Swept Off Her Feet Read online

  Dedication

  All my respect and love to Shadoe—you know why.

  And to Allie. When I needed it, you pushed me; you consoled me, cried with me and took away my ellipses. Thank you.

  Author’s Note

  Throughout the text there are a number of Rbquarmli words and phrases. I have included a glossary for your convenience. Enjoy!

  Prologue

  Planet Rb’qarm, One Fael after the surrender of Rb’nTraq

  His world was in chaos.

  Sick at heart, young Prince Glendevtorvas exited the prison cell of the high-caste Lord Glentereion, jaw clenched tight against the urge to release his rage and pain. The gloating captive had just confirmed the reality of the threat the prince had received anonymously. After years of grueling, relentless battle, Glendevtorvas and his loyal warriors had finally won the generations-long civil war, but since hearing the information the defeated general had smugly imparted, the victory had chilled to bitter ashes, leaving a nasty taste in Glendevtorvas’ mouth.

  Lord General Glentereion had been happy to inform the young warrior-prince of the Lord General’s brilliantly laid plans. Glendevtorvas had listened in growing horror to the story of how, even as the enemy fell in final defeat, a suicide taskforce had been dispatched to loose a heinous revenge: they’d introduced an insidious poison into the atmospheric cycle of the Rb’qarmshi home world. The poison, tasteless and deadly, was even now entering the food chain. Once situated, it would attack one specialized marker on the DNA thread of every Rb’qarmshi fem, destroying their ability to flower, thus rendering all fem—and their male counterparts—sterile.

  Having lost their revolt, the enemy cared not that they condemned themselves as well.

  What in the hurdles of Pythin could these people have been thinking, targeting fem as their victims? Glendevtorvas shook his head in horrified disbelief over the unfairness of his world’s fate. Were he and his friends never to have a mate…never to sire children?

  He had to remember that throughout his two worlds, males would suffer through this tragic time along with the fem in their lives. It was his job to comfort his people, yet in his secret heart the prince doubted his ability to serve his people effectively.

  The war that had raged for over two hundred years was finished, but unless a miracle came along, so, too, was the Rb’qarmshi race…

  Earth, San Francisco, May 10, 2005

  The heat of the wreck was horrific. A disjointed, garish jumble of fractured memories coalesced into choppy action upon the screen of Glennora’s dreaming mind, and she moaned, seeing herself as a young child thrown from a wrecked conveyance with great force. Nnora winced as she heard, recalled, a whimper of pain escaping bruised lips, saw a tiny thumb popping free of plump baby lips.

  “Mama!” Nnora understood her dreaming self to call—the instinctual cry of a hurt, lost child.

  While asleep, she always knew and could understand the conversation, though when she awoke, she could never recall the words. Her waking mind erased the experience every morning.

  “Get…back! Get…free…child of…mine,” groaned a voice, harsh and weak sounding to Nnora’s dreaming ears.

  She watched helplessly as her younger dream-self ignored the command, falling on unsteady feet as she tried to reach the one who represented comfort and care, wandering perilously close to the raging flames ignited by the spilled fuel.

  “Mama!”

  A blackened hand reached to push her away, yet the child persisted. Nnora wailed along with her child-self at the ringing slap falling on soft cheeks and echoing in a troubled memory.

  Never struck before, her child-self screamed with the grief of betrayal and hurt.

  Again, the harsh whisper to leave came.

  Her dream-self, the child, could not recognize her mother in the bloody, blackened thing that warned her away with the life-giving sting of rejection. The adult, watching, but unable to comfort, could not impart her understanding. Sobbing aloud, Nnora watched her dream-self back away, still calling piteously for the one who had never before deserted her…

  Planet Rb’qarm, Three Fael after the surrender of Rb’nTraq

  Thirteen cycles, roughly twenty Earth years, had passed since the ending of the Rb’nTraq Rebellion. Both Rb’nTraq and Rb’qarm, their citizenry decimated by the military actions seen during battle and the introduction of the Rb’nTraq Solution, were fighting a desperate war of survival.

