“Yeah. Old legends say the skeks might’ve originated on Valgorond. No one really knows if it’s the truth, because we weren’t the best about recording history for a long time, but we’ve been fighting them as long as our people remember. Drove them off our planet, but they’re like an infestation. They rove around the universe looking for planets to scavenge and hunt. They don’t care about treaties or borders, don’t care about governments, don’t care about much of anything but eating and breeding.”
More howls echoed in the sky, and her grip on his hand tightened. “And they’re here. The crash likely led them right to the ship.”
Thargen looked down at the top of her head and frowned. “We’re not at the ship, zoani. Not even close.”
“Should we…should we keep moving then? Put more distance between us and them?”
The Rage pressing in on Thargen’s mind railed against that idea; he’d already run from a fight with the smugglers, how could he allow himself to flee another enemy? Even if so many of his battle memories had been lost and those remaining were blurry at best, just thinking about the skeks ignited fury in his gut. They were his enemies on a primal level, the same beings his ancestors had battled in the mountains and foothills of his birth…but even more so, they were a threat to his Yuri.
“We will,” he replied. “Tomorrow. Need to rest as much as we can before sunrise.”
Yuri tipped her head back and looked up at him. There was a worried crease between her eyebrows. “How can you sleep now, listening to that? What if…if they find us here while we’re sleeping?”
The fear in her eyes and the slight wavering in her voice was nearly his undoing. The sounds of battle, the screams and blasts and howls, were nothing new to Thargen; in some ways, they were his sounds, as much a part of him as his bones, muscles, and blood. None of this was normal for Yuri. None of this was anything she’d dealt with before.
She was exactly the sort of person he’d sought to protect when he joined the Rokkoshi Vanguard—an innocent, unscarred by the horrors of the universe…or at least not so badly scarred. Not yet.
“Ah, terran, trust in me.” He lay back slowly, coaxing her to follow with a gentle tug on her shoulders.
She resisted for only a moment—and only weakly. Once she was lying with her head on his arm, he shifted onto his side and draped his other arm over her middle, dropping the axe onto the grass next to her, where it would be within easy reach. He settled his now free hand on her hip and pulled her close, turning her so her back was tucked against him.
“I do trust you,” she said, rubbing her cheek on his arm. “I just…don’t know how we’re going to get back.”
Don’t know if we’re going to get back. She didn’t say those words, but he heard them in her voice.
Thargen squeezed her hip, holding her a little more possessively than he meant to. His zoani needed comfort—he recognized that well enough, understood what it meant, but he wasn’t sure how to give it to her. What he considered comforts—fighting and drinking—wouldn’t have done her much good even in better circumstances.
“We’ll find a way, Yuri, even if it means I have to fight my way into a skeks camp to steal a ship.”
“They have ships?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Yeah, though pieced-together hunks of shit is probably a better term. They scavenge parts constantly. Seem to have a knack for building sort of functional stuff from scrap. Some of their ships just explode without warning, but most of them work.”
“That’s…not encouraging.”
Fuck. Doing a great job so far, buddy.
“That’s just our backup plan. Don’t worry about it.”
“Then what’s our plan right now?”
“Survive.”
She fell into silence, leaving them both to listen to the battle sounds for a few more seconds before those, too, went quiet. The echo of the final gunshot stretched out, lingering far longer than seemed natural.
“Is it over?” she whispered.
“Sounds like it.”
“What do you think happened?”
Thargen grunted. “Either the skeks killed or captured everyone on the ship or got scared away. If it’s the second, they’ll go back another time with a larger group.”
Several more seconds of silence stretched between them before she said, “You’re not very good at this comforting thing, are you? You’re supposed to ease my worries. Take my mind off our impending doom.”
As gently as she’d spoken—and though he’d known that truth before she’d said it—her words were still a blow. He wanted to give her everything she needed, and that drive came from a place so deep in him that he couldn’t rightly identify it.
Can never get good at something if you don’t try…
He lifted his hand from her hip to drag some of the loose garments back over their bodies before settling it back into place. The night air was chilly, and Thargen knew she felt it far more than him. “How long do terrans live, zoani?”
She snuggled closer to him, her backside fitting perfectly within the curve of his body—tucked right up against his cock.
Thargen gritted his teeth to hold back a groan. That pressure, that warmth, wouldn’t have meant much with anyone else; he would barely have noticed. But with Yuri…
Supposed to be comforting her, damn it.
“I think the average lifespan is around a hundred years,” she replied.
He drew in a deep breath; that it was scented by the soft, sweet fragrance of her hair didn’t help him ignore his rekindled arousal. “How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“So you have a long, long time before you have to worry about doom, or whatever.”
Yuri turned her head toward him, eyed him, and laughed. “Yeah, I guess I do.” When she faced forward again, she lightly pressed her lips to his arm in a small kiss. “What about you? How old are you, and how long do vorgals live?”
Thargen squeezed his eyes shut for a few moments, trying to think beyond the lingering thrill created by the brush of her lips against his skin. “I, uh… Not sure. Somewhere between thirty and forty, I guess.”
“You don’t know how old you are?”
