by Abel, Regine
With everyone in agreement, we moved on to other important matters that took far too long to settle for my liking. Even though it had been swift considering the complexity of some of the cases, I was dying to go say hello to someone. When Ravik finally released us, the man chuckled watching me all but bolt out of the room. Despite their amusement, I didn’t miss the glimmer of unease in some of their eyes. I had no qualms being who I was and enjoying the things I did. But when it came to dealing with my enemies, especially those who wronged my family, I took extra pleasure giving into my most primal urges.
The journey back to my compound took an eternity. I commed my mate to let her know I would be late. Thankfully, she was busy with the other females doing whatever females did. I had bloodlust in my veins and didn’t care much for her to see me like this. And as much as I had enjoyed her demolishing Hartuk in that forest, I didn’t want my blood rage aura to drive her to violence again. My mate was a nurturer, not a killer.
I walked through the streets of my compound, nodding at my clansmen rushing to and fro to handle whatever business they were up to. Pride filled my heart at the sight of the modern dark stone buildings lining the streets, the high spirit of my people when barely a decade ago we’d been shunned by the other clans, teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and starvation. And with my recent successful deals on Lilith Hive, even greater prosperity would come to my people.
The clash of swords, war cries, and grunts of battle greeted me as I strolled by the battlegrounds around the back of my fortress. Dheran, my second-born and my heir, was sparring against two of my clansmen while the others were all training one-on-one. That, too, filled me with pride. Originally, it had saddened me that, even had I chosen to ignore the outrage from my people at the thought of a half-breed leading the clan, Anton could have never inherited the role from me. Braxia was a brutal world ruled by the strongest of each bloodline. Despite my firstborn’s strength and intelligence, as a hybrid, he would never stand a chance against the mass and power of the purebloods. In the end, it turned out for the best. Anton lived and breathed business, while Dheran embodied the very spirit of Braxia—of modern Braxia. He would make our Ancestors proud and lead us into a glorious new era after I stepped down.
Walking past the barracks and into the underground prison, I made eye contact with Sorek, the guard in attendance. He nodded in greeting and swallowed hard as I kept walking towards the back lift into the dungeon. Sorek knew I was not to be disturbed. With each step bringing me closer to my victim, my blood heated up a notch. My fingers twitched with anticipation during the short ride down the lift. The doors parted onto a short hallway at the end of which a reinforced, soundproof door opened with a simple wave of my hand before the biometric scanner.
My guest of honor stiffened, his head jerking up at the grinding sound of the doors. I could have made them quiet, but the sadistic side of me liked the fear that sound instilled in the victims within, knowing their tormentor had returned.
He attempted to get up from his kneeling position, but his magnetic shackles kept him down on all fours.
“Hello, Luther,” I said in a sickly-sweet voice, the acrid scent of his fear giving me a hard on.
My pulse picked up, and my head swam from all the adrenaline flooding my system.
“Please. Please,” Luther begged, his lips dry from the beginnings of dehydration.
A necessary evil to avoid the unpleasant messes the subjects tended to make once the fun began if they had anything to eat or drink prior to my ministrations.
“No need to beg me,” I said in a teasing tone. “You’re about to get my undivided attention for the next little while… Or rather, the next long while. You see, I do not appreciate when people mess with what’s mine. Not only did you ignore my warning to stay away from my woman, you had a fucking Sarenian mess with her mind, and you planned very bad things for my daughter.”
I voiced a command in Braxian, which activated the magnetic shackles on his wrists and ankles, forcing him into a standing position, arms above his head and legs parted. He shivered, looking like a giant maggot in his pale nudity. Lips quivering, eyes pleading, he watched me with dread as I closed the distance between us and started slowly circling around him like a predator preparing to pounce on its prey. My footsteps resonated loudly on the metal grids covering the floor. It had been designed specifically for the blood and gore to drain neatly while I worked on my latest canvas.
