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Jack rolled his eyes. “Oh please! I’m not the devil! I’m just a human who had a rather extreme reaction to an Altarian virus.” At their abrupt pulling back he sighed. “It’s not contagious. It affected me and me alone.”
He looked at the man again. “Listen, are you giving your food rations to your… wife?” he asked spotting their wedding bands.
The man scowled at him. “What if I am?” he barked belligerently. “I’m not letting the machine scan her to know she’s… expecting.”
“Her collar will already have notified them of that fact. For her and the baby to get the nutrients they need and for you to remain strong for them you all need to get and eat your own rations,” Jack said gently. The man glowered at him and the woman looked shaken. She was touching her collar. The man gathered the woman under his arm and they walked back to the ration dispensers. Neither offered their names to him. There was time for that later Jack supposed.
Eve gazed sadly at him and followed the couple.
The Altarian was looking at him with wide eyes. Her pink tongue swept across her upper lip and Jack felt his body react.
“How… how…” she said, struggling to understand why she was reacting to him. Her eyes went to his horns and Jack saw her bite her lip, triggering a response from him.
“What’s your name?” Jack asked.
“Stella.”
Jack grinned involuntarily as he heard her name. It suited her. “How long have you been here?”
“I- I think five years,” she breathed, her eyes still locked on his horns. He saw two scar rings on her neck and a plain silver discipline collar with the Prime’s symbol on it.
Jack knew this could be awkward as hell if he were to let himself do what his body wanted so desperately to do. There was no privacy in this building and it was likely they were being watched by the Allsa Komanae.
“I’m the consort to the Altarian Queen and the father of her two children. Do you know what that means?” Jack said quietly.
Stella froze and stared at him. After a moment she found her voice though it was extremely quiet.
“She’s coming for you.”
“Us.”
Stella’s face lit up with a smile that took Jack’s breath away and he took an involuntary step towards her before he stepped back hastily. Her spicy heat was beginning to erode his control and he was tenting his tunic badly. As her excitement was plain to see by the six bumps showing down the front of her own tunic. She glanced down at him.
“Could we…?” she whispered.
“God I want to but I think we’d better try to hold off for as long as we can. The name of the game now is waiting for our rescue and surviving until that happens is paramount. I’m not sure if giving the Allsa Komanae extra pleasure is such a good idea. We should avoid their attention whenever possible.” He sighed in frustration. “You’ve had two previous masters?”
“Yes- the first master I had was cruel. It was the one who ambushed the expedition I was a member of. We were investigating a site on a planet which once had a prosperous civilization. We wanted to record their history. A large group of Allsa Komanae led by the one who took me as a slave attacked our encampment at night and slaughtered the others. They left an explosive device to make the site look like we’d uncovered a weapon and it destroyed us. I was packed up with the artifact’s we’d managed to find and shipped here. The cruel one spent a year torturing me at random intervals. Then First took me from it. Apparently the Prime wants me so she took me from First.”
She was looking at his horns again and he knew what the next question on her lips would be. “Yes, you can touch them.” He was going to warn her about the tips but they were capped now.
Her fingers were on them almost immediately. She reverently touched them and ran her fingers over their ridged surface. Jack was enveloped in her spicy musk and pulled back from her with a tremendous effort of will.
“We… we should eat… now.” Jack said and gently pulled Stella’s hands from his horns. Her eyes had an almost desperate look in them. It cracked Jack’s resolve. “Let’s at least wait until the others are asleep.” Joy and anticipation shone from her eyes then.
They made their way over to the ration dispensers and Jack once more suffered through the nauseating body scan process before it dropped two tubes of nutrient paste into the collection slot.
Kekk was staring at him and Stella with a scowl. “What?” Jack asked.
“The pheromones you two are emitting is almost overpowering. Go mate and spare me the ordeal of having to smell it.”
Jack blushed. “I’m sorry about that. It’s not something we really have control over. It might be a better idea for us to wait until night. I am assuming that there will be less Allsa Komanae monitoring us at that time. No need to give too many of them a free show.”
Kekk looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean ‘free show’?”
“The Allsa Komanae can link into your collar’s biometric feed so they can feel what you are feeling. They get to share the experience. Creepy bastards!” Jack growled and his head lit up with lightning.
He came to in the arms of Stella. Her eyes were filled with concern.
“Ow.”
