“I’m here, gemate . I’m fine. You are all that is brave and beautiful. I will give you all the comforting you need.”
“I love you, Huw.”
“And I, you, my battle-mate. Be careful, lubha . The Antareans are very nervous.
They suspect something.”
“About a five-minute walk … single file.” Dr. Peters attached a small red LED light to his hat. “I’ll lead you and then get out of the way and allow you to do what you need to do.”
“Hurry, Wulf,” said Nadia. “The Antareans are getting antsy according to Huw. My gut tells me they won’t wait the full hour before they kill a hostage.” Huw’s danger increased with every second they wasted.
Dr. Peters must have sensed time was not a luxury and walked into the opening. The inky blackness quickly swallowed him up. Turning on her LED light, Nadia hurried to follow.
“Huw. We’re coming. Be prepared to distract your captors on my signal.”
“Take care of what’s mine, Nadia. I’ll be fine.”
*
Huw pulled at the bindings on his wrists. The cuffs slick with his blood now had some slight give.
He felt the battle rage building among the Prime on the planet; he fed on it, as did the other Prime hostages as they waited to make their move on their captors. But it was the connection with his battle-mate, her fear for him and his for her, along with his rage at being taken by the hated Antareans, which gave him the extra strength to weaken the bindings. He paused, breathing shallowly, sublimating the pain of fighting the restraints; his eyes slitted as he followed the movements of the enemy.
The two guarding him and his engineering team were paying more attention to their peers who watched the lowlying plain from the cliff.
“Nadia, we’re outside on what looks to be a bluff overlooking the plain. Be careful, they’re watching.”
“We aren’t coming up the front. We’re coming through the caves.”
“The guards are very lax. I almost have my bindings off. I’ll be ready when you signal me.”
“What about the rest of your team?”
“They’re riding the batel rabia . They’ll be ready.”
Huw turned his head. His team members watched him as they also worked on their bindings with lesser success than him. Having a battle-mate was an added advantage.
When the two Antarean guards turned to look at them, all movements ceased, only to begin again when the enemy turned its backs. The lazy apayebote would deserve all that happened to them. Prime and Volusian soldiers, even captured and bound ones, were still deadly—as their hostage takers would soon find out.
Nadia was closer. Her energy was strong, pure, and filled with love and the instincts of a gemate battle-mate to protect her gemat. He’d read the epic tales of battle-mates, but as many of his generation had, he’d believed them to be merely fantasies.
Now he knew the truth. Battle-mates acted as one unit.
Even now, Nadia took the pain of his bloodied and torn wrists and muted it so he could break free. Her adrenaline and cortisol production increased to aid his and flush the drugs the enemy had used out of his system. As she neared, she continuously relayed what she saw and heard, keeping him informed of the rescue team’s progress.
He also sensed her hatred of the tight spaces she traversed, but knew she would have faced her worst fear—giant worms—to get to his side. She was an amazingly strong woman. He was honored to be her mate and would tell her, show her exactly how special she was—once they were alone and in their bed.
The four captors huddled and spoke in hushed whispers.
Huw’s hearing was ramped up by the hormones flooding his bloodstream. His understanding of the Antarean language was shaky, but he understood enough to decipher the four were desperate to get away. The Antareans were tired of negotiating. They had decided to kill Huw and his men and take their chances in overwhelming the Gold forces on the plain in order to steal a shuttle. They expected help from their brethren orbiting the planet.
Too bad there was no ship capable of assisting them. He’d gleaned the fact from Nadia’s mind. Good thing the kidnappers didn’t know, or he and the other hostages would already be dead.
“Huw, we see you. Where are the Antareans?”
“They’re grouped by the edge of the cliff. They’re thinking of killing us and taking the battle to A’tem and the others.”
“Too late for that. Let us handle them. We outnumber them four to one.”
“I’m almost loose … as are the others. Just get us some battle blades…”
“Sladkie— no need for hand-to-hand. We have dart guns. Just stay low.”
