Hero (15 page)

Tychar smiled. "Not until you start running," he said. "Then you may realize just how hot it truly is."

"I'll take that chance," she said.

"Okay, then, let's go."

The two brothers sprang forward as though on springs and began running lightly

over the smooth stone surface, and Micayla was right with them. The three of them ran abreast of each other for a while, but Micayla couldn't help but be distracted by the way their dicks swung back and forth with each stride. Finally, she decided it was either run on ahead or drop behind. Knowing that running any faster would be a mistake, she

slowed down and let them pass her, but it wasn't much better. Trag's bare butt was begging to be bitten even more than his shoulder had.

They didn't let her stay behind for long, but slowed enough for her to catch them.

"You okay?" Trag asked. "Want us to slow down?"

"I'm fine," Micayla replied. "Just pacing myself." And trying very hard not to stare at your ass.
***

Trag would have preferred that she run ahead or at least abreast so he wouldn't

have to worry about her, but he came to the conclusion that being able to see her was getting to him. Granted, she wasn't naked and didn't smell of desire--which would have been difficult to assess since his nose wasn't all that sensitive for a Zetithian's--but he knew that just one tiny little whiff of desire would have his cock bouncing like a drumstick. No, he thought with an inward groan, I am not attracted to her. I do not mean to entice her. I will not do it...

Trag dropped back and fell in behind her. Bad move, he chastised himself. Now I

can see her ass. He may not have liked her--well, he couldn't even say that now--but he had to admit, she had a damn fine hind end on her. He shook his head, trying to dash away the vision. Nope, still there and still looking like it needed... What? No, not that.

She'd kill him if he tried it. Then he remembered that if she didn't want him, it wouldn't matter; without the scent of her desire, his limp noodle wasn't going anywhere. Not for the first time in his life, he cursed that particular trait of Zetithian males. He could have had sex every single day of his twenty years of slavery if he'd been able to get it up without the right scent. Scalia had tried many times to get him hard, but nothing ever happened. Instead he lived in a palace, wore a collar and a cock strap made of jewels, did a little light housekeeping, and kept Scalia company while freaks like Sladnil and Refdeck fucked her. Not that he'd really wanted to, but just possessing the ability would have been nice.

He knew that, unlike Zetithians, males of other species only had to think about

sex to get a stiff dick and could even make themselves ejaculate. Trag used to think this was ridiculous and had once made the statement that having sex without a woman was like trying to eat rocks, but getting his rocks off now and then might have made life more tolerable--might have made him less inclined to beg Kyra to take pity on him too.

Now there was a perfectly good Zetithian girl running just ahead of him and he'd

made a no-sex pact with her. "Brilliant move there, Trag," he muttered to himself.

"Fuckin' brilliant!" There wasn't a single female on the whole damn planet he could fuck except Kyra. He knew Windura liked him well enough, but he wasn't about to mess with a nice girl like that if he couldn't love her. Wincing, he realized that just as before, any time spent on Darconia would be lacking in sex.

His feet fell into a steady rhythm on the stone as he remembered the hookers,

which were all he'd ever had except for Kyra. Hookers were good. They provided a

valuable service. He'd have to remember to tip them better in the future--especially if whoever it was had an ass like Micayla's. In the end, he just gave up and stared at it--

which was fortunate because when she stumbled and nearly fell, he was right there to catch her.

He knew what was wrong as soon as he pulled her into his arms. "Damn! I knew we should have brought along some water!"

"We are almost to The Shrine," Tychar said. "Can you walk?"

"I--don't know," Micayla mumbled. "I was doing just fine, but all of a sudden..."

"Yeah, it hits you like that," Trag said knowledgeably. "No warning and then--

bam!--you're on your ass."

His choice of words may have reflected the body part he seemed to be
preoccupied with, but no one else noticed.

"I will get some water," Tychar said before sprinting off toward The Shrine.

Sweeping Micayla off her unsteady feet and into his arms, Trag thought he was

okay with it--until he looked down. Holding her against his chest, her breasts were pressed together with the end result that they were almost fully exposed in the moonlight.

