CAT SHIFTERS OF AAIDAR: ENDINGS

by Laney Kaye

  Damn, I was glad she’d explained the realities of the situation to me beforehand or, like the surrounding guards, I’d be lapping this up and believing every word she said. Clearly, she’d read her father and quickly recalibrated our plan, realizing it was best to pretend to Smithton that she loathed the Dragarians, or at least considered them a lesser race, as he did.

  So now I was her unwanted-baggage elf husband. Awesome.

  “Pair blade?” Smithton snarled.

  She nodded. “The Dragarian bond, Father. The Resistance knew that, because I’d submitted and we were bonded, if Tracin died I would also have to die. Then they’d not be able to use me to manipulate you. That way, they had no choice but to keep both of us alive, and I needed only bide my time until we could escape. I hoped—and was right to believe—that the Dragarian, being of a primitive, nomadic race, would have enough knowledge of surviving on his wits to get us back here.”

  “Wits, huh?” Smithton sneered. “Seems witless to me.”

  Evidently, he believed memory loss equated to stupidity. One of the guards turned a snigger into a cough. The military precision of their ranks had already fallen into shoddy disarray, and I cast covert glances around the compound, observing what I could without being noticed. The guards were sloppily dressed, the reek of munga and benna far stronger than it should’ve been, considering this was the morning shift. With only five sentries standing on either side of the entrance, it was evident that the numbers remaining here were severely limited. As Khal had reported, it seemed the bulk of the forces had been deployed to attack the Resistance HQ, under Tennant’s command.

  Smithton took an abrupt step toward me, and I steeled myself for an attack, then instantly realized that would never happen; Smithton was the ultimate coward. But he was a hell of a big talker. He looked me up and down, like I was prime pillion, but spoke to his daughter. “Still, now that you’re back, Ara, we can deal with this ridiculous bond.”

  Aren flipped her cloak open, revealing her blade, and nodded at me to do the same. With a wary eye on the guards in case, despite their apparent stupor, they interpreted my movements as a threat, I complied as she continued to speak. “No, Father. You know of the Dragarian bonds. We cannot be separated, or the bond will break. Then we will both die. Before you have the information you need.”

  Smithton’s greedy gaze fixed onto the hilt of my blade, and he drummed his fingertips on his non-existent chin, considering his options. Clearly, saving his daughter’s life didn’t rate as an immediate priority.

  Aren read his uncertainty and pushed her advantage. Or leapt into self-preservation mode, I guess. “We need to feed and care for the Dragarian, so he regains his memory as quickly as possible. Then he can supply the information you need, and you’ll find a way to free me of him, won’t you, Father?”

  Even though she was rejecting Tracin, not me, her words and beseeching tone did little for my ego.

  She stepped away, as though she wanted to put distance between us. “I believe General Tennant mentioned he’d served on Dragar, perhaps he’ll have a solution to breaking the bond? Is he still stationed here? Oh, please tell me he’s not been redeployed? It is so long since I’ve seen him.”

  Her talk of the bond stirred unease in me. If Smithton had a Dragarian wife, yet he so easily accepted Aren’s story of the impossibility of separating blade-bonded pairs without causing death, was there some credibility to her tale? I’d assumed it nothing more than legend—and surely the fact that she’d survived Tracin meant it had to be so?

  Yet Smithton wasn’t questioning her assertions.

  “Tennant?” Smithton scowled, and swiveled toward the guards. “Stand down,” he barked. “Back to your posts.”

  “You don’t want us to disarm them, sir?”

  “If I wanted you too, wouldn’t I have ordered it?” Smithton snarled.

  Despite the guards’ retreat, Smithton switched to Harangan as he turned back to Aren. Evidently, the man wasn’t a complete fool, and figured to catch her out. “You fucked this animal to create the bond?”

  Okay, so our plan had been way off base on this point. We’d hoped Smithton would greet Aren and I with open arms, or at least pretend civility, but it didn’t seem he intended to warm up to me anytime soon.

  Still, it’d be best for us if he didn’t discover I was versed in many tongues. I affected a blank, bored stare.

