Alien Hope, page 3
I nodded. That made sense. It wouldn’t be good to have leftover venom from a fight poison your mate when you later bit them.
“Then I suppose we’re good to go,” I said cautiously, taking note of the fact that Kohka absolutely did not seem good. At all. He sat heavily on the floor as I approached.
“Do you... Uh... Do you want to be alone?” I was about two seconds away from making some stupid joke about giving him a magazine to try to dispel some of the weird tension in the room. But Kohka answered quietly before I could.
“You have no idea.”
Man. I’ve really fucked something up.
I put down the plastic tray on the counter and hurried over to him. I crouched beside him. Unfortunately, crouching at about nine months pregnant was no easy feat. I winced, and to avoid losing my balance, I put an unsteady palm on the hard curve of Kohka’s chest.
The chest that before had been expanding rapidly with ragged breath went utterly still beneath my touch.
“I’m sorry, Kohka. I feel like I’ve done something to make you really uncomfortable. You can go if you want.”
He made no move to get up.
“You know my name.”
His voice sounded like gravel pouring down the side of a ravine.
“Of course!” I said, wondering why this surprised him. “All you Bitter Sea guys look so different with your different scales, so it’s easy to tell you apart. And you’re the one who went on the journey beyond the Death Plains and helped look after Camille and Varrow, right? Your name’s been mentioned a lot around here lately.” I smiled softly, trying to put him at ease. “You may not know this, but you’re pretty hot stuff as far as us humans are concerned. We’re all really grateful you helped take care of Camille and Varrow after he was injured.” That wasn’t some false flattery to make him feel better. It was true. We’d all been so upset to hear about what had happened to Varrow out in the Deep Sky Plains. And Camille was possibly the kindest woman I’d ever met. So, knowing that she and Varrow had someone to rely on out there had been a relief to all of us as the others had gone back to look for Priya.
“Hot... Stuff...” Kohka repeated blankly.
“It’s a good thing!” I assured him.
He made a strangled sound deep in his throat, then muttered, “I remain unconvinced.”
I moved to my knees, no longer able to crouch the way I had been before. Once settled in a seated position on the tile floor, I slid my hand off Kohka. He unceremoniously reached up with a sledgehammer of a fist and pounded the place on his chest where my hand had been. As if trying to knock something loose. Or back into place.
“Anyway, like I said, you can go, Kohka. I can find someone else to help me out with this tomorrow,” I said gently.
“I came here to help you and that’s what I plan to do,” Kohka ground out. “Besides, leaving now would just be pointless. A waste.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave me a burning look. I sucked in a sharp breath when I realized that rivulets of dark fluid were coursing down the scales of his jaw and neck.
I scrambled to my feet as fast as my pregnant ass could go.
“Hold on. I’ll get the container!”
CHAPTER SIX
Kohka
I watched Abby hurry away from me to grab the tray she apparently would use to catch the mating fluid. There was something odd about her gait. It was a little different from what I’d observed among Camille, Jocelyn, and Priya during our trip beyond the Death Plains. It was as if her balance was ever so slightly off.
Even so, she moved quickly. She returned, kneeling between my splayed thighs with her tray. My fangs ached, and I already knew the tray would be no match for the amount of mating fluid I was about to unleash. But I couldn’t tell her that now. As soon as I unlocked my snout, my words would be garbled by the flowing onslaught.
I will try to hold back once her tray is filled, I reasoned, panic mounting. Panic that I was about to soak this poor, lovely female in my fluid.
“I’m ready,” she said steadily, moving her head up and down in a motion I’d come to recognize among the new women.
I could not ask her if she was sure. Could only part my jaws as she lifted the tray and slid it between my fangs.
The sound of the fluid hitting the oddly translucent material of the tray was a forceful splatter. Like the ardent rush of rain in a rare island storm. The dark fluid poured, pulsing harder from my fangs with every scent-strangled beat of my heart.
