Page 10 of Bred By Zyros (The Solar Breeding Agency #2)

nine

Melody

The next limtic passes like nails on metal, screeching, jarring, demanding your full attention.

I avoid him, and he lingers, watching, tracking, and taunting, always close by as I’m scooting away.

I do it once, twice, maybe three times before I give up, because if I’m being honest with myself, something I intend to do less often, I do not want him to let me go.

My crystal is still sitting in my chamber where I left it. He hasn’t taken it from me like I thought he would, but neither of us is under any illusion that I’m now allowed to leave. I came here for a purpose, despite all my better judgment.

And despite his, apparently.

His tail curls over toward me again, the tip resting just by my palm as I kick my feet slowly in the hot spring.

Like he can’t help himself, it follows, hooking, coiling.

The smell of cooked meat fills the cave soon enough as I adjust my top.

It’s a very simple thing, but it’s comfortable and far more practical than wearing my dress around every day.

He’d sown it for me when I showed him what I wanted.

My heart had fluttered in my chest as the backs of his scaled knuckles had brushed my flesh.

My stomach shows a little. He’d made it shorter than I wanted it, but I do my best to cover the loose pouch as much as possible.

It doesn’t help that now that it’s mostly exposed, Zyros seems to fixate on that sliver of flesh.

“Come, eat. We are leaving soon.”

My head snaps toward him as he pushes the plate toward me. Zyros seems to think my portions need to match his; the all-meat diet is seriously getting to me. I mostly pick at it these days.

My stomach isn’t a fan.

“I would like to stay behind.”

He treks out at least once a day for fresh water and to hunt, but he stays just outside the wood line. Sometimes I join him, quieter than I’ve ever been. I go to speak but stop myself, trying to remember I have every right to be mad.

He knew this would happen if I came.

He knew, and it was worth it.

My life to…what? Make a point? Maybe I’d get killed, but hey, he also might get the kid they all want before that.

That first night after the attack, I’d laid down in my chamber, the sight of him filling the small space had forced the grogginess from my mind like ripping off a bandage.

He hadn’t said much, but what he did say…

it softened me. The words had been guttural, ripped from his throat despite him being the one speaking, said like they were against his will.

The children born to the females of this planet don’t live.

He has sired many, only to have screams fill the jungle after.

The babies are born too early in their gestation— miscarriages, although he didn’t use that word. This has gone on for years .

The females don’t understand.

They want to keep trying.

He does not.

So, he got me. I can’t decide if it was mostly as a fuck you to the red female who seems to be the leader, or just blind desperation, but most likely it’s a little of both.

The idea of leaving seemed harder after that.

Circumstances aside, this is why I’m here.

To help.

After I’m done being mad.

Zyros

The human female continues to ignore me.

My mate.

It is no less than I deserve, but still, the rainy season draws closer, and soon enough, leaving the planet to trade at the station for proper clothing will be difficult, if not impossible.

As much as Xyphora disgusts me with her misplaced pride, I disgust myself.

She is right. I will not bring an unblessed child into this world.

Hearing the females’ cries after the quiet ones is haunting enough, but to see Melody’s?

I would sooner flay myself within an inch of life.

I will give them both the best chance. Even if it means I must eat my pride again.

But she will not step foot among them. They will not bless her.

Their cruel hands will not mar her soft skin.

My tail wraps around her waist, her soft, pillowy stomach, and the heat pressing into my cool scales feels like heaven.

Keeping my distance from her these past solars has been a special cursed existence, but again, it is no more than I deserve.

She groans as I sit her on her odd flat feet as she calls them.

“Come, you may do more of your odd eye blinking at the plants.”

“ Scanning . I am scanning them,” she retorts. Her sunshine hair bounces as she looks away the moment our eyes meet.

She is a peculiar female.

The longer we are together, the more I see the goddess’s plan in gifting her to me.

However…unpleasant our start was. The more I am near her, the more I understand the foolish males who choose to venom-touch their females. To keep them… and be kept in return.

She is mine.

It is jarring how quickly I started to care less about what that means. The finality and concept of linking myself to a female. Giving one all the power in the world when I had only just grasped an inch.

When Xyphora had attempted to strike her…I never felt fear like that before. All the orbits under their hateful, forced touch hadn’t felt as horrible. It does not matter if she loathes me, nor the fact that I didn’t want her. She is mine, and she will be adored, wrapped within my coils.

She will not leave.

No matter the cost.

I was not lying when I told her I was not a good male. I feel it so vehemently in my chest, like a venom rushing through my veins, that I will become an even worse male if it means she stays. Never have I seen any single being look at me with… softness.

She does not demand or force. She is gentle.

Melody is not like the others.

In fact, she melts when I push . She listens and obeys, not because I make her but because she wishes to, and in times when she doesn’t, she stands her ground but again it is with a gentle touch. It is…comforting.

I am not familiar with comfort, so perhaps I am not responding accordingly, but she will adapt.

