Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ How to Make Love to a Saiyan ❯ Grab a Ticket to Ride ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: Dragon Ball Z is the property of… not me. See if it was, this would have made it to the screen, it would have had its own saga. In fact, let's think of it as the unofficial adult rated Vegeta-Bulma saga for those who just need a fix. That obviously includes me.

 

 

 

How to Make Love to a Saiyan

 

Chapter 4

 

Step 5 - Grab a Ticket to Ride

 

 

 

 

Earlier that day, 10am

 

“Mommy, there's a man outside the window.”

 

There was no particular intonation to the innocent remark uttered by the three-year old who sat on the restaurant, looking out the curved window pane. To her bitter dismay, the mindless conversation drowned her childish contemplation behind its incessant high-pitched buzzing.

 

“Mommy?”

 

“Honey, don't be silly, we're twenty stories high, now eat your hummus”.

 

The child turned back to stare out in the direction of the cloudy expanse, forgetting the impossible task of being acknowledged by a group of adults fully engaged in social amenities. Her expression shifted from instinctive curiosity into a great toothless smile as she waved a tiny hand in the strange man's direction. He was probably an angel, although he looked a bit too dark and menacing in her opinion. She waved again, a lot more energetically this time, in an effort to catch the odd creature's attention but she dropped her arm when the planes of his face broke into a full blown snarl.

 

Vegeta's eardrums swelled, infused with the racket of car horns and the thundering chatter of the thousands of people going about their everyday routines in the city below. They looked like ants from where he hovered, every bit as small and insignificant as they truly were; nothing but creatures of the most backwards region in an otherwise rich and marvelous galaxy, nothing but crawling insects with the spine and the wit of Empire trash.

 

He still remembered the annoying feeling of dealing with beings of the underworld. They sometimes trailed the legions of soldiers as they moved from continent to continent in particularly populated planets, the whores, the merchants and slaves that spent their days tending to his men between the heated battles of each campaign. They brought their stench with them, a highly revolting aroma of both misery and common life that had always made his stomach turn. He recalled the times he'd flown to the summit of the highest peaks in the eve of war, in an effort to separate himself from the rest, if not by shedding the reality of his position as commander, at least by refocusing his self-assurance of who he was. Royalty. The most beloved and cherished son of Vegita-sei, the chalice of legendary blood… He frowned and clenched his eyes. Born in the days of red moonlight as if the gods themselves had heralded the birth of a king.

 

And now… He shook the sudden wave of dizziness that wrapped itself around his brain. Now he'd been reduced to the likes of a derelict, marginalized in this world by his status as an alien captive to the blue haired witch.

 

Don't touch me. It's what she'd say. Don't touch me, to the Prince of the greatest kingdom of warriors to ever grace the face of the universe. She'd reduced the most feared assassin in the quadrant, wanted in over seventy-four systems for crimes and terminal violations of public protocol into nothing but a pet monkey.

 

Vegeta's vocal chords reverberated in a growl so low it would have been inaudible to human ears. Thoughts of crystal blue eyes and delicate skin clinging to the fraying tendrils of his reason. He let his eyes roam over the wide chandeliered room before him in an effort to regain concentration and not let blazing fury shadow his judgment. It seemed to be some sort of hall were people gathered to eat, most certainly a food purveying place such as the ones he'd frequented in the most opulent systems during undercover reconnaissance missions.

 

She'd be damned to think he was unable to fend without her. It seemed in her infinite arrogance the woman believed him not only lowly, but also stupid. Little bitch, with the loud mouth and the whiplash attitude that would certainly get her killed, today… today was the day. A sudden dark vision of her squirming body assaulted his senses making him spiral a couple notches down into near madness. He focused on the tiny human spawn that kept gesturing in his direction and he snarled, placing a ki glowing palm against the thickness of the glass.

 

A cascading explosion of crystal rained throughout the room, the sound of it interlacing with the terrorized screams of the clients. They all stared agape in his direction, some shrieking in barely contained panic, some frozen in sheer disbelief.

 

“I told you”, the little girl's ecstatic voice came in dissonance to the generalized upheaval.

 

Vegeta landed his heavy black boots on the Oriental carpet and strode gallantly towards the center of the room coming to meet face to face with a waiter that rushed towards him looking as fierce as mouse.

 

“What… what the hell do you think you're doing man?!” His words were a broken cry as Vegeta's stern eyes raked the circumference of the hall with clinical precision. “I'm ta… ta, talking to you.”