  “I had to, Father,” Aren whined piteously. “There was no other way.”

  “Well, I’m positive Tennant will not care for sloppy seconds. Particularly not after that.” Smithton jerked his chin toward me as though pointing would sully his finger. “But only the Resistance know of your bond?”

  “And your soldiers.” Aren’s teeth dug into her lower lip, and I realized her father had her unnerved. She didn’t trust him, even though she’d brought him a sacrifice.

  He flicked a dismissive hand. “They’re easily taken care of. Come.” Walking ahead of us, he strode through the compound. “You will stay with this creature for now, until I’ve extracted the information I require. But the moment Tennant re-enters the compound, you go nowhere near this thing. I’m sure your…blades…can survive for a little while. There’s no reason for Tennant to even know of his existence. In fact, it will serve me better to keep that information to myself.”

  He glanced back at Aren with a sly smile. “And Tennant must believe you are unspoiled goods. You understand, Ara? In fact, I know of a woman who has a trick…” A leer of filthy remembrance crossed his face. “A bag of pillion blood, a couple of stitches, and you’ll scream like a virgin for Tennant. He’ll never know the difference.” He chuckled, his mood changing instantly from morose to gleeful. “Even if he did suspect, a fake virgin is damn near as exciting as a real one. Maybe better, in some ways.” He cast a lascivious glance up and down Aren’s robe-swathed form. “Not that you look like much, but maybe this animal has taught you a few tricks. Indeed, perhaps you’d best tell me all about it. We don’t want Tennant questioning any…perversions…you may have picked up.”

  Aren stumbled, and I caught her arm, my other hand snaking to my blade. Holy fuck, there was no way I could listen to this filth any longer.

  Aren spoke quickly. “After I’d done the necessary deed with the Dragarian, the blade glowed. I had no need to repeat the act. In fact, Dragarians have so little…down there…I think I may still be a virgin. A Dragarian certainly cannot satisfy a Median woman.”

  At any other time, I’d offer to prove the lie, at least to her, but right now, pent-up rage made my eyeballs ache. She’d had to play this game with her father her entire life, lying so he’d hear what he wanted, she’d be what he wanted. It took every ounce of my self-control to not blow the mission and top Smithton before another vile word leaked from his foul mouth.

  “Your satisfaction is not of any importance.” Smithton gestured at the complex that housed his quarters, and then pushed into the guarded foyer ahead of us. He lowered his voice as we waited for the elevator. “You’ll have the operation, in any case. I must make certain Tennant is well pleased, and the tighter the better. This war could still go either way, and I need him in my corner.”

  My ears pricked up at his leak. Either way? So, the Regime forces massed outside the Resistance stronghold were uncertain what they faced. Perhaps their Intel had failed to provide a true idea of Resistance numbers, hidden, as they were, in the anthill-like cave system. Hopefully, that doubt might buy us a little more time before they launched a full-scale attack. In fact, if Lyrie’s diversion at the front gate had been spectacular enough, perhaps the Regime would be forced to reconsider attacking the stronghold at all, maybe they’d lose their appetite for battle.

  Regardless of Tennant’s strategy, we still needed to get that communicator to Leo. Though the Regime had failed in their attempts to obtain umbilical cord blood, or steal Lyrie’s unborn shifter baby, it seemed that, before they killed him, they had managed to extract bone marrow from Spike. That marro
w contained DNA. Gods only knew how far the Regime had progressed with their plan to engineer a shifter army.

  Whether the Resistance won the battle or not, we needed to alert the Aaidarian government of the breach of the Galaxy Living and Welfare Agreements Treaty, regarding the manipulation and misuse of shifter genetics.

  We stepped into the elevator, and I dropped into a half-crouch, ready to spring at the stranger who stood there. It took only a second to comprehend what my eyes hadn’t instantly registered; the elevator was mirrored on every surface. And I was the stranger.

  It was damn hard to keep my gaze off myself, but studying my tall, pale, elf form would sure as hells be a giveaway, so I stared forward, deliberately stoic.

