Warlord's Return

by Cynthia Sax

  “My gear.” Seven-One huffed, bending over slightly.

  Frost and Libor positioned themselves protectively between the rest of the group and the gates. They grasped guns, were ready to defend them…if that was necessary.

  Angry shouting pierced the chatter within the settlement. That disturbance originated outside the walls. Gunfire repeated.

  Someone, it could have been Balvan, bellowed. That noise was followed by loud crunching, male screams and then, finally, silence.

  Ariq looked at Xareni. He lifted his eyebrows.

  “Balvan likes to stomp on skulls with his big boots.” She guessed at the cause of the crunching. “He enjoys the sound that makes.”

  Seven-One gulped air. “I’ll retrieve my gear later.”

  Xareni grinned. “That’s a wise decision.”

  “It is very wise.” Her barbarian laughed.

  Ariq escorted Yesun to the medic bay.

  Xareni accompanied them.

  Yesun had been part of her expedition party. It was her duty to see that he was tended to, to ensure he recovered from his wounds.

  And, fuck it, she wanted to spend more time with Ariq. For now and for forever, she would go where he went, do what he did, follow him as he often followed her.

  Their Second met them outside the medic bay doors. “Kralj said you’d benefit from a medic, warrior.” The male frowned at the gauze wrapped around Yesun’s shoulder. “Lead Medic is waiting for you inside the structure.”

  Xareni lifted her chin, meeting Second’s gaze directly. “As the guide on the expedition, I was responsible for the team’s safety. I regret that—”

  “We’re warriors, Ariq’s gerel.” Second’s tone was flat. “Wounds…and battles happen.” His eyes glittered. “You’re honorable, skilled, and strong, a worthy addition to our ranks. Our Warlord will be pleased.”

  The male assumed she would be returning to the Chamele sector with them.

  She had made that decision, but his expectations irked her. “Thank you.”

  “I have to speak with you, Second.” Ariq straightened.

  Second sighed. “I suspected you would want to do that.” He shook his head. “That discussion can wait. We have a wounded warrior to heal first.” He moved toward the medic bay. “Will the two of you be joining us?”

  Xareni glanced at the door. She should enter the structure, attempt to accustom herself to closed spaces before the long journey to Chamele 2.

  But she didn’t want her first try to be viewed by Second, a male her barbarian respected.

  “Ariq will join you. I’ll stay here.” She reached up and stroked Spark’s stomach, intentionally giving Second the impression her reluctance was due to the drakon.

  Spark tried to bite her fingers.

  Second nodded. “My gerel doesn’t allow creatures in her medic bay.” He looked at Ariq. “Warrior?”

  “I will remain with my gerel.” He splayed his fingers over Xareni’s back.

  He didn’t have to fuckin’ do that. She wasn’t a youth. Her jaw jutted. He didn’t have to safeguard her every moment of the fuckin’ planet rotation.

  She waited until they were alone to relay that message. “You should have gone with your Second.” It angered and frustrated her that he hadn’t accompanied them, as he, no doubt, wanted to do, because of her weaknesses.

  “I prefer to stay with you.” The damn Chamele drew her to his big form.

  He was large and firm and enticingly warm.

  She remained in his arms for four, five heartbeats before twisting free. “I will overcome my fuckin’ issues.”

  “I have accepted your fuckin’ issues, as you call them.” Ariq frowned at her. “I have never asked you to overcome them.”

  He didn’t have to ask her to overcome them. She wasn’t a fool. Her lips pressed together. She knew that had to happen. The flight to Chamele 2 required it.

  She couldn’t think about that journey, about how it would test her, torture her, could possibly break her. Not now.

  Seeking to put space between herself and her fuckin’ issues, and between her and the damn Chamele, she stomped through the settlement.

  Spark remained seated on her shoulder. Her stride was long. Her pace was fast.

  Beings scattered before her. She paid them no attention.