 

Vegeta darted a look in the man's direction, not a single muscle twitching in his stony features. The waiter felt his knees threaten to dislodge, bodily functions seconds away from destabilizing.

 

“I said what the… the hell…” The unfortunate worker thought the stranger's face was like nothing he'd ever seen in the many years he'd tended to the rich and the eccentric on one of the most renowned fine-dining restaurants in West Capitol. His features were not only exotic; they were suffused with an otherworldliness that could have only been dreamt in a novel of science fiction. In fact, the little freak gave him the creeps. The waiter watched as the intruder popped a small card made from some sort of iridescent metal from the pocket of his jacket.

 

“Human, this is a tri-cristalyte card. See that food is brought and deduct the cost accordingly.”

 

The waiter gawked at him for a good two seconds before Vegeta felt his blood begin to boil in impatience. He grabbed him by the collar and lifted him an inch of the woolly floor. “If you have any sort of question or comment, I suggest you spit it out this second you inconsequential little idiot, unless you want to kiss your miserable life goodbye”

 

“What's Tricrisolide?” The man spoke as quickly as he could, already seeing his entire life play before his eyes.

 

Vegeta threw him on the floor with a growl. In the middle of his inner turmoil he'd been foolish enough to forget Chikyuu was still years away from being a space-faring race, evidently oblivious to the concept of universal currency and inter-galactic tenure. The waiter scrambled back on the floor, resisting a very real urge to bolt; clients, employment and debts all be damned.

 

Vegeta reached into his pocket again and produced a black credit card the onna had tossed his way a mere two days after returning from space. “Is this something you recognize?”

 

The man stretched his neck to peer more intently at the impressive card in the hands of the mysterious stranger. “Y…y…yes, of course I do sir” A black card? Only very wealthy, important people owned that type of credit and this guy had one. “Who are you?”

 

“Prince Vegeta.”

 

That explained it all. He was probably some erratic member of royalty from a distant foreign region. Those people were always weird to say the least.

 

“Sir, let me verify if the credit line is in proper standing. You know… standard procedure.” The waiter grabbed the black plastic tongue and waved it at a distressed young female waiter, urging her to take it away. She disappeared with it behind a counter only to emerge a couple of minutes later. They felt like the longest two minutes in the life of the waiter who still preferred the relative safety of remaining on the floor.

 

“I'm afraid it's… it's been declined.” She nearly threw the card at Vegeta before retreating as fast as she could.

 

“What the hell does that mean human?” Vegeta nailed the waiter to the floor with two black spears of rage.

 

“Sir, I believe the card is unusable. It appears the credit line has been cancelled. Do you posses any other means of payment?”

 

Vegeta's teeth were pressed together, tense brackets of slow smoldering hatred forming around his mouth. The woman had delivered the final blow, slaying her enemy in the most despicable of battles, one without honor. She pulled the plug on her benevolence, sinking him into the most humiliating helplessness.

 

“Sir?”

 

Vegeta backed down with the grace and lightness of a body skilled to move with perfection. He strode back the way he came and disappeared, leaving nothing but a flash of indigo as he dashed into the skies.

 

“I told you” The little girl's voice rung loud in the midst of the lingering silence.

 

 

Evening 11pm

 

Four-hundred and sixty nine. That's the exact number of times she'd drummed her pencil on the table in the past fifteen minutes. She sat there, resting her jaw on her palm and banging the damn stick of wood and graphite on the surface of the counter as she studied some sort of Chikyuu-jin book she'd produced from the depths of a drawer. Four-hundred and ninety eight… as she resumed the successful task of setting his already rioting nerves on edge.

 

She pouted, the little hellcat, as she flipped a page so thin it looked almost translucent against the warm kitchen light. And she quirked an eyebrow, making soft humming voices as if uttering some Chikyuu-jin incantation that for all he knew could be meant to turn him into an earth-crawling creature she could squash under her feet.

 

Five-hundred and thirty. Her eyes widened for a fraction of a second as she drabbled something on the sidelines of her textbook, completely immersed in its content as if it were the single most fascinating thing in the face of the universe. He could spot charts and graphs that seemed to fit into some sort of scientific context. Whatever it was, she looked intent on devouring it up to the last ant-sized squiggle.

