The Varkari

The Claim

It seemed every time I tried to sneak a look his way, the Admiral was watching me, darting to me when the sparring was happening. He never fought and nobody challenged him and it had to be because he was the leader for a reason. I knew he had a suspicion about Exer, but it was hard to hide my body's response. The fabric of our uniforms hid nothing and could feel more than one gaze on my beaded n*****s, my goosebumps, the way I flexed my muscles to keep from writhing in my seat. I watched his jaw clench when I became aroused and I knew deep down, as much as it was wrong, that it was because of my responses.

"Gotta pee, be right back," I told Maria after one of our hangman games. Without looking up and risking the dreaded eye contact, I scurried to the bathroom. The guards did not glance at me anymore.

I was on my period, which was dangerous in my mind. What was worse than being prey to these males? Bleeding. Especially because it reminded them that I was still cycling and very not pregnant. Luckily, Konderick had gotten boxes of tampons for me and the Varkari did manufacture sanitary products for us.

Drying my hands, my ears picked up the sound of crashing and a scream. Great, another fight. I huffed out a sigh and moved to the doorway to see if I could figure out what was going on. Bodies were writhing just inside the giant room, one male slamming a chair into the back of another. It was probably better that I waited in the bathroom until they finished.

Peeking down the hall, I found it completely empty. The guards had either left or were preoccupied in the fight. I gulped, fingers feeling cold with the sudden shock. My feet moved before my brain could catch up and I was striding down the hallway.

Oh my god. This was it. I was running!

A vice caught the back of my neck like a collar and pulled me back as a squeak left my lips. My shoulders bumped into the wall and a rippling chest covered with the slick, black armored suit filled my vision.

"Where were you going?" The voice rolled down my body like thunder, full of static and warning.

I tilted my head back, looking up and up until I locked eyes with pools of liquid gold and stopped breathing on a gasp. Shivers started in my legs and everything was completely numb. The Admiral waited for an answer that could not be made while fear pulsed through every artery, vein, and capillary.

The deepest of growls rumbled from inside of him and my knees threatened to bend, to take me to the ground and make me small. Nonthreatening. A wave of scent barraged me with heavy notes of musk and soil, wood and male like warm and tiny snowflakes landing on my face. The sensation rippled down my body, my breasts feeling heavy and my lower abdomen rolling in want.

His hand moved back to my neck, now flushed and sensitive and his claws buried in my hair, pulling down so my chin lifted. I whimpered, fingers digging into the material of his suit, too overwhelmed with everything that he was to think about what was happening. His other hand slipped around my waist from the back and rested his thumb on my hip bone, pinning me to the wall. The Admiral leaned in, eyes dropping to my bared neck, lowering his head further and further until I could feel his nose touch at the top of my sternum. I shuddered, desire coiling like a spring in my belly.

His tongue touched my skin and slowly dragged up along my throat, tracing my vein up to under my ear. "You are-"

I gasped, shooting up in bed, panting and tingling all over as though I had just climaxed. I swallowed twice and pulled the covers off, too hot and panicked. f**k. I couldn't fall back asleep even though I tried, tossing and turning uncomfortably. I tried to touch myself in the shower, but the realization that I was doing so to thoughts of the Admiral alarmed me enough that I stopped.

By the time Exer and Konderick woke up in the morning, I had long been sitting at the counter with a cup of misered coffee.

"I can't go to any more meetings," I told Konderick.

He grimaced and shot Exer a look. "We could get you out of one or two," he said carefully. "But an absence is always concerning and will draw more attention. They will likely ask if you had run or were pregnant and ill."

"Can we pretend that I'm pregnant and don't want to leave the apartment? Then, I 'miscarry' or something?"

Exer sat down, eyes full of worry. "Humans do not miscarry with our technology. Not mated ones. And after, you would need to attend at some point. You would not be marked and they would not believe that you had been pregnant at all. Additionally, medical records are publicly shared. We would have to have record of your appointments, the loss, everything."

