Authors: Julia Sexton
Chapter 3
It was amazing how quickly someone could get accustomed to being nude when it was the only option. Garon had no spare clothing to offer Melody aside from a bathrobe, and given the height difference, the robe was a safety hazard, and so she remained naked.
After the first two days, she didn’t even bother using the blanket to hide herself. It just seemed pointless, since Garon was remarkably good at ignoring the fact that she wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.
She didn’t feel like she was in danger, and that was a relief, but at the same time, she didn’t feel safe and she didn’t feel like she could relax.
In just about every conversation they had—well, conversation was perhaps a generous term, as most of their exchanges were only a few sentences long—it seemed as if Garon was hiding something from her.
The feeling nagged at the back of Melody’s thoughts and rankled her, but she was hesitant to actually bring it up. Garon was a warrior, after all.
What would happen if his patience ran out?
Instead, she stuck with fairly innocuous topics.
“Why do you always change your feet and tail when you come and go?” she asked from the couch as she watched Garon step into the apartment.
There was a moment of silence as Garon underwent the changes in question, his hooves and tail spike swiftly being replaced with feet and a fin. Once that was done, he replied.
“Because in public,” he began, “I am expected to be imposing. I am a warrior. In private, however, hooves and spikes can be inconvenient.”
Melody quirked one eyebrow.
“So why didn’t you just choose a more convenient form?”
“I was not born with the knowledge that I would be a warrior,” he pointed out.
“When I chose this form, I was not aware it would become iconic.” He shrugged.
“It is no matter. Changing my shape is a simple matter, and my hooves and tail have their own uses.”
Melody hummed in acknowledgement.
“Fair point,” she replied.
“What does that sort of fame involve, anyway?”
“A bizarre amount of adulation, a distinct lack of privacy, and a lot of children telling me I am their hero,” he replied flatly.
“Ah, the life of a celebrity,” Melody sighed, her tone ripe with wry sarcasm.
Garon rolled his eyes and strolled past her.
Irritating him was surprisingly entertaining. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been, given the circumstances, but Melody got pleasure out of few things anymore. If getting a rise out of Garon was one of them, she wouldn’t argue.
“How does someone become a warrior, anyway?” Melody wondered one day.
“And what does a warrior do all day?”
It seemed a pertinent question, since Garon was generally gone all day, leaving Melody alone with her thoughts and a television that only spoke in a language she couldn’t understand.
“Thinking of becoming one?” he returned flatly.
“Of course not,” Melody scoffed.
“But you’re gone so much, I figure you
must
be off doing something important.”
She was a little resentful. On the one hand, if she was alone, then she was entirely, unambiguously safe. On the other hand, she was also incredibly lonely without anyone around to talk to, and she was bored out of her skull with nothing to do. It was quite a conundrum.
He sighed slowly.
“Becoming a warrior was mostly a matter of killing a lot of incredibly hostile creatures. I was part of a scouting party to investigate how habitable a recently discovered planet was. There were eight of us, and after everything we ran into, I was the only one to even make it off of the planet. I have proven myself in many such excursions since then, as well.”
Melody blinked at him. She wasn’t sure if she hadn’t been expecting a real answer, or if she simply hadn’t been expecting that answer.
She cleared her throat and sat up straighter on the couch.
“What about a great mind, then?” she asked, because she may as well see the conversation through.
“How does someone become one of those?”
“By determining if the planet itself is habitable, rather than dealing with the locals or the fauna,” Garon explained.
“The great minds are the ones who examine the viruses, bacteria, air quality, or atmosphere. They determine whether or not the planet itself will kill us.”
“Have any of you ever been to Earth?” Melody asked, tone growing slightly warier.
Garon nodded once.
“Yes. We have one there now, though we have lost touch with him recently. From what we have gathered, though, Earth shows promise.”
Melody’s eyebrows rose suddenly.
“And what happens if the planets you decide to examine are already inhabited? What happens to ‘the locals?”
Garon rolled his eyes.
“Please try not to be so melodramatic,” he said flatly.
“It is not a hostile takeover. We change our forms and blend in with the dominant species. Most people do not even realize we are there. Earth shows promise, and it is safe.”
