Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2)

by Gibson Michaels

  Drix slowly circled the shouting pair, keeping all his attention focused squarely on the incredibly beautiful N’raal.

  “I am sick and tired of all your tedious efforts to mate me off to some male beneath my station, just to get rid of me, Father!” N’raal screamed.

  “Drix is not beneath your station, you imbecile,” Harf shouted. “He’s a Region-Master in his own right and every bit my equal in rank!”

  N’raal snorted. “Well, that’s certainly a new one. You’ve never believed anyone was truly your equal, except possibly for Supreme-Master Xior himself!”

  “All I’ve ever done is to try to place you into a decent situation, where you’d be treated gently and supported in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed,” Harf yelled. “But absolutely nothing pleases you. I swear, N’raal… I’ve had it with your impossible attitude. The next offer I receive for your paw will be the first and even if I have to give away an entire planet to do it, I’ll see you mated… even if it’s to a stoneless Raknaa!”

  With one paw under his chin and the other holding his opposite elbow, Drix came in closer, leaned down and looked up, as though desiring to see inside N’raal’s mouth.

  “You wouldn’t dare!” N’raal screamed at her father. “Even you would not stoop to besmirching your precious dignity by…” N’raal finally noticed Drix, as if seeing him for the very first time and was alarmed at his proximity. Reeling back, she glared at Drix and yelled at him:

  “Just what do you think are you doing?” she asked acidly.

  Drix straightened and said, “Ah, that’s better… open your mouth.”

  “Say what?” N’raal asked, incredulously.

  “I said… open… your… mouth.”

  “What for?”

  “So I can look at your teeth.”

  The obvious insinuation infuriated the hellcat and she screamed, “I certainly will not open my mouth, so you can… eep!”

  Drix grabbed her lower jaw with one paw and the top of her head with the other. Inserting pressure against the joint with his thumb, he forced her jaws open despite her wriggling protests. Drix made an extended show of examining N’raal’s teeth as he held her helpless, with her jaws wide open.

  Without letting her go, Drix then turned to her stunned father and said, “Her teeth are actually in surprisingly good shape. I’d have surely thought that they’d all be half eaten away by now, from all that acid she’s known for spitting.”

  Harf stared incredulously at Drix, who still held his wriggling daughter, who could do little more than gurgle with her jaws being held firmly apart. Then, the substance of Drix’ comment hit him, and the impact of seeing his troublesome daughter being thoroughly dominated and held mute, in such a ridiculous position, suddenly sent Harf into gales of side-splitting laughter.

  * * * *

  “You cannot possibly be serious!” shrieked N’raal, daughter of Region-Master Harf, of Region-2, after being told of her arranged betrothal to Region-Master Drix, of Region-7.

  “Oh, but I am, N’raal… quite serious indeed,” responded her sire, seriously.

  “But why would he even want me?” wailed N’raal.

  “He liked your teeth.”

  N’raal shrieked again at her father’s comment, as the memory of when that detestable creature had literally laid paws upon her and forcefully inspected her teeth like she was a brood-mare he was considering to purchase.

  “He physically assaulted me, right in front of you, and then you have the audacity to betroth me to that monster?”

  “He did not actually hurt you, N’raal. It was only your insufferable pride that may have been bruised a little,” said Harf to his daughter.

  “HOW COULD YOU?” wailed N’raal. “Do you really want me gone from here so badly that you’d really hand me off to some stranger who just walked in your door?”

  “I told you, daughter,” said Harf. “I told you that I was through putting up with your constant petulance and that I’d accept the first offer I received for your paw. Look on the bright side. At least Drix is not some stoneless Raknaa.”

  “AGH! I won’t go! You can’t make me go!”

  “On the contrary, my daughter. You forget who I am, just as I forgot who I am. Your combative nature exhausted me… wore down my will. It was easier to just attempt to placate your incorrigible behavior than to fight with you, but I did you no favors with my leniency. I was the one who empowered you to become the termagant that you have become. It was Drix who reminded me of exactly who and what I am — master, not only of this house, but also over this entire region.”

  “I… will… NOT… GO!” N’raal screamed.

  “Drix will be good to you, and good for you, N’raal. But I warn you, he is a true alpha and will not put up with your pugnacious behavior the way that I have.”

  “I’m not some brood-mare that you can simply give away to some monster to satiate his lust and birth more monsters just like him!” N’raal wept.

  “Actually, you might very well become exactly that, N’raal,” said her father. “You can submit and behave as a proper mate to Drix, or you can become nothing more than a repository for his seed. The choice is entirely yours.”

