“I’m back, terran,” Thargen called as he neared the cave. He heard a whisper of movement from within.
A smirk tilted his lips; he could almost picture her standing just inside, holding up a big stick in both hands—ready to give him the beating he deserved. But that image wouldn’t fully form. That wasn’t his Yuri.
Fuck, do I really have any right to consider her mine after this?
The answer blasted through his mind in a Rage-backed shout.
Fuck yeah, you do!
Thargen stepped into the cave, eyes quickly adjusting to the gloom. He found her sitting cross-legged on their pallet with the backpacks open beside her and their supplies arranged on the floor, organized by purpose. His gaze flicked to her thighs; she’d put on a pair of pants while he was gone. Despite everything, he was hit by a pang of disappointment. He longed to see her bare flesh whether it was good for him or not.
She looked up, and her face instantly brightened with a smile. “You’re back. Is…everything okay?”
For all that fucking thinking he’d done, he seemed to have forgotten the effects of her smile; that simple curling of her sweet lips was nearly enough to shatter his resolve. “About as okay as it can be while I’m stranded on an alien world. You all right?”
She pursed her lips and moved them to the side as she looked up and hummed. Her eyes sparked with a sudden heat as they returned to him, trailing up and down his body before they locked with his. “Hungry. Maybe a little…thirsty.”
Ah, shit.
Play it dumb?
“Well, I found some eggs”—he lifted his arm to show her—“and two of those canteens should still be full.”
Yuri’s eyes rounded, and she pushed herself to her feet. As she approached him, she asked, “You found eggs?”
Thargen’s stomach knotted, and he found himself battling the sudden urge to retreat.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m no damned coward, and I’m not scared of this little terran.
That only enhanced the sick feeling in his gut. He’d run from her twice already, hadn’t he? He’d tucked his dick between his legs and fled. Maybe he wasn’t afraid of her, but he was terrified of what she made him feel—and of what would happen if he gave in.
He stood his ground, feeling more like a fool and a coward than ever. “Don’t, uh…know if they’re any good.”
“I was going to ask if you knew what they were, but…” She laid her hand on his forearm as she inspected the eggs. “They’re pretty. Kind of like Easter eggs.”
His skin tingled under her touch. How long did he expect himself to hold out when the simplest, most innocent bits of contact had this effect on him?
“What’s Easter?” he asked.
She grinned up at him. “Sorry. It’s an Earth holiday that usually fell close to the start of spring. My dad would take us all up to this old cabin he had in the mountains. It wasn’t much, and he usually didn’t let us use any electronics while we were up there, but we always had so much fun there. We’d paint eggs and craft little baskets and stuff. Most people would do egg hunts for kids, too, where they’d hide eggs and treats for kids to run around and find.”
Thargen chuckled and shook his head. “Every time I get used to you, you remind me just how weird you terrans are. A place in the mountains sounds nice, though. Guess we kinda have that right now, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess we do.” She glanced around the cave before returning her attention to the eggs. “Well, let’s hope they taste good and that there aren’t any creepy alien parasites in them.” Her smile fell, her nose wrinkled, and she shuddered. “Ugh. You get first taste.”
That word, taste… Fuck if it hadn’t taken on a whole new meaning for him.
“Fair enough, zoani.”
Yuri eased a little closer, enough so that her body brushed against his side. She lifted her hand from his arm, caught his chin, and forced him to look at her. “And you can tell me what’s going on while you cook them.”
Fuck.
She searched his eyes, lips falling into a frown. “I know there’s something wrong, something that’s keeping you from, well…from having sex with me. Don’t think I didn’t notice.” Her frown flipped into a smirk. “I mean, how could I not notice? It’s pretty hard to miss that club in your pants, and I’ve been pretty open about how much I want you. Like, it doesn’t get much more blatant than me saying, I want you, Thargen.”
