“A moment.” The Premier fell quiet.
I realised the rows of figures discussed the case then fed their opinions to the Premier.
“Petitioner,” his voice boomed. “Present evidence the creature is yours.”
My head twisted to Venomous, expecting him to do something that did that.
“Her name is She, Lumen of the Stars and she became my mate during captivity by the L’Odo.” He motioned to us all. “She carries our offspring.”
“Rök is a registered planet,” Fiercely added. “As such, our laws and traditions must be respected by this assembly.”
Cobra nodded, the set of his mouth grim.
“This is truth,” the Premier droned.
“The creature was taken from its world by a lawful trader, and I purchased it fairly. It is my possession,” the pugnacious L’Odo bellowed. “The Rä soft-scalp had no right to mate it.”
“This is not truth,” the Premier replied. “Registered species, even as slaves, retain that right under Intergalactic Prime Edict Five.”
Weak with relief, I slumped into Cobra.
His upper hand stroked my hair as his lower one patted my thigh, soothing me even as he glared daggers at the presiding Speaker.
“However, if Lumen of the Stars is afforded the right by the laws of her people is unknown,” the Premier mused to a rumble of agreement from the Council members.
“It belongs to me,” Sorkbhal snarled. “If I am denied my property, the poaching fine and allegation must be overturned.”
My jaw swung open.
I turned to look at the shadowy figure with a horrible feeling, my presence complicated things for the Rä complaint.
“Our decision is this. We are to contact Lumen of the Stars’ birth planet to determine if she holds the right to relocate, and mate with the Rä warriors. If approval is not granted, Lumen of the Stars will be returned to the L’Odo. Though she was apprehended during unlawful poaching, which we have levied a fine against, regardless of outcome, her species is not protected, and she was purchased legally during a sanctioned auction.”
Crest flaring with glee, Sorkbhal jerked forward. “As it was originally my property, I demand the right to its return until final judgement.”
A short, electrifying pause where my heart stuttered.
So followed the six hearts of my mates.
“Denied. Lumen of the Stars carries Rä offspring. The males may legally claim a percentage of her body mass. The right to protect genetic progeny outweighs the right to protect property, until this Council’s final conclusion. The Rä already have Lumen of the Stars in their possession, and possession is the fundamental backbone of Intergalactic Edict. Your request is illogical. We reconvene next rotation. A notification will be sent to your pods.” A gavel banged. “Next!”
Clutching my throat, I turned to Venomous. “It’s a bloody good thing you knocked me up, babe!”
The force field kept us separated from a sneering Sorkbhal, until we were out the chamber, and into the transport capsule.
Returned to our habitation pod, we trundled into the living bubble then stood in a circle.
We stared sombrely at each other.
Making a face, I walked away, spun around then flopped onto the cushiony mat on my back.
I slapped the bedding. “Now what?”
Venomous crossed the pod to stand at my feet. “We wait.”
“For what?” Fiercely raged. “For those cold-hearted bureaucrats to take our life mate because of some imbecilic law? So they may give her to that sadistic monster?”
“All will be well,” Venomous averred his expression strained.
“You cannot say that. We should not have come here. We risk everything.”
“What else was there to do? You sat in the same conclaves as I. The Senate floundered for an answer to appease the populace. They need to see justice done against those who treated me like chattel. They need to believe they are safe from subjugation. Coming here was the safest, most diplomatic resolution. One that I could live with.”
“We could have declared war on the L’Odo mother planet. Lumen would have been kept out of harm’s way.”
“We leave,” Cobra declared. “Withdraw the complaints, and return to home world.”
Venomous shot him a forbidding look. “Fleeing won’t solve this. The L’Odo need to be punished, or they will dare more in future. We must protect our people from the cruelty I endured. And our Rä’Na wouldn’t be in danger, if she was back on Rök, safe, in our lair as I wanted.”
“You don’t know that,” I protested popping up. “That I’d be safer on Rök. The events of the last moontide have proven that.” I angled my chin up. “My presence here is not the issue.”
