Be­vau gave one last thrust into her en­fold­ing warmth and let go. His seed rushed through his pe­nis like a flood burst­ing through a dam. He bel­lowed as ec­stasy poured through his loins. He emp­tied him­self into the sweet cup of his beloved’s womb in an end­less tor­rent of thick pulses. Stran­gled cries an­nounced each de­li­cious throb of re­lease. Never had he cli­maxed so hard or for so long.

  At last Be­vau was spent, and he gasped in the af­ter­math. He kissed the en­tirety of Jes­sica’s elfin face, let­ting the light touch of his lips con­vey his grat­i­tude and love. He pulled him­self free of her qui­et­ing body and moved aside to watch the other two men gift her with more love­mak­ing.

  Jes­sica watched Be­vau lay in the cool sand a few feet away, his face re­laxed and smil­ing. She’d felt his ten­sion, his re­fusal to give into his body’s de­mands so that he might plea­sure her longer. If fate was kind she would spend her en­tire life with him, with all three. She would en­dure any­thing to re­main with them, no mat­ter the cost to her­self.

  Egilka knelt next to her and picked her up so that she strad­dled his legs. He stared into her eyes as he lifted her higher, up and over his turgid penises. From be­hind, Cla­jak pressed against her, and his hands moved be­neath her to po­si­tion the Imdiko so he en­tered her sex with both or­gans. Her head fell back on Cla­jak’s shoul­der as Egilka breached her soft flesh, stretch­ing her to her lim­its with his thick cocks. She moaned as ache and plea­sure mixed in a heady com­bi­na­tion to leave her wet­ter than ever.

  Egilka cupped her but­tocks in his hands and spread them apart. Cla­jak pressed against her anus. She opened to him, ea­ger to grant his ev­ery de­sire. He groaned softly as he pen­e­trated the tight aper­ture, and she an­swered with a moan of her own.

  The slight ache of tak­ing her well-en­dowed lovers into such re­stricted con­fines soon dis­ap­peared in the rush of de­sire. As they pen­e­trated more deeply, bury­ing them­selves in­side her melt­ing core, re­newed ec­stasy stirred.

  Once imbed­ded within her, Egilka and Cla­jak paused, let­ting Jes­sica feel the steel of their flesh seated within her body. She closed her eyes.

  “How do you want us?” Cla­jak whis­pered in her ear. The warmth of his breath raised goose­flesh on her arms.

  No shame col­ored her re­sponse. “Take me hard. Don’t be gen­tle,” Jes­sica whis­pered back.

  In­side her anus and womb, the two men grew even harder at her words. She smiled in an­tic­i­pa­tion.

  They gave her what she wanted, their thrusts force­ful. Her body wasted no time in re­spond­ing. She gasped as their groins slapped against her, a rhyth­mic per­cus­sion to the dull hum of the ocean waves. Pain bright and sweet bloomed into plea­sure, and her gasps turned into throat­ier moans.

  Egilka’s broad ex­panse of chest beck­oned, and Jes­sica licked a slow, sin­u­ous line be­tween his pec­toral mus­cles, up the col­umn of his throat. His breath caught and he low­ered his face to­wards hers, al­low­ing her tongue to travel up his chin to his parted lips. Her mouth cov­ered his, and she sucked greed­ily at his tongue.

  Cla­jak’s hands cupped her breasts, eas­ing their bounc­ing as the men plunged in and out. His thumbs and in­dex fin­gers pinched the nip­ples, mak­ing her squirm in de­light. She dug her fin­ger­nails into Egilka’s shoul­ders. He jerked and growled, bar­ing his teeth at her. His hands clenched at her but­tocks hard enough to bruise.

  Jes­sica loved his strength and the an­i­mal pas­sion in his eyes. She raked her fin­ger­nails down the Imdiko’s chest, leav­ing shal­low bloody paths on his dark skin.

