by Juno Wells
It was the first time they’d all come together, and Hannah hadn’t been prepared for how overwhelming it was. She didn’t know if that was just the experience of having three men at once, or whether the fact they were her mates was what sent it over the edge to almost being too much to bear.
Her inch of her body seemed to buzz with ecstasy; her mind was completely at ease. Everything slotted together and all she could think was that she never wanted this to end.
It wasn’t her body holding her brain captive, it was her body giving her brain the gift of euphoria, of complete serenity.
When her orgasm snuck up on her, it started a chain reaction. She moaned onto Wraxic’s cock as her muscles spasmed, and he tried to pull her away as he came. She took him all, swallowing his seed.
Veiko came, too, holding her hips tight enough to bruise them, his cock as deep inside her as it would go.
She hurried to replace her hand with her mouth on Aavik’s shaft as he came, too.
Then, she slumped forward, rolling over to her back. “Wow,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “The fact we weren’t doing that earlier is a travesty.”
21 VEIKO
Veiko sat with Hannah’s feet in his lap, stroking them. Every now and then his fingers brushed an area that made her wriggle and giggle. He kept going back to those areas on purpose.
Wraxic and Aavik were either side of her, running their fingers over her bare stomach.
Slowly the euphoria of their first time together was fading, though, and the reality sinking back in.
“What did the king want?” Veiko finally asked, because he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Hannah looked around, as though the room might have a listening to device in, and then said, “He wanted to threaten me.”
“I’m sorry?” Aavik said, sitting up. “He threatened you?” His jaw was tight, and Veiko thought he would have gone and challenged the king directly if Wraxic and Veiko weren’t there to make him see sense.
“He threatened to hurt people on Earth if I told you about the conversation I overheard. So, I guess he doesn’t know it’s already too late for that, at least.”
Veiko ran one hand through his hair, unwilling to take both of her feet. “Shit,” he said eventually. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Shit, indeed.”
Wraxic was shaking his head, and Veiko struggled to keep in temper in check.
“Are you serious?” he asked Wraxic. “Can you really not put everything that’s happened together and reach the obvious conclusion?”
“I just—” he stopped himself. “He’s the king,” he said eventually. “He’s our leader, and you’re willing to just believe that he’s corrupt.”
“There’s evidence,” Veiko said. “There is so much evidence.”
“It’s not that simple. What did the king actually say to you?”
Hannah told them everything that the king had said. Veiko’s anger got hotter.
“The fucking nerve,” he hissed, grip tightening on her foot before he realized he would hurt her if he kept it like that. “We have to do something about this.”
“No we don’t,” Hannah said. “We have to forget about it. He has the power to destroy my entire planet. I can’t just risk that. You know I can’t.”
“He’s ruining our planet,” Aavik said.
“This is your planet too,” Veiko said. “Vaher is your home.”
“He could kill so many people,” she whispered.
“I can’t believe you’re even considering that the king would do something like that.” Wraxic finally got out of bed so he could start pacing, leaving Hannah’s left side bare. “Maybe he is mining beneath the temple, but to think he’d kill people to keep it secret?”
“You know that he’d be out of power in a second if everyone found out about it,” Veiko said. “He might not even survive. He’s probably willing to do anything.”
“So that’s what we should do?” Hannah said. “We should just tell the people what he’s up to and let them sort it out themselves? Rile the angry mob?”
“That would end up in chaos,” Aavik replied, drumming his fingers against her ribs. “We at least need some kind of plan before we just let people loose on the king. And he obviously has some people on his side. He can’t be doing all of this on his own.”
“And he took money from that Hystian guy. He said if he didn’t get the goods then there would be trouble.”
Veiko buried his face in his hands, shutting his eyes and trying to run through all the possibilities.
He held his tongue on saying, “We’re fucked.” He was supposed to be the leader. He couldn’t show weakness.
But his mate was right there in front of him and if he caused political upheaval like that of course she would be in danger. Within days of the first human arriving on Vaher, her mates were planning to overthrow the king.
People wouldn’t dismiss the connection. Those who already distrusted humans would feel like their suspicions had been confirmed.
Just like Veiko had when Hannah had first told him what she’d overheard the king saying.
“We can’t let the king keep doing this,” was all Veiko could confidently say. “It has to be stopped.”
“We can’t just ask him to stop. He’s not rational. He’s threatened Hannah,” Aavik argued. He curled Hannah further and further into his side with every minute that passed, as if certain she was about to be ripped away from him.
“He wouldn’t actually follow through on it,” Wraxic said. They’d all been ignoring where he was pacing at the side of the bed. “He thought he could stop the problem at source and get away with what he was doing. He’s not actually going to hurt humans.”
“You’re giving him a lot of leeway,” Aavik said.
“You’re giving him no faith at all!” Wraxic snapped. “I can’t deal with this right now. I’m going to get some air.”
The disappeared before anyone could stop him.
