by V. K. Ludwig
Chained
Garrison Earth Book Five
V. K. Ludwig
Ink Heart Publishing
Copyright © 2020 by V. K. Ludwig
www.vkludwig.com
Publisher: Ink Heart Publishing
Cover Art: Covers by Combs
Editing: Silvia Curry
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, locations, or any other element is entirely coincidental.
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Warning: This book contains explicit sexual content.
Contents
1. Zavis
2. Zavis
3. Naney
4. Zavis
5. Zavis
6. Naney
7. Naney
8. Zavis
9. Naney
10. Naney
11. Zavis
12. Zavis
13. Naney
14. Zavis
15. Naney
16. Zavis
17. Naney
18. Zavis
19. Naney
20. Naney
21. Zavis
22. Naney
23. Zavis
24. Zavis
25. Naney
A word from the author
Also by V. K. Ludwig
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One
Zavis
Now…
“I have some regrets,” I said and shifted on numb seat bones, each jostling stride of my yuleshi burning my skin raw even through jeans.
The massive, black-skinned cat prowled over the baked earth of Solgad, the breeze so slicing hot, it offered no relief from the planet’s deadly sun. Wearing a linen cloak—gray eyes hiding deep underneath the hood—didn’t help much, either.
But at least it hid who I was.
The Chainsmith.
“For one, I shouldn’t have shaved my balls before swinging onto the back of this beast.” I unscrewed the canteen dangling from my neck, took a sip, and let the hot-as-piss water burn against my dry, puckered gums. “Second, I should have made certain you fools actually knew where the fuck their mother tree was.”
“Shut your mouth, demon,” the grossly overpaid Jal’zar freeraider beside me snarled, his tail flicking in aggression. “Your credits paid for me to bring you to their group, but don’t plague me with your ramblings. I don’t care for your regrets.”
I let myself fall back, aligning my spine with that of my yuleshi, and draped my arm over a bruise on my forehead. “Forty-thousand credits to lead me through this damn desert, warrior, and you will listen to my ramblings. You owe me at least that, considering how you let them beat me at the last trade camp.”
“You deserved it,” he scoffed.
I deserved far worse.
“We’re steering off-course.” Another out-of-tune heartbeat proved it. “I sense it.”
“What does a Vetusian without a soul understand of such things? The trader assured me the females settle east of Jal’don, where tendetu are plentiful after their season of hatching.”
I clasped my calves tighter around the slim ribcage of my yuleshi and hoisted myself back up to sit, black strands clinging to my damp temples.
“This way.” I pointed toward the rock formation to the north-east, a dense resonance vibrating through my ribcage. “That’s where we will find them.”
“Gef’tun,” he commanded, bringing his yuleshi to a halt before he glanced over a cracked landscape dotted with recently planted light green saplings. “How do you know?”
Because I sensed the shaman who kept half of my damned soul hostage. Right over there, behind that rock, where heatwaves rose from the ashen soil and distorted the horizon.
“What kind of demon would I be if I didn’t, huh?” With a shift of my weight, I spurred my mount to a quicker pace. “Not much longer now, warrior. Perhaps an argos.”
It was much less than that.
By the time we reached the rolling foothills, wind-worn and gray like everything else on this harsh planet, my chest filled with anger.
Anger that wasn’t mine.
Naney sensed my return, and each advancing paw of my overgrown cat turned that anger first hot, then furious, until it settled on a blood-rage.
Fantastic.
I was a dead male.
Dry wood snapped.
So dead…
“Alde’e, kunas.” The Jal’zar warrior lifted his arms, his yuleshi urged into a stop by the tension of its master alone. “Calm, females. We came for your shimid.”
No answer.
In fact, the trees remained as still as if he’d spoken to himself. But several solar cycles on this planet during our occupation had taught me a thing or two. First, one of them was always watching. Second, you won’t see them unless they let you. And if they let you… good luck.
With a tug on the reins tied around my mount’s maw, I brought the beast to a stop. “You never mentioned she’s their official shimid now.”
“Shh.” Head lowered, he dropped his tail down the side of his mount. “If you value your life, Zavis da taigh Broknar, you’ll quit wasting your words and pray to your gods now.”
A chuckle crept past my lips.
I had no life.
What I had was the body of an aging male, humbled by guilt, serving as the brittle shell for a half-torn soul. But I would make it whole again. By the heat of Heliar, I would, and I would reunite what belonged together.
Slender limbs climbed out from behind a young tree, the female perfectly blending in with her gray skin—if it wasn’t for how she snarled white fangs at me.
“Turn around, Chainsmith. You’re not wanted here.” Tail lifting, claw glistening behind her shoulder, the Jal’zar female stared down the warrior next to me. “No male is.”