 

Bulma stretched her spine, flicked her hair and bent her neck slightly. Her eyes remained fixed on the god awfully boring book on the surface as she begun massaging the soft curve of her shoulder with slow-moving fingers. She shut her eyes and tilted her head a bit more to the side as her slender figures worked the knot that had already formed from sitting in the same position for so long. She uttered the tiniest, most flitting of moans, almost inaudible in the middle of the relative silence of the kitchen. Truth of the matter is the little display of self-pleasuring ministrations wasn't a part of the grander scheme. She was getting more than a little stiff from having to pretend she was mesmerized by the Epistemic Correlations of the Kapstrak Theorem--- which she was, just not tonight. This evening she was a little more interested in the anatomy and response of alien creatures to the applied pressure and heat of human touch.

 

She threw her head back just a little more before parting her lips to emit a follow-up whisper of a moan, fingers gliding slowly down the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She allowed herself the ghost of a smile before refocusing steady eyes on the text and reclaiming her previous position, pencil held between two fingers. Her eyes shifted to look at him and see what he was doing. He was nearly done with the opulent banquet. It had steadily disappeared under his almost desperate hunger; meat, vegetables, desserts, everything the servo bots had managed to produce in their day long cooking spree.

 

She couldn't avoid getting caught up in the way he ate, every now and then closing his eyes to exhale through his nostrils as he savored the decadent menu she'd deliberately ordered, course by course. She could tell he was enjoying it, he just was better at demonstrating it unconsciously than at actually saying it. All she could do was indulge in his body language as he licked his lips without thinking she'd notice.

 

Before she knew it, her legs uncrossed out of their own will, toes brushing his leg accidentally. Both their eyes widened and fastened on each other simultaneously, Vegeta's fingers poising one of those fruits humans called “cherries” on the curve of his lower lip.

 

“I'm… I'm sorry.” Bulma crossed her legs as tightly as possible, trying to look both innocent and demure.

 

Vegeta's eyes remained as sharp as big black darts, his entire face the picture perfection of a glowering beautiful demon. She couldn't avoid the icy shiver that crawled up her spine, almost feeling like a helpless rodent about to be devoured alive by a big merciless feline. Her eyelashes spread wider in tension as she waited for him to shift his gaze but he remained unmoving, the fiery intensity of his look eerily fixed on her sapphire one. She swore the man could stop an enemy on his tracks and reduce him to a boot-licking, spiritless coward with those eyes alone.

 

Bulma went back to resting her jaw on her hand and made the conscious titanic effort of remaining undisturbed under his scrutiny. She swung her pencil back and forth over the surface of the counter.

 

Five hundred and fifty seven. Vegeta growled between gritted teeth while she resumed the tapping of her pencil. “Cut it out little bitch, unless you want to die quicker than expected.” He hissed under his breath regarding her with a look so full of contempt it seemed almost supernatural.

 

Bulma's eyes drifted to him lazily, pencil silent at his command. He unhooked his gaze from hers, pleased at her obeisance, and went back to finishing his meal which now consisted of the last cherries on the bowl.

 

And she tapped once more.

 

He leaned forward, hand shooting with lighting speed to hold her wrist and pull her close, eyes a few centimeters apart from his own. “Don't fucking tempt me, onna. You're treading dark waters here.” A gasp caught up in her throat as his big strong hand held her wrist firmly, not allowing her to pull away even as she tried.

“I am a better swimmer than you think, Ouji-sama.” She allowed herself the pleasure of caressing each word, eyes wandering over his face as she said them. His eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly but his hand remained rigid, every muscle in his body as tense as a coiled spring.

 

He suddenly loosened his grip allowing her to pull free and lean back again, brows furrowed. “Do all Saiyans need anger management lessons as desperately as you do, or is it just you that's an asshole?”

 

Vegeta snorted. “Oh, I feel hurt. Care to come up with anything else, you low-born, two-faced skank?”

 

Bulma's eyes narrowed. He had that enraging little smile of self-pleasure that she wished she could just slap of his face. It only kindled her fire, that pulsating need to press him on the floor and abuse him until he said stop.

 

He snatched another cherry off the bowl. There was something decidedly sinful about the way he ate it, it made her want to buy shipments of the little orbs and feed them to him one by one, even if she risked loosing a finger in the process.

 

“Sure, what about certified big-headed, jerkass.” God, she wanted him bad. For a moment there she thought at the irony of their exchange.

 

He braced his elbows on the table, insults rolling off his skin like he had heard it all. In fact he seemed quite amused by her tirade.

