Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I

by Stacey St. James

  Even supposing she could escape, though, how would she ever find them?

  Or were they only hiding from the aliens? The Anunnaki?

  She should’ve trusted her instincts, she thought with a sudden flicker of reviving anger! They weren’t benevolent! They had their own agenda and she was simply a pawn they meant to keep!

  * * * *

  It was Koryn that woke Emerald several hours later when he entered the room carrying a tray like the one she’d been brought the night before. She roused enough to study him before he spied her, long enough to see the consternation on his face when he discovered she wasn’t in the bed where he’d apparently expected to find her. Relief flickered in his eyes when he saw her, but his face tightened with irritation.

  No doubt it had given him a nasty turn to think she might have escaped!

  “I brought you something to eat,” he said after settling the tray he’d brought on the table near the chair.

  “Thank you,” Emerald said neutrally, wondering why he’d brought it instead of sending an android with it.

  Grabbing another chair, he dragged it up in front of hers. “I wanted to have a look at those abrasions.”

  Emerald eyed him with irritation. “It’s just a couple of blisters.”

  “I’d still like to look.”

  Sighing, Emerald uncurled and extended a leg. He cupped a hand beneath her leg just above the ankle to support her foot and slowly removed the bandaging. Emerald studied his face while he studied her foot with frowning intensity, wondering what their world was like and why humans had suddenly become of so much importance to them when they’d apparently grown weary of ‘playing’ with them and pretty much ignored their existence for years.

  “What happened to the Anunnaki?”

  He flicked a quick look at her and returned his attention to her foot, but his expression had hardened. “This seems to be responding well. I think we can dismiss any anxiety about infection.”

  He wrapped the bandage again and held out his hand imperiously. Anger flickered through Emerald that time and the urge to kick him rather than merely meekly extending her foot for him to examine. She quashed the impulse and held out her other foot. When he’d examined that foot to his satisfaction and wrapped it again, she tucked her foot beneath her once more.

  “Why can’t I have something to wear? You aren’t worried I’ll thwart you and catch my death from exposure?”

  A mixture of amusement and anger flickered in his eyes. “You’ll have to talk to Tariq about that.”

  Which, apparently, was a waste of time! “Why?”

  “Because he’s claimed you,” he said tightly.

  Emerald’s heart skipped a beat. She frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he has the power to do so and he’s exerted it.”

  “I still don’t understand,” she managed to say after a moment. “I thought … I understood that I’d been resurrected for experiments.”

  He looked startled and then irritated. “What the hell made you think that?”

  “It’s what Tariq said—that the Anunnaki had experimented on humans since they’d first discovered them.”

  He glanced toward the untouched tray and reached over to remove the lid. Picking up a bowl much like the one the night before, he handed it to her. She saw without a lot of enthusiasm that she’d graduated to thicker broth. Taking it from him obediently, she sipped at it, discovering it tasted like cream of mushroom soup. She frowned. “Why is it that everything you’ve given me is so familiar?”

  “Because most of the foods in your diet originated on our world. We didn’t just experiment on the humans,” he said dryly.

  “But … you aren’t going to use me for experiments now?”

  He looked at her, his gaze flickering over her face. “You belong to Lord Tariq now. He’ll tell you what he wants you to know.”

  She looked down at the cup in her hand to keep from giving her thoughts away as resentment swelled inside of her. Just like that? He decided and it was so?

  Why was she surprised when she’d already deduced that she was either a prisoner or a lab rat or both? And maybe she still was? He hadn’t explained what it meant that Tariq had claimed her.

  Except she had her suspicions that he had plans that included having her naked in his bed. He’d said as much, after all. She didn’t see any reason to doubt it, but she discovered acknowledging it unnerved the hell out of her. “Lord Tariq?” she asked in a suffocated voice. “If he’s so important, why was he sent here to collect the lab animals?”

  “He wasn’t sent.”

  Emerald sent a startled look toward the door where his voice had emanated and discovered Tariq was standing in the portal. She felt her face heat.

  Koryn pushed his chair back abruptly and rose. “I had a look at the abrasions. They’re responding satisfactorily to the medications.”

  Tariq met his gaze for a long moment and then glanced at Emerald. He sauntered into the room, allowing the door to close behind him. “Just so that there are no misunderstandings,” he murmured, “she’s off-limits until I’ve bred her.”

  Shock rolled over Emerald. She gaped at him, wondering a little wildly if she’d misheard him.

  “Gods damn it, Tariq! She’s barely two days out of the pod! You know damned well she’s still too fragile and weak for breeding! You’ll end up killing her and your babe with her!” Koryn growled, switching abruptly to their own language.

  Tariq’s face hardened. “Have I ever given you reason to believe I’m deficient in understanding?”

  Koryn blushed. “I’m not questioning your intelligence or your judgment—in any other matter! Don’t talk to me as if I’m mentally deficient! Do you think I didn’t notice you could barely contain yourself until she was fully developed and ready to be released from the growth pod?”

  Tariq flushed. “How the fuck did you manage to notice anything when you’ve been hovering over her pod yourself?”

  “I was doing my job!” Koryn responded tightly.

