27. Marked

I depressthe button to the space that will be both mine and Lena's home. It's the same quarters given to all newly mated hopefuls, but it feels special.

Because it is, it's ours.

Lena rushes past me and nearly belly flops onto the bed, her limbs starfishing.

"This is so much softer than at the cave. I'm exhausted!" she groans into the pillow.

"I did my best." I try not to let my feelings about the nest I built get hurt. "When the time comes and we return to the nest, I'll build you something better."

I sit on the edge of the comfy bed. She turns her head, frowning at me with a look of compassion.

"That's not what I meant." She pushes herself up from the bed and places her warm hand over my thigh. "Anywhere I'm with you is home."

One of the brothers wraps around her waist and pulls her tightly to me, and my cock, as predictable as the sunrise, hardens nearly instantly.

"Your cock is different than a human's, but it is so beautiful." She runs her hand through my mating crest, skirting the base of my shaft.

My body goes still, except for the brothers. I gulp, trying to will them to stop running their lengths up and down her sides.

"I am happy it pleases you," I say through gritted teeth.

"It would please me," she says, her eyes behind hooded lids, "if you told me what you liked. How do you want me to touch your cock, Kitaico?"

"I, uh, any way you want to—that's how I like it." My voice sounds squeaky in my own ears. I'm embarrassed when my cock bobs toward her hand, begging for contact.

"Is there something that someone else has done that's felt good?" She kisses me on the cheek.

Someone else? The thought of anyone but Lena makes my stomach roil.

"There has only been you."

Her eyes widen and her little pink mouth drops open.

"Only me? Kitaico, are you a virgin?"

A robed human woman flashes in my mind, my translator chip struggling to convey the meaning of the word.

"I don't understand this word."

"Have you had sex before?" Her face screws up as asks the question.

"Yes, you were there." Lena must have a terrible memory.

"No, I mean, have you ever put your penis inside anyone?" Her voice is gentle.

"I've never had a mate, no. I hope you'll let me, though." I try to ignore my throbbing cock as I answer her.

"Oh. Oh!" She seems flustered. "I mean, I guess it makes sense, I just didn't really think about it."

"So, there have been others for you, then?" I try not to look crestfallen.

"Yes, but not a mate. You are my first in that way." Lena bites her lip. "Does it bother you that you're not my first for other things?"

I think of it for a moment, not wanting to say the wrong thing. Do I like that there are males that have known the pleasures of my mate in the past? No. Do I find fault in her for it? Also no.

"It does not bother me. You bear my mark and you're here with me now. You are everything I've ever hoped for."

Her grin broadens at my mention of her mating mark.

"Speaking of marks, I had Yiskku drop something off for me!" She jumps from the bed, her excitement causing her to skip. I have to pinch the brothers to get them to release her as she moves. She scans our quarters until her eyes land on a medium-sized metal box on our table.

She grabs it and heads back toward me.

"What is it?" I hope it's something to distract my mind from my throbbing shaft.

Lena doesn't seem to pick up on my discomfort, her excitement over whatever lies in the box overshadowing my little problem. She lifts the lid, and inside there's a curious arrangement of objects. It contains a large bottle of antiseptic fluid, several piercing needles, sterile bandages, and what looks like a jar of mashed up nuite fruit.

"You'll have to explain." I tilt my head, trying to make sense of the box's contents. "Do you wish for me to pierce your nipples and then feed you a snack?"

Lena laughs so hard she nearly tips over onto me.

"I mean, that sounds fun, don't get me wrong, but no. I'm going to use this to mark you, like the marks I have. I'm going to tattoo you and give you a mating mark of your own." She beams at me, her smile pulled wide.

A mating mark of my own? My clever mate has found a way to claim me in the ways of our people.

"So, will you let me mark you as my own?" she asks in earnest.

When I look at her face, when I think of what she's offering me, my heart wants to explode.

"I would be honored to bear your mark, but how are these things going to help us do that?" I gesture to the box she holds.

"It's called a tattoo. I'll poke your skin with the needle and rub the nuite fruit into the cuts. Once it heals over, I hope it'll be permanent. From how the dye stained the cave walls, I think it should."

I narrow my eyes at her.

"I must love you if I'll allow you to stick me with needles and rub food in the wounds," I say half in jest.

"It'll be easy, promise. I haven't done a stick and poke tattoo since before my apprenticeship at the shop." She's giddy, so I don't ask her to elaborate on what shop she's talking about. "Should we do it tonight"—her eyes drift back down to my throbbing cock—"or maybe tomorrow, if you need me to…"

"No, I've waited long enough. I wish to be claimed," I try to say playfully, showing her my palm with a smile. I cross my leg over the other, willing myself to soften.