 

“I think you're missing the big picture here, onna. I meant every word I said earlier, which means your every breath from this moment on belongs solely to me. I would suggest you start saying your prayers, but then again, there is no point to it, is there? It won't save you from kissing this revolving dump of a planet goodbye. Even if your friends manage to snatch you back from the pit of hell, you'll be haunted by images of me and feelings of my hands on your body tearing you down bit by bit. That is, if I don't manage to kill them all before they're able to pull you back from the dead.” He was enjoying his little speech, eyes gleaming with excitement over the thought of his twisted pleasures.

 

Bulma brought down her arms on the counter and looked him straight in the eye. “I didn't set you up to have Son-kun kill you, no matter what your paranoid little mind tells you Vegeta. You don't have to kill me. In fact I don't think you will, why would you want to fuck up your only chance at getting by in this “dump” of a planet as you so lovingly call it? I think it's better for you to accept for once and for all who the hell holds the key to this place and all its goodies, because it sure as hell isn't you, isn't that right?”

 

He looked at her with malice, a snide smile etched on his face. “Are all Chikyuu-jin women vain little bitches? I may not know this rotten place well enough to live the way I should and you may get a kick from reducing me to the likes of a stray dog, but I assure you onna, this is nothing but a grain of sand in the expanse of the galaxy. Let me make it clear to your dimwitted mind. If I wanted to, I could throw you in that Gravity Room, start the engines and snatch you away right this minute. I'd like to know just how long it'd take you before shriveling down to a whimpering mess when you're faced with life in the frozen hell of outer space. You'd be screaming at my feet, begging me to put you out of your misery.”

 

A wicked smile tugged at the corner of his chiseled lips. “No one would hear you scream, not your friends, not that fool of your boyfriend, not Kakarrot. I can mask my Ki well enough to prevent that moron from finding us before I'm done with you. And if I run out of food before I am able to refuel… well, I guess I could always eat you. Isn't that right?”

 

Bulma tried to push the wayward thoughts of being lost in space with this dangerous man, no one able to hear her scream as he ate her… in the most wretched sense of the word. She was quite unable to think straight under the double-entendre. Could he actually mean he'd savor her just how she thought he meant? Would he use and abuse her for nights on end, making her satisfy his most warped pleasures? She had to resist the urge to jump on his lap and extend her arms for him to shackle her that very second. Kami, this man was very bad for her.

 

“Vegeta, you're such a…a…” She couldn't quite find the right words to describe the enormity of what he was, something so wild and wicked, so dark and perverting it was impossible to stare into his eyes without feeling very, very… dirty.

 

He leaned back and crossed his arms. “What?”

 

“a…” She balled her fists, shoulders drawn up as her face contorted. God did he have to be this insufferable? Did he have to make her want to make him scream in pain and in pleasure at the same time? Her eyes burst into blue flames, pearly teeth grating as she sputtered, scrambling for whatever it was that could define this very wretched man. He was such a… such a…

 

“…bad man?” He tilted his head and graced her with a mocking tone. She secretly wished she could toss the damn pink shirt his way again just to make it clear.

 

“Yes, yes, bad. Very bad! So bad you deserve to be whipped and chained and…” She berated herself when she felt her mind trail off into some dark, deviant fantasy. “And slapped and…” Kami, was she insulting him or actually promising sex to him?

 

He snorted, rolling his eyes at her little outburst. “And just who the hell's going to do that? Daddy's little prissy prude? Is she going to go fetch her trusty idiot friends to blow the really big bad devil to the next dimension for her? She won't dare soil her hands herself now would she, she fucking grabs and moves her peons to befit her moods while she sits on her pampered ass all day. And the fools bow down to her and tend to her every whim, quick to dispose of the dirt she'd never come close to.”

 

Bulma stared at him more than a little dumbfounded. It was strange how she suddenly felt at a loss of words, oddly unable to refute his stinging comments. She hated it when he looked at her like that, as if he knew her better than anybody else, as if he was capable of telling her things no one else would. But this wasn't about her. This was about him. She couldn't lose sight of her single most intense goal in life, crawling under his skin to unearth his monsters and appease her thirst. Kami, she needed to know the wealth of his reality, the bitter truth about what seemed to be a complete inability to show one thread of sensibility. It would haunt her to her dying day if she didn't.

 

She tightened her cherry flavored lips in a thin line, brows knit together. “Is it true what you said, about… about joining Frieza's army when you were only eight years old?”

 

He cocked an eyebrow in her direction, obviously startled by the sudden personal question. His eyes narrowed to slits and averted her for a long lasting moment. “Hn”.

 

She took it that was as close as she'd get to a yes.

