“No,” she wheezed, then winced and tried to move before realizing she wasn’t ready to, yet. Her ass was aching inside and out. “I’m fine,” she lied, yet dropped flat against the floor on her back.
“No, you’re not,” he argued, watching her closely as she sprawled out on the floor. She just wanted a bulldozer to come into the prison and run her over. “I’m bleeding and not in that much pain,” he noted as he crouched down over her.
“More like… discomfort to a high degree,” she corrected in a groan. Finally, she sighed and said more evenly, “Don’t press me. It’s embarrassing. I’m just going to lie on the floor here for a moment in misery before I can get up, finish my work, and then go lick Jazeel’s feet or whatever I have to do to feel better.”
He shook his head, completely lost. “I don’t understand,” he admitted.
“Good. Help me up,” she said, putting her arm in the air. He stared at her hand for a second, looking slightly anxious, but then walked over and leaned down so that he could grab her elbow, mostly just getting the sleeve of her jumpsuit. With extremely little effort, he pulled her into a standing position without any help from her.
She adjusted her twisted clothes and the sleeve he had stretched slightly when he pulled her up. “Thank you,” she said, lifting up her shirt collar and groaning as she moved back down to her knees in front of the control panel.
“Are you still in pain?” he asked.
“Stop asking,” she snapped, then reached to grab her pliers off the floor in order to continue her work. “Okay, so how’d you know I speak shal’ta, then, if you didn’t learn that through a dumb trick? What even gave you that stupid idea?” she demanded bitterly.
“You mean, that correct presumption?” he retorted. “Only the completely alert expression on your face when he was speaking with us. You have to get far more skilled at acting stupid. Your eyes reacted to everything you heard,” he lectured, his voice surprisingly stern. “I know an eavesdropper when I see one.”
She pouted into the control box for a moment, feeling like this whole situation was unfair. She hadn’t asked for the ability. She hadn’t asked to be abducted. She certainly hadn’t asked to be a slave. Yet there she was, listening to some alien prisoner lecture her about being a bad actress. “Well, luckily Jazeel doesn’t,” she finally replied. “You’re still wrong, by the way, I’m a human. I’m just a freak.”
“Normally if you don’t stalk like a leppron, bite like a leppron, or howl like a leppron, then you’re not a leppron,” was his ‘clever’ response. He was sounding exasperated at this point, as if she was being stubborn about this just to spite him.
“First—what the hell’s a leppron?” she asked. He opened his mouth to reply, but she swiped her hand through the air. “Never mind. I don’t care. Second, you can argue this for the next three days, Commander. I know what I am, and nothing you say will make that any different.” She pulled the new wire in and began to twist the ends together.
He stood inches behind her, apparently watching her movements over her shoulder. “Isn’t that… extremely dangerous?” he drawled like someone watching a cat they like try to cross a busy street.
“Hey, if you can get those assholes outside to turn off the power and make it safer, then be my guest. They won’t, though. I’m an affront to their high standards of laziness. They wouldn’t even reach into their pocket to lend me a pen if my life depended on it.” She efficiently twisted the two hot wires together and then reached down to cut more wire off of the new spool in her toolbox.
He watched her work, eventually making a curious hum in the back of his throat. “You do this often?” he asked her. She had heard the same sort of question in the same tone before at the garage. It really asked, “You’re a woman, so shouldn’t you be off baking a pie somewhere?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “When I’m not wiggling my ass for Jazeel, I’m normally knee deep in this sort of thing. I used to sit around eating cookies all day by the window, enjoying the sea breeze, but then Peyton-the-Prime found that I was too comfortable and threw me at more work than I can shake a stick at. I mean, I have my limits. I can’t manage around crystal technology or anything like that. That’s too alien for me.”
“Crystal technology?” he echoed, and then snapped his fingers. “Ah! You mean what the Frians use on their ships’ control boards? We don’t use that, either,” he admitted conversationally. “I’m not an engineer, but I understand that if those crystals break, then they’re nearly impossible to replace or repair, which can really create a problem. You can’t just—”
Zzzpoppop!
