“I’m going to give you the mating bite, Kai. It will hurt for just a moment, but I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

“Yes,” Kai whimpered softly and Lucas bit deeply into the side of his neck. His teeth were like needles boring into him, and Kai tightened his mouth against the scream that threatened to burst out of him. A burning pain surged into his neck and spread throughout his body. Right away he felt something different at his entrance. The hard rod of flesh seemed even bigger, harder, and it surged inside him and filled him uncomfortably full.

Lucas withdrew until just the fat head of the thing he called his cock was stretching Kai wide, and he just as slowly pushed back in. Kai could feel every inch of Lucas’s beautiful cock as it slowly filled him and drew back again. Every time he brushed over the tender place inside him Kai felt a bolt of ecstasy rush through him.

“You’re doing perfectly, baby. Are you all right? Does it hurt too much?”

“No, I-I love it. Don’t stop.”

Lucas kissed him on the side of his face and then trailed kisses down his neck. “I’ll give you everything you need, Kai. I’ll take care of you.”

Almost as soon as he said the words, Lucas began to thrust harder, faster, really hammering at him. Cries of surprised pleasure flew from Kai’s lips and his fingers clutched at the sheet beneath him. The pleasure was almost too much and he wondered fleetingly if it might kill him, simply stop his heart with its intensity. Even if it did, he didn’t want this ever to stop.

Lucas gave a loud cry as he strained against him. The next instant, feelings like he’d never had before, even in the shower with Lucas, surged through Kai, filling him with intense pleasure. The wetness spurted from his flesh uncontrollably, while at the same time, he felt something hot and liquid inside him, filling him and running down the backs of his legs. Instead of dissipating, the feelings only got stronger and he was completely overcome with joy like he’d never known. In some other part of his brain, he knew that Lucas was licking his neck where he bit him, bathing the bite in saliva, and it felt—incredible. He tried to get closer to Lucas, pushing back into him. He realized suddenly that his breath was coming in short gasps, and he couldn’t seem to get enough air inside his lungs. His heart was pounding wildly.

Trying to let Lucas know he must be dying, he reached back and found his fingers. Lucas squeezed them tightly in his and leaned down to whisper again in his ear. “It’s the venom, Kai. You’ll be fine. I won’t let anything hurt you. Sleep now, sweetheart. Try to rest. ”

Kai sagged beneath him, totally spent. His husband said he wouldn’t let anything hurt him. Kai wondered as he drifted into sleep if he could keep that promise. Especially since, it was Lucas, himself, who was most dangerous to his well-being.

* * * *

Lucas was drinking Lycan tea in the lounge area when Blayde came in to get himself a cup. He and Larssen were piloting the ship, yet Blayde still sat down beside him.

Lucas glanced up at him. “Shouldn’t you be helping Larssen?”

“He’s fine for the moment. I wanted to find out if you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“What’s going on with this boy, Lucas? Why did they tell everyone he was a female?”

Lucas shook his head. “I still don’t know for sure. Crazy-ass laws on Scythia. Boy children are rejected, didn’t the matchmaker say? I certainly didn’t see any men the entire time we were there. Kai claims his mother wanted to keep him even though he was a male child, so she pretended he was a girl.”

“What? Well, on a planet where the women are so big and muscular, I can see that it could work. But she had to know it would come out eventually. How did he feel about it?”

Lucas shrugged. “He won’t tell me much. I think he’s trying to cover up his mother’s lies. She must have wanted him gone too, and that’s why she pulled this shit to get him off the planet once he got older. The matchmaker must have told her I preferred males anyway. Kai’s not talking, but he seems almost too innocent. No one at his age could possibly be as naive as he pretends. I think he’s still lying to me and trying to gain my sympathy.”

“Yet you mated him anyway.”

“You know I don’t have much choice in the matter. My wolf would have taken over if I hadn’t. ” Lucas looked at Blayde sardonically. “You must remember how that is. You were ready to mate with Ryan even believing him to be a murderer.”

Blayde nodded. “You’re right. Nothing could have stopped me. At the time, I thought maybe I could train him to be a good person.”

“I guess I’m thinking the same thing. If I can, I’ll train the deceit right out of him—teach him to act like a man and always tell me the truth. I may have to keep that bottom of his reddened and well-spanked for a while to do it.”

Blayde laughed. “Lucky you.He’s got a nasty temper, though. I don’t envy you.” Blayde got up and stretched. “Then again, maybe I do,” he said, laughing. “I’d better get back to the comm deck. Larssen will already be cussing me. Why don’t you curl up next to your new mate and get some rest? You look exhausted.”

