by Tana Stone
She was not with the rest yet. That was good.
He left his hiding spot and crept noiselessly through the deserted village, skirting around tents and moving carefully so as to avoid anyone. It had been so long since he’d last been in the village, but he knew the layout as if he’d been there yesterday. He recognized his former tent, anger stabbing at him when he peered inside the open flaps and saw another’s belongings arranged on the scattered rugs. He wondered if anyone in the village thought about him anymore, or if his name had been erased along with all evidence of him.
He let the soft hum of her mind pull him through the village until he was standing outside a large, double-peaked tent with the flaps closed. For a moment, he wondered if she was sharing a Dothvek warrior’s tent and the thought filled him with jealous rage.
He steadied his temper. No, he hadn’t seen her with any warrior, and he didn’t sense a Dothvek in the tent with her now. The only thing he could sense clearly was sadness. His female’s sadness. He stifled the urge to rush inside and comfort her.
That would not go well. She had no idea who he was, and, at this point, he looked even wilder than his Dothvek brothers with his long, unkempt hair and scruffy cheeks. He didn’t even bother wearing his clan’s traditional leather pants anymore. Instead, when his only pair had finally fallen apart, he had tied loose animal skin around his waist.
No, him running in and hugging her would definitely not comfort her. She would most likely scream in terror, and every warrior would descend on him within a matter of moments.
Rukken wondered why the female was sad. She had never seemed sad when he’d seen her with the other females, although he had not been watching her for long. He sensed deep regret, and also something else—loss. She had lost people.
He let out a breath, absorbing her feelings of grief for the people she missed. That they had in common, then.
Hearing cheers rise up from the far side of the village, Rukken steeled himself. It was now or never. Soon the tahadu would begin, and he needed to be far away from the village when it was over and the Dothveks returned to the tents.
Rukken reached a hand into the leather pouch attached to his belt, pulling out a bunch of sweet clavia. Used primarily for pain relief, a handful of the green leaves could render a warrior unconscious. He did not like that he had to use them, even though he knew they would not cause any permanent damage. He wished he could explain everything to her, and have her willingly come with him, but he also knew that was a fantasy. He was a stranger to her. For now.
He lifted one flap of the tent and stepped inside, his footstep light on the crisscrossed rugs. She stood facing away from him, bent over a small table, and touching her fingers to a piece of paper that held an image of several people on it. Before he could wonder who the people were that she touched so gently, she stiffened.
She’d heard him. He moved quickly before she could turn, pressing the hand with the clavia leaves over her mouth and nose, and wrapping another arm tightly around her waist, pinning her arms down and keeping her from flailing at him. Within moments, her body had gone limp, and then she was breathing as if she was in a deep sleep.
Rukken returned the leaves to his pouch and scooped her into his arms. He looked down at her small body, her dark lashes fanned across the tops of her cheeks and her pink lips slightly parted. Desire pulsed again, but he pushed it away. He needed to get her away from the Dothvek village, first.
Pushing his way through the tent flaps, he paused outside to make sure no one was around. Another cheer from the far edge of the village told him the tahadu had begun. He ran quickly through the maze of tents, encountering no one.
The female was so light it was easy to run, and once he’d cleared the village, he was able to increase his pace as he raced up and down the dunes. His legs pumped up and down, but he held her close to keep her from being too jostled.
He loved the feel of her small body in his arms. She was his now. His to protect. His to take care of. His mate.
She made a small noise, and he glanced down, hoping she would not wake until they’d reached his camp. Despite his feelings, he suspected she would not feel the same way. Not at first, at least. Once she realized they were meant to be together, Rukken felt sure she would be glad to be his mate, and glad to have such a strong warrior protecting her from the dangers of the planet and from the Dothveks.
Warm, gold light spilled across the shimmering sand as the suns sank farther down on the horizon. He needed to reach camp before dark. Rukken held her tighter and ran faster, sand kicking up behind him as he crested another tall dune and got that much closer to home.
Three
Caro rubbed her head as she tried to sit up. Had she actually fallen asleep? A wave of dizziness made her sink back down on the rugs covering the sand floor. And why had she fallen asleep on the floor and not on the softer bed?
“Bex?” she called out in the darkness, her voice hoarse. The last thing she’d remembered was getting ready to watch T’Kar go through the tahadu. Bexli had stepped outside to find Pog, who’d run off again, and Caro had put her hair up into its usual ponytail, and then… Her memory got fuzzy about what happened next. She remembered sensing someone behind her, a strange scent, a hand on her mouth and then… Nothing.
She didn’t remember anything after that, but she knew she hadn’t gone to the tahadu. She forced herself to sit up, pushing aside the nausea. The inside of the tent was dark, the lanterns overhead not lit, and it felt smaller. The slope of the ceiling seemed lower, and she could swear she saw a single tent pole in the middle, instead of two. She’d definitely slept through the tahadu, since it was clearly the middle of the night. The entire Dothvek village was silent, which was rare in a village with so many inhabitants as well as livestock.
