Chapter 31
The shriek breaking the air made Alex pause mid-stride, her skin prickling with awareness.
This wasn’t one of the communicative calls she had heard among Seshanamitesh while they were hunting or traveling within the colony.
There was something so blood-curdling and primal to it that it made her shiver in fear even as it oddly curled her toes.
She instinctively turned toward it, however, as if every cell in her body anticipated something her mind hadn’t yet figured out.
He was coming.
Therxian.
She didn’t know how exactly she knew it was him when the meat offering proved that another knew she was there. Logically, it could have been anyone. Yet, somehow, she just knew. Therxian was coming for her.
Buosoa’s head swung in the direction of the sound, her body turning slightly as her gavo rose warily. A tiny huff of laughter escaped the female and her gavo lowered as she bobbed her head humorously.
“I think that is my cue to leave,” she murmured, thrusting the meat at Alex.
Alex blinked, startled and turned toward the other female in disbelief. “Wait. What? You aren’t seriously going to abandon me now.”
Buosoa responded with another soft hiss of laughter and tipped her head toward the dark, broken tunnel as another shriek echoed off the stones.
“Do you not hear that? Does that sound like a rational male to you?” She thumped Alex on the shoulder companionably with one wing.
“Do not look so worried. This is a very encouraging sign.”
“Encouraging? Encouraging for whom?” Alex yelped, despite the hot, liquid well of need rising rapidly within her belly. “That doesn’t sound... safe,” she finished lamely.
The other female grinned for the first time, displaying her perfectly sharp teeth. “If you wanted safe, then you should never have left the soft confines of your colony, little human. Nothing is ever safe when it comes to Seshanamitesh and mating.”
Alex squinted at her suspiciously. “Easy for you to say when females typically outweigh your males. How is it unsafe for you?”
Buosoa’s grin widened impossibly. “Do you think it is an accident that we have selectively bred our males small and colorful? We can see them easily and are capable of restraining them, and even then, a male in the height of his lust can be unpredictable. But Therxian is a male of royal blood, which makes him larger as males were in the old days, and he has lived among the Vehal... no female would have an easy time with him, and yet many are eager to try all the same for what he represents. But they do not get this,” she hissed.
Alex’s eyes flicked nervously back to the dark tunnel that seemed to echo the stir of air and the distant sound of wings snapping. “What is this?” she whispered in reply.
“That would be the sound of a very lustful male prepared to protect his ashlava,” Buosoa replied so sweetly and so matter-of-factly that it made Alex pause.
The queen of his nest. His mate. Alex had heard this word whispered endearingly among the males in intimate little corners as they wrapped the coils of their tails or wings around their chosen mate.
The utter devotion in that one little word had touched her heart, but she had never imagined the other side of their intense bond with their mate: the fierce need to protect it.
She blinked, her eyes dropping suddenly to the meat that was thrust into her hands and widening. “Oh no, no, no. I am not going to be holding this when he gets here. Are you insane? You just said it would drive him mad,” she snapped as she attempted to thrust the meat back at the female.
Buosoa glided out of the way, her chin dipping cheerfully in the negative. “I cannot return to the palace with that. Too many would question it. It serves a better purpose with you.”
Alex narrowed her eyes at the other female. “How?”
The guard’s ears flicked casually—too casually.
“Some males require a bigger push than others. Seeing that another male is willing to provide for you will be just the incentive he needs to secure what he needs so he can refocus on what the shinara needs. I have said before that my primary interest is in the shinara’s well-being.
Naturally, this serves my purposes perfectly. ”
Alex’s jaw dropped. “You actually want him to be provoked?”
“Of course. As you should as well, if you would stop ignoring what your instincts are telling you,” she said pointedly.
“You want him to choose you, even if you believe it is impossible. He also wants you, despite the pressure that is being put on him by everyone around him. I must admit—from Jathella as well, as she sees it as the necessary vehicle of change within the shinara.”
“And how does that make this a good idea?” Alex demanded as she lifted the meat demonstratively. “How is this not going to make everyone pissed off at me?”
“Worry less,” Buosoa advised with an additional flick of her ears, and another shriek carried up the tunnel—closer.
Worry less? Alex snorted in disbelief. That was like asking for the moon at the current juncture. “And what will keep Jathella from just taking my ass out?”
“My sister would not do that,” the guard replied confidently.
“Though she has always been a little too singularly focused, she is not heartless. Like myself, her only true interest is the shinara. We wish to see change so that we can thrive in the future, but Jathella believes that it can only come by working within the established system and dismantling it from within. She is correct to a point, which is why we threw our support behind Therxian. However, I do not agree that it requires him to sacrifice himself and take a mate deemed ‘acceptable’ to satisfy the populace. We are not blind. She sees his feelings for you as clearly as I do, but she is afraid that he will do as Slengral did. Unfortunately, the way things currently are, you are also a distraction. She intends to reduce the distraction by separating you, but you can hear for yourself that this is useless. The more she tries to separate you, the more he will close the distance, one way or another. It is his instinct to do so.”
