Royal Defender: Her Space Guardian (Celestial Mates Book 9)

by Therron, Marla

  She shook her head. “I'm not marrying you,” she said, her voice rising with panic. She remembered the wedding plans she'd made for her eventual wedding with Damien. She had always been able to picture their kids, even. But when she looked at Tavaayn, she didn't have any of that. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to marry the alien. “We went over this the other day,” she reminded him. “I'm not marrying you.”

  Tavaayn shrugged, as though it didn't really matter to him, as though he hadn't earlier admitted to the fact that he didn't feel comfortable with her outside of his sight. “If you remain unmarried by the time the pirates return, you'll have no choice but to become one of their slaves. I don't know how much you know about pirate slaves, given that you didn't even realize I meant space pirates earlier—but their slaves are typically overworked, underfed, and destined for a very short lifespan. It's definitely not the sort of lifestyle I'd pick, if I had the choice.”

  Chapter Seven

  Their wedding was mostly a blur as far as Rachael was concerned. They had dressed her in a stiff, heavy dress that made it difficult to both breathe and move, so she'd spent the entire ceremony trying to stay as still as possible, exerting as little energy as possible, even though she wanted to nervously tap her foot and urge them to hurry up.

  It wasn't that she'd suddenly had a change of heart and couldn't wait to be married to her new husband. But because she'd spent so long fighting the idea of getting married to him, their wedding was to be one of the last ones performed, and she couldn't help fearing that they wouldn't manage to consummate it before the pirates arrived, making it all for naught.

  There were a few things that stood out from the main ceremony, though. The whole thing bore a striking resemblance to a typical Earth wedding, albeit it with more color and dancing. It felt almost like a festival, and it seemed like every Saveithyan in existence had turned out to see their Lord Commander married to the human scientist.

  But none of them seemed upset that the man was marrying outside of their species. Instead, they all seemed overjoyed at the thought of their Lord Commander finally finding happiness.

  At least, that's how it seemed to Rachael. And it was that thought that got her through the whole ceremony—he couldn't be such a monster if there were that many people from around their planet who had turned out to wish him well. Right?

  “Come on, my lady,” Tavaayn said suddenly, holding out an arm to Rachael. She hesitated for a moment and then accepted it.

  “What happens now?” she asked. The alien had tried to brief her about what would happen, but there had been so many steps to a traditional Saveithyan wedding that she had quickly realized she would never be able to remember it all—and what was more, she didn't think she had been able to identify a single step of the process thus far. Perhaps the words he'd been using had been deliberately obscure or archaic, but what he'd said would happen and what had actually happened seemed to be two different things.

  “Now, I take you to my bed,” Tavaayn said lowly, and Rachael felt a shiver run up her spine.

  They had discussed this already. And although she was still loathe to marry the man, she had finally come to realize that she was more loathe to end up as a slave to a band of pirates that flew around the galaxy tormenting people, whoring, and thieving. What's more, if she stayed there on Saveithya, there was the chance that she would someday be able to fix her spaceship and sail back to Earth. But with the pirates, she would never be presented with such an opportunity, and she would likely die within a year or two anyway.

  So she had agreed to be bedded, which was apparently the only way to truly mate with a Saveithyan. She still wasn't entirely clear on what “mating” with Tavaayn would entail, but he had assured her that he would take his time and make sure that she was comfortable throughout the process.

  She'd seen a very different side of the man over the past few days. He'd been...curiously caring towards her—bringing her her breakfast instead of Vox and sitting with her while she ate, taking her out around the palace gardens, inviting her to meetings with him, and in general just acting like a courting gentleman.

  She'd been initially surprised and suspicious at the change, but she'd suddenly had an epiphany moment where she realized that she was seeing the side of Tavaayn that no one else had ever been permitted to see. It was a heady feeling, to know that he could be like that around her but not around anyone else, for fear of appearing weak in front of his proud species.

  “Having second thoughts?” Tavaayn asked as they entered his bedchambers and he turned to face her, smoothing his hands down her arms.

  Rachael took a deep breath and shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. “No, I'm...committed to this.” She laughed a little. “I'm just a bit nervous, that's all. It's been a while since anyone so much as looked at me, let alone touched me.”

  “I don't believe that,” Tavaayn said seriously. “Maybe you didn't notice them looking at you, but I'm sure there were people who were looking at you. You're a very beautiful human, Rachael.”

  The woman in question blushed and ducked her head. “So how does this...work?” she asked, gesturing between the two of them. She reddened a little more. “I mean, I know the mechanics with a human, but with you...”

  “You'll find that my anatomy in that area does not differ much from that of a human male's,” Tavaayn said, looking amused. “Although with the way my member curves at the end, and given it's girth, you'll likely find that I can fill you up and hit spots that you've never even known existed.”

