His cock rammed into her and his fingers manipulated her clit in a spiral pattern. He growled against her, encouraging the wild moans and sighs which flowed from her lips. Her pussy rippled around his cock, gripping and pulling as if to keep him deep within her.
“Mine,” The growl rumbled up from the depths of Kaleb’s throat, only muted a little as it hit her skin.
She pushed back into each thrust of his hips against hers. Desperate for the climax that remained just out of her reach, she writhed against him. As his fingers plucked at her clit, sending a wicked bolt of heat through her, she cried out and came. Light burst behind her eyelids as she arched and bucked, the sensations hitting her, seeming to ricochet and intensify with every movement, every breath. Pressed flat against the wall, she wished she could grab him. The pleasure left her shaking and breathless.
Kaleb surged into her. The draw of her inner muscles as she climaxed took the last of his control. He rammed into her and her cunt tightened around him. He pumped against her, his seed pulsing into her as release tore through him. His roar of satisfaction vibrated against her neck. His sweat-slick body pressed against her, holding her in place.
Kaleb lifted his head slightly and viewed the mating bite with primitive satisfaction. His tongue lapped at the blood, laved the four punctures of his bite. He tasted her blood and the salt of her sweat. He couldn’t contain the primal rush of satisfaction at the sight of the mark. A sign of possession, that mark would tell all who saw it that she was claimed. No other would dare touch her when they viewed the two sets of markings.
She was such a responsive woman, everything he could have ever dreamed of finding in a woman. His mate—just the fact that she was his was an aphrodisiac after searching for her in every woman he encountered for many years.
And there was so much to learn about her. Who she really was remained a mystery in spite of how close he felt to her after the thought-destroying sex. He looked forward to every moment of it, learning what made her happy, what annoyed her. Some of those things would take time, but there were more immediate questions that he would have the answers for before they formalized the bonding.
Lina leaned her head against the wall, trying to focus her thoughts. She had expected the heat from the mating, the fierce passion. She’d known that the need to join would be overriding and irresistible. What she hadn’t expected were the emotional ties she had felt falling into place from the moment that she had discovered that they were her mates. She had thought that those things would take time.
Testing the strength of the bond, she tried to think of leaving them. She wasn’t prepared for the pervasive wave of sadness and panic that swept over her. It was as if she were thinking of leaving part of herself behind. She wasn’t suddenly in love with them, but she was bound to them. Their happiness was important to her.
Just that one test had been enough. She didn’t need to try to run. The feelings were real even if she couldn’t understand them. Although she was nervous about living in an actual thent, she would give this mating a chance. She wouldn’t try to deny the bond. Instinct, nature and fate had bound them. She would abide by it and try to find happiness with them. At least until she knew if she could live by their rules. It might be hard, but she wouldn’t stay in a situation that made her miserable.
“Regrets, Lina?” Kaleb’s breath feathered over her ear as he slowly withdrew from her pussy. “Why are you so sad?”
Lina’s head came up at that hard edge, alert to the alpha lurking, waiting to pounce if he even thought that he was being denied. “I wasn’t having regrets. I was mostly just thinking about how much I didn’t know.” He definitely wasn’t subtle. At least not right now, she qualified. Any hope for subtle had ended when she had pushed until Shard had reacted and pinned her.
With a small turn, initiated by Kaleb’s hand on her shoulder, Shard stepped forward and Lina found herself caged in their arms. “Tell us about what you didn’t know. Anything that puts that look on your face bears discussing.”
Lina allowed her head to fall to Shard’s chest as she sighed. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I knew that if I ever found my mate I would be physically attracted to him, that my passion would rise fast and hard and the first joining was likely to be primitive and wild. They taught us that much, although there were some in my group who didn’t want the young told anything about the males who weren’t of our group.”
“As you were running free, we suspected that you were from a group that had been part of those on the colony ship Mekular.” Kaleb brushed a kiss across her shoulder. “Will they miss you, send someone looking for you?”
“I haven’t been with them in over ninety standard years. I was sent out with some others to find a woman of our group who had gone missing when I was around twenty-five. We found her. When we got back, everyone was gone. There were only six of us, but we kept in touch with each other. We lived on our own because the risk of being found was greater if we were together.”
“You weren’t much more than a cub but it does explain some of your attitude. You’re talking about more than danger from other Santir.”
Something in her tone must have alerted him. Lina grimaced and closed her eyes. There had been some problems with at least one anti-shifter group, but she had never intended to go into specifics just now.
“We had a few problems with anti-shifter groups. I haven’t had that problem in years now.”
“So what was it that you didn’t know?” Shard’s hand brushed over her hair in soothing strokes.
“I didn’t realize how true this joining would be. I didn’t know that my emotions would be tied into my instincts,” Lina admitted. “I knew that sexually, I wouldn’t want to resist you. Nothing was ever said about the rest.”
Shard laughed. “Don’t worry, Lina. It isn’t mentioned that much to Santir who are reared in a thent. I expected it because of the Tierna, the bond Kaleb and I share. That bond came with emotional ties, just as this did.”
