by Delia Roan
His chest tightened when she undid the ribbon on her dress and let it fall to the floor. The dress was a shapeless sack patterned in orange, but it made her look like the sun. When the dress slipped off her shoulders and down her body, she became the moon, emerging at sunset. To be honest, Syrek hadn’t seen many sunsets, but he was fairly sure Mara put all of them, across every planet in every system, to shame.
She stood before him, nearly naked, soft and curvy, and absolutely delicious. Her fingers trailed down her side, and she half wrapped an arm around herself. When he noticed her shoulders hunch, he spoke aloud what was in his mind.
“You are beautiful.”
And he intended to prove it to her.
Extending his hand to her, he pulled her onto the bed, and rolled, so he lay above her and his sex pressed into her. Her eyes widened, and she gasped. The captivating expression on her face awoke something primal inside him, and he felt that call again.
Mine.
As much as he fought his attraction to Mara, he couldn’t deny it. Everything about her was sensual and rich, and when he tasted her mouth, he wanted more. He kissed her neck, and her breasts, and marveled at the way her nipples stiffened under his caresses.
His brain urged him to stay in control. To not lose himself in Mara. He knew he wandered along a very dangerous path. One false move, and he would fall. Fall into her. Fall into love. Fall into darkness.
He had to keep control of this situation, for his own sanity. For his own good. She had bewitched him, and when he was this distracted, he could only make mistakes.
And mistakes could at times be fatal.
His hands skimmed her skin as he nuzzled her breasts. When he nipped, she hissed, but in pleasure. It made his rod twitch, and it strained against his pants.
If this is a fatal mistake, then let me die happy.
She arched her back, moaned, and her legs parted as his tongue worked his way down her belly. Over the years, he’d had enough erotic encounters with alien species to know what that meant. Syrek kept going.
Beneath his hands, her ass was pliant and she gasped when he squeezed. Her hand brushed his shoulder and cupped his cheek. Her nails scraped his skin, and he paused long enough to kiss her finger tips before burrowing his face into her curls.
As expected, her vocalizations grew louder. Sex was sex, no matter the species, but unlike any other coupling he had participated in, this one mattered. He wanted Mara to have a good time. He didn’t want to linger, not when the urgency of his need threatened to wipe out any semblance of control. Yet he knew that if he rushed this, he would regret it later.
Her thigh trembled beside his head. “Oh, yes,” she crooned. “Just like that.”
He kept going, exploring with his tongue, his lips, and his fingers. To his delight, she responded, grinding into him, guiding him. He had waited so long to touch her, and taste her, and now that he had her, he couldn’t seem to get enough. If he kept fighting the pressure building inside his body, he might explode.
“Oh, yes! Syrek!” When she gasped out his name in ecstasy, he saw stars for a moment. His head spun, and he placed his hand against the bed to steady himself.
Then his hunger pressed in.
“Feet,” he ordered. “Here.”
She raised her legs, and hooked her heels on his shoulders. He grabbed her hips and hitched her higher, then leaned forward. For a moment, he paused, knowing, somehow, that once he continued, there would be no going back. Something in this moment was clamoring for his attention, but when Mara sank her teeth into her bottom lip, he didn’t care.
He drove himself into her, making her shout his name. She wrapped around him, warm, wet, and wonderful. So tight, and so smooth, but every slight movement he made sent waves of sensation washing over him. It was almost too much, but he wanted to ride those waves to the ends of the universe and back.
Somewhere in his mind were a million words he wanted to speak to her. Words that he would only ever be able to say when he was this vulnerable. He couldn’t bear to let them escape, because if he did, they would bring with them a torrent of emotion for which he was simply not ready. He would rather drown them than ruin this delicate…
Whatever it was, he knew it was fragile.
With every thrust, he felt himself unraveling, giving in to the magic she wove around him, making forget everything else that existed beyond the confines of his bed. With every stroke, he was unmade and then reborn.
