by K. A Knight
She sighs, settling at that. “You’re sure she was alive?” she whispers, her voice trembling with anxiety.
“Yes, you saved her, little one,” I tell her, and she shakes her head. “You did,” I bark.
“I had to, I-I knew they would kill me soon. I couldn’t leave her there, I couldn’t.” She begins sobbing, so I hold her closer and let her cry it out. I know she is going to struggle with what happened up there. I make a mental note to see if she wants to talk to a professional to help sort through her trauma. If not, we will support her through it any way we can, even if I have to carry her for the rest of my life.
I will.
“Shiloh—” I start, but as she looks up at me, the words leave my mind. Why the vekk is it so hard? I’m either growling or barking at her, when all I really want to do is tell her how much she means to me.
“Tiny mate—” I begin again, my voice a growl, vekk. “I—vekk.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and I raise my eyes to the sky before blowing out a breath. “Love you,” I finish, wincing at how awkward that was.
“You love me?” she inquires softly, not caring about my awkward declaration.
Looking back down, I lock onto those green orbs I would search the universe for. “Of course I do.” I frown. “More than anything, more than I even thought I was capable of. You,” I smack my chest over my heart, “are the reason it beats.”
Her eyes fill with tears again, and I panic. Did I say something wrong? “Stop, please,” I beg, brought to my knees by just one tear, but then she starts to laugh.
“You big idiot, I love you too. It was my one regret, never telling you all. I love you. So vekking much.” My eyebrows raise at her use of our language. “You are my family, my everything I was waiting for. I love you, Trov,” she confesses with a huge smile on her face.
I whoop, unable to help it, and she giggles. “You love me?” I query again, needing to hear it. My heart is so full, it feels like it might explode.
“I love you!” she screams with a laugh.
I grin, whooping again as I lift her and spin her in a circle, and her smile blossoms into a massive one as she giggles.
And there, in the midst of destruction and death, I feel the happiest I have ever been in my life.
Forty
Shiloh
The first week after my rescue is nothing but a blur. Sleep takes me whenever it wants, and I let it at the urging of my mates, who tell me I need to rest and heal. My body aches and throbs, but I feel better each day. Vrid, bless his heart, has come back twice more to inject me with his healing venom, and though it stings, I welcome it with open arms.
Vrid’s visits mean I’ve gotten to see Carmen more. One day, she dismissed her Klan and brought me snacks and the Harry Potter movies. We cuddled up in my bed and ate, laughed, and watched our favourite wizard all day and all night long.
Speaking of my bed…
It’s vekking massive.
After acknowledging the betrayal from Klan Gryme, the kings had commissioned a new ship for us. Beyoncé was christened a few days ago. My Klan was so fucking excited by the kings’ gift. J-Lo was an exceptional craft, as Joss had informed me, but our new one blows it out of the water, er…space.
My quarters are more vast than my mates’ are now. And this time, it’s not set up for a six-year-old girl. My bed is no longer sunken into the floor, instead, it takes up an entire wall. It must be the size of four king-sized beds back on Earth. The entire ceiling retracts in my room, allowing us to literally sleep under the stars—my favourite part by far.
And though I had gotten used to the pink wardrobe my mates chose for me, I have a better variety now. I did keep a few pink dresses and outfits, more for their benefit than my own.
More often than not, my entire Klan sleeps beside me. I’m never alone anymore, even though we’re safe inside the ship. So far, I don’t miss my alone time, loving getting to know my mates better.
My mates.
How did I get so vekking lucky? My heart swells just thinking about them. I could never have imagined caring for someone as much as I care for them. There are no words to describe it, no way to explain how deep my feelings are for them. It’s like my love covers the expanse of the universe. Sometimes just thinking about them makes my heart ache.
You know the expression love hurts?
Well, it’s vekking true.
I can attest to it—when Nul blushes at me, when Trov uses his words to tell me how he feels, when Joss takes control of his desire for me, and when one look from Cryk makes me swoon.