I rubbed my aching eyes with the heels of my hands as they stung with the onset of tears. "What are we going to do?"

"You are attracted to one of the males?" Konderick's voice was soft.

"No," I lied, quickly. I'm sure they could tell. "It's just...the...the sounds...the fighting..."

"The mating calls affect you," he nodded.

"You saw them fight over those girls. How long before they do that to me?"

Exer scratched the base of his horn. "Konderick and I have also been discussing this. Is there any way that you would...ah...agree to carry a kit without taking a mate? I could...bite you once, no venom involved, so that you would appear mated. Then, I'm sure I could find a donor and pay for their discretion..."

A pained breath blew out of me, fat tears leaking down my cheeks. "That's an impossible decision." However, it was one that I might have to make to avoid becoming shackled to a male that actually wanted to subdue me and use me like a breeder. It would also give Konderick and Exer the child they had always wanted.

"I know," Konderick wailed, putting his face in his hands. "We would never ask such a thing of you. I just don't know how else to continue the charade we are playing."

Exer wrapped us both in his big arms, crushing us in warmth. "It's an out. There may be other ways. We will find them if there are," he promised.

I missed the next meeting over a bout of probable "food poisoning." Exer was going to say he had tried to spoil me with a delicacy of canned escargot, but it had likely been past its expiration date. Konderick stayed home to take care of me and we discussed the idea of even paying a doctor to forge the medical records and then adopting a human baby if possible. The issue was that it would very obviously not be a hybrid. Hybrid babies would be precious and never away from the parents.

I was frustrated and desperate, not wanting to be inseminated by a stranger. Me, a mother? I didn't know about that. Pregnancy sounded an awful lot like getting your guts pushed into a wad, peeing constantly, and having everything else stretched out all before an agonizingly painful birth. Exer and Konderick would likely parent the newborn, but I would still live there so could I not be involved or attached? I would definitely want the child if I went through everything to create it.

Ugh.

And the dreams were not stopping either to my embarrassment. Maybe the Admiral's telepathic abilities were extra strong and he was getting in my dreams on purpose. They even worsened as the next meeting loomed, the days not long enough to keep it at bay.

With regret, Exer told me that this particular event was mandatory and I nodded, knowing I had to do better at hiding my reaction. He assured me that it was a perfectly normal mating response, but I could see the worry when I told him I suspected I was also being watched, something I had kept secret. I did not mention that it was the Admiral that had me worried.

Jealousy, he'd dismissed. But, deep inside, that coil in my belly continued to tighten every time I thought about the terrifying male with golden eyes.

The meeting was to be a congratulatory one for all the males. The transport ships were at ninety-seven percent capacity and soon the long-awaited return trip to Varkar would begin. Margaux was missing with her mate as their child had just arrived, Maria quite miserable herself. I was not in the mood to celebrate regardless because of all the women that had been rounded up like wild horses for a population reduction. Besides that, I was using quite a bit of willpower to refrain from turning my head toward the Speaker at all.

"Do you want to leave?" Exer asked, leaning in as the holo screens appeared to take orders.

"We could go to a human restaurant," Konderick offered.

"To celebrate," Exer agreed.

"Yes, please," I breathed, ready to be spared from the misery. Let's face it. I couldn't handle screwing up and potentially making eye contact with anyone, least of all the hulking Admiral. That was just a recipe for another night of intense s*x dreams and I was already a mess.

Exer stood up first, taking advantage of everyone ordering and we followed.

"Where you going, Exer? This food isn't right for your palate?" Someone jeered. It was a double-edged question that made me cringe. Slowly, I turned around and caught one Varkari with horns that spread out wide to either side looking at my ass. We did not need any attention drawn to us at all.

