by Cynthia Sax
She tripped over a rock and pitched forward. He wrapped his fingers around her waist, catching her before she hit the sand, and he lifted her off the ground. She weighed next to nothing, felt good in his hands.
“Let me go.” His female writhed, struggling to free herself.
“Never.” He echoed her earlier declaration and flipped her over.
Her beautiful face was pale with fury, with determination, and the primitive, animalistic part of him roared with satisfaction. His female was fierce, as wild as he was.
She unfastened the strap holding one of his guns in place and drew it. “You will release me.” She pressed the muzzle under his chin, her eyes glowing.
“Press the trigger, Tiny Warrior.” He dared her. All his guns were modified. They could only be fired by him.
The damn female tapped the trigger.
She would have killed him. Orol was impressed and irritated.
“No!” His female peered at the offending weapon, studying it as though she expected to find a defect in its design. She wouldn’t. His guns were flawless. “No.” She smacked his chest with the weapon. “No.”
“Don’t break my gun.” Orol couldn’t resist goading her. She hadn’t the strength to hurt him.
His female looked at the gun, looked at him, and then lobbed the weapon over her shoulder. It fell to the sand below them. “Oops.” She rounded her lush lips and widened her eyes.
Her feigned expression of surprise would have been comical except that was his gun half buried in the gritty sand. “Why did you do that?” He took good care of his weapons.
“Why did you throw my guns away?” Her lips twisted.
“Because you were going to shoot me.” He hadn’t planned to shoot her.
“That is what guns are fabricated for.” She slowly, deliberately removed every gun from his chest covering and tossed it over her shoulder, repeating ‘oops’ after each throw.
Orol no longer wondered why the Humanoid Alliance wanted to kill her.
He was exasperated by her antics but he was no longer bored. “I yearned for a challenge.”
“You have one.” His female extracted a dagger from one of his sheaths. “This looks promising.” She tilted the weapon back and forth. Sunlight reflected off the blade.
Orol narrowed his eyes.
“Use that and I’ll drop you.” He warned her. “If you hit the ground, you’ll die.”
They soared high above the sand dunes. She was human, delicate, breakable.
“I might die or I might live.” Her hands shook, the first sign of weakness he’d observed in his tiny warrior. “I’ll take my chances with the fall.”
She toyed with the blade, finding the gap between his chest covering and his ass covering. The tip of the dagger pricked his skin. He stiffened.
His damn female pushed the dagger home, slicing through his flesh, stabbing him in the gut, her big brown eyes blank of all emotion.
Orol howled, pain surging through him, acute and intense. It wasn’t enough to break his hold on her. The Humanoid Alliance had tortured him more severely for many human lifespans.
But he had promised to drop her.
Orol released his female and yanked out the dagger. She fell. While he licked the blade clean and placed it back in the sheath, he trailed her descent.
The pain eased. The blood stopped gushing. The wound closed. He’d been genetically designed to heal quickly, his nanohumanics speeding the process.
His female continued to plummet. She spun in the air, flaying her arms and legs, as though reaching for something, anything, to break her fall.
His tiny warrior didn’t scream, didn’t make a single sound.
“You’re fierce, mate.” He swooped downward, clasped her waist, pulled her upward, retrieving her before she splattered her pretty face all over the white sand.
This time, he didn’t flip her over. Facing away from him, she wouldn’t be able to reach his remaining daggers, inflict more damage on him.
Dampness coated his fingers. Orol gazed downward and his heart squeezed. Her flight suit dripped with blood, too much blood.
“You’re bleeding out.” He could lose her. She was human. They hadn’t yet mated. He hadn’t fed her his blood. She didn’t have his nanohumanics to help her heal.
“I’ll be dead within moments.” Her voice was barely audible, even with his enhanced senses. “Before this planet rotation, I had never broken a promise to her.”
She must be talking about her sister.
