by Kate Rudolph
Lis looked around, trying to find anything that would turn the advantage in their favor. But the facility had been shut up for the season and there was little detritus lying around for use in spontaneous blaster fights.
Ru touched her lightly on the shoulder and pointed up. Lis followed his direction and spotted the small spout on the ceiling. The fire suppression system. Yes, that might do.
Ru held up three fingers. “Run like the chasm is opening beneath you. We won’t have long.”
She nodded and flexed her fingers around her weapon. This would work. It had to.
He raised his blaster and fired off a shot, hitting the fire suppressor dead on. For a moment, nothing happened, and then the room started to fill with a liquid thicker than water and freezing cold.
Lis and Ru took off, running toward the Polans before they realized what was happening. Lis fired in their direction, hoping for a hit, but mainly just trying to keep them from coming out from behind their cover.
The door was fifteen feet away and wide open. She slipped in the liquid coming down from the ceiling and almost fell, but steadied herself at the last moment. Blasts shot out all around them, most going wide, but one or two nearly made contact.
She thought she heard Ru cry out, but his face was just as determined as her own. They dove out the door and kept running into the woods, not bothering to finish off the Polans. It was too much of a risk. The walk to the facility had seemed to take forever. Now, in the pitch black, wet from head to toe, and being chased by angry aliens, the seconds rushed by. Eventually the blaster strikes stopped as they ran too far for the Polans to find them.
When she stumbled into the clearing where Ru had parked his ship, she could have kissed the ground. It took her a moment to make out the shape of it. The passive cloaking technology made it almost impossible to see to the naked eye.
But the bright moonlight shone down and Lis caught it glinting off a piece of metal near one of the engines. As soon as she caught that edge, the rest of the ship seemed to appear.
She turned to find Ru stumbling just behind her. They’d both made it. Her breath came in harsh gasps as the toll from the sprint hit her. It hurt to breathe and she felt like she was about to throw up.
She could do that inside.
But first, Lis holstered her blaster and stepped up to Ru, wrapping her arms around him. She was so damn glad that he was okay that she wasn’t sure what to do. But she needed to touch him, needed to reassure herself that he was right there with her and that he wanted her too.
He raised his arms to clasp her close, but she could feel him wince and suck in a breath.
Lis pulled back and one of her hands came away wet with a dark green substance.
His blood.
Ru’s face lost its color and his eyes rolled back in his head going, from sinister red to pitch black in a second. Like a marionette whose strings had been cut, he tipped forward onto Lis and she just barely kept from falling.
“Ru?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t bad. She let him down gently and laid him on his back. Then she saw the horrible gash in his abdomen where his shirt had torn open and revealed a nasty cut several inches wide and nearly as thick as her arm.
Blood poured out of him and Lis held her hands over the wound, trying to stem the tide. It wasn’t enough. She backed toward the forest, terrified that the Polans had caught up and had figured out where they were. Ru needed medical attention and they needed to get off this planet.
She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t a doctor and her med kit back home had consisted of bandage gel, towels, and a roll of duct tape.
If she didn’t fix him up, he could die. Panic arced through her. He could not die. Not yet, not now, not when she was only beginning to get to know him and definitely starting to like him.
“You can’t die,” she said out loud, as more of a prayer than a command. She pressed harder against his wound. “Please, just wake up!”
Chapter Ten
There was blood. And pain.
But there was also the sweetest touch that he could ever remember.
Ru rose to consciousness slowly, first feeling the nervous fingers rubbing up and down his arm and gripping his fingers every few moments. Then the less pleasant sensation of bruised and tattered muscle made itself known. He could feel the injury pull in his abdomen, whatever healing salve Lis had found doing its work, but burning him up as it functioned. He’d never been able to afford the good, fast acting regen creams.
He cracked open his eyes and found himself laying down in his bed, his shirt cut open down the middle and his pants pushed down to almost expose him completely in the dim light of his quarters.
Lis sat next to him, her face drawn and pale. When she saw that he was awake, she tried to drop her hands, but he held on, needing the contact.
“You got shot,” she said.
“Yeah, it hurt.” He couldn’t remember the exact moment, but in one instant he’d turned to see if the Polans still pursued them and had been caught in his side by a blaster shot. If he had stopped running, he would have been fine, but the ship was still a mile away. Running with the wound had torn it further open. The last thing he remembered was collapsing in front of Lis and the horrified look on her face.
She tried to pull away again, but Ru held on. Lis slanted a look his way and a wry smile crossed her lips. “I’m not going anywhere. I just need to check your bandage.”
“I need you to stay with me.” The words slipped out in a whisper and when Lis quirked up an eyebrow at him, he realized that he’d said the words in Detyen. He didn’t repeat them in Interstellar Common. He didn’t want her to run. So he let go of her hand and let her do her work.
She stood over him and peeled back the thin bandage hastily applied to his wound. From the amount of healing gel she used, he was certain she’d never received any medical training. There was more than three times too much. It wouldn’t do him any damage, but it was wasteful.
