by Sonia Nova
He’d already known that she was the one even before he met her, the second his wristband had flashed white and informed him that his match had been found. Then he’d seen her and smelled her and he’d only had his feelings reinforced.
She was his one and only, and he would hold on to her for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 7
OLIVIA
Olivia woke in a sudden panic. She couldn’t move. She felt trapped, as if her arms and legs had been tied together, and her whole body ached. She flailed a little, her head throbbing, and immediately a pair of strong, masculine hands landed on her shoulders.
“You’re okay,” a deep voice said. It took her a moment to realize it was Kraev. Everything came back to her in a rush and, despite the fact that it should have made her panic more, she relaxed into his touch. “You’re just wrapped in a parachute. You were freezing.”
She pushed the parachute off her, feeling a slight chill but needing to free her arms to stop feeling so claustrophobic. She would wrap herself back up once she’d adjusted.
She took in their surroundings and saw that they were in a small cave. Dripstones decorated the ceiling and a small fire was burning in the middle. The cave wasn’t large by any means, but it wasn’t so compact that they couldn’t move inside it either. She peeked toward the entrance and could tell that night had fallen on the planet. They were easily out of view of any ships that happened to fly past.
“Where are we? What happened?”
She remembered the Suhlik at the teleport base. She remembered taking off in a spaceship, and the crash, but then…
“We crashed in the mountains,” Kraev said, poking a stick into the small fire. It was giving off a surprising amount of heat and Olivia leaned forward. “The impact knocked us both out, but once I woke up, I brought you to this cave. We should be safe here for the night.”
Olivia nodded and the movement made her head spin. She raised her hand to her forehead and shut her eyes for a moment. The throbbing moved to her ears and Kraev’s voice faded out for a second.
“Are you okay?” he asked, clearly noticing her discomfort. He moved closer to her again, resting his hands on her shoulders. Olivia could see the agitated swish of his tail behind him.
“My head hurts,” she said slowly.
She’d already been bashed about by the Suhlik in the base, but she was sure the heavy landing had done her no favors. She might have had a concussion, but it was infinitely harder to diagnose yourself than someone else. Especially a head injury.
“Here.” He pulled a small metallic box toward him and clicked it open. Digging inside, he took out a round pill and handed it to her.
She took it but didn’t immediately pop it into her mouth. The pill looked strange. Not like any medicine she’d ever seen before. It was shiny purple and it seemed like there was some fluorescent liquid swirling inside it.
“What is this?”
“It numbs the pain,” Kraev said. “It’ll help with your head. And your ankle. I don’t know how bad that is now.”
Just the mention of it directed Olivia’s attention away from the throbbing in her head to the throbbing in her ankle. She grimaced.
“Not great. I think I made it worse by running on it,” she admitted, testing the ankle with her hand. “Well, it’s not broken at least. It’ll heal.”
He leaned forward to pass her some water to take the pill with, and that was when she caught sight of the state he was in.
“Stars,” she whispered. His clothes were torn and he was covered in cuts, some of them deep and bleeding. “You’re hurt. Far worse than I am. Why didn’t you say anything?”
She swallowed the pill quickly without the water and then grabbed the box he’d retrieved it from. She hoped it was a first aid kit and she was right.
He shook his head. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I think I hit some rocks when landing, but I heal more quickly than you, anyway. I’m just glad you weren’t seriously hurt in the crash. In a couple of days, these will be practically gone.”
“A couple of days is far too long for you to be walking around with open wounds,” she said, even though she had no idea if it was true. He knew how his body worked better than she did, but she needed to do something and she was good at this. At least she would be helping now, after having been a weight around his neck so far.
“Please, let me help.”
Maybe it was the tone of her voice or the desperate expression on her face, but her plea seemed to work. Kraev silently lifted his tattered tunic over his head, revealing more of the tattoos that splayed across his skin, and muscles that she’d only ever seen in what she assumed were airbrushed photos in women’s magazines.
Olivia blushed at the sight, swallowing thickly. She looked inside the first aid kit to see what she’d have to work with. She had no idea how Mahdfel medicine worked. She was sure that their faster healing and improved technology would mean that their hospitals were kitted out with some impressive things, but the first aid kit looked surprisingly rudimentary.
There were bandages and antiseptic wipes, and a needle and thread, both sealed in sterile packages. There were a couple of packets of rubber gloves and some strange-looking pills of different colors.
She smiled at the contents. This was something she could work with. More so than if there had been some fancy Mahdfel tech. She pulled the antiseptic wipes from the kit and opened one up.
“It’s going to sting,” she warned, even though she was certain he already knew this. Still, it was always better to warn someone, just in case.
Kraev nodded as she placed the wipe on his skin. He didn’t react at all as she brushed the wipes over the dozens of cuts on his chest, arms, and back. He sat impassive, his muscles hot and taut beneath her hands. Even his face was emotionless, as if he was doing his best not to react in any way.
Only a slight twitch of his tail and the glowing tattoos on his skin gave any indication of any kind of reaction, and she wasn’t too sure that could be called a reaction. Although his tail seemed to occasionally react with his emotions, she’d noticed the tattoos glowing before too, but that seemed to be completely random.
