Tribe Protector

by Stacy Jones

  Lily wasn’t sure if science backed up their views but knew it was important enough to them that she didn’t want to interrupt, even though she didn’t care if he skipped it.

  She needn’t have worried, because seconds after he began to undulate his tail at her, need hit her like a sledgehammer.

  Fisting the hem of her cardigan dress, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and a deep-throated moan slipped past her lips.

  She didn’t realize Drrak had stopped and was standing in front of her until she felt his heat kiss her skin. Prying open her eyes, she gazed up at him as he bent to wrap all four arms around her in a gentle, but tight bear hug and lowered his head until their mouths were pressed together.

  Something else she’d learned was that the not-kiss was their way of showing trust in the woman they were hoping to mate.

  By putting his mouth directly on hers, Drrak was saying he trusted her completely.

  She didn’t have the dangerous teeth of a female shevari, but the sentiment was enough to form a lump in her throat. She’d knew trust didn’t come easily to him—for good reason, since his own people made him an outcast because of things that were completely out of his control—so his demonstration meant the world to her.

  Lily managed to stay still for all of three seconds—long enough that she hoped her acceptance of him as her mate was clear—before she kissed him.

  She pushed her tongue past his full lips and pressed herself closer, until she could feel his cock through her cardigan against her lower stomach. Lightly scratching her nails down his back, she reveled in his rumbling groan.

  Without warning, Drrak growled and picked her up, making her gasp as her arousal ratcheted up even higher. Hooking her legs over his hips, she reached up and stroked his ultra-sensitive, pointed ears, never stopping or slowing their almost violent kiss.

  That simple touch sent him into a frenzy.

  Growling so fiercely it sounded like a low roar, Drrak frantically pulled at her cardigan until she had to let go of his neck with one arm to help. Lily had known it would be like this with him—wild, uncontrolled, and utterly intoxicating.

  He took a few steps before she felt the cliff face smack against her back. The rough impact forced a shocked moan from her and made her pussy spasm. The need to have him inside her was a demanding throb, pulsing through her in ever-increasing waves.

  He used a smooth section of the cliff face to support her from behind as they continued to pull at her clothes, then struggled to rid her of her panties while still holding on to each other, neither willing for him to set her down to ease the process. Finally, she was bare with the exception of her boots.

  Screw it! They can stay on .

  Breaking from her lips for the first time, Drrak pulled back slightly to see what he’d uncovered.

  A flash of self-consciousness hit her, but it was gone almost as soon as it came when she saw his hungry expression. He groaned and hoisted her higher in his arms so he could nuzzle the space between her breasts. The sensation of his velvety fur against her sensitive skin was delicious, but when he didn’t move to touch her tight nipples she took matters into her own hands.

  Grabbing the back of his head, she arched her back and led his mouth to the tip of one breast. She watched through hooded eyes as he shot a questioning glance at her, his bright, blue-green stare blazing. Nodding quickly, she sucked in a sharp breath when he hesitantly flicked his dark grey tongue out, licking her hard peak.

  Her reaction seemed to fascinate him.

  Watching her closely, he lashed the tip repeatedly until she felt like she was going to lose her mind if he didn’t give her more. Arching her back further, she pressed his mouth into her harder until he sucked the pink tip into his mouth.

  “Yes ,” she hissed, letting her head fall to the cliff face behind her.

  He switched from licking and sucking one nipple to the other until he apparently felt the need to explore her further.

  Drrak effortlessly lifted her higher, nuzzling, licking, and nipping at the skin of her stomach until he was nearly eye level with her pussy.

  Her eyes went wide with alarm at being so far off the ground, but his grip never slipped or faltered, letting her relax slightly against the wall at her back.

  Biting her lower lip when she felt him skim the tip of his nose over her mound, Lily tensed, hoping he would kiss and lick her there but knowing he probably wouldn’t unless she prompted him, and she wasn’t sure he would want to anyway.

