Chapter 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Beep . The sound cuts through the fog of sleep.

Beep . I shift, but the weight of Drohako's body keeps me pinned to the dirt floor of the cave. My hulking mate actually fell asleep in the space between my legs, long after I had passed out from his attentions.

Beep . The noise is accompanied by a soft orange glow, the light flooding over Drohako's purple face as it flashes.

"Hey," I rasp as I reach down and shake the slumbering giant's shoulder.

He blinks rapidly as I rouse him, bringing up a hand to scrub over his face and beard. When he looks up at my face, he gives me a sleepy smile.

Beep .

That smile drops as soon as he registers the sound. The amber light only highlights the shadows of his drawn brow, his face becoming deadly serious.

He scrambles to sitting, leaving me worried.

"Drohako, what's going on?" I spin around to face whatever danger now presents itself. I did just kill a man in self-defense, after all. Surely, I'm ready for anything .

Behind me, the incubation pod flashes and sounds, its high-tech facade so out of place in the primitive hunting cave.

"It's time," my mate grunts.

I thought I was ready for anything... but childbirth?

"So, what do we do? Are you sure it's big enough... Wait, how do we get him out?"

The blood drains from my face...how did I not think this far ahead? The realities of the fact that I need to get whatever is in my womb out and into the shiny metal pod are finally hitting me.

"Well, we have the pod..." he nods, wringing his hands together.

I wait for him to finish the sentence, to give me the important details on Volkroth childbirth.

"Drahako..." My voice comes out higher than I expect.

He turns his gaze to me with wide eyes. Something like fear crosses them, which is a strange emotion for me to see play across his face. It seems something far too fragile for him.

"I don't know," he finally admits.

The words leave my stomach in my throat as my anxiety ramps.

"So neither of us knows what to do?" I squeak, subconsciously holding the tiny swell of my belly.

"I can figure this out," he says with some renewed confidence as he approaches the pod.

"That would be amazing, because I don't know what's going on here." A nervous little laugh escapes my lips.

Lifting the white orb from its stone perch, he flips it over as if checking for some hidden access point.

"So, have you ever seen one of these in action?" I mutter as it dawns on me that technology isn't my mate's strong suit.

He looks at me incredulously.

"I am not some gelded nursery attendant," he scoffs, offended.

" Gelded? You know what? We'll double back to that later. I assumed that if you stole the pod, you at least know how it works." I sigh with exasperation.

He frowns and offers me the blinking mystery.

"I needed to make sure no one would take you from me... Your safety eclipsed all my other worries... Including this."

Our matehood has him flustered in ways that aren't very helpful, but it makes my heart ache all the same. I want to soothe the harshness of my last comment when I say what comes out of my mouth next.

"You did your best, and we can figure anything out together—can't we?" I place my hands on the pod as he passes it to me.

But as my hands touch the incubator, something inside whirls.

"I'm going to let go. I think your proximity is causing this reaction." He allows me to accept the full weight of the orb. Drohako steps behind me, his arms shooting protectively over my stomach.

The whirling piece of tech changes shape, the panels of its exterior shifting until it's no longer round. Pass-through portions appear on either side of the main sphere.

What I hold in my hands now almost appears to be a metal chastity belt in shape. Two leg holes have materialized from the sides while the bulk of the pod remains between the openings.

"Do I step in?" I wonder aloud.

"I will try it first to make sure it won't hurt you," Drohako says nobly as he reaches around me, but I bat his hand away.

"No, no. I think it's okay. The brochure for spawning season made it seem like this would be a piece of cake, right? And I don't think those big gams of yours would fit," I say, knowing full well that the opening as provided would have a hard time making it over his calves.

"I will be right here," he whispers in my ear as I lift my foot into the leg hole.

Although my stance is wide, my legs fit perfectly into the pod pants opening.

As I acclimate to the feeling of metal contacting my skin, I recline onto his chest, trying to get a good view of what might be going on between my legs.

"I wonder if we need to press some hidden button?—"

My words are cut short as spoken instructions emanate from between my thighs.

"Subject with matching DNA docked." The pod blinks three times before continuing. "Subject, be advised that you will feel a small pinch as the cocktail of pain and relaxation meds are administered."

Pain meds, that ' s a good sign, right?

I can't help but tense as I wait for the needle. At first, I'm stupidly curious about where the injection might be administered, but then I realize that if the pod is strapped between my legs, it's only got one place it can go.

"Do you think it will hurt?" The words rush out as I ask my mate, my chest tightening.

"I hope it does not." He moves his hands up to my chest, cupping my breasts in a way that could feel sexual, but one I only find comforting in this moment. "No matter what, I am here, mate. "

I turn my head, maybe to kiss him, or maybe just to reassure myself that he's really there when I first feel it.

Something cool, but slick, as if it's already lubricated, is nudging gently at my entrance. Inadvertently, I clench my interior muscles and the probe pauses.

"Remain calm," the pod's robotic voice barks.

Drohako's hands squeeze gently again.

"Calm mate," he whispers into my ear before sucking my earlobe between his lips. The tingling of the nerves there shoots straight to my core and has me pushing down onto the probe without intending to.

I don't know if it should feel good, and I feel a little ashamed when a moan slips out of my mouth as the smooth rod slips deeper.

"Calm, perfect, and willing to bear my young," his voice groans behind me, and I feel the bulge under his loincloth hardening against my back.

Should I feel bad about being turned on by this?

The way Drohako is tugging at my nipples now tells me he doesn't care—so why should I?