 

“Why?”

 

That simple word, as short as it was, fell on the room with iron heaviness. Vegeta darted his eyes back to her, unable to muster a proper response. No one had ever asked him that, as incredible as it sounded to his very own ears. Why. A world and a half was the answer, a wealth of reasons and yet none that was simple enough to put into proper words. Why. Why was it he'd been handed over from the arms of glory as the succeeding King to a powerful race to become the marionette of a megalomaniac. Why had he been turned from a warrior into a killer, from royalty into a professional assassin? And Otousamma… why had he done what he did, when he did. Or the Ice-jin bastard… why had he delighted in him so much, eager to make him his perfect weapon of intelligence, crime and mass terror? He was his masterpiece, he'd been his masterpiece.

 

Bulma could almost drown in the whirlpools that were his eyes, suddenly brooding in what seemed like a violent inner turmoil. She couldn't quite comprehend the notion of a child committing the atrocities that he had. It was a scenario nearly impossible to grasp for someone that grew up in the comfort and safety of a nurturing family. A sudden wave of disturbing emotion constricted her heart, but she remained unflinching.

 

“That is none of your business.” He said dryly.

 

“Is it true you liked killing? Did you love going about the galaxy purging and destroying with no mercy, including women and children, sentient beings that had no way of fighting back?” She blurted the words before she could hold them back. Something in her soul stirred violently, hoping for a response that would assuage her fears. God, please say no, say no. She could kiss the hands of an unwilling murderer, wash them with the purity of her spirit, but she couldn't lay with the likes of Frieza, of a deeply diseased bastard who actually enjoyed extinguishing lives just because he could.

 

Vegeta's eyes lingered on her for the longest full minute of her entire life, making her think the answer was lost in some deep place he could no longer reach. Kami, was he gone forever? Had he lost the last shred of anything resembling a soul with no hope for retrieval?

 

He cocked his head proudly, looking at her with his usual self-assurance. “Saiya-jins are warriors, onna. What the hell is there to killing weaklings? It's done out of necessity. Doing so isn't a feat, if anything it is a…” His eyes unfocused and he shifted them sideways, muscles tensing in his face.

 

A disgrace? A humiliation… worse, an aberration. She knew the answer very well, could see the struggle within to deal with the crude reality of what he'd become.

 

“Vegeta…” She didn't know what she was starting to say. Her chest swelled with a mixture of violent passion, the kind that superseded lust and reason. It was strong and thorough, beginning to wrap her heart and soul in its warmth. She could almost feel it growing as the seconds ticked by, both beautiful and scary, rooting itself in the deepest corners of her soul. What was it? What was this feeling that made him the axis of the universe itself? He said no… he said he didn't like it, he said it wasn't true… he said it wasn't true.

 

He went back to glaring at her. “That is beyond the point, woman. My one and only concern is achieving my rightful status as the Super Saiya-jin prophesized by my people. Whatever I did or didn't do is none of your business. All you need to know is you dug your own grave the minute you decided to fuck around with my type. Anyone stepping between me and my goal, anyone at all is bound to pay with his life.” His eyes twinkled with a distinct fierceness whenever he spoke about the Legendary and despite the poisonous threat embedded in his words, she felt a twinge of guilt. What did it feel to be denied the possibility of earning what you've desired since you have a memory? What is it to chase a goal that seems easy enough to grasp and a lifetime away to attain at the same time? And hearing the whispers, of all those people who built you up on a pedestal of great expectations when you were nothing but a child, how is it to fail them every day of your life?

 

The overwhelming, chest-bursting impulse to aim for the kill exploded through her senses. She could feel that question forming, the one that would lead her down the path she came to walk in the first place, the one that would inexorably get her him. She picked at the bowl of cherries in the middle of the counter distractedly, eyes lowering.

 

“And why is it he did it then? Why Son-kun and not you Vegeta?”

 

He regarded her in outrage and a fist came to bang on the table noisily, making both the bowl and Bulma jump in place. “You fucking ask way too many questions, woman.” His voice was a very low growl. She could almost feel an oppressive way of energy irradiating from him.

 

“Well, haven't you wondered what the difference is between you and him that allows him to turn Super-Saiyan when in fact, logic defies it?” He frowned, looking completely mind-boggled. It seemed he was startled at the way she'd managed to paraphrase the question that had maddened him for the past few months.

