by Kali Argent
“That’s right,” she whispered, stroking her fingertips along the strong curve of his jaw. “Yes. I’m yours, and you’re mine.”
A satisfied rumble vibrated through his chest, and he nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head as he stepped into her small, cramped quarters. There, he settled her gently onto the center of the bed atop a pale blue comforter and made quick work of divesting his uniform, leaving him completely naked to her gaze. His long, thick cock jutted proudly from a nest of carefully groomed curls, the flared head glistening with beads of translucent moisture.
Her mouth watered, and her pussy tightened, slicking with a fresh wave of desire.
Thankfully, there was no gentle build up this time, no tortuously slow tempo to drive her mad. Grabbing her by the hips, Xavian lifted her from the mattress and spun her around, holding her back firmly against his broad chest. Then he nudged her thighs apart with one knee, pressed the head of his cock to her heated entrance, and surged forward, seating himself in one, bone-jarring thrust.
He paused briefly, resting his forehead against the top of her head as he shuddered and groaned. Once he seemed to have his composure, he began an unrelenting pace, pistoning his hips hard and fast as he pounded into her.
Perspiration dampened Xavian’s skin, and his length throbbed painfully within the confines of his mate’s heated core. So tight. So soft. So fucking hot. His head spun, and any semblance of self-control vanished, primal instincts driving him harder and faster, pushing him closer to the edge.
As he teetered precariously on the pinnacle of release, he fisted his hand in Aeryn’s silky hair and tilted her head to the side so he could tease the flesh with his tongue, lips, and teeth. When Aeryn called out his name, her soft body tightening around him, he gripped her tighter, holding onto her like a lifeline.
Gods, she was perfect in every way possible, and he’d do everything in his power to be the type of male who deserved such a gift. With a deep sigh and a shuddering groan, he held his mate close as he pumped through his own climax, filling Aeryn’s depths with his heated release.
Though sated, they remained locked together for a long while, kissing and caressing, neither of them feeling the need to fill the silence with unnecessary words. For the first time in memory, Xavian felt truly content, utterly at peace, and no matter what it took, he was never letting her go.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Vane and Deucalion arrived earlier than expected, which led to an entertaining debate between the lieutenant and Aeryn about who was the better pilot.
Xavian, of course, took his mate’s side, pointing out that Vane had done nothing more than engaged the autopilot, and had likely slept for the entire trip. Since he rather liked his balls still attached to his body, he didn’t point out the Nekros’ superior technology, or the fact that their vessel could fly laps around the Nightshade.
Though Aeryn had been awake for nearly twenty-eight hours, and Xavian couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept, either, they departed Gamma Station within half an hour of the males’ arrival. Aeryn still estimated their travel time to Earth to clock in just under nine days, leaving them plenty of time for rest and preparation.
The Nekros didn’t have weeks or days, not like Earthlings anyway, so Aeryn’s insistence that the auction would take place in two Saturdays meant very little. The situation had become a lot more urgent, however, when she’d explained that left them just eleven days to reach Earth, find a way into the auction, and retrieve the Seal of Solomon.
He’d spent the first four days of the journey in the captain’s quarters with his mate, though he couldn’t say they’d gotten much sleep. Aeryn was beautiful, breathtakingly so, and when he was near her, he couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself. Thankfully, she felt the same way, but their connection went deeper than mere physical attraction.
For hours after everyone else had retired to their quarters, he and Aeryn stayed awake, talking about everything and nothing. She told him how her parents had saved for years to pay for the augmentation procedure, because they wanted better for their daughter. Sadly, they’d only been able to afford Aeryn’s treatment, and as a result, they’d both passed away from preventable causes just a few months apart.
She railed against the establishment, both private sectors and the bureaucracy, criticizing their greed and elitism for the lack of affordability. Xavian tended to agree, but he’d never cared much for politics. Instead, he told her about his own parents, how they’d also died, leaving him orphaned and at the mercy of the system.
“I guess you can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
“I don’t think that’s true at all,” she argued. “Even if you don’t remember your parents, you know they existed. It’s natural to miss them, even if it’s just an idea of them.”
In truth, he did miss them, though he didn’t even know what they’d looked like. He missed the childhood he could have had, missed all the special family moments that had never been. In one simple statement, Aeryn had not only given validation to his feelings, she’d also encouraged them.
It was just one of the many reasons he adored her.
When they slept, he held her tight, his hand resting over her heart. The steady rhythm lulled him, giving him a sense of peace he hadn’t felt in a long time. Until Aeryn had come into his life, he hadn’t realized just how restless he’d become. He’d spent years searching for something he couldn’t name, some way to fill the aching hole inside him. For a while, he’d sought purpose, then after that, merely a distraction. He’d searched at the bottom of every bottle, and in the middle of every fight, but he always walked away even emptier than before.
With Aeryn, he felt whole. Complete. Being with her was like coming home to a place he never wanted to leave. Every part of him wanted to claim her, to bind them together in every way possible, but he couldn’t, not yet. It was a big step, a boundless commitment, and it had to be her decision. No matter what he felt, no matter that his mind was already set, he’d never take that choice from her.
