Dominating Dekalia

by Reese Gabriel

  Dominating Dekalia

  Reese Gabriel

  Book 8 in the More Than Male series. Prequel to Book 1, Nyssa’s Guardian.

  Councilor Dekalia is lucky to be alive after a mysterious wormhole bomb scatters the contents of her living quarters to the far ends of the universe. The guardian commander wants her safe and sends her with Marax, one of his best primale supermen, to a remote ice world in protective custody.

  Marax wants to finish the job quickly and get back to the war he’s been forced to leave but Dekalia has escape on her mind. As a last resort, Marax treats the freewheeling fem to a spanking that ends up arousing them both to incendiary levels.

  The real enemy is watching, and he is delighted. Soon a second wormhole bomb engulfs Dekalia and Marax, sending them on a journey of darkest desire and domination. They travel from an Old Earth speakeasy to a desert slave planet. A plot has been set in motion. The enemy wants a human baby—and Marax and Dekalia will give it to him at any cost.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Dominating Dekalia

  ISBN 9781419937361

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Dominating Dekalia Copyright © 2011 Reese Gabriel

  Edited by Shannon Combs

  Photography and cover design by Syneca

  Models: Shannon & Manuel

  Electronic book publication December 2011

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

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  Dominating Dekalia

  Reese Gabriel

  Chapter One

  To say that someone had gone through a great deal of trouble to eliminate Councilor Dekalia would be the understatement of the cycle.

  Maybe of all time.

  After all, wormhole bombs weren’t actually illegal because they were scientifically impossible.

  At least they were supposed to be.

  Either way, the fact that Dekalia’s living area had been utterly vaporized and reconstituted thirteen million light-years away in the four corners of the universe unnerved her more than a little. The thought of her couch orbiting some alien sun or one of her favorite necklaces in the hands of Beta Argosians or even Narthians…

  Yes, that was the great bugaboo of the age, pardon the pun, the green and yellow and blue scaly, multi-eyed monsters on account of whom everyone must cower and fall in line and of course give way to the military.

  All of whom were primales naturally.

  At the moment she was in the office of the most senior among them, Tragaxar, who held not only the title of Guardian Commandant but also that of emergency Council President and Protector of the Realm.

  It smacked of corruption in Dekalia’s book.

  A sorry excuse to maintain the genetic purity codes.

  The time-honored system of protecting and engineering the four sub-genders, two male—the primales and the mems—and two female—the fems and the obedients.

  Primales went with obedients and mems with fems.

  Each new generation popped out of the test tube directly into the education pods.

  The perfect system. Four for one and one for four. All for one and one for all. Blah, blah, blah.

  Embracers, such as herself, bought none of it and they took every chance to speak out in favor of freedom, an end to machine birth and a return to nature, men and women as they were supposed to be.

  And as a council member she was working to go a step further and make it a reality.

  The chair she was seated in—a so-called robo-smart seat—sensed her tension and initiated a localized massage.

  The last thing she wanted or needed right now.

  “You are aware, are you not, of the implications of this attack?” asked the general. He was seated across from her behind his neo-slate desk, a wafer-thin slab suspended in space by complex forces of pseudo-gravity.

  Along its surface, tiny figures ran, others floated. He actually had the nerve to be conducting a battle sim at the same time he was talking with her.

  “It means I should thank my lucky stars people like you keep me up all night wandering the dome with insomnia instead of sleeping peacefully in my bed.” Had she been in her quarters, after all, she too would have been scattered from here to Betelgeuse. “And, yes, I am fine, thanks for caring.”

  This last remark got the man’s attention.

  “Fem Dekalia, this is hardly the time for polemics. You are aware of the emotional makeup of my sub-gender and yet you seek to initiate renewed hostility even now. The fact that I am incapable of ‘caring’ as you put it does not mean I neglect my duty.”

  “Primale Tragaxar,” she shot back, feeling the fiery spirit of her own sub-gender, inordinately feminine and free. “I didn’t initiate anything, nor did I ask you to do your duty, but I would like to know how we are going to deal with this matter.”

  “There is no we,” he replied, waving his hand across the space above his desk, causing the tiny scene to change from a desert to a jungle. “I am placing you in protective detention.”

  Dekalia rose to her feet, having had quite enough of the overly servile robo-smart seat and of this man in general. “By the Great Inferno of Helox, you will do no such thing. I am a member of this government elected by the people and that makes me your superior.”

  Tragaxar’s lip twitched just a smidge. For a primale it was a veritable emotional explosion. Was she getting to him at last? Clearly there was no love lost here, no mistaking what the conservative, no-nonsense general thought of her and her party.

