Читать книгу The Rebel and the Rogue - Grace Goodwin - Страница 9

Zenos, Astra Legion, Transport Station Zenith

The door silently slid open, and I stepped inside one of the most opulent suites on the space station. Before me sat Astra, our leader, surrounded by several other members of the legion. She never admitted her age, but we all assumed it was somewhere in the middle of her fourth decade. Her long hair was pulled back in a tight braid. The strands were streaked with gray and every bit of clothing she wore was Astra Legion’s dark green. She looked relaxed in pants, a tunic and soft-soled boots, but I knew that was a facade. Somewhere, hidden within the folds of her clothing, would be both a blaster and several blades.

Astra had not held power over the legion for more than twenty years by taking unnecessary risks. I’d seen her kill with an efficiency many envied, but always for her people, for the legion. That’s why we were loyal to her. She’d earned the right to lead us, her devotion and protection as fierce as any male’s could be. Perhaps more so because she was female, a matriarch, the ultimate protector. She never placed her own needs above the needs of her people. Never.

Much to Barek’s disappointment. He wanted Astra for a mate. The other hybrid Forsian males knew this fact to be true. Astra, however, seemed oblivious to his interest, even as he sat beside her now. Or perhaps she pretended ignorance to avoid the inevitable confrontation of what could never happen.

In the end they could never be together, not if one bite from his fangs would kill her.

I entered and took a knee a few paces from where she sat, head bowed, waiting for the questions and the permission I needed to fully enter her domain without the giant hybrid Forsian male at her side ripping my head from my body. They were not mated, but Barek protected her as only a true mate would, without mercy or divided loyalties. He didn’t leave her side. Not to eat. Not to sleep. Not to fuck. He slept on a thin mat outside her door, guarding her even as they slumbered. He was hers.

The others sat around Astra at a small table. They were gambling. Drinking. Killing time and keeping their minds off the mission ahead of us. I’d gone to the canteen for a drink, to sense the mood of the transport station. To listen to what was going on around us. Astra had sent me because out of all of us, I was the most subtle of the bunch, which was truly absurd. The group from Astra Legion were all here for one reason and one reason only, to obtain the antidote to a hybrid Forsian’s bite.

I was far from subtle, and the hot human whose taste was still on my tongue knew that well enough.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Barek asked.

I did not envy him his devotion to this female. His mating instinct, nearly as strong as the Atlan’s fever, had been riding him hard the last few months. If he buried his cock in any willing female in his current state, he’d probably kill her. If not with the poison in his bite, with the sheer strength in his frame. Since his cock wanted Astra, he wouldn’t kill any female, he’d kill the leader of the Astra Legion.

Some of us born on Rogue 5 had inherited a deadly cocktail of Hyperion heritage mixed with Forsian DNA. As a result we endured both a blessing and curse. We were bigger and stronger than any others on the moon base, larger even than the few Atlan hybrids. But it turned out the Forsian part of our physiology did not blend well with a Hyperion male’s mating venom. A pure Hyperion male on the planet below Rogue 5 would bite his female to induce a state of arousal and fertility, to increase her pleasure. But when mixed with Forsian bloodlines, that venom became a deadly poison.

We few hybrid Forsians who survived on Rogue 5 were doubly cursed with the locking mechanism of the Forsian mating cock and the Hyperion instinctive need to bite our females. The two instincts were so deeply ingrained in our natures that most females on Rogue 5 were not willing to take the risk of bedding us at all, not even for one night of pleasure. When we found a female brave enough—or adventurous enough—to express interest, we always ended things after one or two sessions of sex. We never kept any female close for an extended period of time. Hybrid Forsians always distanced ourselves before the instinct to permanently claim the female we fucked overwhelmed our self-control.

To die with honor was preferable to killing a female during a failed mating. In all my life, I’d never heard of one of us successfully claiming a female until Makarios of the Kronos Legion. I’d heard horror stories from the past, stories of females dying in agony as the males who loved them looked on in helpless agony and guilt at what they’d done.