“Even after buying that shady contract you had conned Hope into,” I continued in a conversational tone, “I would have let you get away with your wrongdoings against her and the fact that you had trapped my woman without a chance of earning her freedom. And you know why? Because, however foul, your scheme allowed me to meet her. What I do not forgive is the stress and trauma you put my females through by sending a Hunter after them.”
“Mr. Aldriss, please—”
“Quiet,” I said in the same neutral tone.
“Please, I—”
I backhanded him with more force than I had intended, having forgotten how fragile a constitution humans possessed. Blood exploded from his mouth. I couldn’t say for sure if I’d broken a few teeth or fractured the bones of his cheek, but the crooked angle of his lips indicated clearly that I’d dislocated his jaw. I cursed myself inwardly for my carelessness. I had extremely unpleasant plans for the man, and one-shot killing him with a broken neck did not feature in said plans.
“I said quiet, Luther,” I repeated in a soft but slightly disappointed tone.
Obviously, that request could no longer be fully obeyed the way he was whimpering and moaning in pain. Such a weakling. If that sufficed to already have him in agony, how would he react once I really went to town on him?
“You see, your punishment is going to be greater than what I had first intended after you had us kidnapped,” I said passively while going to fetch the hover-tray containing all my tools. Luther twisted his neck to look at me over his shoulder, sheer terror twisting his features. “My son sent me a detailed report of the activities you’ve been performing in order to supplement your revenues. The way you abused a lot of the females you conned into signing contracts with you was already questionable, but the minute you began dealing in underaged trading, your fate was sealed.”
I returned with the tray, stopping in front of him. Pausing for a moment, I allowed him to feast his eyes on the instruments of his impending torture neatly laid out on the tray. Luther opened his mouth to plead again. A single stern look from me silenced him. But that, too, wouldn’t last very long. I picked up a wand-looking device and waived it before his eyes.
“This is a cauterizing scalpel,” I explained in the same casual tone. “Normally, I don’t use it because I love the sight of blood dripping from the many cuts on my canvas. However, I do not want you bleeding to death. At least, not yet.”
“Please, please!” Luther slurred, his dislocated jaw making it harder for him to properly form words. “I didn’t hurt her.”
Ignoring him, I looked down at the limp, shriveled appendage that he called a cock. It would never cease to amaze me how tiny an adult human’s genitals were. Luther’s would barely be big enough for a thirteen-year-old Braxian. Words were unnecessary for him to understand what was about to happen. He began struggling and pulling against his restraints, screeching for help that would never come. It was the sweetest music to my ears. A part of me, deep down, understood such response to a sentient being’s distress was disturbed, and yet, I felt no remorse for reveling in it. With another verbal command, I ordered the shackles to stretch him further, thus restraining his movements. After all, I wanted to cut off his dick, not eviscerate him.
“That’s for using my woman as your personal sex toy. You were never worthy of her,” I whispered, my face inches from his.
The strident sound of his scream failed to bury the sizzling sound of his flesh burning as the scalpel effortlessly sliced through it. Little plumes of smoke rose from the wound instantly caut
erized. The somewhat nauseating stench did not turn me off in the least. His severed appendage flopped to the floor with a soft, fleshy thud. Luther’s screams faded into silence as he lost consciousness.
That was fine. We had time for him to come back around.
While waiting for him to regain consciousness, I used a marker to delineate the sections from waist to neck that I would be flaying. Switching to a laser scalpel—wondrous for the precision of the cut and the limited bleeding it provoked—and a pair of tweezers to hold the skin, I gave in to my sinful pleasure.
Three hours later, I put my tools down next to the large bowl filled with strips of skin. Luther’s screams had dwindled to no more than unintelligible grunts and pained moans, his voice having broken within the first hour. Walking over to the sink, I slowly washed my hands, impressed with how cleanly I had worked. Then, without a word, I exited the dungeon.
