What freaked me out was the paws. Well, hands.
The creature walked on its fingertips, four digits splayed against the snow and a thumb higher up on the limb. It walked on hands. It. Walked. On. Hands.
The tentacles, black as ink, waved in my direction, tasting the air to get my scent. The creature growled, turning its four amber eyes to me. I dropped the red bamboo shoot and shears in surprise.
I backed away, not taking my eyes off the wolf squid. It moved forward slowly, body crouched down against the snow. A growl from behind made me spin around. A black tentacled wolf moved between the red reeds. Another creature emerged. Three. They had me well surrounded.
This is the part of the story where I remind you that I’m a botanist, not a zoologist. As such, my mind quickly flickered through options. I’ve seen this scenario in plenty of movies where the hero is confronted with a hunger crazed coyote or bear or whatever these wolf-squids were. I choose the worst option.
I ran.
My legs pumped but the snow drift hindered my speed, kicking up clouds of powder. The creatures took off with a short series of yipes that chilled me more than snow. My heart raced and thumped in my chest not because of the wolf squid chasing me but because this situation was so completely stupid and my completely my own damn fault. Why didn’t I listen to Glin? Why didn’t I stay put? I knew why. My greedy nature once again set me up for failure.
I had no hope of outrunning the creature. They were lean predatory machines. I was a botanist from a planet with slightly higher gravity. That was the only factor in my favor. Still, the beasts were toying with me, running to one side, nipping at me, driving me to the other direction, only to find another pack mate waiting for me. My legs burned, my breath ragged and my sides ached. Blood pounded in my ears. I couldn’t go on.
Adrenaline kept me moving but I began to slow down. I just had to get close enough to the town for Glin to find me.
Or find my remains.
The creatures were closer. They howled with the excitement of the chase. They nipped at my heels, causing me to stumble. One snagged the bag. I let it slid from my shoulder. Finally, the one at my back jumped, clenching the thick pink fur in its jaws. My forward momentum stopped and I fell to my knees. The one to my right lunged. I threw up an arm to protect myself. Its teeth sank into the pink fur but didn’t quit pierce all the way through. Pink fur was tougher than it looked. Heartened, I hit the creature on the muzzle with my free hand, shouting and cursing. Not a smart idea. The creature redoubled the pressure on my arm, teeth sinking through the coat and into me. Fear kept the sharp pain from overwhelming me. Inky black tentacles reached towards my face, skimming over my skin like it was tasting me. I guess I expected the tentacles to be wet or slimy, because, well, tentacles, but they were hairy. Furry. Thin, fine strands of black fur brushed against my face. Desperately I wanted to close my eyes and will these creatures away, to pretend I was back on Juno in my little apartment and I never set foot on that shuttle with the arrogant, handsome Fremmian warrior or my sister ever met her destined mate and put me in this situation.
Then it got weird.
The creature’s hand-like paw wrapped around my arm, black skin dry and rough, and its claws squeezing into me. Four amber eyes blinked patiently at me, as if waiting to see what I would do. This wasn’t a mindless beast. It was experimenting.
Then its thumb brushed over my skin, caressing me.
I screamed bloody murder.
The remaining wolf squid jumped onto my back. I curled into a ball, covering my head from the claws and fangs, and prayed for a miracle.
Chapter Eleven
Glin
Terrans.
I snorted with frustration. Why could Vera Hyatt not do as she said she would do? How could she lie so effortlessly and why did I believe her? It has to be her weird, blank face. There is nothing to signify her thoughts on her complexion. How do Terrans ever communicate? Her caramel skin does get a lovely pink flush when she is yelling at me.
I rubbed my chest to clear my thoughts but to no avail. I can only think of Vera and her warm, dark eyes. Why do I continue to be fixated on her warm dark eyes and forget the obvious, namely that Terrans lie. Especially this one.
I dropped my bundle on the floor of the empty house. All morning my comm unit reminded of an approaching blizzard. I doubled my normal hunt to provide for Vera. As I should, because it is my duty.
