The Iriduan’s Mate by Susan Trombley

Ten

Molly sprawled on the crescent seating of the inner sanctum on her back, one hand flung above her head, her hair finally released from its bindings to flow down the side of the couch arm. With her other hand at her temple, she massaged it with her fingertips.

“I’ve lost my touch,” she lamented.

Jenice rolled her eyes and patted Molly’s outstretched arm. “Not from what you told me, you haven’t. You said he was aroused. Obviously, he desired you.”

Molly clenched her free hand into a fist as she circled her temple a little harder. “If he wanted me, why didn’t he just take me, then?”

Jenice chuckled as she plopped down ungracefully on an elegantly upholstered seat designed for those who didn’t have tails or wings, like the office’s human occupants. It was situated across from the crescent couch that Molly had collapsed onto after re-entering the office.

“You know, Mol, he does have a problem with slavery. You’ll just have to convince him you really want to be with him, and it wouldn’t be a job for you.”

Molly slowly sat up, groaning as the intensity of her headache increased. Stress always brought on a miserable tension headache nowadays. She wondered if she was growing too soft being at the top of the food chain for once—well, relatively speaking.

She glanced at Jenice as she lowered her hand from her temple. “How do I do that, without making him suspicious of Sha Zaska’s nonchalance about his ‘dyed flowers’ seeking their own desires?”

Jenice shrugged, her smirk unsympathetic. “He does sound like an overly suspicious pain in the ass, quite frankly, but that’s all the more reason you need to find a good way to distract him. Maybe we can send him a message from Sha Zaska giving you permission to be with him.”

Molly wished it were that easy. The problem she’d noticed with Shulgi was that he didn’t care what Sha Zaska wanted. He appeared to concern himself with whether Molly herself wanted him. As unexpected and heartening as that was, it posed a difficult challenge, because she really did desire him, but didn’t know how to make him believe that.

Either that, or he just wasn’t that interested, and his arousal had only been a mild reaction to her touch. After all, he’d left so abruptly—his tone so formal and cold—that she’d almost suspected she might have imagined that arousal until she glanced at his groin again and noted that his robe remained tented even as he’d turned away from her.

“I need to go lay down until this headache goes away, Jen.” She rose to her feet, wincing as the movement only shot more pain through her head.

Jenice also rose, putting a sympathetic hand on Molly’s shoulder. “You want Becca to take over for you on the meeting with Ygaot hysgodi?”

Molly sighed, debating whether she wanted to subject Becca to the tapiran smuggler, but Becca had been training to step in more frequently as Zaska’s primary mouthpiece, because they all recognized that Molly couldn’t always be available, and a personage like Zaska would need more than one main voice. In the past, Becca had done well with the role, but they’d been careful to limit her interactions with the more dangerous clients.

Fortunately, Ygaot hysgodi had already been brought on as a client and didn’t have expectations from Zaska’s flowers that would put Becca in an unpleasant situation. It was only a speaking meeting.

Finally, she nodded, then made her way to the bathroom to get a relaxer injection that she put against her neck over the knotted muscle there that was causing the tension in her head. The relaxer would put her out of it for a few hours, but she needed the rest anyway.

Jenice made the call to Becca, who claimed she’d be more than happy to take over for Molly, allowing Molly to change into a plain, oversized tunic that she used as a night shirt and then slump onto her bed with a heavy sigh. She lay back to stare up at the moving stars projected on the ceiling as Jenice closed the sliding wall panel to secure her room from the rest of the inner sanctum in a way that concealed its existence.

They all had rooms hidden behind the wall panels, heavily sound-proofed so even if they snored—or engaged in other noisy activities—no one else would hear them. It also allowed them privacy they so desperately needed, even from each other at times. They all bore a heavy burden with their secret, and they had to be acting at almost all times, so it was sometimes such a relief to just escape into their little bedroom alcoves and drop all their masks and just be themselves.

It was just too bad that Molly wasn’t entirely sure who her real self was. She’d been enslaved for a long time but had never considered herself as one. In her mind, she was always just a free person in temporary bonds, always looking for a chance to escape. Sometimes, she studied her features carefully, trying to discern who she had been on Earth and what region she’d come from, based on the information provided by those who’d been taken from Earth when they were old enough to have learned more about that world.

