Bane: Xian Warriors 3

by Abel, Regine

  With a wet, ripping sound, the membrane that closed off the path ahead of me parted in the middle, revealing the nightmarish silhouette of a Drone. At least two meters tall, it resembled a giant, black mouse spider with the upper body of a beefed-up praying mantis. Its massive mandibles snapped greedily as it eyed me. The Drone dashed forward, the clicking sound of its steps giving me cold shivers despite knowing this wasn’t real.

  Thankfully, the compulsory, intense training we had all gone through after the battle on Janaur to break free of mind traps allowed me to face this calmly. I summoned a reinforced doorway in the path of the Drone, a few meters in front of me. The bug crashed violently against it and immediately began pounding on it with relentless fury. Despite its thickness, small dents started forming wherever the creature struck it.

  Taking a deep breath, blocking out the muffled, angry screeches of the Drone for being denied its meal, I summoned another door—a simple one this time—on the face of the membrane’s wall in the corridor. As soon as it finished taking shape, I opened it. On the other side, my real body stood, eyes vacant, staring straight back at me.

  It greedily called to my soul, and I let my consciousness flow through the doorway I’d created. Regaining control of my body almost felt like my corporeal vessel had suddenly been wrapped around me like a thick blanket. I blinked repeatedly, slightly blinded by the ambient light, despite it being rather dim.

  Varnog, head slightly tilted to the side, stared at me with fascination. He made no effort to hide what I could only interpret as admiration. To my shock, behind him, the fifty or so Scelks that had been in a trance were now all standing behind him in a half-circle. They were all staring at me with the same disturbing look of a scientist examining an odd creature.

  “Impressive, little Queen,” Varnog said with his strange accent and haunting voice.

  “Don’t ever fucking do that again,” I said in a calm but stern voice. “Rule number one of the Vanguard: you do not ever violate the sanctity of someone else’s mind without their explicit consent. Ever.”

  “Noted,” Varnog said somewhat dismissively.

  My anger flared, and this time I allowed it to show. Varnog had let me off easy. He could have countered my escape attempts, making it far more difficult—if not nearly impossible—for me to break free. However, that had not been his intent; he was merely assessing my actual skills and grace under fire. But this was not a game.

  “Do not be so cavalier about it,” I hissed. “People we loved died because of those mind fucks by Scelks. The Vanguard and the Coalition are wary of your people abusing their powers to destroy us from within. Bane and his brothers were willing to sacrifice their chance at a safe and prosperous future on Khepri out of loyalty for you. What are you willing to sacrifice out of loyalty for them?”

  Instead of getting upset or taking on an embarrassed expression, Varnog smiled and gave me a slow, appreciative once over that threw me for a loop.

  “You are stronger than your fragile exterior lets on, little Queen. Too bad Bane has already claimed you. I might have kept you for myself,” he said, smugly.

  I gaped at him, taken aback by this unexpected shift. This male was giving me a mental whiplash. Lifting my chin, it was my turn to give him an assessing once over. Once you forgot how he came into existence, Varnog was actually the type of male I once would have been attracted to. His original host had been a handsome Janaurian. The chitin plates, the scales, and the Scelk features he had developed since then gave him a badass edge that was further enhanced by his irreverent and cocky personality.

  Varnog was a bit of an ass, but I’d always had a weakness for the bad boys.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said with a shrug. “But considering your body is less than eighteen years of age and your soul sparked less than six years ago, even without Bane, you would have been a pass for me. I’m not into cradle robbing.”

  I expected some kind of smart-ass remark about the stamina of youth, but the Scelk leader just stared at me with an unreadable, almost wistful expression before returning to his old stern and somewhat intimidating self.

  “Fair enough. But to answer your question, we will not stand in the way of the Dragons’ future. Bane has freed us and given us both purpose and honor,” Varnog said in a solemn tone. “He and his brothers have suffered enough. They deserve happiness. If the Vanguard fears or hates us, we will remain here,” he added gesturing at the hive. “It is more than sufficient for us to grow and thrive.”

