“Eslyn, step forward,” Prince Zander ordered.
Granit refrained from the urge to pat her ass as they escorted her forward. She may not be theirs for much longer.
“Are you in agreement that the malice toward Talia and Tomis came mainly from Sankro?”
“Yes, my lord.” She answered immediately, which should reassure him that the males told the truth, but it didn’t.
“Do you believe they can contribute to Zandian society if set free?”
“Yes, my lord.” Again, no hesitation.
Zander considered the males for a moment. “Elit and Banf, I sentence you to time served. You’ll be sent to the training pod to train as members of my army on a trial basis. If there’s any trouble with you at all, you’ll go back to the dungeons.”
“With our mate and young.” Banf had the nerve to say it as a statement, not a question.
Eslyn started, her mouth dropping open, eyes riveted on Prince Zander.
Granit’s hands clenched into fists at the thought of her leaving with those males.
Zander lifted a brow. “Excuse me?”
Elit straightened. “Forgive him, my lord. But we would both very much like to be reunited with our family. We’ve been parted from our mate and young for several planet rotations now.”
Eslyn shifted on her feet.
“The training pod is not a suitable environment for young. The children will remain here with their mother. You will be granted visitation before you leave,” Zander proclaimed.
The two males bowed, but Granit didn’t feel the slightest bit resolved by Zander’s decree. Too many questions remained unanswered. Would Eslyn eventually be returned to her mates? And did she want to be?
Guilt at their use of her rumbled through him. She’d seemed willing—eager even. She’d enjoyed it—he knew that without a doubt. But if she’d be returned to the other three, would she regret her time with them? Had they managed to complicate her life and tangle her emotions? The idea of her suffering any more as result of their actions killed him.
“You are dismissed. All of you.” Zander stood from the throne, not waiting for the group gathered to disperse.
Granit and Laake both looked at Damon, waiting for him to figure out how to fix their broken situation. “Take her back to her chamber,” Damon muttered to them, “then meet me in ours.”
He nodded and followed Laake and Eslyn. Each step he took, his limp became more pronounced; the pain resulting from scar tissue that was always there now became knife-like.
They may have to give her up.
He hadn’t wanted to look at that dark truth before, but now it hung before him, as obvious as a hologram.
The worst part was the longer they ignored it, the more they’d hurt Eslyn, which was unforgivable.
They needed to cut her loose right away. He just hoped the other two agreed.
* * *
Eslyn paced around her chamber. Her prison. Laake and Granit had left her there with nary a word and Damon had refused to look at her during the hearing.
And Elit! That vecker had double-crossed her. She’d done her part and he hadn’t renounced any claim on her or the young. She hated him as much as Sankro. Hated all three of them.
She would ask to speak with Zander again—recant her testimony.
Just as soon as her warriors returned.
She went to the door and pounded on it. Was one of them standing outside it?
No one answered.
Curses. Her warriors were angry. No—hurt. They believed she cared about Elit and Banf. And she only had herself to blame for that. Would anything she said even matter now?
She leaned her forehead against the door and slapped it. A hot tear trickled down her cheek.
She’d known it had been too good to be true—that she could have mates like Granit, Damon, and Laake instead of the veck-holes she’d been stuck with. She’d known as soon as she let her guard down, as soon as she let herself care, it would all be snatched from her. Just as all forms of security and love had been snatched away for her entire life, starting with her parents and siblings during the invasion.
Her destiny would forever be strung up with Elit and Banf’s. Their miserable existence would always be hers.
No, the best thing would be to forget about Granit, Damon, and Laake, the pleasure and care they’d brought her.
It had been far too much to hope that they’d be hers to keep.
Chapter Four
Laake lay backward in his hover disk, his feet propped against the wall. He wanted to kick it like an angry youth. “This doesn’t feel right,” he said for the nineteenth time.
Neither Damon nor Granit answered him.
Damon had barely spoken all afternoon, that genius brain of his clearly whirling around their problem, but he had yet to present a solution. And dammit, Damon always had a solution. Laake and Granit depended on him to be Master Fix-it.
After a short and devastating discussion, Damon had gone to Prince Zander to tell him they considered Eslyn’s reconditioning complete and they recommended she be allowed to move about the pod freely. When Zander agreed, they sent a servant to inform Eslyn.
Damon stopped his pacing and tapped the wall with his fist. “It doesn’t feel right because we wished to keep her. But putting her well-being before ours is right. It’s the same reason you took her to the dungeon.”
“I know.” Knowing didn’t lift the gigantic weight that had settled in the middle of his chest, however.
“She needs space and freedom to decide what she wants her new life to look like. She won’t be able to think clearly if we’re pressuring her in one direction and her former mates pressure her in another. She has her young to consider. What we did with her wasn’t fair. It felt right at the time, but it was a mistake.”
“Beast excrement. There’s no way in the galaxy our time with her was a mistake.” Granit’s deep voice rose enough to reverberate through the whole chamber.
“No.” Damon’s reply was barely audible.
“What if she doesn’t want space? What if she’s already made her decision?” he pressed, even though they’d been around and around this topic all afternoon.
