by Erin Raegan
I gnashed my teeth. “Gunnor.”
He rolled the human male to his back and stood.
“Slowly,” I snarled.
Gunnor grinned and pulled free a Guhuvin dagger.
Huarg lifted Nihk and followed me into the wood. We would not take the road. I would find a clearing and fly back.
“I want to know how many more scheme to deceive us,” I snarled.
Lorn nodded.
“Do not look, ruhasha,” I murmured to my mate as she looked behind us.
“What is he going to do to them?” she asked, no judgment in her tone.
“They should not have attacked.”
The human males screamed. My mate curled into my chest and covered her ears. I took to the skies.
She was silent during the flight back. I left her to her thoughts. Fihk had decided the human compound was safest for our mate and the humans, but I did not agree. They could not be trusted.
We landed in the compound as the humans were unloading their vehicles. They jumped as my feet hit the ground. I did not spare them a glance as I marched toward Nahythahn and Mother Lyndah. He watched me and Huarg come closer with wide eyes.
“Where is their healer?” I asked.
“Oh,” Lyndah gasped. “Are they okay?”
“Healer,” I grunted.
“This way.”
She led us through small caverns in the humans’ dwellings and into a room that barely fit my height. A male trembled inside.
“Nick first.” My mate gasped as I placed her on a cot.
“No,” I snarled.
“I’m fine,” she said softly, watching my eyes.
“Daddy?” Stahr called, her eyes leaking. Oren patted her back in the doorway.
“He has a head injury,” the human healer said, eyeing Huarg warily.
“Fix him,” I snapped.
The healer held up his shaking hands and fiddled with a white box. Several tense moments later, the healer declared Nihk would recover and moved to my mate. She had minor injuries. He bandaged them as she held her brother. I did not like the healer touching her, but I knew nothing of human medicines.
“Do not leave them,” I growled at Tohn as I left the room to comm Fihk.
“What is it?” he answered in my comm.
“The humans attacked our mate,” I snarled.
His roar echoed through. “How is she?” His voice was guttural and choked with concern, it vibrated inside my hima canal.
“Minor injuries.”
“Where are the humans now?”
“Gunnor is introducing them to his interrogation skills.”
“Good, do not let another near her.”
“I will slaughter any who try,” I snarled, startling a human male walking by. I bared my fangs at him, and he ran. “We cannot stay here. There is too great a danger.”
“No, she is safer there than in the open.”
“I can keep her safe.”
“I do not doubt it, my friend. Still, you have others to look after. She cares for them. The human compound offers a solid structure for defense, and it is remote.”
I cursed. I cared for the others if only because she did, but… “They will attack again.”
“I do not care if you slaughter any who remain inside with her, but do not leave.”
“Very well.”
Fihk made a choked sound. “Not all of the humans seek to do her harm. It is you they fear.”
“I will not harm them unless they give me reason.”
“You will tell her I am glad she is well?”
I remained silent.
He sighed. “I will return shortly, I cannot stay from her much longer.” He paused. “Our mate?”
“Our mate,” I confirmed on a growl.
I ended the comm at his chuckle.
If he was to return soon, he would take her from me.
I had little time to correct my wrongs.
Chapter 19
Bailey
I woke up in the middle of the night. I blinked, my eyes groggy and adjusting in the moonlight.
Star was asleep in a chair by her father. Linda was on a cot next to me with Nate curled in front of her. I smiled. He probably didn’t want to hurt me. But I really wasn’t all that hurt. Just a little banged up.
I got mad every time I thought about it. We hadn’t done anything to those guys. I could understand their fear of the Dahk and Kilbus, but me and Nick? It didn’t make any sense, but hatred never did.
Tohn was at the doorway, and Oren was in a chair, snoring. I smiled. Olynth was leaning against the wall at the foot of my bed, watching me.
“Hi,” I whispered.
His face was hard, and his body was stiff. I bit back a groan and sat up. I needed water and a shower. My stomach growled—and food. I stood and stretched then walked to the doorway. Tohn smiled and moved to let me pass.
Tohn and I walked into the hall. “We have cleared this dwelling. No others are allowed inside.”
They’d seriously kicked everybody out of here? “The doctor?”
“The healer has been relocated.” He grinned impishly as I softly laughed. “The supplies you gathered have been moved to your rooms. Mother Lyndah went through them. She seemed very angry when Olynth showed her the contents of the bag you procured for her.”
I grinned. “Good.”
“Your room is down the hall on the right.” He pointed.
I thanked him and walked to my room, ignoring the big guy stalking me. I went inside the tiny room. It had a twin-size mattress on the floor with a sheet, but that was it.
I didn’t mind so much when I spotted the small bathroom. The barracks had a community bathroom. I felt bad the Dahk had kicked everybody out of the little “hospital,” but not so bad I wouldn’t enjoy the crap out of a private shower. It looked as if Linda had placed soap and toiletries in the bathroom, and I smiled when I saw the cat shirt balled up in the trash.
I knelt on the floor in front of the duffel while the door clicked shut. The room was so small, I smelled him all around me, but I tried my best to act unaffected. I pulled out underwear and was looking for shorts when he knelt behind me. I tensed. He reached around me and pulled out the sparkly sundress.
