Khutu gestured at Shuria who took back her natural form. She slowly strutted her way towards the window separating us. Her eyes locked with mine and a sensuous smile stretched her lips. My stomach churned again, feeling violated by this unwanted attention.
“You will impregnate her,” Khutu said, matter-of-factly. “I’ll also give you four more of her sisters to start your harem. Do well, and I may grant you even more. My bioengineers are confident your offspring will combine their mothers’ mimicking abilities with your extended lifespan and soul-transfer ability. They will be unkillable; the ultimate war machines.”
Trying to keep a neutral expression on my face despite feeling ill, I tore my gaze away from the female still trying to seduce me and looked at my sire.
“You honor me,” I said with pretend gratitude. “But why not sire such powerful sons yourself?”
“I do not possess soul-transfer,” Khutu said in a slightly clipped tone.
In theory, he didn’t. None of the naturally born Kryptids like him did. However, over the decades, the General had been secretly using some of the bioengineering breakthroughs of his research team on himself. Unlike us hybrids and the Xian Warriors who both had an average lifespan of two hundred years, Kryptids like him had much shorter lives. The Kryptid Queens usually lived up to one hundred and fifty. The Generals, such as Khutu, who took turns mating with the Queen once a year for her to store additional sperm to lay more Soldier and Worker eggs, had an average lifespan of one-hundred years, with the Soldiers at eighty and the Workers at a mere sixty. Yet, Khutu had been leading the war against the Galaxy for at least eighty-five years, meaning he was well over one hundred now, despite looking no more than forty.
Who knew what other enhancements he had given himself?
“But yes, you will have powerful sons,” Khutu said, turning to face me. “Powerful enough to make anyone reconsider their loyalties.”
The intensity of his stare and the coldness of his tone made his underlying meaning clear.
“I am not just ‘anyone,’” I said with a sliver of arrogance. “I am your firstborn son, Father.” The word scorched my lips, but my performance—practiced over three decades—was flawless. It could have even convinced me. “My DNA is 40% Gomenzi Dragon. As such, it is genetically impossible for me to be disloyal.”
“But to whom?” Khutu insisted, moving a step closer to me, invading my personal space.
My throat itched with the need to summon a mouth dart and smash his face with it. My shoulder blades burned with my scorpion tails aching to burst out and stab him repeatedly with their sharp stingers and unload their lethal venom into him.
“Who else than to the person who gave me life and who made me the man I am today?” I answered with the image of my mother flashing before my eyes. “Your Soldiers hate me the most, but they also hate all of your sons, my brothers.”
“Because you are stronger and smarter than they will ever be,” Khutu said smugly.
Flattering the ruthless bastard always helped smooth tense situations. “Indeed. Because you made us better in every way,” I said, bowing my head in genuine gratitude this time.
And I will destroy you with that gift, too.
But I couldn’t go into open rebellion against him just yet. I needed to get our mothers and younger brothers away from him, or he would strike them down in retaliation at the first sign of treason. If I attacked him now, while we were alone, despite my tremendous power, it wouldn’t be a quick battle. Guards would be upon us long before I could finish him, and then he would wipe us out. The General had no problem eradicating thousands of troops if his experiments showed the slightest sign of ‘defect’ that could turn against him.
Khutu turned around and started walking down the hallway towards his private quarters. I silently fell into step with him.
“There is no question they are jealous,” Khutu conceded. “However, there are more and more rumors implying that you are building your own army within my ranks and deliberately sabotaging missions in order to undermine me.”
My stomach dropped. This had been far too on the nose for him to be making wild assumptions. There had recently been a few too many close calls that almost revealed what we’d indeed been up to. Just yesterday, I had discussed with Dread—my closest brother and right hand—the fact that we couldn’t delay our revolt much longer lest we be found out.
“You do not need to answer that,” my sire said, sparing me from giving a response that would have been weak at best. “Like you said, you have strong Dragon genes, which I gave you and your brothers specifically to ensure your loyalty. But you have indeed failed me a few times of late. I expect better going forward.”
His tone was as hard as the sideways glance he gave me.
“Apologies, Father,” I said, not relieved in the least that he appeared to be so lenient. “The Xian Warriors are becoming increasingly effective and unpredictable.”
“They are,” the General said with a nod. “And the wretched Intergalactic Council has been spamming the Queen with messages about me going rogue. They never should have reached her and yet, somehow, someone is keeping them from getting intercepted.”
We are, you piece of shit.
“Surely you aren’t suspecting us?” I asked with pretend outrage. “None of us has ever set foot on Kryptor. The Queen would eradicate us if she even knew of our existence.”
“I am well aware,” Khutu said with a dismissive gesture. “The other Generals resent that the Queen favors me to both lead her armies and to sire her brood. I cannot eliminate them all too quickly without it becoming obvious. There can only be so many ‘accidents’ back to back,” he said with a sneer. “But that has brought too much scrutiny from the Queen into my business. I am moving my brides to Zekuro, away from the Queen’s spies. I have built a hive for you there with separate chambers for each of your Queens. You might want to have your brothers guard each section to keep Shuria from murdering the others,” Khutu added with an evil grin. “She’s quite keen on you and those baby mandibles of yours.”
He raised his chitin-covered hand to caress the small mandibles that framed my mouth—one of too many physical traits that revealed my Kryptid heritage. I couldn’t wait to be far from his presence or that of any other Kryptid, so that I could hide them with a partial shift.
Clenching my teeth against the repulsive touch, my mind raced over this latest revelation. The planet Zekuro was located at the very edge of Kryptid space. Khutu had secretly terraformed it and built his base of operation there. It would be a long trek from Gunem—the third moon of Loriad where he currently managed our military—to transfer our mothers’ breeder ship to Zekuro. A long trek during which we could free them and allow us to fight him at long last.
“You will escort the ship and make sure it reaches Zekuro unscathed,” Khutu said.
Just as my hearts soared, the General’s next words killed my blossoming joy at thinking how easy he was making this for us.
“I have also decided to get more involved in the upbringing of my hybrid sons. It only makes sense as you will soon be busy raising your own,” Khutu said, stopping in front of the door to his private quarters. “In the same trip, you will bring all of your brothers to stay with me on Zekuro.”