my father, who was around my height and had the white hair of most all Zorestrans. His horns rose high from his head to points that were starting to fade to white, a sign of age. His dark blue skin was mottled with scars on one side of his face and arms, a result from an accident in his youth.

He gave me a sharp grin and place his palm to my heart as I did the same to him.

“Hello, son,” his voice was soft and deep, almost gentle. “I am so very proud of you for doing this.”

I knew he was hurt by my actions after my kohman, but he’d never once pressed for details or made me feel guilty for any of it. A fact I was immensely grateful for.

“Thank you,” I said with a bow of my head.

He also bowed his head and we both stood there, counting the beats of one another’s heart for five beats before stepping back.

“They’re deliberating now, so we just need to–“

The doors opened and I spun around in shock.

“That’s curious,” my mother said behind me.

Admiral Lawrence stormed from the room and toward us. His wrinkled face was red and if steam could come out of his ears, I was sure it would have.

“You don’t fool me,” he hissed with his finger in my face. “You will ruin the Union Exploration Corps and one day, everyone will tell me I was right about you. I just hope you don’t do too much damage until then.”

“I think you need to excuse yourself before you say something you will regret,” my father said behind me, the barest hint of a growl at the end.

The Admiral’s eyes widened for a moment before spinning on his heel and marching away.

“Well, that could be a good sign,” my mother said.

Next came Professor Kosh and Gav’Ahn.

“Ambassador,” my father said, greeting Gav’Ahn, with a nod.

The ambassador returned the greeting, and I did the same, as he turned his attention to me. Atavarians generally did not touch those outside of their family. Though, they did understand that sometimes touching was necessary due to cultural differences, I had never pushed the issue with any Atavarian I’d ever met.

“I do not doubt you quoted the Prophet to sway me,” Ambassador Gav’Ahn’s deep resonance skittered over my skin and I barely suppressed a shiver. “But you also understood it, didn’t you?”

That sobered me, because I truly did.

“Yes, Ambassador.”

He nodded.

“Continue on the path of service then Cadet Drake. I look forward to seeing what your career will hold.”

Memories of my kohman tried to smother me in that moment and I fought to resist them. If the Vil’Rahn was correct, and I wasn’t sure it was, what I saw would lead to something else. I just had to trust that it was something good and until then, try to build a life I could be proud of.

Next was Professor Kosh, who shook all of our hands in turn. The metal of her suit was cool but not unpleasant. The Ord Suit was the same height as the ambassador, but etiquette required us to look at the torso where Kosh herself sat. It always took some adjusting for me not to stare into the suit’s eyes.

“I was impressed by you, Cadet,” she said. “Your humility was an unexpected surprise. I will be watching your career with interest.”

“Thank you, Professor. I assume this means I’m reinstated?”

“Indeed,” she said with a smile, “and advanced to the rank of Ensign for your bravery on the Galileo. Your assignment is forth coming as there are a few wrinkles to work out. But I would advise not getting too comfortable on Earth.”

Relief washed through me and I let out a long breath.

“Thank you both for the chance.”

“Don’t thank us,” Gav’Ahn said, “show us you deserve it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded at me and my parents before turning around and walking toward the stairs. Though Atavarians were the first to make contact with Earth, they were still an intimidating sight to most humans with their impressive height, black eyes and red skin. As such, most people skittered out of the way of the ambassador and stared in awe at his back.

“Will you join us for dinner, Professor?” my mother asked. “I think this calls for a celebration.”

“I would be delighted,” Kosh replied with a smile.

My wrist com beeped and my stomach flipped like a youth with a crush when I saw Thalia’s name.

“Um, may I join you later? Thalia is wanting to know what the decision was.”

My mother gave me a knowing grin.

“Of course, have fun.”

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t anything, that Thalia and I might be finished before we even started if I get an assignment that makes it too difficult to see her. But I didn’t because the last thing I wanted was to admit any of that to anyone. Especially myself.

I waited until they’d left to call Thalia back, wanting a little privacy.