Silently cursing the Darconian moons for being so illuminating, he stared straight ahead and marched onward, trying to ignore Micayla's frequent, though decidedly feeble, protests.

"You don't have to carry me," she said faintly. "I--I can walk."

"Aw, just shut up and let me be heroic for once," Trag said after listening to several pleas. "Ty got to carry Kyra when she was fainting all the time. Now it's my turn."

Micayla giggled softly. "You want to be a hero?"

"All guys do," Trag said with a firm nod. "And you don't get the opportunity very often. You gotta grab it while you can."

To his surprise, she laughed again. "I'll try to faint more often."

"No need to make a habit of it," he said. "I'm sure I'll survive."

***

around an exotic desert palace by a very handsome naked man--and she still wasn't turned on. What is wrong with me?This is every girl's dream and I might as well be in Dragus's arms for all the effect it's having! For the thousandth time, she wished there was at least one other Zetithian female around for her to talk to--preferably one that was older and had at least had children. After all, she couldn't very well ask Trag why she felt no sexual attraction to him; it would certainly kill any heroism inherent in their current situation, not to mention the severe blow to his ego. The worst part of it was that she was much too close to his shoulder for comfort. Her mouth had been dry as a bone while she was running, but now she was salivating so much she had to swallow to keep from drooling.

And he smelled so... bitable. Not edible, precisely... just something she wanted to--

"Here," Tychar said as he approached and held a cup of water to her lips. "Drink this."

Micayla drank it gratefully, hoping it would wash away whatever it was that was

making her feel so strange. She'd been overheated and dehydrated before, but this was different.

"You go on, Ty," Trag said. "She can rest out here where it's cooler."

Tychar nodded and disappeared inside the transparent bubble as Trag lowered

Micayla to a nearby bench. He was right about it being cooler there; she was even shivering slightly.

"It always amazed me the way the temperature would drop so quickly at night and then heat up almost immediately when the sun comes up." Sitting down beside her, he gestured toward the sheltered patio. "I used to sleep out here all the time."

The space beneath the dome was shaded from the moonlight, but she could still

see the soft glow of his eyes, and, at least for the moment, she wasn't hissing and he wasn't angry or irritated with her. Now that she had him at her disposal, numerous questions resurfaced, beginning with: "What was Zetith like?"

Trag shook his head. "I hardly remember, but from what Jack tells me about
Earth, they were pretty similar--some parts of it, anyway. Cool green forests with trees so big you could live in them, some open grassland, lakes and rivers, blue sky--that sort of thing."

Micayla nodded. "On Earth I lived near the redwood forest--the tallest trees on the planet. I always felt best when I was beneath those trees. Maybe that's why."

Trag turned away from her abruptly but said "yeah" in an odd tone that had Micayla peering curiously at him. He leaned back, resting his weight on one hand while spearing the fingers of the other so forcefully through his hair it was a wonder he didn't pull out a whole handful of it.

"And neither of us can go there anymore," she said with a wistful sigh. "Can we?"

"Nope," he replied. He hesitated a moment before turning his gaze on her once again. "Mind telling me why you left?"

Micayla shook her head slowly. "I don't know," she said. "It just seemed like something I needed to do. Maybe I thought I could find out who--or what--I was."

"Well, now you know."

"Yeah, now I know," she began, but added, "and I still don't know very much.

Just enough to know I'll never see my homeworld or any family I might have had there."

Trag waved a hand at the starry sky--a sky almost as clear as the view from a

starship. "I used to lie out here and look up at the billions of stars up there thinking just how small and insignificant this planet--hell, this whole solar system!--was in comparison to the rest of the universe. And me least of all; one tiny little being on a world where I didn't belong." Gripping another handful of his hair, he exclaimed, "God, I wanted to get off this rock! And now, it's the only place I feel at home--but it's still not right."

"I think I know what you mean," she said. "Earth is my home, but I never felt as if I belonged there; I was always an outsider. Remember what Kyra said about all of us living on one planet? It'd be nice, wouldn't it?"

