by Aubrey Cara
She’s telling the truth, just as she promised.
My chest tightens.
“If something happens to me…” A tear trickles down her cheek as she continues. “If for some reason they return me to the Zapex, you have to get word out. Warn others.”
I scoff. We have no plans of allowing her to be handed back to the Zapex. Even if the Unity Council is foolish enough to rule to return her to that gearan fuckboy she called master, we’re getting her back. I try to tell her this, too, but she covers my mouth, shaking her head.
“The Monrok have to protect the people of the Jun’pn Galaxy.” She cups my face, her voice resolute. “All the people. Even those on Jar’jn unaware of the decisions their patriarchs are making on their behalf. I know you hate the Zapex, but please don’t punish all for the crimes of the few.”
I’m not sure if I can make this promise.
The easiest way to protect the innocent beings of the Jun’pn Galaxy would be to wipe the blight of Zapex from existence. It is only fair. Sana is too sweet and innocent. The number of Zapexians guilty of crimes against the beings of the universe are in the many. The innocent few would be collateral.
But my ultra-senses pick up the frantic racing of her heart, and because she’s not blocking, I can feel her anxiety radiating off her. I don’t know how to comfort her, but I’d rather take a hundred blasts to the chest than see more of her sorrow in this moment, so I say nothing that will upset her further.
“Why are you only telling me this?”
“You have the most reason to hate the Zapex. To wish them all dead. If you stand down, the others will too.”
“And you think I’ll stand down? Be the reasonable one?”
“No. Likely not.” She drops her chin, her black eyes bright with unshed tears. “That’s why I didn’t tell you with the others. I didn’t want this to be a fight.”
I brush her wild hair from her face. “We can’t always avoid the fight.”
“But why seek it out when we can avoid it?”
“Why, indeed.” Conflict wages inside me. What she asks of me goes against all my instincts.
She runs a finger between my furrowed brows. “Please don’t be angry with me. Not now.” Her arms wrap tight around my neck as she squishes all her gentle curves against me. I breathe her in, imprinting this moment on my senses, so that it may last until we reach Pacbar and I see her again.
And we will see her again. She is ours. The Galactic Unity will not take her from us.
“I’m not angry with you. Not now. I’ll save it for after we get you back from the Pacnarish.”
She awards me a small smile before lifting to her toes and burying her face in my neck. “Du’rah,” she whispers in my ear.
The scent of her emotions is too great for me. I press her against the door and take her mouth, mating her with my tongue the way I wish to be in her body. Cupping her ass, I lift her so that her legs snake around my waist. Her heat seeps through my pants, and I groan into her mouth. I’m as bad as Ast, and there is no one here to drag me away.
Out of everything she’s told me, her whispered, “Du’rah,” and the scent of her affection when she uttered it, will be what haunts me until we get her back again.
The scrape and creak of the heavy airlock doors on the other side of where I have her pinned to ours, is a muffled echo. I know the Pacnarish are waiting, but forcing myself to let go of the female is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.
“I want to mark you again. Fill you with my scent and have it dripping trails down your thighs as you walk over to the Pacnarish.”
Her eyes go wide and I cover her mouth with my hand before she can acquiesce or argue.
“I should call my brothers back,” I whisper in her ear as I take out my cock and fit it to her core. She’s already wet and her legs squeeze my hips tight as I slide into her swollen channel, the head of my cock popping through ring after ring. The sensation zings down my spine. “I should let them all mark you one last time but I’m selfish. I want you to carry my scent and my scent alone when I hand you over.”
Her glorious cunt begins to vibrate and I flex my hips forward, pushing deeper. Her eyes roll closed. Her blocks are still down, but she wisely doesn’t try to mind meld. I let her pleasure and pain wash over me, willing myself not to knot.
I fist her hair and am rewarded by the contraction of her body on my cock. She whimpers against my palm, her hips working as she grinds her hot pussy on me. “That’s it, my horny little pet. Make yourself come on me. Do it now.”