 

“You were born with the highest power level ever recorded I hear, and you are an elite fighter, isn't that what you call it? Not just any Saiya-jin, but the actual crown Prince, a descendant from the royal bloodline. In other words, you're supposed to be the best your race had to offer. So what does Son-kun have that you don't Vegeta? Why him and not you, have you really thought about it?”

 

It all happened very quickly. He shot up from where he sat and grabbed the stool he'd been using. He threw it against the farthest wall with such blinded fury the entire kitchen seemed to rattle with the force of the impact. The bang was so loud it made Bulma jolt to her feet in genuine fear. He walked around to where she stood looking every bit about to make his death promise a reality.

 

Bulma's heart stopped as he grabbed both her wrists from behind, holding them together in a viselike grip. She inhaled sharply as she felt his hand tighten, his breath caressing her ear. “I think I'm done talking.”

 

Well, she could almost read the newspaper headlines. Bulma Briefs, heiress to a multi-billion zeni empire killed by an alien intruder. Hell, it would make it to both the West Capitol Times and the City Enquirer.

 

“Veg…”

 

“Shut up” He whispered in a deadly tone as if it was some sort of dark secret. “You are through talking too.”

 

“If you just let me speak you'd probably understand what I'm getting at you prick!” He pressed his chest against her back, his legs grazing the back of her own. “I'll tell you what you're unable to see under that suffocating obsession of yours, and if you don't like it, well too damn bad.”

 

He growled, making his chest rumble. The sound seemed to vibrate throughout her entire body, heightening her trepidation.

 

“You have five seconds onna.” God, he really was desperate to extricate the answer to the puzzle. Not even his blinding hatred of her managed to get in the way of him wanting to hear anything that could help him get to Super-Saiyan fast enough.

 

“I don't really know the answer, but the one thing that comes to mind is just how much more…relaxed Son-kun is. Haven't you noticed?” She grimaced, hoping he'd catch her drift. “From what I've learned being his friend all these years, he trains hard as hell but also possesses an unbelievable freedom of spirit. He doesn't ever let the desire to be stronger consume him. He lets go and walks about with a merry disposition, not forcing his Ki out. He lets it thrive and swell inside him free and undisturbed. In other words Vegeta, his Ki is in perfect balance and it shows don't you think? I think the glowing strands of golden hair are more than enough proof of that.”

 

Vegeta's gaze lowered, focusing on a sudden realization that begun spreading in his mind like rapidly dividing cells. “His ki? That third rate bumbling fool has the ki quality of a chimp.”

 

“Well, that ki grows stronger everyday while yours seems to grow weaker and messier the harder you tr…” She bit her lip and clench her eyes as a strong thigh parted her legs from behind.

 

“Careful my little bitch. Don't push your damn luck or you'll regret it.”

 

She opened her eyes and swallowed, trying to focus on the issue at hand and not the muscled leg between her quivery ones.

 

“What I mean is, the more clouded and stressed out you become, the worse your Ki destabilizes, and it begins to burn in disarray, draining you instead of empowering you. You know, in Chikyuu we believe spiritual force weakens, and in doing so, well it fucks up your system real bad.” She'd spoken her mind, an absolute truth so simple only a genius could have worded it.

 

“Stressed?”

 

“Stress. It's a Chikyuu-jin term I suppose you've never heard. You could call it a mental block. It suffocates Ki and can eventually wind up almost depleting it. And isn't Ki the whole issue here? For some reason I don't think forcing it up day in day out is paying off, is it?”

 

He groaned against her hair. “Good try. The hell you know about shit, onna. If this is your way of earning time before I put an end to your life, you should start thinking about something else real fast.”

 

She turned her face to the side, sliding her pupils to the corner of her eye. “Whatever possessed me to actually give you any valuable piece of information you jerk! I should keep anything I've managed to study and deduce through scientific method to myself don't you think? Screw you. You're going to kill me anyway.”

 

He stiffened against her body and tensed her arms with his cruel grip on her wrists. He suddenly found himself unable to word a quick reply. Instead, his mind twirled around a thousand miles a second, emotion and thoughts colliding violently.

 

“And how the devil do you know this?”

 

“You should see your Ki chart Vegeta, I suppose you haven't? Well I have. Pappa monitors your readings to adjust your torture chamber so you don't wind up burnt to a crisp in a tomb of molten metal. It looks like a picture drawn by a hobo on crack getting electrocuted.” It was true and it had come to a realization that fitted perfectly into her complex mind-game.

 

His fingers squeezed her delicate wrists pressing them against her bottom. “I'm tired of this game onna, tired of you, of everybody, of this planet.”

