“What are you doing?” the lieutenant asked. “I’m telling you, it’s fine. Let him bite me.”
“No!” My response was immediate and far too loud.
“You don’t have to protect me. You don’t even know my name.”
Turning from Astra, I looked down at the female. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me. Ivy. My name is Ivy Birkeland.”
Nodding at the honor she’d given to me, I turned back to face my leader. “We will not risk her life, Astra. I cannot.”
“I see.” Astra studied us both as Barek paced behind her, waiting for her decision. His cock was hard, his fangs extended. He wanted to bite a female, but I wasn’t sure whether it was Ivy or Astra driving his need.
Not Ivy. Never my Ivy. Over my dead body.
“Very well.” Astra’s words drained the tension from my muscles, and I noticed Barek relaxed as well. Fucking volatile bastard. But now, with Ivy standing next to me and the mating instinct riding me as never before, I began to understand his struggle with our leader.
Ivy jumped into the silence. “I have several doses of the antidote hidden in a lockbox with a transport beacon attached. Only I have the transport code. Once I am safely on Rogue 5, I will give you the coordinates and you can transport the antidote samples to your labs.”
The breath left my lungs as Astra glared at the human female. She was either the bravest I’d ever met, or the most stupid human ever to transport off planet Earth—and my female was not stupid. Insane, but not stupid. She had the scars that proved it.
“If you fail to deliver the antidote, I will slit your throat myself.”
Ivy nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s go.”
Astra shook her head. “Not so fast.” She looked up at me. “Zenos, because you refuse to bite her, we do not know if she is lying or if the antidote she offers is effective. The only way to test the truth of her claims is for her to be bitten.”
“I will not risk her life,” I repeated. Not my lieutenant. Better to test it first, allow our scientists to examine the formula. “Let the scientists decide.”
“I have agreed to this against my better judgment, but she will be your responsibility, Zenos. You will ensure her safety until we have the transport code. After that, you will present her to the others on Rogue 5 as your mate, your female.”
“What? Wait!” Ivy Birkeland countered.
Astra looked her dead in the eyes, her ultimatum quite clear. “You wish to remain within Astra Legion, to hunt someone from Cerberus? You will not travel alone, nor hunt alone. You are under my protection, and I am responsible for your actions while you are in our legion.”
Ivy was silent, and Astra turned to me. “If her bounty, this Gerian Eozara, as she says, is a member of Cerberus Legion, you will assist her in bringing him to justice. I hate those scum. However, if she lied to us, you will bring her to me. And if she dies while under my protection, you had better be dead first. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Astra.” I understood perfectly. Ivy was mine, but not the way my raging cock wished. No, I had to watch her, protect her, help her and keep her out of trouble until Astra had the antidote. Without biting her. After that? If Ivy told us the truth, she’d be fine. If not? Astra didn’t make idle threats.
5
Ivy, Traveling to Astra Legion, Stealth Ship Legacy
* * *
We’d been stuck in these cramped quarters for hours. Barek watched me like I was going to stab Astra in the back at the first possible opportunity, and Zenos looked at me like I’d already done so, but to him. It wasn’t my fault they didn’t believe me. Well, Astra might have believed me, but she saw it more as an opportunity for me to prove myself in the most lethal of ways. If I lied, I died. She couldn’t have asked for a better situation.
That was fine with me. I’d taken the antidote. I knew I was safe from the poison. I just wasn’t safe from a big hybrid Forsian who could do magic with his cock.
I’d learned that all four of the guards she’d brought with her to Transport Station Zenith were hybrid Forsians, and that these males along with a few others in the Astra Legion were the only known hybrids in existence besides Makarios. And since he was the one who’d successfully mated a human without killing her, these others were the only males in the universe who needed the antidote in order to claim a mate.
That meant finding a soul mate, a partner in life… a bride of sorts. Children. Love. A bonding. Things everyone deserved.
The fact that Astra was willing to risk taking me into her territory in order to acquire the serum for these males said a lot about how much she valued them. Rumors circled that there were more of them, but nothing I could confirm, and I didn’t care enough to investigate. Astra cared about her people, and that care and concern included Zenos.
