“God, Hail,” she moaned brokenly. “You’re so big…so deep inside me.”
The beast growled in reply and drew slowly out of her until only the head of his shaft rested inside her pussy. Then with a swift, hard lunge, he plowed forward, filling her again, making Isobel cry and arch her back as a bolt of jagged pleasure went through her.
Random words went through her brain as Hail held her down and filled her, his thick cock stretching her helpless pussy with each thrust. Making love…fucking…plowing…breeding…
That’s what he’s doing, she thought distractedly. He’s plowing my pussy for his seed—opening me up so he can shoot his come as deep inside me as he can—breeding me.
She knew it was true and there was nothing she could do about it—nothing but spread her legs wider and tilt her pelvis back to take even more of his shaft deep in her pussy, nothing she could do but submit to his rough, delicious fucking until Hail was ready to shoot deep inside her.
She moaned softly, brokenly, as the rough, luscious strokes of his cock inside her sent shivers of pleasure through her entire body. God, she’d never had sex this rough and yet, now that she was calm and open, it felt good—felt right to let Hail bury his thick shaft to the root inside her unresisting pussy—to let him breed her like this.
“Hail,” she heard herself moaning as the rough, delicious fucking continued. “Oh God, Hail, please…please…”
In response to her pleading moans, the beast began to thrust harder and faster. Though Isobel would have believed it was impossible, she began to feel another, deeper orgasm rising inside her. Part of the pleasure was from the way his heavy testicles swung up to slap against her throbbing clit with every pounding thrust but she knew that another part of the orgasm threatening to overcome her was the fact that she was helpless beneath a man she wanted, unable to escape his punishing strokes as he ravaged her pussy with his thick cock.
“Hail!" she sobbed as the pleasure built higher and higher. Oh God, she was about to come—and it was going to be the deepest, most intense orgasm of her life—somehow Isobel knew it. “Hail,” she moaned…”Hail!”
And then the orgasm was on her, the pleasure washing over her in a flood. She felt her inner muscles clench hard around his invading shaft, almost as if her pussy was milking him, trying to get his seed deep inside her.
Hail and his beast seemed to feel her pleasure because he gripped her hips and thrust as deeply into her as he could. He held her there, impaled completely, his long, thick shaft filling her to the root and growled one word…
“Mine.”
Then something hot and wet jetted against the mouth of her womb and she knew he was coming in her, filling her with his seed, marking her as his own forever.
“Yours, Hail,” she whispered and a sob rose in her throat. "That's right, I'm yours."
The pleasure was simply too intense, too immense to contain any more. Isobel felt overwhelmed—completely mastered and taken in a way she never had been before. It was as though a little part of her had broken inside—not necessarily in a bad way but still she was different—fundamentally changed by what had just happened. It was hard to process—hard to even breathe as the pleasure overwhelmed her.
“Hail,” she moaned. “Oh God, Hail…”
And then she buried her face in her arms and sobbed.
Chapter Ten
When Hail finally regained control of himself, he was buried to the hilt in Isobel’s soft pussy and her shoulders were shaking with sobs.
A cold and nameless horror filled him.
“Goddess,” he muttered hoarsely, pulling out of her abruptly. “What have I done?”
“H-hail?” Isobel’s breath hitched on his name as she turned her head to face him. Her lovely brown eyes were filled with tears and there were marks on her hips—finger-shaped marks.
Goddess help me, I made those—or the beast did when he took over, Hail thought numbly. But the beast taking over was no excuse—this was his fault—his entirely.
Should have controlled myself better—kept the beast from coming out in the first place. Gods, what else did I do? Closing his eyes, he was able to access the events of the last few minutes and what he saw horrified him completely.
He watched as Isobel tried to get away from him, from his punishing grip and the painful, too-tight fit of his shaft in her soft, vulnerable pussy. And he saw himself as the beast holding her in place, forcing her to take more and more of him until at last she simply gave up and submitted, opening herself for him even though he was hurting her.
I did that, he realized as his horror and dread mounted. I held her down and took her against her will. I put those tears in her eyes when I hurt her in the worst way possible.
It was what he had always feared the most—the whole reason he refused to turn his emotion damper up past its medium setting. Thinking of his damper made him reach for the back of his neck. The overwhelming feelings of guilt and self-loathing were too much to bear—so intense he thought he might go mad if he couldn’t turn them off.
But of course, the damper was gone, which was the cause of this whole mess in the first place. That and the animal lust he had inside which he’d vented on a helpless female.
“Forgive me,” he said to Isobel, though he knew he deserved no such forgiveness. “I…I have no words…no excuses. I am not fit to live.”
“Hail…” She had half turned now and, incredibly, she reached out a hand to him, though Hail would have thought she would want to get as far from him as possible and never see him again.
“I should be punished,” he said in a low, toneless voice. “I—”
“Attention test subjects,” came the high, annoying tone of their captors, blaring into his tortured mind. “Our genetic testing sequences have come back and it has come to our attention that the two of you are NOT of the same species.”