It’s love.
And they love me back. And Totiv males? They love hard.
My body is almost back to normal, save my hands and feet. My fingers are still a bright pink and very tender, but all the skin has regrown. My feet are a little worse for wear. Thick bandages are wrapped around each toe, ensuring that when my skin grows back fully, it won’t mend as one big blob. Every day, Joss comes in to tend to me, carefully removing the bandages, cleaning the wounds, applying medicines, and wrapping them back up. A Klan called Zolki gave him explicit directions and told him how to have the replicators generate the supplies.
I’m surprised that he is the one who does it, knowing he can be so squeamish about things. One day, I asked him if he’d like me to have Cryk or Nul help him. He levelled me with a glare I didn’t think he was capable of. I haven’t mentioned it since.
The process of cleaning and preparing my feet is long and arduous. More often than not, I have another of my mates here to distract me with food or some form of entertainment.
They treat me like a treasured family heirloom, and while I love the sentiment, I miss the touch of their rough hands. I miss the way they make me feel when their naked bodies grind against mine, when they kiss me hard, when they thrust inside me. I’ll have to show them I’m feeling better, even if I can’t walk yet.
But how?
Joss has retrofitted a bot into a mobile chair who I’ve named Legolas. He’s instructed me on how to direct it where to go, so I’m not stuck in this bed. Though it’s incredibly soft and plush, I don’t want to lie here all day every day.
I want to explore.
Trov has seen to it that my own custom chair has become part of the bridge. It’s Shiloh-sized, complete with footrest and cup holders. Sometimes, I sit in the bridge all day and listen to my mates work, watching the stars and moons pass us by.
Some days, I visit Nul in one of his labs. I’ve become exceptional at cultivating fizylebree and ashwon. I’ve even managed to grow a chomping mavryn, which I’m determined to make my pet. Nul is not as optimistic.
Joss uses me as a practice object while working on stealth. He’s made me a little sleeve to wear on my arm and tries to make it vanish. We laugh when he turns my arm colours or only manages to make my hand disappear, though I can see his failures weigh heavily on him. I encourage him through each one with motivational words and soft kisses. He’ll get there. He never gives up.
I’m not really sure what Cryk does, other than making sure his hair is fixed, his clothes are fresh, and he smells like spice and sex. His dimpled smile always makes me melt, and his kisses turn me on in the worst way. When he’s not off meeting the leaders from other planets, he’s lying in my bed with me, tucking my body carefully under his arm. He loves to tease me, but I’ve learned his game and can play it almost as well as he does.
Basically?
My life is almost perfect.
Another week or so, and I’ll get my feet back, and then I’ll be as good as new. Maybe even better. Vrid’s venom not only cured what the Yarek broke, but it also fixed my near-sighted eyes and straightened my wonky pinkie that I broke during one of Carmen’s intricate escape plans from Harvest House.
The hunt for Klan Gryme is on. Joss and Nul are picking up their trail. Enforcement teams sent by the kings scoured their home and found horrendous things. Apparently, they were keeping a female outside in some shitty shack with no temper
ature control. They found corroded chains, blood, and bowls made for animals that they believe she was fed out of. Rumours are swirling that this is the girl who was reported missing the day of my Vultana, and that Klan Gryme is the one who stole her. Since evidence has proven Gryme was helping the Yarek, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. Anyone who would sink so low as to help vultures like the Yarek wouldn’t have morals or values.
It makes me sick to think a complete Totiv Klan would be so cruel. My mates waited for over a century to even be eligible for a reaping, so knowing Gryme set out to steal and enslave a girl makes my skin crawl. Search teams haven’t located Gryme yet. I just hope when they find them, they can rescue the girl.
Although I crave the touch of my mates, the taste of their skin, the feel of them plunging inside me, I can wait because I know they will be here, by my side, for the rest of my life.