  “That’s absurd,” I replied with a frown. “Even if you survived, that’s too much hardship to subject yourself to, along with your females and children.”

  “Why do you care? At least you’d be rid of a major threat to your Coalition,” Varnog challenged, crossing his muscular arms over his broad chest.

  “You’re right,” I conceded. “Not having to deal with the Scelks would make a ton of people sleep a lot better at night. And yet, despite all the pain and losses your species has inflicted to the Janaurians, you managed to not only get these females to care about life again, you also made them love you. If they can think of you as great men after all this, then you must not be the monsters we fear after all.”

  A powerful emotion fleeted over his alien features, too quickly for me to properly interpret it. His psychic mind brushed against mine, not in a caress and not in an invasive manner either, more like to validate whatever he had perceived from me.

  His features softened in a way I’d never seen before. To my shock, he cupped my face in his hands and drew it towards him to gently press his lips to my forehead. Letting go, he took two steps backwards, bowed his head to me, and then turned around to go rejoin his people. The other Scelks bowed their heads to me in a similar fashion before forming one massive circle.

  My fingers unconsciously touched the place that his lips had kissed me, right below my hairline. That, more than any words he could have spoken, had created a bond between us.

  The Scelks weren’t just Bane’s people anymore. They were mine as well.

  Chapter 10

  Bane

  After years of slow and careful planning, everything was now moving at dizzying speed. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. My brothers had been diligently transferring our belongings to the Brides Ship. Even though they had just unloaded all these things from our own vessels a few days ago after our exodus from Umbra, none of them complained. Seeing them so happy and full of hope lifted my hearts and spirit. For so long, I’d felt like I’d been failing them, barely hanging on by a thread in my attempts to shelter them from our sire’s madness.

  Tomorrow, we would set off to war.

  Our vessels were ready. Our Shells, weapons, and spare armor had been loaded on board. The Miegly had provided us with enough Crinax to supply both the Xians and us for a full month of non-stop warring. As non-combatants, they would remain here on Arkonia with our young siblings, the female Scelks, and the Brides Ship until the war ended. We would then escort them to our new home.

  Khepri… Just thinking about it gave me shivers and made me want to pinch myself.

  With a spring in my step, I headed to my quarters… to my woman… to my Queen. That, too, made me want to pinch myself. Tabitha’s insecurities were melting away, day-by-day. A little over a week ago, I’d been pining away at the thought that I might never see her again, and that she would never be mine. And now, I held her in my arms every night, kissed her lips, and reveled in the softness of her touch on my body. And soon—very soon—I would bind her to me for eternity.

  I opened the door to my quarters to be greeted by the sound of the shower running. After a brief hesitation, I discarded my clothes and went in to join her. I needed to wash as well, and my mate had seen me naked more than her fair share.

  The door slid open before me. I took three steps into the room, past the side wall that blocked the shower from view. Tabitha was rubbing the washcloth over her slender body, not reacting to my presence despite being f
ully aware of it. Her beautiful, alabaster skin contrasted sharply against the polished stone of the shower walls.

  “Took you long enough,” she said without looking at me.

  “Apologies,” I replied, walking up to my woman and taking the washcloth from her hand while she was washing her nape with it.

  “Make it up to me,” she whispered, lowering her head to expose her nape.

  “As you command, my Queen,” I said, gently rubbing the fabric over her back.

  Tabitha snorted and shook her head. I smiled, my mouth watering at the sight of her slender neck, my fangs aching to sink into its tender flesh. Within seconds, my lips were tracing the line of her shoulder, my arm circling around her front to press her back to my chest. Tabitha tilted her head back, resting it against my shoulder while I kissed and sucked on her neck.

  My chest began to vibrate with the subtonal sound of my mating song, one of the few perks of my Kryptid heritage. Tabitha shivered, goosebumps spreading all over her soft skin as the vibrations set her nerve endings on edge, enhancing every sensation, even that of the water raining over us.

