There was an inevitability to Sophi's meetings with Cadan. They got along like fire and oxygen, bright and hot but invariably explosive. Sophi tried not to, but there was always that horrible hope that this time, it wouldn't end with a fight.
Sophi worked every angle she could, on those few stolen days before she delivered Cadan to Vagari. Six grams antimatter for five days' work—not a bad deal. Especially if those five days came with Cadan in her bed. As long as they were having sex, they weren't arguing. Cadan's appetite and stamina were more than a match for Sophi's. Sexually, they were wonderful together.
If only the rest of it were that easy.
It was never hard to tease and push Cadan into following Sophi to her rooms, and Sophi took advantage of that. Just one last time before they had to part ways again.
Cadan knew Sophi's body so well. She played Sophi's pleasure like a musician, sucked what small softness Sophi had for a breast into her mouth with a contented groan, and tormented her nipple with her tongue and the sharp edges of her teeth to a point of pleasure just beside pain. She held Sophi on the edge of orgasm, and when she was on the cusp, switched nipples to start over. She kept at it until Sophi's oversensitive body jolted from the lightest lick or puff of warm breath. Sophi begged, raw and breathless, before Cadan relented and gave her what she needed.
"Beautiful," Cadan murmured. Her brown eyes pinned Sophi in place with bright, focused intensity, and her fingers found the slickness of Sophi's sex. Sophi bucked through a second orgasm with Cadan breathing praise and her fingers relentlessly rubbing, but never threatening to push inside.
And then, like a burst of plasma sweeping out from a stellar flare, the tide changed and Cadan yielded and took everything Sophi could give her. Sophi rubbed her face all over Cadan's breasts, like she could scent-mark them as her property. She climbed between Cadan's legs, licked through her dampened curls and tasted the particular tart musk of her sex at leisure. Cadan's hands made fists in the bedding, involuntary sparks of light dancing across the little pockmark scars between her knuckles and up her forearms—some kind of concealed combat tech implanted under her skin. Sophi knew she was on the right track when Cadan forgot herself enough to lose control of it that way. Cadan came with a long, low wail and Sophi's tongue writing "love" and "love" and "love" in looping letters over her clit.
One last time, before they separated again at Vagari Station.
Cadan didn't speak when it was over, not with words. She touched Sophi softly, cupped her face and stroked her hair as though Sophi were precious and beautiful. She had a sleepy smile in her deep-set brown eyes, content and comfortable as she wiped the slick from Sophi's chin and cheeks. Cadan affectionately nuzzled the imposing, broken-crooked keel of her nose against Sophi's, flat nose before she pressed forward for a kiss that was all gentle lips and closeness.
This, Sophi loved. This, she could never get enough of. Moments like this, given so much love after so much pleasure, it seemed impossible that Cadan would leave her again. Sophi would lie here forever in the plush comfort of her room with their bodies tangled together, cradled in Cadan's strong arms, where she felt so small and safe and beautiful. They were so good together—why wouldn't she always have Cadan knocking around the Rhyssa, repairing things in flight and happy to meet Sophi in her quarters?
Sophi smiled up at her, and Cadan's eyes crinkled on the edges in an answering smile. They might have rested and gotten something to drink before continuing on to another round, but Cadan looked at the time display and got up.
Sophi lounged on the bed and watched Cadan dress. Her neck and broad shoulders were marked with scratches from Sophi's blunt nails, red against the light brown of her skin. Cadan pulled on stretchy boxers and a sports bra, scarred muscles flexing across her shoulders as she settled them comfortably and looked around for her jumpsuit.
Sophi ran a hand down her own body. Her nipples ached, standing out puffy and hot on her chest from Cadan's prolonged attention. Her breath caught involuntarily when she touched them. Cadan glanced over, expression warming as she saw what Sophi was inspecting. They would both be feeling each other's marks for a little while.
Cadan pulled on the pants of her jumpsuit, leaving the top hanging for the moment, and sat on the edge of the bed to put her boots on. She was going to go, pack up to leave and blink off through the system, never looking back.
Sophi didn't want Cadan to go. She wanted to have her here, to love and be loved. Sophi ran her hand down Cadan's back, gently touched her scratch marks on Cadan's shoulders and the regularly spaced, faint bumps of scar tissue in the muscles along her spine.
"You could always work for me," Sophi offered quietly. "Head of security and chief mechanic." The dominant anoloid Kriikisiii headed security as part being first mate, and there were a few mechanics aboard, but everyone understood the jobs were Cadan's if she ever wanted them; if Sophi someday managed to be persuasive enough to keep her.