“This one,” he whispered gruffly.
I shook my head and blushed.
He pressed it into my hand. “This one.” His voice was gravelly and heavy with meaning.
I sighed and took it from him.
He backed up and followed me into the small bathroom. His wings were curled in and he barely fit in the doorway, but he made it work. The shower was like a typical hospital shower. Just a tile floor and a curtain. It was large, with a bench and handicap bars on either side. I turned on the water, praying for warm. I was lucky. They must have a generator.
I looked at the floor and scratched my arm. “I can do it myself.”
“I will wait,” he said softly.
“Outside?”
He shook his head.
I bit the inside of my cheek and stepped into the shower, clothes and all. I closed the curtain and undressed as the water pelted me. He had said never to “bare myself” to him again, but he wouldn’t give me any privacy. It made me angry.
I tossed my dirty clothes over the curtain, hoping they smacked him in the face. I could have sworn I heard a low chuckle.
With the water raining down on me, soaking my hair and washing off the dirt, I melted and just felt. The soap Nick had picked was citrusy and smelled amazing.
I felt cold air on my back and tensed. The air moved when he stepped in behind me. I felt him hover over me, taking up all the remaining space. I closed my eyes tightly. It was really hard not to get the wrong idea when he did stuff like this. But I had to remind myself that some Dahk biology mating call was making him act this way and he didn’t actually want it.
Knowing that didn’t keep my body from reacting to him though. My nipples pebbled, and my body heated. He reached around me and grabbed the bar of s
oap on the ledge. He brought it up, and I heard him sniff. He made a small, satisfied sound and brought it down on my back. I jumped. He shushed me and circled the soap on my back.
“Don’t,” I begged. He wasn’t being fair.
He ran his hand down my arm and placed the soap in it. I washed myself as quickly as possible, trying my best to ignore him. My discomfort must have been visible enough because I felt him leave. I took a few minutes to shave and brush my teeth. One of my old “boyfriends” used to say it was so gross, but I loved brushing my teeth in the shower.
I turned off the water and peeked around the curtain. I was alone. I dried off with a frayed and scratchy towel then dressed in yellow cotton underwear and the stupid sundress Olynth had picked out. I felt like an idiot wearing it. There was an alien war going on outside, and I rarely wore dresses on a normal day.
It was long, so long I would probably trip on it, but it was thin and soft. Comfortable. It had two slits up the sides that hit me just below my butt. I hesitated walking out of the bathroom with it on, but I wasn’t going out there in a tiny towel.
I watched my feet as I opened the door, then I looked up at Olynth’s low curse. He ran his eyes down my body feverishly, and for the first time, I hated my body. If it didn’t attract him on a base level, he wouldn’t look at me like that and make me feel things he didn’t want me to feel.
He was standing against the wall by the foot of the bed. I stayed still, unsure what to do next. Was he just going to stand there while I slept?
“I was a slave,” he rumbled quietly.
I felt my eyes widen and my mouth drop open.
“Our enemy captured me when I was young. I was on a reconnaissance mission with the warrior I was training with. They caught my team unawares, slaughtered them, and enslaved me. They thought because I was young, I would be easier to handle. A full-grown Dahk would be too strong to keep for long.”
I held my breath as he told me why he denied his feelings for me. I cried two small tears when he told me what they’d done to him, what they’d made him do. The entire time he spoke, he was emotionless. Reciting his past as matter of fact, cold, and detached.
They’d whipped him. He showed me the scars on his back.
They had him fight other species, older and stronger than him, in arenas. The Juldo Battler Games.
He’d had to fight his way out, but for a hundred years, he was held there. Tortured and abused.
When he was finished, I couldn’t catch my breath.
“Do you see why I deny our mating?” he asked me coldly. I nodded. “The way that I… I cannot without complete control. I will not do that to you.”
I licked my lips and took a hesitant step forward. “But you want to? If we weren’t chosen by your gods or whatever, and you weren’t worried about my safety… would you—want me? If I weren’t your Pythe?”
He clenched his jaw and nodded stiffly.
I blew out a breath. That was what had worried me most. That I was developing feelings for these two guys when they had no choice but to feel what they did for me. That they wouldn’t choose me without something doing it for them. I didn’t know how Fihk felt, but knowing Olynth didn’t only like me because his body told him to was a relief.
“We don’t have a Pythe or Pythen on Earth. Humans choose their mates. It’s not a demanding, um, instinct telling them who to choose. We can choose and then choose again. Some people mate for life, but they don’t have to.” I hoped I was explaining it right. He was stiff and watched me warily. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, feelings develop over time. They can be shallow or deep. Or not there at all.”
“I nor Fihk could allow you to mate another male,” he growled.
“That’s, that’s not what I mean.” I laughed, frustrated, and yanked on my wet hair. “When those feelings are strong, we don’t want another male.” I peeked at him, embarrassed I was going to tell him this. “I feel those things for you.”
He straightened and fisted his hands. “And Fihk?”
I bit my lip and looked away. “I like him a lot. But the feelings―they’re not the same. What I feel for you is different from what I feel for him, but it’s strong for both of you.”
