Defying the General

by Maddie Taylor

  “That was before teasing me on the shuttle and ignoring my order to go easy just now.”

  Her face jerked back from his neck and she eyed him suspiciously. “Why do I get the feeling we’re not talking about sex?”

  “Because we aren’t.”

  Her jaw dropped. “You mean you’d spank me? After I... On my knees... And then I... You have got to be kidding!”

  He was hard-pressed to keep from laughing as she stammered in outrage.

  “As you proved so beautifully from your knees, joining isn’t necessary to give pleasure, and spankings don’t always necessitate pain.”

  She had no reply to this at all, only gaped at him.

  “Do you recall the many times I’ve asked you to trust me, mate?”

  Her response was to nod slowly.

  “Good, the time to do so is now. After I warm your backside, be prepared to do some sweating, shuddering, and coming apart of your own, several times over.” At the top of the stairs, he turned left, moving quickly toward the door at the end of the corridor while he explained the rest of his plans for her. “I won’t come into you, not until later, but I will taste your sweet nectar again and with all those promises to keep, will likely feast on you until I’m glutted.”

  She hid her face in his neck once more and wondered aloud, “Has anyone ever expired from too many orgasms?”

  “No, and since we have all day, and me not having duties for five more, I intend to prove it.”

  “Mercy,” she half breathed, half moaned.

  He increased his pace, eager to hear the same sounds with the taste of her filling his mouth as he sank his tongue into her sweet pussy.

  MUCH LATER, AT LEAST four screaming climaxes later for Lana and one more for Trask, they moved to the back patio and lay entwined on a thickly padded lounger, watching the sunset over Ariad. At least he was. She was still, curled into his side, her cheek on his chest, and from her silence, and the steady rise and fall of her chest, he suspected his mate had nodded off.

  Lightly, so as not to disturb her, he moved his hand from where he had it draped around her waist to the curve of her bottom. He could feel the slight warmth through the thin cloth of her dress and recalled the lovely rosy color of her skin when he spanked her. Not hard, with no intention to punish, only to please. As promised, he’d taken her over his lap and applied the flat of his hand to her round cheeks. In between light smacks, he’d rubbed and squeezed, and gently glided his fingers into the haven between her thighs—she’d been drenched—and came to climax soon after, beautifully and loudly.

  He’d used his mouth to bring her to completion twice more. Then, in something she called a ‘69’, she’d crawled on top, and while she worked his cock with her hands, lips, and tongue, he’d buried his face between her thighs and brought her to climax number four, which coincided with the second release she gave him.

  He angled his chin enough to kiss the soft, fragrant hair on top of her head and sighed with deep satisfaction. Was there ever a warrior quite so lucky as him? In a matter of days, she’d gone from a frightened yet defiant captive, to a warm, willing, wonderfully wanton woman. His woman.

  He hoped the others, Kerr with his troublesome Prima, and Ram, challenged more so than any of them with his strong-minded female warrior, were having half the success he was with their mate-bonding.

  “Brother dear, are you home?”

  The familiar greeting wafting through the open doorway made him close his eyes and wish his visitor away. He loved his sister, but Adria’s timing was deplorable.

  “Trask, why was there a dress on the floor in your entryway?”

  Her voice grew louder, and he could hear her footsteps on the tile floor as she approached. He wore only his trousers, put on as an afterthought once he’d given Lana one of his shirts to wear before carrying her outside. Otherwise, they’d be giving his sister a naked eyeful.

  She’d learn after today not to enter his home unannounced. Before his mate’s arrival, he wouldn’t have cared, but now, she could find them in any unclothed state, in any room, doing anything. The recent scene in the entryway came to mind, which would have shocked his unmated sibling to her toes.

  “Oh, I, um...didn’t expect you’d have, uh...company,” Adria stammered from the doorway, clearly startled to find him lounging with a strange woman in his arms.

