"I'm supposed to kill you, you know."
Rille looked up at this statement, seeing as how it did not belong in the current circumstances. "Oh really?" she rolled her eyes, still too weak to leave the bathroom, the shower, even the wall. "Why haven't you?"
Her prisoner shrugged, lifting both massive shoulders briefly before dropping them again, his arms folding against his chest. "We made a deal," he said simply.
Matching his stance, the human glared at him. "And you expect me to believe that you'll honor our arrangement despite orders from your superiors?" She spat this last word.
Kaesso suspected she had an issue with authority figures. Interesting. Outwardly, he leaned toward her until their faces were a handspan apart. "I am many things, woman," he hissed. "But a liar is not, and will never be, one of them." He straightened once more, rolling his shoulders, resisting the urge to force her into submission with his body. "My integrity will not be compromised."
Her head turned up and away in disdain. "Integrity, shmintegrity," she growled. "I'm going to need better reassurance than that, or else I'll shackle you to the bed, turian."
A predatory smile slid onto his face. "I think I'd prefer option 2," Kaesso purred. He stooped toward her once more, framing her face with his arms, palms flat against the wall. One knee slipped between her legs, rubbing up the length of her thigh. "Please."
She pushed his leg away with a scowl. "Not now, slave," Rille scolded in annoyance. "I'm starving, and I have to see if we have anything on board that you can eat."
Before he could react beyond a confused cock of the head, the human dipped under his arm and padded out of the shower, wrapping herself in a mangy looking rectangle of fabric. His neck tilted in the other direction, confusion increasing.
"Stay," she called out over her shoulder, leaving her discarded clothing behind her, and left without a backward glance.
All in all, it was a very disorienting exchange.
How could she have resisted his advances this time? And all because she was hungry?
If that was the case, he must be losing his touch.
#
When she returned, dressed in a long white shirt that fell off her shoulders and an obsidian corset, Rille hoped she had her head on straight again. It had been cowardly of her, but she'd fled the shower like she was losing a battle. True, she hadn't eaten all day, but mostly she just needed to clear her mind.
If the turian was supposed to kill her, he could do so at any moment. He was stronger, had more natural weapons, and had likely been trained to dispatch his enemies. She wouldn't stand a chance, especially if she spent any more time naked around him.
This needed to be addressed, or she'd be forced to take drastic measures—beyond bedroom bondage threats.
Rille took a breath, as deep as her clothing would allow, then palmed the lock pad to open the bathroom door.
Her newest acquisition was waiting half a meter away.
Immediately he stepped out into the cargo bay-turned-bedroom, sighing dramatically. "I thought I'd die in there," he complained.
Matching his sigh, the human rolled her eyes and stepped back to the tarp-covered bedframe. She pulled it off, revealing harsh metal columns and a mattress that squeaked with just the right—or wrong—tempo. This she settled onto, placing one lukewarm box on the old dresser located at the bed's foot, tilted slightly away from the only other piece of furniture in the room. "Here," Rille grunted at the alien, pointing at the proffer she'd arranged for him.
Without waiting for him, she dug into her own cooling food, eager to fill her mouth while her mind struggled to find the words necessary for the impending bargaining session.
Kaesso sat heavily on the mattress, shifting it against the metal frame, and picked up the square his captor had provided. He sniffed at it, uncertain she was above poisoning him, especially given his blundering reveal as to his ultimate mission here. Dumbass, he chided himself.
But when his stomach grumbled and he could smell nothing malodorous, the man threw caution to the winds: spirits take him if it was his time to die.
They ate in silence for several minutes, each unwilling to break the uneasy truce with any form of movement, verbal or otherwise.
Rille finished first, her stomach being much smaller than the turian's two. Rolling a leftover bit of rice around the plate, she mulled over how to begin. Perhaps a soft approach, she decided.
"That was the only dextro-protein food I could find. Not even sure where we picked it up."
He froze, mouth half open with a noodle-looking thing hanging out. Their eyes met and his seemed to harden as they watched each other. "Likely a cargo ship you raided, no doubt." His voice was as icy as the steel that covered the exterior of their ship, like it had been plunged into deep space.
Eyes widening, the woman couldn't rationalize his cold response. Gone was any hint of the warm, even sensual, banter they had shared not an hour ago. Even his apathetic death threat had sounded more arousing than this. Rille cocked her head, a question on the tip of her tongue.
But Kaesso continued when he saw her impending reply. "But then you didn't just raid it, did you?" Whatever delirious sexual pleasure she'd given him, and he to her, the military agent in him would not be quieted this time. While she had left him alone in that tiny washroom, he'd rebuilt his mental walls, reminding himself what he'd read in the briefing report, why exactly he was here, who she was, and why she was not to be trusted. "No, no, that wouldn't be enough. No, you revolting fucking spawn—humans—see fit to eradicate anyone who strays too close, those with less strength, the most vulnerable travelers who just happen to be passing by. You don't just steal from them; you erase them." By the end of this rant, he was seething. He was well and truly, frothingly, furious.