“Just not the actual Earthlings,” she remarked.
“Capturing you was not my idea,” he pointed out, “and I would put a stop to such practices if it was within my power.”
“But you’re some worshipped hero!” Melody burst out.
“Can’t you do
something
to change things?”
“I am a warrior, not a deity,” he snapped, “and I am not the deciding voice. You saw how many women were there. They do not capture so many as a precaution; they capture so many because they do that much business. I am in the minority, when it comes to how I feel on the matter.”
Melody fell into a sulk, and Garon skulked out of the room in exasperation. Maybe it was irrational, expecting him to overhaul the entire system. A bit like expecting a single movie star to rule the world.
Still, Melody found it unpleasant to be so bluntly confronted with that knowledge.
“So why me?” Melody asked, and she sounded much less pouty than the words would suggest.
“Why any of us? Why not members of your own species?”
Garon shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck.
“It is seen as…exotic,” he answered haltingly.
“To us, appearance means nothing. We can all look like anything and so unusual appearances carry no excitement.” He sighed quietly.
“To many, they instead find excitement in having intercourse with those who are of a different species.”
Melody pondered that information for a short while. She supposed it made a certain amount of sense, albeit in a rather creepy fashion.
“What do you think about it?” she asked after a moment.
Garon huffed out a breath through his nose, in a manner a bit like an irritated horse.
“I find it distasteful. It is shameful, and it is dreadfully cruel to those who get captured.” He crossed his arm.
“It is a pity that it is such a widespread preference. I know there are groups hoping to change things, but change comes slowly, and the majority tends to disagree with such changes.”
He looked and sounded genuinely sad as he spoke, and Melody’s expression softened slightly.
“Well, slow change is better than no change,” she replied.
“And things managed to change pretty quickly for me.”
‘I owe that to you’ was left unsaid, but Garon seemed to catch her meaning.
Chapter 4
She cut herself in the kitchen, one afternoon. She wasn’t particularly surprised about it.
She was walking around naked, after all. Something was bound to happen. Still, it was unpleasant, as most injuries were.
Garon walked into the apartment as Melody was trying to find a first aid kit of some sort, and he seemed surprisingly alarmed as he asked, “What happened?”
“Naked cooking sounds like a better idea than it is,” Melody replied.
“I was trying to find a first aid kit.”
Thus prompted, Garon pulled the first aid kit down from the cabinet it was tucked away in, and he set about taking care of the slice on her arm. He was astoundingly gentle, as if she might fall apart beneath his touch.
As if she was something to cherish and preserve. Melody hadn’t felt like she was anything to cherish since she had been captured.
She didn’t mention it as he cleaned and bandaged her arm. She didn’t bring it up once he was finished.
Not at that point, at least. But it made her think. It gave her something to ponder and contemplate and gnaw at when she was in the apartment alone.
Melody watched Garon intently as he went about his business in the apartment, her chin propped up in one hand, her elbow on the arm of the couch.
She had to have been watching him for at least ten minutes before, at last, Garon let out a somewhat explosive sigh and asked, “
What
?”
“Just thinking,” Melody replied.
Garon pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “Thinking about what?” he asked.
“Clearly, you want to say something, so say it.”
Melody thought it over for a minute, and then she shrugged. She may as well. He had proven that he wasn’t going to hurt her.
“Why do you always seem like you’re hiding something from me?” she wondered, doing her best to keep her tone neutral.
She didn’t want to sound accusing. She didn’t want to sound like she thought it was a scandal. She didn’t want to sound
too
intrigued. She was just…curious.
For a moment, Garon looked unsure, and just that took Melody off guard.
He was silent at first, for long enough that Melody began to think he wouldn’t answer. Just as she was losing hope, he spoke, his words slow and careful.
“Among my people, mates are destined. One soul touches another, and we know. “He fell silent again, as if he didn’t know how to properly explain it.
“From the moment I saw you, I knew you were to be my mate. I felt your soul touch mine, and once I heard you speak, that just confirmed it.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
“I know humans do not experience such things, and I did not want to make you do something you did not wish to do. So I kept it to myself.”
