But that cock kept working at something deep within my core.

  And I didn’t like it anymore. Because that voice—my whole life, I’d known hearing that voice meant one was in grave danger.

  Suddenly petrified, I called to the red, hazy shadows. “Cyderial?”

  Scooping my upper body off the floor, the general drew me to rest against his chest. My legs spread over his thighs, the knot of flesh holding us as one pressed deeper, leaving me hissing in discomfort when the balloon within me moved organs to make space.

  Kneeling, he held me on his lap, gravity bearing my weight down against his invasion. The distorted bulge of my belly growing each time he pulsated inside me.

  My body wanted the pleasure of a languid stupor, not the aching soreness of reality, but it wasn’t possible. Not when green eyes drank me down.

  The terrible significance of the situation dawned.

  There was no mistaking the feel of Cyderial’s cock wiggling within me. I remembered some of the things he said. Crazy things about submission and ownership, about fucking and how badly he’d always wanted me.

  No! It could not be him! “What have you done?”

  Bracing me with one arm, smoothing my hair back with the other, he was gentle, unashamed to speak such horror. “I opened you. I bonded you. And now I am breeding my mate.”

  14

  “No!”

  My limbs were limp, heels brushing the ground in my weak attempt to push off his lap. He let me try long enough for the harsh reality of his words to set in. Our bodies were locked together through the obscene swelling of his organ in my guts.

  “And now I am breeding my mate.”

  As if to punctuate his declaration, I felt him writhe within me.

  Caught on his cock and held in his arms, General Cyderial murmured, “You have the most beautiful song, Lorieyn.”

  I was so full I was going to burst. Breath labored from such pressure, I whined, “You’re hurting me.”

  As if he knew just how to handle my disquiet, he reached between us and ran the pad of his thumb around the newly split scales stretched wide open by his cock.

  Pleasure shot all the way down to my curling toes, a fresh climax of energy forcing me to flex every muscle. Stomach contracting, an internal vice griped about that thing inside me, sucked it deeper as it rippled in my internal grip.

  Bits of his guttural groans blended with my building cries, and I realized that he was enjoying what he could make my body do while I was trapped in a blinding climax. With nothing more than a careful sweep of his thumb, he set sensitive nerves sparking to life.

  I’m not sure how long it went on, but my insides moved of their own accord, his writhing cock battering against them in some ancient dance beyond my comprehension.

  It was shamefully obvious that despite my complete ignorance, my body knew exactly what this was. My mind, on the other hand, was in a state of fright.

  To know such pleasure while high on true distress? One of my hearts was going to burst. Panic and pleasure wove together; the more I resisted, the stronger the rapture. Egged on by the man’s fluttering touch.

  Male fingers knew where to tease to spark a deeper physical thrill. He targeted my slippery new seam. Placed light rolling pinches to my nipples and devoured my whimpers with ravenous kisses upon my ear and neck. Rocking our bodies at the perfect pace to keep me gasping and clenching.

  He kept me riding that line of mindful ecstasy past the point of cruelty.

  I couldn’t speak. There were tears of frustration, but mostly I was a radiant animal crying out her pleasure to any who might hear.

  Never having been a particularly vocal person, I didn’t know that voice. Was totally unaware I could make such trills and moans. And I would have been mortified had I any self-control.

  When it finally began to abate and even his touches could not encourage my core to contract anymore, I sagged, completely in his power. Face to his hard chest, little zips of sensation working their way inside me, I sobbed at the unfairness of it all.

  How could he do these things to me? Why did my body respond when my mind despised him with such violent fervor?

  I had been submitted against my will. Defeated by a stronger predator on every level. Unable to bear another moment, I capitulated in a bid for mercy.

  Pleading was all I might have left. Voice half a sob, half rattled by uncomfortable breath, I implored, “I am begging you not to do that again.”

  It was gentle how he held me, considering the trauma he’d just inflicted. Even his pleasure-laced voice was soft as he said, “I know you are frightened, but you have my word, my cock inside you is not causing harm. Relax, submit, and understand that my knot will not recede for some time. I will take care of you.”

  There was an entire limb of an unwelcome man inside me, the balloon that locked it in, his knot, obliging me to bear it when I wanted it out. How was a person supposed to relax under those circumstances?

  My need for details, for some slice of knowledge only he seemed to possess, drove me to pant out a question. “What is it doing to me?”

  Hand to my hair, he massaged my scalp. “Your reproductive tract is a labyrinth of repository glands. Each must be coerced into expanding until full. The male knot assures the female cannot seek another mate until the victor is done seeding and sealing each pocket. Once you have received all you need, your body will signal to me that this first mating is complete. Only then will my knot recede. As of now, your body wants more.”

  Collapsed against him, I whispered, “More what?”

  A kiss to the top of my head. “Sperm. The fluid your contractions are enticing out of me. My genetic material will fertilize every egg you were born with. Our future children are being created in this moment. Right here”—a gentle palm landed on my round stomach—“where you will keep our embryos safe until the time is right to implant and grow them.”

  My children were being created on the floor of an office… after violence and pain.

  It was unthinkable.

