Page 2 of Bred By Zyros
“You can bring us a child, Zyros.”
Even now, such a beautiful gift is met with such contempt, the disgust in her silken voice pungent.
It is why they bring me in here, far from the haven of my cave. Every single rainy season, I am paraded in front of the females as if it is a blessing to be used as their seed beast. Every season, I am forced to take one. I curl my tail underneath me as I rise, my eyes slipping from the females to Xyphora. Her scales around her cheeks darken as I move closer, invading her space. Her heady pheromones taste like ash on my tongue as I dart it out, testing. “Perhaps this year I will choose you.”
To anyone else, it is a simple flirtation, a display of bold obedience.
But the beautifully hideous female in front of me sees it for what it truly is: a threat.
She doesn’t want to endure it; best everyone else bear the quiet ones. Best she doesn’t feel what’s left of her withered heart wrenched from her own chest when others can suffer in her place. Her thin lips move to peel back, baring her fangs in warning before she thinks better of it, schooling her features as well as I do mine, perhaps better. It is odd, to think there was a time we were friends. Neither of us can mask what we feel now. A hate that runs this deep is difficult to hide.
“Before the stormy season,” she orders.
I don’t cast her nor the spectating females another glance as I slip from the halls, letting the full weight of my emotions hit me for the first time since I entered. The trek here was spent in numb waves of misery and a kind of jarring, dreadful anticipation. It takes a special madness to walk straight into the blade pointed at your neck.
The hate, fear, and longing tunnel through me. Still, I pretend I feel none of it, as if that will make it true. My tail coils, itching to lash out at the loud, poisonous machines that litter our home, their roaring cries and groans like wraiths, a once pristine, quiet, and peaceful jungle corrupted like everything else on this planet.
They want me to choose.
Then I will.
But not one of them.
Never one of them.
Never again will their hands touch, claw, and grip. Force.
The jungle is alive around me as I race through it, my heart raging in my chest as I find my way onto my airship. It comes to life around me, welcoming me in the way your home does after a long day of labor. Dark and still, familiar scents and objects, but today, little of it does anything to calm me. Venom fills my mouth, but I choke it back, my eyes darting to the few remaining males slinking through the trees at the edge of my territory. They come too close, but far enough away not to justify killing more.
They envy me.
I am amongst the most wretched beings on this planet, and they wish to take my scales. It is a bizarre, enraging concept. I settle into my seat, ignoring the sight of vibrant emerald and teal. The iridescent, reticulated pattern that haunts the very core of me.
“Destination?” The ship's voice chimes as it jolts from the ground. My thoughts are violent inside my head as I pass clouds and leave behind the thick greenish sky of my planet.
My ship is not much, nothing fancy by a long shot, but it is mine and mine alone. A way out. Should I ever be bold enough to take it. “Vortara Space Station. Patch me through to my contact at the Solar Breeding Agency.”
“Destination logged, approaching hyperdrive.”
I wrap my thick tail around the base of my seat, forgoing formal restraints as the ship lurches into space. The vast dark belly of the universe is swelling and breathing like a breast. The coldness of it always sinks into my bones, deep and unsettling, but I would choose it over the warm springs any day.
“Connecting to The Solar Breeding Agency.”
Unraveling my tail, I stab at the heating sensor, letting it ward away the worst of the chill as the slime green Oozarian female fills my screen. “Mr. Zyros, I was wondering if you’d ever return my call.” She offers me a smile, but it is as filthy as the ones back home.
I glare in response, my eyes tracking the movement of her mate in the background. “You said you had a need for Nyssara’s crystals.”
Her smile widens unnaturally. “And you have a need for a breeder.”
“The situation is precarious,” I add carefully, knowing my planet is classed low on the scale of acceptability, knowing weare not allowed such things. Knowing there’s a chance that if I return with her, the female will be killed before I can rut her.
The woman makes an odd movement I have seen from a few of the humans at different stations on my crystal runs. “I have a feeling it will all end well enough.”
I bite back a hiss. The Oozarians are as morally ambiguous as they are obsessed with human culture. “Can you have one ready by the time I arrive?”
Her mate pops into the screen, his body jiggling as he comes to an abrupt halt. “With the right motivation, anything is possible.”
“It will be don” I hiss before ending the communication, dragging the air of my ship through my lungs, holding it there until it burns. This will be different; it will work.
