by Tana Stone
Claim-Barbarians of the Sand Planet #6
Tana Stone
Broadmoor Books
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Also by Tana Stone
Preview of TAMED—Tribute Brides of the Drexian Warriors #1
About the Author
One
Bexli stomped down the metal ramp of the ship, her steps making it rattle. A few of the Dothvek barbarians gathered around the bonfire turned to look at her, their hands moving instinctively to the curved blades at their waists. When they saw it was only the petite Lycithian with her lavender bob swinging at her jawbone, they turned their attention back to the celebration.
The burly barbarians circled the roaring fire—some sitting and some standing—talking loudly and occasionally singing what sounded more like war chants than songs. They swigged some sort of fermented wine from leather wineskins and passed skewers of grilled meat. They’d been doing this for hours, ever since the suns set, and there seemed to be no sign of them stopping.
She didn’t blame them. They had a lot to celebrate. They’d revealed their clan leader to be a murderer and traitor, and he’d been killed in a battle. Many of the warriors had disliked the leader, but had not been able to defy him without cause. Discovering his dishonor and killing him meant a new beginning for the clan, and the raucous victory cheers that rose up every so often were proof that it had been a long time coming.
Even though the flames rose high into the air, sending sparks spiraling up and smoke billowing, the desert air was still chilly. Bexli rubbed her arms through her shirt fabric and wondered—not for the first time—how the Dothveks kept warm while only wearing leather pants. None of the massive, gold-skinned aliens had goose bumps like she did. She knew it was something about their skin absorbing the heat of the sunlight and retaining it, but even though she and her fellow female bounty hunters had been marooned on the planet weeks ago, she’d avoided getting up close and personal enough with any of them to feel for herself. Well, except for one.
She flashed back to pressing her hands against the hard flesh of Tommel’s corded stomach only minutes earlier and shook her head hard. The barbarian with sliver flecks in his long, dark hair was the last thing she wanted to think about. Glancing back over her shoulder and up the ramp into the hulking, metal spaceship, she was glad he hadn’t followed her off the ship. Not that she’d given him much of a chance.
Bexli had practically run out of her room when the ship had shifted and knocked her into him. She’d claimed she needed to find out why the ship had moved, but the real reason had been that she needed to get away from him. She did not trust the way her body reacted around Tommel, and the last thing she needed was to get involved with one of the aliens.
It wasn’t that Bexli had anything against the barbarians who inhabited the planet she and her crew mates had crash landed on. They’d actually proven themselves to be helpful allies, sacrificing themselves more than once to save her friends. But Bexli was focused on getting herself and her crew off the planet, even if her fellow bounty hunters weren’t. And hooking up with a gorgeous alien—even one that made her pulse flutter—was not part of that plan.
Bexli paused at the end of the ramp and sighed. Was she still the only one thinking about their plan? From the looks of things, it sure seemed like it. Their captain, Danica, sat on her Dothvek mate’s lap, laughing as he talked animatedly to his cousin Kush, who had one thick arm wrapped around Max, the scientist who used to be their bounty. Caro, the crew’s pilot, sat on the lap of the barbarian who’d, up until very recently, been exiled from the clan. He smiled broadly as he listened to K’alvek and Kush. She didn’t spot Holly’s red hair anywhere, and figured that their engineer and her alien boyfriend were off somewhere getting busy.
She was glad her friends didn’t notice her stomping down the ramp. She was in no mood to talk, and certainly wasn’t in a mood to celebrate. Her feet sank into the powdery sand as she left the ship. She may not want to party, but she wouldn’t mind getting closer to the fire for warmth. She passed the Dothvek’s furry jebels staked into the sand to one side of the fire. They munched on feed and brayed as she got closer, shifting from one knobby leg to the other and eying her as if they might want to take a nibble. She still wasn’t crazy about the smelly creatures that looked like furrier, humpless camels. She’d even shifted into one once, and the memory of that didn’t make her any fonder of the animals.
Edging around the ring of barbarians who towered over her, Bexli slipped through a sliver of space. She was immediately met with a blast of heat from the fire and had to step back, bumping into the hard body of a Dothvek and mumbling an apology.
“Do not apologize, pretty female,” the Dothvek said, his voice a low purr.
Bexli peered up and saw two sets of eyes looking down at her. The twin warriors. She didn’t know many of the Dothveks by sight, but these she did. They were noticeable because they were identical—both wore thick braids down their backs and had the same tribal tattoos across their chests—and seemed to move almost in sync when they fought. And like all the Dothveks, they were ripped and gorgeous.
“Are you alone?” the other twin asked, his eyes sparkling.
“No.” Bexli raised her chin and met his eyes.
His brother grinned, leaning down. “We can offer you our protection.”
“Back off, double trouble.” Tori pushed the warriors aside as she joined Bexli, throwing her arm around her. “She’s with me.”