“Hey,” I said, my pulse racing as her face illuminated the small screen on my wrist. “I just got out of my hearing.”

“I heard. You would not believe how fast gossip about you travels around here.”

I grinned at her.

“Oh, I would.”

Thalia shook her head, dark eyes filled with mirth.

“Congratulations, Ensign Drake.”

“Thank you, Ensign Malik.”

“Actually,” she bit her lip, riju spiraling around her head, “it’s Lieutenant now.”

“What? That’s great! We should go celebrate. Is that throwback bar still on campus? I’m craving that crappy beer they had, what was it called…Bud Classic?”

“I wish I could, but I’m on a dinner break and then I have to get back to it. But, if you want to meet me here, I could always use a dinner partner.”

“Science building?”

“Yes, classroom Five-A. And hurry, I’m hungry,” she said with a salacious grin.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

I took a shortcut through the First Contact Memorial courtyard and then through the maintenance tunnels, shaking my head that the code from three years ago still worked. By the time I was knocking on the classroom door, only ten minutes had passed, but it felt like a lifetime.

The door opened and Thalia’s white and gray tipped head darted out, pulling me in by the front of my uniform. Before I could say ‘hello’, she’d pinned me against the door and was devouring my mouth with hers.

Her taste, the slide of her tongue against mine was like a homecoming. I let her tendrils wrap around one hand while the other kneaded the plump flesh of her ass.

“I missed you,” she panted, undoing the clasps on my uniform jacket.

“Isn’t it a breach of conduct to seduce an officer of lower station?” I asked, unbuttoning her pants.

“Do you mind being fucked by a Lieutenant?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Oh,” she bit her way down my neck, “I like that. I may have to tie you up a bit.”

“Promises, promises.”

My phallus stirred in its sheath and soon my pants would be decidedly uncomfortable. I spied a desk that wasn’t covered in papers and holo tablets, and began to back her over to it.

“I want you at least twice before the rest of the team comes back,” I said, shedding my jacket and shirt.

Thalia’s hands ran along my stomach to find the buttons at my pants while I tore off the green shirt of her uniform, exposing her breasts and pert nipples. I took one into my mouth and sucked hard. She gasped and arched her back so I could take it deeper. My hands skated over her skin, every inch beloved and known, yet exciting all the same.

She would have dark gray lines on her skin from the hard press of my fingers, and a primal part of me reveled in it. I wanted her marked so that if we were separated, everyone would see that she belonged to someone, to me.

“I want that too,” she breathed.

I wasn’t at all surprised that she’d picked up on my desires. Ever since that moment in the shuttle, it had been as if a string tied us to one another in the most intimate of ways. I knew when she was mad or upset, when she was wanting me, and she knew the same. It wasn’t intrusive like I always assumed such a thing might be. Instead, I was comforted at being so completely known and embraced.

“I want to belong to you, Antony,” she continued as I nipped my way up her chest to her throat. “I want to wear your scent on my skin, to hold the taste of your emotions on my tongue and know that I am yours too.”

Her ass hit the table and I spun her around so her hips hit the edge instead. My hands cupped her from behind and I rolled her stiff buds between my fingers. Thalia whimpered as she ground her ass against where my phallus was starting to extrude. Her body was so pliant, so responsive. I started to slip my pants down and a moment later I fully extruded. My sheath rolled back to form my knot and I took myself in hand, imagining what it would be like to bury myself fully inside of her wet heat.

“Pull down your pants,” I demanded.

She hurriedly obeyed and the moment her scent hit my nose I groaned, my phallus throbbing. Unable to help myself, I dipped my fingers between her legs and ran them through the arousal already building there. Just like on my shuttle, it was unusually copious and thick. Perfect for allowing me full entrance into her.

“I want to knot you.” The words slipped out before I could consider the implications of them.

Even though we both had confessed that we cared for one another, even though we both wanted to mark the other, this was something else entirely. Zorestrans don’t knot someone unless they are serious, sometimes not even until they are formally mated. And even though my stomach dipped with nerves, wondering if this was too much, too fast, I couldn’t find it in me to regret saying it.

