9. Vael-Torin
VAEL-TORIN
The honey of my human female is an addictive substance.
Kneeling between her thigh, my face buried entirely in her sweetness, the scent of her arousal floods my senses until my brain can’t think past my Poppy.
She tastes like summer after a heavy rain, like relief after a drought.
My tongue moves over her swollen bud in slow, heavy strokes.
Pausing I lap up the slick fluid dripping down her inner thighs before returning to the strange center of her pleasure.
Above me, Poppy lets out another wild moan that vibrates straight through my heart. Her fingers clamp hard around my horns, bringing me insane pleasure.
The feel of her soft hands on my horns devastate me.
She does not know the biology of my people; she does not understand that a Draegon’s horns possess a direct line to his cock.
Every single time her fingers tighten around the ridges, pulling me closer, a bolt of white-hot pleasure rockets straight down my spine.
Beneath the table, my cock responds in kind. It begins skithing frantically against the fabric of my trousers, pulsing so hard the pressure is torment.
I want to rip my pants away. I want to slide my shaft deep into her tight hot cunt and breed her until the metal table groans under our weight.
I don’t.
I force my hands to remain on her deliciously soft waist, anchoring her hips. This is about her, this moment, and my loyalty to her. I won’t take her like that until she truly understands the ways of my people. I would never be her captor. Never.
"Vael..." her voice completely shatters my restraint.
She doesn't wait for me to stop.
With surprising strength, she yanks on my horns, dragging my face up from her thighs. Her eyes are glazed pleasure, her cheeks flushed beautifully.
"I am not waiting," she pants, her hands dropping to my waistband and aggressively shucking my trousers down past my hips until my shaft bobs free in the cool air of the dome. “Tell me no if you don’t want this, but I want this.”
“It means forever, Poppy,” I tell her. “I can not live with myself if you regret this—”
“I want it all,” she says, nodding to herself. “Tell me no if you don’t.”
“I want you too,” I grit out, because damn it all, I do. I want her, but I want her to know if we do this, I will never walk away. “You will be mine forever, though, Poppy—"
Grinning, she hooks her magnificent thighs around my waist and hoists herself forward. She lines up the thick of my cock with her hot, soaking cunt and sinks down.
A feral roar rips from my chest, my wings snapping wide behind me to slam against the walls of the dome.
She is perfect. Fuck.
I dip my head down, taking her huge breasts in hand, lavishing them with the attention they deserve.
“Yes, Vael, that feels so good,” she moans. Her head tilts back, her long hair sweeping across the table as I suck on the pink tips of her breasts.
“I have not given these the attention they deserve,” I grit out. My cock skithes inside her sheath, and she moans, bobbing on it as I fill her.
“So good,” she repeats, her little heels digging into the small of my back. Her legs are too short to wrap around me, but I would be a fool to not understand her request. I pull off her breast with a pop, and she moans as I blow cold air across the fevered tip of it.
She wants me deeper.
Fuck. The thought alone nearly sends me to the edge.
My fangs press against my lip as dig my talons into the deliciously soft flesh of her ass, holding her still so I can give her what she wants.
“More,” she says throatily, her eyes pleading as they meet mine.
I pull out slowly, agonizingly–and slam back into her.
Poppy’s hands fly to my shoulders, my horns too far away now for her to grip. A ragged scream tears from her throat.
“Yes, yes,” she sobs. Her breasts bounce, mesmerizing, her ass and stomach so plush that it’s all I can do to not fuck her as hard as I want.
Instead, she rides me, her delicious hips slamming down against mine.
I grip her lush ass, lifting her frame to meet every downward plunge, completely in awe of the raw power of her body.
Her cunt squeezes my cock, milking it in a way I never thought possible.
Every expression that flits across her face, from pure wonder to desperate need, is a prize.
We move together in a blur of red scales and smooth skin until the intensity of her contractions triggers my release. I jerk beneath her filling her up, my entire body shuddering as the climax shatters me completely.
I kiss up her neck, her breasts, which I’ve decided I’m obsessed with, her ass, which I am also obsessed with, then carry her to the Draegon sized bed in the other room.
“More,” she says, and I press my lips to her temple, where she’s still burning in her heat. “I need more.”
I would be a fool to not oblige her.
