by Corin Cain
I pant, every muscle in my body straining against the huge hands of my blood-brothers. They’re both strong, deadly warriors – but they’re barely keeping me pinned against the bulkhead, my need for Juliana is so strong.
A feral part of my mind knows there’s only a thin blast door between me and my prize. I will have her. I will make her moan my name and scream out in ecstasy as we become bonded for eternity.
I will make her bear my child. I will breed her, watch her tits fill and her belly swell with my child. I’ll have her wear pregnancy as the true mark of my complete ownership of her. Juliana will whimper with pain when I’m done spanking her bottom. She’ll moan in pleasure when I’m fully inside her, stretching her to the limit. I’ll make music with the sounds I illicit from her intoxicating body.
I hear snarling, like a wild dog, and I realize it’s me. I’m the one making those noises, like a beast.
Arok slaps me. Hard. My ears ring. Then he hits me again with the back of his hand.
“Get a hold of yourself!”
Shock fills me. It isn’t pain – no man has hit me in two-hundred years and lived to tell the tale.
My mind clears, and I feel revulsion at myself.
I was about to treat Juliana like a slave. I was about to beat down that blast door and take her, like she was a possession – a toy. I was overwhelmed with lust, and could think of nothing more than sating my aching balls in her sweet cunt.
Xeres. My mission. Two-hundred years of careful preparation and all the horrible things I did to achieve it… All forgotten, in my lust.
I’m disgusted with myself for losing control.
Juliana warned that she believed we were bonded – and I start to suspect that’s true. It explains the sheer, overwhelming intensity of my reaction. The bond is the greatest force in the universe – the burning need that urges Aurelians to mate, and seed, and breed – to continue their species.
It’s the only explanation, although it doesn’t excuse my behavior. All logical thought left my brain when I imagined seeding her. I was no longer myself – no longer a man. I was just a rutting beast – and I would have used Juliana like a breeding sow.
I hate myself for it. Guilt hits me, deep and painful.
“I… I…”
I can’t remember ever being at a loss for words. Now revulsion hits me and I understand that none of the evils I’ve committed can compare to what just happened.
I would kill a thousand men to protect Juliana. I’d rain Orb-Beams down on a city of innocents to keep Juliana safe. I’d face the brutal strength of Emperor Raegan himself, and his triad, all in the Arena of the Gods with the Elites of the Aurelian Empire watching, all to keep her secure.
I would literally end a dynasty in her name.
And yet, if I forced myself on her…
…I’d never forgive myself.
My frenzy is over. I relax my muscles, and stop straining against the iron grip of my blood-brothers.
“Thank you,” I pant. Arok nods – and then he slaps me one more time.
“That one is for being a criminal mastermind,” he says flatly, and amusement comes through the bond. I forgot how much I missed feeling the presence of my blood-brothers in my mind. Their minds are like two constant auras in the back of my head, radiating their emotions and thoughts.
Closing down our bond kept me alone for two centuries. Finally, with their presence back in my mind, I feel whole again.
Almost whole. I ache for Juliana’s aura to join ours, as I’m sure it will.
Brutan slowly releases his grip on my arm, as if he isn’t sure whether or not I’m feigning my return to sanity. When I make no move to strike him, he sees that my frenzy has truly passed.
“It’s not your fault, Korgath,” Brutan murmurs. “The bond demands it of you. You must be strong. We are not slavers. You must prove to her that you are worthy, and she will submit willingly.”
Brutan is a quiet one. In all the centuries I’ve known him, those are the most words I’ve ever heard him string together all at one.
I sigh, forcing thoughts of Juliana’s erect nipples and soft flesh out of my mind. It’s the scent of her arousal that transfixes me most; that almost turns me into a beast.
The more aroused she is, the more I have to fight to stop myself from claiming her, right then and there.
I slam my hand against the metal of the wall. The pain centers me.
Arok’s face hardens. “We want to help you, Korgath. Truly we do. But we can’t leave – we have a contract with the miners to protect them from the Scorp nest for another ten days.”
My biceps flex in anticipation. “The best protection is to eliminate that nest.”
When it was just the two of them, with nothing but flak-suits to protect them, such an idea would be impossible.
But together? Our blood-bonded triad reunited, and me with my Orb-Armor?
There’s a chance. Perhaps.
“Together, we can clear that nest,” I pledge.
Brutan looks at me with respect.
What I’m suggesting is risky. No, that’s too gentle a word.
It’s madness.
The three of us will venture into the darkness of the cave system. We’ll cut our way through endless waves of teeming Scorp warriors. Then we’ll find the heart of the nest, and rip the head from the towering, fearsome Scorp queen.
One touch of a Scorp’s stinger and we’ll die. One false move, and a pile of Scorp warriors will crush us to death.
It’s reckless, risky, and foolish.
But it’s the only way to ensure the safety of the miners, and give us time to return to Titus on schedule.
If I’d made this suggestion to anybody else – even other Aurelian warriors – they’d have scoffed. It wasn’t a strategic decision. It wasn’t smart.
But my blood-brothers can sense the determination in my mind. They’re with me, until the end.
