by K. Webster
She walks into my room and sits down at the table—a table that earlier this solar was toppled over when my mate was bored and lonely without me.
Confusing thoughts vie for space in my mind. A part of me knows she is the key to our future. She’ll be my mate and produce my young. But the other part of me wonders about the way my mother and father interacted. My mother laughed often. Father was jovial like Hadrian. Perhaps I need to work on making my mate laugh. Then, she will not give me hate eyes while I gift her my seed.
“That’s what families do,” she says with a huff. She picks up her utensil and pokes at the seared sabrevipe tenderloin on her plate. “They eat together.”
Sitting down across from her, I regard my mate. The anger and fear has bled from her features and curiosity dances there. Curiosity is something I’m familiar with and am equipped to deal with. Once, I spent an entire solar describing for Hadrian every beast that lives on the planet.
Every. Single. Beast.
In detail.
“We are a family then,” I agree as I pick up my tenderloin and bite into it. Succulent juices rush over my tongue and I groan. We haven’t had good meat in ages. For many solars, we’ve been wasting away on Galen’s green-bunches. A handful of leafy plants sprinkled with some sauce he came up with. It tastes decent, but I prefer meat. A mort was meant to eat meat. Unfortunately for us, meat is hard to come by.
I’ve downed everything on my plate, including the small portion of green-bunches which taste especially bitter this solar, when I feel her eyes on me. When I look up, her utensil is still poised in her hand but she hasn’t touched anything. Her expression is sad and her delicious tears threaten to leak down her spotted cheeks. Perhaps I’ll lick her for an after-dinner sweet.
“I already have a family,” she murmurs. Her shoulders slump forward. “Had.”
Guilt infects me as I try to imagine this family. “You had a mate?” I ask, my voice husky. I’d not considered this. Hadn’t even asked. What if she has a mate from her planet? Worse yet, younglings?
She sniffles. “No. No husband or boyfriend. But I had a mother and father. And my little sister, Limerick.”
A sister?
I don’t know what to say. My heart aches for her. Our world is so barren and empty. The solars my parents were each taken from me were so trying on my mind. I’d nearly collapsed in on myself. There was no light in my world for a long time. Just solars and solars and solars of nothing but never-ending darkness.
She’s suffering the darkness too.
My sweet mate’s heart hurts for her family.
Normally, I make decisions and lead my faction without faltering. Yet now, I am unsure what to do. At a loss of what to say.
“Eat,” I bite out, harsher than I mean.
She flinches and the sweet tears leak from her eyes. Her eyes drift from mine to the meat on her tray. With her utensil, she stabs at it.
Rekk!
Her useless teeth. I’m an awful mate. She’d be better matched with someone like Hadrian. Someone who makes her laugh. Or maybe Avrell. Tender and concerned about her well-being.
Yet…
She’s stuck with me.
Perhaps she didn’t destroy our quarters because she missed me.
It was because she detests me.
I must correct her feelings. Make her understand I can learn. It was I who learned, through trial and error, what half the machines in this rekking facility do. Someone had to figure it out and teach the rest.
“Allow me,” I utter in a softer tone. I stab the meat with three of my claws and then use my other hand to rip smaller pieces from the tenderloin. I’m careful to make them tiny, like her mouth. “When Hadrian was younger and his double fangs hadn’t grown in yet, I used to have to cut up his meat. That empty-nog mort still makes attempts to have me cut up his food.” I shake my nog but I can’t keep the smile off my face. “He’s not my mortling but he may as well be. I’ve raised him.”
When I lift my gaze, her sad expression has melted away and she smiles at me. Rekk, I love her smiles.
“You’re like his adoptive dad?”
I don’t understand the words but I get the meaning. “I’d die for him if that is what you infer, mortania.”
Her cheeks blush at the name Avrell teased me about earlier. I will call her that often. My little alien likes to be told she is beautiful.
“That’s sweet,” she says, a smile tugging at her lips. But then she grows serious. “This is all so…” She trails off. “Different.” She stabs one of the small niblets of meat with her utensil and takes a bite. Her eyes widen and a groan escapes her. “Oh my God. This is so good. Kevin wouldn’t let me have meat. Said I was more sellable as a vegan.”
