the after effects of our tryst. Silver is not the only one who is chemically affected when we mate. I might be just as addicted to her as she is to me. This is how it is between Scythkin and humans. You could call it love at first sight, but it is more than that. It is a fundamental connection which occurs at a molecular level, and once formed, it can never be broken.
“There are some Galactor patrols in the region. I was thinking we might want to relocate to avoid ending up in one of their shifting trade routes.”
“Good idea. Do it.”
Tusk inputs new coordinates, then looks over at me with a sharp scowl.
“What is it?” he asks me the question with no small measure of concern. “You don’t seem like yourself. Is it something to do with the prisoner?”
“She loves me. Or she thinks she does. She had a reaction to my come. It makes her high and giddy.”
“Sounds like that will make her much easier to control and punish,” he says, returning to his task of coordinating the ship’s movements through space.
“Yes. I suppose it will.”
“What’s wrong? This sounds like a breakthrough. And on the first day!”
“It is.”
“Then why are you unhappy?”
“Because I think…” I shouldn’t admit this, but it is Tusk. I trust him with my life. With my everything. “I think I love her.”
I look at him, feeling completely hopeless. Love should be cause for celebration. It would be if I was human. But I am not human. I am scythkin, and we do not do love. Love is for lesser forms. I thought I was immune to it.
There’s no reason for scythkin to ever love. We feel attachment to our brood, and we feel pride in our conquests. When we mate, it is an act of triumph. But mating with a human is messy. Humans are flesh bags full of emotion. I think it has rubbed off on me. I am feeling things I have never felt before. When I look at her, I am consumed with more than the typical desire to possess a weaker life form.
“Do not let Scizzor hear you say that,” Tusk sighs. “I was afraid this would happen. You get attached to things.”
“I do not.”
“Yes. You do. Scizzor wasn’t even hatched in our brood. Nor was Saya. You brought them along because you felt sorry for them. They should have been slaughtered along with the rest of the competing brood who hatched on our planet. He has been living on borrowed time his entire life.”
I wondered, when I rescued Scizzor all those years ago, showing mercy instead of natural malice, if I might be making a mistake. If I did, it feels as though that mistake might be coming to a head.
Silver
I wake feeling the fading warmth of the remnants of sex, and the pangs of a new hunger which is not for food, but for more of that substance which flooded my mouth and my insides and made me feel better than I have in years.
There is something happening to me here. I don’t understand it, but I know it is dangerous.
I don't like scythkin. I hate scythkin. But I want this one to touch me. I am actually missing Warden. The first thing I did when I opened my eyes was look over to what I am already thinking of as “his” side of the bed. This cell has become a home of sorts. This is wrong. I should still hate him. Every time we mate, it should be against my will. But it isn’t.
I want him. I want what only his cock can give me.
“Get a grip,” I growl to myself, but that doesn’t help. Desire is hard to control, and what I am feeling is so much more intense than desire. It is desire mixed with addiction laced with a heavy sprinkling of no control. Is that a coherent thought? Probably not. Nothing is coherent anymore. Nothing but desire.
I wait what feels like forever in the thick walled prison. I sip on a little water, I nibble on a little food, but nothing sates me the way he does. I wait. I nap. I wake again, replenish my food, relieve myself. I perform all the tasks which a living being is required to undertake to still be considered alive.
Then the worst happens.
Warden returns.
“Get out!”
His head jerks back in surprise. He wasn’t expecting that response.
I can’t look at him. I can feel my sex getting wet