She frowns, looking confused. “But it’s not snowing,” she comments, and I push a couple of buttons, adjusting the temperature commands. The temperature in the room suddenly plummets as the environmental simulators kick in. The wind begins to blow, and snow starts falling from the ceiling.
“Holy fuck.” She wraps her arms around herself even tighter, and I see goosebumps break out across her skin as her nipples pebble beneath her jumpsuit. I itch to reach out and stroke my thumb across one, but I keep my hand by my side. Fuck, I don’t know what has come over me.
Suddenly, a yalani pops up on the landscape and roars and starts running toward us. Lila screams and darts behind me.
“What the fuck is that?” she screams, clutching the back of my shirt.
“That’s one of the other species that inhabit Iceen. They are an intelligent but highly aggressive humanoid race.” I watch the shaggy, hair-covered alien race toward us. Her grip tightens on the back of my shirt as he gets closer, but before he reaches us, I erase him from the scene. She breathes a sigh of relief and slowly releases my shirt.
“He looked like an albino Wookiee,” Lila says through chattering teeth.
I quickly adjust the temp controls. “Obviously you are not dressed correctly for a real simulation, I just wanted to show you what the room can do.” The room goes back to its normal temperature, and Lila steps to my side, brushing down my shirt awkwardly like she’s embarrassed she hid behind me. It’s cute, and I struggle to hide my grin. Again. “What is a Wookiee?” I ask, having never heard that term before.
“A character from one of the best sci-fi movies Earth has ever made,” she says, smiling.
“Yeah, they probably had an alien advisor on their team and didn’t even realize it.” I enter in a couple more commands, and the Iceen landscape disappears to be replaced with a traditional shooting range.
“Okay, let’s get you a gun and teach you how to use it. The gun locker is also protected by a biometric scanner, and only certain people are allowed to access it.”
The weapons room is actually hidden by a permanent hologram. To the far right of the console is what looks like a wall, and if you were to reach out and touch it, you would meet solid metal, but certain members of the circus can walk straight through it. It’s part hologram, part warlock spell. Xavier was under orders from the Adams brothers to code Lila into everything that has security like this on the ship. Xavier was more than a little suspicious when he was first told this, before he had met her, and he built in a failsafe. As long as Lila’s intentions and motivations are honest and true, she should be fine. If it doesn’t let her through, it means she’s hiding something. I’m pretty sure he no longer feels suspicious, but I don’t think he’s had time to change the spell. I guess we’re about to find out if the Adams’ trust in their granddaughter is warranted.
“Where are we getting a gun from?” she asks, looking around the room skeptically.
“From over here,” I reply and walk through the wall before turning around to watch her. I’ve disappeared from her sight, but I can still see her. I chuckle at the way her mouth drops open, and I can see her saying something, but the spell blocks out all sound.
She walks forward slowly, putting up her hands. It’s disconcerting walking through a wall when you’ve never done it before, but as she continues to walk, her hands go right through and appear on my side. There’s a huge grin on her face as the rest of her body follows her arms.
“That is so fucking cool,” she whispers, spinning around to look at the hologram. From this side it’s transparent and a little hazy, and she pokes her arm in and out a few times. I can hear her singing, “You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out.”
“Are you okay? Did that hurt your brain on the way through?” I ask, a little unsure about her reaction. Maybe this was too much for her fragile human brain and I broke her.
“No, no, I’m fine.” She turns back around, a pretty pink hue on her cheeks from embarrassment. As she looks around the room, her eyes widen at the sight of all of the different weapons. She is so expressive, it’s fascinating. Vilaxians learn how to control their expressions at a very young age, while Lila is refreshingly responsive to everything. I wonder momentarily how that would translate in bed, but her excited shout has me pushing those thoughts away.
“Oh my God, it’s like a scene fromMen in Black.” She heads for one of the laser cannons and tries to pick it up, but she struggles with its weight. “Holy shit, that’s heavy,” she complains, and I laugh. I can’t help showing off a little, so I make my way over to her and the cannon and pick it up with one hand, putting it on my shoulder where it’s supposed to go.
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, fine, you’ve made your point. Give me the weapon for noisy crickets.”
Noisy crickets? “What are these noisy crickets?” I ask, putting the cannon back where it belongs, moving over to the handheld weapons, and grabbing a laser gun for her. “Are these dangerous creatures from Earth that I’ve never heard about?”
She waves a hand. “No, I was being silly. Ignore me. What have you got there?”
“This is a laser gun, and each of them are coded to the user, which means once it reads your blood, it won’t work for anyone else in case you lose it during a fight. This way, no one can pick it up and use it on you.”
“Oh, that is a great idea, I like that.” She holds her hand out.
“It’s shaped similarly to a human gun, and built into the trigger is a little needle-like protrusion. When you wrap your finger around it, it will puncture your finger. You’ll feel a small prick, and then it will numb the area. It will not fire unless that needle is in your skin, reading your blood. This is a new weapon, so it will code itself to your blood, and it only needs a drop in the little reservoir in the top. Once it reads it, it will seal closed and the gun’s yours. Basically, it’s point and shoot, and don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill. There is no stun option on this gun, it is set to kill every time. You may get away with a flesh wound if you hit a limb, but laser injuries are nasty, and if you hit them anywhere on the body, it will destroy anything that lies in its path.”
She yanks her hand back in horror. “Nope. No way. Not happening. That’s too much.” She shakes her head and backs up.
“No, Lila, you saw the yalani. It was coming for you, and this is the type of weapon that will stop it. A lot of alien species run on instinct before logic, and this is your only chance if no one else is around to help you.”
She sighs. “Fine, but what should I use to cut my finger to get blood for the top of it?” There’s a knife display in one of the cabinets, and she goes over to it and pulls out a Vilaxian dagger. It’s standard military issue and designed to never get blunt. She drags her thumb across the point, and a drop of blood appears on the wounded flesh just before a tantalizing smell, spicy and sweet, hits my nostrils and they flare. My cock hardens instantly, and my fangs lengthen and start to drip. It’s not my usual venom, but the venom designed to seal two people together for a lifetime.
My blood rose!
Xavier
After Lila leaves me, I dissolve into mist and move through my quarters in search of my harem. They have retreated to their own communal living space to help Mithus and the two girls recover. Why the three of them were in my space, I don’t know, and it’s just another thing they have done to piss me off recently. They are under the delusion that they mean more to me than just a source of energy and an occasional fuck. I have always made it clear that a relationship is not in the cards. I’d always held out hope that I had an intimate out there, much like my parents. The anger I feel now, knowing that they hid it and didn’t tell me, is immense. There’s also a sense of relief, though, like a long wait has finally come to an end. But before I deal with my parents, I need to deal with my wayward harem.
