• • •
Lyra finally turned to him. They were both nude.
She watched a myriad of emotions pass over his face. It was clear he felt as she did. They were confused and torn. The battle was done and they were being asked to play out this charade before the enemy. It was more of a diversion, to give the crew time to find their respective positions to make a stand. It’d give Aigean’s people a chance to entrench themselves somewhere. And maybe this show would give the wounded, including Soldar’s brother, time to gather for one last confrontation.
I should tell him his brother is here. I should tell him.
Once those words were uttered he’d hate her for not saying something sooner. She’d be dishonoring her promise to Cordis, and crushing the experience of having her love one last time.
Cordis was with brethren. Soldar was with
her
and she selfishly wanted these last few moments, even if it was playing a sex duo for those Condorians still well enough to watch.
She moved into his embrace, stretched upward, and looped her arms around his neck. Then she began to kiss him slowly and deeply, and with as much passion as she could.
She wasn’t aware when the curtains opened. Only a feeling of cold eyes staring told her they were being watched. That chill filtered around her body like a death shroud, but Soldar was there. His presence pushed the iciness away.
Their tongues entwined and his soft caresses enflamed her. Perhaps the desperate situation fueled his desire. Or maybe her newly acknowledged love, and her newfound assertiveness because of it, drove his need to new heights.
For whatever reason, their ardor was generating enough heat and passion assuring their love would follow them into the next life. She felt it as if it was a living entity.
He ran his hands over her body. She knew he was trying to memorize every line, curve, and detail. She followed his example. His soft moans were the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. And in a life quickly coming to an end, the deep sounds were manna from heaven.
His cock was hard and pressed against the inside of her thighs. He was urging her to lie on the nearby bed. There was no audience, no enemy now. It was just them and the growing heat.
She didn’t resist as he pressed against her, moving her backward as he stepped forward. When the backs of her thighs touched the bed, he lowered her down into its softness. But then he backed away and slowly circled her the way a predator might before finally taking its prey.
He gazed down at her, his chest visibly rising and falling as he dragged air into his lungs. His eyes began to glow with that ethereal light indicating desire. And with sudden speed and a display of great strength, his slid his hands around her waist, lifted her entire body high above his head, and nudged her thighs apart with his face.
She parted her legs and he tilted his head backward. Their movements put her clit over his mouth.
He tongued her clit as she placed the palms of her hands on his shoulders. She closed her eyes and spread her legs further. The feel of the warm, repetitive teasing was delicious. The throbbing of her clit caused her to squirm and cry out.
Just as she thought she could stand no more, he lowered her to the bed again then rolled her onto her stomach. As before, he circled her but pulled at his cock and his testicles as he did so. She stretched out one hand to touch him but he quickly moved to the end of the bed, where her feet rested. Then he grabbed her ankles.
This time, he lifted her straight up until he made a wide vee of her legs. He tongued her clit again, as she was literally hanging upside down and facing him. The acrobatic pose put her face right in front of his cock and red-glowing, bullish testicles.
As he held her aloft, she anchored herself to his body by grabbing his hips. She sucked his cock and balls with greedy lust.
Some animal was loose in both of them and she didn’t care.
With his face down and his lips teasing her clit, she used her tongue as a licking weapon and tasted every inch of his genitalia.
The resulting moan he issued made her crazy with desire. She wanted him and meant to take all she could. There was no sense of time. She experienced no dizziness. Maybe her need to touch, caress, and slide her tongue over his cock, and the feeling of his licking her, overran any discomfort. It was as if she could stay that way forever.
His thighs were hard and the muscle bulged as he held her aloft. The smell of his skin was clean and fresh. He opened his legs wider and he circled his hips slowly as she licked.
She almost knew to the moment when he was about to ejaculate. His balls glowed fiery red just as her body responded to his sliding tongue. Her pelvis began to jerk automatically and he quickly lowered her back to the bed.
