“Oh no, it was fine. That spell would have only given them space pox.”
“Space pox?” she screeches. “How about I give you a dose of space pox?” She holds up her hands, and they start to glow purple.
“Lila, calm down. Now is not the time to get even. He will keep.” Alina pats her daughter on the shoulder, and tension flows out of Lila. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
“Ho-ho, I’d forgotten about your mood stabilizing powers. Very handy in a family like yours,” Cronus complements Alina, who just glares at him.
“Xylene, do you think maybe you could gag your husband so the adults in the room can talk?”
Cronus looks affronted, and Marcus chuckles while Xylene just rolls her eyes and sighs with exasperation.
“Ah, fun times,” William mutters. “I forgot how the four of them were when they are together.”
“Maddening,” Liliana agrees.
“Can we get back to the mission please?” Aarin asks, sounding frustrated.
“Yes, once everyone is frozen and we appear, the rest of the occupants of the planet will be beamed back to this ship using the transponders that Saxon and his family will have placed on everyone” —Zeydan holds up a small transponder beacon that the transporters lock onto— “getting them safely out of the way for us to deal with the orb. Justice can be dispensed after our powers have returned.”
“And once the room is clear we will start the spell that will give our powers back. Only the five of us, Vivax, and Lila can be present. Everyone else must get clear of the planet in case anything goes wrong,” Hurricane says, a frown on his face. “Way clear.”
“What the fuck? No.” I start to argue, and so does Tirrian and Xavier, but Liliana holds up her hand, stopping us before we can voice our opinions.
“I’m sorry. It is the only way.”
With the plan finalized, we take a moment to get our bearings, and Lila needs to change forms. The three of us, with the warlocks in mist form, are going down to the surface in the shuttle, while the rest will beam down when it’s time.
The gods, grandparents, Lila’s parents, and Xavier’s parents all huddle off to the side and give the four of us a moment together.
“I have to change forms, I just wanted to give you all a kiss and apologize for anything this form might say or do when I am wearing it. It’s the hardest form to control. If I try to force you to do anything you don’t want to, knock me out. Mission be damned. We can try again.”
I shake my head. “No way, I will take whatever she does as long as we can complete this mission and get back to living our lives.”
“I agree, but it doesn’t mean I won’t put up a fight,” Tirrian says.
“We will freeze them as soon as we see the opportunity. Vivax should be frozen as well. We just need to be prepared in case she’s wearing some kind of protective charm too. Our intel says she has a warlock on her payroll, but our hope is that he’s no match for our combined powers.” Xavier sounds worried, and Lila leans in and gives him a kiss on the cheek, murmuring to him about how he is the most powerful being in the galaxy and they should be fine.
I ignore all that, my attention on the other group. They are whispering and sending us side glances. I’m pretty sure they are hatching a backup plan. Just when I try to listen closer, Lila steals my attention by grabbing me by the collar and tugging me down to kiss height. She kisses me soundly, and then her body shimmers and sparkles and she’s in her Madovian form. We all back up a little as she stretches her body and the snakes on her head start hissing and striking out.
She runs her hands over the top of her body and strokes her tail against my own. My cocks harden beneath my scales at the feeling of her rubbing up against me, even though she isn’t in naga form. Fuck, it’s going to be a long evening.
“Lila,” Tirrian hisses. His eyes are wide, his pupils are huge, and his own cock is hard beneath his pants. “Reel in the pheromones, otherwise we aren’t going to get anywhere,” he growls, and Xavier waves his hands around.
“Holy fuck, that is potent. I want to jump your bones, and I’m not attracted to that in the least.” He points at the cross-hatched slit in her stomach that seems to be undulating.
“Let’s go,” I say through gritted teeth and move away from her and into the shuttle. She follows, and the warlocks and Tirrian take up the rear. We don’t say goodbye. We’ve all said what we needed to, so now we are mission focused. The warlocks turn to mist in the ship, so their life-forms aren’t sensed on any radar, and Lila takes the pilot’s seat, resting her large body on it with her tail behind her. The door shuts, and Tirrian and I find seats far away from her.
“Fuck, that is awful. I simultaneously want to fuck her brains out and run screaming,” he mutters to me, and I nod with a grimace.
“It really is disturbing. The pheromones seem to want to keep you on edge to confuse their prey. It would be more than horrifying to find yourself as an incubator for a Madovian and not remember anything.”
“Or worse, remember it all.” He looks ill when he says that. “I have no desire whatsoever to take the Madovian form for a spin, as Xavier would say.”
Neither do I, Xavier mutters in our heads.You would have to be psychotic to want to.
“Here we go,” Lila warns as the ship moves out of the hangar and she sets course for Girchi 517E. “We will be within sensor range within the next ten minutes, so the act starts now. We don’t know if they have spying capabilities and can listen to our conversation. I don’t want to blow this mission before we’ve even landed,” she warns, and we all murmur our agreement.
The shuttle is fast, and with the modifications the Vilaxians made, we are in the planet’s orbit in half an hour, and in the lower atmosphere another five minutes later. The communicator pings with an incoming call.
