Hollow Space (5 page)

“Your cock in me,” she cried.

He eased his hand between her thighs, spreading her wetness across her already slick folds then down to tease her anus. He pushed his finger into her dark hole. The brief stab of pain was quickly replaced by a driving desire to have him fuck her hard. Though, like all her people, she was in no shade of the term an anal virgin. “By the Gods…”

“Easy,” Michaelerus whispered. She sensed he was reaching the end of his discipline. Amanassa wasn’t in any better straits.

Within the blink of an eye, she was lifted, and Amanassa settled beneath her. His cock was poised at her rim. Michaelerus climbed atop the desk. The head of his penis stroked her slit. Without warning, they entered her at the same time.

“Yes!” She took several deep breaths. Her pulse raged when they began a slow dance.

Almost there. So close.
She clung to the roped muscles of Michaelerus’s shoulders. The first tremors of her orgasm bucked down her body. Her thigh muscles twitched. “Fardin frig, give it to me.”

The pace turned rampant as the two men plunged in and out of her. Her climax broke over her. The feel of Amanassa’s hot cum filled her ass.

Michaelerus continued to plunge.

A scream grew in her throat. The contractions rifling down her pussy milked him as she climaxed again. Her raging heartbeat threatened to burst her eardrums open. She hugged him.

Shots of energy jolted between them.

His cum drenched her core.

She huffed in deep lungfuls of air. “That was amazing.”

Chapter Four

It
’
s always darkest before it goes pitch black.

“Thank you for your insight, Larsus.” Michaelerus leaned back in his chair. His finger punched the button to disconnect the com-link with Community Headquarters. He narrowed his gaze on the rare beauty lying in his bed.

Gorgeous.

Mine.

Stretching out the aching muscles of his neck, he pondered the counsel he’d just received. The legate had delivered the right answer; penance would be paid.

In a sick and sad way, it seemed so easy when vocalized to him. Do this. Do that. Relinquish Leanderus to the Dareauxian authorities—yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah.

Michaelerus wondered if he could actually turn his half-brother over to the Dareauxians for trial. Stiffening his spine, he shook his head.

It went against every fiber of his being.

He raked his hand through his hair.
This is incredible.

Not because he didn’t agree that Leanderus should be punished. He did. Still…

This is a mess.

Truthfully, he hadn’t been all that surprised that Leanderus had broken the crystal. It was almost par for the course anymore. Push buttons. Wait for the fallout. Go forward.

The boy was going to be the death of him. At least that’s what Michaelerus had believed, and then he’d been told that the Dareauxians took the destruction of healthy crystals very seriously.

He ground his teeth together. Anger welled up in him.

His half-brother had most likely forfeited his life in a juvenile tirade meant to show Michaelerus he didn’t like the fact he’d been mated to Jada.

Why?

How stupid.

He’d like to say he felt something for the young warrior—that he could empathize with his attitude or sympathize with the drastic decision the remaining Navorains were forced into. He couldn’t. He felt almost nothing except minor pangs of disappointment. And even those niggling feelings weren’t for Leanderus but for their shared father.

Wrestling with all of it was turning him stark raving mad.

Michaelerus understood what he had to do. He had to reckon his accounts. He needed to stare at the sins he’d committed versus the life he’d lived. For what he could, he’d atone. For the rest, he’d lay his soul bare upon his death and pray for the Great Fathers’ pity.

Guilty! You are guilty, Michaelerus. You never cared for what I felt or how lonely I am.

Shaunna’s words clanged like a gong in his already aching head. What would his grandfather, Fis Marran the Compassionate, have told him?
Good question.

Start at the beginning. Start at the point that ties you to the past. That chains your future.

“Computer, show me the death of Navora,” Michaelerus ordered. Standing at the floor-to-ceiling iridium windows, the normally translucent panels flickered and then brought up the vidi he’d watched so many times he’d lost count.

The familiar stab of pain knifed his heart. His gaze remained trained on the computer record taken from a border sensor. His pulse elevated as the specially designed torpedo raced across the inky blackness of space.

Grimacing when the T-9 Planet Killer smashed into Navora, he gritted his teeth. Slowly, as if death was a patient observer to the suffering his people were experiencing, the rifts where the planet’s tectonic plates met grew red. The surface turned black except for the crimson-red lines snaking here and there.

