by V. K. Ludwig
Curling my fingers, I wiped whatever blood must have pooled at the tips across my palm, then gave a tug on her wrist to turn her toward me. “How about we end this on a high note, and take this training one small step at a time, huh?”
She blinked up at me, the flesh of her breasts expanding against me with each excited inhale, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “Thank you, Toagi.”
When she reached her hand up to cup my cheek, I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around her middle and pulled her flush against me, and still, it wasn’t close enough. My cock hardened behind the constraints of leather while I wrapped my tail around her leg.
I held her gaze as I once more took her hand, this time guiding it over my chest, down my stomach, relishing how her fingers curled against my muscles. “Explore me, kunazay. Learn my body.”
Her fingers trembled when I led them behind the leather, but she didn’t pull away, and even let them explore around my ava. I covered her fingers with mine, moving them, encouraging her to map the ridges above my knot, the wide flare of my crown, the veins swelling it with blood. When curiosity took over, and she fondled my sack, heavy from neglect, I stroked my fingers into her pants and between her legs.
I carefully dipped two fingers into her wet cunt. “Does this feel good?”
She moaned and licked her lips. “Mmh… better than it should.”
With one hand working her sex, I wrapped my tail around her middle and used the other to stroke seed to the tip of my cock. I dipped my finger into it, brought it to her mouth, and painted it across her lips.
“Taste me.” All it took was a little tap, and her lips parted, letting me dip inside to feed her my seed. “Sweet, isn’t it?”
Her eyes fluttered shut as if in a trance as she nodded. “Mmh… yes, so sweet.”
“Once you are ready for me, I will give you as much of my seed as you want. Your kimi will milk it from my ava, and still, I will have enough you can drink from it.” I pulled my fingers from her cunt, brought them to my mouth, and licked the intoxicating sweetness from my digits. “So close to your heat. Only suns away.”
When she shuddered against me, her body at war with her mind, I brought more of my seed to her lips. Then I dipped down, spreading it across her mouth with my own, stroking my tongue toward hers, tasting her, tasting me, tasting us.
I suckled her lips between mine in a kiss, mindful of my fangs as not to draw blood. “My kind says there is no deeper pleasure than the one we will find within our zovazay.”
No sooner had I said that word did she pull back, and whatever heat-like state my seed had lured her into faded away. A thousand emotions flitted across her face but settled in her lower lip as a tremble.
She very slowly, very gently pulled away from me. “We should get back.”
For the first time, she hadn’t denied the bond.
But she hadn’t accepted it either.
Thirteen
Ceangal
Mayala fumbled the fabric of her gray tunic. “Urizaya, the plateau is far out, and we do not know what roams that way. Do you truly wish to go there?”
No, I didn’t, and that was half the fucking problem. Ever since Toagi told me about his childhood, something had shifted between us. The way he’d helped me gain control over my armor, how he’d told me I was more than a pawn to him, that kiss we’d shared… it distracted me from my plan to escape.
“I saw him handling a com cube a few suns ago, which he put in one of his pouches. We need to figure out where we are once and for all before…”
Before I changed my mind.
Already my feet lifted slower when I slipped into my sandals, as if my toes were trying to spread roots into the ash. And if that happened, would I trigger a war?
“Very well, urizaya,” she said, and followed me to where Toagi discussed the storms with Uresha.
“Kunazay.” He gifted me the same smile I woke up to every morning now, which sent a flutter into my stomach that shouldn’t be there. Could not be there, no matter how much it nourished some of the deepest parts of my soul. “Do you need anything?”
“I was wondering if we could take two yuleshis for a little ride,” I said, hating that heaviness that swept across my core with how I lied to him. “Only along the western cliff.”
He smacked his lips and traded a glance with Yelim, who nodded and walked off before Toagi’s eyes caught with mine again. “Yelim will get them ready. But before I let you go…” He unbuckled his leather harness and draped it around me. “You take my knives like the last time, just in case. Always wipe off the blade.”