Not because I lay awake at night thinking about her soft, pliable red lips or the way they stretched into a contented smile while we watched movies. Or how sweet it would be to kiss those lips, to claim them. Or how those same lips would look around my cock.
The comm unit on my wrist flashed a warning. The approaching snow storm was less than an hour away. We were running out of time.
The tracks Vera left were so obvious even a bloodless child could follow them. So I followed. With each step, I grow more irritated and repeat the same tired argument in my mind. Vera lies. Her lies have put our lives in danger once and do so again. She is not an appropriate mate. She is not honorable. Even if she was, she is the sister of my princess. Her position is too important to risk, her human body too fragile for me to risk endangering. She is not for me.
Vera’s tracks brought me out of the town center and towards the north, towards the abandoned farm fields. A second set of tracks appear in the snow, parallel to hers. Stalking her. I quicken my pace. Another set of tracks join, carefully skirting Vera’s blundering from plant to plant. Three creatures. No, four. The prints are unusual.
I reach a clearing with red bamboo. Here the tracks told me Vera stopped, knelt in the snow, dug at the sprouts and the creatures surrounded her. Then a chase.
I ran, following the trail. I failed to protect Vera. If anything were to happen to her, I cannot imagine life without the color and vibrancy she brings. It would be a hollow existence.
I did not have to go far before I heard the snarls of the creatures, the excited huffs and howls of beasts on the hunt. Then I see them, Vera in a shaggy pink fur and four creatures like kurulv but black like an absence of light and with tentacles.
These creatures surround my mate. My kompli. One creature has its mouth on her arm and a clawed hand, tugging on her.
Rage and battle lust fills me. My axe is one hand and a blaster in the other. One thought propels me forward.
Mine.
Chapter Twelve
Vera
An axe sank into the creature with a wet thud. The wolf squid squealed and I felt the warm spray of blood on my face and hair. The alien hands released me from their grip. I uncurled from my defensive position.
The axe was buried deep into the skull of the wolf squid, which now leaked a sticky green fluid. Another corpse had singe marks. The remaining creature growled at Glin, crouched low and circling slowly.
Glin also growled at the creature, a blaster in hand. He sprang into action and was a blur of blue and inky black, punctuated with green ooze. Glin had the wolf squid pinned to the snow covered ground. It thrashed and jaws snapped. Black tentacles wrapped around Glin’s arms and legs, squeezing. Glin pummeled the creature’s head with the butt of the blaster. It yelped and whined as its skull caved in, green splatter on Glin’s face and torso. The blaster discarded with a snarl, Glin used his fists to strike, repeating the same word again and again. “Mine!”
I couldn’t stand here and watch Glin beat the creature into paste, because he wouldn’t stop. The wet, squelching sounds would haunt my dreams. I approached carefully but Glin was too focused on my former attacker. I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Enough, Glin. Stop.”
Glin turned towards me, lips curled in a savage snarl.
I stepped back, shocked. His eyes were completely empty of emotion. There was nothing there. “Glin?”
He lowered his fist, shoulders slumped forward and his head hung low. After three deep breathes, he stood. “There is a blizzard coming. We must return to shelter.”
We were silent o
n the walk back. I struggled to keep up with his pace but I dared not complain. His eyes when he turned towards me… I guess that must be the battle lust Fremmians are always talking about. Losing yourself in the heat of the moment. But his eyes were empty. Normally when Glin looks at me, I can see frustration, annoyance, humor, sometimes desire but just then, when he pounded the skull of the wolf squid into goo, all of that was gone. There was nothing there. Nothing. And it frightened me to my core.
Glin must have noticed that I moved too slowly. “Keep up,” he snapped. The first flakes were already falling.
“I can’t,” I said, breathing huffing.
He stopped, back rigid. “Are you too injured to walk, Vera? Do you need to be carried?”
“My legs are shorter than yours, you idiot. Slow down.”
