Page 11 of Bred By Zyros (The Solar Breeding Agency #2)

ten

Melody

When we finally reach our destination, Zyros is back to being grumpy.

For the most part, but I’m starting to understand that this is probably just…

like his personality. Maybe he’s not grumpy per se, just naturally slightly unpleasant.

My inner thighs ache as I slip off his back, grimacing at the wet feeling between my thighs, hoping against all hope he hadn’t noticed.

I’ve stored quite a few different plants and animals from our trip, despite him refusing to let me down to check out anything up close.

Unsurprisingly, there’s more here that will kill me than there is that won’t. So that’s comforting.

Zyros is in full focus mode, operation…gather whatever the heck he’s gathering, and I’m on a mission to find plants I can eat. A girl could use a little more fiber in her diet, but I’m not about to explain that to a sexy, grumpy alien. My breeding partner? Captor? Hostage keeper?

I’m not a true hostage, pretty sure I would’ve stayed anyway, but still.

Rude.

I tend to make rash decisions in the heat of the moment, such as becoming a career breeder instead of a scientist like my dad wanted.

I still like to consider myself a scientist though, to a point, just with like a…

more hands on, legs open type of approach.

Data scans from these planets would normally cost millions of credits worth of funding to study, as well as all my personal health scans. We learn a lot.

See? Science.

I stretch my legs, grimacing at the tension in my muscles.

It’s been a full week now since I’ve done any real stretching.

Yoga is usually part of my morning routine, but it felt weird doing it with Zyros staring at me the whole time, and there are few moments when he isn’t.

He’s even attempted to follow me into the wasting chamber once.

I don’t think the poor male has ever seen a human vagina, and I don’t think that’s a good way to get introduced to one.

My eyes slip to the male in question, watching as he gathers large, thick vines from around the heavy-looking trees at the water’s edge.

His muscles tense as he rips another batch in half, making pronounced veins pop underneath his hardened, scaled flesh. My mouth nearly waters.

I take a small step back as he arranges them on the ground in a large rectangle near the bank, but far enough to keep out of reach of the lapping water.

He takes care in each placement, checking the surroundings before shifting it, maybe some kind of spiritual ritual important to his people before they gather stuff.

My eyes widen as his tail picks me up from the ground, plopping me dead center in the rectangle before unwinding from me. He gestures with his left arms, pointing at the rectangle. “Stay inside, female. I will be back.”

I gawk as he turns, shedding all but two of the bags onto the bank, fisting the pick-looking blade he grabbed this morning and slipping into the water without so much as another hiss.

My mouth snaps closed as I look around my new enclosure, spotting the bag of my things he packed.

Crossing my arms around my chest, the simple crop top strains as I weigh my options.

If he made me this… area, there’s probably a good reason for it.

My feet carry me to the edge, my implant scanning the flora nearby and finding nothing particularly harmful.

Three more scans later confirm nothing within scannable eyesight is dangerous, at least at face value.

Despite that, I plop onto the ground, determined to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Wait some more.

Can Zyros breathe underwater?

I twist sticks into each other and count the petals on a bright pink flower nearby. I do everything .

I try. I really try.

I even do some yoga, but the ground is sort of pokey here, so I give up quickly.

I could unravel the bag and use that as a mat, but I doubt I could redo it myself, and I don’t want to make more work for Zyros.

My attention zeros in on the space where he dove into the water, where his giant serpentine tail had stirred up the sediment that is now clear.

Small bioluminescent…fish, maybe, swim around in frenzied little groups down below.

I walk closer, trying to get a better look, when the toe of my shoe meets the heavy vine barrier.

Pulling my bottom lip between my teeth, I lean as far over as I can go, watching them dip, twist, and twirl. They look…agitated by something.

Probably Zyros.

“I get it, little dudes. Same .” I mutter to myself, my implant struggling to get a scan of the quick creatures.

After a while, my head begins to throb. Too many failed scans at once.

Truth be told, I hate the implant. It hurts and it’s annoying.

It’s not like I can feel it every day or anything, but the more I use it, the more headaches I get, and I can’t shut it off, not in any traditional sense.