More words I don’t understand.
Except Kevin.
I pick up on the distasteful way she said the name.
“Who is Kevin?” I growl, unable to keep the jealous bite out of my tone. So much for being gentle and kind to my mate.
She doesn’t flinch this time but instead sits up straight, leveling me with a hard glare. “Kevin is my talent manager. He makes sure my hair and makeup are always on par. Kevin chooses my wardrobe. And Kevin decides on the roles I will take. He owns me.” Her throat flashes bright red and she will no longer meet my gaze. “Last year, he started getting me more revealing roles.”
I tilt my nog and try to understand her gibberish.
She continues with a heavy sigh. “He was the one to give me my first hit of flora. To ‘calm me down.’” She laughs bitterly. “I calmed down all right.” More tears spring in her eyes.
My chest hurts from seeing pain practically bleeding from her. I want to hold her in my arms until it disappears. But something tells me she needs to get this out. Like the time Draven nearly went mad. I had to lock us in a reform cell. He ranted and ranted for three solars straight. With only me to listen. I let him take his rage out on me, much to Avrell’s horror. And eventually, when Draven let it all out, he found some peace.
I’ll help my little alien find her peace.
This…this is something I can do. Something that Avrell or Hadrian or any other mort here isn’t capable of. I am the strongest. I can handle it.
“Tell me more, Aria. If you must unleash the rage on me, I am your willing victim.”
She blinks at me and lets out a small laugh. A sweet laugh. I made her laugh. Too bad I wasn’t trying to be humorous. Small strides though. I will count it as progress.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she says suddenly, the laughter dying in her throat. Her eyes are cold.
“I will try for you. I can be patient,” I assure her. I reach across the table and grasp her hand. She tries to pull away but I don’t let her.
“This!” she snarls, her voice cruel. “This is why you won’t understand.” She whaps my knuckles with her utensil.
I jerk back, my hand smarting in pain. What did I do wrong? My ears flatten against my nog, preparing for battle.
I can’t battle my mate though.
Rekk, she is so confusing.
“You’re all the same!” she yells, rising from her seat. “Every goddamned planet, you’re all the same! Predators!”
We are, in fact, predators, but I don’t interrupt her to point out this fact.
“You’re just like Kevin,” she spits out.
I mimic her movements and stand. “Is he a fine hunter?”
She blinks at me in confusion. “What? No. He eats takeout and has a spray tan. No, he’s not a fine hunter.”
“Ahh,” I say in understanding. “Your Kevin is a fine leader. Strong and cunning.”
She mutters out a string of words that make no sense but she seems furious. Her shoulders tremble with anger. I reach forward and hold my hand out to her like she did with Hadrian earlier. Asking to touch but worried of what might happen.
Her brown eyes meet mine and she reaches up to press her palm to my own. “Kevin is nothing to me. He is not a fine leader. But he is
cunning and strong.”
Our fingers thread together and I gently pull her closer. Much to my surprise, she allows me to pull her into an embrace. I realize I must treat her like a mortling throwing a fit. Hadrian was a mortarekking terror when he was small. But all it would take was me pulling him into my lap and stroking his back to calm him. I run my knuckles along the bones in her back.
She relaxes against me and my heart sings inside its cage like a jackaw bird. They’re not much for eating but they’re entertaining to watch and listen to when they flit about, chirping songs that fill your soul. Often, when looking out the windows in the command center, I watch the jackaws. One of my few moments of enjoyment.
That is, until my mate arrived.
Now every moment is one that fills me with excitement.
“Kevin abused his power,” she murmurs against my still-sore chest. “He abused me.”
Something in the way she says her words makes my blood grow cold. “This Kevin hurt you?”
She tilts her nog up and frowns at me. “He got me addicted to flora. And when I was flying high, he’d fuck me.”
I blink at her in confusion. “What is this fuck?”
