Ovation (Galaxy Circus #9)

Chapter 37

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Silac

U nfortunately, we are on a deadline, so any further celebrations are going to have to wait until after the mission is complete. The hangar is cleared out of everyone but Lila, Tirrian, and me, as well as her parents, grandparents, the gods, and the warlocks.

“Lila, when you make your entrance, make a big scene that will allow the three of us to enter the room unseen in our mist forms,” Xylene instructs.

“Whatever happens, Vivax can’t get her hands on the orb. If she does, all is lost, so don’t show it to her until the last minute,” Gigi tells me.

“Keep her talking while our forces take care of the perimeter guards,” Cronus instructs. “Once that is done, Maxsim will advise Xavier, who will let the ship know, and the Vilaxians will beam down and do their thing.” Saxon is responsible for tagging everyone inside the complex with transporter beacons. Musette, Mehira, and their parents will take care of any forces outside. “Then you guys will do your thing.” He nods to the gods.

“Yes, you need to make sure she is frozen too. Hopefully she didn’t think to wear a nullifying pendant. If you don’t, she doesn’t have the power to do any damage to us gods, so she will aim at Tirrian and Silac to cause a distraction,” Liliana warns, and I see Lila swallow nervously.

“Maybe they should stay behind, and I’ll do this on my own,” she argues.

“No,” Tirrian and I snap.

“No way. We are with you until the end,” he tells her.

“And in the case that she isn’t frozen, both of us are very capable of defending ourselves. I’ll be in half form anyway, and I can always mesmerize her if I need to,” I add, feeling confident.

“But you can’t torch her,” Zeydan tells Tirrian. “I don’t want to wait another five hundred years until she returns, not to mention we have no idea who or what she would reincarnate as. I think the only reason she came back as Skarrian this time is because her and Liliana’s essences were tied together. Next time, she could come back as one of her own creations, and we’d never find her.”

“I won’t. I want this over and done with,” Tirrian promises.

“Here.” Xavier holds out a couple of collars with leashes attached to Lila. She takes them, looking at him quizzically.

“We’ve embedded them with a type of shield that will activate if Vivax tries to harm them.”

“These are for the guys?” she asks, turning them over in her hand.

“Yes. Madovians don’t have mates, they have captive breeding vessels. Tirrian and Silac are yours, but Madovians are very possessive of them because they carry the future of their race within them, and they don’t let them get far away. They also continue to use them for sexual pleasure until their eggs hatch, kill, and consume the incubators,” he tells her, smirking at the dragon and me. Smoke wafts out of Tirrian’s nose, his annoyance at our warlock very visible, but I don’t care. I like the idea of being owned by Lila, just not the eaten vessel part. She turns her attention to me.

“Change forms,” she says, and I do, stripping off my clothes and tossing them to the side before letting my half form take over. When I’ve finished changing, I’m staring down at her, and she looks up at me with a smile. “I can’t quite reach you. Bend down a little?” she asks, and I do as requested. I’m face-to-face with her, her sweet breath brushing over me as she places the collar around my neck and tightens it. I grunt and pray my cocks behave. Now is not the time to have dirty thoughts about these collars.

We can keep them for later if you want . I startle when Xavier’s voice sounds in my mind, and so does Lila. He must have projected the words to both of us. I see Lila nod her head, and she smiles. I have to think nasty thoughts so I don’t embarrass myself in front of her family.

Once she’s done with me, I return to my normal height and watch as she attaches a collar to Tirrian. He’s already in half form, but Xavier makes him remove his shirt so, as he puts it, all his pretty muscles are on show. He also rubs some kind of oil over his chest so he glimmers like a jewel. Tirrian grumbles the whole time, smoke wafting around him and Xavier, but he lets him do it.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but the dragon likes the collar as well as having my hands on him. I see some fun times in our future , he murmurs inside my head.

He is such an asshole, but one day, revenge will be sweet. I will bide my time.

He steps back and gestures to the two of us. “Attack them,” he tells his dad who doesn’t hesitate to throw magic at us. Shouts fill the air, and Lila leaps forward, like she’s going to put herself between us and the magic, but it’s too late. She isn’t fast enough, and the magic barrels toward us. I put my hands up as if to stop it, but suddenly, a shield activates, and the magic bounces off it harmlessly.

“Oh good, it works.” Xavier and his father look pleased, but Lila shrieks.