He released a heavy breath through his nostrils. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have right now, and he knew how it would end—he’d still want her desperately, and she’d want him despite the potential danger. But didn’t she deserve an explanation? Didn’t she deserve some openness from him? Maybe he was only good at fighting, but he ran his mouth all the fucking time. Wasn’t he at least capable of talking?
There was nothing to fear. He just had to talk, and he knew she would hear him out. Didn’t mean she’d agree or understand, but it was something. And if nothing else, it had a tiny chance of improving their current situation.
“All right, terran,” he finally said. “Get our shit packed up while I get the fire going.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He let his gaze linger on her for a moment before he stepped away, stopping only to snatch his belt off the floor before he went outside and set to work.
Yuri joined him shortly after he had the eggs cooking beside the fire, which he’d kept small. She passed Thargen one of the two canteens she was holding and sat beside him. He could almost feel her body heat against his skin.
Shirt. I was supposed to put on a damned shirt.
“Now spill it,” she said firmly.
Staring at her, he opened the canteen and slowly tilted it.
Yuri laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Following orders, terran.”
“I didn’t mean to literally spill”—she waved a hand at the canteen—“it. I meant, start talking.”
Thargen grunted, shoulders sagging. “Yeah, I know. Just stalling.”
She frowned again. “Why? I mean, I don’t want to pry if you really don’t want to tell me, but… I’m confused, Thargen, and a little hurt. I’d like to understand.”
Even if she’d said he’d only hurt her a little, it struck him harder than that fucking onigox smuggler could have. He’d been trying to stop himself from hurting her only to cause her a different kind of pain in the process.
“Sorry, zoani.” He turned his gaze to the fire pit, staring as though it could provide him with the right words, as though it could suddenly make him more articulate. “It’s just…not something I’ve ever talked about. It’s not anything my people really talk about. Vorgals have this…I don’t even know what you’d call it. I mean, my tribe’s old word for it is Hruk, but I don’t…”
He shook his head and let out a huff of air. “I just don’t really know how to explain it. I can swear in twenty languages without a translator, but this shit is over my head.”
Yuri brushed her fingers over his arm before folding her hands in her lap. “Just do your best. Try to explain, and I’ll try to understand.”
Her gentle encouragement eased away the frustration that had started building in him, and he was more grateful for it than ever.
“All right, terran. Vorgals have had Hruk for as long as we can remember, but most people call it Rage these days. It’s like…our thing, I guess. I don’t remember the little bit they teach us when we’re young, not that it would be all that helpful. It’s kind of an emotion, and an instinct, and this…primal force that lives in us. It’s really all hormones or brain chemicals or some shit, but they say everything is, right?
“What I do know is that it made us the alphas on our planet. It pushed us until all we had left to fight was each other, and it took a long time for us to overcome that. And Rage fucks with our biology, or biochemistry, or whatever, fucks with our minds. Dulls pain receptors, enhances strength, reflexes, and senses, kills our sense of self-preser
vation. Everything comes down to fighting and fucking when it’s in control.”
Thargen absently lifted a hand, running his fingers over the scars on the side of his head. “Our civilization likes to pretend we’ve evolved past it. And we have, in civilian life. Most people don’t have to fight with Rage much, and there are drugs to suppress it for those who do. But in the military, they use the shit out of Hruk. They enhance it in us, make it stronger, pump us with chems to make it last longer and burn hotter.
“And we’re all told going in what it may do to us. We all know, even if people on the streets don’t really talk about it. It’s the cost we accept when we choose to fight for our people, when we choose to follow those old warrior traditions. Those drugs, being high on Rage all the time—and when we’re campaigning, we’re running on that shit nonstop—it adds up. It becomes…an addiction, but it’s one you can’t kick without keeping yourself medicated into sedation. Your body gets to the point where its building Hruk all the time, and if you don’t let it out, it’s gonna find its own fucking way out.”
Yuri’s brows furrowed. “It sounds kind of like an adrenaline rush, though adrenaline in humans usually doesn’t have as powerful an effect as what you go through. Your Hruk is…well, pretty fittingly, it’s like a berserker rage in those VR games I played. There’s…no reversing it? It’s either sedation or you just deal with it?”
