Princess of the Void: An Alien Abduction Romance

Grant freezes. His heart turns over in his chest. His wife stares up at him, red-faced and tearful, her hands twisting into the silk sheets of her bed. Their bed.

"Fine." Sykora sounds manic. "You're free. Fine. Take it, for all the good it'll do. It's nothing. I don't care. I free you."

He plants his knees on either side of her. His shadow engulfs her, with room to spare. "Swear to me."

"It's a trifle. It's meaningless. You still serve me." She points a trembling finger between his eyes as he lowers back onto her. "I'm still your Princess."

"Sykora. Swear it."

She's burning hot. She squirms helplessly. "I swear, Grant," she wails. "I swear it. I free you forever. You win, you fucking demon, you win, you're free. Fuck me. Fuck me right now. Fuck me fuck me fuck—"

Her last me melts into a keening cry of shock as he pushes into her.

His lungs vent out as his hips bump hers.

He fits like she was made for him.

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"You—" The Princess is short-circuiting. A bright tear drifts down her cheek. "You're—"

He's losing his mind. He's melting into her. He knows now with crystal certainty that if he'd given in, if he'd succumbed even for a moment, he'd have lost, the instant he felt this. He'd have begged to be her slave. He'd have joyfully locked the shackle around his own neck. He'd have traded his freedom a hundred times for this sensation. The terrified, elated realization fills him: she was right when she told him about Taiikari women. She was so right. This is irreversible. He can never go back.

More tears spring from Sykora's eyes and carry her shadowy makeup down her cheeks. Her hand curls into his chest hair. She clings to Grant like she can't believe that he's real, that this is happening to her. She finally manages to speak: "You're home."

Her shaking lungs release an overheated laugh. "You're home."

He is.

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He eases himself onto his elbows until they're just about face to face. "How's this? You want a turn in charge?"

She nods. "This." she touches his stomach. "This is so wrong. Good wrong. Fucking a man you can't control."

"We really need a safeword," he says.

"What's that?"

"It's a word you say when it's time for me to actually obey you."

She thinks about it. A giggle brings a shine to her eye that has nothing to do with compulsion.

"Lonesome," she says, in English.

And in that moment, the longing, loving woman from the underground cell appears again in his lap, and doesn't fade away, but melds with the imperious noblewoman who stole him away. And as he lifts Batty up, and kisses her, it's like reuniting with a long-lost friend.

–content omitted–

He tugs her chest against his and feels her little heart hammering.

"Do you take me now?" Her smoky whisper dripping into his ear. "Now that you can choose, do you choose me?"

No need to hesitate. Not anymore. "Yes," he says.

"Say it." And the supple muscles in her thighs stand out as she pauses, right at the apex of their motion. "Say I am your husband."

"I am your husband." His voice sticks and cracks with emotion. He's never acknowledged it, he realizes. It's the first time he's ever said it.

Sykora's tears have started again. One rolls to the delicate tip of her nose. She tries and fails to keep her words steady. "Say you are my wife."

His thumb nests against her belly button. "You are my wife."

She hiccups as she begins to cry in earnest. "Say I'm yours forever."

He cups the back of her neck. "You're mine forever."

She sputters a laugh through the tears. "Insufferable Maekyonite."

–content omitted–

And he's collapsed. He's through. A tiny blue succubus has milked every drop of his soul from him and now he's a husk. Goodbye, Black Pike. Goodbye, firmament. Grant is gone. Bury him in his wife.

Her weight asserts itself against his chest. Her teeth poke lightly against his neck. Enough to feel the pin-pricks of her fangs.

"Finally," she sighs. "Finally."

He doesn't have it in him to form words yet. He just grunts. His head lolls to one side, and he fills his vision with the Princess's face. Her glowing red eyes, staring back, brimming with joy and relief. How long they lie there together, he doesn't know. The low lustrous light of the firmament passes across her body and they hold each other and just breathe.

"That," he says, "was worth the wait."

"You've waited a tenday or two, dummy." Her thumbs trace the trail of hair along his stomach. "I've waited so long." She kisses his collarbone. "But yes. Yes, it was."

"Sykora." His hand knits into her silky hair. "Am I your first?"

Her tail slides behind his head and bends it forward, so his forehead is touching hers. "You're my last," she says, and kisses him.

Then she hops out of his lap. "Be right back, beloved. Some miscreant went and got all this cum in me."

She pads to the bathroom. Its clinical light flashes her silhouette to him for a moment before the door closes. Grant flops onto his back. In his wife's bed. In their bed.

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He's picked most of the pieces of his mind back up by the time the bathroom door reopens. Sykora's brushing her teeth. The obstruction's impact on her words fritzes his translator out: "When its you scare roll fire?"

