Page 24 of Bonded By Savages

“What is it?” I used to have more patience for his cryptic ways.

“When we rescued her. I had imagined her running to us, her eyes alight with hope. When she saw our brands, she felt revulsion.”

I wave my hand, dismissive. It’s a useless thought. “She will understand. We will make her understand.” I stride out of the dining room, needing action. My legs carry me upwards towards her, and I have to grab the railing and pull myself away, every instinct in my body urging me towards her.

My cock swells up again, and I growl in frustration. I’ve never been so out of control. I’ve had the Mating Rage triggered before, usually by women we saved in our service, but unlike the others of our unit, we held back. Raython would succumb to the lust on occasion. We’d hear the moans from the other room, and he’d always come back with an icy cold aura and deep regret.

“I thought she might be our Mate,” he would say, and he took the pain for us, the pain of entering a woman and finding no link, no connection, just two bodies gyrating together like animals.

Rage fills me. That my battle-brother, so brave, will never get to taste his Mate. He’ll never get to feel that perfect woman so small and helpless over his lap. He’ll never be able to nuzzle his nose in her hair and smell her, the essence of woman under all the distracting scents of flowers poured on her scalp.

He’ll never taste her lust, feel her heart beat, see her eyes roll back in pleasure as she gives herself utterly to me…

I pull myself away from the winding stairwell, going to the other side, where a rock staircase leads down to the cellars. I crack my knuckles, feeling the weight of my Orb-Blade hilt bouncing at my belt as I walk downwards into the entrance hall to our lower level. There are three doors. One leads to our full gym. The second leads to a padded room filled with self-repairing robots. Artificial intelligence is still too weak to be truly ferocious, but they can still give me a good workout. Humanity managed to create Sentinels, robot guardians that protected the richest, but even those were slow compared to an Aurelian.

They might not be smart, but they can move with blinding speed, parrying our blows mechanically.

I clench my fist. When I am Bonded to my Mate, I’ll be turned into the perfect killing machine I am destined to be. I’ll have the power to avenge my battle-brother.

I need the strength of the Bond to protect her. When a Mate is first taken, the eyes of the Aurelian change colors, turning from the slate-grey of the rest of our species to a unique hue. It’s not the cosmetic changes I crave. Your body swells up with power, your muscles stronger, your instincts honed. Reaction time is quicker. Every detail is brighter.

I press open the door to the weight room, ripping off my ruined clothes and changing into shorts. I spin and kick the heavy bag, remembering how I kicked down the door of the Toad Lord to claim my Mate.

Now I’m not imagining the Toads as I punch the bag.

I’m imagining the Priests who dared come to my gates.

8

Athena

Iwake up, blinking, and rub my eyes of sleep.

I’m not on a tiny, hard cot. The sun is rising above the horizon, small but fierce, a raging ball of fire that casts a red glow over the architecture of the city.

I’ve got energy, for the first time in over a year. I pull myself out of bed, filled with a strange wonder. I thought my life was over.

I can remember acing the mining beam technician’s exam, all those long nights of study paying off. How I aimed it at the Toad attack ships, and the beams fizzled out, sabotaged from within. Being shipped in a damp coffin, pressed in with terrified men and women. The sharp terror of the Toad auction, then the jumpy anxiety of working under the cruel thumb of Lord Bladdard.

Now I’m on a planet controlled by Fanatical religious zealots, who serve the God who opened the portal to save me. Obsidian was a myth, a superstition, and now I’ve seen him with my own eyes, along with the two wolves, bigger than horses, that serve him.

I walk to the window. It would be up to the waist of the Aurelians. To me, my chin barely goes over it, and I stand on my tippy toes to look out. Aurelians have advanced technologies, but the window has no glass, with big wooden shutters of stained black wood opened to the fresh dawn air.

I’m on the top floor of their estate. What they did to earn it, and those terrible tattoos on their chests, I don’t want to know. The estate has its own somber beauty, and the black stone pillars at the front look like they belong. At the bottom there is a long pool, with the clearest water I’ve ever seen, so clear I can see the mosaic of patterns on the black tile underneath it.

They certainly love the color black, these Fanatics. It’s religious to them, matching the veins of their leader. I don’t care much for the color, but I love the huge walls that surround the estate, and the big gates at the front. It could slow down a triad of Aurelians, and while it wouldn’t stop a Reaver from flying over the walls, they give me a sense of security.

There are other estates, just like ours, going off to the left and the right, row after row of mansions like the ones I dreamed of on Colossus. A long pathway leads from our gate down the rolling hills to the capital city. There, the buildings are not ugly, but built with brutish strength, huge blocks of stone without ornament.

Snow-covered mountains jut up to the west. In front of the mountains is a deep wound in the ground that looks like an ant hive, buzzing with activity as Aurelians cut huge squares of black marble and bring them up with hoists. Four triads of Aurelians, little dots from this distance, are pulling long ropes that connect to a sled. On top of it is a massive stone slab. I can imagine their grunts of exertion.

They could move the stone with Reavers or cranes, but they do things by hand. It’s strange, this cult of Obsidian. What do they want? I heard horrible rumors of Fanatics eating humans alive, but living under the control of the Toads, I see where the true evil is in the universe.

These Fanatics, these Followers of Obsidian…they are mysteries to me. They aren’t what I thought. I expected their homes to be places of fear, with servants running around with eyes to the ground, women forced to serve their monstrous masters whenever their Mating Rage inflamed.

It was my foolish dream since I was a young girl to be the bride of a triad of noble, powerful Aurelians.

When I felt those three in my mind, a vision more crisp and real than the muggy manor of the Toads, that hope buoyed me. In my darkest moments, I imagined their bravery, their honor, their loyalty.

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