“Holee shitt!”
I stared down my snout at Abby as her shiny white and brown eyes went wide. Her puny tray was already half-full.
And I knew there was no way I could slow things down now.
She’d gotten too close, between my legs like that. Her scent was too strong, heady and sweet in the air. I tried to silently convey my apologies as some of the fluid sloshed and splattered against her hands. When the mating fluid hit her skin, she made a soft, high sound, and redness glowed in her round human cheeks. Her fingers twitched against the sides of the tray, her knuckles going even whiter than they already were.
Blast it all. I’m going to soak her.
I pushed down the lurid and incredibly rude thrill of that image. I felt like a beast, a beast with absolutely no sense of decorum, to be focused on what Abby might look like with her clothing drenched in my fluid.
Unfortunately, as impolite as it was to imagine her thus, I couldn’t stop myself. My gaze was glued to the black stains of my fresh fluid on her pale skin. Skin so soft my jaws ached at the thought of trying to bite her...
Stop.
I wrenched my head back and then stood. I careened haphazardly to the basin Abby had indicated before, letting excess mating fluid splatter into the deep silver well. I gripped the sides of the basin so hard that I felt the metal crunch and warp beneath my fingers.
“I am sorry,” I choked out, the words marred by yet more gushing fluid. What in the cursed depths of the Bitter Sea is wrong with me?
If there had been any hope of making any sort of decent impression on this kind, smiley human, that was torn to pieces now. She must think I’m an absolute lunatic. Getting my fluids all over her like that...
“Sorry?!”
I looked to the side without moving my head. My breath dragged in and out of my throat, whistling and wet against my soaked fangs.
Abby had placed the tray back on the shiny shelf thing she’d originally taken it from. And she was... Smiling at me. Despite the mess I’d made of her hands (and I now saw more mating fluid streaked along the front of her cloak) she was positively beaming.
“Why are you sorry?” she said. “That was more than Grim and Tok gave me combined! I mean, that’s probably partially due to the fact that they lost control and pumped a bunch of it into their mates instead of getting it in the tray, but still!”
She pressed a flat sort of rectangle on top of the tray. It made a popping sound as it clicked into place. Then she turned that brilliant smile back to me.
To me.
“Kohka,” she said slowly, advancing towards me. Her sudden proximity made a fresh gush of fluid flow from my fangs. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of it, and I cringed inwardly. “You’re a...”
A beast? A scoundrel? A male with no decency, no control, no –
“You’re a marvel!”
I swallowed, then spat, trying to speak clearly.
“All this fluid must have somehow inhibited my hearing,” I grunted. “I thought you said that I’m a-”
“A marvel! You’re incredible! Thank you, you don’t know how much this helps me! And the other women here, too! You are going to save a lot of females a lot of pain, Kohka. I don’t know if Hakah Gog mentioned it, but this is going to help the pregnant women give birth a lot more easily!”
“Well... That is good,” I muttered, slowly straightening to my full height. I dragged the back of my hand along my snout, mortified to see how much slick wetness was there.
Looking over Abby’s head, I caught a glimpse of myself in a long, reflective surface along one wall and balked, not recognizing the creature who looked back.
I was not considered an overly attractive Bitter Sea male, but I at least maintained a clean and dignified appearance. Or, I tried to.
But not now.
Now? I looked...
Feral.
My sight discs were huge, my eyes burning like savage silver stars. The scales on the entire front of my body were painted black, smeared and dripping. The hot liquid rolled down my abdomen, beading over the unmistakable bulge where my cock pressed behind my slit. My fangs, normally a colour close to white, were stained with the pulsating fluid, gleaming in the bright light of this place as I panted.
I looked at myself, and I did not look like Kohka.
I looked like a male who needed a spear through the side of his head to save him from himself.
I swallowed another gush of fluid, relieved to see the flow was finally slowing somewhat. Grimly, I turned away from the horror of my reflection to face Abby. Surely, she would look at me properly this time.