A spark flew out of the panel she was working on, blinding her with a bright flash of white light. The power first froze her up and then pushed her backward in an explosive movement. She flew backward and would have easily landed on her ass again if Graham hadn’t grabbed her arm and pulled her to his body and away from the panel. In the next moment, as more sparks flew out of the panel, looking like a bolt of energy was trying to leap out and grab them, he pressed himself against the nearby wall, cradling her against his chest, his chin pressed protectively against the top of her head.
In the next moment, it could be said that Ellie Jonas fell in love with Graham Masterson.
Actually, it wasn’t ‘falling.’ It was more like electricity—something powerful had grabbed her and made her clasp herself as close to him as possible. He tightened his hold on her, and it was as if they had been melded together, body and soul. They stood for a moment as if paralyzed from doing anything except holding onto each other as heat flowed into Ellie, starting at the tips of her toes and quickly rising with her every heartbeat.
There had never been a time before that she was so completely unaware of anything and anyone around her. There was no sound, as if she had been deafened by a close explosion, and she couldn’t look away or feel anything except his body. Distantly, she wondered if she had been hurt, but she wasn’t in pain. Quite the contrary, she had never felt so full of energy in her life… she had never been so aroused, either. The heat that rose in her seemed to be most concentrated in the pit of her stomach and in her loins.
Graham’s chest, she noticed, was heaving violently, as if he had been running as fast as he could for as long as he could.
Slowly, voices around them began to fill her consciousness. She began to realize that the other Swarii had stepped forward and were now talking slowly to Graham in their native language. Their faces, when she was able to pull her attention away from Graham and glance at them, showed concern and tension.
Graham suddenly whisked her to the side of his body, away from the other prisoners. He growled at them as he gripped her protectively to him, snarling like a rabid animal.
The other Swarii instantly fell silent and merely stared at them, the closest one holding his hands up to show that he didn’t mean any harm.
She slowly began to feel restless, even awkward. She felt like suddenly her whole world had fallen off its axis. She began to squirm, trying to feel normal again, although she couldn’t remember what ‘normal’ felt like. She felt so flushed, so hot, and she pushed slightly against Graham to move out of his vise-like grip.
“Don’t move,” he rasped out, and his arm pressed her even more firmly against his chest.
She couldn’t even squirm now, and she was beginning to panic, feeling like she couldn’t get enough air, or enough of something else critical to life itself. At the same time, she felt like she wanted to climb Graham… like a tree. She shook her head, somehow remembering that the urge didn’t make any sense, but her arousal was plowing her over with the power of a fire hose.
Graham, without any warning that she could see, suddenly let her go and pushed her several feet away from him. He turned away from her, looking like he was crumpling with pain and agony.
She stood, panting, and pressed herself against the cool wall. “Wh-what just happened? What was that? Was that shock? Were we shocked?” she sputtered, feeling confus
ed. Graham didn’t react to her words at all. He was still hunched up against the wall like an injured man. “Graham?” she asked, but still nothing.
She turned toward the Swarii, who were watching her with widened eyes. “Did you guys see what happened?” she asked.
One of the Swarii, who was shorter than the rest of them, making him the same height as Peyton, cleared his throat awkwardly. “You should give him a moment,” he advised in practiced English. His accent, which was almost Scottish, was thicker than Graham’s yet still understandable.
She looked over at Graham, her brow furrowed with concern. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked, waving her arm desperately at him. Even when she moved to see his face, he merely looked shell-shocked, like he had seen a ghost.
“He’s trying not to claim you,” the tallest of them replied. He stepped forward and gently pulled her back behind him and backed up with her, away from Graham. “I’d step back, little one,” he told her.
She suddenly wrapped her brain around his crazy statement and literally jumped back away from all of them. “What?” she demanded, hoping there had been some mistranslation.
