CHAPTER 3
ANDROMEDA
Sylvus is on me in a flash, looping silk around my arms to pin them at my sides first. He spins me so rapidly as he wraps me that I have little chance of fighting back.
“Hey!” The world keeps spinning as he deposits me upright in the hammock. This silk wrap is slightly stretchier than it was before, and it reminds me of those sleep cocoons that induce deep body pressure that the ICSS issues to every human. They work like a charm. I always refused to use mine.
“What?” he asks.
“Was that entirely necessary?”
“Yes,” he says, throwing me over his shoulder.
“Ow, hey—why?!”
“Because you don’t seem to have very good self-preservation instincts. And I can’t have the merchandise getting damaged.”
“How can milk get damaged?”
“You’re the merchandise, remember?”
“Oh. Right.” I grunt and try to shift my weight.
“Stop wiggling.”
“Your shoulder is digging into my diaphragm!”
He gives a weary sigh and slides me off his shoulder, cradling me against his chest.
That licorice scent is the strongest yet.
It’s oddly soothing. Between that and the compressive wrap around me, my lack of sleep over the past couple weeks catches up to me.
I dig my fingernails into my palms to stay alert.
“Do you know how we used to do things before the sanctioned clinics?” His voice is low and rumbling next to my ear, but still with that musical lilt.
My heart rate ticks up again. “No.”
“I will have a good time showing you,” he purrs.
I shudder. There’s something so menacing in how he says that, but… I’m not exactly afraid. More… nervous? Not excited, necessarily, but perhaps… full of anticipation.
I’m eager to get the first part of this over with so I can go back to checking out and killing time until I’m rich enough to tell the ICSS to fuck off.
Sylvus carries me into a darker tunnel in this three-dimensional maze.
“I can walk, you know,” I mutter.
He chuckles, navigating a bend in the tunnel. “Up a vertical surface?”
“I have hands. I can also climb.”
“Yes, but climbing wastes energy. Energy I want.”
A tingle rushes from my chest. “Do you haze all your new hucows? Telling them spooky stories about how we did things before to get them all jumpy and nervous? It won’t work on me.”
“Rah!” he says suddenly, next to my ear.
I startle, pulse kicking up to a dull thunder, limbs tensing against my bonds.
He laughs. “I only haze the mouthy ones.”
I roll my eyes.
“Besides…”
His low pur sends a violent shiver down my spine.
“…if I really wanted to scare you, I’d tell you about the milking rooms. Whole caverns where Arachnoids used to string up their prey, helpless little bundles of silk, each activated with a bite.
I’d describe how their breasts swelled and hung, and as the venom ran its course, they’d beg to be milked.
And I’d tell you how we used to walk those halls, listening to each sweet plea, sucking a bit from a teat here…
from another teat there… drinking our fill…
I might even hint at how they spent the rest of their lives there, tangled in our webs, well-fed and well-tended, nothing but mindless bags of milk. ”
If it were fear that gripped my chest, boiling hot and sliding around my ribs, dripping lower, I’d have a retort. A witty comeback. A defiant snap.
But what pools low and throbbing is undeniable, shameful arousal.
And that, for once, leaves me speechless.
The tunnel opens up again to a room lit with warm, dim light. On the far side is a cluster of silk cubbies full of glass jars, oddly shaped motors, and gleaming steel parts that look exactly how I imagined hucow milking equipment would.
But he doesn’t take me over to that. Instead, he strings me up in front of him so that I’m in a seated, upright position. With blinding quickness, he draws out dozens of threads to anchor me in every direction and distribute my weight evenly. It feels like those zero-gravity chairs.
His hand approaches me, holding a device he’s produced from somewhere.
It looks like the menacing love child of a hole punch and a tag gun.
I get flashbacks to getting my ears pierced at the mall, sneaking off to get them done for free even though Mom had promised to take me somewhere real. It’s hard to rebel against reasonable, generous parents.
My ears had gotten horribly infected. Then Dad started saying I just didn’t care about getting them done right, so of course I finally went to a real place. It took me ten years to realize his comments had been a ruse the whole time. He knew me that well.
I shrink back from the gleaming metal in Sylvus’s hand.
“Hey, you didn’t say anything about… whatever that is.”
His expression becomes patient. “You have many cartilage piercings. You’re familiar with the concept.”
I wince. “And I’m familiar with being sore for two weeks. Do you have some sick fetish for dressing up your hucows?”
He leans close to my ear. “Careful what you wish for.”
A very confusing sensation ripples down my spine, making me squirm.