  “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do!” Tariq said derisively.

  Koryn stared at him angrily for several moments. “I won’t deny I desire her.”

  “Good! Because you’d be wasting your fucking breath!” Tariq snarled, striding to the beverage dispenser. He hesitated over selecting nizsum and finally settled on a mild wine, annoyed that he’d even considered the nizsum. Then again, Koryn was right. From the moment he’d first seen Emerald, he’d thought of little else besides possessing her. Abstinence was hellish enough without having a desirable woman close enough to smell her scent and not being able to do anything about it.

  “She isn’t ready, Tariq.”

  Tariq turned to study him for a long moment before he focused on Emerald. “I know that,” he said almost mildly. “I just wanted to make sure that you understood our friendship won’t save you if you touch her before I’ve bred her.” He met Koryn’s gaze for a long moment.

  “And after you’ve bred her? Will you give her to me?”

  Tariq’s face hardened. He looked away, struggling to get his temper under control. Reminding himself that a pretense of indifference was the only way he was likely to pull off what he wanted didn’t help. He didn’t feel fucking indifferent! He wanted to choke the life out of Koryn for touching her at all. “I’ll let you fuck her.”

  “You mean to keep her? She’s human. You know, regardless of the circumstances—or your position—the council would never allow you to take her as a concubine.”

  Tariq sent him a startled look since it hadn’t occurred to him even to consider taking her as a concubine and then glanced at Emerald. She might be a pureblood and a desirable woman, but she was human, not Anunnaki. Granted, some of the old ones had, but that was long, long ago and the main reason it was frowned upon now. They were simple creatures, however desirable, and hadn’t acclimated well to their world or their customs and beyond that, their own women had been o
utraged and made such a fuss that the council had reversed their stance on taking Earth women as concubines. They hadn’t outlawed it, but they’d made it damned difficult on those who had, and no one had even tried it for years.

  The only possible explanation for Koryn’s assumption as far as he could see was that it had occurred to him, which didn’t improve his mood and deepened his suspicion that Koryn’s guilty start when he’d come in arose from what he’d been thinking about doing, even if he hadn’t acted on it. “That and the fact that you’re my best friend is the only reason I’ll allow you to fuck her at all,” Tariq growled.

  “When you tire of her, then?”

  Tariq flicked a hard glance at him and finally shrugged. “I’ve no heirs,” he said dryly, studying the wine in his glass. “I’ll want to breed more than one on her.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you intend to use our friendship to keep her?” Koryn said tightly.

  Tariq sent him a look of surprise. “You object?”

  Anger flashed through Koryn. He wasn’t in a position to object and they both knew it. His bloodlines and family name were almost the equal of Tariq’s and yet ‘almost’ wasn’t good enough—now. He had neither the power nor the position to demand a breeder of his own—not in their current circumstances. If they hadn’t found their nursery devastated, their purebloods vanished into thin air or dead ….

  He still wouldn’t have been in a position to demand Emerald if Tariq had wanted her, he thought angrily. He could choose one if they’d found enough to go around and as long no one of higher class or power wanted her, she was his.

  Even Tariq stood to lose her if someone of a higher position decided to claim her.

  That was why he refused to wait, Koryn realized abruptly. It wasn’t just his eagerness. It was the fear that she’d be snatched from his grasp.

  His anger waned as that settled in his mind. It wasn’t a bad plan, he decided once he’d gotten past his anger and could think straight. If she was breeding, Tariq could keep her in seclusion and if it was known that he was sharing her she wouldn’t attract undue notice.

  It did little to cool his resentment that he couldn’t claim her for himself. He wasn’t certain he could’ve brought himself to share her with Tariq if their roles had been reversed, but then he knew Tariq well enough to know it was eating at him that he had to regardless of his efforts to behave as if it didn’t matter. “No,” he responded finally, his own voice tight with reluctance. “There’ll be no way to keep the other men from talking, you know. Too many have seen her already. She might not have attracted so much notice if not for the hair.”

  Tariq snorted. “You think they noticed anything above her breasts?”

  “You and I did.”

  Tariq downed his wine. “That’s why I intend to keep her confined in my quarters. I suggest you double your efforts. I wouldn’t propose it if things were different, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make duplicates if you can get enough genetic material to do so.”

  “Not that I don’t see your point, but I’ve been damned lucky to get what I have!” Koryn retorted angrily.

  Tariq turned to look at him. “What about the woman you found today?”

  Koryn frowned. “I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Possibly. I think it’s more likely I could get enough from the male to make two.”

  “I don’t give a fuck whether the women have breeders or not!” Tariq growled.

  “They do,” Koryn retorted dryly, “and there are some powerful women behind this enterprise.”

  “They’ll be happy to learn that we’ve found nearly three times as many men than we have women, then,” Tariq said sourly. “I hope to fuck it isn’t a trend, but it’s beginning to look that way.”

  “It’s a little early to arrive at that conclusion, although I’ll agree it is certainly looking that way, but I’m not sure it will count in our favor with the women when we haven’t managed to clone even half the men we’ve found.”