When I’d asked Astra about the rumors of even more hybrids, Astra had dodged the question, but Barek had scoffed at the idea and Rhord had glared. Just like Zenos was doing now. I wasn’t in this for the friendships. I was in this ship for revenge. For Gerian Eozara. They didn’t have to like me.
“There’s no need to stare. I’m not going anywhere,” I snapped, addressing the male whose cock I’d had inside me, the male who acted like I belonged to him now. Zenos of Astra Legion.
As fucking if.
I stood and paced.
Oh, I’d seen that crushed look on his face when I refused his bite. And since the moment Astra had assigned him to babysit me while I was on Rogue 5, I’d done my best to ignore him. It was hard to do so since it felt like he was devouring me, consuming me with his eyes until I had no secrets left. He already knew what I looked like naked, knew my scars existed, knew how I liked to fuck, what made me scream.
I wanted to shift and squirm under his scrutiny, but I refused to let him see he affected me. The feeling persisted all through the journey to Rogue 5 and had evolved into something resembling fear—fear that he could see inside me somehow and read my mind. I wanted him. Wanted more of what we’d had, and I even started to think I might like his bite.
No. No! No biting!
Zenos moved from his spot beside Rhord to loom over me so that I could no longer pace. “No, you are not going anywhere.”
His response annoyed me. He was only confirming what I’d already said, but his tone implied I had no choice in the matter. Which was also true, but he didn’t need to know that. Then again, I didn’t need to start a fight. But I did anyway. I couldn’t help it with him. He riled me in so many ways, it seemed bickering was an outlet to all the sexual need I had for him. Better to argue than to fuck in front of the others. “You’re mad because I didn’t hand over the antidote,” I argued.
“And you’re mad because you are under my protection now. And you will obey me.”
I pursed my lips. “As long as you don’t get in my way.”
“You will obey me, female.” He pointed at me. “You are my responsibility.”
I shrugged casually. “Not a big deal. I think you are just jealous the other guy was going to bite me.”
“You are cruel to even ask it of him,” he snarled.
Astra, Barek and Rhord—I’d learned his name when we’d boarded the ship—sat before us, one big guy on either side of her. All three were watching—or glaring, depending—as if they were at a tennis match, heads swiveling back and forth.
“We wouldn’t be doing this right now if you’d just let him bite me as proof,” I tossed back, thumbing over my shoulder at Barek.
Zenos waved his hand, his finger almost touching my chest. “That’s right, because you’d be dead.”
I sighed but raised my voice hoping that maybe he’d understand the thing I’d been saying over and over if I spoke even louder. “I told you I took the antidote and you won’t hurt me. If you’d just bite me, I’d be headed to Rogue 5 to track down the Quell dealer, you’d have your antidote and we’d never see each other again. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“If I bite you, if any one of us bite
s you, female, and you survive, you will never leave Rogue 5. You will be fucked and claimed and kept safe.”
“Bullshit. I am not a toy or a possession.”
“The bite is not a game. We mate for life. You ask Barek, a complete stranger, to sacrifice a future with another female for you? You told me you didn’t want a mate. Have you changed your mind?” He flashed his fangs at me and my heart skipped a beat despite my best efforts to remain angry. God he was so damn hot. I did want his bite, and that was just not right. Not part of the plan.
“I am not staying. I am here to collect a bounty and avenge my friends. That is all.”
“Rogue 5 is dangerous.”
“I’m dangerous.”
He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re delusional if you think Astra would just let you go to our legion without protection.”
I smiled, rolled my eyes. He made me crazy. I wanted to punch him and kiss him at the same time. “Me, delusional? Yeah, and you’re an asshole for not telling me who you were earlier.”
“As I recall, you were not interested in talking.”
Astra snapped her fingers, focusing our attention on her. “Both of you are behaving like children.”