Fihk made me mad, and so did Olynth, but Fihk was more like sparring, where Olynth made me so mad I thought I would explode with it.
Fihk was sweet and made me feel all kinds of butterflies in my stomach, where Olynth was rough and possessive and made me feel as if I’d been run over by a truck.
They both filled little pieces of me that were hollow in different ways. Each of them gave me something the other didn’t. I couldn’t choose between them, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I didn’t know if that was wrong or not. But I couldn’t help it.
“Say something,” I begged. I couldn’t handle another rejection from him. I didn’t think I would ever be able to look at him again.
He heaved through his nose and gnashed his teeth. “I do not deserve your feelings.”
I took another step forward. “Why? Are you a bad guy, er, Dahk? Do you want to hurt me? Because if I’m right, I think you have feelings for me too.”
“It is not that simple. I would never hurt you, and that is why I deny myself.”
“You won’t hurt me,” I said firmly. I knew he wouldn’t, no matter what he believed.
“It will be beyond my control.”
I smiled at him. “Big guy, you’ve been fighting that mating rage for days when Fihk couldn’t hold back longer than a minute. You are the definition of control.”
He didn’t answer.
I was going to have to prove it to him. “I’m going to come to you now,” I told him, determined. “I’m going to touch you. If you don’t want that, you need to tell me now.”
His chest heaved, but he didn’t tell me no.
I swallowed heavily and walked to him. I was shaking from fear and not for the reasons he would assume. I feared I would touch him and he would push me away again.
“Don’t push me away,” I whispered and grabbed his wrist.
He shuddered when I put his hand against my waist, but he didn’t stop me. So I did it to the other one. When he still didn’t push me away, I watched his face closely and backed away, holding his hands to me. I backed to the bed and knelt there, pulling him with me.
We knelt for a minute in silence. Only my hands on his. His hands contracted and released my waist several times, but other than that, he was as still as stone. I shuffled closer to him, our eyes connected.
“I’m going to kiss you,” I whispered. I curled a hand around his head and straightened. But I didn’t pull his head to mine. I let him come to me.
When he finally did, I wanted to shout in victory. Instead, I watched his hesitant eyes and feathered my lips over his. I backed away, waiting for his reaction, then sighed when he repeated me.
We touched our lips back and forth, lightly. Softly.
His hands wandered, but I kept mine on his shoulder and the back of his head. He slid his hands up my sides and back down. One met the slit in the side of my dress and slid under it. He moved it up my thigh and around to flatten against the small of my back. He pulled me closer until I was pressed against him.
I licked my lips, accidentally grazing his. He made a sexy masculine sound and slid his tongue in my mouth. I let him lead, licking into my mouth, exploring the roof and inside of my lips.
It wasn’t long before I was squirming and panting. His hand moved down and into my underwear, palming my ass. His other hand moved to the side of my breast, his thumb grazing my nipple over the silky fabric. But he was mostly silent and stiff. I knew he was fighting himself. I needed to show him he had control, that he could let go and dominate me instead.
I kissed him one more time, deeply, savoring him, then I turned. His hands slid with me, so he was palming my breast in one hand and my thigh in the other. I leaned back against him and turned my forehead into his neck. He bent down and caught my lips aga
in.
We kissed like that for a while, until both of his hands were under the dress and roaming all over my body. My heart was hammering, and my belly and lower was warm and tingling. I felt how hard he was against my back, but he didn’t do anything with it. Just knelt still and stiff.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” I said into his mouth and pushed forward. His hands fell away as I folded over the bed, my hands sliding up to hold onto the end. I laid my cheek flat on the mattress and closed my eyes, waiting.
The anticipation was something I had never felt before. I had never done this with a man. Given him complete control. But I would do it for Olynth.
He heaved and made frustrated sounds behind me, but I stayed still. Waiting for him.
Finally, finally, his hands slid up the backs of my legs, over my ass, and to my waist. He bent over me and growled in my ear, “I may not be able to stop.”
“I won’t want you to,” I promised.
“I cannot give you what Fihk can. I cannot give you gentle.”
“I don’t need you to,” I promised again.
He growled and made a sexy humming noise in the back of his throat. My chest heaved, and my toes curled. Suddenly my dress was pushed up to my chest, and my panties were ripped from my bottom. My nails curled into the mattress and I held perfectly still. His clawed hands palmed my ass and squeezed tightly, spreading them. I let out another shaky breath.
“This was how a male would take his Pythe in the time before the Old King. He would mount her. My brave little warrior, you would let me do this?”
I nodded and squeezed my eyes shut. His thumbs scraped down the sides of my labia, and I whimpered.
“I have not touched another since I was a slave,” he growled, and my heart beat wildly. “I have not tasted a female ever.”
Something wet touched where his thumbs held me open, and I cried out in surprise. He shoved his tongue inside me, and I shouted. My legs tensed and shook.
“Still,” he growled into my skin.
I nodded frantically and sagged against the mattress as he ran his tongue farther up. He hit my clit, and I cried out again, squirming. His hand smacked my thigh, and I yelped.
