NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1)

by Theodora Taylor

  But Fensa had an excellent reason for missing her shot. She’d been in Michigan, attending her dear papa’s funeral.

  But that excuse didn’t help her out much now. She’d missed her heat control shot.

  The Ancient Norse dirge that had played at Papa’s funeral on Lake Superior began to fill her head. Instruments made of sheep and cow bones blaring over the realization: I’m in heat… oh God… I’m in heat!

  9

  Xenon woke to the sound of the room quietly alerting him.

  “Patient Female 7-133 requesting access. Patient Female 7-133 requesting access,” it informed him as the tubes pulled out of his body.

  He sat up, disoriented but otherwise in good health. Thanks to the tubes. But why was he on the tubes in the first place?

  The answer came back in a flash of memory. The fight with the anthros outside his glacier station. The unexpected spear to the eye—one of the few places his kind was vulnerable to something as rudimentary as a spear.

  He had managed to take the attackers out with a roar of fire, before clubbing the remaining anthro into the station wall with his tail. But his victorious feeling had been short-lived. He’d soon come to the realization that the spear was much too small to pull out with his claws. Yet he couldn’t shift without grievously wounding himself. A spear through the eye was bad enough, but if he changed back into his anthro shell, the spear would lodge inside his brain. A fatal injury to be sure.

  So he’d been forced to remain outside. Waiting patiently for a death he knew he could not avoid. Until she arrived. The female anomaly. Dressed in the clothes he’d left for her before departing for the Zone 6 lab, with the intention of untubing and dressing her upon his return.

  Xenon had little hope of her helping him. But she had, and now he was healed. Well, partially. He bent his head, scanning his full medical report on the wall above the tubing holes. While the lab had done its best with the medical tubing, he’d need to visit a reconstructor as soon as he returned to Drakkon.

  Translation: he’d have a hideous scar running vertically down one eye for the rest of his solar rotations on this ice-and-water planet. He could live with that. Also, one less thing for his brother to be jealous of. He could only imagine how his brother’s flame might yellow with glee when Xenon returned marred in such a manner. Not nearly as handsome as when he left.

  “Patient Female 7-133 requesting access,” the room gently reminded him, nudging him from his thoughts.

  Oh yes, the female anomaly was at his lab door. Most likely with more questions he wouldn’t be able to understand because her strange tongue could be found in none of the dictionaries supplied by the Mission Linguist from the Royal Geneticist’s tour.

  Xenon had been alone for so long, he’d forgotten about the lab’s safety locks. He had coded them himself to prevent curious natives from gaining access. As a result, his lab was fully secure when he was inside.

  Showing labs to conscious outsiders was strictly against protocol. But in this case, he’d allow it. For one, the female had already seen the lab. Woken up in it, and found her way out to help him. Also, he would need to put her to sleep again for the return trip to the Group 6 lab.

  Perfectly logical reasoning, yet his flame turned a shameful red in his chest. True, she meant nothing to him beyond the research possibilities. And though she’d technically saved his life, anomaly or not, she still hailed from a species only a fraction more advanced than the pack animals they’d been spliced with.

  No, he decided as he pulled a new pair of leather leggings and hide shirt out of the replicator. He had been effectively exiled to this planet; his life put on hiatus with no chance of a DNA match or advancement in his chosen career path.

  He wanted nothing untoward on his record when he returned to Drakkon. Therefore, he would do his job as promised, and dismiss the odd burn of shame as nothing more than a recovery symptom. His mental functions were most likely still fragile at best, after being trapped in the snow for nearly an entire day cycle with a piece of wood and bone lodged in his eye.

  If anything, this proved what worthy game these hominids would make for royal hunting trips. They were small but clever. And as he palmed the lab’s door, he pondered how he’d almost been mortally wounded by one of them.

  Pondered the question so deeply, he was knocked off balance when the female anomaly flew at him.

