NASTRAGULL: Pirates (15 page)

Alec immediately stopped and turned her around, embracing her tightly. "Did I hurt you?"

"No, fool, you just made me the luckiest woman in the universe!"

"You're so beautiful," he said, running his fingers down the curve of her cheek; and then he was at a loss for words. They kissed again, and then they slid down to the deck, where she grabbed his erection and impaled herself on it, gasps of pleasure demonstrating how much she loved it. They moaned loving words as they both climaxed again, one after the other.             

They trembled together, staring into each other's eyes as sweat poured down their bodies. When they finally calmed down, he took her into his strong arms, carried her to the bed, and laid her down on a big, thick pillow. He knelt beside her; she extended her arms towards him, and again they embraced.

After he climbed back into bed he laid there looking up at the ceiling, still breathing heavily; she had curled up next to him, with her face on his chest, and fallen asleep. A lock of her raven hair touched his nose, tickling it irritatingly, but he didn't want to move in case she woke up. A million and one thoughts were going through his head at that point, and he was totally dumbfounded about what course of action to take.

Should he take this murderous pirate as his bride—or should he kill her?

Chapter
8

Zuzack stood quietly, looking at the people ranged before him. Even though nothing in his posture or expression revealed his inner thoughts and emotions, his eyes did. They were filled with a fearful anticipation. He sighed in relief as he watched the object of his fear duck through the shuttle hatch, and the hatch iris shut behind him. When the shuttle lifted from the docking shelf, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.              The shuttle moved slowly through the pale green force field into the Big Dark, and accelerated away at an incredible speed as the matter-antimatter drive kicked in. Satisfied, Zuzack walked away with a concerned expression, both his arms behind his back, looking down and thinking hard. Had he known it made him look like a very large and confused child, he would have stopped immediately.

"What now, Captain?" an officer asked Zuzack.

Zuzack glanced at him and replied, "We'll continue as planned. I suppose my brother has to wait a bit longer." Zuzack didn't even notice when the officer stood at attention and saluted him. He was far too concerned about other things, and left the officer standing, confused, in his wake.

He headed down to engineering, passing several crewmembers along the way; most of them gave him a false smile and a quick, sloppy salute. He ignored their lack of decorum; as long as they would fight and die for him, he didn't care much about military tradition. He went past several different cargo bays, ignoring the moans, screams, and curses from the prisoners inside. He was used to it all.

He finally entered the engine room, where he met with his chief engineer, a small, stooped creature named Zozo, who lovingly tended the six main engines with watchful eyes. Zozo had been with him from the start, and was intensely loyal; she was, in fact, the only being Zuzack had ever confided in. Even though she was an officer, she hardly ever intermingled with the rest of the crew, preferring to remain in her beloved engineering chambers; and Zuzack couldn't remember if she'd ever left the
Bitch
since he had taken it. Her only interest and ambition was to run a perfect machine. Zuzack looked at her, pleased, as she ignored him, tapping with all three arms on the comp pad before her. She'd started out with six arms, but over the years she'd lost one in an explosion and the other two to gambling.

Back then, gambling had been her biggest weakness; but for some reason, since they'd transferred to this ship, she hadn't bet a single centicredit on anything. Zuzack suspected that was the reason why she was so alienated from the crew—but then again he didn't really care, as long as the ship ran without any mishaps.

"Do you have what I ordered you to make?" Zuzack asked her. She didn't even bother to look at her Captain; she just left off typing with one hand and reached towards a small wooden box lying on a cluttered table, her arm stretching out to about three times its normal length in the process. She handed the box to Zuzack.

He frowned when he saw the box, but his displeased expression brightened when he opened it. "Ah, she's going to love it. Thank you, Zozo!" He turned and left the engineering room.

Zozo looked up and stared at her Captain's retreating figure, perplexed. She'd known Zuzack for seventy-five universal calendar years at least, and never once before had he ever thanked her for anything. As he turned a bend in the corridor, she shook her head and returned to work.