Venomous glared.
“Okay, so maybe it would’ve played out different if I hadn’t come, but you couldn’t make charges of poaching, and the other offences against me stick without my testimony. I complicate things, yes, but I do add weight to your case. Other species might complain too, especially if they’re too intimidated to speak out about the L’Odo’s crimes for fear of retaliation. Our actions may inspire courage.” I gave them each a smile far braver than the dread turning my insides to slush. “I’m not afraid to stand up to these tyrants. Neither should you be, not because of what you fear will happen to me.”
“Not afraid?” Cobra thundered his eyes burning. “If that vile male gets hold of you, the depraved things he will–”
“I’m fucking terrified of what he’ll do should he get hold of me again. But I have faith. Not in the Intergalactic Council’s procedures. Not in some deity, or my own intrepid ability to avoid disaster by the skin of my teeth. I have faith in you. In Venom, and in Fiercely.” Passionate words filled me up then spilled over in a messy rush. “My fears are not flesh and blood reality. You three are. I know you will protect me from Sorkbhal, making my fear of what he might do obsolete. We have to make a stand.” Feeling powerful, I faced Venomous. “We have to be strong for beings like Yofk, who lose their family to greed. For females like the Vudwani, who are savaged, so destroyed they don’t want to exist anymore.” I knelt then tugged him down so I could cradle his gorgeous face in my palms. “So honourable males are not forced to spend years alone, cut off from those who love them.” Besieged with the realisation of how important seeing this through to the end was, my eyes watered. “And so plebs like me don’t get snatched, and terrified to within an inch of their lives.”
“You did not do so bad,” Venomous rasped, cupping my face in return. “I found you.”
“What about the ones who don’t have a warrior to fight for them? Babe, if you hadn’t been captured and sold into slavery think about what would’ve happened to me.”
He blanched.
“I won’t back down from this. We can’t. Not if it protects another soul from the horror we suffered.”
Tearing my gaze away, I held out my hand.
Cobra grabbed it like a lifeline.
I stared into his panicked eyes, and my heart thudded at his distress.
He cares so much.
“To do nothing, or to run because it’s dangerous is wrong. Not when what we do here might save others.” I squeezed his hand. “Be brave for me, honey, so I can be brave for them.”
Cobra made a pained noise then snatched me off the mat.
He crushed me to his heaving chest. “My Rä’Na. You are fearless.”
I laughed, and rubbed my face against his throat that smelt of charred, campfire wood and herby smoke, knowing to move my nose higher would lighten the scent to fresh split bark.
“Not even,” I said. “I’m just pissed. So pissed, I’m determined to slap the L’Odo down so hard they struggle to get back up.”
Fiercely said, “The sensible decision is to return to home world, and that is what we must do.” He levelled Venomous with a damning look. “You are primary. You must make her see this, even if it means she sulks for a moontide.”
And here c
omes the tough sell.
I faced him with a sober expression. “Sweetheart–”
“Do not think to try your wiles on me, Lumen.” His jaw clenched, arms crossing his front as if they were armour. “I am proud to be mated to one so valiant,” a fist thumped his suited chest, “so very proud. But it is your safety and wellbeing I defend. It is you I am pledged to, no other. I am He, Fiercely Comes the Night, Rä’Vek to She, Lumen of the Stars. My priorities are her, our offspring and our nest mates. It always will be this way. Come philanthropic undertaking, come galactic war, come the obliteration of the universe as we know it. So, I say, we are going home,” he ended on a roar. “Because I refuse to lose you.”
Flabbergasted, I hung frozen in Cobra’s embrace and stared.
And stared.
And just freaking stared at the impassioned warrior declaring himself my eternal champion.
He’d never been so open.
My reply eked out in the faintest of whispers. “W-What did you just say to me?”
Alarmed by my wild expression, Venomous held up his hands. “Let us calm down....”
I wrenched from Cobra’s arms and launched myself at Fiercely with a battle cry that had all three males jumping.
He caught me, startled.
Then smiled broadly as I peppered frantic kisses over his face.
