enough to warrant this much pain.
Even so, I made sure to save and file away the memory as adeptly as I could for future reference.
She cried out with tears in her eyes, “I’ll have you expelled.”
Damn, I made her cry. I truly am wretched.
She finally stopped grounding my jewels and stomped off. Correction, she ran off.
Her four companions ran after her.
I rolled around on the floor for a bit.
Regardless of being a Familiar, pain is still pain.
Even if I could handle it better than a Regular, but not as well as an Aventis, it hurt like Hell. My manhood felt crushed beyond repair.
I’d have to inspect the damage later.
Then I saw a pair of slender, shapely legs in black silk stockings step up to me.
For a moment I forgot the pain burning away the lower half of my body.
The girl was holding a tray, peering down at me with a winter’s gaze.
She was pretty, and I’d noticed from before that she was sporting some winning curves.
But right now her chilling visage was taking center stage in my mind.
That and her gorgeous legs.
“Hello,” I muttered weakly, still bearing the brunt of the vicious assault on my lower extremities. “You must be Lady Maya. We haven’t been formally introduced.”
I raised a trembling hand toward her.
“My name’s Caelum—”
I stopped when I saw her raise the tray high over her head.
I gasped when I saw her fling it down.
I glimpsed a pair of violet, high cut panties with cute little bows tied at her hips.
Ah, the majestic design of Celestial Girl Aurora – from last year’s spring range.
I took the image with me as the tray slammed into my face and knocked me into darkness.
Reflections – 2.
The Prides called them Artifacts.
To the people of Pharos and the colonized systems under the control of the Prides, these Artifacts were powerful and mysterious devices found decades after the Cataclysm had torn our little corner of the galaxy apart. That is indeed true, since the Artifacts were fished out of the thick cloud of the Hurakan Nebula by numerous starships built for this kind of salvage .
Artifacts were also referred to as Fragments.
This is because Artifacts came in two packages.
An Artifact could be referred to as a Fragment if it was incomplete, that is, it was missing pieces that denied it becoming a full armor, a weapon, or some other category of device.
An Artifact could also be referred to as a Fragment if it was locked down , and this affected those Artifacts that possessed a Core.
Either way, Fragments and Artifacts were powerful enough to be nearly unstoppable by conventional means. For that reason, the Prides chose to keep them many of them locked away in secret vaults throughout the asteroid colony of Pharos, and probably elsewhere at covert installations deep within the Hurakan Nebula.
Another reason was that the Prides didn’t trust us Familiars, and we Familiars were the only ones that could operate a Fragment.
That being the case, what were Familiars? What made us so special?
Genetically we were almost identical to humans but there were differences, and those differences were what the Fragments reacted to. However, before Arisa’s blood triggered my awakening as a Familiar, my genetic sequencing looked unremarkably Regular.
During the bi-annual medical examination conducted at the school, I had recorded negative values when it came to deciding my compatibility to one of the eight Symbiotic strains. What I didn’t know was that there were two tests, one for deeming eligibility to a Pride, and one for deeming eligibility as a Familiar.
Two days before Caprice stabbed me on the rooftop, my impending Awakening as a Familiar became known to the Prides.
Two of those Prides moved to acquire me – the Raynars and the Lanfears.
What resulted was a skirmish that led many to believe the Raynars wanted me dead.
The truth was a little different, but I won’t spoil the fun at this point.
Because I was ‘bonded’ or ‘branded’ to the
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