He nodded. “And I chose to just deal with it. Usually, I can. I have plenty of outlets, and if they fail me, I can always go to a bar and get into a fight.”
Yuri caught her bottom lip with her teeth briefly and looked at the fire. “What about…sex?”
“Vorgal military is unisex.” He leaned forward and checked the eggs through the holes in the tops of their shells, moving them away from the fire one by one as he continued. “And after battle, there’s a lot of fucking, all of it on Rage. I tried a few times when I moved to Arthos. But even when I did something to vent beforehand”—his lips peeled back in a cringe—“fucking Rage always fired up, and things always got rough. Some species can take that. But the last one…she was small. Small enough to make me hesitate, but she wanted it. And…fuck, it was too much for her. Too rough. She was a volturian.”
“Was?”
Thargen drew back, his brows slamming down as he turned his face toward Yuri. “Is a volturian. I didn’t fucking kill her or anything. But…that’s not saying much. Everything started out fine, we were into it, until she bit me, and Rage took over. I think she started screaming and struggling, but it was all fuzzy, like it was happening somewhere else. I just thought she was enjoying it, you know? All I could focus on was…”
He cleared his throat. “By the time I came, she’d stopped fighting. She was crying when I shook off the haze. I had her pinned face down, and a lot of her bruises were in the shape of my hands. Her knees were scraped up from the floor, too.”
“And you think that’ll happen to me?” Yuri asked.
“I know it will. She was a delicate little thing, and you’re even smaller than her, Yuri. And she took that after I’d already let off a lot of Rage.”
She was silent for a time, her eyes searching his. Then she rose on her knees, reached out, and cupped his face in her hands. “I’m stronger than I look, Thargen. You won’t break me.” She stroked his cheeks with her thumbs. “You’d never hurt me.”
Her gentle touch, paired with the soft sincerity of her words, wrapped around his heart and squeezed. She trusted him so completely, so unquestioningly. But he didn’t have a fraction of that trust in himself. He couldn’t share in those beliefs; such hope would only lead to mistakes—and damage—that couldn’t be undone.
He settled one of his hands over one of hers. “I’ve hurt everyone I know at least once, Yuri. And if I hurt you out here, there’s no one to help. I can kill just about anything, but I don’t know how to heal.”
“Thargen—”
“Not taking the chance, zoani,” he growled. “Not with you.” He guided her hand down from his face, turned it to press a kiss onto her palm, and then placed one of the eggs atop it. “Now eat. We got work to do today.”
Seventeen
Five days passed in the blink of an eye, though they’d felt like the longest days of Yuri’s life when taken one at a time. She loved every moment she spent around Thargen—which was more or less every moment. Sure, they’d been hard at work, doing all sorts of survivalist type stuff that Yuri was slowly starting to pick up on, but all that hadn’t distracted her from the questions growing increasingly louder in her mind.
Would they be all right? Would they find a way off this planet? Was Takashi okay, and had he told their parents that was she missing? Were they freaking out? What would happen if they were here long enough to experience winter on this planet? How many skeks were out there?
Was it possible for a person to die from sexual frustration?
Because Yuri felt like she was going to die. Despite Thargen endeavoring to keep some distance between them whenever possible during their days, he held her every night—not that held seemed like the right word. It was more like he locked her against him, her back to his chest with his arm banded around her torso and his legs thrown over hers, barely giving her any leeway to move. And damn if she didn’t like it as much as she was frustrated by it.
Even though their bodies were pressed together, he wouldn’t let her touch him, and he hadn’t been intimate with her since that first night in the cave. No matter how she tried to persuade him—subtly, blatantly, quietly or loudly, he didn’t budge. She could see the battle in his eyes, but he held firm—just like the cock he wouldn’t let her have!