  She was naked again but seemed surprisingly oblivious to her nude state despite her obvious discomfort with it the day before. Her heavy breasts swung as she put him beneath her, her thick thighs straddling his body. And by the mothers, she was aflame with fever!

  Her skin burned almost as hot as a drakkon’s, and he could feel the heat coming off her as she undulated her naked sex over the groin area of his shell. What was this about, he wondered, looking up at her with curiosity.

  Xenon might have simply tossed her off if not for one thing: he had that heavy feeling again. For the second time in his 2000 years, his male works threatened to descend without consent.

  He could feel her hands on his leg coverings. Tugging at them, trying to make them give way. But he wore smart clothes. And they could only be removed by command. Tears of frustration started spilling from the female’s eyes as she rubbed herself against his swollen male works.

  This could not continue. Xenon reversed their positions, placing her under him on the lab’s heated blue floor. The tubes were right there. He should strap her to the table, and run another diagnostic. That was protocol. But…

  His tongue extended with a mind of its own, seeking the answers he wanted without asking his brain for permission. The female screamed, her hips bucking upwards as soon as he entered her canal. Yet her thighs fell open shortly after as if inviting him to probe deeper.

  Xenon needed no such invitation. He explored without reservation or restraint, smelling her hormones, demanding answers. Soon her body began to tremble in the same manner it had during that first examination. But this time, instead of screaming out, trickles of water streamed from her eyes as she babbled, “notanuff notanuff” in her strange language.

  He could not comprehend her words. However, he no longer needed a translator to know why she acted in such a manner. She was in a mating heat.

  By the mothers…

  The mating heat had proven to be one of the more curious things about the hybrids created by the Royal Geneticist. The addition of this bio-engineered estrous cycle seemed to add an extra layer of vehemence to the hominids’ already considerable obsession with replicating themselves.

  According to the Royal Geneticist’s hybrid design notes, when the female of the species went into a mating heat, she released a pheromone that sent her and any male who made attempt to seed her, into a mating frenzy that would not end until the female was either impregnated or dead.

  At first, the Royal Geneticist had been quite pleased with this feature of his creation. Infertile she-wolves would die if they didn’t breed, keeping the population of she-wolves (who were only needed for breeding, not hunting) down. Also, because all non-related male wolves were affected by the scent, despite the small number of wolves in his seven experimental groups, it guaranteed species biodiversity.

  Or as the Royal Geneticist had explained to the non-scholarly Drakkon court: because most male wolves in a pack would be taking turns with any she-wolf in heat, the group would avoid some of the genetic problems that had plagued the anthrohominids.

  However, a few times the frenzy had been so ferocious, perfectly healthy she-wolves had died during the mating process due to the overly vigorous attentions of too many fervent males. Not to mention, as the Royal Geneticist himself admitted, it had been a mistake to assume only males would be useful for hunting. As it turned out, the females of the species were often equally, if not superior to, the males when it came to overall tracking skills and fearlessness.

  Xenon retracted his tongue, his flame taking on a heavy, dark color.

  He could not deliver her to his
uncle in this state.

  She was large of body. Sturdy. She might very well survive being mated by the Group 7 wolves. And since she’d come here through the Zone 7 match portal, there was a high probability her fated mate was among the Group 7 males.

  Yes, he must give her to them.

  Xenon knew his reasoning to be sound. He scooped her up, knowing what he should do. Knowing he should take her to the village below the Zone 7 fating portal.

  Yet…

  The female sobbed into his chest, her words coming out so fast, he doubted he could have understood her even if he knew her tongue. She needed relief. She needed the village wolves.

  And yet…

  His male works refused to stop straining, pressing heavily against his soft under scales. Pulsing, as if his three-chambered heart were located there rather than his chest.

  Xenon could now see the arousal fluids secreting from the slit between the female’s legs. And though he already had all the data he needed, his tongue banged into the back of his teeth with the overwhelming desire to smell her again.

  He walked faster, suddenly afraid of what he might do if he kept her here for another moment. But then he stopped short.

