by Becca Van
“How are we going to get her to agree to accept all of us?” Mott asked.
“We give her time to get used to us,” Shar replied as he sat and then picked up his lacca.
“I could smell her arousal.” Riek placed his hands on his knees and gripped them hard. It was the only way he could think to stop himself from going to her. His desire for their mate was raging out of control, and the pain of his fingers digging into his skin helped to get his mind out of his pants, if only for a moment.
“We all could, Riek.”
“Her cream is the sweetest aroma I’ve ever smelt.” Mott groaned.
Baro reached over and hit the back of Mott’s head. “Cease. I’m having enough trouble keeping my crug from emerging without you putting thoughts into my head.”
“We’re all having trouble keeping our animals back.” Riek ran his fingers through his hair and noticed his hand was trembling. He just hoped his brothers didn’t notice, but since they were connected by more than blood, he should have known better.
Shar glanced at his hand and then met his gaze, giving him a wry smile as he held his hand up. Riek felt a little better to know his older male kin wasn’t as calm as he was trying to portray. In fact, all of his siblings looked tense. He finished off the rest of his lacca and rose to his feet. Before he knew what he was going to do, he was heading toward the door that led to the bedrooms. He couldn’t stand not being close to Annie. His chest was aching where his heart was, and he didn’t even want to think about how his body was reacting. His cock was hard and aching, and he was feeling a little desperate. Desperate to sink into Annie’s wet heat, but he wouldn’t do that unless he had her consent.
He hurried down to Shar’s room, and as the door slid open, his eyes went straight to the bed. Annie was barely visible since the covers were pulled up to her cheek and the bed was so large. She looked like a youngling with her head resting on a pillow and her hair spread across it. Though he knew she was far from it. Her body was that of a mature woman, curved in all the right places, and he was itching to touch her to see if she was as soft as she looked. He wanted to follow all the dips and hollows with his hands, feel her warm, silky skin beneath his own flesh. He bit back a curse when his cock jerked in his pants and more of his natural lubrication leaked to the surface.
A snarl of need bubbled up in his chest as his animal began pushing at him to get free, but he was able to swallow it before it erupted from his mouth. He didn’t want to frighten Annie by waking her up. She looked so peaceful. Like one of the angels from Earth the ancients had written about in the old texts. There was a slight flush to her cheeks, and he wondered how far down that pink hue went.
Riek moved farther into the room and over to the bed. His brothers had followed him, but he barely took any notice of them. He sat on the side of the bed and brushed the hair back from her face. Her face was so soft, he could have spent hours sitting at her side touching her, breathing in the light scent emanating from her skin and the musky aroma of her earlier arousal, which still lingered. His mouth watered as he inhaled deeply. He wanted to bury his face between her legs and taste her, but he knew one taste would never be enough.
Heat roared through his body, and he quivered with hunger. He wanted to place his lips over hers, thrust his tongue into her mouth, and kiss her until they were both breathless. He slowly bent forward, the yearning for a taste of too much to resist. When his lips connected with hers, he nearly moaned at their softness. He opened his mouth and lightly swiped his tongue over her mouth. She tasted like the sweetest lacca he’d ever drunk.
When Annie made a mewling noise in the back of her throat, he lifted his head, worried that he’d woken her when she needed to be resting. He felt guilty about what he’d done. He should never have taken advantage of her while she wasn’t conscious. Just as he was about to stand and leave temptation behind, he glanced at her face and saw that her eyes were open.
“What are you all doing to me?” Annie asked and began to move restlessly beneath the bedcovers.
“What do you mean?” Baro asked as he came close to the other side of the bed.
“Did you drug me?”
“No. We would never do such a thing,” Shar answered emphatically from where he was standing near the foot of the bed. “You are our bonded. We would die to protect you.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Annie pushed up with her arms and leaned against the wall with pillows behind her back.
Riek wanted to rip the covers away and strip the clothes from her body and feast on her, but Annie needed to know what he and his male kin wanted from her. She needed to make a decision on whether she was willing to be with them for the rest of their lives. It would kill him if she didn’t accept them as her mates, but her happiness meant everything to him, to them.
The Cardin species were a dying breed, and Annie was their miracle, but they wouldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to. He was glad she had asked the question though. Maybe if she had all the facts she would concede to being with them a lot faster. The plan had been to give her time to get to know them, but since she was asking questions, they could inform her.
“You’re our mate, Annie. The one true half of our bodies, hearts, and souls,” Riek finally answered. “You are responding to our mating heat.”
“Mating heat?” Annie squeaked the question.
“Yes.” Mott climbed up onto the end of the bed, moving closer to their bound but without touching her.
Shar also got onto the bed next to Mott, and Baro scooted closer to Annie. Riek turned so that his back was also resting against the wall, his shoulder brushing against Annie’s as he moved.
“We are a shifter race,” Shar began to explain. “We are from the planet Cardinal.”
“Our inner animals are what you would consider a cross between the extinct saber-toothed tiger and panther, on your world. Our crugs, cats, emit pheromones when we meet our bonded to entice her into accepting us.” Baro paused to take a breath and then nodded to Mott.