Sorek didn’t need any instructions from me. In the morning, all that remained of Luther would be fed to the karvelis.
Epilogue
Hope
Settling in my new home in Krygor’s compound went smoothly. Strangely enough, meeting Krygor’s other two sons didn’t stress me out as much as meeting Anton had. But then, they still had their mothers who looked nothing like me. I had feared that they might resent my presence, as it had robbed them of a chance of being with their children’s sire. To my relief, Dheran’s and Gorav’s mothers didn’t live in Krygor’s compound. Those females each came from different warrior clans. They had been my mate’s concubines decades ago, for the specific purpose of giving him pureblood heirs then had returned to their respective clans after fulfilling their duties.
As I soon discovered, contrary to my home world, there was no such thing as an illegitimate child. In fact, very few Braxians actually married. Procreation was mostly a business arrangement between bloodlines and clans. To my surprise, unless specified otherwise, the sire always kept the offspring by default to become part of his clan. The mother usually only stayed for the first couple of years to breastfeed the child if the purpose had been purely reproduction and no romantic involvement existed between the pair.
Dheran—Krygor’s second born son and heir as future leader of Clan Aldriss—was as impressive a beast as his father. I hadn’t known what to expect in terms of a welcome, but definitely not the warm and rather teasing one he gave me. Whenever I looked at Gorav—his youngest—the word antsy came to mind. He, too, was just as tall, broad shouldered, and muscular as his father, but seemed unable to sit still. However, it was the way both sons melted for my daughter that truly won me over. Then again, they had grown familiar with handling young female relatives thanks to their niece Naya—Anton’s youngest child—and their Magnar’s daughter Lissy. Between Gorav being permanently assigned as the Dagna’s bodyguard and the closeness between the royal family and their clan, they were all but an extended family as well.
At first, I had been worried that the rest of the clan would reject me. I had feared to be useless and maybe even in the way of whoever was running the compound. Instead, the females welcomed me with open arms. Things had radically changed on Braxia in the past few years since their new Dagna’s arrival. With the abolition of slavery and females’ increasing emancipation, every clan had been redefining the rules and lifestyle within their respective compounds. Without a wife or consort within the Aldriss Compound, the place was a real mess; the type of mess I’d been raised to handle as the lady of a wealthy man’s estate.
As much as my people were hated here on Braxia, Mercy had made Guldan females popular. I wholeheartedly embraced my new role as wife to Clan Leader and High Council Aldriss. With my mate’s blessing, I turned the functional, but somewhat cold compound, into a home. The clansmen mumbled a little at first when I requested some modifications to the layout of certain rooms to make things easier, such as a straighter path from the kitchen to the main hall so that the staff serving food didn’t have to travel through narrow corridors and perform inconvenient detours because that’s how it had always been done.
Discovering the underground trade market the women had set up delighted me beyond words. I had known of the Braxian shops in the Hive Network owned by Anton, but I had not realized it had originated from traditional craft passed down from mother to daughter. Taking part in developing our own clan’s line of products was exhilarating. As a foreigner, one who had lived not only on Guldar, but especially on Lilith Hive among the rich clientele, who was familiar with the type of exotic trades and trinkets that could appeal to potential customers made me incredibly sought after by the other females of other clans always seeking to pick my brain. It became a game I genuinely enjoyed, giving them just enough tidbits to make them curious and give them ideas, while keeping the juicier stuff for my own clan.
I never found out what became of Luther. Rumor had it he’d actually been brought here to Braxia. Once, I asked Krygor about him. His response, the hard, wild glimmer in his eyes, almost feral, told me all I needed to know. His answer was simply that my daughter and I would never have to worry about him again. I felt no pity for whatever fate had befell him. Even though he had helped me off my home world, he’d lost any right to sympathy on my part; not for entrapping me in an endless contract, but for seeking to take advantage of my daughter.
