Beneath me, Maggie moans my name, and I gently lower her to the cushions as I become more myself again. My cock is still buried with in her, and her body is still wracked with her own climax. Once we have recovered, I go to the washing area and get cloths to clean her up before I carry her up to the mezzanine area and put her into the bed.
Together, we sleep the sleep of mates. I know I will never be parted from her, not while there is any blood left in my body.
MAGGIE
“How far down is it?” I look out he window of the small flyer Driok is piloting through the almost infinitely tall buildings of Xracak City.
“The depths is a place almost no one goes. Not these days,” Driok says. “The city had to start somewhere, but the original Xracak inhabitants are long gone,” he adds. “It is a long way down.”
I hum under my breath.
The city itself is still a myriad of lights. The two suns tend to sit low in the sky, creating a horizon, and the buildings below are still illuminated. Those above glow silver and gold in the light of the burning orbs.
There are huge symbols which run up and over the sides of buildings in languages I cannot read. The nano bots in my system can translate speech, of any alien species I have met, but not anything written. It makes me curious.
“What does that mean?” I ask Driok as we swing round past another sign.
“It is attempting to make the sale for a new type of synthetic foodstuff,” he says, hardly even looking at it.
“And that one?” I point out another, one which looks like a set of arseholes and an exclamation mark.
“It is a religious center,” he says. “Are you unable to read?”
“I can read, but only in my own language, and these are not in my language.”
“Your nanos do not translate text?”
I shake my head. Driok growls under his breath as if disappointed. I change the subject.
“Are you absolutely sure the information you’re buying is trustworthy?”
“No,” he says. “After Szorn, I only trust you.”
I probably shouldn’t let his words make me feel all warm inside, but they do. Also I have Horace in my jacket, and he makes me feel warm on the outside. Driok did not want to bring Horace, but Horace had other ideas.
Driok doesn’t know this. Yet.
“My contact claims to know the whereabouts of my crew and ship,” Driok continues as we bank again and then rise up alongside a huge building which glitters and glitters. “It seems unlikely, but it’s the only option we have at the moment.”
“Who is your contact?”
A muscle jumps in Driok’s jaw.
“It’s a flesh trader.”
“Flesh trader? You mean slaves? Or humans like me?” I spit out. “What sort of place is this?” I grumble, thinking about the healer whose experience of humans was abductees like myself.
Driok fixes me with his slit pupils’ gaze. “There are many parts of many galaxies which have no morals and no concerns unless it is for credits and their own skins, should they have them.” One corner of his mouth lifts in an expression of disgust. “Plenty have no honor at all. Which is why so many seek out predators like the Sarkarnii to do their dirty work.”
“Like the Gonoz?”
“Like the Gonoz.” Driok swings the flyer into a large, open hangar filled with other flyers. “They want a piece of what we are before this entire galaxy is lost.”
“That bad, huh?” I squish my fingers into Horace’s silky fur in an attempt to calm my heartbeat.
“It won’t happen,” Driok growls. “Not to me, not to you, not to any Sarkarnii, or the galaxy in which Vorostor sits.” He punches at the dashboard, and with a low hiss, the flyer lands itself. “For want of anywhere else, this place is our home now.”
The gull wing door of the flyer opens silently.
