by Celia Kyle
A few minutes later, everyone was seated around the kitchen table, eating hungrily. Jenna sat between Hiren and Sevith. Bea and Noah sat close together, and to Bea’s discomfort, the Drokten guards flanked them.
A smile played across Hiren’s lips, and Hiren noted his Azi had a matching, permanent grin on his face. This, he could get used to—breaking their fast with their Oso between them as well as other Drokten and Jenna’s siblings. If this was a hint at Hiren’s new future with a human Oso, he found it very acceptable.
Noah was by far the most enthusiastic diner at the table, and he devoured the Drokten meat so fast he started coughing, half-distracted between staring at the guards and asking questions about what weapons they’d brought. He spat out questions as often as he could before Bea nudged him under the table.
“Groden,” Sevith spoke just as they finished their food, and Bea started hastily gathering up the plates. “When they are ready, Jenna’s siblings will need escorts to school. Accompany them and keep them safe—as if they were your own.”
Color drained from Bea’s face while Noah looked so excited he was ready to explode.
“Yes!” Noah roared and pumped his fist in the air.
“Jenna,” Bea croaked desperately, her face pale and drawn.
“You missed the bus,” Jenna reminded them while giving the guards a nervous smile. “You knew you were going with the Drokten.”
“But… but I’m going to be escorted to high school by a group of Drokten warriors?” Bea squeaked. “And everyone will see me with them?”
“Yes,” Hiren answered proudly. “You are.”
“Jenna,” Bea pleaded. “Make them stop. I’ll die of embarrassment.”
His Oso rolled her eyes. “Oh please. I think you’ll be able to deal with it. Anyways, you’re the one who wants us to live with the Drokten, so I think it’s best if you get used to it.” Then she waved goodbye to her sister with a smirk.
“Traitor!” the young female shouted back, but the guards were already escorting Bea and a gleeful Noah out of the apartment and leaving the three of them alone.
Finally.
Ten
Suddenly the apartment was very quiet.
Jenna bit her lip and covertly stared at both of the males she’d been left with. She could hardly begin to wrap her head around everything that had happened—was happening. It was as if she stood on a gigantic chessboard or at the end of a line of teetering dominoes, poised on the brink of checkmate or collapse that would trap her into a world she didn’t choose.
Her mind drifted back to the way they’d held her in the kitchen. She’d sat on Sevith’s lap, with Hiren behind her. And his epic cock had been pressed against the seam of her jeans while Hiren’s long pipe rubbed against her back. All the while they’d both held her, and opened their minds, thoughts and feelings to her.
She was still amazed and troubled. She had no idea what to do with all of this.
The realm of the Drokten, their planet, their massive ship—all of it was so foreign to her as to be nearly fantastical. How would it be to live with their species? She’d be an outlier—the only human around. The idea of being surrounded by giant blue aliens with warlike tendencies and very little (if any) sense of humor was beyond intimidating. Staring at the pair of magnificent Drokten males in her own kitchen at the moment, she tried to imagine them duplicated. Everywhere. No matter where she peered, she’d find another sharp-featured, blue face and powerful warrior’s frame just waiting to frighten her.
Although, she had to admit that watching the great Hiren and Sevith J’tallen doing the dishes and helping to clear the post-breakfast disaster zone definitely helped tweak her biases of what it meant to be a Drokten male. She’d heard stories, of course, long before she met the pair in person. She knew women who claimed to have fraternized with the hunky blue aliens and men who boasted of fighting them. Judging from the way Sevith and Hiren seemed to regard the vast majority of humans—except for Jenna, but that was another can of worms—she had a strong feeling most of the anecdotes she’d heard over the years were falsehoods. Or at the very least, extreme embellishments of some small kernel of bland truth.
It didn’t surprise her to realize that most of what she knew were lies. For humans who still remembered a time before the Drokten appeared to save and occupy Earth, it was still fascinating to talk, think, and conjecture about the warrior race. People were instinctively afraid of what they could not fully understand, and that terror led a lot of folks to say things that were patently untrue.
