She laughed softly. She really could grow to like him.
“You’re a nut.”
“My picture is under nut in the dictionary. In fact, they list all the nuts but not in alphabetical order. There's Lucca, then peanut, walnut, a coffee bean nut.”
“Coffee bean is not a nut.”
He sat at the table with a huge plate in front of him and placed a forkful of eggs in front of her.
“Are you sure? I think coffee bean is a nut.” He took a bite then fed her another bite.
“It’s not a nut.”
“I won’t believe you until you get well enough to research it.” Her cheeks hurt from taking bites and trying not to smile at his silliness.
“Can I have a bite of your steak?”
He growled before giving her a wink. He held the steak in front of her feeding it to her. When they were done, he put everything in the sink and picked her up.
“What is it about you menace that I would leave a sink full of dirty dishes to take care of you?” He whispered into her ear as he carried her upstairs.
“I’m special,” she answered with a yawn.
She truly was special. His way of life was being changed by a pint-size female. He always felt responsible for his brethren. He would die so they could live, but he always knew they could take care of themselves. Tempest couldn’t take care of herself, and it just made her more special to him.
He wanted to be her white knight in shining armor. He grimaced, he was more like a black knight in shining armor, but she didn’t seem to mind. He got her changed into a nightgown before he placed her on the bed and tucked the covers around her.
The world had changed, and it was changing again. He shook his head because there was a good chance that when the time came, he wouldn’t be giving Tempest up.
She resisted sleep until she knew he was asleep. If she were going to run, she would have to do it now. It was her last chance. She waited flexing her feet waiting for them to find the floor and run like all the hounds of hell were after her.
She didn’t move, and slowly her body began to relax. It only made sense to run, but she was tired. She needed to stay and take care of Lucca. He didn’t have enough sense to run when his life was in danger. White knights in shining armor were like that. She gave a sigh; she would have to make sure he stayed alive.
With a small stretch, she snuggled into his arms. They both slept dreaming of how to keep the other alive.
Chapter Nine
He woke to her hand caressing his chest. It was something he could get used to.
“Hi.” His voice was a deep rumble in her ear waking up the parts of her that were needy.
“Greetings.” She peeked at him and watched his lips move upward in that involuntary movement that she loved so much. She snuggled closer not wanting to get up and ruin the intimacy between them..
“Tell me something that you’ve never told another female.”
“By that standard, I could tell you my life story.” His hand was stroking down her back making her sensitive to his touch.
“Then make it good.”
“How about we play show and tell?”
She moaned, and he laughed.
“Who’s the one with the lecherous gaze now?”
He stroked her forehead before she could reply.
“Come with me.” She looked up at him and fell into his eyes.
“Where are we?”
“This is a memory from when I was young.”
She looked around at the lavender sky overhead and the land that seemed to be reddish. The area was barren except for some makeshift housing.
“We were getting better at constructing housing, but we hadn’t mastered it yet. The Scientists didn’t give us a lot of free time.”
Sitting in front of the housing were four young boys they looked exhausted and hungry.
“My two youngest brothers weren’t born yet. It was just the four of us, and I was the youngest. We had just come back from a mission, and all I wanted to do was sleep and eat, but we needed to hunt for food. The Scientists destroyed most of what we had.”
A male walked over to them. He was about five-five with yellow eyes; the grin on his face made her stomach tighten.
“I have a job for one of you.”
One of the boys immediately stood to his feet. He was almost as tall as the male talking to them.
“The male talking to us was a Scientist by the name of Yaksim. He is dead, but until he died, he was a sworn enemy. That’s Dante standing.”
His older brother. She could hear the respect and the love in his voice.
“Not you, I want this one.” His voice nearly jumped with joy when he pointed.
“Is that you?”
“It is.”
“I want you to track down several Keruns that have infiltrated our planet and kill them.” He smiled before he walked away.
“How old were you?” Her voice held horror even as she tried to keep it to herself. Who could treat a child like that?
“I was seven or eight in Earth years.”
“You don’t have to do this. I’ll take your place.” His brother was whispering quickly in his ear.
Lucca kept shaking his head. “I won’t let you go. I know what they will do to you if you take my place, and I won’t allow it.”
“Please.”
“No. This is my test, and I have to pass it.”
Dante opened his mouth and closed it before he nodded in agreement. He walked into one of their dwellings and came out with a dried form of meat.
“Take this and the water.”
“I can’t, that's all we have to eat.”
“We’ll get more.”
Lucca looked around, and his brothers were nodding. He knew what this meant they would have to hunt tonight. He took what Dante was handing him because his brothers would come with him before they lived with the thought of him going hungry.
“Thank you.” He gave them each a dip of his head before he started walking away.
“How do you know where you’re going?”