Bitten her. Injected her with poison. Lost control.

More than one female had accidentally been killed by her lover over the years. Those of us with honor did not take a female to bed unless we knew we could control the urge to bite. To mate. To claim.

And that was one of the reasons the hybrid Forsians on Rogue 5 were dying out, born from those bite-free one-night stands. Without a true father. Without mated parents. Most Forsian hybrids refused to lay with a female, afraid to lose control. But now, Makarios of Kronos had become a legend among us. He’d disappeared, then turned up alive on The Colony, his body enhanced with Hive technology. That was fact, what we knew to be true. After that, we knew nothing. Had the Hive integrations been what had changed him, had the Hive made it so that Makarios no longer had the poison in his fangs? Or, as rumor claimed, had his female, a human female, actually created an antidote to the poison? Had she found a serum to counteract the venom in my fangs? In Barek’s fangs? In the fangs of all the desperate hybrid Forsians left?

We were here to find out. Anxiously awaiting the upcoming meeting. To finally get our hands on this supposed antidote.

Fucking a stranger made denying the basic instinct easier, but still difficult. And the female I could still smell? Still taste?

Gods help me, I’d never had my fangs descend during sex before.

I wanted her. Badly. And more than once. My cock was still hard and eager for her. Her denial, her refusal to give me her name, had only made me crave her more. I felt wilder than usual. Hyperion DNA made all of us wilder, difficult to control. We had fangs, each and every one of us. We bit. We fought. We raged. And our new people did not fit into the Coalition worlds. Especially the few of us who had poisonous venom in addition to our ion pistols and lethal blades.

I was a hybrid freak who would never set foot on the planet Forsia. I was blessed and cursed. Barek and I, and the other hybrid Forsians like us, were not built to mate. Yet we craved what all males did: hot, wet pussy. Soft cries of pleasure from a willing female. Release.

Peace.

I’d found it for the short time with the human. Despite my eager cock, my balls were drained, my body relaxed for the first time in forever. She’d been insatiable. Passionate. Powerful in the knowledge of what she wanted. Shared it with me, with words, with her body. She wasn’t an Everian virgin. She wasn’t what I’d expected from a human, for they were small and weak.

Not her.

No. She’d taken everything I gave her, and I hadn’t gone easy. It wasn’t in my nature. I fucked wild. I fucked hard. I fucked to ensure she’d feel me for days.

And she’d not just cried out with pleasure, she’d demanded more. Needed everything I had to give her.

With my return to the suite, the sated pleasure I’d enjoyed bled away. Reality returned, and I found Astra watching me with raised brows, realizing I’d never answered Barek’s heated question. “Well? Where have you been, Zenos? I sent you to the bar two hours ago.”

“Drinking.” My answer was one word, but I knew it would be enough. No one would assume I had been with a female. Not me. Not a hybrid Hyperion animal who’d gotten the worst of two worlds, a cock that swelled and locked our female in place, a mating instinct so strong it could drive us mad, and poison in our Hyperion fangs deadly enough to kill with one bite.

“Do not lie to me.” Astra spoke, her voice stern even as she ignored me now to stare at the small, square cards in her hand. “You smell like sex.”

“Yes. A distraction to help pass the time.” No sense denying it. Rumor was, Astra had Everian Hunter’s blood in her veins. The gods knew she could smell better than any living being should wish to. I didn’t like having poisonous fangs, but I’d hate to be able to pick up scents as acutely as she did. And smelling sex on another? No, thank you.

“Did you kill her?”

