by Regine Abel
He growled, his head lifting to look at me. That sound and his smoldering eyes had tiny bumps rippling all over my skin.
“Hold them like that while I take you,” he ordered.
His voice, thick with desire, fanned the fire consuming me from within.
Gruuk crawled up over me, his knee parting my legs wider before he settled between them. I moaned as the scorching heat of his muscular chest rested against mine. His weight pinned me down. I felt trapped, caught in a web of my own doing. It sent a delicious shiver to my extremities, making my toes curl. My heart fluttered and my breath caught in my throat when he rubbed his length against my core. Blood rushing in my ears, I tightened my grip around his horns. This was the moment I had awaited for so long. I lay still, craving and fearing the sting of his possession. Panting, I locked eyes with him as he pushed himself inside me.
Although he didn’t seek to damage me, Gruuk didn’t take me with slow, gentle care. It burned and it hurt as he slowly rocked in and out of me, slipping in deeper with each forward motion. Mouth hovering over mine, his eyes dared me to beg for mercy. I wouldn’t. I had issued a challenge and I would see it through. Despite his best efforts, he wouldn’t scare me away from us.
Once fully sheathed, he paused, probably to give me a moment to adjust.
Guldans respected strength. I wanted to show him I wasn’t some squeamish little girl he could cower into running away with a little roughness.
Unable to resist, I taunted him.
“That was your worst?”
He bared his teeth, a feral expression settling on his face. My stomach fluttered as a thrill coursed through me.
“Remember you asked for this,” he grunted against my lips.
And then he showed me.
Gruuk took me hard, withdrawing almost to the tip before ramming back in. He pounded into me with relentless stamina at a punishing pace. It hurt. It burned. But Goddess, it was glorious. His savage lips ravaged my mouth, swallowing every single one of my moans and screams of both pleasure and pain. The room spun around me and his skin against mine set me ablaze. Nothing mattered anymore besides my master’s hard, strong body dominating mine in a brutal frenzy. Throughout his passionate assault, I held on to his horns as if they were the lifeline that kept me grounded. As if I let go, I’d be swept away and lost in the raging tempest.
Twice I shouted his name as a tsunami of bliss crushed me. The third time, he joined his voice to mine, shuddering in my arms while his essence flowed into me.
He held me tight, our bodies slick with sweat and our hearts hammering against each other’s. Feeling painfully raw, I slipped a hand over my navel and sent a healing wave in the area. The pain abated without stealing any of the sinful after bliss.
Gruuk turned me on my back and leaned on his side next to me. His hand brushed my damp hair from my face, his eyes searching. Although he tried to hide it, I could see the concern lurking within. It was time for him to realize that I was made of much sterner stuff than he thought.
I smirked. “Ready for round two whenever you are.”
He burst out laughing, then shook his head at me.
“What am I going to do with you, Maheva?”
I could sense the deeper meaning but chose to ignore it.
“Hmm, how about that round two?”
Gaze roaming over me, he licked his lips and caressed my stomach with his fingertips.
“You must be too sore. I wasn’t exactly gentle,” he argued.
I chuckled.
“Healer here, remember?”
He snorted and locked his obsidian eyes with mine. We didn’t speak for a while, yet some communication flowed between us.
“This won’t be easy, Maheva. It won’t be what you imagine and it will not make you happy. I am Guldan and your master.”
Raising my hand to his face, I traced the swirling tattoos on the left side of his face with my fingertips.
“I know what I’m getting myself into. You’ve been honest and upfront. But I don’t care. I want you, Gruuk. I will take my chances. Just let me be with you.”
He heaved a sigh and his eyes filled with an odd mix of sorrow and affection.
“Maheva…” he whispered, his tone almost reverent. “You will be my downfall.”
His hand cupped my face, then his mouth captured my lips in a gentle but passionate kiss. At that moment, I believed that I could make him fall in love with me, that I could change him, and that we would have our happily ever after.
