Feral Series V: Feral Foretaste Read online

  Her exquisite face struggled between holding a dazed expression of a lover in lost thought from a kiss and a scowl of disapproval. “Vult,” she whined.

  Seconds. Just seconds. All I needed was time to get myself in check. To make love to her.

  She shoved me back until the soft bedding cradled me. “I'm tired of waiting.” She yanked at my pant's closure. “So tired,” she groaned. “You're supposed to want me, Big Guy."

  Want was anything but relative. Try pure unadulterated desire.

  She wormed her fingers into my pants and curled them around my stiff rod. “Damn, Vult.” She shot me a wicked glance. “It'll be all I can do to get this toy out of here."

  Toy? Warriors only carried weapons. “If you can't extract it, you're not qualified to use it."

  "Oh,” she gasped with an evil twist to her grin, “is that a challenge?"

  Forget trying to extend the moment beyond primal lust. My soul would have her way. With me. As soon as she could wrench my cock out of imprisonment.

  And that's exactly what happened. One twist of her wrist, and she was victor. Poised over my throbbing lance. Descending her moist tightness to consume my aching insanity. Inch by mind-boggling inch. Clamping around every raging cell of significance in my body until I could focus on nothing but drawing breath. Rasping for precious air. Thrusting up to feel at one with my soul.

  She dropped forward, her hands planting beside my head, her nose touching mine, her hips grinding my essence into hers with the fierce gaze of a woman determined to take what she wanted. “I want it, Vult. Turn your cock on. Whatever you do. Make my body quiver. Tremble. Push me over the edge into a screaming frenzy the only way you can do it."

  And I'd prove only I could make her feel so perfectly satiated. Win her with my body. Some kind of favoritism was better than none at all. I focused inwardly for a moment until the nubs on my erection erupted.

  Vult threw his head back. The glorious haze of his almost-white hair on the purple bedspread fanned out around his gorgeous grimace. And I rode his amazing hard cock until I dared not breathe. Just in case I'd lose every speck of momentum driving my body up and down his magnificent length.

  His groans matched the need in his firm grip on my hips, lifting me, helping me.

  Thank God. Because I'd never last another heartbeat without a little assistance. Not with the stud stretched out on the bed, pumping his throbbing shaft into my aching womb.

  My legs trembled with weakness.

  Or the wave of pleasure coursing along my limbs.

  The smothering orgasmic wall slammed into me.

  Shook me. So hard that the only thing keeping me anchored in this world was the lance impaling my sex. Pulling me downward like gravity. Jerking stroke by blessed jerking stroke.

  My hands gripped Vult's corded forearms with white fingers.

  That's how I felt. Oxygen-deprived.

  Vult's mouth gaped open as if he yawned, sucking in a deep breath.

  Some force matched his on my end of the universe. Air suddenly found me. I inhaled like I burst above the water's surface.

  He watched me with those silver eyes, thrusting his hips with dying enthusiasm.

  Whatever he thought, I didn't care. I'd gotten what I wanted. What I intended to take whenever the moment came over me. Desire. Yes. I'd drink long and hard from that well. If he wanted me, he'd have to produce. Tend to my cravings. Hell, I had to give him a child. Two! And the only way they'd be normal is if I sacrificed more to the game than he could ever imagine. I had to carry two babies full term, a feat in itself, and then manage as a blind mother. Talk about parasitism at its best. So Vult would do what he had to appease the host of his offspring. Whether he liked it or not.

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  Chapter Twelve

  I awoke to the stroke of a warm palm on my cheek. Him. Vult had pulled my nude body against his steely length where he laid upon his side and tucked one of his knees between my thighs. Possessively. Possession meant enough in his bed. But held here like a treasure with his arms and legs wherever he wanted them meant something much much more.

  Love?

  Was he coddling me with the stroke of a palm along the curve of my lower back? Or am I seeing even more? Dare I look away from his collarbone where he tucked my nose? Into those eyes? Eyes are windows to the soul. Even if we're talking about a cyborg who mates to acquire his soul...

