by Aidy Award
Kady giggled. “Think mate in the biological, scientific way.”
Ash’s eyebrows must have gone halfway up her forehead.
Nodding and smiling, Kady said, “Yeah, that way. I resisted the whole idea at first too, when I first met Black and he wanted to get all kissy face with me.”
“Ahem, you were the one who took me to your pleasure den and got naked, mah wah.”
“Yeah, to save your furry butt from the TFO,” she called over her shoulder. She turned her focus back on Ash. “But, there was no denying it, once I admitted to myself how damn attracted to him I was. We are soul mates.”
“That term refers to a made-up concept. Hallmark probably coined the phrase.”
Dunn turned her and planted a searing kiss on her. A feeling similar to the magic that had swirled around her and Kady floated up from Ash’s body, adding its own layer to the arousal his touch flared up in her. When he broke the kiss Russet’s lips were there to take over. A second distinct flicker of magic and pleasure came from their kiss too.
“Tell me that’s not proof you are our soul mate, mah wah. If wooing and courting is what you want, we will do everything to win your affection.”
Ash couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t believe that could be true. No. She may have found a sister today, but there was no way she was meant for true love.
She knew better.
Ash pulled away, the magical glow that had surrounded her and the two men snapped and dissipated into nothingness.
She floundered for words and in the end opted to say nothing, because nothing would be good enough.
Instead, she found that thing inside of her that she buried and denied on a good day and hated on a bad one. Her magic.
Ash stopped time, froze the world around her, and walked away.
Five: Russet Must
Russet wasn’t the right man for his mate. She needed to be wooed, romanced. She needed someone who could sweep her off her feet. Like Dunn already had.
If he could get her into bed, he knew how to pleasure a woman. He could make her come, over and over. He did not know how to make her feel wanted, needed, loved.
When he kissed Ash, she disappeared. Literally.
Dunn was the one who knew how to get a woman to fall in love. He could meet her on that emotional level.
What he could do was reach her on an intellectual level. She was a scientist. That meant logic, theory and testing, proof. If she needed proof she was his mate, he would find it and show it to her.
Like before Ash reappeared nearby. This time in the doorway to the small domicile he’d secured for them. A ship was no place to woo a mate.
That’s exactly what they needed to do. According the Black, who’d pulled them aside and first smacked them upside the head, then told them Kady had not understood the command the Fates had put on her to be his mate. That she had in fact refused several times to even acknowledge that they were mates.
She hadn’t even wanted to have sex with him.
That had sent Russet’s brain spinning. He hadn’t met Kady until after she and Black had mated. Which had been maybe two days after they’d met. Those two were so obviously fated for each other it had made his own soul sit up and take notice.
Plus, they were almost pornographic in their public displays of affection for each other. Kady quite literally glowed every morning.
Russet wasn’t going to admit to having more than a little crush on Kady. That would be completely illogical since she was his brother’s mate.
All that had gone away the instant he saw Ash. She stood in the doorway, her arms wrapped around herself, her face dejected and scared.
At least Titian wasn’t around to interrogate her. He still hadn’t returned from their meet up that morning. Probably off dicking around.
Russet walked toward Ash and saw her flinch, so he slowed his pace and stared up at the sky instead of at her. She didn’t need to be pushed.
Dunn on the other hand was ready to pick her up again and kiss and stroke her body until she relaxed. But, he too held himself back.
“Do you think she will refuse to mate us? That will kill me.”
“Black’s warning gave me an idea.”
“I’m glad someone has a fucking clue what to do with her. Her body responds to us, but her heart and her mind are so damn contrary.”
Their mate had no experience with the Fates. He and Dunn accepted that she was the one woman in the universe made especially for them and they for her. She had no reason to believe that was true.
Russet had a plan. “We will have to work to make her fall in love with us. You can win her heart. Yours will speak to hers.”
Dunn nodded already understanding where Russet was going with this. “You will win her mind.”
“Yes, and we both have the help of her body’s need for us. I will use that advantage to the fullest.”
Seducing her mind would help him win her body but touching and tasting her body would push the fundamental, base demand the mating frenzy was already exerting on her. She would only be able to resist for so long.
When she was ready to let him take her body, he would have proven to her mind that they belonged together.
Dunn stopped them both before they reached her. “We should not overwhelm her any more than she is. Let’s split up. You go to her now and do what you can, I have some preparation I’d like to make for later.”
Russet nodded and waited until Dunn had trotted off before continuing his approach. She watched him warily but didn’t disappear or run from him. That was already a win.
Ash held up her hand. “Stop right there. I don’t want any more kissing.”
He continued to come closer, but slowly, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I understand.”
She backed up another step, pressing her back against the door. “You do?”
“Yes. I won’t kiss you again until you ask me to.” She would. “We didn’t liberate you from the TFO simply to mate with us. We need your help to defeat the spectrals.”