She doubted she’d slept through anything willingly, especially since she remembered being grabbed from behind. But that didn’t make any sense, either. Why would someone knock her out only to let her sleep? Did someone want her to miss the tahadu? Why?
She rubbed her head again as confusion swirled. If it was nighttime, where was Bexli? She squinted through the darkness to see if she could make out her friend’s shape on the next bed. And why wasn’t Pog waking up and rushing over to lick her face? That creature never missed a chance to lick someone’s face.
Caro wondered if Bex had gotten lucky at the celebration that had been planned if T’Kar was successful. The woman had certainly attracted more than her share of interested looks from the Dothvek warriors since they’d arrived, especially from the scorchingly hot twin-brother warriors. Of course, neither had made a move. Apparently, the Dothveks were all about lady’s choice. Not that she would fault her shapeshifter friend if she’d decided to hook up with one.
She groped around her bed but couldn’t feel the side table with the pitcher of water and her photos. Shit. Where was everything?
“What do you need, female?”
The low voice nearly made her scream. Why the hell was there a man in her tent? No way Bexli had brought a guy back to the tent they shared.
“Who the fuck are you, and why are you in my tent?” Her heart hammered so loudly she could barely hear her own words over it.
“I am Rukken, and this is my tent.”
“Wait, I’m in the wrong tent?” She glanced around, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. He was right. This definitely was not her tent. As she’d suspected earlier, it had only one pole, and was considerably smaller than the large, two-person tent she and Bexli shared. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how this happened.”
She could make out the large form of him crouched on his haunches near the tent flaps, but he was only a dark outline.
“I brought you here.”
That stopped her. “You what?”
He didn’t answer, but he stood. Caro knew that by this point she should be used to how imposing the Dothveks were, but as he towered over her in the dark, he looked massive. She could tell that his hair was long and
loose, and she tried to remember if she had seen anyone in the Dothvek village with so much hair. Her mouth went dry as he quickly crossed to her, squatting down again, so close that she could feel the heat of his body.
“You are an offworlder. One of the females who came in the ship.”
“Yeah, obviously. We’ve been here for a while now—“ She scooted back, bumping into the fabric of the tent wall behind her. “Wait, are you not Dothvek?”
He made a low noise in his throat that did not sound happy. “I am Dothvek, but I am not from the village.”
Caro hadn’t known there were Dothveks who didn’t live in the village. Was she in a different village? As her eyes adjusted more to the dimness, she could tell he was bare-chested, with heavy, black tattoos. So that was the same.
“If you aren’t from the village, where are you from?” she asked, her eyes darting to the tent flaps. “Where are we?”
He reached out a hand and cupped her face, tightening his grip when she jerked back. “That does not matter. You live with me now.”
She went completely still as he rubbed his finger down her neck and growled. “You are mine.”
Like hell, Caro thought. She threw out an elbow and caught him in the chin. As he cried out and fell back, she scampered for the exit, pushing through the flaps and stumbling out onto the sands.
Even though it was dark, and the moons were high in the sky, she could see that she was no longer in the Dothvek village. She swiveled her head around. The village was nowhere in sight. No tents. No communal fire. No pens full of jebels. No other Dothveks.
All she could see in every direction were endless sand dunes. She spun around and saw that the small tent was tucked in front of a copse of frond-topped trees and a small pond, but that there were no other tents. Only the one she’d been inside. The one with the Dothvek she’d just attacked.
She scanned the dark, rolling dunes desperately, but there was nothing else. There was no one to help her.
A large arm curled around her waist from behind, and she gasped. His breath was warm as he lowered his mouth to her neck and pulled her flush against his massive, hard body. It wasn’t difficult to tell that he was hard everywhere.
“I wish you hadn’t done that, female,” he said, his voice a dark purr that vibrated against her ear.
Caro struggled against him, even as he lifted her off her feet. She tried to kick backward, but he moved his legs out of the way and her feet flailed helplessly. “You’d better let me go before my crew mates come after you and kick your ass.”
“I am not afraid of the other females, although I will admit you all have more spirit than I expected.”
“Yeah?” Caro jerked her head back and tried to hit him in the chin. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“No?”
His voice sounded amused, which pissed her off even more. Was he toying with her? He was so much bigger than she was, she had a sinking feeling that he wasn’t expending much energy at all defending himself from her pathetic attempts. Caro finally stopped struggling, her breath heavy and uneven.
“Can you please let me down?” she asked with as much dignity as she could muster.
“Do you promise you will not try to escape again?” His words buzzed against her ear, and sent an unwanted jolt of arousal down her spine.
“Fine.” It didn’t look like there was anywhere to escape to, anyway.
He lowered her feet to the ground and released her.
Caro spun around, staggering back and putting a few feet between her and the stranger. “Just who the hell are you? I know you’re Dothvek, but I also know I’ve never seen you before.”
“My name is Rukken.” He walked around her, his body between her and the open desert. As if she would make it ten feet if she tried to run up the powdery dunes.