 

It hurt. His hold was so strong and merciless, pain shot through her body. She supposed she had to hurry it along lest he snapped her neck like a twig in the spur of the moment.

 

“I'm tired too Vegeta and on second thought, I'll give you your GR back, you can have it. In fact I can go work on it this very minute if you just… if you just don't kill me. Is that a deal?” Her breathing had become shallow, her arms numb from being constrained in such an unnatural position.

 

Vegeta's mouth opened to word an instinctive approval. She was giving him the single most important thing back. He'd managed to work himself to the alpha position, yet…

 

“Don't you want it back? Come on Vegeta, I thought you didn't want your training interrupted, Isn't that what you once told me? To never interfere and let you do things your way?”

 

He let go of her, taking a few steps back, never taking his gaze off of her. She turned around to face him, grimacing as she massaged her aching wrists with gentle hands. “I think we've reached an agreement.”

 

“Not so quick, you little slank. What the hell do I do to…” He looked terribly uncomfortable, his expression a gale of emotions.

 

She huffed and feigned complete exasperation. “To heal your Ki and bring it back to a normal balance? What in the seven hells do I know Vegeta! Chikyuu-jin try several things, meditation, acupuncture, massage therapy, Kami, all sorts of contraptions to get the deal done. I couldn't fucking care less. Why the hell don't you try getting laid!!”

 

His eyes bulged comically, lips parting in shock and outrage.

 

She kept tending to her frail wrists, looking indignant and flustered. “What? Shouldn't be hard to find an expensive bitch to give you a full-body massage and pump that ki back to normal if you've got enough money to pay for that kind of service. Now, don't fucking ask me where to go and get that. An ugly, diseased whore from the streets won't really have the skills so you'll have to ask around until you find a clean, reputed consort agency. Just make sure you tell her to work all those tension knots and do a very, very thorough job, unless you want to waste your time. Get her to monitor your ki readings afterwards, because it will freaking take months to get that jumble of a map to something resembling good.”

 

He looked so aggravated she half-expected him to start foaming from the mouth. “You mentioned other methods, speak!”

 

“What, like meditation? As if you could sit down and work yourself into a state of relaxation. You're mental patterns are that of a rabid dog's Vegeta. As for all the other as-seen-on TV methods, all I can say is good luck with that”.

He clenched and unclenched his jaw, running his hands through the uprights spikes of his unruly mane. He begun pacing around like a caged lion, swearing under his breath in a language she couldn't understand. She supposed it was his native tongue. It rolled over her in its sensuous, exotic undulations almost distracting her from her little award-worthy act.

 

“What's the problem? Don't you have the money to pay a high-class whore?” Her dry tone was drenched in sarcasm, but her comment was cut short by him reaching into his pocket, grabbing a sleek black card and throwing it at her. The shiny piece of plastic hit her in the midsection before dropping to the floor.

 

“Funny you should ask. Are you getting a kick out of this, you wench?” He produced a second card made out of the most beautiful metal she'd ever seen. Its lustrous display of iridescent colors shined under the kitchen's traplights. “The crystallite in this transact card alone is worth more than half your planet. It's triple solidified pluralescent quartz with multiple layers of twenty-eight karat pure crystal platinides.” She stared at it in juvenile awe, pushing down the urge to analyze the mind-boggling material. “Very few people have something like this in the depths of this quadrant, the kind of transact card that gets you places no ordinary being goes. It remained strapped to my thigh the whole time. And to your backwards society it means fucking nothing.” He roared, slamming it on the counter behind him.

She gulped and looked at him in consternation. She'd overseen the fact that all this time she'd been dealing with the crème of the crop in terms of intergalactic crime. This was not a pitiful slave to a common villain; this had been the best remunerated, most cherished angel of death to the most powerful being in the whole of the galaxy. She had been supercilious enough to forget that.

 

She pushed the wayward thoughts away and regarded him with a look so sour it blared murderous hatred. “Tough shit, Prince Vegeta.”

 

Vegeta clenched his eyes, enraptured in a moment of infinite vulnerability that made her lose track of time. All she could do was stare at him, drawn into the way his lids twitched as they remained closed, making him look nothing short of breathtaking.

 

Life can sometimes corner you into a place of darkness so complete, so immeasurable the world seems to stop and spin back on its axis. One moment silence wrapped around them snugly, the next a pain ridden growl tore from the depths of his chest. He slid an arm across the counter behind him trashing everything on the floor. And Bulma gasped in pure unadulterated terror. God, his eyes… they were different, broiling with something so demonic she began trembling. He strode towards her and clamped his hand on her throat, constricting it ever so slightly, but enough to make her begin clawing at his neck in desperation.

