Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Bayzon
Lights cut out and there’s now a total eclipse. We’re covered in deep darkness, filled with a sinister white fog which glows in the pitch black.
Chaos ensues.
The mist is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. It curls around my legs like a living thing, cold and damp against my skin. The scent is strange, metallic and sharp, like Illibrium fresh from the mine but amplified a hundredfold. It coats the back of my throat and makes my eyes water.
All around me, the sounds of the ball transform from celebration to panic. The music cuts out with a discordant screech. Glasses shatter. Beings scream and stumble in the sudden darkness. I hear the heavy thud of bodies hitting the floor, one after another.
My Bride lets go of my hand and suddenly she’s gone.
I can’t see her. My night vision doesn’t penetrate the mist. “Naomi,” I shout. “What the hells is happening? Where are you?”
Xylan begin to heavily drop to the ground next to me, some snoring loudly. Others scream with fear as half the assembled try to run for the doors. Beings collide into me in their haste.
The top of Naomi’s dark head emerges from the white mist. “I’m okay,” she shouts. “I tripped over someone.”
But then she’s gone again.
Terror claws at my chest. I’ve only just found her. I cannot lose her now. Not like this. Not in this godsforsaken mist that swallows everything. “Naomi!” My voice is raw, desperate. I sound nothing like the composed crew leader my brothers know. I sound like a male on the verge of madness.
No response.
The mist seems to muffle sound, absorbing my shouts before they can travel.
Muted cries come from others nearby, but they sound distant, as if coming from underwater.
The glowing white fog plays tricks with my senses.
Shapes appear and vanish, and I keep reaching for shadows that turn out to be nothing.
A huge male plows into me and I hit the floor. I toss and tumble and can’t see a godsdamn thing as I move forward on my hands and knees, trying to find my Bride. I must protect my mate.
Claws dig onto my gloves but slip away.
Soon the area quiets and I can’t see her through the thick mist, but I can still scent my Bride.
I inhale deeply and follow her pheromones, across the floor, over many still bodies.
Each one I check. No one is dead. They are all deeply asleep.
I have a feeling none of them made it out and everyone in attendance at this ball is flat on the floor, snoring.
What the hells?
And why am I not asleep too? Instead, I’m fully awake and alert, on a mission to find my female. “Naomi,” I bellow.
“Bayzon,” a familiar human voice cries out.
I follow the sound and feel with my hands and find her pinned underneath two large males who passed out on top of her.
“Help,” she squeaks. “They’re so heavy.”
Relief floods through me so intensely my arms shake. She’s alive. I found her. “I’ve got you,” I growl. “Hold on.”
The males are dead weight, their bodies limp and heavy with sleep.
I grab the first one by his costume — some ridiculous feathered thing — and heave him aside.
He rolls away and continues snoring, utterly oblivious.
The second male is larger, but desperation gives me strength.
I shove him off her with more force than necessary, and he lands with a thud several feet away.
“Are you hurt?” I demand, running my hands over her arms, her shoulders, checking for injury. “Did they crush you? Can you breathe?”
“I’m okay,” she gasps. “Just... couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe for a second there.”
I reach out and take her hand in mine and pull her up to a sitting position. And that’s when I realize not only is my glove gone, but hers has also fallen off in the melee. And now we are sitting together on the floor, with our bare hands clasped, as if we are performing a testing.
“Oh no,” she breathes.
We both stare down at our joined hands. Her small, delicate human fingers intertwined with my large, clawed ones. Skin against skin. No barrier between us.
The heat starts at the point of contact and spreads outward like wildfire. It races up my arm, across my chest, and settles low in my gut. My personal crystal blazes in my pocket, so bright that it illuminates the surrounding mist around us in a soft white glow.
“Bayzon,” she whispers, her voice trembling. “I can feel... something. What is this?”
“The bond,” I manage to say, though speech is becoming difficult. “It’s confirming what I already knew.”
Her pupils are dilated, her breathing rapid. The scent of her arousal spikes sharply, mixing with the strange metallic tang of the mist. The heat at the location where skin meets skin is already spreading. My personal crystal continues to glow in my pocket, brighter than ever before.
I squeeze her hand, then reach up and gently remove her mask because I want to see all her beautiful features. “I’m sorry, female. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Does this mean that we are…?”
“Yes. I thought you were still wearing gloves. We only just met and I meant to wait and give you time. I was going to court you in the proper human tradition first, but now that I am touching you with bare skin... the claiming...” my voice deepens, “the need for the claiming is coming on fast.”
The shock of desire and need rockets throughout my body.
A moan of need escapes my lips.
Naomi leans in close. “Don’t worry, I don’t consider this a bad thing in the least.”
And then I pull her into my arms and onto my lap and kiss her with all the passion I’ve never had in my life until this exact moment. It’s my first kiss. Therefore, I’m running on pure instinct. My lips move against hers and my tongue sweeps inside her mouth.
She melts into my arms and kisses me back with equal passion.
I quickly learn that my female is an expert at kissing.
Her hands cup my cheeks and she’s schooling me on how this is done.
My body continues to flash with the heat of desire.
Naomi tastes amazing. Her pheromones rush through my veins and I want more and more.
She tastes like the bubbly drink she was sipping earlier, sweet with a hint of tartness.
I chase that taste, deepening the kiss, pulling her closer until there’s no space left between us.
Her fingers slide into my hair, tugging at the braids, and I growl into her mouth at the sensation.
No one has ever touched me like this. No one has ever been allowed this close.
And now I understand why my mated brothers walk around with those ridiculous smiles on their faces.