And run.
But, no. She was still smiling at me. Smiling like I’d just brought her the biggest grogar pearl of the Bitter Sea instead of creating such a shameful mess. My loins heated, and I forced myself not to look at the dark places on her hands and wrists where I’d marked her.
“I’ll clean this all up,” I told her, my voice sounding oddly gruff to my own ears.
“Oh, please, don’t worry about that! We can rinse out that basin easily enough. And shockingly, I actually managed to get almost all of it in the tray before you got up, so the floor isn’t too terrible. Really, you’re the one who got the messiest.”
“But your hands...” Don’t look don’t look don’t look. “Your cloak.”
I gestured a claw towards the stains on the front of her pale greyish cloak.
She frowned down at her front.
“I can clean that, too,” I said quickly. I did not wear clothing, but I’d seen the Sea Sand women and the new women cleaning their garments with sand and talka gel at the settlement. I was certain I could figure it out. The alternative, that Abby’s clothing was dirtied because of me, that she’d have to clean it herself, was something I found I could not bear. “If you’d just give it here I can-”
She whipped her head up and then shook it in a dizzying side-to-side motion.
“I... Um... I can’t take this off right now.”
“Why not?”
Her mouth thinned into a colourless line. Meanwhile, her cheeks glowed with even more redness than before. I found the many shifts in colour and expression distressing because I did not understand them.
I did not understand her.
Her shoulders hunched forward slightly, and her arms crossed over her belly in an odd pose. As if she were trying to hide, or maybe protect, her dirtied cloak. Which was beyond bewildering.
“I just can’t.”
“Well... I...” I rubbed viciously at my snout, annoyed by the stickiness of the drying mating fluid coating my scales. “I am sorry.”
Her expression faltered, turning soft.
“Seriously, Kohka, it’s fine! We have more clothes in the ship. I can get another jacket. It’s not a problem, truly. I’d just... Prefer not to take this one off right now.”
Shame flooded my veins.
Blast. Of course, she did not want to take it off in front of me. I’d practically drowned her in my mating fluid. She probably thought that showing a bit of her collarbone, or an errant elbow, would turn me into a slavering fool.
Which, considering the effect her mere scent had on me, was perhaps not so far off.
What is it about her?
Even now, I was making a conscious effort not to breathe in too deeply. But, worryingly, it seemed to be more than just her scent that appealed to me. I studied her critically, trying to figure it, figure her, out.
I came to no conclusions.
Apart from the fact that she really was just so lovely, all soft and curved and warm, and that I wanted to slide the twin tips of my tongues down her throat to see what her heartbeat felt like in my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, trying to dispel the intensity of my thoughts with the harsh grating of my voice. “I didn’t mean to... That was a lot.”
For some reason, her smile was back.
I wanted to bask in it.
I wanted to know why it was there at all.
“God, Kohka, it’s like I can practically hear the gears grinding in your head. Please, don’t be so anxious! It’s all good, really.”
I had so many questions for her. Too many.
Like, “What is god and what are gears?”
And, perhaps most pressing of all, “What have you done to me?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Abby
If Kohka had been human, I was positive his face would have been beet fucking red. The poor guy seemed embarrassed by what had just happened, despite the fact he’d given me a goddamn treasure trove of fluid to work with. We’d be able to create a good supply with this alone and likely wouldn’t need to top up until more women got pregnant.
Leaving Kohka to his whirring thoughts for a minute, I took the tray with its closed plastic lid over to one of the lab’s fridges. Inside that fridge were the vials of the drug I’d already created using Grim and Tok’s fluid. Now, we’d have plenty more.
I closed the fridge and turned to find Kohka glaring down at the blackened scales of his chest. He rubbed at the fluid and grunted in annoyance when the sticky stuff did not come off.
“Hey, Kohka,” I said, suddenly having an idea. “Have you ever had a human shower?”