She tried to steady her breath as she took him in. Now that she had the three moons for illumination, she could see that he was, indeed, huge. He also looked wilder than the Dothveks she’d met in the village. His hair was longer, and looked like it might be matted. Dark facial hair covered his cheeks, tattoos spanned almost his entire chest, and leather straps wound around his wrists. Instead of the low-slung pants the Dothveks in the village wore, he had some sort of uneven animal skin tied around his waist that barely reached mid-thigh. She was also pretty sure she caught the shadow of something significant swinging beneath it.
Caro swallowed hard. “Why do you live out here, and not in the village?”
“I was exiled,” he said, scowling.
Exiled? Well, this was great. She’d been kidnapped by an alien barbarian who’d done something bad enough to get himself kicked out of the clan.
“But I am not guilty of the crime I was accused of,” he added.
Wasn’t that what every guilty person said, Caro thought? “Why should I believe you? You kidnapped me. That’s a crime.”
A rumble rose from deep in his chest. “Taking you was not a crime.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, yeah? How do you figure that?”
Rukken stepped closer to her, and she had to fight the urge to back away. She definitely did not like the way his closeness made her pulse flutter and her heart race.
“Because you are my mate. You were meant to be mine.” He stroked a finger down the side of her cheek, sending tingles along her skin. “I was not kidnapping you. I was claiming you.”
Caro’s mouth went dry. Oh, shit.
Four
“Claiming me?” The female’s eyes widened, and she pulled her head away. “I don’t think so.”
The warmth that had spread up his fingers when he’d touched her face disappeared, and only a faint buzz remained on his skin. He longed to feel the heat her touch produced again, but he fought the urge to reach for her. Not when she looked so terrified.
“Do not worry.” He sensed her fear as if it was clawing at his own throat. “I have no plans to force you.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly, but her fear did not entirely disappear. Probably because she didn’t believe him.
He tried not to be offended that she would think that of him, reminding himself that she did not know him. All she knew was that he’d taken her away from her friends and the Dothveks. “I would never force myself on a female. Even one who is meant to be mine.” He leaned closer and could feel her shallow breaths. “When I take you, you will want it as much as I do.”
She inhaled sharply, but narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s never going to happen.”
He shrugged and backed away, feeling her relief at the distance between them, and hearing her exhale. Rukken also needed some space. Being close to her had sent all the blood in his body rushing south, and his cock was swollen with desire.
It had been one thing to feel the faint connection from a distance, as he’d followed her across the sands and then watched her in the village. It was another to be next to her. Instead of a muted hum of emotions, her feelings threatened to overwhelm him with their intensity.
Rukken was still not sure how he had a link to her mind. He’d never heard of offworlders having empathic abilities. Then again, he’d never interacted with an offworlder before. His people usually kept their distance from any who happened to stumble upon their planet. It had to mean something. It had to mean she was his. Why else would the goddesses send a female to his planet whose thoughts flowed so easily into his mind and whose impulses swirled with his own?
Was he being rewarded by the goddesses for his sacrifice? Was this payment for all he’d given up for so long? He glanced at the dark-haired beauty. If so, it had been worth it. A mate had been worth all the loneliness and shame. And now that he had her, he would not be lonely ever again.
Breathing in the morning air, Rukken peered across the sands, which were warming from the suns shining above the dunes. Gold rays touched the rounded tips of the sand peaks, setting them on fire, and making the shimmering sand shine brightly. A gentle gust rustled the fronds of the tall tre
es that rose up behind them, and made the few small bells tied to the flaps of his tent ring, the sound high and soft.
He knew the coolness would soon be burned off and the breeze would vanish, but for now, the air was crisp, and the day was fresh. Even the female stared at the light as it crested the horizon, putting a hand over her eyes as she watched, her expression awed.
“You do not have suns where you come from?” he asked.
“We do, but I haven’t lived on a planet with a sun—or two—for a long time. And there are no sunrises when you live on a spaceship.” Her eyes glittered. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen something so beautiful.”
For a moment, he felt sad she lived in a place that did not experience this every morning. Then he reminded himself that she no longer lived in that place. She lived here. With him. “It is just as beautiful as this every morning—and every evening.”
“I’ve seen the sunsets here, but there’s something different about a sunrise.” The corners of her mouth twitched up. “Maybe because I’m not usually awake for them.”
He thought of watching her sleep, like he’d done for hours and like he could have done for many more. Need coursed through him, and his cock stirred, but he attempted to ignore it. He turned and took a single long step to the fire pit outside the entrance to the tent, hoping she would not notice his arousal, as he crouched over the cold embers. “You are awake now.”
She remained standing and looking out across the sands, and he sensed a calm settle over her. He did not want to break it, so he busied himself with starting the day’s fire, silently adding new kindling to the small spark he ignited, and watching it grow to a steady flame. Threading the remains of the sand serpent on a pair of pointed sticks, he held them over the heat to cook.
After a moment, she turned her attention to him. “I’m assuming this is breakfast?”
Rukken touched a finger to the device he’d taken from the Crestek. The word she’d used was unfamiliar, but it was clear she meant the morning meal. He nodded, but didn’t speak. Watching the suns rise had calmed her. She did not seem angry anymore, and he did not want to change that. When he talked, it upset her.
