Daahn Rising

by Lyons, Brenna

  His ID opened the lodge door, and Evan pitched the bit of plastic ahead of him. He kicked the door shut as Zondra pushed his jeans away and the lights came up automatically. They came aground on a bureau that was a comfortable height, and Evan thrust inside her body. He fisted his left hand in her hair and positioned her hip with the other. She screamed in delight, her head falling back, giving him access to that clove-and-musk perfume.

  As promised, it was a rough fuck. Evan pistoned his hips, his body slapping hard against hers. Evan nipped and suckled at her throat, moaning at the spice in his mouth. His tongue tingled as if she had actually used clove as a perfume.

  Her body climaxed around his, and her scream echoed off the walls. Evan went into overdrive, pounding hard, his cum jetting into her in a long, steady stream.

  Her scent surrounded him, enticing him. Evan didn’t question it. He went to work on his shirt, and Zondra stared up at him, licking her lips.

  She was still dressed, and that was unacceptable. His mind processed that she was naked beneath the skirt, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to see her delectable body; Evan had to see it.

  He dragged his shirt off and dropped it to the floor, easing out of her body. “Get undressed,” he ordered.

  His move to dispose of his jeans ended on the sobering sight of her blood on his cock. A glance at her slit confirmed it. Virginal. By the stars! They hadn’t discussed anything. They hadn’t even discussed...

  “I’m on STD block,” he blurted out. But not pregnancy block. He didn’t like what the drug did to him, the lessening of his aggressive work ethic.

  “Good.” She didn’t pause in her disrobing. Zondra slipped the cropped sweater over her head and tossed it away.

  Evan’s mouth went dry at the sight of her erect nipples, and he had to force his unresponsive brain to string thoughts together. Her breasts were larger than his hands—but not by much—soft, responsive, and tight to her body. “But you’re not —”

  “I can’t, Duncan.” Her short skirt disappeared, leaving her clad only in the come-fuck-me heels and dark sunglasses.

  “Can’t —”

  Zondra wrapped herself around Evan, nipping at his chest, scattering the last of his thinking mind. “Can’t have a child. It’s... medical.” She stroked up and down, surrounding him in her scent.

  Ordinarily he would have suspected she was a fuck machine looking for the benefits carrying a military man’s child would get her. Something told him that wasn’t the case. She was telling the truth. Zondra really couldn’t carry a child.

  He wondered when she’d learned she was sterile. The certainty that it had been a recent discovery and this was her rebellion shot a rare shaft of guilt through him.

  Why do I care? He suspected his overactive protective instincts were kicking in again, but they’d never kicked in for something like this before. Usually they pushed him to protect a woman from physical harm, as he had with Reynolds in the bar.

  I’ve never been in this situation before. How can I know how I —

  The pain in his shoulder roused him from dark thoughts and fired his anger. She’d bitten him. What the hell was she —

  He stared at the wraparound dark glasses, the clues clicking into place. She didn’t fight him when he removed them, though she squeezed her eyes shut to the light.

  “Twenty percent light,” she ordered the room.

  The lights dimmed, and she opened her eyes. It was hard to tell the color, but the vertical slits were impossible to miss.

  She’s a Xxanian crossbreed. Facts and stories about the Xxan filtered through his mind. They were a sexual bunch, screwing like rabbits, and their females only submitted to Dominant men.

  That explains why Reynolds wasn’t her type. He was a bad-ass wannabe at best.

  Evan had never considered sleeping with a Xxanian female before. Then again, the opportunity had never arisen before. It was new, enticing, and a challenge.

  Damn, this is going to be good. If she wants a Dominant, I can show her what a Dominant is.

  ****

  There was an air of violence about Duncan that put her teeth on edge. Zondra prepared to fight him off.

  Then what will I do? With the quickening worsening, if he refused her, it could be catastrophic. The twisting in her gut seconded that. Fire flicked at her belly, and sweat coated her skin.