Kekk was looking angry but he gave Jack a small smile. “You forget they are listening?”
Jack wanted to sit up but being wrapped in Stella’s arms while resting back against her soft body was absolute bliss. “I wasn’t aware they listen to every word.”
“Random intervals.” Eve offered quietly and got punished for it. The pain didn’t take her consciousness as it had for Jack but she was hurt. Jack surged up but a glance from her pain filled eyes stopped him. Stella pulled him back against her.
Kekk wouldn’t be deterred. “How do we know when they are linked in?”
“Temporary Headache.” Eve said through gritted teeth but she wasn’t punished for that. Jack was staring at her with amazement as she was breaking her conditioning which had to be intensely difficult for her.
Jack suddenly recalled the sensation of glass in his brain when he’d had sex with Eve. “Glass.” His face showed his shock.
“What?” Kekk asked.
“When First connected into my collar it felt like broken glass in my mind but it went away. I didn’t know what it was at the time,” he said absentmindedly stroking Stella’s arm who was almost purring.
Kekk snorted to clear his sinuses and walked away to distance himself from the cloud of pheromones. “Do it and spare us.” He sat at one of the exercise benches and ate his rations. Jack saw his ration tubes on the floor where he’d dropped them when he fell and picked them up.
“How can you claim to not be the devil when you lie with the beast?” the woman spat at him from the protective arms of her husband.
Jack sighed. “Great. Religious fundamentalists,” he thought to himself.
“First off, Altarians are not beasts. They are Altarians. Beautiful, culturally advanced, and peace loving beings. We human’s should aspire to be more like them. Yes, I still consider myself human. I was born and raised on Earth by loving human parents and my genetic alteration is only a recent event. If it made me a little more like an Altarian I can only call that an improvement.”
“The Good Book says-” she began, her voice beginning to rise to the shrill levels of a zealot.
“DON’T! I know exactly what the book says. I’ve read it. It’s a lovely book and there is a beautiful message of love in it which you’ve obviously missed the point of. If all you have is judgemental words in your vocabulary please keep them to yourself. Otherwise, I would welcome a conversation with you both. We could start with your names.”
The couple was scowling at him, red faced. He hoped they came around before it was too late.NôvelDrama.Org holds © this.
“You need to find it in your hearts to accept the real danger we are facing isn’t currently present in the room and we need to work together to survive,” he said with a sigh and got himself to his feet. The couple moved away without looking at him.
Jack pulled Stella up to her hooves and looked at Eve who was watching him with glassy eyes.
“I can’t pretend to not care about you. I’m sorry.” Jack said softly.
She nodded and moved to the exercise equipment as well.
Jack looked back at Stella and she smiled hopefully at him. “I think it still makes sense to wait for later. We should do our best to distract ourselves until then.” A wave of the spicy scent wafted over him and he swayed. “We should remain at opposite ends of the building until then.”
Stella bit her lip and nodded wide eyed as she felt his need for her spike. She turned and rushed away to the sleeping area.
Jack turned and went into the bathing area. He pulled his tunic off and hung it on a hook before stepping under a cold shower. After drying himself off he went back to the food area and ate his rations.
Fidgeting he realized he needed to run. Maybe there was a treadmill in the exercise equipment. He walked over and saw Kekk pushing against the arms of a resistance trainer. He looked to Eve and saw she was pushing against a smaller machine.
“Is there a machine I can run on?” he asked Eve. She stood and tugged on a bar on the wall. A panel folded down. She gestured for him to stand on it. When he did the wall panel in front of him lit up with a display of stats like distance and speed. He nodded and she pressed a spot on the screen. The surface under his feet began to move and he had to walk to stay in place. As he picked up his pace the deck sped up as well.
Jack smiled at Eve as he felt his muscles begin to warm up and stretch. She timidly smiled back at him then moved away to her own workout. He saw another spot that seemed to indicate wind so he pressed it and was rewarded with a gentle breeze against his face.
Jack closed his eyes and opened up his stride. Soon he was running at his full ground eating pace. The deck beneath his feet had enough give to absorb the impact but was stiff enough to push back when his feet kicked off. It wasn’t as good as running outdoors but he supposed it would have to suffice for now. He ran until he felt his mind slipping into the euphoric state where the machine of his body worked as efficiently as it could and his mind took a back seat to the pure physical sensations.