Siona was blossoming in this new environment. Although Braxia had its problems with gender inequalities, Mercy and the Magnar were steadily helping mentalities evolve. But more importantly, each compound was run almost as an independent city or state. As my giant simply didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought of how he ran his, he allowed us to do pretty much whatever made us happy, as long as it didn’t endanger us or the clan in whole or in part.
I was happy, truly happy. Despite his busy schedule, Krygor always made time for us. Siona and I each received our own karvala, courtesy of the Magnar, after the magnificent females chose us. Watching my adrenaline-junky of a daughter riding a real reaver also freaked me out, but I had promised myself that the day we were free, no one would tell her she cannot do something she cares about as long as she approached it in a responsible way. And my baby was responsible.
Something had changed after our abduction to Sarenia. I didn’t quite know what it was, whether the shock from our adventures, meeting the Prince, fighting the Ambassador, or getting a better understanding of the political stakes that were already at play and that would shape our future. All I knew was that my daughter had become Mercy’s and Krygor’s shadows, learning everything from them, from combat, to politics, to the technological rivalries among the main players.
Krygor had told me about his agreement with Prince Zerien. It bothered me that her future should be set by third parties. However, I had seen and felt the chemistry between them. Still, I was grateful that my mate had been wise enough to only consent to courting at the end of which my daughter would respond in the way she saw fit—which included the right to walk away if she so chose. Anything less would have been met with my categorical refusal. Nevertheless, Zerien kept proving his interest by sending regular vidcoms to my daughter, relating random tidbits about his day or random events taking place on his home world. I allowed it but kept a close eye on it to make sure he wasn’t brainwashing her into anything.
But this was neither here nor there. For now, I had a much different conversation to have with my mate. This morning, halfway through my meeting with some of the wives and concubines from neighboring clans, my guests had suddenly gone still, their noses twitching and their eyes widening as they stared at me. It had been incredibly disturbing and unsettling. And then Thala, the decades-long concubine of Clan Leader Fenton—one of the High Councils of the Magnar and a good friend of my mate’s—recovered from her shock and congratulated me; my daughter had blossomed.
That comment left me even more confused. Siona had already entered womanhood weeks prior. Considering she wasn’t even in the room at the time, being at school, that remark made even less sense. And then al
l eyes lowered to my stomach and understanding dawned on me. The Braxian’s ability to smell pregnancy, down to the gender of an at least one-month-old fetus, blew me away.
I was a complete nervous wreck by the time my mate arrived home. Despite his sons rejoicing at the news, having scented my baby as I approached before I could even speak a word, I worried at Krygor’s reaction.
I stood in the Great Hall as the entrance doors of the fortress opened to let him in. Siona stood a few steps away from me, framed by her big brothers, Dheran and Gorav. The rest of the clan members, both males and females who dwelled within the fortress—not the individual dwellings within the walls or surrounding the compound—had also gathered in the Hall. A part of me wished for privacy when revealing the news to my giant. Unfortunately, he would know the minute he walked in, and his people wanted to be here to congratulate him.
As soon as he entered, Krygor’s steps faltered at the sight of such a welcoming party, unusual on a regular day. His gaze locked with mine. The expression on my face must have given away my nervousness as his eyes narrowed, instantly suspicious. Within three steps towards me, Krygor froze, shock plastered all over his face. I held my breath, waiting to hear what he would say. But not a word came out.
Too many emotions flickered through his features for me to latch onto a single one. Approaching me carefully, his gaze never straying from mine, Krygor stopped right in front of me and rested his massive hands on my hips. His thumbs gently caressed the sides of my still flat stomach. My lips quivered as I gave him a shaky smile. A powerful emotion took over his fearsome face before he returned my smile. All tension bled out of me, and my mate kneeled in front of me to press his nose to my stomach and inhaled deeply. An approving growl rose from his throat, the most beautiful purring sound I had ever heard as my fingers slipped through his silky, wavy black hair.