Hannah sighed. “I feel awful.”
“It’s not your fault.” Aavik ran hands through her hair. “He’s upset right now, but we’d all rather know about it now before we’ve sold all of our heritage to the Hystian.”
Veiko came to lay beside Hannah on the bed and curled into her side. “We’ll think of something,” he said, sounding a thousand times more confident than he felt. “Overthrowing the king is the easy part. Doing it without sending the planet into chaos is the part I’m struggling with.”
“The way to avoid chaos is to put in a new leader straight away, isn’t it?” she said. “Then people stay orderly because there’s no instability.”
“Who are we going to have as a leader though?” he asked, running fingers over the curves of her waist and hip.
Hannah chuckled. “I thought that would be obvious.”
“I really don’t—”
“She’s right,” Aavik said. “If someone was going to be leader, it would have to be you. The king doesn’t have any kids, and you’re the second most powerful man on the planet. You’re the one for the job.”
Veiko sat up and looked at Aavik. For once there was none of the resentment in his face about being below Veiko in the hierarchy despite his age. “That’s absurd,” he said eventually. “I’m a soldier, not a leader.”
“Who is a leader?” Aavik asked, rhetorically. “We’re all soldiers. The king would eventually find his mate, have kids, and they’d be a leader. That timeline has been cut short.”
“That doesn’t mean we can just take over,” Veiko argued. “You know it’s not that simple.”
“We,” Hannah said. “Why don’t all three of you do it?”
Veiko and Aavik looked at each other skeptically.
“That’s how we do it on Earth,” she continued. “Well, in a very loose sense. Having lots of people in power so that nothing can be done without some kind of consensus. It prevents people making decisions like mining beneath sacred temples for minerals to sell. Suppose
dly.”
Veiko drummed his fingers lightly against her ribs. “We’re going to have to find someone else,” he said eventually. “Someone who actually wants to do it.”
Hannah lifted a shoulder. “Well, I think you should probably start looking soon.”
22 WRAXIC
Wraxic stared at the double doors in front of him, breathing hard.
He hesitated for only a second before pushing them open. The king was inside, eating from a large spread of freshly cooked meats, and alone.
He obviously wasn’t expecting company, and visibly jumped at the sound of the door slamming behind Wraxic.
“Wraxic,” he barked, irritation evident.
Wraxic had never been anything except deferential to his king. He’d never dropped an honorific. Had never dared to even utter the man’s name rather than his title.
The fact he’d barged in there without knocking probably told the leader everything he needed to know.
“I need to talk to you,” Wraxic said, then bowed his head, “Your majesty.”
The king stared and then nodded, beckoning for Wraxic to take a seat at the table. “Eat as much as you like,” he said.
Wraxic had no appetite. “You threatened Hannah,” he said, baldly.
The king raised a brow. “I certainly didn’t. Did she tell you what I said?”
“I understand that you’re in a difficult position here. I don’t think for a second that you’d hurt her or anyone on Earth. But we need some kind of plan to get you out of this mess.”
The king straightened his back but didn’t stop eating. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ve seen the mining equipment beneath the temple. I know you’re selling to the Hystians. Is our financial situation really that bad?”
“The disappearance of the women has cut our workforce in half.”
“It’s cut the number of mouths we need to feed in half, too.”
“The women were responsible for the manufacturing of specialist technology. They were our biggest exports. We don’t have anything to sell anymore.”
“We don’t need to deal with outside people. We never have. We’re our own planet. That’s how it’s always been.”
“Don’t be naive,” the king said, picking up a glass and swallowing the entirety of its light green contents. Liquor. “We might not interact with other planets on a person-to-person level, but we’ve always traded. We’ve always needed to trade. We can’t make everything we need on Vaher. And now we’ve got nothing to offer to get food, medicine and technology anymore.”
Wraxic felt like he’d been slapped.
He had been naive.
“We’re an agricultural planet,” he said hopelessly. “We always have been.”
“We grow vegetables and keep animals, but it’s not enough to feed an entire planet. We can create medical technology but we need the raw materials to do it. Our planet has been mined to barrenness. Our weapons—the ones we need in case there’s a real fight, rather than sparring in the arena—they come from other planets. We can’t cope on our own.”
“But the temple—”
“The tricanite is the only bargaining chip we have left.”
“And how long before it runs out?” Wraxic hissed now, completely forgetting that he was talking to his leader. “You’ve stopped the gap bargaining with the Hystians. What about when that’s all gone?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“That’s not fucking good enough.”
The king stood up and Wraxic cowed, his position coming back to him with startling clarity. He was just the guard. He wasn’t the leader.
“So you know everything now,” the king said. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to try and work with you to figure out how to save the planet,” Wraxic said without faltering. “There has to be a solution. People have to know about this.”
“The planet was dying before the women disappeared,” the king said. “We were already down the debt-hole. This is inevitable. Vaher is going to crumble to dust.”