Forty-One
Nul
“I swear to Beyoncé, Nul, if you don’t fuck me, I’m going to fly myself down to Oxious and find someone who will.”
I blink in shock, staring at my red-faced mate as she crosses her arms and glares. “Erm…what?”
“I have been trying to seduce you all day!” she yells, throwing her hands in the air.
I hide my grin behind my hand as I rub my chin, she’s adorable when she is mad. I know she has been feeling the need for intimacy recently, we all have, but we wanted her to rest and heal, and not rush into things. It’s been about two weeks since the crash, and it seems our mate is back to her fighting, er, seducing form. “You have?”
“Put your vekking dick in me! How else will we ever make a baby that you aliens so desperately want?” she shouts.
“You want a youngling?” I ask, my eyebrows flying up as I watch her from my stool in my lab. I didn’t question her motives when she came to spend the day with me since she often does—our mate is quite talented when it comes to plants and crops—but I didn’t notice her trying to seduce me.
Forty percent.
Huh, maybe she was.
“That’s it!” she screams, getting to her feet. She hobbles away as I watch. Her feet are healing well, and we are letting her walk for short spans of time now. If she had it her way, she would be running everywhere, but it’s a mate’s job to protect her, even from herself.
“What just happened?” I whisper to myself, staring down at the jilo seed I was working on.
“You’re an idiot is what!” Shiloh shrieks, still not having reached the doorway yet. Sighing, I get to my feet and cover the distance in five strides. Scooping her up, I ignore her protests and hammering fists and place her on the bed in the corner of the lab I had built in case she got tired.
She huffs, her face red as she blows her hair out of the way. Crouching down, I take her hands and she looks away from me. I ache to see those green orbs again and try to think of a way to rectify this. “D-Do you not want me anymore?” she whispers hoarsely, and when she looks back at me, tears mist her eyes.
I nearly fall on my ass at that. Not want her? Vekk, I want her even when I’m sleeping. How could she ever think I don’t? She is all I want! I can survive without my job, even without my Klan if I had to, but not without her. I need her like the air I breathe, constantly.
“Shy, look at me,” I coax softly, but she stares down at my hands holding hers, sniffling.
“Shiloh, look at me right now,” I demand harshly, and her head jerks up in shock. I am getting past my shyness, she is helping, and I know she likes it when I become dominant with her. Even if sometimes I am clueless, like now, how could we—I not see that our mate was hurting? Needing? “Mate, we always want you. Why do you think we are all taking so many showers? Why do you think Trov has started punching holes in the ship walls? Why do you think Joss and I are working so much?”
She bites her lip, shaking her head and shrugging at the same time.
“To stop ourselves from bending you over and taking you right there and then. We want you, vekk, we want you too much. But we wanted you to heal, to rest. You had a hard time, we just wanted to look after you.” Sincerity is clear in my voice, and she sighs, twining her fingers with mine.
“I know that, I do. And I love how protective and sweet you have all been, but, Nul? I’m healed, I’m happy. And sometimes, a girl needs to be bent over, otherwise she starts to think her mates don’t want her anymore.”
Plans fly through my head, numbers flashing around me, but I take her at her words and ignore them all. She wants to be reminded of how we feel? I will happily oblige her for the rest of my life. I throw her back to the bed, catching her off guard. She gasps, her eyes wide as she watches me. Crawling onto the soft surface, I hover over her prone form, staring down at my mate.
“Take off my pants,” I order her, and she gulps, her eyes simmering with need.
With shaky hands, she reaches between us and undoes the zipper, pushing them down and freeing my hard cock. “Hold it, feel how much I want you, how much I always want you.”
She wraps her tiny hand around me, her bright eyes locked on my face as she strokes me, watching me come undone in her hold. “Shy!” I gasp, my hips jerking as she squeezes me tighter. “Don’t,” I growl. “It’s been too long, and I need you too much.”