  Entering the glacier station’s outer room were five of the Group 7 lupins: Male 7-39, Male 7-43, Male 7-46, Male 7-49, and Male 7-32—the leader of the Group 7 Far Travelers. The one the tribe had labeled King of Us, in accordance with the Drakkon title system that the Royal Geneticist had imprinted upon their genes.

  Male 7-32 usually spoke for the group, eyes cast downward so as not to offend the drakkon god. And he and the rest of the tribe never ever entered Xenon’s abode without permission, which he had yet to give.

  But here they stood. All five sets of eyes fixed upon the female in his arms, as Male 7-32 said, “She need mate. Give her us!”

  “Pause,” Xenon answered, controlling his glottis to speak their language without hissing. “I no want her hurt. You give promise.”

  “No promise,” Male 7-32 growled. “She is us. She have heat. Give her us!”

  “Give her us! Give her us!” the others grunted, chanting and signing the words in unison.

  Much like the primates all hominids (only barely) evolved from.

  Xenon was suddenly distracted as the female anomaly’s arms wrapped more securely around his neck. More babbling and hot tears as she clung to him.

  “U,” she said, over and over again. “onlee-u”

  Despite the language barrier, he found he needed no translation. She was scared. She did not want to go with these wolves. She wanted him to mate her. Him. And only him.

  The suggestion should have been anathema to him. But his male works throbbed at the idea of it. Even though she was little more than a slightly evolved animal, and their mating had no chance of producing offspring.

  “Give her us. We baby put!” Male 7-32 yelled out as if somehow reading Xenon’s thoughts, despite his limited intelligence.

  This was deranged.

  Xenon unlocked the female anomaly’s arms from around his neck. Set her down on her feet—only to catch her hands again when she immediately tried to wrap them back around him. No, he would not, could not give into this unnatural temptation.

  He must hand her over to the wolves. He must.

  Even if she didn’t survive the mating, he might still be able to take her body to his uncle for study afterward. And if she did, the Lead Investigator would be over the moons. Not only would he have the anomaly, but also a fetus to study. He might even keep her alive longer.

  It was a perfectly reasonable decision. Logical. Scientific. The very best example of logical thinking during a moment of heightened emotion. A quality his race valued in their royals. And yet…

  That was the last rational thought he had before his drakkon unshelled.

  10

  Fensa was beginning to wonder if and when she’d ever stop saying What. The. Fenrir. Wolf???

  But in this case, it was, like, super warranted. One moment, she was begging the dragon shifter not to give her over to the pack of post-apocalyptic wolves who looked about ready to play out some Mad Max fanfiction on her virgin body. Begging him to mate with her instead.

  Not her best moment, considering 1) he was a dragon, and 2) he seemed to have no problem handing her over to not one, but five wolves. Like something out of the most messed up porn scenario ever.

  But she begged him nonetheless, unable to stop. Because she was in heat, in complete thrall to a wolf who’d been held back for over five years. And her wolf, for reasons Fensa couldn’t begin to comprehend, wanted this dragon.

  “Only him, only him!” it chanted inside her soul.

  So Fensa begged. Humiliated herself, even though she could see he had no plans to grant her request. When he set her down, pretty much pushing her off him, she knew it was over.

  But then…

  With a noise that sounded like a rusty Transformer declaring a street fight, he morphed right before her eyes. Fensa couldn’t figure out those magic pants of his, but in the next moment, they became three times their size. Perfect fabric expanding as the seven-foot giant who’d just been refusing to fuck her snaked out of his skin and shifted into a twenty-foot tall dragon.

  Oh, so that’s why he lived in a glacier with 100-foot high ceilings, Fensa thought, ogling up at him. It made total sense now, as did the overlarge sleeping palette of fake polar bear furs in the lab.

  But then the dragon let out another ear-curdling roar. Okay, the time for putting two and twos together was way over. And as for her heat thrall—well, that was put on instahold by the primordial need to fucking run like hell when Godzilla suddenly shows up in your city.

