Pursued: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Fated Mates of the Kalixian Warriors Book 10)

by Presley Hall

  “Grub!” I snarl, whirling around. But the squat little alien is already gone, doubtless scuttling off somewhere to avoid my wrath and the repercussions of his actions. Because there’s no way I’m letting this bounty hunter leave with Nadia. And if Grub was here, I’d slit his throat just for the pleasure of it.

  “I’m not here for the Terran woman,” the bounty hunter growls, his voice deep and rough. “I’m here for you, Kalixian. Give yourself up, and the woman will be unharmed.”

  “Let her go,” I snarl back, “and I’ll consider leaving you alive.”

  Quick as a flash, a blade juts out from the bracer on the arm that the bounty hunter has pressed against Nadia’s throat. The tip glows green in the light.

  It’s poisoned.

  My blood runs cold the moment I see it. I’m fast, and strong, and a skilled fighter. But there’s no possible way I can take the hunter out before he kills Nadia. One prick of that blade, and she could be dead in mere moments. There are a hundred poisons in the universe that it could be, and almost all the ones I can think of kill almost instantly.

  “Come with me, and I’ll let her live,” the bounty hunter repeats.

  Before this, every impulse in me would have rebelled at the idea of giving myself up without a fight. But now, all of my instincts seem focused on Nadia. The thought of her dying, of that blade pricking her soft, perfect flesh and her body dropping instantly to the floor, seems to tear at my very soul. It’s a pain like I’ve never felt, almost physical in its intensity, and I know that I have no choice.

  “All right,” I say quietly. I slide my weapon out of its sheath at the side of my loincloth slowly, my other hand held aloft to show that I’m giving in. I lay the weapon on the floor along with my other blade, then raise both my hands. “I’ll give myself up. Just let her go unharmed.”

  The look in Nadia’s eyes as they meet mine is horrified, and I can see her lips form the word no. But it doesn’t matter. My choice is made.

  I’ll die before I’ll let any harm come to my Irisa.

  13

  Nadia

  My heart is pounding in my chest, feeling almost as if it will burst as I watch Zatir raise his hands above his head.

  The pain that shoots through me has nothing to do with the iron grip that the alien has on my throat or the fear of the cold metal I can feel pressed against my skin, and everything to do with the fact that Zatir is giving himself up to a bounty hunter who’ll deliver him to a merciless alien who wants to kill him for what he’s done. I can’t believe what I’m seeing as the Kalixian warrior lays his weapons down, holding his hands in the air as he agrees to the terms.

  Even though the mate bond has chosen us for each other, I hardly know Zatir. He hardly knows me. We’ve known each other for all of two days, and yet he’s willing to trade himself to keep me alive.

  I couldn’t deny the attraction between us. I’ve felt it since the first moment we met, when his eyes found mine in the grand hall, and then again on the balcony when he followed me. But part of me couldn’t help but wonder if he’s really looking for a mate or just for something fun, another exciting adventure. Another conquest.

  How could I not wonder? His confidence and charm and cavalier attitude are part of what makes him so attractive and exciting, his roguish exterior just adding to his appeal. But it also makes it hard to trust that he’s really looking for a mate. A wife, essentially. Zatir doesn’t seem like the marrying kind, to put it in human terms.

  But this… this isn’t something you do for someone you don’t care about.

  I’m trembling as the bounty hunter retracts the blade from against my throat, the metal retreating into the bracer with a sharp snick that makes me shudder. He thrusts something cold and hard into my free hand, and when I look down, I see that it’s a pair of cuffs.

  My blood runs ice cold.

  “Put those on him,” the hunter instructs, nodding at Zatir. “Then you can leave. The bounty comes with me.”

  My hands shake. I can’t do this. I won’t. But as I look at Zatir with wide eyes, trying desperately not to cry, he nods at me. I can read his face as easily as if he were speaking to me.

  Do it, his expression says. Do it, or we both die.