I mumbled, “You are so getting laid right now.”
“Laid?” he and Cobra muttered with identical chin drops.
Used to my dirty talk, Venomous rumbled, “I think it means you lie back....”
“And I have my wicked way with you,” I finished on a leer.
Handsome face creased with laughter, Fiercely’s brille gleamed as he strode to the mat, twisted, and then tumbled us to bounce around, copying what I’d done earlier.
I adored how they did that; how they accepted my human gestures and claimed them for their own.
“Ooh, la, la.”
Straddling magnificent, muscled thighs and a filled out hardsuit bulging in all the right places, I dragged my nails down his rubber-clad pectorals.
Hard, hot male mine to touch and taste.
I grinned, and I just knew it was fiendish. “This is going to be epic.”
He rolled on top of me. “Indeed.” He darted down to score fangs over my throat, meandering lower as I bent my legs to accommodate his hips.
Desire sank needy claws into my limbs, like tangled holdfast.
His weight pressed me into the spongy mat, and his peppery heat, his rumbling hiss, the hard prod of his cock on my inner thigh drove me fucking crazy.
A bell climbed a scale of high notes.
“Ah,” Venomous murmured. “Things were about to get interesting.”
Back arching, I gasped, “Busy, babe. Send them away then come play with me.”
Winking at him, I sought and found Fiercely’s panting mouth.
Cobra slinked up to watch our heated clinch in a lustful daze.
Venomous sounded irked. “As you wish. It is nothing but a gift. I thought you might like it, but I shall just–”
“Gift?” I mumbled detaching my lips from Fiercely’s with a wet pop. “I love presents.”
I wriggled out from under my mate.
Fiercely fell face first into the mat and groaned, humping the air.
Cobra snickered and helped him up, clapping his back in commiseration.
I hop, skip, jumped to the door.
“Give it.” I bit my lip. Hands behind my back, I added a polite, “Please.”
Dropping a kiss to my nose, Venomous hit the backlit, glass control panel next to the doorway.
The barrier whirled open.
On the other side, stood Commander Éorik, and peeking from behind him an amused Verak King.
Hands flying to press my mouth, I gave a happy shriek.
I hustled forward to hug Éorik’s middle. “Oh-la! What-are-you-doing-here? It-is-so-great-to-see-you!” I spoke so fast my words mashed together. I gasped for breath, so forced myself to slow. “I can’t believe it.”
Debonair in black jodhpurs, a white lawn cloth shirt with a starched collar, and glossy thigh high boots, Éorik tossed his hooded cloak over his shoulder.
He put a hand to the hilt of the blaster at his trim waist then gave Venomous, Fiercely and Cobra solemn bows of respect.
A waterfall of silver hair shrouded his body, and his alabaster horns were buffed to shine.
“Good greetings.” He straightened, and his solemn expression lightened. “I too am surprised. I expected your husbands to keep you far from this one,” he bobbed his head toward Beowyn, “for the rest of your life. But Venomous One commed us, and asked us to journey here to meet you for last meal. How could we decline such a gracious invitation?”
I turned to the Great Alpha with a giggle at his clothing.
Beowyn ThunderClaw skipped debonair, and went straight to hot-fuck-on-legs with a bare, furred chest delineated with deep cut muscle, over which draped a cape of russet pelt.
A roughly-sewn loincloth covered his groin, and animal hide enclosed his large feet.
His black and silver mane was tamed by two warrior braids at the front to keep the wild mass from his slanted eyes.
Strapped to his back was an ornamented broadsword, the leather belt criss-crossing his lissom torso.
Topping all this off was an imposing crown made of thorny bones that sat on his head like a diadem, crafted to encompass his onyx laurel horns.
“The ancient ceremonial garb of our people,” Éorik mumbled sounding tired of explaining the raiment.
“Lumen,” Beowyn boomed his arms slung wide. “Come, small one. Come to who you fancy best.”
Éorik sighed then murmured apologies as my mates bristled.
