Page 84 of Condemned

She almost tripped at the door leading into the street daylight. A thought had confused her as much as the blinding light.

Four. She had four mates, and this last one was possibly the one who would make her want him the most. Takk kind of owned her now. From fucking her once, and talking to her once, and that hug.

She wasn’t sure how precisely he’d managed that when he hadn’t even birched her ass yet.

* * *

The high priest leanedaway from the screen. Beads of sweat showed on the side of his face.

The Spy Room rang with heated, suffocating silence. You could almost hear it panting.

“Well. I think it best we preserve that video file for the education of future generations. Don’t you? The captain, ummm, moves so well.”

“Uhh.” Lesser Priest Han nodded vigorously, adjusting his robe into a new, less stimulating place on his body. “Yes, High Priest. We can refer to it whenever we practice the Dance of Love? Yes?”

“An excellent idea!”

They agreed with each other, and that the recording of the captain doing things to the huleon female should therefore be filed at the very back of a cabinet under X, where it was likely only a few priests would ever rummage.

“I have also, after much study of the inscription, deciphered the writing on the chest of our love machine. It is not simply ARBO. The ancient inscription reads WARBOT.”

“Ohhhh.” Lesser Priest Han blinked. “That fits with the prophecy!” His opinion of the high priest rose.

“Yes! Yes, it does. It and its small rider have departed the town. Everything is falling into place.” He smiled. “Everything.”