  The poison, though it had been quickly neutralized upon discovery and isolation, had done its work too well. Search as they might, the coalition of Rb’qarmshi-Rb’nTraqi doctors and scientists had not been able to find a single viable fem.

  An older, grimmer Prince-Regent Glendevtorvas—along with his cabinet and both castes of Lords—strove desperately to find answers to the “solution.” He was determined, somehow, to avert the extinction of his people.

  To that end, he had accepted the role of Regent from his father so he could ram his aggressive programs of reunification and rebuilding down the throats of both sets of High-Caste Lords and Ladies. Loyal to his father’s vision of a peaceful coexistence of Rb’nTraq and Rb’qarm, he allowed no one to trespass his laws of tolerance and forgiveness.

  With that stern, implacable spirit, he had ruthlessly quelled the uprisings of the Rb’qarmshi commoners, bent on venting their ire on their innocent Rb’nTraqi counterparts. The social programs were in place and functioning, yet still the populace was in turmoil. The suicide rate increased daily. Many among the infected fem, confronted with a lifetime of loneliness, had chosen to end their existence, thus adding to the pain and loss of the already emotionally overwhelmed masses. Young men, destined to live their lives alone, turned to mayhem and crime, and kept the warrior caste busy policing their sectors and ensuring the safety of the citizens of the different wards.

  Lonely and frustrated, a large portion of his youth bled away in service to his people, Glendevtorvas was often tempted to give up. Then a pleading look, a sobbing father, brother, mate or child would look to him for solace, for answers—and he knew he could not stop until he found a way out of this terrible chaos…

  Earth, San Francisco, May 20, 2005

  “Nnora, wake up! It’s just a dream, Nnora!”

  “I’m okay… I’m good. Thanks, Lori. I’m awake now.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Honestly.”

  Glennora endured the intense study her sister subjected her to, knowing Lori would not leave until she was convinced of her “little” sister’s emotional well-being. She slumped in relief when her concerned sibling nodded her satisfaction and left her side to return to her own bed. Nnora continued to suppress her shudders and hold her breath until she heard her foster sister settle down in her bed. She didn’t want to disturb Lori’s sleep any further.

  Her foster sib would be up early, preparing her speech as the keynote speaker at some highbrow biochemical symposium scheduled for eight a.m. Lori’s peers and clients put extraordinary demands on her time—she had a grueling schedule that Wonder Woman would have found hard to keep up with. The last thing she needed to be doing was coddling a grown woman with nightmares. Nnora was too proud of Lori’s achievements to allow her own dysfunctional needs to interfere with her sister’s career.

  Glennora sat up amid her tousled bed covers, scrubbing her face free of tears. Drawing an uneven breath, she fought to clear her mind and calm her agitated emotions. It was hard to do. The sights and smells and feelings of the recurring dream were so…overwhelming. The sudden reappearance of the childhood dream had to be due to her upcoming trip to Mars. The journey would mark the first time she’d returned to the world that had been her home as an infant and she was naturally feeling
some anxiety.

  She was of two minds. She wanted to go—she didn’t want to go. Oh, she wanted to see her half-sibs and her father and his wife, again, but she was afraid seeing the palace and the surrounding grounds would bring back memories she couldn’t cope with.

  Damn. I’ve finally adjusted to this world! I don’t want my life to change!

  Nnora straightened her covers, turned, pounded her pillow and threw herself back down. She knew she wouldn’t sleep anymore tonight. Once awakened, her body had quickly made its needs known. Her mound felt heavy and tender, her empty vagina throbbed and wept. The plump flesh of her breasts was swollen and achy, and her nipples drew tighter and stiffer as she lay with her hands clasped beneath her head, determined not to touch herself.

  She was in heat.

  Like a damned cat, she wanted some cock. Tonight. Now. Unlike a cat, however, Nnora knew from painful experience that not just any Tom would do. It would take Rb’qarmshi cock to ease the growing, insistent ache gnawing at the tender flesh between her clenched thighs.