He laughs. “This is strictly practical, I’m afraid. The ear tag serves two purposes. First, it has a chip embedded that will read your vitals. It will track any unusual reactions and alert me if I need to intervene. Secondly, it marks you as mine.”
I don’t like how he says mine.
Heat squirms through my stomach.
Wait, do I love it?
No, no, I hate it. Of course I hate it.
He continues, “That way, no other Arthropoid will touch you without my permission. If you become delirious and run away, you’ll be returned to me.”
“I won’t become delirious,” I bark.
“Don’t worry,” he purrs. “When you do, I’ll make sure you stay exactly where you ought to be.”
He approaches my ear again, and I flinch back.
“Now what?” he asks.
My cheeks get hotter.
“What?” he asks again, half-laughing.
Having failed to hide my reflex, I can only admit defeat. “It’s going to hurt,” I mutter.
“Hm. Would you like me to make it not hurt?”
“I’m not a baby,” I snap.
He waits a beat.
“Yes,” I reluctantly admit.
He runs his tongue along his teeth, and I become aware of two things:
One, his tongue seems very long and flexible.
Two, all of his teeth are as sharp and deadly as his prominent fangs. They articulate individually, which explains the mysterious clicking sound.
He leans close to my ear.
When I twist my head away on reflex, he wraps a hand across my face—fuck, his hands are big—and holds me firmly in place.
“What are you—”
His wet, hot tongue hits my ear, sliding along the shell.
“Ew, stop that! What the fuck! You perv!”
He just laughs, hot breath washing over my cheek, as he continues licking around the shell of my ear, front and back.
The hot, slimy sensation makes me squirm and shudder, but there’s nowhere I can go, no escape.
And no escape from the heat in my belly, blossoming outward, settling in my cunt.
Sylvus leans back, and I remain trembling for a moment longer.
Still holding my head in place, he reaches up and pinches my ear. “How’s that feel?”
There’s a sense of pressure, but no pain.
I blush against his palm. “Numb,” I reluctantly admit.
“Good. Now. I’d tell you to hold still, but… you don’t really have a choice.”
The tag gun slides across my periphery, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
There’s a low click, a sensation of dull pressure on my ear, then Sylvus releases me.
“How long does it last? It’s going to hurt again.”
He leans close.
This time I don’t twist my head away. I’m intent on preserving at least some of my dignity.
“Whenever it hurts again,” he breathes against my ear, “I’ll make it better.”
That shudder goes straight to my cunt.
What. The. Fuck. Andromeda. Pull yourself together.
“Alright, now I’m tagged or whatever. What’s next?” I don’t really want to hear Sylvus say it, but I’m a nervous talker.
“Next, I envenomate you.”
It’s a medical word. A clinical word. Envenomate.
So why does it make heat flutter through my rib cage?
Maybe because I know what that means. If the hushed whispers are true, that’s what turns me into a mindless, drooling milk slut.
Or maybe it’s because of how he says it, hungry and low, like he’s been longing to do it since he first scented me in his forest.
He leans over my neck, breath hot and humid against my skin.
It’s a reflex to duck my head toward him, protecting the vulnerable area.
He places his hand across my face, gripping my head and prying me open.
My breath shudders. My heart thuds in my chest, but I don’t struggle. Like the elastic silk around me, the pressure of his hand is oddly soothing.
“Are you scared?” he breathes, menace in his tone.
“Yes…”
“Scared that it will hurt? Or…” His hot tongue slides across my neck.
More heat coils at my core, tingling through my bones.
“…scared that it will feel good? Scared that you’ll like being my mindless little hucow pet?”
My lack of a caustic retort is damning.
His fangs graze my skin.
I tremble.
Then, with a hungry exhale, his teeth sink in.
I gasp. The pain is sharp and deep, shocking my nervous system to life. My senses go bright and open.
Sylvus moans.
The sound drags down my spine, waking every nerve, making the pain easier to bear.
Because it’s turning me on.
Sylvus works his fangs deeper, and heat floods me, pumping rhythmically from his venom glands.
He moans again, hungrier, biting harder. Hot drool runs down my collarbone, but I know he doesn’t spill a drop of venom.
It’s all coursing through my bloodstream, penetrating every cell.
My breath quickens in my throat, and his bite reflexively tightens.
In the sanctioned clinics, the humans and Arachnoids never meet. The venom is harvested, then clinically administered in precise doses by an asexual species.
I can see why. Holy shit.
That heat hits my cunt, and I go slick and needy. Arousal drips between my thighs.
I moan.
Sylvus’s tongue presses along my skin, tasting my blood as his fangs sink in even further.
He gives one last luxuriant groan, then slowly withdraws, lapping at my wounds. The pain numbs away, leaving only glowing pleasure.