“A what?”
I grinned.
“Come on. I’ll show you.”
When we reached the closest bathroom though, I knew I’d miscalculated. Even though it was a large open space, with multiple stalls with toilets and showers, he was way too tall to use the shower properly.
“Ah, I guess you could sit in here,” I said, whipping aside a curtain and frowning at one of the shower stalls. Had shower stalls always been this tiny?!
I moved out of the way, letting Kohka see.
“That there sprays water. It’s kind of like rain. Did you have rain back on your island?”
“Occasionally,” Kohka said, eyeing the showerhead.
“Here. Watch.”
I stepped into the shower stall and then pressed against the wall so I wouldn’t get drenched. Then, reaching for the tap, I turned it on. Kohka’s tail snapped in surprise as water sprayed down.
“Hot or cold?” I called over the sound of the water.
“Cold.”
I nodded, turning the tap all the way to the right. Then, sliding my back along the stall’s wall, I wiggled sideways out of there without getting too drenched. The front of my jacket, with my stomach pressing out and my huge pregnancy boobs, did get a bit wet. But that was alright, considering I needed to clean off Kohka’s fluid anyway.
“Go ahead,” I said to him. “Obviously you can’t stand under there like a human would. But go ahead and sit if you’d like.”
Kohka’s head swung between the shower and me.
“How do you conjure rain like this?” he asked, an edge of suspicious awe in his voice.
“It’s not really rain. It’s water we brought from our home planet. The ship uses a pretty impressive water filtration system to purify water that’s already been used so we can use it again.”
“I... I am afraid I do not understand anything you just said.”
I laughed, then softened the sound, hoping it was clear I was laughing with him, not at him.
“Honestly, it’s not my area of expertise, either. Zoey, one of our engineers could describe it in much better detail. Or Fiona, but she’s at the new Deep Sky settlement. But, basically, pipes can bring the water where we need it. And when the water goes down that drain, the ship filters it and makes it clean to be used again.”
“I did not know water could be commanded thus. To go where you want it to go.”
“Oh, trust me. Humans love commanding shit. Rewriting the laws of nature no matter the cost is practically in our DNA. As evidenced by the fact we’re here in the first place,” I said with a slight roll of my eyes. “Anyway, go ahead and clean up. I’ll be right back.”
The sound of the running water had alerted me to the fact that I desperately had to pee. I hurried over to a toilet stall, glad the sound of the shower would mean Kohka hopefully wouldn’t hear me on the toilet. I finished up quickly, and I went to the row of metal sinks perched under mirrors along the far wall then started to wash my hands. My eyebrows shot up as I registered the dark stains on my skin. I’d forgotten about how much of Kohka’s mating fluid had sloshed onto my hands and wrists. My skin felt sensitive and tingly wherever the fluid had splashed me. As I washed the sticky remnants away with soap and water, I thought back to the hot, electric shock of sensation that the fluid hitting my skin had elicited. It had nearly been enough to make me drop the whole tray.
I wonder what it feels like other places...
OK, don’t be a perv. Kohka’s already uncomfortable enough!
I walked back to the shower area, suddenly feeling shy. I mean, it wasn’t like Kohka wore clothes anyways. But it still felt weird to watch him in the shower. When I got close to the shower stall he occupied, I stopped.
“How’s it going, Kohka?” I called tentatively.
He gave an unintelligible grunt in reply.
“Is that... Good?” I pressed, unable to help the smirk that stretched my mouth. I decided that I really liked this big awkward lug.
“Good,” he replied.
“You’re a man of few words, eh, Kohka?” I asked. I pulled aside the curtain and went into the shower stall beside his, leaning against one of the stall’s walls. I crossed my arms, letting them rest on the top of my stomach, and chuckled at the sight of Kohka’s massive brown and silver tail escaping the confines of his own stall and sliding under the gap into mine.