The scientists had assured the survivors that by this time most of the victims were dead due to the gravitational shift as the tectonic plates heaved in their final death throe. Michaelerus prayed it was the truth.

He prayed and prayed. Paid penance. Longed for absolution until he couldn’t breathe in a full lungful of air.

The pain.

The excruciating terror.

The race to somewhere that wasn’t an exit but the final resting place.

The facts were his companions.

In his head, he heard the final conversation he’d had with his wife. They’d been arguing—again. In his heart, he was just as angry at her as she was at him, but he wasn’t allowed to vent the way she did.

The rage in her voice kicked him with the same force it had fifteen years ago. He fisted his hands to keep from doubling over.

She’d put it out there. The reality they’d both skirted. A truth that would destroy her reputation and bring him before the Council of Kings for breaking the Navorain War Code.

Mistreatment. Mental abuse. Dissolution of sacred bonds.

She wanted to dissolve their union.

His emotions stirred higher and higher as he tried to recall how they’d been when they’d first been mated. He shook his head.

What did it matter?
It hadn’t.

The sand had obviously agreed with her decision to divorce. Even he had become aware that the emotional tie they’d shared had grown water thin as he went off to space and she remained behind on the planet. His career, the one she’d fostered for the first few years of their marriage, the one she’d reveled in and taken great pride in the fact she was his wife, became the bone of contention between them.

He blamed himself then.

He still did.

“Is everything all right?” Jada asked from the bed. She sat up. The sheet pooled around her waist. “I felt your distress.”

Rejecting the urge to explain all his mistakes to Jada, Michaelerus finished watching the vidi. The planet expanded one final time before pulling in. The explosion was soundless, the soft flaring flames of the debris shooting out from the place where Navora had once stood gutted quickly in the nothingness of space.

He looked at her over his shoulder. “Leanderus destroyed the crystal.”

“I know.”

“It told you.”

“It showed me who had beaten it.” She didn’t appear the least bit fazed, but she did bow her head. “It wasn’t my place to name the murderer. My duty is to console the crystal in its final moments.” She peeked at him. “To bear witness to its pain.”

“And, you just bore witness to my pain.”

She slipped from the bed and padded to where he stood. He immediately wrapped her in his embrace.

“I cannot understand your pain. I have no reference to losing a whole world in the span of a few minutes.”

“Seventeen minutes—exactly,” he corrected her. It wasn’t even as if he could do anything to save anybody trapped on the planet. He was more than a sector away from Navora when the attack occurred. “The first ten, most of my kind spent dying.” A sick sensation filled the pit of his stomach. He looked down at her. Big, fat tears filled her eyes.

She audibly swallowed. “Nor do I understand why a culture would ever build such a weapon.”

He didn’t want to hash out why the Andromedains had built the T-9 Planet Killer. “Some cultures are harder to understand than others.”

“You wonder why the Dareauxians would put Leanderus to death, don’t you?”

“The punishment goes against our War Code.” Michaelerus brushed his hands up and down her back. “It is also why the survivors didn’t enter the war.”

“Because an eye-for-an-eye does not exist in your culture.”

“It does not.” Though even he had been hot for blood after the destruction of Navora. Time had not eased his desire for revenge. The code stood between him and making Andromeda’s homeworld run red with blood.

Torn.

He’d been torn between his blood lust and a sacred vow he’d taken after traveling across the sand dune-riddled landscape of Lazarus 7. He’d pledged his life to the stars and to the peace his kind was supposed to keep. He’d promised he would never use the advanced technology he commanded against a weaker species.

What the hell am I going to do?

The somber notes of the sands influence sounded.

“I will advocate for Leanderus, but you must understand, Michaelerus, he did not only murder the crystal but also its sentient partner.” She sighed. “It is unlikely any request for leniency will be accepted, but I will try on the grounds the Navorains do not believe in the death penalty.” Her hand caressed a hot path down his naked stomach. “We will hope for the best, but I wouldn’t have you hold onto a pipe dream and wishful thinking.”

“Measuring your words with me?” He cocked his eyebrow at her. The mating tune’s longing strains grew in strength.

“I am aware that this could end our alliance before it ever has a chance to begin.” Her fingers curled around his cock. Zings of energy flowed from her. “That may sway the judiciary.”

