I made a guttural noise of fury and bucked in his hold.
He clasped me tighter. ‘There is nowhere to go.’
My fingernails clawed furrows into blue flesh.
Had I been less blinded by rage, had he been less focused on me, we’d have realised that was wrong.
‘Listen to me.’ He wound himself tighter around me. ‘I want you. More than anything.’
Wrenching forward, horrorstruck that against evidence to the contrary, he’d fooled me into thinking I was safe, I screamed. The sound was loud and shrill; it frightened me into a brief silence.
‘Let me say this, Indira.’
Battered by the hurricane inside, I thrashed. ‘Let me go.’
‘I am keeping you.’
‘No,’ I shouted.
I shook apart inside and shattered to splinters.
Everything hurt.
‘This goes against the beliefs taught to me by my father. Beliefs taught to him by his father all the way back to the First Avatar of Destruction. He who freed the Horde from the females’ hold.’
‘Whatever those people did back then doesn’t give you the right to use me then discard me now.’ I gulped air between sobs. ‘You have no right to take my life. The only one I’ve got.’ I slapped him. ‘Let go of me.’
‘I tried,’ he said simply.
‘Let me go. Oh, God.’ I curled as far forward as his hold allowed to grind my face into my palms. ‘How could you ever think about doing that to me?’ My battered heart squeezed. Fool. Fool. Fool. ‘This whole time. I thought we were connecting and building a future together, but you? You were sharpening the goddamn knife to–’ I jerked to escape his stifling clutch. ‘Let go.’
‘You will not hear me in this state.’ A large palm grabbed my crotch. It rubbed and squeezed. ‘I will calm you.’
The switch from heartbroken and mad to aroused dizzied me. ‘No.’ My gut cramped. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ he rumbled into the crook of my neck, inhaling.
The sound arrowed to my sex. I peeled his hand off my pussy. ‘This is all wrong. We’re just… wrong.’
‘Let me.’ He shoved my leathers down to expose my ass, sweeping a calloused palm over it, rough yet reverent.
‘N… ugh.’ My protest stalled as a thick finger drilled into my sopping cunt.
‘Yes,’ he purred.
‘Fine, yes.’ I rode his hand, the pleasure sharp. ‘Hurry.’
His fingers brushed against the small of my back as he fumbled to free his stiffening cock. Moaning, I dropped my head to my arm and lifted my hips. His turgid length pushed inside me, a fluid thrust.
My eyes squeezed shut.
I was weak. Needy. I hated almost as much as I loved that he made me that way.
I pushed aside pained thoughts crowding my mind in favour of blissful sensation.
Pinned, I had no choice but to take each thrust as he gave it. It was greedy. Masturbatory. I wanted to feel better, and I hurt no one but myself. I wedged open my legs a smidgen wider, and he settled lower and thrust deeper. His hand burrowed under my soft belly, and a thick finger strummed the stiffened bud of nerves throbbing between my legs with quick and hard flicks. His body stretched over my back was like a weighted blanket, and the frantic, maddening itch beneath my skin eased. Eyes scrunched shut, I climaxed. Gasped and quaked through the liquid bursts he pumped inside me through growled curses.
Bhyr laved the side of my neck as his cock plunged my pussy faster, racing to his final thick gush, taking his fill as my orgasm plateaued.
I drifted in an infinite peace his cruelty couldn’t reach.
Bhyr spurted for a final time, hot and thick, groin against my ass, refusing separation as his shaft softened.
He pressed himself onto my back as if I’d try to leave.
I couldn’t breathe let alone fix myself to move. The disgust at my own behaviour made my eyes water. I bashed my head on the ground. Something was seriously broken inside me. Screws were loose or a fuse had shorted, because I was in pain, yet still felt turned on.
‘Stop.’ Bhyr put his head between my head and the ground. ‘I have no intention of hurting you,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Trust me.’
I made a strangled noise, satiation giving way under the push of my returning anger, the crush of betrayal.
