6. Drowning

Blub blub blub…

I wake up in the bath with my nose just above the waterline. A little trickle of water is sucked up into the back of my nose as I sit up spluttering.

"That was dangerous," I mutter to myself, displeased. I should know better than to recklessly… hell, who am I kidding. Everything I do is reckless. You get that way when life teaches you that being sensible doesn't get you anywhere anyway.

"Aristo! Someone needs to supervise me in the bath!" I call out.

Unfortunately, the way I am yelling is being covered up by an absolute cacophony, the same cacophony that must have woken me up just as I started to drown. The fans are faring again, irritatingly loudly this time. I'd love to wonder why they're blaring, but I also want to go to sleep, so I'm mostly annoyed.

I get out of my cool bath, wrap myself in the fluffy towel that doesn't feel as fluffy as it should, and notice that the bed hasn't been made. My stomach is rumbling a little. A chocolate sundae, even a big one, isn't really food. A human is made of needs that just keep needing no matter what. It's very frustrating, that way.

"Aristo!"

"Aristo!"

I call for my servant, for that is how I think of him now. It has only been a few days, but now I'm having a hard time imagining what my life would be like without someone like him doing everything for me.

"Aristo!?"

He usually appears in under a minute, but the seconds tick by and he does not appear. I start to get irritated. I'm used to him arriving, and the fact that he isn't here now feels like a betrayal somehow. It does not take long to get spoiled. I've been waited on hand and foot for a few days now, and I want more of it, dammit.

I go outside, because I am forced to. As I step into the heat and the sun, I realize that I haven't actually been outside since I arrived. The outdoors now feels like a real inconvenience. All that light getting in my eyes starts to hurt.

"Aristo! I'm starving here."

There's still no response. A strong wind is blowing, whipping up volcanic grit in the way that feels like it is trying to deliberately drive it into my eyes.

Where the hell is everyone? Did they find some new uncaught pocket of natives to destroy? Is there a feeding frenzy going on somewhere nearby? I don't hear any terrified, tortured screams, so that seems unlikely.

The fanfare has finally faded away, but I still feel sensorily overwhelmed. The world is too big, too hot, too rough, and I am wearing a damp towel. I hear a footstep behind me.

"There you are! I've been looking for you…"

"Hello, my queen."

A large hand closes around the back of my neck and a wave of horror flows through me as Emrys takes hold of me. He turns me around to face him, and I feel all the fear I have been forgetting to feel the last few days running through me at once. Emrys is a valker the same way a black hole is a star. He is the most evolved and most dangerous form of valker. He is taller than the others, he is even more handsome than the others, and his magnetism is irresistible.

"You know, anybody sensible would have fled the very first night. Actually, anybody sensible would have never landed at all. But you lack sense, deliberately so. You are not stupid, but you are foolhardy to an extent I cannot believe."

"I…" The attempt at speech fails in my throat.

Emrys has plenty to say for the both of us.

"I thought they were mad when they told me that my mate awaited me," Emrys says, his tone incredulous. "You must surely be the maddest little creature in all the universe. To have led me on this merry chase, to have fired upon me, to have cost me millions in ship repairs, to have disrespected and refused me… only to come to the very place where you are needed. Why?"

"Why not?"

"Why not!? Because I am the incarnation of every evil creature that ever existed, and you know it to your marrow. Your presence gives me the uncomfortable feeling that this is somehow a trap, though how could it be? You are the prey."

"I know," I smile. My smile isn't triumphant. It's guilty, and a little confused, and a lot still afraid.

I'm not sure what the hell I'm doing. All I know is that it felt good and empowering to be treated like a queen, and that's the way I want to feel. My every whim and desire has been catered to. Emrys is even speaking to me with a little less contempt and loathing. I think he might be pleased to see me.

"With you here, and me here, it is safe to say that homecoming has begun," he says. "Let's get you out of that towel and into something appropriate."

He whips the towel off my body, leaving me naked beneath his blazing red gaze. I feel a sweeping sensation of warmth, almost as if a volcanic presence has manifested in the very room in which we stand.