  He howled, thrust­ing hard enough to lift her high up, nearly pulling her free of Cla­jak. Be­fore ei­ther could re­cover, Jes­sica reached down and be­hind to score the Dramok’s thighs as well. She was re­warded with an­other roar of ex­cite­ment and an­other vi­o­lent thrust, this time from be­hind.

  The men lost all con­trol, bat­ter­ing her nether re­gions with their sexes. Snarling like beasts, they took her as bru­tally as she could have wished. Over their ex­plo­sive an­i­mal cries war­bled her higher-pitched keen as she rode their fu­ri­ous love­mak­ing to the precipice of ec­stasy.

  Jes­sica flailed be­tween the hard bod­ies, joy­ously trapped with no es­cape from de­sire, hers and theirs. Her nails raked their bod­ies wher­ever she could reach, and they re­acted to her an­i­mal aban­don with fe­roc­ity of their own. Ten­drils of pain fed into the mael­strom of vi­o­lent plea­sure, bring­ing her scream­ing as fast as she could draw breath. Agony and ec­stasy were one, and she drowned in the sen­sa­tion.

  Cla­jak was the first to cli­max, and he emit­ted an earth-shat­ter­ing roar as his or­gasm over­loaded his senses. His face darted for­ward, teeth bared. It was Egilka’s shoul­der he found, and he latched on to the mus­cle as if he’d rip the Imdiko’s flesh from his bones.

  Egilka screamed. His pe­nis pulsed hugely within Jes­sica’s sheath, giv­ing up his seed in a surge of de­sire. His mouth clamped on the side of Cla­jak’s neck, bit­ing back. The group fell over, the men still bit­ing each other as they rut­ted des­per­ately with Jes­sica.

  She was crushed to the point where it was hard to draw breath. Be­vau was sud­denly there, yank­ing at his clan, pulling the bod­ies apart. “Stop bit­ing each other,” he said, his voice amused. “Sex is not worth dy­ing for.”

  “Speak for your­self,” Cla­jak gasped, com­ing back to him­self. Blood poured from his wound; Egilka was even worse off. “I’d go out a happy man af­ter that.”

  “Are you all right, Jes­sica?” Be­vau turned his at­ten­tion to his gasp­ing Matara.

  “Amaz­ing,” she an­swered, still glow­ing from the tremen­dous or­gasm. She was go­ing to hurt pretty soon, but she agreed with Cla­jak. It had been worth it.

  “You’re all go­ing to suf­fer when the en­dor­phins wear off,” Be­vau snick­ered. “Get up and get dressed. Egilka that bite is go­ing to have to be seen by a medic.”

  The splayed Imdiko groaned. “The doc­tor can come to me. My damn legs won’t work for at least an hour.”

  “Get up for Jes­sica then. You don’t want your Matara in dis­tress, do you?”

  That got both him and Cla­jak mov­ing. They yanked on the bot­toms of their form­suits, let­ting the tops hang about their waists. Mean­while Be­vau, now fully dressed, slipped Jes­sica’s sheath back on her limp body. She let him, aware­ness of true phys­i­cal mis­ery creep­ing up on her. She whim­pered.

  “A lit­tle pain in­hibitor will put you right,” Be­vau soothed as he took her in his arms. She snug­gled against him. “I’ll meet you in our suite,” he told his clan­mates as he ducked out the cave. In an in­stant the scenery flew past Jes­sica in a blur as Be­vau sped with his su­per­nat­u­ral Kalquo­rian speed to the royal house, pass­ing smirk­ing Royal Guards. In no time at all, they were trav­el­ing in the con­veyance to their suite.

  “Bet you won’t do that again,” Be­vau grinned as the door opened to their home.

  “Bet I will,” Jes­sica smirked back. “I’ll just make sure there’s pain in­hibitor near at hand next time.”

  “In that case, I want to be the next re­cip­i­ent of my lit­tle Matara’s sav­agery,” he laughed. “What a show you put on!”

