Chapter Four
Roan
I was going to die.
Every inch of my skin crawled, my body betraying me. My insides, hot and oversensitive, drove me to unspeakable heights. I knew hybreeds were horny, and the changes were too new for me to adequately handle.
I sprawled out in my bed, a luxurious and expansive thing unlike on most ships. A warm body next to me snorted awake and glanced over, one of my crewmates. Robbald or something stupid. “Are you still here?”
He grumbled and sat up. “You’re a right prick after a lay, you know that, boss?”
I gazed at his lean form, all silvery scales with interesting patterns down his back, his tail a more narrow and whiplike thing.
I didn’t like it. I wanted something thick and powerful and—I shook my head to get the image out.
Still, my tail did this weird curling thing that the man reciprocated. “Possibly.”
I rolled over onto my front wordlessly, lifting my ass for him.
I’d not had to ask once since we’d begun our journey.
Half the males aboard the ship seemed to flick their tails, if they had them, and I noticed their scents change—the more Progenitor they possessed, the more interested in me they became.
And while I was accustomed to being in control of my bed, and I’d fucked a handful of them, I’d only let him fuck me. He knew how to keep his mouth shut.
He mounted me quietly, doing his thing as I rode through the foreign pleasure.
I’d never been a fan of being penetrated, but holy hell, I wanted him deep inside me.
Anything, really. My cock leaked, the slit it came from leaked, my ass—of all things—self-lubricated.
No wonder they’re all a bunch of whores.
I tried to tune him out, leaving me with my own pleasure. At least he gave me the benefit of the reach-around, as it were.
“I hate to interrupt whatever this is, but we’re nearing the sector of space and you may need to not be fucking if they try to call in.
” Leticia’s reedy voice interrupted my session, and I snarled as the male—Robard!
—slowed his pace. Remembering his name drew me out of the moment, and I groaned, fisting sheets as I arched my back and clenched down on him.
A shiver started in my spine and must have ended in his because our tails coiled against one another and blissful pleasure seemed to overcome every single inch of my body.
“Fuck!” I hissed as the male behind me stuttered and groaned. The haggard noises sawing from him did something to prolong my pleasure. Fuck, I needed that.
“Sorry, Tish! We’re finished.” Robard pulled out of me with a slick noise and a slightly patronizing pat to my ass. He didn’t shame me for it, though. Bottoming was…just something I never wanted to do. Not usually. Not before all this.
I rose from the bed and stared at the screen, wondering where the time had gone to. “ETA?”
“An hour and a half until we’re in short-range communication. I figured you’d want a shower before we positioned ourselves into orbit?” Leticia’s forever-disappointed tone ground out the last sentence.
“A hot one?” I glanced up at one of her sensors hopefully.
“After listening to you fuck for the past month and a half?” If she had feet, she’d be tapping one inconsolably. “Really? Having all the sex I can’t have?”
“Cold it is.” I sighed and slumped off toward my shower. “As long as the rest of the crew can have their desired temperature showers, I suppose.”
“Everyone except Tulio.” Her terse tone left me curious, and she must have sensed my curiosity because she sighed audibly. “He keeps using my TTS feature to read…”
I listened with bated breath as she hesitated. “Self-insert fanfiction.”
I shuddered. “Valid.”
The hum she gave me told it all.
So, I showered.
In the cold, wet silence.
Exiting the shower, I threw on clothes that barely fit me anymore, hanging limply off a frame that had narrowed at the waist, lengthened at the thigh, and had been barely altered in haste to fit my tail. The less people that knew of my new changes, the better.
As we approached the edge of space, a communication sounded out, a repetitive chant of Naleucian welcoming home their missing sons. My implant barely kept up with it, as its lexicon was based off of data hundreds of years old. It’d synch up when I heard more of the language, I hoped.
“Send a message. We have seventeen crewmen aboard, all hybreed of forty percent or greater. We have come seeking Noel and Vil of Mater Terra.” I wished they had last names to mention. Hybreeds were always a chosen name and just a code.
The echoing, repetitive message changed then, and instead of the welcome, it gave us landing coordinates and a revolving passkey to make it through the barrier and cloaking.
