by Regine Abel
“Then, by all means, knock yourself out,” I replied with a shit-eating grin. “But nope, not now,” I interjected as she raised her hand to make a move. “You wasted your ten seconds complaining about me blocking you. It’s my turn again now.”
She gasped, and I burst out laughing at her outraged expression while swiftly making my move.
“You little shit,” she mumbled under her breath. “I’m going to mop the floor with you.”
And she did, under ten minutes. It would have been humiliating had she not cracked me up with a flurry of wise cracks about me getting spanked by a newbie. My shirt was the first to go, followed by my boots, my socks, and then my pants. I had genuinely tried to win those matches, even the following one, although I wondered what she could potentially ask of me since I had no clothes to discard.
“Remove my skirt… with your teeth,” Sabra said when she won the next one.
My skin suddenly grew feverish as the dormant volcano in my nether region surged to life. Her obsidian eyes remained locked with mine while I circled around the table on all fours. My mate bit her bottom lip while unfolding her crossed legs and turning sideways, her feet facing me. I stopped in front of her and leaned in to kiss her lips, but she jerked her head to the side.
“Tsk, tsk. No kissing allowed. Skirt,” she said in a stern tone while casting a meaningful glance at her skirt.
“As you command, my mate,” I purred, getting caught up in her game.
Resting her palms on the floor behind her, Sabra leaned back to facilitate my task. I leaned forward, intent on complying, but the call of that ever-provocative pierced belly button was too much to resist. I gave it a quick lick and nip, which earned me Sabra flicking the pointy tip of my left ear.
“Ow,” I complained, looking up at her with a bit of a glare.
She held my gaze unflinchingly. “Then behave. Next time, I’ll flick both.”
“You know I will get even, right?” I playfully threatened.
She merely responded by approaching her hand near my ear, her index finger tucked under the tip of her thumb, ready to flick again.
I grunted and proceeded to catch the waistband of her skirt between my teeth. The delicious—but discreet—aroma of her musk made my head spin. As I began pulling down, Sabra lifted her bum to help take the garment off her. Tilting my head forward, I rubbed the scales of my forehead on her pelvis on my way down. She gasped, then shivered, the scent of her arousal cranking up a notch.
As I got past her knees, Sabra lowered her bum and raised her feet so that I could get the skirt off her. I cast it aside and started crawling back up to take care of that nothing piece of fabric that served as her thong, but my mate straightened and settled her palm on my forehead, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“Work first, play later. Training isn’t over,” she said in a seductive, but firm voice. “Back to your place you go.”
I frowned, looking at her disbelievingly.
“But—”
“Tsk, tsk,” Sabra interrupted me. Dropping her hand, she turned back to face the table and crossed her legs beneath her. “The co-leader of the Vanguard has set a high bar for me to achieve and clearly stated his expectation before the start of this session. I intend to meticulously follow his orders. Please, resume your seat,” she concluded with the irritatingly sweet and polite way customer service employees had of telling you to fuck off; you weren’t getting what you wanted.
“Someone ought to tell him he’s an idiot,” I grumbled, while complying.
“I’ll make sure to pass the message along,” she said in a syrupy voice while batting her eyelashes at me.
I snarled, baring my teeth at her, but instead of the laughter I’d expected, Sabra’s lips parted in shock. Sabra’s eyes smoldered, and she absentmindedly touched the side of her neck with her fingertips, her gaze never straying from my mouth. I realized then that my double fangs had descended. My instinctive reaction was to close my mouth and force my fangs back in, but I caught myself at the last minute. Instead, I parted my lips a little wider and made a show of slowly rubbing the tip of my tongue against the viciously sharp end.
My woman’s bronze skin erupted in goosebumps, and the delectable scent of her arousal wafted to me, forcing me to shift on my cushion to relieve some of the painful pressure on my cock trapped inside my loin plate that felt as if it had shrunk by half.
“Your turn to go first,” she said in a breathy whisper.