  Her bare feet slipping on the slick blue floors, Fensa managed to dash back into the lab where she proceeded to slam her palm onto the blue wall next to the open door until it slid back shut.

  The last thing she saw before it closed was the dragon dropping to all fours in front of the Mad Max shifters. She didn’t need to see what happened next. Because the stench of methane, and the screams that followed were all she needed to know how things played out.

  Fensa didn’t know what was scarier: the one-sided fight’s burning smell-o-vision, punctuated by infuriated roars, or the dead silence that came almost immediately after.

  Several whispered curse words spilled out of her mouth as she ran over to the wall of iPaddles. Not only was she naked—again. But none of the devices hanging on the wall looked like they could provide any sort of protection, or serve her well in a fight that didn’t involve a small white ball. How would she protect herself? How could she get free—?

  The lab door slid open on a whisper. But it might as well have been thrown open with a bang. Fensa jumped like a monster had crashed into the room, when the now-naked dragon shifter walked into the lab, his eyes glowing a bright red.

  She had no weapons. Neither did he.

  She was naked. So was he.

  Two shifters. In their human shells.

  Except their shells had a few distinct differences.

  While her eyes glowed brown, his glowed red.

  While her torso sported full hips and a rounded stomach covered in soft brown skin, his torso tapered into a hard V with pale white scales where another man’s pelvis and abs would be.

  And as it turned out, his scales weren’t even the wildest thing to set their bodies apart in that moment. Not by a long shot. There was one other very, very important distinction. Or rather, two.

  Dragon Man’s Ken doll effect had completely vanished. Instead, two penises now hung from his groin. Two very large penises.

  11

  Okay, time to go in on a fourth What. The. Fenrir. Wolf????

  You know what, make that three more….

  WhattheFenrirWolf! WhattheFenrirWolf! WhattheFUCKINGFenrirWolf!

  Fensa’s wolf—the one who had been so insistent on fucking this dude just a few minutes ago—took a giant mental step back. Seeming to say, in a distinct Detro
it accent: You know what, brah? I’m tight. I do not need to have nothing to do with none of that.

  As for Fensa’s human, she choked a few times before finally opening her mouth to say…

  Nothing. And that was because, before she could even make a sound, Dragon Man and his two penises were across the room.

  With the lightning speed of a predator, he grabbed her around the waist, his hands like vice grips as he spun her, and pushed her into the nearest glowing blue wall.

  Before Fensa could so much as gasp, her huge breasts smashed into what turned out to be a frigid wall, her body crushed between it and the burning weight of the male behind her. However, the sting of the icy wall was soon outdone by the bite of sharp teeth.

  Wolf shifters had canines, but apparently, dragon shifters had a full set of razors in their mouths. Not just two, but all Dragon Man’s teeth sliced into her neck with vicious ease, locking down right above her clavicle.

  Fensa screamed, her human going primal in its instinct to buck this beast off her back. But all attempts to move were soon proven futile. The hold of his jaw was unbelievably firm, as sure as a steel vice. And any movement she made only served to sink his teeth in deeper.

  Fuck, another domination position. While her human was screaming bloody murder, her wolf went into a complete heat frenzy. Releasing a wave of heat so strong, Fensa could feel liquid arousal oozing out of her sex, and down the insides of her bare thighs.

  She didn’t understand what was happening. How her wolf could so want something her human could barely comprehend, let alone stand.

  Fensa could feel her wolf pushing forward, trying to force a takeover. Wolf mode, her Aunt Tu had called it, the time her deaf mate, Grady, had been taken over by his at leadership camp. Triggered by a bully’s threat against their son.

  But Fensa had been raised by her papa to coexist with her wolf peacefully. Taught to keep her human in the driver’s seat, even during full moon shifts. She wouldn’t simply roll over and cede control. Going for that option felt like the equivalent of saying, “Yeah, sure, I’ll go insane. Why not? Feel free to take over not just my body, but my mind, too.”