"I'm no smuggler," Cadan snapped, the word turned into a slimy curse in her mouth. She shrugged into the top of her jumpsuit and zipped it clear up to her neck, even though she always complained that the Rhyssa was too warm. "I'm only here because Magnus needs me. You were the only way off Arvum."
Magnus Agyeman. Sophi gritted her teeth. The so-called king of Nidum Star System kept Cadan on a short leash, tugging her back at the slightest provocation, ordering her out to play his power games on the smallest whim. Cadan could never have a life of her own, because she was always answering to him. He did not appreciate or deserve her. Cadan's whole body was marked with the lumps and knots and faint, shiny patches of scars—horrible wounds that even nanohealers and newskin patches hadn't been able to fully heal. More of them had gathered steadily over the years, and every single one made Sophi's heart hurt. The king used Cadan like a sledgehammer, like a tool, with no regard for her as a person. She was never acknowledged. She had no last name, no family. Cadan was nothing but aimed destruction to Magnus, when Sophi could see she was so much more.
Cadan could have been a part of Sophi's crew. She could have built herself a home on the Rhyssa, could have accepted Sophi's love and been cherished and known. Instead she chose a solitary life with no stability and a king who wanted only what she could do and didn't care who she was. Cadan's overwhelming devotion to Magnus was incomprehensible. She would never hear a word against him, no matter how bruised and battered she was after a mission, no matter how many scars she picked up. Cadan even wore the Agyeman family color, her loyalty to the king advertised clearly in the teal accents that decorated her gray jumpsuit.
"What a horrible price," the venom dripped through Sophi's teeth, "having to consort with the likes of me to come running when he whistles for you."
Cadan bristled, fists clenching with faint sparks as she glared down at Sophi. Cadan felt right on the Rhyssa. She fit there, tearing things apart to put them back together better, stalking through the hallways and growling to show off how big and dangerous she was. Sophi liked that barely contained power in a human just as much as she liked it in her anoloid family, but she and Cadan were too different, always. It was thrown back in her face every time Sophi forgot and tried to pull Cadan closer. And she always forgot.
Maybe someday they would learn to hate each other more than they loved the sex. It would be easier then.
"Get dressed," Cadan spat, refusing to rise to the bait. "You'll be needed at the helm for docking with Vagari. I can't wait to get off this bucket." She ducked out into the hallway, her hand catching the top of the doorframe to protect herself from bumping her forehead, and was gone.
Sophi bit her lip and shoved her face hard into a pillow that still smelled like Cadan's sweat and engine grease. It always went like this.
Fire, meet oxygen.
Bang.
*~*~*
Cadan packed the last of her belongings into her bag and ignored the tenderness of the scratches on her shoulders and the satisfied warmth between her legs. Sophi was certainly skilled at what she did, and eager to show it off as much as she could while Cadan was aboard. Cadan enjoyed giving her pleasure in return, holding her close to feel her entire body react, but it was over now. They'd reached Vagari Station in the agreed-upon timeframe and could part ways again. Sophi would go off to make money from the Imperium's encroachment into Nidum territory by smuggling, and Cadan to serve the king as only she could.
If Cadan were a better person, she probably wouldn't keep bedding Sophi almost every time they met.
Cadan traveled light. She never knew how much space there might be for her on any ship she had to take. It was best not to impose on a captain more than she had to. A single bag held everything she needed. Cadan slung it over her shoulder and left the small bunk allotted to her in the Rhyssa. She hadn't used it as more than a locker on this trip. The hallways were never brightly lit, wide enough to accommodate the anoloids, but only barely tall enough for Cadan. The atmosphere-pressurized sections were always too warm, scented with trace gasses a solely human ship did not require.
She told herself she would not miss the Rhyssa or anyone in it as she made her way toward the airlock. There was a lot of activity in the hallway, with the crew all swarming out into the station. It was easy to join them, the fact that the station sensors did not register her unnoticed in the general chaos. Cadan was careful not to bump into any blattas on her way out; their glossy black shells were not always easy to see in the dim light.
Sophi was waiting for Cadan just outside the ship with a few blattas and one of her anoloids—the first mate, Kriikisiii. She was big even for an anoloid: quadrupedal and nearly as tall as Cadan's hip at the shoulder, as broad as she was tall, over three meters long without counting her tail, and probably weighing in at close to seven hundred kilos. She was deceptively quick despite her size, her heavy muscles bunched and ready to react at any moment. Her long tail weaved back and forth, ready to strike in any direction. Her wide mouth was toothless, but her jaws were more than strong enough to tear apart things tougher than humans. Her forward-facing eyes were heavily protected by the prominent bone ridges only anoloid dominants grew, a sharp, clever orange, and right now, were trained on Cadan.
