At once, my eyes watered and my chin wobbled. “You remembered. You did this.”
His big body curled around mine, and he cupped my face between his rough palms. “You try hard to please me. I could do no less.”
I slipped the ring into place then kissed it.
Four arms wrapped around me tight, and claws stroked down my back. “My Lumen.”
I snuggled into the male holding me close to his hearts. Happy tears streaked my cheeks as our hatchling quickened between us. “I marriage you too, babe.”
Naked as the day he was born, Beowyn staggered to us, arms outstretched for a hug.
His eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he dropped.
His laurel horn cracked the floor, saving his noggin, as he passed out cold.
Éorik strolled up, nudged him with the rounded toe of his boot.
He jerked a shoulder. “’Tis fine.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Idyllic didn’t come close to the following cycles.
I luxuriated in the attentions of my mates.
In what seemed overnight, I passed into the second moontide of my pregnancy, and grew plump.
One moon, Nāga showed us a hologram of our hatchling.
It was so freaking teensy, curled up, sucking its thumb, its wee spiky ears twitching as its gushing thwomp-thwomp heartbeat filled the room, the most beautiful sound I’d heard.
Venomous and Fiercely were boisterous in their delight.
Swaggering about with their chests puffed up, exclaiming how it was going to be a strong a’Rä, grinning ear to ear.
When Nāga advised the hatchling had a sex, they’d looked so aghast, I’d laughed myself sick.
No, seriously, I puked over the rug.
My morning sickness had been hellish, and I’d been getting booster shots because I couldn’t keep enough down, so as to be healthy.
The unsettled stomach didn’t stop me from consuming everything edible in sight though.
Overcoming their shock, Venomous and Fiercely spent the rest of the appointment assuring me what grew inside me was the second most precious thing to them, after me.
Which made me cry because I was hormonal, and it was said with such blunt sincerity.
On the rotations my Rä’Veks didn’t leave me to potter around the lair, we toured the province on the goodbeasts, and took lazy meals at high heat in the scenic, rural areas outside the city proper.
My favourite spot was a secluded vale with a waterfall that flowed into a rocky pool just deep enough for me to stand in.
The foliage was abundant, but less savage than typical, giving its uncultivated nature a wild, yet embracing feel.
Powder fine, green sand dunes rolled on a gentle slope towards the quartz city then on to shadowy mountains that held up an endless horizon.
Dawning Light offhandedly noted it was land for sale, and would make a lovely, rustic lair for raising hatchlings.
I’d glanced at my mates in longing, but Fiercely had looked dubious, Venomous uninterested.
Wind Dancer and his nest mate joined us several times on our excursions, attentive in what they saw as their duty to help me acclimatise, and were delighted by my eagerness for the indigenous cuisine.
Thanks to my accelerated pregnancy, I had a big appetite, so set upon the widowed Rä’Veks’ efforts with relish.
They always brought a delicious spread, which made my mates happy, as I wasn’t the best cook.
I still wouldn’t let Sylphs into the lair, and took it upon myself to do the domestic chores, much to their consternation.
Most of the dishes were far too sour or spicy for my palate.
I enjoyed food eaten by hatchlings, like creamy fermented goodbeast mylk flecked with sweet kakt-mi, tangy cheeses infused with tenderised, salted meat, and fruits sautéed in amrita nectar until they melted on the tongue.
Blitzed vegetable paste that reminded me of guacamole texture wise, but was yellow, and tasted like roasted, caramelised parsnips was a savoury favourite.
I gobbled it using fresh, pan fried bread to scoop it from the bowl.
Mischievous, Venomous once tried to steal some from me when my back was turned, but my sixth sense pinged, and I spun brandishing a knife, seriously considering cutting the fool for even considering it.
“Don’t muck about,” I warned as he fell back laughing.
Cobra that Strikes came along to these outings, but there was always a reason his Rä’Na skipped attendance.
It was no skin off my nose.