No, it was she who was the one doing all the reacting.
Despite her attempts to stay professional and think of him as any other patient, her skin was flushed and her flesh heated under the collar as she swiped over his muscular chest. It was just a physical reaction, she tried to tell herself. A gorgeous, exotic, blue-skinned man who had risked his life for her was there in front of her, shirtless, and she hadn’t had sex in years. That was all. Nothing personal, nothing beyond lust.
She’d get over it when the danger was gone and the bigger picture sank in. She was on this hostile mining planet of all places, galaxies away from her home, her family, and her dreams, expected to spend the rest of her life as a glorified babymaker.
Yeah. All that would sink in soon and it wouldn’t matter at all how hot the guy was. Any moment now, she’d stop thinking about running her fingers over his chest and pushing him back onto the hard ground of the cave. She’d stop thinking…
She shut her eyes on the thought.
Stay professional…
She located the worst of the cuts – the ones that would need stitches – and got to work sewing the gashes back together.
It helped with her indecent thoughts because she had to focus. She desperately didn’t want to hurt him more than she had to, but he didn’t even react to the needle going in and out of his skin. He just watched her with curious turquoise eyes that she had to stop herself meeting, for fear of her hand faltering in its stitching.
“You seem experienced in this.”
The sound of his voice was gruff but neutral. It almost made her jump; she’d been so lost in her thoughts.
“I’m not that experienced,” she admitted, finishing the stitching for one wound and cutting the thread. “I’m– I was in medical school. I wasn’t qualified yet.”
Kraev cocked an eyebrow at her. “You
want to become a doctor?”
“Yeah. That was always my dream.” She sat back a little, putting down her needle and thread and chewing on the inside of her lip.
Did she actually want to tell him this? She fingered the bracelet around her wrist and remembered Kraev’s expression when he’d torn the Suhlik away from her. He’d been full of fury and hatred. He hated the Suhlik as much as she did, she was sure of that.
His brows pulled together. “What is it?”
“I was still young when the Suhlik invaded Earth. I was best friends with the girl who lived next door to me. We were the same age. We used to play games all the time, but our favorite was doctors and nurses. It’s kind of silly, I know, but we were just kids.” She smiled as she remembered the good times, back when there had been no aliens. Her smile slipped when she thought of what had happened next.
“When the Suhlik attacked, they used gas in my neighborhood. I was out of town then, visiting my grandparents. I got lucky…” She paused briefly, the memories still painful so many years later. “Tammy wasn’t as lucky. She was at home just as the attack happened. She breathed in too much of the gas, and I had to watch her waste away and die over the next three days. I was only nine. I shouldn’t have had to see that. It shouldn’t have ever happened. But it did, and that’s why I wanted to become a doctor. For her. For people like her.”
She glanced away from him and played with the bracelet again.
Fingertips brushed softly over her wrist and she swallowed thickly, heat spreading like wildfire over her skin. He slipped his fingers between the bracelet and her arm and peered more closely at it. She wondered if he had any idea what he was doing to her. She wondered why this was doing so much for her.
“This was hers?” he asked and he sounded so close that she didn’t dare to look up at him in case she couldn’t stop herself leaning forward and closing the gap.
“Yeah. She gave it to me before she died. I’ll never take it off again.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Her lip quirked. “Yeah, it is.” It was only a cheap little thing. Tammy had probably bought it at the dollar store. Part of Olivia was surprised it hadn’t fallen apart yet, but it was the most important thing in the world that she owned.
“The Suhlik are vicious,” Kraev said, squeezing her wrist before pulling his hand back. She finally dared to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at her anymore. He stared into the fire.
“My father was the Warlord of his clan,” he said. “He died in a battle against the Suhlik. Proudly. He was a Warlord to the end. He knew it was a possibility that he would lose his life that way because of the path he chose, but it’s the people who don’t choose whose deaths are the most painful. Like your friend. And like mine. Zevyk lost his entire family to a Suhlik attack when he was young.”
Olivia sucked in a breath. “That’s awful.”
It was a story she’d heard a thousand times before on Earth, but it never stopped being any more painful. Somehow, knowing that the Suhlik had the same impact on other planets that they’d had on Earth made everything worse. It wasn’t just one planet and people that the lizards had affected. They’d ruined lives all across the galaxy.
“It is,” he agreed. He turned back to her and looked at her with strong turquoise eyes. “My people would be proud to have you among them to help. You could complete your medical training here.”
She looked up at him sharply. “What?” she asked, so surprised that she made it sound like an accusation rather than the pure shock she was feeling. She hurried to correct herself, “You’d really let me do that?”
Kraev frowned. “If that is what you wish, of course. Medical professionals are always needed and I can already tell you would be great at it.” He gestured to the wound that she’d sewn up.
Olivia stared at him dumbly. “But I thought I was supposed to just sit at home and make babies.”
Kraev burst into laughter, revealing his sharp, fanged teeth. His tail lashed on the ground as he guffawed and the mirth lit up his entire face.