  “This elected government, as you call it, hangs by a thread, as does the entire race. Have you any idea what threat overshadows us all? Have so much as seen a Narthian hunter killer wasp or even one of their larvae other than at a space exhibition? Of course you haven’t and there is only one reason for that—”

  “You and your guardians, I get it,” she cut him off. “But has it occurred to you that the Narthians are so powerful because they adapt, they don’t fight change? Are we adapting, have we altered our way of being for centuries, millennia even?”

  “Your protective custody begins immediately,” he continued, undeterred. “From here you will be transported to an undisclosed location in deep space.”

  “To join the contents of my quarters, you mean? What was the point of my even surviving if you intend to make me disappear?”


  “I would hardly equate temporary relocation with going through a wormhole bomb, and trust me, I would wish that on no one,” said Tragaxar, speaking in careful, inordinately tactful tones. One thing she gave primales, they were never consciously cruel. What they were was insanely specialized, born and bred for the most dangerous, the least desirable tasks in the universe, which at the moment included dealing with bug-eyed monsters.

  They had other qualities too. Super strength, hearing, even sexual endowment, they were every woman’s secret dream, even many of the fems like herself, who weren’t meant for these chiseled giants at all.

  “You must find your purpose in your duty, Councilor Dekalia. Right now your job is survival,” he declared.

  She frowned, balancing reason and justifiable anger. “If you are intending to shut down the Embracer party in my absence, I assure you it won’t stand.”

  Dekalia knew there would be those who would accuse Tragaxar himself of staging the assassination attempt, but she held out enough faith he would never do such a thing.

  Primales were stodgy and predictable, but they weren’t murderers.

  Unless they had help.

  Mems were usually peace going, being the weaker of the male subspecies, but they were capable of subterfuge in a way the supermen were not.

  Tragaxar templed his fingers now and she watched as a light sphere, tiny and green, appeared in place of the jungle scene he’d been working on.

  “This is the newest horde,” he said, gradually focusing the energy of his simulator until the light became a pulsing circle, angry and emerald bright in the deep reaches of space. “We estimate it is a trillion strong, with a host unlike any we’ve dealt with before. Guardian Reconnaissance estimates it will be in range of our outer defenses in two stellar rotations. Do you really think I have time to round up a bunch of tree-hugging Embracers right now?”

  Adaptation, she thought. Our only means of survival. Birth by nature and not by the cold and stodgy logic of machines.

  “I’m sure you will do your duty as I will do mine,” she said pointedly. “Now if you don’t mind, I have a speech to make.”

  “No,” he countered. “You do not. A statement on your behalf has been prepared for the hologrid. Your custody begins now.”

  “Try to stop me,” she said, fully aware that he would and could.

  Tragaxar arched a brow almost imperceptibly. “That sounds like a dare, Councilor, and you should never dare a primale. I may be too preoccupied to deal with you but I can certainly procure someone who is not.”

  The door hissed open behind her on cue and when she turned to see who it was her breath nearly left her body. One look at him, sinfully powerful and handsome was enough to count him as the finest specimen of manhood she had ever seen this side of…well, anywhere.

  “If you think I am going one step out of this office with that,” she declared, though her body was roiling with very different ideas. “You have another think coming.”

  The primale in question, six foot three with requisite broad shoulders, laser-blue eyes and perfect physique did not react. She could have called him the son of a sand demoness, a worthless oppressor of the people and he wouldn’t have responded to that either.

  It was as if she didn’t even exist, not unless she had something directly to do with one of his precious orders.

  The fact that he was so damn good-looking and he didn’t even care was the worst thing of all. She could fall to her knees before him, beg him to make sex with her, using her in any way he liked and he wouldn’t even…

  Damn, why was she thinking of sex-making at a time like this?

  “Councilor, have we lost your attention?”

  Dekalia flushed, realizing she’d blanked out for a moment. This was crazy, reacting sexually at a time like this. Unfortunately it was her fem biology, needing frequent sexual expression. That’s what the mems were for, the lesser men, the non-supermen.

  Only obedients messed with primales, and it was the primales doing the messing.

  And yet her own belief system said humans should mix freely, creating new life however the mood struck them—even to the point of carrying babies.

  Funny how she’d never thought of herself doing that with any primale.

  Up to now the primales had irritated if not disgusted her.

  Probably it was just the shock. The sudden, traumatic realization she was still alive despite the assassination attempt, that was making her want to tear the robin’s egg-blue uniform, skintight and silver trimmed, from off the body of the primale. Bare that marvelous chest, the circumference of his arms, large enough to wrap both her hands around.