“What we do, Breccan!” she hollers in exasperation. “What you do to me!” Hot tears roll down her cheeks as a sob racks through her. “Let me break this down in a way you can understand. He paralyzed me with his ‘toxica,’” she explains, and makes a gesture with two fingers on each hand as though she’s clawing the air. “And then…then he stuck his dick inside me. It made me feel sick and dirty and used. He’d try to breed with me.”
My mind turns black with rage.
This Kevin dares copulate with my mate?
I rekking think not!
“I will cut his flesh from his bones and feed it to the biggest sabrevipe on this rekking planet!” I roar, and break away from her. I must destroy something. If I can’t have this Kevin, I’ll destroy the mortarekking wall.
She watches, unmoving, as I rip a cabinet from the wall and slam it to the ground. I expect her to retreat in fear but my fierce mate stays strong as I throw a tantrum young Hadrian would be proud of, wrecking the room I worked so diligently to clean earlier. It would seem my mate and I both like to break things. A common bond.
“You are mine,” I seethe. “He cannot even carry you. He does not know how to hunt. This Kevin is worthless! A piece of radiation-tainted dirt on the bottom of my boot.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re missing the point, you big evil-looking elf-eared vampire!”
My ears flatten against my nog and I pop all the sub-bones in my neck before baring my double fangs at her. “You are safe here. I will slice open this Kevin if I ever see him.”
A smile tugs at her lips. “That’s kind of sweet in a psycho kind of way.”
“Sweet like your delicious tears and tongue, mortania?”
Her lashes bat against her cheeks and she softens toward me. “You truly don’t understand.” A heavy sigh escapes her. “Your intentions are pure, I get it. You want to breed and create life on this planet.”
I nod with a smile. “Yes.”
She purses her lips. “At my expense.”
“I want other things too, besides breeding.” My cock stiffens. Breeding is definitely on the top of the list. But her smiles are a close second. “I want to make you laugh like Hadrian does.” I take a step toward her and raise my hand. Again, she doesn’t hesitate and presses her palm to mine. “Aria, I want you to relax in my presence like you do with Avrell.” Our fingers link once more. “I want to feed you and care for you. I do not want this takeout and the spray tans you speak of that this useless Kevin desires.”
She lets out a snort and then cackles. Just like with Hadrian. I still wasn’t trying to be humorous, but I like that I am skilled enough that I don’t need to be an empty-nog boaster like my boy to get her to laugh. He has much to learn if he wants to be as competent a commander as myself.
I tug her to my body and she relaxes against me. Perhaps my efforts are working. I stroke her hair, mimicking what my father used to do with my mother. A small purr escapes her. My cock is hard between us, eager to press inside her and fill her with my seed.
“Breccan, I want a choice,” she says, her words firm. “Kevin didn’t give me a choice. You didn’t give me a choice. I want to be able to say no and you’ll listen.”
I lean my bumpy forehead against her smooth one. “You want to choose our breeding times?”
“Essentially, yes.”
“If this is your wish, I will grant it, mortania.”
She slides her palms up my still smarting in pain chest over my minnasuit. Her fingers run gently through my long black hair and I close my eyes. The feeling brings me the same overwhelming sensations that the UV rays do.
“I just want to kiss for now,” she tells me, her voice low and alluring.
“Kiss?”
“Your tongue rubbing against mine.” She grins at me. “As long as you don’t bite me with those scary teeth of yours.”
I understand this, and quite enjoy her sweet taste.
“I will rub your tongue with mine until you beg me to stop, little alien.” It appears I will have my after-dinner sweet after all. “Anything to bring you joy. I would never hurt you, not even with my teeth.”
She flinches and a moment passes between us because we both know she’s been known to use hers before.
“You’re not like Kevin at all,” she murmurs before standing on her toes and shoving her delicious tongue into my mouth. And as promised, I’m careful as I kiss her.
Pride surges through me.
I am not like takeout-spray-tan-non-hunting Kevin.
We both seem to like this fact very much.
Screams.
Terrified and sad.
I wake in my darkened room with a start, searching for my frightened alien. My sub-bones crack and pop as I shield her from whatever has her crying out in fear.
