So… my sisters were gone. Taken by God only knew who.

  “Are they safe?” Could the males have prepared for them? Was Maeve okay after Thayer…?

  Murdoch waved it off. “They are in the care of their mates.”

  On a sigh, I said, “Maeve would want to be here.”

  “Thayer is not Cyderial. Do not anticipate that you will be granted access to her anytime soon. He will submit her and may not allow her freedom until she too is pregnant. That, you must take some responsibility for. Your public chemical switch sent half our population into the rut. Your pheromones snowballed out of the courtyard very quickly.”

  No. Females chose to enter estrous.

  Right?

  But his words frightened me. Nothing so far had been straightforward since I learned of the world outside the academy. “A man cannot make a woman enter estrous.”

  “A mated male can rut her as if she is. Encourage estrous, one might say.” Said as if it were nothing, as if it were obvious. “Mated males were driven into season that night, which implies estrous can be coerced as well.”

  That is not what I had been told!

  Cyderial had been very rough with me in the rut, but I had wanted it, needed it. Maeve would be crushed under Thayer if he rode her unrestrained.

  “Oh my God….”

  General Murdoch cut me a glance. “Most males who were denied estrous from their partners were motivated to procreate and have resorted to reestablishing the captivity of their mates. Considering we went to war days later, it would seem a wise choice. Our females are safe this way.”

  “That’s monstrous.” And not at all what I had intended.

  What had been a cutting glance became a scandalous glare. “Holding our unborn children hostage, have you not thought that might be unjust? Do you not think we deserve to be fathers? Do you not think we deserve to know a full life?”

  “Not like that.” Swallowing down bile, I shook off the horror.

  As if he realized he had driven me to illness, the male softened considerably. “Small as you are, you are quite fierce. A new generation will be born thanks to you. If anything, many will look to you as a hero for ordering the women to give new life to a struggling species. And as it had been an order, and as you are their queen, those females who denied your will are at fault and deserve what their mates might do to them.”

  Mortified at the thought, my face fell. “It wasn’t an order.”

  With a dark laugh, he crossed his arms over his chest. “I was standing there as you made your proclamation. The females obeyed, because you gave them good reason to submit to your will. To wield your power, that is what it is to be a leader. There will be a new world order, and our genders may not see eye to eye, but you and Cyderial... you are to set the example. You are to make the women listen.”

  I hated the sound of all he said. “And Cyderial, what is he to do?”

  It was said as if I were simple. “Worship you. Tear down cities for you. Offer you an entire planet to rule at his side. At his side, female. Remember that. You will serve all, be mother to all, if that is your wish. But you must tolerate the crown in return.”

  How foolish I had been to think I would wield power over these men, that I could handle any of that. “I’m a twenty-two-year-old academy failure. You are asking too much of me.”

  “We are not human.” That foxlike smirk settled into place. “Our place in the hierarchy is relegated at birth—no different than the vorec. The strongest of us may have scrapped amongst ourselves for rank, but all was decided in the arena decades before you were born. Your mate is unbeatable, and the fact that you have that kind of monster wrapped around your tiny little finger is almost funny.” But this was spoken with a deep sense of envy, Murdoch unashamed to let me know how badly he craved a female of his own to spoil.

  21

  “I should have known I’d find you here.”

  Awakened from a light doze, I blinked up at a man who had obviously bathed so I might not see what he had been up to. Sleepy smile on my lips, I looked him over.

  He was unharmed.

  Blond hair hanging in his eyes, he smirked back.

  The little girls had put braids in my hair and pinned them as they would, making me look adorably ridiculous as I found all the ways I could to occupy their time. But my energy didn’t last, and I was forced to nap often, usually in a pile of kiddos who drooled on me and snored contentment not to have to sleep alone when the room shook.

  I was still dressed in Cyderial’s shirt, a blanket serving as a makeshift skirt.

  Kneeling to gently remove chubby arms and sleeping heads from my body, Cyderial dug me out of the pile, helping me to my feet.

  It had been two days at least, my belly flat and the plug long gone. Yet heat had hardly begun to rear its head. Perhaps pregnancy had something to do with it.

  I’d known he’d come before I might suffer, happy to feel him draw me into his arms no matter who saw.

  Against his chest, I grumbled, “I’m very angry with you.”

  Though I was anything but. What I had been was worried, grateful, appalled, disgusted, bewitched, now so very happy to have my hands on him so I might breathe his scent deep.

  Ushering me away from the crowd, Cyderial warned, “I can’t stay for long, but I would like to make you something to eat.”

  Out of earshot of the littles, I teased, “If it’s a human heart, I would prefer meat cubes.”

  I loved it when I made him laugh.

  Less than a month mated to him, and it had become my favorite sound.

  My latest guardian, General Aegir, nodded his silver head but did not follow as we passed. I would be handed off to him soon enough, but not until I forced my mate to rest.

  Cyderial looked exhausted.

  First, a lengthy rut, then his brilliant plan to leave his newly pregnant mate alone to lay siege to the city. Maybe I was angry with him after all.