Though she was turned away, her tone painted a clear image of her expression in Thargen’s mind—brow furrowed and lips downturned; confusion with a hint of sorrow.
“We don’t really do that whole birthday thing, and there were a lot of years that got all mucked up in my head. Can’t piece together enough of it to figure out dates. I do know that vorgal lifespan has two curves.”
“Curves?”
“Yeah, like…those chart things they use to measure numbers or whatever?”
“What are the two curves?”
“You got civilian life expectancy, which is close to what you said for terrans, and military life expectancy. Pretty sure I’m already past the peak of the second one.”
Yuri kissed his arm again. “And you’ve got a long time before you reach the peak on the first.”
Hearing that out loud put Thargen’s time with Yuri into perspective. For so many years, he’d drifted through life like he was caught in the current of a speeding river—no direction, no reason to swim against the flow. He’d found joy, had found a family—as fucked up as that family could be sometimes—but largely, his existence had been hollow between those colorful flares of Rage. He’d looked for fights because they were the only time he’d truly felt alive. And though he’d never sought it directly, he’d always known that he’d eventually find his death in some bar or alleyway. It was inevitable. There’d been no need to consider a future that was never going to be his.
In the short while he’d known her, Yuri had changed all that. For the first time, thinking about that distant future didn’t seem pointless, and that future didn’t seem out of reach. With Yuri, it was something he craved—something he yearned for.
She’d given him a sense of purpose he hadn’t possessed in many years. She filled in all those hollow mom
ents with vibrancy, warmth, and pleasure, even while they’d been locked up in a cage to be sold as slaves. Yuri had taken what he felt during combat—that fleeting feeling of being alive—and spread it across all his moments, even during the heights of his Rage.
Somehow, this little terran had soothed his Rage, had brought him back, not once but on several occasions. As small and delicate as she looked, she’d proven herself a tether stronger than any he could imagine.
More than that, she looked at him with the same hunger he felt toward her, with the same light in her eyes; he recognized it even if she tried so often to hide it. She looked at him like she wanted him. But there was an earnestness to that look, a depth, that went well beyond any longing glances he’d received from females over the years. He’d long ago learned to ignore such looks; he couldn’t ignore it from Yuri. He didn’t want to.
But he couldn’t take her, couldn’t have her as his own—he was too big, too hard, too brutal, and he couldn’t bear to hurt her. Thargen didn’t know if he could maintain control once his Rage roared to the forefront like it always did during sex. It was too much of a risk.
Maybe I can’t take…but I can give.
What was it that brought female terrans immense pleasure? He’d overheard Arcanthus and Drakkal talking about it once. A clit? A tiny bud on the outside of female’s sex at the top of her slit?
He could give her the pleasure she deserved and take her mind off her worries for a little while. And, even if he couldn’t sink into her warm, tight body and seek his own release, he could take some enjoyment in making her feel good, in feeling her writhe within his arms.
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to go back to sleep, knowing they’re out there,” Yuri said.
Thargen grinned.
Perfect excuse.
He slid his hand from her hip and cupped her between her thighs; only the material of her pants separated his hand from her sex. Yuri’s breath hitched, and she jumped, her backside bucking against his cock. A thrill jolted through Thargen, heightening his desire.
He moved his head closer to her, so his mouth was just behind her ear. “Might know a way to distract you, zoani. You want it?”
Warmth radiated from her, and it took everything within Thargen to keep his hand still, to keep from thrusting his hips against her. He watched as her brow furrowed, as she curled her hand into a fist on the ground and caught her bottom lip between her teeth, and finally—finally—gave him a single nod.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Rage roiled up in Thargen’s mind, demanding control, demanding action, demanding he tear off her clothes, spread her legs, and rut her now. A deep ache resonated in his cock, which was so close to the source of her heat—maddeningly close.
But this was about Yuri. This was for Yuri.
Thargen hooked the hem of her shirt and drew it up to her midsection. The soft skin of her belly quivered when his fingertips brushed over it. She released a shuddering breath when he let go of the shirt and reversed the motion of his hand, sliding it under the waistband of her pants.
His fingers brushed over her pelvis, through a small patch of soft hair, until they encountered her slit. He grazed it lightly with a fingertip.
Yuri shivered, and parted her thighs slightly. “Thargen,” she breathed.
“On your back, terran,” he growled, struggling against his Rage-fueled need. “And spread those legs.”
She rolled onto her back, turning her face toward him. Her eyes met his as she spread her thighs wide. He felt her sex blossom beneath his fingertip, felt her petals open and bloom, felt the dew as his finger delved lower. Even without pushing inside, it was clear that her channel was tight and hot; he could almost imagine the feel of it around his cock, the pressure, the delightful friction.
Though now it was her outer thigh rather than her ass pressing against his cock, his desire hadn’t diminished. He was only a few quick movements away from burying himself in her. And all he had to do was push his finger in to have that taste, to feel the strength of her inner walls clamping down on him hungrily.
He couldn’t let himself do that. He couldn’t trust himself with that sort of temptation.
As he ran his finger back up, it brushed over a little nub at the apex of her sex. Yuri twitched, her lips parting with a soft gasp.
Found it.
