Caden woke up on the ground.

 

He couldn't remember how he wound up there. The last thing he remembered was fighting a marquess alongside Ariana, and then-

 

He suddenly remembered how he wound up here. Ariana got distracted, and the marquess washed over his mind and puppeteered him against her until she knocked him to the ground. Now he just had to figure out where "here" was. He sat up and examined his surroundings. The room he was in was big, with irregular stone walls seemingly dug out by hand and lit by the crystals set within them, glowing in myriad pinks and purples and blues. The floor beneath him was soft, probably some sort of cave moss. There were other figures strewn about the room; all men, he realized, and all naked. Like he was.

 

His eyes were drawn by movement in the room's center as a large figure sat up, and a powerful force washed over his mind. It felt like it was orders of magnitude beyond what the marquess had done to him, but rested as he was, he was barely able to keep a train of thought going through the storm.

 

The figure turned to look at him with its striking golden eyes, standing taller by a couple feet than his previous opponent with a much broader, curvier form, and he realized where "here" was. That was a Queen, and this was its chamber.

 

{You are awake, drone}

 

The voice spoke without language, slamming its thoughts directly into his own with the force of a hurricane.

 

{Come.}

 

His body shuffled to its hands and knees and crawled towards the Queen, heedless of his mind's opinion on the matter. He tried to fight it, but barely managed to slow his pace.

 

{Why do you struggle, little one? Your place is here, serving us.}

 

He shook his head. "I belong with my people. My actual people, not you!" he shouted. He continued crawling.

 

{You will not shout again. Our other drones need their rest in order to serve.}

 

"You can't make me 'serve,' whatever that even means, I'll-"

 

The Queen spared him from having to provide the credible threat to back his claim. {You are already on your knees for us. We will break you, as we have the others you see around you, and we will remake you, and you will serve your biological function with us for the rest of your days~}

 

He turned the statement over in his mind until the "biological function" it mentioned became clear. He blushed at its forwardness. He didn't know that Queens needed a male partner to populate their hives, but it made a sort of sense once he thought about it. He came upon the Queen's throne and realized that all of his thinking had distracted him from the very important work of *not doing what it made him do*.

 

The Queen reached down to stroke his hair, and the force of the psychic assault battering his mind doubled for a moment. He wasn't sure how long he could keep from breaking, until the stroking stopped.

 

{How easily you succumb for us. Stand.}

 

His body stood. The Queen lifted him up and pulled him into an embrace. She It was softer than he expected, but it was still a Queen. He needed to submit and fuck Her like She obviously wanted pull it together and get out of here, or else it might ground his mind to dust for good and that wouldn't be so bad really. He could fight off the inconvenient thoughts, and he could push down the question of whose thoughts they really were, but he couldn't keep his body in check. His cock knew what it wanted, and it started rising in anticipation.

 

The Queen leaned forward, still holding him against its body until it could lower him to the ground. His cock was fully erect by now, and the Queen straddled him, towering over him like a Goddess, pinning him with its strong arms. Its powerful legs seemed to grip him, and he felt the tickle of its shin fluff against his hips. Awe and uncomfortable desire swelled within him, and the Queen seeped deeper into his mind.

 

{We're going to take you now, little one, and in joining bodies we will join minds as well~}

 

He swallowed hard. He tried to will some part of his body to resist, but it wouldn't budge. His Queen lowered Herself onto him, and his mental walls shattered in an instant. There was no corner left that the Queen could not scour and pillage, and he felt Her will as if it were his own.

 

{Who do you serve, drone?}

 

"The hive," he answered dimly. "And you, my Queen. My body is yours..."

 

{We are the hive, and you are the hive. You will never have to be alone again~}

 

Tears formed at the corner of his eye. He felt what She felt, and he was sure She felt what he felt as well. And then She began to move, and thought and perception vanished from his mind completely.