She still had no real clue, other than her natural skin tone being a light tan color, and her hair being a dark blonde. Her natural eye color was something of an anomaly that Jenice called “hazel.” She knew she wasn’t beautiful by human standards, but the other women said she would qualify as “cute”, or “like a pixie”, or “adorable.” She used the dye and makeup and elaborate hairstyles to add glamor to an ordinary set of features that told her next to nothing about herself.

Ultimately, she felt no real identification with Earth. That life was too far behind her, and too much forgotten, that she couldn’t feel any real pull in that direction. Jenice and the other humans who’d elected to remain behind with her on Za’Kluth, even after gaining their freedom, had their own various reasons to avoid returning to Earth. Some of those reasons she didn’t know, and didn’t ask, knowing that the memories caused them pain.

Instead, she tried to focus on the identity she’d created for herself here, on this world, but realized that it felt as hollow as trying to be an “Earthling” like any other human. Despite a strong sense of self and independence, she’d never quite figured out where she belonged, and despite knowing every line and curve of her features, she still didn’t know herself.

The question of where she really belonged plagued her as much as her uncertainty about the future did. When she’d initially dreamed up Sha Zaska, it had been a temporary thing to save their own asses. Once they all realized the potential of the fictional “boss,” they’d jumped into creating the factual elements to lend credence to their tales. No one had really sat down and determined exactly how far they would take things, and by the time Molly really started contemplating where it would all eventually end up, Sha Zaska’s legend had grown too big to simply abandon.

A part of her wanted to flee that growing burden, knowing that trouble loomed on the horizon with each day as the “boss” amassed more power. More power brought unwanted attention from other power players in the column—the kind who wouldn’t normally bother with a place as low as the under-tier. The kind like Uthagol, and others of her ilk who resented the rise of a lowly resident of the under-tier while they struggled to hold onto their wealth in the higher tiers.

Every day, she awoke with a determination that in her next meeting with the others, they would discuss an exit plan. Despite that determination, every meeting ended up revolving around how to make Sha Zaska’s influence even stronger so they could free more slaves and effect more changes in the under-tier.

Worse, as their power grew, she feared the ambitions of some of her close circle grew as well. Not Jenice, and certainly not Mogorl and Grundon, but she’d seen the first glimmerings of avarice in the others as the wealth they earned finally began to overtake the staggering expenses of their enterprise.

Even Becca seemed too eager to take on a bigger role in guiding their business. Molly hated that her trust had begun to waver in some of her closest friends and companions.

She also hated that she hadn’t been able to find a partnership with anyone she trusted enough to share everything with them, including her concerns about the others that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing even with Jenice. In fact, she didn’t dare to have a romantic partnership at all, since her role sometimes required her to do things no ordinary mate would find acceptable. Some of the others of their circle paired up from time to time, but no one had made a serious romantic connection. Their business didn’t encourage that kind of bond.

The sad truth was that Molly felt truly lonely, and the more secure their position became as Zaska’s minions, the more time she had to dwell on that loneliness and that desire for a deeper connection than she had with even her closest companions and allies.

She really wanted a lover. Not for sexual pleasure so much as for emotional intimacy. She’d learned from a young age that sex could be had anywhere and sometimes even quite cheaply. Love, on the other hand, was usually far too costly, and the few times she’d even started to feel such an emotion, she’d learned the hard way how quickly it could disappear.

Initially, she’d looked at Shulgi as someone attractive enough that she wouldn’t mind having sex with him, and indeed, it would even be a pleasure to stroke his body and inhale his heady scent. Then he’d made his disgust for slavery and his disdain for Zaska very clear. Molly felt like she’d found a kindred spirit—and a rare resident of Za’Kluth who still had values that were admirable, even if he was forced to work with those who didn’t reflect them. He was canny too, rather than being some naïve idealist. She’d sensed his cynicism and his pragmatism, both being traits she could respect, having had to adopt them herself at a tender age.

In short, she’d felt a kinship with him that surpassed the fact that they belonged to two different species and were, in essence, complete strangers on either side of a business transaction that put them at a kind of odds with each other, as each wanted to get a leg up in the negotiations.

