Chap­ter 23

  On a clear night two months af­ter the at­tack on Zarl, Jes­sica stepped out onto the bal­cony off her clan’s sleep­ing room. She went to the low rock wall. Lean­ing on folded arms, she looked out over the moon­lit ocean.

  Salt breeze lifted her chest­nut hair, eas­ing the stub­born heat that held on de­spite the change to au­tumn. Jes­sica’s pur­ple coro­na­tion robe, made of the soft­est fab­ric to ever touch her skin, stirred around her. She smiled as she lis­tened to the sounds of cel­e­bra­tion com­ing from the cliff­side homes up and down the beach. Var­i­ous strains of mu­sic, cheer­ing, and laugh­ter com­peted with the rum­ble of the ocean. It had been a good, if tir­ing, day.

  Zarl’s pres­ence had been the best part of her clan’s join­ing cer­e­mony and the coro­na­tion that fol­lowed im­me­di­ately af­ter. The new Im­pe­rial Clan had held off both rites in the hopes of his at­ten­dance, and Jes­sica was glad they had. See­ing Cla­jak’s Dramok fa­ther sit­ting in his hover chair, his lined face alight with pride, made the day a true cel­e­bra­tion.

  The of­fi­cial clan­ning cer­e­mony rec­og­niz­ing Jes­sica as part of Cla­jak’s clan had been a bit too for­mal for her tastes. It cer­tainly didn’t match the rau­cous af­fair of Michaela’s sev­eral weeks prior. That cel­e­bra­tion had ended with all par­tic­i­pants, in­clud­ing Jes­sica’s clan, hap­pily drunk and un­dressed. Leshella, the Plasian wine that in­tox­i­cated with­out threat­en­ing dam­age to Jes­sica’s un­born, had been im­ported just for the oc­ca­sion. It had been a hell of a party. Michaela’s gown de­liv­ered the arous­ing ef­fect she’d hoped for, with her clan recit­ing their vows around mouth­fuls of her flesh.

  Still, Jes­sica un­der­stood the need for the re­straint of her own cer­e­mony to­day. The clan’s for­mal coro­na­tion as em­per­ors and em­press of Kalquor had taken place im­me­di­ately af­ter­wards. Roy­alty de­manded a cer­tain amount of deco­rum.

  She sensed a pres­ence be­hind her a mo­ment be­fore Cla­jak and Egilka touched her. She leaned back against the two men, who each placed a pos­ses­sive hand on her slightly curved belly. Her preg­nancy had been un­af­fected by the traitors’ kid­nap­ping at­tempt.

  “I won­dered where you’d slipped off to,” Cla­jak said, his lips in her hair.

  “Was there too much cel­e­brat­ing for you?” Egilka asked.

  Jes­sica looked up to smile at him, reach­ing up to stroke his chis­eled jaw. “I knew you’d find me. I’m ready for a pri­vate cel­e­bra­tion.”

  The Imdiko’s eyes dark­ened with pas­sion, and the ea­ger hands of both men ca­ressed her. Jes­sica soft­ened at their touches, and her mouth opened for Egilka’s tongue. They stripped her of her robe right there on the bal­cony, un­mind­ful of the shut­tles pass­ing over­head. Her skimpy un­der­clothes fol­lowed quickly, leav­ing her naked for their ex­plo­rations. Be­neath Cla­jak’s blue robe and Egilka’s green, she felt the hard need of their mas­culin­ity. She stroked them through the soft­ness of their robes.

  One im­por­tant in­gre­di­ent was miss­ing, and when Egilka broke their kiss Jes­sica asked, “Where’s Be­vau?”

  Both men looked around, sur­prised. Egilka said, “He was right be­hind us when we went to search for you.”

  Cla­jak went in­side to check the sleep­ing room for their Nobek. Jes­sica and Egilka fol­lowed him. There was no sign of the miss­ing man.

  Be­fore they could worry, the door opened and Be­vau walked in. Jes­sica’s heart went in her throat to see her beau­ti­ful clan­mate, re­splen­dent in his red coro­na­tion robe. The loose fab­ric hid the scars on his chest and arms. He would for­ever keep sou­venirs of his fight with Marzk­lis, like any Nobek proud of his fight wounds. No mem­ber of the clan minded the marks. The livid slashes that tat­tooed Be­vau only ac­cen­tu­ated his other gor­geous at­tributes, and he wore his bat­tle scars with pride. No Kalquo­rian doubted Be­vau’s Nobek fe­roc­ity any longer.

  Cla­jak greeted him with, “There you are. We were about to start with­out you.”

