by Presley Hall
The pleasure was indescribable, somehow making me even hungrier for her instead of slaking my lust, but beyond that, it made me feel complete.
It’s a frightening feeling for someone who expected to live his whole life unfettered, his loyalty only to his planet and to his unit of men.
Now I have something more to protect, to fight for, to live for, and it’s both thrilling and terrifying all at once. It’s a responsibility beyond anything I’ve had before.
But it feels natural, too. In the days following the night I claimed Autumn for the first time, we begin to feel more and more like a family. Tordax agrees to let us take one of the slightly larger pods, one that has a tiny additional room that Autumn and I make comfortable for Chloe so we can share the bed in the larger bedroom.
There are nights when she comes to our door and crawls into bed with us, snuggling against her mother for comfort, but for the most part she seems to be comfortable and happy here, which means a great deal to me, and even more to Autumn.
“She’s never had a father,” my Irisa tells me one evening, lying back against my chest in bed as we watch Chloe sleep.
She had a nightmare, so Autumn brought her in to stay with us. I noticed the slight apprehension on Autumn’s face as she carried her daughter to the bed, as if I might be upset about it. But it quickly disappeared when I moved aside, making space for them both, then gathered Autumn into my arms as she soothed the little girl back to sleep.
“I imagine not,” I say, carefully controlling the anger that rises up anytime I think of what my mate has endured at the hands of the Orkun. She’s with me now, and I will make sure nothing hurts her again.
I can’t control the past, but I can sure as krax control the future.
“She’s never really trusted anyone other than me,” Autumn murmurs. Then she cranes her neck to look up at me, her face serious. “It means a lot, that she trusts you. That she feels safe with you.”
She doesn’t say anything else after that, clearly not wanting to make me feel pressured or pushed into anything.
I know not every male would want to take on the responsibility of a woman with a child already born, and before I met Autumn, I might have counted myself among those. But with her, it doesn’t matter. I understood from the moment I saw the child in her arms that loving her meant loving her child as well. That claiming my Irisa would mean becoming a father too.
If anything, it’s part of the driving force I feel to be better, more responsible. Because I have more than just Autumn to protect and care for.
I’ve still avoided letting my mate come to the arena, worried about what she’ll think if she sees the fights—and me fighting in them. Instead I leave our pod every evening and go through the motions in the ring, defeating my opponents night after night and collecting my winnings, turning over the portion to Tordax for our ship and keeping the remainder that I’m allowed.
Those tokens mean more now than drinks at a bar or better food for the night—my winnings provide for my family, something I’ve never had to concern myself with before.
And that’s what we’ve become, in the days that have passed since Autumn and I sealed the bond.
A family.
It feels almost effortless, the way we’ve fallen into routines. I wake next to Autumn in the morning, kissing her awake—and sometimes doing more than that. Then I cook for us while she wakes Chloe and gets her ready for the day. I train with the men while she spends time with the other women, does our shopping, or stays in the pod with the little one, and at night I go out to fight. Chloe is often asleep when I come back, and it’s only a matter of minutes before I have my Irisa in bed, my blood still high from the fight.
I can’t get enough of Autumn.
I love exploring every inch of her body, worshiping it with the hunger of a man long denied and then given what he’s longed for all his life.
With each night that passes, I can feel her trust in me growing deeper and deeper. She’s more responsive than ever, all of her walls crumbling as she grows more secure, and I can see her old fears and inhibitions slipping away.
Her desire for me has flared from a spark into a roaring fire, and she’s as hungry for me as I am for her, eagerly taking me into bed every night and exploring all of the different ways that there are for us to be joined.
It’s clear to me that she’s vastly inexperienced, but if anything, it only increases the pleasure.
I love seeing her joy in every new discovery.
Krax, I’m addicted to it.
Thoughts of last night drift through my mind as I ready myself to leave for the arena this evening. It’s been two weeks since things solidified between us, but it’s already impossible to remember what my life was like before.
Last night, I convinced Autumn to let me bury my face between her legs at the same time as she did the same to me, and the memory of her mouth and hand tightening around my cock as she came hard against my mouth is enough to make me want to excuse myself from the fight, take her straight back to bed, and keep her there until the morning.
Unfortunately, while Tordax might have been able to seclude himself away from his mate for days while their initial mating lust ran its course, I have no such luxury here. It’s imperative that we get back to Kalix as soon as possible, and that means the rotation of fighters in the arena can’t be changed for anything other than injury.
I kiss Autumn hard before I leave, my hands roving over her hips and sliding down to squeeze her ass, pulling her against me as my tongue tangles with hers.
My cock throbs as it springs to life, the response instantaneous. Autumn squirms against me wickedly, knowing exactly what she’s doing as my swelling erection presses against her thigh.
For just a moment, I lean her against the edge of the table behind her, imagining picking her up and setting her atop it, spreading her thighs and pushing my loincloth aside and having her right now. My cock aches at the thought of it.
It wouldn’t take long…
But I’m running late already.