But watching Hiren trade off with Sevith on the cleanup was a scene so domestic and aggressively normal that it almost startled Jenna even more. It seemed like a total fantasy—these gigantic, heart-stoppingly handsome, powerful males would so flippantly agree to work together on cooking and cleaning. They were leaders among the Drokten. They were important. Revered.
And here they were, in her kitchen, washing dishes like a pair of domestic servants.
Weird.
“I have to say, I’m impressed,” Jenna remarked as she stood by the kitchen table, hands on her hips as she watched Sevith at the kitchen sink.
Hiren glanced at her, mild amusement causing his lips to twitch as he arched a brow at her. “What impresses you?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard enough to get a human male to clean up after himself. It’s weird to see you two doing it like it’s no big deal,” she admitted.
“Why is it ‘weird’?” Sevith sounded almost offended.
Jenna couldn’t help but smile. “I don’t mean weird in a bad way. I just mean that it’s unusual. That’s all,” she amended quickly.
“Unusual and weird are synonyms in the English language. Are they not?” Hiren piped up, his lips almost pulled into a grin.
Jenna rubbed her temples and sighed. “Yes, I guess you got me there. I meant it as a compliment. As in, it’s unusual how helpful and self-sufficient you two seem to be.” She sighed. “I have a hard enough time getting some of my male coworkers to pull their weight at the diner. Or rather… I had a hard time,” she corrected grimly, remembering she’d been fired.
“Perhaps it is a good thing you will never have to interact with those male coworkers at the diner again,” Sevith reasoned and Hiren nodded his agreement.
“A true male knows how to look after himself,” Hiren added.
“Don’t you two have, I don’t know, staff or robots or something to do stuff like this for you?” Jenna asked, watching with intense scrutiny as Sevith thoroughly scrubbed and rinsed each dish with nearly machine-like precision and movements.
“We did not always hold the esteemed positions we have achieved,” Hiren pointed out.
“Yes, we were not always a commander and an ambassador. There was a time when we were simply warriors—two among many. Soldiers taught to be self-sufficient and to look after ourselves without help,” Sevith explained their origins.
“And they put you on dish duty as part of your training?” Jenna teased.
“Anything and everything to make us more efficient,” Hiren confirmed. “What if there are no cleaning bots or other Drokten and we are in a situation where we are stranded alone? A warrior must always be able to take care of himself. It is good for us to practice this often.”
“You two are just full of surprises. You know that?” She leaned against the table, watching them as they worked. She appreciated how they were not demeaning her for her spartan quarters or the fact that she couldn’t even afford something as simple as a dishwasher. These two rich powerful beings were hand washing her dishes like it was nothing, which was super sweet.
“I hope that is a good thing,” Sevith murmured.
Hiren answered, “I believe it is normally considered a positive trait, yes.”
With a shake of her head, Jenna sidled up next to Sevith at the sink. “Okay, it’s making me feel awkward jut standing here while you two tidy up. Scooch.”
“Yes, we ought to move this along,” Hiren agreed.
Hiren slid to the other side of Sevith, taking over washing while Sevith seamlessly moved to dry the dishes beside him. He then passed each item to Jenna who placed them into the specific locations in the cabinets and drawers.
Jenna was still amazed—stunned—at how strange her life had become. Just the other day, the sheer concept of having a Drokten in her home would have been laughable. Yet, now she was tidying her kitchen with the assembly-line assistance of not just one but two highly regarded Drokten warriors. Males who, incidentally, also seemed completely set on winning her over.
They made a pretty efficient dish-cleaning system, which made Jenna happy in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Like they were all connected on a level she had never had with anyone before. She couldn’t help but feel their hearts were beating as one, their hands and minds and bodies working in perfect tandem. Jenna had never experienced such an instinctual pull toward anyone, especially not to two aliens who were essentially perfect strangers.
