Page 9 of Bred By Zyros (The Solar Breeding Agency #2)

eight

Melody

Apparently, getting supplies includes me, which I’m thrilled about. Not that the cave isn’t nice, but the sunlight is better. I also have a deal to hold up, one I am currently slacking on horribly. That thought alone dampens my excitement. My dad’s words echo in my chest.

“I am the first human to be given a seat on the Intergalactic Alliance, only for my daughter, my only child, whom I have given everything to…to what, Melody? Be a human toy to the species I have worked hard to be on even footing with? A breeder?”

My eyes had darted to mom, not surprised to find her already crying. She tried to hold my gaze as if me seeing her tears, how much she hated hearing him talk to me like this, would excuse her silence. It didn’t.

Ungrateful.

Embarrassment.

Disappointed.

Stupid.

Those were all the words that had been thrown around that day.

I had proved humans to be as low as they thought we were, according to him.

In a few hours, my dad, the man who kept me beside him in his lab, taught me everything he knew, instilled in me a love for the galaxies and all the amazing things they held…

in a matter of a few stupid zentics, he’d become someone I barely recognized.

And I could tell he thought the same about me.

In a handful of heated moments, he destroyed a confidence, a self-image he’d spent twenty years building.

All it took was one single step out of line.

I saw myself differently after that, although I recognized how silly that was, like I’d dimmed on the inside.

The confidence I’d held my entire life was now more of a chipper facade than me .

That was when the measuring started. Every bite I took, everything I wore, every step, every pound, everything I said . He’d never apologized.

Not that it would’ve made a difference. The way he saw me changed, and so did the way I saw myself.

Old Earth used to have a saying: Never meet your heroes.

Never disappoint your heroes seems exponentially worse.

I had an amazing life, but never one that suited me .

I learned differently, slower than he wanted, so I worked harder.

By the time I was twenty, the burnout I felt was soul deep.

I’ve long suspected that I have some kind of learning…

difference. Things that are so simple to others aren’t for me.

I can’t imagine the look on his face if I’d voiced my concerns.

I’m grateful now that I didn’t. Mom helped when she could, but she couldn’t often.

Mom’s feelings were glass shards in my palms, ready to poke and cut. Eggshells.

I lived on eggshells.

So, when I joined Dad at a meeting held on Vortara and found The Solar Breeding Agency…

they clocked me a mile out. I didn’t hesitate, and I haven’t looked back since.

In a year or so, by the time I’m returned to our station housing far from the family home, I’ll never see again on Terra2, I’ll already be itching to leave again.

My eyes turn toward Zyros, watching the practiced way he knots and ties the blankets from my bedding into bags slung around his muscular frame.

The odd greenish sun beats down on me just outside the cave in the small clearing.

A handful of long strides, and the thick heart of the jungle dominates again.

His slitted eyes track and follow every rustle and sound, every tiny movement, and there’s something about being protected by this male that makes my chest feel funny.

As he adds another looped bag over him, six now, I bound over and snatch a blanket from the ground.

He doesn’t speak, as per his usual, only watches as I attempt to mirror his movements.

My brows furrow as he moves quickly, missing a step or two, the humidity making the air in my lungs thick.

My bag, if you could call it that, falls apart as he grabs another.

This time, his movements are notably slower.

I write the blush on my cheeks off as due to the heat, my damp agency dress hanging tight to my frame.

When the tip of his tail snakes out around my wrist, tugging at my hand, to place it further down on the loop, my heart flutters.

He keeps it there, bound gently around me like one of the prettiest pieces of jewelry I’ve ever seen.

My pale flesh contrasts with his vibrant scales.

I refocus my thoughts, or try to, but I can’t stop looking at where he’s touching me.

There’s something so gentle about it, from a being that’s built to be anything but.

Eventually, after a handful of times, his six bags are now twelve, and my single one is finally completed.

A huge smile overtakes my face as I slip it on, twirling and modeling my hard work for him.

He slips his tail away, huffing, but it almost looks like there’s a tilt to his lips.

It’s short-lived as his head snaps up toward the darker part of the jungle.

A chill breaks over my flesh despite the heat.

Everything that was once so loud and full of life is quiet, eerily so.

Everything that happens next happens fast. The gentle coil of his tail turns punishing as I’m flung back inside the entrance of the cave.

A scream erupts from my throat as a flash of crimson and gold shoots from the wood line, slamming into Zyros with a vicious clash of flesh. The air is knocked from my lungs as my back collides with the cave wall, vicious hissing filling the space as I try to force my breath back where it should be.

My eyes widen at the scene before me in horror as Zyros tangles in another Vrircik.

Her face is softer than his, but only in its sculpting.

Right now, it’s marred with a look of pure fury as he slams her upper body into the ground, her claws digging into his forearms. Whatever she hisses at him is in their native language.

My translator struggles to pick it up. It’s said so fast, so gutturally, I only get pieces.

“…betrayal…outsider…”

When Zyros speaks, his head dips inches from hers, and for some reason, my heart clenches in my chest. There’s no mistaking the violence in their interaction, the hate…

but it seems wrong for him to be twisted with her that way.

That bizarre thought forces me to my feet.

I take a hesitant step out, only for him to release a warning hiss in my direction that brooks no argument.

Stay put.

“You told me to choose. I chose ,” he spits back at her, his fangs bared and dripping venom.

“You would threaten a female?” She breathes, the look of surprise nearly as prominent as the anger.