Yuri understood his fear. She really, really did. His experience with that volturian had shaken him. But she honestly believed he wouldn’t hurt her. Every time she’d made a sound of discomfort or pain, every time she touched him, or spoken his name, he always snapped out of what he’d called Hruk—his Rage.
Even when he’d mounted her and put his hand around her throat, he hadn’t really hurt her. Yeah, his cock was big, and there’d been discomfort while her body stretched to accommodate him—which is absolutely normal considering she was a virgin—but everything had been fine. In truth, his reaction had turned her the hell on. Even his hand clutching her neck. Yuri liked him overpowering her. Freaking loved it.
Which wasn’t to say she didn’t take his story about the volturian seriously. As much as Yuri didn’t want to think about her vorgal with another woman, she could imagine that the experience must’ve been frightening and traumatic for the volturian, especially if it had been unexpected. Yuri had seen Thargen’s Rage build over days and days, but she’d also seen it ignite in an instant; it was a volatile force.
Clearly, it had been bad for the volturian, and Thargen had taken that to heart, had accepted it as proof that he was damaged. As confident as he was, he didn’t trust himself. Yuri felt for that faceless volturian—but Yuri wasn’t that woman.
She still wanted Thargen regardless of the risk he thought he posed to her.
Right now, as Yuri followed Thargen through the trees, her gaze was practically glued to his ass. He had such a fine ass. It was round and toned, and his snug pants hugged it like a second skin. All Yuri wanted to do was reach out and cup it in her hands. Maybe even smack it.
The memory of him slapping her ass sent a spear of arousal straight to her core. She wanted to feel that sting again, wanted the rush of heat that would follow, wanted the soothing palm of his hand rubbing her tender flesh to ease away the lingering pain.
Yuri rolled her eyes and barely held in her groan. Even her damned nipples were aching.
I am seriously going to die.
Fuck me.
Just ahead, Thargen knelt to check something on the ground—a set of tracks, probably. The position only pulled the fabric around his ass tighter.
Fuck me, please?
After a moment, he huffed and stood up. “We’ll check a few more traps and head back. It’
ll be getting dark soon.”
It felt like traps had taken over their days—large ones and small ones, all of them crude and simplistic, some made to catch game, but most meant for bigger prey. For people. She and Thargen had set more traps than she could count in the area around their cave.
No, that was wrong; she could count them, right in her head. Thargen had made her help with every trap, had made her memorize their locations and triggers. He’d said he wanted her to be able to walk through the woods in the dark without setting off a single trap.
Thargen had become obsessed with keeping the cave protected—with keeping her protected. That mission seemed to have become the outlet for all his frustration and discomfort. Despite how tired he should have been, he never showed signs of slowing, not even while he was digging in tough, root-tangled dirt or slicing chunks of wood with one of the hardlight axes.
When he glanced at Yuri over his shoulder, she offered him a playful smile. “We could stop by the river and get naked first.”
Yuri refused to give up. She wanted him, and damn it, she was determined to make him hers.
His shoulders stiffened, his nostrils flared, and his lips pressed together firmly. “We could. And I could run my hands over your body slowly, washing away all the dirt and sweat, making sure every last bit of you was clean.” He turned away and kept walking—not at all in the direction of the river. “But we’re not. Get your ass moving, terran.”
“Hey!” Yuri picked up her pace, having to take two or three steps for every one of his. “Are you saying I stink? And I am not covered in sweat and dirt.”
“Then we really don’t need to go to the river.”
Damn it.
“Wait! I lied,” Yuri hurried to say. “I’m filthy. I’m in dire need of a bath. You’ll need to run those hands all over me. My breasts, my ass, between my—”
Halting abruptly, Thargen spun to face Yuri, wrapped her in his arms, and swept her into a kiss that had her dipping backward, supported only by him. Her eyes flared before fluttering shut, and she kissed him back. Surrounded by his heat and strength, powerless against his hungry mouth, she lost all sense of where she was and what was happening. Feeling was enough.
Savage Desire (The Infinite City Book 4) Page 28