Huw had no intention of getting between the poison darts and the enemy, but he’d be damned if he lay still while his woman fought. He hand-signaled his men to stay down and to wait for his next signal. He figured they’d know what to do when the time came.
One of the Antarean guards turned and raised his head as if sniffing the air. Damn reptilian senses. Smell was their best defensive weapon.
“Nadia, cwen , they smell you coming.”
“Stay down!”
Huw roared the Caradoc battle cry as the rescuers poured from a seam in the mountain. The high whine of the dart guns as they sent their small, but deadly projectiles at the enemy filled the air.
The one Antarean who’d turned to face the mountainside dove for Huw with a chilling hiss of rage.
Huw rolled away, kicking out with his legs. The battle rage filled him and helped him escape the Antarean’s sharp-clawed grasp.
Before Huw could get to his feet to fight the bastard, Nadia was there. She waved her knife, keeping the enemy away from him. Using her fragile Terran body and one small blade, she protected him.
Bellowing with rage—and fear for Nadia, Huw surged to his feet. He swept an arm around her waist and shoved her behind him while removing the battle blade from her hands. “My fight, cwen. Stay back.”
He noted the other three Antareans were down, unmoving—dead from the darts.
The Antarean menacing him and Nadia was too close for the dart guns to be used safely. The poison was as deadly for hominids as it was to pseudo-reptilians.
“Huw, come with me. Step away, love. Wulf has him in his sights.” Nadia’s voice was calm, but he sensed her underlying fear … for him. She loved him and that made him that much stronger.
Huw laughed. “Gemate lubha, if I can’t take down this slime, how could I call myself a man?” Keeping his body between Nadia and any danger, he circled the Antarean whose basilisk-like stare never wavered from his prey.
Nadia snorted. “Stubborn ass. You’re my man … and there’s no need to endanger yourself to prove it.”
“Nadia, come here. Now!” Wulf ordered. “Brother. We want him alive. We need the intelligence about the attacks in this area.”
“My thoughts exactly, brother.” Huw grinned widely as he moved in a deadly dance designed to lead the Antarean away from the others—from his Nadia. He gestured with the knife. “Come on, you scaly, fork-tongued apayebo. See if you can fight me now that I’m not drugged.”
The Antarean’s lidless eyes glistened darkly. His split-tongue tested the air.
Something akin to fear came and went in his reptilian eyes. “This-s-s-s cannot be.” His Standard was stilted but fluent. “You smell as she does. You are … one?”
His opponent sought out someone behind him. Nadia! The bastard was staring at Nadia.
“Wulf, get Nadia out of here. He’s fixated on her.” Huw moved to cut off the enemy’s line of sight. “Gemate, go back into the cave.”
“No. He’s not any danger to me. He has three dart guns aimed at him. He moves toward me … he’ll die.” Nadia’s words and tone were a threat. A quick glance confirmed she held a dart gun in one hand and a battle blade she must have taken from one of the downed Antareans in the other.
The Antarean stood still. His gaze was defiant as he looked from Huw to Nadia, who now stood to hi
s side and slightly back to give them both fighting room. “She is-s-s your mate, Prime?”
“She is my battle-mate, Antarean.” Huw again blocked the pseudo-reptile from staring at Nadia. He didn’t want the enemy even sullying his mate with his leering looks.
“This cannot be. We killed many, many of your women. Two whole generations-s-s of progeny were los-s-t.” The Antarean shook his head. “She is-s-s Terran. You are Prime. This-s-s cannot be.”
Nadia stepped to Huw’s side. She ripped his already torn shirt the rest of the way off, revealing his mark. Before he could stop her, she peeled her pants down enough to display her mark. “We’re one, Antarean. There are others.”
“They lied to us-s-s.” The Antarean’s eyes turned livid with his rage. “They offered a pact … they lied!” He attacked.
Huw slashed at the Antarean’s chest. His mate went for the Antarean’s legs with the unusual battle blade she’d appropriated. She aimed for a hamstring.
Both found their targets.
The Antarean dropped like a stone, bleeding from multiple wounds and regenerating with every breath. Huw and Nadia couldn’t let down their guard. A wounded Antarean was as deadly as a healthy one.
