Andie heard someone moaning, and realized it was her. She couldn’t look down, still held immobile by Kragen’s strong hand in her hair, but she could feel the mark on her breast burning. She was so close. The closer he brought her, the more her worries, her concerns, her awareness of the wider world just melted away. It was delicious.

She wanted more.

As if he heard her, Kragen brought her up roughly by the hair, making her hiss with both pleasure and pain. Leisurely he passed a hand over her body, fondling her breasts, pinching her nipples, feeling the curves and valleys of her woman’s body like a man surveying what was his. Andie bit her lip, her mind nearly gone.

“You know what to do, lubcha,” he said, gruffly.

Her eyes opened. He had brought her around until she was facing the throne area, which was now undoubtedly a giant bench with all sorts of restraints and attachments. For a second, Andie panicked.

And then she realized: she did know exactly what to do.

She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. It was like she had always known. Like this had always been part of who she really was, the part of her no one else had ever been able to see. All those nights, dreaming, and never remembering: it had all been building to this.

A submissive Leonid mate presented herself. She let her mate see her naked, spread, bent over, restrained and exposed—and offered herself to him for the taking.

She begged.

The thought sent a current of electric desire running through her. Fuck. She’d never have known this was something she wanted, and now that it was here…

Fuck. She was so wet she was embarrassed. And that was part of the point.

And that only made it worse.

“Do not keep me waiting, mate,” Kragen said, and the note of warning in his voice made her breath hitch.

He released her hair, which she missed immediately. But then she saw this was part of it. She had to walk of her own free will. She had to make the choice. She had to beg.

Every step toward the bench felt conscious. Every step brought her more into her body, more aware of the notes of pleasure thrumming through her. As she approached the claiming bench, she could see that it was made out of a different kind of Leonid metal—darker, but no less alive than the kind she’d seen before. It was cold to the touch, but then grew warm under her finger, as though it responded to her.

Behind her, she heard Kragen growl. Good. Maybe he was suffering as much as she had.

But then she looked down, at the restraints, and she gasped a little.

Andie had never actually done anything like this before. She’d fantasized about it. Oh Lord, how she’d fantasized about it. But the most she’d ever managed was some light spanking and hair-pulling with a few boyfriends that she’d had to fake it with anyway. And now she was supposed to bend over, restrained, and…

Her hesitation was interrupted by a tide of sensation flowing over, through her—a tide that came from the bond she shared with Kragen. The mark on her breast burned bright, and her body shuddered, all over. It was like being flooded by a force she simply couldn’t deny. A force that was ruthlessly dominant, but also, somehow, full of love. A force that owned her, and would care for her. A force that was safe.

Andie groaned as she let go and that force overwhelmed her. She knew it was Kragen. She didn’t know how it worked, but she knew it was him. It was like being possessed by him completely. She almost wanted to try resisting, to see what that felt like, but her body wouldn’t let her. Obeying gave her too much pleasure.

The fever building, she took the last steps up to the royal claiming bench. As she pressed the top of her naked thighs into the dark metal, the force within her retreated back down the bond, and she knew why. The same reason her back was to Kragen. If she had to look at him, there was no way she could make a free choice. If he were inside her, possessing her, she would never have the strength to say no, if that’s what she wanted.

But she wanted to say yes.

Andie took a deep, shuddering breath, and began to bend over the bench.

She felt a ghostly hand at her back, another force, pushing her down harder, faster, and she groaned. The feeling was indescribable. Andie was so aroused she was actually having trouble breathing.

Instinctively she reached forward to grab a pair of handles, just to have something to hold on to, and saw that the dark Leonid metal of the bench actually altered itself to fit her body. The handles slid forward, as though the metal itself were liquid, and the back of the bench fell away from her. Now it was perfectly angled, at the perfect height. She was bent over at just past a ninety-degree angle, her legs spread, her lower belly supported by the bench. The angle of the bench fell away from her, so that she rested on her forearms while her hands grasped the handles, her breasts swaying, her nipples brushing the metal beneath her that seemed to be alive.