“You both… just… um… if I’m not mistaken…” he said, turning slightly to her but not completely away from Graham, either.
The short Swarii cut him off, saying, “There’s no way he can do that with her. She’s not Swarii.” He turned to her and added apologetically, “No offense. It’s just impossible. It’s not that you’re not cute.”
“Don’t… talk… to her…” came a low growl. She turned and saw Graham moving away from the wall, looking very unlike himself. His expression was much less human now—it looked primal, animalistic. For a moment, it looked like he pulled it back and was warring with himself. He hissed at them, showing very sharp canines in his mouth that she hadn’t noticed until now.
He then slowly pressed himself against the wall, as if the coolness of the metal wall was soothing when he held his face against it.
“I… I need an explanation,” she said, still stepping back. She barely felt coherent herself. Her whole brain felt like it was lost in a heavy fog. The room around her was so hot now that it was hard to concentrate. “This is… weird. I feel… weird…” she panted. She didn’t want to add that, on top of everything, she felt a very keen desire to strip all her clothes off and get down on all fours so Graham could properly mount her. The idea didn’t seem to match up with her conservative background.
“Relax, little one. You just felt the Union,” the largest Swarii told her delicately. He turned to the short one and added, “We saw it with our own eyes.”
“Riiight,” she drawled, having no idea what he had just explained, or if he had explained anything at all. Apparently, he was using a word that had some meaning she didn’t understand.
The large Swarii sighed and looked wearily at the ceiling as if he was trying to dumb down astrophysics so that it could be understood by a seven-year-old. “You were chosen as mates,” he told her.
“What?” she cried incredulously. “We most certainly did not choose each other as mates!”
The big Swarii ran his hand over his face, looking much more stressed than she felt he needed to be. “When two Swarii fated to be together touch skin, the Union takes place. You don’t choose it. It can only happen once in a lifetime. Fate decides. Biology decides. Not you.”
“That’s why it’s weird. How would he possibly be compatible with you?” the smaller Swarii asked, sounding frustrated. He huffed and then added, “Again, no offense. You’ve got nice boobs and all, but you’re so… small. And weak, and you’re just a weird-looking little—”
“Shut the fuck up, Thorton!” Graham roared, pushing himself away from the wall and launching himself at the smaller Swarii, who apparently wasn’t quite through explaining all the reasons why she was inadequate for mating.
The two Swarii who she had assumed did not speak English, or at least wouldn’t speak it to her, scurried over to hold Graham back, although it looked to Ellie like Graham wanted nothing more than to rip one of Thorton’s arms off and beat him to death with it.
Thorton picked himself off the floor after Graham was successfully pulled off of him. “Huh,” he said, dusting himself off and looking surprised.
Ellie backed away. This was all far too much for her to handle. Two seconds ago, Graham had been someone who was almost charming. At least, he had been conversational and somewhat normal. Now, he was practically feral!
She turned and jumped toward the door and pounded on it with her fist until the guard finally answered by pulling the door away from the wall manually. He looked quite cantankerous, as if she had woken him from a nap. “What?” he demanded. He glanced at the pile of wires on the floor before he noticed Graham, who was still on a quest to destroy one of his companions. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know. He went nuts,” she panted. “I’ll come back when he’s cooled off.” She turned and glanced over her shoulder, watching Graham, but telling the guard, “I’ll serve Lord Jazeel his lunch, and then I’ll come back and finish.”
“You’d better,” the guard grumbled in reply, then manually closed the door behind her again.
She scurried as fast as she could manage up to the main floor of the palace, where it looked like Peyton was about to serve lunch to Jazeel for her. She stopped him in the hallway by stepping into his path.
“You done with the door down there?” he asked her, but then frowned after his eyes glanced her over. “Hey—you okay, kiddo?” he asked, now looking concerned. “You look… I dunno… feverish or somethin’…”
“No,” she replied, rubbing her sleeve against her hot forehead. “Can I serve lunch to Jazeel?”