  His cock was still hard, which was a good sign, but he could be erect because of her Zhigaaah and nothing else. If he wasn’t willing, his arousal might make him angry and more aggressive.

  He pitched her glasses across the room. His mouth slanted over hers in a fierce kiss, and Zondra opened for him. He explored, tracing her hunting teeth with a groan.

  Duncan pulled away, dragged her off the bureau, and turned her to face it. His cock was inside her before her head stopped spinning from the abrupt move. “You are mine. Every” — he thrust deep and held there, grinding against her — “centimeter of your luscious body. Isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Every millimeter.”

  He covered her hands with his, threaded his fingers with hers, and pinned her hands to the bureau. His hips lifted slightly, taking her to her toes to accommodate him. “Anything I want. Anywhere I want. As many times as I want.”

  Seir-God, it is a dream come true.

  “Zondra,” he warned.

  “Yes. All night. Please, Duncan.”

  “Evan. And you will be screaming that. Won’t you?”

  So self-assured. “Yes, Evan.”

  As if rewarding the answer, he started riding her hard. Their sounds rose and crested, and the wave of his cum inside her punctuated it.

  He traced his lips over the newly blue mating stripe across her shoulder blades, picking up more of her Zhigaaah. “You didn’t scream my name,” he teased, “but you will.”

  Zondra nodded. Oh yes. There was little question that she would before the night was over. She smiled. Perhaps refusing him that as long as she could would be just the challenge he needed.

  Chapter Two

  Evan performed his early morning stretch, wincing at the slice of pain in his left shoulder. He searched out the facts in his muddled mind, smiling at the memories of Zondra.

  That quickly, his cock was hard and aching again. Evan turned to her, tracing a hand along the line from her waist to her knee.

  Zondra’s eyes opened, then squeezed shut against the light. She turned toward him, burrowing her face into Evan’s chest. His emotions rioted—tender, protective instincts mingled with fierce pride that she’d turned to him.

  Evan didn’t understand himself. Usually, protecting a woman was a duty to him. If someone had protected his mother, the scumbag who had beaten her to death wouldn’t have gotten in more than the first punch, and Evan wouldn’t have been orphaned at fifteen and tossed into the foster system.

  When he’d protected Zondra at the club, it had been half duty and half the enjoyment of putting Reynolds in his place. But this... Evan had no name for what he wanted from Zondra or what he felt when he was protecting her.

  He reached across her body, making a blind sweep for her glasses. The heavy light-reactive plastic in hand, Evan eased Zondra away from him and settled them on her nose.

  Her eyes opened slowly, revealing the heart-stopping green and gold that mesmerized him. She stared at him, hesitating, seemingly unsure, as the lenses darkened for her comfort.

  Evan dipped his head, sealing his mouth to hers. The kiss wasn’t as forceful as the ones they’d shared the night before. It was slow, deep, dizzying.

  “You know what I want to do?” he whispered against her lips.

  She shook her head.

  “Take you to the shower and bathe you from head to toe again.”

  Zondra’s breathing hitched. “And then?”

  “I’m going to bury my tongue between your legs. You bury yours between mine... Aside from eating — food, I mean — I suggest we spend my entire day off right here.” The insane need to play with Zondra as lo
ng as she’d allow was impossible to shake.

  The scent rising from her said she wasn’t ready to kick him to the curb and go find one of her own kind yet.

  Evan captured her mouth with a grumbled curse. The shower could wait. Food could wait. Everything but the woman in his arms could wait.

  Sounds played at the edges of his consciousness, a door opening somewhere in the distance. Evan dismissed it and pulled Zondra flush to his body. He trailed his fingers over that luscious blue stripe on her back that drove her crazy for his cock, intent on spending his entire day off inside her.

  The hands dragging her away came without warning. Evan launched up, swinging, growling out promises of killing whoever had dared touch her. Two bodies hit him at once, driving Evan to the mattress.

