Never Submit! The Swarii Brides, Book One (12 page)

Graham felt incredulous. He could barely believe such a thing—it was hard for him to imagine. “Well, she didn’t get that in
me
. Swarii women… you know, are more submissive to their husbands. It’s part of the union—she’s
supposed
to submit to me.”

Peyton laughed, hard. “Well, don’t get your hopes up. Ellie doesn’t submit—not to anybody. That requires respect, and Ellie doesn’t have any.”

“She’ll want to, though,” assured Graham, looking intense.

“She might
need
to—I don’t know all the intricacies of that voodoo union stuff. But Ellie and I were pretty close for the last year, and I know she won’t
want
to. She’ll fight against it with every scrap in her. Ten to one that’s why she was cryin’—she was hoping to gain control again, not to lose it.”

Graham hummed thoughtfully. “So, what should I do, in your opinion? Just give her control?”

“Hell no, she’s way too immature to have control,” Peyton snorted. “Give it to her and she’ll just feel alone and miserable, because she won’t know what to do with it.”

Graham rolled his eyes. “Then
what
?”

Peyton chuckled and shrugged. “Just love her. That’s the only thing you can do. Love her, be patient, and don’t give her enough rope to hang herself with. If I were you, I’d keep a strap on me at all times, because you’re going to be using it
all of the time
. Don’t let her play you. You want her to actually respect you, not just pretend.”

“Urgh,” Graham put his hands over his eyes and turned to Thorton. “Why is my life so
hard
?”

“I’d trade you spots,” Thorton shrugged. “She’s half-blood, but she’s got a hot little body. You could have done worse. They didn’t pick your name in the lottery, anyway, Boss. So you’re lucky you got anything at all.”

As Graham shrugged, conceding Thorton’s point, Peyton’s eyebrows went up. “Lottery? What do you mean?”

“We only have fifty percent of our females left—the Frians released a toxin into the atmosphere of our head planet that focused primarily on females about fifteen years ago,” Thorton explained, the laugh lines in his face smoothed instantly, as there was nothing but seriousness in his voice. “By the time we could find an antidote, we had substantial losses. Not to mention the mass-suicides from the men, after their wives died. The union’s strong—it can throw men into depressive fits when they come home and find their wives dead.”

“That took out twenty-five percent of men, as well. So nearly forty percent of our entire population was gone in the course of a couple of
weeks
,” Graham added. “We had way more males then females afterwards. However, you can only have the union
once
. So, we were unbalanced—one woman for every two males. And so, they devised the lottery for men who haven’t had the union yet. Not every winner of the lottery would even get chosen—you sort of touch around for your genetic match there and hope you find someone. Happens every year.”

“And you didn’t get your name pulled out of a hat to get chosen to do even THAT?” The idea of it sounded surprisingly cold to Peyton—as did the idea of not remarrying after one’s wife died. He wondered what he would do if he lost Mary—the idea had rotated in his mind since he first saw her. He would probably be among the suicides. It would have been too big of a loss.

“It’s not a
hat
,” Thorton argued shortly. “It’s an electronic system. And no, he didn’t. I did, though!” Thorton cracked his knuckles proudly. “Next Spring, baby. Next Spring it’ll be
my
wife who’s complaining that I’m hung like a moose.” He laughed.

Graham’s expression was suddenly blank. “Could you… hear what was going on in there?”

“Not from
here
,” Thorton replied, lifting his shoulders innocently into a shrug. “But if you were standing in the hallway, there were all
sorts
of activity. Poor sound cancellation. I’m surprised you couldn’t hear
each other
.” He waved between him and Peyton.

Graham didn’t know whether or not to be angry. He looked up at Peyton, whose face was heating to red. “Didn’t you have anything better to do,” Peyton asked, “than to listen to me finally have actual sex with my own wife?”

Thorton grinned. “Actually, no. There
wasn’t
anything better to do.”

“Don’t make him angry,” Graham said, actually finding that he wasn’t angry. He was stifling a laugh. “He snapped a Frian’s neck back at the palace—with his bare hands.”

