V felt the Rage rise inside him as Skrug looked from his own bride—the triple-breasted whore V remembered seeing sometimes at Hell’s Gate—and let his small, piggy eyes rove over the girl’s ripe body.
“No!” The word came out as more of a growl and he grabbed for the girl’s hands and held them firmly in his own, despite her struggles.
“Hey!” she protested but V wouldn’t let her hands go.
“Settle down,” he murmured to her, putting a touch of menace in his voice as he glared at her warningly. “Unless you’d rather be given to him.” He jerked his head at Skrug who was still ogling her like a horny adolescent.
“I’d rather be with anyone than you!” she shot back, narrowing her big brown eyes to glare right back at him.
V was taken aback by the vehement dislike he felt emanating from her—all of which was directed at himself. Why did she hate him so much? She didn’t even know him.
Well, there was no time to change her mind now, he thought warily. All they could do was continue with the ceremony. Hopefully they could work things out once they were alone together in their “Love Hut.”
For now, there was nothing else to do but go straight through to the end and hope like hell the little female would behave so she wouldn’t be given away to another male.
V didn’t think he could stand that. Even though she hated him, he still wanted her.
And he wasn’t going to give her up to anybody.
Thirty-Three
This is crazy! This can’t be right—it must be another one of those crazy dreams I have at night when my pillow whispers to me, Penny thought frantically as V’rex took her hands firmly in his and refused to let her go.
That was the only reason she stopped fighting him. Well, that and the fact that she had caught a glimpse of the male V’rex had nodded at when he asked if she’d rather be given to another guy—the male Shurla had ended up with.
Shurla’s new Forever Mate looked like some kind of a mutant. He was nearly seven feet tall with blue skin, a humped back, and long, crooked teeth that protruded outside his thin lipless mouth, reminding Penny of an alligator.
He also had the most insanely long dick she’d ever seen. It hung down past the hem of his short grass skirt, swinging like a thick blue snake somewhere around his knees.
Shurla seemed delighted by her new hubby’s extreme endowments but presumably she could handle it, since she was a former “joy-girl” as she’d called herself. Penny was positive she could not handle anything that large. It had been so long since her last sexual encounter she was practically a virgin all over again and she wasn’t eager to try fitting a dick as long as a garden hose and as thick as her wrist into her hoo-hah.
Also, she belatedly realized, she was walking a fine line here—if she continued to protest having V’rex as her Forever Mate, she might give away the fact that she wasn’t really hypnotized. Already all the NeverBreeder guards and the Glorious Leader himself were giving her inquiring frowns. Clearly, she had better settle down and tow the line if she didn’t want to end up recycled by the end of the ceremony.
Setting her face in a rigid mask of a smile, Penny took a deep breath and tried to center herself. She just had to get through this, she told herself. There was nothing else to do but just suck it up and take it to the end.
But God, how in the world had she ended up with V’rex, the dangerous space pirate, of all people as her Forever Mate?
Penny didn’t know, but she did know she was determined to survive. So she looked fearlessly—well almost fearlessly—up into her new husband’s eyes and waited for the next part of the ceremony.
“Well, now that we’re all settled down, we can continue.” the Glorious Leader smiled at the assembled crowd, who were watching intently. “Now we come to the next part of the Unification Ceremony—the saying of the vows.”
Penny waited impatiently, just wanting the stupid fake wedding to be over. Though considering what was going to happen to her at the end of it—her first Mandatory Breeding—maybe she ought to wish it would last forever, she thought uneasily.
She wondered what kind of vows they would be required to recite? More love, honor, and obey bullshit, probably. Or maybe “until death or recycling do us part.”
Yeah, right. Very funny, Penny—har-har.
“Brides,” the Glorious Leader who looked uncannily like the fried chicken magnate of “Eleven Herbs and Spices” fame, began. “Please repeat after me” ‘Forever Mate, I give myself to you. Please use my body as your own property. Thrust your shaft deep inside me and fill me daily with your seed.’”
