Ingenious #1

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

C ommander Max Bronn reached the site of the raid while the trail was fresh. It occurred on the third leg of the triangle, flowing toward Port Memphis.

A thick layer of scent hung where three female ferals had hunkered down in the vines watching their target, a young herder with twelve grazers. The shimmery canopy of purple saw-edged leaves with silvery green undersides shielded the ferals from the two archers in the watchtower across the canal. The four soldiers with spears and axes assigned to defend this stretch were distracted by an aggressive fin slithering from the water after a goat.

The seconds of distraction provided one female the chance to dart in and shake the herder senseless, cutting off his cries as she carried him off. The second female snapped the necks of two goats, holding them with one under each arm as if they were chickens instead of two-hundred pound grazers. A third female, the fleetest, swiped the vines away like cobwebs for her sisters to follow without dropping their prizes.

One moment there were twelve goats and a lusty young herder with a full life ahead. The next moment, ten terrified goats stampeded the shouting soldiers in their way. The vines deflected the hail of arrows from the watch towers.

These raids had occurred for centuries.

When he reached the site, Max didn’t waste time for details or excuses before giving chase. He jumped off his barge onto the bank and found the trail, and his double-jointed feet outpaced his men. The ripped vines had begun repairing the damage. Nodules formed, swelling to the size of a fist before shooting yards of tough silky tendrils. The tendrils were the worst. They entangled running legs like trip wires. Max heard a soldier cry out from a fall that had likely broken an ankle. Another soldier would drop from the chase to help his injured comrade limp back.

As tendrils entwined and swelled with sap to form a spongy undergrowth hiding all traces of what had trampled through, the trail faded.

Max abandoned the chase within an hour. He’d have to bait traps.

From their scent, Max knew these three females belonged to a migrating band entering a breeding cycle. The young herder taken appealed to their instincts for a tall, healthy stud, or the first female would have snapped his neck and stolen two goats instead. Either the herder would succumb to the cloying scent of the mating heat, or he would fight it off and be eaten sooner than later.

The canal offered food, water, and studs. The band would establish an underground breeding den. The raids would continue until Max killed enough females to drive them away.

When he’d enlisted, the bands numbered less than ten led by an older female. The last two seasons, he’d encountered bands of twenty with two older females. The pattern of combined bands disturbed him. What would happen if the ferals attacked in dozens and stole whole herds? Without the herds grazing them, the vines would stretch across the canal and infest precious farmland.

Upon returning to his barge, Max sent military couriers to warn all herders of the danger, and he doubled the soldiers patrolling the third leg. Banning goats from grazing until the band was destroyed was unthinkable. Given a week, the vines would reach the canal and throw tendrils over it.

Max was a quarter-feral. His human grandmother had been raped by a young male feral crazed by exposure to breeding heat—a rare occurrence since males stayed close to a breeding den. Soldiers killed his feral grandfather, and Max’s mother was born nine months later. She inherited few feral traits and was allowed to live. With women scarce, her beauty and family name attracted a husband. Before Max, she bore two normal daughters.

With his black hair and gray eyes and normal skull, genitals, and fingertips, Max appeared fully human until puberty. Always oversized for his age—never a gangly runt—his transition over a few painful months was first mistaken for an unusual spurt of puberty, or he would have been exterminated at once. After the transition, he was six-foot-seven of heavy muscle, deadly reflexes, claws, heightened senses, and… oh, yes… the deformed penis designed to attract ferals in heat. His parents fought to keep him from extermination with the support of the commander, his paternal uncle, who foresaw Max’s value.

When Max enlisted, his gamey cum became the Triangle’s most effective weapon against the ferals. It sent the females into a mating frenzy. They dropped their normal caution, even fighting among themselves to chase down the worthy stud for first breeding rights, and followed the scent of a baited trail into a trap of waiting soldiers, who dispatched them with cold efficiency.

The three scouts who’d taken the herder today would return with their sisters, so Max baited five trails before his dick wore out, thankful he carried lube in a pouch on his weapons belt. The scent lingered for days. Luckily, his soldiers never cracked jokes. They stood at attention, eyes lowered after he baited a trap.

How humiliating. But vital to the welfare of the territory.

Depleted, Max returned to his barge, a sixty-foot-long, narrow vessel with a sleek hull and eight poles on each side to keep on course in the middle of the canal. The barge transported up to two hundred soldiers, fourteen tons of cargo, and two portable watchtowers. The soldiers slept in hammocks or, if amorous, fucked in tents strung out on the deck.

Max preferred living on his barge, though he had apartments in each city. Located at the stern, his cabin was paneled in rare wood, with an heirloom wood table, chairs, chest, and a bed. A hipbath and sink connected to a cistern.

He’d inherited his manservant Cutty from his uncle. Short, sinewy, and outspoken, Cutty lacked the physique (and the obedient nature) to serve as an enlisted soldier. He knew he was indispensable to Max’s comfort and strutted in his pressed brown suit and green vest with a self-importance no one challenged except his civilian husband Stefan.

When Max descended the steps to his cabin, Cutty had a steaming hipbath ready. Max stripped off his filthy camouflage tee and pants and eased into the water, immersing himself head to toe before surging up and resting his head back on a folded towel. Cutty handed him a flask of brandy. He usually allowed Max a few quiet minutes before updating him on the gossip carried by passing vessels.

Instead, Cutty blurted, “The Assembly voted to free Beau if he consented to castration.”

Max sat up, sloshing sudsy water on the floor. His claws displayed as Cutty filled him in on how the governor had influenced the vote.

Max had delivered specific instructions to Governor Lyre regarding Beau’s care during his transition. Not only had she ignored his orders, she’d petitioned the Ruling Mothers for Beau’s castration at a time when the territory desperately needed Beau’s help baiting the ferals.

When Max’s worn-out dick needed the help!

The governor was as ruthless as any feral Max had encountered. A pity he couldn’t dispatch her like one. As he struggled with his temper, his claws clicked against the rim of the bath.

“You letting her get by with this, sir?” Cutty’s slight body quivered with the delight of fighting the governor, whom he detested.

“Tell the pilot to shove off. Light the forward lanterns. We travel the current to Port Memphis by night.”