Playing Their Parts

Cassie shifted in her seat again. Damn it, there was his scent again! Masculine and hot with notes of some dangerous, dark spice that seemed to invade all her senses and make her tingle in really inappropriate places. It made her want to lean towards her partner, to get closer to him. To…kiss him?

Stop it, Cassie! Don’t be an idiot—you’ll make a fool of yourself! You know he doesn’t mean you.

Of course not. Her partner was talking about some mythical future woman he hadn’t met yet because he believed—as all Kindred did—that their deity, the Goddess, took a special kind of interest in match-making and had just the right female in mind for every one of her warriors.

And Cassie knew she was definitely not the female for Stone. For one thing, there was no way she could be Stone’s type. He belonged with a supermodel—one who didn’t have thighs like tree trunks, as Keith used to say.

Though to be honest, it was hard to imagine the big Kindred with anyone. He had spoken of his “future mate” from time to time but he’d never expressed an active desire to find a wife and settle down. In fact, he was usually so cold and logical, it was hard to imagine him opening up and allowing himself to be vulnerable to a woman—hard to imagine him expressing his feelings and desires.

You mean like he’s doing right now? whispered a little voice in her head. Admitting how this kind of porn bothers him and saying that he wants to be married someday?

It was all too confusing. Cassie scooted over, putting a bit more space between herself and her partner. Time to get back to the matter at hand.

“Look, all the foreplay in the world wasn’t going to help that situation.” She pointed at the screen. “That’s like trying to shove a six-foot salami into a tiny keyhole—it’s just not going to work without some damage being done somewhere.”

“In that case, he should have used some bonding fruit,” Stone said. “To simply force your way inside, knowing that you are hurting your lover, is disgusting and wrong.”

“Bonding fruit?” Cassie frowned and cast a sidelong-look at her partner. “What’s that?”

“A special fruit which comes from Twin Moons—one of the Kindred home worlds,” he explained. “It was first developed and cultivated by the Twin Kindred because of their need to share a female between them in order to bond with her.”

“What is it? Some kind of aphrodisiac?” Cassie asked, frowning.

Stone nodded.

“It is. But it also allows a certain…elasticity on the part of the female who eats it. Which enables her to allow her Kindred mate—or mates—to penetrate her completely and bond with her. Hence the name, ‘bonding fruit.’”

“I see.” Cassie nodded. “Well, that makes sense.”

“What would make sense, is for ‘The Beast’ to use it in scenes like these. If he truly is a Kindred, he would have access to it.”

Stone leaned forward and touched a button on the laptop, freezing the scene with the girl only half-impaled on the monstrously thick cock, her mouth frozen in a grimace of sexual agony.

“I can’t watch this anymore,” he rumbled, his deep voice thick with disgust. “It turns my stomach to see a female in pain. How can anyone derive pleasure from watching what is essentially torture?”

Cassie thought of trying to explain it to him—how human males were so often insecure that the idea of having a dick big enough to physically hurt their partner made them feel powerful and strong.

But she could see that it would just make Stone even more disgusted with her species. The Kindred were so careful and respectful of their females and so secure in their own masculinity that the ideas behind this kind of pornography weren’t just incomprehensible to them—they were actually repulsive.

“Let’s move on,” she suggested, leaning forward. But just as she was about to move to another file in the laptop, Stone put a hand on her arm.

“Wait!” He leaned forward excitedly. “Look!”

The scene they had frozen on showed a side view which managed to display The Beast’s entire engorged shaft. But other than its immense size, Cassie really didn’t see anything unusual about it. She squinted, trying to see what her partner was pointing at, which seemed to be somewhere near the base of the monster cock.

“What? I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly!” Stone exclaimed triumphantly. “The Beast is not a Kindred—or at least, he is not a Beast Kindred.”

“He’s not? How can you tell?” Cassie looked more closely at the screen.

“Because all Beast Kindred have a swelling at the base of their shafts called a Mating Fist,” Stone explained. “It fills the female they are making love with completely until their bonding is finished. All true Beast Kindred have it!”

“But ‘The Beast’ doesn’t. I see…” Cassie nodded her head.

“And there is something else—something to do with Beast Kindred.” Stone put a hand to his forehead. “Goddess, why didn’t I think of it earlier?”