by Presley Hall
I have youth and quickness on my side, and I dart out of the way of the man’s strikes, slashing with my short blade as he punches at me, tearing his war club free of his belt and swinging at me hard. He’s older and heavier, and I know he’ll tire faster than I will. He’s a thug, not a warrior.
I’m one of the Kalixian elite. This Shaga trash has no chance against me.
I can’t help but think of my fantasy the night before in the arena, how I wished the red-haired dancer was there watching me fight. Well, you got your wish, I think wryly as I sidestep another blow. The Shaga lunges forward, throwing me against a nearby building. A second later, his club crashes into the wall a fraction of an inch away from my face.
I cringe. Focus, Sorsir. This is no time for distractions, or you’re both dead.
The Shaga enforcer is starting to tire, though. His swings slow slightly, and I strike out with my blade, opening a gash in his side. He groans, and I lunge forward.
He stumbles, and I see my opportunity. But just before I strike, I see him rear up, and I realize what he’s about to do just as he throws a handful of dirt in my eyes.
I hear the woman cry out as I stumble backward, momentarily blinded. The club hits me hard in the back, sending me to my knees.
“Desh!”
I curse aloud as I flip over onto my back, kicking out as the Shaga crashes down atop me. He’s so heavy it’s suffocating, but I strike out with my blade, burying the knife just below his ribs. He lets out another cry, his knee coming up to strike me in the balls, but all I needed was the shift in his weight.
He’s a dirty fighter, but I’m a better one.
I thrust my hips up to throw his balance off, then hurl him off me. Before he can recover his equilibrium, I leap onto his back, clinging to him as I grip the knot of hair on his head, my nails digging in. I reach around with my other hand, my thumb going into his eye. When I feel it give and hear him scream, scrabbling in the dirt, I take that opportunity to go in for the final blow.
In an instant, his throat is slashed. He collapses to the ground with a gurgling groan and a heavy thud. Panting, I roll off of him and rise to my feet, leaving him there in the dirt.
The woman isn’t in the road any longer. I look around for her, battle rage still flowing through me, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I’ve felt this sensation once tonight in the arena already—the rush of victory followed by one of hunger, the need for blood replaced by a different need altogether. And now it comes back, fresh and stronger than ever.
I catch sight of her, huddled in the alley against the wall, watching me and the slumped corpse of the Shaga with wide, terrified eyes. She looks small and fragile standing there, her eyes huge in her petite face. The sheer robe she’s wearing is hanging off of her arms, revealing the web of lace underneath that she never got around to revealing on stage in the bar.
She’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, and she’s staring at me now, only me. I can smell the fear on her… but that’s not the only thing I smell.
Watching me fight turned her on.
She’s aroused; she can’t hide it from me. I can breathe it in along with every other scent, the dust and the blood and the sweat. The lust that comes after battle rises up furiously inside of me as I stalk toward her, the blood pounding through my veins and down into my groin.
I’m harder than I’ve ever been in my life, desire filling me with a strength that I’ve never felt before. I’ve wanted women before… but nothing like I want this one.
In the space of a moment, I’ve crossed to where she is, boxing her in against the wall. The need to claim her rises up in me, flooding my senses and threatening to override every logical thought I’ve ever had. I need to bury myself in her, to grab her small waist and impale her fragile body on my throbbing cock.
She looks up at me, and her already wide eyes go even bigger in her fragile face, framed by the tumbling waves of red hair around her porcelain skin. I’ve never seen eyes so blue. Desh, I’ve never seen any woman so beautiful as this one. I can feel her emotions—I can feel that she’s terrified and aroused all at once, that she wants me and wants to run from me all at the same time—and I can feel it all as clearly as I can feel my own roil of emotions in my body, lust being the one above all.
And that’s when it clicks in me.
That’s when I understand.
I understand why I went back to the bar night after night, like a magnet drawn there by some force I didn’t understand. Why I saw her face every time I won a fight, imagining her standing there watching me. Why I couldn’t take my eyes off of her or stop thinking about her, why my nights have been consumed with unquenchable desire for a woman whose name I don’t even know.
Why the idea of anyone else touching her fills me with a killing rage.
The mate bond has found me, at last.
And this woman is my Irisa.
I can’t help myself. I feel her body shiver, an inch away from mine, and the words come to my lips, hovering on the tip of my tongue.
My soul has recognized yours.
I tremble, my entire body shuddering with the effort to not put my hands on her here and now, but I’m not able to hold myself back entirely. Although my hands don’t touch her, I bury my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her.
Sweet perfume. The warm scent of skin. Sweat and fear. And desire. She’s wet, wanting me, but I can feel her shudder, and I can feel intimately that it’s not a shudder of lust.
She’s afraid of me.
I want her so desperately. Her robe has slid almost all the way off, and I can see her pale breasts heaving under the spiderweb of black lace, the thin golden chains that hold it all together so fine that I could break one with a twitch of my finger.