One of the twins furrowed his brow and opened his mouth, but another Dothvek thumped him hard on the back.
“You heard my mate,” Vrax said. “Move along, warriors.”
Tori narrowed her gaze at the Dothvek with tattoos ringing his biceps. “I told you what I think about that ‘mate’ crap.”
Vrax smiled widely at her. “You did, but I enjoy seeing your cheeks flush every time I call you by that name.” He leaned closer to the Zevrian, with her wild, dark curls piled on top of her head. “Fighting with you is almost as enjoyable as making up.”
Tori growled low, and then rolled her eyes. “You are impossible. I should have left you on Kurril.”
Vrax laughed, clearly pleased by her response, then shifted his attention to Bexli. “Are you enjoying the celebration? My Dothvek clansmen are not bothering you too much, are they?”
“No,” Bexli said. “I think Tori scared them off pretty well.”
“Trust me,” Tori shot her mate another look. “I understand barbarians who won’t take no for an answer.”
Vrax lowered his head to Tori. “As if you ever said no to me.”
She elbowed him hard, but the corners of her mouth twitched.
As happy as Bexli was that her tough Zevrian crew mate had found her perfect match in Vrax, she did not really want to be caught in the middle of their strange foreplay. “Should I leave you two alone?”
“No.” Tori tightened her arm around Bexli’s should
ers. “We had an entire journey from Kurril to be alone, or close to alone. I want to hang out with my girls.”
Bexli smiled. Falling for Vrax had certainly softened the usually stoic Tori. The fermented wine probably hadn’t hurt, either. “I came out to warm up and because the ship was moving around too much for my taste.”
Tori flicked her eyes to the massive metal hull. “She shifts on the sands. This stuff is way too powdery and uneven. We’re lucky she hasn’t disappeared under the dunes.”
Bexli’s stomach lurched, as she remembered that her pet glurkin, Pog, was sleeping in her cabin on the ship. “Is that a possibility?”
Tori shook her head. “No. There’s bedrock underneath. I ran a scan before I set her down, but I had to find a spot with the shallowest dunes, first. That’s why we’re so far from the Dothvek village or the Crestek city, and not as close to Rukken’s oasis as Caro would like.”
Vrax bristled. “Not that we would have landed near the Cresteks.”
Bexli was relieved that the ship wouldn’t sink under the sand, but also grateful that it had shifted when it did. She’d been dangerously close to doing more than touching Tommel’s washboard stomach, and rushing off to make sure everything was okay with the ship had been the perfect excuse.
“You okay, Bex?” Tori asked. “You look flushed. Should we move away from the fire?”
Bexli nodded. Between the flames licking the dark sky and thoughts of Tommel, she did feel overheated. She let Tori lead her out of the inner ring, and was grateful to suck in cool air when they stood behind everyone.
“There you are!” Caro stood a bit away from the crowd, noticeably missing her new Dothvek boyfriend. “You taking a break from the inferno, too?”
“How do they stand it?” Bexli asked, glancing at the aliens surrounding the fire.
“You know their skin,” Caro said, as if that was explanation enough.
“Unless I missed even more when I was away, Bexli doesn’t have firsthand experience touching a Dothvek.” Tori eyed her. “Or do you?”
“Nope,” Bexli lied. “I’m the only one of us who hasn’t shacked up with one.”
No way was she admitting that she’d recently experienced the feel of the hard, gold skin or that the bare skin she’d touched had belonged to the solemn Dothvek who rarely smiled and was so different from the wild, young barbarians Caro and Tori had both fallen for. She couldn’t explain her body’s bizarre response to him, so she wasn’t going to attempt to explain it to them.
Tori looked indignant. “I do not ’shack up.’”
Caro cocked an eyebrow at her. “I thought you and Vrax were sharing the captain’s quarters on the ship.”
Two blotches of pink colored Tori’s brown cheeks. “Only for the journey here and only because it had the best shower.”
“Mmhmm.” Caro tightened her sleek ponytail. “We totally believe you.”
Tori folded her arms across her chest, and her well-muscled biceps bulged. “This from the woman who’s been sharing a glorified pup tent with her guy.”
Caro’s mouth gaped open, then she clamped it shut. “Okay, I can’t argue with that. But, in my defense, I didn’t really have a choice since there was only one tent.”
Bexli glanced over to one side of the desert, knowing that Rukken’s camp was only a few dunes away, and guessing he and Caro would sneak off to it pretty soon.
“And you’re sure about Rukken?” Bexli asked. “This isn’t some kind of falling-in-love-with-your-captor syndrome?”
Caro shifted from one foot to the other and tightened her ponytail again. “I know it seems nuts, but I really am crazy about him.”
Bexli nibbled her bottom lip. “So, what’s going to happen?”
“What do you mean?” Tori asked.