What? Penny glanced in disbelief at the cult leader in his gleaming white suit. Did he really expect them to say that? In public?
Apparently, he did and the other brides were already repeating the vows dutifully.
Penny looked down at her hands—held captive in the huge Hybrid’s much larger hands—and mumbled the words, feeling like she was participating in some kind of porno.
“Brides,” the Glorious Leader said sharply, interrupting the vows before they got to the “fill me with your seed” part. “I notice that not everyone seems invested in this holy ceremony!”
Looking up, Penny realized he was glaring at her in apparent righteous indignation. The way the Glorious Leader—Colonel Sanders!—her mind insisted, was looking at her, made her feel like she’d accidentally swallowed a very large ice cube that didn’t want to go down her throat.
You’re one step from the sausage grinder, whispered a panicked little voice in her head. One step from being recycled. Careful, Penny—you’re on thin ice!
“S-sorry,” she stammered. “I just…it’s so…it’s embarrassing to…to say…”
“To ask your Forever Mate to breed you?” the Glorious Leader demanded, frowning like a thundercloud.
He looks like he found out somebody messed with his Original Recipe, whispered a little voice in Penny’s head and a hysterical giggle rose in her throat like a bubble. She swallowed it down hurriedly, aware that letting it out could mean her death.
Get hold of yourself, girl!
“How can you be embarrassed about your role in promoting the Glorious Cause?” the Glorious Leader demanded. “There is nothing wrong or immoral in what we do here! This is a holy breeding, you are asking your Forever Mate to perform on you! Do all of you understand that?” he asked, raising his voice and addressing the other brides.
“Yes, Glorious Leader! Oh, yes.” They were all nodding and staring at him with wide-eyed devotion—it was enough to make Penny sick to her stomach.
Her revulsion must have showed on her face because V’rex gave her a little shake. When she looked up at him, he had a stern look on his dark, sharp features and his pale gold eyes were filled with warning.
“Do it right,” he growled, so softly only Penny could hear him. “Unless you want to end up in deep shit.”
Penny looked at him in surprise and then narrowed her eyes.
“Are you threatening me?” she breathed, keeping her voice down too.
“No—warning you. This is no laughing matter, little girl.”
“I’m not—” Penny began but then the Glorious Leader raised his voice again.
“Let’s take it from the top, brides,” he said and glared directly at Penny. “And this time, I want you to all look up into your Forever Mate’s eyes and recite your vows like you mean them.”
The cold look in his icy blue gaze gave Penny the ice cube in her throat feeling again. Clearly this was her last chance.
Straightening her shoulders, she looked up…and up and up into V’rex’s pale gold eyes.
“Forever Mate, I give myself to you,” she recited along with all the other brides. “Please use my body as your own property. Thrust…” She swallowed hard, her heart pounding as she struggled to go on. V’rex was looking at her impassively, but she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as she spoke the ridiculous, embarrassing words.
“Go on, sweetheart,” he muttered
to her. “He’s watching.”
“Thrust your shaft deep inside me and…and fill-me-daily-with-your-seed,” Penny finished in a rush, not daring to look at the cult leader for fear that what V’rex had said was true and he was staring at her in disapproval.
She breathed an inward sigh of relief. Well, at least she had gotten through the awful vows!
Not quite.
To her horror, the Glorious Leader continued.
“My breasts are filled with sweet nectar for you. Suckle them daily as you thrust inside me. Mark me and make me yours always, my Forever Mate.”
Oh my God, is he serious?
Penny didn’t know if she could do this. It was hard enough to look into the eyes of a perfect stranger and basically beg him to breed her in front of a large crowd, but this was going too far.
Still, she could feel the gaze of the Glorious Leader staring directly at her and she knew she had no choice.
I hope you choke on a chicken bone, you cult leading asshole! she thought at him fiercely. Then, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, she looked into V’rex’s eyes and recited the vows.