“You are feeling the effects of our pheromones and our mating heat.” Mott placed his hand on Annie’s covered lower leg.
“Wait! Are you saying that I’m like your…wife?”
Riek accessed his translator to retrieve the meaning of the word wife, and when he realized the definition, he nodded his head. “Except we would all be your…husbands.”
“All of you?”
Annie looked shocked and a little fearful. Riek wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go, but he kept still as he nodded in answer.
“I can’t…I’ve never…Oh. My. God.” She turned, putting her back to him and his brothers, got off the bed and then moved toward the porthole on what looked to be trembling limbs.
Shar took a step and came up behind her. Riek and his brothers all moved closer to her, too.
“We would never hurt you, Annie Strident.”
Riek watched with anxiety and anticipation when Shar pressed his front to Annie’s back and slowly moved his arm to wrap around her shoulder and chest.
Annie moaned and seemed to melt against his older male kin. Her head thumped back against Shar’s chest, and Riek heard her breathing stutter before increasing until she was panting.
His cock was hurting so bad and felt bigger than it had ever been before, and he became worried it would burst through his pants. The lubricating secretions were seeping faster, and before he knew what he was doing, he reached up and pulled the front seam open. He sighed with relief when his dick sprung out, and he wrapped his hand around it tightly.
When he heard Baro and Mott groan, he glanced to either side to see that they, too, had released their cocks.
Annie gasped and slowly turned around to face Shar. Her eyes were glazed with passion, and her face had turned a light pink color. She shifted restlessly from foot to foot before her little pink tongue swiped over her lips. Shar cupped her face in his hands and stared intently into her beautiful orbs.
�
�Will you bond with us, Annie?”
Annie looked from Shar to him then Mott and Baro. When she glanced down at their cocks and stroking hands, her eyes widened, but as he inhaled deeply, Riek didn’t scent fear from her anymore. This time he smelled only desire, and his crug pushed against him harder trying to get out.
“I’m out of my fucking mind,” Annie muttered breathlessly.
“What is holding you back from agreeing, mate?” Baro asked as he continued to pump his hand up and down his wet cock.
“Gee, I don’t know.” Even Riek heard the sarcasm in her words. “Maybe because I’ve only just met you. And maybe because you’re not even human.”
“We are compatible,” Shar said.
“So you say.” Although Annie was still talking to them, her eyes were drawn to Riek’s, Baro’s, and Mott’s cocks again and again.
“I know we are compatible.” Shar nudged her chin up until she met his eyes again. “I don’t lie ever. Besides, it’s impossible for a mate to lie to his bonded. The medi-scan is an intelligent device and will search the galaxies to import information of any unknown species. You are compatible with us to breed with.”
“Breed? Like children?” Annie shrieked.
Shar tilted his head to the side as if accessing the processor. “Younglings. Yes.”
“Would you quit it?” Annie yelled and then glared at Riek, Baro, and Mott.
“Quit?”
“For the love of…Put your dicks away. I can’t think straight watching you all wanking off.”
“Wanking? What is this?” Mott asked.
“What you’re doing.”
“Pleasuring?” Riek asked as he looked down at his dick.
“Masturbating.” Annie’s face turned pinker, and after glancing at their cocks one more time, she turned her back on them. Riek once more searched for the meaning of the word and, with a reluctant sigh, released his sex and carefully eased it back into his pants. It was difficult to get the self-sealing seam to meet and damn painful once his pants were closed again.
“There is no way in hell this is going to work. I’ve never seen cocks so big in my life. Not that I’ve seen one in real life before, but you’d all tear me in half.”
Annie had said this all under her breath, but they had exceptional hearing, and after he glanced toward Mott and Baro, he met Shar’s eyes. Riek opened his mouth to try to reassure Annie that they would be very gentle with her, but before he could speak Shar shook his head.
“Annie, do you not feel the heated passion flowing into your veins, into your sex?” Shar asked.
“I’d have to be dead not to.”
“You will not die,” Baro snarled loudly, making their bonded startle. He pushed Shar aside and grabbed her upper arms.
“No.” Annie stared at Baro with wonder in her eyes, and she swallowed nervously.
Baro’s eyes glazed over as he frowned down at their bonded. Riek frowned, too, when he heard a buzzing through the connections he shared with his male kin, but no matter how hard he tried to hear what it was, he couldn’t make out what the voice was saying. How he knew it was a voice he had no idea. Baro released Annie and took a step back.
“What the hell was that?” Baro asked.
“What?” Annie frowned at Baro.
“You didn’t hear that voice?”
“No.”
Riek looked at Baro and found his brother was frowning fiercely. “Why can't she hear it?”
“I don't know,” Riek answered Baro. Fear ripped through his gut, and an ache formed in his chest.
If Annie couldn't hear the voice, did that mean they weren't supposed to be together after all?
Chapter Four
“Annie, are you all right?”
She didn’t have to turn around to know it was Shar who had asked her that question. How is it that I can tell them apart already even when I’m not looking at them?