Of course, she could have been imagining that connection with him. After all, a connection couldn’t be made with only one side being open to it. Shulgi wasn’t exactly friendly, and his guard was up so high that she wondered if anyone had ever breached that barrier before. It might be too much to hope that she’d found a weakness in his wall at her level, one that she could exploit to touch the real Shulgi—the one literally hidden behind his mask.

It was those thoughts that chased her into sleep as her headache finally relented with the help of the relaxer.

* * *

An alarmfrom her wrist implant woke her many hours later with an urgent message from the dockmaster on duty. Apparently, a very agitated, armored Iriduan was currently pacing in the ramshackle lobby, demanding Molly’s presence.

She sat up quickly in bed, opening a com to the dockmaster to tell him to stall the Iriduan, and get verification that it was, indeed, Shulgi. The dockmaster also said the male was acting very erratic and had barely managed to growl out his identity before stalking into the waiting room to pace in front of the door to the inner public office.

Molly jumped to her feet as the dockmaster urged her to hurry, because he didn’t like the look in the Iriduan’s eyes.

This news alarmed Molly enough that she summoned Mogorl and Grundon to man the security system for the lobby and inner office, her heart thudding as she wondered what could be upsetting Shulgi enough to make even the unflappable Yenbpi feel shaken enough to mention his concern.

Shulgi hadn’t yet signed the contract, and in fact, had not even messaged them back on what his team had to say about the terms. In fact, she doubted anyone had heard from him at all after he’d left. She knew Jenice would have awakened her with her own urgent message if Shulgi had contacted them.

Instead, he’d appeared here in person and apparently in an agitated state. She quickly dressed in her slinkiest dress, the one that barely concealed anything, not bothering to apply any makeup or bind up her hair, leaving it to flow down around her shoulders and fall halfway down her back to her waist.

Whatever had upset Shulgi, she hoped a little seduction could improve his mood and make him more amenable to signing the contract. Although, as she cast herself a last look in the mirrored panel on her wall before dismissing it to return to a flat surface that matched the rest of the room, she acknowledged that she had ulterior motives that had nothing to do with business.

Mogorl and Grundon waited outside her room when she left it. She smiled to them both, greeting them warmly, despite their serious demeanors. Mogorl held up an arm to block her path as she tried to walk past him.

“This one is dangerous, Mol,” he said in a warning tone, shaking his head. “Let us deal with him.”

Mol gently pushed at his arm, growing irritated when he failed to move it. “I can handle him, my friend. You know that.”

“I don’t.” He still refused to let her pass, and her growing sense of urgency was bringing her headache back. “Iriduans are unpredictable. You can’t guarantee your seduction attempts will succeed with them.”

Molly laughed bitterly. “You can never guarantee anything, Mogie, but I know how to read people, and I know when I’m getting somewhere with a mark. Shulgi desires me, and it’s just possible that he’s here to act on that desire, so I don’t want either of you interfering in that meeting.” She narrowed her eyes on Mogorl, then turned a sharp look on Grundon. “Is that clear?”

“We won’t let you risk your safety,” Grundon said in his bass voice that felt like it vibrated the air in the room, crossing huge arms over a proportionately large, hairy chest.

Molly sighed, wishing sometimes that her most loyal friends and bodyguards would actually obey her wishes without question the way they pretended to when in the company of others who were not in on the secret of Zaska.

She tried a different tack, turning a pleading look on Mogorl. “I want this, Mogie!” she said with a low hiss. “I haven’t felt this way about anyone in a very long time. Please, let me handle Shulgi without the two of you looming over us. Just man the suppressor turrets for me.”

She slipped under Mogorl’s arm, patting him on the triceps as she rushed towards the door to the public office. “He’s not here to kill me. I’m sure of that. If he gets too out of hand and I give you the signal, use the turrets to take him down.”

“We can’t be sure they will affect him in that armor,” Grundon growled, stalking after her, only pausing when she held up a hand and shook her head at him.

“Yenbpi said he’s not wearing a helmet, only his mask. You can hit him in the head easily enough and we know the suppressor rounds will knock out an Iriduan. Just… please don’t interfere unless I give you the signal!”

