Page 13 of Queen Isabella

“I know it’s hard!” Phara growled, frustrated with his vexing anatomy.

The instant Bellator arrived with their queen, Phara’s shaft grew hard. It was the first time his sex had responded in his thirty orbits of existence. Her feminine scent awoke something inside him. Now it felt like a wild animal was prowling beneath his skin and it was hungry. He was tempted to shift into hisferoform and go for a run, maybe hunt something, but he couldn’t separate himself from their queen.

“It wasn’t like that a moment ago,” Bellator commented.

“Our queen was terribly injured. I was afraid. Now I’m not,” he informed the chief guard of the hive.

One glance at Bellator screamed that the male was also affected by their queen, although the legionnaire alpha’s shaft wasn’t standing at attention like his was.

“At least we know your body recognizes its purpose,” Artifex teased, now that much of the tension in the room had waned. “Would you like to carry her to her chambers? The servitors should have finished cleaning it already.”

Phara desperately wanted to hold the queen. Her skin was an unusual tannish-beige. She certainly didn’t blend into the purplerock of the mountain like the rest of the hive, but it looked soft with all of its curves. His fingers itched to test how pliant those curves were, especially the two mounds on her chest. His tongue rolled around his mouth, the urge to taste the berries on her chest mounds riding him hard. Her long, wavy brown mane was unique. He wanted to comb his fingers through the silky tendrils. She also had a bit of fluff on her sex that taunted him. She definitely did not have a shaft. His sex jumped at the thought of spreading her legs to see exactly what she did have.

“Phara?” Artifex pressed.

“I better not. I-I don’t trust myself,” he nervously replied.

“I will hold her.” Bellator eagerly picked their queen up and they started walking through the winding stone corridors of their hive.

The hive was quiet as they passed, but he could feel their excitement vibrating in the air. Many eyes expectantly turned to him.

“So, what’s your plan for when our queen wakes up?” Artifex asked, voicing what everyone was thinking.

He was the consort alpha, breeding his queen was his only purpose. Before today, he'd effectively had no purpose. The day he never expected to come was finally here and he was starting to feel the full weight of it. He couldn’t disappoint his brethren. He especially couldn’t disappoint their queen.

“I don’t know.” Phara started to panic.

Sadly, he had no one to teach him what to do with a female. He’d never known a queen. His own queen mother had passed four generations ago, long before he’d crawled out of his amnio sac. When the Blight hit and the queens died, all Vorto hives halted the emergence of hatchlings, extending one generation into half a dozen. So, he was four generations removed from the existence of females. As far as he was concerned queens were a myth. The consort alpha that preceded him wasn’t welland didn’t share anything but despair about the future before passing. And though the archives held a lot, frustratingly, it lacked information their ancestors thought should be obvious.

“All I’ve seen are the fauna mating,” Phara added, his anxiety building even as his hormones spun out of control.

If it wasn’t for the animals, he wouldn’t have known that he was supposed to put his organ inside the queen.

Except our queen isn’t a horned capo that eats grass and leaps around the mountainside!He was out of his depths here.

“I am sure you will figure it out. I have some ideas.” Bellator stroked their queen’s cheek as he lay her in the bed in her chamber.

Phara stared at the queen lying in the bed. She was so unusual, yet so stunning. He ached to climb in and lie right beside her. He ached for more than that.

“I’m having a lot of ideas, too, and as small as she is, I’m pretty sure all of them will break her!” Phara countered, his fists clenching by his sides.

He’d crush their queen simply mounting her. After being injured, would she want him biting her shoulder to hold her in place? Would his sex even fit inside her tiny body?

“We need to keep her warm as she rests and recovers,” Artifex mentioned. That usually meant fluxing and piling into the same bed.

Phara glanced down at his shaft. As much as he wanted to lie beside their queen, he didn’t trust himself. He needed to wrangle his hormones and his emotions. The omegas didn’t have the hormone levels the alphas and betas possessed. Right now, they were a better option to watch over their queen.

“Consort omegas,” Phara called to the males who had followed them into the queen’s chamber. “Flux and keep our queen warm as she rests.”

Enviously he watched as a score of omegas climbed into the bed and fluxed, filling in around their sleeping queen. He sighed as he stared longingly at her.

“Come, let’s go to your chamber next door. We’ll be close if she awakens and we can make plans from there.” Artifex took his hand and tugged him toward the door.

Phara growled and resisted. Instinct demanded he stay by his queen’s side. But then he relented as it occurred to him, he might be able to think straight if he couldn’t see or smell their queen. Right now he felt dizzy, like he drank too much fermented nectar. He needed to clear his head or he’d make a fool of himself with the queen.

Chapter 5

Queen Isabella

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