Taking the Human Read online

  Taking The Human

  by

  Trent Evans

  Copyright © January 2016 by Trent Evans.

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the authors. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Cover Artist: Mina Carter

  Published in the United States of America

  Sweet Savage Press, LLC

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The authors of this e-book are a multicultural team and various versions of English which such richness of content entails will be found in this e-book, including British English spellings.

  This book contains descriptions of many BDSM and sexual practices but this is a work of fiction and as such should not be used in any way as a guide. The authors and publisher will not be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained within. In other words, don’t try this at home, folks!

  Taking the Human by Trent Evans

  Chapter One

  Lukanos never really understood what made human females cry. He understood his own visceral—and very physical—reaction to it even less.

  Why did the tears streaming down her smooth cheeks make her even more beautiful?

  It wasn’t the first time he’d found her weeping, though it wasn’t any easier to bear witness to it.

  Being a member of a Yaanfahr Survey Team meant excitement, but it also sometimes meant witnessing the sadness and heartbreak that so often was part and parcel of the human condition.

  His comm unit buzzed at the base of his throat and he clicked over, moving away from Alisse’s house. Though such a gesture was completely unnecessary—his spoofing mechanism ensured he stayed quite invisible to human eyes—he felt a need to leave her alone with her pain.

  “Report, Lieutenant,” the voice of Captain Maerata rang in his ear.

  Though his comm unit was quite capable of transmitting unspoken thought, the Lieutenant spoke aloud, confident he was out of ear shot of Alisse’s open kitchen window.

  “Situation normal, Captain. Subject is”—the Lieutenant winced—“upset.”

  The Captain’s sigh was plainly audible over the channel, but his voice held a welcome note of understanding. “You watch her too much, you know.”

  “What Command doesn’t know, won’t hurt them.” The Lieutenant looked back at Alisse’s compact two bedroom bungalow. “I haven’t exceeded parameters, nor violated The Directive.”

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Have reassignment orders come through yet?” Lukanos tried to keep the dread out of his voice. Like so many others before him, the prospect of leaving Terra—and a certain alluring human female—gnawed at him. Not for the first time, he fought against the sense of unfairness—and strange possessiveness—that rose within him at the thought of never seeing her again.

  He knew it was stupid... but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t contemplated it.

  Options.

  It had been done before.

  The image of Alisse’s curvy, naked form, on her knees, gazing up at him, sprang unbidden into his mind. It should have disgusted him. The sudden tightness between his legs said otherwise.

  You’ll be cashiered—if you’re lucky. You know the penalty for taking one of them.

  “Maybe another week,” Maerata said. “But you know it will be soon. I’ve proposed as many mission extensions as I dare, Lieutenant. It’s time.”

  His Captain was well-aware of Lukanos’... distraction. Though he never missed an opportunity to admonish his subordinate for his fixation on the human female, the Captain did do his best to have their time on Terra extended far past a typical Survey Team’s term of duty.

  There was a reason Command rotated Survey Team members from Earth assignment within two Terran years. It wasn’t anything as concrete as danger, or the particular prestige of such a duty—Terra was little more than a backwater in the galactic scheme of things. The reason was a base emotion, one most Yaanfahr believed was but a vestigial urge they’d evolved beyond as an order eons ago.

  Temptation.

  And Lukanos knew intimately the power of such a thing, why they’d been warned. Knowing and doing were two different things though. He knew interference, fraternization, or even simply appearing before a human was strictly prohibited.

  Now though? He understood quite well why he’d been sternly warned about duty on Terra. The beauty, the allure of them was something long whispered about in the academy, though never openly spoken of. The idea that anyone might actually find human females sexually attractive was an embarrassment at best, something never admitted to, and at worst, a taboo that might result in the early end to a career, a quick disciplinary hearing, and a long, lonely trip back to one’s home system.

  None of that was stopping him from seriously contemplating the unthinkable though.

  What might happen, if he took Alisse for his own?

  Chapter Two

  The coffee burned her lips as she sipped it, the faded white fabric of the translucent curtains waving in the unusually warm evening breeze. With the heel of her hand she swiped away the sticky tracks of her tears. It was stupid—and futile—to cry about what could never be. About what she’d ensured would never be.

  The first Valentine’s Day since she’d left Phillip didn’t make moving on any easier for her though.

  She walked to the sink, and dumped the rest of the coffee down the drain. She stared out at the night, the breeze making her swollen eyes sting. The quiet nights were the double-edged sword of living that far out of the city. You weren’t disturbed, but on nights like this one, being disturbed by someone, anyone, would be a blessing.

  Solitude focused the mind—and deepened the sorrow.

  “At least today’s almost over, Alisse,” she muttered as she padded out of the kitchen, flicking off the light and plunging the space into moonlit shadow.

  Phillip Brandeis, head astronomer on the OLA project, was someone who should have been her perfect match. Handsome, brilliant, and charming, he was—but inside she’d known all along that those qualities weren’t what she really needed. How long had she hidden that truth from even herself? Nobody knew, of course—there’d be scandal, gossip, a quiet closing of numerous doors in the scientific community.

