Two
VOKNAR
Iwas in trouble.
Porcha straightened her skirt, her fingers brushing over the hilt of her dagger that I had resheathed in her belt while I took her, the smell of our joining thick in the filthy air of this human city. I needed to submit the signed contract to the authorities as soon as possible. If a Norratar patrol had caught us out here in the open, I would have been taken into custody immediately. I was only allowed on Earth with the strict understanding that I was not allowed to court any human women. Human women had different requirements; they were softer, more sensuous, and the things that were considered flirtations and signs of arousal for my species were signs of fear and rejection in theirs. It was the reason for the restriction.
What I did tonight, chasing her, taking her out here like a feral beast without her explicit verbal consent to that action, that wasn't allowed by Earth's laws. As an alien, I was held to the highest standard of behavior on this planet, and I couldn't go chasing down women in the street and marking them with my seed just because they attacked me and then ran from me.
Not that I had been interested in any other woman since the moment I met Porcha.
Porcha was the kind of woman who made her decision with the same certainty that she wielded a blade. She already had a contract ready.
It was good for me that she did because if she had stabbed me without offering that contract, I already knew I wouldn't have held back, and the last two weeks spent in her company had been torture. I didn't know that when I came to visit my brother and his new mate, I would be thrust into the presence of the most attractive female I'd ever been around. Human females were delightfully attractive, all soft and rounded and moving with swaying seductive motions like sex was a favorite hobby instead of a biological imperative. Porcha was the epitome of that, all hard lines and soft curves. Her cheeks were as plump and rounded as her rear, while her nose was sharp like a dagger. Her eyes had heavy lids that folded down, filling the space below her eyebrows with soft folds of flesh. Her skin had a few red spots and tiny black hairs around her chin and jawline, which she sometimes covered with a skin-colored powder but often didn't. She wore her hair pulled back tight and flat against her skull, and her lips were thin and narrow. Her chest was flatter than that of other human females that I'd seen, but there was something different about the way she was dressed. It took me a moment to pinpoint it, but then I realized her small chest didn't require restraint the way other human females did. This evening, she went without that restraint, and the soft movements of her mounds underneath the fabric of her shirt were utterly entrancing.
It wasn't just her sensual body that captured my attention.
It was the way she spoke, how she dove into conversations as if they were bodies on a table waiting to be dissected. When I found out she produced videos, I stayed up late nights watchingevery single one, listening to how she broke down the facts of the human legal system and the differences between the previous administration’s politics and the current influence of Norratar law. She created content that helped humans navigate the changes in their society. I couldn't imagine what that must feel like as a society, to go from thinking they were self governed, to realizing they were in the choke hold of greedy corporations, to then being taken over by an alien monarchy that brought about changes that were popular to the greater population but deeply threatening to the wealthy elite who suddenly had to contribute more to the infrastructure that supported their fellow humans.
She was a brilliant woman, and the thought of being able to be matched with someone like her was what made me decide to stay on Earth.
That and how incredibly happy my brother was.
The way his mate treated him, touching him, smiling at him, acknowledging his presence with her gaze and attention - I'd never seen anything like it... and I wanted something like that with such a vicious intensity that it took my breath away every time she giggled and touched his arm.
I wanted that with Porcha.
I wanted her from the moment I met her, when she strode into her friend's domicile and straight over to me, looking me up and down like I was a prize rather than ignoring me like a typical female of my kind would have done. She had set my senses alight, and for one brief moment of lustful insanity, I thought she was going to attack me right then and there.
Instead, she attacked me with words, demanding my age and profession, firing questions at me until she had pulled out enough of a measure from me that she was willing to move on to other topics. She was intense, commanding, and I had followed her back to her house that night, even though I wasn't supposed to, even though it could have gotten me kicked off the planet ifshe had called in the peacekeeping force and complained about it.
After two weeks of her presence, I was about to break the rules even further.
So I decided I had to sign up for the mate-matching service before I did something that would get me kicked off this planet for good.
Now she was standing in front of me, balancing on her precarious shoes on this rickety external metal structure, my seed dripping down her legs, and I needed to submit the courtship contract to the authorities immediately because there was nothing that could stop me from breaking into her house tonight.
She looked up at me, somehow managing to look down her nose at me with a haughty sniff, then put her hand on the metal railing for balance.
"I'm going to ignore you now," she said.
The fact that she just said that out loud made me laugh, and a soft smile caught the edge of her thin lips, dragging them open across her slightly yellowed teeth.
She took a step towards the stairs down, and her heel slipped in between two of the metal slats. Her foot came up free from the shoe, and she stumbled slightly, letting out a small curse as she balanced on one foot.
I knelt, freed her shoe from its metal trap, then took her warm ankle in my hand.
She sucked in a sharp breath as I carefully slid the shoe back onto her foot, and I looked up to see her gazing down at me with a slight shimmer in her eyes, a softness around the edges of them that I wasn't used to seeing. Then she blinked, and the gaze was gone, and so was she, moving back down the stairs and climbing in through the large window with a determination that wasn't slowed down by the constraints of her outfit.
I followed after her, my heart aglow, a warmth infusing my entire body, my length still semi-hard within my trousers, the scent of her surrounding me, all of my senses focused on her as she crossed the room to head towards the exit, running away from me again. I had to follow her. She had flirted with me and enticed me to scent her with my seed; now I needed to establish my presence in her home and wait to see if she would test my strength and try to drive me from it. I had both legal and instinctual permission to court her, but no guarantee that she would accept me.
She could yet just ignore me, leaving me a ghost, unacknowledged in her home.
A woman I didn't know intercepted her as she made her way to the door, reaching out to grip Porcha's shoulders. The woman glared at me before focusing on Porcha, asking her a quiet question. I knew from my cultural research that this was a standard human reaction for human females. They had a predatory pack mentality and would check in with one of their group that had been singled out to see if they needed to come together as a unit to attack or defend. Their reactions were not uniform or guaranteed, but I had taken the time to study some of the variances, as human females didn't attack as a sign of interest like my kind. To an unprepared Noscaryn, being attacked by a group of females would be disorienting and a confusing experience. We were only able to mate lock to one female, so having a group of them all trying to vie for our attention wouldn't be as delightful as human males seemed to perceive it to be.
My brother and his mate were in a different group. Lamia was smiling enthusiastically and gesturing as she spoke. My brother caught my eye and tilted his head, questioning. I tapped my nose and glanced over at Porcha, and he smiled, the expression radiating through him. He was my favorite of mybrothers and had hoped that I would decide to seek a mate here instead of returning to our homeworld.
Whatever Porcha said to the woman relaxed her, and moments later, Porcha was moving towards the venue's main exit.