  * * * *

  As N’raal’s next impending heat cycle approached, according to the prearranged betrothal agreement, Region-Master Harf personally delivered his daughter N’raal to Drix’ new headquarters aboard his personal spaceliner. To attend the bonding ceremony, Harf had also brought all of his immediate family, a significant number of household servants and a surprising number of Raknaa guards, six of which, it was rumored, had been required to physically carry a wildly struggling N’raal aboard the spaceplane.

  While news that the infamous N’raal was going to be bonded was met throughout the empire with astonishment and misgivings, N’raal had been busy adding to her legend as the most reluctant bride in Rak history. Having to be bodily carried, kicking and screaming, from her father’s spaceliner on their arrival at Vnayrk merely added another chapter.

  As a newly opened frontier planet, the amenities available on Vnayrk were minimal, at best… non-existent at worst. While Harf and his family lodged in comparative luxury aboard his spaceliner, his servant staff made do with living in a sub-divided Raknaa barracks, whose normal occupants were in the field on training maneuvers. They’d put N’raal into a Spartan, makeshift sleeping chamber having a newly welded steel door with a keyed lock, to help reduce the probability of having to conduct future searches for her in the surrounding forest. Being locked into a room lacking what N’raal considered even minimal amenities provided her with a vast plethora of subjects, about which she loudly offered a wide variety of creative, indignant complaints. From the luxury afforded by Harf’s spaceliner, his family generally considered the frontier experience an exotic adventure, while his servant staff merely considered it all a pain under the tail.

  That pain became even more pronounced when preparing N’raal for the bonding ceremony itself became a trial — the bride emphatically refused to cooperate to even the slightest degree. Four large Raknaa females had to be brought in from a mining site on the opposite side of the planet just to get her bathed and dressed properly. Getting N’raal to the makeshift Dolrak temple was another exercise in wriggling-body handling, as care had to be taken as to not soil or wrinkle her magnificent golden bonding dress.

  Solemn Dolrak priestesses intoned the traditional chants imploring Dol to bless the bonding with long life (in a war zone, debatable), prosperity (as Drix was a Region-Master, a foregone conclusion), happiness (with N’raal involved, probably impossible) and many healthy cubs (again, with N’raal involved, highly unlikely). N’raal was being held firmly in place by ankle shackles, with a massive Raknaa guard holding to each arm. A cloth had been wadded and stuck between her teeth, as she emphatically insisted on screeching and screaming for her release whenever it was removed.

  Drix answered in the affirmative when the Dolrak priestess officiating th
e ceremony asked if he accepted N’raal as his mate… yada, yada, yada. When N’raal was asked if she accepted Drix as her mate, the gag was removed from between her teeth, and N’raal spat threads and shouted, “I certainly do NOT! Someone help… mpf.”

  N’raal’s father, standing beside her answered cheerfully in her stead, “She does,” after the gag had been restored. The normally solemn and dour Dolrak priestess officiating gave a hint of a smile, just before she declared Drix and N’raal mates for life.

  N’raal, for her part, wriggled even harder and did her best to scream indignities around the gag. Later, N’raal’s continued vexatious behavior required that she spend the majority of her bonding ceremony feast locked in her room, as to avoid having everyone else’s day ruined as well. So with half of the newly bonded couple missing, Drix and Harf officiated at the modest affair, which constituted the largest celebration yet seen in this region of space.

  * * * *

  It had taken all four of the big Raknaa females to hold N’raal down, while Drix personally put a collar, taken off of a watch-beast, around her neck. The collar had been fitted with a radio transmitter and a locking mechanism, ensuring that she couldn’t take it off unassisted. N’raal spat an amazing number of vilifying invectives at Drix during her collaring, several of which brought Drix’ parentage into serious question.

  When he finished attaching the collar, Drix signaled to the Raknaa that they could release N’raal and they scurried from the room to avoid her next verbal assault. N’raal took a moment to run to the mirror and examine the collar around her neck before she rounded on Drix.

  “A watch-beast collar?” she shrieked indignantly. “You put an animal collar on me? HOW DARE YOU?”

  “As long as you insist on acting like an animal, then I will treat you like one,” Drix assured her. “When and if, you can begin behaving like a civilized Rak female, then you’ll be treated accordingly.”

  “Agh! I HATE you,” screamed a thoroughly indignant N’raal.

  “With the collar on, at least you’ll be free to leave your room,” answered Drix civilly. “The radio transmitter embedded in it will enable us to find you when you try escaping into the forest… I really wouldn’t suggest that you do that, though. There isn’t another Rak facility within a hundred-thousand body-lengths from here, and there are some relatively large and dangerous indigenous predators out there, who might find a tender Raknii female delicious.”