Practical. That was our Astra. Our leader. I did not know her true name, the name she’s been given by her mother. When one assumed head of a Rogue 5 legion, the leader embodied all that we were, including the name. That day, when I was but a small boy, she had become simply Astra. She led us, not like the Coalition where there was a chain of command, but as a large family. A brotherhood of sorts, led by a matriarch. We lived by a code, her code, an ethical standard—which some might consider hypocritical. Whether or not the Coalition of Planets considered something illegal was of no concern to us. What the other legions did was of no concern to us. We did what was best for our legion, for our people, for our common good. We didn’t fight the Hive. We fought the other legions of Rogue 5. For territory, for survival. Astra Legion didn’t peddle slaves. Didn’t sell Quell. Didn’t think second and kill first like Cerberus or Siren Legions. Astra was too smart for that.

But that didn’t mean we weren’t ruthless. As leader, Astra was the most lethal. Cunning. Brutal. She was feared by the other legions, and rightly so.

“She lives,” I replied. “I did not harm her.” She might have bruises upon her soft skin from a tight grip as I fucked her, but nothing that would not fade, nothing she would not look upon and remember how I’d made her scream. There was no doubt she’d feel me for days. My cum was probably dripping from her well-fucked pussy at this moment.

The female fascinated me, and I knew I would think of her often. Wonder how she’d obtained the magnificent scar that ran the length of her back. She’d been bothered by it, not proud. A human instinct perhaps to see the scar as an imperfection, not perfection. The thickness and size of the mark had made me fuck her harder. Faster. Deeper. That mark of strength and courage, of survival, had made my instincts roar to claim her. To bite her. To keep her.

“Tempting the gods is not wise, Zenos.” Barek chastised me, but I did not respond. I knew the battle he fought every day with Astra so close to him. The words were for himself, a reminder, as much as for me.

Astra grunted and laid down her cards, which caused the others to grumble and hand over their credits. Three hybrid Forsians were in this room, and there were less than twenty of us anywhere in the galaxy, all of us sworn to Astra Legion. Except Makarios from Kronos Legion. Outsiders believed there were only three or four hybrid Forsians under Astra’s control, and our leader liked it that way.

Makarios had broken from the fold years ago and served Kronos Legion. But he’d been older than the rest of us. When he’d sworn allegiance to Kronos, he’d been just a boy and the leader of Astra had been a brutal ass. But then Makarios had been captured by the Hive and assumed lost. Wrong again. He’d shown up at The Colony, enhanced with cyborg parts. He’d been strong before. I couldn’t even imagine what the Hive had created. He must have hated every moment of it, surrounded by Coalition fighters, the only one from Rogue 5.

And now? He was truly a legend. Mated to a human female who had killed a Nexus Unit and stolen a ship. Makarios was gone from Rogue 5, gone from every space station from here to Xerima. The Coalition was hunting him. We were hunting him. The other legions were hunting him. I’d heard that even the Hive were hunting him… or his female.

We’d all heard odd stories of his human female being one of them, that she could transform into one of the blue creatures that led the Hive, the Nexus Units. I had no idea if that were true, and Astra didn’t give a shit if she was blue, purple or human, she wanted the antidote Makarios’s mate had supposedly created. She was truly mated to him. Had survived his bite. We all needed mates to help us survive. To keep Astra legion strong. Astra wanted that antidote for her hybrids. We weren’t going to lose our minds, as the Atlans did in their Mating Fever, but without mates, we suffered as they did. We hybrids just lived with the pain in our bodies.

It would almost be a relief to be Atlan, to know there was an end to the hunger and madness. To know that without a mate to keep us sane, we would be put down. But we were not so lucky as the Atlans. And I had no desire to die.

I wanted that antidote. We all did. If I’d had it, I wouldn’t have ridden the edge of insanity as my cock filled and fucked that lush human. Her skin had been sweet on my tongue. So had her pussy. I’d grazed her tender skin with my fangs, the need within me insisting I plunge them as deeply as I had my cock. I’d been desperate to make her writhe and moan for a completely different reason. I had almost lost control.

Almost.

I’d held off, barely. Kept sane. Barely. I liked her alive, panting and moaning, whimpering and screaming because of me. Because of pleasure. Not pain.