His female’s body went alarmingly limp, her head and limbs dangling. “You did it. You can tell your masters, the Humanoid Alliance, that you killed us. You ended whatever threat they believed two small human females posed to their magnificent cause.”
“You won’t die.” Orol carried her to the top of the highest mountain. They’d be safe there. Steep cliffs surrounded the plateau at the pinnacle, making it accessible only from the air. “You’ll keep your promise to your sister. And the Humanoid Alliance are not my masters.”
He hated them, would kill them all if he could.
“I saw the letters and numbers inked on your right cheek. The Humanoid Alliance stamped their ownership all over you.” His female sighed, the sound tugging at him. “I’ve spent my lifespan surrounded by lies, warrior. Give me a taste of honesty before I die.”
“I was with them once,” he conceded. “I’m not with them now. I escaped.” Kralj had masterminded his liberation.
Orol landed, carefully setting his female facedown on the flat rock.
“The Humanoid Alliance doesn’t let any beings go.” She turned her head toward him. “I’m proof of that.” Her breathing turned ragged. “Report to the Humanoid Alliance that both my sister and I are dead.” She coughed. Blood covered her lips. “They’ll reward you.” Her words were bitter. “They reward everyone.”
They rewarded most beings with a bullet in the middle of the forehead. The Humanoid Alliance had no honor.
“You aren’t dead.” He tore her flight suit, exposing skin covered with crimson. A jagged piece of shrapnel was lodged deep in her shoulder blade, had almost sliced right through her.
“My sister is dead.” She volunteered that information too quickly and easily to be believed. “You can stop hunting her.”
“She isn’t dead and I won’t stop hunting her.” The sister wasn’t his priority at the moment. “But I have to save you first.”
“There’s no saving me.” Her eyelids lowered. “Go away and let me die in peace.”
He wasn’t going anywhere without her. “I can save you but it will bind us together forever.”
She was his female. They would be bound to each other eventually. And he would never allow her to die. But he wanted to give her at least the semblance of choice.
“Why would you save me?” She questioned the help she so desperately needed, his female as suspicious as she was stubborn. “Isn’t your mission to kill me?”
Orol sat beside his tiny mate and drew her to him. She didn’t fight him as he pulled her onto his lap. That was how weak she was.
“My mission is to bring you and your sister back alive.” He told her.
And that was what he would do, with or without her permission.
Orol slid his talons over his right wrist. Pain coursed up his arm. Blood flowed.
“Drink.” He held his wrist to her lips.
His obstinate female clamped her mouth shut.
“If you want to live, drink.” He pressed his wound against her flesh.
She turned her face away from him.
Orol gritted his teeth. He was tempted to shake some sense into her. But he suspected that response would make her more determined to deny his efforts.
“If you die, I’ll hunt your sister for the rest of my lifespan.” He ruthlessly used the only leverage against her that he had. “I will scour every planet, utilize every resource I have to find her. And I will find her.” He was certain of that. “There will be no one to war
n her about me. No one to stop me.”
“You wouldn’t hunt her.” She looked at him. Her eyes were glazed, death lurking in their depths. “There’s no reason to do that. She’s dead.”
“She’s not dead.” He gazed back at her, hiding his panic under a layer of resolve. “And I would hunt her. I’d make it my life’s mission.”
“I hate you.” His female glanced at his wrist and some of the tension in Orol’s shoulders dissipated. She would do it, that decision written all over her beautiful face. “I’m making it my life’s mission to stop you.”
Her lips sealed over his self-inflicted wound and he bit back a moan, the pressure exquisite, the tug of her mouth filling him with agony and bliss, wonder and awe. She swallowed, gagged, swallowed again.
With that first mouthful, they were one, linked as only mates could be, his awareness of her, of her form, her scent, her softness heightened.
Her body resisted the change. She convulsed violently against him, her slender curves shaking. He held her, stroked her neck, trying to ease the transition, facilitate the taking of his nanohumanic-infused blood.
His female, his little mate continued to suck and swallow, suck and swallow. She didn’t back away from the task, didn’t make a sound.