“Of course we’re not.” Isobel sat up shakily and swiped at her tears. “I’m human and Hail is Kindred.” She cast a glance at him. “Mostly Kindred, anyway,” she added in a low voice.
“Why did you not tell us this at once?” demanded the voice of the one called Grrn. “We were tasked with studying the mating habits of Kindred only. This error invalidates all the data we have collected! This whole study is useless!”
“Now, Grrn,” the one called Fsst said reprovingly. “If you had waited for the results of the genetic tests in the first place, this entire mess would have been avoided. There is no point in blaming the test subjects.”
“Still—they might have made it known they were different species,” Grrn grumbled.
“So this was all for nothing?” Isobel demanded, sitting up in the round bed and glaring at the wall with wet eyes. “After everything you just put us through—”
“We deeply regret any inconvenience—” Fsst began soothingly.
“Inconvenience? Inconvenience?” roared Hail. Fury suddenly gripped him and he strode to the wall and pounded on it with his fists. “You little gray bastards, do you know what I’ve just done to the female I care for? Do you have any idea what kind of harm you caused? Do you?”
“Hail…” Isobel’s voice was faint and frightened and when he turned his head, he saw she was huddled in the center of the huge bed with her knees drawn up to her chin. “Your beast,” she whispered when he looked at her. “Won’t he…if you let yourself get upset again…”
The fear in his eyes cut him like a knife and he reminded himself that she had reason to be afraid of him—good reason.
Taking a deep breath, Hail tried to calm himself.
“Forgive me,” he said to her. “I…will not allow the beast to come out again around you. I swear it, Isobel. I…I will not hurt you again.”
“Hail, I just—”
“A scan of current Kindred and human events shows that you have recently come into contact with a most dangerous species known as the Hive,” Fsst interrupted. “We Chalombs do not have first hand information about how to defeat them but w
e do know of such a repository of knowledge. As compensation for your time and trouble here, vital information on the location of this repository has been placed in the data storage unit of your shuttle’s computer.”
“No more can we do for you,” Grrn added. “Except to send you on your way.”
* * * * *
“Send us on our way?” Isobel asked incredulously. “But how—”
Suddenly the by-now-familiar sensation of weightlessness overcame her and the world seemed to spin around her in a blur. She blinked and reached out for something to hold on to…
And found herself grabbing the armrests of the seat in the Kindred Shuttle.
“What…who…” She looked wildly around and saw that everything was as it had been. Hail was sitting in the pilot’s chair with his big hands on the steering yolk and the blue-green curve of Earth was growing in the viewscreen.
They were nearly home.
Isobel felt like she was going insane. Had she imagined the whole thing? Had it been some kind of space-madness? A vivid illusion that had seemed to last for hours and in actuality had taken just a matter of seconds?
A glance at her watch confirmed that, indeed, it was the same time and date it had been the last time she’d looked at it, right before they were suddenly abducted.
But had they been abducted?
Looking down at herself, she saw that she had on the same black pencil skirt and red blouse she’d been wearing when she visited Kat in the Mother Ship. Hail was dressed the same as well, in his flight leathers and black uniform shirt with its short black sleeves that showed his massive biceps. The shiny black oculars were down over his eyes and he looked completely impassive as he flew the ship, acting as though nothing had happened.
Maybe nothing did happen, Isobel thought. But no—she was sore inside from the extremely thorough breeding she’d just been through and she swore she could feel a wet warmth inside her—the remnants of Hail’s seed still filling her.
“Hail,” she said at last, in a low, shaky voice. “What…what just happened?”
“You know what happened—what I did, Isobel.” He spoke in a low, harsh voice. “And I know what you must think of me now.”
“Please, I just…” Isobel took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. “I feel like I’m going crazy. Were we or were we not just now abducted by aliens and forced to…forced to…”
“I was the one who did the forcing.” His voice was as cold as ice and his face looked like it was carved from granite. He stared straight ahead at the viewscreen and the curve of the Earth growing rapidly bigger.
“Hail,” she began but he cut her off.
“Beginning descent to Earth. Please brace yourself for reentry into the atmosphere.”
Not knowing what else to do, Isobel hung on tight as the little shuttle sliced downward at such a steep angle she felt like she was on a rollercoaster. Was Hail mad at her for some reason? Or maybe he was still enraged with the little gray men who had put them through so much? Or maybe upset at himself? He had seemed horrified when his beast left and he found himself in the middle of sex with her. But hadn’t he expected it? Why was he being so cold to her now after what they’d just been through together?
She had no answers and Hail didn’t volunteer any either. They flew in icy silence and almost before she knew it, the little shuttle was landing right in front of her townhouse.
Without a word, Hail reached over and unbuckled her safety harness. As the straps fell away, the door to the shuttle popped open on her side and he nodded his head—an obvious indication that she should get out.
Isobel just sat there, staring at him blankly for a moment. What was going on? Why was he being like this?
“Hail,” she said at last. “Are we really not going to talk about this? About what happened between us?”
“You mean what I did to you,” he said flatly. He still stared straight ahead and refused to look at her, his mirrored oculars hiding his eyes.