Zuzack walked down the corridor smiling, making an odd breathy sound he probably thought approximated a whistle. Any crew members who passed him saluted sharply, their surprised looks tinged with suspicion. Zuzack, happy? Who was this stranger, and what had he done with their Captain? Their eyes followed as he moved on, ignoring them.

One of the pirates muttered to a comrade, "What's up with him?"

"No idea, but I't kinda scared, me. I never seen the old bastard smile, ever. Not a happy smile, anyhow."

Zuzack entered the bridge, still "whistling" happily. Everyone in the room stopped what he or she was doing, and looked at him in confused suspicion. He plopped down into the command chair. One of the officers made a short snorting sound, and everyone returned to their respectively duties.

Grotech brought a computer pad to Zuzack and reported, "Here are the latest reports, Captain."

Zuzack glanced at Grotech irritably—that was more like their Captain—and gestured the reports aside. "Later, Grotech, later." Nodding, Grotech set it on one of the mini-desk platforms attached to the arm of the chair. Zuzack opened the wooden box in his lap, smiled, and then snapped the lid shut hard, making Grotech and several other nearby crew members jump. Zuzack noticed that, and his smile broadened. "Where is my little bird?" Zuzack demanded. Grotech looked at him with a questioning expression. "My little daughter?"

Grotech lifted his eyebrows, his bulging oval eyes protruding oddly far from his flat face. "Um, which daughter, sir? At last count you had adopted 367 of the female crew."

Zuzack growled, "Alexa. Where is Alexa? About this high." He held out his large hand, demonstrating Alexa's height, and continued sarcastically, "Black hair, very pretty, a foul mouth that should be regularly cleaned with soap!"

Grotech nodded in understanding. "Ah,
that
one. A moment, sir." He stepped over to his workstation and hit a few keys, then looked up at a monitor displaying a large blueprint where a single white light pulsed. He reported, "Your, ahem,
daughter
is in her cabin, Captain." He looked over and saw the Captain's fist flying toward his head, and that was all he remembered for a while.

"Jackass," Zuzack muttered. He glanced at a nearby crewman and ordered, "So fix him up." The crewman hurried to the bleeding Grotech as the Captain got up and left the bridge, now even happier than before, tossing the box in the air and catching it repeatedly.

Alec felt like an emperor as he lay on his back, naked on Alexa's bed, still trying to catch his breath.
             

Alexa hurried in from the kitchen, holding a bundle of grapes in one hand. She dove on top of him and landed on his chest, causing Alec to lose his breath again. She laughed as she ripped a grape lose from the bunch with her teeth. She leaned forward and fed him the grape from her mouth, then kissed him. She repeated this "feeding" procedure over and over again, then placed the grapes on his chest and leaned her head on her hands, while digging her elbows into his rock-hard abdomen.

"You're killing me," he complained jokingly. Grinning, she lifted herself up, picked up the bunch of grapes, and started throwing them one at a time toward his mouth. He managed to catch one, but to her amusement, the rest bounced off his face. Finally he said, "Please, let me rest for a while, m'lady. It's not possible for me to continue."

She gave him a puzzled look and stopped throwing the grapes, then looked down at his chest and, with her forefinger, made small gentle circles around one of his nipples. She avoided his eyes; she was completely focused on "studying" his chest.

Alexa said, "I noticed that you have a circle around your neck. Is it some kind of tattoo?"

"Tattoo?" 

"This thing." Alexa raised a hand and ran her finger along a thin bright line, barely visible, that circumscribed his neck.

"Oh, that. Oddly enough, that's just a birthmark."

Alexa had begun to bite and kiss Alec's right ear. Now she stopped and breathed into it, "Birthmark? No, that's a..."

She stopped in the middle of her sentence, moving back  towards her original position as she felt his heart pumping faster and his loins growing harder. She looked up at Alec, giving him that most innocent expression that only a young woman can produce.

