by Carven, Anna
Sienna gave him a sly look. “Why, you mean I don’t have to give up my livelihood and become a kept woman for your exclusive pleasure, Commander?”
How amazing that he made her feel comfortable enough to joke about such things, even though a much worse fate had almost become a reality for her.
Ikriss frowned, somehow managing to look both stern and adorable at the same time. “You are indeed exclusively mine,” he growled. “As I am exclusively yours, and although you give me immense pleasure, I would never demand that you relinquish your craft; your livelihood. That would go against everything I stand for. I realize that taking you away from your small empire may cause some problems, but I am working on a solution that I believe will work well for all of us. You don’t have to give up anything to be with me.”
Sienna’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh yeah? How are you going to manage that?”
Ikriss gave her a cryptic smile. “As I said, I am working on it. You will find out in due course. It is a surprise.”
“I’m can’t stop worrying about what we left back there on Earth. It all happened so fast. The last thing I remember was seeing a total clusterfuck back there on the ground. There were strange men with weird guns in the crowd. It was…”
He reached out and caressed the side of her cheek with the callused pads of his fingers, his touch achingly tender. How was it possible that so much darkness and sweetness could be contained together inside one body? “Do not worry, my love. We would never allow anyone—let alone mere humans—take what is ours.” A look of perfect cold arrogance crossed his features, startling her. It was so much at odds with the spine-tingling tenderness she’d received from him. Sometimes, she almost forgot how dangerous he truly was.
There was so much about him she still didn’t understand.
But that didn’t mean she was going to let him get away with being so haughty.
Sienna glared at him. “I’m one of these mere humans, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m all for you going after the humans that sold us into slavery, but please don’t lump all of us in with those assholes. And I’m warning you, don’t underestimate my species. We might seem backward and weak to you, but there are some real ruthless ones amongst my kind.”
The look Ikriss gave her was fire trapped in ice. “I couldn’t care less about those humans you speak of. And you are wrong. Nothing about you is mere.” In that moment, he looked perfectly alien; a creature of nightmares and dreams.
Benevolent and gentle one moment, cold and terrifying the next.
But not terrifying to her.
Never to her.
And he was all hers.
Holy fuck, what have I gotten myself into?
Still staring at her with that toe-curling possessiveness, Ikriss wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his kiss.
His lips tasted of midnight and spun silver.
He was dark spice and bitterness and molten caramel; the most complicated and decadent thing to ever touch her palate.
She yielded.
Of course she yielded.
There was nothing left to do.
Their union was complete.
Chapter Twenty-Two
After the most intense sanitation routine he had ever experienced—his mate was as indeed devious and creative in the pleasure department as she was with food—Ikriss found himself curled up in his sleeping pod with this exquisite creature nestled beside him.
In sleep, he saw yet another side to her beauty. With her back pressed against his torso, her naked form molded perfectly against his—too perfectly—as if she were the last missing piece in his existence.
She’d been sleeping for a long time now. He’d slept too, his arms curled tightly around her as he drifted in and out of familiar dreams.
He visited the icy plains and mountains of his homeland.
He saw his father’s face; almost identical to his own, but hard and weathered from many revolutions of hunting and evading Imperial enemies on the cold, windswept Vaal.
His father had been a stoic, practical man. Like most Aikun, he was mistrustful of outsiders and utterly ruthless when it came to protecting his clan.
But Marakhet and his mother, Dyala, had been the first to welcome Ikriss back with open arms when he secretly paid a visit to his tribe after so many revolutions… after he’d become the very thing they despised.
A tool of the Empire.
It had taken a lot of reassurance and negotiation to avoid a death-match between a lone but armed-the-teeth Elite Imperial Warrior and an entire clan of suspicious Aikun, but in the end, Marakhet’s acceptance had been the turning point for the male hunters, and once the others realized that Ikriss wasn’t going to serve their dead hearts to the despised Empress Vionn, they slowly learned to trust him.
And eventually, after hundreds of secret visits—visits that Tarak actually encouraged and turned a blind eye to—he earned his hunter’s Marks.
If only father could see him now; free from the clutches of the Empire with his destined mate in his arms.
Marakhet would be proud.
Goddess bless his eternal soul.
And his mother would be quietly overjoyed when she met Sienna. Of course, she was still alive, and at a hundred-and-thirty-odd revolutions, she was one of the revered elders of the tribe.
Dyala had been a little more insistent lately. During their transgalactic holo-comms, she’d mentioned more than once that he should find himself a nice human girl like the other nice warriors.
Ah, wait until he introduced her to Sienna. He could hardly believe his mate was eager to visit the planet that had forged him—a place that had such a terrible reputation throughout the Nine Galaxies.
But there was hidden beauty on Kythia, too.
“You will see it for yourself, my amina,” he murmured softly in Aikun, running his fingers through her glorious hair. “I will take you there, and you will be received as a queen of my tribe.”
He couldn’t care less about royal genes inherited from some distant ancestor, but he would treat her as his queen, and he would guard her as jealously as they coveted her.