“I’ve claimed my female many sun cycles ago,” he said. “My soul is bonded to the mother of my two sons, and I haven’t come to claim another.”
The female gave a tired chuckle, her eyes heavy, probably from lack of sleep during this time of her mating heat. “You would die trying. Now leave, and don’t forget to take the demon with you.”
“Oh no, female. There are no riches you could pay me to spend another moment in this Vetusian’s presence. He sees nothing, he hears nothing. He confesses his sins during the day and screams like a babe at night.”
“If you don’t take him, he’ll find death at our hands.”
“By Mekara, a sight I wouldn’t want to miss, if my female wasn’t expecting me back home, round with our daughter.” With a click of his tongue, he turned his yuleshi around. “He paid me to bring him here, and I have no other business with this male.”
Behind me, the paws of his mount dug into the soil, pads and nails crunching over grit and ash. One growl of the beast, and the yuleshi angled his haunches, thrusting into a sprint.
“Guess it’s just you and me now, kuna.” I jutted my chin toward the few trees behind her, branches dense with dark purple foliage. “And all the other females you have stashed away.”
Soft giggles resonating from all around confirmed as much, but I didn’t bother searching. Agile and stealthy as they were, you stood bett
er chances finding a white grain of sand on this planet than a Jal’zar.
“Go home, Chainsmith.” She gestured over the burnt plains beside us. “Her rage is potent enough to kill you.”
Always had been. “So is this planet. I didn’t come all this way into this desert to do what she can finish with one prick of her claw.”
The female cocked her head, the end of her black braid falling over her shoulder. “She hates you.”
“Yeah, that’s what she keeps telling herself.” My fist gave one whomp against my chest where her loathing for me scratched my insides bloody. “Tell her to get her skinny ass over here so she can finish me off. Drive her tailclaw through that heart she’s infesting with her hormonal antics.”
The female’s lips peeled back into a snarl, then curved upward into a fat grin, sucking all warmth from my body, no matter the sweat running down my spine.
Definitely dead…
Neck too stiff to dare a glance over my shoulder, I only sighed. “She’s already standing behind me, isn’t sh—”
Sleek muscle wrapped around my neck and squeezed tight, disabling my next inhale. One tug and a Jal’zar tail I knew all too well ripped me off my beast, temporarily suspending me in the air.
I hit the ground shoulder first, the soil so dry and compacted it might as well have been rock. It pushed all air from my lungs, but Naney groaned in pain in my stead.
“I hate… when… you… do that,” I choked out, the world going foggy around me.
Digging my nails into her tail, I kicked my legs until I found my footing. I took a massive step back, reached behind me until my fingers wrapped around ridges, and yanked on her horns.
I pulled her over my shoulder.
Naney hit the ground with a yelp.
I moaned as well, “I’m sorry.”
Oh, that one hurt. Her pain seared across my back as if I’d stabbed myself in the spine with a dagger.
With a backflip, she retreated her tail, kicking my chin before she landed on her feet. My hand immediately pressed against the pain on my jaw, and she mirrored the motion.
“Zavis.” Purple eyes narrowed on me, less radiant than they were all those sun cycles ago, but it robbed nothing of her beauty. “Go away, demon without a soul.”
I tugged on the linen until it dropped to the ground, searing hot breath rushing through my beard and burning down my windpipe with each inhale. “You might miss me.”
“Still as arrogant,” she growled low, hissing in that distinct Jal’zar fashion—a final warning. “Coming to a place where he isn’t welcome, spine straight with pride he hasn’t earned, seeking something from me I don’t have.”
“You haven’t changed much either, kunazay. Still yapping and bitching like all that time ago, hissing at me… although we both know you want to purr for me.”
Eyes flashed with rage.
Of course, she hated my mention of the purr.
“I do not purr!” Another hiss, followed by a strike with her tailclaw across my temple. “I should have killed you the day we met!”
I wiped two fingers over where she cut me, warm and slippery with blood. “Oh, you fucked me half to death.”
Legs I once covered in kisses stalked around me, her silver hair hanging in tiny braids past her shoulders, decorated with orange tendetu feathers.
She straightened, the bones on her chest-covering clanking at the motion. “Why have you come, Zavis?”
I took one slow, careful step toward her, fingers itching to dig into her hair and yank her lips to mine. “To demand that you return what you stole from me. You’re a shaman, after all. Surely Mekara favors you.”
Wrinkles formed between her eyes. “And you decided to demand that when I’m in heat, plagued by estrous?”
“What can I say…?” I asked with a grin. “I figured you would be more inclined to return my soul if I can offer you a few argos on my cock in exchange. You know I’ll make the pain go away.”
Fury swirled to life beneath my ribs.
Also not mine.