The slow and tender rounds two, three, and four that had followed as we explored each other’s bodies, had convinced me further that everything would work out between us. As time went by, I stubbornly clung to my illusions, despite discovering the male behind the master and how deeply rooted his Guldan beliefs were. Gruuk was a true product of his society and upbringing.
Guldans believed solely in the survival of the fittest. They built the strength of their empire by enslaving weak neighboring worlds. They didn’t consider themselves cruel. To them, whether person or beast, cattle was cattle. Gruuk compared his trade to the farmer breeding and raising animals for the meat market. He didn’t consider himself heartless or cruel, although vegetarians and the animals themselves certainly disagreed. To him, it was purely business. During the time he raised said animals, he kept them well fed and in optimal living conditions to ensure he only sold the best quality meat on the market.
When I argued that those were animals, not people, he argued back that sentience had nothing to do with intelligence level. Like people, animals knew they were about to be executed and pleaded for their lives in their wordless cries. Like people, a female rhomak screeched when her younglings were taken from her to be sold at the meat market or to other farmers. Intelligence and evolution had nothing to do with fear, loss, and pain. Yet, did I not enjoy my rhomak steaks every day? Being higher in the food chain gave me that right, just like Guldans being stronger gave them the right to enslave others.
Survival of the fittest.
We agreed to disagree.
For three years, we were happy. I didn’t feel like his slave, and the crew let me be. The only dark cloud was the occasional females brought to me to mend after the crew had abused them. In those early days, the occurrences were rare and Gruuk disciplined his overzealous staff swiftly and brutally. But as his business blossomed and the number of female captives multiplied, so did the size of the ship and number of males on board, and therefore the number of incidents. Gruuk couldn’t be too strict with his crew for fear of being labeled weak for his compassion towards the slaves.
As I didn’t mingle with those females and hardly ever saw them, it was easy to cast them out of my mind. Easy to pretend nothing could destroy my semblance of happiness.
Discovering that I expected Gruuk’s child weeks after my twenty-first birthday, filled me with joy. By Guldan law, a slave who birthed her master a living child could be elevated to the status of concubine with all the privileges of a mate, if her master willed it. Which also meant their offspring wouldn’t be slaves, but Guldan citizens.
Gruuk’s elated response at the news made me love him even more.
The pregnancy tortured me with constant, hellish pain, and only in small part due to the Veredian curse that plagued my people. Gruuk ensured I had the best medical assistance. My own healing abilities allowed my baby to survive when she otherwise shouldn’t have. Unfortunately, the surgeons had to put me under to deliver her. That’s when things went wrong.
Guldan infants came into the world fully horned. Guldan females naturally developed a hard yet flexible shell inside their womb. During the pregnancy, it protected their vital organs from getting shredded by the vicious tips of their babies’ horns. I had no such defense mechanism, but developed a thin shell. The doctors believed my child had built it for me. However it was too flimsy to fully protect me in the first four months. Self-healing kept me alive when my child repeatedly tore me up inside. It made for terribly short and painful
nights every time the baby moved.
For this reason, few slaves ever got to benefit from the concubine clause; none survived their pregnancy. By the fifth month of my own, the shell had reached a healthy thickness level, granting me a much needed reprieve to rebuild my strength in preparation for delivery.
During labor, a Guldan child did the first half of the work, breaking the inner layer of the hardened shell by bashing it with its horns. The softer outer layer, a somewhat sticky membrane, kept the shell fragments from scattering while sheltering the mother’s organs and inner walls as the baby came out. Unfortunately, many children became too weary to complete the task and died in the womb.
Survival of the fittest.
My child, already weak from my troubled pregnancy, wouldn’t be able to break the shell. The surgeons would therefore put me under and help crack the shell to get her out by C-section. By Guldan standards, she should have been left to fend for herself, but being of mixed-breed afforded her special privileges. According to Gruuk, she would also be the first Guldan-Veredian hybrid, which further justified the extensive medical assistance we received.