He was on top of her in seconds. She spread her thighs wide and waited for his bronzed, warm flesh to come closer before wrapping her legs around his back. With the speed of a feral cat, he thrust deeply and pulled her into his embrace.
She plunged her hands into his hair and planted soft kisses across his shoulder. With barely enough air in her lungs, she whispered one more time, so he would know and never forget.
“I love you. I’ll always love you.”
She repeated the oath over and over. He kicked his feet. The action pressed him further into her body.
Like a warm spring rain, she felt his seed flow into her body. It was hot and thick. He shuddered and she held him as her own orgasm tore from the back of her vagina and raced forward like a wave meeting a shore.
He held her to him as if he’d never be torn free. She heard him dragging air into his lungs. A fine sheen of sweat covered them both. Still, his scent was so enticing. It was as if she’d run through a storm and ended her race by lying next to a god. His scent was a blend of spice, wood, and clean air. She nuzzled her face against his chest and breathed him in. He lifted one hand and smoothed her own tresses back, kissing her forehead and temple sweetly and almost reverently.
“Never forget us. Never,” he whispered into her ear as he kissed it and ran his tongue down her neck to her chest.
The air around them grew warmer. Whiteness surrounded them.
“The curtain is closed,” she told him as she ran her hands over his biceps and gripped them hard.
His response was to press his lips to hers and to end the encounter where they began. With a deep, earth-shattering kiss.
When he broke it to gaze down at her, she saw the eyes of a man who could never be defeated. The love reflected there was so pure and enduring no one could ever come between them. His long hair fell against his cheeks and their ends teased her nipples. She lifted one hand and gently closed her fingers around a long, soft section of his golden mane.
They may have only known each other for a few days, but some people spent a lifetime together without feeling this profound, abiding love.
“We haven’t got much time, Lyra. I want to lie here with you like this until it ends. But this is where those foul sons-of-bitches get their last look. They’ve had their show. They’ll get no more!”
She hugged him hard. He wrapped his hands around her back and slid them along her spine as if he could blend their bodies together and make one being of them.
Only then did she turn her head to hear the applause outside the curtains. The moment was lost. She wanted to weep for having shown so many savages something that should have been a secret between her and her mate.
When they heard movement nearby, she pulled herself free and grabbed for her clothing.
Once she was dressed, Soldar put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the tip of her nose. The silvery afterglow in his eyes was mesmerizing. There was simply no time left to enjoy the wonders of his Craetorian body.
She’d soon be cold, alone in a grave without him.
But training came to her aid. It lent her the strength to tamp down emotions threatening to choke off air. The sadness was too much. Everything she loved was dead or about to die.
He dropped his hands from her shoulders and slightly lifted his chin. That posturing was sweetly familiar. He was about to say something she wouldn’t like.
“Turn around and don’t look at me,” he softly commanded.
She hesitated. Soldar’s expression was a mixture of sadness and tortured rage. The order was given in a voice that was half-growled, half-broken. It was as if he was in horrific agony.
When Lyra turned her back to him, he stretched his arms around her, put one hand on her chin and the other at the base of her skull. “Forgive me, my heart. Please … please … forgive me.
I love you
.”
She heard the pain in that heartfelt entreaty and knew he was about to break her neck. In that instant, she smiled and tried to help.
“There’s nothing to forgive. I love you, too, Soldar Nar. And nothing you can do will ever change that. You’re keeping your word. And I’ll see you on the other side. Just don’t keep me waiting.”
Though it was the hardest thing she’d ever done, Lyra kept her voice calm and encouraging. He’d be in his own hell for the last hours of his life. She must help the only way she could.
• • •
His resolve broke. Tears filled his eyes, but he had to keep the promise. “Creator … give me strength!” he pleaded.
“Do it, baby. Just do it,” she whispered.
Sol lowered his lips to her hair, placed a gentle kiss against it, and breathed in the clean scent of her short, red-brown tresses. Whatever he might have done thereafter was lost to time. Condorian guards swarmed onto the stage, each holding their laser pistols and aiming them at him and Lyra. A very large example of the balding, tattooed vermin sauntered toward him and spoke in a loud, vicious voice.