“It works? You weren’t sure it worked, and you attacked them?” Her voice is high-pitched, and she whirls on Xavier and his father, glaring at them. Xylene steps back, muttering about idiot husbands and sons.

“Oh dear, I think you’re in trouble,” Cronus says to his son, who puts his hands up and looks at our wife pleadingly.

“Now, honey, I was positive Dad and I knew what we were doing. It isn’t the first time we’ve created a spell like that, just the first time we’ve used collars to hold it.”

“You didn’t think to, you know, test it on yourselves first? You idiots. What if it hadn’t worked? They would have been hurt.” She’s still livid, and Cronus takes his life in his hands by brushing her anger away.

“Oh no, it was fine. That spell would have only given them space pox.”

“Space pox?” she screeches. “How about I give you a dose of space pox?” She holds up her hands, and they start to glow purple.

“Lila, calm down. Now is not the time to get even. He will keep.” Alina pats her daughter on the shoulder, and tension flows out of Lila. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

“Ho-ho, I’d forgotten about your mood stabilizing powers. Very handy in a family like yours,” Cronus complements Alina, who just glares at him.

“Xylene, do you think maybe you could gag your husband so the adults in the room can talk?”

Cronus looks affronted, and Marcus chuckles while Xylene just rolls her eyes and sighs with exasperation.

“Ah, fun times,” William mutters. “I forgot how the four of them were when they are together.”

“Maddening,” Liliana agrees.

“Can we get back to the mission please?” Aarin asks, sounding frustrated.

“Yes, once everyone is frozen and we appear, the rest of the occupants of the planet will be beamed back to this ship using the transponders that Saxon and his family will have placed on everyone” —Zeydan holds up a small transponder beacon that the transporters lock onto— “getting them safely out of the way for us to deal with the orb. Justice can be dispensed after our powers have returned.”

“And once the room is clear we will start the spell that will give our powers back. Only the five of us, Vivax, and Lila can be present. Everyone else must get clear of the planet in case anything goes wrong,” Hurricane says, a frown on his face. “Way clear.”

“What the fuck? No.” I start to argue, and so does Tirrian and Xavier, but Liliana holds up her hand, stopping us before we can voice our opinions.

“I’m sorry. It is the only way.”

With the plan finalized, we take a moment to get our bearings, and Lila needs to change forms. The three of us, with the warlocks in mist form, are going down to the surface in the shuttle, while the rest will beam down when it’s time.

The gods, grandparents, Lila’s parents, and Xavier’s parents all huddle off to the side and give the four of us a moment together.

“I have to change forms, I just wanted to give you all a kiss and apologize for anything this form might say or do when I am wearing it. It’s the hardest form to control. If I try to force you to do anything you don’t want to, knock me out. Mission be damned. We can try again.”

I shake my head. “No way, I will take whatever she does as long as we can complete this mission and get back to living our lives.”

“I agree, but it doesn’t mean I won’t put up a fight,” Tirrian says.

“We will freeze them as soon as we see the opportunity. Vivax should be frozen as well. We just need to be prepared in case she’s wearing some kind of protective charm too. Our intel says she has a warlock on her payroll, but our hope is that he’s no match for our combined powers.” Xavier sounds worried, and Lila leans in and gives him a kiss on the cheek, murmuring to him about how he is the most powerful being in the galaxy and they should be fine.

I ignore all that, my attention on the other group. They are whispering and sending us side glances. I’m pretty sure they are hatching a backup plan. Just when I try to listen closer, Lila steals my attention by grabbing me by the collar and tugging me down to kiss height. She kisses me soundly, and then her body shimmers and sparkles and she’s in her Madovian form. We all back up a little as she stretches her body and the snakes on her head start hissing and striking out.

She runs her hands over the top of her body and strokes her tail against my own. My cocks harden beneath my scales at the feeling of her rubbing up against me, even though she isn’t in naga form. Fuck, it’s going to be a long evening.

“Lila,” Tirrian hisses. His eyes are wide, his pupils are huge, and his own cock is hard beneath his pants. “Reel in the pheromones, otherwise we aren’t going to get anywhere,” he growls, and Xavier waves his hands around.

“Holy fuck, that is potent. I want to jump your bones, and I’m not attracted to that in the least.” He points at the cross-hatched slit in her stomach that seems to be undulating.