The Rä’Na avoided the intimate get-togethers because she knew I would betray how much she disgusted me.
Other than that one cloud, my life was perfect.
I was nervous about the hatchling, flipping out when I felt it move for the first time.
I gave my mates heart palpitations when I screamed the lair down then demanded they feel up my belly, but mostly I laughed, sang, experienced the day to day joys of living well, and got rode hard and put up wet by lusty males who couldn’t keep their hands and mouths off me.
“A man would not partake in clutch like a Rä’Vek,” Venomous stated apropos to nothing one sweltering morning as we lounged in the garden.
It was his turn to stay home with me as Fiercely went to the guild.
“Yes, he would. Just in other ways too.”
Sprawled on the blue grass playing with a three dimensional puzzle, he abandoned it to roll onto his back, closer to me. “Other ways?”
“Different positions. Kink. Fetishes.”
“Explain.”
“Anal and oral are popular kink,” I replied distracted half by the Zýt’s fascination with my hair, and half by the hologram soap opera Fiercely had shown me how to download from the matrix, which was television, the internet, the telephone, email and radio rolled into one console.
The lead Rä couple were fighting because the male wanted the female to quit her job as a warrior, and lay an egg, as the last fertile time of her lifecycle was upcoming.
He had their kindred’s support.
She didn’t want offspring, and threatened to move to a separate lair to live independent of him.
She had her lesser mate’s support causing friction between the males, and physical confrontations that ended in stylized, martial arts scenes on sweeping landscapes as the female’s softsuit fluttered on the wind, her agonised face haloed by third moon as the credits rolled.
Avowal of Affection was dramatic, much better than its sober rival For Honour and Duty, which was about a widower who was in love with an a’Rä that matured for someone else.
Avowal of Affection had a moody underscore, angst-ridden expressions, cliff hangers, the works.
For Honour and Duty made me want to slit my wrists.
The lead character was a vain, selfish prick who needed to get laid, and stop fixating on someone else’s wife.
I was hooked, wringing my hands as I awaited each new episode, watching them religiously, and getting choked up as I ate frozen sweet kakt’mi and guzzled chilled amrita.
My mates didn’t get it, preferring to complete puzzles and read, but it worked for us.
They lounged around doing their crap, and I did mine, until we got frisky then fucked on whatever surface was handy.
Consequently, most of the lair was acquainted with my bare ass.
“So is doing stuff like you did at the bonding ceremony,” I carried on. “Restraining me, holding me down.” I winked when he made a strangled noise. “Fetishes are fixations with unusual things. Toe sucking.” I lifted a foot to wriggle them at him. “Voyeurism. Swinging.” I tapped my chin, eyes dancing. “You guys can’t do anal because you have no anus.”
“Yesss, but you could.”
“Yup.”
“Oral means ... your mouth.” Venomous sounded strange, as if he couldn’t find air. “Humans like this? You like this?”
“Oral? Sure.” I tore my gaze from the hologram and cocked my head. “What’s wrong, babe? Where
’s this coming from?”
“Nothing and nowhere.”
“Did Wyn comm call you again to ask inappropriate things that made you uncomfortable? He only does it to get a rise out of you. I don’t want to join one of his orgies either, no matter what he implies.”
“All is well,” he muttered, yet his expression was thunderous.
The savage blackness of his mood swamped the room until he touched his cheek to mine, muttered something about Veraks then left.
He came back hours later looking calmer, but preoccupied.
Over the next cycle, I knew he thought hard on something because I’d catch him watching me with that powerful, feral gaze.
I asked what troubled him, but he flat out denied there was anything wrong.
Then one day, he stopped brooding and started doing.
Oh la, did he do.
Returning early from the Guild, unexpected as warrior training had intensified, and kept my mates from our lair longer and longer, he stalked up then hauled me off the divan.
I was overjoyed; his timing was flawless.
She, Singing Water and I had been stuck in an awkward conversation.
