by Erin Raegan
Kudeyas tilted her head in farewell and followed Myrna away. Yilt came out of the shadows, then. It was still pretty dark compared to how it was in the daytime hours. I hadn’t seen him follow us, but he wasn’t the only one, Borv and Syn were with him.
Yilt held the door as we all walked inside. I would never forget that sight as long as I lived.
Hector was chained to a table, from his ankles to his stomach and his arms. Even his head was pinned down to the metal table. He was the same Hector, but larger and redder. His muscles bulged unnaturally for his normally lean frame, and the sweat pouring off him dampened his pants and pooled in puddles beneath him.
His teeth had grown, plumping his lips, and spreading them open. And his eye sockets had sunken in. He looked both stronger and weaker at the same time. He looked like Hector, but not.
There was nothing to do but hold Vivian as she cried. She went to clutch his hand, but I held her back until Yilt said it was fine. We stayed there for a long time.
Haytu came in at some point and stood at our backs, and I heard Myrna ask for me, but one word from her mate and she left.
Vivian was falling asleep standing up, so Yilt lifted her and took her to her room. “I will stay with her.” He bowed and left.
“Will he remember her?” I asked my father-in-law, watching Hector’s even breaths puff from his parted lips. I needed to ask. They had been hinting at his mental state when he woke up, but I needed clear answers.
He was quiet, and I knew he struggled with answering me with the truth, but eventually he sighed and shook his head. “It is doubtful.”
I blinked back tears and bent, leaving a kiss on Hector’s hand. He didn’t deserve this. He was a good man and loved Vivian with a ferocity that often shocked me. She didn’t deserve to lose him like this. They were supposed to marry and make tons of babies. She was going to follow him around the world and devote herself to becoming the perfect military wife. They would have been so happy.
I hated that it felt like he had died even though he was laying right in front of me, his chest still moving up and down with even breaths.
I gasped and held back an onslaught of grief. Hector would have chucked my chin and told me not to cry for him, and so I wouldn’t. He would demand I be there for his girl. I had seen him deploy too many times, had too many conversations with him about the future, and the what-ifs. He had asked me too many times to look out for his fiancé while he was away for me to ever doubt what he would want if he were gone. Vivian would need me now. She would fall apart if he woke up forgetting her.
Haytu waited until I was ready before guiding me out of the room. Borv led the way through the castle, and Syn followed, more subdued than I was used to with him. In fact, every Dahk we passed on the way to the hall was quiet and solemn. Their Queen was missing, and they had suffered loss the day before. There would be more rites performed for the dead in the coming days.
We were nearly to the entrance hall when I stumbled to a stop. Tahk came barreling inside. Determination etched in every movement. His brow was severe, and his jaw was clamped tight. He spotted me immediately and stormed through his father. I didn’t even have a chance to gasp his name before he was covering my mouth with his own.
I sagged against him as he lifted me from the floor. His tongue pummeled my mouth with urgency, and I shivered from the onslaught. He spread his wings and flew up the stairs. Haytu and the others chuckled, but none of them followed us to my room.
I gasped as Tahk barreled through the door and threw me down onto the bed. My clothes were torn from my body without an ounce of gentleness, but I didn’t care. Tahk was desperate. I felt his frantic need and welcomed it. It had been too long for him. He was suffering for me long before we got here, and like an ass, I had fallen asleep before he left.
I needed him nearly as much and craved the feeling of peace only he could give me.
But he didn’t attack my body with any kind of sexual need. He gnashed his teeth and inspected every one of my injuries. I gasped as he tore from the bed and roared. He grabbed the wardrobe and threw it against the wall with a crash so hard I felt the room shake
“Tahk,” I gasped and scrambled from the bed. “I’m fine, see, they barely hurt anymore.” He roared again and attacked every piece of furniture in the room.
Only when every available furnishing was smashed into dozens of cracked stone pieces, did he stop and heave at the center of the room. “Tahk?”