  Why are males so stupid? Why did they have to kill each other off until there were no grown males left? Well, no grown males I can mate with! Father isn’t in the mix and his cronies are too damned old. Nnora almost laughed aloud remembering the old wrinkled-up fossil that had propositioned her with talk of lapping up her juices. “Eeuww! Not living…not even when I’m dead,” she whispered, spreading her thighs to ease the constriction of her labia.

  The problem was, even that decrepit old dinosaur was beginning to look palatable.

  She hurt.

  With a despairing cry quickly muffled behind her left fist, Nnora slipped her hand between her legs, fingering open her tender folds. The cool air washing over her distended clit caused her to shudder. Her hips jerked upward to meet her teasing fingers.

  “Go slow, go slow!” she chanted under her breath, forcing her hand to pause. “Make it last!” But she already knew tonight was going to be a Jumbo night. Reaching to the concealed panel in her headboard, Nnora drew out the pouch that held her favorite lubrication gel and the dildo she had nicknamed Jumbo. Twelve inches long with a circumference of four inches, Jumbo was a state-of-the-art, battery-driven wonder. Made of the newest real-skin material, it was warm and velvety soft on the outside, hard as plasteel on the inside. The piece de resistance was the head section with the accordion action.

  Yep, Jumbo had cost her a pretty penny, but it was money well spent. Nnora couldn’t help the hungry sigh that slipped past her lips as she rubbed the slick head between her labia and against her clitoris. She positioned the cock at her seeping entrance, canting her hips up as her free hand pressed down on the sensitive swell of her belly. The tension sent a delicious thrill all through her lower body and up into her jutting breasts. A deft thrust sent the dildo surging up into the clasping grip of her needy vagina.

  Yeah! Fill my pussy up. Get in there and pump! That’s what I like…nice thick cock reaming me! Nnora bit her bottom lip, the slight pain helping her focus, keeping her cries sub-vocal as she pumped her arousal higher with her naughty thoughts and her steady thrusting of Jumbo. A flick of the remote started the head action, and Nnora wedged the pseudo-cock up to its hilt, the pleasure rolling and swelling within as, crossing her ankles to hold the thick cock within her, she undulated against it. She shimmied her hips and torso to intensify the sensations of the dong within her hot, wet sheath while her nipples throbbed and burned, aching with unfulfilled need. She pinched and tugged on them, massaging them with the palms of her hands, frantic to reach the taunting, always retreating finish line of orgasmic completion.

  Something was missing…something elusive, just out of her reach…and she didn’t know what it was, only knew she needed it desperately.

  Her nipples peaked, stabbing toward the ceiling as her legs stiffened and jerked. Her pussy clamped down on the dildo, squeezing in a rhythmic pulsating beat as fire flashed through her nerve endings. Even as she convulsed with the first of a building series of orgasms, a new ache began, tormenting and teasing Nnora with the itching, burning need for more.

  She needed more…a partner…a lover. The lifeless cock between her legs mocked her attempt at satisfaction. Without the missing emotional attachment, the orgasms were unsatisfying and unfulfilling. Sobbing as she came, Nnora turned her head to the side and allowed her silent tears to soak into the pillow…

  Planet Rb’qarm, Royal Palace, Four Fael after the surrender of Rb’nTraq

  The announcement by a diligent archivist of the possibility of a long-forgotten colony of rebels electrified the two planets. It had begun as a rumor. “There was another rebellion…a thousand years back…exiles…whole family groups…enough to start a colony…”

  During the thousand years since the exiled renegade group of families had been placed aboard ships and aimed toward a distant star, they must surely have given birth to fem…had they not perished in the interim. Those fem would be free from the taint of the war.

  Actual records of the group of dissenters had been hard to unearth, but a diligent search, led by his father, finally revealed the story of a royal sibling exiled after an abortive attempt to usurp the throne. The lords that had sided with the ousted princess had been banished alongside her and her family. She and her followers had chosen life over death, had opted to board a generation ship—navigational system disabled and aimed toward a cluster of far-away worlds—to make a one-way trip. The dispossessed Princess would have a chance to claim and rule a queendom of her own if her group could survive.