Thalia turned just enough to cup my cheek with her palm and press a kiss to my chin.

“Yes, Antony,” she smiled at me, “whatever happens, I am yours. And if we are separated, then we will have this. No regrets.”

Her riju caressed my face and neck, wrapping around where they could and I saw the faint glow of the tips. She was giving me her emotions now, in all their raw, vibrant glory. Love so profound and simple that it stole my breath. I didn’t need to ask if she was sure. I could feel it, like an extra heart beat in my chest, nestled deep and precious.

I now understood why her arousal had changed, why there was so much of it. Her feelings for me had triggered a kind of heat. And even though she was on birth suppressors, her instincts were pushing her to fuck me around the clock.

“Bend over,” I whispered.

She did with a seductive smirk and spread her legs wide. Her nethers were on full display to me, hairless and dark with the flush of her blood there. I knelt down, my aching phallus tight in my fist, and ran my tongue through her wetness. We both groaned, long and loud, just before I began to feast on her. Her slick filled my mouth and I drank deep, my tongue fucking her while my finger ran in tight circles on her three headed pearl. Her cries of pleasure built to a crescendo as I worked her mercilessly. When she’d shuddered out her release I planted a kiss to the inside of each thigh and stood, my chin wet from her.

“I may lose a bit of control,” I warned as I ran the black tip of my cock through her.

“I know, I want you to.”

I let out a long breath and pressed kisses up her spine.

“You’re going to undo me, Thalia.”

“Good,” she grinned over her shoulder. “Let me see what you’ve been holding back from me.”

A growl escaped my throat as I scraped my teeth against her flesh, leaving dark trails in my wake. She hissed and arched her spine, sticking her ass out more. With a feral snarl I notched myself at her entrance and took rough possession of her hips.

With another ferocious growl, I pulled her onto me at the same time I thrust deep. My knot slammed against the outside of her opening and I panted out a breath of anticipation.

Not yet…I want to enjoy this.

She let out a rolling scream as I pushed her off and pulled out at the same time, the black tip of my cock barely within her.

“More…” She tried to roll her ass toward me as slick wetness fell in drips.

“You’re so anxious to be fucked senseless?” I pulled and thrust again, faster this time. “To be knotted and filled?”

“Yes,” she whimpered.

I ground my knot against her outer lips and sensitive three headed bud.

“Please…please, Antony,” she begged. “I want your knot, your cum, I want it all.”

“Be careful what you wish for cheja.”

“I don’t want care, I want to be fucked.”

Those words broke the thin restraints on my control and I let loose a roar. I snapped my hips to hers, the room filling with the sound of flesh slapping against flesh, of her cries and my snarls. I was unhinged, yanking on her hips as I hammered into her. She was so wet, the arousal slid down her thighs and onto the floor. Several times my knot slipped just past her cunt; I was tempted to push it the rest of the way, but I needed her to come again.

“Touch yourself,” I demanded.

Her hand went between her thighs and within moments she was writhing and milking my cock. I couldn’t stop myself this time and my knot slipped into her. The tight clamp of her around me, the pulse of her orgasm, it undid me. I saw stars, I lost the ability to breathe as I emptied myself into her. Wave after wave took me under, and I wasn’t at all sure how long it lasted. But when I could think again, she was pulsing her hips as mewling cries fell from her lips. I realized distantly that she was coming again. My knotting her had triggered a third orgasm on the heels of the second.

Pride made me grin down at her as she wiggled in desperation.

“You want more?” I teased and thrust my hips.

She let out a trilling yell and milked me. I hadn’t expected to come again so soon but here I was, spilling more into her.

I fell forward onto her this time; my entire body was hot and I was out of breath. My legs shook and I needed to move us to a better position but in this moment, I was afraid to trigger another orgasm that would likely lay me out.

“Oh…my…Goddess,” she gasped.