  They meant nothing to her. She didn’t care for them…not like she cared for the drakon on her shoulder and the barbarian behind her.

  At first her route was aimless. Then she gathered nourishment bars and beverage for Ariq and herself and a container of raw meat for Spark.

  “He can’t be hungry again.” Her male’s voice lilted with teasing.

  “He might not be hungry, but I’m feeding him.” She petted Spark.

  That earned her a shriek and a hard peck on the hand.

  She embraced the pain. It matched the ache in her heart. The pecks, the shrieks, the feedings left were too few.

  “You are an ass.” Xareni told the drakon. She would miss him.

  “Xareni—”

  “No.” She stalked toward her section of the wall, carrying Spark, unable to address the questions in her Chamele’s eyes.

  He trailed her, yet thankfully, didn’t speak. The male seemed to sense her desperate mood.

  She climbed the steps to the top of the wall, took a brief glance over the edge, at the terrain below her. There were no Humanoid Alliance males outside the settlement, and there were several new bodies impaled on stakes in front of it.

  “Xareni.” Her male had found his voice.

  “We’re fucking.” She kicked off her boots and stripped off her garments.

  Spark shrieked, flew upward, settled on her skull. His talons sank into her scalp. The agony was excruciating, but for what she was thinking of doing to him, what she had to do to him, she deserved it.

  “Fuck. I don’t have his gold disks.” The drakon would be impossible to distract without them.

  She did have meat, but Spark would expect her to feed that to him.

  “I have this.” Ariq extracted a dagger from the sheath strapped to his back. The hilt was wrapped in black fabric.

  “Don’t show it to him.” She held up her hands, blocking him with her palms. The weapon had once belonged to his mother. It was too valuable to use as a distraction. “Once Spark claims an object, he keeps it.”

  “That is very Chamele of him.” Her warrior smiled. “My mother would approve of him keeping it.” He unwrapped the hilt.

  Spark immediately lunged at it.

  Ariq pulled it away from the drakon and set it carefully on the stone.

  Spark landed on the dagger, curling his talons around it. He flapped his wings and shrieked with triumph. The drakon had a new piece of treasure.

  “You gave Spark your mother’s dagger.” Tears stung Xareni’s eyes.

  Fuck. She loved the damn male.

  He turned his head and met her gaze. His eyes were dark with need. “I would give him—”

  She rushed forward, unwilling to wait for more words, for a slow seduction. Their forms collided. The momentum drove him backward. He smacked against the battlement. She mashed her lips into his.

  He snarled, that beastlike noise arousing her, and he turned with her, pinning her against the stone, taking control of their embrace. She gasped. He commandeered her mouth, spearing into her with his tongue, rasping his teeth against her flesh.

  Pain meshed with her pleasure. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. He molded her shoulders with his rough hands, rocked against her. She lifted one of her legs, twining it around his.

  He moved against her, rubbing his leather-clad cock against her wet pussy. The friction of that intimate caress burned slightly, and that fed the flames within her.

  Stars. He was hard. She raked her fingernails lightly over his chest, and he rumbled, working her with more ferocity—biting on her bottom lip, abrading her nipples with his pecs, scraping her ass against the stone as he fucked her without entry.
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  It wasn’t enough. She needed more to banish her thoughts of the future, of goodbyes and tests of her willpower. “Take me, barbarian.” She hopped on one leg, trying to align them.

  He flipped his garment upward, cupped her ass and lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist. He positioned her over his tip and drove her downward.

  She shrieked, clutching his shoulders. The fullness was what she craved, the connection was what she couldn’t live without, what she would trade all she knew to maintain. She loved him, would do anything for him.

  But right now, she wanted him to do her. “Again.” She kicked his ass cheeks with her heels. “Take me again.”

  He grunted, lifted her, drove her down on him, lifted her, drove her down on him. Their pace was fast. Their joining was rough and wild and exactly what she required.