  His people weren’t prudes by any means, but they were discreet. Liaisons between unmatched males and females occurred but never where someone could walk in and find them in a compromising state. But this was his private home, and he had every intention of enjoying it with his mate, so he didn't attempt to move.

  “I’ll just, um...go.” Her voice had risen to a high-pitched squeak, and she whirled to flee.

  “Wait,” he called, stopping her but also waking Lana. Damn.

  “What’s going on?” she asked drowsily.

  “We have company, mate.”

  “Mate?” Adria exclaimed. “Oh, Trask, I’d heard the news, but never dreamed you were one of the fortunate warriors.”

  “Come meet Lana,” he encouraged, as he sat up, helping his slightly disoriented, still half-asleep woman to do so as well.

  “She’s lovely,” his sister cooed excitedly. “But so small. Even I will top her by several inches. And that golden hair. What color are her eyes—” Lana glanced her way stopping her rush of words. “Oh, Trask, they are yours. She has transformed already. How exciting!”

  “There is no need to talk around her; she has a translator.”

  Next to him, his mate commented in a voice still husky from sleep, “Thank you. I was wondering if it would be rude of me to break in and mention that myself.”

  Sounds of sobbing had them both staring at the young woman weeping in the doorway. Trask indulgently, because his sister tended to be emotional, and Lana in horror.

  “I’m sorry. I meant no offense by my remark, and certainly didn’t intend to make you cry.” She scrambled out of his arms and to her feet. “Trask! Do something.”

  “No!” Adria cried. “I’m being silly; it’s only we didn’t think this day would ever come, not really.”

  Clearly, at a loss over what to do when confronted with a crying female—something he could relate to quite well—Lana rushed forward and pulled his sister into her arms. “There, there,” she murmured while aiming a glare at him for some reason.

  He held up his hands defensively. She’d been the cause of it, not him. Suddenly the entire situation struck him as funny, and he made the mistake of chuckling.

  “Don’t laugh! She’s upset. Goodness gracious, Trask. Get some Kleenex, or pour her a Jack and Seven, but don’t just sit there laughing.”

  He didn’t have a clue what she was asking him to do, and this only made him laugh harder.

  By this time Adria was rational again. Sniffling, with a red nose, but fully lucid. “Forgive my brother. He often finds humor in the most bizarre situations. I cry, he laughs. We gave my father fits. In this instance, however, since he is rightfully overjoyed, I don’t blame him for once.”

  “You're happy not upset about us?” Lana asked, surprise in her wide-eyed expression.

  “Oh, yes, as I’ve said we never thought to see the day our males would find mates outside of Primaria.”

  “But, I don’t understand. Won’t your females be angry if we take your men?”

  “What good are we to them?”

  Lana’s head snapped back.

  “She means for breeding, paulova,” Trask quickly explained upon seeing her reaction. “They also want very much for our species to go on.”

  “Oh, yes,” Adria replied, suddenly appalled. “I didn’t mean we weren’t valued in other ways. Most of my generation have accepted our lot, why would we blame you for helping us build a better future?”

  His mate relaxed, and he thought it best to join her. It seemed when outside forces entered their private world, things tended to go awry. Before he could get up, blink, or even breathe, h
is sister, as if on cue, held out Lana’s dress discarded in their hasty homecoming celebration in the entryway earlier.

  “This must be yours.”

  He knew as soon as she uttered the words it was another wrong move. Lana snatched it up, her face suffusing with redness, and with an accusing glare in his direction—as if he were solely responsible for her embarrassment—dashed inside the house.

  “Whatever did I say to upset her?” Adria asked while staring after her, appearing utterly baffled.

  “It was the dress. These humans seem determined to keep what goes on between males and females private, like no one knows what they do while they’re alone. It’s quite amusing, actually.”

  “She didn’t appear amused. Should you go after her?”

  “I had planned to.” He rose with a heavy sigh, sorry the little interlude on the patio hadn’t ended as he would have liked.