  Jes­sica thought, I hope we have the op­por­tu­nity, my love. If I don’t find a way to win to­mor­row’s de­bate, all your plot­ting may still fail.

  Chap­ter 19

  Jes­sica glanced up at the dais where the princes and em­per­ors sat in the coun­cil cham­ber. Her clan quirked small pri­vate smiles in her di­rec­tion, let­ting her know she’d done well with Wag­nox’s ques­tions. Cla­jak even tipped a wink, an ex­pres­sion he’d picked up from her. If she hadn’t been so jacked up with ner­vous­ness, she might have laughed.

  Jes­sica had done as well as she thought she would, which wasn’t good enough to earn a vic­tory. Now it was Nar­pok’s turn to be ques­tioned by Wag­nox.

  Nar­pok wasn’t the fe­ro­cious Ama­zon Jes­sica had en­coun­tered be­fore. The Kalquo­rian fe­male looked al­most shrunken be­hind her podium across the floor from Jes­sica. If a mus­cu­lar, six-and-a-half foot Kalquo­rian could ap­pear like a beaten waif, that waif would be Nar­pok. Her eyes were down­cast, re­fus­ing to look up at Wag­nox as he ap­proached her. She even seemed to shrink back a lit­tle as he neared.

  Pwal­dur had done a good job of coach­ing her, Jes­sica thought. What over­pro­tec­tive Kalquo­rian male wouldn’t be moved by such a pa­thetic dis­play?

  She looked at the other Kalquo­ri­ans as­sem­bled on the cham­ber floor. Dramok Ra­jhir was there, await­ing his turn to ques­tion the two women. Also on the floor were Michaela’s Imdiko Govi, for psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port should the ques­tion­ing prove too much for ei­ther woman; Sty­tyn, Wag­nox’s Imdiko and Nar­pok’s per­sonal physi­cian; and Imdiko Flen­cik, Ra­jhir’s clan­mate and Jes­sica’s newly ap­pointed physi­cian.

  Jes­sica’s sec­ond en­counter with Flen­cik had been a shocker. She’d no­ticed him briefly be­fore back on Pla­sius. That had been when Ra­jhir’s clan had claimed Amelia Ryan as their Matara. Jes­sica had been too in­tox­i­cated from his Nobek’s bite to ap­pre­ci­ate the colos­sus at the time. She thought she was used to the mon­u­men­tal size of the Kalquo­ri­ans, but Flen­cik was a be­he­moth even among his own kind. If not for the gen­tle ex­pres­sion etched on his hand­some, clean-shaven face, she’d have run away from the Imdiko. For­tu­nately, Kalquor’s best doc­tor was as kind as he was big, and she soon found her­self at ease with him.

  Wag­nox’s nasal voice, high-pitched for a Kalquo­rian, woke Jes­sica from her reverie as he ad­dressed Nar­pok. “Un­like Matara Jes­sica, you are fully trained in un­armed com­bat as well as fight­ing with blades. Am I cor­rect, Matara Nar­pok?”

  Nar­pok’s nod­ded, her eyes still fo­cused on the podium sur­face be­fore her. “Yes.”

  “And you have won awards in marks­man­ship with a va­ri­ety of firearms, in­clud­ing per­cus­sive blasters and laser ri­fles?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “So you are in­fin­itely bet­ter pre­pared to de­fend your­self and any chil­dren you bear, should un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances dic­tate such a need.” Wag­nox smiled win­ningly at the as­sem­bled coun­cil and the trans­mit­ting de­vices beam­ing the pro­ceed­ings to all of Kalquor.

  “I sup­pose.” Nar­pok looked up at Jes­sica, the dis­tant look in her cat’s eyes clear­ing for the first time that morn­ing. Her stare was sharp, but with­out ran­cor. “One must never hes­i­tate if lives are to be saved. Phys­i­cal and men­tal pre­pared­ness are key for a good de­fense.”

