Argurma Monster (The Argurma Chronicles #2)

Chapter 24

Beverly’s nose wrinkled as she stared down at the pool. It looked cold and here she was clothed in a short ceremonial dress that barely covered her privates. She was told that it was a mating gown designed for mating in pools. And she was expected to get into that frigid water wearing it. She didn’t think so.

Besides which, while the water likely once been pure and pristine, it looked off to her. It certainly didn’t look like a sanitary place where she ought to welcome someone fucking her. Gross. That was just begging for an infection. Of course, the whole idea of being mated by Ragal made her stomach turn anyway. Either way, the water didn’t look clean or anything she would want to even dip her smallest toe in. Hell, she would even debate shoving an enemy into it.

“Down into the pool,” Ragal ordered, his lean body pressed up behind her. “It is necessary for being properly mated. You will enjoy it.”

Yuck. How many other matings had occurred there in recent years, fouling the water with sexual fluids. Now she really wanted to gag.

“I said. Not interested,” she snapped. “And I’m sure as hell not getting down into that, nor letting your cock anywhere near me, especially not without penicillin on hand.”

An angry growl erupted behind her and Beverly shouted with alarm as her world shifted abruptly as she was snatched off her feet. It seemed that Ragal didn’t take rejection well. She fought against his hold as he stepped down into the water, her skin crawling as its surface crept closer and closer to her.

“My choice, not yours,” Ragal hissed as his hand came around to cup her between the legs. “You will not even breathe free now. Everything you have will be because I permit it and give it to you.”

“You are still planning on sharing, right captain?” a male called from the side of the pool.

Beverly focused furiously on the owner of the voice and glared at the hateful face. She recognized that asshole. He was the one who hit her.

“I know that she will be your mate and breed for you,” Drivalic hastily continued as Ragal’s head swung in his direction. “But we still get to fuck her with barriers, right? As our reward?”

Her mouth fell open. Oh, hell no!

Ragal grunted in agreement and his body shifted as he dropped her, plunging her lower body into the frigid water. Beverly tried to break away from him and climb out of the pool but then male just laughed and hauled her against him, his cock thumping against her ass. At the touch of his dick, she reared away, flailing violently as the male cursed behind her.

“Drivalic, get down here and hold here,” Ragal snarled, startling her.

Her eyes widened in panic, and she immediately renewed her struggles in desperation as the other male smiled as he stalked to the edge of the pool. Stripping off the cloth wrapped around his waist, he stepped down into the water with them. A frustrated scream erupted from her as she flailed.

“How the hell does anyone think Kaze are peaceful,” she snarled.

Ragal chuckled in her ear. “Oh, normally that is true but, you see, all of our peaceful leaders and upstanding citizens were eaten by the parasite... with some help here and there admittedly. It was easy for me to take control. The people were afraid and looking for a leader. They were happy to make me their captain. This is a new Kaze society, better and stronger, and now you will enjoy being my honored mate,” he hissed as he pushed her toward the male moving fluidly through the water toward them.

Drivalic effortlessly captured her arms and upper torso, drawing her against his chest as Ragal gripped her hips from behind her. Beverly immediately stopped trying to kick him and clenched her thighs, winning an irritated from the male when he attempted to push his cock between her thighs. Her lips thinned in an angry, vindictive smile but she gasped in surprise as her head snapped backward at the strike of Drivalic’s hand across her cheek.

“Be good and open your cunt for the captain,” he hissed, “or else I—” his words faltered and froze as an announcement blared overhead.

“Attention... attention.... There has been a containment breach. All residents head to zone A. I repeat, head to Zone A.”

Beverly blinked in alarm. Her ears were ringing so she only caught a few words, but as far as she was concerned, it was the most important ones. Containment was breached. There was infected loose within the spaceport. She jerked against Drivalic’s hold as she frantically met the male’s worried eyes.

“Look, D, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die here,” she rasped and then whimpered as Ragal’s wet hand slapped over her mouth.

“Hold her steady, Drivalic,” he ordered.

The other male’s eyes widened fearfully. “But captain, the warning—”

“We still have plenty of time to evacuate, but so help me, I am getting my cock into her and completing the ceremony,” Ragal snarled. “Help me now and you will have your turn to fuck her once we get into zone A.”

The male gave him a worried look but nodded, his grip tightening on Beverly. “Just hurry and stick it in her so we can go.”

Ragal panted in her ear, his cock jabbing at her tucked ass and thighs with frustrated grunts. With every thrust, his grunts were getting deeper, more rattling and in front of her Drivalic paled as he stared up at the male.

“Captain—”

He never finished his word. The door burst open with slam as Zoreth stormed in, an unfamiliar blasting lifting in his hand as he took aim and fired. Drivalic’s head exploded in front of her, and she screamed as she wrenched away from Ragal in her terror and broke free from Drivalic’s lax grip as his body sank in the water. She splashed toward the edge of the pool as Zoreth and Talech raceded toward her with Sieylana right behind them. The medic had helped her! Beverly wanted to cry as she splashed toward them. Zoreth tossed the blaster side, out of ammunition, but they were coming for her. Just a little further and she would be safe. She nearly reached the edge when a hard hand gripped her wrist and spun her around.

