Chapter 13

The king leans down from his throne, peering at the new couple with narrowed black eyes.

“Why did you not send a transmission immediately?” he asks, studying his son and his son’s new mate. They’ve both got the markings on their wings and backs. I’m pleased to see that Ranet’s blood lace looks like the tangled bundles of my mother’s yarn that Annabelle gets into. Messy. Purposeless. Boring. While it’s not as meaty as the king’s, it’s also entirely unimpressive.

“I’d be so furious if I had that ugly pattern etched into my back,” I whisper to Rurik, and he actually manages to give me a smile even if he doesn’t look at me. The smile fades quick as it came, back to a dark and troubled frown. I want to talk to him in private, ask him if this might be a good thing. If Rurik doesn’t become king, he won’t get trapped on the throne. His words come back to me like an icy punch to the gut.

“How am I to save your planet if I cannot choose another for this hungry ship to eat? Much less send you to Earth to visit. How am I to ensure that you can be with your Aspis mate if any other ruler would see you killed for the penalty of adultery?”

Yikes.

Maybe not.

Rurik’s brother continues to blather on, using terms I’m not familiar with.

“As you know, I encountered severe trouble after I landed on Nolaegi. We lost all communication with The Korol, and I was forced to bring my mate to Dome via a slaver’s ship.” Ranet’s face twists strangely, and as I blink, I swear that my synchronicity contacts are malfunctioning again because I see the grotesque mandibles on either side of his mouth. I shudder. “I could not dock with nor communicate with you while I was on that vile creature’s ship.” He hesitates and then feels the need to add, “I had the criminal executed as soon as we landed.”

The king sits back in his throne as the queen slithers around the new couple, feelers sliding over the female’s hair, over her son’s hair. Neither of them protests the way I did. They wait, polite and decorous, for the examination to finish.

“You mated your female in private, away from the eyes of the court. Away from my eyes. How am I to verify the legitimacy of your claim when I did not watch the markings ink your back the way I did with your brother?” The king points at me and Rurik as we stand off to the side in silence. He turns to us, and I can see that we’re not entirely out of trouble. “If you had gone ahead with the wedding immediately as we’d asked, we would not be in this difficult position.”

“Yes, father.” Rurik inclines his head, but I see that his bloodstained mouth is twisted into a vicious scowl. He’s furious, but not with me. Even though one could argue that this is partially my fault. Or all my fault. That, too.

The queen clacks her mandibles together in frustration and slithers over to Brot who just so happens to be standing near the wall of screens with Connor open-mouthed and wide-eyed beside him.

“How old are you boys now?” she asks, looking to Brot before swiveling the top half of her body around like an owl to stare at Rurik. “Nearly fifteen solar years, is it?”

“Rurik and Ranet are fifteen solar years old, mother,” Brot replies with as much piss and vinegar as he used on me. Good to know that he’s just an asshole all around and not toward me specifically. “I am nearly twenty.”

I blink through those statements, and then I very, very slowly turn my head over to look at Rurik.

“Please explain to me what fifteen solar years is in Earth time?” My voice cracks. The idea that my new husband might be a teenager freaks me all the way out. It never even occurred to me to ask. For that matter, I wonder how old Abraxas is? “Quickly, Rurik.”

“Do not fret, my princess. In Earth years, I believe I am around thirty-five.”

I exhale sharply in relief, drawing too much attention back to us.

“All this time and you’ve all found your mates now?” the queen continues, turning back to Brot. “You are not in line for the throne. I find it strange that you have found your mate yet have left him in the princess’ entourage. Explain.”

“Mother, I—” Brot begins, holding his hands out, palms up in pleading. He doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“Your mother and I are very disappointed in you,” the king continues, voice rumbling. “We have been lenient for an entire day, but you have failed your mate terribly. You will remove the humiliation of leaving him as a servant when he is, in fact, a princeling. Correct this mistake. Now.” The king’s voice booms as he points at the doorway. It slides open, letting in blessed light. “Do you all see what impropriety leads to? Confusion and disorder. Go before I lose my temper.”

Poor Brot. If I use a rough and probably bad number conversion in my head to guess his age, he’s over forty in human years. And he’s getting dressed down by his parents. Poor sucker.