“Desh, woman, you’re going to drive me mad,” I groan against her mouth, and she slides her hand down, reaching beneath my loincloth and giving my hard cock a squeeze before playfully pushing me away.
She smiles up at me, her eyes sparkling as she bites her lower lip. “Go win your fight, my big strong warrior. Then come back home. I’ll be in bed waiting for you.”
I tear myself away with another pained moan, marveling at how different my mate is now from the frightened, wary woman I brought home nearly a month ago. Just the thought of her wide, terrified eyes and skittish demeanor is enough to enrage me when I think of the aliens who caused it.
The Orkun have been my enemies all my life, but now I have new reason to hate them—along with the mob boss who tried to cheat her.
I want her far away from O’Hozo, far enough that he’ll never be able to find her.
She would be safe on Kalix. Not only is O’Hozo unlikely to travel such a distance to hunt her down, but with me and my people surrounding her, he wouldn’t stand a chance even if he did. It’s more motivation than ever to keep fighting and to fight well, to earn enough tokens as quickly as possible.
Once we’re able to buy a new ship, we can take our newfound mates and the other Terran women to a place where they’ll all be safe.
A sense of power and strength washes through me as I leave for the arena with the other warriors.
I have a new purpose.
It fuels my drive to win, my desire to be the best.
The first three Kalixians win their matches easily, and Tordax is as close to beaming as he ever is as they leave the ring, his expression clearly proud. I nod to him as I head into the arena for my match, adrenaline already coursing through my veins.
My opponent is a tall, pale alien with crimson-red tattoos covering him from neck to ankles in large, spiraling whorls. A Toanac.
He eyes me as I stride into the ring, sneering as he looks me up and down. I
say nothing, readying myself in my usual stance for the fight to begin, but as the signal is given, the Toanac begins to laugh as he circles me.
“I recognize you,” he says, curling his thin upper lip at me as I dart toward him and he sidesteps it smoothly. “I’ve seen you at Chado’s Cantina. The bar where that pretty redhead dances.”
I tense, realizing immediately that he’s talking about Autumn. His sharp eyes don’t miss my reaction.
“Ah, I see. No shame.” He snickers as he slashes out with his short knife, a move that I dodge easily. “I’ve gone many a time to watch her dance too. She’s a pretty little thing. Breasts a little small for my taste though.”
A snarl erupts from my throat as I strike out at him, neatly catching his leg and throwing him down to the dirt. He’s up a second later, coughing but still grinning madly.
“What, got under your skin, Kalixian?” He licks his lips. “I saw you in the market together too. Pretty even with her clothes on, isn’t she?”
“Do not speak of her!”
Rage turns my vision red as my fist connects with his chin. He stumbles backward, spitting out dirt and blood.
“What, are you fucking her?” He cackles, bloody teeth bared. “Is she good?”
Krax. I’ll deshing kill him.
I growl again, lunging toward him with none of my usual finesse. He ducks, scrambling away, eyes narrowed as he circles me again.
“Don’t feel special,” he hisses. “Half the men on this side of Monri probably had her before you. What, couldn’t you tell? Was she still tight even after all that?”
The world seems to spin around me for a second as I feel something snap inside me. His laughing face looms in my vision, his dark, beady eyes sunk deep in their sockets. His lascivious comments about Autumn ring in my ears, and rage like nothing I’ve ever known boiling up inside of me.
I forget finesse.
I forget tactics.
I forget strategy.
I’ve always been impulsive in fights, quick to abandon the complicated moves that we practice in training to adapt to my opponent’s attacks. It’s part of why the crowds love me, cheering for me more than any other warrior who regularly fights here. They like that I’m a wild card, that I’ll get dirty, that I’ll scrapple down in the dirt with an opponent.
But this?
This is something else.
A murderous rage fills me, a desire to destroy this alien, to rip his lying tongue out of his mouth and claw out his eyes for ever looking at Autumn. For even thinking the filth that just spewed from his mouth.
I lunge toward the Toanac, snarling, slashing wildly at him. He’s startled by my sudden onslaught, too much so to dodge it, and my knife catches him across the chest, darkening the crimson tattoos with fresh blood as I tackle him to the dirt.
The feeling of my fist connecting with his jaw is more satisfying than I could’ve ever imagined. The vibration of it reverberates through my body as I hit him again and again. I grab his head in both of my hands, thumbs pressing into his eyes as I yank him upward, preparing to smash his skull down into the dirt—
And then I feel hands on me, on my shoulders and arms and waist.
They grip me hard, ignoring my roars of fury as they drag me backward off of him. I hear Vrexen’s voice in my ear, shouting for me to calm down, not to kill the Toanac, that I’ve won.
But I wasn’t fighting to win a match.
I wasn’t fighting for tokens or the adulation of the crowd.
I was going to shut this alien’s filthy mouth forever. I was going to keep him from ever saying such things about my mate again, about Autumn…
Autumn.
The thought of my Irisa cuts through the fog of anger in my mind, and suddenly, I can feel her.
As if drawn by a magnetic force, my gaze moves upward as I jerk free of Vrexen and the other warriors’ hands. My blood turns cold as I see Autumn there, standing in the midst of the frothing crowd. Her hands grip the rail so tightly that her knuckles are white, and her eyes are wide and horrified in her face.