“My…my breasts are filled with sweet nectar for you. Suckle…”
Penny took a deep breath. God, if only the big Hybrid wouldn’t keep staring at her like this—though of course she was staring at him too. But looking into his eyes while she said these X-rated things was so shameful and intense. Still, she had to go on.
“Suckle them daily as you…as you thrust inside me. Mark me and make me yours always, my Forever Mate,” she finally got out.
Once again she felt hyperaware of her bare breasts, which were thrusting out of the long strands of colorful billix grass and her tight nipples, which were, indeed, leaking the sticky-sweet nectar.
But to V’rex’s credit, he didn’t even glance down at her naked breasts. He only gave her a tiny nod, as though she’d passed some kind of test.
“Very good!” This time the Glorious Leader looked pleased. “And now for the males. Please look into your new bride’s eyes and repeat after me, gentlemen: ‘You are my bride. You are mine.”
V’rex looked at her so intently Penny felt like his pale gold eyes were seeing into her soul.
“You are my bride, sweetheart,” he murmured, staring down at her. “You are mine.”
“To do with as I please, at any hour of the day or night,” the Glorious Leader continued.
V’rex repeated these lines as well, but it was the next vow that had Penny blushing all over again.
“I vow to thrust my shaft deep inside you and fill you with my seed, to suckle your nipples and give you relief from the nectar which swells them to fullness, and to breed you daily until your belly swells with life.”
His soft, deep voice rumbling the pornographic promises as he stared into her eyes made Penny’s heart skitter in her chest and her face felt so hot she was sure her cheeks must be glowing neon pink.
God, she’d read plenty of books where the hero was good at dirty talk and said this kind of thing—well, sort of—to the heroine while they were making love. But she’d never had a man talk directly to her and say anything close to the vows V’rex was reciting. Her last serious boyfriend, Garret, hadn’t been willing to say anything at all during sex—he’d just grunted a lot and then had gone right to sleep afterwards.
But the vows were continuing.
“I claim you as my bride to love, cherish, and protect. You will be mine forever—I will never let you go,” V’rex finished.
And then, to Penny’s surprise, he let go of one of her hands and reached up to cup her cheek. Weren’t the vows finished? What was he doing?
“Mine,” he murmured again, for her ears alone. “Mine forever, sweetheart.”
Penny didn’t know what to do or what to say. He wasn’t just reciting a vow this time—it was like he was adding to what had been said. And he was still looking directly into her eyes as he spoke. She wanted to drop her own gaze and blush with mortification, but she couldn’t look away. She was trapped in a pale golden sea that reflected her own flushed, uncertain face, as though V’rex could somehow see inside her…
“Very good!” The Glorious Leader clapped his hands loudly, breaking the spell Penny had fallen under. Finally she was able to tear her gaze away from the big Hybrid’s.
God, why was her heart drumming so hard against her ribs? Was it just with embarrassment and fear? But her pussy felt suddenly even more swollen and her breasts were heavy and full with the nectar, her nipples tight and aching for a warm, willing mouth to suck them deep and draw it out…
No! What was wrong with her?
This crazy situation is not turning me on, Penny told herself firmly. It’s just the effects of that damn Mother’s Milk I’ve been drinking for so long. V’rex is the enemy—I was warned against him! There’s no way I have any kind of attraction to him, no matter what kind of sexy things we were forced to say to each other! There’s no way—
“And now it’s time for the fourth and final part of our Unification Ceremony,” the Glorious Leader intoned, breaking her frantic train of thought. “The branding.”
“The what?” Penny exclaimed. Luckily, her words came out in the middle of a huge swell of applause from the audience. Clearly this was a popular part of the ceremony.
“The branding—or marking of the bride by her Forever Mate—is a time- honored tradition here at the Compound,” the Glorious Leader continued. “It shows not only his ownership of her body, but her devotion to her new mate—a devotion which should be exceeded only by her earnest devotion to our Glorious Cause and of course, to her Glorious Leader.” He pointed to himself and smiled modestly.