  Intellect and attractiveness should have made him ideal for her. Two scientists, two keen minds, both young, in the prime of life. Well, Phillip was young anyway; forty loomed much closer for Alisse than she wanted to think about.

  Still, they had tried to make a go of it, and for a time, it had worked. Happiness, the possibility of something more, seemed within her grasp. But something was always missing, a piece that never quite fit right.

  And that piece was Alisse, what she really needed.

  For any other woman, Phillip’s gentle, attentive lovemaking might have been the stuff of dreams—but not her dreams.

  She’d admonished herself countless times as selfish, shallow, horrible. But the fact remained that he left her cold. Gentle and attentive weren’t the constant stars in her fantasies.

  Not by a long shot.

  She slipped on the threadbare gown she still wore, the one that clung to her body in a w
ay that made it impossible to ignore the curves and planes of her form. Though she didn’t particularly like her body—her hips were a little too broad, thighs a trifle heavier than she’d have liked—the gown did make her feel, if only in her mind, sexy. Feminine.

  Phillip always desired you, Alisse—gown or no. Yet you rejected him, the man who adored you.

  She couldn’t help but picture his deep brown eyes welling with tears, the snow falling in a swirling, chaotic storm all around them, as she’d broken it off. They’d been attending a conference at the Smithsonian in DC, and he’d suggested going over to the mall and walking up to the Lincoln memorial, a snowy Washington, something Phillip always found indescribably beautiful.

  Right there alongside water as smooth as a mirror, she’d broken both their hearts. How the relief that it was over had flooded through her, even as she’d wept at the bitter pain of it, even as Phillip had held her, despite her rejection. A gentleman to the last.

  If only a gentleman had been what she’d wanted.

  She slipped beneath the cool down of her comforter, the warmth of the night doing nothing to thaw the icy cold gripping her heart. The truth was, she still hated herself for it, no matter how necessary it might have been. It would never have worked between them, and despite the awful pain of crushing a man who deserved anything but, it was far better to close that door sooner rather than later, when the pain would have been infinitely worse.

  For both of them.

  She might never find what it was she needed—if it even existed. How could she? What she wanted... was wrong. It didn’t make sense. Yet it haunted her darkest dreams, her most fevered fantasies. A fascination with the cosmos, with what made up the world around her, wasn’t the only obsession Alisse Southwick harbored.

  “This is stupid,” she murmured, turning over, trying to ignore the rising heat between her thighs. How long had it been since she’d had an orgasm? The very fact that she had to ask that question illustrated just what a disaster her life had become.

  Just think about work. About the project.

  That might suffice for a short time, but it wouldn’t forever. Eventually, she would need to try again, attempt to put herself out there once more—before it was too late.

  But who could possibly give her what she needed? Maybe the fantasy could never be made real?

  Alisse dreaded the idea, but she knew inside that sometimes, life frustrated, confounded—and simply didn’t work out. Could she live the remainder of her years not fully living that part of life, that sexual journey that made the rest of it worth living?

  Perhaps she was doomed to being on the outside looking in, so close, yet so far?

  Her nipples brushed against the fabric of her blanket, the tips as hard as steel now despite her melancholy.

  She blew out a breath. “Are you serious? Horny? Now?”

  Reaching for her nightstand, she bit down on her lip, disgusted with herself, for the millionth time lamenting the utter lack of control over that one part of herself. She’d mastered everything else in life, so why did her desires and fantasies prove so stubbornly resistant to it?

  Because you can’t change what’s a part of you, idiot. Maybe it’s not you who’s supposed to master it?

  She opened the drawer and retrieved her e-reader. Perhaps just having a quick read would help. Maybe she’d even masturbate. Would an orgasm help banish the darkness, if only for a little while?

  “At least I won’t have to think about my train wreck sex life.”

  Swiping through the carousel on the reader, she found the latest obsession: a science fiction smut fest that had just the thing she kept coming back to over and over again.

  Alpha males who saw nothing wrong with bending their women to their will—no matter what it took...

  Commander Rill Faran strode through the dusty bazaar, the central market on Pseiti IV. It was one of his favorite haunts on the Graylan run, a three parsec nightmare of Colonial cruisers, hopelessly corrupt Gate control officers, and a veritable graveyard for freighter captains like him who thought they could slip one time too many past the ever watching eye of the brutal internal security agency, the CSS.

  “What about that one?” His ensign, Markov Corsun, normally a taciturn, icewater-in-the-veins pilot, always perked up when they made their regular refueling stop in the Pseiti system, the slave markets of Pseiti IV being some of the most popular—and infamous—in the entire galaxy. Though slavery was illegal—in theory—in the Colonies, the authorities, hopelessly addicted to the kickbacks from slavers and smugglers alike, turned a blind eye to most operations. It was only when a particular market became just a little too obvious that the CSS would step in—and an instructive lesson meted out.

  Keeping one’s head down was always a good idea when it came to CSS thuggery.

  Rill stopped along the line of cages stretching along one wall of the flesh market, a most popular section of the Pseiti IV bazaar.