Wetness dripped down her thigh. Behind her, Kragen growled.

Andie’s pulse pounded heavy and hard between her legs. Her mind was almost gone, replaced by sensation. The only thing she could remember, at that moment, were Kragen’s words: You will beg.

She closed her eyes, and gripped at the handles.

“Please, Kragen,” she said. “Please. Don’t wait any longer. Please…”

She heard him approach, as though her hearing was super sensitive along with the rest of her. She couldn’t tell how she knew, but she knew he was standing right behind her, with that glorious, terrifying cock out and ready. She groaned, and tried to look back, over her shoulder.

“Please!”

Kragen’s growl was her only answer, and then his hand on her neck, holding her where he wanted her. Anywhere he touched her became an erogenous zone, pleasure fizzing under his touch like a million tiny bubbles made of pure light. She arched her back against it, and he felt his other hand smooth down her back to her hip.

Finally, finally, he spoke.

His voice was rough, deep. Heavy with need, bound by control.

The voice of her mate.

“Do you submit to me as your Dominant mate,” Kragen said, “for now and evermore?”

“Yes,” Andie breathed. “Yes! Please, just—”

The metal of the bench beneath her began to shift again, and Andie gasped as it flowed up and over her wrists and ankles, forming metal restraints with no seams, no releases. The only way out would be through a Leonid command. A command that only Kragen knew.

She was truly at his mercy now.

Andie wanted to scream for him. She wanted him inside her, she wanted to know what it felt like, she wanted—

“Oh God,” she moaned, as he slid his hand from the outside of her hip to her ass, his thumb pulling her soft flesh away from her wet, aching pussy. “Please,” she said again, only this time it was a weak whisper.

Kragen chuckled behind her, still in complete control, while she was losing herself to the hunger. How did that work? How was he still?

“Oh fuck,” she panted.

Both hands held her ass now, spreading her as much as possible, and she knew why.

He was going to try to put that thing inside her.

For a moment, fear sparked inside her. Kragen’s cock was huge, just like the rest of him. Andie liked a little bit of pain, but she didn’t know how it would be physically possible for him to fuck her.

She remembered what Kragen said—his seed would change her. Mold her and him, together. Make them one.

And then she felt the tip of that huge, hot, hard cock pressing against her wetness, and she bent her head in a long, low moan.

She began to shudder as Kragen held her hips in place with his huge hands. It was too much, too big, too overwhelming, and yet her body craved it. That moan became a keening wail as Kragen ruthlessly pressed forward, the tip of his cock penetrating her as she shook around him.

Andie dropped her head, her legs shaking, her back arching, unsure if she could do it. And then she felt it.

The change.

She closed her eyes, and surrendered to the sensation. Little points of light danced inside her, swirling around her core, glowing. Everywhere they touched she felt pleasure blossom inside her, the kind of pure bliss she hadn’t ever really believed was real. Gentle waves of a long, lazy orgasm started to spread through her, and she relaxed into it.

Kragen pressed into her, driving forward another ruthless inch, and she screamed with both pleasure and pain, sure she was stretched to the limit, and then the points of light came back. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she could feel them all over. Every time she thought she couldn’t take more of him, the waves of pleasure came back, beams of warm light that emanated from somewhere deep inside her, stretching her.

“Please,” she groaned. “More.”

With a growl, Kragen plunged fully into her, and Andie screamed at the sharpness, the pain melting into pleasure, a pleasure that built so quickly she couldn’t speak. He was too much for her, until he wasn’t, and she felt herself expanding around him, molding to him until they were a perfect fit, like a lock and a key.

She opened her eyes, surprised that she could see. She was covered in a sheen of sweat with her mate’s cock buried inside her, so aware of every physical sensation that it was paradoxically almost an out-of-body experience.

Andie was his now. She belonged to him. And he belonged to her.