  “In­deed,” Wag­nox agreed warmly, still smil­ing at the as­sem­bled group.

  Nar­pok con­tin­ued to stare at Jes­sica, as if will­ing her to un­der­stand some­thing. Jes­sica had caught the em­pha­sis her ri­val had placed on the word ‘men­tal’. Nar­pok seemed to be try­ing to con­vey some­thing in a code Jes­sica couldn’t quite un­der­stand.

  Wag­nox turned back to Nar­pok, and the Kalquo­rian fe­male again dropped her eyes. “Let’s dis­cuss some of the other train­ing you’ve un­der­gone to be em­press of Kalquor.”

  Jes­sica knew she needed to pay close at­ten­tion to the de­bate, but her mind kept re­turn­ing to the look Nar­pok had given her and the words she’d used.

  One must never hes­i­tate if lives are to be saved.

  Her gaze had drilled into Jes­sica’s, the strange blank­ness in her eyes break­ing for a mo­ment of clar­ity.

  Phys­i­cal and men­tal pre­pared­ness are key for a good de­fense.

  Nar­pok had spo­ken the words with an in­ten­sity that promised more than the sur­face mean­ing. Was she say­ing Jes­sica wasn’t men­tally pre­pared for the task of be­ing one of Kalquor’s rulers? No doubt Nar­pok wanted to in­tim­i­date her with head games, maybe even pro­voke Jes­sica into an an­gry re­sponse.

  Still, Jes­sica couldn’t shake the in­tu­ition she’d missed some­thing. Her ri­val’s ex­pres­sion had hinted of an ap­peal, not provo­ca­tion. Was Nar­pok beg­ging the Earther to give up her claim on Cla­jak? Why would she bother with such when the ma­jor­ity of the pop­u­la­tion sided with her? The Kalquo­rian had to know the vote fa­vored her.

  Phys­i­cal and men­tal pre­pared­ness are key…

  Nar­pok had stressed men­tal pre­pared­ness, not phys­i­cal. The Kalquo­rian had it all over Jes­sica when it came to brute strength. Jes­sica had none of the mus­cu­lar­ity that came nat­u­rally to the other woman.

  Yet in­stead of point­ing out that ob­vi­ous dif­fer­ence, Nar­pok had seem­ingly gone out of her way to point out Jes­sica’s lack of in­tel­lec­tual abil­ity. Or maybe she al­luded to a psy­cho­log­i­cal deficit, some­thing she be­lieved the Earther lacked to prop­erly pro­tect her­self and her un­born.

  I have news for you, big girl. I’d fight to the death to de­fend my child. Even if I thought all hope was lost, I’d move heaven and earth to save him or her. I’m no weak damsel, wait­ing for the cav­alry to charge in and res­cue—

  The an­swer hit Jes­sica like a bolt of light­ning. She drew up straight be­hind her podium with a sharp in­take of breath.

  Ra­jhir looked at her, his brow creas­ing. Out of the cor­ner of her eye, she saw Govi, Flen­cik, and her clan do the same. Exquisitely tuned into any stress she might ex­hibit, the men were poised to stop the pro­ceed­ings in an in­stant.

  Jes­sica stared at Nar­pok in shock. The would-be em­press con­tin­ued to an­swer Wag­nox’s ques­tions, her voice a mono­tone, her eyes riv­eted on the podium be­fore her.

  Why does Nar­pok want me to win?

  Jes­sica al­most reeled at the dis­cov­ery. Would some­one as re­put­edly self-cen­tered as Nar­pok re­ally com­mit such a self­less act? Would she grant Cla­jak’s clan the Matara they pre­ferred? Noth­ing Jes­sica had heard of her ri­val sug­gested mat­ters of the heart meant much to Nar­pok, es­pe­cially when they in­ter­fered with what she wanted.

  It made no sense.

  Maybe it’s not what she in­tended. Maybe all she wanted was to play headgames with you. If so, it just back­fired. Take ad­van­tage, Jes­sica, and win your clan.