Yet, the feeling was undeniable.
Her own body warmed, tingling as a result of being so close to them. It was as though she breathed in some kind of airborne pheromone or intoxicant that made her want to lean in, slide closer, and meld with the Drokten males—warriors who were so stoic, so quietly powerful, that they seemed not to need words. The connection they all experienced went beyond spoken language.
It was more like fate.
While that realization frightened Jenna to her core, it also excited her. She had never felt like this before, and it wasn’t long until even the innocent touching of elbows and breathing in the same space managed to ratchet up the sensations from soft warmth to burning, desirous heat.
They were so close, yet not close enough. Not nearly. Never close enough to satiate her.
What astounded her was the innate knowledge she couldn’t explain that told her the Drokten were feeling the same way. Waves of heat and arousal rolled off Sevith’s shoulders as he stood beside her, the intensity mounting and growing to be more and more difficult to ignore.
She swallowed hard and gingerly took a small, freshly washed and dried plate from Sevith, her fingertips brushing his silver-tipped claw oh so innocently. Overwhelmed by the electrical jolt she experienced from the simple caress, Jenna stepped away for a moment, thankful to put a couple of feet of space between her body and his as she reached to put the plate away. The tension was so potent among them that it seemed to hover, hanging in the very air around them. Her breasts felt heavy. The heat between her thighs was growing exponentially.
Then, when she whirled to return to the sink, she let out a yelp of surprise to find that Sevith must’ve picked up on the shifting vibrations, too. He stood right in front of her, those blue eyes blazing and his body large and immovable. He gazed down at her like a predator licking his chops, like she was something to be conquered.
To be claimed.
Jenna’s mouth fell open, but the soft words of protest died on her tongue as Sevith leaned down and captured her mouth in a passionate kiss. His arms fell down around her, pulling her into a tight, unbreakable embrace while all of her senses were overloaded. With his heat. His tensed muscles. His breath. His unearthly scent. They entranced her and kept her immobile.
And the way he kissed her… She felt every cell in her body flaring to life, like they had been hibernating and waiting for this exact moment to come alive. What stunned her even more was the fact that she could feel the same thoughts reflected back to her through the lens of Sevith’s eyes. They bartered thoughts and emotions back and forth: pleasure, desire, hesitation, restraint, curiosity, confusion, and white-hot, blinding desire. The craving kept them both curled and tangled around one another like two ribbons in a knot.
He kissed her hungrily, pushing her backward into a corner as he growled low in his throat. The raw strength that he usually kept so neatly restrained was loosening.
Finally, Sevith’s claws slid down to gently grip her arms and break off their kiss. He spun her into Hiren’s waiting embrace.
Hiren cupped her face gently in both of his large, rough claws and leaned down to kiss her, too. He groaned softly against her lips as she parted them, allowing his tongue entry into her mouth. She moved against him, rolling her hips while she allowed his grip to hold her in place.
Jenna wanted to mold her body to fit his perfectly, to close any space between them and seal them together as one. She had never experienced such an urge before, but it was different with Sevith and Hiren. Although she had been confused and resistant to the idea of being with them at first, now she found herself swept away by the intense bonds of chemical compatibility that swarmed her brain and theirs. She felt their thoughts as both Drokten males crowded her, sandwiching her loosely between them. This time Hiren was in front and Sevith behind her, his hands on her hips as Hiren continued to kiss her. Their desires were not so clearly defined as their speech, but that didn’t keep her from experiencing everything. Their lust prickled at the corners of her mind, pushing to break through and she knew they held back. But how long could they keep it up?
For that matter, how long could she hold back? She’d been kissed before. Hell, she’d even had a boyfriend before the invasion. But that was nothing like this. This was kissing in high definition.
Two sets of strong, large hands explored her body, roving across her form as though they wanted to memorize every dip and curve. Jenna kept her eyes closed, almost a buffer between fantasy and reality.