  “I’ll leave you, then. It’s your bonding time. Though let me know when you’re done breaching a dozen times a day. I’d like to get to know my new sister.”

  “I’ll do that, little star. I was hoping you and Lana would be friends. But don’t mention breaching, and for the Maker’s sake, don’t infer how many times a day we do it. It’s another prickly spot for her.”

  “Huh, they have some peculiarities, don't they? She is stunning, though, Trask, and her name, just as lovely.”

  “I have indeed been blessed.”

  Adria clasped her hand around his, squeezing tight. Tears shimmered in eyes identical to his own when she whispered, “For which I am grateful. I’ll let myself out and promise not to pop in anymore.”

  “A little warning would be appreciated.”

  A light blush painted her cheeks. Then, with her usual youthful exuberance, Adria smiled, waved, and practically bounced out the door calling out, “A sister! How very exciting.”

  HE MANAGED TO SOOTHE Lana’s mortification over his sister’s discovery, and no other visitors interrupted them for the four bliss-filled days which followed. By the end of their bonding time, she felt more at ease with him but not enough to walk naked in front of him from the bathing room to the bed without her face flaming bright red. It still made no sense to him because she lost all her shyness when the passion darkened her eyes and her arousal took control.

  Trask didn’t leave her side, doing everything together, including exploring their bathing pool which was bigger than the one she fell in rapture with on the Reliant. On day five, the morning of the formal dinner, he had to leave her briefly for a meeting at the capital center with his Princep and the elders.

  “Krager’s mate is breeding,” Kerr told him without preamble while joining him on the footsteps of the capital center. No greeting or hesitation, he simply blurted it out while sporting a broad grin.

  “But it has only been eight days. How can they know so soon?”

  “She has been ill every morning since their arrival and he was understandably concerned. He took her to the clinic for evaluation. At first, they thought it might be an adjustment illness, a reaction to something in the environment or the food, but the tests were all negative. Jarlan had a hunch, and it panned out.”

  “This is good news,” Trask replied with a broad smile of his own.

  “The best.”

  Although all the tests confirmed their compatibility, successful breeding between two species often had unknown variables. Where they had been optimistic before, now they had solid proof it was possible. Little wonder the Princep was grinning as though he were the father-to-be.

  “What of Eva?”

  His enthusiasm diminished the smallest bit as he shook his head. “How about your Lana, any dizziness, nausea, tenderness of the breasts? With human females, these are early signs, I’m told.”

  “Not that I’ve seen or that she’s mentioned.” He shot his Princep a questioning glance, unable to deny the worry nagging at him for some time. “Your mate hasn’t transformed but experienced the breaching fire; mine was the opposite. Neither are breeding yet. Should we be concerned?”

  “It is early yet, as you said. If you have doubts, see Jarlan.”

  “I don’t want to worry her if there isn’t cause to.”

  “He wants to follow them closely. Only yesterday he told me to bring Eva by for routine testing. And he plans to do the same with the others.”

  This could work. It would allay his concerns and Lana never need know he had them.

  Kerr slapped him on the back. “Our day will come, my friend. Until then”—he paused, heaved a sigh, and shook his head sadly—“we’ll merely have to do our duty as warriors and keep trying, morning, noon, and night, if need be, until it takes.”

  As a slow grin broke across his friend’s face, Trask’s loud burst of laughter turned heads. Put at ease, for now, and with a plan to get answers, he walked up the steps and entered the capital center at his leader’s side.

  Despite a lengthy often volatile meeting on how to move forward now that the Dauntless had returned, its mission successful, with 292 more human females on board, Trask tried to focus, but thoughts of his mate kept intruding.

  She’d felt guilty about the eight of them unable to carry on with their mission. How would she react to this news, and the fact he had known for days and hadn’t told her?