“There wasn’t much gel left in the container,” she said. Instead of replacing the bandage, she left his skin exposed. Ru glanced down to see that the wound had almost completely healed, the skin a bit bruised and shiny. “You need a fresh first aid kit. Even I know your supplies are dangerously low.”
Until he met her, he didn’t need the supplies. Buying anything that would last beyond the next couple of months was a colossal waste. But Ru kept it to himself. He couldn’t expect Lis to stay with him freely if she knew he would die without her. Though he doubted she even realized it, there was a streak of goodness within her that shined bright. She’d take him whether she wanted him or not to save his life.
He didn’t want that. He wouldn’t bind this wonderful woman to him because of an annoying evolutionary threat. Maybe he was dooming himself, but Ru could still feel the warm imprint of her hands against him, taste the memory of her kiss. Doomed? He wasn’t so sure.
Lis looked like she’d been through hell, like his injury had put her through it. If he could spare her even one moment of pain, he would do it in a heartbeat, but a selfish, animalistic part of him reveled in her tenderness. She was beginning to care for him.
Ru grabbed a small towel from the pile she’d placed on the bed beside him and rubbed off the excess healing gel. He moved over, creating enough room on his cot for Lis. It would be a tight fit, but they could snuggle close.
“Lie with me?” he asked, patting the pillow beside him. His skin ached to feel her against him. His flesh was fine but his soul needy.
An unsure look flickered across Lis’s eyes, as if she was remembering that she barely knew him. She didn’t have the reassurance or knowledge of the denya bond and if she felt the connection between them as sharply as he did, she had no vocabulary to understand it.
So Ru added a gentle, “Please?”
Lis’s resistance melted and she slid in beside him. There wasn’t enough room for both of them to sit comfortably or even lie flat on their backs. Ru turned to his side and Lis snuggled
in next to him, her curvaceous form pressing gently against his chest. Ru’s arm came down across her, holding her close.
She laced her fingers through his, the soft pads gently against the sheathes of his claws. She had to know that they were there, but she seemed completely at ease, her breath rising and falling evenly.
This was contentment. Nothing could be more perfect.
“You’re really heavy, you know,” she muttered in the dim light of the room. He could feel the tension eking out of her shoulders as she eased in against him.
“What?” He laughed and wondered if he was leaning too hard against her, but there was no room for him to move back, his own shoulders brushing against the wall of the ship.
She traced her thumb in circles on the pad of his hand. “You passed out outside. I had to drag you in. I thought…” She turned over so that she was facing him, letting go of his hand to let it hang loosely over her hip. “I was scared.” She let the last word slip like it was a dirty secret.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he vowed. “You’ll get off this planet.” He hadn’t been afraid for himself when the blaster struck. No, it was all for her. Lis could not get stuck here if something happened to him. He wouldn’t doom her to a life on the run.
Lis flicked her gaze up to meet his. Her eyes were so brown and soft, with that strange bright whiteness around the iris. She raised her hand to cradle his cheek and Ru leaned into her curled fingers. “I was worried about you,” she said.
“I’m not that easy to get rid of.” But still, concern laced her expression. While he cherished the thought that she wanted him safe, the idea that his minor injury had caused her a moment of pain was too harsh a blow. “Two little green men are nothing,” he said. “Last year I outran an Oscavian warship through two sectors.”
Despite her worry, he could see that she was impressed. She moved a little, letting her legs tangle with his. “Yeah? And why were they chasing you?”
“That’s classified.” It wasn’t, but explaining that he’d stolen DNA samples from the royal family was not something that he could just let out.
But Lis wouldn’t let it lie. “Is it now?” Her hand slid down his chin, tracing a path down his side and over his hip. “And if I use my skills to get it out of you?”
Arousal surged as her fingers brushed against his sensitive flesh and his cock began to harden. He could see it in her eyes when she felt his length pushing against her, but now he saw lust rather than fear. “What kind of torture do you suggest?” If her fingers went any lower, he’d spill every secret he knew.
Lis’s lips slid into a wicked curve. “All men ever think about is torture. How do you hit it? How do you break it? You never just think to ask.” She breathed out the last word and slid her fingers under the unbuckled band of his pants.
When she took him in hand, Ru hissed. But this wasn’t pain. It was heaven. He expected her to slide her lovely long fingers over the length of him, but instead, she teased him mercilessly, using only her fingertips to arouse his sensitive flesh.
"Please," Ru gasped, unsure of what exactly he was begging for. He just knew he wanted—no, needed—it.
"Do you like this?" she asked, all innocence, as her index finger circled around and around, playing him like a yurlu.
"Yes," he said, arching into her grasp.
But Lis just laughed and pulled her hand away with a negligent swipe. She used her other hand to push at his shoulder until he fell down to lay completely flat on the bed. She took the opportunity to climb on top of him and raise herself just over his cock. Her fingers were gone, now playing with the subtle hair on his chest. But the friction of her sex against him was enough to make him growl.
She leaned down over him and put her lips right next to his ear, licking the outer rim until Ru's eyes nearly crossed. She couldn't know how sensitive, how erotic, that one movement was to a Detyen.
"And what would you give me to keep going?" She punctuated that last question by biting down gently on his earlobe.