He jostled me. ‘Listen! I meant what I said when I saved you from the tuskbeast. I am keeping you. Not for a birthing season. Forever. I do not know how to do it without causing war within the Horde. We are fighting, Indira. Dividing. The danger is very real. How do I bring about change while keeping you safe? The other males fear for their females as well. They have stopped taking them to the Gathering Grotto because the elder warriors have taken to harassing any couple they feel deviate from what is acceptable. Do you know how wrong that is? But I cannot speak against anything but violence. They follow where I lead, and I broke the unspoken rule. To turn back and say I was wrong for interfering would place me in a position of weakness, and I cannot afford to be beaten when I have your safety to consider.’ He spewed everything I’d waited for him to confide in a torrent. His arms quivered as they clasped me, his breath a pant against my neck. ‘Indira, you said…’ He fumbled for my hands, which I’d curled into my middle. ‘They are my brothers. They are my responsibility. To abandon them would be wrong but to allow them to continue as they are is also wrong. You promised to help me. Show me what I fail to see.’
I wrenched my hand away. ‘Help yourself.’ My voice was bitter cold and stony hate.
The words crackled between us. They gained a solid mass and sank beneath his skin, branding themselves on his soul. His reaction made me want to tear at my hair and scream bloody murder.
What did he expect?
Bhyr’s arms slackened, body shifting away to leave cold air in its wake.
My anger was a powder keg about to blow. My target was Bhyr and his filthy secret. The males who’d brought about an insane culture that led them to the precipice of extinction. The females who’d shown a stupendous lack of foresight, not to mention decency, culminating in their males devolving into genocidal lunatics who needed help they did not deserve.
Anger, anger, anger.
It wouldn’t sustain me, and a piece of me died as I realised it had no effect on how I felt about Bhyr. He’d been wrong to continue the Horde’s traditions, but right to end them. He’d known how I would react; that I might never forgive him and no longer want to stay.
He’d confessed regardless.
My hand whipped over my shoulder to grab his forearm. I turned to face him and edged closer to his bulk, gaze fixed on the tense muscles cording his scarred throat.
I brought my eyes to his.
The white orbs were wary, but hope shone from their shadows. He trusted me not to let him down. It was written over his face.
‘I chose you.’ It was as much a reminder to him as it was to myself. ‘The good and the bad. Of course, I’ll help.’
The defeated edge to his demeanour lifted. His eyes took on a brilliance that made my throat close. ‘My thanks.’
His mouth dived for mine.
Planting a spread-fingered palm in his face, I reared back. ‘Yeah, it’s not going to be that easy. I’m not going to forget you’ve been planning to sacrifice me, Bhyr.’ I shook my head. ‘You have to communicate. Stop keeping secrets. No more talking down to me, or belittling my contributions. My species may not be as advanced technologically, but it doesn’t mean I have nothing of value to offer. I’ll catch up, and you won’t have to explain so much, but a little patience would not only be appreciated, but be a decent thing to do.’ My mouth puckered, expression all shrivelled pickle. ‘All things considered.’
‘I hear you, my Indira.’
‘Arre.’ Cautious respect eased the burn of his betrayal.
That was whole load of commands I threw at him.
He didn’t even blink.
The fact my womb was a pool of liquid magma at his growled, “My I
ndira,” even after we’d fucked was neither here nor there. He could never know how tight he had me bound.
But he tweaked on something I put off.
Bhyr moved fast, rolling onto his back and bringing me over to straddle his stomach. He curled his abs, lips brushing mine. ‘Forgiven?’
‘Oh, no.’ I flicked him between the eyes. ‘You’re going to have to work like a dog for this one.’
25
Indira
‘I need to see it,’ I said.
Arms folded, Bhyr glowered. ‘How will it help?’
‘Do you make decisions without obtaining as much information as possible?’
‘No.’