He doesn’t have to be told twice. He snatches Connor by the wrist and drags him from the room. Connor and I take the time to wave at one another before the door slams shut. I hope he enjoys himself. First time with his mate. First time with a dude. First time with an alien. Should be interesting.

I refocus back on the problem at hand as the queen paces, her thousands of tiny legs skittering. I can barely stand to look at her.

“We have differing claims, but there is only one case in which the evidence is definitive.” She gives Ranet a look that I think conveys disappointment, but then, she’s a space millipede so I have no fucking clue. “Your brother was mated properly in front of the entire Noctuida.” Why she has to emphasize our lack of privacy, I have no idea. Again, maybe because she’s a space millipede, my MIL, and a total bitch. “Whereas you come crawling in like a trollop.”

“Mother,” Ranet offers calmly, inclining his head in a bow. “You do know who my mate is, do you not?” He waits for the queen to supply an answer. When she doesn’t, he starts to get nervous. I can’t blame him. She’s got her thousand-yard stare locked onto her son.

All the while, Rurik remains quiet and stoic. I find myself staring at his profile, at the beauty of his mouth, at the intensity in his eyes. As if he can sense me, he turns back to meet my gaze. My breathing quickens. I fist my hands in my stained skirt, and he smiles softly at me.

“No matter how this is decided, we will work through our problems together,” he tells me, voice achingly gentle.

“From now on, always together,” I promise, and I mean it. Even if I have to physically leave him in that throne room while I hunt for rare plants or something on a distant planet, I will find a cure to free him from this hideous throne. He can rule and not be attached to the damn ship, can’t he?

“My mate is of Nolaegi royal blood,” Ranet adds, but a bit hesitantly, like he can’t understand why his mother didn’t immediately bring that up. “She was involved in the current civil dispute on your home planet. I believe we should get involved and bring an end to that nonsense.”

The queen chitters and slinks away, curling around the king’s shoulders like a stole.

“I am Vestalis now, son. Whatever happens on Nolaegi is not my concern. So what if they are having a civil war? What do I care about any of that?”

Ranet seems speechless. His mate is dead silent. I wonder, can she even talk?

“Leave us,” the king groans, putting a massive hand up to his forehead. Is that something I’m only seeing on the synchronicity contacts, or is he truly affecting such a human gesture? I’ll have to ask. I may never run out of questions for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’d understand the Noctuida if I studied it every day for a century. “Rurik, continue on as you have been while your mother and I discuss this development. There is no sense in disrupting your honeymoon or the remaining days of the wedding.”

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Rurik sweeps a horizontal bow, and I do the same, hoping that I’m getting this right.

We rise together before linking our arms.

“Ranet, you and your mate will stay on The Korol tonight. And you will observe the rituals that keep our society orderly and neat. The next time you greet your brother and the princess, I truly hope that you heed the warning he gave you. I would not have afforded you even that.” The king waves his massive hand, a very clear message to GTFO.

We do as asked, and Rurik affects a quick stride down the hallway. I’m struggling to keep up.

“I am sorry, princess, but I am attempting to put distance between us and them.”

It doesn’t work, and Ranet eventually catches up, walking alongside of us with his mate in tow.

She glares at me like I’ve stolen her crown when I didn’t even want it in the first place.

“Do not say something that will fill us all with deep regret.” Rurik doesn’t even look at his brother. I realize that maybe he was trying to get off the ship before his brother overstepped and forced his hand.

“I am simply here to remind you that the decision is not yet final. Once a determination is made, our relationship dynamics will shift dramatically. Respect is in order, Rurik.”

“Yes, it is.” Rurik pauses and turns to his sibling. “The next time you address me, it will be as My Great Majesty or perhaps as the Imperial Prince. Royal addresses are different than taking a knee, so it is now on two separate accounts that you have failed me. Respect is absolutely vital.”

Rurik takes my hand and we repeat the same route as before, leaving the ship on one of the platforms to find the girls waiting for us. Guess Connor won’t be around as much which is a bummer. I sort of liked having a male handmaiden.

“You were badass,” I tell my husband, and he gives me a strange look. “If that doesn’t translate right … how about this?” I suck in a deep breath. It’s insta-love. This is insta-love. You’re married to him, but you don’t actually feel the way you think you do. I tell myself all of that, and still I can’t get my heart to believe it. “I love you.”