  She panted, adding her efforts to his, drawing herself upward and releasing him. They battled their lust, their longing, their wanting, together. Sweat slicked their skin. Their fuck noises filled the air. He pushed her more and more against the stone, until she was pressed against it.

  And then he let loose, pounding into her with a breath-stealing savagery. Everything they had experienced that planet rotation—the killings, the near death, the thrilling mounted transport ride through the sand dunes, the race into the Refuge—was relayed through their forms, through their out-of-control passion.

  The ridge at the base of his cock swelled. His voice deepened to the vastness of the darkening sky above them. His muscles strained against her curves. He was close.

  And she was also. “Ariq.” Her need for him was too much, too strong. Her arms and legs quivered. Her breathing turned ragged. “I—”

  “Come for me, gerel.” He swiveled his hips, grinding against her pussy, her clit, all of her.

  She shattered into a million pieces, and every part was painted with bliss. “Ariq.” She screamed his name, arching her back. Her inner walls closed around his shaft.

  “Gerel.” He howled, surging forward. Her barbarian’s sharp teeth pierced the base of her neck. Cum jetted from his tip, blasting her intimate flesh.

  She shrieked louder, dug her fingernails into his shoulders, coming again—or still. Xareni didn’t know which. Her brain was empty of anything other than her male and the ecstasy he had given her. She shook, restrained between his unrelenting form and the stone, her body vibrating with rapture.

  “I love you.” The words escaped her lips before she could quash them.

  “I love you too, Xareni.” He fell to his knees, taking her with him. Their physical bond was temporarily unbreakable.

  He loved her. She hid her smile against his chest.

  Her choice, already made, would still hold pain. It would be paired with loss.

  But it was the right one.

  The damn Chamele loved her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eight planet rotations passed. Ariq enjoyed the time with his gerel. They met with his fellow Chameles—sharing nourishment in the open, engaging in training, participating in mock battles. As he had predicted, they had embraced his warrior female. She became one of them.

  Kralj’s modified humanoids embraced him. They respected Xareni tremendously, extended that honor to him. Mock battles with them were even fiercer than the ones staged with his brethren. The modified humanoids tested him in ways he hadn’t experienced since he was a youth.

  That excited him. He honed his skills to a sharp, lethal point, became a better warrior.

  They chattered before, after, during the bouts. All the modified humanoids he spoke with were afflicted with the os khonzon, or, as they called it, the darkness. That genetic abnormality didn’t make him an outsider. It made him one of them.

  As it would make any children he had with Xareni one of them. They wouldn’t be devoid of support systems. They would have those warriors to confide in, to help them manage their os khonzon.

  That reassured him.

  Ariq’s encounters with his gerel exhilarated him. They rutted three, four, five times a planet rotation. His desire for her didn’t decrease. Their passion intensified.

  The decision regarding their future had been made long before they’d returned to the Refuge.

  But the time within the settlement reassured him it was the ideal one…for Xareni, for him, for their future children.

  He had spoken to Second privately, shortly after they re-entered the settlement. Second had asked him to remain silent about his choice until the planet rotation the Chameles planned to leave Carinae E.

  Ariq suspected his friend thought he might change his mind. He wouldn’t do that. But, out of respect for Second, he didn’t say a word about it to anyone else. He hinted at his choice but didn’t outright discuss it with Xareni.

  An open conversation with her about it wasn’t necessary. He knew his gerel, knew she loved him, knew she wanted them to stay together. She might curse at him for making that decision, might call him an ass, but she would embrace it. It would make her happy.

  He very much wanted to make his gerel happy.

  On the planet rotation of the Chameles’ departure, he woke at sunrise. His gerel was sprawled over his chest, her naked form pressed against his. They were positioned on the top of the wall, in the stretch of it she had claimed that first rest cycle.

  It felt like home. She felt like home.

  He was tempted to stay with her.