  “You held me down and forced yourself inside me.” Saying it out loud left me shivering and cold. “You didn’t have my permission.”

  With gentle strokes up and down my spine, an unapologetic man held me close. “I know.”

  He rubbed my back and rocked me on his knot when I began to sob.

  How could this possibly be pleasing to him? “I’ve always hated you.”

  Fingertips began to massage my nape, working out the ache at the base of my skull. “Hate me all you will. Yet recognize that I have heard your song since you were twelve. It was difficult to maintain composure when you were right there, beautiful and perfect and vulnerable. For ten long years, I resisted every animal instinct to claim you, even though there was absolutely no one who could prevent me. But you were so young—not yet old enough to handle me physically without serious damage. Nor were you mature enough to understand what was taking place between us. You needed time. I suffered the wait, and would have tested my willpower another year or two if you had not forced my hand by seeking your ruin”—his voice grew dark—“with a stranger in the streets.”

  I was in no mental state to process any of that. Since I was twelve, he had been planning this…

  That would mean that despite all my best efforts, I’d never had a future. Not one year of my hard work would have altered anything. The fog would never have been an option. He would never have allowed me to leave the academy. The list he repeatedly suggested I consider was never a true option. Only a means to gauge when he might pin me down on his office floor.

  I swear I felt him spurt again that very moment. As if to punctuate the rape.

  And I knew that word, because he had taught it to me. Once in explanation, and once in action.

  Yet, to him, such a monstrous thing seemed only a minor inconvenience.

  He had not struggled at all, whereas I had been overpowered and confused with little effort. There had even been moments in the mating that I had actively participated in my own destruction.

  Mind reeling, I began to hyperventilate.

  The man had heard my song for ten years and kept it secret. A man who had wanted me on a very visceral level since I was a child.

  Who had planned and kept me hidden away.

  He’d made my life, and the lives of all those around me, hell.

  The rules had changed so abruptly after I’d first met Cyderial. There was no more playing in the courtyard, no more visits to my mother. We had all been locked inside under constant armed guard. So he could have a reason to keep me locked inside under constant guard while the inconvenience of my age worked itself out.

  I’d been kept in a bubble until he’d deemed me old enough to rape.

  The suffering of all the other students… the executions. All of it was because he wanted me to himself.

  He’d made me culpable.

  Working at connecting the mess of my thoughts, I realized the needless violence over the past ten years, the executions. All of it had come from the madman still spilling fluid inside me. “You killed Private Cullen for no reason!”

  “That damned boy!” Temper, the cold-blooded general had always had a strong reaction at the mention of the redheaded boy. “He gave us a full confession, Lorieyn. Private Cullen had every intention of fucking you. He was just working up the nerve.”

  Gripping my hair by the roots, he forced my head back so I would have to see those eyes. Acid-green eyes burning as they always had. Yet I knew what that insanity was. It was pure obsession. “Private Cullen was desperate and already aware he was going to die. You’ve always been too sweet to think the worst of anyone. How you’ve made him some kind of saint in your memory is poison between us. He wasn’t a saint; he was a criminal.”

  “Then what does that make you?” I was sick with anger and once again aching where he pulsated in my guts.

  “It makes me your mate.” He’d spoken the words with deeply satisfied male pride. Cherished them on his tongue, smiling with joy and relief, as if he had waited a lifetime to say them aloud. “One willing to do anything required to keep you safe. Anything. Remember that as you contemplate retaliation. We have an eternity together, and I am a very patient man.”

  Rippling his cock at that moment, as if to luxuriate in the confines of my body, he made no secret of the amount of delight being inside me gave him.

  The way he thought to cup my face between his palms while rocking our bodies so his knot might tease my oversensitive seam. How he looked at me with such adoration, tracing fingertips over the shape of my features.

  The man completely terrified me.

  With a soft smile and languid caresses, he murmured, “I have studied every text I might find on how to please you. Listened to elders describe the process of opening a mate. The first time is painful for the female no matter how careful one may be. I counted the seconds of your suffering once your body chose me and began to bloom. Even then, driven as I was to mount you, I gave you time to see and feel. Please remember that when your hatred fosters only regret for the way you were claimed. I can bear your disgust, but I do not wish for you to be sad.”

  But I wasn’t sad. I was devastated.

  A direct opposition to his elation. This had been sacred to him. The way he murmured and stroked me, despite my open fear, unsettling. “You are mine now. For life. I can love you enough for both of us until you’re ready to accept me.”

  Knowing there were two men outside who’d also heard my song, knowing I could have chosen the man I’d be tied to for the rest of my life, made me resent him all the more. This monster had stolen me. “You took away my choice.”

  The soft, proud thrum ushering from his chest was in strict contrast to the following threat. “Your song called to me, the strongest male. You called to me after countless females had been unable to sway my attention. The universe compelled me to learn patience, leaving me waiting for one-hundred-and-forty-three lonely years until my genetic complement might be born. Now, we are bonded. Already, rapid alteration is taking place throughout every cell of your body, sealing you to me. We are one, and a female cannot be without her mate once he has claimed her.” Thoroughly pleased with himself, strong arms enclosed me in a gentle but firm embrace. “You’re angry now, but your body will crave mine. You will want me. Do not resist, and I will be gentle with you.”