  I know he’s right. Refusing won’t accomplish anything except getting myself killed, and Zatir will probably still end up in cuffs. Maybe he could fight off the hunter, enraged by my death… but I’ll still be dead, and Zatir might not make it out. It’s possible that he has a plan that he can’t tell me about.

  I have to trust him—this man I hardly know, who says he’s my mate and that I’m his. I have to, or we’re both lost.

  So I walk forward on legs that feel like wet noodles and click the cuffs onto Zatir’s wrists. I graze my fingers over his skin as I do it, looking up into his eyes, and I feel my own water with hot tears.

  “It’ll be all right,” he mouths soundlessly, and I nod, but I don’t quite believe it. How can any of this be okay?

  As I take a step back, I hear the hunter start to laugh behind me, a deep and mirthful sound, as if he’s heard the best joke of his entire life. When I turn to look at him, he’s shaking his head, grinning widely.

  “You Kalixians are far too honorable,” he drawls with a snort. “It makes you expect that others will behave with honor, as well.”

  Zatir stiffens, and my blood runs cold again.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  He was lying. Playing Zatir, using his honor against him. But there’s nothing I can do now. There’s no key to the cuffs that I can see, and Zatir can’t break them.

  “I have to deliver you to Kildred alive,” the bounty hunter says, nodding at the Kalixian warrior. “But you…” He turns his gaze on me, running his pointed black tongue over his lips. “No one said anything about you. So I’ll enjoy taking you as a prize for myself. A little bonus for a job well done, you might say.”

  My stomach drops, horror rushing through me. In the space of a second, I’m transported back to my time on the Orkun ship, to the absolute terror I felt when I was abducted, the panic that filled me at the news that I was going to be given as a bride—a sex slave—to one of their warlords.

  Zatir’s face flushes with rage, his eyes so hard and furious that anyone should be terrified to have that gaze turned their way. But the bounty hunter doesn’t seem to care. He grabs my arm, yanking me toward him.

  “In fact,” he sneers, grinning down at me to show pointed teeth, “maybe I’ll have a little taste now.”

  “No!”

  I shriek the word aloud; I can’t help myself. I start to struggle, yanking at the iron grip he has on my arm, digging in my heels as he pulls me toward him. I don’t want this alien to touch me. I won’t let this happen. Not again.

  “Stop struggling, or it’ll be worse for you!” the hunter snaps.

  When I twist my body to try to break his hold, he rears back, slapping me hard across the face. The force of his muscular arm swinging at me stuns me for a moment, causing me to fall back, but I’m not too dazed to miss Zatir’s furious roar as I stagger into a rack of tapestried rugs.

  Zatir lunges forward. His hands are still cuffed behind his back, but he clearly doesn’t care. The hunter striking me was one step too far.

  The bounty hunter pulls his blaster out, but Zatir is charging him too fast for him to get a clear shot. He fires anyway, real fear crossing his face for the first time, but the shot goes wild and strikes Zatir’s arm instead of his chest, grazing his skin instead of making a direct hit. Zatir barrels the alien to the ground, throwing all of his body weight into him like a raging bull. It reminds me of the animal Zatir stopped in the market—except this time, I’m rooting for the bull.

  They fall together, Zatir’s bigger and heavier body landing atop the hunter’s as they hit the floor with a thud.

  Zatir doesn’t have his weapons or any way to get to them, but he doesn’t need them. The hunter is struggling under his weight, trying to get his arm up to get off an
other blaster shot, but Zatir rears up, planting one knee firmly on the hunter’s elbow so hard that I swear I hear the crack of bone. With one smooth movement, as graceful as anything I’ve ever seen despite his size, he forces his shin onto the bounty hunter’s throat, his weight sinking into the other alien until I hear the last strangled gurgling from him. Then the hunter’s body goes limp.

  The moment I see Zatir’s body relax, I scramble up off the pile of rugs, rushing toward him.

  “There will be a key,” he says, nodding at the body as he climbs off it, his eyes alert and focused on the door in case someone else comes after us. “Look in that pouch.”

