Page 38 of Honey, I'm Home

“When one of us gets a hold of you, we will rub our antennae over you and coat ourselves in your pheromones, and feed you some honey as a symbol of what bees might actually share with their queen before passing you off to another from our hive and falling off to emulate the paralysis that typically occurs after a mating.

“When all three of us have fallen off and completed our duty, we will brush ourselves off and accompany you back to our hive to help you relax.”

The crowd is eating this shit up, leaning forward with big smiles on their faces. Maybe this is an incredibly weird thing to do at a wedding if you’re not used to being around different species, butas far as matings go, this is actually pretty damn tame for this town.

Aster finally realizes that Dev is serious and looks between all three of us a few times to gather some courage before smoothing out her gown and her crown and stepping off the stage.

The string quartet we hired to play tonight starts up a somewhat simplified version of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” which spurs Aster on even more.

She gets into the spirit of the night, not running like she’s being chased by a predator, but performing in an alluring way that a queen bee might typically do to attract her drones. My dick stirs at the thought that she must have done research, because how else is she embodying this trait so well?

With her arms twisting up around her head and her hips swaying, Aster bends forward and backward like she’s a flower blowing in the wind, closing her eyes every few steps to feel the moment on a deeper level.

Hawthorne heads out first, slinking between the guests, partially shifted with fuzzy antlers protruding from his human head and giant bee wings on his back that catch the light from the white lights we’ve got strung around the perimeter of the reception.

He twirls a few times as he approaches Aster, who has decided not to be self-conscious about this at all. She wiggles her ass at him as he reaches for her, spinning her out and in before dipping her.

I watch his antennae trace the sides of her face and neck and slip through some of her hair, making her laugh as it tickles her. He reaches into his pocket and opens a tiny jar of honey that he tips into her mouth while supporting her neck, just enough to coat her tongue in, before kissing her, smiling against her mouth and falling to his knees.

She looks confused for a moment when he pulls away from her, but then must remember what comes next, because she dances out of reach while he sways and falls over, and the process repeats with Dev.

It’s a profound moment to be a part of, my hive and my mate all claiming each other in the way that thousands of bees have done so, to some extent, throughout history. After all the years of separation, all the nights that Dev, Hawthorne, and I only had each other to console ourselves, we now are a fully-fledged and acknowledged colony.

My heart is fit to bursting as Dev completes his role, swiping a stray drop of honey off the corner of Aster’s mouth as he falls to his knees, reaching out for her as she twirls backward.

I give her a moment to get back into the music, which the quartet is playing on repeat until we’re done. Each time the musicians start the piece again, they pick the tempo up a few clicks, so by the time I step off the dais, the music is almost frantic, and the need to chase down my queen and corner her is thrumming through my blood.

I call my own antennae and wings forward, trying to quickly acclimate to the strange weight of them in this form, and cut straight through the middle of the guests to reach Aster. I step gingerly over the prone bodies of both Hawthorne and Dev before getting to her, but the little vixen laughs and begins to sprint.

The crowd begins to cheer her on as she runs through them, avoiding where Dev and Hawthorne lie so that they cannot stop her.

I’m not predatory whatsoever, but the promise of rubbing my antennae all over her and kissing her after feeding her honey isspurring my feet faster and faster, until Aster can no longer keep up and I nearly tackle her to the ground in my haste to reach her.

I immediately begin rubbing my face up and down the column of her neck while my antennae do their thing, my wings flitting happily behind me as Aster’s naturally floral scent floods my system.

I have a difficult time getting my hands to cooperate as I pull a small jar of honey from my pocket, and she has to help me unscrew the lid because I’m so worked up. I have half a mind to say fuck it and whip my dick out right here and slide her dress up to her hips and rut her into the ground so I can give her my semen instead of honey like my bee wants to do, but I can do that later when we’re in the privacy of our own home.

With threats potentially still out here, I can’t afford to be completely paralyzed without shelter, leaving the rest of my hive vulnerable.

Feeling bold and breathing heavily, Aster makes me groan out loud when she plunges her tongue into the jar to slurp up the small bit of honey I packed before I can give it to her myself.

I hold myself above her for a moment, willing time to suspend so I can memorize everything about this woman beneath me, exactly the way she appears right now.

Her skin is flushed from running and dancing away from us, her cheeks pulled into an enormous smile from the affection the three of us have been bestowing on her, and her eyes a little hazy with need.

She’s got this gorgeous black eyeliner winging the corners of her eyes and a dab of shimmer at the corners of her eyes, her deep pink lipstick mostly gone after the entire events of the night.

She brings her slim fingers up to my face and kisses me one final time, putting a little extraoomfinto it as she does. She pushes on my chest to encourage me to fall over, rolling with me so she can pin me down before rising and passing back over Dev and Hawthorne and making her way back to the dais.

I count to a hundred before rolling over so I can join with my hive again and try to cover up the erection she basically forced me to have, but when I try, my body begins locking up as if I’m paralyzed for real, and judging by the murmurs of the crowd, the same thing seems to be happening to Dev and Hawthorne.

Somebody screams, then the crowd gets up and flees en masse, nearly trampling me where I find myself trapped.

My breaths come faster and faster as I try my best not to hyperventilate, but I can’t see my mate, can’t see my hive mates, and everyone that was near me has fled in panic.

There’s the sound of fighting nearby, bodies hitting each other and calls of pain, but it’s just muted enough that I have no idea who’s participating or who’s winning.

Chapter 17