At the midpoint of their journey, they gathered in the observation room—a small, circular room with several windows and a long chrome bench built into the wall. For the duration of their meeting, they’d all pitched in and scoured the ship for extra chairs, and Aeryn had even brought a long, folding table from the cargo bay.
“I’m telling you, this won’t work.” Deucalion made big, animated gestures as he paced near the windows. “I am not a descendant of Dradar Solomon.”
He’d made the same claim every day since they’d left Gamma Station, despite the many arguments to the contrary. Deucalion had been abandoned as an infant and left in a medical center just days after his birth, all because of the unusual color of his eyes—or so it had been speculated. Unlike many others who’d suffered the same fate, his story had a happy ending. A female healer on his homeworld, along with her mate, had taken him in and loved him as their own.
No one knew who his birth parents had been, or anything about his bloodline. It hadn’t been until his teens that he’d even learned he’d been adopted, and by then, it hadn’t mattered. The people who had brought him into the world hadn’t wanted him, and so, Deucalion had saw no reason to go in search of them.
“You really can’t say for sure, though, can you?” Sitting at the makeshift conference table, Aeryn held her hands out to the sides, palms up. “Either way, to be perfectly blunt, it doesn’t really matter if you’re the Legacy or not. You fit the description, and that’ll be enough to get us in the door. So, what’s the problem?”
“I’m not a coward, if that’s what you’re implying.” Coming to a stop in front of the largest window, Deucalion folded his arms across his chest and glared.
Aeryn blinked innocently. “When did I imply that?”
It had been subtle, and even Xavian had almost missed it, but playing her words back over in his mind, he realized the exact moment she’d called his courage into question. His mate was sneaky and damn smart. Nothin
g seemed to propel people—male or female—into action more than suggesting they might be too afraid to get the job done.
“Okay,” Vane interjected, drawing everyone’s attention, “say you’re right. Let’s say that’s enough to get you into this auction. What happens if he’s not actually the Legacy?”
Xavian bobbed his head, easily following Vane’s logic. “Asa is gathering as many possible descendants as he can, because like us, he doesn’t actually know who the Legacy is. I think it’s safe to assume there will be some kind of test once they’re all inside the church.”
“My brother is an asshole, but he’s not stupid.” Leaning back in his seat, Cypher propped his booted feet up on the table and laced his fingers together behind his head. “He’ll have security. Probably Morphs.”
Aeryn shook her head, and her nose crinkled in the way it did when she was thinking. “He’s not just going to kill that many people. It would draw too much attention.”
“No, I don’t think he’ll kill them.” If Asa still had control over the Morphlings, he wouldn’t need to resort to violence. The alternative, however, didn’t sit well with Xavian, either. “It’s more likely that he’ll use the Morphs to alter their memories. Crimnians and their captors alike won’t remember how they got to Earth or why.”
Vane shuddered, and his expression clouded. “I don’t wish that on anyone.”
“I think the mind fuck will come before the test.” Seated on the bench beneath the windows, Katana used a dagger to clean her fingernails. She didn’t look at anyone, and she didn’t expand on her theory.
Conversations with the female often left Xavian frustrated. She rarely spoke, but when she did, it was in short clips without any context or explanation. Trying to get anything more from her was like trying to rope a comet, and he didn’t doubt this time would be any different.
“Why do you say that?” Aeryn asked, her tone calm and unflappable. Then again, she had much more practice than the rest of them when it came to communicating with the Jurdanian.
“The Legacy controls the relic. The relic controls the Morphlings.” Katana glanced up and huffed as if she found them exasperating. “Who controls the Legacy?”
She crisscrossed her legs on the bench and returned to the maintenance of her fingernails while her tufted tail flicked in lazy circles where it dangled off the seat. Clearly, she’d said all she was going to, but at least this time, her insights had been useful.
“It won’t work on me.” Aeryn tapped her right temple with two fingers. “The nanocytes prevent it. Besides the obvious reasons of longer life, it was one of the main reasons the technology was created—to protect humans from influence. It’s kind of like having a firewall in my brain.”
It was good to know, and it alleviated a measure of Xavian’s worry, but it only solved part of their problem. “That still leaves you alone in a room full of Morphlings and a lot of people under their manipulation.”
“I just need to get close.”
Xavian scowled, but Cypher began to laugh. “She can do it. She’ll get the ring.”
“What makes you so confident?” Xavian wouldn’t risk his mate’s life on a hunch.
Aeryn rose from her chair and sidled up to him, rubbing herself against his chest with a soft purr. “Do you know what I did before I started running cargo?”
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Words formed in his brain, but he couldn’t seem to speak them.
“I was a pickpocket.” She stepped back and smiled as she held up the commlink he’d tucked into the pocket of his leathers before the meeting. “And a damn good one, too.”
“That’s nice.” Vane rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Since Asa isn’t your mate and constantly thinking about getting you naked, I’m not so sure that little trick is going to work, cupcake.”