Grant's mouth hangs open. "What?"

She spits into the sink and says it again. His implant works this time: "Do you want to fall in love now?"

He fluffs one of her downy pillows and props himself up. "Right now?"

"Now's as good a time as any." She fills a water glass and curls it in her tail while she fills another. She returns and hands him one. "The only thing that was stopping me was not knowing how the ride was. Now I know you're an absolute lion, I believe I'm just about ready to hop off the cliff. If you are."

"Is it something you choose?"

"Sure it is." She quirks one shapely, dark brow. "You don't mean to tell me you ripped your freedom out of my hands just to let your heart decide for you?"

He drains the glass and puts it on the lip of the bed-pit. "I guess not."

"I've decided for myself, anyway. I intend to fall the rest of the way in love with you over the course of the next tenday. I hope that schedule will suffice." She snuggles into his shoulder. "If you're interested."

"Hmm." He rests his hand on her rump and scoots her across him. "I'll need to review my itinerary."

"An exhaustingly oversexed tenday." Her tail tickles his jaw. "Well, eight days. That's how many until the next cycle, and I'd prefer to begin the next cycle madly in love with you."

He kisses the top of her head. "Let's give it a soft yes. And pencil it in."

"Splendid. Something to look forward to." She climbs the rest of the way on top of him. He reaches down and pulls her downy comforter over them.

"You," she murmurs. "And only you, and never in front of anyone. I think I'd like it if sometimes, sometimes, you called me Batty."

He strokes her spine. "Keep calling me Grant sometimes, and it's a deal."

"Grant," she whispers. "I have waited hectocycles for you. Without even knowing who it was I was waiting for."

He scratches her ear, and that's when he discovers something about the species among whom he's going to spend the rest of his life:

Taiikari women purr. Literally. His wife is lying on his chest and purring like a cat.

She opens an eye as he chuckles incredulously. "What?"

"You're purring."

Her eyebrow quirks. "You're scratching my ear."

"It's just you sound like a cat."

"What's a cat?"

"It, uh—it's a pet. That purrs when you scratch it."

"A wise creature." She nudges her head into his hand. "Keep going."

He obeys, and feels the vibration as she starts up again. He laughs gently and kisses her forehead. Her sweat is oddly sweet, compared to a Maekyonite's.

His curiosity gets the better of him. "How do Taiikari… I don't mean to overstep."

"Step wherever," she says. "Step on me. It's fine."

"How old are you?" he asks.

"Worried you're robbing a cradle?" She hums. "I'm a hair over seven hectocycles."

He runs the numbers. Seven hundred cycles, two tendays to a cycle, don't forget the two-hour day difference… "You're forty?"

"Forty Maekyon years? That seems about right." Her ears perk up. "You sound surprised."

"That's middle-aged for a Maekyonite."

"That's middle-aged?" Sykora's brow furrows. "Maekyonites live eighty years?"

"Just about."

She tuts and shakes her head. "Not enough. We'll set you up with a physical next tenday for your longevity program, and I'll expect you to hew to it." She rubs his beard. "After the days of pining you put me through, I'm getting my investment's worth. You are not dying a moment before I am."

"What's a longevity program entail?"

"Dietary guidance. Supplements. A few surgeries and enhancements, though I suspect we'll need to Maekyonize them."

"Hold on, now." Now it's his turn to sound agog. "Like cyborg stuff?"

"Does that upset you?" She flattens her palm against his chest. "You can tell me no, husband. You're free now."

"Do you have it?"

"Sure." She taps her skull. "Little chip on my brain for diagnostics. Some spinal doo-dads. Nothing invasive."

He eases himself back down. "Let's, uh. Let's triple-check the Maekyonization. But I'm willing. I'm willing to do a lot more, now that I'm free."

A shiver works across her whole body. "Free. My free husband." The tip of her tail strokes a line along his happy trail. "I never considered I'd have that, as a Void Princess. It's… thrilling. In a cliff-diving way."

"We'll make it work. I promise we will." He rubs the base of her tail, where she asked him to pull earlier. That gets a satisfying sigh from her.

"We have to be smart, Grantyde. Smart in the face of a thousand years of empire. Aboard the Pike, none will question us. You have the anticomps. They'll stare and whisper; let them. I trust their allegiance, even if they don't understand." She crosses her arms on his chest and rests her chin on her wrists. "But there will be times and places outside it, when you are with me, that you must seem obedient. There are people who are not loyal to me, who are seeking any means to destroy me. A willful husband, an equal husband, is one of those ways. Can you do this?"

He grins. "Depends on how far you push it."

"I won't push it." She kisses his nose. "We'll discuss my conduct before every appearance. The things I pretend to demand of you with no argument brooked, the places I seem to drag you. All agreed to beforehand. Or whenever we get a private moment."