Melody stared at him with wide, startled eyes. She was going to just spit out some sort of platitude, some sort of ‘I don’t know what to say,’ but then she engaged her brain and thought about it.
He had been a perfect gentleman the entire time she had known him, and he had only lost his temper at all during moments where Melody was goading him. So clearly, he meant her no harm. As proven by his reaction to her accidentally cutting herself, he valued her safety. He had paid money for her safety (quite a bit of money, actually, as she had asked him about it after the first few days).
He was attractive. Far more attractive than anyone she would have seen herself with on Earth, even. She didn’t love him, but after everything she had been through, that didn’t surprise her, and she knew that she could easily come to love him as she mentally recovered.
“You know,” she began, “I’ve never had sex before.”
Garon blinked at her, seeming confused by what seemed to be a change of subject.
“I think,” she continued, “I would like for you to be my first.”
For a moment, he looked as if someone had slapped him, in the best way possible. And then he shook his head minutely to jog himself back to the present, and he asked, “Are you certain? Do you want me to take a human form?”
“This is the form people know you in,” Melody pointed out.
“
This
form is you. This is the form I want.”
Garon’s expression softened. “As you wish. We will not be going the whole way tonight, though. It will require preparation. I am…not small, in this form.”
While that did make Melody nervous, it also excited her, and she found herself grinning.
“We’d better get started then, right?”
With a quiet chuckle, Garon effortlessly shucked off his shirt and pants, and Melody had to take a moment to stare, her gaze drawn downward. He really wasn’t kidding when he said he wasn’t small.
Her attention was drawn away, though, when he took her hands and led her into his bedroom. Like the rest of the apartment, it was a bit barren, but that wasn’t what Melody’s attention was focused on.
Gently, Garon laid her back on the bed and lied down beside her before rolling partially on top of her.
At first, all they did was kiss, lips sliding against each other, but slowly, they began to let their hands explore.
Garon’s hands caressed Melody’s chest, stroking along her collarbones and breasts and fingers delicately circling her nipples until they hardened. His hands skated down her sides to her hips, where his thumbs traced the grooves where her legs met her pelvis. Melody squirmed beneath him, already beginning to pant.
She traced her fingers over his skin, exploring the patches of glimmering scales carefully, but soon, as the fingers of one of Garon’s hands began to softly stroke the lips of her sex, it became too much for her to concentrate, and her hands fell to the bed, fingers curling loosely in the blanket.
Garon was slow and gentle the entire time, as he dipped a finger between the folds of Melody’s pussy, stroking along the inner folds in a slow, U-shaped pattern. He didn’t even touch her clit until her pussy was thoroughly wet.
With the first slow stroke over her clit, Melody gasped and arched her back, pushing her pelvis more firmly against his hand. He refused to speed up, though, and continued to stroke her clit as if he thought she might break apart, the movement of his hand gentle but constant.
Only when she was moaning and insisting that she couldn’t take anymore did he stop, but only for a moment. He paused just long enough for her to come down from the very edge, and only then did he probe at her entrance with one finger before he slowly worked it into her.
He crooked his finger at the perfect angle to drive her insane as he thrust it slowly in and out, inexorably pulling her towards the precipice of orgasm before he stopped once again before she could reach it.
He let her begin to come down from the high before he carefully added a second finger. From there, a pattern was established. Garon would carefully and slowly lead her towards orgasm, just to stop before she could properly reach it, and he would add another finger and begin to stoke the fires once again.
By the time he had four fingers in her, the lights had automatically dimmed for nighttime and Melody was nearly crying from her need to come.
“Please, please, oh please, let me come,” Melody begged, and at last he obeyed.
He kept the movements of his hand slow, but as her moans became louder once again, he continued to thrust his fingers in and out of her, and her voice grew louder still until with a gasp that could have been a desperate scream, she came, drenching her thigh and Garon’s hand.
He continued to thrust his fingers until she was limp and lax and panting for breath, before he finally drew his fingers out.
Garon wiped his hand off on the bed, and Melody trembled and shivered through over-stimulation, her eyes half-lidded and her lips parted.
Garon leaned over her and kissed her languidly, before he lied down and drew her close. She was asleep in moments.