  Hope flared in the hearts of the multitudes. Young men trained hard, competing for coveted spots as warriors and crew for the flotilla forming under Prince-Regent Glendevtorvas’ command. The flagship would head an armada of twenty satellite ships, jointly crewed by Rb’qarmshi and Rb’nTraqi crews.

  Determined to find and repatriate the long-lost colony, Prince-Regent Glendevtorvas prepared to set forth, armed with marriage contracts and an edict from his father to return home with a royal bride. Such were his intentions. Be she ugly, misshapen and deformed, he would embrace any fem capable of holding and nurturing his seed, of softening his terat. His cherzda rose and hardened in anticipation—he fought a constant battle to conceal his readiness from his entire personal cadre of fifty elite warriors. All of his men would accompany him on this trip, their loyalty through the years having earned them the right—behind himself—of finding brides from among the outcasts.

  The night before they set forth, Glendevtorvas met with his father.

  “This is the only hope left to our race, my son,” the retired Chyya commented in his scholarly voice. “You must deal with a rebellious colony of our distant genetic brothers and sisters who might care nothing for our plight. Talk marriage, first. Peace and compromise. Only should those diplomatic overtures fail are you to talk war.”

  “I hear your counsel, Father, and find wisdom in your words. Truly, I am sick to Deth of war and would seek out no new conflict. Yet, more than my tiredness of warfare, I am weary of the constant loneliness my life has been these last twenty years. Diligently hope we find this colony, Father. Hope they are willing to come to our aid. Because I cannot vouchsafe the survival of my honor should they have what we need, and deny us…”

  Chapter One

  “Of all the days to be late,” Glennora muttered under her breath, shifting her packages to fumble in her purse for her keys.

  “Gotcha!” she waggled the keys in triumph. “Damned chemical spill…and isn’t it just my luck getting caught in the worst traffic jam San Francisco’s seen in a year. Sure put paid to that long, soaking bath I’d planned.”

  Conscious of the relentless passage of time, of the countdown to departure-hour, she wrestled the front door open and rushed into her apartment, dumping an armload of shopping and papers onto the coffee table. Toeing off her shoes, she quickly stripped, slinging clothes left and right in a trailing line from living room to bathroom as she rushed towards the shower.
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br />   She ducked her head as she whipped past the ornamental hall mirror, deliberately avoiding the disappointing image reflected in the glass—no time to waste bemoaning her looks, something she couldn’t change. She hurried on into the bathroom, again averting her eyes, her many full-length reproductions in the mirrored walls, shaking her head and harrumphing as she recalled Lori’s oft repeated attempts to make her feel beautiful. Her sister’s groove-worn phrase was: “Nnora, you have an otherworldly beauty which defies description.”

  Yeah, right! she snickered as she gathered her washcloth and towel. Defies description as in, no one can think up a way to describe me without hurting my feelings.

  Despite her foster sib’s soft-hearted compliments, Nnora knew she was no great exotic beauty. Standing at an even seven feet and tipping the scales at two hundred, thirty-eight pounds, she figured she had a long wait before her prince came along to sweep her off her feet.

  The grandfather clock in her living room struck the half hour. She brought her wrist up and glanced at her watch. “Good lord! Look at the time!”

  Unlatching the band of her timepiece, she leaned over the sink and popped out her custom-made colored contacts. In her hurry, her clumsy fingers took longer at the task than usual. After rinsing and storing them away in their small carrying case, she tossed them into the back of the medicine cabinet and closed the door with a satisfied dusting of her hands.

  Her 20/20 vision did not require assistance and she hated wearing the contacts, whose sole purpose was to make her eyes appear human-normal. To add insult to injury, she had to use the daily wear kind since her eyes could not tolerate the extended wear brand of contacts.

  “Yes!” She pumped a fist in the air, exulting over the fact that, as of three hours ago, she had officially begun her summer-long vacation. She gleefully anticipated three months of freedom from the irksome daily contact routine…among other things.