Annie wondered if she’d lost her mind along with the four men. She turned back to face the window and tried to get her mind to comprehend what she was seeing. Was she dreaming all of this up? Was it even possible for her to make up something like this? She shook her head. She’d never been much of a dreamer. Of course she read fiction, but she’d never had the mind to conjure up this kind of stuff. At least she hadn’t before.
Her body didn’t seem to be her own either. She could still envisage Riek, Baro, and Mott tugging on their long, thick cocks, but the moisture she’d seen seeping out of the tips and shafts couldn’t have been thought up by her warped imagination. She shook her head. Surely she must be either hallucinating or dreaming. There was no other explanation. But everything she touched, tasted, and felt, seemed so damn real.
The aromas wafting from the four men were enthralling, and no matter how much she tried to stop herself from breathing their scent in through her nose and to breathe in through her mouth instead, she found herself inhaling through her nostrils again and again.
Each time they shifted, their perfume seemed to envelop all of her senses. It was like she could taste the flavor of their skin on her tongue. Her pussy was so hot, achy, and wet, and she was trembling with need so profound she felt like she might die if she didn’t touch them or they didn’t touch her soon. She had no inclination to move away from them even though she knew she should.
She felt almost like she was drugged by the fragrance of their combined aromas, yet she was aware of each thing she did or said and each decision she made. The throbbing arousal deep inside became more intense with each second she spent in their presence until she thought she would go mad from wanting them.
The air in the room felt thick, and it was hard for her to fill her lungs. She was panting and sweating and shaking. Even turning her back to them hadn’t helped a damn bit.
They had explained that she was their mate and that her body was reacting to their mating heat, and even though she tried to pretend none of this was happening, she was lying to herself.
How could she refute what was in front of her own eyes? She was currently staring out into the stark, endless blackness of space with the occasional streak of light as they passed by stars. No. She wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating after all. Everything she was experiencing was frighteningly real.
Annie wondered if they would take her back to Earth if she asked. Would they be kind enough to help her get back home? But what did she have to go back to? Her mother was no longer alive. She didn’t have any living relative as far as she knew, and she had no means to pay her bills since she was no longer employed. Would she be making a grave error if she allowed them to take her to their home world? Were they even going back to their own planet? They’d told her they had been searching space for compatible women. Now that they found her, their supposed mate, would they be finished with their mission? She sighed and turned to glance at Shar over her shoulder. He’d asked her a question and she hadn’t answered yet.
Annie nodded when she remembered what he'd asked and tensed when she felt Shar move close again. Even the brush of his uniform on her soft shirt was enough to get her body heating up even more. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take. If she headed back to the bedroom, would he and his brothers follow her? And if they did, what would happen?
She pushed that thought away, because she already knew the answer to that question. Annie was so hungry for them, and yet she’d been able to keep her famishment under control so far. But she felt like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff about to plunge over, and she wondered, if she did, if she would be able to stop the fall or if she would be doomed for all time.
No. Doomed wasn’t the right word. Screwed was more like it. Literally and figuratively.
Her mind was going around in circles with no resolution, and all she ended up doing was making herself more insane.
A low buzzing sounded in her ears and grew louder. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the noise, convinced that she really was going insane, but the louder the noise got, the more coherent it becam
e until she could hear a light, feminine voice chanting in a language she knew she’d never heard before—other than when she first put the gold bracelet on her wrist—yet she understood each word.
The voice chanted the same verse she had heard before, extolling the virtues of love as a gift from the Gods.
All of a sudden the chanting stopped, but she heard the next words as clear as a bell.
Trust in me and your heart, human. Love will conquer all.
Annie drew in a deep breath, and as she exhaled, a peace she’d never felt before surrounded her. And she realized that her life was about to change forevermore.
For as the peace was able to calm her thoughts, her rapid heartbeat and panting breaths, she felt a rightness about the men behind her. It was like pieces of a picture coming together and making a whole.
She uncrossed her arms from over her chest and turned to face the four men.
“What does mating involve?”
Sure, she had made her decision, but that didn’t mean she wanted to go into this completely blind. She was a virgin, and although she knew the ways of sex between a human man and woman, this was totally different. These males weren’t human. They could have diseases that could kill her as far as she knew. Although she didn’t think they did have any, she just wanted to make sure they wouldn’t hurt her in any way.
Shar took another step forward, and because he was so close and so tall, Annie had to tilt her head way back to meet his eyes. She squeaked when he lifted her into his arms and carried her over to one of the floating planks.
He sat down, placing her on his lap, and she relaxed against him, breathing in his delectable scent and relishing the feel of his hard body against hers. Her libido once more raged with hunger, but she wanted the answer to her question before telling him and his brothers what her decision was.
“We make love the same way a human male and female would, but we have differences, too.”
“What differences?” Annie asked.
“We have a natural lubricating secretion from our cocks which will help ease our way into your body.” Shar shifted her and winced as her ass smashed into his hard dick. Her pussy clenched, and more cream dripped from her hole, coating her folds. He inhaled and growled low in his throat before taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.