She was made for me, after all. That becomes more clear with each passing zentic.

I have even found myself missing her pretty smiles.

She stands there glaring at me as I place the bag she made over her head, using my lower arms to pass over her feet coverings. Shoes.

My human requires a lot to keep her safe on a planet like Nyssara, to keep her comfortable. I will provide her with everything. She need not even ask. She thinks I am a harsh, cruel male. She is not wrong, but perhaps I could learn her softness, in time.

Far away from here.

A small gasp leaves her plush lips as I slip toward her, banding my hands to her waist and lifting her onto my back, my lower arms a seat underneath her round bottom that I tend to stare at against my will often. “We are going far today. You are safer up there.”

“I don’t want to ride you,” she quips.

That concept brings forward all kinds of distracting thoughts as I rush from the cave, knowing the heat outside becomes uncomfortable for her at highest sun.

We need to reach the cooler waters by then.

My pack is filled with her things and the foul-smelling, burnt meats she nibbles on as I dive into the jungle.

All the while, she’s quiet. I wait, knowing that despite her best efforts, it won’t take long for her to speak.

I only wish it weren’t the machines that forced words to her lips.

“Oh wow.” She breathes as we pass their putrid smell as they suck the life from Nyssara. Serpentium, the alliance had called it. Whatever they wanted that was deep inside the planet.

“Nyth'sss,” I curse. “The Alliance came many orbits ago, just before my time and asked to put in their machines. The goddesses have cursed us since.”

I shift onto a different trail, not wanting my mate near them when she wiggles. “Hang on, I need to stop!”

“No female. It is not safe. We are nearing another’s territory.”

That makes her pause. “That female from before?”

The fear in her voice makes a hideous snarl form on my face. “The females do not live as the males do. We stay in caves out deep within the jungle. They stay in the temple together.”

“Wait, is that how you got the translation tech? The Alliance gave them to you in exchange to drill?”

I hiss again, unable to hide my agitation.

It had all gone so wrong after that. It was before my time, just barely, when they first came.

The elders before Xyphora had wanted goods and shiny new trinkets from the strange beings in the sky.

They wanted them more than they had wanted to keep our planet safe.

The birth decline had started after that, until it was nothing.

I was the last child born after the machines came.

There has been no other born alive since.

Yet the machines stay.

“A contract was signed, one we have not been able to get out of. They are smarter than us. Our leader is still greedy, like her mother before her.”

My little mate grows thoughtful after that. I change the subject, no longer wanting to discuss the ugly parts of this planet. “Why do you perform the scans at the plants?”

“Oh, I uh-well, I suppose I’m not meant to technically, especially not here. My father uses the data in his research. Mostly sustainably stuff, but he…I don’t know, it’s just what I do.”

Her voice has fallen, making my brow furrow. “This male needs the information?”

“I mean no, it’s just good to have, and since I’m down here, anyway. I can’t go home, it just—”

“Why can’t you go home?” I ask, gripping her tighter to me as I scent a flock of ssyrrhavians. A leathery, winged predator known to carry off even the biggest land predators on Nyssara. Their screech alone is powerful enough to make your hearing channel bleed.

“It’s intergalactic law. Once a human’s DNA is compromised by breeding with another species, we can’t return to Terra2, the human settlement.

They seem to think we’ll just mindlessly screw our way through the gene pool.

Which I’m sure is half right. Human breeding is great and all until it benefits humans.

Our evolution will only compromise things.

We will be less useful if we are limited by mixing with other species.

Maybe down the line. We are not so adjustable to different climates; perhaps at some point, we will be less easy to breed and therefore not marketable. ”

“But I will breed you,” I state, not really understanding but feeling like it’s a good point to make. Her little chuckle makes my cock harden painfully behind my slit. It has been hard since we met, never ceasing its throbbing.

“Well, yes, but that’s different.” Her voice is soft, and the sound of it makes a hiss rise on my tongue, but I keep it held back, testing the air instead.

“Do you wish to do the blinking scans?”

She hesitates for a moment, letting her body relax more into mine as she perches her elbow on my shoulder, resting her face in her hand. Her soft chest pressing into my back, warm breath grazing my scales. “It’s the least I can do.”

“That is not an answer, female.”

But it is, I recognize the resignation in her voice, and the anger that bubbles in my chest has my grip tightening on her.

“Since when are you so talkative?”

I immediately tense. “Do you prefer me quiet?”

She half laughs, and despite the anxiety I feel waiting for her answer, it eases the tension in my muscles. “No, you have a pleasant voice. All deep and raspy, complete swoon material. Just…what changed?”

I inhale deeply, sucking the scent of my mate through my lungs, wishing I could have hidden it under my musk before we left the cave. I doubt she would take me seeding all over her well in our current state. “Much. Much has changed.”

She makes an odd tongue clicking sound. “Ominous.” She says the word grave and serious. But when my eyes track up to hers, the smile is back, beaming like the sun.