She plops down next to me, takes one of the bottles of sanitizer, and pours some onto her hands. She grabs my hand and rubs her wet palm onto mine. I watch with curiosity as she opens the sterile bandages and uses them to wipe one of the long, thin needles and the jar of purple goop. Lena opens the bottle of nuite fruit.

"I had them boil it. I think that's as close to sterile as we're getting, if that's okay." She looks somewhat nervously at the jar.

"I trust you."

She takes a deep breath and dunks one of the sanitized needles and eyes the skin of my palm, turning it from side to side.

"Would your mark look like my own, if I was an Andjin?" she asks.

"Yes, not every mating mark looks the same between all pairs, but mine would look just like yours."

She nods, sucking her lip between her teeth in an act of concentration. She grazes the tip of her the needle from the middle of my palm outward, matching the swirling mark I left on her own hand.

"That was fast," I say, shocked that it was so quick.

"I was just tracing the design out." She doesn't look up at me, but instead dips the needle back into the ink and places it at the center of the design.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

The needle enters my skin before I can even get the whole word out.

* * *

"People paid you to inflict pain on them like this?" I wince as she wipes at my throbbing palm. I can't believe that humans exchange credits for this kind of pain.

"Oh yeah, I made the big bucks." She rolls her eyes. "You know, for someone who nearly broke their own arm, I expected you to handle a little needle better than that."

"Whatever the pain, it is worth it," I whisper as she cleans the last of the nuite fruit from my palm.

There in neat purple lines punched into my skin, the swirling mark is so similar to the one I'd given Lena that I do a double take.

"It's the same as yours," I whisper softly as she wraps my hand.

It's as if she did have her own mating barb.

"I thought that was the whole point, wasn't it?" She laughs, gathering the used supplies into a neat bundle with the dirty bandages.

"It's beautiful all the same," I mutter under my breath as she searches for where to throw the waste.

I stand, walking over to a panel on the wall and hitting a button. The refuse chute pops from the carved stone.

"Thanks!" she says before depositing the purple stained pack down. Lena peers into the metal chute right as it snaps closed. She starts, clutching her hand to her neck, and looks back at me with a grin.

"There's a lot you're going to have to teach me, you know."

"Anything you want I will?—"

"And there's things I want to teach you too, mate." She puts a finger on my lips, trailing it down my neck and between my pecs.

Even the brothers freeze with the anticipation of what Lena intends to teach us. My cock, which had gone soft under the pain my mate inflicted with her needle, swells quickly.

"I should have taken my heat suppressants when we got here. I can still take them if you want…but I thought maybe we deserved the whole mating experience—I can't give you my venom, but you can enjoy what yours has done at least." She runs her fingers back through my mating crest, its tentacles pulsating and grabbing onto her fingers.

"There will be no pretending. I've wanted to rut you since our first meeting," I admit, the tension of my hard cock starting to radiate a pulsing warmth through my body.

Lena's eyes blow wide, her heat taking over. I should have smelled the change in her body, known that she was ripening for me. But the tattoo distracted me just enough.

"Will you fuck me with that pretty cock?" She grips me at my base, squeezing in rhythm with the pumping blood.

"Ohhh." My breath comes in ragged pants, the brothers moving for her painted tits. I'm nearly ready to bust. "I…I don't know if I will last long."

"Good, as long as you promise me we'll go again. Will you fuck your cum deep into me?"

She's straddled my leg, and beneath her fine sheer skirts, her wet cunt finds friction over my thigh.

"I will, if you want my seed, if you want me to breed you…if you give me permission." I grab her hip, attempting to get some morsel of control.

She stops, the haze of her heat momentarily gone.

"Of course I do, if it's really even possible—I want all of you." She leans up, straining to meet my lips with her own.

"I'll give you everything then, my gift from the stars," I breathe right before I devour her with a kiss.

I lift her from my leg, setting her in my lap, but not entering her yet. I worry that she's too small for me, barely able to handle the girth of my tentacles, let alone my shaft.

As if reading my mind, the brothers move from her breasts down to her sex. One plays with her pearl while the other rubs her slickness along her opening.

Her muscles tighten as a tentacle works into her. When the resistance pressure feels like it might reach its peak, it slips inside her, testing her cunt's depth. When the other brother abandons her pearl to join its twin, she throws her head back, moaning my name.

Never was there a more beautiful sight in the entire galaxy.