Thargen fixed his gaze on her face as he circled her clit with the tip of his finger, keeping his movements slow and gentle. Her lashes fluttered, and she tilted her head back as her hips subtly rocked in time with his strokes. When he inhaled, there was a new scent on the air, faint but heady, teasing him with a sweetness that made his cock impossibly harder; he knew instinctively it was the fragrance of her arousal.
Despite his raging desire, despite his near-painful need, he couldn’t deny the pleasure in this—in learning her body through his touch and her reactions to it.
He increased the pressure on her clit just a tiny bit.
Yuri whimpered and clamped a hand on his forearm, squeezing—but she didn’t stop him. As he continued to stroke around her clit, her movements grew steadily stronger and more desperate, and the tiny reflections of starlight in her eyes became lust-hazed gleams.
Her breath quickened. She lifted her other hand to cup his jaw, brushing her thumb down one tusk and over his lower lip.
“Kiss me,” she begged.
Thargen groaned. His heart was thumping, his blood was hot, the pressure in his groin had built to a startling degree, and seed had seeped from the tip of his cock. His control was as tenuous as a frayed rope—but he could not deny her now, no matter the risk. He dipped his head and captured her lips with his own as he swept up some of the dew from her lower sex to spread across her folds. When his finger returned to her sensitive little nub, he sped its movements and pressed harder.
She gasped against his mouth and she moved her hand up to clutch a fistful of his hair. The sharp sting on his scalp stoked his Rage—not in anger, but in pleasure. He growled and crushed his mouth against hers, sweeping his tongue past her lips for a deeper taste. But he wanted more—needed more.
Can’t.
Yuri undulated her pelvis against his hand, and soon, she was writhing beneath him. Nectar flowed from her sex, and the sweet, intoxicating scent of her desire filled his senses. He swallowed each of the ragged moans that rose from her throat; they were his, just as much as she was his.
“Thargen,” she rasped, tearing her mouth away. Her moans came in rapid succession, broken only by her panting breaths. She tightened her hold on his hair, increasing that delightful sting on his scalp, and the nails of her other hand dug into his forearm.
By blood and fury, he yearned for more of that. He wanted her nails raking his back as he thrust into her, wanted her pulling his hair, wanted her clamping her little teeth down on his shoulder as she was caught in the throes of ecstasy. He wanted to feel her sex squeezing his cock and milking it for every drop of his seed.
All at once, Yuri’s back arched off the ground, and her quivering body went rigid for an instant. Then she threw her head back and cried out as a fresh rush of liquid heat spilled between her thighs. Her cry of pleasure rang out into the night sky.
Thargen covered her mouth with his again to muffle that cry, keeping his finger moving relentlessly. Her thighs snapped together, locking his hand in place as she continued to come undone, feeding her desperate cries directly into him. Tremors rocked her entire body, and her hips bucked against his hand erratically.
It wasn’t until those tremors finally waned and her cries fell into soft, breathless moans that Thargen slowed his finger, easing her down from the peak she’d summited.
He forced himself to breathe deeply and slowly as he lifted his head to look down at her. His balls felt full near to bursting, his cock was so hard it seemed about to tear through his pants, and his blood flowed through his veins like molten metal, but he focused only on Yuri.
Even in the poor light, the flush on
her cheeks was clear. Her dark hair was tousled, spread over his arm and the grass beneath, and her parted lips were kiss swollen.
She was as beautiful as ever—more beautiful.
Yuri opened her eyes and looked up at him, a soft smile spreading across her lips. She released her grip on his hair and slid her palm to his cheek. “I changed my mind. You’re very good at comforting.”
Thargen stilled his hand, cupping her sex possessively. Her words pierced the haze of Rage and desire in his mind, making it a little easier for him to resist even if that haze had not been fully cleared. It didn’t matter how much he wanted; he’d done this for her. To make her feel good, to comfort her. That was enough.
“Always been good with my hands,” he said as he finally withdrew his fingers from her pants. The air was icy compared to her warmth, the cold enhanced by the moisture on his fingers.
He didn’t waste any effort in trying to stop his next action; he knew it would’ve been futile. He raised his hand, slipped his fingers between his lips, and sucked Yuri’s essence off them. A low groan rumbled in his chest. Her taste was even better than her scent had promised—sweet and tangy, as delicious as a succulent fruit.
Yuri’s breath caught, and her eyes flared. “I…think I just came again.”
Got pretty close myself.
Thargen resisted the urge to clamp his hand over his erection, setting it over her stomach instead, where he stroked his thumb over her navel piercing. “Next time, I’ll drink from the source.”
The flush on her cheeks somehow deepened, and the lustful gleam in her eyes brightened. Hunger burned at Thargen’s core.
Don’t have to wait until next time…
His muscles were already filling with heat and strength, and his heart was quickening; his body was priming for what he wanted, what he needed.
He drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and clenched his jaw before turning his face into her palm. Her skin was soft, soothing, grounding, providing him just enough clarity, just enough willpower.
Thargen’s Rage had been given an outlet today. It wasn’t gone—it never would be—but it wasn’t strong enough to take control from him for now.
Savage Desire (The Infinite City Book 4) Page 18