  She was just opening her mouth to speak, but all that came out was an embarrassing squeak when he used his upper hands to hold her waist and his lower to hook her legs over his shoulders before pressing a hot, if unsure, kiss to her.

  The mix of barely constrained passion and inexperienced hesitation was shockingly arousing.

  Tentatively rolling her hips toward his lips, Lily wordlessly encouraged him to touch her again, wanting—needing —more.

  His white and black face, decorated with scars, was half hidden so all she could see were his brilliant, burning eyes staring up at her, but she could feel it when he stroked his tongue over her.

  His eyelids fluttered shut and a deep, throaty purr poured from his mouth when he got his first taste of her. Tightening her grip on his head in response to the vibration, she pulled him closer, her breath hitching.

  His frenzy came back as if a switch had been flipped. His hesitation disappeared and, before she could brace herself for the onslaught, he was kissing and licking her pussy just as hungrily as he had her mouth.

  Crying out, Lily undulated her hips against him, feeling him everywhere, his tongue pushing inside her, swirling over her, before he accidentally flicked her clit .

  When that make her jerk, he froze and zeroed in on her face before he slowly and deliberately closed his soft lips over it, sucking it gently at first, then hard enough she felt the warning pulses of approaching release.

  “Ooh, Drrak… wait,” she panted, fighting against her peak.

  She wanted him inside her when he made her orgasm for the first time. He reluctantly pulled back, his features set in harsh, unforgiving lines as he stared up at her, his rough breathing ghosting over her wet sex.

  “Pari shh ana mer ,” she whispered, telling him she wanted him in her.

  Growling lowly, he kept his eyes on her as he gave her one last, long lick, his dark grey tongue erotically alien against her pink pussy, then pulled her legs off his shoulders and let her slide down his chest.

  Gripping his neck with one hand she wiggled lower so she could reach between them, searching for the raised knot of nerves over the base of his shaft, almost frantic to have him inside her.

  Finding it blindly while pulling him down for a kiss, she circled her fingertips over it, pressing just hard enough to give him pleasure and stimulate his cock to hardness. A shiver went through his big body and, faster than she was used to, his steel-hard shaft was pressing against the back of her hand.

  His hold on her tightened, bringing her back up to kiss her harder which let her aim him at her center, but he stopped her before she could do more than brush the head over her wetness.

  “Leelee ,” he growled, “mek shaar ha shhk. Mek faerrska ha shhk… me ha shhk. Me uk kun shhk, roaer shhk, hashk osk Shakti herii mer ,” he swore, his voice low as thunder and shaking with emotion.

  My life is yours. My heart is yours… I am yours. I will hold you, protect you, love you until the Goddess takes me .

  “Drrak,” she breathed, “mehashk .”

  His eyes went wide and his jaw dropped, like she’d just shocked the nonexistent pants off him.

  Despite the grip she still had on his hard shaft and her naked body held against him, he seemed to be frozen. He was just staring at her, still as a statue.

  Her lips quirked in a smile, and, hoping to bring him back to life, she used her grip to rub him against her slickness, moaning when she bumped her clit.

  That seemed to do the trick because he shudder
ed and snarled before bending to attack her mouth, kissing her mercilessly.

  Tightening his hold, he thrust his hips upward suddenly, burying the first couple of inches of his length inside her.

  Moaning sharply in his mouth, Lily felt the delicious stretch of him entering her, his heavy cock hitting every spot as he growled ferociously and paused for a moment, taking in the new sensation of having his shaft fisted in tight, wet warmth. Squeezing her legs around him to bring herself closer, she groaned as he sank farther.

  Once she’d taken all of him, Lily took a moment to let them both adjust then began to move, rising and lowering against his chest, slowly fucking herself on his cock.

  He looked half dazed, yet more focused than she’d ever seen him, his lips parted with shocked pleasure, but his eyes were sharp and glittering with need.

  He looked dangerous, feral, and she loved it.

  He picked up her rhythm quickly, staying still just long enough to get the hang of it, before he began adding his own thrusts to her movements, haltingly at first, but he quickly gained confidence. He did something then that should have surprised her from her experience with her guys but with Drrak it didn’t.