  Trying to ignore the painful throb of my cock pressing against the loin plate confining it, I ran the washcloth over my woman’s breasts, my free hand slipping over her flat stomach to the apex of her legs. She moaned loudly, shivering against me. The throaty sound triggered something primal inside of me. Spinning her around to face me, I pushed my mate against the wall. She gasped, her eyes widening slightly before smoldering. The hardening nipples of her perky breasts were too appealing to resist. I sucked one into my mouth while my fingers continued to rub her clit.

  Tabitha fisted my hair and pushed her breasts towards me. I nipped and sucked at them, but it was another taste that I hungered for. The memory of my woman’s essence on my tongue and the maddening scent of her delectable musk drove me insane with lust.

  Slipping my arms behind her knees, I lifted my mate up to align her sex with my face. Tabitha yelped as I rested her legs over my shoulders. She held onto the crescent moon of my Deynian horn. She cried out my name as my tongue dove into her opening, dipping in and out of her. My partial shift allowed me to extend and thicken it at will, giving her a more intense sensation.

  How I wished it were my cock instead pleasuring her. Parting my loin plate, I almost moaned with relief at the release of pressure from my shaft. Wrapping one hand around its length, I stroked myself in sync with my tongue making love to my woman. Just as she began to crest, Tabitha wrapped her consciousness around mine, her pleasure and affection for me surrounding me like a physical thing. She shouted my name at the same time I groaned my own release, liquid bliss pouring out of me.

  Legs shaking, Tabitha felt somewhat limp but was properly secured on my shoulders. Although a little dizzy from my own climax, I stopped the vibration of my mating song and carefully put her back down on her feet. She wrapped her arms around me, rubbed her face against the scales of my neck, and then lifted her head to kiss me. However, she stopped almost immediately, her head jerking down to look between us.

  I instantly felt self-conscious, realizing she was seeing my cock for the first time. A strangled moan tore out of my throat as she greedily wrapped her fingers around it. My shaft was too big for her fingers to touch, but that didn’t stop her from stroking me. A bolt of fire exploded in the pit of my stomach, sending a fiery trail down my legs and up my spine. My waning erection after my previous climax returned with a vengeance. No one had ever touched me in such an intimate fashion. I would have killed any who would have dared. But my mate…

  In a perfect imitation of my previous actions, Tabitha turned me around and pushed me against the shower wall before dropping to her knees. When the inferno of her mouth closed around my length, I thought my mind would explode. My abdominal muscles contracted almost painfully with each bobbing motion of her head, each caress of her tongue swirling around my shaft, and the gentle squeeze of her hand moving in counterpoint to her mouth.

  I had always been confident—if not arrogant—in my belief that the day I joined with my soulmate, I would be able to perform like a champ, and not spill my seed after two thrusts. But now, under the passionate ministrations of my woman, I was already on the verge of another orgasm.

  The humiliation…

  “Stop,” I whispered, with a breathy voice, my claws coming out and sinking into the stone wall.

  But Tabitha had other ideas. She not only increased the pace of her hand on me but, drawing me all the way to the back of her throat, she began to hum while the nails of her free hand clawed at the scales of my lower back.

  A blinding light fell before my eyes, and my entire body seized as I erupted with a savage cry. My eyes all but rolled in my head while Tabitha continued to suck and lick me, greedily swallowing my essence. If not for the wall supporting me, I would have no doubt collapsed from the intense pleasure she had just given me.

  Releasing me at last, Tabitha rose to her feet, leaned her naked body against mine and covered my neck with kisses. Pushing up on her toes, she nipped at my earlobe before pressing her lips to my ear.

  “You are mine, Bane. Now and forever.”

  Even through the haze of bliss, my body stiffened, and I slightly pulled away to look at her, my gaze questioning. She smiled, slipping one hand through my hair, and the other covering my sex.

  “Make me yours, Bane. Take all of me, and give me all of you.”

  My chest constricted, joy and fear I might be misinterpreting her meaning overshadowed the pleasure of her hand stirring me once more to attention.