It goes dead silent there on the cobblestone street. The guards and servants gathered around stop their whispering and gossiping. Avril snorts and murmurs something like, I told you so as Zero stares blankly at me and then shakes her head.

“The Vestalis mate bond never fails. Not once in history. Not once …” Zero’s voice trails off strangely, like she’s both impressed by the Vestalis and also loathes them and wishes they’d all die. it’s complicated for her, I think.

I ignore her. I ignore Avril. I ignore the guards and the servants. I even ignore the crowd of well-dressed Vestalis waiting on the other side of the bridge in a genteel cloud.

“My mate,” Rurik says with a throaty voice, putting his hands on either of my arms as he leans down to kiss me. “I have always loved you, and I will always love you still. That is what it means to be chosen by the stars.”

He wraps me in his arms as he kisses me again, and the only thing that’s missing to make this a perfect moment … is Abraxas.

Officer Hyt told me that I’d know the Cosmic Chapel when I saw it.

He was right.

We pass by it on our way to the embassy—the massive white stone castle that I spotted from the platform—and I’m awestruck by its spires. They ascend at different levels, a dozen towers with spiral swirls of color at the peaks. Some of the spires are so tall that they disappear into the gloomy purple sky, the one that’s very quickly fading to an atmospheric but not unpleasant darkness.

Lanterns are strung throughout the village (it really does have a medieval look to it), but I see that they’re electric, not gas or flame. So much for keeping the ambience going. The glass in each lantern is mosaiced, casting rainbows of color on the white bridges and the strange bloodred waters of the canals. Boats float past—literally float, hover, what have you—lit up from lights of their own and steered via mechanical means. There are no oars, just couples sitting hunched together on the benches.

“It never reaches full daylight in Dome,” Rurik tells me as we take our time enjoying the walk. I can tell that he wants to dismiss the guards and the servants, but now that we’re no longer on the ship and under his father’s protection, he can’t do that. “It is twilight then it is dusk and then it is night and then it is twilight. The cycle begins anew.”

I don’t tell him how very moth-like that sounds.

The walk itself would be pretty fucking magical if it weren’t for the hordes of people gathered around, watching us from balconies or storefronts or lining the sides of the streets, staring up from boats in the canal. Whispering, gossiping, snapping photos with those small glass tablets that serve as their phones. Above and around us, the moth drones flutter, ethereal but intrusive.

Are we going to have zero privacy for the rest of the week?

The thought makes me feel immeasurably sad.

“I want to be alone with you,” I murmur under my breath and Rurik pauses, looking down at me like his happiness lies in granting my every wish. I don’t want life to be quite that shallow for him; I want him to have his own shit going on, too. But we can start with this.

“It’s the Day of Wearing,” Avril reminds us from a few feet back. “One of the most important rituals of all during the wedding week. You need to parade your love in front of the Noctuida.”

“And I do that by walking around with red cum stains on my dress?” I ask dryly, but she looks at me like I better not mess this up.

“There’s a rival couple trying to steal the throne from you. Do you think if they’re granted the power in your place that any of us will live to see another birthday?” Avril stares at me pleadingly. “Please go through with the rituals as intended. I do not want to be executed as a nameless servant. Most importantly, I don’t want to be executed while single.”

“Fair enough.” I look back to find Rurik watching me, and the urge to shove him into an alley and tear all his clothes off, it’s damn near impossible to resist. “But when we get to our room tonight, I want you naked.”

“I didn’t even see the need to state it out loud.” He grabs me with an arm around the waist and tugs me against him, lips by my ear. “It was implicitly understood by us both. Don’t lie and pretend you did not know that you will be spending the night on your back or your knees. Preferably both.”

It’s a wonder I don’t spontaneously combust right then and there.

Instead, I allow him to take my hand and walk me through the town. It has a name, but it was in ‘moth’ so I can’t remember what it is just now. Apparently, this is the sleepy, wealthy countryside part of the planet. Two hours electro-train ride (whatever that is) from here, there’s a city full of interconnected skyscrapers.

This is better. I like it here. If it weren’t for the horde of red, white, and black moth guys, their bizarre collection of mates, and the creepy alien cats, one couldn’t be blamed for mistaking this place for Earth. Well, there’s also the bloodred water. And the screens embedded into the sides of the stone buildings. And the dessert cart with the floating food. I have no idea how they do it, but there’s an entire display of desserts floating in midair and gently spinning. If you take away all of that then maybe it could be Earth. Ish. Just ish again.

