Emissary sat down on the floor next to Weapons, and she whispered comforting words to Weapons, but both of them seemed to be crying. Thuliak smirked at me.
“What?” I hissed.
“I didn’t think it would be this easy.”
“You didn’t think what would be so easy?”
“Getting human women. Normally we’d have to offer goods, technology, and protection in exchange for courtship rights.”
“You still have to,” I said, trying to sound like I had way more authority than I really did.
“Why? You said it yourself. Your options are to come with me, or to freeze yourselves for centuries and offer yourselves to the mercy of another human world, one on which ‘no man can satisfy you,’ is how your leader said it.” He grinned even wider at that last part. “What choice do you have? The ‘cold, lonely existence,’ or a warm existence with me?”
Yes, his personality was really starting to rub me the wrong way. “It’s called spite, Thuliak. Humans are very good at it. We would deny you what you want simply to deny it to you.”
“But you want it to. Your leader even said so.”
“I don’t think she’s our leader anymore. What exactly do you want to do with us?”
“Nothing that you won’t enjoy, little human.” He reached out and put two of his fingers over my lips. I should have felt shamed and embarrassed that he’d touch me like this in front of the others, but the weakest part of me was just thankful that he was still touching me even after he’d gotten two other women. He pressed just a little bit, and it was enough for me to open my mouth all the way. Thuliak slid his fingers into my mouth, and I sealed my lips around them. I inhaled through my nose as I sucked on his thick fingers, and the male scent of him overwhelmed me all over again.
His strong teal eyes met mine, and I stared right into his gaze as I swirled my tongue all over his fingers. I looked down at his cock growing hard between his legs, even sucking on his finger could activate his dick?
He slid his fingers out before I was done—though I’m not sure how I would have ever been “done”--and when I came back to reality and looked around, I saw Weapons Sojourner looking at me with a scathing, red-faced jealousy, which was worse than it could have been because her face was still covered in tears. Emissary Eve had helped her take her helmet off, but she still had the rest of the suit on.
“We could kill ourselves,” Weapons suggested, eyeing the pulse rifle on the floor. “I’m a good shot. I wouldn’t miss. I’d do it for both of you, then I’d take myself out at the end.”
“I won’t allow it,” Thuliak boomed, his voice carrying past me for the first time in several minutes.
Then he moved. He was so big that I didn’t expect he could move very fast. He moved faster than he had any right to, so fast that I didn’t even really see how he did it. One moment he was standing in front of me, the next he was behind me and holding Weapon Sojourner’s pulse rifle.
“Airlock,” Weapons said, “I know you think this feels good, but…”
“You’re jealous,” Emissary said, “it’s plain to see on your face.”
Weapon’s face went even more red, and she opened her mouth as if she wanted to deny it, but she decided not to lie to us and fell silent instead. She eyed the rifle as if she desperately wanted it, but knew she could never get her hands on it, because Thuliak was so much stronger and faster than all of us. She didn’t even know yet that he could just grab the rifle with his weird technology-controlling power either.
He snapped the rifle in half over his knee. He must have just done it for dramatic effect, because I knew he could have just disabled it the same way he controlled the airlock.
“Tell us,” Emissary said, standing up, “what will you do with us if we agree to go with you?”
“I’ve already begun negotiating this with Airlock,” Thuliak said, “I will negotiate only with her.”
I bit my lip as the two women—who were both higher ranked than me—looked at me. It would have been easier if they were openly angry with me, but instead it looked like they were both jealous and trying to hide it. They didn’t give two shits that I was out-ranking them, it was that they’d seen me sucking on Thuliak’s fingers, and they’d probably noticed that I also smelled like him.
“Thuliak, Scion sir,” I stammered, and he laughed at that, “Um, may I discuss this with them before we negotiate?”
“If you think that’s wise,” he said.
“I do. I do think that’s wise. I don’t need you to talk like that either, like you’re trying to undermine me and make me feel smaller than I should.”
He grinned and nodded at me. “Go ahead. Discuss it, leader.”
I wanted to deny that I was a leader of any kind, but Thuliak had basically forced me into being one, and acting like I didn’t want it or wasn’t able to handle it would probably just make Emissary and Weapons more resentful of me than they already were.
Emissary, Weapons, and I were likely going to be sticking together from here on out, and I couldn’t afford to have them being against me.
Thuliak gave us space while we formed a small circle halfway between the airlock I’d operated and the airlock that Sojourner had come through. Emissary assured us that the rest of the crew now knew not to come looking for us.