So oblige her I do. Again, and again, until I’m not longer sure where I end and she begins.
Hours later, the fire in her veins has finally cooled.
I think the fire in my veins for her, though, might just be beginning.
Tangled together on the large platform bed, the iridescent, sheer panels of the dome cast a quiet twilight over us. Poppy is fast asleep, her breathing light and even against my chest, her reddish-brown hair a soft cloud against my collarbone.
I know exactly what just happened.
She needed the physical release to survive the fever of the heat.
My mate is using me for sex.
A proud smile blooms, my fangs brushing my lower lip. She will love me for more than that.
I am Vael-Torin.
I will build a foundation between us that nothing can dismantle. I will prove my worth to her, body and soul, until she claims me as her home.
I’m staring at her still, memorizing the curves of her body, the angles of her face, even the pattern of her breathing, when the peaceful silence shatters.
A violent noise cracks through the air.
Poppy bolts up, her face twisted with terror.
A subterranean shudder rocks the structure, the walls rattling fiercely as something crashes to the floor with a bang, and I snap fully awake.
Deep beneath the ground, a mechanical rumbling noise echoes—unlike anything I have ever heard surface.
“I have you.” I roll over my mate, pinning her securely beneath my bulk, flaring both wings wide to shield her from anything else that might fall.
She sinks her fingernails into my hide. "Earthquake?" she squeaks.
Before I can answer, a voice cuts through noise.
"Attention, contestants." The voice crackles out, sounding like it is everywhere and nowhere all at once. "I have been tracking you since your arrival. It has come to my attention that you are here to compete."
Poppy goes still beneath me, her breath a fast pant of fear.
“I have caught up on the so-called reality dramas and contests of Earth and other worlds, and I have decided to render aid to your shoddy and laughable excuse of a show."
A sharp crack splits the panel beside the bed. I hold Poppy tighter.
"And did you know," the strange, tinny speaker continues, "that they intended to give all of you parcels of land on Sueva? I don’t think that’s very interesting. Yes, yes, they are going to start a colony there, it’s very clear from all the Roth comms that I’ve dug through over the last several cycles after they woke me up.
But won’t it be so much more fun if you all fight to the death? "
Fury sears through me, a growl begining to build in my chest.
"I’m not unromantic, however, so you won’t be forced to fight your current partners," the voice says. "We all love a romance arc, after all, don’t we? Especially the one who got all of her friends into this. I’m rooting for her to find love.
She’s the real underdog. I mean, of course, Poppy Harrington.
Poppy, it really will be wonderful television to watch you react to having to truly compete against the women you tricked into sign up for this.
" The voice is practically sing-song, delighted with itself.
I stiffen, my head snapping down to look at Poppy.
Her jaw is slack, horror flashing across her face as the entity singles her out.
This thing knows her. It is watching her.
And what did it mean, she tricked people? Not my Poppy.
"I have deposited gear, weapons, and what remained of the rations from the space station after I took over several hundred years ago somewhere near where you are sleeping," the synthetic voice continues. "Retrieving them won’t be easy, however, as I’ve also awoken some exciting native fauna on this station’s surface.
I’ve also increased the signals to as much of space as I can, including the Draegon and Arco home planets.
Those water dwellers are strange, but they do love a good mate hunt.
It would be wrong of me to assist or hamper contestants, but I do love a good plot twist, so I absolutely will be.
Whoever makes it to my control center alive wins. I’ll be in touch!"
With that, the voice snaps off, plunging the world into an ominous silence.
Then a far-off clamor begins—something large moving through the jungle, from the sounds of it. The front wall of our luxury dome slides open on its own, exposing us completely to the still-dark morning.
Poppy’s eyes are wide, her fingers digging into my arms. “This is bullshit,” she says. “I read our contracts top to bottom, and if there is one thing I know, and only one thing, it’s how to fucking litigate legalese!”
“Litigate legalese,” I repeat, confused.
“Don’t worry about it,” she pats my hand. “I got this.”
I bare my fangs to the darkness. I knew the mad king sent me here to die. I knew it was a trap.
But I’m done taking orders from that old fool.
"Hold onto me, Poppy," I rasp. "The game has changed."
I’ll do whatever it takes to get my precious mate safe.
Even if the voice has made it clear I can no longer trust her.