  He took over.

  Stepping back so her back wasn’t rubbing against the rock behind her, Drrak hooked his lower arms under her knees then gripped her hips. He used his hold to spread her legs open, his upper arms still wrapped around her waist, and began pushing up into her.

  The position and his thickness meant he hit her g-spot with every deep, forceful plunge, and Lily couldn’t contain her sounds of pleasure. Her cries spurred him on, drove him into a frenzy until he was fucking her fast and hard, her moans and whimpers blending with his growls and snarls, overlaying the wet sound of their sex.

  It wasn’t long before she felt the prickles of imminent release start in her fingers and toes, spreading and growing as they converged between her legs where Drrak was pounding into her.

  Leaning up, she pulled him down to her so she could kiss him. She tried to fight against her orgasm, wanting this to last longer but between his rough kisses, her breasts rubbing against his chest and his hard, furious thrusts, she was lost.

  Throwing her head back, Lily opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out, her vocal cords frozen as the avalanche of pleasure hit her.

  Her walls clamped down on his shaft, inhibiting his movement, but it didn’t matter. He powered inside her one last time, then stayed there, buried as deeply as possible, and roared as he came. Grinding herself against him, she felt his cum flood her, too much for her to hold as it overflowed and leaked onto the ground below.

  Neither of their releases were quick or gentle, seizing them in a pleasure so intense it was almost painful as they trembled and shuddered against each other.

  When the waves of her orgasm began to lessen, she sucked in a desperate breath of air. Blinking her eyes open, she gazed up at his face. He was staring down at her in an unfocused haze of bliss and shock .

  Lily laughed happily through panting breaths as she collapsed against Drrak’s chest, sweating and tingling all over, her pussy still fluttering madly around his cock.

  “That was—,” was all she got out before she felt him sway alarmingly then drop to his knees, the impact forcing him deeper inside her even as his secure grip kept the jolt from jarring her too badly.

  He groaned like he was dying and, thinking he was about to pass out and crush her beneath his bulk, Lily let go of his neck to cup his cheeks, lifting his bowed head until she could look at him.

  He surprised her by leaning down to kiss her, his lips and tongue soft and coaxing, so different from the frantic kisses they’d shared earlier, but no less intoxicating.

  Pulling back reluctantly, Lily gave him a censorious look for scaring her but he only grinned happily and bent to kiss her again.

  “Mek Leelee, mehashk ,” he rumbled softly, nuzzling his nose to hers.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  L ily was just gathering the energy to slide herself off of Drrak’s cock when a scuffing noise from above reached her. Whipping a startled look up, she found Frrar staring down at them.

  It wasn’t his sudden appearance that raised the hair on the back of her neck but the warbling howl in the distance, too deep and menacing to belong to Trrak.

  Panicked urgency tightened Frrar’s features as he waved frantically for them to climb back up. Drrak, reacting much quicker than she was able to, lifted her quickly and set her on her feet then jumped up.

  Shifting gears from euphoric happiness and post-sex lassitude to terror was painfully jarring, and Lily was scrambling to adjust. Darting to her clothes, she struggled to dress as quickly as possible while her muscles still felt like jelly. She was pulling on her panties when Drrak, who’d managed to pack up and arrange all their things on his vine in the seconds it had taken her to dress, came back and snatched her up.

  Lily barely had time to wrap her limbs around him before he was running full-out up the near vertical path.

  As soon as Drrak set foot on the top of the cliff, Frrar fired off something, too low for her to understand, but she wouldn’t have had the focus to translate it even if she’d heard.

  The crashing noise in the distance held her full attention.

  Bouncing against Drrak’s chest as he followed Frrar to the nearest tree, Lily turned her head toward the sound. She saw the tops of the shorter trees swaying and felt the vibration of pounding footsteps, even through Drrak’s body, like that scene from one of her favorite movies where the T-Rex is coming to eat people.