“Shhh,” I murmur once I realize her nog is filled with bad memories or made up horrors much like Hadrian suffered from as a mortling. No real terrors await her. “You’re safe, little alien.”
She clings to my chest and pride fills me. I stroke my claws through her hair and press my lips to her nog. When her breathing evens out, I almost fall asleep. But when her tiny fingers flitter over my bare flesh just above the waistband of my trousers, a low groan rumbles through me.
Don’t touch her.
It’s her choice.
Everything in me begs to push her onto her bed, spread her pink legs apart, and drive into her slick cunt. Instead, I respect her wishes. I ignore my aching hardness pressed between us.
“Kiss me,” she whispers, her hot breath tickling my skin.
I tangle my clawed fingers in her hair and tilt her head back. My lips brush along hers. What she calls kissing is the second-best thing to mating. I enjoy it immensely. She parts her mouth and allows my forked tongue to taste her sweetness. I lick her as though I can extract every tasty drop from her mouth. Moans fill the air as she gives in to the way I maul her with my mouth. She playfully bites my bottom lip and I let out a hiss.
“Kiss my neck,” she orders.
I’m happy to oblige. She may not want to mate but touching and tasting her doesn’t seem off limits. I run my lips along her cheek to her jawline and to her neck. My turn to tease her back. Scraping my sharp double fangs over her flesh, I relish in the way she moans with delight. This little alien likes the promise of danger it would seem. I tongue her flesh that tastes more pungent than her mouth. I crave to lick every part of her.
“Let me taste you, Aria,” I beg. I may be the commander around here but I’m as weak as a newborn mortling when it comes to her. I’ll take whatever she gives to me.
“Y-Yes,” she croaks out. “Down there.”
I frown in the dark. I’m not sure what ‘down there’ means. Sliding my palm over her breast, I whisper, “Here?”
“No.”
I
slip it further down to where her stomach will hopefully swell one day with my mortling. “Here?”
“No,” she breathes. “There.”
Moving my palm to her cunt over her pants, I gently touch her. “Here?”
“Yes. Kiss me there.”
“Do you want me to remove these?” I ask as I tug at the fabric.
“Yes,” she says, a smile in her voice, “because I want you kiss me with your tongue.”
A growl rumbles through me but I force myself to be calm and remove her clothing without ripping it from her body. Once I’ve bared her naked flesh to me, I push her knee to the side. Her scent is musky and makes my mouth water. Leaning forward, I press my lips to neck once more before I start tonguing my way down her body. She makes a whimpering sound that has my cock seeping with my seed.
“You smell unlike anything I’ve ever scented,” I murmur as I reach her small tuft of hair between her thighs. “Perfection, little alien.”
She cries out when I slide my long tongue between her lower lips of her cunt. The taste is a nectar of The Eternals. More delicious than anything I’ve ever feasted on. I become ravenous as I practically eat my alien. The urge to bite her is intense but something tells me she wouldn’t like it. Her juices become more fluid and slide over my tongue, dizzying me. I become engrossed in my task. Kissing her cunt. Each mewl and whimper spurs me on.
“Let me kiss you inside, Aria,” I rumble against her sweet flesh. “Let me put my tongue inside you. You may not want my cock but let me taste you. I beg of you, sweet alien.”
Her fingers tangle in my mane and she yanks me closer. “Yes. Just your tongue. I want it.”
I groan and begin sliding it into her tight hole that’s meant for my cock. My tongue disagrees though as I explore her deeply. Sounds rattling from her are ragged and uneven. Desperate. Curling my tongue up, I’m delighted to find something within her that makes her cry out in pleasure.
“Breccan!”
I love how she says my name and I rub at the small nodule within her. It fits perfectly in the groove between the two tines of my tongue. She jolts and spasms, her juices running freely from her the tastiest flavor my mouth has ever known. My nose is pressed against her pleasure button. I decide I want to pleasure her there as well. Moving back and forth, I use my nose to rub against the throbbing flesh while my tongue teases her within.