His climax approached, and the world narrowed down to the sensations washing over him, and the bliss on Mara’s face. Her mouth parted, and she gasped as he pushed inside her. Her feet locked behind his neck, and he was pulled closer to her.
“Open your eyes,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
She obeyed, giving him a view of the sultry heat in her brown eyes. Not just desire burned there. Something else did too. Something deeper. Something he never thought he would ever see in a woman’s eyes.
“Syrek,” she breathed. “My love.”
It was too much.
Inside his chest, his heart spasmed. It locked, and for a moment, the dizziness threatened to overwhelm him. Yet he felt no fear. Just a huge sense of calm and belonging.
I am hers.
How had she done this to him? Wound him up into her soul, until he couldn’t bear the thought of being apart from her? His heart resumed beating, and he came, the orgasm tearing through his body, leaving him shaky and weak.
Beneath him, Mara cried out, her hand dug into his shoulder, and he felt a glow of contentment that he had managed to carry her along with him. His arms gave way, and he rolled to the side so not to crush her. She nuzzled into him, and her contented sigh fanned out across his chest.
“That was nice,” she murmured. “Thank you.”
He would have laughed at that if he hadn’t been so exhausted. “My pleasure.”
She giggled. “Mine, too.” She burrowed deeper into his arm, and her body relaxed. “Mine, too.”
As he plummeted down toward sleep, realization clapped down on him. Beneath Mara’s breath, deep down in his chest, under his ribs, he felt an unfamiliar sensation. The rush of his blood sped up. His heart clenched and released, clenched and released, in a brand-new rhythm that… echoed.
His dormant second heart beat for the first time.
She’s mine.
She’s my Avowed.
She’s mine, because she’s my Avowed.
She was the other part of his soul. The very reason his second heart beat in his chest. For the rest of his life, he and the feisty human cradled in his arms were linked together. Through their partnership, he would grow stronger and more resilient.
Fear gripped his belly.
And I am hers.
The bonding of Avowal also brought weakness. If her heart stopped, so too would his. Their lives were bound together by unseen threads, and for the rest of his life, his mate would be both his glory and his downfall.
One day, she would choose to leave Haven. She would return to her planet, and she would take a chunk of his heart with her. The part of his heart he needed most. For the rest of his life, he would exist in two places at once. He would never be whole again, unless he was making love to her, and even then, it would be a fleeting togetherness that would vanish once she left his bed.
In a few moments of passion, she had chained him to her. Made him a prisoner on his own body, and a slave to his own heart.
I understand now why Father treated Mother in that manner.
As hard as he fought, he could not keep the exhaustion at bay, and as his eyes slipped closed, he knew he needed this fragile human to remain by his side, forever.
Because the truth was, he would always be hers, but she could never be his in all the ways he needed her to be.
Unless he forced her to stay.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARA
A sound like ocean waves on pebbles woke Mara. She tried to p
lace the rustling in the darkness before realizing it came from Syrek, lying beside her. Mara sat up and her movement triggered the dim nighttime lights.
As they flickered on, she gasped. Syrek sprawled across the bed, his head tucked under his pillow, and his arms stretched out. The sheet barely covered his hips, revealing the eerie sight of his skin flickering. It moved, as if disturbed by a breeze. Mara leaned forward and studied the motion. It didn’t seem to bother Syrek. He slept soundly.
Her brow creased. She leaned in, placing her hand beside the skin of his torso for contrast in the low light. His skin was no longer mottled in shades of gray, but swirled with pale coral and reddish splotches. Stripes of cobalt zig-zagged across his chest. Not only that, but intricate scales covered his torso. As she watched, they lifted and settled back down, and she saw they were the source of his rippling skin.
Is that why he was so sick? He was… changing?
She placed a hand on his shoulder, and he was cooler to the touch now. She shook him. “Syrek?”
With a groan, he rolled over.
She shook him again, and spoke a little louder. “Syrek, wake up.”