Krax. No.
My mouth forms her name, but no sound comes out. And then the other Kalixians are hauling me out of the arena, back to Tordax and the others.
When I stop in front of my commander, his face is like stone. The other warriors melt away, leaving us facing each other in the dusty outskirts of the arena, and I can see something worse than anger in his eyes.
Disappointment.
I brace myself, expecting censure, waiting for him to shout at me, to punish me in some way. But instead he only shakes his head, glancing over at the body of the Toanac being dragged away and then back at me.
“You need to be a better warrior, Sorsir,” he says quietly. “This is not what Autumn needs. It’s not what Alpha Force needs.”
And then he turns away to join the others without another word, leaving me standing here speechless.
I’m still burning with fury, almost shaking with it. But deep down, I can feel a disquieting sense of doubt starting to grow, spreading through me. I can’t look back at the crowd, can’t look for Autumn, because now I’m not only angry, I’m ashamed.
I thought I had what it took to be a good mate. To be Chloe’s father. To help Autumn raise her and make a family together. But now I can’t help but wonder, am I really what they need?
Autumn is so fragile under her tough exterior, so delicate, and Chloe even more so. And now, looking down at the streaks of blood left in the arena, I don’t feel as if there’s anything gentle about me, anything worthy.
I feel like nothing but a beast.
21
Autumn
Our fragile peace is gone.
When Sorsir comes home after his fight, I pretend to be asleep in the bed that we share, lying on my side and facing the wall. I don’t stir when he sits down, and I don’t know if he’s fooled or not, but he doesn’t sleep next to me.
In the morning when I get up, he’s already gone. There’s no chance to talk to him about what happened the night before in the arena, and I’m almost grateful. In truth, I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t know yet how I feel about it, not fully.
I shouldn’t have gone. I know that.
Maybe a part of him is angry at me for venturing into the crowd in the arena. He never outright told me that I shouldn’t go with the women or tried to forbid it—not that he has the right to forbid me from doing anything. But I could tell from my occasional mention of it that he didn’t like the idea. And I could understand it, in a way. I’d heard the fights could be brutal, and I could understand Sorsir wanting to preserve what we had, away from the dirt and reality of his bouts.
But in the end, I wanted to see.
I remembered what the girls at Chado’s Cantina said about the fights—about watching the men, sweaty and glistening, muscles flexing as they fought. And I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to see him, dirty and sweating and in his element.
My mind buzzed with fantasies about it all day. I imagined surprising him after he won his match, going back home with him to the pod and joining him in the bath, helping to wash him clean, and all the ways I would touch him while I did that.
I thought about pleasuring him, about teasing him that I was his prize, stroking his cock until he was rock hard and then letting him fuck me… maybe on the edge of the bath, maybe in the water. I even asked Lucy to watch Chloe so that there wouldn’t be any chance of an interruption.
When I thought of the matches, I pictured something like a UFC fight. I imagined wrestlers going at it, but with some weapons and a good bit more danger involved. I knew there would be blood, maybe wounds, but nothing could have prepared me for the side of Sorsir I glimpsed last night.
To be honest, it terrified me.
The noise of the crowd around me was too loud, so I wasn’t able to hear what the other said. But whatever it was, it infuriated Sorsir to the breaking point, and I have no doubt that if the other Kalixians hadn’t reached him in that s
econd, he would have killed his opponent.
I can’t get that image out of my head: Sorsir’s face contorted with anger, his eyes black with it, his fingers pressed into the alien’s eyes as he prepared to smash his head into the dirt.
I can’t help but think of what it might have looked like if he had.
My stomach clenches, and I work hard to keep my churning thoughts to myself as I play with Chloe on the couch. She has no idea what happened last night, no idea that everything has changed since yesterday, and I don’t want her to pick up on my worries.
“Mama, look!” She holds up the little wooden puzzle she’s been turning over in her hands, and I force a smile onto my face.
“Good job, baby.”
I smooth a hand over her soft hair, chewing on my lip.
Sorsir fought brutally when he took on the alien who attacked me in the street, the night we first met. But he was fighting for my life then, defending me. Last night wasn’t the same thing.
Last night, Sorsir lost control.
He turned from a skilled fighter into a vicious animal, no longer ruled by anything but rage.
And that’s what terrified me beyond anything else… that he was out of control. I trusted Sorsir with everything, always believing that he was a seasoned warrior. I picked up enough gossip to understand that he was one of the youngest of the warriors, hotheaded and impulsive at times, and I could see that in him. But I still believed that he would never lose control.
And yet he did.
In that moment, I didn’t see a man. Only an alien… a monster. Not the man that I’ve come to know, not the man that I’ve been slowly falling in love with.
And I don’t know how to talk to him about it.
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know what to do.
There’s a tense silence when Sorsir returns to the pod in the evening. He’s not fighting in the ring tonight, so he’s back earlier than usual, and I serve up dinner without saying much, eating quietly next to Chloe.