  Voices rose from somewhere across the room, Zondra and another man. Evan tried to fight his way up, to throw off the two men holding him down, but their grip was nearly unbreakable. All the time, the third man was arguing with Zondra, driving Evan to the edges of madness.

  Evan wrenched one arm free and laid a punch that unseated the attacker on his right. The answering punch came from the left, and prisms of startling color exploded before his eyes. The one he’d ousted landed hard, winding Evan in the process.

  “Aleeks, no,” Zondra ordered.

  “You might want to get her out of here,” the one on the right suggested.

  “I’m not going down quietly,” Evan warned.

  “As if you ever do,” the one on the left growled.

  Evan’s fist shot out, but the smart-ass was faster than he’d counted on, and he missed. The one on the right got a bone-crushing hold on Evan’s wrist, and he faltered, which allowed the one on the left to do the same. That simply, Evan was pinned.

  Across the room, the third was pulling a now dressed but deliciously mussed Zondra toward the door.

  “You have no right to do this,” Evan shouted. “Zondra —”

  “Is my little sister,” the one on the left snapped. “And she’s leaving with our seir, whether you like it or not.”

  Something in his tone gave Evan pause. “How little?” he asked weakly. Zondra looked and acted adult, and he’d picked her up in a bar. He hadn’t asked her age. He’d just assumed she was over twenty-one.

  I didn’t ask anything until after the first time. Not even if she was protected from pregnancy and disease.

  How badly have I screwed up? He remembered something about the Xxan aging faster than humans did. How young were they when they appeared adult?

  “You’re not going down for statutory,” the one on the right assured him.

  Evan breathed a sigh of relief that was sadly short-lived.

  “Sixteen,” the brother answered.

  Evan grimaced. The slamming door echoed his mental vision of career and life.

  “Better,” the one on the right breathed. “Now I highly suggest you get a shower to clear your head, Duncan. After that we’re going to have a long talk about my goddaughter, who is nearly seventeen, by the way.”

  He nodded, and both men eased off the bed, clearing the way to the bathroom. On his way to his feet, Evan got his first unencumbered look at them.

  The taller was a Xxanian mix like Zondra, based on his dark glasses and his claim of being her brother. He appeared to be about Evan’s age, with dark hair and a jaw that was locked tight in anger.

  Who could blame him?

  Evan moved his gaze to the other. He was older by at least thirty-five or forty years, based on his graying blond hair. His very human and piercing blue eyes, as well as his calm demeanor, attested that he would either be the safer of the two or a formidable enemy.

  Evan paused, staring at him, a fractured memory niggling at the far recesses of his mind. He knew this man from somewhere, in some context that he couldn’t place a finger on.

  As if he’d spoken the thought aloud, the old man offered his hand. “Matthew MacNair.”

  “Admiral MacNair?” Evan qualified.

  A slight nod of his head was his only reply.

  Realization left Evan cold. He’d not only slept with the fleet admiral’s sixteen-year-old goddaughter, Evan had given the officer in question one hell of a shiner. Ignoring the offered hand, he turned for the shower.

  “I am completely screwed,” Evan muttered to himself.

  “That goes without saying,” the younger man quipped.

  Evan turned to glare at him, then disappeared into the shower.

  ****

  “Do you have any concept of what you’ve done?” her seir asked. He made the turn out of the base gate and toward home.

  “You won’t be pressing charges against him,” Zondra ordered. “I won’t forgive it.”

  “Of course not.” He had the good sense to sound offended at the suggestion that he might do it.

  “And I won’t stand for anyone battering him again, either.”

  “They were defending themselves!”

  “Evan was defending me.” Just the thought of that heated her blood, as it had when he’d defended her from Reynolds the night before.

  Of course, nearly anything would arouse her right now. There was a reason the Xxanian father removed the female from her first lover in the aftermath of the quickening. She wasn’t thinking clearly right now, and neither was Evan.

  There was a moment of silence. “Do you think you’ll choose to bind to him?”

  Zondra’s body exploded in pleasure at the thought of it.

