Page 68 of Xerxes Ascendant
It was a strange sensation to know that with the exception of his five companions – six, if counting the unseen pilot – Kyle was looking at the entirety of the human race. Every single person left alive was captured in the space between the grimy window frames, fighting for survival on the last of the seven cities that in turn had been humanity’s last hope.
The gamma rays which had destroyed the Earth eighty years ago had cruelly stolen their future, but was it still not incredible, even if they were now nearing the end of their borrowed time, that humans had survived for nearly acenturyafter planetary extinction?
If this was a book, around now would be when spaceships swooped down into orbit to rescue humanity at the last moment by whisking the remaining population away to live on its intergalactic fleet. A daring tale of overcoming horrendous odds to carve out a new role for humankind in the vastness of space.
Plus, plenty of sexy aliens to fuck.
But this wasn’t fiction. E.T. didn’t exist, and no one was coming to save them. Kyle, Akira, and whatever was left of their two million population after the death toll of the Fall was finally calculated, would face humanity’s ultimate fate alone. While that had never bothered Kyle before, up here in this shaking, spluttering aircraft and isolated outside Xerxes’ walls, he felt incredibly...sad.
Until Akira’s mouth found his neck and suckled, teeth pressing insistently against his skin, and Kyle’s worries eased away. The present was too fine a thing to waste on future fears,especially when it came in the form of a delectable, hot-as-sin boyfriend who had no qualms or shame about possessively marking his Dom in front of a bunch of near-strangers.
“Mine.”
Akira’s arms bracketed Kyle at the waist. He had latched both hands around him and onto the hip-height railing below the row of windows, continuing to feast ravenously on Kyle’s neck. Pinned in place between the cold, hard window and the warmth of Akira’s soft – and in certain places also quite hard – body, it took Kyle a long time to realise the enjoyable position was also designed to keep him upright. The craft was climbing at an uncomfortably sharp angle, and Kyle might have fallen even if he hadn’t been tipsily giddy with the sensation of a hickey being forged onto his throat.
But his man had him safe in his arms. And that was what Master Epsilon had always done: kept Kyle unfailingly safe, even from dangers he’d never known were there.
Kyle
So Akira got his Dom on the last time we played together
Indira
Oh SHIT
Wait, you actually *let* him?
Kyle
I was...temporarily helpless
Indira?
Are you still there?
Indira
I'm laughing too hard to reply.
CHAPTER 19
Kyle
“We’re gonna be in position soon!” hollered Miguel over the increasingly loud engines whining about the steep ascent. “You need to get your flight suits on for the Dive!” He sprang to his feet and waved at the large lumps of plastic and fabric Kyle could now see nestled on the front row of chairs.
“Can’t we fly any lower?” Kyle shouted. Xerxes was now so far below them that he had to crane his head to spot the telltale blur of light through the bottom corner of the window.
It was like a single blazing star. Only below them, instead of above.
“Not without the craft being spotted!” the Carrion yelled back. “You wanna be swarmed by security the moment we land? Now get a move on, lovebirds!”
Kyle moved to comply, but his boyfriend held firmly onto him.
“I don’t like this,” Akira muttered into Kyle’s ear, concern bleeding through his low tone. “Why risk the failure of two aircraft when we could have fitted into one? Don’t you find it odd that we haven’t seen the second craft in the air yet? And then there’s the lack of equipment...they have handguns but not the level of firepower I’d expect for storming the Rise.”
“Maybe it’s going to be a stealth operation?” Kyle suggested.
“Maybe.”