‘There you go.’ I turned to the goodbeast and scrambled onto its back without help. ‘I need to see the farms because I need more information.’ I hooked my feet behind the saddle pegs, bringing my knees higher. It was a more active position than leaving my legs dangling, but it gave me greater control over the ton of beast beneath me. ‘I need to grasp the bigger picture, so I can advise you properly.’
‘It is a further three span journey from here.’
I opened my arms and scowled. ‘I’ve got nowhere to be and nothing but time.’
‘Pushy female.’
I smiled with teeth. ‘Move yourself.’
We did the journey at a steady trot, the weather clear and fine, so made good time, arriving at a cluster of buildings. They were innocuous enough, the triangular structures obsidian shards against the greenish sky. It was quiet.
I dismounted and looked around. Bhyr stayed atop his goodbeast, glowering, then sighed and joined me with a pained expression.
‘Give me the grand tour.’ I spun to walk backwards. My boots scrunched on the snow. ‘Come on. We’re here now.’
Bhyr took me inside the closest building. ‘The three buildings are shared by four males. One on the day shift, and one on the evening shift.’
‘And the other two?’
‘They act as relief and carry out field work, but all four are caretakers, maintaining the containment shield and administering breeder care.’
'Do they live here?’
He nodded as he guided me along the bright, sterile corridors. ‘This building monitors the area. The one beyond this is a grooming facility. The last is a living space where they sleep and eat.’
We entered a room through a code protected hatch.
A male with sagging jowls and an exoskeleton so thin it was transparent, sat hunched over a control panel in front of a holographic screen.
Bhyr rapped his knuckles on the metal side of the console. ‘Give us the room, elder.’
‘Yes, yes, young one.’ The male groaned as he stood. ‘These bones of mine.’
‘Do you need healing?’ Bhyr looked him over and extended a bracing arm.
‘There is no cure for old and tired. Warm neknek will set me to rights.’ He patted Bhyr’s shoulder but ignored the offer of assistance. ‘May your son be strong, First. Find me before you leave, so I may resume my post.’
Head dipping, I stepped aside to give him room. He was the first old Aztekan I’d seen.
Patches of whitish, dead skin flaked from his skull ridges. He wore a furry wrap around his middle and over his shoulder to ward off the cold. He studied me through eyes that were charcoal around the edges and snuffled as the door closed behind him.
‘Is it safe to leave them out here alone?’ I asked.
‘They are the last of their generations. The others have either passed, or are scattered across my domain seeing to other fundamental tasks.’ He looked at me. ‘They report to me once a cycle, but otherwise are happy to keep to themselves. The work here is important but less demanding than Horde duties. It is an effective retirement system.’
‘Your father?’ I asked. ‘Did he do anything like this?’
‘He was too proud. He considered it an insult.’ Bhyr stared broodily into the middle distance. ‘For him, it was First or nothing.’
‘And you?’
‘I am not like him. I hope to oversee the planetary defences when I am no longer strong enough to lead.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’ I trailed my hand along the wall, eyes on the hologram at the other end of the room, a map covered in hundreds of slow moving dots.
My hand drifted towards it. I stopped. ‘Are those…?’
‘Females. Yes.’ Bhyr stood behind me. He touched my hair, a featherlight stroke. ‘They wear collars with tracking devices fitted.’
‘Collars. Not Keepings?’
‘Those are used after the Testing.’
There had been no fence or wall surrounding the farm. ‘Why don’t they escape?’
‘There is a perimeter marked by pillars they cannot pass without permission.’ He pointed to faint lines dissecting the topographical map. ‘These delineate territory. The larger, stronger females claim more.’
‘What happens if they go past the boundary line?’
Bhyr became very still.
I turned my head. ‘Bhyr? What happens to them?’
‘The collars are designed to dissuade them from leaving. A female has not attempted escape in aeons.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
He looked at me steadily. ‘Have you seen enough?’
‘No. You told me what three of the buildings were for, but I counted four.’ I crossed my arms. ‘What’s in the fourth?’
‘Must we do this?’
My brows rose. ‘Do what?’