They would not have her.
The filth of the old empire would never lay eyes upon her again.
She began to stir, her eyelashes fluttering delicately against her creamy skin. Half-asleep, she rolled over and draped her long arms around his shoulders. “Mmmfuhmm,” she said, pulling him toward her, squeezing him tightly as if he were some sort of soft-bodied prey being suffocated by a giant samimi worm.
His eyes widened in surprise. Really, there was a lot of strength in those graceful arms of hers.
A sound that was somewhere between a growl and a wheeze escaped his lips as his erection sprung to life.
She was warm.
Soft.
His.
She buried her face in his chest and murmured nonsensical things. Her legs curled around him. Still naked, Ikriss had no choice but to surrender to her tight embrace, his cock pressing up against her soft skin.
She wasn’t yet fully awake, but she was definitely aroused. Her sweet scent filled his nostrils, drawing him into a perfect trance.
With uncanny strength—as if she were possessed by some divine, lustful spirit—she maneuvered herself upwards, one leg hooking over his torso, the other extending beneath him.
She wriggled her hips, and suddenly, he was…
Inside her.
What in Kaiin’s hells, my love?
Stunned and completely at her mercy, he eased himself inside her.
She had done this. While she was half-asleep and barely coherent, his mate’s body had reacted to his.
“Sienna,” he said gently, caressing the sides of her face. “Sienna.”
Brilliant grey-green eyes snapped open. A haze of confusion danced through them, but it was quickly replaced with crystal-clear recognition… and delight.
“Ikriss.” Her sweet, gentle voice was a salve on his scarred black heart. “Hello.”
<
br /> “Hello,” he whispered, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You’re very beautiful, my Sienna.”
A delicate pink flush appeared in her cheeks and spread across her face to the tips of her ears. “So are you, Ikriss.”
He moved his hips back and forth, teasing his cock through her softness, eliciting a soft purr of pleasure from deep inside her.
He wanted to devour her, but he also wanted to enjoy her slowly.
This was pure bliss, better than anything he could have imagined in a mating.
He chuckled softly. “Nobody has ever thought of me as beautiful.”
“You are, though.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He fucked her a little more, his rhythm becoming faster; more insistent. “I am honored that you think so,” he rasped, his control quickly slipping away, “and I only ever want you to think that of me. Nobody else. Ever.”
Her warmth was too delicious for him to stop. He closed his eyes and groaned as she curled her fingers around his horns. Goddess, it had been so long since he’d felt even the slightest twinge of sensation from his once-severed horns.
Now it felt as if there was a direct connection between his horns and his cock.
And her hands were pure molten bliss, sending ripples of pleasure down his horns and over his scalp, down his spine and into his core.
He fucked her harder, losing himself in her sweet essence.
She ran her hands through his hair and down his back, holding him tighter, even as she yielded to his demands.
Ikriss buried his face in the hollow of her neck. Her scent drove him insane. He kissed her soft, warm skin and went deeper, devouring every last morsel of her.
His.
He fucked her harder.
His.
He grew more frantic; more desperate, more insane for her.
She began to moan, a deep, throaty sound.
She started to tremble.
He ran his hands over the curves and contours of her back; her ass, wondering how in the Nine Hells he had been so blessed to find her.
Sweet thing. All mine.
When the climax finally hit him, it was furious and sudden, like a vicious solar storm. He leaned into her, knowing perfectly well that the ridge along his cock enhanced her pleasure.
As release tore through him, she curled her legs and arms tightly around him, digging her nails into the tough skin of his back, drawing the tiniest hint of blood. His own bitterness mingled with her pure sweetness.
Together, they were sublime.
At last, she started to come.
He was already coming down, so he was coherent enough to detect the change in her scent; her sweetness and musk becoming sharp and ripe and intoxicating.
He felt the tiny tremor in her body. It quickly crescendoed into a full-blown quake, and as her body writhed and bucked, he held her tightly, savoring her pleasure.
And when she was spent and languorously curled up against him, he cradled her reverently and kissed her again and again.
After a while, they both went still and simply stared into each other’s eyes. As her quiet wonder engulfed him, Ikriss allowed the last of his barriers to slip away.
He’d never done that with anyone before, ever.
Who would have thought that he would ever want to reveal his vulnerabilities to another living being?
But with her, it felt so natural; so easy.
He could simply be… himself.
Gently, he withdrew from her, letting out a deep sigh of satisfaction as tiny aftershocks of release rolled through him.
Sienna’s lips slowly curved into a glorious smile. “Well, that was the best morning wake up I’ve ever had. You don’t squander your opportunities, do you, Commander?”
“I couldn’t resist you,” he admitted. “You’re a terrible weakness of mine.” And because of that, I will guard you more viciously than anything I’ve ever fought for in my life, my love. He smiled back at her, revealing the twin points of his fangs. “And you must understand that I am not a Commander anymore. But you may call me that if you wish, when it is… appropriate to do so.” Strangely, he liked it when she addressed him by his title like that, in that tone, sounding as if she would fulfill his deepest desires whilst at the same time leaving him as to no doubt that she was fully aware of the power she held over him.