After my bonding ceremony, she’d sent me a comm call of her hands fluttering this way and that, stammering another apology for her part in selling me into Beowyn’s harem.
She convinced me she had started to like me, but became distrustful, and scared of how her Rä’Vek softened as he looked at me.
How he grew alert when my name was spoken in passing.
She even confided he spoke dotingly of me when they were in their lair, and confessed in a furious rush, she suspected his feelings towards me were more than those for a lesser mate.
I considered letting her off the hook and giving another stab at friendship.
Jealousy was a difficult emotion to handle.
It made us act in unstable ways.
Forgiveness was divine, was it not, and my mates were becoming suspicious of why I had no interest in her when I’d been tenacious in making friends.
After taking some time to mull over it, I decided to dismiss the hatred I’d seen twist her expression the last time we spoke.
I’d hate too if my mates looked at another female the way Cobra looked at me.
My own behaviour had been deplorable, threatening her, rubbing Cobra’s feelings in her face.
It wasn’t cool, and it wasn’t me.
Singing Water’s expression was priceless when Venomous ordered her from the lair.
He bent, tossed me over his shoulder then strode out the living room.
Setting me down in our nest enclosure, he planted both fists either side of my head.
Stumped, I didn’t speak.
His frame of mind was too changeable to get a grip on.
His gaze fixed on my mouth, as it did when he wanted a kiss, but there was an edgier glint in his eyes that made me pause.
Hissing low and long, his thumb pressed hard against my lips.
Thinking playfulness would break his strange mood, I licked the appendage then smiled.
Something worked behind his brille, but I couldn’t decipher what.
A spark glittered within the inky voids, and my alien smirked.
“I messaged Beowyn,” he rumbled. “He replied with a recording.”
“Oookay.”
“To your knees, my Lumen.”
Suspicious, I angled my chin and squinted. “Why?”
Crowding me against the wall until my spine flattened against it, he leaned in and down.
A hard length pressed against my stomach.
My sharp intake of breath lodged in the middle of my airway.
A gush of wet warmed the space between my thighs.
His tongue curled out and clasped at the air then he knew exactly what effect he had on me.
The flex of his hips told me he liked how he made me feel.
“To your knees,” growled at my ear “because I fucking said so.”
Shivers wracked my bones. “Oh, la,” I gasped as I sank to my knees, opened my mouth, and gave him what he wanted.
Pulling his member free of his hardsuit, I dared a heated lick to the moist tip.
Chest heaving, he shuddered.
My fingers dragged up rocklike thighs until they sank into the hollows at his taut buttocks, anchored there to rub hard.
I massaged him through the rubbery textile enclosing his glorious body, and I loved the contrast of its sharp, clean scent to his woody musk.
Venomous hissed, flexed under my palms and rocked.
Tingling ginger spice, dark honey and wet earth dappled my taste buds.
The exhilarating scents grew pungent as the back of my head pressed against the wall, his jutting length nudging my mouth.
A sticky smear on my bottom lip was lapped up by my tongue, the sharp bite of ambrosial cream, tart, fresh. “More.” I dabbed my tongue in the droplet beading his slit.
He roughly gripped himself.
“Yes,” I breathed the sight causing a visceral spasm of lust, a trampling gallop to my pulse. “You saw Veraks do this?”
“Yesss.” He guided himself to my mouth. His breathing coarsened. “Suck me in.”
I laughed, delighted and thinking I needed to send Beowyn his heft in gold.
Moaning, I rubbed my tongue against his flared crown.
Sighed.
His flesh was satiny there.
More fluid weeping from him, the flavour richer, more aromatic.
A pained whistle burst through clenched teeth. “Do you taste me?”
“I do.” My pussy was wet and aching. Its needy depths craved to be filled with the stiff cock sitting heavy on my tongue. “I like it.”
A grunt.
Growls of disbelief.