Damon drew his fist back and bashed the wall with it. “We can’t pressure her now. Not today when she just learned two of her mates will go free. We give her space. As we already agreed.”
“It still doesn’t feel right.” He swung his legs down and sat up, running a hand over his face. He swore he still smelled her scent on his skin, making him itch to be near her again. Every time he closed his eyes, images of her sensuous form danced in front of them. Not just her body, though—her smile, her laugh. The sweet way she called them master. “Just let me talk to her—explain our position.”
“Tomorrow. After she and the young have seen her mates this evening. It’s not right to confuse them.”
His fingers curled into fists. He couldn’t stand being away from her—not even for a night. It seemed wrong and he couldn’t shake the feeling they were letting her down, even though they were doing this for her.
“Do you think they’re in her chamber now?” he asked.
No one asked who they were. All three males were hyper aware of their competition.
Laake stood and prowled over to the workstation. “I’m going to check.” He waited for Damon or Granit to tell him no, that it was wrong to spy on her—on them—but no one spoke. They both had turned, expectation glinting in their serious gazes.
He flicked on the security feed and scrolled through the rooms until he reached hers.
There. Elit and Banf were in her room, the veck-holes.
And Eslyn didn’t look happy.
Not at all.
* * *
“I smell them on you. In this room. What in the veck did you do, Eslyn?” Elit advanced on her, menace glazing his eyes.
“You,” she hissed. “You don’t get to come in here and ask questions. I did my part—I got you free. But you didn’t give
me the same courtesy.”
He laughed—a dark, crackling sound that seemed to snap her bones in its wake.
Banf stood with his back against the door to the children’s room, arms folded over his chest. Both of them had hollows under their eyes, which should’ve called up her sympathy, but it didn’t. They deserved every ounce of hell they’d received in that dungeon. And more.
“You never were the brightest in our little family, were you?” Banf sneered.
Elit joined in. “Hmm, let’s see... there’s only two Zandian females left in the galaxy so I think I’ll just hand over mine so she can breed with the remaining population. Are you really that vecking stupid?”
“Yes, she is. She really thought she was going to get to spread her legs and let some other male claim what we already bought.”
“Bought?” she spat. “How do you figure?”
“Fifteen years of taking care of your whiny ass!” Banf snapped. “Complaints and tears and a whole lot of bitterness is all we’ve had from you and now you want to deny us our due?”
“I’m not your due. I’m going to tell Prince Zander that I lied today, and you both deserve to rot in that dungeon with Sankro!” she spat.
She didn’t see Elit’s fist flying because Banf had lunged for her throat at the same time. Her head snapped back on her neck and she fell to the floor. Banf straddled her, choking her breath with a tight squeeze under her chin.
She scrambled beneath him, legs kicking uselessly, unable to cry out. Terror gripped her, as it always did when they choked her. Her vision popped with lights around the edges, then bled with darkness.
A rushing sounded in her ears.
She clawed Banf’s face, dug her nails into one of his sensitive horns.
The last thing she saw was his bared teeth as the room darkened to black.
And then she was dragging in long breaths of air, as the sound of grunts and thuds crashed all around her.
“Get her up out of the way.”
Was that... Damon’s voice?
Laake’s concerned face swam into view and she rose in his arms, scooped onto the hover disk and gently arranged. Behind him, Granit’s fist slammed repeatedly into flesh and bone with a sickening wet sound. Two figures wrestled back and forth across the room—Damon and Elit.
“Stop,” she croaked.
“She said stop.” Laake spoke across the melee. He’d put his body between hers and the rest of them, guarding her.
Granit’s fist paused in midair, but Damon continued his assault on Elit, sending him flying over a hover chair and sprawling onto his back.
“I’m not finished,” Damon gritted, leaping over the fallen chair in a graceful bound.
“I’m with you, but don’t make her watch.”
Damon also paused. “Right.” He swiped blood from his mouth and glanced over at her. For the first time, she saw his expression go soft, the way his brothers always looked at her.
She dragged her hand up to her throat, coughing. Her head pounded, eyes gritty.
Dimly, she heard Damon issuing commands into a cuff on his arm, something about guards and dungeon.
Then all three of her males—the ones who mattered to her—gathered around the hover bed, brows furrowed, fingers gentle as they stroked her hair from her face, caressed her arms, held her hands.
Guards burst in the room and there were more barked orders issued from Damon, deep grumbling growls from Granit.
Laake scooped her into his arms again. “I’m taking her to the crystal bath to speed her healing. If those bruises don’t go away before bedtime, I’m going to vecking kill those males, whether they carry Zandian blood or not.”
“Agreed,” Damon said. He and Granit trailed behind Laake, apparently unwilling to let her out of their sight.
“Sol,” she croaked weakly, thinking of her baby in his protective cradle. Had he been hurt? Had the cradle been knocked around during the fight?
“I’ll get him, little flower,” Damon soothed. “He’s fine.”
In the circular crystal bath, light poured in through skylights, amplified by giant Zandian crystals. Laake sank into one of the beds, nesting her ass between his legs, pulling her back against his warm chest.