I can ignore the fear if I focus on the pleasure, at least. Orgasmic childbirth is like a hippie human thing too, right? I try to pull up memories from old station satellite transmissions of Earth documentaries—but there's no room in my mind to ignore what's currently happening between my legs.

The probe vibrates slowly, testing my depth. It slides a few inches deeper before stuttering and withdrawing. The metal shaft repeats these actions twice before going deeper each time.

All the while, Drohako is kneading my breasts, running his tongue up and down the column of my neck in what I suppose the barbarian version of comfort is.

My pussy is drenching itself over the cool metallic rod, as I can only assume it calibrates itself inside me.

I'm lost to the sensations until the probe bottoms out at my cervix.

Drohako is muttering something filthy in my ear when I feel something that's definitely less of a pinch and more of a jab.

White flashes before my eyes and my muscles bunch as my back arches, stupidly attempting to get away from something that's strapped to my body.

"Mate?" Drohako asks as he holds me tight.

I shut my eyes, the sharp pain only lasting a few seconds before shifting into something else entirely.

"Oh!" I bellow as the stabbing feeling ebbs into a dull ache. I gasp again as that sensation morphs into a throbbing release.

"Are you alright?" His gruff voice behind me questions.

"I..I..." I can't make the words come out right as the blood is drawn from my brain down to my sex.

There's not a single iota of pain left when my pussy first spasms, as if whatever injection they've given me has induced one of the most intense and instantaneous orgasms of my entire life.

I'm a trembling mess as I desperately clutch his forearms. Pleasure waves surge through me, overwhelming and unstoppable.

"Mate?" Drohako holds me ever tighter as he begs for a reply.

The only response I can give him is a primal growl emanating from deep within my throat. Through the crashing nebulas of ecstasy, I can barely feel the probe as it presses deeper .

Childbirth should hurt, shouldn ' t it? My mind wanders as my surroundings become unclear.

I clench my legs shut as tightly as possible, trying to hold on as my body is lifted higher.

I enter a state of blissful transcendence as my orgasm overwhelms me. Every nerve in my body explodes with sparking joy and my mind drifts blindly into euphoria. With each pleasurable contraction, my clit bobs with increasing intensity.

This shouldn ' t feel good. I try to make sense of the confusion, my mind working overtime to find a rational explanation.

Even through my haze, I hear what sounds like suction. "...don't worry, I have you..." Drohako sounds far away.

I reach up, hoping to find him. My searching fingers bury into the coarseness of his beard. It's something to ground me, and I hold on for dear life.

The only thing I can perceive for minutes is the feeling of his facial hair. I'm probably clinging to it tightly, but I refuse to give up my one hold on reality. My psyche refuses to free itself entirely from the world.

"... mate?" His voice sounds like it's down some long hallway.

I lose my grip on him, and with my grip goes my last shred of consciousness.

I jolt back, a sizzle running down my spine.

"... I'm here..." he says, the voice getting closer. "Breathe for me." His voice is suddenly booming.

Like a good submissive, I follow his command, drawing a breath through my nostrils, feeling my chest expand.

His hands are still on me, rising as my lungs fill with air.

"I'm okay," I croak. I'm conscious, but whatever has just happened has left my bones feeling as though they've been replaced with jelly.

"I think you had a seizure," he whispers in my ear, laying me down onto a familiar soft fur.

The feeling returns to my limbs as they connect to the hair-covered surface beneath me. My wet thighs press together.

"No, not that," I groan, attempting to push myself up to my elbows. I feel… fine, surprisingly. There's no lingering pain, and I'm left feeling delightfully used.

When I look down, all I see is my swollen mound.

"Where's the pod?"

"Safe," he says, checking me over. He opens my thighs and looks at my pussy before gazing up at me again.

"Was it painful?" he asks, a slight lilt to his tone, as if he almost doesn't want to know.

"Only for a moment, after that I…well, I came ." No point in hiding it.

"Is that normal for human childbirth?" He seems amused.

"Decidedly not."

"Well, we'll consider it an improvement, then." He looks at me as I open my mouth to ask the question he already knows I want the answer to. "Our child is safe, resting now in the pod."

He tenderly supports me by placing one hand under my rump and cradling me with the other under my shoulder. He guides me back over to the rocky outcropping on the cave wall where the pod had initially been placed.

Our child sits comfortably, nestled in a cozy nest of furs. As I gaze at the purple fetus, I notice it's suspended in a liquid that looks uncannily like molten lava, a stark contrast to anything I could ever conceive as coming from my own body.

Bizarre , I mouth, reaching my hand up to the thing that was nestled inside me just moments ago.

"What should we call him?" I crane my neck back up to the face of my alien.

His eyes flash with some realization. "What's your name, mate?"

The ease with which I accepted "mate" in place of my own name shows a longing for submission that surpasses my need for individuality. Belonging to Drohako is almost more important than some silly little detail.

"What's my name?" I ask curiously. The letters of it swirl into place inside my mind. "Isn't it curious how nothing else seems to hold any importance as long as I'm in your possession?" With a smile, I reach out and place my hand on the window of the pod, relishing in the comforting warmth that spreads through my fingers.

"What should I call you?" he asks, almost as if he's granting me permission to be something beyond his. "You, my mate, are the pillar of strength that sustains our bloodline. Our son must know your name to praise his lineage."

Through my submission to an alien barbarian, I ' ve tapped into a strength as mighty as a Volkroth—a warrior, a mother.

I smile, searching his expectant face.

"My name is?—"