“No it isn’t. You can save it.”
“I am trying to save it. You’re the one here telling me I can’t mine wherever I want on my own fucking planet.”
Wraxic wanted to stand up and pace, but he’d already disrespected the king too many times. “We need a plan.”
“And who is we?”
“Me, Veiko and Aavik. We’re your personal guard. We’re here to help.” If he was being honest with himself, Wraxic was upset that the king had never approached them to feel them out about helping with his mining operation in the first place. There were obviously other Vaherians who were in on it, but his personal guard had been left completely in the dark.
“This is an executive decision,” the king said. “There’s no plan to create. This is what’s happening. Your job is to carry it out.”
“You just said the planet is dying.”
“And I’ll find a solution for that.”
He was irrational.
Wraxic had been bad, refusing to admit that the king would ever do anything disrespectful to the goddesses, but the king couldn’t even keep his arguments straight.
“Okay,” Wraxic eventually said. “Okay, your majesty. I just want you to know that if you ever need anything, that we’re here to help.”
The king looked at him long and hard and Wraxic couldn’t read a single thought. “Thank you. You’re dismissed.”
Wraxic returned to the bedroom with a deadweight in his stomach and looked at the three bodies still curled on the bed.
“I think I made a terrible mistake.”
23 HANNAH
Aavik and Veiko stiffened either side of Hannah.
“You didn’t—” Veiko started.
“I can’t believe—” Aavik hissed.
“We need to leave. Right now,” Wraxic said. “Get dressed.”
They’d just finished pulling on their clothes when guards flooded the room. “Shit,” Veiko hissed.
None of them fought. They’d decided on where they were teleporting to as they pulled on their clothes and they all disappeared together. Veiko had his arm wrapped around Hannah’s bicep and she travelled with him.
They weren’t the only ones who appeared. The guards had obviously anticipated teleportation and grabbed onto the nearest person possible. Four guards came with them.
“Get down and out of the way,” Veiko said to Hannah, shoving her away from him as he engaged with the man in front of him.
They hadn’t got any weapons on them, and Hannah watched in horror as they struggled to fight against men armed to the teeth with sharp blades and guns.
Veiko managed to get the sword from the guard he fought within seconds, and then plunged it through the man’s neck without hesitation. Blood splattered across his face and body, and he didn’t flinch.
He moved immediately to the two people Aavik was struggling to fight. He’d had a gunshot wound to his bicep that had made a crater in his arm. Hannah had never thought she was squeamish, but seeing her mate injured like that made her sick to her stomach.
Wraxic took a wound to his side before he wrestled the two daggers from his opponent and slipped them beneath his opponent’s ribcage into their heart. He did hesitate, but not long enough for it to make a difference.
They turned to her at almost the same time, bloodied and injured, and she rushed forward.
“We need to move,” Veiko said. “They’ll have telegraphed their location.”
Just as he said it, more people appeared.
Instead of communicating where they were teleporting, they all pressed hands to Veiko’s body and he made the decision of where they traveled to.
They appeared in a dark, small room. Hannah couldn’t see a thing.
She opened her mouth to ask, but Veiko pressed a finger to her lips. They must have better eyesight than she did.
They stayed deadly quiet for a few mom
ents, but there wasn’t a sound. “We can’t stay here for long,” Veiko said, “But there should be medical supplies. We can heal our wounds and then relocate to somewhere without a personal connection.”
Veiko guided her to stairs and then up a trapdoor that lead to a brightly lit room. The windows were huge and looked out over a valley with an indigo lake in the bottom.
“This place is amazing,” she said, moving to the window against her better judgment as Veiko retrieved technology to heal her mates. “Where are we?”
“My sister’s house,” Veiko said. “Before she disappeared, this is where she lived. She hadn’t found her mates. It’s been in my family for generations. We’ve always been close to the king, it got us good accommodation for our families.”
He smiled at Hannah. “This is where we’ll live, when everything settles down.”
“It’s gorgeous. The view.” She couldn’t tear herself away from it to actually look at the house.
“We can’t stay here long. They’ll check it,” Veiko said.
“Where are we going to go next?” Aavik asked. “Somewhere without a connection to any of us that won’t be visible.”
Wraxic flinched as he tended to his wounds and Veiko was helping Aavik with his.
Hannah felt completely useless.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“You can be safe,” Aavik replied, and they all voiced their agreement.
“That’s not good enough. I’m the one who’s caused all this mess in the first place. I know how to use a firearm.”
“No,” Wraxic said. “We need to find somewhere safe for you.”
“I can’t just sit back and watch you all run into danger.”
“Yes, you can,” Veiko said. “You have to. This is how it needs to be. We sort out this mess and then we start building from the ground up.”
“When my dad was training me we stayed in a small cabin on the other the mountainside near the palace,” Aavik said. “It’s got no ownership link to me, anyone can use it. We could go there.”