And she does. Her tight snatch seizes so tightly around me I nearly knot. I growl into her neck as she screams her pleasure against my hand.
“I want your mouth, Sana. I’m going to fuck your mouth and come down your throat.”
She lets out a choked whimper as I yank myself from her heat and force her down in front of me. She drops to her knees, enclosing my cock in the hot bliss of her mouth before I can get out the command. Her hair wraps around my wrists and up my arms as I hold her in place and fuck her throat. She struggles for a moment, clawing my hips, before she relaxes into my punishing rhythm, clinging to my thighs as her eyes stream and she tries to suck.
“Such a fucking perfect pet, you are. You’re the other’s mate, but you’re my pet, aren’t you?”
A blast of her conflicting desire and longing hit me so hard, my knees nearly buckle. Her emotions are as sweet and pure as her submission. She hates my power over her yet craves more, and I want to give it to her. My sack pulls tight and I can’t hold back. My essence sears up my length like lightning as I pulse down her throat in heavy pulls. I grit my teeth as she swallows again and again.
My cybernetics work to even my breathing as I pull back and wipe her chin before helping her to her feet. She looks unsteady so I pull her against my chest and let her catch her breath. She doesn’t have cybernetics like me, to regulate her organic system and quicken her recovery. After a she calms, I push her against the airlock door and cup her throat. Holding my wrist, she sags in my hold.
Sana’s lips are swollen, her nipples hard points visibly outlined in the shirt, her eyes are glassy. She’s as flushed as a Zapex is capable of. I wipe more tears from her cheeks and cover her mouth with mine, enjoying knowing she’ll be carrying my taste on her lips long after she’s gone.
A pang of discomfort grips my chest, and I know I can’t prolong our parting any longer, but so I look over my rumpled pet one last time.
“Now the Pacnarish will have no doubt who truly owns you.” I step to the wall panel, reluctantly hitting the door sensor.
Panic flares in her eyes for a moment before she straightens, shoulders back even as tears stream down her face. I have to force myself not to reach for her again.
She bows her head. “Be well, my contrary master.”
“Until death releases you, veran.”
Until death is a common Monrok farewell, for we are not released from duty until death. I’ve said it so many times, it’s lost meaning. But when I tell her this, it is a promise. Until death, I will fight for her.
There are three white-tunic-wearing Pacnarish waiting to greet Sana. It’s difficult to tell if they’re male or female, they all look the same. They spot me and freeze, their heart rates tripling in fear.
It takes all my willpower not to storm over there and snatch her back. She turns, as if sensing my stare, and then the heavy doors slide shut with echoing finality. I hit the sensor, shutting and locking our own airlock doors, then stride back to the control room.
“Looks like we’re going to Pacbar, whether we’d like to or not,” Ast says as our ship phases and navigates space without our control.
“What did she tell you?” Banx finally asks.
I shrug. “The Zapex are even bigger ahehs than we all thought.”
He raises a brow. “Elaborate?”
“Jar’jn is dying. They need more land. Other planets to occupy. They don’t just mean to overthrow Pacbar. They mean to e
liminate at least half the inhabitants of the galaxy while they’re doing it.”
“We have to tell the Monrok on Kadeema,” Tawn says, his curls still in wiry disarray from rutting earlier. “The Zapex will likely move to wipe them out first.”
“Already sending it,” Banx says, intel flashing over his binary eye.
“Destroy the strongest points of a structure, and the rest will crumble,” Ast says quoting knowledge we all received while our cybernetics were first integrating and our minds were being prepared for our lives as the Elite Guards to the Zapex.
“They can try,” I say, looking out the portal at the haze of stars flashing past in streaks of white and gold. “Or…” I turn to face my brothers. “We could destroy them first.”
That’s exactly what Sana doesn’t want, a voice whispers in the back of my mind, and something the weight of a stone takes residence in my stomach.
