by Lara LaRue
“You are an extraordinary woman to undergo this for the sake of the man who loves you.”
“He’s willing to die for me. He’s proven it more than once. But he shouldn’t have to. This world needs him. And he needs me. You’re really sure this stuff will do the trick?” I removed the capsule and held it up.
“I have little doubt.”
“How will I know if it’s working?”
She just smiled. “You’ll know.”
I swallowed the pill before I could second-guess myself out of it. Then I sat down to wait. I could only hope this was the right call. The idea of gaining psychic abilities intrigued me. And if it meant I would spend the rest of my life mated to an alien, then so be it. Better that than stand by and do nothing while he and his father struggled on the brink of death.
I waited. And waited, my stomach churning with nervousness. After a while, I started to get frustrated. Maybe it doesn’t work on humans after all. I looked up at the healer to ask her how much longer it would take to kick in—and then stared at her.
Neyilla had become a statue of golden light. Her flesh and clothes seemed to have become translucent, like a pale mist, and inside, her whole body was inundated with threads of gold. I looked down at my hands and was shocked to discover they looked almost the same way. In my case, the gold was still spreading, running down my nerve endings and sliding into my muscles and skin. I was filling up with light.
“It’s working,” I mumbled in astonishment.
“Can you sense anything?”
I closed my eyes. After a few moments, I felt my mind stretching out, downstairs, back to my room, where a mass of loneliness, exhaustion, and frustration thrashed on the bed in delirium. “Dekkir. He’s in trouble.” My heart started pounding. I remembered that moment when I had thought the flightless bird was about to bite off his arm. That moment when it felt as if I were screaming in pain for him. “He needs me.”
“Can you walk?”
I got up unsteadily. “I think so.”
“Good. Go to him.”
I had no idea how I made it down the stairs so fast. Before I knew it, I stood at his bedside, looking down at his pale, drawn face.
I smoothed his tangled hair back from his brow, and gentle warmth swelled inside me. Perhaps the bond was not completed, but I could feel it now. And it was time for me to do something about it.
I took off my boots and settled on the bed with him. After a moment, he stirred, and his eyes opened.
He sat up, startled to see me leaning over him, and then stared at my face. “Your eyes,” he murmured. “What have you done?”
“What I knew had to be done. Anything else wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.”
“But—”
I laid a finger on his lips and then moved forward and put my arms around him. It was like embracing a sun-warmed statue. There was nothing soft about him but his skin and hair. I ran my hands over his muscled back through his tunic, eagerly mapping the contours of his body with my fingertips. He shuddered, his eyes hooding again, but held himself still, as if wary of frightening me off. I reassured him the best way I could think of, leaning up and pressing my lips to his.
He caught me in his arms, pulling me against him hungrily. The kiss ignited suddenly as we clung to each other, intensifying until my lips stung, stealing our breaths until we finally had to lean back from each other just to catch them.
“I . . . do not wish to hurt you,” he murmured. I could feel his muscles tighten with restrained strength as he held me.
I smiled. “You’ve bled for me twice, Dekkir,” I purred as I ran the back of my hand down his cheek. “I’m not worried about you hurting me in any way I wouldn’t like.”
He licked his lips and had that gleam back in his eyes. He knew I wasn’t lying. I didn’t give a damn if I woke up with all-over finger bruises and bite marks tomorrow. In fact, gazing into his feral eyes, I thought I might enjoy it.
I stood and unzipped my jumpsuit, folding the fabric aside and watching his eyes widen as they lingered on my chest. I smiled. Breast man, huh, Dekkir? Well, you’ve hit the jackpot. I cupped them and pushed them together, displaying them as I held my smile. “Like what you see, big guy?”
“More than you know.” He stared in fascination as I slipped my arms from the jumpsuit sleeves and let the fabric fall to my waist.
“Oh, I think I know . . . now. And I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.” I unzipped the jumpsuit farther and pushed it down over my hips, shimmying slightly as his eyes tracked the movement.