Trag laughed scornfully. "There aren't enough of us left to fill a space cruiser, let alone a planet. I think we're a lost cause."

"Jack--it was 'Jack' wasn't it?--doesn't seem to think so. Tell me about her."

Trag chuckled. "She bought Cat at a slave auction so he could pose as her master when she went to Statzeel to try to find her sister who was a slave there. In fact, all Statzeelian women are slaves. Does that tell you anything?"

"That she's completely crazy?" Micayla suggested with a wry smile.

"Probably," Trag admitted. "But she loves Cat to pieces, and he--" He stopped abruptly, his expression sobering as he bit his lip and looked away again.

"What is it?" she prompted, noting his sudden change of mood.

"Nothing," he replied. "Just--nothing." He surged to his feet and turned, holding out his hand. "Come on. You'll be all right now. Let's get you to bed."

In any other context, his words might have been suggestive, and when spoken by

a naked hunk, the effect tripled, but if he was intending to share that bed with her, it wasn't obvious. His long, thick cock was right at eye level, displaying a decided lack of interest--something that, if all the talk meant anything, most men's would have done. She wasn't interested either, though she thought she should have been, but the reason for that escaped her.

"Tell me something else," she began. "When I landed on Lerotan's ship, even though we didn't exactly get off to a good start, he seemed to think you'd be glad to see
someone like me, and yet you weren't--at least, it didn't seem that way--and you probably should have been. Why were you looking for a Zetithian woman if you didn't want--"

Trag's stormy expression cut her off, but instead of yelling at her, he let out a resigned sigh. "Because I knew I'd never find one," he replied. "I could keep on feeling the way I do about Kyra while pretending to want someone else and no one would ever realize it."

"But you did find one."

"Yeah, I did." Pinning her with a look, he added, "Jack won't like this a bit."

Micayla didn't have to ask what he was referring to. "Don't tell her."

"If you think that'll make any difference," Trag snickered, "then you've got a lot to learn about Jack."

Later that night, Micayla lay in her bed staring up at the ceiling. Thanks to the moons and the lack of cloud cover, it was rarely completely dark on Darconia, but it really didn't matter; she wasn't looking at it anyway. She was thinking.

That little bit of time spent alone with Trag had changed her opinion of him. She was even beginning to suspect that they could become friends. She'd eventually get over the need to tear hunks out of him; she only needed to get used to being around him. Then it would go away.

Windura's steady breathing indicated her deep slumber, but Micayla was as far

from sleep as she'd ever been. She couldn't see herself as a member of Lerotan's crew forever, even though it wasn't much different from her previous post. She was, after all, doing the same kind of work, just in a different setting. Pretty soon she'd feel like one of the crew, Rodan would prove to be nothing but hot air, and Hidar--well, Hidar would molt and would hopefully be more chipper. The men would eventually understand that she wasn't like other women and would quit teasing her. She'd just be one of the guys.

Right. If only it didn't feel so wrong.

***

understand this, Mr. Grekkor. You want a hooker to question regarding the death of the Norludian merchant?"

"Yes, I should have thought that was self-evident when Dolurp asked for one."

Beontal went from casual to skeptical in a heartbeat. "And would you be so kind as to tell me why a hooker--any hooker--would have the information you require?"

"It has to do with someone else involved in the case," Grekkor said, reluctant to reveal anything further, but doing his best to conceal that fact.

"Ah, so the two women had an accomplice?"

"I believe so," Grekkor replied. "You need only to allow my man to bring one of the hookers to me for questioning."

Beontal's smile was decidedly chilly. "I should have thought that was my job."

"I only wish to be of assistance," Grekkor said. "I don't understand why--"

"Why I wouldn't allow a possible witness to be extradited from my jurisdiction--a case that took place within that jurisdiction?" Lowering his head, Beontal eyed Grekkor with reproach. "Really, Mr. Grekkor," he chided. "Your ignorance astonishes me."