Alex frowned. “So, you want to throw accelerant onto a fire instead.”
A sly smile spread across the female’s face.
“Yes. If Therxian will not break himself free from the constraints placed on him by his mother, the council, and my sister, then I will make certain that his instinct to be close to his ashlava to provoked to the point of breaking down the last of the barriers. Jathella will blame me, but if it accomplishes the same result—removing a source of distraction by settling his instincts—then she has no reason to object.”
Alex looked doubtfully at the meat. It still sounded like they were preparing to play with fire from more than one front.
And that Alex was the one taking the most risk.
It was unlikely that Jathella would retaliate against her own sister, but if Alex was the source of the problem, she would be the most likely target.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled. She shivered as another shriek blasted through the air, the sound strong and clear now that he was closing in on her. “Buosoa,” she began, her gaze lifting from her burden, “perhaps we should rethink—-”
She blinked at the empty corridor. The guard had taken the opportunity to make her getaway.
“Well... fuck me.”
Which seemed to be exactly the point that Buosoa was aiming for. Traitor.
She turned warily toward the tunnel, her skin prickling with goosebumps beneath her jumpsuit.
She was already chilled from the cold of the cave system and had been away from the fire burning in the royal nest for far too long.
But it was not just the cold making her react now.
The heat drawing together within her belly was warming her subtly from the inside, despite the numbness that was slowly invading her extremities.
Should she run and try to make it back to the warmth of her nest before he arrived?
Did she even have time to make the sort of clean getaway that Buosoa had?
Somehow, she very seriously doubted it. Running now almost felt extremely foolish.
As provoked as he obviously was, would he take it the wrong way?
Too many questions that lacked answers. Normally, her response would be to boldly take a chance anyway.
Unfortunately, it seemed that nerve was failing her.
So instead, it seemed that she was just going to stand there like a mouse, trembling in the face of an approaching serpent.
“I can’t believe that I’m just standing here,” she muttered with a humorless laugh. “It seems that I am weak as any other after all.”
The irony of her situation did not escape her.
How often had she scoffed at the way everyone in the colony seemed to lose their heads and common sense after the Corp retreated from the planet?
She hadn’t wanted anyone enough to set aside her own logical and sense of self-preservation.
Because of that, she had never believed herself to be capable of the weakness that she saw in others when it came to matters of love and desire—but this was a sort of weakness that she had never encountered before.
It was derived purely from a need that went far beyond just casual desire and romantic fantasies.
It stirred something to life within her that was helpless to do anything but respond as a low humming song carried by the tunnel invaded the deepest part of her and turned to a pool of fire churning restlessly inside of her.
It caressed over her senses as it rolled over her, fanning the flames of her need higher within her until her skin itched with want for his touch, and her sex tingled and slickened with her need to be filled.
She clenched her thighs together with the hope of exercising some control over it, but the action sent a tremor of friction rising up to brush her weeping cunt.
A pant of breath escaped her, and there was the distant sensation of something slipping from between her fingers and her arms suddenly becoming weightless as she stared into the darkness.
Waiting. Waiting for him.
Fuck, why again wasn’t she running? None of this was natural as far as her lived experiences had taught her.
Nothing should exercise so much control.
But she couldn’t make herself move. Her body was betraying her as it bloomed, ripe, wet, and sweet, in preparation for something she couldn’t even accurately imagine.
Alex shivered where she stood, the sound of Therxian’s wings growing louder and louder, matching the rhythmic beat of her heart echoing in her ears.
A shadow shifted elegantly within the darkness, its movement becoming increasingly beautiful as it gained more and more definition as it got closer. Therxian was coming.
She saw the crimson glow of his eyes cutting the darkness first, and it was followed by the sleekness of his dark indigo body emerging from the recesses of the tunnel into the light of the bloom galthie flowers growing in clusters from the corridor walls.
He settled on a ledge for a moment, his head angling toward her as his tail whipped the air and curled.
His two dark tongues tasted the air as his eyes roved over her, gliding lower over her as his song brightened, sending a dual touch of heat stroking through her, stirring her arousal higher.
Until his gaze dropped to her feet and froze. His eyes narrowed and blazed, but it was the discordant, aggressive note breaking his song that ripped through her so that her own eyes dropped down in a panic to the meat that had fallen to the ground at her feet.
Drawing himself up, he hissed vehemently, his head whipping around as he searched for his rival.
His gavo snapped upward and began to rattle with its vibration in addition to the rapid movements of his jaw, producing a sound of threat that she had never heard before, punctuated by sharp, primal barks.
It was horrific and arousing. She stumbled back, drawing his attention back to her as she backpedaled away.
He crooned at her, and his wings snapped numerous times against his sides until they suddenly spread wide.
His wings tipped briefly, but then he launched himself through the air toward her, giving her an almost perfect view of his sant.
Engorged and glistening with his cum dripping from it, it jerked in the air as he plummeted towards her, its multiple heads twitching in a way that made her thighs clench with a new burst of arousal flaming through her.
Fuck, she was most definitely in trouble.