Lethal Impact Read online

  He smiled slowly. “You are very soft. I look forward to examining you at my leisure.”

  Her blush was going to be a permanent fixture, but at least the mottled green and black dress covered most of her skin.

  “I will just fix my hair, and I will be ready.”

  “I am waiting.” He flexed his wings, and for the first time, she realized that they were not ornamental.

  Thinking about what it meant, she went into the lav and brushed out the marks of her nap, flipping the waves of hair over her shoulders. She stared at herself and lifted her left hand to tuck a few stray strands behind her ear, and she noticed the bracelet with the silver stone dangling from it at that moment.

  When she emerged and went to Aarak, she held up her wrist. “What is this?”

  “A bracelet to assist with locating you, and the charm will broadcast to your guard and me if you experience rage or panic.”

  She stared at him. “Why?”

  He smiled and threaded a hand through her hair. “I find you attractive and utterly charming, but do not question me. You will do as I say without question, knowing that nothing I do will harm you, and keeping you sound is my fondest desire. Well, nearly my fondest.” He smiled slightly, tugged her hair and then turned her with an arm around her waist.

  She was reminded suddenly that this wasn’t someone she could argue with, and he had a point. She didn’t know anything about him, his people, or their traditions. Stepping out of bounds could be fatal if she didn’t remember that he was her lifeline.

  He walked her to the door and dropped his arm from around her waist. His wing extended out behind her, curving around her in a protective manner that managed to herd her in the direction he wanted without a word.

  She kept her hands folded in front of her and walked with her head high. If this was her place in the universe, so be it. There was a number on her freedom, and she was going to find out what it was. She was more than a toy, and she would be in charge of her life again.

  Chapter Six

  Dinner with the Idel-born officers was astonishing. There was an equal representation of males and females at the table. The captain of the ship was male, but his first mate was actually his mate.

  Aarak had his head turned toward the weapons officer, and they were conversing quietly, but on Fiona’s left side was the head medical officer, and she had no interest in Fiona. She kept her conversation to her other side.

  Fiona sat up straight and ate when the others around her were eating and drank when the others drank. By the fifth course, she was full. The foods were not sitting well, and she didn’t want to stay still.

  The green wine was having a strange effect on her senses. Everything was getting hot and then cool, and her head was spinning.

  “Patron.” She spoke softly, but Aarak didn’t turn his head.

  She slid her palm up his thigh, and he turned toward her with an astonished gaze. “I would like to retire. I feel very peculiar.”

  He gave her place setting a long look, and his eyes widened. “How much of the wine did you have?”

  “My glass was refilled twice. Why?” Thoughts of poison ran through her head.

  “Your system isn’t able to process it. Doctor, I require your assistance.”

  The physician looked over with nearly a snap of her neck. “Yes, my lord?”

  “You were in charge of the wine this evening. Did I not make it clear that she was not to be served?”

  The doctor gave her a contemptuous look. “It will not kill her, but it will provide you with much amusement for the evening.”

  He stood, sending his chair back with a clatter. “She cannot break it down. You have consigned her to days of torture. Captain, I expect you to carry out a suitable discipline, or I will administer it when we arrive at Idel.”

  The doctor paled. “It was a joke.”

  Aarak didn’t comment. He reached down and pulled Fiona to her feet. Without another word, he led her out of the officer’s dining hall and back to their quarters.

  The world was hot and pulsing, or cold and echoing. Fiona had no idea what the next heartbeat would bring.

  Aarak muttered and went to his desk. “I need the medic on duty, a scanner, and projector.”

  Fiona was standing in the centre of the room, shivering and twitching as her nerve endings were fired off in clusters at random points around her body.

  Her patron returned to her, and he cupped her cheek. Fire burned through her in a very pleasant way, and she looked up at him with what she knew was a dazed expression. “Did she poison me?”

  “She believed she was making a joke, but she did poison you. Idel consider the wine a light entertainment. It is relaxing and genuinely the beginning of a pleasant evening.”

  “An aphrodisiac.”

  “A mild one. A mild one in the Idel.”

  She fought the urge to put his hand on her breast or between her thighs. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “There should have been nothing to warn you against.” He looked like he wanted to punch something, but his hand on her cheek was steady and relaxed.

  The door opened while he stood staring into her eyes, and when the other person entered the room, he straightened. “She was given three doses of Mlia wine. Her system isn’t designed for it. I need a treatment method to flush it out of her.”

  The medic looked a little flushed, but he nodded and gently eased Fiona toward the chair behind her desk. “How was the dose administered?”

  “She drank it. It was served to her without my authorization and against my orders. It was a joke.”

  The medic gave her a concerned look. “How are you feeling, Mistress?”

  “Hot, cold, aroused, dizzy, and my ears and vision make me feel like I am under water.” She enunciated carefully because her tongue wanted to default to English.

  He pressed one monitor pod to her temple and one to a spot just over her heart.

  While the monitors collected their data, the medic set up a display screen that projected her body in three dimensions, but it appeared that the focus was on her neural pathways.