"Beautiful," Emrys breathes. "You have been worth the chase."

Those words of affirmation feel good. He and I have been testing one another from the moment we first laid eyes on one another. I cannot forget that he was the first to find me. The first to lay his claim to me. This moment may have been fated from that one.

He wraps me in his alien embrace, taking charge of me inexorably. The fear I have always felt in his presence is melting into excitement as his arms wrap around me. He picks me up, because I am far too short for him to hold me without breaking his back. As my feet leave the floor, I feel a wave of perfect helplessness. After all this time running, I have given up in a fundamental way. He has me, and I am going to let him have me. All the pampering has made me soften, or maybe it's just that I am starting to slow down. One can only run so far for so long.

Emrys' fangs slide over my neck, grazing tender skin lightly. There is a sting as they sink in, a moment of connection that links me with him more closely than I have ever been linked to anybody. I have been fucked before, but this is something far more intimate than being fucked. I am being consumed. I am being taken as nourishment.

He bites down deeper and I am helpless as the predator begins to feed on my blood. My muscles relax and leave me in a tranquil state in his arms. This is the realization all prey must have before meeting its end in the jaws of a predator. There is a moment in which the creature, no matter how swift, how desperate to escape, offers its neck in the ultimate act of submission. Emrys may very well be ending me in this moment, and if he is, there is nothing I could or would do in order to stop it.

He sinks down onto a couch with me. I am barely aware of where we are, or what is happening to me. All I know is that I am being taken and drained.

He runs his large hand down my stomach. Little bursts of goosebumps erupt across my skin as his fingers curl between my legs in a tight grip of possession. I am ultimately vulnerable, and as my life force seeps out of me, his fingers slide inside me.

I feel my pussy stretching as Emrys, perhaps the universe's ultimate royal predator, begins to toy with me. His touch is surprisingly tender, given how contentious our every other interaction has been. He could rip me apart if he wanted, but he is careful to stretch and claim only as deeply as I can take. He is careful with what he owns, and I am something he owns.

Pleasure sweeps through me, unfettered in a way it never has been before. Usually, no matter how hot an encounter, there are always blockages inside me, little thoughts that get in the way, distractions, reactions to sensations that don't quite work. I can't help them, no matter how much I want to be in the moment. Emrys claims the moment just as he claims me. He takes everything about me and he makes it his own. His fingers push deeper inside me, thrusting against my drenched walls as my body produces traitorous lubricant to further enable his conquest.

This lock we are in, his fangs in my neck, his fingers inside me, it is barely sex. It is the clinch of teenage lovers, but as his hair falls over my face in a dark curtain that shuts out every ray of light in the room besides the bright red gaze that truly illuminates the shadows, I feel as though I have already been ravaged on a soul level. I cannot imagine what it will be like when he completes his conquest.

His fangs leave me, and he speaks.

"This is how you need to be. Drained. Quiet. Calm. Obedient."

I look up into his hauntingly beautiful face. My hatred has left me. I'm not capable of it anymore. All I am capable of is submission.

"You think you are feeling this way because of blood loss? No. I barely took a tablespoon. What you are feeling is the proper response to finding your true master and proper owner."

I am limp, helpless, and weak. More than that. I am deeply aroused. I feel submission deep in my core in a way I did not know I was capable of feeling it. There's something about Emrys that absolutely overrides all my inner drives for rebellion — at least for the length of time I am in his grasp.

"Finally, you understand what you would have understood instantly if you had not given me so much trouble in finding you," he says. It feels as though he is reading my mind, though he may very well only be reading my body language.

"I was afraid."

"You? Afraid? What do you have to be afraid of?"

I look into his eternal eyes and see a little mocking light in them. He regards me as if I am as much of a monster as he is, though that makes no sense. He knows I am small, and weak, and human. He knows what power he has over me, and how vulnerable I am to all those who pursue me.

"Everything," I say. "There's a whole universe of people and things trying to get me."