Zenos glared at me as if I’d insulted him by the mere act of breathing. As if I’d started this whole mess. He looked to Astra as if he’d forgotten she was there. His entire being seemed to be focused on me. Just me. The sensation was hypnotic, especially since all we did was bicker and argue. Or fuck.
I imagined what it might be like if he’d claimed me for real—for more than just a one-night stand or a quickie in an empty gaming room—his cock stretching me open, his fangs buried in my shoulder as he took me, claimed me, consumed me. And that mating fist thing…
I shivered. No. I couldn’t go there, not with him standing so close to me that I could smell his skin. My pussy was still sore from our previous encounter. I hadn’t used a ReGen wand to heal my tender, well-used flesh because, the truth was, I liked the soreness. It reminded me that I was alive. Human. That I could still feel something other than grief and loss. That I had contact with others, that I could engage. Belong. Be.
Perhaps that was why I was so pissed at him. He made me feel, and I hadn’t done that in months.
I took a deep breath, let it out. “Fine,” I snapped, sounding like a pouting teenager. “How much longer will we be on this ship?” I spun on my heel and directed my question to Astra, ignoring the hulking male who pushed every one of my buttons. My anger button and my clit—my favorite button of all for him to push. God, I was turning into a lunatic.
Zenos bristled behind me—I couldn’t see him, but I could sense his displeasure at my blatant disregard—and I could hear him moving, which made Astra’s gaze dart to him before returning to me. I ignored the sulking male because if she didn’t want me to argue, I couldn’t look at him. He riled me up, and the only way to get that aggression out was not happening on the shuttle and certainly wasn’t happening while he was a bossy, know-it-all alpha male.
Astra smirked at me as if the question were amusing. It wasn’t. “About an hour.”
Sixty more minutes. Three thousand six hundred more seconds of Zenos breathing down my neck. Of making me want to give him a tongue lashing… or do something else to him with my tongue.
Aagh! Stupid hormones!
An hour was too damned long. I wasn’t going to make it. “It’s too crowded in here with his overinflated ego. I need some space.”
Astra chuckled and the sound roamed over my skin like tiny needles grazing but not quite breaking through. With a sigh I turned and practically stalked out of the tiny gathering area that seemed to be their all-in-one dining room, talking room, sitting around doing nothing but waiting room. The ship wasn’t small, but it wasn’t a battleship either. I guessed it could hold fifteen or twenty fighters, of Atlan—or Rogue 5—size, but it seemed like there wasn’t enough space. Not for me and Zenos.
The other hybrid, Nevuh—or Nev as they called him—piloted the ship. Why there weren’t two of them up there in the cockpit like Coalition regulations, I didn’t know, but the running of this team was Astra’s business, not mine. All I had to do was get to Rogue 5 and find the drug-running scum responsible for the Quell that had brought down my friends.
I roamed the twelve feet of corridor, realized there was nothing on this ship but the all-in-one room, some very cramped barracks with beds stacked on top of each other like playing cards in a deck, the cargo area—which was about as welcoming as a dark, endless cave with a thousand spiders—and the cockpit. Nev hadn’t struck me as obnoxious when we boarded, at least he didn’t scowl at me every second like Zenos did, so I went there.
Astra appeared unconcerned with my whereabouts since there wasn’t anywhere to go. Like an airplane on Earth, it wasn’t like I was about to get off. They’d already stripped me of all my weapons, and I had to guess she wasn’t worried about me taking down four hybrid Forsians with my bare hands. Which I had to admit, might be possible with my enhancements, but I doubted I’d survive. But she didn’t know about me, about what I’d had to do to survive. Or what I’d chosen to do to live, and to hunt. She assumed I was normal. And if I were a standard issue human, the thought of me taking on all four of them would have been a joke.
I could fight when I had to, and I wasn’t small, by Earth standards anyway, but I was still female and every one of these guys had about a foot of height and at least a hundred pounds on me. In their minds, if they took away my ship and my blasters, I was like every other human out in space, the underdog when it came to these huge aliens. Which meant humanity survived by ingenuity and our wits, and that was just fine with me. Except I had more. So much more they knew nothing about.
