CHAPTER 90: CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE:

Chapter Eighty-Nine:

Flesh Reverent, Rhythm Divine: The Tentacle, the Dance, and the Girl Who Didn’t Sleep

—

Some indefinite stretch of time later—still stained with psionic awe and spiritual confusion—the sliding door to the VIP suite hissed open like it was trying not to interrupt whatever cosmic crime was being committed within.

"Irvine, a little birdie told me you were—whoa. What the actual fuck is that?" came Keyla’s voice, struck dumb with sensory overload.

Her eyes fell upon the object. The object. The severed tendril of Crystal—Hive Queen, Star-Eater, and source of all unspeakable affection—coiled possessively around my torso like a living boa of love and eldritch ownership. Her mouth dropped open. Her salivary glands declared war on restraint.

"Irvine, babe. No seriously. What the fuck is that? Because if it’s what I think it is, I’m gonna need a mop, a drink, and probably several weeks of therapy."

"Keyla," I said calmly, adjusting the weight of Crystal’s severed limb on my lap like a ceremonial sash. "Be a dear and go find Sophia. Tell her it’s urgent."

"Sure thing... she’s at the bar, asking around about your... ’alone time.’ I could use a drink myself. My mouth feels funny." She didn’t stop staring. The hunger in her gaze wasn’t metaphorical—it was tactical. She licked her lips once before turning reluctantly and leaving the room, casting one last longing glance at the throbbing, bioluminescent tendril of my alien not-girlfriend.

Not thirty seconds passed before Sophia entered, breathless and beautiful in her controlled panic.

"My love—what’s wrong? Keyla said that—huh?" Her words dropped off the ledge of her brain. She froze mid-step, pupils constricting, and then dilating hard enough to make her vision flex like glass under pressure.

The Queen’s tentacle.

Wrapped around me.

Still glowing faintly with residual psionic voltage and hormonal saturation.

"How?" she whispered. "Why? Is my Queen—Crystal—is she safe?"

I held up a palm to still her. Sophia’s body had gone half-feral; Hive instincts boiled under her skin, struggling to surge toward the appendage. She was stronger than most, more independent than any psionic hybrid I’d met—but even she felt the biological imperative humming from Crystal’s discarded flesh. Proximity to the Queen’s matter was a psychic gravitational pull.

"Crystal is fine," I said gently. "The removal was... voluntary. Symbolic, maybe. She did it herself. Sit down—I’ll explain."

Sophia obeyed, muscles trembling with the effort to not reach out and clutch the piece of her creator like a relic of worship. I could feel it through the Hive link—her restraint was costlier than most battles.

Once she was seated, I told her everything. About the power. The breakthrough. The intimacy that had gone so far beyond mere flesh that Crystal had literally amputated a part of herself and given it to me—like a cosmic mixtape made of muscle and soul.

Sophia listened with wide eyes, her breath caught somewhere between reverence and terror. "So my love... what do we do with the Queen’s tendril?"

I looked her over slowly, head tilting in calculation. She didn’t flinch. She even leaned a little, cleavage deepening like a dare.

"We use it," I said finally. "A good portion of the biomass should go toward correcting the flaws in your gene structure. I don’t want to change you—I love you as you are—but your combat form was... let’s say it could use a touch-up. You deserve better. We deserve better."

Sophia’s eyes shone, her breath hitching slightly. Days ago, she might have used that kind of mass for infiltration upgrades. Subdermal falsities. Surface masks. But now? After I told her she was beautiful in all her faces?

She’d use it to fix her broken edges. For me.

"The rest," I continued, "should be portioned carefully. A sliver to Kimchi—she’ll need it to reinforce her armor systems. She’ll need to harvest it inside the nest pod; it’s the only space secure enough to handle this kind of living tissue. As for the rest..."

I paused.

"You decide. Feed your Flock. Or—finally finish Samantha’s conversion."

Sophia’s mind danced. I could see it—calculations, permutations, strategy overlayed with religious awe. And then: clarity.

She rose.

"Samantha. Keyla. Come here."

The door opened a beat later, revealing both women. Samantha, ever-cold and analytical, tilted her head as if bracing for ritual dismemberment. Keyla just looked like she was hoping someone had brought snacks or drugs.

Sophia stood regal and commanding, the psionic Matron of a cult that worshipped a god who loved me more than thermodynamics.

"Both of you—and sixteen others in my following—are aware of the Hive’s true nature. As such, you are entitled to know this:"

She gestured at me. At the coiled flesh.

"This is part of the Queen. This—this—wrapped around my love, belongs to Crystal herself."

