Taken by the Aurelian Warriors

those printed and bound, rather than displayed on a digital tablet like most people read from - the book falls open naturally to the page I read most often. It’s an artist’s sketch – an almost photo-realistic rendering of Aurelians warriors clad in nothing but a loincloth. That same fluttering sense of shame and inferiority washes over me – that anxious, delicious little tendril of feeling… As if humanity is unworthy compared to these Gods…
I quickly turn the page, ashamed at the heat in my cheeks. It isn’t their bodies I should be reading about – after all I’ve done plenty of that over the years.
Now, it’s something deeper – something about Aurelians that has unsettled me ever since I first read about it…
The Bond.
The pages I’m looking for are dog-eared from my eager fingers. I barely need to read it – the words are seared into my mind. I can recite every line by memory; but I still need to read it again.
Very little was known about the Bond when this book was published. It was before the new age of Bonding – when the first recorded Bond for over a thousand years changed the fabric of Aurelian society for ever.
It was all started by Jasmine – a human female who discovered she was Bonded to a triad of now-legendary Aurelian Warriors. The three warriors brought Jasmine with them as they confronted conspiracy on the Aurelian home world of Colossus; and in doing so became rulers of the Empire. Their leader, Raegan was coronated Emperor and Jasmine became his Queen.
But before Jasmine encountered her fated triad, there had been no recorded incidences of the Bond for over a thousand years. Without the Bond, Aurelians – an all-male species – are unable to reproduce naturally. Although they might mate with human females – in fact, Aurelians were legendary for doing so, amassing huge harems of willing human women – there could be no offspring unless a specific, genetically compatible female was the one accepting their seed.
For over a thousand years, without the Bond, not one Aurelian son was born naturally.
Instead, the Aurelian species came to rely on another method of reproduction – their cryo-chamber technology. At the end of an Aurelian’s life – thousands of years – an aged and dying Aurelian will enter the cryo-chamber and his genetic material will be repurposed in a twisted form of biological recycling. As the old Aurelian withers and dies, an infant is produced by the biological matrixing of the cryo-chamber. A near-perfect genetic clone of the original, this newborn Aurelian is destined to embark on the same journey as his sire; serving the Empire for a hundred years, and then searching the universe vainly like his father; forever seeking his Fated Mate.
As the centuries crept on without any Fated Mate being found, hope turned to despair, and the Aurelian species itself began to die out.
The cryo-chambers were the only way to continue their species – but for one Aurelian to be born, another one must die.
And that’s if the Aurelian makes it to the cryo-chamber – and most Aurelians don’t.
Their warrior species dies in far greater numbers during their hundred years of service to the Empire – perishing in dank, underground Scorp nests, far from the sun; their bodies rotting in the depths of caverns. Other Aurelians get vaporized in space battles against pirates, or some just disappear into the void as Orb-Travel becomes ever more unpredictable.
The math was inarguable. The Aurelian species was dying out, and Aurelians themselves were losing hope.
That all changed when the new age of Bonding started.
I read the familiar words:
“The Bond is formed between one to three Aurelians and their Fated Mate. There is only one woman in the known universe able to bear them their sons. There is no recorded evidence of legend of Aurelians Bonded to multiple women at the same time.
How the Bond allows the normally sterile Aurelians to reproduce naturally is not known. Some physical changes, perhaps exaggerated over the eons, are consistent through the records and legends.
Extended lifespans, with Bonded women living thousands of years. Resilience to disease. Super-human strength.”
Bonded women could live thousands of years.
Thousands of years! That would allow a Bonded human woman to match the lifespan of her warrior triad; partnered with them for what most humans would consider near-eternity.
When On Aurelians were written, it had been so long since a Fated Mate had been heard of that many scholars considered these rumors to be aprophyical. As it was later revealed, that part was true – although the author never lived to see it.
300 years ago, when the throne of the Aurelian Empire was taken by the triad of Emperor Raegan, Queen Jasmine confirmed the rumor.
She was first Bonded to her triad when she was a young woman, around my age.
Three-hundred years have since passed, and she still doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.
If that speculation from the author was true... Could the rest be? There are subtle allusions in the ancient text to something else within the curious science of the Bond.
Something... darker.
“The Bond also has purported psychological effects. While there is less evidence, it is believed that the Bond draws out the deepest desires of the affected party, especially any urges to reproduce.”
That one sentence always bothered me - niggled in the back of my mind.
Draws out the deepest desires.
What did the author mean?
Suddenly, there’s a commotion from downstairs, snapping me from the pages of my book and back into reality. I realize there are no longer just illustrations of Aurelians in my home – three of the real thing have just been invited inside.
Downstairs, I can hear the conversation is getting heated. I tense, almost readying myself for the thunderous boom of the Sentinels as they unleash their rifles into the Aurelians should things go sour.
At the same time, I feel my feet move without my mind even ordering them to. I find myself creeping over to the door. I can’t resist my curiosity. Reading from