Cupping my cheek, he shrank the distance between us with one step, his eyes filled with an affection I could no longer call fake. It caressed me in a place where nobody had ever reached before, filling it with a sense of calm and belonging.
Zovazay.
The word echoed.
I told it to shut up, because it put everything the Empire and Jal’zar had worked toward at risk.
When Yelim returned, Mayala mounted one of the yuleshi, while Toagi helped me onto Canja. Equipped with waterskins, knives, and an increasingly reliable nano armor, we rode far out into the plains.
Mayala pointed toward a wall of what appeared to be sandstone, with an incline beside it that must once have formed from runoff. “I have seen the bright tips of the grass over there.”
“Once you confirm our location, all that’s missing is the satellite access code.”
She sucked in an audible breath, held it, then finally said, “Yelim has the code.”
I lifted a brow at her. “How do you know?”
A flare of pink shimmered through her gray complexion. “He told me. In exchange, I let him hum for me.”
Poor guy was barking up the wrong tree. “I will try to convince Katedo to accept Toagi’s claim. Perhaps I can get the Empire to offer some sort of cheaper export tariffs in exchange.”
“Toagi is not at all what I thought him to be, and I am ashamed. He is a decent leader.” She gave me a sidelong glance. “I also believe he is growing feelings for you. He stares at you when you teach. Laughs when you make the children laugh.”
My heart sunk a little.
With Toagi, I could be myself, failures and all. He didn’t judge. He didn’t point. What if I wanted stay with him?
Mayala slowed her yuleshi. “Over here, urizaya.”
I stopped Canja underneath a small tree, which offered her some shade. “On a level from one to ten, one being calm and ten being enraged, where do you think Katedo falls?”
“Twenty.” That number punched me in the face. “Katedo fought with himself for many moons before he agreed to take an urizaya once more.”
“Do you believe he would somehow accept Toagi’s claim if he returned me?”
It didn’t escape me how her eyes slipped to where Toagi had stung me. “I believe he might, urizaya.”
Somehow, that didn’t make me feel better.
I was stuck between returning to Katedo to help Toagi achieve his goal, or placing an innocent child at the center of this mess. And what if a child would solve nothing, or make things even worse? Katedo had a son. For all I knew, he might kill Toagi anyway and say the one in my belly was his. Problem solved.
“I have to figure something out,” I said, almost as if to calm myself. “And I can’t do that without bringing them all to the table to negotiate.”
After more than half a moon out here, the grit covering this planet had worn my soles thin, and rocks poked me when we took on the incline. Ash shifted and stones rolled down the dry creek bed, hitting tree trunks with a hollow tock.
Mayala reached the plateau before me, letting her hands and tail brush over the silver-tipped blades. “We call it ghost grass. Yes, I am certain now, urizaya. We are south-east of the Rehketu Plateau.”
“One step closer to rescue.”
Nausea gripped me tight.
Rescue from what? Children who stared at me wide-eyed when I told them abo
ut Earth customs? From endless plains that offered more peace than I could ever have dreamed of? Toagi, who helped me overcome my failings?
Perhaps I didn’t want to be rescued anymore, but that didn’t change that I needed to rescue Toagi. If I didn’t return to Katedo, this would not end well.
I stroked through the grass, which left some sort of silver glitter on my fingertips. “All we need is a copy of the access—”
“To me, urizaya.” Mayala’s voice was little more than a whisper, but it vibrated with so much dread, it shivered straight into my muscles. “Whatever you do, never turn your back on them.”
My muscles tightened, hand immediately going to Toagi’s knives. Not turn my back on them? Easier said than done, considering five pony-sized, white tigers prowled up on us. Each of their steps brushed through the grass, sending plumes of silver glitter into the air.
Bone handle smooth and solid against my palm, I pulled the curved knife from the holster. “Are these ushtis?”
Mayala nodded, tail angling beside her, claw pointing at the one creeping toward her. “Slice their bellies, or stab their windpipes. Stay away from their spiked tails.”