She didn't even react, aside from the almost imperceptible widening of her eyes.
And the smallest uptick of her lips.
Oh, she is good, he fumed. She was so without morals that the description of useless slaughter made her smile. She fucking smiled.
"I don't know what you're going on about," Rille claimed.
The turian dropped his food box and lunged at her.
He stopped short when he felt the prick of a knife on his carapace.
"I wouldn't," she breathed.
The red fading from his periphery, Kaesso took a good look at the woman who held him an inch from mortal injury. Above unwavering green eyes, her black locks tumbled up and over her head, all pulled to one side of her face and reaching down the edge of her clothing. Tensed muscles glowered at him, evident in her neck and down her arm, all the way to the fingers which grasped her weapon.
They both knew he could overpower her.
But could he do it before she impaled him?
Neither of them knew the answer to this question.
Instead of putting it to the test, the man lifted his hands in surrender and leaned away once more.
His hands remained in the air when he asked, "So what now?"
Rille watched him steadily, weighing her answer. She gave her ruling slowly, carefully, "Either you believe me when I say that my crew and I have shed no innocent blood, of any species, or I'll concoct some other methods of torture before killing you. Your choice."
Eyes narrowing, he pondered this. "Why should I believe you?"
"Why should I believe you won't kill me, regardless of what you believe, because of your orders?"
It was a fair question. One he'd been able to answer while he'd been abandoned in the bathroom. "As long as no more ships disappear in the sector we're concerned about, I'll let you live. It'll be as though you were dead, at least as far as my superiors are concerned."
"Done," the woman agreed. "But we aren't destroying ships as it is. Or killing anyone, for that matter."
Kaesso examined his adversary's expression, but he could detect no signs of deception. And he had a decent amount of experience, considering nearly all of the humans with whom he had interacted had been trying to deceive him.
"How did you know I was on that charter?"
She scrunched her nose up, a teasing expression on her face. "Love, I had no idea you were on that ship until you came bursting out of a supply closet with your dick hanging out of your trousers."
The turian was surprised. "You didn't?"
"No," she scoffed. "I didn't even know who you were. Still don't, really," Rille said to herself. Having lowered her dagger, she placed a contemplative finger to her chin.
"My name is—"
"I know what your name is," she rounded on him. "Really. I am an intelligent woman with a working memory, thank you very much. But beyond what you're called, I don't know anything about you." Then the human smiled, a wide, toothy grin that made him want to squirm. "Except for that fact that you're the best fucker I've met."
Kaesso felt his lower plates shift at the unexpected praise, overcoming his waning anger, and he shifted toward the woman. "We aim to please," he purred. "Did you have another experiment in mind?"
Now she leaned toward him, planting one hand between his legs and placing a finger beneath his chin. "How do you feel about a little, 'exercise'?"
One of his brow plates raised in response. "We just ate," he rumbled and she felt the vibration of his body against the pad of her finger. "Sure you don't want to let your weak body digest for a little while first?"
"Oh I never said anything about me doing exercise," Rille clarified, her eyes wide and innocuous. Trailing her finger across his chin, the human traced up the edge of one long cheek plate, his internal vibration heightening the closer she got to his neck, lessening as she moved back toward his mouth. "You, on the other hand, will definitely need to work up a sweat. Think you can handle that?" She tweaked the pointed edge, her eyes flashing hotly.
Primly Kaesso removed his head from her reach. "If you've finished accosting my mandible, then yes, I think I can," he answered gruffly as he stood.
From her seated position on the bed, his height was exhilarating. Rille felt her skin begin to flush, despite the layers of clothes that remained over her body. "Excellent," she breathed. Then, "'Mandible', eh? I find I'm rather fond of that part of your face."
Both mandibles flared at the flattery, the turian's dark eyes deepening. "Anything particular you had in mind?" His voice was as husky as her horny dreamings could imagine. Before she could answer, Kaesso was reaching those razor-sharp talons toward her, looking like he wanted to raze her body to the ground.
That thought spurred her mind once more, and Rille slapped his hand away. "I don't need help undressing myself, thank you very much."
"Perhaps," he allowed, talons flexing in mid-air. "But I could certainly achieve the desired effect more quickly than you are."
Scornfully she rolled her eyes. "And who says I want to be naked?"
The man smiled so wide she could see his teeth, glinting malevolently at her, inviting her to dine with him, on him. "Are you telling me you don't want to be?"
Still on the bed, leaning back on her palms, Rille hated to admit that he was right.
Even if he was.
But that didn't mean she had to concede to his terms or methods.