He pondered this, obviously, but then he shook his head. “You look like hell,” he told her.
“I’m gonna continue looking like it if I don’t get the plug out,” she replied tersely, reaching up to grab the tray away from him.
“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes at her as if her complaint made her a weakling. “I’ll go in with you,” he offered, carefully handing her the tray and following her to Jazeel’s chamber. He opened the door for her and quietly followed her inside.
Jazeel was in the middle of a call, and was too focused on the image of the caller whose hologram was a few feet from where he was seated to even notice her as she served him his lunch. After she completed serving him, she slowly got to her knees and rubbed her face on his boot.
This pathetic display seemed to succeed in distracting him from his phone call. He sighed and said in shal’ta to the Frian on the call, I’LL HAVE TO CALL YOU BACK, COLONEL. IT SEEMS MY PET NEEDS MY ATTENTION. He hit a button within a small panel that was strapped to his forearm. “Yes, my pet?” he asked her, sounding somewhere between amused and annoyed. “How’s your bottom feeling?” he added wickedly.
“I fell, Master, and now I’m dying,” she whined miserably, letting out a fake sob.
He sighed again. “I have never known a pet that took a punishment less well than you, Prima,” he scolded half-heartedly. “And what you’re wearing, by the way, is horrid.”
“I’ve been working as you ordered, my lord,” she replied. “It’s how I fell. But now I’m dying,” she repeated, raising her face to him.
“You’re not dying,” he argued. “You’re—” He stopped and quickly reached out, pressing his cold hand against her misting forehead. “Are you…?” He moved his hand down to her cheek. “Are you ill, my poor little pet? You feel overly warm. You’re feverish!”
“I’m dying,” she swooned once again as miserably as she could muster, resting her face dramatically in his lap.
“Peyton!” he snapped, suddenly looking up toward the prime, who was waiting by the door. “Why haven’t you cared for this poor little beast?” he accused crossly.
Peyton straightened and then shifted his weight foot to foot. “I…” he said, obviously hedging his words into something that wouldn’t get him wh
ipped. “Master, I could never disobey you… Besides, other girls have survived this punishment fine enough.”
“Those other girls aren’t as fragile as my little rose,” he retorted crisply, petting his hand over the back of her head. He huffed, “Fine, then. I forgive you,” he decreed to Peyton. “See she is given whatever is required and discontinue her punishment immediately.” He reached down and cupped Ellie’s face in his hands. “My poor, sweet little pet. Enjoy this now—my wife will have a stricter hand, you know,” he chided.
Ellie knew that very well—Galaal was going to be a challenge. She thanked him profusely while looking as pathetic as she could until she was properly dismissed, at which time she let Peyton guide her gently from the room.
He closed the heavy chamber door behind them, but then grabbed her forearm and practically dragged her all the way to her room. “You are ridiculous,” Peyton told her as soon as they were alone in her room, slapping her on the ass as he grabbed a chair away from her vanity and moved it to the center of the room. “Take off your work suit,” he instructed.
She began to unfasten her utility belt until she looked up and saw Peyton’s stern expression. “You’re not gonna spank me, are you?” she felt she had to ask. “Because I didn’t know Jazeel was going to get angry with you.”
“Well, he ain’t gonna get angry with himself,” Peyton sighed, but then visibly relaxed his shoulders, calmed. “No, I’m not gonna spank you.” He added with a grin, “Much. But one of these days, you’re gonna get me whipped, and you’d better believe that I will share some of that pain with you.” He patted his knee to signal for her to bend over it.
She pulled herself free of her jumpsuit and then pulled her panties down to her knees and bent uncomfortably over his lap. If she was ever going to get used to being bottom-up over a knee, she figured, it would have happened already.
“You know,” Peyton said conversationally, “this isn’t even a big one. There are bigger in the palace. Hell, Mary gets something like this up her bottom with no complaints, and it’s twice this size, at the least. And she likes it.”
His Untamed Mate (Swarii Mates Book 1) Page 8