She didn’t sound so sure about that. The sensations flowing through him told him it was time to move on. They needed to look to the future. The sand was pushing him to come to grips with the truth.

“I will try,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” He gripped her wrist. “Are you trying to divert my attention and change the subject?” She had a staunch ally in the sand.

“I am trying to remind you that I am living and have needs.”

“More so than my last
t
esra
. Sex is your preferred foodstuff.” It didn’t make a difference. He could fuck this woman five times a day and never tire of her.

She blushed. “If you are not in the mood, I’ll go to Amanassa. He is my designated donor.”

Not any more.
Michaelerus lifted her in his arms and lowered her on his cock. A low, keening moan rose from her. “You like this.”

By the Great Fathers of Lazarus, he did. He loved how her pussy hugged his cock. Every whimper of ecstasy, the tiny mewls she made, her arms clinging to him—they were his manna.

He set a slow pace. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders. “Harder, Michaelerus. I want it harder.”

He accommodated her in spades. She arched her back. Her long hair shifted from side to side as he turned up the heat.

The darkness of Oblivion, the only place he could find his satisfaction, drifted around them. “Come into the darkness.” His balls tightened. Cum crept up his cock. “Don’t be afraid,” he rasped out.

They slid into Oblivion. His movements turned hard—rampant. Deep in the void, he took her for a wild ride.

“Ah!” The clenching of her feminine walls milked the cum right from his shaft. “Yes. Yes. Yes!” she screamed.

He didn’t stop moving her up and down, even after he’d found his own release. No. He kept on, pouring fifteen years of pain into her.

Finally, he crushed her to him. Tucking her head beneath his chin, he stared at the stars sweeping past the
Vor Marran
as it raced through hyperspace.

For the first time in a long time, he felt whole.

Chapter Five

Don
’
t fear the future.

Jada strode into Michaelerus’s open arms. He ripped the veil from her head and tossed it across the room.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. Her heart ached for the warrior holding her so close she could feel his heart beat somberly slow.

On one side, the Dareauxians had won. They’d renewed their pledge to not take advantage of a sexually immature race, which was a given. The Navorains and all their allies had stood against the New Chastity Party's outrageous plan. The proposition to change the rules was soundly defeated.

She sighed when Michaelerus laid a kiss to the top of her head. “I tried.”

“I know, and I thank you for the small consolation you were able to garner.”

There was really very little she could do to save Leanderus. “The Perseysian will be gentler with him than the executioner on Dareaux.” Which, when she considered who the Perseysians were, appeared to be a contradiction in terms. They were fear feeders from the far side of the universe and managed the largest penal planet in the Community. Still, considering the inexorably long time it took for the Dareauxian executioner to kill his client by slow electrocution, she’d take the small blessing.

“Shh. We aren’t talking about this anymore.”

If that didn’t sound like her life mate, she didn’t know what did. “I love you.”

“And I you.” Michaelerus had come to grips with the truth about their binding and then laid his past to rest. He’d removed his holographic program from the ship’s computer before she’d even woken the morning after he’d told her Leanderus had destroyed the crystal.

His intention was simple. They were starting fresh.

Slowly, over the course of the few days it had taken them to reach the Community’s Headquarters, she’d sensed a change in him. He was learning how to live again.

Granted, when he was on duty, he was all warrior, but at night or when he fed her, she noticed the void in his chest where happiness had once lived was beginning to fill with good memories.

Fardin frig, just last night he’d laughed at her when she’d inadvertently shocked him. The sound of his booming laughter was so pure it had enticed her to take control of their loveplay. He, of course, hadn’t allowed her to be the master for long. No. Within five minutes, he was ordering her about, and she was willingly following his directives.

“Where to next,
t
esra
?”

She giggled. “To bed?”

“I like the way you think.” He hit the communicator imbedded beneath the tattoo gracing his biceps. “Captain Fis Lazure, set a course for Lazarus 7.”

She frowned.

“There I will make our mating official.”

“Oh,” she said because she couldn’t think of anything better to say. “How long will it take us to get there?”

“Long enough for me to get you naked and moaning.” He pulled her down the hall toward their quarters. “Does that sound good?’

Energy sizzled in the air. “Yummy.”