  Be­vau’s eyes lit up to see Jes­sica naked, and he licked his lips. She saw the guarded ex­pres­sion that arousal couldn’t erase though, and her heart thumped painfully. “It’s hap­pened, hasn’t it?”

  He came to her to hold her close. “I’m sorry, my love. Earth has de­clared war on Kalquor.”

  Jes­sica buried her face against Be­vau’s chest, let­ting an­gry tears wet his robe. Earth had protested when it learned one of its own was to be­come the em­press of its sworn en­emy. Threats of an­ni­hi­la­tion had been made should Jes­sica’s ruler­ship be for­mally ac­knowl­edged. Her worst fear had been re­al­ized. She had brought her two plan­ets to war.

  Cla­jak and Egilka joined the em­brace, sur­round­ing her with their warmth. Her Dramok said, “The peo­ple have spo­ken. They voted to take this risk by mak­ing you em­press.”

  Jes­sica had in­sisted on the vote. Over­whelm­ingly, Kalquo­ri­ans had pledged their sup­port of the coro­na­tion, even in the face of Earth’s threats. The few protests against it had been small and mostly ig­nored. Still, her heart ached for the com­ing ca­su­al­ties. “Peo­ple will die,” she said, her voice muf­fled against the haven of Be­vau’s chest.

  For a won­der, the Nobek laughed. “That is the price and re­ward of war. We Kalquo­ri­ans are civ­i­lized, but at our hearts we are still a war­rior race. For most Kalquo­ri­ans, it is prefer­able to die in glo­ri­ous bat­tle than in our sleep.” His hand un­der her chin lifted her face so he could look in her eyes. “The tragedy is we do not wish to harm mem­bers of the race that can save us, and we will have to. Armed con­flict makes it in­evitable.”

  “It will make the Em­pire weak be­cause we will try to not in­flict so much dam­age,” Jes­sica wor­ried. “Earth­ers won’t mind killing as many Kalquo­ri­ans they can.”

  “It is out of our hands now. We will do the best we can with the sit­u­a­tion given us.” Be­vau kissed the tip of her nose.

  “Let’s not drive our­selves in­sane with ‘what ifs’ and ‘should not haves’,” Cla­jak or­dered. “Our clan­ning is a joy­ous event. There will be no sad­ness at­tached to it.”

  The com­mand in his voice, so preva­lent now that he’d ac­cepted his birthright, made Jes­sica smile. “Yes, my em­peror,” she said, bow­ing her head in ac­cep­tance.

  The men growled in uni­son at her ac­qui­es­cence, de­lighted with her sub­mis­sion. Where sex was con­cerned, Jes­sica was com­fort­able giv­ing up con­trol to her dom­i­nat­ing mates.

  Maybe I’ll learn to trust in other mat­ters as well. She hoped so. It was hard for one girl to carry the weight of the uni­verse.

  When Jes­sica went to her knees, ea­ger to ser­vice her men, they oblig­ingly threw off their robes. She shiv­ered as they pre­sented her with a wall of mus­cled flesh. She suck­led each thick hard cock in turn, her hands busy on the men not warmed by her mouth. Groans filled the air. Warm juices flowed down her thighs.

  Never had her lovers tasted so good as right now when they were of­fi­cially ac­knowl­edged as Jes­sica’s life­mates. She might have licked and sucked all night had they al­lowed it. In­stead, they lifted her from the fur-cov­ered floor and car­ried her to the bed.

  The men were de­lighted to re­turn the fa­vor of oral plea­sure. While Egilka held her wrists and Be­vau pinned her an­kles, Cla­jak knelt to the feast. His tongue swirled in cir­cles around and over her cli­toris, mak­ing Jes­sica writhe un­con­trol­lably. The plea­sure was ex­cru­ci­at­ing. If not for the other two hold­ing her cap­tive, she would have jumped from the bed to catch her breath.

  “Please, wait just a minute, Cla­jak. Just wait a sec­ond, damn it, you’re killing me,” Jes­sica pleaded.

  He an­swered her by putting his mouth on her flesh and suck­ing the sen­si­tive but­ton while lash­ing it from side to side with his wicked tongue. She screamed and bucked wildly as or­gasm burst from her loins.

  As the pulses of sen­sa­tion ebbed, Cla­jak gave her a fi­nal lick and chuck­led. Then he swat­ted her ass to make it burn. “You’ll take what you’re given, my sweet,” he said, his lips shin­ing with her juices. He traded places with Be­vau.