  A darker line was spreading from her abdomen and up toward her brain as she watched.

  “So, that’s the wine, huh?”

  Aarak nodded absently. “Did you bring a unit with you?”

  The medic bowed. “Yes, Lord Aarak. Do you wish to apply it?”

  “I am not sure that it will work. You apply it.”

  Fiona watched as the medic opened level after level of his kit until he pulled out a layer covered with small electrode pads.

  “Now, Mistress, these are going to bring you to a pleasure spike, as that does tend to burn out the wine rather quickly.”

  Fiona looked at him, and his appearance wavered in her vision. “I don’t want to be touched. Just tell me where to put them.”

  “That will not be possible. There are some places that you can’t reach, and to get correct placement, we need to compare it to your scans.”

  She looked over and asked quietly, “Aarak, would you put them on? You did say that no other person would be given full access to my person. I am not feeling up to being handled by anyone else right now.”

  Aarak looked at her, and a flicker of understanding crossed his features. “Of course. Please, remove your dress, and I will apply the unit.”

  She nodded and used clumsy fingers to open the fasteners down the front of her dress. When it was open, she pulled her arms out of it and stood up. The fabric was left behind, and she braced herself on the desk.

  The medic prepared the small stickers, and Aarak knelt in front of her, placing them as per the order of the medical professional, one at a time. The inner portion of her thighs got the small items as did every erogenous zone she had ever identified aside from the tips of her breasts and her clit. Even the back and side of her neck had small stickers applied.

  Sixty small stickers were on her skin, and each h
ad a tiny active unit within it.

  “Mistress, please lie down.”

  Aarak nodded toward the bed. “Lie down, Fiona.”

  The medic followed her as she wobbled toward the bed, her skin felt like it was absorbing the little mechanical bits.

  When she was reclining, the medic gave her a small remote. “Press this, and the units will calibrate. After they are quiet again, a single press will bring you to a slow climax.”

  “How will I know when the wine is out of my system?”

  “The display’s dark lines will fade, and your normal display will be reported to our office. The medical officer on duty will come and retrieve the equipment.”

  She pressed the button and asked, “How long will this take?”

  “I will have a better idea once I know what progress a cycle has gained.”

  Each tingle of muscle and tissue fired up, and she saw a hot pink pulse on the display across the room.

  The medic looked back at the display and then glanced at her in alarm. “Are you in pain?”

  “No, it feels quite pleasant. Like I am wearing a TENS machine.” She smiled as each nerve cluster was woken in turn.

  It took several minutes, and Aarak lounged at the end of the bed, watching her twitching progress.

  “Okay, now for the real thing. No offense, medic, please, stand near the display. I don’t like to put on a show.”

  The medic flushed a darker green again, and he retreated to his equipment.

  Aarak smiled slightly. “I am curious to see if this works. I know it works with Idel physiology, but it has never been tested on your folk.”

  She hit the button and held her breath. “No time like the present.”

  The electrodes started a light caress, and she lay on the bedding, shifting slightly as the caresses got stronger. Hands gripped her breasts, her body tensed, and desire roared to life.

  She heard the medic speaking frantically, but the roaring in her ears blotted him out. Her arousal climbed higher, filling her with desperation. She twisted, and tears seeped from her eyes as she waited for release. Even stroking her clit had no effect. Her body wouldn’t let her orgasm.

  The stimulation from the unit slowed and faded. Fiona rolled over, and she sobbed. The fire in her blood was still ablaze, but she didn’t know how she was going to end it. She looked at the other two through the cage of her arms.

  The medic was now chalky pale. “Okay, so that doesn’t work. I don’t know what is an option. I need to check with the officer.”

  Aarak nodded. “Please, do that. In the meanwhile, I will try to assist her. You are dismissed now.”

  The medic gathered his equipment and left the scanner behind.

  Aarak removed his trousers, and he crept onto the bed next to her.

  Fiona looked at him and licked her lips. If anything was going to help, it was going to be direct contact.

  “I am very sorry; this is not how I wanted to properly begin.” He rolled her onto her back and kissed her softly.

  She leaned up to taste him, and he flicked his tongue into her mouth. She couldn’t define the taste of him, but she wanted more.

  Fiona slid her hands over his chest, ran her fingers around to the base of his wings and down to his buttocks.

  He shifted over her, and she felt the head of his cock against her, pressing into her hot and wet flesh. She rocked her hips toward him, and he eased into her. With a sigh of relief, she took him as deeply as she could, using the flats of her feet on the sheets to push upward.

  Aarak shook and drove into her; he thrust several times before she felt another point of contact on her clit. She groaned, and sweat coated her while he stroked in and out of her with deliberate force.

  It seemed rude to scream in his face, but she let herself relax and react, and after several minutes of battling for release, it struck her like a bolt of energy firing every nerve and neuron.

  Aarak moved with slow and steady beats of his hips, keeping the pulses firing in her body.