“What is it?” he said, rolling to a sitting position. “Are we under attack?”
Mara clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming and stepped away from the bed. Horns curved upward from his forehead. Short ridges lined his face and shoulders, and the swirls of color extended up his neck and to the skin of his face.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Syrek glanced down at his hand, and turned it this way and that, studying the sharp claws and the way the scales overlapped his knuckles. “Ah.”
His casual reaction calmed her. “Ah. So this is… normal? For you? For your kind?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and to her relief, they remained as they were before. “Normal enough.” A hard edge lined his words.
Did I offend him?
“I’m sorry if I said anything… stupid. I’m still getting used to, you know, this whole alien thing.”
“You have not said anything stupid.”
He stood, and Mara took another step back. She craned her neck to take in his new height. “Okay, this is getting weird now. Please explain what’s going on.”
Instead of speaking, Syrek strode toward her, his eyes fixed on her face. The fear she had felt during their first encounter returned. He looked dangerous, ruthless, and utterly uninterested in her as a person.
He grabbed her by the wrist, hard enough to bruise, and Mara shrieked as he yanked her closer. “You are mine,” he said, his voice low. “Mine, do you understand?”
She shook her head, confused by this sudden change in his demeanor.
“You will not leave my side,” he hissed. The fine scales on his shoulders that she had admired a moment ago rose and fell. “For the rest of your days, you will be beside me, my Avowed. You will never abandon me. Say it.”
“I-I…”
“Say it!”
The grip of his fingers on her wrist became painful, as her bones grated against each other. The muscles in her legs strained as she tried to bolt, but he held her with unnatural strength. “Let go!” she cried. “Let go, dammit!”
When he didn’t obey immediately, she darted forward and sank her teeth into his knuckles. He grunted, and his fingers loosened. It was enough. Mara stepped back and drove the heel of her palm upward into his nose. His head snapped back, and Mara twisted her hand out of his grasp.
She danced back, keeping her gaze locked on him. “What the hell are you doing?”
He brought his hand away from his nose, and a trail of blood wound its way down his lip and across his chin. “Good strike,” he said. “Effective follow-through.”
She raised her fists. “Try it again, and I’ll deck you again.”
“Fair enough.” He dabbed his nose with a thumb, and stared at the smear of darkness against his skin. “I believe I deserved that.”
Her body relaxed slightly, but she kept her guard up. “Yeah, you did. What’s going on, Syrek?”
“I am sorry. My body is… different now. Stronger. Faster. I did not realize the full extent of my new strength.” He kept his head down. “I am truly sorry if I hurt you.”
Her shoulders dropped. “You scared me.”
He hunched away from her, turning toward the habitat wall. “That I also apologize for.”
The line of his back, marred with stripes of scars, touched her. “Syrek, I know you didn’t mean to scare me. I-”
“You should go,” he said.
“What?”
“You should leave now,” he said. He sniffed, wiped his nose, and straightened. Despite his nudity, he wore a mantle of power. The words came out an order, and Mara found herself even more confused than she had been when she woke.
“Syrek, I get that you feel guilty about grabbing me, but-”
He spun around, and the coldness in his eye stung her. “You are no longer welcome here. In my rooms. In my bed. Or in my life.”
“Syrek?”
“You are dismissed,” he said. He wiped his face with the towel on the back of his chair, and then climbed back into bed, offering her his back.
Mara shuffled her feet, her hands fluttered to her chest, and, when she realized she was naked, she covered herself with her hands. Yet Syrek didn’t roll over. His breathing slowed, and deepened.
Her dress lay on the floor where she had abandoned it, and she pulled it on. She found the ribbon for her waist, but the second one, the one from her hair, couldn’t be found with a cursory glance. She turned and stumbled to the exit, throwing glances over her shoulder.
Pausing at the door, she debating speaking, then chose to remain silent. What would I say? The lock shut with a click behind her, and the air of the corridor outside Syrek’s room seemed cooler than the heat within. What could I say?