“Keruns are rather predictable. They like being around the action. I decided to start at the scene of the battle we fought a day ago.”
“Why didn’t the Scientist tell you where they were at?”
“If I didn’t find them, I would be punished. It was in his best interest not to tell me so that he could punish me later.”
“I hate him, all of them.” There was such passion and intensity in her words he had to look at her.
Her eyes were blazing with violet fire, and she looked ready to kill anything that harmed him. He pulled her closer as they followed the younger version of himself.
“It took me four days to track them down, but I did it.”
She smiled because he was so proud of himself. Those days hadn’t been easy. She got glimpses of them as he took her to the action. He had suffered. He ate sparingly wanting to make sure he had enough to make it back home.
They went and laid in the grass by his younger self so they could see what he was looking at. The Keruns were not an attractive species. They had oversized heads and arms that split into two arms at the elbows each with a three-fingered hand, but that’s not what held Lucca’s attention. It was the three females who were tied and sitting on the ground.
“He never told me about the females, or that they were close to me in age. Now I had to kill the males and keep them safe. I didn’t want to kill in front of them, but I knew I had no other choice. They were going to violate them.”
The girls were sitting in a huddle together shaking as they looked at the males and cried. One came over and smacked them yelling in a strange language. The girl’s screams turned to sniffles even as one said their only chance was to kill themselves. Another whispered a plea for help.
“They couldn’t understand what the Keruns were saying, but I could. I knew there would be no help for them if the Keruns decided to touch them. The females wanted help that was all I
could offer them. I waited until night fell.”
Young Lucca quietly entered the area from behind catching the first Kerun by his neck and breaking it. The girls screamed blowing his cover of surprise and making it harder for him to save them. He used his lack of stature on the Kerun that tried to grab him.
When the Kerun had him securely in is grip, he stumbled and fell taking him down. Once down he pretended to be scared begging for freedom. The Kerun took a minute to gloat and he stabbed him in what she assumed was his heart. When he looked up the blue of his eyes were wild, but he was already planning the next kill.
The females were sitting in the same spot.
“Why aren’t they running?”
Lucca shrugged. He had never been able to figure that out. Tempest was holding onto his hand squeezing it as she watched the three Keruns come at him from different sides. He ran, and they laughed as they chased him. He continued to run until one blew past the other two. He ran until he was far enough away to hide in the dirt that made up the ground around him.
He waited until the Kerun ran over him before he exploded from the ground and jump onto his back. His little body changed into an animal allowing him to tear his neck out.
She cringed but held his hand tighter. “Two left.” She whispered.
Lucca had gone back to the ground confusing the ones left. They backed away before turning and running back to their camp. He followed silently.
His beast was red from having entirely covered itself in the dirt. He waited until one of the Keruns went ahead of the other and without a thought killed the one lagging behind. When he approached the camp, the one Kerun left held a female in front of him.
“I will kill her if you even think to hurt me.”
He stood still.
“You tie him up with this.” The Kerun motioned to one of the females calling her over so he could untie her hands.
“She tied me as tight as she possibly could. Didn’t she know I was trying to save her?”
He threw the female he was holding to the ground and began to stalk Lucca.
His hands were so tightly bound that when he tried to twist his wrist the rope cut deep within, blood was seeping out. He took a claw on one hinger and began to cut both his wrist and the rope. He watched every step the Kerun took as he fought for his freedom. When he got close enough, Lucca brought up his bloody hands and threw his symphor at him planting it deep into his neck.
Tempest couldn’t help herself; she was so excited for his win that she started dancing around his memory.
“I’ll always cherish this memory because of your dancing.”
He went over to the other females and untied them telling them he would take them to freedom.
They began to scream, and together they lashed out at him hitting him when they realize he wouldn’t hit them back. He tried to share some of his food and water with them, but they became more violent. Nothing he did would stop them. Finally, he tied them back up and began to pull them along behind them. To leave them where they were was a death sentence.
Every day he fed them even though there was not enough food for him. He tried to get them to listen, but they refused to hear him. Eventually, he got back to his dwelling. The same Scientist came to greet him. The females told him that Lucca abused them. They accused him of doing the things the Keruns were planning on doing to them.
“Yaksim, you know that's impossible. Lucca’s body cannot do what they are accusing him of.” Dante stood defiantly in front of his brother.
“Are you saying that our young females are liars?”
“Yes!” The look in his eyes promised retribution.
Several other Scientists came out when they heard the commotion.
“Grab him, he will pay for what he has done to these females.”
Yaksim had him strung up and began to beat him with an instrument that reminded her of a whip but looked deadlier. He beat him for several hours and laughed about it. Many came to watch and laugh.
“You will carry the marks on your back forever to remind you what happens when you place your dirty hands on a female.” He had him cut down.
