my hips up for him, and he entered me again, from behind this time.
The ridges along his length tugged and rubbed all the right places inside me. The soft fur of his tail brushed around my thigh. Then the tip slid between my legs, finding my most sensitive spot.
Vrateus growled, gripping a handful of hair on the back of my head. The sting at the roots spread pleasure along my scalp and the rest of my body, making me groan in delight.
He thrust harder. The growls of his pleasure mingled with my loud moans. The intensity was building up as he pumped his hips with increasing speed and ferocity.
“Oh, yes...” I breathed out as the orgasm exploded through every cell of my body.
Throwing his head back, he growled through his clenched teeth as his release rocked us both.
When he collapsed next to me, I held him close. Raking my fingers through his fur, I whispered, “We’re going to build a good life here, Vrateus.”
At that moment, I truly believed that it was possible. We had found our kind of happiness on the Dark Anomaly. As long as we stayed together, everything was within our reach.
That was how he made me feel—happy, even in the middle of hell.
IN THE AFTERNOON, VRATEUS took me out to the surface of the Dark Anomaly. He needed to check the power supply panels. They converted the Anomaly’s lights into energy, which was used to power the life inside it. One of them seemed to be malfunctioning, possibly requiring some repairs.
Dressed in spacesuits, we exited through the airlock, then walked along the surface of the giant disk, just a few feet away from the edge. Vrateus checked the connection of each panel, while I fell behind.
Stopping between two power panels, I took out the two shiny metal balls I’d made from some parts collected from my ship.
I made sure that the camera on my helmet was on and that it was connected to the computer on my arm. Lowering myself into a crouch, I set one ball on the surface. With the tool I’d brought with me, I shot the ball to roll toward the center of the Anomaly with a pre-determined speed. It bounced and hopped over the uneven surface, rolling to a complete stop about a hundred feet away from me.
The gravity along the circumference of the disk seemed to be the same as it was inside.
I glanced up, toward the bulging center of the Anomaly. Far in the distance, it rose from the disk as a smooth, perfectly rounded dome the size of a mountain, completely black. Not even the vivid dancing lights around us reflected in its hemisphere.
Setting the second ball on the ground, I shot it to follow the exact trajectory of the first one, with a higher velocity. The second ball rolled faster, slamming into the first one and knocking it forward.
Brought back into motion, the first ball rolled toward the center, slowing down again.
When it reached a certain point, however, the speed of the first ball increased again. Speeding up, it rolled faster and faster, until the shiny, silver shape of it blended far in the distance with the bulging mass in the middle.
On the surface of the disk, the Anomaly pulled things to its center. I took a note never to wander past the power panels, lest I be dragged there myself.
I made sure that everything I’d just done had been recorded on the camera on my helmet. I had already inputted the exact mass and dimensions of the two balls. And the computer now calculated the speed and rate of increase in their velocity.
When I got back to the library, I would add all this data to what Vrateus and I had collected so far. I’d also add the new calculations I was planning to do.
I’d left Earth to explore the unknown. Crashing here was a tragedy. But it gave me the opportunity to be closer to the Anomaly than any human had ever been. For as long as I lived, I would study it.
I would never stop exploring.
EPILOGUE
VRATEUS
“There is the man I love,” Svetlana greeted him as soon as he entered their room.
She looked stunning. The bright, flowery dress she wore made the lights of the Anomaly behind her pale in comparison. She had always been the most beautiful thing to him.
A warm trickle of pleasure rippled down his skin at her words. This was the first time he heard the word “love” from her. Judging