Chapter 1: Hour Before Dawn
He watched as the Lasat brought a hand to his head, swaying sharply as though he suddenly felt a terrible headache.
"Master? Are you OK?"
He saw the clone trooper behind Master Tapal raise his gun before there were suddenly several slashes and the soldier collapsed, diced up by a double-bladed lightsaber.
Master Tapal ignored his peppered questions.
"Padawan, something terrible is happening…. The clones have betrayed us… There are no answers to your questions – not yet. We need to get off this ship – quickly! Get to the escape pods! Use the maintenance halls! We trained for this: do you remember?"
"Yes, Master."
Later, he would curse himself for being so confident. Blame himself as he moved to slowly to stop the troopers from gunning his Master down. Force Stasis was all that had saved them and aided their escape, but by then, it had been too late for his mentor….
His Master's last words echoed back to him:
"Trust…. only…. in the Force!"
Cal Kestis jerked awake in the sleep bunk he shared with Merrin, aboard the Stinger Mantis. From the way the darkness was ever so subtly beginning to shift from that dark navy hue towards gray, he estimated Tanalorr was in that sweet spot of an hour or so before dawn.
Spooning his partner and lover, the Jedi Knight settled his head back into the pillow and tried to drift off again. Fall back. But sleep eluded him. Next to him, in his arms, he felt Merrin stir prettily, murmuring something in her slumber and she snuggled closer. Her curved and tempting bum brushed against his pelvis, encouraging his length to stiffen with arousal under his sleep pants. Kriff.
Using it more as a means of distraction from the temptation currently at rest in his arms, the lust threatening to consume him, Cal reached out tentatively through the Force, scanning the ship and then the planet itself. Greez was asleep in the pilot's chair. Kata – her signature was dormant in that sign that she too was out like a light. BD-1 and Zee – powered down.
He expanded his reach, making a sweep of the entire planet. He could feel the life humming here, smaller life forms mostly, but no new presences that would suggest intruders. This was still Tanalorr, population…. 6.
"Cal?"
Merrin's murmur was soft, bleary, as she shifted against him. Cal suppressed a curse and tightened his grip at her waist.
"I didn't mean to wake you…." he mumbled, half into her hair, half into the pillow.
"I am awake now. It matters not," she crooned, trying to twist in his embrace so she could glance back over her shoulder at him. Her nose nuzzled his cheek. "What is it?"
Cal sighed. "I was just dreaming about Master Tapal again."
Merrin nodded, her eyes contemplative and gentle. "What did you see?"
Cal blinked back the hot tears of bitterness that still, more than a decade on, managed to appear whenever he thought of his Master. "Just the Troopers gunning him down, over and over again. And I couldn't open the doors to the escape pod fast enough!" He squeezed his eyes shut tight, refusing to let even one bit of moisture slip out.
When he opened them, blinking through the thin film of dampness, Merrin was studying him with naked sympathy. Twisting, almost over-extending, she leaned in and kissed him, her lips feather-light.
The kiss quickly deepened, and Cal's lips parted for hers and his tongue pushed through to grapple with hers in a kind of pattern dance. Merrin squirmed around so that her chest was now pressed into his, her arms looping about him.
Overcome with desire, he shifted and pressed her down into the mattress of the sleep bunk they had taken to sharing, largely by unspoken agreement ever since their arrival here. He heard, felt Merrin gasp with astonishment into his lips as Cal scissored out his legs and moved to mount her, the last witch of Dathomir.
His mouth moved on to pepper her gray skin with kisses, and he felt Merrin writhe under him, pleasure and practicality dueling across her aura. He could sense the conflict.
"Ka…. Kata…." Merrin's moan was piteous.
"….. sleeps like the dead," Cal finished in a murmur against her skin. Keeping one palm in a firm grip along her hip, he brought the other up to cup the swell of her breast. Merrin's breathy sighs turned into pants, gasps, and Cal grunted as he felt this beautiful woman lift her torso up to meet his. She bucked against his length, craving friction.