Keyla gasped so hard I thought she might implode into pink mist. Samantha blinked once.

Sophia continued, her voice shifting into ceremonial cadence.

"Irvine has achieved something impossible. Through love—raw, unquantifiable, selfless love—a new psionic ability has manifested. It is this power that pulled the Queen’s tendril into our plane."

She allowed the silence to settle, heavy with significance.

"This is a gift. A holy accident. I had other plans for the coming week, but those plans are now obsolete. I will be using a portion of the biomass to repair my genome. My... birth was flawed. Now I will be reborn."

Her daughters beamed—Samantha’s eyes shimmered with something close to tears. Keyla nearly bounced on the balls of her feet.

"The remainder will be used to complete your conversion, Samantha," Sophia said, her tone gentler now. "Due to our location, you will take on the infiltrator form—any other caste could emit psionic frequencies that’d trigger alarm in rival agents."

Samantha trembled. For a second, she couldn’t form words. Then she bowed so sharply her spine audibly creaked. "Yes, Mother. Thank you."

Keyla clapped enthusiastically. "Wooo! Go Sam-Sam! Welcome to the biomass, bitch!"

Samantha scowled. "It’s Samantha. Always."

Keyla gave a theatrical curtsy. "Yes, my infiltrating lady of the night."

"Enough," Sophia said, almost smiling. "We have work. Samantha, follow me downstairs. Have someone bring a reinforced containment barrel for the tendril—stealth transport only. As for you..."

She turned to Keyla, who immediately stood up at attention like a kid called on in class.

"You’re still high from your murder spree. You’re twitchy. No focus. So—stay here. Keep Irvine company."

Sophia smirked faintly. "Make sure he doesn’t accidentally punch a hole in the fabric of space again."

Keyla beamed. I groaned.

As Sophia left, Keyla turned to me, vibrating with barely-contained lust, carefully bottled beneath a fake facade of cheer.

"Hey, it’s boring as fuck in here. Wanna go dance?"

I started to refuse—dancing wasn’t my forte, unless you counted slamming my head against metaphysical nonsense as choreography—but something in her hopeful, manic grin wore me down. And I was still basking in Crystal’s weird affection-high.

"Alright. But you’re gonna have to teach me how to not humiliate myself."

"Oh baby, you’re talking to the best dance instructor in the galaxy!"

She grabbed my arm with both hands and practically dragged me out of the suite, weaving us through corridors until we emerged on the dance floor like two chaotic neutrinos.

The music?

Loud. Pulsing. Utterly insane.

It was less a beat and more a controlled explosion on loop. Even the people who didn’t like it were nodding along. There was no "dancing" here, not in any classic sense—just limbs flailing in hypnotic defiance of rhythm.

I expected Keyla to grind on me, lewd and possessive. I was wrong.

She leapt. Twirled. Arms up, hair flying. She moved like a cultist mid-exorcism. Like a priestess purging her soul through terrible cardio.

It was bizarre.

It was freeing.

I joined her.

Badly.

Terribly.

Gloriously.

We danced for hours. I don’t remember when my self-consciousness melted. But it did. And so did time.

Eventually, we staggered back to the VIP suite, sweaty and laughing. Crystal’s tentacle was gone—delivered into the safe hands of Hive scientists or divine butchers or both.

I collapsed onto the couch. Keyla sat across the room, pouring herself a drink like she hadn’t just rewritten my definition of "dancefloor dignity."

"Why are you sitting all the way over there, oh goddess of dance?" I teased. "Come sit with me."

Her face lit up. "Was just being polite! Keyla understands the sacred importance of personal space."

I grinned. "Is that why you chased off every girl who tried to dance with me tonight?"

"Oh, no, that was because they were all obviously cock-hungry." She sipped her drink. "And based on this morning? They were right to be."

I barked out a laugh.

I placed a hand gently on her knee.

"I like you, Keyla. You’re... unapologetically real. That’s rare."

She flushed, just slightly. But kept her smirk.

"And I like you too, Irvine. Just for your massive cock though."

We burst out laughing.

Talk carried on until the night wore thin.

Eventually, I stood. Kissed her gently on the lips. Not lustfully—gratefully.

"Thanks for keeping me company. I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?"

She cleared her throat. "Oh, absolutely. I’ll swing by early. Maybe catch you changing again."

I chuckled on my way out.

Keyla didn’t move for 1 minute and 40 seconds.

Then she sprinted upstairs to her room like she was being chased by orgasmic revelation.

She didn’t sleep.

She wouldn’t dare.