As he finished speaking, seven NeverBreeder guards came to stand beside each of the males. They each held identical writing instruments which looked like old-fashioned calligraphy pens to Penny. Only once they uncapped the “pens,” the nib of each one was glowing red-hot.
Penny felt faint as the smell of burning reached her nose. As she watched in horror, the NeverBreeder guard beside V’rex handed him one of the burning pens.
“Now take the branding instrument and make your mark upon your bride,” the Glorious Leader ordered. He appeared to be staring especially hard at V’rex, for some reason, as though getting ready for any signs of trouble. Not that Penny noticed much—she couldn’t take her eyes off the red-hot tip of the pen in the big Hybrid’s huge hand.
V’rex’s eyes were hard as he stared into hers and the hand that had been holding her own suddenly clamped down on both her wrists at once, holding them effortlessly in place in a bone-crushing grip.
“Ow!” Penny gasped involuntarily. “Please! I don’t…don’t want to be burned!” She tried to keep her voice low, for his ears alone and for a moment she thought she was getting through to him.
The impassive look in his pale gold eyes disappeared and she thought she saw a look of desperate unhappiness—maybe even self-loathing—in them instead. But then the cold blankness was back and he began to bring the glowing tip of the branding pen towards her.
Penny knew she ought to hold still but she couldn’t help herself—she didn’t like fire! Didn’t like the idea of being burned—branded—with this big asshole’s name!
As she started to struggle, V’rex caught the eye of the guard who had handed him the pen.
“Hold her,” he growled.
Hard little orange hands clamped over Penny’s bare shoulders, keeping her from struggling. V’rex leaned even closer.
“Hold still,” he rumbled, looking Penny in the eyes again. “I’ll make it quick.”
And then the burning tip of the pen bit into her flesh, just above her left breast.
The searing agony didn’t last for long—V’rex made a quick flip of his wrist—almost a check-mark motion—and then withdrew the pen as quickly as he had brought it down.
Biting her lip against the pain, Penny blinked tears out of her eyes and looked down to see a single V, about the size of her fi
ngernail, emblazoned on her chest.
Some of the other males were still working, she saw, through her tear-blurred eyes. Shurla’s new Forever Mate was taking his time, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he scrawled his name across the tops of all three of her plump breasts. Shurla appeared to be trying not to scream but she was biting her lip and clenching her hands into fists in obvious agony.
I guess it could be worse, Penny thought, feeling a stab of sympathy for her former friend. Poor thing. At least V’rex made it quick, like he promised.
She looked up at the big Hybrid and was surprised to see one corner of his sensuous mouth was pulled down in an expression of furious unhappiness. But when he caught her looking at him, his face went immediately blank, the previous, impassive calm replacing the moment of true emotion.
What was he thinking? Penny found herself wondering. Was he sorry that he’d marked her? Hurt her? Was he angry at her for resisting or at himself for going through with it?
Was he somehow immune to the hypno-whispers too?
He must be, she thought. At any rate, he certainly wasn’t acting like the rest of the hypnotized idiots, all fawning over the Glorious Leader and hanging on his every word.
“And now that the marking of the brides is over, we may continue to the end of the Unification Ceremony,” the Glorious Leader intoned, breaking her train of thought. “And after that, you’ll be allowed to take your brides to your Love Huts for your very first Mandatory Breeding, which I know you’re all looking forward to.”
There were full-throated cheers from all the males in the ceremony and slightly weaker ones from the brides. Clearly a lot of them were still in pain from the branding. It was pretty hard to get excited for sexy times when you’d just had someone’s name burned into your flesh, Penny thought wryly. Her own small brand still stung fiercely, but it was probably nothing compared to what poor Shurla was going through.
But this thought didn’t appear to occur to anyone else. The audience laughed and clapped at their Glorious Leader’s wit and the big man himself nodded comically at them and waggled his eyebrows.
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