He gave me a long look, chilling me to the bone. How long does battle lust last? In a swift motion, Glin scooped me into his arms and cradled me like a child. I might have really enjoyed being pressed to his chest a few hours ago but now he moved stiffly, as if he didn’t want to touch me. Screw that noise. I squirmed to be set down. “Let me go,” I said. “I can walk.”
“You cannot. You just admitted your legs are defective.”
“I’m shorter than you, not defective. I want to walk.”
“No, I will carry you. We would not be having this conversation if you stayed where it was safe.”
Yeah, well, hindsight is twenty-twenty and being held like this is not the humiliation he seems to think it is. Still, I’m not going to let him carry me like a sack of potatoes. I kicked my legs and pounded my hands against his chest. “Let me down!”
Frustrated, Glin lowered me to the ground. “You are being selfish,” he said.
That stung. “You are being a stubborn jerk.”
“Terrans make no sense!” Glin shouted, hands thrown in the air in frustration. “And your lies are in your very name. Your planet is registered with the Interstellar Union as Terra, you want to be called Terrans but you call your planet Earth and each other humans.”
Wow, that’s a very specific complaint, like he’s been ruminating on Terran flaws. The big grump probably has a list. “But it’s not a lie. Both are valid names.”
“How can both things be true? It is your name or it is not.”
“We like to be flexible,” I said, growing heated. “And it’s not like Fremmians are so perfect. You think that you can be as rude as you like and cloak it in ‘truthfulness’ so no one can get upset when you’re being a giant asshole. Well guess what, Mister, everyone thinks you’re an ass.”
He stalked away from me. We were close to the town now. The snow was falling fast. “I am not an ass,” he said. “My duty is to protect you.”
Yeah, yeah yeah. Duty. No other reason to be concerned for me. No other reason to fall on the wolf quid, shouting that I belonged to him. Just duty, my round ass. That big liar. We reached the house. I storm down the hallway.
“Where are you going,” Glin calls after me.
“To take a selfish bath, you stubborn ass. Do you need to supervise that, too?”
Chapter Thirteen
Vera
I dumped my clothes and bag in a pile. Steam rolled off the hot water in the pool and I only thought about soaking my aching muscles. I wasn’t thinking about the way Glin cradled me to his chest when he carried me. I wasn’t thinking about terrifying grace and powerful way he moved when fighting the wolf squids. I definitely wasn’t thinking about the way my pussy ached when he shouted “mine”. Nope. Not going to think about it. I eased myself into the hot water. My breasts floated but the rest of me from the chin down was submerged.
My anger with Glin, for his tone, swirls in my stomach. The hot water could not seem to unknot that tension. More infuriating is the way my core aches for him. I want him to touch me, to caress me, to kiss me and more still. I’m not a hormone crazed kid but why can’t I stop thinking about him. I’ve never really been that sex crazed to begin with but since I’ve meet Glin son of Garen, sex with that masculine blue warrior is all I can think about.
Not. Thinking. About. It.
Get over it, Vera. He’s not into you. It doesn’t matter that when he says your name a delicious shiver goes down your spine. It doesn’t matter that when he held you in his arms the first time, you had the best sleep ever. That was for warmth. It meant nothing. He was only doing his duty. I mean nothing to him. He’s made that perfectly clear.
But I’m so worked up. My adrenaline is still surging and I have a deep tingling that won’t go away with a long soak in hot water. What I want is a good hard screw, something to celebrate being alive and not eat by wolves, but the only man on the planet isn’t interested in Earth girls. What I’m going to get is my own hand.
I lean back into the water, one arm on the side of the pool as an anchor. My legs and torso float weightless. The exposed skin sting briefly in the cold air. My nipples pebble. My free hand drifts down and begins to stroke the wet curls. I hate that my thoughts immediately turn to him and the way he fought the creatures. His muscles moved with a fluid, merciless power. It was mesmerizing if, at the time, terrifying.