  Jes­sica groaned with min­gled lust and agony as Be­vau’s mouth cov­ered her sex. His tongue stabbed into her core, lap­ping up her pre­cious honey. Over and over, his tongue in­vaded her soft­est flesh, sweetly vi­o­lat­ing her. Feel­ing the rough silk mov­ing in and out, tire­lessly fuck­ing her, brought fresh waves of plea­sure. Her ragged cries filled the air.

  Be­vau sat up with a pleased smile. Tak­ing one of her legs from Cla­jak for a mo­ment, he lifted it to ex­pose a but­tock. Af­ter de­liv­er­ing a few sharp, af­fec­tion­ate slaps of his own to her flesh, he re­turned her an­kle to Cla­jak’s strong grip and swapped po­si­tions with Egilka.

  Egilka knelt be­tween her spread thighs. He parted the lips of her sex as far open as he could with his fin­ger­tips, drink­ing in the sight of the se­cret pink flesh of her wom­an­hood. His cocks were tight to his ab­domen as he ex­am­ined her. Cla­jak peered over his shoul­der to take in the view. Never had Jes­sica felt so vul­ner­a­ble. Her sex poured an in­vi­ta­tion to the men.

  Keep­ing her spread open with the fin­gers of one hand, Egilka probed her with the in­dex fin­ger of the other. The long, thick digit en­tered Jes­sica, search­ing the front of her sheath. When he found the bun­dle of nerves she arched with a low scream.

  He pressed a sec­ond fin­ger in, then a third. When they were im­mersed in her all the way, he paused to rub his palm against her cli­toris. Jes­sica strug­gled against the iron hold Be­vau and Cla­jak had on her limbs as Egilka drove her crazy, work­ing her with a rhythm of pulling his fin­gers free to the tips, plung­ing back in hard, rub­bing her strain­ing bud with the flat of his hand, and with­draw­ing again. He pumped her sex in this man­ner un­til her sheath re­warded him with strong con­trac­tions. Molten heat poured from her belly to her skull. Her head whipped from side to side as plea­sure once more had its way with her.

  With Jes­sica sat­is­fied, the men now saw to their own needs. Each took a turn, tak­ing their beloved Matara in the way that suited his tem­per­a­ment. Egilka was slow and me­thod­i­cal, rel­ish­ing ev­ery nu­ance of Jes­sica’s ac­cept­ing body un­til pas­sion took hold of him, mak­ing him drive against her with force. Cla­jak was de­mand­ing but thor­ough, fill­ing her mouth and throat with his thrust­ing length un­til lust de­manded he sink his iron flesh into her yield­ing sex. He shud­dered as he emp­tied his seed into her sweet­ness. Then Be­vau sat­is­fied his wilder urges, rut­ting against her from be­hind like an an­i­mal. Her screams of com­ple­tion melded with his roars as they cli­maxed to­gether.

  At last sated, Jes­sica and the men curled to­gether in a tired, happy pile in the mid­dle of the bed. Drows­ing in the warmth of their strong bod­ies, Jes­sica firmly de­nied en­trance to the wor­ries that wanted her at­ten­tion. To­mor­row would be soon enough to face the new chal­lenges that awaited her.

  Safe in the arms of her clan, the Em­press of Kalquor drifted into dream­less sleep.

  The End

  Other books by Tracy St. John avail­able at Ama­zon:

  Un­holy Union

  The Font

  To Pro­tect and Ser­vice: Rav­en­ous Virtue

  THE CLANS OF KALQUOR SE­RIES:

  Alien Em­brace

  Alien Rule

  Alien Con­quest

  Alien Sal­va­tion

  Alien Slave

  Alien In­ter­ludes: Clans of Kalquor Short Sto­ries

  Alien Re­demp­tion

  Alien Refuge

  Alien Caged

  CLAN BE­GIN­NINGS

  To Clan and Con­quer

  Clan and Con­vic­tion

  OTHER CLANS OF KALQUOR BOOKS

  Sis­ter Kather­ine

  Shalia’s Di­ary Book 1

  Shalia’s Di­ary Book 2

  THE NETHER­WORLD SE­RIES:

  Drop Dead Sexy

  Blood Po­tion No. 9

  Once Bit­ten Twice Dead

  Please visit Tracy’s web­site at http://www.tra­cys­tjohn.com/

  and Tracy’s blog at http://tra­cys­tjohn.blogspot.com

  Fol­low on Twit­ter http://twit­ter.com/@Tra­cy­Sain­tJohn

 

 

  Tracy St. John, Alien Rule

 

 

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