  Her heart thump­ing with ex­cite­ment, Jes­sica looked at Ra­jhir, dis­cov­er­ing he still watched her care­fully. She stared hard into his eyes, and he frowned. Then she looked to­ward her ri­val. She switched her gaze to Zarl, whose sharp at­ten­tion re­mained on Wag­nox’s ques­tion­ing. Back to Nar­pok. Again at Ra­jhir.

  The coun­cil­man’s frown deep­ened, and he shook his head slightly. Again Jes­sica fo­cused on Nar­pok and Zarl, and then stared at Ra­jhir again. She willed him to un­der­stand the mes­sage she was try­ing to send. Come on, Ra­jhir. You’re a smart boy. You can put it to­gether.

  Ra­jhir looked from Nar­pok to Zarl, Zarl to Nar­pok, his gaze cal­cu­lat­ing. His eyes widened an in­stant be­fore he bent over his com­puter, whis­per­ing a ques­tion to the hand­held de­vice. He scanned what­ever ap­peared on his mon­i­tor and straight­ened. The cor­ners of his mouth lifted into the slight­est of smiles as he looked at Jes­sica. He gave her an al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble nod.

  She let go of the breath she hadn’t re­al­ized she’d been hold­ing. Ra­jhir thought it had a chance.

  “Your ques­tions, Coun­cil­man Ra­jhir?” Em­peror Zarl sounded tired, even down­right de­feated. Jes­sica’s heart throbbed for him. He wanted her for his daugh­ter-in-law, and not just be­cause he wanted his son to be happy. Zarl cared.

  “Thank you, my em­peror.” Ra­jhir stood and walked to­wards Nar­pok. She looked up, her eyes dis­tant again as if not re­ally see­ing the young coun­cil­man. “Matara Nar­pok, you have stated men­tal as well as phys­i­cal pre­pared­ness are needed to prop­erly de­fend royal off­spring.”

  Nar­pok glanced at Jes­sica, and the Earther was star­tled to see re­lief cross her ri­val’s fea­tures. “That is an ab­so­lute,” Nar­pok agreed. Her voice was lighter, as if a weight had been lifted from her.

  Ra­jhir swal­lowed. Jes­sica knew he found sub­ject­ing a woman to emo­tional an­guish un­pleas­ant, even if he dis­liked her. “For­give me for bring­ing up such a painful sub­ject my lady, but you were in­volved in a se­ri­ous ac­ci­dent on Joshada some years ago, were you not?”

  Pwal­dur rose from his seat, his face shad­ing an omi­nous pur­ple.

  “Yes, Coun­cil­man Ra­jhir. All my par­ents were killed ex­cept for Pwal­dur, who did not ac­com­pany us on that trip.”

  Pwal­dur roared fit to shake the cham­ber. “I must protest this line of ques­tion­ing!”

  Zarl banged his fist on his desk amid the ex­cited mut­ter­ings of the coun­cil and gallery. “You are out of or­der, Head Coun­cil­man.”

  Wag­nox waved Pwal­dur down, ris­ing as he did so. Nar­pok’s fa­ther sank back into his seat, his ex­pres­sion fu­ri­ous. Wag­nox stepped to­ward the dais. “My em­peror, ev­ery­one knows of the un­for­tu­nate crash that claimed most of Matara Nar­pok’s par­ent clan; the same dis­as­ter that took your own beloved em­press and in­jured you as well. There is no rea­son to make Nar­pok suf­fer through the retelling of the event.”

  Ra­jhir snarled, “You made Matara Jes­sica suf­fer through a sec­ond telling of the at­tack she en­dured on Pla­sius, and she is with child.”

  Zarl di­rected his com­ments to Ra­jhir. “You may con­tinue your ques­tion­ing but keep in mind it is a painful sub­ject. Do not tax Nar­pok un­nec­es­sar­ily.”