“Of course, Commander.” Now her tone was perfectly earnest, even though her smile held a hint of mischief. “Seriously, though, you’ve never tried to hide what you were—are—and you have no idea how much I appreciate that. I’m so sick and tired of people who put on a facade just so they can get what they want.” Abruptly, her smile faded. She shifted awkwardly against him, nervously catching a strand of her golden hair, coiling it around her finger. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. A shadow danced across her features.
He sensed that she wanted to confide in him, but she was hesitant… afraid.
She should not be afraid of him, ever.
“What is it, Sienna?” He forced himself to sound gentle, even though the thought of her being afraid made him want to tear the Universe apart.
“We haven’t known each other that long, but you make me feel perfectly safe.”
He frowned in confusion. “And that is not a bad thing.”
“No,” she said softly. “No, it isn’t.”
It was Ikriss’s turn to open his mouth and then close it, his ill-thought questions evaporating as realization dawned on him.
She wasn’t used to this… to feeling safe.
She was still traumatized.
I will make them suffer for what they did to you.
Thoughts of death danced through his terrible mind as he held her tightly, letting her curl up against him. She sought his warmth, curling her face into his chest, wrapping her arms around him, her slender fingers dancing across his back.
He simply held her, because that was all he could do.
She let out a deep, shuddering sigh and relaxed, her fingers still caressing his back, seeking out the dotted swirls of his ritual scars. “Your kind heal quickly, don’t you?” she murmured absently.
“What are you talking about?” Ikriss frowned. Only the warriors of the First Division possessed abnormally fast healing. Without Zharek’s nanosurgery, his battle wounds bled black and healed slowly just like any other cursed mortal Kordolian.
“Well, my mind must be playing tricks on me, because I was feeling really bad just now. I could have sworn I accidentally tore your poor back to ribbons the first time we, uh…” The pink flush in her cheeks deepened.
“You did,” he chuckled, remembering her sudden savageness; remembering that he’d liked it.
“Well, you must heal pretty quickly then, because your skin is as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”
Her strange human expression made Ikriss chuckle wryly. “Smooth as a baby’s…?”
What?
He sat bolt upright.
She had scratched him; of that, there was no doubt. He remembered the exquisite pain and the scent of his own blood and the exhilarating intensity of her.
Oh, she had definitely wounded him.
And now he was healed.
Perfectly so.
Suspiciously so.
He uttered a vicious Aikun curse under his breath.
What the fuck did you do to me, Zharek? Did you put fucking nanites in my body?
At some point, he and the medic would be having words.
But before Ikriss had time to contemplate what it meant to be infested with those cursed machines, the comm inside his ear buzzed. Spliced directly into his auditory nerve, it could be activated in response to subtle facial movements—a slight twitch of his cheek muscles or a faint click of the teeth.
He activated it, quieting Sienna with a finger to her lips, conveying silent reassurance with his eyes.
Hold a moment, my love. They know not to contact me unless it’s absolutely necessary, so this must b
e urgent.
“We found the human, boss.” It was Zarken, once of the Second Division, and now one of his trusted squad leaders.
“Ah.” Ikriss had specifically tasked Zarken with finding this close friend of his mate’s—this Eva. “That took longer than it was supposed to. She is safe and in our custody, then?”
Zarken let out a soft growl of frustration. “I said we found her. I didn’t say we had her. We searched for an entire rotation. Interrogated her contacts and relatives. Kail’s mate tapped into her Link devices, which had been wiped. It was only when we reviewed our surveillance logs that we found a trace of her.”
“Oh?” Ikriss’s voice dropped to a dangerous pitch. He did not want to deliver bad news to his newly claimed mate. For the sakes of everyone involved, they had better pray to the Goddess that this human was found alive and in good health. “So where is she, Zarken?”
“This so-called Syndicate has her. She was abducted from the streets during the riots.” Somehow, the warrior managed to telegraph a shrug through his voice. “Infernal humans. They are becoming too much of a pain-in-the-ass to ignore. Zyara’s mate reached out to one of his old contacts in the Syndicate for information. It appears that because they lost Sienna Adamo to us, they have taken this female instead, to account for your mate’s unpaid debts. They will probably try and sell her to a body trader.”
Ikriss’s eyes narrowed. They would do no such thing. He knew his mate well enough by now. Sienna would be beside herself if any harm came to this friend of hers, especially if she found out that she was indirectly responsible.
He did not want to see his mate upset. She’d suffered enough already.
“Fucking impertinence,” he growled, switching to guttural Aikun. Sienna raised her eyebrows questioningly as she placed her on his chest.
He inclined his head. I will explain to you later. Of course, she hadn’t understood a word he’d said, because he’d been speaking in Kordolian.
He captured her fingers in his own, gently stroking her palm with the pad of his thumb. I will not let you down, my amina.
Unbidden, an image of her flashed through his mind. He remembered the terrible state she’d been in the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