There’s nothing but the fabric of my loincloth and the barest hint of lace between her legs separating my cock from her flesh, and I want to make her mine. I want to hear her scream out my name. I want to bury myself inside of her and fill her with my seed.
My cock throbs at the thought of it, rock hard and pulsing, and the only thing that keeps me from pushing my hips forward and letting her feel how hard I am, from pressing my erection between her thighs, is the sudden small cry that she lets out—a whimper not of desire, but of terror.
It snaps me out of my mating lust in a second, reality cutting through the fog of arousal as I take a shuddering step backward, looking down at the petite woman who is trembling in front of me.
I want her more desperately than I’ve ever wanted anything—more desperately than I’ve ever wanted food or air or water—but I force myself to push past it, to focus on something besides my need for her. Because I’ve never taken an unwilling woman, and I won’t start now. Especially not this woman.
My Irisa.
My fated mate.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her gently. “The man who tried to take you is dead. He won’t harm you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
She swallows hard and gives a tiny nod.
“I do,” she says in a small voice, and relief washes over me when I realize that she has a multi-language implant. I won’t have to struggle against the language barrier that Tordax and Rose dealt with in their early days.
“My name is Sorsir,” I say, keeping my voice low and even. “What’s your name?”
She licks her dry lips, hugging her arms around herself tightly. “I’m Autumn,” she says hesitantly, her voice shaking.
Autumn.
It’s a beautiful name. Nearly as beautiful as she is.
She tightens her arms around herself, and the movement pushes her breasts up in the bit of lace covering them. I have to fight back a fresh wave of lust, my cock lurching painfully beneath my loincloth. I’ve never been so frustrated in my life, so in need of relief without any clear way to solve it. At least not until I can get back to my pod—which it looks more and more as if I’ll be doing alone. At the very least, she won’t be in my bed. Autumn looks too
terrified to remember my name, much less be willing to be swept along on the tide of my desire.
I close my eyes briefly. What a ridiculous thought. What is this woman doing to me?
Kalixian males don’t hope for love, not the ones of my generation anyway. We don’t think of mates. Desire is a paid transaction with the women we find between battles, and love is not for us. I’ve had women before, more than once. I’ve given them pleasure and made them laugh and then I’ve gone on my way. But this woman…
No one has ever made me feel like this.
The need to protect her is almost as violent and strong in me as the need to mate with her… and that need is about to drive me mad.
“I need to take you somewhere safe,” I say gently, fighting back the lustful thoughts. Protecting her is something I can do whether she’s afraid of me or not. So I might as well focus on that.
She recoils backward, shaking her head. “No!” she exclaims. “No, I have to go home! I have to get back there now. I can’t go with you.”
“There might be more men after you,” I say patiently. “Or when our friend here doesn’t come back soon, they’ll send out someone looking for him.”
“I have to get home,” she repeats, shaking her head. “Thank you… Sorsir… but I can’t go with you.”
She starts down the alley, clutching the robe around her shoulders, and I relent, hurrying to catch up with her. “I’m not letting you go anywhere alone,” I tell her firmly. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll take you back there.”
She doesn’t say anything, only tucks her chin in determinedly and heads down the street with me right behind her, clearly in control of where she’s going now. It’s incredible, really—the transformation from the shaking, frightened girl that she was a second ago into this purposeful woman.
What on earth could be so important to her?
She seems like a sensible woman, at least smart enough to know that no trinket or object could be important enough to risk going back to her home for. If whoever sent that Shaga enforcer has been watching her, they probably know where she lives. I square my shoulders, bracing for the possibility of another fight when we arrive.
After several minutes of walking, we stop in front of a small complex of pods, run down and shabby. Autumn makes a beeline for one of them, disappearing inside, and I stop in my tracks, waiting for her. It occurs to me that she might just not come back out.
Well, then I’ll go in after her.
There’s no way I’m leaving her; not after what happened earlier.
She takes so long that I’m starting to think I may have to make good on my silent promise to myself and march in after her. But then, finally, the door opens and Autumn steps out. When I see what’s in her arms, my jaw drops open, words dying on my lips. It suddenly all makes sense—why she was so desperate to get back home, what was so important.
And it’s not a trinket or a meaningless bauble.
There’s a small girl in her arms, not more than three or four years old, by my calculations.
A child.
My Irisa has a child.
6
Autumn
Taloo takes one look at my frightened face and disheveled appearance as I burst through the door into my pod, and I can see that she wants to ask questions. But I shake my head, and she doesn’t say a word, only stays with Chloe as I rush into my bedroom.
I’m grateful beyond words that I asked Taloo to watch Chloe at my pod tonight, because I’m able to strip off the lingerie quickly and slip into my usual pants and tunic, gathering every last token that I have in the small wooden box and stuffing the money into a leather pouch.
When I glance down at the tiny pile of black lace on the floor, I flush red thinking of Sorsir seeing me in it, of how nearly naked I was when he came up to me.