  DINNER WITH THE PRINCEP was once again an uncomfortable affair. Lana was happy to see her shipmates, but also shocked, a few she barely recognized. Dayna and Varta now had lavender eyes, Brenna’s previously fair complexion glowed with the same golden hue as her mates, like she’d spent a month at the beach. Mailynn’s red hair had broad streaks of midnight black that she’d have paid a fortune to get at a salon back home, and Thora, with the most startling change of all, arrived with a full head of jet-black locks without a strand of the silvery-white blonde she used to have in sight.

  Only two of them showed no outward signs that a change had occurred.

  Eva once again sat beside the intimidating Princep. She appeared more subdued than before until Eryn walked in with her mate. When they stood before Max Kerr, instead of accepting his felicitations, the security chief confronted her fellow officer. Lana had already moved down the row with Trask, so she didn’t hear everything clearly, but one word rung out like a photon blast—traitor. Eva couldn’t have looked more stricken if Eryn had slapped her. Then something more horrifying had occurred and reminded her this race of people who had claimed them, had a long way to go before being civilized.

  Trask had moved closer and taken her hand, squeezing it in warning, as he whispered, “Not a word,” in her ear.

  She didn’t have any trouble obeying his order, not speaking at all that she could remember, not to her shipmates, or to any of the elders, who thankfully hadn’t addressed her. She didn’t dare look at them in fear they might ask a question. She’d kept her eyes down through the introductions, not looking beyond their white robes, gripping Trask’s hand tight as he led her passed the row of a dozen men seated at the main table. When he took her to their seats, she was surprised it was at Max Kerr's right hand. But where else would the supreme military commander sit? It drove home for her how high Trask ranked in Primaria’s upper echelon.

  Lana hadn’t eaten a bite, afraid it would come right back up, and the time crept by, making what was supposed to be a celebration, seem more like torture. Once home, where she wasn’t on display and Trask allowed her to speak her mind, she took advantage of it.

  As soon as the doors to his residence closed behind them, she whirled to confront him. “She was wearing a collar, Trask. Oh my God!”

  With a grim expression, he gazed down at her, and didn’t deny the awful truth. “The vocal silencer is an extreme disciplinary measure, I agree, but I’ve never seen Ram so harried. Things aren’t going well between them, as you predicted. Her behavior has pushed him to such measures, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re actually excusing his behavior by blaming it on her? I cannot believe you?”

  “Calm down,
mate.”

  “How can I? It was awful, barbaric, cruel.” Her voice shook when she asked her next question. “Is that what I can expect if I get out of line?”

  His face visibly tensed, and his eyes darkened nearly to black before he bit out, “What have I done to make you think I would treat you that way?”

  She stared at him silently for several beats before tears flooded her eyes and she whispered, “Nothing.”

  He reached out, caught her wrist, and hauled her across the few feet separating them, pulling her into a tight embrace, which Lana returned. She slipped her arms around him, and buried her face in his chest, glad to be home, alone with him, where everything seemed right, and the world around them faded away.

  “Please say we don’t have to go to any more of those horrible dinners.”

  “I wish I could, Lana, but if I’m expected to go, you know I will have to do my duty. As my mate, you will be at my side.” One hand curved around the back of her neck, and he kissed the top of her head, his lips against her hair when he added, “These formal occasions don’t happen often, and from Kerr’s annoyed expression at the end of it, I suspect they will become rare.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Don’t think we can hide away at home forever, beautiful.”

  “Why not? Haven’t you noticed, every time we interact with others, something happens? Here, with just the two of us, it’s—”

  “A safe haven.”

  “Yes.”

  “It has only been a little over a week. A year from now we’ll look back on this time and laugh.”

  “I hope you’re right, but that’s a long way away.” She tipped her head back. “Can we go to a mountain retreat somewhere, for, say...a year? Or the beach? Imagine a warm and sunny private spot where we can wear practically nothing, swim in the ocean together, and lay in the sun—um, suns. Sheesh, I’ll never get used to having two.”

  The tension left his face, though his smile didn’t come as easy as it had these past few days. “Wearing practically nothing with you anywhere sounds idyllic, mate, but you must know running away isn’t possible.”