  “You wish to bond with me? To be mine for as long as we both draw breath?” I asked, my hearts pounding almost erratically in my chest.

  “Yes. You and me, for eternity.”

  “There will be no turning back, my love,” I insisted, giving her one final chance to back out.

  “There better not be,” she said, her tone almost menacing. “Bond with me.”

  Without a word, I lifted her up in my arms and walked out of the bathroom, the shower stopping on its own once we’d gone far away enough from it. Water still dripping from both of us, I carried my woman up to my bed—our bed—and laid her down on top. Tabitha slightly crawled back before opening her arms to me. I climbed on top of her and settled between her parted legs, my sex aligned with hers.

  I didn’t know if I would last for long once I joined with my woman. But if there was one thing I could be grateful for about my Kryptid heritage it was that, as a fertile male, I could become erect almost at will. I could also produce an endless supply of semen to impregnate my Queen, should she so wish it.

  “You are the other half of my soul, Tabitha. I have wished for you for so long,” I whispered against her lips. “I love you.”

  I didn’t wait for her response and captured her lips in a deep, slow kiss as I pushed myself inside of her. She was exquisitely, almost painfully tight. The burning heat of her sheath contracted around me, further drawing me in. Spreading her legs wider, Tabitha held me close. Her hands roamed feverishly over my back while our tongues danced together.

  Slow and shallow at first, my thrusts became stronger and faster as my mate adjusted to my girth. Despite the overwhelming pleasure of her sex gripping my cock, I no longer feared a premature orgasm. Even as some small amounts of my seed spilled out, easing penetration, my dragon blood took over, initiating the partial shift that would render my seed fertile, and activate the bonding agents in my mating hormones. I welcomed the pain of the bone spikes jutting out further along my spine and shoulder lines. My chest and arm muscles swelled while my fangs descended. When my mating glands spilled their hormone, it ran through my veins, blistering hot and yet blissfully pleasurable.

  Breaking our kiss, my lips roamed over my woman’s face before descending towards her neck. Spurred on by her voluptuous moans in my ears and by the near agonizing pain in my fangs, I gave in to the primal urge that had plagued me since I’d first laid eyes on my mate. Her skin gave way
, the sweet, yet slightly metallic taste of her blood flooding my mouth as she cried out from the initial pain of the bite. Injecting her with my mating hormone triggered a series of micro-orgasms through me, quickly echoed by my woman who writhed in ecstasy beneath me.

  Time lost all meaning as I lost myself in my woman. I wrested one orgasm after another from her, spilling my seed into her each time. But my dragon refused to relent. In a brief instant of lucidity, I attempted to rein in the unbridled violence with which I was pounding into her, but Tabitha’s voice, raw from having screamed so much, begged me to go on harder. I eagerly complied.

  By the time I collapsed over my mate before rolling her on top of me, I had lost count of how many times we had climaxed. Exhausted, my body thrumming with incommensurable pleasure, I pushed my consciousness into my mate’s psychic mind. The silver sphere that shielded her soul parted, exposing to me everything that she was in the most beautiful rainbow of sparkling lights.

  Shedding my own mental shield, I intertwined my soul with hers. As my bonding fluids were binding her to me, and her blood was binding me to her, so were our souls becoming one.

  * * *

  Morning came too quickly. In my greed and voracious appetite, I hadn’t granted my mate enough rest considering the journey that lay ahead. To my shock, I had never reverted out of my partial shift—nor could I anymore. My body appeared to have decided that it would not only keep the bigger muscles on my chest and shoulders, but a crest had begun to grow in the center of my Deynian horn. Tabitha pointed out that a few of my scales had also taken a golden hue.

  I had no idea that those changes—common with a pureblood Gomenzi Dragon when they bonded with their lifemate—could manifest in us as well. My mate was mortified to have these signs broadcast to the whole world that we’d been intimate. I couldn’t help walking around with my beefed-up chest puffed out, which made her want to kick my ass.