She thought about that for a minute and Russet saw the instant her thoughts moved from one subject to the other. “Why would you bring them to Earth. You had to know they would get out of control.”
“Love, we didn’t. We don’t know where they came from, but since they destroyed my family,” his voice wobbled more than he wanted it to. He had to stop and clear his throat. “My brothers and I have fought to protect others and find a way to destroy the scourge.”
He’d continued to move closer to her and only needed one last step to be within touching distance of her. She gasped when he closed the space between them and the arousal she wanted so much to deny wafted over his senses. Fates, how he wanted to touch and caress and pleasure her.
That wouldn’t win her mind. He did take her hands in his and squatted down before her so that she was looking down into his eyes. “Will you help us?”
Her touch electrified him, but he very carefully kept his face blank, searching only for her answer.
“That’s what the Men In Black that recruited me to Omega said too. I don’t know what to believe, who to trust.”
This is where he needed to provide her with proof. He didn’t have the empirical evidence her scientist brain would want, but he hoped what he had would be enough to convince her.
“I’d like to show you something.” He unclipped his comms unit from his belt and flipped the view screen, so they could both see the images.
A hollow place inside that he usually kept covered with long hours of work and hunting for the spectrals opened like an old wound. It always did whenever he looked at these memories.
He didn’t need the reminder of why he’d joined the Elite Team of the Star Rangers, but he pulled these images out sometimes anyway. Each time was like slicing open a newly healed bite to the jugular.
“This is my family.”
Ash stared at the small 3D image of him and Dunn standing next to a mountain lake with his sister and fath
er. She couldn’t tell, but his mother had been scolding them all to smile from behind the imager. Dunn and Tawny had kept making faces and he and his father kept scowling, or so his mother had said.
He swiped the image to the side and brought up the next one. Tawny stood in front of the cabin, her eyes glazed over, her mouth hung slack, and the gold tone of her skin was now gray. Her beautiful hair that he’d made fun of her for spending hours grooming lay in snarls, dulled of its many faceted browns and amber colors. The ember at her neck, dark as an average river rock. “This is my sister after the spectrals stole her soul.”
Ash frowned and studied the image, pushing her glasses up her nose and leaning in to examine the image even closer. She reached out to touch it and pushed it away, bringing up the next one. Her eyes flicked back and forth over the image of his mother, standing in the sunlight laughing. “Who is this?”
Russet couldn’t remember what had tickled his mother’s funny bone that day, but the pure joy on her face was so perfectly her.
Before he answered, Ash flipped to the next image. “I see.”
He was relieved he didn’t have to explain to her how the spectrals had taken their mother while he’d been off signing up to be Star Ranger bear. He’d thought he could protect the universe, when he couldn’t even keep his own family safe.
Would he be able to keep Ash from harm? A whisper from his soul said maybe she would be the one to shield him from all that was dark and soulless in his life.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
His loss. He couldn’t swallow past that phrase.
“No. I’m sorry I said that. It’s a stupid phrase. You didn’t lose anything, it was taken from you.”
There was a new vehemence behind her words, like she was angry that this happened. Another reason to love her. Which he shouldn’t do.
Thanks didn’t seem like the right thing to say. Instead he put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. He did his best not to notice the shimmer of magic around them when he did or the way the light from his ember lit up her skin. “Is this enough to convince you to use your skills and knowledge to end this war?”
“No.”
Fuck.
“You could have faked any of these images. This isn’t science. This isn’t proof. Like at all.”
Russet dropped his hand letting the magic between them fade.
He knew his evidence was nothing more than an anecdotal story from a wounded soldier.
Damn it, he should have shown her the readings they had from the spectrals they’d encountered. He had a mountain of video from the attack on station twenty-three. They even had scans that one of the other systems battling spectrals has shared of one of the monsters crashing into a person and ripping their soul from their body.
He’d stupidly decided to show her a part of himself he hadn’t even meant to reveal.
She’d seemed so vulnerable and he’d responded in kind, thinking that was what his mate needed.
He closed the comms unit and stood. Dunn hadn’t yet returned, and he still had time to show her the hard science.
Ash stopped his retreat with a palm pressed to his chest, scant centimeters from his soul ember. A new spark fired from within, reaching out for her.
“But, I didn’t need the science to know that the spectrals destroy lives. I needed to know that working with you and Dunn wasn’t a mistake.”
He pressed his hands over hers, holding her to his heart. “It’s not. I vow to you we want nothing more than to end this plague on the galaxy.”
“That’s not entirely true. I think you want something else from me that I’m not quite ready to give.”
He leaned in closer and brought his lips as close to hers as he could without actually touching them. He already knew her taste, his mouth watered with anticipation of having her again. “I will wait forever for you, mah wah.”
His eyes flicked from hers down to her lips and back up again. Her brow wrinkled, and he saw her brain go back to work. Not good.
Should he kiss her to pull her back into this moment, or would that push her away again?