  Fiona groaned and relaxed under him, letting her lower limbs resume normal positions while she threaded her fingers through his white hair.

  “So, will you look me in the eye now?” Aarak chuckled.

  She glanced up and met his gaze. “It is a hard habit to break.”

  “Consider it an order. I can live for a year on the energy you just produced, but I would enjoy it more if I could see it when the pleasure takes you over.”

  Fiona blushed and then gasped as he kissed her deeply. She shivered and closed her eyes as she tightened her fingers in his hair and held on. The kiss was hot, slick, and caused her hips to shimmy against his.

  He was still hard. He was also incredibly deep. When she moved her hips against him, the fire started again.

  She whimpered and held tight to him as he shifted his hips slightly, and the suction on her clit resumed a throbbing pull. Slow motion inside her and the pressure on her clit were a deliberate tease that mixed with the taunting thrust and slide of his tongue. She was surrounded, filled, and overwhelmed by someone who was paying attention to every moan and twitch.

  He broke the kiss and feathered his lips over her forehead while his hips moved slowly, pulling her slowly toward another orgasm.

  The feeling of being cared for, cherished, and watched was intoxicating. He was taking care of her and learning her habits. When her soft moans and shivers overtook her, she met his silver gaze while her inner muscles clasped him and milked him.

  He smiled at her and said, “How do you feel now?”

  “I have gone from scalding hot to a low simmer. I need to ask a question.”

  “There is no better time, Fiona.”

  “Do you come?”

  He grinned. “Yes, but today is not that day.”

  “Am I going to have to do more reading?”

  He laughed and slowly moved off her. “I am afraid so. Once you have learned about the Hmrain, I will fill in the gaps.”

  She fought her wobbly limbs and got her legs together, sitting up and sighing. “I thought that is just what we were doing.”

  His grin was wide, white, and showed her some very serious fangs that had escaped her notice until then. She looked at his green skin, glowing silvery-white tattoos, the thick expanse of his cock that had had two-thirds of itself inside her if the gleam of her moisture was any indication, and gave herself credit for not running screaming into the far edges of the spacecraft.

  Chapter Seven

  The display showed a slimming of the dark lines, but they were still exceptionally thick.

  Naked and sweaty, Fiona looked at the image of herself, and she cleared her throat. “So, that looks like it is going to take some doing.”

  Aarak wrapped his arms around her from behind, and he pulled her back against him. “I am willing to put the hours in, but it will injure you, so I will consult a specialist.”

  “There is a specialist?”

  He sighed and rubbed his chin on the top of her head. “Sort of. The creature who designed Mlia berries projected its effect on other species.”

  “Creature.”

  He squeezed her. “My sibling.”

  “Your brother?”

  “No, one of my sisters. Her ability to tinker with biochemistry is astonishing. She might be able to work out a solution for us. Do you mind if I share the particulars?”

  “Since it is starting to hit me again, I would ask that you consult whomever you think can help. It is interesting right now, but if it doesn’t wear off, I think I would end up a little depressed.”

  “Right. Did you want to rest?”

  She chuckled. “No, I am rather energized. I think I will sit up and read about the Hmrain if you don’t mind.”

  He slowly released his hold on her, and she walked over to the wardrobe, slipping on one of the robes she had noticed earlier. It was a strange combination of silk and lace, but she enjoyed the feeling against her
skin. She took her tablet to the couch and recreational space in the entertainment area. Curled up in a corner, she listened to Aarak as he spoke softly to someone in a language she hadn’t heard before.

  A woman’s voice countered in the same language, and she seemed amused.

  He asked a question, and she answered with one word. He argued about that word, and she reiterated it. Finally, he shut the connection down and leaned back, fuming.

  She glanced up from the article that described the Hmrain penis as an adaptable appendage. “You look irritated.”

  “I have gotten an answer, and it is not the one I wanted.”

  “No help with the prognosis?”

  “No, I have been given a treatment option. I just don’t want to administer it.”

  She set the tablet down. “What is it?”

  “I am not going to do it, so there is no point discussing it.”

  Fiona got to her feet and walked over to his desk. She turned him away from the screen and opened the robe so she could straddle his hips. He sat back in surprise as she traced her fingers over his tattoo.

  “Now, tell me how to stop this overtly annoying behaviour, or I will seduce you.” It was an empty threat. His body was hard and ready for her.

  She wrapped her hand around him and stroked his erection. It grew even thicker in her grip, and she wondered how she had gotten it inside to begin with.

  His eyes narrowed, and he hissed. “What is fostering this confidence?”

  “Check the display.”

  He glanced and gripped her arms when he saw what she had noted. The dark streaks were thickening again.

  “How are you so calm?”

  She met his gaze, and his look of understanding let her know that the churning maelstrom of desire was visible in her eyes.

  He slid a hand between her thighs and found the slick heat that she had been trying to ignore. “You should have told me sooner.”

  “If I had told you sooner, you would still be inside me. It hasn’t let up; it just receded in urgency. So, tell me how the Hmrain eat pleasure.”