“What we did to each other,” Isobel corrected gently. She thought she was beginning to understand the problem. “Hail, your beast is part of you—”
“A part that hurt you. A part I should have controlled.” At last he turned his head to stare at her, though his eyes were still hidden from sight. “Isobel, I have no words for my regret or for my shame. I will turn myself in to the authorities when I get back to the Mother Ship as soon as I get my emotion damper re-installed. And I swear you will never have to see me again.”
“Hail, no!” she exclaimed, reaching out a hand to touch him. But he flinched away from her fingertips on his muscular arm.
“Please,” he said tonelessly. “Just go.”
“But…but…”
“Mom! Mom’s home!” The familiar little voice made her jerk her head up and she saw that Brandon was racing out the front door of the townhouse, jumping excitedly.
“Go to him,” Hail said and there was a depth of regret in his deep voice that was painful to hear. “Give…give him the schematics of my oculars if you can bear to,” he said. “I…regret…” He shook his head, clearly unable to finish. “I have many regrets,” he said at last, in a choked voice.
Isobel didn’t want to go—she wanted to stay and talk this out. Clearly he felt he’d assaulted her and he hated himself for it. And just as clearly he was now trying to put distance between them because of it.
She wanted to tell him she was all right, that the situation had been scary and intense but she didn’t hate him for it but Brandon was bounding up to the shuttle with Mrs. Hallstead right behind him with a grandmotherly smile on her wrinkled face. There was no way she could have a frank discussion of the rough but mostly consensual sex they’d just shared in front of her innocent son and friendly neighbor.
“Hail…” she tried once more.
“Please, just go,” he repeated. “Your…your son needs you.”
Isobel didn’t know what else to do. She felt tears stinging her eyes but she tried to blink them away as she climbed out of the shuttle and went to meet Brandon.
“Hello, Brandon-bug,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t give away her distress. “Were you good for Mrs. Hallstead while I was gone?”
“I exhibited exemplary behavior, as always,” he assured her and held out his arms for a hug.
It was a rare gesture—Brandon usually didn’t like hugs except for sometimes when he was very upset and seemed to need the deep pressure of a tight hug to calm down. Isobel took him in her arms and squeezed him tight, expressing all the emotions she couldn’t say in words.
I might never have seen my baby again, she thought and her throat got tight. If Hail and I hadn’t…
But she couldn’t continue the awful thought. She just hugged her son tight and sent a silent prayer of thanks that she was home safe again.
“Mom,” Brandon said when she released him. “Where is Commander Hail going? I thought we were going to talk when you guys got home—he promised me we would.”
Isobel straightened up and saw that the Kindred shuttle was already lifting off with Hail at the wheel. To her surprise, Brandon jumped and waved, showing an uncharacteristic display of emotion.
“Commander Hail! Where are you going? Come back!” he shouted.
If Hail could hear him, he showed no sign. Instead he stared straight ahead, his face impassive, his eyes hidden from view by the damned shiny oculars.
Gone, Isobel thought and felt a sudden rush of sadness. Gone and he’s never coming back.
Out loud she said to Brandon, “I’m sorry, Brandon-bug. I think there was some kind of emergency back at the Mother Ship and they needed him there right away.”
Brandon frowned, his brows coming down low over his big, brown eyes, so much like hers. Then he shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter—he’ll be back. He’s going to be my new Dad.”
“Brandon…” Isobel shook her head helplessly. She didn’t like to disappoint her son but there was no way they were ever goin
g to see Hail again. Also, she had no idea why Brandon had latched onto the idea of the big Kindred as his new father so quickly and completely.
“He’ll be back,” he repeated confidently. “I’d better go finish my new ocular diagram for him. It’s a new design—it’ll make his oculars even better.”
“Oh, that reminds me…” Reaching into her purse, Isobel drew out the folded paper schematic Hail had given her what felt like a lifetime ago. “Commander Hail had this printed up for you,” she said, unfolding it and handing it to her son. “It’s the actual schematics of his oculars. He thought you might like it.”
“Wow!” Brandon’s eyes were huge behind his thick glasses. “Thanks, Mom—this is awesome!”
He took the paper carefully and ran into the house with it, holding it as though it was the most valuable treasure in the world. Watching him go, Isobel had to blink back tears. She didn’t have the heart to tell her son that the big Kindred he’d gotten so quickly attached to would never be part of their lives—that they would never see him again.
But that’s a good thing, right? whispered a little voice in her head. I mean, he doesn’t have an emotion damper anymore and you’ve seen how wild his beast can be. Hell, you’ve experienced it first hand!
Yes, but he had only let the beast out to protect her…and to love her. And though Isobel had been frightened of that rough love at first, now she felt only a surge of regret that she would never see Hail—or his beast—again.
But there’s one thing I can do, she told herself as she turned to talk to Mrs. Hallstead and thank her for watching Brandon. I can call Kat and tell her not to let Hail turn himself in. He seems to think he ought to go to prison for what we did—I can’t let that happen.
Chapter Eleven
“So tell me again…what happened when Hail was bringing you home?” Kat sounded incredulous—not that Isobel blamed her.