  The comment effectively distracted Tariq. “It would suggest a war as the cause of this mess—either among themselves or with invaders. The council—everyone—is going to want to know what happened and we’re going to need the right answers.”

  “We haven’t found anything to support that,” Koryn said sharply.

  “Except the ratio of men to women, you mean?”

  “Except that,” Koryn agreed. He glanced at Emerald, saw that her jaw was set and her eyes sparkling with anger and repressed a smile. “Emerald doesn’t look especially gratified by your claim.”

  Tariq flushed uncomfortably. “I hadn’t realized I said that in her language,” he said ruefully.

  Koryn stared at him a moment and chuckled. “I hadn’t thought I’d live to see the day a woman rattled you that much.”

  “You haven’t seen it now,” Tariq said tartly. “I was pissed off to find you hovering over her. It had nothing to do with being rattled.”

  Koryn grinned. “If you say so. As much as I’d enjoy staying to watch, I think I’ll just take my leave now and let you handle this. The lab calls.”

  “Coward,” Tariq murmured with amusement.

  Koryn flicked a rude gesture at him as he headed out, but he didn’t turn around.

  Tariq studied Emerald ruefully when Koryn had departed. She glared at him and finally turned a disdainful shoulder in his direction and settled her head against the back of the chair.

  “You aren’t sleeping in that chair,” he said grimly.

  Emerald stiffened, but she didn’t otherwise acknowledge his comment.

  Shaking his head, he returned to the dispenser for another glass of wine for himself and one for her. She stared at him when he settled in the chair beside her and offered her the glass. “It’s wine,” he said dryly.

  “I had soup.”

  “And now you’ll have wine.”

  Her jaw tightened but after a long moment, she took the glass. “Somehow I doubt this is part of my diet,” she muttered under her breath. “Maybe it’ll kill me.”

  She discovered Tariq was staring at her stony faced when she glanced at him again, his eyes blazing with anger. “I hadn’t taken you for a coward,” he said evenly.

  The dart struck home. “I’m not,” she said tightly, “but there are some battles you can’t win and the only option is … a strategic retreat.”

  “It’s never wise to announce your battle plans to the enemy,” Tariq said coolly. Setting his half empty glass down, he took hers from her hand and set it down on the table, as well. She resisted when he caught her hand and drew her toward him—for all the good it did. An all out battle wouldn’t have stopped him, although it might have saved face.

  She decided an appearance of compliance was a better battle strategy at the moment, however, since she had nothing to gain by trying anything else and a lot to lose. She yielded to his determination, getting up and moving to him. He pulled her down on his lap, adjusting her more to suit himself than for her comfort. For many moments after he’d cradled her against his chest, he merely stared at her.

  She wondered what was going through his mind. He didn’t seem angry that she’d defied him, even briefly, or complacent that she’d yielded. He didn’t even seem particularly aroused, although she could feel the evidence of sexual interest against her hip. She flinched instinctively when he lifted his free hand toward her face. He hesitated fractionally and then completed the move, stroking a hand lightly along the hair at her temple and then downward to grasp the lock hanging across her breast. Lifting it, he rubbed his fingers back and forth over the strands and finally brought the lock to his nose and sniffed it.

  Emerald stared at him curiously, wondering what he’d expected her hair smell like. Different in some way than his own she supposed, but she’d used the soap they supplied her with and had to suppose it was what they all used. She emerged from her introspection when he leaned closer. His hair tickled her face as he brushed the tip of his nose and then his lips along her throat
, dragging in a deep breath.

  It aroused him—her scent. She felt his cock grow thicker and harder against her hip. Her belly clenched in reaction. Her skin pebbled as he expelled the breath he’d inhaled and it wafted along her skin, making her nipples tighten in reaction. By the time he’d brushed his face along her cheek to her temple, a deep quivering had begun inside of her and her skin felt flushed all over. He lifted his head to meet her gaze as he reached for the sheet she had clasped tightly to her breasts.

  Briefly, she resisted his tug and then yielded as she had when he’d issued the wordless command to come to him. He lowered his gaze to her breasts as he dragged the sheet to her waist. She looked down at his hand as he cupped one breast, lightly massaging it.

  It was disconcerting enough to discover her breast looked like an apple on a turkey platter next to his hand that she glanced at his face. Sensing the movement, he lifted his head and met her gaze again. There was no amusement or distain that her breast looked so woefully small compared to the size of his hand. On the contrary, his face had grown taut, his eyes dark and glittering with the need his erection gave ample testimony to.

  He lifted his hand from her breast to cup the side of her face, tightening the arm he had around her shoulders at the same time to draw her closer even as he tilted his head toward her and matched his lips to hers. He sucked lightly at her lips, with a slow relish that belied his display of ruthless aggression before even while it set her heart to pounding like a trip-hammer.

  He didn’t deepen the kiss. Instead, after teasing her with his lips until she’d begun to feel a sense of desperation for more, he lifted his lips from hers and traced the bridge of her nose to her forehead. His hands tightened on her almost convulsively for a moment. She heard him swallow and then his grip on her eased. “Go to bed, Emerald,” he murmured against her hair.