"You are very dangerous in your own right," Emrys says, his fingers curling around my throat, putting just enough pressure in place to make me feel the power of his grasp.

"I am not dangerous."

"Of course you are. You killed a mate of yours, my little black widow. The first of us you made love to, you destroyed."

"Raz didn't make it?"

"Nobody ‘makes' being sucked out of an airlock."

"But you could have saved him. Could have transported him out of the airlock before…"

Emrys chuckles, his long pale fingers playing with a ringlet of my hair. "Why would I do that when it was so much easier to let the darkness inside you flower, to make you as guilty as your conscience required? You are a dangerous woman, a nameless woman. You are a woman with no hearth, no home, and no heart."

I look into his eyes, and I see him looking into me as he speaks.

He knows me in some way. He understands the hollowness inside me. There are places inside me that should be full of family and home, but they stand empty. They always have been.

He leans in, and when he speaks again his voice comes in a purr that resonates through my hollow core.

"I see a woman without a name."

I shiver in his grasp. They have all assumed that I am lying about my name. Emrys is the only one to guess that I don't have a name at all. Guess is the wrong word, though. Somehow, he knows.

"Why do you say that?"

Emrys gives me a thin smile. "I drank of you. When I absorb the essence of a human, I discover them. I know their name. I see the world from which they came. Everything they ever loved and ever were flows into me. Nothing flows from you. You are placeless. You must have been plucked from your mother's arms at birth. Is that what happened?"

"I don't know what happened."

"The amnesia of the early years can be a blessing, but it has cursed you." He caresses my cheek tenderly, and I feel his sympathy. "Do not worry, my empty vessel. You will shatter soon."

I tremble at those words, because I know he does not say them lightly. If Emrys says he is going to break me, then he is absolutely going to break me.

He brushes a little hair tenderly away from my eyes. "Do not look so scared, princess. I took mercy on you by giving you some private pleasure before the public ceremony."

"… public ceremony?"

Emrys explains the situation to me with a patient tone. "Homecoming is the time when the king mates the queen before the eyes of the assembled council. It is when a beautiful, regal creature is humbled. She is made a vessel of the king's seed. Sometimes she takes on new life. Sometimes she simply flows with seed and brings forth an energetic new era. Whatever happens, it is a powerful ritual of great importance to our kind. You will be at the center of it."

Evening has come, and the preparations are complete.

I am led through a nearly silent crowd of Emrys' valker subjects. All eyes are on me, dozens of vicious, hard, hungry glares running through me. I am still feeling the effects of the first feeding, so I am calm as Emrys holds my hand and walks me to the altar prepared for me.

I am naked, dressed only in florets of my own blood, pale designs traced into the red flow by Emrys' fingertip. I catch sight of myself in the mirrored surfaces, and I see a beautiful young creature who is going to be sacrificed.

I will not survive Emrys.

I am no longer sure I care.

He has exposed me in ways deeper than I thought possible. He has laid me bare emotionally and spiritually. What does it matter if I now stand before his kind with only my own sanguine essence as cladding?

When we reach the large stone surface, he picks me up and lays me down on it as tenderly as any lover. Nothing is being said out loud. There is no fanfare. There is nothing but the silence of carnal anticipation and an air of solemnity. This ritual is deeply important to the valker. I can quite literally feel the significance of it deep in the very marrow of my bones.

Once he has me in place, Emrys begins to disrobe. He has been dressed finely for the event, but all that finery is removed piece by piece and handed to Aristo, who hovers nearby with an obeisant look upon his refined features. I watch as my royal lover's body comes into view. He is like cold slate-gray marble. His musculature is that of a predator who has gone hungry for a long time, prominent and without any real covering of fat. He is broad shouldered, and he is…

His cock is an astonishing thing. His pants come down, revealing long powerful legs and a thick cock which narrows to an almost sharp tip. He looks like throbbing stone, his mating rod broad in girth and perfectly in proportion with the rest of his powerful, regal body. I have felt the presence of that thing from the moment we met. I have been running from him, but also from his huge cruel cock.

