by Maven, Ella
By the time I came back into my own body, my face was wet with tears and my limbs were floppy noodles. Nero was smiling down at me, his face shiny as his long tongue licked down to his chin and up over his nose like he wanted to capture every last essence of me.
“My cora,” he nuzzled into my neck and I felt the hard throb of his cock along my sensitive flesh. “You come so beautifully.” He lapped away my tears, which nearly made me cry again, and massaged my shoulders until feeling returned to my wrung-out body.
“May I have you?” He nipped at my ear.
“You already do,” I murmured as he breached me with the broad head of his cock. I shifted at the intrusion because he was huge with a pierced ring through the tip. But I was also soaked, and with one little roll of my hips, he slipped inside further.
His head fell forward on a groan, and I didn’t miss the shudder that ran down his spine. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, and pressed him to my chest, loving the way his velvety scales felt against my sensitive nipples. “Take me, Nero,” I whispered.
He plunged his hips forward until I felt his groin meet mine. His cock filled me with the most delicious feeling, like he was plugging all my cracks and imperfections, like together we made something whole.
He thrust into me with a rhythm I knew would live in my head for the rest of my life. All the while, he cradled my head with the back of his hand as he pressed my face into his neck.
I couldn’t think of anything but his delicious weight on top of me and his girth filling me repeatedly. When his subcock—that delicious node above his cock—latched onto my clit and sucked, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I came again, squeezing him tight until he too came on a long, breathy moan. His cock pulsed inside me, and I relished the tremble of his body as he let himself go.
He rolled us onto our sides, but remained inside my body, his cock jerking a few times as my inner walls continued to ripple. I wasn’t sure if I was still coming or experiencing another mini-orgasm. All I knew was that I didn’t want this to end. I dozed off with Nero’s fingers steadily combing through my hair and three words on my lips that meant more to me than he’d ever know.
Ten
Nero
Everything about my mate was amazing, from her hair to her pert nipples to her small feet and tiny toes. And her cunt… I’d never tasted anything like it. I could have made a home between her thighs, and even now I resisted drifting down her body, but only because she was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her. I’d worn her out, and her cheeks were still flushed from pleasure.
For a female who previously maintained a distance between her and everyone else—both physically and mentally—in sleep she clung to me. One hand curled around my waist while the other clutched my shoulders. Her breath coasted across my chest in little puffs of air. The lantern light flickered across her bare back, and I admired the way her spine curved down to the top of her perfect ass.
I never doubted my instincts, and I’d been right about Justine and I being right for each other. Fatas had blessed us. The way she’d responded to my confession about my failed promise to my mother only confirmed what I’d always known about her—she was smart, perceptive, and cared fiercely for those close to her. I was honored to be considered one of them.
A soft knock at the door made me yank the furs over my naked mate just as the door swung open. I growled at the intruder, expecting Gram, but an Uldani female froze inside the door, her eyes impossibly wide in her face. It was Mags, the one who we’d met earlier. I abruptly cut off my verbal warning. Justine shifted in the furs, mumbling something before flinging the cover back and looking over her shoulder. She blinked at our visitor a few times before reaching up a fist to scrub at her eye. “Hi, Mags.”
The female didn’t move. She stood in place like a statue holding a tray. Justine sat up with the furs held at the top of her chest to cover her nakedness. “You can come in.” She glanced at me with a frown. “Did you scare her?”
“I didn’t want anyone to wake you up.”
Justine laughed with a roll of her eyes. “I’m not a princess.” She waved to Mags. “Have you got food? I could eat a horse.”
“What’s a horse?” Mags asked as she took a tentative step inside.
“It’s an animal on Earth, which is not very tasty.”
“So why could you eat it?”
“It’s an expression. I actually don’t know where the expression came from and I can’t just Google it.”
“Google?” I queried.
“I really need to stop using so many Earth terms,” Justine muttered. She reached out a hand to Mags. “Anyway, food?”
Mags nodded and placed the tray beside Justine’s legs, who immediately curled her finger around the edge and pulled it toward her. I could tell she was a little disappointed at the processed, rationed food, but plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you so much. It was wonderful to get some rest, and we really appreciate you sharing your food with us.”
Mags relaxed and returned Justine’s smile. “Gram said to please join us in the common room when you’re finished.”
“Will do.” Justine shoved a meal bar in her mouth. Her throat bobbed and she placed a fist to her lips. Her eyes bulged and she shot me a panicked look.
Mags immediately grew concerned. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” I said. “Please leave us.”
Mags let out a little squeak and scurried off without another word, shutting the door behind her.
Justine gagged a few times before finally swallowing. “That was rude.”
“It would have been ruder to do that in front of her.”
Grimacing, she sagged her shoulders. “I know. Fuck. I appreciate their offer to feed us, but this is terrible.”
“I imagine the elites and royalty don’t eat this.”
“It tastes like what I imagine a twenty-year-old protein bar would taste like.” She gulped down some qua and wiped her mouth.