  “You’ll stay in the west wing. Your old rooms,” Smithton announced. “Take this with you.” ‘This’ was me. “I don’t want rumors of your cohabitation leaking into the compound.”

  “Yes, Father,” Aren said meekly, her hands clasped before her and eyes downcast.

  “I’ll see you at dinner. Please make certain you present appropriately.” Smithton’s eyes flicked to me. “The Dragarian can eat in your quarters.”

  “No,” Aren sounded hesitant, but I recognized the steel underlying her tone. “Our blades must remain near one another.”

  “Then bring his with you.”

  “He will die if I remove it from him. As will I. Then neither of us are of any use to you. Besides, I would imagine you’d like the opportunity to discover if he does recall anything of importance?”

  Hells, she certainly made the deal clear enough. Not that I was keen on the idea of being probed over dinner, but at least I only had to pretend to know nothing, while intimating that whatever the hells it was Smithton wanted to know might come back to me at any moment.

  Smithton snorted. “It’s a long time since I’ve been forced to dine with animals.” He switched to Glian, the common tongue in this system, and slid an ingratiating smile onto his face. “I look forward to seeing you at dinner, Elder Tracin. Thank you for returning my daughter to my care.”

  Sly bastard. “At eating time, I shall have pleasure of your face.” Yeah, of punching it, if I had my way.

  Aren thrust open a large, sirdar-reinforced door and stood aside. I entered, quickly scanning our opulent surrounds. A lounge room decorated in soft pastels and lush fabrics, so different from what Aren had lived with for the last two years. She followed and shoved the door shut. Her ear pressed to the panel, she held a cautionary finger to her lips.

  I tapped my ear. “He’s gone. I can hear him walking away.”

  She slumped against the door, all the tension and fight draining from her stance in a rush.

  I crossed quickly to her, pushing her back against the door, my hands on her hips. “It’s okay,” I murmured. “You did good. It went well, and we have a bit of breathing space, now.” Not much, though. We needed to locate the device Leo had described, and find a way to get out of the compound before our cover was blown.

  She leaned her forehead against my chest in an attitude of submission and trust that made my heart lurch. “I thought we’d had it a couple of times, there. Thank the gods for the blades.” Her hand moved to the hilt at my waist, then she startled upright, forcing me away as a gasp escaped her lips.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I noticed.”

  She drew my blade from the sheath. It gleamed a dull blue. Dull. “It’s fading,” she whispered.

  “Yup. Guess we’re going to have to work quick to pull this off.”

  “We can’t rush it. We have to lull Smithton, so that we’re free to search for the device and get out.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead, as though she could force a new plan. Her gaze flickered up to mine, then away again, suddenly almost shy.

  I frowned. “What is it?”

  “The reason the blade has faded…”

  “Is?”

  “I was right.” She flashed a nervous grin.

  “What— oh.” Realization of what she meant hit me like a straight double cava. Excellent. “You mean, this is your version of I-told-you-so?” Hells, if this was the way it went, she was welcome to nag for the rest of our lives.

  She raised an eyebrow, her gaze hooded as she thrust her cloak back from her shoulders, adopting a businesslike manner. “Uh-huh. The pair blade bond requires your orgasm.”

  “Well, hells, babe. I’m only a man. I’m sure not going to argue that idea. Except, you know we can’t—” I broke off, suddenly reluctant to remind Aren that she should avoid making the request that would lead to the final, irrevocable bond.

  What the hells was I thinking? Of course I’d warn her. My jaw twitched, the gills rattling as I ground out the words. “Aren. Our bond.”

  “Isn’t strong enough to keep the blade alight. I know.” As usual, she was terse and direct. Gods, I loved that about her.

  I shook my head. “No. The Felidaekin bond. The third bond must be initiated within seventy-two hours.” Avoided for seventy-two hours. That’s what I’d meant to say.

  “And if we don’t do it in that time frame?”

  I shrugged. “We get off free, I believe.” Why didn’t that hold the appeal it should?

  She frowned. “But if we wanted to maintain the bond?”

