There is a flicker of something like sadness in Rath’s eyes. It is almost as if he will miss me. Perhaps I will miss him too. But we are not in love. We cannot be. We hardly know each other. We are just two alien animals who have rutted.
“Be well,” he says as I shoulder my satchel and attempt to tie my ragged clothing into place.
“See you next time.” I smile as I leave with a slight limp in my gait. I feel as though something has structurally changed inside me. What Rath just did won’t be a distant memory in a day or two. I am going to throb and ache with the reality of this for quite some time to come. And when I find myself no longer stinging and sore? I’ll find him again.
“So. What was it like?”
Jax sits down in front of me, her one eye locked on me with interest. She’s a real cute kid. Out of my entire family, Jax is probably the one I feel most protective of. And not because she’s missing bits and pieces that most of us consider necessary to be whole. My feelings exist because she’s sweet and she’s smart, and she seems to look up to me. Which means if she’s asking the question I think she’s asking, I’ve set a very poor example for her.
“What was what like?” I feign innocence.
She smirks. “I saw what you did with the korabi soldier. I haven’t told anyone, but you know I stay tapped into local surveillance while you guys are out.”
Jax really is trouble. I am very glad she is on our side, and right now I am very glad that she is on my side specifically. Anybody else would have made it everybody’s business. I am glad she didn’t. Fucking a korabi is dangerous. Maybe for us all.
“It was really good,” I admit. May as well be honest with her. I want to tell someone. What I just did with Rath was wrong, but it was hot. It made me feel good. In some strange way it made me feel more important. I know that’s dangerous.
“Did you want it?”
“Of course I wanted it.”
“He was rough with you. It almost looked like you might not have wanted it. Or as if it sort of didn't matter if you wanted it or not.”
She’s a perceptive spy. Her comments help me remember how strong and forceful he was, how I felt when his massive, clawed hands placed me where I needed to be so he could ravage my pussy. He has made me his with that simple animal act.
“Sometimes, when you both want it… sex... very badly, it might look to others like its too rough. He didn’t hurt me. At least, not in any way I didn’t want him to.”
She laughs and blushes, squinting her eye almost closed as if she can’t bear to look at me. She's an adult, technically, but it is hard to mature as scum. Males are rare in our family. We’re not related by blood, but by territory. Wuld and Henry are the only two men here. Wuld is the father of Alicia’s offspring, and Henry’s injured in a way that means he can’t have anything carnal to do with women.
“Don't you try to do anything that stupid,” I warn her. “I won’t be doing it again.”
* * *
Two weeks later…
Rath’s cock is deep inside me. My legs are wrapped around his waist. We are making rough love in the same abandoned building we first coupled in. We have met every few days from the day we first mated. We hardly talk. There is so little to say, absolutely nothing in common besides what we do with our bodies. We match. We fit. We come together, my hips thrusting hard against him in an attempt to feel him all the way inside me.
When Rath fills me, I feel a sense of completion. I’d never admit to it, but I am connected to Rath in a way I've never been connected to anybody else.
He stares down into my eyes and he says words nobody should ever say to a being of another species while balls deep inside them.
“I love you.”
“What!?”
“I love you, human.”
I scramble up, feeling a hot flush of his come spilling out of me, sticking to my thighs, marking my sexual shame. I know that what he has said is what I am supposed to want to hear, but it isn’t. Those words bring the stark reality of our coupling to the fore. He loves me? How could he possibly love me while he returns every night to his blasted palace, and I risk death at the will of automatic robots programmed to exterminate me? Love is such a preposterous thing to claim. That he has the nerve to do so shows me that this is all a sham.