20 Rosalynn

The king is sitting up when we enter. I stay with Zinnar as we walk to the bed and bow as he does.

His head is bandaged and an arm is in a sling. Yet he smiles at us with all the regal grace an injured king can have. “So you are Rosalynn, the one who knows a few things about spacecraft engines and the stink bombs that have rid this place of the enemy?”

“Yes, sir.” I dip my head again, like I used to at the mall. Aryssa and the others come in behind us.

“You made a good choice, son.”

“Oh, we’re not bonded if that’s what you mean.”

“Why aren’t you?”

I motion back to the ship. “Left to come save your ass, with respect, sir.”

The King crosses his arms, squints at me, and then chuckles. “Edna clini po danashi.”

Zinnar’s face darkens, and he hangs his head. But a smile cracks on his face. “He says you are very outspoken.”

“Danashi?” I ask. “That means outspoken?”

Zinnar nods.

I turn and point at Bai’rin. “Pretty sure you said that at one point, didn’t you?”

He slides back a step. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

The king sighs and extends a hand to me. “Welcome to the Magnus Kingdom. I hope you are ready to help Zinnar run this place. I fear I am not going to recover like I used to. Spent the last decade playing politics and polishing trade deals with other kingdoms and nations, planets and members of the Sol Federation. I have missed too much.

I shake his hand and step back. “Then build a committee of people you trust to help,”

The king shakes his head and smiles at Zinnar. “She will get a lot done.”

Zinnar hangs his head. “I am sorry I was not here for you when you needed me.”

“No, my son. It is I who owe you the apology. I can’t make up for lost time. But I have not had many to help me after your uncle’s passing. I closed myself off to others because I did not want to know any more loss.”

Zinnar fidgets beside me like he doesn’t know what to say.

“How about we let the king rest for now, and try to make some new memories another time?”

Zinnar looks to his father for approval, but the king lifts his good hand. “It’s your decision, King Zinnar Ettarous. What say you?”

When Zinnar doesn’t respond, I squeeze his hand.

He gives me a nod. “We will let you rest. I’ll bring you dinner tonight, and we can talk then.”

“Yes, sir,” the king says with a tired smile. “Yes, sir.”

Zinnar guides me out of the room. We pass through guards and castle staff. Metal panels peel off the walls and form up around us as we leave and descend a set of wide steps into a garden.

Guard patrols are everywhere. Ships race by overhead. The kingdom is a hive of military forces, many with markings that are different from that of the banners on the castle.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“My thinking spot.” Zinnar leads me up a path that winds through a wooded hill and opens up to the backside of the mountains I saw when Bai’rin flew us in. He’d called Elix in for extra help, and now I see why. The horizon still smokes with old fires.

“This is our life, Rosa.” Zinnar turns to me. “Do you still want to stay?”

“There is war everywhere, riots, looters, thieves. You know what literally everywhere else doesn’t have?” I cup his face and study the worry in his eyes. “You.”

He drops to his knees before me and laughs gently in disbelief. The fading sun in his eyes highlights the shapes that lift around us. I look up as he clutches me to him and see rocks slowly rise from the hillside and hover around us.

“Rosa, will you be my mate, now and forever?”

“Hell yes.”

The rocks gently spin and form up around us and the metal panels, building us a cave over a patch of soft grasses on the hillside.

Zinnar lays me back in the greenery and kisses me deeply. “You really do want me?”

I run my hands over his muscled chest and wrap my legs around his waist. “Without a doubt.”

Zinnar’s breath travels down my neck to my navel as he unzips my suit and frees it from my shoulders. He shakes free of his armor and drops his kilt.

In the light of the skylight he’s left open in our cave, I take in the full view of him in all his naked, erect glory. Zinnar is a virile male with proud muscles and a sinister look in his eyes. He frees the rest of my suit from my legs then crawls over me.

The heat of his cock is palpable as it grazes my opening. Zinnar reaches down and massages my clit then dips his fingers into my wetness.

“So ready,” he rumbles.

I squirm with anticipation and the need to be filled with him.

He suckles a breast and massages the other, then grates his teeth down my side until he finds my mound.

One lick from his tongue makes me arch and wiggle lower, trying to find him. “Please.”

“Is this what you want?” he asks, dipping his searing tip into my delicate flesh.

The world around me begins to pulse. I’m not sure if it’s me or him or an earthquake. But the walls hold, and my euphoria rockets.

“Yes, deeper,” I rasp, breathless from the craze I’m slipping into. “Don’t tease.”

He pushes into me, slowly.

The pressure of him as he stretches me is immense. I strain to breathe through the exquisite pleasure his cock evokes.

“Oh, Rosa.” He strains to steady himself above me as he bonds us. “So tight.”

As he slides himself out, my pussy slicks and clenches around his rigid length.

Zinnar pumps in again, a little faster and deeper this time. With every thrust he bonds us more until every limb tingles and the world pulses around me.

“What is that?” I ask. “The warping?”

I quiet my thoughts and try to find the origin.

“That’s me, inside of you.” Zinnar pushes inside me until he finds the bottom, then stretches me a little more so that we are one. There is no more room between us. He lifts a small rock beside my head. “What happens when you put two magnets together?”

He motions for me to take it. Only when I reach for it, it hovers away. I feel the push between my hand and the rock.

“You mean I’m like you when we mate?”

He smiles. “Cool, huh?”

It all has to be just a dream. Then he slides out and penetrates me again, and I know by the sheer electricity that courses through me it’s all real.

His pace picks up and my ecstasy climbs until I cannot contain the erotic burning inside.

“Zinnar—”

“Yes, that’s it,” he mutters his encouragement as my exhilarating high peaks and I explode in a frenzy of white hot light and feverish clenches. I buck hard onto him, wanting him deeper even though he has maxed himself.

Heat floods my core as he fills me again and again with each rasping grunt.

We descend together, and he withdraws. Zinnar curls up beside me, drawing me into his arms.

I try to move the rock again with a wave of my hand, but it doesn’t move. I sigh and snuggle in against his chest.

He kisses me tenderly and meets my eyes. “I love you, Queen of Magnus.”

“That’s weird,” I admit. “But I like it.”

“Me too. We’ll make it official soon.”

I’ve come a long way to find myself in a cave. But there’s nothing I want more than to bond with Zinnar like this, knowing he cares for me as much as I care for him. “I love you too, King of Magnus.”