  “You want to?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  Yeah, inscrutable as always. I needed to know what she meant, rather than what she said. Not that I understood what was going on in my own head. “If we wanted to keep the bond, we either have sex within the next few hours—which really isn’t feasible—or I believe we can restart. You know, the whole touch-kiss thing again.”

  “That wasn’t exactly unpleasant.” A tiny smile darted across her lips. “But if we’re bonded and something happens to one of us, the other pines away, right?”

  “Something like that.” I guess her experience with Tracin made her doubly wary. She’d clearly loved him, despite her denials, and mourned for him even now.

  “And if the third bond is never initiated, you won’t suffer any side effects from the first two bonds?”

  “Don’t think so.” Beetric shit. The thought already caused a hollow ache in my chest.

  Aren sighed, but then she tilted her chin up. “Guess we should make the best of what we’re allowed, then, right? The blades need your orgasm, so…” The color high in her cheeks and her pupils dilated, she pressed against me. Though she was tall, still I had to bend so she could find my lips. But, damn, find them she did.

  She crushed hers against mine, her tongue flickering urgently, insistently, until I allowed her entry. Her hands wound into my hair, tugging me closer, and I yanked her hips hard against me, relishing the soft apex of her thighs grinding against my erection.

  She broke free, gasping for breath. “What I said yesterday, Jag. It’s true. If we could, I’d fuck you as you, before—” she broke off with a shake of her head. “But you’re right, we can’t risk creating the final bond.”

  “Hang on—” I wasn’t at all sure I’d said that. Or even thought it, now.

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  She bit at her lip for a moment, then continued. “Make me believe that, if we had a choice, you’d want me.”

  I took a step back. “Aren, I do want you. So fucking bad I can’t make sense of it in my brain. But I’ll never take you like this.” I waved a hand down my front. Down Tracin’s front. “If I was gonna make you mine, you’d be mine, do you understand?”

  And hells, the incredible truth, suddenly slamming me up the side of my head as this gorgeous, wild, unknowable woman stood before me, was that I’d never wanted anything more in my life.

  Sure, I was a Jag.

  Jaguarkin didn’t bond.

  But apparently that didn’t mean they couldn’t fall in love.

  Fuck. How could I tell Aren that I wasn’t what she expected, what she wanted, what she’d bargained for? That no way in hells would I willingly walk away from her once our
mission was through?

  We had an agreement. I had to honor it.

  Except, she said that if we had more time—

  Aren’s strong fingers closed around my cock. “This, though,” she squeezed my shaft. “You said this is all you?”

  I nodded. “Then I want this, Jag. Now. The blade needs your orgasm, and I do, too.” She fumbled with the closing on my pants, clearly inexperienced with the reverse buttoning.

  I eased her fingers aside and undid them myself. She dropped to her haunches and yanked my trousers over my hips, gasping as my dick sprang free, smacking into her chin in a totally ungentlemanly fashion. “Oh gods, I thought I’d imagined your size.”

  “Thought you didn’t have anything to compare me to?” I was instantly possessive, jealous.

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen plenty. Just…not like this.” She ran her finger along the side of my straining cock. It twitched in instant response and she grinned, then stroked the other side with a tentative forefinger. “Jag?”

  “Yeah, babe?” My words were strained as I held my breath in an attempt to maintain control.

  “You have to tell me if I’m doing this right. I’ve never…”

  Oh, fuck me. She’d never even jerked a guy off. And she was doing it for me? Well, for the pair-blade bond, but still, I’d take it. “Oh, you’re doing just fine, Aren.”

  She nodded earnestly, and closed her hand as far as she could around my shaft.

  “Yeah, that’s it, babe.” I wrapped my hand around hers and helped her find the right rhythm.

  She flicked her thumb through the pre-cum glistening on my tip and looked up at me through her long lashes. “Do you like that?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And this?” She extended the tip of her tongue and licked her wet thumb.

  “Oh fuck, yes,” I groaned.

  A flash of triumph crossed her face. “So then, this is also okay?” Bobbing her head forward, she slashed her tongue across the head of my cock.

  “Hells, no!” I placed my palms on her shoulders, holding her back. “No, babe, you’re not ready for that. In any case, I need to wash some of that damn desert off.”