He leaned over her. Listened.
She didn't stir. Her breaths came deep and slow.
A grim smile curled his lips. The princess was asleep.
Karh Blade crawled out of the bed and pulled on his pants. As much he'd like to stay and enjoy the embrace of the warm and curvaceous body beside him, he had other worlds to explore and exploit. Not only this, but people were waiting on him, the kind of people who did not like to be kept waiting. If he were to conveniently disappear, these people would come looking for him, and they would not be happy.
It was time for a bit of reconnaissance, time to start devising his plan to get out of this dump. Yes, despite the perk of a beautiful princess wanting to jump his bones, the place was still a dump. Karh comprised a mental list of priorities. First thing's first. He needed a weapon. A gleam caught his eye, something long and sharp. His eyes lingered on the object: Princess Sauria's hair pin.
***
Zara eyed the woman, Hunter Haux, with undisguised suspicion. Haux let her. She stood blankly, waiting for Zara to complete her visual assessment. There wasn't much to see. Through several rips in the fabric of Haux's faded Naval uniform, Zara could see stretches of pale, white skin. Her black boots were scuffed and dirty. A scabby scratch zigzagged along the side of her neck. Underneath the grime and dust, she might be a potentially beautiful woman, but at the moment, she looked like hell.
Zara decided to hear what the woman had to say. Her situation couldn't possibly get any worse (being jailed and waiting to be sacrificed to some prehistoric god pretty much topped the list of things that didn't appeal to her), so she might as well weigh her options. At least, Hunter Haux looked and sounded human.
"Ticket home?" Zara finally said. "You said I was your ticket home."
"I need a pilot. I've been waiting for, who can say how long?" Haux said. She ran a hand through her genetically-altered sea-blue hair.
"How'd you get here?"
"A group of us were being transferred, and we were ambushed. The craft went critical."
"And you end up here of all places," Zara finished. She allowed the rock in her fisted left hand to relax, just a bit. Haux didn't seem like a threat, and why would the Queen and her minions create a set-up this elaborate? Haux continued talking, and Zara listened.
"The rest of us were wiped out. The people, they're all women here. All blue-eyed, blonde."
"I noticed."
"And they are barbarians. The women from my ship were sacrificed to that thing they call Vanitoth. I got lucky, managed to find these secret tunnels and evade that fate. The men, meanwhile, were used and... eaten."
"Eaten?" Zara said, her mind flashing to Henrik being ushered away by guards.
"Whenever the Queen tires of her toys, she eats them," Haux said. Her words were like stones on Zara's heart, cold and heavy. Zara closed her eyes.
"Tell me about Vanitoth," she said.
***
The creature called Vanitoth moved through the jungles, searching for prey. Black eyes glared at a large, metal gate. The gate was closed, but when it opened, Vanitoth would feast. At the thought, its mouth watered, buckets of saliva leaking from its mouth and dripping to the jungle floor. It lived for the hunt and the taste of fresh blood.
Lips peeled back over teeth like ivory swords stained pink.
It sniffed, huffed, moved on. It would come back later and check the gate again. Until then, Vanitoth would have to find a snack, something to ease the rumbling in its stomach. The earth shuddered under its feet.
Vanitoth hungered. But for not much longer. Somehow, it knew. Soon. Very soon.
***
Karh shoved the hair pin hard into the soft flesh of the guard's neck. It sunk in easily, like a knife through warm cake. A spray of arterial blood gushed from the wound, painted the wall in vivid red splashes. The guard gurgled her last, unheard words. Karh helped the body slump to the floor.
"Like riding a bike," Karh said. Some skills, once learned, were never forgotten. He wiped the thin blade of the hair pin clean on the fabric of the guard's uniform and slid it into the back of his pants. He pulled the guard's spear out of her dead grip and tested its weight in his capable hands. Karh nodded, satisfied.
He moved down the hall, keeping to the shadows.
***
"So your tunnels, they'll will lead us out of here?" Zara asked. Hunter Haux squatted next to her, her one eye gleaming, and rubbed her chin. Zara recognized the tactic. Stalling. A heavy pause prefaced Haux's answer.
"The exits are all heavily guarded. We wouldn't stand a chance even if we managed to confiscate some weaponry. There is, however, an alternative," Haux said.
