The last two months have been… wonderful. He’s kept his word, even paid for an outrageously expensive intergalactic receiver so I can access the web. Which has only furthered my suspicions about this war madness, although I keep it to myself so long as he continues to be a test subject. Our days are filled with soft looks, ravenous touches, and a surprising number of smiles and laughter. I’m achy and regaled to lounging around like a pampered princess most days, which doesn’t bother me a bit. I’ve spent my life working, the greater majority of all twenty-six years of it. It’s nice to be coddled. Also, we don’t have much of a choice. I’m bred at least once a day, usually just the tip of his mating cock, but a few times since the first, all of it, which puts my lady bits out of commission for a while.
Still, my stomach remains flat. Judging by the limited research on Bhaurnul gestation, my contract will probably be extended if pregnancy doesn’t occur soon. Within the next month at the latest. I’m required to extend to the end of my pregnancy and nursing period, anyway. Not that I mind… not even a bit. Evidently, where Bhaurnul females carry for a year, having terribly low birth survival rates, something about their uterine shape, human women tend to go into labor early. A Bhaurnul child and human mother haven’t had complications yet, but the pregnancy is said to be… unpleasant. Which I had been warned about due to their size. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get pregnant in one of my last months here and get another year extension.
A long sigh leaves my throat as I peek out of the window at the Zylari running circles in her little nesting box before darting out of it. She recovered quickly, but has stuck around, much to Fafnir and Val’s displeasure. The colossal beast eventually gave in, bunkering down with his herd for the rest of the winter. He looked tired, uncomfortable in the last weeks before he gave in. I had to stay at the Sihlih shelter until he’d fallen into his rest, or he’d just get up when I did and follow me out. Like he somehow knew this was temporary, that maybe when he woke next, I’d be gone. The night I stayed with him had been incredibly long. My exposed skin chapped and raw. It’d been miserable but worth every second.
The food replicator dings, and I nearly skid into the kitchen to get to it before the dammed giant does something to the food. He’s halfway there when I come to a stop, my thick hair slapping me in the face. “No! You promised!”
He rolls his eyes, something new he’s picked up and uses often. “A promise made while your lips are around my cock is taken under duress and hardly a promise at all.”
I giggle at that, because he’s not entirely wrong, but I am entirely uncaring.
His deep-set golden eyes track my every move, setting my belly on fire as I step up to the counter. He doesn’t hesitate, knowing what I want. Strong, rough hands band around my waist, lifting me and plopping me down beside the food replicator. I lean over, not missing the way he pushes into me, lingering like always as I retrieve the food, a shit-eating grin on my face.
“It looks like worms, female,” he breathes, his lips curled in disgust.
“This is an Old Earth delicacy!”
“Perhaps that is why there is no longer an Earth.”
I give him a pointed glare at that. “I hardly think spaghetti is the reason for mankind’s downfall.” Although it very well could’ve been, in a different timeline, humans of Old Earth were weird like that.
“It is inedible,” he grumps, glaring at the bowl as if it’s a threat.
“You haven’t even tried it.”
“Sometimes the world is better for its mystery.”
“Truly? A giant, horned, big, bad, scary warrior alien is throwing a hissy fit over noodles?”
“My fits are not hissy in nature,” he bristles.
“You don’t even know what that means.”
“It is offensive, no doubt, if it is coming from your lips.”
I sigh, letting the hot bowl rest on my bare thighs, warming them. As the winter drags on, there is no longer any daylight to be seen. Warmth harder to come by. “Look, what if we do this Lady and the Tramp style?”
He side eyes me.
“An Old Earth cartoon. It’s one of my favorite pieces of the recovered media. Next to Tarzan.”
He stills.
I still.
Oops.
“Tarzan, this warrior of old… the one you bedded with is—’
“A cartoon.”
“Not real?”
I shrug. “Only in my dreams.”
A shriek leaves my throat as his hand snaps out, banding around my chin like a vice, forcing my eyes to his. My back smashes into a row of dried herbs that go unused, upsetting the glass jars and their contents. I watch as red swirls, darkening the gold. My heart stilling for a few beats as he takes a deep breath, holding for seven, breathing for seven, the stunning golden color returning almost immediately. My chest swells with pride as I discreetly shove the bowl of spaghetti into a safe spot.