In fact, the corner of Brutan’s lip curls, and he snorts: “It’s worth a try. We have to die sometime, after all.” He hefts his Orb-Blade, and gestures towards the airlock.
I pound my fist on the blast door – the thin mental that was all which protected Juliana from my frenzied mating lust.
“Juliana?”
There’s a quiet pause. Then, realizing my frenzy is over, I hear her murmur: “What?”
Her voice is suspicious – as well it should be.
What I did was unforgivable – but I am not one to apologize.
“Man the controls,” I tell her. “You have fine aim with that Orb-Beam. You’re going to need it. You must protect the miners, while we clear the Scorp nest. If even one of those beasts gets past us, it could tear those humans to shreds. Be careful - whatever you do, don’t hit the raw Orbs.”
There’s a hiss. The blast door slides open, and Juliana peers out suspiciously. Her eyes lock onto me distrustfully, and I hate myself at the suspicion in her glance. She’s seen the true me – the evil, bestial side that I try so hard to push down deep inside. She’s seen the aspect of me that normally only blossoms into action when I’m fighting, or fucking.
She’s seen that I’m no angel – even by the standards of my crime lord reputation.
Nevertheless, suspicion turns to concern the instant she sees I’m no longer consumed by the mating frenzy.
“No – you can’t go into that Scorp nest. You’ll… you’ll die!”
I snarl: “In that case, your problem is solved – you won’t have to worry about our bond.”
My words are cruel. I see the caring in her eyes, and I’m rejecting it with my coldness. But I’m doing her a favor, really.
I don’t deserve her worry. Not right now.
We don our spacesuits once again – mine over my Orb-Armor, and theirs incorporating the rugged flak-armor that is all that protects them from the claws and stingers of the Scorp horde.
That’s not protection at all, as well they both now.
The airlock hisses, and I follow my blood-brothers out
into the cold vacuum of the asteroid’s surface.
The moment we step clear of my ship, I reach to my belt and my Orb-Blade hums into action.
It quivers in my hand, and I know deep in my bones that it heard our conversation. It seems ridiculous, to give the illusion of conscious thought to a weapon… But the Orb is mysterious, and somehow I know that my blade is eager for battle; that it will rip through the carapace of a twenty-feet-tall Scorp Queen, or that it will remain in my hand as I die trying.
Together, for the first time in two centuries, my triad strides into battle.
Side-by-side, we descend into the sprawling network of caves riddling the core of the asteroid.
What happens next is a blur of blood, battle and brutality.
We spend three hours in the pure blackness of the Scorp Nest, slaughtering beast after beast, until we finally descend to the heart of the nest, and do battle with the Scorp queen herself.
It’s a battle worthy of song – the equal of any we fought during our hundred years of service.
Yet, together again, the three of us are victorious. The Scorp queen dies beneath our Orb-Blades, uttering a screech that will burn through me until the day I die.
But the instant she’s slain, the remaining Scorp warriors slink off, their hive mind broken.
The few Scorp that remain will fester in the shadows, sinking into stupor, starving or asphyxiating without a consciousness to drive their actions.
They’ll pose no more risk to the miners.
Limping, I lead my triad out of the cave network, but into the light. Only the dripping blood on my Orb-Blade and the deep slash across my chest hint to the unfathomable evil we just vanquished.
19
Juliana
My trigger finger itched the whole time – but in the three hours the Aurelians were gone, not a single Scorp attacked the miners. The minutes passed tortuously, and each second I wondered if I’d ever see any of those three towering aliens again.
As much as I hated Korgath right now, it’s terrifying to think I might have lost him. I can’t fathom having gone through so much with that intoxicating man, only to be abandoned by him on an airless asteroid, out in the fringes of deep space.
In fact, the moment I finally see Korgath limping out of the Scorp Cave, his triad at his side, I feel the muscles in my entire body relax.
But as soon as my worry disappears, my anger at him returns.
I don’t even want to look at Korgath right now.
Confirming that the miners are safe, I abandon my position at the Orb-Beam and recluse myself back to that room at the rear of the ship – not even caring if it looks like I’m hiding.
And maybe I am hiding – but not from Korgath.
I’m hiding from what I’ve been hiding from all this time – the same, old, heavy guilt that wracks me constantly; as I remember the deed that drove me to the fringes of deep space in the first place. The terrible thing I did, that forced me to get facial surgery, reinvent my identity, and escape to the lawless edges of space.
No matter how angry I think I am at Korgath, my hatred for him will never match my hatred for myself.
What is that old Earth expression? “No good deed goes unpunished”?
Isn’t that the truth. At the time, back then, I’d thought I was doing something good. My best friend might have got caught up in an anti-Aurelian political movement that bordered on terrorism, but I knew she wasn’t truly part of the group, and never participated in their evil deeds.
She was a hanger-on – brainwashed and indoctrinated by the bigoted rhetoric of the so-called ‘humanist movement.’ When she was arrested and imprisoned, I knew she didn’t deserve the same punishment as those of her group who’d committed true acts of terror.