  “The one with the dark hair?” Rill took a step closer, the filthy naked creature confined behind the steel bars peering up at them, her eyes wide with fright.

  “Yes, good plump sex on that one,” Markov said. “Should take the whip—and cock—well, I should think.”

  Rill grinned at his ensign. Markov rarely used profanity of any kind. The flesh pits of Pseiti IV brought something out within him, it seemed.

  The Commander nodded to the waiting attendant. “Let’s have that one out. I’d like a look at her.”

  In moments, she was standing between the three men, her petiteness emphasized by their comparative great height. Her luminescent eyes flicked from Markov then back to Rill, as if by keeping tabs on both, she could ensure her safety.

  Rill touched her cheek and she jerked away, snarling in the distinctive high-pitched gibberish he’d only heard once before.

  “Terran. I should have guessed.” Rill shook his head, even as his cock began to rise. He’d never actually seen a Terran in the flesh, and though significantly smaller than his species, the Terran females were indeed as beautiful as the rumors said. They were exceedingly rare, even in the teeming central bazaar that prided itself on having just the thing to match any appetite.

  “Price for her will go sky high as soon as she hits the block,” Markov growled, stroking the growth of thick black beard at his chin. “I don’t think most of the slime who crawl about here really understand what a Terran is.”

  “Or how valuable one of them can be to the right buyer,” the attendant said, inclining his head with a wink. “She was brought to us not two weeks ago.”

  Rill frowned. “You let her get this dirty in two weeks?”

  “She has had many... suitors in that time,” the attendant quickly added. “But no buyers, as yet.”

  Suitors.

  Commander Rill grunted. A Terran with ripe, heavy breasts like hers would draw more than her fair share of “suitors” indeed. He doubted the bazaar would allow one of the punters to lay with her, but he could imagine many hands had fondled and weighed those buoyant globes, assessed them for softness, pliability. Her deep brown nipples were standing up nicely, perhaps out of fright, but the keenness he saw in her gaze made him suspect that wasn’t all.

  Markov dropped to a knee, taking a fistful of her hair, and wrenching her head back, until she was forced to gaze up at the sky. She moaned just a little as his gloved hand investigated between her lush thighs, splaying the sex open, exposing the bright pink of her core. He smacked her plump, shaven mound once, then again, and she jerked each time, her bright white teeth gritting.

  “Why have you shaved her?” Markov asked. “I would have liked to have seen the pelt on this one. Should be nice and dark like her hair, I would think.”

  “Diseases, sir.” The attendant cleared his throat. “We find that depilation is effective against lice and the like.”

  “You could try washing her once in a while too,” Rill muttered, stroking the grime on her cheek with his thumb. “She looks like she’s bee
n rolling in muck.”

  “We bathe them once a month, sir, but it’s been... dusty, of late.”

  Markov rose to his feet, using his grip on her hair to spin her around until her back faced them. Her bottom shuddered with the pair of hard blows Markov’s palm laid down across each lush buttock, the SPLAT SPLAT sound echoing against the mud brick walls of the flesh market—

  “What the hell was that?” Alisse hissed, her breath coming hard as she extracted her fingers from between her legs. Dropping the reader to the mattress, she quickly rose to her feet.

  It had sounded like her front door had opened.

  Calm down. It’s probably the wind.

  She needed to close the window anyway. It was a good excuse to check things out.

  Her heart rate picked up pace as she made her way down the hallway. Suddenly afraid to flick on the light—and silently admonishing herself for acting like a frightened child—she took a deep breath and turned the corner into the living room.

  Nothing.

  The front door appeared to be closed, just as she’d left it. The white tile of the tiny foyer showed no strange footprints, no signs of forced entry.

  She looked down, shaking her head. “You... are an idiot.”

  “Why do you call yourself this?”

  Alisse screamed, clapping a hand to her mouth as she spun toward the voice. Her heart jumped into her throat as she beheld the man standing in her kitchen. He was the biggest man she’d ever seen; based on her eight foot ceilings, he had to be at least seven feet in height. The kitchen was still cloaked in deep shadow, the curtain at the window continuing to wave gently on the breeze.

  Then he turned on the lights, and she took a stumbling step backward. He wore a white, form-fitting tunic with a high collar, the cut-out at the base of his throat exposing the tendons of the neck, the hollows of his collar bones.

  The shoulders of the man seemed to go on forever, bespeaking immense strength—something the snug tunic did nothing to contradict. Heavily muscled, he appeared to be devoid of hair with the exception of thick, dark eyebrows. His eyes, slightly larger than one would have expected, were blessed with long lashes, a feature of strange—and not unappealing—softness that contrasted with the hard super masculine face. The strong brows and heavy, square jaw appeared hewn from granite, the eyes peering out at her like twin pools of blue flames. They didn’t quite glow, but seemed to gather and reflect every bit of available light. The tunic swept down, emphasizing the broad back, the narrowness of the hips. The clothing seemed to be one long garment, extending down the legs, ending just short of the tops of heavy shoes resembling stout boots the color of slate.