“I’ll eat this,” I gestured to the tray. “You eat the food we brought.”
“That’s not fair to you.”
I raised a brow and I responded by shoving a whole meal bar into my mouth, chewing a few times, and swallowing. I stuck out my tongue, curling it under my chin to show her the food was now in my stomach. She shook her head with a smile. “Okay, you win.”
After eating, we both used the cleanser. Afterward, I pulled on my pants while Justine sat cross-legged on the bed already dressed. “Do you have to comm with Daz?”
I shook my head. “Can’t risk it. We normally comm using the old towers, but in here, I can’t avoid the satellite picking up our communication. The Uldani are likely monitoring it closer now. He knows this mission could take anywhere from one to many rotations. They are on standby until they hear from me.”
“How would they know if we fail?”
I turned at the hesitation in her voice. “They’d know. The Uldani would gloat long and far if they captured us.” I leaned down and placed my palms on her knees. “We won’t fail.”
She clasped my wrists and lifted her chin up, her lips in a slight pucker. With a smile, I kissed her. I touched our foreheads. “I wish I had time to kiss you longer.”
“Nero, about last night—or earlier in the day or whatever—” she bit her lip as her big brown eyes caught mine and held. “That meant … more than I can put into words.”
“Then you don’t have to use words now. We have a lifetime for those words.” I rubbed our noses together, a gesture I was finding I enjoyed greatly. She scrunched up her face when I did it, and her eyes would sparkle. “You’re my mate Justine. My other half. Did you feel that?”
Her fingers brushed my cheek. “I felt it.”
“So now we finish this mission with no regrets.”
“None,” she whispered.
“What we did in these furs, what we are to each other, no one and nothing, can take from us.”
Her chin lifted, and a cool determinatio
n passed across her face. With a definitive nod, she said, “Damn straight.”
I squeezed her thighs and straightened. “Let’s go talk to Gram and find out where the fleck the Uldani are hiding this hub.”
She cracked her knuckles and climbed to her feet. “Yeah, I’m ready to shut some shit down.”
With a laugh, I grabbed her hand and led her out the door.
* * *
In the common room, Gram sat near a small fire ladling a steaming liquid into a few mugs. There weren’t as many Uldani around now, and I wondered if they were in their rooms with their families. I couldn’t be sure, but I guessed we’d slept all day and were approaching sundown.
With a smile, he gestured to a table with two benches on either side. Justine and I shared one, while Gram sat across from us. He gestured to the mugs. “There’s some steeped taber root with a few spices the females have concocted.”
Justine leaned over her mug and sniffed. She tapped her chin before saying, “Smells like a breakfast tea.” She blew on the surface as she eyed Gram over the rim. “Thanks for the room and the rest.”
“Of course.”
I didn’t really care about this drink or the sleeping accommodations. My brothers were outside, waiting for my word to invade, and I was ready to move this mission along. As much as I appreciated what Gram was doing for us, it wasn’t acing selflessly. This benefited him too. “So, where’s the hub?” I asked. “It used to be under the main building. We broke in and found the room, but it was empty, which made no sense. I could find the signal. It was coming from there.”
“Sure, it was coming from that location, but just not underground.”
I frowned at him as his hand slowly lifted until he pointed one finger straight up. “It’s there.”
I frowned “We looked on the ground—”
“No, not on the ground,” Gram corrected me. “Higher.”
Justine’s mug plunked on the ground as she let out a short gasp. “It’s in a pod.”
Gram grinned at her. “You’re right, human.”
“A pod?” I asked. “When did they move it?”
“About the same time you stole your cruiser back.”
I only just kept myself from reacting. I was getting tired of surprises. “How did you know about that?”
“I know most of what happens, including as soon as you opened those gates. I have eyes and ears everywhere. The current of discontent runs deep in this city. We don’t have a lot now, but I envision a day where we live aboveground without walls. I want to be able to protect ourselves without requiring someone like you or the Kulks to provide our defense. Or, if we do, it’ll be a contract, not servitude.”
“We were supposedly under contract too.” I growled.
Gram swallowed and his gaze shifted to the side and down. “Yes, but you were forced into it.”
For a moment, anger clouded my vision. Justine must have sensed the change in my mood because she leaned against me and slipped her fingers in mine. Aided by her calming presence, I found the strength to ask carefully, “What do you know about the virus?”
For the first time since we met, fear leeched into Gram’s features. “I have my suspicions, as I suspect you do. I know where to find answers, and I’ll get them for you after we are victorious.”
I wasn’t sure I believed he didn’t know, but I needed him as much as he needed me right now, so I didn’t press. “We also want to know what was done to our warriors and where they were sold.”
He nodded. “I can get you all that information.”
“You get us to that hub safely and give us everything we want to know, and we’ll defeat the elite and let you live in peace.”
Gram smiled again; his fear gone. “We have a few more yoras until sundown. This won’t be easy, but we can get you into that hub.”
