Chapter 6

Rikash remained sleeping over his mate for some time, until the gland that held him tight within her loosened, and he woke with a groan, his eyelids heavily, and his muscles lose from several ejaculations. His new little mate was asleep, her face turned away from him, towards the window. The curve of her cheek, and the thick arc of her eyelashes against her skin was very beautiful, he thought with prideful admiration. She was soft and curved, and so small. Her unscarred skin was testimony to her weakness. The dominant in him liked the bruises he had left on her. He could clearly see the marks of his fingers on her hips where he had gripped her too tightly in his frustration, when the telepathic Bond that had formed between them had remained incomplete, until her scent changed with pain, alerting him that he was hurting his mate. He dug his fingers back into her, causing her to wake with a groaned complaint. She did not fight him, the blue of her eyes glittering between her eyelashes as he gathered their combined fluid from within her, and stroked it over her chest, before doing the same across himself, scent marking them both, and was surprised at how satisfying he found performing the primal practice. What she thought of it was difficult to determine, the bond between them frustratingly incomplete. He could feel her there, but it was a fuzzy, foggy awareness. She watched him and did not try to protect her body from him, an acknowledgement of his ownership and superiority. She knew she belonged to him, and that pleased him. She had walked obediently behind Rikash and had obeyed his commands within his den, letting him cleanse her without complaint. The only time she had shown reluctance had been when he had commanded her onto the mating platform, and that, he thought as he continued to stroke his seed over her skin, was understandable, and forgivable. He had taken her without her consent, after all. Once she had understood and accepted the inevitability that he would rut her, she had been obedient and stoic. He had tried to prepare her body for him, knowing that the size difference between her anatomy and his would be painful, but she had been unresponsive until, out of instinct, he had used the mating croon. Her response to that had been more than satisfactory. In his people s submissive females, it was believed to have calmed and subdued them, but in the humans, it seemed to stimulate them. That had not been mentioned in the reports, and he wondered if the other males had attempted it, or if they had simply assumed that because the human s mating behaviours were so different, it would not work. Biologically, they were cousin species, both people having been seeded by a race lost to time, which was the entire reason why Rikash s people had invaded the planet. Their differences were environmental. It was entirely possible that the humans retained the same procreational stimuli as Rikash s people, buried beneath eons of development. His men had no practice forming the Bond. Males could not create the telepathic Bond with other males. The courting behaviours of dominant males to submissive females had been relegated to history texts after the Ivarid Doxen virus. He would have to look up the courting practices and try them on his little mate. Perhaps the creation of the Bond was less automatic than he had believed, and the courting practices had a purpose beyond tradition. He crooned to his mate as he continued to stroke his scent into her skin. She did not reciprocate, but he felt the changes within her beneath his fingertips when he delved them into her, and the rise in her scent as she became aroused. He edged closer, placing his lips against her ear, tasting the delicate lobe with the tip of his tongue as he kept the croon to a continual growl of sound. He felt the tissue against his fingers swell, the texture somewhat similar to stroking his fingers over the scars of his skin. By rubbing this spot within her, as well as the nub at the apex of her sex where the nerve cluster was most sensitive, he knew he should be able to bring her to orgasm, and in theory that would release the chemicals that would make her more receptive to a bond. He would have to give himself over entirely to instinct, he decided, and indulge in the behaviours that his nature directed him to perform to see if that made a difference. Her hips arched off the sleeping platform, and he could see the blood rise in her skin, feel the heat of her increase. She was nearing release. He positioned himself to mount her, using the liquid of her to lubricate himself before pushing himself into her, and positioning himself so that the rock of his hips pressed against the nub of nerves, maintaining the stimulation there as his c-k rubbed against the second spot internally. She moaned, her eyes wanting to close. "Look at me," he commanded her in his tongue. He could speak to her in hers, but it was a lesser language, and she had to learn to speak his. She was beginning to understand, forcing her eyes open and meeting his. Eye contact would help the Bond, forcing her to acknowledge the mating and him as her mate, and not mentally block it and him out. Their skin was sticky where he had rubbed their combined fluid, and he enjoyed the suction and the scent that rose as it warmed. Their scent. He did not have to think about crooning, it hummed within him, as instinct responded to the stimuli of the scent. He pressed his chest to hers, letting her feel the vibrations, and felt her clench around him, bathing him in the hot flood of her release, the wet heat triggering his orgasm. Biology, he thought as he pressed himself against her cervix, his seed shooting from him in a pleasure that was almost agony, was a perfect machine, only a fool would disregard it. He would resolve this problem for his men, as he had resolved the problems that had come before. Although, he added as he worked himself against the hold of his swollen gland into a second orgasm, this one was considerably more physically enjoyable than other problems he had set himself against. The gland was another evidence of biological perfection, he thought, sagging over her in the hot, loose lax that came after release. Designed to hold him in place so that no other male could fill his fertile mate, designed to force his seed into her womb in the most efficient way, to ensure that his seed had the optimal conditions to fertilize her egg. His mate was not currently ovulating. He suspected that the conditions of the mate holding pens had been less than optimal from her general condition, something he needed to address, soon, as it ran contradictory to his people s purpose on the planet. He would ensure that she received vitamin rich foods and rest, and at her next ovulation, he would sire a kit on her. When the gland released, he more gently repeated the scent marking, before leaving his mate sleeping on the mating platform. It was good for her to rest. Sleep would build her strength and prepare her body for him and his offspring. He went into the living area of the den and collected the datascreen before returning to the bedroom, using it to scan and take images of his sleeping mate. He sat and entered the details of his selection process, and the return to his den. He described her behaviour, and the mating copulation. He detailed her response to the mating croon, and his indulgence in the instinct to scent mark her. He recalled his frustration over the bond not forming completely, and how he had tasted their combined fluids, and forced her to do the same by thrusting his tongue into her mouth - a primordial reaction, trying to reach an instinct within her to recognize her mate and accept the bond. He outlined his theory about mating practices that had come from the experience, and his plan to let instinct and the outdated practices guide this mating. The liquid he had spread on his skin had dried into a crust that crumbled unpleasantly as his skin moved under it. He needed to cleanse himself, he decided. The pheromones from the liquid would have absorbed into his skin and cleansing himself would dilute the scent but not remove it. The more frequently he reapplied the scent marking, the stronger it would hold around cleansing. He had finished his journal and was deep into researching mating and courting practices, adding the files to the journal, and set his comm to call his second. "Arken," Nadyr greeted him almost eagerly, the use of Rikash's title evidence that Nadyr was not alone. ""How does your mating proceed?" "Well." Part of him was tempted to hold back on the dissemination of the information until he had successfully built a bond with his mate thus proving it correct and ensuring he was the first to succeed, but the interests of his people outweighed his ego. "I believe that Bonds are only partially formed through rutting, and that the courting practices that have fallen out of common use may be part of the process of ensuring it reaches full potential. "I have begun a report and have been attaching relevant historical documentation about the courting process. I will distribute it amongst our males. We will field test the theory." "Yes, Arken," Nadyr replied. "That would make sense. We are, by necessity, mating in the reverse order of our ancestors - rutting before building a relationship with the female." "Retrospectively building the relationship, and with it the Bond," Rikash could still taste her on his tongue, and was growing hard from the memory of her skin against his, and the clench of her around his swollen gland. "I will need some equipment for the courting practices. I will prepare a list and send it to you, to have delivered here. That is all, Nadyr." "Thank you Arken Rikash." There was, however, a pause on the other side of the line before Nadyr disconnected, as if his second had wanted to say something more and then changed his mind, and Rikash wondered what it was that his second had decided not to say.