I was nearly to the cockpit, the closed door a few steps away, when a very large hand grabbed me by the elbow and spun me around.
“What kind of game are you playing, female?”
Even if the sound of that voice didn’t make every feminine inch of me scream in recognition, I would have recognized his touch. Gentle. Even angry, his fingers moved over my arm in a caress. It was weird and creepy and kind of endearing all at once. Jeez, this guy tied me up in knots. Which was exactly why I hadn’t wanted him to bite me back on the Transport Station Zenith. I was vulnerable to him, but I refused to let him know that.
“What do you mean?” I snapped, trying to shrug his palm off my shoulder. “I’m not playing any games.” At least not with him. I was avoiding even a hint of any kind of game with him. And that was the truth.
I allowed him to turn me to face him, and when he took a step closer, I instinctively backed away until my shoulders met the cold, solid wall. I had to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. I licked my lips, swallowed a groan as I realized he could lift me up, wrap my legs around his hips and plunge deep. Hard. Right here, against the wall, like an animal. Just like back on Zenith.
“Do not look at me with lust in your eyes, female. I am responsible for your safety on Rogue 5. You are my problem now, and I will not have you taunting the others with your soft skin. You will never again ask for a hybrid’s bite. Our venom might kill you. I will not allow it. If you ask and one of these idiots attempts to bite you, I will end him.” His hands tightened on my shoulders. “Do I make myself clear?”
Well, well, well. He was serious. His gaze was almost as lethal as his bite. To others. I was impervious to both. I almost smiled at the sound of jealousy in his voice. Almost, because I wasn’t stupid enough to go that far.
“You’ve told me all this before. You’re like a broken record.”
He frowned. “I do not know what that is. Regardless, it seems I need to repeat it again and again as you are not understanding.”
“Yeah, a broken record.”
Clearly, he was mad as hell… and hard as a rock. His cock was plainly evident beneath his pants, the heat of his flesh practically scorching me through my own uniform despite the fact that he held himself several inche
s away. The lack of contact made me crave him more. Why did we have to fight and want to fuck?
What I’d loved about him when we’d fucked earlier was his complete lack of control. Yes, he hadn’t bitten me, so he’d been restrained, but other than that he’d been wild. Uninhibited. I’d loved it. Wanted more, even now. I wanted to push his buttons, make him lose it, just a little bit. Just enough, because for some stupid reason, I craved it.
Oh, I knew I was playing with fire, but I just couldn’t help myself. He was so… fuck.
This man—alien—whatever, sent both my body and my imagination to naughty, naughty places. He’d fucked me on a game table and against a wall, my legs wrapped around his waist. What would it be like if he spun me about and pressed me into the cockpit door, fucked me from behind? Made me drop to my knees and suck his cock?
So many ideas came to mind, all of them making me wet. And horny.
I took my time, my gaze roaming over him slowly, admiring every inch. The sturdy legs with thighs like tree trunks. Narrow hips. Powerful abs. Broad shoulders. Strong jaw. When I got to his mouth, I licked my lips, and his gaze grew darker, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. His black gaze was penetrating. So hot it looked cold.
“I told you I only wanted one time, a quickie, Zenos. No games. No bullshit. No biting. Those rules were for you. Telling Barek to bite me wasn’t to mess with you, it was to prove a point, not because I wanted to climb him like a tree.”
“You want to climb a tree?”
I put my hands on my head, yanked on my hair, groaned.
“You, Zenos. You are the one with a problem here, the only one. This is about you. Not Barek. Our time together was just for fun. God, I didn’t tell you my name for a reason.”
“And what reason was that, Ivy?” He leaned in and placed his hands at either side of my head so I was caged, pinned. Under his control. And that fast my knees went weak and my pussy was wet and pulsing. God, this guy was lethal to my senses. “Are you working your way through all the hybrid Forsians? Trying to entice another into biting you… just a few hours later? Is it your intention to torment one of my brethren in front of me and risk your own life for your vengeance?”
The Rebel and the Rogue Page 5
