Lydia's Run

"I've seen enough.

I want to go home."

I started the long walk back with Jareth and the Colonel. Finally, I was dressed in village clothes again. Clothes that fitted me and felt comfortable. Naked for most of my life, it was strange how wearing clothing had become so natural so quickly.

It was several days of travel through the mountains and on the second day we were high enough to look back over the forest and the plains.

As we watched smoke rising on the horizon I knew it was over. The City was dying. Angry people had started fires, burning anything they viewed as a symbol of Protector.

"There are hundreds that will be disoriented and frightened. They need our help." I said.

"They'll get it. My men will keep them safe until it arrives. We're sending everyone available. We'll pass them on the trail tomorrow. The City people will be resettled. Then we'll teach them to live how they should."

"Do you think they'll accept it?"

Jareth answered me.

"You did. And you were reluctant to leave."

It was true. If it hadn't been for the fear of losing Amelie I might have spent my days frustrated by my almost but not quite, pleasuring, then gone obediently to be... turned into food. The thought was frightening.

Thirteen

It took several moons to resettle the City's residents into shelters outside its ruins. The old village, ransacked by drones, was resurrected and expanded for them. The soldiers worked night and day, clearing land and constructing new huts. Our hunters began teaching the willing how to fish in the lake and hunt the game.

Women from the Base and schoolers from the village spent time explaining the new world these people found themselves in. Adora was amongst them, keen to be of help.

Some relished their freedom. Others were fearful and lost without Protector's guiding hand. They were scared of animals and horrified by crawling insects. But slowly, they were all gaining confidence and accepting their new life.

Regular transits between the settlement and the base brought fresh stories of City dwellers amazed and horrified by new experiences. I recognized so many of them in my own journey

At our settlement in the Base, Amelie had her birthing moment and we welcomed an XY, a boy into the world. Elan, meaning tree. A tribute to a thriving world of nature we'd been told didn't exist.

I was sure Elan would grow up as strong as his namesake and become a hunter like Albus. Perhaps even becoming Annalise's Lifemate. That was my dream. But for now, it was long into the future and it would be their choice. They wouldn't need a license or approval from Protector, or anyone else.

Time had passed quickly since the end of Protector. Another winter was coming. For all of us, this one would be hard. Crops had gone in later than they should and some early ones had been missed completely. If that wasn't enough, we also had to feed the people of the city. But we would get through.

Our new friends had means of preserving foods the villagers hadn't known and skills they were more willing to trade with other villages that had escaped the attacks to help us out.

I'd learned that Protectors lie of a millennium passing since the old world of the ancestors had only been a few generations in truth, but I saw how our species had already taken three separate paths. Albeit one forced by Protector's selective breeding. I wondered what would become of us with interbreeding in a few more generations. Perhaps we would revert to being like the ancestors. The military men. Bigger and stronger.

Whatever, I would not be part of it again. I had Annalise and I'd lost Quillan. I wasn't looking for a replacement. I was satisfied with having been bred the once.

No. My body would only be used for enjoyment in the future. A pleasure that lay in the arms of my Second. Amelie. I looked across at her now, sitting with me and others around the village fire as the sky darkened towards night. Soon the stars would be out. Thousands of tiny specks looking down on us from the eons.

Lyra was looking sleepy and I tucked her under one of the blankets as she put her head down next to Annalise and Elan. They were already sleeping peacefully in their baskets.

"Can you watch the babies for me?" I asked softly.

"Of course"

I knew she'd fall asleep but she was there if they woke. And there were others around. Plenty of villagers, all looking out for one another. That was how things were. Everyone looked out for each other. No one need to fear for the safety of their children. I wouldn't be missed for a short while.

I took Amelie's hand and gave her a playful tug to stand up. She smiled as she got to her feet and we wandered away from the others hand in hand, to the hut the five of us shared. I wanted a moment with just the two of us.

I think Amelie knew what was coming.

"It's just us now." She said tinged with a hint of sadness.

Her hand twiddled with the opening at the top of my tunic. A finger stroking my throat.

"Just us.

Together." I answered softly.

It wasn't just us. We had a family. Annalise and now Elan. Plus we had Lyra. She was as much one of us as our own breedings. Our flesh and blood.

I grinned devilishly.

"Do you want to fuck?"

I asked with that same sense of something naughty, illicit, as when we spoke those words in our old life. The uttering of words forbidden to us and used only in whispered tones for so long.

"Oh yes." Amelie broke into a grin.

Immediately we were pulling at each other's clothes, kissing, snatching touches of one another's bare skin. Experiencing the delightful, excited tremors that came with each brush of a hand over hidden flesh.

We were naked, falling as one onto the bed. My mouth to hers. Then to her tit, swollen from her recent breeding. A hint of her milk on my lips that I didn't mind. A hand cupped my pussy between my open legs.

"Uh."

A finger parted me and my wetness eased its passage into my hot accommodating hole.

"I want you so much." Amelie said on a hushed breath of desire.

She pushed me down and climbed over me, kissing my tits, my belly, then around my pussy before putting her lips to it. I squirmed as she kissed the center of my pleasure.

"Oh, my Lord."

My back arched and my head went back sharply.

"Uhh."

It'd been so many moons since I'd experienced myself being aroused by another and it washed over me with a renewed vigour. Amelie's hunger was just as evident. Her hands moved in a frenzied dance over my body, touching me everywhere, desperate to touch me more.

"I desire you so much." She whispered.

Amelie was promoted that night. She was no longer my Second. She became my First. My Life-Mate.