He rolled his eyes and grabbed her by her waist, sitting her down on the bedside as he scrambled off the bed. He knelt in front of her on the floor as her face took on a mischievous look. She lifted her feet and put them on his shoulders, indicating that she wanted him to kiss them; he ignored that, though, and moved his head in between her legs. It wasn't long before she was moaning in ecstasy.

A loud electronic squeal interrupted her pleasure. "Shit!" Alexa snarled, bouncing up off the bed (careful not to hurt her lover) and hurrying to the computer on her desk, slamming her hand down on a key.

"Did I do something wrong?" Alec wondered, licking his lips.

Nina's voice erupted from the intercom, filled with what sounded like concern and fright. "Alexa! Let me in, quick! Zuzack's coming."

Alexa spat a curse, and clicked the lock override on her console. Nina charged into the room as Alexa and Alec hurried to get into their clothes.

"No time for explanations," said Nina, looking for the remote control she'd left on the shelf at the entrance.

Alec and Alexa hurried into the living room, and Alec asked, 'What's happening? Who is Zuzack?"

Alexa answered, "He's the Captain...
No
!"

Before Alexa could stop her, Nina had pushed a button, activating the thin silver slave collar Alec still wore. He choked, grabbing at the collar as he fell to his knees, dropping his towel.

Zuzack was more or less singing as he hurried down the hallway to Alexa's quarters. He passed a couple of female pirates and slapped one of them, hard, on her rear, sending her crashing into the wall. She glared at him angrily and, when she knew he couldn't hear her, she cursed roundly.

Zuzack found Alexa's quarters and pushed the entry button, but nothing happened. He pushed it again, and still nothing happened. What was going on in there? He glared down at his boots, thinking, and then shouted for Alexa to open her door. A moment later, he started to pound on the door. Some of his happiness had begun to evaporate by then, leaving only frustration. Just as he'd determined to smash the hatch in, it opened—and in front of him stood a smiling Nina, half naked.  "Sir?" she asked innocently.

Zuzack looked at her and frowned. "Move it, you sniveling little shit," he told her, shoving her aside. He stepped into his daughter's quarters, and his eyes widened at what he saw.

Obviously unconscious, the prisoner hung from manacles fastened to the ceiling, stark naked. Alexa was busy carving on his muscular chest with a sharp knife; by the looks of things, she'd been at it only a few minutes. When she saw that Zuzack was watching, she stepped away from her victim, smiled at her father, then turned with lightning speed and tossed the knife at the prisoner. It hit him just beneath the shoulder-joint and stuck there; he barely twitched. A trickle of blood oozed down his chest. 

Alexa looked at Zuzack, then crossed the room, picked up some leather strips, and started to wrap her hands with them. When she was done, she looked up at him irritably and growled, "You're interrupting my exercise and my preparations for the ceremony."

He noticed that there were bloodstains on her unbuttoned white blouse, which barely covered her fine breasts; and her tight, black knee-high shorts clung delightfully to her delicious curves. She wiped sweat off her brow with a forearm before shoving a mass of black hair out of her eyes. "What?" she demanded.

All this turned Zuzack on tremendously. He looked at Nina, who was barely dressed in a diaphanous white gown, and then back at Alexa. Zuzack grinned, grabbed Nina, and tossed her very roughly towards Alexa. The hatch slammed shut behind them, and his smile broadened.

Zuzack looked like an enormous child seeking approval as he held the wooden box out to Alexa. He had to bend down to maintain eye contact. She smiled mischievous as she approached Zuzack and reached for the box.

"Ah, ah," He warned, raising his long arm in the air, forcing Alexa to tiptoe and jump for the box. He stepped to the side, concealing the box behind his back. Alexa put her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side and giving him a sly smile.

"It's for me, isn't it?" she demanded.

"Have you been a nice little female?" Zuzack asked, still keeping the box out of her sight.