Thorton raised an eyebrow. “No way,” he doubted.

“Way. He’s not a human,” Graham spun around in his chair and faced the consol, quickly logging into the interface. “He’s a beast.”

* * *

Ellie slept late the next day. She was exhausted beyond description. She was sore, everywhere, inside and out. Raw.

She was nearly expecting to feel a gigantic, smooth phallus rubbing up against her behind when she woke up. But instead she heard a gentle, manly snore. Being very careful, she rolled over and saw a completely clothed Graham sleeping on the outside of the sheets. He had such a tired look about him, that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he had never gotten around to kicking his boots off.

She slowly sat up and looked at him.
You should get up and make his breakfast,
a voice in her head lectured her.
You’re HIS, now. Be good.

It wasn’t a real voice—she was quite sure she didn’t have schizophrenia, but if it was she might have been less concerned. She took a deep breath and resisted the voice’s urging.

All the wives in her family—her grandmother, her mother, her aunt—were submissive women. It was like the men in the family scoured the country to find the most pre-twentieth-century women they could find.

It’s because they were half-Swarii, she realized now. More Swarii than
she
was—and Swarii liked their women to submit. They felt they needed it. They wanted their women at home with the kids, to cook and to clean, to look adoringly at them when they came home from work. It made them function better, work harder, and be happier.

Funny enough, this was the first time she had even thought of that. She thought her mother and aunt were crazy to not have ever picked up a career. Their career was their husbands, and they were content with it being that way. But Ellie had gifts—gifts her father and uncle saw right away, gifts that made them forget she was female at all. She had even forgotten her own sex from time to time. It didn’t matter—only the puzzles mattered. Making broken things whole, working. Creating new things, new ideas, things that nobody ever thought to do. She liked not only piecing everything together; she liked to do it in a way that amazed people.

That would not end. It would take more than a union, a primal urge, an alien abduction and a dazzling escape to keep her away from her games, and her puzzles.

Graham would come to realize this in time, she told herself. Then the voice in her head would get weaker and quieter, in time. She didn’t want to be away from Graham—she didn’t need a voice to urge her, there. It was basically a magnetic reaction; gravity, even. There was no getting away from him now. She was sure, down to her bones, that she would be miserable without him. He, for better or for worse, was her mate. She could live with that. She was his—yes. But he was hers, too, and hers
alone
.

She studied what was hers. His face—every piece of skin, his lips, his nose, his eyebrows, eyes… Stubble was beginning to grow into his face, giving him a scruffy look.

She looked up and also noticed that there was a tinge of purple in his hair—the color had looked chestnut under darker light, but in the yellow light radiating from a nearby lamp, she could see violet strands illuminate. She nearly smiled at it, how strange it was, wondering if that’s a normal color of the Swarii—if purple hair was as common as blonde. She couldn’t wait to see.

She looked at his hands, and then squinted at them. Carefully, she put her hands around his wrist and lifted his hands. She put her hands up against it, just in case she was counting incorrectly.

Six fingers. How had she not noticed? Actually, she was almost jealous. She’d always wanted six fingers—since the invention of the keyboard, it didn’t seem like there was ever enough digits. She was amazed, and her amazement continued as she noticed the size of his hand in comparison to hers. Even the smallest digit was the width of her thumb.

Suddenly, the large hand closed around hers, then brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles tenderly, and then brought up his other hand to stroke her knuckles. “Are you playing with me, wife?” he grumbled.

She blushed slightly, but he didn’t open his eyes yet to see it. “When did you get dressed?”

“Last night. I wanted to make sure I took my turn at watch. Relieved Thorton so he could get some shut-eye until Brahm woke up and could relieve
me
.”

The name was unfamiliar. “Do I know Brahm?”

He played with her fingers, his eyes still not open. His voice sounded like a low, rumbly yawn. “My team has Fie, the largest. Thorton— he’s the smart ass who won’t shut up. Jio you haven’t talked to, because he doesn’t speak Human. He’s a rookie; this is his first out-of-ship mission. And Brahm you haven’t talked to, either, because he
also
doesn’t speak Human, but that’s only because he doesn’t
like
humans and thus has made it a point NOT to learn it.”