  He could not make me want anything to do with him. “I will not submit.”

  “I have ways to compel your submission.”

  Where his drumming had faded to little more than a purr, it pulsed back to life.

  “That won’t….” But I somehow lost the thread of what I’d been meaning to say.

  The room began to smell wonderful again, a sweet spice mixing with the scent of sex. Wooziness followed, lulling me to grow liquid and unable to resist his warm caress.

  Soft kisses came to my lips, my eyes, my nose. “Surrender.” Cupping my cheek to settle my head just so, the man murmured, “I will take care of you while you rest.”

  In my stupor, I felt him lay me ever so gently back on the carpet, arranging my limbs for my comfort. My protruding belly felt the heat of warm palms, his massage working where I was swollen, the touch easing the discomfort of the crushing pressure.

  I felt so good.

  His warm body against mine was dreamlike. His tongue at the shell of my ear and the filthy promises he made were delightful.

  The strong male showed me he knew what to do with my body, so I purred under his touch and exploded with a shattering moan when he nipped at my throat and fingered the sensitive flesh stretched tight around his knot.

  Cunt, he’d called it in those lurid whisperers. Cum, seed, a binding promise that made me totally his. The handsome blond with a strong body and the power to take what he wanted.

  Waves of fluid came to splash against my insides, more for me to bear.

  When I was full, he began to knead my protruding belly from a new angle. Unsure why he did it, sleepy and spent, I wanted him to stop so I might rest.

  But he would not put his work aside. Cock dancing and prodding through my belly, hands working in tandem with the wriggling thing. It almost seemed as if he stroked himself through me, milking his organ and pushing what poured from it somewhere important.

  I dreamed despite the minor annoyance, surrounded by perfect sound and saturated in sweet scent.

  Until he was pleasuring me again, drawing me out of my deep stupor to luxuriate in rapture. Stroking my throat, weighing my breasts, learning the dip and curve of my waist, he praised my beauty and worthiness. Grunted demands and soft, coaxing words urged me to arch my back for more and enjoy every climax, every last orgasm, he might give me.

  He'd been slow and forceful, both languid and violent, throughout the many hours I’d been reduced to my animal self.

  When I was far past exhausted, when no amount of pleasure might ease the growing aches in my body, at long last, the knot receded, a warm wave of viscous fluid pouring out of me as my belly contracted at the loss.

  I should have been mortified, disgusted. But all I knew was relief.

  “Sleep now, beloved. Our new life begins when you wake.”

  15

  Thirst dominated strange dreams that made it impossible to find comfort on my cot. Skin slick with sweat, I kicked off my blankets, groaning at the heat as a terrible craving for water clawed at my parched throat.

  I was a furnace, and the sunlight was too bright through my tiny window.

  Groaning into my pillow, I thought to hide my eyes in soft white fabric.

  Except my pillow back at the academy was gray.

  Blinking sleep from my eyes, I held my breath, taking in the wrongness of my location.

  My bed was not this soft or large. Nor was it in a room with walls painted a soft shade of blue I’d never seen before.

  But it was the windows that drew my eye. So many I had my choice of vantage points. With light so bright the building had to be high up above the churning fog.

  That light was actual sunlight. Not the artificial illumination we were drenched with to keep our vitamin levels up at the academy.

  Suddenly, I was very much awake.

  And feeling quite ill.

  Cautiously, I sat up, dragging a silken sheet over my nakedness while wide eyes took in that foreign room. The bed was massive, larger than five of my cots back in the dorms. Above it stood a canopy, each corner draped with flowing gauzy material pure as morning fog.

  The white gossamer curtains blew in a light wind. Real wind from an open window.

  Windows in the academy did not open. I only knew wind from the few hours each day I might be scheduled for patrols.

  I had never felt it on my naked skin or known the refreshing touch it might offer.

  Such a discovery would have thrilled me were it not for the man relaxing in a nearby chair, watching me over an open book. A journal with a leather cover made from sapphire-blue vorec hide.

  He closed it slowly, as if trying not to startle the wild, nervous thing in his bed. “How are you feeling?”

  Sheet to my breast, my dark hair spilling about where I sat, my eyes darted to every corner of the room, taking in potential weapons, creating an exit strategy should he approach.

  “You must be very thirsty.”

  Parched and untrusting down to my aching bones.

  There was a large vessel of water on a side table, a single empty glass beside it.

  When Cyderial moved to lay down the book so he might prepare a glass, my eyes narrowed, a low warning thrum leaving my chest.

  The memory was somewhat foggy, but I knew exactly what the general had done to me. Pain of that magnitude, I would never forget. The fear that followed would haunt my dreams.

  All those delirious hours of compelled pleasure….

  He had done something to me, twisted my thinking to engage my compliance. Made me drunk on him to the point that I’d forgotten he was the man I hated most, leaving me in such a state I saw only a beautiful male who was stabbing at my slippery insides with a monstrous appendage that felt glorious.