She took the decision out of his hands and closed the miniscule gap between them pressing her lips to his. Golden light flashed and sparkled around them as her magic took the spark of his soul and caressed it, until he was on fire for her.
Russ sensed Dunn before he saw him. He’d been close enough that this dance with her magic crossed through their connection and his part of their soul ached to join with her the way Russ was now.
And then he was there.
At Ash’s back, gently stroking her up from her hand to her shoulder, then back down to the small of her back. His touch made her arch into Russet’s kiss even further. She moaned, and her tongue tangled with his own with more frenzy.
He could feel himself losing his tightly held control and soon they all would. He broke her kiss even though it made her whimper. A beautiful needy sound.
His voice came out lower and huskier than the meant it to. “Ash-ling, tell me want this. We can give you pure bliss, but only when you are ready, when you want us to.”
She blinked up at him, the hazy lust and need there making him regret keeping her pleasure from her. “I...I don’t know. “Do you want this?” She bit the very edge of her lip.
Dunn pressed his lips to her ear and answered for them both. “More than anything, my sweet. But we will stop if you say so.”
Even if it meant a permanently hard cock and vice grip of space on his balls.
She released “I don’t know what I want for the long term, but I know I don’t want you to stop now.”
Dunn gently slid his cheek along hers, pushing her head to the side and exposing her neck. “Thank the Fates.”
He scraped his teeth across her skin there, and even though Russet’s teeth weren’t touching her he felt the draw to mark her.
“Oh God. Do that again.”
Dunn licked over the same path in reverse and when he reached that soft tenders spot where her neck and shoulder met, he nipped at her skin, holding it between his teeth but not biting down.
Ash’s eyes fluttered shut and her knees wobbled. The golden aura of her magic lifted from her skin in swirls surrounding them both in its soft light.
“Do you feel the draw, the need for him to bite and mark you?”
“Ooh, yes.” Her words were a soft moan.
Good. She was letting go and soon she would be theirs. “Remember, you can tell us to stop at any time and we will.”
“I don’t want you to.”
A low growl came from Dunn at her words. He had a tenuous hold on his bear. It shimmered to the surface, urging them both to take their mate and make her theirs now.
They could, right here, right now.
Russet didn’t think she was ready for anything more than a marking. Too much too fast and it could threaten their fragile bond.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t bring her pleasure, show her what mating with them held in store for her and her body.
That part he could do.
Russet reached for the fastening of her pants and slid them open. She wore another covering underneath them and they were printed with drawings of what he could only guess was a bat shifter.
He ran his finger across the top of them and then slid his thumb inside until he caressed already wet curls.
Dunn followed suit and slipped his hands under her shirt and cupped her breasts, caressing them.
She gasped and the bubble of magic she’d surrounded them in glittered with power when he pushed deeper and swiped his thumb across her clit. He couldn’t wait to have her screaming with his head between her legs sucking on that hard bud, wetting his beard with her juices while Dunn sucked on her nipples.
“Will you let us mark you, Ash? Here and now?”
He circled her clit and her breathing ratcheted up with every pass. The power of her magic matched, pulsing around them all, calling to his soul to join in the dance.
&
nbsp; Not yet. This was for her. He and Dunn would not take from this moment by pressuring her or the light inside of her to join with theirs.
“What...” She swallowed and groaned, pressing her hips forward to ride his thumb.
Fates, that was so fucking sexy. Her face and cheeks were flushed giving them a beautiful rosy color. They’d learned it was a sign of Earth women’s arousal and he adored it on her.
“We will bite your neck, but I promise it won’t hurt. We give you a small part of our souls when we do, and they will remain as a mark on your skin as a sign to the world that you belong to us. Dunn is fighting his bear now not to do it until you say.”
Russet suspected Ash would have marks regardless from the suckling and small bites he was already giving her. But, they weren’t the same as a soul mate mark.
Dunn lifted his ear to Ash’s ear once again, rubbing his beard across her skin. “I need you like the dark needs the light, love. Let me mark you with my bite, let Russet do the same.”
Russet took that as his cue to lower his lips to the other side of her neck. He nibbled his way across her throat and down to her collarbone. It was damned hard not to sink his teeth into that sweet spot. If they were on Honaw and she were a bear, he would have already. But, she was a human witch and they had to teach her that taking the steps toward becoming true soul mates was their destiny. One that she would enjoy.
Ash thrust her hips against his again, needing more. He wouldn’t give it to her until she asked for it. He needed to know she wanted this from them.
“I don’t have enough data to make this decision.” Her voice trembled, and she pierced Russet’s own fears with her own. He couldn’t know that taking her, giving her their souls wouldn’t result in tragedy.
“Then don’t use your head to make your choice. Use your heart.”
Dunn’s words were as much for Russ as they were for Ash. He knew how hard it was to let emotion make any decision. If she could do it, he would be able to as well.
But, would she?
“I need you. I need you both.”