Kriikisiii had two of her little males perched on her back, all three of them humming to each other. Both the humming and the presence of males meant she wasn't looking for a fight, and Cadan felt free to ignore her.
Sophi fell into step beside Cadan without a word, and the anoloids and blattas followed behind. Cadan did not speak either as she led the way to the bank. They made their way easily through the crowds of Vagari Station, held up only briefly by a group of triteia who were rushing through from their ship to the triteia habitat with ventilators strapped to their torsos. There must not have been room for their ship at the dedicated docks. Cadan and Sophi's group stepped aside to let the plump blue aliens and their aquatic blatta morphs swarm ahead of them, rolling on their radially arranged paddle limbs. She'd hate to delay the triteia, knowing the oxygen atmosphere was uncomfortable for them. They were surprisingly quick and nimble in short sprints on land, even if they preferred to be submerged in acid.
At the bank, Cadan withdrew six grams of antimatter bullion from a small account Magnus had set up for her. Sophi opened the case and inspected the dozen half-gram vials carefully.
"Everything as agreed." Sophi snapped the case shut sharply, accepting her payment.
"You got what you were after," Cadan answered. The money was all Sophi ever answered to.
"I always do," Sophi said through her teeth. She deliberately swept her eyes up and down Cadan's body. "I didn't hear you complaining."
Cadan growled. Trust Sophi to twist her words back on her. "Laugh it up," she spat. "I'm done with you."
Sophi sneered. "You'll come crawling back, like always."
Cadan forced herself to breathe, her heart thudding loud in her ears. She kept her hands open at her sides, keeping her combat tech disarmed, but in her peripheral vision, saw the bank's security already showing an interest in their disagreement. She opened her mouth to retort, closed it, spun on her heel, and left without looking back.
There was no sense in rehashing their endless arguments. Cadan was more than a match for a few bank security guards, but fighting them was not a good way to keep a low profile. Sophi's disrespect and disloyalty rankled, but nothing Cadan said would ever change that. She had better things to do than be delayed by arguing.
She brought up Vagari Station's ship lists on her communicator as she walked. Luck was with her; the lists noted that Captain Uzoma was setting out on a straight shot to Tserere with a shipload of refined titanium sponge. That was just a shuttle-blink from the Royal Palace. Captain Uzoma was a good man, one of a dozen true Nidum loyalists Cadan could count on flying with for the king's business. Cadan tracked Captain Uzoma down settling last-minute provisions for the trip. He grinned big behind his thick white beard when he saw her.
"Have room for an extra?" Cadan asked.
"Heading home?" he asked, signing off on an order. A few anoloids began to push heavy pallets toward his loading bay.
Cadan nodded. "The king called. I can pay." She always offered, even if he would not take her up on it. He understood loyalty to Nidum and the king.
Captain Uzoma waved it off. "For you, I've always got space. Just spend a shift in the engine room and we'll call it even." He tapped his communicator and nodded to himself. "I can put you in room 5D." That would be a small, private space, always nicer than a cramped bunkroom or the corner of a cargo hold. "Let's just amend the ship's manifest. A private consignment of 'heavy elements,' let's say?" He wagged his bushy eyebrows, laughing a bit. "A hundred kilos?"
"Just about. Thank you." Cadan gave Captain Uzoma's shoulder a grateful squeeze and went to settle into her room. It was neat and clean, and uncomfortably gray and empty after the plush exuberance of Sophi's quarters, all draped in reds and golds. The air in the ship was cool and dry, sterile and centered to human standard. Cadan tucked her single bag of belongings into the locker beneath the cot, and sat to wait for the first blink away from Vagari. She sent Magnus a brief message, nothing but an estimate for her arrival time. She would be home soon, with the people who loved her. It had been too long.
If the center of her chest ached with something that cut deeper than simple anger, it was just something that happened sometimes.
It didn't matter.
*~*~*
Kriikisiii curled up to conserve heat and watched the flowing of people through Vagari Station. The variable gravity in the station meant all directions must be watched at once. Walkways carried people on both oversides and undersides. They came in all kinds and all temperatures, from bright, burning little dots racing on their way to their destinations to cold and slow creeping. Vagari was a good waypoint to unload goods or make bigger deals. Sophi would likely deal with that later. The Rhyssa would leave Vagari Station with fewer filled cargo segments than when it had arrived.
Kriikisiii and her family could use the station's basking sands to stretch out and socialize, if there was time. Maybe later. Currently, there were other things to be done. The two males she'd brought with her hummed their patient contentment along with her as they waited.