  What if I saw more?

  What if I saw the man who had to be inside that body?

  What if I suddenly wanted him to hold me? Like this. Because it feels really really nice.

  "You're awake?” he asked softly.

  "Yes.” Moving would have placed me in a precarious position where I'd have to peer into his eyes. Something told me a thousand years of reality would stare back. Nobody deserved facing such a demon when finding oneself forced to mate and carry parasites. Twins.

  A chill feathered through my body.

  "Sh.” His hand brushed up my back, ever so gently, to rake fingers through my hair across my shoulderblades. “I must tend to business today, Cassie. Sok will be available to accompany you around the compound if you choose to continue your assessment of huv'ria life today.” The sound of his voice hosted a tinge of sadness.

  Why? He'd sexually performed when I'd insisted. And now revered my body in his caring actions. Maybe I was wrong to be angry with him? Any rational woman would protect herself from diving deeper into the !Dako pool of culture. Who knew how shallow the beautiful sea-green water really was? I could break my neck if I just buckled to all of the great sex and gorgeous warrior.

  Since when did a broken neck do anybody a lick of good?

  I had to be strong.

  Play intelligently.

  In the end, I might surface from the pool's depths whole, complete. Even if lying in bed with Vult, surrounded by the strength in his massive arms and broad chest, felt like the most perfect place in the world. I couldn't forget who I was. Or what I was. I had to demand the right to think for myself.

  His hand slid up my shoulder to cup my jaw and tilt my head back.

  So much for choice.

  He stared into my eyes, brushing the pad of his thumb across my cheek. “Forgive me, this once. Without a second thought. We need to begin again. To learn to trust each other."

  "Because eternity is a long time?” I managed that reply without a heaping dose of caustic sarcasm.

  He blinked, contemplatively. “Yes. Remember my promise.” The heat of his body sank away, from mine. His magnificent muscled body climbed off the bed. His shoulders slightly slumped.

  I liked things better with him close though.

  He yanked on his upper-body's armor and both boots keeping his back to me the entire time.

  Why did I want him to come back to bed?

  Sok walked at my side in all his dark glory. Even though he was young by !Dako standards, he looked like he could kick ass and keep the lab rat alive until we'd returned to the huv'ria's reflection pool.

  Sok distanced himself from us females.

  And became even more aloof. Why?

  Zoxni lead me to a large dark wooden door carved with flowers, set into the thick wall encircling the courtyard. Most likely a picture of some moment near the reflection pool, a time when flowers bloomed in the same manner.

  Zoxni shoved the creaking door inward into muted sunlight.

  An inner room brightened by light filtering in across the space to illuminate the draping vegetation that curtained the stone walls. Life. The rectangular room felt alive even though it was open to the sky on both ends with glass-less windows.

  Three easels propped up canvas-type surfaces. A woman who looked most like an earthling, except for the green cast beneath the silver freckles of her skin, painted where she stood partially blocked behind one easel.

  The door creaked shut at my heels, leaving me alone in the sheltered space with Zoxni and the woman.

  Where had the crowd of curious huv'
rias gone? I scanned the dark door behind me.

  "Come, Goddess. Meet Eshta. Her soul sings today,” Zoxni cooed, obviously attempting to lure me through pockets of shadow.

  A singing soul in all this silence? What's new? I acquiesced and found myself standing beside the beautiful green skin flecked with silver.

  Eshta had the longest kinky hair the color of jet that matched her eyes. Eyes that could hide everything in their darkness but tempt you to guess at the mysteries swimming inside the jet circles. Like a whirlpool, anyone daring to gaze too long into those eyes would get sucked into another world. Another universe.

  "Goddess.” Eshta placed a metal spatula-type instrument down upon a stone slab dabbed with every primary color and smears of others then carefully bowed as if I were some powerful freak of nature.

  Okay, I am. Talk about bizarre. I nodded in return.

  That black gaze locked onto mine again and sucked me into her solemn spell. She said nothing. Only hefted the dainty spatula with a blob of white paint polluted with a grayish-brown paint and turned to her painting. A series of stunted two-inch smears. All white laced with other colors. Tainted.

