Deus
The human females speak very quickly. The Sarkarnii females glower at me and don’t lower their pulsar pistols.
Dante puts his hand on my shoulder. I flinch.
“It would appear you have a reprieve,” he says, nodding over at Dalox and Darax.
They are deep in conversation with each other, looking over at the group of females.
“Don’t touch me.” I shrug off his hand.
“It’s my paraxio you’ve been using,” Dante says with a grin. “And my mate who’s helping you out.”
“Darax gave me the paraxio. I did not want the nevving stuff,” I growl. “And your mate is helping mine.”
Dante looks at me.
“Mate?”
I grit my teeth. Dante is not the warlord I wish to have this conversation with, but I doubt very much Dalox will speak to me. He takes betrayal very seriously.
“I think I rut for her,” I say under my breath.
“You rut for her?” Dante bellows.
“Keep it down, nevver.” I grab him by his throat, and the Sarkarnii female warriors step forward, forcing me to let him go. “I don’t want everyone to know.”
Dante rubs at his scales. “I heard of a male who had two females once,” he says. “And a female who had three males.” He shrugs. “Anything is possible, even a second rut.” He looks me up and down with a practiced eye, as if he knows anything.
“Dylia…” I say, staring over at the females. “She meant…she was…”
“But she is not here,” Dante says quietly. “And you are.” His eyes also move to the human females. “Did you ever ask yourself what she would have wanted for you?”
My tail twitches. I want to rage. I don’t want any of these Sarkarnii close to Lydia. If they could all be on the other side of Vorostor, it would still be too close.
“I have not.”
Dante’s hand is back on my shoulder, briefly. “Perhaps you should.”
I do not react this time.
“I need a ship,” I growl.
“All in good time, my friend,” Dante says. “Once Dalox no longer wishes to remove your head, perhaps we can talk.”
“The Ulep…”
“Are no longer in this galaxy, if you were planning anything,” Dante says.
“But they still exist,” I rasp. “And they should not exist.”
“Did you ever stop to ask yourself something else?” Dante stares off into the distance.
“Like what?”
“Like when it might be time to come in from the cold and see what it’s like being part of something.”
“I will never be part of this,” I snarl. “Not while I am treated the way I am treated.”
“I suspect the attempts to kill us and the treasonous behavior in trying to sell us out to an enemy go some way towards an explanation,” Dante says. “But that’s not to say you won’t be welcomed back. Not with your tech skills.”
“Just as long as you don’t ask me to pilot anything.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.” Dante lifts his lip to reveal a fang. “Although if you want a ship, you’ll need a crew or you’ll crash into the nearest moon.”
“Nevver,” I growl at him.
“Deus!” Dalox barks from the other side of the room.
“Your ancestors are calling,” Dante says under his breath. “You had better heed them.”
Under the ever watchful gaze of the pulsar-toting warriors who follow my every move, I make my way over to where Dalox and Darax wait for me. My Lydia watches me, even as the other females talk among themselves until one by one they stop and fix their eyes on me.
“Deus.” Darax lifts his lips and his fang reveal is not one of amusement.
“Darax.” I give him the customary bow, not taking my eyes from him. “Dalox.” Our old leader gets a similar greeting.
“If it wasn’t for the fact you did assist me and my mate on the second continent, and we were able to retrieve the mapping system from your old warship, you would not be here,” Dalox intones.
He was always one for the dramatic.
“Yes, I would have thought helping you out when you were envenomated would count for something.” I move my gaze back to Lydia, who is in the middle of the animated gaggle of humans once again.
“You were envenomated?” Darax asks, eyebrows raised.
Dalox growls. “Sarkarnii females don’t just envenomate those who they do not wish to mate with,” he says. “Sometimes they just…envenomate.”
He turns his gaze fully on me.
“I have been asked by my warlords, who, in turn, have been asked by their mates, to allow you a reprieve.” He snorts out a cloud of smoke and not a little amount of sparks.
“Whilst I’d not usually be inclined to grant you one.
” He eyes Darax. “Because of your assistance and because I am informed you also have an interest in a female human which may help you keep a lid on your…behavior, on this occasion, I am willing to give you some grace.”
My heart pounds in my chest. I hadn’t thought returning to the Sarkarnii would ever be something I wanted to do, but it would seem my body disagrees.
“However…” Dalox continues.
I have a feeling this is going to be a long speech.
And while I probably shouldn’t, I tune him out as he continues to talk, instead watching my Lydia as she is in deep conversation with her human female friends.
Some of them are large with sarkarnling.
I think about Lydia being large with sarkarnling. My mating gland thrums in my neck.
Would she even want to have my sarkarnling? Would she even want to let me bury my cock in her sweet, hot little cunt?
“Is that agreed, Deus?” Dalox snarls in my ear.
“Is what agreed?”
“My terms which will keep you out of Darax’s cells and not sucking up most of Dante’s paraxio output.”
“Yes,” I say quickly as I see the females moving together for a moment. “All agreed.”
I have no idea what I’m agreeing to. But if it means I get to be with Lydia, I care not.
“Good,” Dalox says. “Then your first shift starts tomorrow.”
“Shift?”
“With Dexx. You will work for him first. Then Dante, then Darax. You will be able to stay in your sector in between times.”
“Work?”
“As I said. Prove your loyalty and you can be one of us again. Prove you are a traitor, and I will banish you, and your female, forever.”