Another dramatic pause, and then she continued, "There's a gate. No guards. It's our best chance."
"I can tell by the tone of your voice there's a catch," Zara said. Haux licked her lips, as if the added lubrication would make the words come easier.
"It's the gate where Vanitoth enters from the jungle to accept its sacrifice."
"STARFUCK!" Zara cried and threw her hands in the air.
***
She was a tall woman with her long, blonde hair pulled back into a stern ponytail. Her robe was tied tight around her waist and was shorter than most of the others Karh remembered seeing in the throne room. Some kind of jeweled dagger was strapped in a leather belt, and she walked with an air of authority, the kind of person who knew where the exits were and could get to them unheeded.
The end of the spear thrust from the shadowy corner behind a hanging tapestry and bit the soft flesh of the woman's neck just under her jaw. She went all tense and wide-eyed, spine jerked straight.
He took a step out of the darkness. The flickering orange glow from a mounted torch illuminated Karh Blade's dangerous expression, bared teeth and blazing eyes. He knew it was a dramatic approach, but he needed his quarry intimidated. He didn't have time for negotiations. The others would find the body outside the princess' bedroom at any moment.
"The man from the sky," the woman said as if she expected no less, in a way that seemed as though the thought of him left a bad taste in her mouth. Karh pressed the head of the spear ever so subtly deeper into the woman's neck.
A teardrop of blood leaked from the wound, but the woman didn't flinch. Karh tried not to be impressed.
"You're going to show me the way out," Karh Blade whispered. "Keep in mind this is in no way a request. You will show me the way, or it ends for you. Right here, right now."
The woman paused, and then she flung her arm up and snapped the spear in half with a chop. Karh didn't waste time being surprised; he brought the broken shard of wood in his head over the woman's head like a baton. She grunted, staggered back, and somehow flipped her end of the spear in one hand and threw it at Karh. He ducked to the side, the spear whistling past his face and taking a thin shred of his cheek with it into the wall. Now Karh was impressed.
Her fist caught him in the stomach, and Karh Blade felt the air whoosh out of lungs with an airy gust. Her leg came up in a swift kick; he caught it, twisted, and threw her back. She snarled at him from the floor and went for her dagger. She hesitated, confused. Her hand gripped air. The dagger was not in her belt.
"Looking for this?" Karh gasped and held it up with a lopsided smile. "Now maybe you're ready to be helpful, no?"
***
Henrik's bonds had been released, but he had no desire to escape. Instead, he used his freedom to enter the Queen from behind. Her tail slung over his shoulder like a strap, her scales smooth and cool under his fingers, Henrik gripped her supple buttocks and thrust in and out as if possessed. He hadn't been this horny since his teens.
Sure, she had a tail and scales, but she was beautiful even by human standards. Her shimmering blonde locks, her lean body, rippling muscles, lusty sighs, they captivated Henrik on levels no other woman had. He grunted, his teeth grinding, and he felt the eruption loom, pressure building and rising, and then exploding up and out of his shaft and into the Queen with liquid spurts.
"Yes, oh yes," he breathed. The world swirled around him dizzily for a moment before coming to a slow, woozy stop. Henrik blinked. Everything seemed so unreal. He could hardly believe he was here, his cock shrinking out of this lizard-woman's pink insides. He stared at his glistening, smeared manhood as if he had never seen it before, as if it belonged to a stranger.
"You belong to me now," the Queen said, turning towards him.
"Yes," Henrik managed.
"You forsake your friends."
"Yes."
"And you are my slave."
"YES!" Henrik cried and fell to his knees. "Please, my Queen, let me pleasure you."
He hardly knew what he was saying or what he was doing, but he meant it. Henrik was willing to throw away his old life for a lifetime of evenings like this one. The Queen's tongue flicked out of her lips for a moment. She watched him with her snake-like eyes and finally gave a short, meaningful nod.
"I have business to attend to. My handmaidens will satisfy your needs while I am gone," she said and treaded away, disappearing into the murky shadows.
Henrik's chest ached upon the realization that she was gone. It was if she had taken a part of him with her, and he was simultaneously frightened and excited by the thought of this. Then the feeling left as the Queen's handmaidens entered.
