As always, Lorna, the Captain of the Guard, awoke with the new dawn. Just as the ridge of morning sun topped the horizon, Lorna's eyes sprung open. She stretched, arching her back, and mewled a yawn. She turned to the figure next to her in bed.
Slow, deep breathing, the heavy rise and fall of a breast. The Queen was still sleeping.
Lora slipped out of bed and not bothering to dress, made her way to the tent flap. Her nude body was statuesque, all sculpted muscles binding an athletic figure. She opened the flap to let in the morning light. The air was cool with moisture; Lorna could taste the dewy humidity in the back of her throat. The camp was quiet and still. The others had not yet stirred out of their sleep with the exception of a few dreary-eyed guards who knew better than to draw Lorna's attention.
She swept a hand through her long blonde hair and regarded the sun- a crimson wound, raw in the dawn sky. The red sun signaled an ominous portent of things to come. Blood would be spilled this day. The ground would drink its fill. Lorna nodded grimly at the thought and allowed a slight smile to stretch her lips.
Behind her eyes, she saw buckets of blood splashing red rivers into the thirsty dirt; in her mind, she heard the shrieking cries of the dying and the silent echo of the dead floating like choral notes on the air.
Lorna smiled because she knew the blood she saw was that of her enemies and not her own.
***
Karh Blade clenched his eyes shut as he thought about Zara- her smooth skin, her coppery-reddish swish of hair, her athletic but eloquently feminine build. The most vivid image in his mind, however, was her eyes. Her sparkling tiger eyes.
He imagined her eyes burning into his, her mouth opening to accept his passion, a look of ecstasy etched across her features. He imagined her legs wrapped around him, her slippery warmth inviting him between her smooth thighs, the feel of her nails digging into the meat of his hips.
As he imagined, the pace of his stroking hand increased, and the grip tightened. His breathing quickened; his heart raced. Her eyes, her eyes, her eyes. They were what brought an abrupt end to his mental fantasy as he succumbed to the pressure rising in his boiling testicles and let it overwhelm him.
A moment later, the swollen purple head of his member erupted with hot jets of ropy jism. He stood in the murky darkness of pre-dawn, surrounded by the mystery eggs of the field in which he and his fellow stranded fools hid. His cock in his hand and his pants around his ankles like some kind of horny kid. His thick man-juice splattered and kicked up grit as it hit the dirt, immediately absorbed upon impact to a kind of gooey mud. Karh milked his cock to the last dribble leaked across his knuckles.
He sighed as he pulled up his pants and buckled his belt. He wiped a smudge of splooge from his hand onto the leaf of a lush fern. Karh looked down at the splotch of runny dirt where his cum had splashed and wondered if he'd come back in a year that he'd find an egg growing there.
Silly thought. By tomorrow, this would all be ash.
He thought about Princess Sauria, the broken shell in her room, his assertion to Zara that the field was a birthplace and perhaps the explanation of how a race of warrior women could come to existence on a planet devoid of men. It all seemed so blasted insane.
This could have very well been the last orgasm he'd ever have. It should have been at the hands of some buxom space-wench and not his own. He sighed, wished Zara wasn't so stand-up, tight-assed and righteous and maybe a little more slutty. But then she wouldn't be Zara, and he wouldn't want her half as much.
He shrugged, sighed and spat, his saliva mixing with his spilt seed on the ground. As he walked back towards the sanctuary, the sun crested the horizon, and red-orange light washed over the landscape. The field of eggs, scattered like shelled teardrops, was illuminated before him.
Karh continued towards the sanctuary and kicked an egg hard, smashing it, flinging embryonic fluid across the field.
***
Zara was bent over a console, one hand clenching a fistful of auburn hair, the other arm under her, bicep brushing her breast, forearm against her stomach, the fingers of her hand teasing and rubbing hot pulsing pleasure from her clitoris, moving to slip in and out of the warmth of her vaginal lips.
In her mind's eye, it wasn't her finger slipping into her but Karh Blade.
Still bent over the console but Blade behind her, penetrating her gloriously slow and deep, moving in and out, hot and hard and GOOD, so good that it drove her mad with lust and need and want and yes, it was so good that she could feel the building rush of the wind, the door rumbling against its thundering weight, and then it flew open, the door flew open and the wind came rushing in and swept Zara up and up and UP and-
Her body shivered. Tears leaked from her eyes. She flew. And then, just as suddenly, the wind was gone, and gravity kicked in. The ground was back under her feet too soon and too hard and too real, and the fading waves of orgasm left her gasping and breathless. Zara bit her bottom lip and moved her arm from under her body. It felt numb and heavy like wood.
She could have let Karh have her, made her own imagination come to life and saved herself the dead weight of her pins-and-needles sleeping arm. But even if she were to die today, she had to maintain everything that she was. And Karh was a bounty. If she were to have him, it would be on her terms, no one else's. Not even fate's.
As Zara dressed, her mind felt alive, vividly conscious; every movement, every thought as she pulled on the dark blue trousers of her flight suit was specific and aware. Her own mortality hovered over her, like a ghost patiently waiting to be born by Zara's impending death.
***
"One charge here in the field to start," Karh said, his hands crossed over his chest.
Hunter Haux nodded and glanced over at Henrik. He looked drugged, heavy circles cut under his eyes, the eyes glazed and dull. He must not have slept well after she had knocked him out. Hunter remembered the sound of his skull connecting with the floor after she had kicked Henrik off of her. Hunter could hardly believe that everything that she had heard about the dino-women (their pheromones, their potential for the military) was all true, evidenced by Henrik and his reaction to Hunter's sexuality the previous night.
But why had Henrik reacted and not Karh Blade? Was it because Henrik had been with the Queen and Blade had not? Or was there something more to Blade?
"What's on your mind?" Zara asked, breaking Hunter's train of thought. Hunter came back to reality like an infant waking from a nap, mouth working but not forming words. A moment later, one found her.
"What?"
"Looked like you had something on your mind," Zara said. Hunter glanced around and saw the others looking at her, Henrik's eyes narrowed and sly. Hunter wondered what was on his mind, certainly not something complimentary. Karh seemed impatient, an anxious expression rolling on his face, working his jaw.