  That wasn’t possible. He had to meet with Kralj and that Ruler’s mate, formally ask permission to remain, to stay on Carinae E. The all-powerful, all-knowing male deserved that deference.

  Ariq slipped out from under Xareni, moving slowly, carefully, not wanting to wake her.

  His hyper-alert human stirred. A frown darkened her beautiful face.

  He stroked her bare back and ass, seeking to soothe her with his touch. “I have to leave you for a moment or two.” He relayed that information softly. “Stay here. I’ll return for you.”

  He would always return for her.

  “Mmm…” She stretched out her arms, rested her cheek against the portable sleeping support. Her eyes remained closed.

  Spark, in contrast, glared at him. The drakon was perched on top of his hoard, his talons curled around the dagger’s golden hilt.

  Ariq’s lips twitched. His gerel was right. Once Spark claimed something as his, he didn’t want to relinquish it.

  He had no intention of taking it from the drakon. His mother would have liked the defiant creature. She would have liked Xareni also.

  Spark could keep the dagger. The three of them would be together as much as possible. If the drakon had the weapon, Ariq would have it also.

  He stood, silently donned his ass coverings, his boots, looked once more at his gorgeous gerel, his suspicious drakon. They would be there when he returned.

  Ariq descended the wall’s steps.

  Several moments later, when he finally returned to their stretch of the wall after a long, but satisfying, conversation with Kralj and Dita, Ariq realized he had been wrong.

  Xareni and Spark were missing.

  There were no signs of his gerel or their drakon. The sleeping support had been put away. His creature’s hoard and his little human’s pack were gone.

  She must be on the run…again.

  He grinned. His warrior female would fill his life with adventure. He set the nourishment bars, containers of beverage, and raw meat he’d procured for them, on the stone.

  It was a small planet. It wouldn’t take long to catch her and when he did, they’d rut like two wild creatures, both of them coming fast and hard.

  His cock hardened. That part of him approved of that plan.

  First, he would bid Second, Oghul, Yesun, Seven-One, the others, a safe journey.

  Ariq descended the wall’s steps once more. It wouldn’t be a final farewell. His brethren planned to travel back to Carinae E soon. All of them liked the planet and, with the Chamele Sector at peace, there weren’t many battles to
fight there.

  There would always be battles to fight on his new home planet. Ariq’s tread lightened. Kralj had confirmed that fact, stating the rebel nature of its inhabitants didn’t lend itself to serenity. There would be a permanent need for a warrior like himself.

  As he exited the Refuge, a high-pitched screech sliced through the other commotion. Ariq increased his speed. He recognized that noise. Spark was nearby, and he was not happy, sounded almost frantic.

  A crowd of Chameles gathered around the ship. The drakon’s cries originated from a spot near the vessel.

  “What’s happening?” Ariq asked that of Second and Lead Medic as he passed them.

  “I can tell you what’s not happening.” Second crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We’re not leaving Carinae E this planet rotation. That can’t happen until the doors are repaired.”

  What happened to the doors?

  Ariq didn’t stop moving. He would ask that question later.

  Spark’s shrieking was growing louder, more alarming

  Ariq pushed his way between two Chamele males.

  “Let Ariq through.” Second barked that order at the crowd.

  The warriors stepped to the side, rushing to obey their leader.

  Ariq gaped at the scene revealed. It was complete chaos.

  Spark flung his little body against the ship’s doors, smacked against them again and again. His wings beat the surface. He scraped the metal with his talons, blasted the doors with his fire.

  Unable to open them, he retreated and tried once more, frantically attacking the vessel. He shrieked with distress. His scales rattled. His form shook.

  One of the winged triplets, Jeden, stood near the ship. He held out the dagger Ariq had given the drakon. “Look. Shiny.” The young warrior tried to distract Spark. He tilted the blade from left to right, reflecting sunlight off the edge. “You know you want it.”

  Spark shrieked and hurled a torrent of flames in the male’s direction. Then he attacked the door once more, with increased vigor.