Constant warnings and indicators flashing in my vision are annoying at best. I can dim them, make them nearly unnoticeable. But they’re still there.

It’s the drop-ins that really bother me, though.

Within a certain range, Dad can force drop a holo page.

The first time it’d happened, I screamed so loud that security at the medical station had thought there was an attack.

Since then, he’s used it sparingly but still uses it despite my not being too subtle about asking him to use my holo page like everyone else.

The little dudes are still doing their angry dance in front of me when, all of a sudden, one of them grows larger, way larger.

I step forward over the vines, watching as they expand quickly.

It’s only when it bursts from the water, a scream lodged in my throat, that I realize it isn’t getting bigger, just closer .

I stumble back behind the vines as it darts out to me, stopping just on the other side, making an odd, harsh little clicking noise deep in its throat as it cocks its slimy head back and forth.

I wouldn’t call it a frog, not in the way Old Earth media depicts them, but if I had to compare it to something, I suppose it would be that.

It makes another weird clicking sound before hissing at me. Or no, not me, the vines .

Oh.

It doesn’t like the vines.

The enclosure makes more sense now.

Bright yellow lights on his back flare in little bulbous-looking growths on his back, trailing a line up its neck to its squished, flat head and buggy, dopey-looking eyes.

“You’re actually kinda cute.” I chuckle, calming myself now that I know it won’t come at me. I still flinch when four others burst from the water to watch. All about the size of my torso.

One makes an odd yawning gesture, opening up a maw of razor-sharp teeth.

Never mind about the cute thing.

I stare at the water behind them as they hop around my barrier, scanning their bizarre, blueish, translucent-looking flesh. Like slime, in a way, but hardened.

“Don’t try it,” I warn them. “I’m with the scary guy in the water.

” Jabbing my finger at it for good measure, transfixed by the way they seem to regard what I’m saying, clicking and hissing amongst themselves for a moment.

The next time something bursts from the water, I do scream for real.

Zyros crashes through the perfect lapping waves like death incarnate, a soaking wet sea god.

He hisses at the not so little, little guys .

Palming one in his large hand before smashing it into the bank.

It makes a terrible little quacking sound but seems… fine?

The others don’t take too kindly to Zyros messing with their buddy, though.

I’m gawking in downright horror as they ratchet back their odd little skulls at almost a ninety-degree angle and hack out one of their teeth at the giant male.

He only lobs the one he’d had in his hand back to the water, cursing and hissing at the skittering creatures as they follow their friend.

My shocked eyes meet his furious glare. Realizing they didn’t need to cross the barrier to shoot their damn teeth spikes at me!

When the silence drags on, I just gesture absently at the water.

He huffs, his teal hair hanging, dripping in his face. “ Thryss . They are nearly indestructible; do not feel bad for them. Very annoying creatures.”

I get to my feet, brushing off my makeshift shorts. “They shot you with their teeth!”

He looks down at his stomach and chest, littered with finger-length teeth barbs. He picks them out as if they’re nothing more than a splinter. “They’re mostly harmless.”

“Mostly?”

“They only attack Vrirciks, but they can be highly toxic to touch for most everything else. When it suits them.” He grips the edge of the overloaded bags hanging off him and gives them a shake as if that’ll explain anything.

When I just raise a brow, he hisses and opens up one of the bags, showing off some of the most stunning crystals I’ve ever seen.

My breath leaves me all at once as I stare. “ Oh , they protect the crystals?”

“They protect their homes, the caves these grow in. They don’t care about the crystals themselves,” he explains, setting the bags inside my enclosure and grabbing more.

“They don’t like the vines.” I muse.

“No, they do not. I believe the smell is unpleasant to them.”

When he turns to head back into the water, a guttural laugh bursts from my chest. His back, nearly shoulder blade to the base of his tail, is covered with the spikes. I laugh so hard my chest aches as he glares at me over his shoulder before slipping back into the water.

So, the little guys were attacking Zyros.

I’m still laughing when the same gaggle of Thryss pokes their heads out of the water before crawling onto the bank to stare, hop, and chitter at me some more.