However, when I woke up three days later, my womb was empty and so were my arms. A patchwork of terrible scars covered my stomach. The umbilical cord apparently wrapped around my baby’s neck as she battled to break the shell. By the time they helped her break free, she was thrashing in death throes, shredding me in the process. They had been too late to save her so they raced to save me.
The damage would have left me barren had I not healed myself after regaining consciousness. When I asked to see my child, Gruuk told me they had already disposed of the body. There was no reason to hang on to it.
This ended our first relationship.
The pain at the loss of my child and of the future I had hoped for us both as a family and as his concubine devastated me. But I couldn’t forgive the callousness with which he had gotten rid of her, without giving me a chance to say goodbye. Even though the breakup had been my doing, I resented Gruuk for not being by my side in the following weeks as I mourned our child and the death of my dreams. I was young, alone, and devastated, with no one to give me comfort.
A year later, at the end of my nursing grace period, Gruuk gave me to my first Korlethean, nine months after my twenty-second birthday. Although he had no choice, and while I had known for years that this day would come, I nonetheless felt betrayed.
Worst still, I despised that Korlethean.
As a whole, his species could be described as tall, lithe, and graceful, almost androgynous. Many considered them beautiful, but they didn’t do it for me. Even less so in Saren’s case with his physique leaning toward the skinny—not to say scrawny—side of the spectrum. Gruuk had ruined me for other males. Having grown up surrounded by Guldans who, while also tall, were bulky and muscular, no doubt played a large part in influencing my tastes. That said, while I couldn’t fault Saren for my lack of attraction to him, his personality—or lack thereof—drove me up the walls. The Korlethean was a whiny, simpering male, constantly wallowing in self-pity at the unfairness of it all. When I snapped at him in exasperation, his chin quivered and he looked at me as if I was some kind of cruel monster. That day and every other during my season, we required Dalyria to get the job done.
In retrospect, I believed Gruuk had chosen him on purpose, not so much to punish me, but to make sure I wouldn’t fall in love with Saren. He ensured that the Korlethean he gave me to embodied everything I disliked. Out of pride, I endured in silence until we finally conceived Sevina. After her birth, when I refused to give her Saren’s last name, giving her mine instead, Gruuk forced me to justify my motives. I blurted out the extent of my contempt for her father. Although he tried to hide it, my answer pleased him and he allowed it.
When I asked if he was punishing me for losing our daughter by pairing me with Saren, Gruuk recoiled as if I had struck him. The extent of my distress at the thought of Sevina’s father troubled him. Of course, he denied trying to punish me, but I knew him well enough to recognize the guilt on his face. He promised I wouldn’t have to deal with Saren again and that gave me hope.
In the year that followed, I devoted myself to Sevina. She was a good child, quiet, making my first experience into motherhood an easy one. After my nursing year ended, our various missions conveniently took us out of reasonable range of one of Gruuk’s holding compounds. Much too far for him to fetch a Korlethean for me during my seasons. When my third season came rolling in and he yet again found a reason to not give me to another male, I convinced myself that my breeding duty had been fulfilled.
Call me naïve, but I sent Gruuk clear signals of my desire to work things out with him again. We resumed our relationship.
It lasted two years.
By the time Sevina approached her fourth year, the mumbling among the crew had grown louder. Gruuk didn’t care about them. He could crush any rebellion before it got out of hand. However, his business partners and the Empire were a different story. Word of his overprotectiveness toward his slaves was already circulating. Increasing rumors of him being in love with one of them undermined his position of power and pushed a number of rivals to challenge his holdings and market share.
When he told me a new Korlethean would be brought to me at my next season, it crushed me. I ended our relationship, swearing I would never be fooled again. He reminded me that he never promised me anything, least of all that I was done with this. However, he kept the only promise he did make; I wouldn’t see Sevina’s father again.