  What did the pattern indicate? By the oval shape on what had to be shoulders, Eshta painted a person. Who?

  She focused on her work.

  Stroke by measured smear, she painted like a woman creating something as beautiful as a child. All her energy concentrated on the tip of her spatula. Bringing something to life. Something that niggled at the back of my mind, right where answers hung in the dark rafters of one's subconscious, waiting to fly for freedom like a bat out of hell. I wanted to spit out the word. To make sense out of what unfolded before me.

  Zoxni's fingers curled around my elbow. “Come. There is so much more to see."

  I flicked a gaze at Eshta's emotionless mask and nodded. “It's beautiful.” What else did a person say when studying someone's art?

  Eshta stood as still as a statue.

  Zoxni's firm pressure on my elbow led me back into warm yellow sunlight until the door clapped at our exit. Intrigue glimmered in my guide's blue eyes.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?” It couldn't hurt to ask. “And I wasn't ready to leave. I wanted—"

  "Everyone loves to hear a soul sing. Until you translate the message in the words, the song means nothing."

  What kind of stupid riddle was that? “Look, I want to understand. But explanations that don't explain are pretty useless."

  Zoxni smiled serenely. “Eshta meditates."

  Okay, I get meditation. Art is an amazing therapy. For what though? “Why?"

  Zoxni's gaze studied the dispersed crowd of females before stopping on mine. “She wants what the rest of us have."

  A mate? That picture could have been male. But it wasn't far enough along to attach sex to the form. Zoxni would have to just cut to the chase. “Okay, just tell me what you're trying to say."

  The black-haired woman sighed softly. “Eshta has been mated for almost seven-hundred years to a !Dako of extremely high status. His devotion to her is as strong as her spirit for meditation."

  Oh, good God! Just tell me.

  "Eshta has everything. But in her eyes, she has nothing. She sees only with her heart. Craves the one thing she has never had."

  Come on. “What?"

  "Eshta has carried twenty-four children but never raised one."

  Miscarriage? Still born? Seven-hundred years was a long time to only be impregnated by super nanites twenty-four times. And then lose the babies. What's the problem? “I don't understand."

  "Eshta paints the child she has never had."

  "That's not the question I was asking. Why haven't any of the children survived?"

  "They have."

  I couldn't handle another horrible !Dako cultural practice. First, they steal females for mates. Then they limited the number of offspring a !Dako could produce. What other horror was I about to uncover? “I still don't understand."

  Zoxni tossed me a patient smile. “She paints the child she wished she birthed. Eshta has only born daughters."

  My heart took a swan dive into my flinching gut.

  I turned to the flowers carved into the door's dark wood.

  So many beautiful flowers that exchange pollen. Ovaries. That ripen. That turn into seeds. That fruit. That bring forth the next generation. Life. And Eshta couldn't do this one thing. Produce viable offspring. Because she carried daughters of a !Dako. Like me. I shoved the hard solid wood and pushed back into the calming shade of the rectangular space draped with vines and leaves.

  Life clung to the walls, the pocket, a strange womb. Oddly life clung here as if incubating something.

  Eshta met my gaze with a penetrating stare that could have risen the dead.

  Yes. Now, I understand. I stepped toward the easel.

  The door's uneven sharp edges slipped beneath my palm.

  Those observant black extraterrestrial eyes of hers mirrored my thoughts.

  Had Eshta knowledge of the two daughters growing inside me? Surely she did with the communication network on this planet.

  She had to connect with me. Or wait for me to make the connection.

  At last, someone understood me. Enough to know what I had to fear. What I had at stake. I reclaimed my position at her side, slid my gaze down her long bare greenish arm to the tip of her metal spatula smeared with white paint, and studied her creation.

  Someone looked back through all the two-inch smudges of brown and gray paint.

  Yes, a person. Lost to an unimaginable fate.

  What color hair would each of Eshta's children have had? What color eyes? Would they all be born carrying the exact genetic code for her facial features?