But Aurelian law is as cold and impersonal as many Aurelians are themselves. It lacks nuance, and there was no hope of appeal or forgiveness for my friend. She was sentenced to a life of hard labor, and I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t try to help her.
So, at just 18-years-old, I stole my father’s ship and burned my way through the prison where my friend was being held with his mining beam.
And I succeeded in my mission. In the chaos, my best friend got free. She’s alive now, free in the outside world, liberated not just from decades in an Aurelian prison, but also from the grip of that band of terrorists.
But she wasn’t the only one to get free.
Nearly thirty more high-security prisoners escaped the holding cells when I broke her out – and that was my fault.
I shudder, remembering the most infamous of those prisoners: Rav’nok the planet killer.
I had no idea Rav’nok was being held there when I raided the place. He was on his way to stand trial on the Aurelian homeworld of Colossus. Maybe if I had known, I wouldn’t have risked the raid in the first place.
But I did, and because of my mining beam, he’d broken free when my friend did.
Broken free, and begun his campaign of terror once again. Every death by his hand since has been a stain on my conscience.
He’s a mass murderer at the highest scale, ending billions of lives. All because of me.
I grit my teeth.
Korgath’s frenzy of lust angered me, but it was nothing compared to the evil I unleashed on the universe. I have to clean my slate, and if I can’t face Rav’nok, the only way I can atone is to rid the universe of somebody just as evil.
Xeres is that evil.
He might not be a murderer on the scale of Rav’nok, but he is still one of the most evil slave traders in the known universe. Every year, the lives of tens of thousands of young human women are ruined by the slave lord.
If I can be part of bringing him to justice, and finally ending his vast criminal empire, maybe I’ll once again be able to sleep at night – without thinking of the innocents slain because of my mistake.
A sob wracks me as I sit alone, in the back room of Korgath’s luxury cruiser.
I steel myself.
I need to redeem myself for my sins.
If that means being in a room with those three monstrous aliens – and even roughly losing my virginity to them – then that will be my penance.
And I know that it will be inevitable. I won’t be able to stop my body from reacting to the presence of these three, alpha warriors. I know they won’t be able to resist, when they see me aroused and vulnerable.
But this is no less than what I deserve.
If it means having every submissive urge – the ones lurking deep in my mind – brought vividly to the surface, then that is what I must endure.
If it means having my sense of independence literally fucked out of me, until I exist only to serve, then that is what I must do.
I don’t deserve to be a person. I deserve to be a thing.
I hate myself so badly for the damage I’ve done, and the only thing that will lift the guilt from my shoulders is to see Xeres brought to justice.
“I will atone,” I say to myself, and in uttering the words out loud, I feel the power surging through me.
20
Korgath
My desire for Juliana is only inflamed by her icy demeanor.
She wants me. I know it – but she still can’t accept her true desire to be my submissive. I know that when we mate, the bond will enhance her needs, and she won’t be able to stop herself from submitting...
…but I don’t want that.
I need her to submit on her own. I need her mind to melt to my control without the overpowering influence of the bond.
I want to own her of her own free will, not her body’s biological imperative.
These are the thoughts that occupy my mind, as she and I fly to Xeres’ mansion.
She is on my leash, and we do not talk. The coldness between us is palpable.
At Xeres manor, we pass through security.
The gaunt Aurelian who purchased Juliana from the slave pirates – the one she referred to as ‘the accountant’ meets us th
rough the doorway, and explains the setup:
“We have invited thirty bidders to the auction - both humans and Aurelians, as well as two off-world trillionaires who have flown in especially.”
Off-world trillionaires. In reality Brutan and Arok, playing the role.
The accountant continues:
“We will proceed with the auction on the very same stage as you purchased her. The winner will then have your slave alone in our pleasure room. It will be very discreet and private - with all the tools of pleasure provided. Meanwhile, after you are satisfied with the proceedings of the sale, you are to meet Mr. X in his private office.”
The gaunt Aurelian takes Juliana’s leash from me, and I see the hatred that Juliana feels for him when he studies her.
He humiliated her, threatened her, and has indelibly wounded her.
I will be the one to kill him, when this business with Xeres finally comes to a close.
I make my way to the auction room, where thirty rich, powerful humans and Aurelians are assembled, waiting for Juliana to take center stage. They all look up as I enter – for once not just awed at the presence of the most infamous crime lord on Titus, but I’m the man auctioning the virginity of my slave; something unthinkable to most.
It is unthinkable. Just the idea makes my skin crawl – of trading another man’s hands on my mate, in exchange for something as meaningless as coin…
…but this is just a line in the script of the part I must play. If Xeres is ever to trust me, he must think I’m the one Aurelian in the universe more despicable than him.
The auctioneer steps on stage and clears his throat, gaining the attention of the gathered bidders.
I barely hear a word he says as he drums up interest in the ‘merchandise’ – Juliana’s virginity.
I don’t need to hear him try to sell something I already own. In fact, the way he talks about Juliana and her prized ‘innocence’ disgusts me.
I’m just thankful I know how this one ends.
21
Juliana