“Let’s go,” I say through gritted teeth and move away from her and into the shuttle. She follows, and the warlocks and Tirrian take up the rear. We don’t say goodbye. We’ve all said what we needed to, so now we are mission focused. The warlocks turn to mist in the ship, so their life-forms aren’t sensed on any radar, and Lila takes the pilot’s seat, resting her large body on it with her tail behind her. The door shuts, and Tirrian and I find seats far away from her.

“Fuck, that is awful. I simultaneously want to fuck her brains out and run screaming,” he mutters to me, and I nod with a grimace.

“It really is disturbing. The pheromones seem to want to keep you on edge to confuse their prey. It would be more than horrifying to find yourself as an incubator for a Madovian and not remember anything.”

“Or worse, remember it all.” He looks ill when he says that. “I have no desire whatsoever to take the Madovian form for a spin, as Xavier would say.”

Neither do I , Xavier mutters in our heads. You would have to be psychotic to want to.

“Here we go,” Lila warns as the ship moves out of the hangar and she sets course for Girchi 517E. “We will be within sensor range within the next ten minutes, so the act starts now. We don’t know if they have spying capabilities and can listen to our conversation. I don’t want to blow this mission before we’ve even landed,” she warns, and we all murmur our agreement.

The shuttle is fast, and with the modifications the Vilaxians made, we are in the planet’s orbit in half an hour, and in the lower atmosphere another five minutes later. The communicator pings with an incoming call.

“Yes?” Lila answers, her words sibilant in the Madovian form.

“We have you on our sensors. Why are there three occupants on your shuttle?” a distorted voice demands.

“I have two incubators with me. You know a Madovian won’t leave her eggs unattended.” There’s an awkward pause, and the voice comes back over the speakers. They sound uncomfortable.

“Please be advised, we will be searching your incubators for weapons.”

Lila scoffs. “By all means. I am not stupid enough to allow them weapons, even if they are docile and completely in my thrall.”

She looks at us pointedly, and we both know how we have to behave—blank looks and no reactions but fawning over her.

“We have programed your ship with the coordinates. Fly into the open space and land. Come out so it can be searched. If we see any signs of weapons, we will shoot first and take the orb from you.”

“You can try,” Lila hisses, unwilling to concede to the voice on the radio. The communications cut off, and I heave out a sigh of relief. That went well, or it seemed to. We will only know when we land, which is about ten minutes later.

Lila navigates to the meeting coordinates and sets the ship down in what looks like a large open mine shaft. She engages the landing gear, and the ship bumps down. She turns it off and slithers toward us, grabbing the leashes and giving them a tug. “Come on, boys,” she says, her tongue flicking in and out, the snakes on her head hissing in agitation.

Lila is not wearing anything over her breasts. Madovians are proud of their half forms and wouldn’t dream of covering them. Lila has come a long way since she first joined the circus and was afraid of showing everyone her goodies, as she likes to call them. Now, she doesn’t even blush at the thought of everyone seeing them and pushes them out with pride.

The leashes tighten as she moves down the ramp, Tirrian and I walking docilely behind her. The collars not only give us a shield if needed, but also glamour both of us to look unlike ourselves. We weren’t sure who was a part of the Syndicate, and both Tirrian and I are known throughout the galaxy as not only Lila’s partners, but as the dragon prince and heir to Snakebite Logistics. Tirrian’s glamour makes him look like a blue dragon, with long flowing hair almost down to his ass and gold glitter across his wings. I look like a basilisk, dull green in color with horns all over my head instead of my hood. The mouthful of fangs isn’t particularly pleasant either.

My tongue wants to flick in and out with agitation too, but I have to pretend to be docile, so I clamp my lips shut and stare adoringly at Lila.

There is a door in the wall of the cliff, and it opens before fifteen guards run out, swarming us and the ship. Lila pauses and acts bored as they search the ship, Tirrian, and me. They return and stand behind the commander of the team who waits patiently in front of Lila. His face is calm, but we can see the terror in his eyes.

“All clear,” one of the guards announces robotically, and I slowly turn my head to look carefully at him. That sounded slightly artificial, and sure enough, when I look closely at them, I notice they are all soldier bots like Smith had on Earth.

“Mistress, we must search you too,” the commander insists, and I can tell by how he smells that he isn’t a bot. He smells like terror despite trying not to show it. The rest of the guards smell like nothing but machine oil and computer chips, and it isn’t a nice smell like our cyborg, who smells like electricity before a storm.

“Get on with it,” she hisses. “I have better things to do than hang out here all day.”