I leaned forward with my hands clasped between my knees. “I’m listening.”
* * *
Justine
Heights were not my thing. Apparently, Gar shared my distaste of leaving solid ground. The few times I’d flown on Earth, I’d required copious amounts of vodka and Disney songs blasted in my ears.
I didn’t ride roller coasters, and only just tolerated the hover bikes. Luckily, I’d been knocked out nearly the entire way to this galaxy on that damn spaceship, or I would have been a basket case.
So as Nero and I stood in that warehouse room while we waited for our hover vehicle ride to take us over three hundred feet in the air, I thought I was going to pass out. I wouldn’t, because I had pride, but that didn’t stop me from heavily leaning against Nero as my heartbeat against my chest like an angry ape.
Gram had detailed his plan to us, and now the sun was setting. As soon as the sky darkened, we’d hop into a waiting hover car which was posing as a Kulk patrol vehicle driven by an Uldani. Gram assured us we wouldn’t be shot out of the sky, but that didn’t stop me from picturing my demise as a fireball in the sky over Alazar.
Nero stood stoic, staring at the door while Gram and a few of his Uldani men waited with us. They were as tense as us, which drove the point home that this was serious for them too. Which was … great.
Simply great.
Not only were the lives of the Drix and my friends on my conscience, but now these Uldani lives were too, like Mags and the little ones I’d seen underground. I was confident in what Nero and I had to do, but we’d already found that so very many things could go wrong. What if we got up there and everything was in, like some foreign alien language Nero didn’t know?
Crap, I was sweating. I could feel it gathering in my armpits, that nervous sweat that smelled. The Drixonians didn’t sweat. Instead, their scales lifted slightly like little vents to cool their core temperature. I found that a pretty genius design. Whoever was in charge of human design on temperature control day did a shitty job.
Part of me wanted to turn around and go back underground to hide away in the furs with Nero. Just live there with these Uldani, even if I had to eat crappy meal bars for the rest of my life. When we’d been secluded in our little room, I’d been able to forget for a little while about this important mission hanging over our heads. I’d been able to pretend Nero and I had a future that wasn’t full of land mines.
That was just my luck though. When Nero finally broke through my walls and I welcomed him with open arms, we were being suited up and sent off to war. But I couldn’t focus on regrets. Maybe the timing was terrible, but it was the time that had worked for us. I wouldn’t have been receptive to Nero if he’d pushed me sooner. I needed the time, and the control in my own life before I could see everything that Nero was offering. And it was a hell of a lot—love, a future, maybe even little babies. I flattened my hand on my stomach and let myself pretend we’d made a little one in those furs.
And as soon as I let myself let that wisp of a dream enter my head, I knew I had to shut it down. It was too painful. All my life I’d taken a step at a time. I had goals, but they were always realistic. I refused to dream of things that seemed too far out of reach. And right now, a future with Nero was a fairy tale complete with flying pigs and magical unicorns.
Nero stepped closer to me. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I answered, even though there was so much more I wanted to say. I couldn’t vocalize my hopes and dreams for us. I had no regrets, but imagining our future right now caused too much pain. I couldn’t handle what I really wanted being taken away, so I couldn’t let myself go there. I dropped my hand from my stomach and shook my head. “Foolish, Justine,” I whispered to myself.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I clenched my teeth so hard, my jaw ached.
“What’s wrong?” He was a dog with a bone.
“I have to focus on what we have to do. I can’t think of anything else.”
He was quiet for a long time while an Uldani near us peered through a small crack in the boards of the warehouse walls. “That’s where we differ,” he said quietly. “I imagine what I
want because it fuels me and gives me purpose. I think about my brothers happy on Corin and taking you to see devas shrines with our chit in my arms. I think about Gram and his Uldani followers living happily off the land without walls. I picture that, and I remember why I do what I do.”
Tears threatened and I blinked them back. Pain lanced through my heart. “Well that’s great for you, but I’m not strong enough to do that.”
“You are,” he said quietly. “You’re just afraid of the pain.”
I bristled. “Nero—”
“Vehicle is on its way,” Gram announced.
We both fell silent, but I could feel Nero nearly vibrating next to me. His jaw was hard, and I wasn’t much better. My stomach churned as I sought not to throw up the precious calories I’d consumed before we left the safety of the underground.
I forced everything out of my mind in a way I’d done many times in the past. Compartmentalizing was how I’d survived this long, and I’d be damned if my emotions got the best of me now.
Gram placed his three-fingered hand on the doorknob and glanced over this shoulder at us just as the steady whirring of a vehicle could be heard down the alley outside the wall.
Nero gave him a brief nod, Gram threw the door open, then we were in motion. Nero gripped my hand and pulled me along at his side as he slipped outside into the waiting open door of a vehicle. An Uldani sat behind the wheel watching us with narrowed eyes. As soon as my butt hit the seat, Nero pushed my head down and settled his bulk over me. I squirmed to bend my body into a more comfortable position just as the door to the car slammed and we were in motion.