One set of hands tugged at her shirt as though to pull it away and strip her bare. And right then logic and reason returned.
“No. Stop,” she said.
Both men froze.
There was no denying that she was attracted to them both. Her body craved their touch unlike anything she had ever experienced. It was more than thirst. More than hunger. She wanted nothing more than to give in to the waves of pleasure, but she’d just met these men yesterday. No way would she fall into bed with two guys that fast. Never in her life had she ever had sex with someone she’d just met.
Sure, she’d accidentally signed her life away in that damn contract from the event at Drokten Main. Perhaps there was, like Bea claimed, a clause informing her she was to be on offer for the Drokten warriors to take as a mate. But either way, Jenna was not the kind of girl to make such rash decisions. Especially when it came to her family. The kids were the most important things in her life. She had to remind herself of that fact.
Regardless of what might happen in the future, right now was not the ideal time to make out with a pair of aroused Drokten males, which could easily lead to... nope.
She ducked out from under their arms and backed away a few steps. They both grunted in disappointment.
But Jenna held up both hands in front of herself, ignoring her kiss-swollen lips and the insistent throb between her thighs. “I can’t…we can’t.”
“Jenna…” Hiren said.
“I’m not ready,” she admitted. “Not ready at all. I just need to know more. To really know this is for real.”
In her whole life she’d only let in her parents, her siblings, and Jade, into her tight circle of trust. Not even ex-boyfriends had been let all the way in. “I don’t have a lot of friends,” she admitted. “I never have. I only let a few people in because I’m cautious that way. So, I can’t… I can’t just make a snap decision, letting you in like this.”
“Jenna,” Sevith tried, “this is different…”
She’d let these two into her mind and her private thoughts today, let them kiss her and touch her and… she just needed to slow down, that was all.
“I know it is to you, but to me it isn’t yet. I just need to slow down and take a breather.” She glanced at the clock. “In fact, I-I think it’s probably a good time for you two to leave. Please. I need to go to work this evening and I have errands to run today. The last thing I need is for you two to cause me to lose this job too.”
Sevith’s eyes flashed a warning and he frowne
d. “No, that is incorrect. Our place is with you. We will remain by your side.”
“Wherever you are, we should be,” agreed Hiren. “You are our mate.”
“Your place cannot be with me because my place is at work. At the restaurant. I have to go there in a couple of hours and you absolutely cannot come with me.”
Sevith appeared angry, frustrated, and lost all at the same time, but Hiren stepped forward to gently lay a reassuring hand on Jenna’s shoulder. He peered down at her with pure adoration in his eyes as he pleaded with her sweetly. “Just give us today. Spend more time with us and allow us to show you how this can work.”
“But…I can’t lose another job because of you.”
Sevith let out a sigh of exasperation. “You do not need that job.”
“But—" Oh hell, maybe he was right. Did she really still need that job if she was going to become their Oso?
“Come. We will give you a much better tour of Drokten Main and the Avash while your brother and sister are at school. We will return you in time to make it to your place of employment,” Hiren pressed her. “Just give us an opportunity to prove ourselves to you, Jenna Perry. Let us show you our home, where we would live, before you decide.”
Jenna stared at them both, her gaze bouncing between them, and her shoulders slumped. She knew there was no point in arguing. They knew exactly what they wanted, and it was her. And she had to admit she appreciated that they continued to act as if she had a choice, despite the contract she’d signed or the undeniable pull between the three of them.
And she wanted them too. Wanted this to be her future, she just needed time to process each step. “Fine, I’ll go with you,” she relented at long last. “You’re right. I need to see what I’m getting myself into.”
Eleven
Thirty minutes later, Jenna strode up the great stone steps of the imposing façade of Drokten Main, flanked by two powerful warriors. The last time she’d been here, she’d taken the servant’s entrance and now she approached the front as if she belonged.