  She studied me.

  Had she named each one in hopes that each child would break the curse and be born normal? Did she mourn the loss of each after birthing it, after carrying and bringing it to life? How could anyone continue on after so much loss? Such unbearable pain was unimaginable, even for one immortal female.

  She lifted another blob of paint and returned to her meditation.

  What Eshta experienced was wrong. Absolutely unnatural. Heart-wrenching. My fate.

  Unless I intervened. To spare the women brought to this planet. To end the insane cycle of passing on genes. Mutated genes. I must do this. It's more important than any child I can bear. It's more important than my happiness or comfort.

  And Vult was their savior all along. He mated me. He brought me here. He risks the very seed the !Dakos hold sacred above all else in my body producing daughters.

  He risks... Because I'm selfish.

  But I can change the future of my daughters. I can end Eshta's silent vigil. I can right the world here on Treusch.

  I am the Goddess.

  If there were a clock in my personal quarters, the tick would have driven me insane as I waited for Vult to return. Instead, there was absolute silence. Of which did nothing but amplify the sadness in my heart and the immediacy I felt to take the bull by the horns while knowing I had to wait for the best solution to the problem. The solution dwelled in a hulking blond towering at least 6'5". He'd talk. Discuss the good, bad, and ugly of our dilemma. And this time I'd listen.

  He'd been there for me all along.

  My ears are open. Yes. Now. Waiting to hear his relief at my awakening. Yes. Awakening to over a thousand years of pain, frustration, and agony.

  Or I needed to find the answers. More answers. I needed to stop waiting for the future to come to me. I needed to make my future. Or I'd never see my children. Never see Vult's face when he finally had children.

  My babies.

  My daughters.

  Children my body could produce for him to give him back what he had lost. Vult deserved that. He was kind. Caring. Thoughtful. He'd always been these things with me in the little time I'd known him. Always looking out for me like when he saved me from the traders on the space station. Like when he shared the life of huv'ria's here
and led me to Eshta's sorrow. I just didn't care to shut out the damned squeak of the lab rat's exercise wheel.

  I care now.

  I want him to have his daughters.

  That's what he needed, children. To make him smile. Or breathe life into his spirit. Just having a mate wasn't enough. I had to be more than that. A mate was his soul. A !Dako's reason for living. His chance to experience life by fathering children. That's also the way of things on Earth. Throughout the universe. We're born male or female. We're born for the sole purpose of creating life. If we don't, we break the cycle.

  We are anything but viable adults.

  We fail to leave our genetic material behind because we are alive.

  !Dakos are alive. Not machines. Why in the hell had I struggled with this for so long? Anger. Fear? Why was I so weak? I must be stronger.

  My daughters deserve to be normal. To live like humanoids with the thought process and opportunity to live a life like Vult's or mine. Whether that future entailed !Dako rules or Earth rules for living didn't matter. Rules are merely a reflection of cultural constructs like the Chinese one-baby rule. Or the rules associated with favoring sons over daughters in India, rules governing access to mates with !Dako Mate Quests, choosing when to get pregnant with birth control back home, or whether or not to terminate a pregnancy based on a genetic defect determined through testing while the baby is in utero.

  Nothing is simple. No. Always so damned complex. Everything is culturally relative. But culture is what makes the Chinese, the Hindu, or the !Dakos human. Working in genetics counseling only reiterated that lovely truth. And I'll be damned if my humanoid daughters don't get a chance to live like me. I shoved off the soft bed.

  It wasn't long before I stood in the infirmary with Sok guarding the entrance and Yirt's amethyst gaze staring me down.

  Watching me. Perhaps assessing my intent through my behavior. Well, he could gnaw on what I had planned while I got to work. “I need you to explain everything about the genetics separating !Dako males and Drods."

  Sok's summons to the infirmary had been timely, calling me to my huv'ria. But her guard had no clue as to why she'd marched down to see Yirt. Why she demanded the medical technician explain genetics to her. Probably to calculate the likelihood her children were female and endangered. Cling to a hope that maybe the instruments somehow erred.