Hers.
With a final hiss, her tail wrapped around my neck again. How I hated when she did that. But it only lasted until her foot kicked me straight in the face with such force, I stumbled backward into blackness.
Two
Zavis
Then, during the Jal’zar occupation…
I sunk hard flesh deeper into a cunt adjusted to fit me just right. “Do I feel good inside you?”
A perfectly shaped ass braced against my thrusts, kneeling on all fours, tight mating cleft fluttering around my cock. “Give me your seed, Zavis. Mm-hmm, I want all of it.”
“Sert!” Nails dug into flesh that would never bruise, pulling her onto my rock-hard shaft so I could pump her full with seed that would never grow.
But I could pretend.
“Take it all, female,” I grunted, coating her insides with my release. “Give me a daughter. Dark hair like the male who sired her, with eyes the color of fog.”
“Mmm.” She arched her back and faked her orgasm, programmed nipples hardening. “A daughter to carry on the legacy of your house.”
Exhausted from argos of fucking, I wrapped my arm around her stomach and placed a kiss to the back of her neck. My peak eased with each passing breath. Floods of adrenaline ebbed away, and I braced for the expansion of a rippling void sure to follow.
It always did.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t come with me to the Jal’don mountain.” I stroked through her hair, her entire body still, the female offering neither complaint nor encouragement. “It has a yoni, an underground lagoon, the water it collects rich with salts and minerals. It prickles my skin when I bathe.”
No doubt it would have destroyed hers.
“Zavis,” she crooned on an exhale, “I feel so safe in your arms.”
As she did almost every time I came to visit, her room holding all the essentials for authenticity’s sake.
A pod where she never slept.
A table where she never ate.
A tub where she never bathed.
Yet I held her tighter, giving warmth to something that needed none. Next, she would tell me that she already missed me and couldn’t wait for me to return to her soon.
There was a pattern to this.
Our scholars determined twenty-three standard phrases were beneficial to the mental well-being of our males—mine excluded, because I entered this world already insane, as per my father.
“I already miss you, Zavis.” Right on cue, delivered with a smile designed to perfection. “I can’t wait for you to return to me soon.”
Three… two… one…
Bam.
That void inside me expanded, as if I carried a black hole where my heart was supposed to be. Why did I keep coming back here at all? My fist loved me more than her. It.
“Tomorrow, my warriors and I will question a nearby tribe. Rumors have it, young warriors are hiding up north until they can escape to their launch pads in the city Noja and deploy to attack our ships.”
Blonde hair brushed over my chest as she nestled there. “Tell me more about it, Tarosh.”
My chest tightened.
Nothing killed the mood faster than a sex droid with a compromised language board, calling you dozens of names, but none of them yours.
“It’s Zavis.” My fingers tensed in her hair. “Say my name. Zavis.”
“I already miss you, Ylkem. I can’t wait for you to return to me soon.” Blue eyes blinked rapidly, followed by a sudden jerk of her head. “Tell me more about it, Rekvin.”
“Stop,” I urged her, fisting a chunk of hair. “Zavis. Say it.”
Something monotone replaced the smooth edges of her formerly sweet voice. “Reboot required. Maintenance call placed.”
A fissure formed from my core, releasing that dark void, swallowing me from the inside. I pushed myself up and yanked her across the room by her hair, my throat gagging, retching with disgust.
One toss.
Limbs clanked against the wall and collapsed to the ground but her smile never wavered. “Reboot. Reboot. Reboot.”
Knee twisted, flosteel rib poking through silicone, the droid rose and stepped into her cleaning tube, legs and arms wide. “I c-can’t wai… wai… wait for you to return to me s-soon.”
A faint beep, and her cunt gushed a waterfall of sterilizing solution, flushing out perfectly fine genetics. Sprayers mounted above lathered her in foam, the astringent smell lingering the room.
I swung an arm in front of my mouth to keep from vomiting as suffocating darkness threatened to drown me.
Out. I needed out.
I dressed and climbed into my boots but didn’t bother fastening them, fleeing out into a hallway too brightly lit. Across from the automated door, three Vetusians sat on a bench, waiting their turn.
“Finally,” the warrior mumbled, his uniform black like mine, though it lacked the adornments for such a statement.
Muscles ticking along my arms, I grabbed his collar and slammed his head against the palathium wall. “What was that, warrior?”
“N-nothing, Warden Zavis,” he stammered. “It’s just that… w-we’ve waited for so long.”
I forced the tremble from my hand and eased my grip. “Next time you should watch. See how your superior pleases a female, whereas you probably spill like a pubescent male.”
He sunk his head low. “Yes, warden.”
“You!” I pointed at the blue-uniformed engineer beside him. “It needs a reboot. See to it.”