He gave a desperate laugh. ‘Bring to light every sordid, regrettable thing I have ever done or allowed to be done.’
I looked at the hologram and thought of the people represented by the glowing dots. ‘We can leave now.’ His shoulders relaxed. ‘But if we do, I won’t stop wondering what you’re hiding. It will fester. It will undermine my trust in you, and I want to build something lasting between us. I am trying. So meet me halfway. Be honest. Be the brave male who told me the worst of himself because he wanted me to know what he risked for me.’
His hands fisted and unclenched until he sighed. ‘I will show you.’ He took me to the furthermost building, much larger than the previous three, and fortified with layers of security.
I stepped past him into a rectangular room, its walls clear like glass, then stopped dead. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘They are called L’Odo from the planet Od.’
The aliens were… ugly. Misshapen and crocodilian with elongated snouts and scales that ranged from sallow yellow to boggy green. Thick tails wagged behind stubby legs and pot bellies wobbled under deflated breasts. They were squat and wide, four maybe five feet tall, and when one turned to stare blindly in my direction, I took a quick heel to toe step at the squalling bundle in its arms. ‘Women and children?’
‘Yes.’ Bhyr studied the readouts on the machine. ‘The young are in good health. Growing well.’
‘What the fuck am I looking at?’ I spun to him. ‘Is this… was this what you did before you found humans? Are the babies yours? The Hordes’?’
His head jerked as if I’d smacked him. ‘No. The offspring are pure L’Odo. The Horde has not bred with them.’ Distaste swept across his features. ‘We caretake. Once I am satisfied Od’s surface is stable, I will send them home. The planet will then become a protectorate within the Aztekan Empire. The Intergalactic Alliance cannot stop me. Od lost their registered status during the conflict with the Rä over Lumen of the Stars and Zython’s Avatar.’
There was a lot there I needed to unpack. ‘Explain.’ He did. I digested the story and had to prop myself against the wall for support. ‘You bought her. You threatened her newborn? You destroyed Od and massacred the males.’ My knees wobbled. I sank onto my haunches, thrusting my fingers into my hair. ‘Bhyr.’ I flung out an arm to indicate the universe at large. ‘These people are not just going to let this shit go.’
‘I am aware.’
‘They could be planning to come here as we speak.’
‘Beowyn wo
uld not–’
‘King ThunderClaw will do what he has to to keep his people safe from you!’
He flinched.
‘What were you thinking? Were you even thinking?’ I bashed my head against my palms. Right. Damage control. I exhaled and looked up. ‘We can salvage this. Od was vulnerable before you invaded. The L’Odo Chieftain made bad decision after bad decision. There’s a precedent for that kind of hostile takeover, even if you went overboard.’ I licked my lips. ’Do you think sheltering the younger generation will mitigate what you did to their fathers? Will it be enough to keep them from coming back here when they reach adulthood?’
‘It will have to be.’
I turned to look over the aliens. They’d lost a great deal, but not everything. They could rebuild. It might never be the same, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the displaced females held a staggering amount of resentment towards the Horde. Would that carry onto the next generation? From the way Bhyr described the greedy, masochistic L’Odo species, they’d had a reprisal of this nature coming, but children often deified parents taken from them when so young.
I watched as a L’Odo female went to a dispenser in the wall for food. ‘Have they tried to escape?’
‘No.’ His voice was neutral. ‘The females were ignored and abused. The children were underfed. They have settled well despite the radical climate difference. They are not beaten, kept warm, fed and entertained. They have shelters out back and space to roam freely.’
‘That doesn’t excuse this. You went too far, Bhyr.’
He peered at the people wandering past the glass.
‘Did you at least tell Lumen you did this?’ I asked.
His face replied with a no.
‘You should,’ I said. ‘It would be an excellent way to approach reparations if Venomous and the rest her clan are so devoted. Same for King ThunderClaw. It sounds like he was a friend of yours.’ I paused. ‘We have a lot of bridges to rebuild, Bhyr.’
Bhyr Page 23