“You will not harm her,” he warns, releasing a vicious hiss when her eyes fall to me.

The look in them nearly makes me wither, so I stand taller instead, lifting my chin as she meets my eyes.

“Do not look at her.”

Her eyes widen as they turn back to him before narrowing. “Zaelshar did not lie. Your scent has changed.” Her tongue darts out, testing his flesh, and the cringe that breaks out across Zyros makes sick churn in my gut. “You belong—”

“To no one, not to the human, not to any of you . You wanted a child; I refuse to keep providing them to stroke your ego! This is all you will get from me. I am done!” He all but roars whatever overcame him for a moment, forgotten to his anger again.

My pulse spikes, I step out again just a little, my hands fisting the fabric of my dress.

“Others cannot—” she starts.

“You crossed that line when you kept those machines that defile our planet. They have already come .”

The female ignores him, still struggling to be free from his hold. “Is she venom-touched?”

Venom-touched?

Something in her words changes him, enraging him further. The roar he lets out shakes me to my core as he grips her face.

She screams.

Actually screams.

I dart out of the cave to do what, who knows.

“I have done what you asked. If you return to my territory, if your spies and watchers return, I will kill all of you! What will become of your Nyssara? Of your goddesses when there are no males left to breed?”

“Zyros, stop it, you’re hurting her!” I scream as I reach them, my hand gripping his arm to pull him free.

Her body jerks unnaturally underneath him as his grip tightens, and when he looks at me, it’s with a face I don’t recognize. His moon burst eyes are black and wide with…what? Worry… fear ? “It will be a fate deserving , get inside, Melody.” He hisses, his voice guttural and harsh.

My hands are shaky as I slam them against his face, panic driving my actions. “Stop it now! You’re scaring me!”

Again, it’s made apparent how outmatched I am because she takes that moment, that instant of an opening to toss Zyros from her, slithering out from underneath him faster than I thought possible.

The world pivots as his heavy weight is forced back, taking me with it.

His claws prick my skin under my dress as he rolls, keeping me from being crushed underneath him.

I’m wrapped in his tail, banded behind him in the next instant, my head reeling from the violent, sudden movements.

The female is panting, taking deep ragged breaths, but she doesn’t run.

She rises higher, prouder than before. There’s something equal parts funny and terrifying about that.

Puffing your chest after having your ass handed to you.

“She will be blessed by the goddesses. This will be pointless otherwise,” she orders.

“You have lost your grip if you think I would take her into the springs. The only reason she is not dead now is because you know you would not escape the clearing before I slaughtered you .”

A ragged gasp leaves my lungs, the last few minutes passing through my mind with clarity. She hadn’t gone for him .

She went for me .

My bones seem to chill from their very core to my flesh as the realization sinks in.

She tried to kill me .

My eyes dart from her to Zyros, his hulking, towering form tense. Ready .

“Bless her, Zyros. The goddesses will not see a life born from nothing!”

“They see no life regardless!”

“We will not harm the outsider. We want the same thing, although your disrespect would warrant no less.”

“You lie!” He hisses.

“A life is a life, no? I am not without reason.” She huffs, shifting her fiery red gaze back to me. Zyros snarls at her in warning, and I think I’m about to pass the fuck out.

“You have never listened to reason before,” he retorts. “Leave and know, Xyphora, I give you my vow by Nythara’s alter if any harm comes to her, I will end our species myself. This changes everything .”

Rage flares in her eyes again. “You will be the death of us. The goddesses will drag you to the Ether themselves if you fail them. Keep it hidden, breed it, and when it bears nothing, kill it .”

It , as in me .

He says nothing to that, and my head is light as she turns with a shocking amount of grace, her hair shining like flames when she darts back into the woods.

“Zyros…”

“For the love of the goddesses who haunt the skies, do not speak female.”

“What the fuck haven’t you told me?” I whisper, my chest heaving. My head pounds as I struggle free from his tail, which only tightens around me, making a frustrated scream leave my throat. “Put me down now!”

“No,” he hisses back.

I slam my fists into the meaty part of his thick tail, which he barely seems to feel.

His stare is blank, directed at the ground now, his breathing ragged.

I watch slowly as the tension, the fight, leaves him.

Where I was held off the ground, suspended in the air, I’m now set down, still very much so wrapped in his tail, although the coil looks as loose and defeated as the man. “Let. Me. Go.”

“ Please . Just a moment more.”

I go still at the tormented sound of his voice, his claws digging into his palms, drawing blue-black blood from them. His teal-colored hair hiding his face. My fighting and shoving slow, and I haven’t a clue how many minutes pass while he’s lost to his thoughts.

It gives me precious time to think about things, think about any of this.

It was a mistake.

Soon enough, his tail unravels from me fully, and he straightens.

Removing the bags from around him. My eyes dart to the mouth of the cave.

I’ll go in, act casual, grab the Zytheron crystal, and get home.

I can stall for a few more zentics, solars at the most. The thought of being trapped here for solars makes my knees wobble.

I stumble, stepping into the mouth as the smell of rainstorms and musk envelops me again.

“Little human, if you intend to leave, I would advise against it. This is bigger than the both of us.” A bucket of cold water drowns me as his hand gently, so gently, knots in my hair, making me face him as tears bud in my eyes. “I am sorry, Melody. You were not given a good male.”

My lip wobbles as I shove off him and head into the cave.