“Why don’t you guys just speak in shal’ta? Why did you develop your own language in the first place?” she asked, sounding a little frustrated.

“Speaking in shal’ta is considered rude,” he replied simply. “It’s a joke that you don’t bother moving your mouth to speak to your enemies. Only the Frians shal’ta as a language. Their species developed on a water-planet. They couldn’t create a language with sounds, since they spent so much time in the water, and so they developed the ability to shal’ta.

“We didn’t develop the ability naturally, either—not the original habitants of my home world, at least. Not until we—the people of Swaraan—started breeding with a race genetically similar to our own called the Libiis. Our species was physically superior to theirs, but they had far more brain capacity and also had telekinetic and telepathic powers. It was their idea to set up a program where the two species merged—that way we could both benefit; them with more physically capable bodies and us with more intelligence. This was only about three thousand years ago.”

“
What
? Your whole species?”

“And all the Libiis. All the Swaraan and Libiis took one another as mates, and we simply merged. The Libiis had done it
far
before the Swaraan, my more physically-capable ancestors. It happens every so often. The Libiis were already at war with the Frians at that point. When the Swaraan mixed with the Libiis, we inherited all of their enemies as well, including the Lizards. We’ve been fighting against the Frians ever since. So, actually, the Swarii blending with humans isn’t too odd. We already have blending in our heritage.”

“That’s…” she sputtered, shaking her head. “That’s crazy! That’s
Twilight Zone
stuff!”

His eyes opened slowly. “Nope. Don’t get it. Don’t get
Twilight Zone
. What does it mean? And it
better
not be swearing. I’ll warm your bottom for you.” He pointed a firm finger in her direction.

She slapped his finger out of her face and shook her head. “You’re not
supposed
to get the
Twilight Zone
,” she explained shortly. “It’s how they tell us weird and creepy fictional stories.”

“Well, this wasn’t fictional. Truth is
always
stranger than fiction. It’s been my experience that just when you think things are getting too weird to handle, that just means things are about to get a whole hell of a lot weirder.”

She considered this. “Yes. That would be about my experience, too,” she admitted, then let her lip pout a bit. “So, does the entire
universe
think spanking humans is okay, or what?”

He groaned and sat up on the bed—obviously, he was not a man who liked a whiny wife. “It’s not a human thing, it’s a bratty, disobedient, or disagreeable
woman
thing,” he corrected, patiently. “Don’t they do that to their women and children on
your
planet?”

“Not the civilized countries!”

“Ah, well. Consider the rest of the UNIVERSE
uncivilized
, then. Sorry to break it to you,” he snorted with disbelief. “Come here, let me see you.” When he said ‘come here’, she sort of thought he meant her to sit on his lap. He didn’t. With a tug of her arm, he had her over his knees, and was beginning to drag his fingers along the welts on her bottom.

“Hey!” she complained, beginning to feel embarrassed at the view he undoubtedly had.

“These look like some
human
worked into you quite well,” reminded Graham. “So, I’m definitely not the only brute you know. You can blame me all you like, but your problem is cross-species. This looks like the switch,” he noted thoughtfully, fingering another tender welt that stretched across the outsides of her labia. He tsk-tsked when she cringed. “Ooh, poor baby. That looks pretty painful.”

“You spanking me earlier didn’t make it feel any better,” she assured. “Stop playing with me.”

“Are you positive?” he said, his voice turning velvety and mischievous. He dipped one of his large fingers into her wetness.

Her whole body twitched at the evasion. “I’m positive! I’m
sore
,” she whined. “I’ve had a very rough twenty-four hours.”

He ran his fingers around a small bruise by her rectum. Her rectum, in response, puckered protectively. “Where’d you get this? This bruise?”

“I don’t know,” she lied. She knew it was from the butt plug. It was too familiar of an area. She was sure the outer rim of the plug had bruised her when she fell on her ass.

“You’re not half as good at lying as you think you are,” he told her.