He spun on me so quickly I backed up and fell onto the bed. “You were attacked,” he snarled. “By my consort,” he shouted in disgust. “The Juldo were here. Near my mate.” He roared again and slammed his fist into the wall.
“Tahk, calm down.” I scowled at him when he hit the wall again. He was going to bring the damn walls down on us.
“Calm?” He whispered deadly soft. “I cannot calm.” He snarled and reached for me. But I wasn’t afraid. Tahk would never hurt me. I let him tear me from the bed and clutched his face as he snarled into mine, his nostrils flaring with each erratic breath.
He was so angry, but not at me. He was scared for me. I bent and whispered my lips across his tightly pressed ones. He stiffened but let me lick across his lips. It wasn’t until I whispered his name again against them that he opened and allowed me to seduce him with my mouth. I twirled my tongue against his and licked along his fangs in the way that drove him mad. He snarled again and snagged one hand into my hair, yanking my head back, and the other he used to clutch the flesh of my ass.
He held me still and returned my kiss for only a moment before he turned and pushed me against the wall. My legs wrapped around his hips instinctively and my hands held onto his horn and skull. He made feral noises as he took control of the kiss, eating my mouth with a fervor I had never felt from him before.
His hand moved from my ass cheek to clutch at my thigh and spread me wide, and his other hand tore his leather pants away from his waist with one quick slash of his claw.
“You will never leave my side again,” he snarled and slammed inside me. I cried out and smashed my head against the hand he quickly shot up to block the wall. I was wet, but he caught me by surprise. I clawed at his shoulders with each brutal thrust, it didn’t take long to have me begging him to go harder.
Tahk lifted my thigh higher up his side, hooking it over his arm and palmed my left cheek again, squeezing it tight.
“Say it,” he snarled against my stretched neck.
I stuffed down the desire to tell him I hadn’t left, he did. I didn’t think that was what he meant. He was talking about before, when I hurt us both, ignoring him. “I won’t,” I sobbed when he hit my center just right, “I won’t ever leave again.”
“You are mine.” He hammered into me again and again, rubbing his pelvis along the bundle of tightly coiled nerves. My orgasm shot through my body, startling me. Tahk didn’t stop his quick thrusts even a little. He made me endure every quake and spark as he slammed inside me, building me quickly to another.
“Tahk,” I whined. Desperate for him, out of my mind for him.
“That’s it, my Pythe, listen to you beg for your Pythen.” He tore me from the wall, severing himself from me. I cried out in shock and denial, and he threw me face down on the edge of the bed. His claws scraped along my thighs as he lifted my knees up on the edge and spread me wide, slamming back inside.
I shouted in relief and surprise and spread my arms above my head. Tahk bent over me and twisted them behind my back, holding them there in one of his, using them to slam my hips back to meet his thrusts. He was relentless.
I shouted his name over and over and screamed in desperation as he reached around me to claw at my throbbing bundle of nerves. My voice broke with my body, my head flying back to gasp through another orgasm so intense my vision blurred, and my body shuddered. Tahk snarled a curse and bit deeply into my neck, his body bucking against mine as he found his own release, filling me with so much pleasure and pain I felt my body split open and soar so
high I could no longer see the bed below me.
I quaked and shook against him as he hushed me, sobs of relief tearing out of my throat as he smoothed a palm around my belly, carefully caressing me and bringing me down. He pressed my back against his chest, fusing his hips against me from behind. Only then did he topple us to the bed. Curling around me, cocooning me in warmth.
I struggled so hard to stay awake, unwilling to miss a second with him. My lids were so heavy, weighted down by some invisible force. He screwed the energy right out of me. “Sleep, lovely. I am not leaving.” My eyes closed as he kissed and caressed every inch of me. I slept hard and deep.
