Adin's Adventure: How to Ruin a Rescue (3 page)

Neer
i mulled over that peculiar thought for a nanosecond before shoving it in a special corner of her mind labeled “Reject and Delete.” It was important for her to understand the emotions and reactions of the test subjects. It was even okay for her to empathize with them. It was
not
okay for her to have feelings for them, especially jealous, possessive, attachment-type feelings.

She just felt bad for Adin
that was all. He had shitty luck, searching for his brother only to get kidnapped by Ridge the idiot bartender and dropped here just when his brother left. He was having a rough transition for one of his species and she felt sorry for him. That’s all it was.

When she switched her display so she wouldn’t have to watch Adin and Shells
together, she refused to consider why. The display now showed a male of her own species, Wildcat Bill, romping with two simian females. Wildcat’s mane was mussed and his golden skin flushed red with exertion, but his canines flashed undaunted and his enormous cock bounced proud and straining.

Another one who
put on a good show. Though Neeri was oddly uninterested in her own species. Too ordinary, the males always so fixated on dominance. Ignoring a wistful urge to check on a certain sapphire-colored resident, Neeri settled in her seat to enjoy Wildcat’s act.

*******

Adin measured the small room with his stride, trying to drain himself of anxious energy. The mating burn was building again, as he’d known it would, and he almost hated the need crawling through his insides. He wanted to search for Ocen once more, but the fiasco with the droid had agitated him. His mental and physical states were too chaotic to allow the telepathic effort.

And he was hungry. For more than a warm body to shove his meat into. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t fed and watered him as usual but it was taking its toll, thirst and hunger yet another annoying distraction.

When he felt a change in the pressure of the room, he lifted his head hopefully, but the shelf of food still didn’t appear. In its place a small gray figure eased through the front wall then stood quietly regarding him.

He scowled and folded his arms across his chest in obvious rejection. Whatever his abductors wished of him, he wanted no part in it.

“You are Ophidian?”
the creature spoke, both out loud and in his mind, causing a curious doubling, resonating effect. Its mental voice was just as clear and steady as its verbal one, suggesting telepathy was natural for it.

I am,
he answered, studying the being warily. He’d never seen a species like this before, though it had common enough features—bipedal with two arms, a torso and single cranium, two eyes and a mouth. But it was entirely gray with unformed features, like a clay figure waiting for the artist’s vision.
What are you?

“I am a metamorph.
I can alter my appearance. Would you prefer this…?”
The gray skin rippled, hardening into the gleam of scales, and its body elongated, ridges forming in its skull, limbs taking on a sinuous elegance Adin recognized before it was finished.

No!
He held up a hand and the being halted its transformation into yet another Ophidian female.

“No?”
The creature’s form melted back into a gray template.
“You do not want to be with one of your own?”

They have already made a mockery of my kind,
he answered bitterly.
I will not allow you to repeat it. Leave!

It tilted its head,
strange unfinished eyes studying him. Then it turned to look up at a front corner of the room. “He is hungry and thirsty,” the being said, verbal voice oddly diminished and flat without its mental accompaniment. “Please send sustenance.”

When the being looked back down, it began to morph slowly, skin smoothing into a sheen and depth like a pearl, eyes darkening and refracting as if filling with a deep ocean. Its limbs thinned and cu
rved into a feminine shape, long tendrils growing from its head and swaying like sea grass in an ocean current.

“I have no wish to mock you. Will you sit and talk with me?”

Adin inspected this new form with lingering bitterness and cynicism.
Is this supposed to entice me? What creature are you pretending to be?

“Someone I loved and is l
ost to me. Will you sit?”

Adin shifted in place,
arms falling to his sides as he searched the expression on this new female face. Eons of sadness and patience. It made him feel small and limited. Swallowing hard, he wavered then made a diffident gesture for her to join him as he eased to the back wall. He activated the bed, the only seat in the cell.

Are you a prisoner as well?

She moved toward him, limbs flowing like water. He watched, reluctantly fascinated. He didn’t desire her but he’d been mostly erect before she’d even stepped into the room. Her silky grace made his cocks twitch and triggered a primitive curiosity about her anatomy. The fire in his gut tightened a notch and he frowned, looking away as they sat side by side.

“You may call me Shelayle. May I know your name?”

His frown deepened. She hadn’t answered his question.
I am called Adin Til Beltak Shrivket. Are you one of them?

She was silent and he turned his head to look at her warily.
She’d weaved willowy fingers together in her lap and now stared down at them, sadness so heavy on her features they seemed to sag
. “I am…not one of them. I remain, because I have nowhere else to go and I am of use here.”

Where is here? What is this place? What do they want? Why was I captured?

Her sorrow lifted into a smile as she raised her head to gaze at him with those dark ocean eyes.
“So many questions. I can’t explain the program. I don’t fully understand it myself. They seem to be looking for interspecies compatibility but I do not know why.”

Who are they? Why do they treat us this way?

“I suspect if I knew the answers I would not be allowed to participate. My understanding would corrupt my responses.”
She smirked, as if her words amused her.

Adin was not amused.
He found nothing remotely humorous about this situation.
Why? Why would you want to participate?
He knew his mental tone was rude, but he didn’t care. This creature actually chose to be here, to assist his captors in their strange program. That was repulsive enough, but the idea that she’d been given the
choice
infuriated him.

“I only want to help.
I seem uniquely qualified as a metamorph to do so. This angers you.”