  When the door closed and we were alone in a room I had not seen in days, I said, “You should have told me. I’m your mate, Cyderial. You should have told me what you intended to do. Not forced me to sleep.”

  As he reached for my face so he might kiss me, I was pushed against the door and left to bear the weight of a male far more in need than I was.

  My complaints were not answered.

  He needed comfort and reassurance that I was well, that whatever his labors might be, they were worth the sacrifices he may never share. Letting him take all he would, I met his tongue with mine and moaned into his mouth.

  The blanket around my waste was yanked free, his fly pulled down.

  With no pretense, he lifted me, knowing I would be slippery and open to him, and sank me down on a straining cock. Once I was seated, his writhing organ teasing a particularly sensitive set of internal nerves, he let out a breath and found a moment of rest.

  I had not thought one could do this standing and wondered which journal had given him the idea.

  From the desperate look in his eyes, this had not been premeditated; it had been necessary.

  Arms around his neck, I rolled my hips to encourage his efforts, smirking as I teased, “I thought heat only affected the females.”

  My reward for such flirtation was an internal lashing of his wriggling dick. Which hit a place in me that left me gasping for another taste.

  In a matter of minutes, and beautiful, arduous thrusts, I came with a yell.

  It was not our most lengthy coupling, but it held a delicious urgency of two lovers happy to be reunited. By the time he set his knot as deep as it might go, anyone walking the halls could possess no ignorance about what took place on the other side of that door.

  Carrying me to the bed as he began to fill me with lashings of cum, he laid me back so my stomach would have room to comfortably grow. There, he stared down at me as if he loved me more than anything God might offer.

  No matter that neither of us had undressed completely. No matter how silly I might have let the children make me look.

  I was beloved.

  And he prepared to pump me full before he must go.

  Ballooning, relieved to have his offering within me where it belonged, I unbuttoned my shirt so he might see my belly expand. Taking his hand, I placed it below the swell, where our baby slept, and whispered, “She’s right here.”

  Green eyes glowing, he looked to where his touch rested. “You cannot understand how much this means to me.”

  I could feel him preparing to call forth the waxy substance that would leave me plugged, and I shook my head, telling him, “No. No plug. I order you to prepare us something to eat, which we will enjoy together. Afterward, you will sleep. Once you’ve had some rest, I will put my mouth and tongue on this beast until you beg me to ride you within an inch of your life. Touch me anywhere you wish and make me sing. Only then can you plug me. For now, enjoy your knot, enjoy your mate, and come lay in my arms on our nest.”

  He obeyed.

  Locked together, we made ourselves comfortable, where I petted him until he purred and listened to whatever he wished to say.

  It seemed he was wary that I might disapprove of his doings, guarded as he stated, “It may be some weeks before I can allow you to leave the academy. I do not want you to see the city until it is clean and the fires are out.”

  I wasn’t stupid; it was not burning buildings he was worried would upset me. In a city nearing the population of a million, the funeral pyres would be polluting the sky for some time. It was either that or let disease run rampant.

  Working the tension from his muscles, I asked, “Have we lost many brothers and sisters?”

  “Not as many as anticipated. But yes, there were losses of good men and good women.” Rubbing his eyes, Cyderial added, “And in our sweeps, we have also found some hybrids who had been kept as the worst sort of slaves. A whole operation of females bred in secret that are not listed in our records. Opened surgically and used by human men for sport.”

  It was such a sad thing that I didn’t know what to say. “I’m glad you found them.”

  “They may not be. Some of them fought to protect their human masters. They are badly broken.”

  “We will find a way to help them heal.”

  “I’m not so sure we can.” The knot shrank, the inevitable flood rushing out. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to offer that complicated man comfort. To thank him for confronting such horrors so I would never have to, to give him a place to be vulnerable. To hold him close and stroke his hair while he slowly began to relax.

  He was softly snoring by the time I crept free to make use of his lavatory. Scrubbed clean, my hair no longer a crazy mess of braids and tangles, I went to the door and found none other than General Boreal had become my new guardian. Whispering to him, I ordered fresh food be procured, clean clothing for both of us retrieved.

  All was quickly delivered.

  I knew nothing about cooking, but I had seen Cyderial cut fruit and found myself up to the simple task. The liver, I left raw, as per my preference.

  Aware he would not sleep long and that he would wake irritated he’d been lured into a female trap, I came to him with the tray, and I fed him for once.

  I fed him with bites from my own lips, as he refused to so much as touch the food until I had a taste. I fed him with sips of water dripped down my bare breasts. I played with him in our nest and forced my mate to forget his worries for a short time.

  When he was full but hungry for more, I wrapped my lips around his cock and sucked until his eyes rolled back in his head. Miranda had been right. There was great power in what a woman could do with her mate’s cock in her mouth.

  And so many ways to taste him.

  When I knew he was close to a knot from my mouth alone, I rode him, teasing at his nipples as he had teased at mine, licking and biting in places that stole his reasoning. Telling him with my body how deeply I appreciated all he did, finding my own great pleasure in accepting how well we fit together.