“Tierna…” Lina arched a considering eyebrow and she grinned. She had heard stories about the old magic, of how some warriors used it in areas of their life that had nothing to do with battle. It was enough to catch her attention and start her imagination flying. “So you two know the old magic?”
“We do and you’ll be getting a taste of it as soon as we’re formally wed.” Kaleb nibbled on her ear and his hand roved down to her buttocks.
“Get dressed.” Shard turned Lina toward the spot where she had left her clothing. “We have much to do.”
She dressed in her flight suit, knowing from the rustling sounds behind her that they were dressing as well. Lina secured the clasps on her shoes and put on her belt. She raised her head and her eyes clashed with two intense, feral stares. They were frowning darkly at her. She looked around, behind her, even up, but could find nothing wrong.
“Something is troubling you?” Lina kept her tone light.
“Your clothing is hiding our marks. We want to see them.” Kaleb stalked forward and his hand gripped her shoulder. “We want everyone to see them.”
“This is the only clothing I have with me.” Lina remained relaxed beneath Kaleb’s hand.
“Just hold very still.” Shard appeared on her other side. He held a knife in his hand.
Shard cut away the collar of the flight suit and a good portion of the cloth at her shoulders. When her hair kept falling around her shoulders and hiding their marks, they cut a ribbon of cloth off the neckline. After securing her hair at the back of her neck, they were finally satisfied with their view of the marks. Before they backed away from her, they took her belt and searched her pockets, taking everything they found.
She felt no soreness from the bites, only a slight tingling sensation. She resisted the urge to rub at them. Those two wounds, mating bites, would take some time to heal. Santir usually healed very quickly, but mating bites were a different matter. Something in a male’s saliva during the mating bite slowed healing and encourag
ed the wound to leave a scar.
“Now we’ll go. We won’t walk back, as you came here. We have a skimmer that is more than capable of taking all three of us back to our camp.” Shard brushed a hand over the soft swell of her breasts. “We’ll see how successful Jaksen was at finding your stashes and your ship before we get to the serious questions.”
“The one certainty is that we’re not letting you out of our sight.” Kaleb’s hand slid over her face in a lingering caress.
Lina had expected an attitude like that or worse. They probably felt as inclined to stay here and mate again and again as she did, but they were also feeling the desire to know everything about her and the alpha part of them wanted it now, immediately. They had their priorities firmly in place. Mating, questions and then the formal bonding. The first mating had been completed. As soon as they learned what they needed to know, they could seal the Joining formally.
The ride to the camp was a new experience. Lina had been on plenty of skimmers in her life, but she’d never had a ride quite like that one. The two men turned a simple ride into an erotic experience.
Shard took a seat at the front of the skimmer. Lina was urged into the middle position and then Kaleb took his place behind her. Shard wouldn’t start the skimmer until she laced her arms around his waist. Kaleb’s arm hooked around her waist and his hand slid down her stomach to her crotch.
He began rubbing at her clit through her clothing even before Shard took the skimmer above the treetops. Kaleb’s lips tugged at her earlobe before he began sucking on it. She caught her breath. The pulling tug of those lips seemed to be connected by a wire directly to her clit. She moaned and shifted back against him, tilting her hips a little. She rocked her hips against his tormenting fingers.
By the time Shard brought the skimmer to a halt at the edge of their camp, Lina was almost ready to attack one of them. Her pussy was twitching and an empty ache burgeoned within her. Desire raged through her. After Kaleb’s work on the journey, she could feel the wetness of the fabric at her crotch. She could only be thankful for the dark color of the flight suit.
Shard lifted her down from the skimmer. His eyes darkened to near black as his nostrils twitched inhaling the scent of her arousal. She blushed, ducking her head, a little embarrassed. She knew that it was a perfectly natural response to those teasing digits, but it had never happened to her before.
Shard’s fingers tipped up her chin and he looked her in the eyes. “You are beautiful and you smell delicious, Lina. You’ll get used to us touching you and being aroused at what some might consider odd times.”
She smiled at the confident assertion that her being aroused at odd times would be a regular occurrence. Normally she’d roll her eyes and openly scoff at such an assertion, but she could feel her own hunger rising just from being near them. She was fairly certain that his prediction would come to pass. There were two of them and they were sexier than any other men she’d ever encountered.
Chapter Five
Jaksen was waiting for the Ardin at the edge of the camp. He stood near the corner of one of the rows of camouflaged Dura-tents. His search had obviously not gone as hoped. He looked frustrated. His brow was furrowed and a frown curled his lips. Some of his straight hair stuck out at odd angles, loose from the tie at the back of his neck.
“How did your search go, Jaksen?” Kaleb strode forward to hear the report, leaving Shard to follow with Lina.
“We found only fifteen more packs, Ardin Kaleb.” The dark-haired, blue-eyed man looked abashed in admitting his failure.
“And her ship, where is it?” Shard laced his fingers with Lina’s. Kaleb saw it and recognized the gesture. Possessiveness, the need to know where she was and that she wasn’t going to try to wander away from them ran through him as well.
The group began walking into the camp. Women watched with unabashed curiosity as they towed Lina along with them. They knew she was their mate. Even if the men’s attitude was missed, the women couldn’t miss the two bites on her shoulders.