Wulf ran forward and dropped to his knees near the downed enemy. He held a knife to the pseudo-reptile’s jugular. “Who offered the pact?”
The Antarean’s lipless mouth turned into a parody of a smile. “One … of yours-s-s … Prime. One … of yours-s-s.” Then he laughed weakly and impaled his throat on Wulf’s knife and twisted, severing his carotid artery.
“Ansu bhau!” Wulf leapt back from the arterial spray.
The Antarean bled out quickly, dying with a sneer on his slitty lips.
Huw kicked at the body. “Diew, Wulf. The fanatics are working with our most hated enemy.”
“That’s what it sounds like.” Wulf wiped the enemy’s blood from his arms with a shirt one of the soldiers handed him. “He wanted to die, knowing we’d be frustrated at his last words.”
Scowling, Huw turned toward his brother. “Well, it worked.”
Chapter 25
Six Hours Later, on the Galanti
Huw gently urged Nadia from the lift into the corridor leading to his, now their, suite of rooms. She felt the olio of emotions coming from him: anger, love, fear, and oddly enough, amusement. The fact he maintained a calm facade and a gentle touch soothed her; however, she read his need to chastise her for placing herself in danger.
Nadia smiled and managed not to snicker at the images in his mind for the planned punishment—all the scenarios had them naked and on the bed. She couldn’t wait; she needed him with an unceasing ache. He could’ve died on the planet, and that was unacceptable.
As soon as they entered their quarters and the door swished shut behind them, Huw had her turned, her back against the door, and her pants ripped off within seconds.
“Never.” As he tore her uniform top off, he breathed the word against her ear before nipping the lobe sharply. “Ever. Again.”
He fumbled with the placket of his trousers and then shoved them down his thighs.
With one hand on her ass, he hoisted her up until her wet and aching pussy was level with the tip of his massive erection.
She wound her arms around his shoulders as Huw held her head still for his rough kisses and nips along her jaw, down onto her throat, and then along her shoulder.
“God, Huw! Up! Up!” She sent him an image.
With his eager cooperation, she toed off her ankle boots and managed to wrap her legs around his waist. She let go of one massive shoulder, tightened with his tension and lust, to grasp his cock and slide it through the copious juices moistening her slit.
“In. In.” She attempted to line up her ready opening with his cockhead.
“Hush. Not yet.” He muttered the words against her shoulder. “Hold onto me. Both arms. Now.”
“But Huw…” Her vaginal opening clenched and unclenched, needing his thick, hard penis inside to send her over the slim precipice she balanced upon. The man had gotten her so hot, so quickly that all she wanted to do was come … not rehash what had happened on the planet.
“Shh. Not. One. Word.” He licked along her right shoulder, pausing to teeth the tendon running to her neck. Then he followed the same path in reverse with his tongue.
“Don’t ever,” he squeezed her ass tightly, “ever scare me like that again.” He bit her shoulder lightly. “I died a thousand times in those seconds. He could have…” he slid into her hungry heat with one solid thrust of his hips “…killed you with one swipe of his hand.”
Huw muttered in Prime as he peppered feverish kisses over her cheeks, eyes, lips.
“Then I’d be forced back into the solitary darkness I dwelled in before I met you.”
“I was scared … too.” Her head slid up and down the door as he steadily pumped his cock into her throbbing depths. She stared him in the eye and slapped his shoulder. “You could’ve … died!”
“Never.” His voice was thick with fiery lust and loving devotion. “I’ve just found you, gemate lubha. I’ll never leave you alone.” He paused, fully embedded within her.
She counted the beats of his heart in the pulsations of his cock. She tightened her vaginal muscles, fisting him. Her body screamed for release.
“Shh, sweet, I’ll take care of your need. All of your needs.” Huw withdrew his penis slowly; its thickly veined surface rubbed her sensitive nerve endings, heightening her arousal.
She moaned low in her throat. “So good. So good, zaychik. Take me. Hard. I need you so much.”