  There’s a leather bag tied behind the hunter’s holster, and I untie it with shaky fingers, pulling out a strange looking cylindrical key.

  “That’s it!” Zatir nods. “Quick, undo the cuffs.”

  In a matter of seconds, I get him free. He snatches up his weapons, drawing himself up to his full height as he approaches the door.

  “I’ll check the street,” he murmurs. “Stay behind me, and then we need to get back to the ship.”

  Before I have a chance to talk myself out of it, I grab the bounty hunter’s blaster, holding it as tightly as I dare in one hand. I’m not entirely sure how to shoot one of these, but I’ll figure it out if I need to.

  Zatir glances up and down the street, one of his short swords gripped in his fist. His other hand reaches out for mine, and when he looks back at me, he only says one word.

  “Run.”

  14

  Nadia

  I’ve never run so fast in my life.

  My heart is pounding in my chest, rising up into my throat, choking me so that I’m gasping for breath as we race back through the streets toward the docking bay. I don’t know if anyone is actually chasing us yet, or if we’re just trying to get out of here as fast as we can before anyone finds the dead body back at Grub’s shop. But either way, I follow Zatir’s lead and don’t stop, focusing only on putting one foot in front of the other and ignoring the burning in my lungs.

  Just when my legs feel as if they might give out beneath me, the ship comes into view.

  Relief floods me as we rush on board. Zatir closes the doors behind us as I slump against the wall, trying desperately to catch my breath. I follow him into the cockpit, my hand pressed to my chest as I grab onto the back of the copilot’s seat. I’m still gripping it hard when Zatir throws the ship into motion, lurching forward so quickly that I nearly fall, and the blaster in my hand clatters to the floor.

  He’s all focus for several minutes, launching us away from Na’ar as quickly as possible and not so much as moving or looking away from the controls until we’ve left the planet’s atmosphere and have put enough distance between it and us that it’s obvious no one is following.

  As soon as he’s certain of that, he flips a switch to activate the ship’s cloaking device, then gets up out of the captain’s seat, turning toward me with wild eyes.

  I go to him immediately. I can see the spot on his arm where the blaster grazed him—a red and raw patch of skin charred at the edges—and I gently touch his arm below it, biting my lip as I gingerly run my fingers over his skin around the wound. He reaches up to my face, touching just below my cheekbone, where I can already feel the swelling. The skin there is hot and sore, and I know I’ll have a bruise.

  With a flash of realization, I understand what we’re doing. We’re checking each other for wounds, taking inventory of what’s happened to each other. I feel my chest squeeze at the thought, some overwhelming emotion tugging hard at my heart. I’m reminded suddenly of the last time I was badly injured back on Earth—by the only man I ever thought I loved.

  That man didn’t take care of me. He didn’t even bother to see how badly he’d hurt me. He just walked away.

  Kevin never looked at me the way Zatir is now, with a fierce protectiveness and deep worry in his eyes, or protected me the way Zatir did back there. I know that the Kalixians are warriors and that killing their enemies is a part of their lives. But I’ve never before had someone willing to kill for me—willing to die for me, too.

  I’ve never had anything like what I have with Zatir.

  My heart is still thrashing in my chest, adrenaline from the fight and the mad rush through the streets still surging through me, and it makes me daring.

  What does it matter if this man and I have only known each other a few days? I think of all the women I’ve seen mated so far—Rose and Harper and Autumn, Emma and Jade and Lucy and Cora, even Sophie and Brooke, who I know even less well but who I’ve seen with their mates. Not one of them is unhappy. Not one of them regrets it. All of them are loved and cherished and protected.

  So why should I worry that it would be any different for me?

  With adrenaline rushing through me, I allow myself to feel daring for the first time in what feels like forever. I skim my fingers up the inside of Zatir’s arms, letting them drift over his chest. For the first time, I let myself really touch him. I press my hands against his chest, feeling the flex of his muscles there, then drag them down to the top of his sculpted abs. I can feel myself arching toward him as I do, my breath short and quick, and Zatir must feel the change in my intention—the way I’m touching him more purposefully now.