When I woke, Tahk had rolled to his back, and I was stretched out across his chest. One of his arms was thrown above his head, and his other was resting against my hip. I smiled into the skin of his warm chest. His breaths were even, and his nostrils flared with each rise of his chest. I kissed him lightly on the pec, but he didn’t stir. He must be exhausted, and I was torn with what to do. The stones were dark again, and no one had come calling for him, that I knew of. We still had time to sleep and I wanted to give him something special.
I spread my legs wide, so my knees hit the bed and carefully scooted down his body, trying not to wake him yet.
I laughed quietly to myself when my face was hovering over his lap. He was hard, and the head of him looked swollen and angry. This wouldn’t be difficult. I looked up to make sure he was still asleep before wrapping my hand around him.
My fingers didn’t even come close to touching my thumb, and I started to get a little nervous he wouldn’t fit in my mouth. But I was determined to give him this. Before was fast and intense, and desperate. I wanted to seduce him, give him something special. I would just have to get a little creative.
His purple tip glistened in the glow of the room, and I lapped up the liquid beading there. Keeping my eyes on his face, I licked again. He didn’t move. His chest lifted steadily. I licked once more, savoring the salty taste of him. I hadn’t ever seen much of his sperm before. It was slightly thinner in texture, and lightly lavender, a little grayer than purple. He tasted like the rest of him did. Salty and bitter, warm and sticky, but not unpleasant. I cleaned his head and took a deep breath before spreading my lips wide and taking his head in my mouth. The corner of my lips stretched, but he fit. Keeping my eyes on his face, I sucked lightly. He shifted, and his breath snagged, but he didn’t wake.
I sucked harder. Tahk shouted and lifted his head gaping at me. I grinned around him and sucked again, hollowing my cheeks. He snarled and shredded the sheets with his claws. I chuckled, earning another surprised shout. Moving both my hands around him, I stroked the rest of him in time with my mouth.
“What―” he groaned and dropped his head back. “Huktbores, you wish to kill me.”
I hummed and swirled my tongue around his head. He gnashed his teeth and snagged his claws in my hair, shoving my face down. I laughed and gagged. He snarled again, raking his other claws back down the bed. Feathers flew through the air.
“Do human males enjoy this?” He snarled. That stopped me short.
I popped him out of my mouth. “You’re don’t like it?”
Tahk grinned and snagged my waist. Yanking me up his body. “I enjoyed your mouth immensely.” He slammed up inside me.
“Fuck!” I shouted in surprise and relief. I hadn’t realized how turned on I’d gotten playing with him.
“You drive me mad,” he flashed his fangs. “After you have satisfied your urge to please me, I shall return the favor.” He gripped my hips and lifted me only to slam me back down. I bucked and slapped my hands down on his chest. “Ride me.” He folded his arms behind his head, and I laughed. He was so arrogant.
I swirled my hips, enjoying the lust that hazed his eyes. “Who says I want to please you?” I gasped and ground down against him. Enjoying his feral grimace.
“Why wake me in such a way, if not to please your Pythen?”
“Maybe I sucked you to please myself.” I dug my nails into his chest and rode him fast. He gnashed his teeth again and glared at me. His hands shot out from behind his head and grabbed my bouncing breasts. He twisted my nipples with a wicked glint in his eyes, chuckling as I cursed him.
“You may wake me in such a way every morn.” He grinned and pinched my nipple hard before reaching around and slapping my ass.
“Tahk!” My mouth dropped in outrage, and he squeezed the burning flesh tight, urging me to ride him faster. I narrowed my eyes and squeezed my inner muscles tight. His jaw clenched, and he shuddered underneath me.
“Wicked female.” He sat up and hopped onto his knees, bouncing me against him.
I gasped and hugged his shoulders, groaning as he took over, pounding inside me. “No fair.”
He chuckled again and dropped me back onto the bed, grabbing my hips and lifting them against him until only my shoulders remained on the bed. I couldn’t move as he used my hips to hammer away. I could only lay there and shout and cry out as he drove me to the brink again and again.