“Take your hands off the woman,” the Condorian commanded. “If it was your intention to save her, you have failed, Craetorian. We know your purpose. Aigean has sold you out and my father will watch you receive justice.”
Soldar inwardly cursed. Three more seconds and Lyra would have been free. His hesitation and weakness would result in her rape and torture. She would beg to die before they were through with her. His promise was broken.
“I am Fornax,” their captor bragged as he stuck out his chest in an immature gesture of bravado. “I will be pleased to kill you and the woman very slowly, by whatever method my father wishes.”
In defiance of Fornax’s orders, he held Lyra tightly against his body. He glared at the savage before him, hoping he could anger the boy enough to fire on them and be done with everything. “Justice?” he blurted. “What justice would any Condorian understand? You’re nothing but parasites, feeding on the entire galaxy. You are savages and nothing will ever change that!”
“Don’t waste your breath. He’s too ignorant to understand,” Lyra chimed in as she pressed her back into her lover’s solid frame.
Fornax strode toward them, keeping his weapon leveled on Soldar. “If I am ignorant, at least I am constant in my devotion to my people, woman. What you know of your Craetorian lover is a lie. His outrage for your cause has been manufactured and drilled into his brain by Aigean Florn.”
“Just shoot us and get it over with,” Lyra demanded. “Do we have to be bored to death?”
“Die you will,” Fornax admitted with a malicious smirk on his face. “But you await my father’s will. He alone will decide what is to be done. In the meantime, I find it amusing to enlighten you, woman. You should know that the man you have loved in such an explicitly public manner was not worth your trust. I would see the truth of my words destroy your arrogance before you die.”
Soldar frowned. More and more, bits of old memories began to swim in his brain like fish in a small pond. He felt his gut twist when old truths began to unfold. He didn’t want Lyra to hear Fornax’s words. It was as if he knew what the Condorian was about to say.
“Did you really believe the man who banded you is a Craetorian officer?” Fornax laughed cruelly. “He is not even a Craetorian any longer. He lost his people when he betrayed them with others of his kind, fled his world, and was imprisoned on Signus Mondi for his crimes. He was among others who wanted to reconnect their ancestry with that of
my
people.”
“What are you talking about?” Lyra murmured.
“His race and mine were once joined. Do you not realize that his kind still bears the mark of that link,” Fornax said as he pointed toward the black lightning bolt mark on Soldar’s left cheek. “That mutual history is what sexually draws my father to men of Craetorian heritage.”
Soldar swallowed hard and cast his gaze downward.
Fornax put one booted foot on the bed where the sex show had just taken place.
Soldar noted how the red dirt form Reisen Four sifted from Fornax’s sole and onto the once pristine sheets, fouling the memory of the love displayed there.
“Did you really know Aercos before he died?” Fornax probed as he gazed at Soldar. “My father cannot forget his first Craetorian lover and saw you as a replacement. Even now, I believe it pains him to cause your demise.”
“Soldar?” Lyra whispered as she broke free of his embrace and slowly turned to face him. “What is he talking about? Who is Aercos?”
“Tell her, Craetorian. Tell her about
the darkening
and how Aigean meant to use it to kill my father. Tell her this mission of yours had nothing to do with getting messages to allied headquarters at all.”
Soldar saw the questioning look in Lyra’s eyes. There was no hiding what he was any longer. He took a deep breath and tried to explain. “Lyra, you must understand. His words are only meant to — ”
“Tell me!” she commanded.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. But he kept his gaze averted as he spoke. “Many millennia ago, the Craetorian race and the Condorians were one. They were known as the Volan and they lived on a world hundreds of light years away from where our races now reside.” He tried to take her hands, but she backed away. “Lyra, you must listen. The Volan were dark and evil. As time went on, some of them learned they could not exist without trade and alliances from other worlds. Other sentient races would have nothing to do with them. Their savagery was renowned and none dared trust them.”