“That’s terrible!” Penny’s heart went out to the big Hybrid. Now she understood why he had become a pirate who preyed on his own kind. Though he claimed his Kindred heritage over his Kru’ell One half, he still felt no kinship with the people he felt had abandoned him and his mother, before he was even born.
“She lived a terrible life,” V’rex said, still speaking of his mother, with a faraway look in his pale gold eyes. “My father would be kind for a while—for months on end sometimes. But then he would erupt into fits of rage over tiny, minor things and beat her mercilessly. It was like once his temper was triggered, he couldn’t control himself. That was how he—”
He stopped abruptly, drawing aimless patterns in his bowl of stew.
“He what?” Penny urged softly. She didn’t want to cause the big Hybrid pain, but she got the very strong sense that he needed to talk about this—that he needed to get it off his chest.
“He beat her to death,” V’rex said at last, still looking at his stew. “I was only seven cycles at the time but I saw it all. I even tried to stop him, but I was too small.” He shook his head. “Too fucking small to save her.”
“Oh, V’rex…” Penny didn’t know what to say. Her heart was aching for him. She wanted to go to him and put her arms around his neck, to comfort him any way she could but the big Hybrid was wound so tightly she didn’t know if he would welcome her comfort or not.
“He dropped me off at the edge of the city the next day,” he went on in a toneless, emotionless voice. “He told me I and my mother had ‘served our purpose’ and he had no need of me anymore. Then he left me there, crying for her, wanting to die myself. I almost did,” he added, still looking at his stew, rather than Penny as he talked. “Several times. Until I was taken in by a gang of kids around my age who taught me how to pick pockets and beg. After that, I was okay but I never really stopped missing her…”
Penny couldn’t stand it anymore. Her heart was breaking for the big Hybrid and this awful tale from his childhood made her want to cry.
Getting out of her chair, she came around the table and put her arms around his neck.
V’rex looked up from his stew, clearly surprised.
“Hey, little girl—why are you crying?” He cupped her cheek and brushed a thumb gently over her cheek, wiping away a tear.
“How can I help it?” Penny sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “When you tell me…what you just told me. Oh, V’rex—I’m so, so sorry!”
“It’s all right, baby. It was a long time ago,” he assured her. But he put his arms around Penny and held her tight and though he didn’t cry himself, she felt sure the old pain was very close to the surface. She pressed his face against her breasts and stroked her fingers through his long black hair and tried to give him comfort as best she could, though she didn’t know how well she was succeeding…
Of course, not every night they spent together was fraught with such emotion. Most of the dinner stories they shared were lighthearted and funny. V’rex had a dry sense of humor and often left her laughing helplessly with his tales of the ‘jobs’ he’d pulled and the antics he had gotten up to. It made Penny glad to see that despite the tragedy in his past, the big Hybrid seemed to be an optimist.
After dinner, things got more steamy, especially when their Mandatory Breeding hour came around. They had pretend sex in every possible position and it never failed to make Penny so hot she often wished they were doing it for real.
But then she would remind herself of the consequences of unprotected sex with the big Kindred and the reasons they had to get out of the Compound. Still, it was getting harder to hold back her heart from the big Hybrid, especially considering what happened once the Watchers were convinced they were doing their duty and the red light over their bed went off.
It was then that V’rex insisted on examining her pussy again, and giving her a long, leisurely tongue-bath during which he made Penny come multiple times. He seemed to love going down on her and Penny certainly couldn’t complain. After all, the big Hybrid was fulfilling her wildest fantasies and doing it with a skill she wouldn’t have believed was possible.
Right before bed they had a shower—which was necessary since V’rex’s seed usually got all over her in some way or another. The big Hybrid insisted on bathing her himself, soaping her up with his big hands and often giving her yet another orgasm as he washed and stroked her.
After that, Penny felt exhausted and by the time V’rex had dried her off, she was almost falling asleep on her feet. He often carried her to bed and tucked the two of them in snugly. Penny would snuggle up to him, her naked breasts pressing against his chest and her bare pussy rubbing against his muscular thigh. His slow, steady heartbeat and the rumble of his deep voice saying, “Good night, sweetheart,” was the last thing she heard before drifting off to sleep every night.
And then they woke up and did it all again.
Despite the continued tension about a Public