“Then have me,” she urges, and she releases my cock to pull up the long shirt she has been wearing as a dress. I actually think it might be Trov’s shirt, but that thought leaves my head as her perfect breasts are exposed, bouncing as she pants beneath me. Her rosy pink nipples tighten in the cool air as she shivers from my look. I love how responsive she is to us, that she wants us just as badly as we want her.
Leaning down, I suck one peaked tip into my mouth, rolling it around as she gasps. Her hands come up and cup my head, pulling me closer as her legs wrap around my waist, her pussy bare and wet, gliding along my cock. Grunting, I let my weight drop between her parted thighs and lift my head, switching to the other nipple and giving it the same treatment.
She moans my name, arching beneath me, her eyes closing as her face slackens. Nipping at her soft skin, I trace my hand up her thigh and around her hip, drawing her closer until I can feel her heat pressed against me. I will never get used to this, used to her perfect wet pussy.
“Nul, please don’t tease,” she begs, her eyes open and wild as she looks up at me.
“No?” I reply, lifting my head.
“No,” she snaps, her lips turning down. “Stop treating me like I’ll break.”
Vekk it.
Shifting to my knees, I break her hold, and as she stares at me in confusion, I grab her hips and roll her over. She lands on her hands and knees with a grunt. Gripping her soft, rounded, perfect ass, I yank her backwards, parting her slick pussy folds. She doesn’t want soft? Fine.
I spank her pussy, hitting her engorged clit. She moans, pushing back into my hand, so I do it again and again, until she is screaming my name, cream gushing from her tight little hole.
Her head is pressed to the bed, her tits hanging beneath her as her hips undulate. My cock jerks from looking at her, and I bring my hand down harder, making her scream again. Grabbing my cock, I run it across her pussy, covering it in her cream before pressing it to her hole.
I wind my hand through her hair and yank her head backwards so her neck is stretched out, then I lean down and bite her neck at the same time I drive into her cunt. She yells, trying to shift away, but I don’t let her. I keep her trapped like this as I drive into her over and over, fighting the clinging heat of her pussy.
She whimpers and starts to push back to meet my thrusts, her cream dripping down her thighs and mine from how turned on she is, my poor little needy mate. “Good girl, taking my cock like this. Do you feel how hard I am vekking you? How wild you make me?” I growl and sink my fangs deeper into her skin.
She whimpers again and starts to chant my name in time with my thrusts, until I can’t hold back any longer. My wings burst out behind us, my skin lighting up bright red as I dig
my clawed hands into her hips and vekk her ruthlessly.
“Yes!” she moans, rolling back.
“Come for me!” I order, and she cries out as I slap her clit again, pushing her over the edge with a wordless scream.
Her pussy squeezes my cock, trying to trap me inside her as her release gushes around me. Fighting through the fluttering channel, I keep going, vekking her through it, wanting her to come again, but I can’t. She’s too tight, too wet, too vekking beautiful, and when she squeezes down on my cock and cries out my name—I come, squirting my release into her pussy as I roar her name.
When I come to, the scent of her blood fills the air, and I look down to see my claws cutting into her hips. Wincing, I release them and lick away the blood and nicks. They will heal.
She tumbles forward, and I shuffle in by her side and pull her into my arms.
“Fuck,” she pants, moving closer. “That was amazing, thank you, Nul.”
“All you ever have to do is ask, Shy. You know I would hand you the universe if you wanted it,” I tell her, stroking down her back as she snuggles closer.
“I know, I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“I love you,” I murmur, kissing her head. She looks up at me with a brilliant, satisfied smile.
“One hundred percent?” she questions, and if I didn’t already love this woman more than this body could handle, I would love her more.
“Always one hundred percent,” I vow. She leans up and kisses me, ghosting her lips across mine.
“I love you too,” she replies, and snuggles back to my chest.
I watch her as she falls asleep in my arms, there has never been such a perfect creature. All my years of researching, growing, learning, and striving for excellence, for that perfect one hundred percent outcome…I never saw one until this.