She paused at the door, her hand sweeping the panel beside it so it slid open, then she winked at both of her bodyguards, who looked miserable at her command to let her meet the Iriduan alone. “And if it looks like things are going well, stop watching and switch the turrets back to my voice command alone.” She grinned at their sheepish expressions, then stepped through the door.

Despite her certainty that she could handle Shulgi on her own, she still felt her stomach twisting with nerves as she sat behind the desk in the public office, bringing up both her console and the public console with the contract ready to sign. Her heart thudded and her skin flushed with nervous perspiration as she considered what she was about to do.

If she weren’t so certain that Shulgi would never hurt a slave, she would have allowed Mogorl and Grundon to stand at her sides and pose a visible threat if he tried to harm her. The problem with their presence was that it could be somewhat off-putting for clients she was attempting to seduce. The suppressor turrets were a compromise, existing beneath the ceiling panels both in the lobby and the public office. They usually didn’t kill a target, but they sent a painful and undeniable message from “Zaska” that his minions and his mouthpieces weren’t to be messed with.

Finally working up the nerve to meet with Shulgi again, forming her expression into an impassive mask that hopefully gave none of her nervousness away, she told Yenbpi to let him into the inner office.

When the door to the lobby slid open, he stalked into the room without a backward glance, and she understood why Yenbpi had been unnerved. The Iriduan’s agitation was palpable, his wings twitching and his hands clenching into fists, relaxing, then clenching again. His piercing green gaze went unerringly to her, barely scanning the room for threats in stark contrast to his more cautious demeanor from earlier.

He strode towards the desk as she slowly rose from her seat, gracefully waving her hand to the other seat in a practiced gesture. “Welcome, Shulgi. Please, have a….”

Her voice trailed off as he froze in mid-step, his eyes the only part of him moving as his gaze trailed down her barely concealed body. She gasped in surprise when his eyes lifted to meet hers again and they were nearly black, his pupils so dilated that almost no green remained around the rims of his irises.

“I need you,” he said in with a guttural groan, lifting a hand to touch a place on his breastplate that looked like the rest of the sleek surface but apparently unsealed it, because the sides of his torso armor opened, revealing that he wore a skintight bodysuit beneath it.

“I’ll sign your damned contract,” he hissed as if he was angry, then tore off the breastplate, even as more of his armor parted on his body, allowing him to toss pieces of it to the floor as he moved closer to the desk and the console.

Molly smiled seductively, and this time, there was nothing practiced about the expression. Apparently, she hadn’t lost her touch at all. The fact that he was so agitated as he peeled off his armor was a bit unnerving, and the fact that his eyes were black now definitely surprised her, but she’d seen many strange signs of arousal in different species, so it didn’t bother her to see him so visibly affected.

“I tried the holos,” he muttered, and she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself, “and the mechs. Nothing worked. Nothing satisfied.”

His gaze shifted to her from the console as he drew his pistol, causing her to gasp even while the ceiling tiles slid open in the corners of the room. He barely glanced at them as he set the pistol on the desk, then proceeded to remove more of his armor.

She relaxed when she realized he wasn’t pulling a weapon on her, but the turrets remained exposed as a warning to him. At this point, she didn’t think he cared. Between dragging off his armor, he paused just long enough to touch the console screen on his side of the desk to place his mark there, agreeing to all the terms laid out in the document.

“I shouldn’t have accepted the injection,” he moaned, pulling the last of his armor away from his lower body to expose the large ridge of his erection beneath his skintight undersuit.

Molly gasped in admiration at the sight of his body, which was very muscular and again made her wonder why he was a businessman instead of a soldier. Although all concerns about his profession abandoned her when he lifted a hand to his mask and jerked the seals open, the mask hissing as air escaped it.

He pulled it away from his face and tossed it onto the desktop beside his pistol even as he moved around the desk, stalking her with intent black eyes.

It wasn’t just that he was the handsomest male she’d ever seen that made her breathless. The intensity of his gaze and movements made her wonder if she should flee, even while she wanted to leap into his arms in a very unpracticed fashion.

She was well trained and experienced. She shouldn’t feel these butterflies filling her stomach, or the trembling of a body both eager and anxious for his touch. She shouldn’t. But she did as she stood almost paralyzed like frightened prey as he rounded the desk and pulled her into his arms.