As she hadn’t issued a word of complaint about the shrapnel in her back.
She wouldn’t be a simple female to care for, to protect. He’d have to pay attention, see past her silence, her lies, her feigned nonchalance.
But she was his.
He had never expected to find his mate. Like almost all modified humanoids, he’d fantasized about meeting her, dreamed about having someone to love, the possibility of offspring, but he hadn’t truly thought there was a being for him. He was one of a kind, a genetically engineered mix of beast and human.
When Kralj found a mate, he had been given some hope but not much. The Ruler’s powers were different from his. Orol had accepted that, had focused on the missions he was given, the males he led, the companionship of his modified humanoid brethren, battling the darkness alone, always alone.
Until now. Now, he had a female, a future. Orol cradled his little mate as she fed from him. He petted her skin, looked down at the being he was destined to safeguard.
She looked up at him, their gazes locking. The gold specks in her brown eyes had returned, the dazed look waning. Her tremors eased, her body accepting the primitive blood transfusion. The connection between them intensified, batting the air like a pair of wings.
Orol’s vision became fuzzy. He was losing too much blood. “That’s enough.” He pulled his wrist away from her and licked the wound, covering it with healing nanohumanics.
His female lay in his arms, blood dripping from her beautiful face. He cupped her head, splaying his fingers around the knot of hair at her nape, and he laved her chin with the flat of his tongue.
She wiggled, her eyes flashing.
“Shhh…” He traced her cheekbones with the tip of his tongue. “Let me clean you.” She stopped moving, watching him with those big distrustful eyes as he removed the blood from her cheeks, nose, chin. Unable to resist the temptation, he jabbed his tongue against the seam of her lips.
She refused to open to him and that perversely pleased him. His female wouldn’t be easy to win over. That would make her eventual capitulation even sweeter.
Orol swiped down her neck, feeling the blood pulse in her veins. She was so small, so delicate, no longer one hundred percent human but still too fragile for his liking. He sucked on her and she inhaled sharply.
His lips curved into a smile. His tiny warrior couldn’t hide her emotions from him, not while he was touching her. He smelled her arousal, saw the tautness of her nipples through her flight suit.
“I have to partially undress you to examine your wound.” He clasped the neck opening of the garment.
“Can undress myself.” Her voice was hoarse. She lifted one of her hands. It trembled. Badly. She fumbled at the fastener.
He shook his head. It would take planet rotations for her to remove her garment.
“You can’t undress yourself, stubborn female.” Orol opened her flight suit, parting the ugly gray fabric, revealing smooth golden skin.
He grazed his fingertips over her and carefully lowered the garment, navigating the shrapnel jutting out of her back. She was exquisite, slender yet feather-flutteringly female, her shoulders slight, her muscles lean, her breasts small and perfect, tipped with brownish pink nipples.
He was humbled she was his, and he was so hard he was uncomfortable, his balls aching. Mating had to wait. Healing her was his priority.
Orol tilted her to the side and examined the shard of metal in her shoulder. The bleeding had stopped but a foreign object couldn’t be left inside her. He suspected it was the reason his stubbornly silent female never used that hand.
“We have to remove this.” He decided.
“Do it.” She didn’t hesitate. “Now.”
Orol gripped the edge of the metal and pulled. She gasped, the fingers of her good hand curling against his chest. The pain must have been excruciating and that was the only noise she made.
“You can scream.” That might make her feel better.
“Never.” She stiffened and then drooped, sagging against him.
His tiny warrior had lost consciousness.
Orol flung the piece of metal off the mountain, wanting it as far away from his mate as possible, and he licked her battered skin, tasting metal and salt and female. He lapped up every drop of blood, cleaning her, expediting her recovery.
The flight suit was grubby. He removed her boots, stripped off the garment, shamelessly looked at her. His female’s body was supple curves and lean muscle, her stomach flat, her hips rounded. A neatly trimmed triangle of brown hair covered her mons. Her golden skin glowed under the sun’s rays.