  And Rachael couldn't deny how much the thought of that interested her. She took a shaky breath and took a step closer to the man, wondering if kissing was something that Saveithyans normally did during their lovemaking.

  Tavaayn cupped her cheek, looking at her with impossibly gentle eyes. “Do whatever feels natural to you,” he told her, as though he could sense her thoughts.

  “Even if it's something that I wouldn't normally do—well, perhaps you'll open my eyes to a whole new world of pleasurable experiences that I might otherwise never have known existed!”

  Rachael shook her head, grinning a little. “I'm not the best at this,” she said. “I don't know if I can-”

  “Shh,” Tavaayn said, cutting her off with a gentle kiss that was nothing more than the brush of his lips against hers. He pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers.

  “Relax, darling,” he told her. “Just remember, I've got you. Whatever happens, I'm right here, and I've got you. You're mine now, and I'm yours—and everything will be all right.”

  Rachael nodded slowly and then rubbed her cheek along his, amazed at how smooth his felt.

  Tavaayn ducked his head and began kissing along her jawline, eliciting a quiet gasp out of her when he sucked at the pulse point in her neck. He hummed, sounding as though he was filing that away for future reference, and his hands came up to finally help her out of the heavy dress.

  With each bit of new skin that he revealed, he pressed a reverent kiss there, so that by the time she stood naked in front of him, she was practically shivering with desire.

  “Why don't you go lie down on the bed?” Tavaayn suggested, guiding her over that way.

  Rachael looked back over her shoulder at him as she went, her eyes already heavy-lidded with lust. “Are you going to join me?” she asked, sounding momentarily uncertain.

  Tavaayn grinned, looking amused. “Of course I am,” he said sweetly. “But let me take my clothing off first—I imagine that'll make things much more fun for both of us.”

  Rachael settled on the bed, propping herself up on her elbow so that she could watch him reveal every bit of his beautiful, muscular skin.

  Tavaayn made a soft, punched-out noise when he looked over at her. “Your curves look amazing spread out there on my bed,” he told her, his eyes twinkling with excitement. He moved smoothly over to the bed and crawled over to her, reaching out to pull her close and kiss her.

  This time, it wasn't
just a brief touching of their lips together. Instead, it seemed that the purple alien explored every inch of her mouth, nipping and sucking and licking his way around until she was dizzy and breathless and sure that she could come just from that—from the sensation of his tongue gliding against hers, his teeth nipping at her lower lip, his lips pressed firmly against hers.

  Finally—finally—he stroked the area between her legs, quickly finding the sensitive nub towards the top of her slit and manipulating that until she was gasping out his name, her head thrown back and her eyes squeezed shut. She shuddered against him, feeling overstimulated already, and more so when he continued to play at the same spot.

  “Please,” she finally managed to gasp out, reaching a hand down between them and catching his arm, forcing him to stop what he was doing. Slowly, she managed to open her eyes, blinking at him and looking entirely blissed out. “Please, I need...”

  Tavaayn raised an eyebrow at her, giving her a cheeky smile. “What do you need?” he asked, just to see her blush and squirm.

  Rachael groaned and fell back against the sheets as he used another one of his arms to continue his earlier ministrations. But this time, the end of his arm dipped lower, until he was pushing just barely the tip inside of her.

  “Please,” Rachael begged again, reaching between them to palm his member. She was surprised at how similar to a human's that piece of anatomy really was—but she wondered what sorts of special pleasures she would be able to wring out of it. For now, though, she just knew that she wanted it inside her.

  Fortunately, Tavaayn seemed to get the hint, or perhaps he was getting just as impatient as she was, and it wasn't long before he slotted himself deep inside of her cleft.

  Rachael cried out and writhed against him, already reaching the peaks of her pleasure even at just that single thrust. But Tavaayn continued to use her, desperately seeking his own release.

  He continued moving, his hands roaming all around her body and finding all the spots that made her gasp, while inside of her, her walls continued to twitch and pulsate against this welcome intrusion.

  Finally, just when Rachael wasn't sure that she could take it any more—when she thought she would need to have him slow down, to stop, to do anything to calm things down because she just wasn't even sure she could take any more—Tavaayn finally spilled inside of her, his body jerking to a screeching halt above her before he collapsed down against the bed, barely rolling to avoid crushing her.

  It took a few minutes before Rachael was able to open her eyes, and she continued twitching with the aftershocks of a good session of lovemaking until Tavaayn smoothed reassuring hands over her, pulling her in close to his warmth. He kissed the top of her hair and held her tightly, arms stroking gently along her spine. Like that, Rachael fell into the deepest sleep that she had ever known.

  Chapter Eight

  The first week of being the Lord Commander's wife felt remarkably ordinary, Rachael reflected at the end of the week. Of course, it brought with it some privileges, that was true—she was allowed to eat her meal with everyone else in the dining hall, something that she hadn't even realized was a thing, for one. And surprisingly, she was able to find a few people there who spoke English. So that made things at least less lonely than they had been.