 

“No… Veg… Vegeta…” Her voice was strained under the pressure of his steely resolve. “No…”

He looked into her eyes, his lips a couple inches from hers. “You… you have to die Onna.” She had to. In his mind it was the most conclusive, more absolute truth. There was something so deeply unnerving, so unbelievably disturbing about the way she spoke to him, the things she managed to make him consider. A liability, to his kingdom, to his universe, a sacrifice to be made.

 

“Nooo.” Eyes the color of deep blue seas narrowed at him as she held his wrist.

 

“Yes. And I won't stop with you, I can't. It never ends Bulma of Chikyuu.”

“I'll do anything, anything, Vegeta!” She couldn't breath, she genuinely couldn't. “I'll… I'll…” God, she had very little time to make it happen. “I'll be yours.”

 

His brow furrowed as he pierced her with his gaze. And his hold tightened. “I'll… help you. Just don't touch them, don't lay a single finger on my parents, on anyone else…” She sounded genuinely terrified, choking on her words as her skin began to pale.

 

His hand on her neck trembled with the strain to retain control; a second away from giving in to the release only murder had given him throughout his years of servitude.

 

“I'll be… I'll be your… bed kitten.”

 

He inhaled, transfixed in her face, pupils dilating. “I'll do it Vegeta, please… let me go.”

 

His eyes, as immense and dark as storms from an alien planet wandered over her straining face. And he couldn't move, he couldn't think, Gods, his concubine… she'd be his concubine.

 

“I'll do it…”

 

The pressure on her neck diminished but his scorching hand didn't move. And a long, very long moment dragged on, Bulma clinging to the last threads of desperate hope that he'd say yes. Please say yes, Vegeta. You and me, please say yes. Don't let it end this way.

 

He remained there, holding her life literally in his hand, ready to pull the trigger on his hatred and yet… She looked at him, eyes so wide and luminescent, skin so fair and smooth it would make a Cynaran priestess green with envy… and her lips… the color of rubies, as ripe as some delicate thing that was thoroughly forbidden. Waves and waves of hair the color of the seas of Vegita-sei. His concubine… yes, why not. Gods, why not give in.

 

He let go of her neck, the thunder of his emotions appeased as if having found some long-lost glimmer of hope.

 

“You… you fail, you pay. You and your kin, your entire race.”

 

Bulma touched her hand to her neck, chest rising and falling. “I won't.”

 

He moved back, suddenly a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of this inexplicable night. “I won't fail, Vegeta, but you have to let me do it right. You have to let me… let me go about it my way, let me do things you've probably never done before. I can't afford not to do a good job and neither can you. You know that.” He regarded her in silence.

 

Her body still quivered from the heightened sensation of being so close to death, yet it also shivered from the pleasure of tasting success. It was thrilling, pure adrenaline. “And this is private, only between you and I.” She began moving towards him really slowly, all composure slowly regained. “I won't tell, so you don't have to feel… inhibited. I can't work with that, Saiyan.” She reached him and pressed a single finger to his chest, eyes fixed on his. She ran it down his chest, stopping before reaching his navel. “It's all or nothing if you want to go anywhere.”

 

He looked into her eyes as they sparkled with the intensity of sapphires and he could hear an instinctive warning of self-preservation go off in his mind. It was a tingle in his spine he hadn't felt even in the face of war, but he never took his eyes off of hers. Whatever it took… whatever it took onna.

 

“Yes.” He hissed against her lips. She issued a slanted smile and retreated feeling the master of a world loomed by her very own hand. She sauntered towards the wide arch that led to the enormous lounge, hips swaying slightly. When she reached it she turned to look at him, sliding a hand unnecessarily up the length of the frame and she studied him with the self-confidence of a woman too smart for her own good.

 

He remained there; gracing her with a three quarter profile and looking like a boy about to be initiated into God knew what. She extended a finger and summoned him with it, whispering under her breath “Then, come over…” She disappeared leaving him standing in the middle of the kitchen, too stricken to form a logical thought. The clock ticked by, a few seconds more, ringing in his ears, until his legs moved out of their own will and he followed her out into the penumbra of the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A/N: I know… cliffhanger. But see, I really can't wait to get my hands on Vegeta-ouji. Coming soon…