She wrapped her arms around herself and began walking back to the barracks. He had made himself abundantly clear. His desire for her had extended as far as his bed, and now that he had her, he no longer wished for her.
To her dismay, tears began streaming down her face.
Oh, stop, Mara! She scrubbed her face. What would Dannica say? “He’s not worth it! You both got what you wanted. Now, Elsa that shit and let it go.”
In the great history of the universe, she wouldn’t be the first, nor the last, woman to be used by a man. Some guys were just jerks, and she’d had the bad luck of running into one. Unfortunately, her hormones so fully blinded her that she’d believed Syrek’s true nature was different.
She snorted, and the sound echoed through the empty corridor. How very freshman year of her! No, only naïve little girls wandered into relationships with guys like Syrek thinking they could change him. The harsh reality was very different. She was just another notch on his bedpost, and it served her right for climbing into his bed with both her eyes shut tight against what she should have seen.
He’s a mercenary, for crying out loud!
That should have been her first warning bell. And a hot guy like Syrek? Without a significant other? Yeah, that right there screamed either gay or player, and he had shown her he wasn’t gay.
“How could I be so stupid?” she muttered at a dripping pipe.
Then there was that whole No Fraternizing rule. Only a dumbass who couldn’t keep it in his pants would set a rule like that. It was the most despicable form of reverse psychology she had ever seen.
“Really,” she muttered to herself, “you say ‘no sex’, and that’s the only thing anyone can think of.”
And the sex hadn’t even been that- She stopped dead in her tracks. No, no matter how hard she tried, the comforting lie wouldn’t stick. Not when her body felt molten. Not when she ached deliciously in all the right places. Not when the memory of his lips seemed branded onto her skin…
Oh, stop, Mara! Don’t even go there…
She stomped h
er way down the corridor. Oh, how noble he’d been. “Oh, I swear I won’t sell your people,” she said, mimicking Syrek’s rumbling voice. “No, duh! It’s like the bare minimum of common decency not to sell people! He shouldn’t get a cookie and a pat on the head for that!”
No, she’d been taken for a ride — oh, but what a ride! — and now she needed to ground herself. She had to focus on getting herself and the human sleepers off this rusty tin can and to some where safe.
And when we are safe, I’ll find a pint of butterscotch ripple and sob it out with Danni.
A soft chime sounded through the speakers on Haven. In another half a bell, the morning crew would awaken, and the ship would come to life with the buzzing activity of aliens at their daily tasks. For a while longer, Mara had the ship practically to herself.
She intended to take advantage of it.
The first step in moving on would be a nice, hot shower. Or the next best thing. At this hour, the bathing room remained empty, and Mara sighed in relief. Empty meant the foam cleaners had time to refill. They might even be warm enough to feel like a proper water shower.
“Maybe something will go my way tonight.” She stepped out of the dress and kicked it into the corner. She glared at the pile of fabric and stuck her tongue out at it. “Tomorrow, I will burn you.”
The foam spouts spluttered and the warm foam coated her body, removing the chill of the bathroom air. She let it drip over her back and arms, and slide down her legs, taking with it the sweat of her lovemaking.
When it clung to every inch of her body, she tilted her head up, letting it slip over her face. Every touch of the foam against her body reminded her of Syrek’s tongue, tracing patterns across her skin. With her eyes closed, she relived the passion and heat of the night before.
It’ll take more than a shower to wash him out of my memories.
Another chime sounded, this one signaling the beginning of the morning shift. Shoot, took too long. In a few moments, the room would fill with the hubbub of various alien voices. Her quiet moment would be over.
Fumbling for the switch, she thumbed it off and wiped at her eyes. Through her hazy vision, she made out the door on the far side of the room, where she would step inside the desiccation chamber. There, the dry air would harden the foam on her skin and she could buff it off with a series of stiff bristled brushes.