“You’re so bad.” My arms encircled Beowyn’s boulder-big shoulders. I near gored myself on the bony, curved spurs tipping his clavicles. “Don’t provoke them. I have no desire to scrape you off the floor.”
“She of little faith.”
He lifted me up to jounce me in his arms then stopped at the shouts of my ‘delicate’ condition.
With a sheepish wince, he enquired, “How is the cub?”
“Healthy. Snug. Loved.”
“And safe?” he questioned his gaze directed over my head.
I tutted. “Of course.”
“What is that doing here?” Fiercely demanded with a rude finger stab.
“Jealous?” Cobra teased.
Fiercely spat, “Yesss,” without shame.
Biting back his amusement, Venomous shrugged. “He is my Lumen’s friend. A visit from him makes her happy, and will cause no harm.” Then he muttered, “And we will not have to invite him planet side for at least another solar.”
Fiercely and Cobra made approving, “Thsst,” noises.
Venomous plucked me from Beowyn to bundle me into a neck to ankle ebony robe with a deep cowl to hide my face.
We summoned then boarded a transport capsule.
Though designed roomy, the space crammed with muscular warriors that smelled of smoke, wood, nuts, dark chocolate and vanilla, and who looked down at me as if I were the most precious body in the world.
Gosh, it ended up a squeeze, but I white-knuckled my way through it.
“I know of a place,” Beowyn confided his thick finger punching in the location code. We zoomed off. “The most exclusive restaurant on Zoi Quay. I have an executive pass.”
Blinking, Éorik winced. “Great One, I do not think-”
The doors peeled open, and the sound of a breathy, screaming orgasm split the air.
It took a while for the writhing fur, twitching skin and ruffled feathers to make sense.
“Here we are,” Beowyn said with a sinful curve of the mouth, stepping out to throw open his arms. “Come for me.”
Éorik sighed again.
Sensing credits, a fawning bevy of courtesans pivoted his direction.
They cooed a welcome, licking lips and plucking nipples.
At my ear Venomous hissed, “Do not even think of stepping off this transport.”
I nodded, picking my jaw up off the floor.
Green and blue light illuminated the mass of bodies in a garish blaze.
Humping buttocks and spread legs jostled under, on and above the floating dining tables.
Leashed servers in skimpy uniforms fucked and sucked the patrons who fornicated on any horizontal or sloping surface.
They quenched their thirst by sipping drinks from fleshy hollows, assuaged hunger by nibbling morsels off plump curves.
The live band was reminiscent of trashy Europop.
A percussionist with a jillion tentacles bashed crazily on drums and chimes from a silo of orange gloop.
The lead singer, trussed in what looked like gunmetal duct tape, strummed and plucked an instrument that resembled an electric guitar come harp.
He, or she, I couldn’t work it out as it had a generous cleavage and an imposing penis bulge, wailed about dark, wet holes on somewhere called Paniki pleasure station.
Dressed in nothing but hot pants, the coltish female rocking the synthesizer pumped her cloven hoof and shook her bushy tail.
The air was redolent sex and perfume, clashed with the smell of vinegary alien fodder.
Googly-eyed, I mumbled, “Bloody hell, Wyn.”
“This is not a place for eating,” Fiercely snapped.
“Aye, ‘tis,” Beowyn argued. “You can just eat if you do not wish to frolic. Look.” He pointed. “There. What the Hydok is eating smells delicious. No one is bothering him.”
There was a sole male in the middle of the orgy eating chunks of browned meat from a greasy platter.
His elephant-sized ears undulated, reaching a foot above his head and stretched down to his portly waist.
Suddenly they went stiff and he trumpeted.
Everything froze.
The tawdry music, gasping moans and cries of ecstasy lulled.
A gaggle of spritely females with gauzy wings, and petite, curving horns giggled as they clambered from under the table at the Hydok’s hind paws.
One wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, winked at the gorging male then staggered off, righting her teeny skirt made of flowering vines.
Éorik yanked Beowyn back into the capsule, ignoring the courtesans’ whines of protest.