  And then there was that stomach of his, rock-hard from insane exercises only possible for a computer-bred superman. No wonder the obedients fell over like ripe flower petals for these creatures.

  But Dekalia was no obedient. She was not even a normal fem. She had gone through Embracer training to overcome her genes.

  Yeah, right.

  “I’m paying perfect attention, thank you very much, and my statement stands. I am not going anywhere, except back to my life.”

  “And my statement stands as well,” said Tragaxar. “I have the authority to remove you by force and I will exercise it.”

  Dekalia frowned.

  Over my dead body, she was tempted to say, but that line hit a little close to home at the moment.

  “Are you saying that you cannot provide me with a sufficient security detail to guarantee my life?” she said, trying a different appeal.

  Dekalia should have known the general would have no need to defend his ego.

  “If you are asking can my men detect and disarm wormhole bombs, the answer is no. I will be thankful when the eggheads determine where the blasted thing came from and who exactly is behind it. In the meantime you will be removed from the situation.”

  “Removed?” This sounded more ominous than mere detention.

  “I am ordering you relocated to Yastin Minor One in the Centauri Region. Guardian Marax here will accompany you.”

  Dekalia’s mouth went instantly dry. Her nipples peaked, her stupid body tingling with a joy it could not possibly understand. A moment ago she had thought this artificially concocted Sir Galahad was here to take her to some glorified holding cell, now it turned out he was to accompany her tiptoeing through the tulips of intergalactic space?

  “You can’t be serious.” As if primales ever joked.

  “You will leave at once,” said Tragaxar, his tone indicating he’d already moved on to the next topic of his mental agenda.

  Dekalia crossed her arms and dug in her heels. “Use force then.”

  Tragaxar didn’t bother to look up from his simulator. “As you wish, but you should know Guardian Marax here has instructions to deal with you as he sees fit.”

  The last four words meant everything.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You will be dealt with as an obedient.”

  Her knees went weak. Primales made demands of their obedient. They expected absolute perfection, they allowed no defiance.

  To this end the law allowed them to employ special means.

  Chains, whips and ropes. Obedients could be spanked, for star’s sake.

  “You are violating your own code. I am a fem.”

  “You are an Embracer,” he said sardonically. “Open to new experiences. Chalk it up to that. Besides this is war.”

  The next thing she knew Guardian Marax had seized her by the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  “You put me down!” she cried.

  Marax continued to ignore her as they walked out of the plexi-steel office at the top of Cylinder One and down the white, rounded corridor. It was all so surreal and the hell of it was no one would stop them, no one in this whole blessed city.

  Everything had the general’s blessing. The rocket would be waiting on the roof of the dome and they’d be in deep space in a matter of hours.

  A
done deal.

  Oh yes, they will pay. The lot of them.

  Beginning with this gorilla. He’d be first on her list.

  If ever the expression were true, about a man wanting to be anywhere else in the universe, this was it.

  Marax would infinitely have preferred the front and indeed he would have begged for new orders allowing himself to be returned there if such a thing were seemly or permissible for primales.

  The fact that they were born and bred for service, unemotional and stalwart either to the Guardian Corps or some other branch of star exploration, protection or construction meant many things, not least of which was the subordination of personal desire.

  These fems and the mems, they flitted about, understood nothing of sacrifice. They were not bred for it.

  Obedients weren’t either but at least they were capable of being useful in the scheme of things. They were meant to ease the harsh life of a primale. They provided pleasure and distraction.

  Treyela had been exactly such a distraction for Marax, lovely and docile as she was, centered on his peace and his pleasure alone.

  But Marax had surrendered his rights over her when he’d joined the Guardian Corps. Even among primales they were elite. They were allowed no attachments. Nothing at all that might lead them to prefer life over duty.

  Except it was supposed to be combat duty.

  A place in the war against the Narthians and their relentless hordes, or maybe action against terrorist cells at home. Anything but this joke of an assignment, babysitting a spoiled, reactive, disobedient, disloyal…fem.

  And he used the term loosely. Even fems knew their place. This one was an Embracer.

  Oh, he had opinions on them, with their topsy-turvy politics, their inane and insane desire to overthrow everything. Adaptation was their watchword. Adaptation to what end? To the weakening of the carefully prescribed military balance?

  Did troops in the field need to be subjected to loss of morale from endless debates? Did they need to hear they were dinosaurs, incomplete human beings, outmoded, robots or whatever else Embracers liked to say about primales?