Ragal grinned at her as his skull fractured and fell away, revealing the bulging parasite attached to his brain.

“Much better,” he hissed in a strange, strangled, gargling sound. “Much better v...vessel.”

Her mouth fell open in a scream as the skull broke open completely and one of Talech’s long spinal limbs pierced Ragal threw the chest, tossing him to the other side of the pool. It all happened so fast but the parasite erupted from Ragal’s cranium just as his body was sent flying, springing far too close to be evaded. Too late. It was too late.

The long legs on the mother parasite’s wedge-shaped forebody were stretched wide as it sailed toward her, as were the numerous thin legs and its whipping tail, all eager to embrace her. It wasn’t that at which she stared with dread as she attempted to raise her blaster again. It was the gaping maw of the alien. Taking up the entire bottom of their head and half of their abdomen, the round mouth was a horrific, sucking void filled with teeth that filled her vision and all of her reality.

A bellow of rage filled her ears, followed by another as the darkness eclipsed the world—and then there was nothing.

Awareness returned slowly. First with the sensation of something warm pressed close around her, and then scent. She didn’t smell the blood and filth that had last filled her nose. She didn’t even smell the dust and debris that she had smelled every waking minute since crash landing on the planet. There was a stale quality to the air that she breathed that made her think it was recycled, but over that there was a crispness of some sort of spice and fruit that she didn’t recognize.

Though it took more effort than she liked, Beverly’s eyes slowly cracked open and then squinted against the overhead light shining down on her face. Her brow furrowed slightly. It looked familiar.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake,” a woman’s voice whispered, and Beverly turned her head and wanted to cry when she saw Meg’s familiar smile. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see it, especially since I thought you had died on Earth. I think I would be quite mad if you died now.”

Her eyebrows flew up at the sight of the woman cautiously hovering over her between the two Argurmas. Although Zoreth and Talech were seated in chairs pulled up beside her bed, both males had collapsed forward to pillow their heads on their arms draped on the side of the mattress as they slept. They lay so close to each other that it was a marvel that Meg couldn’t find any room at all between them, especially since their vibrissae twined together. It made for an adorable picture and Meg gave them two males a fascinated look.

Beverly frowned. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure on all the details, but Kaylar intercepted the beacon. Thankfully we were still pretty close to this area, so it didn’t take us long to get to you because you were in rough shape. They had cut the parasite from you before it could begin to burrow, but there was still a lot of damage from imbedded segments of legs and... well, you don’t want to know,” she finished with a wince.

“No, I’m certain I can live without that memory,” Beverly muttered, which earned her a sympathetic smile. “What about them? And Sieylana? She helped us.”

“They mostly suffered from mild bite wounds and cuts. Some where from fighting their way out against the infected to get to the receiving area of the spaceport with you in tow. Others are from their previous battle that hadn’t been treated. Kaze teeth are close to those of an Argurma, but thankfully the ‘zombies’—as Zoreth called them—don’t transmit the parasite through bites. He explained it once we got them patched up, but they otherwise haven’t moved from your side while the med unit has been working on you. As for your new friend. She is resting. At her insistence, we did thorough scans for all of you, and you all came up clean for the parasites.”

Beverly glanced at her mates. Neither male showed any sign of being bitten or even cut. Beverly ran her fingers over her face and neck experimentally. She didn’t even feel a scar from what Meg had described. “The med unit was able to do all of that?”

Meg grinned knowingly. “Pretty neat, huh?”

Hope rose, tightening Beverly’s chest. “If it can reverse what was done to Talech, then we have to tell him!”

Meg’s smile dropped and she shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I suggested it to Kaylar when he was being mended, but apparently Argurma tech fuses too quickly to their internal system grafts... or some such technological stuff that went right over my head. The gist is that it would have been possible if the implants were only a few days old, but he’s had them for a really long time.”

Beverly closed her eyes in disappointment. It had been too long. He had them for weeks before he even went under stasis.

“How do you feel?” Meg murmured, her hand swiping over Beverly’s brow.

“Like I was run over by a bus,” she groaned. Her brow furrowed. “A bus is—”

“I know what a bus is,” Meg chuckled. “They may not have been operational by my time, but I’ve seen more than a few abandoned buses. That good, huh?”

“Could be better,” Beverly muttered. “But at least we’re all alive, and that’s the important part. I don’t know what I would’ve done if anything happened to either one of them.”

The other woman nodded and cast a glance toward the sleeping males. “They are quite devoted. It would make it hard choosing a mate between them, I imagine, if at all.”

Beverly nodded miserably. “And damned if I don’t love both of them.”

How would she ever choose and risk breaking the heart of the other?