“No, you go right ahead,” I said with a predatory smile. “I intend to finish what you started.”
Sabra shivered and licked her lips. I couldn’t say if it was out of nervousness or anticipation, or both. But it didn’t matter. I was caught up in her game, and my dragon had come out to play.
My woman wrecked me in seven minutes flat. Despite being insanely hungry for my mate, I had given the match an honest attempt. Sabra’s ability to interpret my emotions to her advantage, even with my barrier up, was almost scary. Then again, she was a formidable domook player. Tomorrow, we would have to try with a different strategy game to assess the true extent of her interpretation talent.
“My top,” she said in a commanding voice, once more turning to the side.
“My pleasure,” I replied, crawling back to her on all fours, but this time, really moving like a predator.
The burning desire in her eyes only spurred me on. My fangs, which had receded while we played, were aching to come out again. As I closed the distance with my woman, I bared my teeth so that she would witness my fangs descending. Sabra did a sharp breath intake and involuntarily seemed to lean forward.
Stopping before her, eyes locked with hers, I slipped my hands beneath her sports bra, cupping her bare breasts. Sabra’s breathing shortened and came faster, as my thumbs teased her quickly hardening nipples. As soon as I started pushing the stretchy fabric upward, my mate raised her arms. I kept staring her in the eyes until the bra covered them. Instead of pulling it right off of her extended arms, I forced her to lie down on her back.
“Wh—”
“Stay!” I ordered menacingly when she tried to resist.
Another shiver coursed through her, but she obeyed. Arms bound and eyes covered by her bra, Sabra was at my mercy in all her naked beauty. There was something intoxicating about having a strong, smart woman in such a vulnerable position, willingly surrendering herself to me. She moaned as I captured her lips in a searing kiss and responded with the same fervor. That, too, made me feel like a god among mortals. My hands roamed over the silkiness of her skin, soon followed by my lips. On my way down to her breasts, I allowed my fangs to gently graze the fleshy part of her shoulder where I would permanently bind her to me. She shivered and moaned again when my mouth closed over one of her nipples.
While I continued to lick and nip at her areola, my hand ventured further south. For a second, I didn’t think I would dare reach for the forbidden fruit. Her labored breath, the delicious scent of her arousal, and the feverish feel of her shivering skin beneath my touch made me feel drunk with power. And so, boldly, I slipped my fingers under the flimsy waistband of her thong to finally reach my prize. Sabra gasped, and her legs jerked in response to my brazen caress.
“You can’t. The rules—” she started feebly.
“Fuck the rules,” I interrupted in an almost angry growl, my lips still hovering over her breast.
“Maker! Who are you?” Sabra asked, falsely panicked.
“I’m a man about to claim his mate,” I said, suddenly taken by a lustful determination. “Stay!” I snapped when she made as if to free herself of the garment that bound her arms and covered her eyes.
I quickly freed my woman of her undergarment, barely resisting the urge to snap the thin string that held it together, then buried my face between her thighs. Sabra crying out my name, the intoxicating scent of her musk, and the tart flavor of her essence exploding on my taste buds made something primal awaken inside me. Giving in to my instincts, I licked at the wet petals
of my woman’s core and the engorged little nub above them. The scent of my pheromones swirled around us, acting as a powerful aphrodisiac which, combined with my mating song, would multiply her pleasure a thousand-fold.
I had never used that ability before, but with a will of its own, my chest started vibrating, creating the subtonal hum of my mating song. Barely audible to the human ear—but sounding to me like the whistling of the wind through the leaves of a tree—the vibration would render my woman’s nerve endings ultra-sensitive, enhancing every sensation. Its effects were almost instant. Sabra shouted, her body seizing as if she’d been struck by lightning. She collapsed back down, her legs shaking around me from the tremors of her orgasm.
I stopped the vibration. While the mating song also worked on us, we were far less sensitive to it. And right now, that was a good thing. I was painfully hard and feared I might spill any minute. How humiliating that would be. Freeing her from the sports bra still binding her, I picked up my mate then marched to my bed and carefully laid her on top.