He waves the robot forward, and he gives her a pat down, even though there is nowhere she can hide anything since she isn’t wearing clothes. The robot eyes the slit in her stomach, and all of the snakes on her lunge forward, their mouths open. The robot doesn’t flinch but looks at the commander who visibly shudders.

“Leave it.” He waves the robot back, and he steps into line. “If you will follow me.” He gestures us forward, and Lila follows, tugging our leashes. The commander stops. “You can leave your incubators here. They will be safe while you conduct business.”

She hisses and rumbles her displeasure. “My incubators do not leave my sight until they are dead and my babies are consuming their corpses—or would you like to take their place?” she threatens, and the slit in her stomach starts to writhe like it’s going to open.

He swallows nervously and shakes his head. “Fine, bring them, but they will be shot if you try anything.”

“If any harm comes to my incubators, you will replace them,” she warns him, and he hurries forward through the door in the side of the mine. It’s dark in here, but none of us have trouble seeing because we all have excellent night vision. Tirrian’s arm brushes against mine in reassurance, which I don’t need but appreciate. The door bangs closed behind us, sealing us off completely. I don’t turn back to look, but I can hear feet following behind us. It’s not as many as there were, so I’m assuming some of them remained behind to guard the ship.

The path winds its way downward into the mine. I think this is probably the old living quarters of the original miners, but it smells musty and unused, like no one has been here in years.

“How long has this base been stationed here?” Lila asks the commander.

“It’s housed the Syndicate since the first days,” he says proudly. “Right under the Galactic Council’s noses without anyone being any wiser.”

It’s strange that I don’t hear very many heartbeats within the compound. Only a large door at the end of the corridor has any sounds of life. We reach it, and the commander presses a button. It opens into a bright room. Lila hisses and shrieks as she is temporarily blinded by the bright light. It’s a clever tactic to keep both your enemies and allies off-kilter.

When our eyes adjust, we are ushered through a large room to a seating area at the front of the room. I smother the surprised gasp that wants to leave my mouth. Seated is a who’s who of people Lila has pissed off over the last few months, but in the very center is her grandmother’s sister, Vivian, who we now know as Vivax. On one side of her is Smith, who’s looking smug as fuck, and on her other side is Deineira Digicon, Link’s mother. We suspected both of them, but the people fanning out on either side really aren’t a surprise either.

None of them are looking at us with recognition, though, so I think for now, we are in the clear.

“Mallabar, I was worried you were dead or worse, had been discovered when I hadn’t heard from you for so long. You have the orb?” Vivax asks, and Lila nods.

“Yes.”

“Where is it?” Vivax demands. “You and your ship were searched, and it wasn’t found.”

“I have it, but I don’t see my payment.” Lila looks around. “Where is what you promised me?”

When we were going through past communications, I discovered something truly disturbing. The payment for this Madovian retrieving the orb wasn’t in money or precious metals or gems—it was in male flesh.

Vivax waves a hand, and off to the side, a group of men in shackles are nudged forward by more soldier bots. There are ten of them of all species, and they don’t look like they are in the best condition. I wonder if some of them are the missing aliens from Earth. The Vilaxian showing his fangs might be Logan’s father.

Lila hisses. “I said they had to be in prime condition. My sisters can’t breed damaged stock.” She rears up on her tail, becoming larger and more intimidating. “Are you trying to go back on our deal?”

“Some of them put up a fight and needed to be subdued. A deal’s a deal, now where is my orb?” Vivax stands up.

“Very well, but if any of them don’t survive the implantation, I and all of my sisters will be coming after you. Our species is on the verge of extinction,” Lila threatens.

She reaches a hand into the slit in her stomach, and Vivax watches with greedy eyes. She is so focused on the movement, she doesn’t notice the mist pouring into the room, and neither does anyone else. It is very clever of her to pretend the orb is hidden there. Suddenly, everyone is frozen, including Vivax. I guess she thought she was safe deep inside her mountain fortress.

“Ew, you put the orb in your stomach slit?” Cronus appears in front of us, looking at Lila with horror. Her form shimmers, and she changes into her original form and doubles over in laughter as Xavier covers her in her armor.

“No, but it was a good bluff, right?”

“No!” He still looks traumatized as we all turn to study the Syndicate with detached interest.

“Well, Lila, I would think it’s safe to say everyone you ever pissed off has joined forces to see that you pay,” the warlock says to our wife flippantly, but she ignores him.

“Call the others and let’s get this done.” I can’t wait to see them all pay.