  Amazingly, N’raal found herself all out of poisonous words, so she just spat at Drix’ retreating back as he turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind him. N’raal sulked on her bed for several turns before finally adventuring out of her former prison in search of food. Obviously the monster her father had shamelessly given her to, had left instructions for the servants to cease bringing meals to her room. She’d already tried refusing to eat, but frustratingly that tactic seemed to have no effect whatsoever on her captor, and just made her belly hurt. N’raal finally admitted to herself that she really had few options if she wanted to survive and cursed her feminine weaknesses in finding herself lacking the personal will and physical discipline to sustain her hunger-strike. Even if she had, evidently he was content to let her starve, if that was truly what she wished.

  N’raal felt the beginnings of despair encroaching upon her, as she found herself thwarted at every turn. Her family had totally abandoned her here, leaving her at the mercy of this… this damned alpha that her father had inexplicably given her to. Her father had disposed of her — sold her like a herd-beast at market. She’d never heard tell of any other bonding ceremony, where the bride was trussed, gagged and bonded totally against her will. Of course, she never considered that, in all of recorded history, there’d never quite been another Raknii female in such blatant, open rebellion against a bonding arranged by her family.

  Almost all bondings were arranged among her people. Few, if any, really had any personal say in the selecting of their bond-mate. It was merely the way of her people. Her family had technically done nothing wrong in arranging a bonding for her… except in NOT asking for her opinion beforehand, and then not heeding her wishes afterwards.

  What was it that possessed my father to actually do something like this to me?

  N’raal had always been able to browbeat her family in general, and her father in particular, into always giving her, her own way. What had changed so suddenly and turned her life upside-down?

  Drix! It was that damned alpha!

  The monster himself hadn’t even given her the satisfaction of returning her taunts. He remained frustratingly polite and respectful — whenever he wasn’t actively laying down the law to her. Even when he was, he remained so maddeningly civil about the whole thing. He was just so damned matter-of-fact about it all. N’raal had never been dominated by anyone before, and she didn’t like the feeling, even a little bit. Dealing with Drix felt like pounding her head against a piece of sheet steel. He was just so incredibly… unbending. Damn him!

  Another source of despair for N’raal was the fact that her family had left her behind when they returned home, and now she was totally alone. For the first time in her life, she was all alone and horribly frightened. Her damnable heat-cycle was almost upon her, and she was horrified at the prospect of her body preparing itself to be penetrated by a male’s… thing. The prospect of her hormones compelling her to lay forward with her tail up, with her naked sex exposed and presented for a male’s pleasure terrified her.

  The whole prospect of being mounted and penetrated by a male had always petrified N’raal. The very idea of a male’s long, thick sex organ thrusting in and out of her body, both disgusted and frightened her. She knew that it just had to be excruciatingly painful. She didn’t care what kind of lies the females in her father’s household had told her… she knew better. And soon, when her heat reached full potency and she could no longer hide the scent of her condition any longer, Drix would come for her. Large, powerful, unbending Drix would come for her, and he would take what he wanted from her… and she was powerless to stop him. N’raal hated feeling helpless most of all.

  * * * *

  Even N’raal eventually found herself exhausted from the energy expenditure of maintaining such a high levels of caustic truculence, and she retreated into caustic silence instead. She found herself wandering listlessly, exploring the compound she found herself abandoned in. Others were respectful and tried on occasion to be helpful, only to be met with a silent glare that spoke louder than a shout. Fortunately, she saw little of Drix, who was off somewhere, running his little war, supervising his region or whatever else it was that occupied his time. For that she was grateful… she’d be seeing quite too much of Drix, soon enough. Her time was approaching, however much she might wish it otherwise.

  One day while she was wandering through the kitchen area, she found hope — hope in the form of a slim, deadly fang-blade someone had carelessly left lying on a counter. N’raal’s eyes widened when she first spied the blade and she meandered towards it without altering her pace, hoping to avoid drawing notice to her movements or her intentions. When she reached the counter, she slowly turned and faced away from the blade, searching for anyone who might be watching her. When satisfied she was unobserved, N’raal slowly reached behind her and finding the handle, reversed the blade where it lay against the inside of her arm as she brought her arm down, hiding the fang-blade between her arm and body. With her heart in her throat and her pulse racing, N’raal forced herself to appear calm and she slowly walked out of the kitchen with the blade still hidden against her body.

  When she got outside, she slowly drifted towards the edge of the forest and, finally concealed from view and hidden amongst the closest layer of trees, N’raal brought the fang-blade up and examined it closely. Long and thin with a very sharp, pointed blade, N’raal stabbed an adjacent tree, to test its strength.

  This will do… This will do nicely.

  Satisfied, N’raal slipped the fang-blade down i
nto her bodice and proceeded directly towards her room, where she could hide her newly found treasure. For the first time in sub-cycles, N’raal felt the beginnings of a smile coming on.

  When that monster tries to stick his… his thing in me, he’ll find himself the one being stabbed, instead.

  END