Instead, she dropped purposefully onto her back, holding the turian's gaze, and bent one leg until she could reach the heel of her boot. She pulled this off slowly, revealing the skin just above her knee down to her toes, one inch at a time, before tossing the loose shoe behind her head onto the ground. Then she repeated this motion with the other leg, knowing he could see all the way to where her panties should be.
Based on the greedy look in his eyes, he liked what he saw.
Kaesso took a step toward her but she stopped him with her bare feet, both planted firmly against his muscled shoulders. His mouth opened to retort but she held up a finger for silence.
He glared at her.
She grinned.
Then tut-tutted, wagging her finger at her prisoner. "Now, now, there are some items of business we must discuss first. After all, it would be all too easy for you to kill me, unarmed though you are, while I'm in such a vulnerable position."
Clenching his jaw and tightening his fists, the turian bristled at this. "If I wanted to kill you that badly, I would have done so in the shower."
"'That badly'? So you do want to kill me? But you also don't want to? Why is that, I wonder," Rille goaded, brushing the ball of her foot against his chest. She could feel him rumbling at her, though she could not hear it.
His eyes narrowed. "Are you trying to bargain with me again? If you don't trust me, nothing I say will matter anyway."
"You're right," she agreed easily, nodding her head slowly as though she were contemplating her next sentence. Really she was simply enjoying his discomfort: something about exuding such control over a man was positively erotic. "But what I say will matter. Know this: if you even attempt to kill me," Rille whispered, bending at the waist, feeling her hamstrings tighten, "regardless of your success or not, you will die on this ship." The threat hung in the space between them, both pairs of eyes like lasers. "So, choose your actions very carefully, as they may be your last."
The naked man glowered from his greater height, weighing his options and his words.
Then he bent toward the woman, stopping when he was close enough to feel the very warmth of her warning, the fervor flowing out of her skin and into the air. "If you're quite finished," Kaesso hissed, "allow me to fuck you like a varren in heat."
He watched the flare of her green eyes, like she knew he'd insulted her but didn't have the context necessary to understand the offence. But then she grinned once more, displaying the blunt edges of her white teeth, and he knew he'd miscalculated once again.
Kicked backwards, Kaesso stumbled several steps away from the bed and the woman. Rille reached behind her back and he flinched, mentally kicking himself for not ensuring she carried no weapons.
Except her arm did not immediately reappear, with or without a firearm.
Before he could vocalize any sort of confusion, the black leather pressing rigidly against her torso slowly loosened until it dropped to the floor, freeing the loose white shirt beneath it. Then she was gripping another piece of cleaned rawhide beneath the snowy hem that now hung below her hips, undoing the clasp of her skirt until this too had fallen to the floor.
The human's shoulders were bare, the shirt too wide for her body, held in place purely because she had placed her hands on her hips. Kaesso was entranced by her skin: there was so much of it, and all of it could be marked. Permanently.
His eyes were drawn to the mark she already bore, the eight circles clearly visible above the top hem of her flowing shirt. He wanted to see this more clearly. Timidly he took a step toward her.
Rille's mouth tipped up on one end, and he could hear her heart beating faster than before, though still not as fast as his own. He took another step, and then reached toward her, rubbing the soft side of his thumb against the bone hovering over the inky shapes. There was something familiar about it, some explanation just beyond his grasp.
She let him touch her, as he pondered the hidden meaning etched into her skin.
First was a tiny circle, with no identifying marks or indications.
The next was marginally larger, detailed with a few extra lines like a comet was flying across its surface.
The third was again slightly bigger, the edges of three other shapes outlined within the edges of this circle.
Fourth came a shape the same size as the second, with what seemed to be four corners marked off, as if a sphere could have corners.
The next was at least double the size of the previous ones, several lines flowing across the ball, as though it were striped like a Tuchankan lileec.
A large ring running diagonally cut the sixth circle into thirds, the insides of both the ring and the circle bare, slightly smaller than the previous iteration.
Second to last also had a ring, this one slicing the sphere in half vertically, once more reduced in size than its predecessor.
And last was a circle about the size of the third, with a few rounded bars cutting short distances across the insides of the sphere.
It was so simple, yet somehow beautiful.
"What is this?" the turian asked, awestruck.
Rille shrugged, her smile having softened into an expression without contempt. "It's home," she responded, gingerly placing her hand over his, brushing her finger across the skin like a well-loved charm. "The Sol system."
Nodding reverently, Kaesso realized this woman may be a lawless pirate, but she was also a living thing with hopes and dreams and disappointments and setbacks. So, while he may not feel smug about being captured by a clearly inferior race, he would at least demonstrate the respect she deserved.
He lifted his hand from her chest, her own following suit, and stepped away from her, awaiting further instruction.
When her arm fell to her side once more, the thin fabric that had hidden her body from view succumbed to gravity and gave up the ghost.
She was just as mesmerizing as he remembered.