Merrin's fingers now dug into the fabric of Cal's sleep shirt, helping him to tug it over his head and off, casting it aside so that the garment pooled over the side of the bunk, landing with a rustle upon the floor. Her nails clutched at the skin of his shoulder blades. Cal tugged down Merrin's sleep shirt to reveal how she was wearing no bra underneath. The graying light filtering in through the porthole glistened on her equally gray breasts, the nipples hardened and peaked with arousal. Dipping his head, he kissed her nipple, then drew the taut bud into his mouth and sucked. Merrin mewled with pleasure.
He could recall with perfect clarity the first time they had made love in this very bunch. He had been the one to seduce her then, too, even though he hadn't known what he was doing. Merrin had been a little taken aback by the physical progression of their relationship, no doubt because his advances had been so clumsy, indicative of his inexperience. Yet his partner had been amused by it too, and once she was certain that Kata was safely ensconced in the next room, had gone to bed with him. Merrin had been then, and was still, a patient lover, guiding his hands and teaching him what she liked. She had only been with female partners before him, so the thought of a man touching her, bedding her, could very well have frightened her. But she had been giving and gentle.
Cal touched her now, squeezing her breast in his fist so that she gave a breathless sigh as her own hands tremblingly reached to clasp his length. Undo his sleep trousers to free his cock. With his hand at her hip, Cal eased down her own shorts. He could feel himself throbbing.
Lining up their entrances, kissing her deeply, he mated with her.
The bedsprings creaked and squawked with protest as Cal began to thrust into his paramour. Merrin's cries began to rise in volume and pitch and he kissed her harder to swallow the sounds until they turned into pleasured whimpers.
"Hmmmm….. Mmmmmm…. Uhhhhhh…. Ughhhh…. Huhhh… C-Cal Kestis…." She sounded in awe.
Cal chuckled into the hollow of her throat, rutting against her faster. Merrin furiously rocked her hips back. She often needed to be persuaded to have sex, especially in the early morning when they both had to be conscientious not to wake the whole Mantis, but once seduced, she made love to him most ardently.
He was close; he could feel it. Usually in situations like this, he pulled out more often than not to ejaculate safely on her belly – regulation of birth control under the Empire was draconian, and there wasn't exactly any available on this remote rock.
So he was surprised when Merrin clamped her thighs around him. Her lips fused to his, she murmured around his probing tongue:
"Release yourself into me, Cal Kestis. Place a youngling inside my belly."
Cal choked out a breath of shocked laughter. When he heard the word 'youngling,' he still thought about the little tykes he would see practicing with training lightsabers in the Atrium. He hadn't been that much beyond a youngling himself, when Order 66 had been issued.
An image, bathed in amber, of his Merrin, her belly round and pregnant, dropped into his head and the thought was so exhilaratingly glorious that he sped up the jerk of his hips.
"Who do you belong to, witch?" he growled.
"You…." she breathed, her voice accented and sexy.
"Are you my mate?!"
"YES!" And Merrin threw her head back with a happy, soft scream. She almost wailed out her pleasure.
"Say it!" Something – it wasn't quite the dark side, but it was powerful – thrummed through him and he let it envelop him, murmuring with pleasure.
"I'm your kriffing mate!" Merrin snarled through gritted teeth, her eyes wild.
Cal howled and he came deep within her. Merrin's powerful thighs, her fluttering walls, trapped him and milked him.
Cal's head drooped into the valley of her breasts, which were now glistening with sweat. He kissed each one, causing his lover to let out an aroused hiss. He rolled off her, watching as Merrin swung and rose out of the bunk. Her dignity, especially after being so dominated, so thoroughly shagged, astounded him.
The last Witch of Dathomir hiked her sleep shirt back up over her breasts with calm grace. Only because he knew her so well could he hear the breathlessness in her voice.
"Shall I go see if Kata is awake?"
He nodded dumbly, his throat dry as he watched Merrin walk to the durasteel door that sealed off their room, her hips swaying temptingly. Turning absently at the threshold, noticing him staring at her, she gave a small, quirky upturn of her kiss-swollen lips before gliding out of their chambers.
Cal flopped back onto the bunk, feeling his length softening in the cool, early morning air. Cleansing himself with the Force, he rose and redressed, moving to follow his lover and check on their charge.