Once we’ve finished what’s considered a proper stroll, shown off my gloriously cum-stained dress to the local yokels, we’re allowed to retire to the castle. My legs are basically jelly at this point, but Rurik anticipates my need before it becomes a problem, swinging me up and into his arms.

The crowd cheers which … I guess he is absurdly charming and our being lovey-dovey with each other is sort of the whole point.

“Your species is the weirdest species in the whole of the Noctuida,” I tell him, and he laughs generously and loudly for me. I love it. I don’t think I could ever get enough of that sound.

“I agree wholeheartedly, princess.” He carries me across another large bridge lit with lanterns, past a mechanical peacock with glowing feathers, and up a staircase as wide as my parents’ house. The inside boasts a magnificent foyer with a chandelier that looks like a convenient murder plot device. The crystals are as red as the ones on the ship.

The heavy wooden doors shut behind Avril, Zero, and a handful of guards. Everyone else stays outside. A Vestalis male and his mate (she looks like a fairy-tale creature, some slim-waisted, blush-pink-skinned nymph) greet us with a knee and then rise to their feet.

“Princess, this is the Duke of Dome and his mate,” Rurik says, but not like he particularly cares. Actually, he’s staring at my mouth.

“Majesties, you must be exhausted,” the duke guy says with a knowing smile that makes me want to slap his teeth out of his face. “We’ll show you to your rooms, and I will personally ensure that you are left alone to mate to your heart’s content.”

I lean in and put my lips near Rurik’s ear.

“First thing I’m going to do as queen, I’m going to strap this guy onto an intergalactic rocket and send him on a suicide mission to my least favorite moon.”

Rurik laughs again, and I feel pleased with myself.

He carries me to a massive spiral staircase, but just when I’m about to tell him that I can walk on my own, the stairs begin to move upward like an escalator. Well. Not the weirdest shit I’ve seen, but a spiral escalator with red carpeting is among the coolest.

It goes up … up … up. We pass by windows where I can see the town and its colorful lanterns, the darkness of the woods at the outskirts, and then the distant bright blotch of a city and a single golden tower that juts up toward the stars.

Just not nearly as high as the Cosmic Chapel.

The gold skyscraper has a top that I can vaguely make out, even though it’s taller than literally everything else. Tall enough to see from all the way over here. But the chapel? Even from the highest window, I see that there are spires that disappear into the gloomy night sky.

“This place is amazing,” I whisper as Rurik follows our hosts down a long hallway.

“It is,” he says, but there’s a hesitation to his words that I don’t fully understand. “Beautiful, fertile, and populated by small, simple creatures. The Vestalis took this world and built on it, and nobody else is allowed to land here or visit.”

“Those cats, are they native?” I ask, and he nods. Ah. So the dominant species here was a ten-pound kitty with two heads or two tails or too many eyes. Easy enough to conquer, I suppose. “What about the Falopex?”

I don’t know why I ask that.

Rurik’s face shudders, lip curls, jaw sets.

“We do not stop them from patrolling—they are the peacekeepers of the Noctuida—but they will not vacation here out of protest. They don’t believe we should ever have settled here nor that we should continue to do so.”

I think about that as he carries me, but I don’t remark on it. Not tonight anyway. Maybe on a different day.

Tonight, I’ve got other plans.

A set of double doors is opened at the end of the hall, and the duke steps back. Rurik waits for Zero to inspect the room first, canting his head at me.

“Take it off,” he whispers, and I know he means the device on his face, the one he uses to communicate with his parents. I reach up to remove it with shaking fingers, gently brushing his hair aside so that I can see his ear. I haven’t properly looked at his ears before; they’re always hidden by his fur/hair/mane. Oh, shit, I like this. Rurik’s ears are human-ish, but longer, pointed. Elf-like, I guess.

I tug on the face device, cringing when I see his father’s blood lace connected to his ear canal. It pulls and stretches, red arteries digging into his skin until I snap them and a bit of blood runs down the side of his face. I toss the stupid thing onto a nearby decorative table. Good riddance.

“I have completed my assessment of the room, and I have deemed it safe for you to enter.” Zero bows at the waist before retreating to stand just outside the doors. Only once she’s given us the all clear do we enter.