He’s seen me in that much and less every night that he’s been at the bar, of course, but it was different to have him almost touching me just now, his muscular body nearly brushing against mine, the heat of him warming my skin as his chest heaved an inch above me…
Don’t think about it.
I shake my head, hurrying into the living room and scooping Chloe up before tossing the small bag that I’ve packed with a few things for us both over my shoulder. Taloo takes one look at it and meets my gaze sorrowfully, and I know she understands without my ever having to say a word. I’m grateful for it, because I don’t want to frighten Chloe by speaking the truth out loud.
Reaching into my pouch, I try to hand Taloo some money, but she shakes her head, closing her hand over mine.
“Keep it,” she says in her thick desert accent. “Be safe.”
Tears swim to my eyes, blurring my vision. I fight them back.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
I cling tighter to Chloe as I step outside of my pod. Sorsir is still standing there, in the exact spot I left him.
A part of me thought that he might leave, might not wait for me, and I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved by that thought. He doesn’t seem to want to hurt me, and it’s clear that he’s skilled enough as a fighter to protect me—to protect us both. But it’s what he clearly does want that frightens me and makes me wonder whether it’s really safe to go with him.
Whether he might be the true danger, in the end.
He catches sight of us, and the look on his face turns to immediate shock as he takes us in. I know why, and something in me shrivels at the expression in his eyes. I don’t know why it hurts to see the surprise written in every inch of his face—after all, it’s not as if I want to be with him. Although I can clearly remember how it felt in the instant when he walked up to me.
And watching him fight…
I don’t know why that made me want him. Well—maybe it makes sense. All that masculinity, seeing his muscular body flex and turn and move like a violent dance, seeing him protect me, knowing that he was willing to kill in that moment to keep me safe. It aroused something primal in me, something as old as time. A swell of emotions that echoed the rage inside of him. Not anger, but something that burned just as hot.
I saw the same thing in his eyes when he turned to look at me, that fire in his gaze that made me melt for just a moment, made me forget for an instant how frightened I was.
When he pressed me up against the wall, for a second, I wanted him to take me.
I felt desire like I’ve never experienced in my entire life, surrounded by the scent of him—that sweet smell of his skin mixed with sweat and dirt and the metallic tang of blood. Things that should’ve disgusted me instead made me instantly wet, until I was aching for him in a way I couldn’t comprehend.
Terror, confusion, and arousal warred inside me… and then he buried his face in my neck, and the shock of my body’s reaction to his touch jerked me out of my trance. I remembered that aliens are not to be trusted. That men only want one thing and will take it by force if need be.
That it doesn’t matter what I feel, or think I feel.
Women on any planet can be used and discarded by powerful men, and I need to remember that.
It doesn’t matter how strangely drawn to him I feel. It doesn’t matter if I want him—he won’t love me. He won’t protect me, not once he’s gotten what he wants. He’ll use me and throw me away.
Or worse yet, his lust won’t abate, and he’ll take me prisoner. I’ll be owned by him, like I was once owned by the Orkun warlord who kidnapped me. And it won’t matter what I want.
I wondered, during that wild moment in the alley with his nose brushing over my skin, if he would take me anyway. It was what I expected. And then he pulled away as if realizing my fear and hesitation, and I realized I was safe from his desire, at least for a while.
And as insane as it is, there was a small part of me that was disappointed.
No. That doesn’t make any sense.
Tightening my grip on Chloe, I shake the thoughts away. There’s nothing between me and this strange alien, this Sorsir, nothi
ng but the years of my own self-imposed celibacy finally catching up to me. It doesn’t matter what he thinks of me having a daughter, because he doesn’t matter.
Not in that way.
Not to me.
After all, I know how this goes. My own mother was a single mom, and I saw that same look in their faces that I just saw on Sorsir’s. The shock that inevitably turned to disappointment when they realized that my mom had a kid, that she wouldn’t be theirs alone, that they’d have to share her time and affection. That she came with a responsibility that went beyond a quick fuck.
Their interest always died away as fast as they could come up with excuses to run. And Sorsir will be no different. He wants my body, that much is clear, but he doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want my life or my responsibilities.
No one does.
No one ever will.
I steel myself to that thought as I walk up to him, my face defiant as I raise my chin and look him squarely in the eye, daring him to tell me that he’s changed his mind, that he isn’t going to “take us somewhere safe” now.
But then his expression clears, and his strange, slightly alien features harden with determination.
My head jerks back slightly, surprised that he’s not already stammering out excuses to leave. I blink, taking him in clearly for the first time without the distractions of the bar or the terror of the fight. He has a human-like face with almond eyes that seem to shift from the black that I saw when he leaned over me after the fight to a deep forest green, and golden horns that curve slightly around his head. I can see Chloe’s gaze resting on those, fixed on them.
“I’ll protect you both,” he murmurs, those forest green eyes meeting mine firmly. “You and your daughter.”
He… what?