I do not want to be kept like an animal in a cage.

Instead of responding, she rose and glided toward the front wall. A shelf had appeared while she’d distracted him. She lifted the tray of food and drink and brought it to him. She offered the tray silently and he took it with an aggravated hiss. He
was
hungry. He had to eat, to drink, though it made him feel as though he was giving in to them on some level.

She sat beside him again, waiting without a word as he devoured everything on the tray.
There was more than the usual amount, as if they knew the mating burn increased this appetite as well. Their knowledge of his people alarmed him.

When he finished, he took the tray to the shelf and watched in sullen irritation as it rippled away through the wall.
I wish to leave. I do not wish to participate.
He turned to face her.
Tell them to let me go.

Her sad expression was edged with pity.
“They are looking only for your honest responses. It will not last forever.”

Stepping toward her, he
growled
and if I refuse?

“If you truly don’t desire it, they won’t force you
.” Then her gaze dropped to his groin where his three traitorous cocks surged to his heartbeat.
“But you are in need. Won’t you let me help you?”

With a sibilant snarl, he ignored the eager response in his straining cocks and turned to pace the room again.
What do you desire? I suspect it is not me,
he said with sardonic emphasis, raking a pointed glance over her chosen form.

She dropped her gaze to her lap and twined her fingers together again.
“I loved her, but she could not abide any other species. She would not have me and she is gone. I feel your need and distress as though it is my own. I wish only to bring us both peace and pleasure.”

Adin slowed to a
stop, staring at her bend head with a sudden flash of unsettling insight. She wasn’t staying to help the program or the subjects—she was staying to bury her own pain and loss. He felt his anger slipping under a wave of sympathy.
Your reasons aren’t so selfless,
he countered, but gently.

She raised her gaze to his, eyes like a dark whirlpool, sucking him in.
“We each have a need. Is it so wrong to ease those needs together?”

Yes, when it is not my choice.

She rose, facing him steadily.
“So choose. Tell me to go or tell me to stay.”

She could have touched him and it would have all been over. The mating burn was an itch in his skin, a fire in his belly, a grinding ache in his groin. She might not even need to touch, just
come close enough for him to feel her heat, to taste her scent. But she didn’t. She waited and let him choose with his thinking mind instead of his rutting body.

Adin sighed
, undone by the patient sorrow in her borrowed features and the deep longing he felt pooling inside her. If she’d been the empty droid, he could have sent her away. But he felt what she wanted, what she needed, and the imperative to please and sate a female was stamped into his very being. His culture and continuation of his species was based on it. He couldn’t deny who he was, even in these unsavory circumstances.

Stay,
he murmured and stepped toward her.

She smiled. T
he relief he saw and felt in her melted any lingering bitterness. She lifted a hand and he clasped her delicate fingers in his, letting her pull him toward the bed.

“
Then lie down, Adin. Let me find what pleases you.”

But
—he protested, thinking she’d stolen his line.

She laughed, a soft sound like a gentle sea breeze.
“I will feel what you feel. We will learn together.”

Since this was basically what the matrons would do for a young Ophidian in his first burn, Adin subsided with another sigh and a fleeting ache of homesickness.
He was so lost here. If he was home, his people would know how to help him.

Shelayle seemed to feel his uncertainty and soothed a hand down his chest as he lay back on the bed.
“There is no rush and no right or wrong way. What feels good, we do more, yes?”
Her smile was teasing, sparkles dancing in her eyes like sunlight over water.

He nodded, relaxing a little.
She straddled him, soft thighs and buttocks brushing against his cocks, and he tensed again, this time with hot hunger. But she didn’t mount him, only leaning forward with hands braced on either side of his head, curiosity and delight brightening her face and thoughts.

“Do you kiss?”

He nodded again, reaching to cup her face in his hands and ease her close. The tendrils on her head brushed against his fingers and coiled around his wrists almost as if alive, the texture as soft as down. It was odd and arousing at the same time, an unexpected caress. Her mouth hovered over his, breath warming his flesh in gentle gusts.

His tongue flicked out instinctively, tasting her in the air and barely kissing her flesh. Fresh and warm, with a salty tang like brine.
She leaned closer and whispered
more
in his mind, and he slipped his tongue into her mouth, groaning when she sucked lightly. It was his turn to demand more, fingers tightening on her fragile face as he pressed his mouth against hers, tasting her deeply.

At the same time
he slid his mind into hers, merging with slow, luscious pleasure into the core of her, beyond appearance and surface thoughts to roiling emotion and sensation. He stopped thinking and worrying about what he should do, how he should touch and please her. He simply
felt
and suddenly it was easy.

He tasted himself on her tongue, felt the hard pressure of his hands on her face, the cool silk of his scales along her tendrils. He twined his tongue with hers because she wished it and slipped his fingers through her tendrils, enjoying with her the tingles of sensation that ran all the way down her spine.

He urged her without words to touch him and moaned at the unbearably soft slide of her fingers. She stroked his jaw, throat and chest, and shared the feel of him, shared her delight in his hard yet silky texture. Learning himself through her senses was novel but he was more fascinated by her pearly flesh, softer than a feather and so sensitive his lightest touch made them both shiver.

He could have done this for hours, absorbing her taste and smell, stroking h
er downy skin and feeling everything with her. But on a downward stroke over her arching buttocks, his claws pricked her skin ever so slightly. Her hips jerked, bumping against his aching cocks, and fire rushed through him in a wild flood.