"Anything," he promised, no longer certain if he was speaking IC or Detyen. He gripped her hips to keep her in place and ground his pelvis against hers. "I'll conquer galaxies in your name, just say the word."
The husky sound that came from her throat might have been a laugh, but it was so twisted with her arousal that he couldn't be certain. "That sounds great," she said, regaining some composure as she lifted herself further onto her knees, taking away the delicious friction. "Even if I couldn't understand a word."
So he had been speaking Detyen. It was harder to focus when his entire being was enthralled with her, but this time Ru concentrated on speaking the right words. "I'll do anything, just come back here." He tugged on her gently, not enough to force, but to make his point.
Something glinted in Lis's brown eyes. "So you'll tell me why they were chasing you?"
"What?" Who was chasing him? Whoever they were could wait.
"The Oscavians?"
Oh. That. Was that all she wanted? "I stole three royal DNA samples for a rival family. Don't know why they wanted them."
"Which family?" she pressed, her fingers dipping down under his waistband once more but not quite finding his cock.
Ru remembered what she was doing now and laughed, the full throated sound coming from deep within his lungs. He sat up in one motion, leaving Lis clinging to his chest lest she fall backward and bang her head against the low ceiling near the foot of his bed. "Oh, I am lucky that you aren't evil, denya."
"How do you know?"
Chapter Eleven
She hadn’t meant to play. Actually, Lis hadn't done much thinking or planning since dragging Ru inside the ship, sealing the door, and hoping that the regen-gel she found would work. He was too still for the longest time and fear had churned in her gut, keeping her glued beside the bed.
All thoughts of escaping him evaporated as she said silent prayers for his health. At least the thoughts of escaping him before leaving Polai. The desperate, feral survivor in the darkest part of her still knew that she had to take her chances once they were no longer tethered to this hell-hole. She couldn’t surrender to the bond between them. Not if she wanted to keep herself intact.
Seducing him had most certainly not been in the cards. But now that she was kneeling on top of him, slick and ready with the feel of his hard cock nearly imprinted on her fingers, it seemed like an excellent idea.
Cradled against Ru's body, she was on fire with lust and protected in a way that she'd never felt before. Clinging to him wasn't some trick. It just felt damn good to let go.
Now when he called her denya, thoughts of running away were silent. She wanted to know more. Was she his mate? Could she be, even though she was human and he wasn't?
Ru pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear and answered the question she'd meant as a joke. But it had come out too vulnerable, too serious, to play it off with a laugh. "An evil person would have left me out there to bleed and stolen my ship."
"I don't know how to fly your ship," she pointed out, not quite sure why she was trying to have this debate. Lis knew she wasn't evil. Right?
Ru captured her lips quickly. "Evil is all hard edges and sharp points," he said. His fingers took hold of her hips and slid down until he cradled her ass in his hands. "You're much too soft."
"You know some humans would take that as an insult." But she saw the heat in his eyes, the red only making the fire brighter. She loved that he loved her curves. There was no room for self-consciousness in his arms.
"Why?" he asked, his puzzlement delighting her.
"Earth women can be… sensitive… to our shapes. And some women aren't considered desirable because…" She really didn't want to get into this discussion.
Ru's scoff was enough to stop her from trying to. "You are the most desirable woman that I've ever known."
"So you've met a lot of humans?" She needed to learn to take a compliment! But her own cheeks were heating up and she couldn't quite
look at him. It was almost wrong for him to say all these nice things that couldn't be true.
"No," Ru said, waiting until she met his gaze before he continued. "You're the most desirable person of any species that I've ever met."
"I'm already in your bed, there's no need for sweet talk." She really didn't mean to push him away, but what else could she do. He was the hottest guy she'd ever been flush up against, and if he kept saying things like that, he was going to crack her heart wide open.
She could see that he didn't like the joke. His eyes were so serious, and a little concerned. Perhaps his people never used humor to deflect. If that were the case, they were truly doomed. She didn't know how to do anything else.
He nodded as if coming to some momentous decision. "Yes, I think this calls for drastic measures."
Before she could ask him what he meant, he had her flat on her back and was kneeling at her feet like a conquering hero. He reached for the zipper that held her bodysuit up and slowly undid it, inch by inch, revealing the layer of thin protective clothing she wore underneath. In the vids, the heroines were always completely naked under their suits. In real life, Lis had to worry about undergarments and weapon blasts. She'd take as many protective layers as possible.
But Ru didn't have a problem with that. He stopped unzipping when he reached the bottom of her undershirt, where his fingers crept underneath, brushing lightly against her until she started to break out in goosebumps.
She stared at him, hypnotized, as he moved over her like he needed to see every inch of her before he could let her up. And Lis wasn't about to stop him.
He hitched up the thin material until he exposed the underside of her breasts. When the suit was fully fastened, she had more than enough support, but when it was unzipped like this, she was completely open to him. His thumbs brushed the sensitive skin and Lis shivered.
An alarm blared, red lights flashing, causing Ru to jerk back. “Did you set the passive shielding?” he demanded, rolling off of her and smoothing his pants down. All seductive intensity was gone. He grabbed a shirt from a drawer beside the bed and pulled it on.