Granit and Damon pulled two more beds up right beside hers and sat down. Damon handed her Sol, who greedily attached himself to her nipple to nurse.
“You left me vulnerable.” She didn’t mean to blurt the accusation, but it flew out of her mouth. She should apologize for lying, for hurting them, but instead she spit out the one pain that wouldn’t be resolved by a crystal bath.
All three males started talking at once, something like, “I’m sorry—” and “Forgive us—” and “We didn’t know, Eslyn.”
A sob erupted from her mouth, and then she cried like her three-cycle-old.
Sol pulled his lips from her breast and joined in the wail, frightened.
Her males tightened their ring around her, touching her, murmuring. No, not murmuring, begging. Despite the way they talked over one another, she caught enough to understand.
They were sorry.
Something her ex-mates had never been. Not once.
She sniffled back her purple-tinted tears, trying to recover. “I made a deal with them, but they betrayed me. I wanted to get free. I hoped—”
She stuffed her knuckles in her mouth, afraid to say it.
“Hoped what?” Granit wrapped his huge fingers around her wrist and tugged her hand away.
She beseeched them with her eyes, but couldn’t bring herself to say it. What if they didn’t feel the same way? But no, they did. They’d been hurt by her choice to visit the dungeons.
“Mate me. Pierce me with your crystal and keep me forever. Keep us.” She stroked Sol’s tiny cheek with her thumb.
“Veck, yes, Eslyn.” The outburst came from Damon, the only one she hadn’t been sure of.
She smiled, though it made the bruise on her face throb. “Yes? What about Prince Zander?”
Damon drew himself up. “We’ll make sure he approves. It’s not for you to worry about, lovely female. Consider it already done. You’re ours. Your children are ours. Your future, ours.”
A tear spilled down her cheek, but it wasn’t from sorrow. Granit thumbed it away. “We love you, little flower. We promise to take good care of you and the young. We’ll make sure you’re happy.”
She sniffed, the joy bubbling up from her chest in sobs of laughter. “I know. I know you will.”
Epilogue
Damon adjusted his swollen cock in his trousers. He had their beloved female naked and bent over the hover disk, legs spread wide. Laake and Granit each held one of her wrists—not because she’d offered up any struggle. More because they needed to touch her in every moment, even if it was holding her down and making her take her punishment.
He tapped her ass with a cane. “If you want something, who should you ask to help you get it, beautiful?” They’d given her the night to heal from her harrowing experience with Banf and Elit, who’d been permanently returned to Zander’s dungeon.
“You three,” she gasped, her twitching ass probably smarting from the two lines he’d already laid across it.
He swished the cane through the air and applied a third. “Exactly, love. Do not make deals with other males, especially without telling us. Understand?”
“Yes, Master!” She’d persisted in calling them master, even after Prince Zander had granted permission for them to mate her and they’d each chosen one body part to pierce and adorn with crystal. He’d chosen the top of one of her ears. He wanted it in a place every being would see. Laake had pierced her navel; Granit, her nose.
He stroked his hand over her hip to calm the trembling in her legs. “You will always receive punishment for putting yourself in danger. That’s a promise we won’t break, Eslyn.” He dipped his fingers between her legs, knowing how wet he’d find her. As if he could’ve ignored the intoxicating scent of her arousal filling the room. It had the
m all struggling to stay sane.
She moaned as he pinched her clit between two knuckles.
“And we’ll always take care of you afterward. I hope you know that. You can count on us to kiss it better. Are you ready for a good vecking?”
“Yes, Master!” She sounded impatient, so he delivered another light swat with the cane.
“Ooh-oh! Please?”
He chuckled and lifted her by the hips to prop her knees on the hover disk. Parting her with his thumbs, he licked into her, tracing her inner lips, sucking her clit.
Granit moved in to fondle her dangling breasts while Laake fisted a hand in her hair, growling something in her ear.
She went off before he’d even given it much effort—the moment he shoved one finger into her heat. Her muscles contracted, shudders running through her body.
“Again,” Laake rasped.
Damon flipped Eslyn onto her back and hooked her knees over his shoulders, filling his hands with her ass. “Let’s try it from this angle, shall we?”
Eslyn made an incoherent sound, her knees tightening around his ears. He flicked his tongue over her clit, sucked and nipped her nether lips. Only when she’d come again did he lower her hips to the hover disk and push into her moist heat.
Her pussy was even better than he remembered, not that he’d ever let vecking her become something routine. His fingers tightened on her hips and he pistoned in and out of her, watching her expression to make sure she enjoyed every vecking second of it.
She bucked and writhed beneath him as if greedy for every inch he fed her and he closed his eyes and let greed take over him, too.
“Mine now,” he growled. “Mine, mine, mine.”
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yours. My masters.”
Granit and Laake growled, but didn’t move in; they must’ve known how close he was.
“Veck, yes!” he issued through clenched teeth.
“Yes, yes, please!” Her keening cry made him veck her even harder, plunging as deep as he could get inside her until his movements grew jerky, thighs tensing.
He came, hard and grateful, still pounding Eslyn with every bit of passion inside him.
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 15