He’s so thoroughly masculine, just like a proper man from an old Terran film, a frontiersman, the kind I’ve always craved. And those scars. The one by his lips pulls at the corner of his mouth and I just want to kiss and lick it. I want to do more than kiss and lick his mouth. I want to savor every part of him. I want to let my hands roam over those hard muscles. I want his hands on me.
My finger parted my lower lips and did a lazy circle around my clit. I keep thinking about the network of scars on his back and the way they pull at his taut skin. I want to know what his back looks like when he’s sunk his cock in me, when he’s pumping into me. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of lover he would be. Hard and fast? Mmm. Slow and tender? Double mmm.
I need to come. There’s so much tension inside me. I close my eyes and I whisper his name. “Glin.”
As if I summoned him, Glin is staring at me across the pool when I open my eyes. I should be mortified, him finding me rubbing my clit furiously, whispering his name, but I’m not. I don’t want to stop. I won’t.
His eyes lock with mine. The emptiness is gone and I see a hard determination in them. Excitement flares in me. I increase my pace. Let me see me. Let him see everything he won’t let himself have.
“This isn’t about you,” I said. My fingers push into my entrance and make the journey back up to my nub, circling fast and hard. I make the journey again. My hips buck as I approach my clit. Close now. “I just need to relieve tension.”
“You are lying, Vera Hyatt.” His gaze is hot on my hand, mesmerized.
Glin shucks off his trousers, revealing a proud, thick cock. Oh boy. I want to ask if he’s going to share that cock but I don’t want to break the moment we have. He takes his cock in his hand and he begins to stroke himself. His tight fist travels up his long shaft and flicks at the head and back down again. I can’t pull my eyes away. The head of his dark blue cock glistens with pre cum and I lick my lips.
“And I’m not thinking about you,” he said, gaze firmly on me.
And they say the Fremm don’t lie.
I flicker harder and faster, spurned on knowing he is watching me. And his gaze is scorching hot. He looks like he wants to eat me up. And I can’t stop looking at him. All his muscles, sculpted by years of hard work and training, were on display. He looked better than I could ever imagine. His thighs were thick and powerful, his shoulders broad and his abdomen rippled.
Finally, my thighs clamped together, holding my hand to my pussy and my hips bucked. My core clenched and my release came. I fought back a small giggle, because you don’t giggle at a man when he’s jerking off for you, but I’m overcome with giddiness.
Glin’s face is screw up tight with concentration, like he’s holding himself back, and it’s the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen. He gave a growl and his seed, thick and white, emptied
onto his hand. He stood there, panting.
That’s when I blushed deeply at what we just did. The change in my color caught his attention.
“Are you injured?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
“Let me inspect.” He crouched next to the pool. I was very aware of his junk at eye level. I turned my head away but oh boy. I mean, I just saw him jerk off but now that his cock was within touching distance, I feel all flustered. He cleaned up with a towel before his large hand took my arm, turning it over, examining the claw and tooth marks. The coat took most of the damage. He ran a finger over my skin. Two small gashes and abrasions. Not too shabby considering. “This will require the med stat.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
His hand went to the side of my face. Instinctively I leaned into it. His thumb brushed over my lips and his held my gaze. “It is not fine. It is my greatest shame that I allowed you to become injured.”
Is it wrong that a part of me turned into a marshmallow? I should be mad at him. I should be ashamed at what we just did, but no. I’m turning gooey inside.
He stands up abruptly. “I must clean myself,” he says and leaves.
Well fuck.
Chapter Fourteen
Glin
I stand under the water. My cock is hard again and I stroke it but there is no relief. Her scent is everywhere. There is no where I can go and not think of her, smell her, desire her.
I replay events in my mind. I came out to the tub and there she was, naked in the water, her creamy tan breasts bobbing on the surface of the water, her dark hair spread out in the water and her hand rubbing herself. What was she thinking? She knew I would find her. Did she want me to find her?
Alien Warrior's Mate: Alpha Alien Romance (Alpha Aliens of Fremm Book 3) Page 6