He had me in so many ways I was a pathetic useless puddle by the time he let me come. After he snarled through his own release, he threw me down on the bed and made me come again and again with his mouth. So much for pleasing myself. Tahk had done it for me thoroughly.
Chapter 16
Peyton
We napped and made love on and off the rest of the night. When the stones brightened the room, a quick knock stirred us awake again. Tahk was still inside me after having teased and played with me an hour or two earlier.
We had talked about everything in between bouts of lovemaking. Everything that had happened on Home World while he was gone, but not with his meeting. He was frustratingly tight-lipped, and every time I would try to draw his attention back to it he would distract me. So, I settled for filling him in on Nonya’s attack. When he started to hulk-out all over again, I quickly moved on to my tea with the Queen and then Hector and Ford’s plans to go back to Earth. He hadn’t seemed surprised by their decision. He had assumed they would want to rejoin Dahk One’s fight just as Borv had said he would. I told him about the Juldo attack but again he didn’t seem surprised. When I asked him, he had said Yilt had comm’d him and filled him in.
So, we talked about Hector. Tahk didn’t know much, he said the Juldo were very private about the virus, but that from what he did know, it was very likely Hector wouldn’t wake Hector at all. He would be blank, wiped of his memories. The virus would slowly take over his mind, filling it with Juldo history and beliefs. There was no real answer for when he would wake up. It could be months. The entire thing flabbergasted me. He made it sound like it was a curse or some kind of magic, not a virus. But Tahk explained that, too. The virus was more like a computer virus on Earth. It infiltrated your mind and wiped it, filling it with new data. Corrupting it.
Hector would have an unbearable urge to join with the Juldo. The virus would torture him with its demands. Gryo could give him supplements, but they didn’t have enough to last him, and it would only hold off the urge to join them for short periods of time. Hector would become a killing machine. The Juldo were a warring species, according to Tahk. Battle and bloodlust would consume him.
Eventually, his body and the virus would demand something more to keep him alive. Nano-mites. And though the Dahk used a certain altered version of them―nano nits― in their new healing practices instead of their healing vats, they weren’t the same as the Juldo’s. Juldo nano-mites healed, but they also changed the body. Morphing their skin and appendages into what I saw the day they attacked. Machines. Weapons.
His body would slowly become riddled with tech. The nano-mites would first reinforce his bones and muscles, before moving onto his skin and altering its properties there. Only the strongest of Juldo retained any of the Juldo virus’ red flesh and natural strength. Tahk said he had fought against Juldo that had once been their weakest, their bodies not able to withstand the virus prompting them to become so altered by n
ano-mites you couldn’t see an inch of red skin beneath the tech. Then they became some of the strongest among them.
It was frightening. Not only knowing what would become of Hector, but that there was so much out there. So much about space and its so many species humans could never have anticipated. The universe really was vast. I had once wondered on the ship to Home World, how had we lived for so long without encountering any of them? How had we gone so long without being invaded?
And I still wondered those things, but I was starting to see how we could have been one of millions of planets teeming with life. Billions even. It was only a matter of time, and we were still young compared to some, but it wasn’t so unrealistic to believe a planet could be hidden away as long as we were. That with all our history and years, we were still so young compared to some. Juldo never died. Their bodies so altered and built from technology I had no hope of ever understanding, they thrived thousands of years. Compared to a humans life, they were ageless. How could we compete with something like that?
I didn’t have the courage to ask Tahk about his age. I feared I wouldn’t like his answer and I worried he had no idea how short mine was as he spoke about the Juldo’s age like it was normal. Like he knew what it was like to live for so long. I was afraid he had no idea how little time we may have together compared to the other mates on his world.
The knock came louder, more urgent. I blinked away the dark thoughts as a sleepy fog left me.
Tahk groaned and shifted, stirring new life inside me. “Leave,” he snarled.
“I cannot, the King requests a meeting,” Haytu said from the other side of the door.