For a second, Olivia was speechless. He really was incredibly gorgeous. She’d wondered whether it would even be possible to find an alien attractive, but she’d definitely answered that question for herself. Despite being blue, horned, and having a tail, Kraev was the most attractive man she’d ever set eyes on.
He grinned at her. “Plenty of mates work if they want to. But I definitely want lots of babies.”
Olivia turned scarlet and tried not to analyze the tugging in her gut telling her to wrap her arms around him and get closer– a lot closer – to him right there on the floor of the cave. She turned away from him, embarrassed at what she had just implied.
And what he had implied…
CHAPTER 8
KRAEV
Kraev was living in torture.
Perfect, glorious torture.
His mate was gorgeous and she was right there, touching his naked chest and looking at him with those big dark eyes. He wanted to roll her onto the floor of the cave and make her truly his right then and there. It took every bit of his willpower to keep himself in check and not just do that.
When she looked away from him, her cheeks turning a captivating pink, the temptation was nearly overwhelming. He’d waited his entire life to find his mate, and she was everything he could have dreamed of and more.
If it weren’t for the Suhlik, they wouldn’t be trapped in a cave in the middle of the mountains with nothing for miles around. They would be wrapped up in bed together and he would be exploring every inch of what he knew would be a beautiful, curvy body beneath her clothes. His tattoos throbbed at the mere idea of it.
“Why do they do that?” Olivia asked, gesturing to his tattoos as they glowed a fluorescent light in the dimness of the cave. She reached out, almost touching his skin before pulling back.
Kraev wouldn’t have minded the touch, but he agreed it was for the best that she didn’t. He didn’t know why he’d expected her to know more about the Mahdfel than she apparently did, but it looked like she knew near to nothing about them or their culture.
“They glow whenever I’m aroused,” he said, resisting the urge to touch her. “Or near you, my mate.”
Her cheeks flushed a deep red at his words, even darker than before. He already loved it when she did that. He’d quickly figured out that it meant she was aroused and maybe a little embarrassed.
He supposed he didn’t know that much about human culture, either. He would have to fix that. He wanted to know more about her kind, but more importantly, he wanted to know more about her and what her life had been like on Earth.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice, reacting to his words with a slight delay.
She ran her hand over the back of her neck, breathing a little heavier.
Watching her made his cock hard in his pants and his tail twitched. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious to her. As much as he wanted her to know how much he desired her, they were currently in the midst of danger.
She moved away from him a little, and he refused to let it sting. She was just concerned for their safety, like he was.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to risk getting distracted. When I claim you, it’ll be when we’re safe, in my home, in my bed.”
Olivia turned redder still. “Yeah. When we’re safe,” she repeated, but he couldn’t place the tone in her voice. “Then things will go back to normal.”
She shifted a little as she sat and her sweet scent wafted into his nose, stronger than before. She was wet between her thighs; he was certain of it. He wanted to bury his face between her legs and taste her, watch her writhe and moan because of him.
“You should get some sleep,” he said, his voice gruff. His tail swished behind him and he was well aware of how much more intensely his tattoos were glowing. She couldn’t look away from them. The more he continued to think about her, the more difficult it was to resist his more primal urges. “We’re going to need to start walking
when the fighting dies down.”
She winced, glancing at her ankle. “I’m not sure how much walking I’m going to be able to manage.”
“We’ll figure something out.”
She smiled, and he didn’t know why, but she lay down beside the fire and pulled the parachute over her like a blanket. “I’m glad you don’t think I’m useless,” she said.
Kraev looked at her like she was crazy. “Of course I don’t think you’re useless.” Even if she hadn’t proven that she could hold her own against the Suhlik, he would have never thought she was useless. She was his mate. She was perfect, and that included being her own woman.
He had no idea where she’d got the impression that he would be locking her in a room and preventing her from living her life. Females were just as important in Mahdfel culture as males, just for different reasons. They weren’t lesser. They weren’t beneath the men.
He hoped he would be able to show her that.
She fell asleep quickly, and he watched the rise and fall of her chest with peace in his heart that he hadn’t felt in years. He could have sat and watched her all night, but like he’d said, he wasn’t going to risk getting distracted by her. He’d already spent too long inside the cave. He needed to make sure that the Suhlik hadn’t realized they had survived the crash. If the Suhlik knew, they could be hunting them down right now.
He brushed fingers over her cheek and whispered, “I’ll make sure you’re safe, leani.”
He went to stand at the entrance of the cave, with his hand on the butt of his gun.
In the sky above the mountains, the battle was still raging fiercely. He could see Mahdfel and Suhlik ships alike, shooting close quarters and long-range missiles that lit up the dark sky.
For the first time since they’d crashed, he allowed himself to wonder what had happened to Zevyk. He hoped his brother was still alive, that he’d managed to fix whatever had happened like he normally did.
Fighting the urge to lay down next to Olivia and hold her close to stave off the danger that surrounded them, Kraev stood guard at the edge of the cave, his body stiff and his back to his mate so that she could sleep peacefully. He never wanted her to have to worry as long as he was there.