  He groans, a deep sound that seems to come almost from his very soul, and when he catches my gaze, I see that his eyes are a brilliant, glowing amber.

  His arm goes around my waist, hard and possessive, and he pulls me tightly up against him. I can feel how hard he is, the thick ridge of his cock pressed against my lower belly, and I shiver at the touch of his body against mine. All of him is hard. He’s all corded muscle and barely contained power, his large body looming over mine as he bends his head to kiss me.

  I reach up when his lips touch mine, burying my hands in his hair. His lips are fierce and hot, claiming mine with intent, and as I run my fingers through his silky dark strands, I hear him groan again, the sound vibrating against my lips.

  A shudder runs through me as my hips grind against him. I can feel his cock against me, his loincloth shoved out of the way by the force of his erection, leaving nothing but the thin fabric of my skirt separating us.

  That small separation feels like way too much in this moment. I want it gone so that I can feel his hot skin against mine. So that there’s nothing left between us.

  I want to finally find out what it means to really be with a man—and I want it to be Zatir.

  I want him to be my first.

  His tongue slides into my mouth, hot and devouring, and as his hand comes up to tangle in my hair, gripping the back of my head as he kisses me fiercely, I feel his hips grinding against me. I arch against him without thinking.

  The pulse of desire is centered between my legs now, hot and throbbing, and I need more. I’ve touched myself before, but I’ve never had anyone else make me come. I’ve never felt like this when anyone else has touched me, but now pleasure is spreading through my body like fire.

  As we grind against each other, our hands moving wildly and his hot tongue claiming my mouth, I feel the first waves of a climax start to wrack my body, an orgasm crashing over me from almost nothing at all. I shudder in his arms, coming apart, trembling with the most exquisite pleasure the way I did on the balcony in my dream. My body feels so needy, so hungry, and I cry out against his mouth, moaning helplessly as my back arches hard in his arms.

  But I still want more. Even as the last tremors of the orgasm ripple through me, I want more and more and more.

  I never want him to stop.

  Zatir groans, tearing his lips away from mine for just a moment as he looks down at me.

  “I’ve never—by all the gods, I can’t wait to claim you.” His voice is hoarse and strained with need.

  In one smooth gesture, he sweeps me up into his arms, as careless of the blaster wound on his arm as if it weren’t even there. He carries me down the hall, toward the cabin, and as he pushes the door open, my
heart beats wildly in my chest.

  This is it.

  There’s no one to stop us, no one to tell either of us no.

  This is the moment when I become his Irisa, completely.

  15

  Zatir

  The emotions and feelings raging through me are a wildfire, like nothing I’ve ever known before.

  I’m torn between wild lust and the sickening knowledge of how close I came to losing my mate before I even had a chance to claim her. My body burns with need even as my chest aches with the thought of how near Nadia came to death, how close I was to never being able to touch her like this again, never able to truly make her mine.

  I shove open the cabin door and carry her inside to the bed, setting her down on top of it.

  My cock has never been so hard, aching for release. The need to claim Nadia pushes every other possible thought out of my head. All I can think about is uncovering her sweet, beautiful body for the first time, of pleasuring her until she cries out my name, of sinking my rigid length into her until at last I can find my own relief.

  The thought of how she came in my arms from just a kiss and the feel of my cock pressed against her only fuels my need. I’ve never been with a woman so responsive, so desperately hungry for me, her lust matching my own. Nadia is as consumed by desire as I am, and it only stokes the flames.

  As she lies back on the bed, I yank my loincloth free and toss it to the floor.

  Nadia gasps as she sees me fully nude for the first time, propping herself up on her elbows. Her gaze rakes over my body, traveling up and down before finally settling on the length of my cock.

  “Oh,” she whispers, her lips parting as her eyes widen.

  For a moment, I’m worried that she might be frightened. She’s so delicate, after all, her lithe body more fragile in appearance than anything I’ve ever held.