To that end, she’d also spent a good bit of time collecting things burnable and adding them to a growing stack beside the oven.
She was in the process of dragging the ‘bedding’ from her bed to carry it outside to air out when there was a sudden shift in the light coming in through the open doorway of the cottage. Expecting it to be Fayn returning at last, she didn’t turn right away. Instead, she finished gathering up the fur she’d taken hold of and turned with that in her arms.
Aidan was standing in the doorway, watching her.
She dropped the fur, feeling her heartbeat slamming against her eardrums.
“Aidan?”
She couldn’t recall afterwards who made the first move or even what, exactly, prompted it.
Aidan had made a slight movement of his arms, as if he would lift them to her in invitation, and the next she knew she was plastered tightly against him, gripping him frantically as if she thought, feared, he would disappear if she loosened her grip.
“I was so scared,” she gasped.
He lifted a hand to cup her head to him. “There is nothing to fear … now. We have defeated them and scattered the survivors.” He hesitated. “To the victor go the spoils. Jarek and the others are sifting through what is left to gather up anything we might find useful … or necessary or convenient.”
Relieved, grateful that Aidan had soothed her anxiety over Jarek’s welfare, Lori pulled away to look up at him. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back.”
Something flickered in his dark gaze. He pulled her tightly against him again. “Only death could prevent me from coming back to you, dear heart. I gave you my heart with that first kiss, bound myself to you … when my design was to bind you to me.”
He shook his head when she lifted hers to stare at him, seemed to shrug. A twisted smile curled his lips. “I have fought it, but I cannot break it.”
The kiss.
When the grays had forced him to breed her.
Was it possible?
But she knew it was, because she had felt the same tie, felt drawn to him even when his appearance had frightened her as much as it had fascinated her.
She swallowed with an effort. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
His face twisted and she knew he was thinking about Jarek and Fayn. It almost seemed that he would ask, but then he stopped himself.
He knew the answer.
She loved them, too, and she couldn’t say she didn’t.
Instead, he bent over and lifted her up, carrying her to the bed where he settled her carefully and climbed up beside her.
She turned to him readily, feeling eagerness thread its way through her, heady anticipation.
He snagged a fistful of hair at the base of her skull and guided her closer as he lowered his head to match his mouth to hers.
She sucked in a quick breath, feeling her lips tingle with his nearness, inhaling the intoxicating brew of his scent. She felt a flush of warmth in response, felt the fine hairs all over her body lift in anticipation, urgency.
When his lips settled on hers, before she felt the first taste of him as he stroked his tongue along hers, that intensified tenfold. Yearning sprang to life, burgeoned until she felt heavy, weightless, dizzy with the convergence of sensation as he deepened his kiss.
He stroked her with hands that shook with his own eagerness, feeding her sense of urgency so that she moved closer to press herself to him, reached for him to fill her hands with the feel of his flesh.
He broke the kiss to expel a pent up breath as she explored him with palms and fingertips, caressing him one moment, in the next filling her own senses with the heated satin of his skin, the hard bulge of muscle.
She had wanted to explore him forever it seemed, to fill her senses with him, touch and taste, scent and the sounds of his desire—a ragged breath, accelerated heartbeat, a groan of pleasure.
He coiled around her, cocooning her from the world, becoming her world as she lost touch with everything beyond him.
He kissed her throat, teased her breasts with mouth and tongue and teeth until she thought she would pass out, until she was so needy she felt as if she’d burned up all the moisture in her body. Her mouth was desert dry from gasping breaths, her throat tight.
She began to urge him wordlessly to enter her body, to join his flesh with hers, pressing her lower body against his rhythmically.
He rolled onto his back to her surprise and carried her over so that she was lying on top of him. She looked down at him dizzily, too drunk with desire to figure out what he expected of her.
He grasped her legs then and dragged them forward until she was sitting astride him and then guided her up onto her knees.
She’d grasped the game plan even before he aligned the head of his cock with the mouth of her sex. Bracing herself with her palms against his chest, she struggled to engulf his turgid flesh, pressing back as he cupped his hips to counter thrust.
Surprise fluttered through her when she felt the hard nubs of flesh that covered his cock. But her moisture had centered in her sex and eased his conquest of her channel, aided it so that he’d breached her flesh and burrowed his cockhead deep almost before she registered the nubs.
She stared at him, wide eyed with uncertainty—feeling his alien-ness as she hadn’t before.
“I did not hurt you before, beloved.”
Goosebumps sprang to life at that endearment, and the reminder. She swallowed with an effort and lifted slightly and then bore down again.
He closed his eyes and caught her hips, guiding her, sucking in several harsh breaths as he seated himself fully inside of her. He opened his eyes again to stare up at her when he’d penetrated balls deep inside. “I will shame myself if you keep looking at me like that, beloved.”
Confusion fluttered through her, but he left her in no doubt as to the cryptic meaning.