His abdominals contracted and rippled as his hips rolled, and his arm moved, fist tightening around his moist shaft as he stroked himself off.
Venomous grated, “Suck me.”
My head dipped, and I licked his balls instead.
Jerking, his knees unlocked.
The straightened arm holding his body aloft buckled.
He pinned me against the wall with his lower body, pumping into his jerking hand beside my head.
Thrilled his control fell apart, I nuzzled his sac.
Nipped it.
With a wild yell, he thrust his cock in my face and cried, “I need!”
Aching for him, I took him deep, suckling as his hips worked like a piston.
“I come,” he rasped. “Drink me?”
Slipping a hand between my legs, I touched myself, the grazing pressure to my clit so severe as to sting.
I whimpered, greedy for him.
Venomous stilled.
His forehead thunked against the quartz as he hunched over.
Gripping my head in both hands, he fucked my mouth as my fingers dug into his ass spurring him on.
He knocked my tonsils, I gagged, and the warm squeeze proved his undoing.
A bellowed roar then thickness sliding down my throat.
I swallowed with a muffled keening.
My throat worked to take each tart expulsion that splattered the roof of my mouth, each swallow longer and hungrier than the last.
Breathing ragged, he slipped free of my wet lips on a muttered curse.
Nipples prickling, hard points rasping my softsuit, I barely caught a full breath before the world upended.
Venomous had me on my back, thighs parted, heels pressed into his shoulders as he burrowed his groaning mouth against my cunt.
I gathered enough air to yip encouragement.
Splayed out on the floor, the cold shocking my bare ass, a ridge of material under my heaving, swollen breasts, my arched spine cricked as the fork in his tongue bracketed my clitoris then lashed, twirled and laved.
The ball piercing came into play, and I started making these noises.
He did lethal things that should be against the fucking law when a cry of distress came fro
m the doorway.
Suddenly Venomous ripped away.
He hurtled across the room as a dozen Rä poured in and pounced.
Bundled into strong arms, I was spirited from the room.
Panicked, aroused, scared, I started screaming.
Jaw cracked wide, whole-body-shaking-with-the-force-of-it, lungs burning screaming.
I had one proven weapon against the Rä in my arsenal, and I whacked that baby up full force resolved to do damage.
A clawed hand clamped over my mouth and nose.
Shrieking into the scaly palm, I bucked.
“Silence, female!”
I wrenched my head free, spitting mad. “The fuck? Take your damn hands off me before I rip your dick off.”
“Lumen!” Singing Water bustled up. “Praise be to Zython. You are unharmed.”
I elbowed the steely abdominals of the warrior restraining me, signalling I wanted down.
He didn’t even have the decency to grunt.
My eyes were wild, nerves skittering. “They attacked Venom.”
“Venomous One will be punished for his mistreatment of you.” She clutched my hand. “It does not matter if you are an offworlder. Mistreatment of Rä’Na is not accepted.” Her grip crushed my fingers. “Venomous One is bound by law to give all he has to support you. Do not fear you will starve. If Fiercely Comes the Night is convicted of the same offences, you and your offspring will stay with....” The words lodged in her throat. Her eyes fired then she cast her gaze downward. “Your lesser mate will shelter you, unless you call forth another a’Rä.”
I slow blinked.
My hand ripped from hers, and I put it in her face.
Right up in her face.
So close, her neck snapped back.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Voice pitched low, I moved my hand aside. “You saw my Rä’Vek, come into our lair and take me to our nest, where he did things to me, things meaning I’m worried my insides will never unravel, and you had a cadre of warriors break in then attack him because of it?”
Up went my palm, back in her face as she went to speak because I did not want to hear her bullshit.
I moved my hand, and began in a reasonable tone, “Have you lost,” then detonated and screeched, “your ever loving mind?”
“You moaned and cried.” Singing Water wrung her hands. “I followed you to see if he had discovered–” She broke off gaze darting to the male that held me. “If you needed aid.”