The Breeding Prize - Aya Morningstar Page 0,45

I start hiccuping.

Raiska jolts to his feed and points an accusing finger at Raiska. "You didn't fully cook the meat! She's been poisoned!"

Kula shakes his head. "It's called a hiccup. It's a human thing.

"Hiiiiiick." My throat is too dry, so I cup some water from the stream and slurp it down.

"Drink it upside down," Kula suggests. "Or I could scare you."

"Hiiiickkkkk! None of that ever works for me," I say. "Hiiick. I just ate too fast. I need to take a break. You two eat, please, I'm—hiiiiick—much smaller than both of you. I've probably already had too much."

Raiska doesn't seem to believe that the hiccups are a normal thing, and each time I let one loose, he looks at me with a grave expression.

"Does she need medicine?" Raiska asks.

"I don't," I say, pounding my chest with my fist. A big burp comes out. "That will probably do it. Hiiiiick. Jinxed it."

Eighteen

Raiska

"Brother," Kula says. "I need help with my axe."

"What?"

He looks at me with a frustrated expression. "With my axe."

"It's your axe. What can I possibly do with it?"

He grits his teeth. "Come here!"

Annabelle gives me a hand gesture urging me to go with him, as if she has any idea what he's talking about. "

"I need to stay close to—"

"We'll keep her in sight, just come here."

I walk with him, apprehensively taking steps away from my Muru. When we're twenty or thirty feet away from her, Kula stops us. Annabelle waves at me and takes another bite of the meat.

"What is it?" I ask.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. "You need to get her pregnant."

"I know that."

"I'm going to go make a survey of the perimeter. I'll try to get a higher vantage point and scout for them on the visual spectrum, and on the higher dimensions."

"I should do that," I say.

He shakes his head. "No. I'm only doing this as an excuse to leave you two alone. It's the Breeding Games, Raiska. Breed her."

I clench my jaw.

"Tell me why you think you can’t bond,” Kula says.

"It was an experiment. A cost for my mind control ability. It's a heavy cost, as I swore I'd never use that ability again. I think the Ulkar reformed my bonding ability into the mind control ability, thus I can never bond."

Kula looks me deep in the eyes. His turquoise eyes look almost exactly like mine. He really is my brother. "I got Ellie pregnant after you severed our bond. It's possible. You just have to want it bad enough. Breed her not to win the games, but because you love her with all your heart. Breed her because you want to put a baby in her, and because you want to make a family for yourself. It's going to be hard with so much pressure on you, but try to channel your love for her as you are inside her, and especially as you spill your seed."

I don't like Kula thinking about the mechanics of me getting my Muru pregnant, but I'll forgive him his bluntness given these circumstances, and given his good intentions in trying to help me overcome this difficulty.

"Thank you, brother," I say, nodding. "Make sure you scout far away, as I may have been unable to bond her, but I certainly leave her satisfied, and I don't want you to hear her."

Kula grins. "I'll scout a wide perimeter then."

He leaves at once, and I go back to Annabelle.

"When women on Earth want to do that," she says, "we ask them to come to the bathroom with us."'

"You urinate together?"

She laughs. "No, of course not. We just kind of stand around, maybe check our makeup together in the mirror and talk."

"Men do not do this?"

"No. They try as hard as they can to never go into the bathroom at the same time. I think men talk to each other like that when they are drinking beer, looking at their car..."

"Or in battle?"

"Yeah, probably in battle too. What did you two talk about?"

I put a finger on her cheek and gaze deeply into her eyes. "Kula will be gone for a few hours."

She licks her lips and nods. "That's what I thought."

"He will make sure nothing sneaks up on us as well."

"Good," she says, "then I can focus on just one thing."

I run my finger along her lips. She opens her mouth and pulls my finger into it. Her lips seal around my finger, and she runs her tongue in spirals around it. I close my eyes, and my cock