“Worth it,” he rasped in a voice heavy with need. I could tell he was still stunned I had taken the symbiont—for him. “I would have waited a lifetime for you.”
“You shouldn’t have to.” Gazing at him as I stripped, I felt that warmth inside me strengthen and knew. I did not love him because I had taken the symbiont. I had taken the symbiont because I loved him. He had always been attractive, and I had quickly come to care for him, but his desperation and the imbalance in our feelings had scared me off. But now the scales had finally balanced, and his declaration that we were bound together by fate suddenly made perfect sense.
The fabric slid down my legs and puddled at my feet; I stepped free of it and stood there in my sheer undertights. “Lose some clothes. I want to see you, too.”
He stared a moment longer—and then tore off his tunic, revealing gleaming skin and muscle that rippled with each heaving breath. I slid my hands over his chest and then down his belly, teasing at the thin scattering of tiny white-gold curls that started just above the belt of his heavy suede trousers. His abdomen flexed under my fingertips, and a shiver went through him.
He pulled me onto his lap and bent to cover my breasts with kisses. His breath shuddered against my skin as he ran his tongue over them and then gently took a nipple into his mouth. So delicate, as if I were made of soap bubbles. His tenderness touched my heart—but I craved more and knew he did as well.
“Harder,” I whispered as I pushed my breasts against his face. “It’s okay. Please.” He rumbled contentedly and answered with a deep pull, his tongue lashing against my nipple as he suckled me. I let out a sharp moan and ran my hands through his silky hair, murmuring encouragement between gasps.
Caressing his satin-over-stone flesh gave me a melting sensation inside, as if the skin I touched were my own. His mouth was hot over mine; calloused hands that could have crushed the life out of me glided over my body gently, leaving tingling trails behind. As we helped each other out of the rest of our clothes, I became aware of a sort of double sensation inside me. My pleasure and growing excitement overlaid a second set of feelings: hunger, joy, and anticipated relief. He had told me once that he could feel my pain. Now I could feel his ebbing away with every kiss and caress.
As he pinned me down gently, one powerful thigh sliding between my own, I could feel the almost agonizing tightness of his loins as he restrained himself from thrusting into me yet. I could feel his heart pounding in wild joy at my acceptance. I could feel his pleasure at finally touching me as much as he wanted to. The taste of my skin intoxicated him. The smell of my sweat and my growing arousal drove him wild. I was an oasis in the desert to him.
At last, I realized just how much he had been suffering from my refusal. His great strength and will had allowed him to bear up when others would have faltered. But as the last of the pain left him, I knew he had been far closer to collapse than he would have ever let on.
We rolled back and forth on the mattress, tangled up together, mouths working against each other’s as we felt our pleasure and craving grow. His body shuddered under my hands and mouth; mine squirmed under his, my voice gone to breathless whimpers as his hand slid between my legs to knead and stroke me. My hands trembled on his skin and then clung to him, nails digging into the muscle of his back as I rocked my hips against his hand.
Finally, neither of us could stand it any longer. He sat back against the wall while I climbed over him eagerly
, raising myself on my thighs and then settling slowly over his length. The pleasure of filling myself with him was edged with pain, my flesh stretched to its limit around his thick girth—but I pushed downward eagerly, feeling his intense bliss as he entered. I could barely take him all in, but his long groan of pleasure encouraged me just as much as the feedback from his nerve endings.
He dug his heels against the mattress and grabbed my hips, arching up into me roughly. We moved together feverishly, his grip on me almost bruising as he rose to meet me every time I bore down. The tension gathering in his body intensified my own and fed back to him, until shudders rolled through both our bodies and our joints cracked with the effort of riding against each other. Our shivering breaths sounded together, each thrust pushing the air from us, leaving us gasping at each withdrawal. I couldn’t speak anymore; as I looked up at him, I saw him in the same state: golden eyes hooded, lips parted, the strain of holding off deepening on his face.