“If there’s anything else I can get your Majesties—” the duke schmoozes, but Rurik ignores him, striding past and pausing only to glance over his shoulder at Avril.

“Close the door and then find your way to the servants’ quarters.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Avril drops into a deep bow as Rurik hooks a sharp left and carries me into the bedroom. He heels the door shut behind us and then sets me ceremoniously on my feet.

“Finally,” he whispers, and then his hands are in my hair, and we’re kissing again. I don’t even know what the room looks like. All the lights are off, the curtains closed. It’s pitch-dark in here. Private. The moth drones are gone, and it’s just the pair of us.

“Finally,” I agree, but I can barely get the word out because my new husband has vicious lips. He eats me alive with that pretty mouth, shivering when I purposely run my tongue against the sharpness of his fangs. I make myself bleed, and then I groan wildly when he draws me in and sucks it off.

“Ah, the way you taste …” He sighs, and I feel a stirring whisper in my hair. I think he said something in his own language that managed to defy translation.

“I want my coremata,” I mumble against his lips. “Now.”

“Yes, my princess.” We both fumble with the buttons on his jacket, and I let out an excited little exhale when I hear the fabric hit the floor. I can’t see anything, but I have a feeling that he can see everything.

“You can see in the dark, can’t you?” I whisper, and Rurik lets out a low, rolling chuckle that has the fine hairs on my arms standing on end. What did I say? Those little hairs have good instincts. They know when we’re being stalked.

I feel him circle me once. Twice.

I don’t need to see to know when his coremata are out. There’s the rustle of his wings, and then it hits me. Spicy-sweet. Cardamom-honey. Male-mine. I reach out for him, but he dances out of my way.

“Stop that.” I try to find him in the gloom, but it really, truly is dark in here. Countryside dark. Cave dark. My hands are out, searching, while my body burns up from the inside. My thighs are dripping. I want out of this cum-stained dress. “Rurik,” I groan, hand bumping into what I think is part of the bed. A four-poster bed maybe, and this is one of the posts?

“Yes, my princess?” He’s suddenly right behind me, his hips pinning me to the end of the bed. I think. It must be a bed, right? “Tell me you want me. I want to hear you say it.”

“You know that I want you,” I grumble in annoyance. “We can hardly keep our hands off each other.”

There’s a long silence there, but it’s okay because he puts his hands to the ribbons that lace up the back of my dress, and his nimble fingers begin to untie them. He’s extra about it, too, dragging the satin out and teasing my bare skin with the length of it, brushing the ribbon along my spine.

“If anything happens to me, I want you to run.” That comes out of left field. I don’t like what he’s saying. I whirl around on him to glare, but I can’t see him, and all the move does is tangle me up in a long length of ribbon. With an exhale, Rurik gives the ribbons a yank, squeezing the ends around my waist. Somehow, that move slicks my skin with sweat and makes my nipples ache. “Find Officer Hyt and ask for help.”

“What are you even saying?” I’m pissed off now, but I’m still turned-on. Neither of those emotions seems able to win out over the other, so I hold onto them both right now. “We said together earlier. Even if we’re not in the same room, we should always be working together.”

“If I am killed, I mean. I would never leave you intentionally, princess.” There’s a but hanging in the air at the end of that sentence. I don’t want to hear it just now.

I put my hands on his face and kiss him again, sliding my fingers into his hair, and then snatching his feelers up. I grip them like cocks and give them each a hard jerk that makes him curl his lip and growl against my mouth.

“You have no idea how sensitive those are, do you?” he queries, but he’s wrong. I do know. I’m doing it on purpose. I stroke them more gently with my fingertips, spreading silky pheromone dust all over my hands. When I don’t answer, Rurik punishes me by wafting more of his scent with a flick of his wings.

His coremata brush against my bare arms, and then something happens between us. A lit match. An explosion. Rurik rends the dress from me with his hands, ripping it right down the middle.

“Oh. You’re strong.”

That’s as much as I get out before he’s lifting me up and onto the bed, his mouth on my neck. He bites me as I buck my hips up against him, wishing he were naked. I want him naked. I was promised naked.

“No clothes.” I slap at his back, but it’s the frantic, useless flailing of a sex-drunk person. His bite isn’t just a bite. It’s an invasion. I decide to open myself up completely, to accept it like an invitation instead.