  There was only one animal she knew of that was big enough to make that much noise.

  Just as she had that thought, she spotted the first pantari come crashing through the foliage. It was still far enough that Lily thought they might be able to get away, but it was entirely too close for comfort. And she knew firsthand how fast they moved, despite their huge size.

  Three more of the horrifically massive beasts followed on its heels, sending her heart into her throat. Pins and needles shot through her arms as adrenaline flooded her, and she had to bite her lips to hold in a scream that they run faster.

  Lily caught Frrar jumping up from the corner of her eye but wasn’t prepared when Drrak leapt.

  Her stomach went weightless, and she almost lost her grip on him. She choked out a short scream as she felt herself slipping down his chest and would have fallen to the ground if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly.

  Her shift in weight threw him off balance.

  She looked up in time to see his fingertips graze the thick branch before they plummeted. They landed with a jarring thud that made her teeth clack painfully when her chin hit his shoulder, but Drrak managed to keep his feet, only stumbling a bit before he growled and dug in then heaved them forward.

  They were off before Lily could do more than grunt at the impact, running deeper into the forest.

  She heard Arruk’s voice yelling at them frantically from above and the rustle and snap of twigs as he, Tor, and Frrar followed in the trees, but her horrified gaze was glued to the approaching beasts, gaining quickly on them. They were only maybe fifty feet away and closing the distance fast.

  Movement from the side caught her eye.

  She thought for a moment the pantari had flanked them, but it was Trrak that came running out of the bushes. A sob of relief escaped her before she could suppress it.

  “Trrak! Come here, boy, run !” she screamed.

  The cub zeroed in on her, his black eyes wide with fear, and put on a burst of speed until he was running beside them at Drrak’s knees.

  Swallowing back her panic, tears, and the creeping sense of doom crawling up her spine, she tried to come up with a plan. The beasts were twenty feet away, close enough she could make out the drool dripping from their wide, alligator-like jaws.

  Glancing behind and above, she didn’t see any branches low enough to the ground for Drrak to jump to and even if there were, t
hat would leave Trrak on the ground. She wasn’t willing to hope the pantari would spare him just because he was one of their kind, not when he smelled like her and the guys.

  They couldn’t stop running long enough to climb the trunk. Drrak may have been able to manage that quickly enough on his own but not with her clinging to his front, slowing him down and occupying two of his arms.

  She was still looking around frantically when she heard thuds at her back.

  Tor, Arruk, and Frrar closed in around them, making a barrier of their bodies between her and the approaching pantari as they ran.

  “Get back in the trees, damn it!” she yelled, horrified they were putting themselves in danger when they’d been safe .

  She saw Arruk swoop down mid-stride to snatch up Trrak and thought for a moment that was why they’d dropped down, so the cub wasn’t left defenseless on the ground. She thought that right up until Frrar and Tor pulled their spears from their backs and slowed their pace until they were a few feet behind them.

  “No! No, no, no, get your asses back over here!”

  Tor gave her his trademark mischievous smile as he ran, but it was set with determination and tinged heavily with a resigned kind of fear.

  Not again… I can’t…

  “We can make it to the fucking trees, damn it! Just keep running!” she pleaded, fear making goosebumps prickle her arms as angry, panicked tears tried to fill her eyes.

  “Uknaa skar au tul Shevak Sha !” Frrar yelled back, his expression remorseful but resolved.

  The faces of Skaa’s children flashed through her mind followed by an image of the shevari in their huts and homes in the Mother Tree, the citris she’d avoided getting too close to, because they reminded her painfully of Seti, climbing everywhere .

  Frrar was right. They couldn’t allow the pantari to follow them back to tribe territory.

  They had to fight them off or lead them away.

  Lily knew which of those they planned to do. They were going to try to put her and Trrak in a tree and stay on the ground to fight.

  She couldn’t think of a plan to keep them out of danger completely, not with her mind a chaotic mess of terror, but she damn sure wasn’t going to sit uselessly in a fucking tree.