Lucas nodded. “Maybe I will. I’ve been sitting here thinking about what I’ll tell them when we get home.”

“And?”

“The truth, of course, but as little as possible.I won’t tell them about the deceit. They’d blame Kai, and hate him for it, and I won’t do that to him. No, I’ll take the blame. My mate is a male, and they’ll have to accept it. If they want an heir, I’ll have to use surrogates, like our father did. If Boris and his friends don’t like it, they can leave and go back to the home planet.”

“Now you’re talking,” Blayde said with a smile. “That’s what I’ve said all along. Perhaps we should strongly suggest that anyway, as soon as we get back. His disloyalty doesn’t set well with me.”

“Nor me. Yes, it may indeed be time to tell Boris and his friends to relocate. I don’t want them upsetting Kai.”

“You’re very protective of him, despite the fact you think he’s lying.”

“Not lying exactly. From how tight he was, and how surprised and ignorant of lovemaking, I know he was telling the truth about some of it. He’s incredibly innocent. My wolf is happy about that, of course. But he’s keeping something more from me, and I need to find out what it is. I hate lies.”

Blayde left with a little wave, and Lucas finished his tea and went back to his quarters. Kai had moved over to the center of the small bed and was stretched out over it. He was lying on his back, and his face looked young and vulnerable in sleep. Overcome by his strong scent in the small room, Lucas quickly took off his clothing and lay down next to him, scooting him over and spooning him. His body was warm, and Lucas knew the venom was at work, changing his boy into a Lycan mate. From this point on, they would need to be together or at least in close proximity at all times. Even now, Lucas could sense the restlessness of his mated cousins as they hurried to get back home to their mates.

If Lucas was upset or angry with Kai, his mate would feel that anger as a physical pain in the gut and feel the need to be submissive until the pain stopped. He would never be able to feel passion for another man, though Lucas would be unaffected. Not that Lucas would ever want anyone else—he belonged to Kai as surely as Kai belonged to him.

* * * *

Kai pulled back the string on his bow and let fly at the target, hitting it squarely in the middle. Lucas had set up the targets for him soon after they arrived on Lycanus 3, and Kai spent time practicing every day. Not because he was really interested, but because he wanted to please Lucas, who liked him to do things he considered manly, like sports and hunting and watching action flicks on the vid machine.

From the moment they’d arrived, he hadn’t seen much of Lucas, who had been busy with things Kai didn’t fully understand. He knew he was close by, and he saw Lucas every night, but there was apparently some kind of problem with council members that he needed to take care of, and he’d worked late almost every night since they’d arrived. When he was at home, there was a distance between them that Kai strongly felt, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He knew it was mostly because of the trickery and deception that lay between them like a poisonous cesspool, slowly seeping into every facet of their life together, no matter how hard either of them tried to get away from it or pretend otherwise.

Kai couldn’t explain properly about the lies to the matchmaker and he couldn’t tell his mother’s secrets and risk the Alliance taking action against her. Yet since he’d come to this planet, and seen the male children walking around openly, no one acting as if there were anything wrong or shameful about them, he’d begun to feel terribly confused and uneasy.

What if everything he’d been taught all his life had been one big monstrous lie? What if male children weren’t truly defective and the priestesses had lied to the Scythian women? The women of Scythia turned the boy babies over to the priestesses to be mercifully re-assimilated back into the goddess, but what if they could have kept their children? What if the goddess was wrong about males? But that couldn’t be. That would make everything he’d ever known a falsehood, and the priestesses nothing more than monsters. It would make the goddess herself—what?

Kai shook his head, scared by the thought and refusing to contemplate such blasphemy. All his life, he’d been afraid of the goddess’s wrath. As a child, he’d expected any time to be snatched up by the goddess and re-assimilated. These blasphemous thoughts could get him cast into the hells where he would burn forever. He could only hope that the goddess had lost track of him so far away from Scythia. He stood still in the backyard of the alpha’s home, his new home, and looked around him uneasily.

This planet was very different from Scythia. Instead of the verdant forests of his home world, the landscape seemed to be mostly desert, though Lucas had told him it wasn’t all so barren. They had first landed in the middle of the night, and Lucas whisked him away to the city as soon as they arrived. The moon had been huge, easily twice as big as the moon on his planet and clearly lit up everything around them. Kai had found the landscape to be strange and beautiful. In the hills beyond the city, Lucas said there were lush forests and streams.