Leticia did what she could with it, and as the shimmer of space between planets flickered, the first hints of Paradise came into view. What could be my new homeworld, Naleucia. Or, their word for it, Lissotritonaleu.
We had two hours before the planet’s rotation would line up with a potential landing.
As I patiently waited, the entirety of my body clenched with excitement and fear. I wondered how well we’d be accepted, if they’d know why I’d changed so much, why I looked the way I did.
“Incoming communication, sir.” Leticia sighed audibly, letting me know she was irritated. “And Merriel is not responding to me.”
“Patch me in. I assume Vil wants to sp—” A video feed popped up, and Noel stood before me, a bored expression drawn across his beautiful face. As always, it was a shocking moment when I saw him, a relief of humanity’s betrayal. “Noel!”
His eyes flicked about, no doubt looking for my camera feed. “Roan. Vil is outside of range for communication, but is on his way. He’s been enjoying hunting.”
“Well, better it was you, anyway. I seem to have—”
“Gone through a complete metamorphosis, the likes of which Mater Terra scientists had only dreamed of?” Noel’s flat tones brought a flush to my cheeks.
“Well, yes. I seem to have—”
“You have a color that threatens your concept of maleness?” Noel, as astute as any Naleucian should have been, barely blinked, even as a small hatchling crawled over him and nestled up under his neck. Not the hatchling I’d seen before, this one far more violently colored—orange and blue striped.
Before I could ask a question or answer, a male I almost recognized swept by, his voice snapping my memory into place Murdoc… “C’mere, ya little turd. Let’s get you cleaned up for a nap. Hopefully Uncle Vil comes back from the hunt with a dead thing for you to eat.”
The little one squeaked with joy and chirped something that my chip couldn’t translate.
“I… I am a dusky color…” I cleared my throat.
“Lavender.” Noel rolled his eyes. “Turn on the camera.”
“I—I don’t think that’s—I’m not lavender!”
“Turn on the camera.” Noel enunciated slowly, and I flipped it on with a scowl. He raised a single brow, such an elegant thing. “Alright. We’re approaching season. You’ve got crew with you who would benefit from being dosed, yes? Take the change like you and Doc have?”
“Yes.”
“Send DNA data, please.” Noel waved his hand offscreen and stared at something as I rushed to send off their profiles. He scanned them with eyes twitching in their sockets in an unnerving way as he flicked his finger.
“More betas, some alphas. Not a single o—well one, at least.” Noel huffed in amusement. “Fair warning and no apologies to your crew, but alphas and betas are in extremely short supply and many of the omegas here have never seen one before. And they’re extremely friendly.”
“I believe what he is trying to communicate, is that we are all very amenable to coitus. Encouraging, even.” A slender male with mauve scales slipped by Noel with a sweet smile.
Everything about his body was my type, but as my eyes followed him, my libido gave the equivalent of a shrug. The male smiled at me.
“How—”
“We’ll talk when you arrive. With Vil present, but needless to say, not many people will be harassing you for intimacy.” Noel handwaved the statement off.
“Is my color that undesirable?” I glanced at myself and frowned.
“Oh, no. You’re lovely. Like a fostinum blossom. And you’re a bicolor! You’re an exotic and wonderfully beautiful specimen, but there’s much competition.” The male that spoke earlier interjected, and I frowned.
“Why does it always have to be sex with your lot?” I huffed and glared at Noel.
He shrugged in response. “You’re the one who showed up during season.”
“Mating season?” My upper lip twitched a little as Noel shrugged and glanced around suspiciously.
“Yes…” Noel frowned. “Merriel isn’t as talkative as usual. We can speak once you’ve landed and gone through decontamination.”
Leticia hummed in the background, a predatory and flirtatious noise that made me glare up at one of her sensors. “Both of our operating systems are behaving oddly. We can reconvene once I land.”
Noel ended the call wordlessly, and I gave Leticia another withering stare.
All I had to do was play the waiting game and mentally prepare myself for Vil’s mockery.
I took a deep breath.
Fuck.