This feeling, this connection, is worth everything.
When we finally break apart, we’re both gasping for air.
Her lips are swollen from my kisses, her hair disheveled from my hands.
She looks thoroughly claimed already, and we haven’t even begun.
My thick cock is hard as rock and leaking.
It is an amazing sensation. I am ready to breed my female.
Naomi grinds her ass on my crotch. She pants with need, also enflamed now due to the rush of our mingled pheromones. I need her and she needs me too.
“Scar?” I bellow.
“Here,” a voice responds through the thick white mist.
“Cannibal?” I pant.
“Here, we’re all here, including Brides.”
“And we’re the only ones awake in this entire cavern,” Scar comments.
“Everyone else has passed out and is asleep on the floor. I’ve heard of this before, but it hasn’t happened in our lifetimes.
Illibrium gas will become charged and escape during the Dark Moon and flood the cavern.
It isn’t deadly and is already retreating, so that’s good. ”
“Why aren’t we asleep too?” I ask, barely able to speak and think. I still can’t see any of them, only hear their words.
“Maybe we’re protected from reacting to it for the same reason that we can all scent our Brides? And the Brides are protected by having shared our pheromones.”
Meanwhile, the heat between our clasped hands continues to flame. And my cock throbs with need. Naomi’s arousal is thicker than ever. I let out a roar of desperation. All I want is to chase this female to the ground and plunge my cock inside of her welcoming heat.
“Bayzon? Where are you?”
Suddenly a trio of personal crystals shine in my face. My brothers and their Brides are all there nearby, staring in shock.
“Bayzon, what’s happening?” Trunk questions. “Why are you and Leah’s friend sitting together like that?”
“Oh gods, look at them, they’ve lost their gloves and they’re clasping hands.”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Of course it’s happening,” Rook mutters. “Chief finally finds a female he likes and within hours he’s accidentally clasped hands with her in the middle of a mist event. This is exactly the type of chaos that follows our family.”
“Shut up, Rook,” Scar snaps.
The mist is thinning now, I realize. I can make out more shapes, the sprawled bodies of sleeping Xylan scattered across the dance floor like fallen soldiers.
The elaborate decorations hang askew. Somewhere, a candelabra has toppled over, its candles extinguished.
The grand cavern that was so magnificent hours ago now looks like the aftermath of a battle.
And in the middle of it all, I sit with my Bride in my lap, our hands still clasped, my body burning with a need I’ve never experienced.
My brothers curse and argue amongst themselves. The human Brides join in, alarmed and concerned.
I bare my fangs and growl in response while Naomi whimpers in my arms.
“It’s a confirmed testing. He’s enflamed and she’s in need,” Scar declares. “There’s nothing we can do to stop this now.”
“True.”
“No, not true,” a female voice challenges, “the scales of Xylan law say that she always has a choice.”
Scar sighs. “Human, she is right that you do have a choice because your biology differs from ours. You need to make a choice, quick,” he tells my Bride.
“You can either perform the ceremony with Bayzon right now in the mine. Or we can all jump him, knock him out and we can get you off the planet right away. Do you want to be his Bride or not?”
My claws dig into her hips. I force myself to wait for her response.
Naomi lifts her head, her eyes blinking at the light of the personal crystals. “I want to be Bayzon’s Bride,” she confirms. “This was an accident but still consensual.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief.
“Wait, Naomi, I want to make sure you know what you’re saying yes to.
You need to know what will happen right now,” a female voice shouts out.
“Claiming means that right now, we will leave. Bayzon will chase you through the mines, throw you to the ground and have rough sex with you and get you pregnant right away. Tomorrow morning you will wake up, pregnant and married. And you will legally be his mate for the rest of his life. There is no divorce. I’m worried for you because you just arrived and met him only this evening and maybe you’re not ready for this. It’s happening so fast...”
“And during the claiming you’ll need to fight him off to make it good for him,” Trunk adds. “A broken bone is preferable.”
I grunt in agreement.
“Thank you for your concern.” My mate tightens her free arm around my neck and rests her head on my chest. Her ass continues to mindlessly grind into my crotch because she needs relief as much as I do.
“I know. And it’s true that we just met but this is right.
Now or later makes no difference. I want this claiming. ”
And that’s when I know I love her. She’s human and it’s true that the pheromones affect her and cause her to want me, but not in the same way as for a Xylan.
She could leave, recover and manage to forget all about me.
Meanwhile, I would go insane. But according to Xylan law, she has the right to choose.
And I’m grateful and proud that in such a short time, she chose me.
“Naomi.” Leah’s voice cuts through the fog of desire. “Are you sure? I brought you here. If something happens to you because of me—”
“Leah.” My Bride’s voice is stronger now, more certain. “You brought me here to start a new life. This is me, starting it. I know what I’m doing.”
There’s a moment of silence. Then Leah laughs, a sound somewhere between joy and disbelief. “Okay. Okay, then. Welcome to the family, I guess. Officially.”
“About damn time Chief found someone,” Rook mutters. “I was starting to think he’d be brooding in corners forever.”
“I do not brood,” I snarl, though the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that I’m currently clutching my Bride like a lifeline and can barely form coherent thoughts.
“You absolutely brood,” multiple voices respond in unison.
Naomi laughs against my chest, and even through the haze of desire, I find myself smiling. This is my annoying family and now she’s part of it.
“Human, you will be allowed a head start. Then the chase begins and it will be you and him. We’ll leave immediately so you two can do this in private, here in the tunnels of the mine.”
“Good luck,” a female voice says.