You and I. A million lifetimes ago. A million lifetimes more. The very definition of infinite.

Red pulses against the canopy above me, and I realize that it’s his wings. Or rather, the blood lace pattern on them. It’s throbbing. I turn my head slightly to the side, and I see a faint glow on the blanket underneath me. My back is glowing. That head turn I just did, well, it pulls on my skin and makes Rurik snarl. He pushes his blood lace deeper into my body, harder, consuming every inch of me.

And I let him.

I don’t know how he does it, but he gets his pants undone, and I gasp with happy pleasure when I feel his claspers lock onto my hips. I’m whimpering as he pushes the tip of himself into me, nice and slow. Screaming when he gives up on such a useless exercise and thrusts deep. His claspers are extra greedy today, tucking me in close, pinning me there as I writhe against him, desperate for friction.

“Rurik …” I manage to choke his name out, but that’s it. He lifts his mouth from my neck and then kisses me with the taste of my own blood on his lips. Doesn’t last. As he’s kissing over my cheeks and forehead, my clavicle, my shoulder, he’s absorbing the blood he smears. When I wake up tomorrow, the only red stains in this bed will be from his seminal fluid, his cum.

“Yes, princess?” he murmurs, nuzzling me as he rocks his pelvis against mine.

“If it comes down to it,” I tell him, voice shaky. “I’d blow the ship up to keep it from trapping you.”

“I know you would.” The bed rocks slightly as he sits up, putting a palm on either side of my head. I wish I could see his face, but I settle for grabbing the drifting tendrils of his coremata. I rake my palms mercilessly over them, spilling pheromones into the air and not caring how drunk I get off of them. And then, when I’m dizzy and drifting on a cloud of perfume and sex, I snatch his wings and rub my thumbs along the edges, trailing my fingers to the fur at his throat.

As I do that, he plays with me, too, learns the curves and swells of my body starting with my breasts. My nipples. Slipping his hand between us to find my clit. I’d make a joke about him knowing where it is, but I can’t because he’s touching me and using our combined arousal for lube. His thrusts slow as he concentrates on that nub, making my toes curl, keeping me from bucking or squirming away with his claspers.

“The silken flutter of your insides, Eve. I can’t get enough.” Rurik calls me Eve, and it’s over for me. I’m climaxing around him, squeezing the plump shapes of his testes inside of me, encouraging him to fuck harder, faster, convincing him that it’s in his best interest to come, too.

He finishes with a long, low sound that mixes with my own frantic, panting breaths.

“I have been told that human males find pleasure by placing their mouths over their mate’s genitals. Is that correct?” His voice is rough as he asks me the question, and I decide that maybe Avril isn’t so useless after all. “I was told a human female can’t possibly be satisfied sexually without this.”

“All true,” I pant, missing his cock even before he pulls it out. When he finally does, I feel empty, and I want more. He slides down my belly, kissing my stomach, my navel, the sensitive skin above the dark patch of hair. His fingers trail over it gently, testing and learning and marveling at the differences between us. “Do you, um, like it?” I ask gently. There’s a lot of vulnerability in my voice that I can’t control, but I’m willing to put myself out there for him.

“Like it?” he repeats back curiously, like he isn’t sure what I mean. “Your female parts?” He’s responding softly now, too. Tenderly. “My princess, I could not have dreamed of a more beautiful mating. Not all Vestalis females like to mate, so sometimes it is perfunctory. Sometimes it is utilitarian. Sometimes it is even painful or dreadful. You and I, we have the ability to show each other how much we’re in love by use of our bodies alone. I do not simply like our arrangement; I am in awe.”

“Oh God, please.” I grab his antennae and yank his head between my thighs. He was already most of the way there anyway, and I can’t wait a second longer. Rurik grabs my hips with his hands—hard. Like since his claspers aren’t involved, he needs to hold me still with something.

That kills me.

I thrust up against his mouth and he darts back, just out of reach. And then he laughs at me.

“Look at my human,” he purrs, licking my thigh. A line of fire blazes across the sensitive skin there. He dabbles in licking that hollow spot between thigh and pelvis. Brushing his face over my soft curls. He breathes me in like I’m something to be enjoyed. “Because you rejected me at first, this is even sweeter.” He bites me, and I jump. It’s a quick sharpness though, and it fades to a molten pleasure as his blood lace enters me and … oh, he’s all around me, tasting and touching everything. There’s glitter in my veins. That’s what it feels like.