The thought of Aeryn pressed up against that Atrean douchebag, her pouty lips just a breath from his, made Xavian see red. Before he could comment on her tactics, however, Aeryn laughed and held Vane’s dagger out to him.
“You were saying?”
The male gaped for a full three seconds before finally accepting the blade. “Okay, yeah, she can do it.”
“I get the ring, I control the Morphs, right?”
In theory, but their plan still had a lot of holes and plenty of ways everything could go wrong. “We could just blow the place up and be done with it.”
“And kill many innocent people in the process,” Deucalion reminded him. “I don’t like it any more than you, but I believe this is our best plan.”
“We don’t need them to get the relic,” Vane interjected. “We just need them to distract Asa long enough for us to take out security and get inside.”
“How long do you need?” Aeryn’s nose had crinkled again, and she stared vacantly at some point on the far wall.
“Ten minutes, give or take.”
“Would a good old-fashioned bar fight work?” One side of her mouth curved in a crooked smile. “It really doesn’t take much to set these guys off.”
Cypher snorted as he dropped his feet to the floor and sat up straighter in his chair. “That would do it.”
Xavian still didn’t like the idea of purposely putting his mate in danger, but the strategy offered the greatest chance for success while posing the least amount of risk to Aeryn and Deucalion. Her idea to pit the smugglers and dealers against each other not only provided a distraction, it eliminated additional resistance.
It was smart, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t spend the next six days trying to think of any plan that removed his mate from the equation and kept her safely on the Nightshade.
* * * *
They arrived in Earth-controlled space on the ninth day of their trek, just as Aeryn had promised. Unfortunately, she hadn’t factored in the tightened security or the added traffic because of the Celebration. It had taken an additional day before they’d been granted clearance to land, then three more hours once they’d touched down before they could disembark.
By the time they stepped out of the docking bay, everyone was feeling the pressure of the ticking clock. Still, the sound of jazz in the distance, the smell of crawfish and pralines on the breeze, and the warmth of the afternoon sun against her skin filled her with joy. Aeryn loved coming home, loved seeing her city alive with color and bustling with activity. She’d traveled to the distant corners of the universe and back, yet she’d never found anywhere the compared to the vibrancy of New Orleans.
When she turned to her mate to ask him what he thought of the city, her breath caught in her throat. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, his long hair fanned out behind him, he closed his eyes and turned his face up to the sun. In that moment, he wasn’t a warrior or a solider. He wasn’t on a mission to bring down a greedy, power-hungry Atrean.
Xavian was simply…hers.
The innocence of his smile, the pure bliss in his expression that melted away the worry lines he’d carried since she’d met him—she felt like she was seeing him, truly seeing him, for the first time. Happiness and longing filled her, warmth radiating out to her extremities, and she wished they could stay that way forever, basking in the sun, unworried what troubles the next day would bring.
“Hey, Xee—oomph!”
Vane doubled over when she elbowed him in the ribs, but the damage had already been done. Turning, Xavian blinked several times, his eyes adjusting to the brightness, and by the time he’d reached them, he’d already settled back into his role of a dutiful soldier and protective mate.
Silently, Aeryn promised herself the future would hold many more moments like the one she’d just witness, moments where Xavian could let his guard down and be himself. She’d make sure of it.
“I miss the sun,” he told her, bending to press his lips against her forehead.
Since she spent months at a time aboard the Nightshade, she could sympathize, but at least she didn’t have to contend with frost bite and hypothermia on her ship.
“Where i
s this church?”
Vane had made it clear that he wanted to complete the mission and return to his mate on Nekron. Aeryn didn’t fault him for it, but his impatience grated on her nerves.
“Aren’t you supposed to be looking for some rock with pretty writing on it?”
The male arched an eyebrow at her. “Cato still hasn’t found anything that will help us locate the Tablet. Right now, this is priority number one.”
“Then, you would think Commander Schiva would have sent his best soldiers.” She offered the lieutenant a bright, charming smile while Xavian doubled over in laughter beside her.
“She’s talking about you, too, jackass.”
“No,” Xavian answered through his chuckles. “I was already here. She was referring to our backup.”
Really, she’d just been trying to get under Vane’s skin, and hadn’t been thinking about Xavian at all. If that was the way he wanted to spin it, however, she’d take it.
“Come on.” Without waiting to see if they’d follow, she started walking, following the river to St. Peter Street and hanging a left. “I really think I should have done this alone.”
It had been unanimously decided that Cypher would remain on the Nightshade, because he’d be the most recognizable. Deucalion stayed behind as well since he basically had a bounty on his head. Katana, well, it was probably best that they didn’t draw too much attention to themselves, and the female had a tendency to do just that with her combative personality and her overwhelming dislike of people in general.
“We’re just going to scout out the perimeter around the church,” Xavian reminded her.
“Yes, but what if Asa recognizes you?”
“Nikka, I find it highly unlikely that he’s going to be sitting around in broad daylight outside of the cathedral.”
“Besides, you heard Cypher,” Vane added. “Even if Asa sees us, he’s too cocky to be overly worried about it. In fact, I have a feeling he’s expecting us.”