“Yeah.”

“That…Antony…you fucking fuck god.”

I laughed at that and pressed a soft kiss to her spine.

“I need to sit but…”

“I’m not sure I can survive another one,” she admitted. “But I need to sit too.”

Just then, a chime sounded on the desk and we both looked up to see her discarded holo-com signaling an incoming message. Then, a second later, mine did too, although it was on the floor behind me.

“Worst timing ever,” she snagged it off the desk and flicked off the video option. “Yes?”

“Lieutenant Malik?” said a woman’s voice.

I stood up slightly and accidentally rubbed my knot inside of her. Her muscles tensed and she shivered.

“Yes,” Thalia answered through gritted teeth.

“Is this a bad time?”

“N-no, Commander Morgan.”

I was trying to stand still, but it felt so damn good and the slightest movement had my knot pulsing.

“Fuck,” I whispered to myself as I nudged just a little inside of her.

Warmth began to build at the base of my spine, and she whimpered.

“Are you alright, Lieutenant?”

“I-I’m fine,” her hand curled into a fist as she tried to hold herself still.

“Should we play a game?” I whispered into her skin.

Thalia reached back to swat me and accidentally shifted enough to rub her inner walls against my knot.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream as the commander chattered on the coms.

“Well, I have good news. Your next assignment has come in.”

“Oooh?”

“Yes, it is exciting,” the commander continued.

I couldn’t help laughing as a small orgasm shook me.

“You’ll be happy to know that you’ll be serving on an exploration Command-class ship with a former classmate of yours. One Ensign Drake.”

That made us both stop moving as the news washed over us.

“Lieutenant, are you there?” the commander asked.

“Y-yes, I am. That’s wonderful news.”

“I thought you’d be pleased. You’ll be under the command of the current ships counselor and assisting the medical personnel as well. Please report to my office in the morning for a briefing.”

“I will, Commander.”

“Morgan out,” she said.

I gathered Thalia against me and picked her up. More sensation ripped through us both but we rode it out together just as I sat us in a nearby chair. I cuddled her against me as best I could with my knot still nestled inside of her and noticed the way her belly was slightly distended.

Ancestors! Did I come that much?

Thalia chuckled as she ran a hand over her stomach.

“I’d heard of this growing up in the Sacred Houses, but I thought it was a myth.”

“I-I don’t know what to say. Sorry?”

She laughed again, her riju tickled my throat as they lazily explored my chest and shoulders.

“No, I wanted it. And now we both know that it’s not a one-and-done.”

“Which is good, since we’ll be doing this again.”

When she didn’t speak, fear sank it’s claws into me and I held her tighter.

“Shhh,” she soothed me, her fingers twining with mine. “Of course I want that. But on the ship we will have to be more careful. You’re an Ensign. It would be seen as taking advantage.”

She was right and I hadn’t really thought of that. I pressed a kiss to the base of one tendril and then another before leaning down and whispering in her ear, “Well then, I guess I’ll have to make Lieutenant really fast then, won’t I?”

Thalia turned and fixed sparkling eyes on me, the fingers of her other hand joining her tendrils in caressing my cheek.

“If anyone could do it, Antony, it would be you. But there’s one thing we haven’t talked about.”

“Which is?”

“Your kohman, how are you feeling about it?”

“Take a look.”

A dark flush rose to her cheeks just before her eyes went white and the ends of her riju lit up. Once again, I felt her in the landscape of my emotions, a visitor that I now welcomed. I opened myself to her and let her see the fear that still lived there, but also the hope. The belief that I was meant for something greater than that vision, and that I chose the courage to find out what that was.

How I wanted her there with me, the two of us marching into the future, both known and unknown, but not nearly as dark as it had once been.

She released me and took my mouth in a soft kiss as tears coursed down her cheeks.

“I’ll be there,” she promised. “For as long as the Goddess allows me. I’ll be your partner on this journey.”

“And I’ll be yours.”

“Together then.”

I smiled down at her and planted a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“Together.”