Rurik tastes his time with that, drawing however much blood he wants. I trust implicitly that he knows what he’s doing. When he withdraws, he kisses his way from the bite to my folds. Light explodes behind my eyes as my fingers dig into the blankets, wrinkling them. Not a problem, I don’t think. I can hear Rurik’s claspers shredding the fabric. Without my hips to grab onto, he’s just snatching sheets at this point.

I love that. I love that he can’t control that part of him. I know that he’s basically cursed by his DNA to appeal to my better nature, but I don’t care. It’s amazing.

“I must tell you something,” he breathes with his mouth against me.

“W-what?” I ask, blinking myself out of a violet haze. I barely know where I am or what’s going on let alone have the willpower to listen to something important that he needs to say. “Later, later.”

“Yes, my princess.” He dives down and that’s it. My brain is beyond broken. I’m sighing softly, head tilting back, body relaxing into his touch. Hot but soft. Hot softness. So soft. So slick. I want to know how he’s so good at what he’s doing. Pheromones? Did someone—Avril—tell him what to do? Does he watch porn?

Not about to ask in that moment, but I’m sure it’ll come up later.

My lips mouth soundlessly, saying words that don’t come out right. It’s almost like a prayer, like Rurik is holy and something to be worshipped. My fingers keep hold of his feelers, sliding over the rounded tips. It actually does feel a bit like bone when I rub it, but with a fine layer of silk over the top. I know he likes it, too, because he’s grinding away into the bed, in the place where I should be.

I let him take me there with his mouth first, and then, as soon as the contractions hit, I yank on him hard. I’m still in the midst of an orgasm when he enters me again. The thorns on his claspers pierce my skin and lock me down. There is absolutely zero give when our hips slam together.

I’m still silent, pushed beyond a scream, palms on his chest now. His coremata dance over my skin, these strange male organs that should be weird to me, but seem so beautiful and natural somehow.

Yep, I’m an A.S.S. An alien smut slut.

Rurik rolls his beautiful body into me, his wings hanging like heavy fabric on either side of us. The design on them throbs brightly enough that I can finally see his face, those dark eyes, his stained red mouth and teeth. He lifts his wings and opens them wide, fully and completely. The bed is large enough, the canopy high enough, that he has no trouble with it.

Wow.

I’m not often speechless, but to see my prince of a husband glowing red in the dark, wings spread, eyes like the open galaxy, what is there to say? He has a mouth wet with my blood and arousal, claspers pinning my hips, and hot hands on my wrists. His expression softens, but only briefly. He gazes at me with affection before his mouth twists into something of a pretty frown.

A small gasp escapes me as he slips his cock out, grabs my hips, and turns me onto my knees. His hand snatches my hair, and he pulls back so that I’m arched with my ass on display. And then he spanks it.

“Oh, shit yes.”

“You are beautiful, my princess.” He drives into me again, claspers keeping my hips in place while he tucks my back to his chest. I slip my hand between my legs to find my clit as his sinful tongue caresses the side of my neck, teasing my thrumming pulse.

I don’t think it’s going to happen again today, but I guess these alien fuckers are multiorgasmic miracles because it does. It hits me again, and it’s almost painful this time. I’m completely boneless and manipulated only by Rurik for the next several minutes. All I do is gasp and flutter and sigh in satisfaction.

Yeah, I am sure of it now. I am in the hospital, and none of this is real. How could any of this possibly be real?

What I fail to realize is this: the universe is infinite. Anything a person might think of could exist, theoretically. It could happen. It might happen. It’s happening.

No. Fuck that coma shit. I know where I am and what’s going on.

Rurik finishes, and I savor the feel of his balls emptying from inside of me.

He sighs happily and lays me gently down on the bed, cuddling next to me with his arm around my waist. We’re spooning now. I’m spooning an alien moth prince. Weird, but equally amazing.

“I do hope I’m not a disappointment,” is what he says.

I reach back and slap him in the chest. He laughs, again. I somehow find that to be a particularly easy task, getting him to laugh.

“You’re not getting stuck to that throne,” I mumble sleepily, and he sighs against my hair, stroking strands back from my face.

“Yes, my princess.”

I fall into a beautiful sleep.