I joined her, and Sabra welcomed me with open arms. She spread her legs, and I settled between them before taking her lips in another passionate kiss. My loin plate parted, freeing my cock at last. I hissed with relief, realizing how painful it had actually been. Sabra’s questioning look quickly turned to understanding when she felt my shaft pressing against her pelvis. A sliver of fear flashed through her obsidian eyes.
“If you’re not ready—”
“I am,” she interrupted. “I… I’m nervous, of course. The first time is supposed to hurt, but I want this. I want to be with you. To bond with you.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said, frowning, although knowing it to be inevitable.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. It’s going to be the good kind of pain,” Sabra said encouragingly. “Make me yours.”
Wrapping her arms around my neck, eyes locked with mine, my mate spread her legs wider. Although our naturally pre-lubricated shaft helped ease penetration, I wasn’t small. Despite my burning desire to bury myself deep inside her in one powerful thrust, my dragon blood took over, immediately going into protective mode for my mate. As soon as I began pushing myself in with shallow thrusts, I wrapped my consciousness around her soul, flooding her with my love and devotion to dampen the pain, and whispering words of love in between kisses.
Shortly after I breached her hymen, her body suddenly yielded, fully welcoming me.
“We are one, my love,” I whispered.
Tightening my hold, I covered her face with kisses while giving her time to adjust to my girth. Now that the pain had receded, I resumed my mating song to enhance her sensations again. I started moving slowly, not only to protect her but also to control my insane urge to spill my seed. Each stroke was pure bliss and an agonizing torture. She was so exquisitely tight and warm, I thought I would die with pleasure.
I hadn’t realized I had picked up the pace until Sabra began whispering my name between two raspy breaths. But it was pleasure, not pain, that elicited them. At the same moment, I felt the shift takeover me. For a split second of lucidity, I wondered if it was too soon, but that thought vanished almost immediately. I gave myself over to my dragon and to the pleasure-pain of my body preparing to bind my mate to me.
It burned as my muscles swelled, my shoulders and arms becoming bigger, and it stung as the bone spikes along my shoulders and spine expanded and extruded further. Lava swirled through my loins as my mating fluids awakened my seed, making it fertile, and provoked a burning sensation at the back of my throat as my glands filled to bursting.
“Bond with me,” I said in a voice rendered nearly unintelligible by my swollen throat.
“Yes,” Sabra said, her nails digging into the scales on my back.
I had meant to do it gently, but something snapped inside of me. Moving at lighting speed, I buried my fangs in the fleshy part of her shoulder. Sabra’s loud shout of pain quickly turned into a shout of ecstasy. She violently climaxed as my mating fluids poured into her. It flooded my own system, making me insane with lust. I lost control and took my mate with a wild and savage abandon. Although I didn’t exactly climax, my seed shot out of me in a blissfully burning flow. But even as I filled my woman, my body continued to pump in and out of her at a punishing pace, spurred on by her sinful sighs.
I couldn’t say how many times I spilled my seed or how many times I made my woman tumble over the edge, but by the time my own orgasm swept me away, I was beyond wrecked and irrevocably bound to my mate, my wife, my beautiful Sabra.
We fell asleep tightly intertwined, body and soul.
Chapter 14
Sabra
I was speeding on my hoverbike along one of the plateaus of the Dragons Rise—a chasm bordering a shallow river on Khepri—chased down by Chaos. The wind whipped through my hair and over my face while adrenaline pumped in my veins. In the distance, I could see the Dragons—Bane’s younger brothers—doing aerial acrobatics, probably to train their younger siblings.
Over the six days following our official mating, Chaos and I had discussed many of the activities we were planning on doing together. This one featured at the top of my list. So, not surprisingly, I was dreaming of it again tonight. If it followed its usual course, we would ride along a hidden path leading down to the river and then make love by the water.