Emrys mounts the plinth, straddling me with his larger, more powerful body. One of his hands gathers both my wrists and he pulls my arms up over my head, elongating the rest of my naked form. I feel the heat of the rocky material radiating into me, keeping me at the proper feeding temperature. I notice as I squirm that there are channels cut into this platform. Instinct and intellect tells me that they are for my blood.

"So much fear in such a little creature," Emrys purrs, his bright red eyes lit with amusement as he looks down at me. "Do not be afraid, my bride. You are about to be sacrificed for a greater purpose. When this is over, your life will have meaning in a way it lacks now. You have come from nothing, but I will make you something."

He parts my thighs with his leg and takes his place between them. This is not a romantic tryst. This is not a seduction. This is a public claiming, a ceremonial joining, and for that reason the foreplay consists of a light nuzzling behind my left ear before his fangs sink inside me again, and his agile hips guide the head of his cock into my molten interior.

Every sacrifice is cut. Every sacrifice knows what it is to be pierced. I am no different as I lie there with Emrys covering my body with his own, his cock sliding into my not even remotely virginal interior with a slow, deliberate motion as his fangs pierce me over and over. These hot, brutal kisses all bring a flush of blood from me. He bites my neck repeatedly on both sides, then moves to my breasts. Each tender snap of his jaws causes fresh puncture wounds and new rivulets of my blood which slide down to find the stony channels carved specifically for it.

The sensation breaks through the spell of his feeding, and I start to squirm. My hips gyrate and I feel his cock stiffen all the more, thrusting harder as my mortal body puts up its first and perhaps last fight.

As I am taken, and destroyed, Emrys begins to speak to me in the rough, guttural tones of a valker king claiming his human queen.

"You are a hot, pretty little thing to fuck," he says. "Your passion is enticing, your lust for life is admirable. I can feel your resistance with every thrust. You fight me, because you fear me. I worship that fear, that loathing, that resistance. Give it all to me, my mate."

He demands it, and I give it, because there is no resisting him.

He fucks me harder, rougher. He scoops me up by the hips and holds me to his pelvis, drawing me back and forth along the length of his vampiric cock.

Pleasure unwinds inside me like a whip being cracked. Suddenly, I am convulsing and contorting on his cock. My orgasm is not organic, it is forced. It is something he has done, a trick of blood and a manipulation of his cock.

My screams echo around the temple as my body starts to writhe and jerk uncontrollably against Emrys' grip. There's no escaping this mating, there is only taking the pleasure, taking the cock, there is only the dominant ravaging which makes me twist, shudder, and finally collapse against the altar.

"Good girl," Emrys praises me, giving me an almost chaste kiss upon my lips. I taste my blood on his mouth as intense exhaustion comes over me.

I close my eyes and I lie in the arms of the first lover who has ever claimed me so completely the fight evaporated from me entirely. Emrys is the embodiment of evil and power, and I have left myself to his vicious mercies.

I could save myself, perhaps, if there was another chance. I could run again, but I do not have the desire. I could fight the same way I've been fighting for years. But what would be the point? Fate itself sucked me out of a deadly storm and threw me into Emrys' path. This is where I belong.

"You're an absolute menace," he murmurs in my ear, his tone one of adoration. "The perfect mated queen for a hive of villainy such as this one."

For days, I am kept upon the royal altar. I am fucked more times than I can count, and I come more than I have ever come in my life. I lose track of how often it happens during the days and nights, but I know that at the going up and the going down of the sun, I am fed upon and mated by Emrys. My blood and his seed ebb and flow. I grow weaker and weaker, but it does not matter to me. Every bit of waning strength feels like a taste of a little more freedom.

"She may not survive this much longer." I hear Aristo's voice speaking with some measure of concern as I fade in and out of consciousness.

"The ritual is not about survival. The ritual is about renewal. The death of the queen is an acceptable price to be paid."

Those words lead me to my deepest surrender yet. Emrys will take every drop of blood and he will leave me a husk of what I was. I close my eyes, I let my head fall back. I meet my end in the beautiful jaws of the alien I could not escape.