"Absolutely pathetic," Amethiel muttered, glaring at the empty glass jar resting on his polished mahogany desk.
The silver rim caught the light just enough to reflect his face at him. Sharp features, slightly furrowed brows, lips pressed into a thin line. He looked annoyed. More than annoyed.
He looked offended.
’This is what it comes to,’ he thought, his jaw tightening. ’Degrading manual labor for the sake of research.’
He hadn’t even started yet, and already the regret was there, creeping in, unwelcome and irritating.
He had heard people talk about it before. That strange clarity that came after.
He almost felt it now, before anything had even happened.
Amethiel exhaled slowly, dragging a hand down his face.
But he needed the sample.
That part remained unchanged.
Kree’s sample was already secured, properly stored in cold containment, but there were too many unknowns.
He didn’t know how long it would remain viable. He didn’t know if it behaved like human material at all.
And that—
That was unacceptable.
’This is for research,’ Amethiel reminded himself firmly.
His gaze flicked briefly toward the desk, toward the tools, toward the neatly organized notes waiting to be filled.
He imagined it instead.
The presentation.
The unveiling.
The looks on their faces.
The nobles who had dismissed him. The ones who laughed quietly behind their hands. The ones who treated monsters like ornaments, nothing more than decorative status symbols.
Their doubt.
Their thinly veiled disgust.
Their arrogance.
His lip curled slightly.
’I’ll prove them wrong,’ he thought. ’All of them.’
He would show them what monsters really were.
What they could be.
What he could uncover.
That thought steadied him.
Grounded him.
But still—
There was a problem.
’It has been years,’ Amethiel admitted to himself.
A vague memory surfaced, one he quickly pushed aside. Awkward. Frustrating. Pointless.
He had tried once.
It had done nothing for him.
No satisfaction. No interest.
Just irritation.
He had never understood the obsession others seemed to have with it. The way they spoke about it so casually, so crudely. It always sounded messy. Inelegant.
Unnecessary.
His interests had always been elsewhere.
In structure.
In form.
In the quiet precision of something other.
The curve of a tail that didn’t belong to any known species. The faint glow beneath unfamiliar skin. The way certain creatures communicated without words, yet still understood.
Kree.
Not in the way others would think. Not in the shallow, simplified way.
But in what he represented.
Something new.
Something beyond.
Something worth understanding.
Amethiel straightened slightly.
’This isn’t about desire,’ he told himself. ’This is about data.’
And if there was one thing he trusted—
It was his ability to find a way.
Smart people always did.
"I can do this," Amethiel muttered under his breath.
He placed both hands on the edge of the desk for a moment, grounding himself.
"I can use excitement."
Not that kind.
The right kind.
Discovery.
Progress.
Recognition.
Everything he has always wanted.
That was enough.
That had always been enough.
He stepped back and began unbuckling his tailored trousers, movements precise, almost mechanical.
The fabric slipped down, pooling neatly at his ankles against the expensive rug.
His silk undergarments followed, the soft material brushing against his skin before falling away.
The cool air of the room settled against him.
He felt it immediately.
A slight shiver ran through him, not entirely from the temperature.
More from the situation itself.
From the sheer absurdity of it.
Amethiel let out a quiet breath, somewhere between a scoff and a sigh.
’This is ridiculous,’ he thought, his lips pressing together slightly.
And yet—
He didn’t stop.
Amethiel looked down. His decent-sized penis lay soft against his thigh, unimpressive and utterly disinterested.
’Well?’ he thought at it, sass sharp in his internal voice. ’We have a job to do. Don’t be difficult.’
Tentatively, he wrapped his fingers around his own length. The touch was clinical, dry, and awkward.
’Just do what you did with Kree.’ Amethiel tells himself.
He gave a few perfunctory tugs, the motion rote and uninspired. Nothing.
Just skin sliding over skin, a faint, unpleasant friction.
It was...
Useless.
Frustration bubbled inside him as he closed his eyes, not to fantasize about some bland human form, but to remember.
’Monsters...Kree...’
Kree specifically.
Not because he was attracted to Kree.
No, because the concept of Kree made him excited.
Kree’s advanced humanoid figure.
Its Obsidian skin with the neon cracks.
The claws.
The tail.
The horns.
The fangs.
The split-tongue.
The tentacles.
’Its unusual intelligence,’ Amethiel thought, his grip unconsciously tightening. ’The absolute obedience...its ability to speak...’
His hand began to move, a slow, steady pump. The friction was still there, but it was changing, warming.
A faint, traitorous throb answered his touch.
’Inhumane strength. Even stronger than my most ferocious specimen.’
Amethiel’s breath hitched. He added a twist to his upstroke, a technique half-remembered from old, pilfered texts.
’...all the absolute possibilities.’
Heat was pooling low in his belly, a strange, insistent pressure. Pre-cum beaded at his slit, slicking his movements, turning the dry rub into something slick, something efficient.
The sound filled the quiet room: a soft, wet, rhythmic shlick.
’The ultimate monster.’
That was the core of it. Not a human, not a beast, but a person of such profound, monstrous beauty.
The idea of Kree’s consciousness, vast and ancient and curious, locked in that powerful form... it ignited something in Amethiel he’d never named.
His hips gave a tiny, involuntary jerk, meeting his own hand. The spark of pleasure was sharp and undeniable.
"Oh."
That was new. That was... not terrible.
Abandoning all pretense of clinical detachment, Amethiel let his head fall back, his other hand braced on the desk beside the jar.
His strokes became purposeful, hungry. He imagined not a body, but a presence.
"A-Ah...ah..."
Kree’s shadow falling over him. The heat radiating from his scaled hide. The possessive, intelligent gaze that watched his every move.
’What would it think, seeing me like this?’ The thought was scandalous, electrifying. ’Would it understand? Would it try to understand?’
Would it help?
Would it even know how to help?
The pleasure built, a coil winding tighter and tighter in his core. It was no longer just about the sample.
It was about the sensation, the forbidden thrill of indulging this newly-awakened need.
His balls drew up tight, a heavy, aching fullness. His cock, now fully hard and throbbing in his fist, felt alien and powerful, a conduit for this shocking wave of feeling.
Every nerve was alight.
The slick, hot glide of his fist, the rough catch of his calloused palm on the sensitive underside of the head, the way his thighs trembled with the effort of standing.
"Kree," he gasped, the name a ragged, unbidden prayer into the empty air.
It wasn’t an invocation of the monster himself, but of the idea of him. The concept of monstrous companionship, of a bond that transcended the banal. "You’re going to be my break...my break through."
Amethiel was going to do everything and anything to make sure of it–
"Oh, fuck!"
The climax tore through him with shocking violence. It was not a gentle release, but a conquest.
A white-hot wire of ecstasy snapped from his balls up his spine, seizing his entire body in a rigid arc.
His strokes turned frantic, milking the sensation for all it was worth. With a choked, guttural cry that held more surprise than pleasure, he aimed before he could forget.
The first thick, pearlescent rope hit the inside of the jar with a splat.
The second followed, and the third, a hot, urgent pulse that painted a stark, biological signature against the clear glass.
He kept working himself through it, through the shudders and the oversensitivity, until he was spent, panting, leaning heavily on the desk.
Slowly, the world swam back into focus. The jar sat on the desk, now containing a small, opalescent puddle.
The evidence of his degradation.
And his... discovery.
He looked at it, then at his own sticky, softening flesh. Disgust warred with a strange, smug satisfaction.
He’d done it. He’d procured the sample. The method was beneath him, but the result...
’I know everyone says I’m strange but I’m starting to believe that now.’