Ast’s eyes narrow on me. Tawn leans back in his seat as if contemplating this.
Banx crosses his arms over his chest as he levels a stare on me. “I’ve sent warning to our brethren far and wide so they may protect themselves… I’ve advised against direct attack without the Unity Council’s knowledge.”
I nod once and he stands, walking toward the doorway, but then he stops and turns, the muscle in jaw flexing. “There are a great many Zapex who deserve death, but…there are others like our mate, who do not. We cannot kill them all.”
With that, Banx quits the room and his words stew through my mind.
Fuck.
Two things hit me at once. We can’t kill them all and... we’ve mated a fucking Zapex.
I’ve mated a fucking Zapex.
And I’d gladly live and die for her. Even now, I want her back on this ship under our protection. I hate that she is away from us.
A Zapex.
If the stars are truly guiding our fate, they have a sick sense of humor.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sana
Trust your fate, and be brave.
The words are my mantra and what’s been keeping me strong ever since I crossed over to the Galactic Unity’s vessel, leaving my Monrok behind.
The Pacnarish have given me a room instead of a cell, and have gone so far as to show me how to operate the sensors for the panel, so I know I’m free to roam the ship. They’ve treated me kindly. They are gentle beings, but their presence is watchful. I know I am a rare oddity. No one in the galaxy has seen an image of a Zapexian female, let alone an infamous veran, but I believe they’d be just as observant if I were one of their own.
Still, concern for the safety of my Monrok eats at me. Jor would not have issued such a warning to Pan had he not thought them capable of something underhanded, would he? I try to focus on my coming meeting with the council, but that does nothing to ease my trepidation.
I finger the tiny bump on my temple. Banx warned me they would inject a translator chip, but it still hurt like a million tiny needles stabbing my skull.
There’s a ping at my panel, and I rise from the narrow platform to answer. The long white tunic they gave me to wear swirls around my legs as I glide over. The door swooshes open, and the petite Pacnarish female Pyn, who has been bringing me nutrient shots as well as clothes, enters.
She carries a handheld device and a long hooded white robe reminiscent of the one the Ikbar took from me, if much more simplistic. Like all the Pacnarish, she’s in a white tunic slit at the front of the legs and sides. The tail ends flap around her ankles as she walks in.
She sets the robe on the platform before turning to me and bowing her head. “Hello, missus. Are you well today?” She asks this every day
I contemplate answering her honestly, but smile serenely instead. “Yes, thank you.”
She holds up the handheld. “I must scan you. We will be landing soon.”
“Is this customary?” I ask as she slowly moves the device over my body from my feet to my head.
“Yes. All who disembark their ships onto Pacbar must log their current physical analysis into the database beforehand, to avoid foreign pathogens from being carried on to our planet.”
Pyn taps at the screen, her forehead wrinkling. The disc-like ridges on either side of her head glow purple and gold as she hums. Her black eyes, similar to my own, spark on me.
Unease trickles down my spine. “What is it?”
She swallows. “Your analysis is unusual.”
I hold out my hand for the scanner. “Show me.”
Pyn frowns, putting the scanner in the folds of her tunic. “We have no setting for Zapexian females, so it’s likely an error.”
Putting my hand on her arm, I’m able to reach my mind out to hers. Her psyche fights my entry, but I break in, entrancing her, then begin to sift through her recent thoughts until I find it. Her memory of scanning me.
For a moment, I can’t breathe.
An unusual physical analysis indeed.
I reach for the scanner with my free hand, trying to figure out how to erase the data, and settle on tricking Pyn’s mind into doing it for me.
Expression blank, Pyn taps at a few key sensors on the screen until the intel is cleared from the screen.
My heart thunders so hard, it makes my stomach queasy. With my hand on Pyn’s arm, I sit us both down on the side of the sleeping platform so I can think.
