Night of the Zandians (Zandian Brides 1)

“Veck,” I roar, and drive into her, filling her as deeply as I can. She wraps her legs around mine and meets me thrust for thrust, and soon we both come together in a cry of exultation.

We lie there panting until our breathing comes back to normal, with her resting on my chest. I stroke her shoulder and murmur, suddenly worried, “Was it too rough? I don’t want to hurt you.”

She smiles, her eyes large and wild still from our passion, and kisses my neck. “It just felt good, no pain at all. I think maybe Zandian sperm has healing properties.” Her smile falters, as if the topic of sperm concerns her.

I try to bring back the smiles. “If you want, the four of us can start a side business selling our sperm. You get some pretty glass vials, and we’ll look at your naked body and jerk off into them every planet rotation. We can probably get a few gallons by the end of this week, easy. We’ll label it as a health enhancer and bring it to all the domes.”

I study her. Too much? Not everyone likes my sense of humor. Females, especially, usually prize a male for his strength and prowess on the battlefield, not his ability to make jokes. Veck. I hope I haven’t ruined—

But she smiles, her chest heaving on mine, her nipples rubbing my skin, sending happiness and relief coursing through my veins. “Sure, if you ever run out of crystals, it can be the new Zandian export. Good for any ailment.”

A booming laugh leaves my lips before I can hold it in. I’ve never had a female be such a fun companion. And I think she needs this too. So as we bathe in the stream, I make more jokes about water purity, and she holds my hand all the way back to the dome.

6

Riya

You’re lying to me.” I teasingly poke Jax’s chest, as we traverse our Northern-most field, the one I’ve devoted to my more delicate herbs. It’s more like a large garden than a vast terrace, but I have goals.

“I swear I tell the truth.” Jax puts a hand to his chest and gives me a smile, the one that melts me. “It’s been nearly two lunar cycles already, Riya. You just haven’t noticed the passing of time because we keep you so… busy.” He winks, and I flush.

“So busy I’m out here late this planet rotation,” I retort, “and you’re lucky I can even still walk.” I give him a mock scowl. But I wind my fingers around his impressive tricep—as far as I can, anyway. My touch tells a different story from my stern look, a tale of remembered passion and all of our cries of pleasure, over and over last night.

“Oh, you can?” He tilts his head. “I must not have done my job properly, then.” He tsks disapprovingly. “If your pussy isn’t completely devastated by morning, I consider us to have failed our task as mates.”

I roll my eyes, because the three of them are so overprotective that it’s not even funny. Yes, they veck me until I’m hoarse with pleasure, until I can’t take another second of it… and then they lavish me with affection and praise, massage my limbs and my feet, bring me honeyed water to drink, until I am fully replenished. If they spank me, which they often do, until I’m pink and begging, they follow it up with orgasms enough to drive any pain from my body, leaving me so sated that I sleep like a stone at midnight, in a dark garden, and awake refreshed to attack the planet rotation with vigor.

“Oh, no. Oh…” I bite my lip hard enough to hurt, all of my lazy leftover bliss snapped, like a twig in a storm.

“What’s wrong?” Jax frowns and steps closer, scanning the area around us, and puts a hand onto my shoulder. “Riya?”

“It’s my calendula.” I fight to keep tears out of my eyes. It’s stupid, but I’m trying so damn hard to grow things out here. Trying so hard to prove my worth to my mates beyond a breeder. “It all died… again.”

I pull away from his grasp and bend down, as if touching the withered brown wisps will change their fate. “This is the third location I’ve tried, and now I’ve wasted more seeds.” I dig down to check for the fat white grubs that sometime infiltrate the soil and press the leaves in my fingers to examine them for the silvery trails of caterpillar larva, but all I see is dead brown matter.

“I can’t figure it out.” My chest tightens, and I get to my feet, dizzy for a second. “I need to figure it out.”

Jax frowns and examines my face, steps closer. “Riya, our planting is doing well,” he counters. “When I communicated your progress this week to King Zander, he said that you’re ahead of all of the other domes.” he smiles and adds, “Not that it is a competition. We are all in this together.”

“Oh, I know that.” I bite my lip and nod, forcing a smile to my lips. “I just want to make you proud.” Because I won’t be providing you babies. Every planet rotation that goes on without me telling them feels like a bigger and bigger lie.

“You already do.” He touches my chin. “Not just proud, but happy, Riya. For the first time, I—all of us—have the chance to learn what it’s like to live life, not just fight for a future chance to live one. Do you know how incredible that is?” He slides his hand up to cup my cheek, still looking at me.

His eyes, so dark, have multiple reflections of the Zandian sun, making them glow. A beam of light accentuates his sharp cheekbone, setting his striking good looks into profile. I catch my breath and put my hand on top of his, a surge of emotion taking me by surprise.

“I, too, get that chance,” I respond, pressing his strong fingers under my softer ones. “A slave never gets that chance.” The skin at my nape itches where my barcode is burnt into my skin and I fight the urge to touch it. Instead, I run my other hand up Jax’s bare arm, enjoying the muscles, strong and defined.

“So maybe the calendula isn’t such a miserable thing,” he says, a small smirk breaking out on his face. “In the big picture.”

I blink rapidly. “You’re right. I will just need to be creative and try again.” Except this is a competition… although I cannot tell him. It’s not me against the other humans, though—not exactly. More like it’s me versus my fate once they all find out I can’t bear young. If I haven’t achieved enough wins here at my farm, proving that my ag skills are so superior that everyone needs me as a de facto expert, who knows what will happen?

I confide in Jax, “Calendula is sometimes called Marigold.” I try out the Earth word on my tongue. I don’t speak English (nobody does), but still, many of the old words survive, the ones that name the plants that now power the galaxy. “Another slave told me that thousands of cycles ago, on my home planet, it was used in mating ceremonies.” I try to imagine what she’d described; thousands of golden, ruddy blooms adorning a dark-skinned bride, her friends, the decorations… making the whole city glow. This Earth information, passed down from slave to slave all these centuries, feels sacred to me. “I don’t know if that’s true. But the properties of the plant are well known now, anyway.” I squeeze his arm.

“And those are?” He’s not looking away. Jax always reads me like a holo. His face is alert, like he really cares about what I'm saying.

“It has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties, and I hypothesize that it will be ten times more powerful for Zandian cuts and scrapes than on human skin, based on your reaction to other herbs I’ve tried.”

I run my index finger over a long, thin scar on his arm. He got this one early on when we were clearing a field. I put some botanical oils on it to help it heal, but I have goals to improve the way wounds recover. “Imagine healing so fast you barely have time to cry over it.” I shoot him a teasing smile. Of course he never cries; no Zandian males do. Their stoicism in the face of pain is well known. They don’t get injured as easily or as severely as humans; when they do, they tolerate it with a warrior’s duty.