Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Lila
Ifiddle with the spelled metal bracelet around my wrist that Corethea gave me.
She assured me it would block my mimic abilities so that Xavier and Link can be around me during my pregnancy.
This means instead of banishing them to their home planets while I gestate and have our babies, they can be here for the process too.
As I stare out the big picture window while the Galaxy Circus ship docks with the space port hovering above Skarr, I heave out a big sigh.
I’m feeling nervous, excited, and a little bit scared as I look down on the planet that is to become my new home base.
Skarr looks much like Earth from above, though the land masses are unfamiliar and the sea has a slight pink tint to it.
I’m pretty sure that has something to do with the two pink moons that shine brightly in the sky, orbiting the planet—or is the planet orbiting them? I don’t know.
The ship is too big to land on Skarr and is docking at a space port that floats far above the planet.
Normally when we leave the ship, we would take a smaller shuttle down to the surface, but Corethea said the less I interact with other species, the better the bracelet will work.
She doesn’t want to risk overloading and breaking it, so when it’s time, they will beam us directly to our house.
Will and Eric have assured me that once the babies are born, we can tour the planet as much as I want.
We left John in the safe hands of the Celestians. Before we said goodbye, Susie promised she would sit with him each day, which helped ease some of the guilt. Both she and Mark assured me they would make sure he was looked after, and that all I needed to concentrate on was growing my babies.
Speaking of growing my babies… Caspian and I had a long talk about it on the flight from Celestia to Skarr.
“I spoke to my mother today,” Caspian says, running a finger along my spine, causing a shiver to slither down my back and my kraken to perk her horny head up.
Turning from the picture window, where I have spent most of the journey watching space go by, I wrap my arms around his body and pull him into me, kissing him hard.
My damn pregnancy hormones are riding me.
I think the fact that I know we are going to be doing this thing soon is revving them up.
Caspian pulls back and tugs me over to the couch, where he sits and pulls me down with him.
“I didn’t hear you come home. How was your meeting?” Caspian met with the rest of the people in his act to ascertain what their plans are while the circus is on hiatus.
“It was good. Most of the people in our act are shifters from Fluxx, and they will all be returning home to visit family and friends. They are excited to get a break. They will take a transport to Fluxx once we get to Skarr.”
“Well, that’s good. At least we have one group of performers who are happy with the arrangements.”
The two girls in Saxon’s clan are still causing trouble and insisting on mediation, but Saxon says it will have to wait until after the babies are born. He doesn’t want me to stress about anything, and his aunt, the queen, agreed with him.
“So my mother had some interesting things to tell me.” Cas takes my hand in his and places a kiss on it before turning it over and placing another one on my palm.
My heart starts to beat a little faster. It seems like he’s trying to break something big to me but doesn’t know how to tell me.
“Remember how I told you that you would give birth to the babies in live kraken form?”
I shudder, remembering what he told me when this all started, which was really only a couple of weeks ago. “Yes, you said they’d be born in kraken form and would shift into their humanoid form within a couple weeks.”
He winces, and I brace myself for whatever he’s about to say. “Well, that was before I knew you could shift. That’s how non-shifting kraken mates give birth.”
“Oh, and how do kraken mates with shifting abilities give birth?” I growl through gritted teeth, waiting for him to tell me some fucked up ritual that requires three virgin sacrifices and a partridge in a pear tree.
“Well, you will get the urge to shift and swim in the ocean to look for a safe place for our babies,” he says hesitantly.
“And?”
“Then you will lay the eggs in a safe and secure spot where they will spend the last few days incubating in the ocean while we guard them from any predators. They will then hatch in the ocean, and the five of us will swim together for the first two weeks before they shift, and then we can join the rest of our family on land again.”
I wait for him to add anything more, but he goes quiet and looks at me with hopeful eyes.
“And that’s it?” I ask him, and his brow wrinkles in confusion.
“What do you mean?” he inquires adorably.
“So it doesn’t require me to catch and eat live, raw fish or sacrifice a virgin to the twin moon goddess or drink blood from a spelled cup?”
“What? No!”
I relax into his embrace and heave out a sigh. “Well, good, that’s not so bad.”
“But we still have to activate the pregnancy and get the babies out of stasis,” he whispers in my ear, and my kraken perks up again.
That’s right, it requires me to drink a lot of his cum.
Well, that’s not a hardship considering how fucking good it tastes and the activities that are involved to get it.
“Shall we get started now?” I ask him eagerly, and he chuckles.
“No. I want to make it special for you, and traditionally, it’s also done in the water.
Actually, I was wondering if we could make a quick side trip to Fluxx.
I would love it if we could do the activation ritual in my home waters and maybe meet my parents.
We might not have time after the babies are here.
We will have John’s cure to search for.”
Aww, my kraken mate is so sweet, though I’m not sure if meeting his parents for the first time when I’m about to drain all eight of his limbs of cum is quite the first impression I’d like to make, but I guess this is normal for them.
“I’d love to,” I reply, which seems to be the right answer, because he beams and hugs me tight.
“Thank you. You have no idea how happy this makes me.”
“Lila!” I startle out of my memories to find Xavier frowning with concern directly in front of me.
“Are you okay, phoeall?” He reaches out and pushes a stray wisp of hair off my face.
“Yeah, sorry, I was lost in my thoughts. Damn pregnancy brain is making me foggy.”
He chuckles. “I’m not sure you can blame the pregnancy before you actually activate it.”
I place a finger over his mouth, shushing him. “I can, and I will, and you will not say anything.”