“You had me—’ he cuts himself off, taking another seven-count breath.
I can’t help but smile.
“Maddening female.” He curses.
“If I didn’t know better Faf, I’d say you were terribly jealous.”
He huffs, releasing me with a soft pass of his thumb across my lips. My core throbs at the action despite having been fucked only an hour or two ago. “You are mine.”
The words are a quiet growl, a plea, and the long blurred lines are obliterated. My heart thumps wildly in my chest, my cheeks heating and God, how I wish that could be true. I clear my throat, retrieving the bowl. He watches, his eyes darkened not with red but with need as I plunk a noodle from the savory smelling mound, popping the end in my mouth.
He stares, dumbfounded.
I roll my eyes, offering the other end to him. He takes it… reluctantly.
Then gags.
My eyes snap wide, rearing back as his tanned, handsome face goes ruddy, his throat bobbing as if to choke something back. Then he glares at me, as if I’d personally given him the palette of a toddler.
My laughter starts with this strange choking gasp before I can’t hold it in anymore. I’m laughing so hard tears stream down my face, my abs aching before he decides he’s done being the butt of my joke and gatherers me from the counter. I’m still rolling, gasping between bouts of laughter when he drops gently more than sits me on the ground. My amusement fades to sniffles as I watch him lie back on the bed.
He hikes a brow, gesturing toward his head. “Come human, ride my mouth. I wish to rid myself of the rancid taste.”
My giggling cuts off abruptly. We do many kinds of things, things not capable of producing a baby. Which I can’t recall being in the contract, but I am far from minding. I rid myself of my clothes slowly, ignoring the sudden goosebumps on my arms and legs, the way my nipples harden with more than my growing need. The chill is noticeable, but not unbearable. He watches me with hungry, demanding eyes as I crawl up his towering frame. When I’m hovering over him, I grip his horns, lining the rings up on my palms with the rest of them. They have faded considerably, but they are there, noticeable and oddly warm, which bodes well for me often. A growl leaves his throat, his hand bands around my hips and slams me into his mouth.
I whimper as he flattens his tongue, dragging it up my soaked slit. He laps at me like that, languid and unhurried, his tail finding its way to my ankle, tethering itself there. When he gets to the front of my core, he curls the tip of his tongue, working my clit until I’m a wonton mess, grinding against his face. He releases the pulsing bud, shoving his tongue inside me, letting me ride it as I grind onto his mouth. My hips ache, but I barely feel it, a scream ripping from my throat as I come. He takes everything like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.
Then demands seconds.
I give them over willingly.
By the time Fafnir is done with his feast, I’m far too tired to force him to try the spaghetti again. My heart is fuller than it’s ever been as he gathers me to his chest, tucking us under furs I know are too warm for him. I’m asleep quickly, the world as it should be, as I wish it could stay.
It doesn’t.
When we’re woken in the middle of the night by a pounding at the door, my heart sinks so deeply I fear I’ll never be able to unbury it. Everything that happens next happens so quickly that my mind is left reeling. Fafnir forgets his calming exercises. Blood splatters against the stone of the hearth. Savage roaring mixes with my panicked screams until he takes a dart to the neck. His large body hits the ground so hard that I barely scramble away before I’m bludgeoned underneath it. I’m sobbing, crumpled on the floor as the males drag him from our home, assuring me everything will be okay. Looking at the hysterical female, like I’m every bit as dangerous as him. When I slap, scratch, punch, and kick, they leave me to my sobbing. They call it a trial; assure me he won’t be harmed. It falls on deaf ears, and when I’m left alone, it’s to stare at the uneaten bowl of spaghetti and spilled herbs. I don’t even glance at the cooling body of a male when they come back for it, leaving the door wide open until a single warrior comes and scowls at my shivering state on the floor. He tosses a pile of furs off the couch to me, then shuts the door, keeping guard in front of it. Whether it’s to keep me in or Fafnir out, I’m unsure. So long as the bastard freezes out there.