Had I been able, I would have filled her with my cum for hours because of the mating fist, marked her over and over with my bite. Made her mine—no matter that I’d told her otherwise—and dealt with her anger about it later. But that wasn’t an option for me. For any of us.

We were strong. Mean. Bigger than any of the other races and fiercely loyal. If Astra—the female, not the legion—lost us, her power position on Rogue 5 would be dangerously threatened. The members of the legion would be threatened. No doubt Cerberus or Siren would attack while the legion was weak. Take Astra Legion’s women and children, sell our people for slaves or mercenaries.

Astra appeared to be satisfied with my response. “Anything out of the ordinary? Anything to report?”

“Nothing. Everything appears to be normal. I do not believe we are walking into a trap.”

She tipped her head toward one of the bedrooms. “Get cleaned up. We leave soon.”

I grunted and moved to do as she ordered. I washed in a shower tube and hated that I rinsed the female’s scent from my body. Her taste from my mouth. Her soft whimpers from my mind.

No, those I’d never forget.

When I emerged a short time later, I was in full legion armor. Stolen from the Coalition—we’d taken their latest technology and adapted it to our needs. Instead of gray and black, we’d altered the color to black and dark green and emblazoned Astra Legion’s emblem on both shoulder and chest. Our dark green armbands, worn at home over more traditional and casual clothing, were part of the uniform rather than an adornment. The suit would deflect small blaster fire and protect us in the event we needed to evacuate or enter the cold dark of deep space.

With every layer of protection I added to my body, I drifted farther away from the female and focused on the mission. We would meet with the Coalition fighter who claimed to have the antidote, Astra would bargain and we would leave. There was no other alternative, not if I and my fellow hybrid Forsians wanted to mate, wanted to have children. Peace. A reason to keep going.

Astra had changed as well, her soft, flowing tunic and pants replaced with her own, much smaller battle armor. We didn’t know what we’d be facing, and we didn’t know who to trust. To outsiders we seemed wild and disorganized, but we were far from it. There was no dissension in the ranks; there were no ranks among those of us in this room. We all served Astra and we needed the antidote, so everyone worked together for it. A common goal, a common purpose.

Astra looked me over, the lines around her eyes and mouth making her look fierce. “We are not coming back to this room. We don’t dare. Nevuh and Rhord have gone ahead to ready the ship. You and Barek will accompany me to this meeting. We leave with the antidote at any cost. Do you understand?”

Barek and I both answered. “Yes, Astra.”

We would acquire the prize at any cost, even it if meant taking what we wanted and leaving the Coalition contact dead.

Barek took his usual position ahead of Astra, and I fell in behind. It would take a small army to get through us, and even if someone made it to our leader, she was deadly in her own right.

We arrived in the empty meeting room well ahead of our contact, exactly as we had planned. I took my place hidden in the shadows as Astra sat at the single long table. Barek stood behind her with his arms crossed. We were heavily armed, the blasters at our sides misleading. It was the blades tucked into our armor that we preferred to use to make an honorable kill.

Long minutes passed as we waited in silence. When the door to the room finally slid open, I kept my gaze on Astra. She would signal if she wished me to appear. Until then, I was to remain hidden. She didn’t want to frighten the Coalition contact. Astra wanted the antidote, and she preferred not to kill. Not here. Even Astra would not be immune to the Intelligence Core’s justice should we break their rules for the space station. If we killed, we would have to fight our way back to our ship.

I watched as Barek stepped forward. “Sit.”

His order was clear.

“I think I’ll stand, big guy. Thanks anyway.”

The voice that replied made my chest tighten with pain. My cock instantly surged to life, hard as stone.

“Sit!” Barek bellowed, but I already knew how this was going to go. I knew exactly who had entered the room. I knew her voice. Her breathy cries of pleasure. Her scream of release. And I knew, even before Barek’s fists tightened at his sides, that this particular human female was going to defy him.