But as we were nearing its location, a dark shadow flew right in front of me. I blinked, thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me. And then it happened again in three quick successions, all but blinding me. Just as I was going to stop my hoverbike, one such shadow came rushing at me, scaring the living daylights out of me. In an instinctive reaction, I tried to veer right and lost control of my vehicle as the shadow engulfed me.
The pain from my body crashing on the packed dirt and small stones covering the ground never came. My frightened scream sounded as if it was being sucked into a vacuum as I fell endlessly. The sound of heated voices arguing reached me first before the falling sensation ended and a room materialized around me.
I stood transfixed, looking at what appeared to be the interior of a Kryptid hive. I couldn’t tell if the walls had been dug directly in the face of a cave or if the Kryptids had shaped them in a way to give them that organic, red stone feel. At least fifty female Kryptids occupied the oval room that appeared to be some kind of gathering hall with a single exit. They were engaged in what struck me as a disturbingly civilized disagreement.
Although I was completely unable to speak the Kryptid language, I understood it almost perfectly. Since the Dragon hybrids had joined the Vanguard, Bane had generously shared with us the previously indecipherable language. It had become a compulsory class as part of the Psychic Training Program curriculum, but was also mandatory from kindergarten through the end of grade school. Like me, anyone past the age of twelve had little to no chance of being able to produce a respectable version of the clicking sounds of their language. Not only were our vocal organs not made for that, we were also past the optimal age of learning such neuromuscular functions.
I could only assume that Shuria had somehow torn me right out of my dream and straight into another Ghosting. However, I couldn’t see her anywhere amidst all the Workers. I didn’t doubt for a moment she was currently morphed into one of them. But which one?
“How many more of our senior sisters are we to lose to this insanity?” said an older Worker, judging by her darker and thicker chitin scales.
“It was only three,” said a younger Worker with an odd belt from which hung a series of medical tools. “It is common for losses to occur after a new round of testing.”
“Of testing what, though?” a third Worker said.
I shuddered, something about her struck me as strongly familiar. It wasn’t her voice, and yet, I was convinced she was Shuria. I tried to mind-speak to her to inform her of my presence as I had done with Chaos in his room, but our connection wavered, prompting me to stop it immediately. I suspected the great physical distance bet
ween us was the cause as she was technically outside of my normal psychic range.
“These abominations are not Kryptids,” Shuria continued. “How many more of us will die before he realizes that this is yet another one of his failed experiments? How much of our knowledge and expertise will be lost before it could be transferred because of this madness?”
A few mutterings of approval greeted her words.
“You speak of treason,” one Worker said hesitantly.
“She speaks out loud the words many of us have been saying more and more often,” another older Worker countered. “He has outlived his natural lifespan, and I believe he has grown insane. He’s a General, our last General. His duty is the protection of the colony and the Queen. And yet, he has slaughtered all of the other Generals and forbids us to raise more. He doesn’t care about the colony; he cares only about his own power.”
More murmurs of agreement rose among those assembled.
“I have just arrived here from Kryptor,” said a very young Worker, looking mightily intimidated. “A few Elder Nursing Workers have started raising new Generals in secret. They say too many of the larvae hatched from Queen Rahissa’s eggs are abnormal.”
A common gasp rose from the crowd, many displaying the same shock I felt. Shuria had mentioned rebellion was brewing among the Kryptids, something I never expected to hear from such a blindly hierarchical species. And yet, there it was.
After his plans with the Mimic Queen Pahiven had failed, he had taken her to this secret location on the Moon of Melibos, and replaced her with a normal Kryptid Queen. Unless the Queen was somehow defective—which was unlikely as only the most perfect among the Kryptids was enhanced to become a Queen—the fault for the misshapen offspring had to lay with the sire. And General Khutu was the sole male impregnating her.
“Why are you so shocked?” Shuria asked with a sliver of disdain. “He’s been experimenting on himself as well for decades to extend his life beyond reason. Our Soldiers are weak and stupid, our new Workers are feeble. At this rate, Kryptor will soon be nothing but a shadow of itself.”