“We can’t find it, Ardin Shard.” Jaksen looked squarely at Lina, frowning as if he couldn’t understand just how that had happened.
His doubt was understandable.
“I can see why you’re so confused over it.” She exhaled loudly as a blush rose on her cheeks, tinting the gold with a rush of pink. “My lack of attention to my surroundings and the sheer overconfidence I had as I approached that ruin weren’t shining examples of my skills.” She shook her head. “I never knew you were even in the area and I should have.”
“Rah’ki, regardless of your precautions and your best efforts, we weren’t about to let you leave this planet once we learned that you were here.” Kaleb chuckled, taking a step toward her and brushing a hand over her face. “There are far too few females to let you just wander around the universe and if not our mate, you would have been mate to some other Santir man.”
“Ardin, there’s more,” Jaksen interrupted. “Vellis and some of the others found some destruction at one of the sites we’re searching. It was too old to carry any scent, but it was recently done.”
Kaleb looked over at her and narrowed his eyes. He didn’t want to think that she would destroy Santir history, but they had just met. There was so much that he didn’t know about her. “Did you do that? Maybe as a distraction?”
Her eyes rounded and she shook her head. “I didn’t want you to know I was here. I don’t destroy artifacts or old buildings. If I’d wanted to take the chance of exposing my presence with a distraction, believe me you would have been distracted, but I wouldn’t have done it in that way.”
“I’m not going to ask how you’d do it right now. There are more important things I want to know, but we’ll get back to it. I think you might just need the calming influence of a male or two.” Shard chuckled and cupped the back of her head.
Lina narrowed her eyes and fought the urge to insist that she hadn’t needed a man’s presence and had done fine on her own for many years. That wouldn’t go over well. She had no desire to enrage the tiron within them right now.
“That leaves nineteen packs for you to show us as you lead us to your ship. You can answer a few questions on the way there.” Shard turned Lina’s face toward his.
She nodded, still gritting her teeth. She focused on what they wanted her to do. “But how do I know which packs they’ve found? I know you found one before I even got to that old ruin. It would take some time if I have to revisit all thirty-five stashes.”
“As we found the packs, we marked them on this.” Jaksen handed Lina a palm-sized display showing the layout of the area.
“That helps.” Lina stepped forward to begin, but turned her eyes to Shard and Kaleb when she noticed that they hadn’t followed.
Setting off the beast in them would be very unwise at this point. That could very well happen if they thought she was trying to leave them. Not that she would get far without them knowing. She knew from her scans and forays near here that not far from the camp a surrounding array of perimeter alarms had been placed. They were passable with the right equipment, but they had taken her belt which had held the necessary items.
She spent the time deciding which site to go to first and then next. She’d never expected to have to use even a quarter of the packs, but had placed them to be prepared. Experience had taught her that, when dealing with shifters, being over-prepared didn’t hurt. She would rather have to gather the unused packs before leaving than need one and not have it.
“Jaksen just told us that none of the packs he found had any weapons.” Kaleb raised an eyebrow. “Were you expecting to run around the planet for a time?”
“I hardly ever put weapons in my packs unless I know I’m walking into a very dangerous situation. Weapons are easy enough to acquire as I go along if I should need them. For instance, one of your guards has a habit of placing his traser rifle on that crate over there as he does guard duty at night. If I had wanted it, it would have been an easy pick.” She smiled
and indicated a crate near one of the shuttles at the end of the row of large tents.
“He what?” Shard’s eyes narrowed and a low growl rumbled in his throat.
She hid her smile. That probably wouldn’t be happening again. “As well, I knew that I would be dealing with shifters and I really wanted no contact at all. If there had been a way to know if Nerisa had been truly claimed and the change begun without meeting her, I wouldn’t have stayed on the planet this long,” she rushed to add.
“How did you get involved with Central Command?” Kaleb took her hand to turn her attention to him.
“Some time ago I stumbled onto one of their missions and helped them out. They pay well and at the time, I needed the money,” Lina answered honestly with a shrug.
“You can begin to lead us to your stashes now. We’ll continue our questions as we go.” Shard stepped up beside her.
She nodded and led them to the first pack which was hidden not far from their camp. Shard and Kaleb stayed near her and three of their men followed, collecting the packs as she handed them to Shard or Kaleb. It wasn’t long before the way they hovered and their mere intimidating presence began to make her nervous.
“One of our women says that the lingerie that was found in your packs is from an exclusive store and probably cost around three hundred Common Credits for one set.” Kaleb took the pack from her. “Is there a reason you would waste so much money on underwear?”
“Well, it doesn’t cost me that much and I like to wear pretty, silky things.” She frowned at his accusing tone. Didn’t he have a weakness, a secret vice? “Most of the time, I wear ordinary one-piece jumpsuits. The underwear makes me feel good, feminine.”
“Why doesn’t it cost you as much as most people would pay to get the underwear?” Shard tugged on her arm, stopping her and turning her to him. A smile kicked up his lips. “I can assure you that we will make you feel very good and very much our woman. Is that your secret passion?”
Between Two Tiron Page 5