His scent surrounded her as she inhaled deeply. Then he lowered his head and his lips fell upon hers in a scorching kiss that made her whole body weak. She sagged in his embrace and his strong arms supported her, lifting her off her feet as he straightened, his mouth claiming hers with an undeniable hunger.

Molly generally avoided kissing anyone, especially a client. Sometimes, she couldn’t escape it, but she rarely enjoyed the experience. It was far too intimate for the work she did, and up until now, sex had always felt like work.

This time, she hungered for his kiss and returned it with an excited whimper that drew a low moan from him as he deepened it, his tongue sliding along her lower lip. When her lips parted, his tongue delved between them. He tasted as delicious as he smelled, warm and savory with just a hint of spice, like a gourmet meal.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling the two appendages that extended from his spine uncoiling beneath the stretchy material of his undersuit. A breeze from his wings flapping slowly behind him as he kissed her caused her hair to flutter around her face, at least until he buried his fingers in it, cradling her head between his hands.

She clutched his shoulders, feeling the muscle rippling beneath the slippery fabric of his undersuit. One of his hands released her head to stroke up her naked thigh, pushing aside the strip of a dress that provided the only covering to her body.

He moaned again when his palm slid over the warm skin at the crux of her thighs, his fingers slipping over the dampness from her slick.

She hoped Mogorl and Grundon had shut off their monitors by now. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been observed having sex. It was just that this time, she really wanted this, and she couldn’t remember the last time her desire and arousal had been genuine. She had no idea how she’d behave while in the throes of genuine passion, but she already felt like she was acting way off script and losing control over her body, too excited and aroused for practiced movements or careful considerations.

Her hands shifted from his shoulders to slide into his thick, silky hair just as he turned to face the desk. He rested her bare buttocks on top of it and she barely noticed the cold of the sleek surface as he leaned his big body closer to her petite one. His hands explored her naked thighs, moving unerringly towards the heat of her wet core.

He only broke their kiss to jerk at the fastening on his suit which caused it to part all the way down the front to his groin. Molly purred in pleasure as she took in the naked green flesh he exposed, her gaze trailing down to his erection as it sprang free. She released her hold on his hair and slid both hands down his powerful chest to his shaft to encircle it, licking her lips, swollen from his hungry kisses.

He caught her mouth again with his, his tongue delving between her lips as she slowly stroked his shaft. At first, his hands were busy pulling the fabric of his suit away from his body, freeing him enough that she felt the long, segmented appendages attached to his spine wrapping around him to caress her thighs.

Rather than freaking her out, this turned her on even more, though she was surprised she could feel any more excited than she already did as the clawed appendages moved over her vulnerable flesh. His fingers were the first to make it to her core, sliding inside her with a wet sound that caused them both to moan.

As his fingers moved inside her and she stroked him, he broke their kiss long enough to whisper something against her lips.

His actual voice was so much sexier than what she’d heard filtered through his mask, and he spoke in his fluid native language, which made it even hotter. Since she’d been implanted with a translator, she understood his words, but didn’t quite know their meaning.

“Spinner’s curse, I’m lost,” he murmured, before sucking her bottom lip into his mouth.

He tugged her lower body closer with one hand as the fingers of his other continued to move inside her, his thumb now shifting to focus on her clit.

Molly cried out with pleasure, his lips capturing the sound as he made her climax. Withdrawing his fingers, he caught her wrists and pulled her hands away from his shaft, shifting his hips so the tip of it probed her entrance while his hands fell upon her thighs to spread them wider.

“Tell me you want this, Molly,” he implored, his lips brushing against hers with each word as they shared their breaths.

She clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging into his hard muscles, her nails bending at the force of her grip as she shifted her own hips until his tip penetrated her. “I want it, Shulgi,” she cried aloud, “I need it. I want you!”

The fact that she meant that in more ways than one was in her tone. She wasn’t certain if he picked up on it or not, but then he entered her fully, burying his length to the hilt with a low growl.

Then she stopped caring about anything but the feeling of him inside her, filling her, making her feel whole for the first time in her life.