He set a rhythm that took her to the heights, had her teetering on the brink of coming, and then he pulled her down for a long kiss that blighted her attempt to take the leap. When he had led her up the hill a second time and then prevented culmination with his kiss, she had his measure. The third time she reached the summit, she resisted his attempt to distract her, instead grinding her clit against him until her body exploded with the purest, most powerful eruption of ecstasy she’d ever felt.
He hesitated fractionally and followed her into bliss.
They were still curled together, sleeping, when Fayn returned.
Without an ounce of remorse, he dropped the bundle he was carrying and allowed it to hit the ground loudly enough Lori nearly leapt out of her skin.
Aidan was less jumpy—or perhaps already awake. He merely opened his eyes and studied Fayn for a long moment. “I am guessing you would like the opportunity to kick my ass.”
Fayn’s eyes narrowed. “I would like no ting more dan to make a fool out of myself. But Lori belong only to self. She decide who to take as lover.”
Lori was left gaping at his back as he departed, trying to decide exactly what he meant by the remark.
Aidan didn’t look particularly pleased about the comment, though. After staring tightlipped at the ceiling for several moments, he rolled from the bed, adjusted his loincloth and followed Fayn out.
Lori listened for several moments to see if there was a fight. When she heard nothing, she got up, stared at the bed for a few moments and then resumed her interrupted task of taking the skins out to air them, tired, but still enjoying the afterglow of Aidan’s lovemaking, happier than she’d felt in a very long time.
He loved her.
She could be wrong, but she felt like they all cared for her.
And there was no doubt in her mind that she loved them.
* * * *
There were casualties of their war. The slaves were fighting for their lives not just freedom. The slavers and thieves were fighting for their ill gotten gains.
Some merely fled, of course, deciding it would be easier to find more booty than fight the
thundering hoard of barbarians bearing down on them.
But those who had quick access to weapons fought back and managed to kill and wound even though the battle went very badly, very quickly, for them.
The warriors stayed to treat their wounds, not to collect their restitution for the things they’d lost because of the evil bastards that had ripped them from their home worlds—although once they’d recovered enough to consider it, they felt completely within their rights to collect whatever was available that might add comfort to their lives in exile and or help them to survive.
Neither Jarek nor Aidan came away unscathed.
Very few did.
But they were fortunate that they were not hurt badly and healed fairly quickly.
Because Lori wanted to brain both of them for taking off and risking their lives without saying a word to her. The only thing that made that bearable, and kept it from haunting her, was the fact that they hadn’t been hurt badly and they fully recovered and came home to her.
Despite the losses, more returned with them than had gone away. A good many had scattered. Some had made the attempt to find their way home again by taking ships that were at the space port. But probably half of those who’d been held in the sin city returned with the men of their village.
Among them were many of the women who’d vanished from the slaver ship—including Elly—who they were glad to see and a few others they weren’t particularly thrilled to reacquaint themselves with.
For a time afterward, there was fairly frantic activity while the village struggled to assimilate nearly twice the number of people who’d originally settled in the valley.
Time flew and they found themselves facing their first winter.
And parenthood—a terrifying prospect for most since most were first time parents.
Thankfully, the birth hadn’t been anywhere near the ordeal Lori had expected.
Partly this was because she had no clue of when she was due and didn’t really get the chance to dread it like she would have if she’d known when she was likely to go into labor.
Mostly, though, this was due to the guys.
Jarek and Fayn … well and others, had built a birthing pool.
Lori wasn’t happy about.
And the other women were even less happy and more vocal.
They weren’t Hirachi.
Humans didn’t give birth like that.
They weren’t going anywhere near that thing and they were going to fight if the men tried to make them.
The men just waited until they couldn’t defend themselves and took them.
Lori felt really annoyed about the whole thing when she discovered it was actually pretty damned comfortable.
The water wasn’t deep, but there was enough to support her and the lessening of the pull of gravity made for significantly more comfort.
Aidan was the real lifesaver, though.
It was all in his kiss.
That same kiss that made her dizzy with desire when he made love to her made her lightheaded with a natural relaxant that eased her birth pain.
It was a damned good thing, too, because she labored for hours and hours to shove the delightful little-huge monster into the world.
And it was love at first sight.
He was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.
He looked just like his fathers—all three.
Because that was what had made him so valuable to the Sheloni they realized the moment they saw him. The grays had combined the DNA of all four of them to produce a new race—bronze skin, the ability to breathe under water—all of the abilities of the Hirachi, and all of those of the Satren—including the wings and the horns.
Her men couldn’t decide if they were thrilled with their son or wanted to kill each other over the fact that he belonged to all of them.
But what could they do but admire him as his doting mama did?
They knew, though they were careful not to say anything to worry Lori, that the Sheloni would not give up on a prize like the sons that were born to their women. They would be back if any of the bastards that had experimented had managed to get that information to the others.
They had to be ready to fight when and if that time came.
But then, they were busy world building and security would have been a huge part of their lives regardless of who they had to defend themselves from.
What mattered most was preserving their freedom to live their lives on their own terms.
The End.
Alien Enslaved IV: Spoils of War Page 18
