They continued,and were closing in on the settlement, it would not be far. They could get out of the dark and rest.
His thoughts bounced between the other members of the squad. Were they all surviving? Had they been able to rescue the others? In an ideal scenario, they all had made it to Sol-3 and were waiting for contact from him and Veta.
Veta.
She remained quiet as she kept up with him.
He was not sure of her intentions. The Craving continued to burn slowly for her, even as they hiked.
He’d not ever had such a strong response to any female. He’d met a few Terrans on Disguised Serenity and other outposts during trade missions, but none had created such a response. They were just, well, female Terrans.
Of course, sexual contact was not considered an essential aspect of Rhimodian life, not anymore. At least, it had fallen out of importance.
A mate was unnecessary for Rhimodians because they were grown from embryos, so the act of sexual contact was merely that, an act.
He glanced at Veta again.
Knowing what she had told him about how some Terran men harmed women, he remembered the female he’d helped on Disguised Serenity. Her gratefulness for his intervention. It angered him that Veta had experienced that several times in her life.
Regardless of the outcome.
Wrathin rarely fell back on his base, angry emotions. He spent days trying to remain in program, but Veta’s admission about what had happened to her only fueled his feelings. His emotions were angry for her pain, and need for her, to prove that all humanoids are not, what, exactly?
Greedy?
Yet the more the thoughts roamed in his mind, the more that he wanted to keep Veta for his own. And is that not what she had said was why the Terrans harmed women? For ownership?
He did not understand this.
He admired again the way the woven hair looked on her head. The curves of her side, of her breasts, of her hips. Strong and soft.
His cravings for her were becoming intense.
He tried to focus on his task, getting to the settlement. Studying the location, he scanned for anything that looked abnormal. They weren’t far now.
Wrathin noticed, even in the dark of the eclipse, that there weren’t more of his people about. Perhaps they all headed off-world before the eclipse. Maybe they had all returned to Sol-3, their primary residence world, to wait out the eclipse.
He wondered if they left a transport that would get them to Sol-3. He needed to get her back to her people and to the peace negotiations.
He assumed the distance would soothe the cravings he kept having for her. If she felt a similar pull, she did not show it. His gaze landed on that blade on her hip. It was shiny. Almost seemed to have a glow to it. In the dark, it was easy to see.
“Your blade is glowing.”
She glanced at her hip, unholstered it, and looked at it in the night. “Interesting. Must be the metal compound.”
“Is it new?”
“Just got it before this mission. The Emperor gave it to me.”
Wrathin blinked.
An uneasy feeling passed over him. “Does the Emperor always give you gifts?”
“No, not really.” She stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes went wide.
She held the blade out and started flipping it around.
Wrathin tapped his lips to signal to be quiet.