  And that was good as well, because she didn't see much of Tavaayn. Usually, he didn't get back until after she had gone to bed in the evenings, and he left before she was awake in the mornings. Things were apparently busy in the aftermath of the pirate visit—they'd been enraged at the Saveithyans' sneaky plot and there had been some fighting after all, although nothing too major. But that meant the Lord Commander had a lot to do, apparently.

  Or perhaps he was just avoiding Rachael—that was the niggling doubt in the back of her mind.

  She didn't know where that thought had come from, but she just couldn't shake it off. She had thought their lovemaking had been amazing for both of them, but she was beginning to doubt that since Tavaayn didn't seem eager to repeat what they had done earlier in the week. In fact, he shied away from most contact with her, even while they were in bed together.

  It had gotten to the point where she was automatically curling up on the far side of the bed, leaving him a large empty space to lie down in when he returned. She was sleeping in fits, waking up every time she started to roll over, but maybe he would appreciate how hard she was trying…

  The thing is, she would have slept in her own bed, but immediately following the wedding, all of her things had been moved from her previous suite into a suite adjacent to Tavaayn's—one that shared a bedroom with Tavaayn's. Unless she wanted to sleep on the couch every night, there was nowhere else for her to sleep.

  That said, sleeping on the couch was beginning to look like a more and more attractive idea.

  It was exactly a week after the wedding that she finally met the queen. Aistrana burst into Rachael's side of the suite one morning just as the earthling was finishing her breakfast, which had been delivered by the ever-faithful, ever-silent Vox.

  At first, Rachael didn't know who the woman was, but she could tell that she was more richly-ornamented than anyone Rachael had yet encountered on the planet, and after a moment, she recognized the face from the blurry images that had been transmitted to them back on Earth before she'd ever thought she would come there to Saveithya.

  Rachael stumbled to her feet and performed an awkward bow, nearly tripping over herself in the process. “Your majesty,” she said reverently.

  “Oh, sit down,” the woman said, sitting in a seat across from Rachael. “You've married my Lord Commander, which I suppose makes us almost cousins, albeit not by blood, in our own rights. I don't want any formalities from my family members; around my quasi-family is the only time I have to just be myself.”

  Rachael smiled a little; she could understand that. And the formalities would only trip her up anyways. “Your English is very good,” she said.

  Aistrana rolled her eyes. “Yes, well,” she said. “One does tend to pick up a few languages when one trains as a diplomat for all of one's life. And English is one of the easier languages that I've ever had to learn.”

  “How many languages do you speak?” Rachael asked curiously.

  “I don't want to talk about that,” Aistrana said flatly. “I'm not a fan of what you humans would call small talk.” She folded her hands primly in her lap and just stared at Rachael for a long time. “So you're the woman who finally managed to capture my Tavaaynya's heart,” she said, and Rachael caught a flicker of something like...jealousy?...in the woman's expression for a moment.

  “Yeah...” Rachael said.

  The queen's eyebrows rose. “Uh oh, do I sense marital disagreements already?”

  “They're not disagreements, per se,” Rachael said, shrugging a little. “It's just...I haven't really seen him at all over the course of this week,” she admitted. “And I know that he's busy—I know that he's the Lord Commander, and I know that the timing of our wedding was...not the most convenient. It's just, I thought I might see him more.”

  Aistrana frowned. “He is Lord Commander, yes,” she said, “but I don't know why you haven't been seeing him. I'm not a slave driver; I do allow my men to go home every evening, especially if they have a family to go home to. You should be seeing plenty of him, unless he's found something else to occupy his time with...”

  Rachael felt herself pale a little, but she wanted to give Tavaayn the benefit of the doubt. After all, he had been so good to her in those days leading up to their wedding… “I'm sure he's just overworking,” she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “I just hope he doesn't have any regrets about...any aspect of the marriage.”

  “Am I to take it that the lovemaking isn't going well for the two of you?” Aistrana asked, and Rachael felt like she might choke. She had to remember that these Saveithyans didn't view discussions about sex with the same prudishness that she did, but even still. The idea that she was being invited to
discuss her sex life with the queen of a foreign planet within minutes of meeting said queen was something else…

  But then again, she could use a female friend to confide it, and it wasn't as though she was going to start talking about this with someone down in the dining hall, even if most of the Saveithyans didn't speak English and wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on them.

  “It's not that the lovemaking isn't going well,” Rachael admitted. “I mean, more than that—when we made love on our wedding day, it was...the best that I've ever had. It was amazing. We were so in sync with one another, and everything felt just absolutely perfect. But ever since then, he hardly wants to cuddle, let alone do anything more.” She frowned. “He's probably just tired, though, right? If he's overworking himself.”