Exer returned with a low rumble, leaning forward slightly. "Certainly not. I promised my mate we would go to the human restaurant as a treat." He meant the one in the city that was run for the human mates' enjoyment and not actually as a source of food for humans that weren't property.

"She's a real treat," another purred. I hated it when they made those noises. The sounds were so primal and carnal they played my body like a finely tuned instrument.

Fuck. I could feel my panties getting heated. At the back of the crowd, the Admiral stepped away from his usual post by the wall and began slowly edging our way like a lion prowling through tall grasses. My stomach flipped over and more warmth pooled between my thighs as he advanced without taking his eyes off my location. Not good.

Some of them were sniffing the air. "Have you not bred your human, Exer?"

"She doesn't smell like you."

Exer put a hand out and slowly pushed me behind his broad back. I noticed that his claws had extended and a few of the spines along the back of his neck were starting to rise. Another male to my right released a low rumble at me and I pressed my thighs together hard, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.

"How long have you had her now?"

More and more eyes were turning our way as Exer was finally confronted. We knew it would happen, we just didn't know it would be so soon. Some stood up then, towering over me, making me cower behind Exer and cling to Konderick.

"Don't worry," he whispered in my ear. "They are trying to test Exer. Females are still scarce." He had told me before, but I hoped he was right because the voices and questions were getting more tense.

"Must have been six cycles at least she has been with you."

"Still no kit in her yet."

"Wonder if she fights? Too strong for you, Exer?"

"Maybe she is not getting the attention she deserves..."

Fuck.

The Admiral closed in, shouldering easily through a crowd that was already parting for his massive size. I swore that even though the air was thick with the alluring, all-male musk that belonged to the Varkari, I could smell the Admiral's pheromones wafting over me with tones of amber, sandalwood, and a subtle aftershave.

No, no, no. We needed to get the hell out before-

"What's going on here?" His gravelly voice sliced through the growing clamor and right over my c**t. Instantly, my n*****s were at attention and I blushed furiously at my blatant display. He definitely noticed. How could he not? The dress hid nothing and I felt his dilating pupils sliding down my bare skin, leaving goosebumps in their icy trail.

The one with wide horns smiled. "We were just talking about how Exer's female is still not bred yet and smells of no male."

"She smells like she is ready to breed right now," another said, flaming my face further. There was no way he could tell I was ovulating, it was impossible! Yet, these aliens were not human and so it was extremely possible that they could smell or sense my hormone levels. I kept myself tucked between Konderick and Exer, finally ripping my eyes away from the golden gaze that seared my insides.

"Exer. Explain yourself," the Admiral commanded. "Your orders are to breed your female. If you cannot or will not do this, she must go to another who will."

"I plan to," Exer snapped, protective. "I just won't force her to do it. She has just recovered enough medically and has not responded to any mating calls yet."

The Admiral stared at Exer with a gaze that would have anyone on their knees in submission, but this was his entire life he was protecting and he did not back down. I knew something was going to go wrong the second the Admiral's eyes went from lemon-colored to a brushed gold and turned on me, lighting me up like a match.

The Admiral released a deep, low rumble, baring his canines in the process which took me by surprise and made me startle slightly because I thought he was going to attack. The resonance of his sound vibrated against me like a s*x toy, slick slipping out of my p***y without my control and sliding down my inner thigh so I had to clench them together to keep it from going further. My blood started rushing in my head, hot and too thick to form coherent thoughts. Just the sound of this male made my knees weak to the point that I might fall down. The tips of my ears and fingers prickled as hormones flooded through me, my p***y throbbing immediately in an uncontrollable response to the force of his presence.

I met his eyes again, a fatal mistake, and drowned in the depths of blackness, electricity shooting down my bones, my knees bending slightly. I stared into the predator's pupils as he looked straight through every barrier I tried to put up and analyzed every response of my body.

He took one heavy inhale, muscles rippling and expanding over his massive torso, and knew. He f*****g knew everything. "By right of First Token, I claim this female as mine."