Bexli threw her arms wide. “When we leave. I thought our mission was to find a way off the planet that Mourad marooned us on. Now, Tori got us a ship—an even better one than we had—so shouldn’t we be planning to leave? Or do you both plan to stay here and play barbarian house?”
“I think you know my answer to that.” Tori reared back as if she’d been slapped. “I want to go back out and start hunting bounties again.”
“And Vrax?” Caro asked.
“He’s coming with us. After everything that happened to us on Kurril and after spending some time in a spaceship, I think he’s got a taste for adventure that won’t be satisfied staying here.”
“What do you think the others will do?” Bexli asked, afraid to look over at Caro.
“I can’t speak for anyone but myself.” Caro flicked her eyes at the ship. “but I’m a pilot, and pilots fly. Rukken hasn’t been a part of his clan for so long, I don’t think he’ll miss them.”
Bexli’s heart leapt. “You sure?”
“You can’t get far without a pilot.” Caro laughed. “I’ve seen both of you at my controls, and it isn’t pretty.”
Bexli looped her arms through her friends’. “Now we just have to get the others on board.”
“Literally,” Tori said
Caro took a deep breath. “They’ll come. We are the bounty hunter babes, after all. The galaxy’s best all-female bounty-hunting crew.”
“You mean the only all-female, bounty-hunting crew,” Tori corrected.
Bexli shook her head. “Not anymore. If we bring the Dothveks, we won’t be the bounty hunter babes.”
“The bounty hunter babes and barbarians sounds even better,” Caro said. “Let’s see them talk shit about us now.”
Bexli laughed. It felt good to talk about the crew being back together. The sooner they could get off the planet and back to work, the better. She needed to put some serious space between her and the Dothvek who’d managed to get under her skin. The one who now stood on the ramp of the ship, staring at her.
Two
Tommel scanned the scene outside the ship, his gaze pausing when he found her. The shape-shifting female stood with two of her crew mates off to one side, beyond the dancing, orange glow of the fire that illuminated so many of his Dothvek kinsmen. Even without the firelight, it was easy to see her lavender hair in the light of the moons.
She was smaller than her friend with the dark, bushy hair, and even though she was the same height as the other female with hair pulled up high, she seemed more delicate, with her pale skin and almost iridescent hair. He knew this was not true, of course. She was an alien species called a Lycithian, and had the power to morph into other creatures at will. This meant she could change into a beast that could easily rip his arms off.
She glanced up and saw him watching her. Even so, Tommel could not tear his gaze away from her.
What was it about the female? Ever since K’alvek had asked him to ride with her on the rescue mission to find Caro, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her, and unable to ignore the pull he felt when he was near her. Being so close to her on the jebel—their bodies pressed against each other as they rode across the sands—had been enough to drive him to distraction. He’d thought when the mission was over his feelings would subside. They hadn’t.
He also had not been able to quell his urge to look after her, which was foolish, since she was probably more deadly than anyone in the group, Dothvek or otherwise. Despite knowing her talents, when Tommel looked at her, he still saw a female who needed protecting. It was an urge he knew was going to get him in trouble.
A low rumble escaped his throat, as she jerked her gaze from him. It had almost gotten him in trouble on board the ship.
He didn’t know what had compelled him to follow her when she’d gone inside the ship. Only that she’d seemed unsteady on her feet, and he was afraid she might hurt herself. He did not trust the cold, hard surfaces of the spaceship, and being inside the metal beast made him uneasy. But he’d followed her inside, catching her before she fell, and telling himself he only wanted to ensure her safety.
That had been before she had fallen into him, touching his bare skin with her small hands and sending sho
ck waves of heat ricocheting through him. She had run away, and he had been left with ragged breath and a hard cock.
He shook his head and stalked down the ramp. It was good Bexli did not like him. She clearly hated that he followed her and tried to protect her. Her vicious looks and sharp words were evidence of that. He ignored them because he knew she took too many risks and did not fully understand the dangers of his planet, but he was also grateful that she did not feel what he did. If she was as responsive to him as the other females were to their new mates he might not be able to resist. And the last thing Tommel needed was to care for another female.
He pushed his way through the Dothveks so that he was standing at the fire. The heat was comforting, even though he was not cold. The air, which had plunged in temperature since the suns set, did not chill him like it chilled the offworld females. Nevertheless, he found the dancing flames to be mesmerizing and distracting, and he held his palms out to them.
“You have missed much of the celebration.”
He turned to see that K’alvek had sidled up next to him. “I have seen many celebrations. This will not be the last.”
K’alvek nodded, turning to face the fire, as well. “I hope not, but this is one that holds special meaning for both of us.”
Tommel thought about K’alvek’s father, the former ruler of their clan who had been murdered at the hand of the leader they’d recently fought and killed. K’alron had been one of his boyhood friends, so avenging his death held great importance. “You speak the truth.”