He breathed deeply. Her scent was delectable. But it was mixed with the aroma of blood, her blood. He searched out every scratch, licking her, healing her, cleaning her.
A few tendrils of hair had escaped from the coil at her nape. Orol freed the rest, fanning the long straight sheets of brown over her shoulders, down her back.
Frag. He realized now why she had kept it rigidly confined. The strands reached her ass, had hints of gold in their depths, were decadently soft.
He wanted to sink his fingers into his female’s hair and never let go.
Chapter Three
Rhea felt as though she’d been run over by a skimmer. Her entire body ached.
But she was alive. She opened her eyes, blinked at the brightness. The hot Carinae E sun blazed down on her, heating her face, chest, arms, both of them.
She shouldn’t be able to sense the warmth on her left arm. The shrapnel in her shoulder had cut through nerves, tissue, veins, causing her to lose a lot of blood. She should have died.
A rustling noise drew her gaze to the right. A male stood beside her, his back facing her, his head tilted back. His booted feet were braced apart and his fists were clenched, as though he expected an attack. His wings were spread, their breadth magnificent. The brown feathers, edged with black, ruffled in the breeze.
Even viewed from behind, he was the image of power—tall, strong, the muscles in his shoulders, arms, and legs defined, his ass firm and tight. So tight, dimples were detectable through his skin-tight brown leather ass coverings.
This male, this stranger had saved her. She had drunk his blood, taken that part of him inside her, and now they were connected. Rhea felt the link, her fingers twitching, the need to touch him tremendous.
She wanted him. Her nipples tightened. Her pussy dripped.
But any female would desire him, and she had been deceived by broad shoulders and a pretty face in the past. That had cost her parents their lives. She wouldn’t put her sister Paloma in danger.
Rhea suppressed a moan as she pushed herself into a seated position. The sky spun around her, ribbons of blue streaking together.
S
he was naked. Her face heated. Marowit had insisted they fuck in the dark, taking her from behind. She suspected that was because he didn’t find her boyish body physically appealing.
Few males would.
The winged male had seen her, all of her. Rhea cringed. He was the epitome of masculine beauty and she was barely recognizable as a female.
He was her enemy, she reminded herself. She shouldn’t care whether or not he had seen her body. Her goals were to escape him and find her sister.
She couldn’t do that bare-assed and unarmed. Rhea scanned her surroundings. Her boots had been set by a familiar-looking pack. Her weapons were close also.
Summoning all of her energy, she crawled toward them. The stone was hard against her hands and knees. Waves of weakness swept over her. She gritted her teeth.
Big black boots appeared between her and her prize. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Shit. He was fast. And silent. She gazed upward and blinked.
The male frowned down at her, his wings folded. Marowit had been handsome, his features boyish and perfect. This male was gorgeous, his eyes a piercing brown, his skin tanned, his brow, cheekbones, chin sculpted as though from rock. He was all warrior, his chest covering decorated once again with the guns she’d previously thrown away.
Her captor was larger, stronger, fully clothed, and heavily armed. She had no clothing, no boots, no weapons. It would take all of her intellect to escape him.
“Where is my flight suit?” Rhea used the only weapon she had left—words. “And what did you do to me while I was unconscious?”
She sat on her feet, kneeling before him, acutely aware he had a clear view of her small breasts, taut nipples. It was nothing he hadn’t already seen.
His gaze didn’t move from her face. “I licked you all over.” His eyes gleamed.
“You’re a bastard.” Why did that arouse her?
“I licked you to heal you.” He flicked his tongue, the action drawing her attention to his mouth, his extremely kissable too-tempting-for-her-sanity mouth. “My nanohumanics are concentrated in my saliva, cum, blood.”
His nanohumanics must be the bubbling sensation over her skin, inside her. “Your mission is to bring me back alive.” His actions had confirmed that. He could have allowed her to die, yet he hadn’t.