Dante approached him with a cloth cleaning his wound. When he was done, he placed his hands on his back, a blue light spread over Lucca’s body. It began to heal his back until it was smooth not one mark was there.
“I will not allow you to carry the mark of something you have not done.”
“How could they?” She lifted her head to realize they were back in the bedroom.
“I don’t know; I'll never know.”
“That’s why you don’t want a mate.”
He nodded. “I realized that females were not to be trusted. I saved their lives.”
“There could have been hundreds of reason they did that. Maybe they were traumatized or stupid. Not that it matters. Come on let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” He tightened his arm around her as she tried to leave the bed.
“I’m going to kill them. No one hurts my male and gets away with it.”
“You continue to surprise me menace. I think time has taken care of them. They should all be dead by now.”
“I still want to make sure.”
“I know, but I’d rather kiss you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Her tongue came out and slowly licked her lower lip leaving it moist and shiny. He watched enthralled by the simple action. He leaned towards her and placed his lips against hers pressing hard before licking at the seam of her mouth.
She opened wide, and he already felt like he was losing himself. He could feel her smile against his mouth before her tongue darted out to play with him. He looked into her eyes and saw playfulness. He met her tongue dueling with it making her chase him before he chased her back.
There was a tenseness to his shoulders that he could feel all the way to his brow. He had been open and honest with her revealing something even his younger brothers didn’t know about him. Instead of her laughing or cracking jokes, she wanted to kill the females who harmed a young male even though that male was created. His shoulders loosened as he gave her just a little of his trust.
He sucked her tongue into his mouth enjoying the groan that came from her.
“You know what they say.” She pushed on his chest until he was flat on the bed before she sat on him.
“I don’t know what they say.”
She laughed filling the room with warmth.
“What’s good for the gander is good for the goose.”
“When did we start talking about fowl?”
She leaned over and sucked at the pulse point on his neck. His body tensed as he hissed through his teeth.
“I never knew I liked that.”
“Glad I could be the first one to show you how good that feels.”
She kissed and licked down his throat taking the time to look at him to see how he was reacting. The look in his eyes made her want to spend the rest of her life showing him pleasure.
She drew her stiff tongue over one of his nipples loving the gasp of air that came out of him. He reached for her, and she knocked his hands away. He placed them on the bed and grabbed the sheet as she bit his nipple before sucking on it. She licked between his Pecs before she blew on him. Her finger followed her tongue.
A smile touched her lips as she watched his blue eyes swirl with desire.
“You’re so handsome; I can’t stop myself from touching you.” She whispered it in his ear loving the growl he gave her.
Her fingers went to his body tracing little lines down his chest and arms before using her fingers to walk back up his chest and play with his nipples. His hips thrust up in the air as she made little needy noises in her throat.
“I love how muscled your chest is, but still you manage to be lean. You’re perfect not too big not too small. I wonder what you will feel like lying on me.”
His growl was deeper making her pussy convulse.
“Nope, it’s m
y time to play.” She placed her hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him back down to the bed.
She liked the way he allowed her to be in charge. She was so small that she didn’t have the power to be in control until she lost her temper. He never acted like he was doing her a favor when he gave her control. How could he be more perfect for her?
Lowering her head, she licked his abs as he sucked in a deep breath.
“So perfect.” She bit him. His hand went to her hair clutching it.
“You’re going to drive me crazy Tempest.”
She licked him again before she used her finger to trace where there should be a belly button.
“What happened here?”
“No mother.”
She nodded her head. He was Created she never wanted to forget that. She blew on him, and still; he reacted like he was sensitive right there. Her hand traveled down to the V that was calling her name. There was just a smattering of blond hair. She ignored the erection that was standing tall begging for her attention as she dragged her hand through that smattering of hair.
A smile took over her lips as he made his cock wave looking for attention.
“Aren’t you talented?”
Her hand moved down until she was at the base of his cock. Her fingers began to stroke him before she went to his balls holding the weight of them in her hands.
“Beautiful.”
One hand caressed him massaging his balls as he thrust up. She ran her other hand up his cock and tried to keep from biting her lip. Lucca was a man who knew what sex was, but he didn’t understand the gentleness that came with real loving.
Taking her tongue, she licked the head of his erection. The sound of pleasure mixed with his growl almost undid her, but she held on, barely.
Taking the tip of his erection into her mouth, she sucked hard as he thrust up. The hand in her hair tightened as his arm made it hard for her to move.
She opened a little wider to take more of him into her mouth. She began to move up and down over his thick cock. The growls of pleasure coming from him spurred her on as she stroked the length of him that she couldn’t take into her mouth. She tried to swallow him whole while his eyes looked like they wanted to roll to the back of his head.
Lucca (The A'rouk Brothers Book 3) Page 6