Loosening my stance like Toagi had taught me, I grabbed a second knife, and positioned myself back to back with Mayala. The moment her tailclaw whistled through the air, one of the ushtis jumped at me.
Pure adrenaline raged through my system.
I gripped my knife harder.
I crouched. I aimed.
One slice toward its belly, and the animal collapsed to the ground with an ear-piercing shriek. Just as I rose, something slammed into me full force.
I hit the ground and rolled.
Rolled again.
Grit and ash swirled around my eyes, each blink like needle pricks behind my lids. Tears streamed down my face unchecked. They blurred my vision. When a distorted white figure chased toward me, I kicked it and rolled backward before I jumped to my feet.
“Urizaya,” Mayala screamed. “To your right.”
I spun.
The beast jumped at me. I stabbed the knife at it. The blade hit hard, ungiving bone. With one jerk, the ushti pulled the handle right out of my hand. I stabbed with the other, over and over, perhaps hitting the windpipe. Perhaps not.
It slammed into the ground with a thud.
Something shrieked behind me.
Mayala groaned.
Before me, another ushti leapt so high my head tilted back, skin tingling where nanites spread across my body. They formed a patchy armor. If it covered at least my organs and arteries I couldn’t say, but I lifted the knife. Angled it toward its belly. The beast roared, sharp claws glistening as it struck out for me and—
A gray figure invaded my periphery.
It growled and collided with the ushti, and the beast screamed when it hit the ground, its white fur tainting red even against the blur. Blink after blink, I brought Toagi into vision.
He sunk a dagger into the ushti’s windpipe before, with a backflip, his tailclaw punctured the skull of the one beside him. All around us, ushtis yelped and whimpered, and the ground shook whenever one collapsed. I counted at least seven. The three remaining beasts ran off.
“Kunazay!” Nervous pupils scanned me for injuries, and shaky hands felt me for broken bones. Something dark came over Toagi’s eyes, and a growl vibrated in his chest as he cut Mayala a glare. “How could you have been careless enough to allow her up here, when you know ushtis seek the cover of ghost grass!”
Mayala shrank away from his shout and lowered her head, her tail hanging limp and bloody to the ground. “Urizayo, I did not know this. By Mekara, I would never lead her into danger—”
“She could have died!” Toagi roared and revealed his fangs, the veins thickening along his neck. “How can you be uiri if—”
“It was my fault!” I pushed myself up to stand and reached for his arm. “I asked her to take me here even though she warned me. Toagi, please, you’re angry at the wrong person.”
But Toagi was having none of it and stomped toward Mayala, while I all but dragged behind him. “I will see you replaced with someone from my tribe.”
At Mayala’s whimper, my nerves strung tight, but what was I supposed to do? Toagi was in a full-blown rage, and I had no idea how to distract him. Unless…
I gave a hard tug on his arm and stepped in front of him. “Hum for me!”
His feet stuttered to a standstill and his muscles tensed beneath my palm. “What?”
“I said hum for me, damnit. A good mate never denies his female, right?” When he stared at me wide-eyed, his chest entirely still, I gave it a little pound. “Fir’adi!”
Toagi grabbed my shoulders and pulled me against a chest already rumbling with his hum. It stroked over my skin, seeped into my bones, slackened my muscles. All while it caressed my soul, and my core filled with a tranquility I’d never known before.
“Ada fir’enu, I hum for you, kunazay,” he whispered even as the purr-like sound vibrated beneath his ribs, filling me with warmth from within. “I would never deny you my hum, Ceangal. All the time, I want to hum for you. When you fall to sleep, when you wake up, when you grow uneasy.”
And he did it beautifully. “How did you find us?”
His tongue lapped at my shoulder, so I must have a cut there. “I’ve been shadowing you for suns, kunazay, my soulmate. No more exploring. Don’t try to run from me. Don’t leave me.”
I moaned when he scraped his fangs along my neck, barely noticing how he lowered me to the ground. “So you knew.”