“No more than I need you.” Huw slowly, torturously pushed back into her.
She hissed, a mixture of pain and pleasure, as she felt every single blessed millimeter of his length drag across highly sensitized tissues. He was so big and filled her so full …
and he was being too frigging gentle. Gentleness could come later when they were in their bed and the edge was off. She wanted the heat that had him shoving her up against the door.
“Huw … is this your punishment? I need to come, my gemat. Do I need to beg?”
He brushed a gentle kiss over the tip of her nose before bracing his forehead against hers. “No, you never need to beg me for your pleasure. Patience, lubha. I need you to understand…” He set a rhythm of deep, firm push-pulls, keeping her on the edge of orgasm. If he’d meant to punish her for placing herself in danger, he was doing a good job of it. “If something had happened to you—my people would have had to kill me to keep me from hurting others.”
Never halting the movement of his hips, he tilted her chin until her gaze met his. She had never seen his eyes so dark before; they were almost brown with the pain and fear he didn’t bother to hide. His emotions poured off him in great, rolling waves, pounding against her mind, her heart, her body. He truly believed what he’d said—he would’ve been dangerous if she’d died protecting him.
“I didn’t know…” she soothed the tense muscles along his shoulders and at the base of his neck with gentle touches, “…I knew Prime males were protective … but not to the extremes you’re describing.” She kissed his lips lightly, gently to soothe the ravening beast inside him. “I promise not to knowingly place myself in danger without telling you.”
When Huw growled angrily in the back of his throat, she nipped his lower lip. “This time you hush. I’m a starship officer. I’m a soldier. I’ll encounter dangerous situations …
you know that. You have to be willing to cut me some slack in the execution of my duties.”
His hips increased in speed and forcefulness. His cock reached ever more deeply within her, giving her the most pleasurable type of pain.
“Stepping in front of me as I face an Antarean is not one of your duties.” Huw’s words were barely more than a guttural sound.
“Huw…” She shook her head. He kissed her, cutting off her scold.
“Hush, cwen.” He nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. “I understa
nd your point …
but that doesn’t mean I like it or accept it blindly.”
His lingering rage was translated into harder thrusts into her body, lifting her so her back slid up and down the door’s cold surface. “I can’t help it. You…” he rotated his hips on the up thrust, “…in danger … not allowed.”
He gripped her hips harder, holding her for the rapid pounding of his hips. “Each and every time you’re in danger … I’ll reinforce my claim … in the most primal way … as hard and fast as I can.”
“I don’t want you to fear me when I do.”
He was afraid he’d hurt her. She trusted him more than he trusted himself. “I like you wild, my gemat . We’ll have a very full and vigorous sex life … because such situations will happen again.”
“Hold onto me, lubha . I need to take you.”
“And I need to be taken. Don’t hold back, sladkie . I don’t break easily.”
“Diew , I love you.”
*
Huw buried his face into the crook of Nadia’s neck and shoulder and thrust harder, faster, driving them both higher and higher. He fed her his love. Bared his soul and revealed the deep, voracious need for her to live and be safe. Admitted the fact she was the only being in the galaxy, the universe, who could drive him over the edge of reason into insanity.
“Huw … Huw…” Nadia held his head to her with both hands as he took her roughly against the door. “Come for me, sladkie. Fill me with your seed. Take what’s yours …
only yours, my love.”
As Huw bellowed his completion against her neck, he shared his pleasure with Nadia. She screamed her release to the ceiling, her hands clutching his shoulders tightly.
The tiny dig of her nails, the squeezing of his cock in her tight heat, had him shouting as yet another explosion of pleasure erupted up his spine.
“God, Huw … hold me … I’m … flying.” Her hands fluttered on his arms as she seemed to lose all strength. Her body arched and her head thrown back against the door, she screamed again and again.
Huw held her securely and plunged into her hot, tight sex over and over, nurturing what had become a seemingly infinite climax. Then Nadia went completely lax and fell against him, her head lying weakly on his shoulder.
Prime Selection Page 30