The new Korlethean was leaps and bound better than Saren, but still not someone I could fall in love with. Gilean was kind and respectful. Under different circumstances, we might have been friends, but I resented being forced to accept a stranger’s touch. I closed myself off to any amiable overtures and demanded we just get down to business and move on. It wasn’t fair to him, yet Gilean bowed to my will with grace. We struggled to conceive. It took many seasons, no doubt due to my mounting fear that as Sevina reached her fifth birthday, Gruuk would take her from me and sell her off.
Fortunately, when her ability turned out to be kinetic a few months before her sixth birthday, Gruuk confirmed he would keep her. I quickly conceived thereafter. Discovering that twins grew within me both exhilarated and terrified me. Thank the Goddess, my pregnancy went off without a hitch. When both came into the world strong and healthy, Gruuk granted me three years nursing reprieve: one year for each child and an extra one for the added burden of raising two children at once while also caring for my oldest.
That pleased me.
Halfway through the second year, overwhelmed with raising three young children on my own, I failed to notice the depletion of my Rehmannia leaves’ reserve. Only tea made with those leaves prevented me from going into heat during my season. Veredian females became highly aggressive and territorial during those three weeks and rabid in their sexual urges. It made for hairy situations when two or more of them set their sights on the same male. As the tea didn’t act as a contraceptive but merely helped keep our mood and aggression level in check, Gruuk made us all drink the tea throughout our season, especially the females in the breeding compounds.
We were deep into the Eastern Quadrant, light years away from the closest Rehmannia supplier in the Western Quadrant. With no other alternatives on hand, Gruuk happily obliged, providing me relief whenever my sexual tension reached a boiling point. Driven by my voracious appetite, I hounded him relentlessly throughout the day, every single day, for three weeks straight. The Goddess only knew how he managed to keep up with my insatiable hunger. Horrified at the thought I might throw myself at one of the crewmates to sate my needs, I kept close to him. Thankfully, such a disgusting urge never came. When my season ended at last, we remained lovers.
That relationship lasted nearly three years. It made no sense to breed me again and potentially burden me with a fourth child to raise on my own on top of my other duties.
Although Gruuk and I didn’t
use any birth control, the chances of us conceiving another child were slim to none. Our first child had been somewhat of a miracle. With our Veredian curse, Korletheans remained the only species with any significant success rate in breeding us. Yet, even with them, the number of pregnancies were low, with far too many stillbirths. To my shame, and as much as I dreaded it, deep in my heart, I longed for another chance at bearing Gruuk a daughter.
I settled in our renewed relationship and stupidly hoped it would last forever. A few months after their fifth birthday, one week before Sevina’s seventh anniversary, the twins’ abilities manifested.
Gruuk didn’t need to speak for me to know he wouldn’t—couldn’t—keep them. Even knowing it was a lost cause, I begged and pleaded, dredging up a multitude of scenarios where their abilities could be put to good use. All in vain. Three weeks later, he sold my daughters. He promised me he had chosen a good master for them—a bounty hunter and rares collector. I wasn’t allowed to speak to their master, but I got to see him take my children. Compared to other masters I had glimpsed over the years as they came to fetch their slaves on board, the bounty hunter appeared gentle enough. But appearances were deceiving. I would never know what became of my twins.
I understood the Guldan way and knew Gruuk couldn’t shelter me much longer by keeping them, but I couldn’t forgive him. It ended our relationship again, the rift further compounded when he told me, three months later, that I had to breed again.
Devastated, broken, wrecked… I fell apart…
I kicked, screamed and clawed at whatever I could get my hands on; including myself. They had to sedate me. For my Sevina, I came back to my senses and struggled to stay in control. If only I’d had a mother to raise me and teach me how to deal with this messed up situation, a wise, older female who had my best interests at heart to advise me. My Guldan caretaker only taught me to make the best of whatever kindness I received but to accept my fate however it befell me. That couldn’t be right.