Wordlessly, Kragen began to rock inside her, and that was her limit. Like a dam overflowing, her orgasm began to spill over the edges of her core, flooding her with wave upon wave of screaming pleasure. Her breasts jiggled as she shook helplessly, her muscles contracting around Kragen’s cock in a desperate rhythm.

He waited.

Andie cried out as the contractions died down, wanting to feel him move, wanting them to come back. She got her wish. With a triumphant growl, Kragen pulled out, the head of his cock dragging against her most sensitive nerves, and drove into her, all the way to the hilt.

Now it was Kragen’s turn. And he was relentless.

He thrust into her, fucking her for his pleasure, taking her completely, filling her wet core without mercy, without quarter. He fucked her hard and he fucked her rough, owning her. With every stroke her nipples brushed against the metal below and her clit felt the impact of his heavy balls shuddering through her swollen, wet folds. Andie had never been this high, had never felt anything like this before, and somehow she knew that she wouldn’t come again—not without Kragen’s permission.

Her body belonged to him.

She was dizzy, trembling, barely able to hold herself up on her sweat-slicked forearms when he roared his own orgasm, and the hot warmth filling her pushed her over the edge again. Andie could feel it inside her, could feel that part of him inside her, connecting them. He had marked her.

But he wasn’t done.

Kragen muttered a command in Leonid that Andie couldn’t quite catch from the pillowy, boneless heights of the most powerful orgasm of her life. She now understood what it meant to be on a cloud, and she didn’t want to come down.

Kragen had other ideas. His command was for the bench, and Andie watched as the restraints around her wrists melted back into the bench itself, mesmerized by the impossibility of it. She tested one leg, and found that her ankles were free, too. She didn’t have a whole lot of time to contemplate the weirdness of alien technology, though, because her alien mate gripped her by the hips, lifted her up, and flipped her over all in one motion.

He hadn’t even pulled out.

This wasn’t just like her dream. This was better than her dream. Andie forced her eyes into focus, searching out one thing: Kragen’s eyes.

He locked eyes with her, and she stopped breathing. The force of love that hit her was so strong, there was no room for anything else.

For a moment, she didn’t want anything to change, ever. She wanted to feel like this, this connected, this joined to a mate who loved her, who wanted her, for the rest of her life. She never wanted him to pull out. She never wanted to leave this room. She wanted him like this, forever.

“Lubcha,” Kragen said, his voice low and hoarse. “Look down.”

Her eyes trailed down from his glowing, soulful eyes to his powerful chest, covered in sweat, his own mating mark shining bright white in the half-dark room. To the impossible mountain range of his abdominal muscles. To the muscular V where his torso tapered into a thatch of dark hair, and a thick, throbbing, glowing cock, still buried deep inside her.

Andie moaned.

Slowly, very slowly, he began to pull out. Andie arched into him even as she obeyed his order to watch, not wanting him to leave her. As he slid out of her, dragging his cock against her g-spot, she saw what he wanted her to see: his mercurial seed, spilled and spread all over his cock, buried deep inside her. The seed that marked her, that joined them. The seed that would…

Andie gasped. She hadn’t let herself think about a family, in all this time. But he was her mate. He would mate her. And the thought brought her too much joy to bear.

“Andromeda Knowles,” Kragen said, threading one huge hand through her hair again as she sighed, and looked back up at his beautiful, hypnotizing eyes. “You are mine now. You are mine forever, lubcha. And you will know it.”

He plunged into her to the hilt, and she arched her back with a cry, her eyes never leaving his. She could see, suddenly, everything. The memories he had of his family, of his time in the service. His fears for her, his hopes. His heart. Their memories began to intermingle together in the bond that they shared, and what she saw there was what she’d always wanted, what she’d never allowed herself to dream of: home.

Kragen’s fangs sank into her neck and she felt the kuma start to flow as he fucked her to another shattering orgasm. The last thing she remembered was watching the mark on his chest turn, bit by bit, to the color of her own eyes.

He was hers.