He nods his assent. "I trust you."

Her fangs twinkle a nebular glow within her smile. "You do?"

"I do." He realizes as he says it, the gravity of that statement. All she is risking for him. Where they started, where they are now. A warm wave of gratitude and relief crashes into him, submerges him. His breath catches. Finally, he has something to cling onto. Something real. A foundation to build—

Build what?

A life. A life in this crazy new universe.

A life with Sykora.

I do.

"I do," he repeats, quieter. His eyes sting. Moisture beads in their corners.

She lays her cheek on his hand. "I promise you—the moment we are back aboard the Pike, and alone, I will make every moment of feigned ownership up to you. In any way you ask. Or—" She swallows. "In any way you demand." The nubs of her horns are poking through her hair.

He traces their roots with his fingers. "I'm sure we'll think of something."

Her hand rests on his; her fingers poke through the gaps between his knuckles. "The Empire won't know what this means. What we have. What your infuriating sexual rebellion bought you. But we will." Her head fits so perfectly into the crook of his neck. "My savior. My husband."

He kisses the tip of a horn. "My wife."

"Grant." She flinches. "Those are sensitive, you know."

He tilts her chin up. "I know."

The sweet air of her scoffing laugh tingles his lips. "Insufferable." Her eyes drift shut as her lips drift open. He takes the invitation.

A blue light switches on in the darkness of their cabin. The intercom beeps. A frustrated noise comes from Sykora as she pulls back. "Shoot. I have to get that." She raises her voice. "Speakerphone. No video."

Vora's voice filters into the cabin. "Majesty? We're all standing by. You weren't—" Her voice gets closer and quieter. "You didn't pick up on your communicator or the interceptor. But the deck crew said you'd come back."

"Yes, majordomo." Sykora's fingers knead against Grant's stomach. "Safe and ensconced."

"Did you and Grantyde—"

"Vora, dear, let's put a cork in that, please, and we can pick it up after the sweep, yes?" Sykora glances at her husband's smirk and whaps her tail against his calf. "Are we ready?"

"Yes, Princess. Half-exo as requested. A nine hour sweep to Ramex."

"Splendid. Pass my regards to the navigatrix and prime for my engage." She slips off Grant's chest and lies on her side next to him. He takes her cue and rolls over to big-spoon her. Her tail tucks between her legs to accommodate him. "You were in a cell last time we swept," she whispers, and wiggles her butt further into the hollow of his body. "I can't wait for you to see it from here. You're going to just love this."

"Majesty." Chief Engineer Waian's stentorian voice sounds from the background of Vora's call. "We're primed."

Sykora guides Grant's chin past her neck so that their faces are laying side-by-side. "Engage."

The artificial lights flicker. A deep-toned hum rises, reverberating in Grant's teeth. A rainbow glow forms at the edges of their starfield vista as the sails unfold. A smooth pulse in perfect-fifth harmony joins the hum. The bottom falls out of his stomach, like the perfect floating moment of a rollercoaster stretched wide and gentle. The stars nova into rainbow tessellations. The gas giant Ptolek refracts into a dazzling warm-tone kaleidoscope and then smears past them. Grantyde and Sykora are bathed in a floor-to-ceiling technicolor phantasmagoria.

"Holy shit." Grant drapes his arm across the Princess as he gazes into the sweep. "How fast are we going?"

"Half as fast as we could be," Sykora says. "But I like to fall asleep to the sweep. It's always been a comfort. Like someone singing to me." Her hair tickles him. "We're exiting on the other end of the Black Pike sector. Lovely little world called Ramex. I'll take you there if there's time." Her ear flicks as she remembers what she's given him. "And, uh, if you'd like me to."

"I would." He strokes the edge of her ear and feels her leg stretch and shake in happy indulgence. "I'd like that very much. Are we going to be busy?"

"The Pike won't be. We're only there to look scary next to a shipping lane. But you and me." Her tail rests across his middle. Her leg stretches back and nests between his. "We are going to be very busy."

He laughs into his wife's hair. "Eight days, right?"

He cups her breast and feels the bud of her nipple hardening again beneath his touch. She nuzzles the scruff of his beard. Her dextrous little fingers slip between them and find him, ready and rigid for her. The horns growing back out of her head nudge his chin. As she guides him back to the warm softness of his new life, she twists her head so her lips are right below his ear. "Can I tell you a secret?"

He nods.

"I don't need eight days, Grant," she whispers. "I love you."

And with a swiveling push of her hips, Grantyde of the Black Pike is home again.

The Pike rides the rainbow sweep, singing its passage across the dazzling firmament.

End of Volume 1