  She’d heard females wanted to choose a mate after the quickening. The idea of actively seeking out an overbearing Dominant had always mystified her. But now that Zondra had enjoyed the quickening with Evan — enjoyed is the understatement of the millennium! — all she wanted was to mate with him.

  Females rarely chose their first as mate. Then again, the male to sate the quickening was often a matter of chance or the choice of a female’s seir. Maybe Zondra only wanted Evan because she’d chosen him personally.

  Maybe she wanted him because she’d always been drawn to human men.

  Or maybe it was the aftermath of the quickening speaking out of turn. The female was always separated from her first after the quickening and confined to her nest for three nights. Until his Zhigaaal was filtered out of her system, and her Zhigaaah cleared his, the decision to mate could be attributed to the pheromones swaying the choice.

  Evan has no Zhigaaal. And still she wanted him this morning. A smile pulled at her lips.

  She sobered, noting her seir scenting the air. Scenting the change in me. Whether or not she ultimately chose Evan was none of his business.

  “Does one typically ask that question the morning after the quickening has been sated?” she asked pointedly. Zondra hurried on, not giving him a chance to answer. “He doesn’t have Zhigaaal. How could we —”

  “You knew we intended to get you a crossbred Dominant for your first. You should have told us you were —”

  “It came on suddenly,” she snapped. “And I don’t regret that Evan was my first.”

  “He may,” her seir muttered.

  Her temper flared. “What? How dare you say such a —”

  “He’s human, and your Zhigaaah may well have begun the binding. Your pheromone is most potent at the quickening and mating. Why do you think we’d intended to call in one of our own males to sate you?”

  Her heart stuttered. “It’s only been one night, not three days. The pheromone will work its way out of his system.”

  Her seir shot her a hard look.

  “Won’t it?” It came out a squeak she wished she could take back.

  “We don’t know. When we learned a single infusion of Zhigaaal could bind a human woman — thanks to my own oversight — we made certain to call in crossbred Xxan for the quickening.”

  Zondra worried at her lower lip. She hadn’t known that. Why hadn’t they told her? What if his hold on her waned, and he was bound and driven crazy? What would she do?

  Her seir sighed. “If
he is irrevocably changed, I pray you feel the same for him in three days as you feel now.”

  I will. What caused the certainty was a mystery to her, but it brought a smile to her face.

  Her seir growled.

  But I will be confined to the nest for at least three days. Her renewed smile faded that quickly.

  ****

  Evan strode from the bathroom and went still at the sight of Admiral MacNair and Zondra’s brother. “I get it. You’re warning me off, and I’ll stay away.”

  If he didn’t promise that much, he’d find himself in the brig. Now that he knew Zondra was sixteen, she was hands-off. He didn’t have the excuse of ignorance anymore.

  The brother snorted, curling his lip in seeming disgust. Bracketing his eyeteeth, his serrated hunting teeth were clearly visible. Evan didn’t doubt it was a warning.

  “Enough, Aleeks,” MacNair ordered.

  “Yes, sir.” But it was delivered in barely leashed fury. Aleeks looked much like one of the feral race he was descended from.

  The admiral panned his gaze up Evan’s body, passing by bare legs and towel-wrapped midriff. His eyes stopped at shoulder height, and Evan’s muscles tightened in preparation for a fight. There was no question what MacNair had taken exception to.

  Yeah, old man. Not only did I fuck her, we played hard. Have a problem with that? Before he could open his mouth and flush his career, the old man started talking.

  “How deep are they? Superficial, I hope.”

  Evan shrugged. “They’ll heal. I’ve taken worse shaft riding.”

  Of course, he’d only worked on an unsecured driveshaft once, and it had been an emergency. Though the band holding the hundred-and-fifty-feet-long, twenty-feet-in-circumference shaft motionless had slipped minutely, and the shaft had managed less than a quarter turn, Evan had been bucked off the top and dragged between the shaft and the tunnel wall. He’d come away with fifteen stitches in his leg, and it remained the single most terrifying moment of his life.