Silver flickers separated from the ghost grass and drifted away on the breeze, the blades like velvet underneath me as he nodded. “It was a good plan, but I had to scheme all my childhood to stay alive. You will never outdo me on it.”
When his tongue wetted my breasts through the thin silk of my shirt on their way toward my belly, I grabbed his rough horns as if on instinct. “Mmh, Toagi… what about… Mayala. The ushtis.”
“She was wise enough to leave when you asked for my hum, and the beasts are gone. You’re safe now.” He nuzzled my pussy through my shorts before his tongue worked toward my thigh, and his hand fumbled to remove my chest harness. “We take our females wherever and whenever we want in the plains. Let me taste the sweetness that is driving me insane with need.”
Toagi cupped my pussy, palming it, rubbing it with slow, deliberate circles. I moaned. He groaned and unbuttoned my shorts, tugging impatiently on the hem to lower them to my calves.
Broad, slow strokes lapped over my panties, sending a tingle into my clit. It turned into a throb when he bit into the fabric, and it ripped between his fangs. He hummed louder, and deep groans mingled with the sound when he lapped at my entrance.
His tongue smacked against his gums. “You are at the height of your heat, and your kimi is weeping to be seeded.”
I couldn’t deny it.
Not with how my thick cream coated his gray lips, which he licked away, swallowed it, and then lapped between my folds some more. He was careful, keeping his fangs away, but the grip of his fingers on my thighs was demanding,
Heat built between my legs, turning so violent my legs spread wider, pelvis shifting, rocking against his mouth. “We can’t do this.”
“I need you, kunazay. Want you in ways I hadn’t planned.” He climbed between my legs and worked his loincloth aside, the pressure of his crown prodding against my wet hole ripping another moan from me. “Take me into your womb, Ceangal.”
Raw need coursed through me, making me lift my pelvis and buck against him. “I want to.”
But I couldn’t.
Still, I lifted my ass off the ground whenever he pressed against my entrance, rocking him into me by the smallest degree, loving the pressure, hating myself for being this careless. “I can’t, Toagi. I want you. I swear I do but… I know you think you need this child—”
“What I need is you. All of you.”
The devotion in his voice was undeniable, the truth of
his words written in eyes that pleaded with mine. Perhaps I wanted to give him all. But not yet. Not until all this was settled, because everything else was nothing short of irresponsible.
“I’m begging you, don’t put a baby at the center of this chaos. There’s so much that can go wrong. Think about it, Toagi.” I cupped his cheek. “This will be the child of the rebel who stole Ceangal da taigh L’naghal, who used him as leverage to gain his title. You once told me that we inherit our father’s sins. If you put this child in my belly now, chances are it will inherit both mine and yours.”
His entire body turned to stone atop mine, every muscle rigid and unmoving. He stared at me for a long while, and yet his gaze seemed adrift, almost as if he looked through me as he pictured what that might be like for said child.
He sucked in a sharp breath that sent a tremble through his entire body, shook him to the core as if instinct fought reason, and pulled his crown from my pussy. But he immediately rubbed his shaft along my labia and clit. “If I don’t give you our child this sun, at least take pleasure with me.”
He slipped one hand to the back of my head and lifted my face deeper into his chest. The other, he used to grab my hips, steadying me against his thrusts. Like that, he rolled his hips, stroking across my pussy and pubic bone.
The prominent ridges, his swollen ava, the way I sensed trickles of seed seep into course hair… everything between my legs first heated, then throbbed, then tingled. When I came against his cock, it ripped a scream from my throat. It mingled with Toagi’s roar as his chest tightened against my face, gray skin pebbling.
For a moment, I thought he’d come too, until he shifted enough I could see the head of his cock thrusting between us. There was seed, yes, but it must have come from his knot since it wasn’t enough and mostly clung to my pubic hair.
“Put your hand on your stomach and look down.”
His voice was choked and tense, and his breath stalled when, at his final thrust, his hips locked. A small bead of white seed dripped out of the slit on his dark cockhead. My clit tingled, and renewed heat flared between my legs until—