Posture straight, hands in her lap, Pyn sits, still entranced, next to me, staring vacantly at the wall across the space.
“What am I going to do?” I ask her, thinking she can’t hear me, but a ripple of purple and gold shoots over her skull discs.
I haven’t put anyone in a trance in ages. I must be out of practice. Sighing, I close my eyes and focus on clearing her mind of the last few moments and planting new thoughts and memories of the analysis reading being nothing out of the ordinary.
I stand us in our prior positions and slowly bring her out of the trance.
“Thank you, Pyn,” I say, still holding her arm and infusing her mind with calm acceptance as she blinks at me then around the room.
“You’re welcome, missus. Is there anything I can assist you with before we land?”
“No. You’ve been more than helpful.”
Pyn walks to the door and turns back to face me before reaching for the panel sensor.
My breath catches as I wait to be caught out for putting her in a trance.
“We are rooting for you,” she says, and I frown at her, not understanding this.
“Hmm? How do you mean?”
She leans forward, lowering her voice. “There are those of us on board who hope the council grants you freedom.”
A rush of relief sweeps over me. “Oh…thank you.”
“Although,” she continues, “we question your sanity at taking Monrok for mates.”
Heat infuses my face. “There are benefits.”
Vibrant shades of dark purple and gold ripple over Pyn’s discs. “Indeed, missus.” The panel slides open, and she pauses in the doorway. “By the way, your secret is safe with me.” She holds up the scanner, giving it a wiggle.
At my shocked expression, she continues. “Your mind melding skills are powerful, but the Pacnarish mind has many impenetrable recesses to escape to.” With one step she’s out in the passageway, the panel swooshing closed behind her.
It’s a moment before I can breathe again.
Dizzy, I sit down. At least she is on my side, but I still have to make it off the ship without anyone calling me out for not having a physical analysis logged.
I cannot fathom the repercussions if the scanner reading is correct.
~*~*~
We have landed in the city named after the planet, Pacbar. Tension grips me as I walk down the passageway to the open hatch doors accompanied by four unfamiliar Pacnarish. I will my wildly fluttering heart to calm. I keep waiting for someone to stop us and say there’s been a mistake, but I make it to the ramp and get my first view of the city. Or rather, the sprawling docking bay loaded with sp
ace shuttles sectioned by size.
Unlike Jar’jn, Pacbar doesn’t have an elemental atmospheric haze. I squint my gaze against the unfiltered glow of sun. My nose burns with the bitter scent of vessels landing and taking off.
Trepidation rides me, and I’m not sure if it’s my intuition or fear of the unknown. I scan the area, waiting for something…it seems too calm here. Well, calm is not the right word for the bustling port. More like, unaware. Everyone is going about their lives as if tragedy couldn’t befall them at any moment.
“Where are my Monrok?” I ask the overly thin and tall Pacnarish to my right. The natural light is bright enough his yellow veins show through his skin.
“They were escorted to the Galactic temple of Unity before the Zapex could arrive, missus.”
A sick sensation swirls in my abdomen. “The Zapex?”
The Pacnarish to my left leans over, his discs lighting a pale blue and silver. “Your former master is said to have arrived.”
My system flashes with hot and cold; the wind swirls around us unnaturally from my distress. My escorts take a step back, giving me and my undulating hair a wide berth.
“Kechlyn is here?” I have no idea what this means for my plans. “Will he be present at the hearing?”
“I believe so, missus. It is an open hearing.”
I’m not sure what that means. I should have asked more questions on the journey here instead of keeping to myself.
“And will he be granted leave to speak?”
His discs flash silver, rippling back to blue as he shrugs. “That is for the council to decide.”
I swallow my rising panic as Pan meets us at the bottom of the ramp with a bow of his head.
“Are you attending the hearing?” I ask the Pacnarish I’ve only spoken to a handful of times while traveling the past few cycles together.
“Yes, since I granted your audience, I’ll be there to witness the excitement.