Sophi did not leave them waiting long. Kriikisiii accepted the tiny case of antimatter—safe in nul suspension vials—from Sophi. Vagari Station was fairly safe, but nowhere was a good place for someone as small and helpless as Sophi to carry so much wealth. The males Kriikisiii brought for this purpose, her senior male Raaa and young Ska, squirmed out of the protective curl of her body to take it from her. They curled up on Kriikisiii's back, completely covering the case. No one should look twice, and the males' sharper eyes would see any approaching danger before Kriikisiii did. Their upward-facing eyes were as fully developed as their forward-facing eyes, to allow them to see any predator who might hurt them.
Kriikisiii remembered that from her own youth as the male Kra. Kra had been male long enough to become Kraa before choosing to grow. Her upward eyes were now covered over and barely able to discern shadows, protected with heavy scales, better for fighting other dominants. There had been no predators in their long-ago nestworld who could threaten any but a male.
Sophi, precariously balanced on his hind limbs as humans did, rested his hot hand on Kriikisiii's shoulder as they walked back toward the ship. Humans had a sensible four limbs, but they were not designed for the more stable quadrupedal walk. Sophi's face glowed hotter than normal to Kriikisiii's sight, but not in a way that indicated illness. The blattas who had accompanied them bunched together, delicate frond antennas fanning the air behind Sophi.
"Sadness!" they lamented in quiet chirrs. "Sad pod mother!"
The males on Kriikisiii's back hummed their worry. Sophi was an odd, large, hot, tailless male, but they did not like him to be sad. Kriikisiii hummed reassurance in answer. Sophi was of the family, and they would all take care of him just as he took care of all of them. This was how a family worked. Adding Sophi to their numbers had been a good choice on Kriikisiii's part. Though he was a female human, there was no way he could have taken an anoloid's role in the family. Instead he fulfilled the role of male, and did it well. He was clever, and warm, and pleasurable, and he needed them.
He would be far happier if he was not plagued with the human pairing instinct.
Kriikisiii could see why he liked Cadan. She was large and strong for the species, and burned fiercely hot at her core, but Sophi was always sad afterward, when she again refused a more permanent pair-bond with him.
Sophi would have left on his own after they deposited the antimatter in the ship's safe, but Raaa climbed up him to cling to his front, and Ska followed his lead to cling to Sophi's back. Kriikisiii wrapped a turn of her tail around his waist, caressing him comfortingly.
"Come," Kriikisiii enunciated carefully in the human speech, before giving a welcoming hum. She was dominant in her family not only for her size and strength. She was a student of languages as well as an expert in calculating blink mathematics to find new routes. Sophi hesitated, but then he hummed a tone of gratitude in his thready little voice. He followed her to the small basking range aboard the Rhyssa like an obedient family member. In matters of the ship and business, Sophi was Captain and was to be obeyed, but in matters of the family, he was a junior male and Kriikisiii was dominant. This was clearly a matter of family.
Siiki and Klirii were just beginning to square off against each other for a tussle when Kriikisiii reached the basking range. They circled each other slowly, with pulsing hums of anticipation. Most of the males gathered in a circle around them, bobbing and flashing their bright dewflaps in excited encouragement. Kriikisiii might have joined them, subdued them quickly to begin a round of pleasure, but Sophi needed a different kind of closeness.
Kriikisiii curled herself in a warm corner instead, drawing Sophi in to lie among her coils. Ska joined the males who wanted to share in pleasure, but Raaa remained to help, and several others took Ska's place. They lay on Sophi, humming soothingly. Sophi answered as well as he could. Kriikisiii stroked them all with her claws. Sophi pulsed with warmth following the double-beat of his heart, which gradually slowed as the temperature of his body evened out. He stroked the other males who lay on him and rubbed his soft cheek against Kriikisiii's belly—affection returned in his own way.
Klirii and Siiki fought long and hard, tails twined and bellies grinding together, claws raking each other's scales as they tussled and rolled across the heated floor. They were too evenly matched for a clear winner—pleasure-spots flushed bright on both their bellies at nearly the same time. The males called out joyfully and swarmed up their bodies, rolling and rubbing all over. It was a beautiful joining, and purely for pleasure. They had mastered fertility control in eons past, long before humans had done the same. Kriikisiii's was a small family of three anoloids and no more than a dozen males, but strong and good. They had no need to grow in number, and none of the current males wished to grow either. Kriikisiii felt a small longing of her own as she watched the exuberance of her family's joining, but there would be other times for it. Times when she could have the exotic pleasure of Sophi's searing heat against the sensitivity of her pleasure spots—Sophi, who now lay curled up against her belly in vulnerable sleep, a brightly radiating kernel of comforting warmth seeking her comfort in turn.
It was just his bad luck he had been born with the human pairing instinct.