  In all ways.

  It was another week before the upper reaches of the building were considered safe from errant gunfire and artillery. The children ecstatic to be out of the crowded room and back to some sense of normalcy. The windows, even from the highest level, showed nothing. All that could be seen was fog, fog that tasted of charred meat and left an oily residue on the skin.

  Two more months before I was permitted to walk farther than the academy’s walled courtyard.

  Vorec were still in the city, breeding in empty homes and settling in as if they belonged in our walls. They would not be removed but maintained, an excellent deterrent to wandering humans who might think to retaliate.

  Perhaps, over a great deal of time, they might even be domesticated.

  The humans and the vorec.

  Meanwhile, every hybrid traveled with a sword. Every mated female was in training to adjust their technique, so they might defend themselves with a blade whether they carried a belly or not.

  So many of us were pregnant. A new generation soon to be born free in a city that was theirs. In a world where they merged with the ecosystem, not rallied against it.

  Humans worked the fields and kept the city running under the careful watch of our people. In exchange, they received protection and food. Those sectors of the city that behaved with decorum were given filtered air. Those who rebelled died slowly from poison fog.

  I never asked about my birthmother. I didn’t need to. Cyderial would have saved all of them, including my nasty brother-in-law. Though if he were to die from his own foolishness in the days that followed, I couldn’t have brought myself to care.

  I had other places to dedicate my focus.

  I was now Queen.

  Cyderial’s office in the academy became mine. His treasure there for me to touch anytime I felt like wandering quietly about the room.

  A place I once greatly feared, now my home.

  The outlining of a new curriculum, the renaming of recruits to students, done by my declaration. Running of the academy would be my life’s mission, a safe place for females to grow without fear that our males’ violent nature might cause them harm.

  The boys would be educated elsewhere, their care in the hands of the mated males now. Though I would assure all was done lovingly.

  Every surviving fertile human female was given the option to bear a hybrid child in exchange for a higher class and greater access to rations. Their species was over; should they want their genes to live on, there was only one option. Bear and raise hybrid offspring as their own.

  Those who refused were sterilized.

  On this, I strongly disagreed with my mate.

  The ethics of Cyderial’s decree kept me up at night and caused many battles between me and my mate. He would not be moved, and I would have to grieve it.

  And prepare.

  Many children would be coming to the academy; though, as queen, I had the power to alter the date they were taken from their families. Girls would arrive at the age of ten. Mothers would be encouraged to visit; quarters would even be prepared for them to have extended stays.

  My own daughter, growing strong in my womb, would know what it was to live behind a sealed vault.

  But her cage would be soft and full of female things.

  She would still be required to learn how to use a sword, but no one would ever break her fingers for twirling. There would be no hangings. No beatings. No fear.

  The academy would be a place of fun and wonder. Of honesty and academic exploration.

  Cyderial was unquestionably King, yet he wore no crown. I was Queen, usually in uniform, training children while studying human texts on education and philosophy.

  Overwhelmed but hopeful.

  And growing very much in love with my liege.

  A man who had literally given me and my unborn daughter a new world.

  Who rubbed my feet, who cooked for me. Who brought me beautiful rocks and worshipped my body as I grew heavy with our first child.

  Who made love to me, and challenged me, and was worthy in every way.

  Ready for more? Read the FREE BONUS CHAPTER featuring the first hybrid princess’s birth!

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  Now, please enjoy an extended excerpt of BORN TO BE BOUND…

  BORN TO BE BOUND

  Alpha’s Claim, Book One

  She watched him bolt the door with a rod so thick it dwarfed her ankle, trapping her, cornering the Omega for mating. Unsure if Shepherd had heard, she used her feet to scoot away from the male until her back hit the wall, and tried again. "Food… we can't go out... hunted, forced. They're killing us." Her blown pupils looked up at the intimidating male and pleaded for him to understand. "You are the Alpha in Thólos, you hold control... we have no one else to ask."

  "So you foolishly walked into a room full of feral males to ask for food?" He was mocking her, his eyes mean, even as he grinned.

  The horror of the day, the sexual frustration of her heat, made Claire belligerently raise her head and meet his eyes. "If we don't get food, I'm dead anyway."

  Seeing the female grimace through another cramping wave, Shepherd growled, an instinctual reaction to a breeding Omega. The noise shot right between her legs, full of the promise of everything she needed. His second, louder grumbled noise sang inside her, and a wave of warm slick drenched the floor below her swollen sex, saturating the air to entice him.

  She could not take it. "Please don't make that noise."

  "You are fighting your cycle," he grunted low and abrasive, beginning to pace, watching her all the while.

  Shaking her head back and forth, Claire began to murmur, "I've lived a life of celibacy."

  Celibacy? That was unheard of... a rumored story. Omegas could not fight the urge to mate. That was why the Alphas fought for them and forced a pair-bond to keep them for themselves. The smell alone drove any Alpha into a rut.