He grins behind my finger but nods his agreement. “How did things go with your harem? Are they all packed to leave?” I can’t wait to see the back of them. It will be a huge relief to have one less group gunning for me.
He winces. “Nambra and Lexus begged me to return their powers, but I can’t be seen as soft. No one would respect me,” he says like he’s trying to justify his actions, but he’s barking up the wrong tree.
“Please, those bitches conspired to get rid of me, so they deserve everything they get. I hope they end up at some dead-end job on the far side of the galaxy where they actually have to work to earn money.”
“Neither of them actually has any skills apart from the ones on their backs, so they will probably both end up in a brothel somewhere. At least they have some talents in that respect, but neither of them has healing abilities, so the variety of aliens they’ll be able to service is limited now too.
” It still surprises me how everyone is so blasé about sex compared to how taboo it is on a majority of Earth.
I couldn’t think of any better revenge on them than that, and it makes me immensely happy. “And the others?” I ask, unsure how the rest of his harem felt about being dismissed.
“I’ve given them all excellent references, and all but Topirey have gone into a pool of candidates for people who are forming new harems. They will get snapped up. It’s prestigious to have the Crown Prince of Westalin’s harem castoffs.”
I roll my eyes at his overinflated ego. I mean, sure, he has the power to back it up, but it doesn’t hurt to have his ego taken down a peg.
“Let’s just hope they don’t find someone who’s better in the sack than you.
We wouldn’t want the Crown Prince of Westalin’s sexual prowess to be called into question.
” His chest visibly deflates, and his eyes squint with worry before he starts muttering.
“There is no chance they’ll find someone better in bed than me. My power enhances the whole experience.”
“So you’re saying you’re only good at giving orgasms because of how powerful you are, and not because you actually know what you’re doing?”
“What?” He gapes at me, speechless with shock. “Of course not.”
It’s all I can do to smother the smile that threatens to break free.
“I should have just killed them all,” he mutters under his breath, and I’m not surprised that he considers mass genocide an option to protect his reputation.
“Settle down, I’m sure they will never find anyone better than you.”
“No, you’re right, I have nothing to worry about,” he agrees quickly.
“So what is Topirey doing?” I ask, changing the subject. Otherwise, he might be obsessing over it the whole day, or worse, actually go and kill them before they can catch a transport to Westalin.
“Oh, he has decided he would like to vacation on Earth for a while and will catch a lift when we return.”
I do a double take. “Topirey, the tree man who looks like Groot? There’s no way he can pass for anything human.”
“No, you’re right, he can’t, but he has a couple of friends who will offer him sanctuary, and as his severance pay, he asked for me to create a glamour charm for him to wear.
It will give him a human glamour. I have to say, I completely outdid myself.
It is totally seamless. He could have sex in his glamour, and nobody would know he was anything but human. ”
“How does he have sex in his natural form?” I ask, unable to hide my curiosity. I mean, with the stingray dude, I could work things out mostly by myself with a little creative thinking, but the stick man and insect man really have me scratching my head. I’m dying for a little alien sex ed.
To my surprise, Xavier’s lavender cheeks darken as a blush heats them.
“Come on. Seriously? You can’t be shy. I thought you’d be happy to give me a play-by-play of how the two of you fucked.
” I squirm on my seat, thinking about Xavier and Saxon.
Then my thoughts go to Xavier and someone else, and my kraken roars in my mind, thrashing to get through and attack the tree man.
Xavier opens his mouth, but I place a hand over it again.
“Actually, scratch that. Don’t tell me. I’m likely to shift and bite his head off. My kraken insists he will be tasty.”
Xavier blinks once, twice, and nods shortly, and then I remove my hand.
“Let’s never discuss previous partners, okay?”
He heaves out a sigh and relaxes into the couch. “That sounds pretty good to me.”
A loud clanging sound echoes through our suite, and I jump to my feet, looking around for the cause. “Holy fuck, what was that? Did we hit something?” I ask, and Xavier stands up too, shaking his head.
“No, that was just the clamps locking onto the ship. If they don’t, it would just float away into space because there is no hand brake on a spaceship.”
I try to peer out of the window and see the space port, but my suite is at the back of the ship, and all I can see is open space behind us.
I pout, slightly upset that I don’t get to see it, but I guess it’s not a bad thing.
I finger the bracelet around my wrist again.
I don’t want to overload the spell that’s keeping me safe.
“Come on, I’ll escort you to the transport that will take you to Fluxx. Caspian is meeting you there, right?” Xavier says, his mist hovering around his feet.
“Yes. He asked Corethea if I would be okay traveling on it with the other Fluxx shifters, and she assured me I would be safe as long as none of them shifted in front of me. They won’t register as another species for my mimic abilities to copy if they remain in human form.
It’s also why I can be around Skarrians, unless they use different abilities in front of me. ”
“Do you need a blood top off?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“No, Saxon and I recently shared blood, and Link drew a couple of bags to sustain Saxon while I’m gone, but he promised he would feed from you if he needed to.”
Xavier winks. “Oh, it would be my pleasure.”
I pout playfully. “Hey, you’re not supposed to be having fun without me.” I haven’t had a chance to seduce them both to my bed yet, but it is definitely at the top of my list once we return from Fluxx.
“Oh, I assure you, it will be much more pleasurable once you join us.”
“Damn it, Xavier, I can’t get onto that transport stinking like fuck me vibes, so cool your jets, okay?”
He grins and lets his mist surround us both. “Anything for you, my phoeall.” He nuzzles his nose against mine, and I feel us dissolve into microparticles.