Our bellies slapped together rhythmically as I kept riding him, the ache in my thigh muscles almost lost in my growing pleasure. The sensations ramped up until I lost control of my voice, moaning and gasping loudly as I moved. His muscles tightened, fingertips digging against my hips, and sharp little shouts of pleasure started escaping him with each thrust. Our voices grew louder and more desperate as we galloped toward climax. No fighting it now.
My back arched and I went rigid, my voice rising in a wail as my sex contracted around his. My climax tore through me, reflected in his own nerve endings, and a moment later, he threw back his head and roared with pleasure. I felt a second wave of ecstasy rush through me on the heels of the first as he crushed me against him, hips lifting me off the mattress as he emptied himself into me. A few more convulsive thrusts . . . and he settled back down, legs stretching out under me as his cry died down to a soft rumble. We held each other tight for several heartbeats, shaking and gasping for air.
Finally, his grip loosened as he let out a contented sigh. “Grace,” he murmured, nose buried in my hair. I leaned my head back and kissed him softly, too overwhelmed to speak yet. He saw it and chuckled, stroking my back and setting off tingling aftershocks through my body.
He settled back against the pillows, cradling me against his chest. His pain was gone, and amazingly, so was mine, though I had never been aware of it before. When the last of my shudders had ebbed away and I had my breath back, he looked down at me. “Are you all right?”
“More than.” I laid my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes. I had never felt such contentment. I knew I might pay for this tomorrow in sore muscles and bruises, but I didn’t care. The ordeal was over. Whatever madness someone at Command was cooking up, whatever consequences I would face for taking the symbiont and siding with Dekkir and his people, I could bear it just as long as I had him.
“I feel the same,” he murmured drowsily as his grip on me loosened.
My eyelids grew heavy as I tried to sort out if he was answering my words or my thoughts. As I drifted off, I wondered if it mattered.
I dreamed I had my earbud communicator back and could hear Dr. Stirling’s reassuring voice in my ear. He was giving me a list of what sounded like local herbs. Beastvine sap. Thorntree bark, powdered. Janna nut milk, all in equal proportion. Heat until the mixture turns white and apply in thumbprint-sized dollops beneath the tongue every two hours.
I sat up suddenly in the dark. I could still hear the voice. Not in my ear, however. In my head. “Doctor?” I mumbled.
I’m here. Bring the formula to Neyilla. I determined which poison they used on the high chieftain. This will help his body purge it.
My heart started hammering. But how are you talking to me this way?
It is a long story, the thought came, colored with amusement. Suffice it to say, I inoculated myself quite a long time ago. Now, it’s best you hurry.
What if she doesn’t believe me?
Tell her Tabirus supplied the formula. She will know it to be genuine.
Tabirus?
But the voice didn’t answer. Stunned, I got up and started dressing.
Dekkir opened his eyes and looked at me curiously. “Is something happening?”
“Someone named Tabirus is talking to me in my head. Apparently, Neyilla knows him. He just gave me a formula he said will help cure your father.”
He immediately jumped up and started pulling on his clothes. “Let us go, then, and see what Neyilla says.”
We hurried out together, hand in hand. I didn’t know what the symbiont would end up doing to me any more than I knew what would happen now that I had aligned myself fully with the Lyrans. But as I felt the quiet joy radiating from Dekkir and my own strange new sense of wholeness, I knew I had done the right thing. Heart full of hope and head full of a formula I hoped would cure the high chieftain, I rushed up the stairs with my mate.
CHAPTER 9 / GRACE
I woke slowly, vaguely aware of the warm, hard body curled around me from behind. My dreams, wild and vivid, faded quickly to dim memories as I opened my eyes. The large, organically rounded wooden sleeping chamber was starting to look familiar after my first few days of waking up to it, and I relaxed, starting to get my bearings at the sight.
I had woken up in a lot of different kinds of bedrooms during my short life. The living pod I had shared with my mother, father, and two brothers back on Earth had been cramped, despite my father’s high rank. Five of us had shared two bedrooms, each one barely large enough to cram us all in. From that, I had gone on to the enormous, crowded Science Academy barracks, with one hundred students to each cavernous room. Doctoral candidates had it a bit better, and so for the last three years of my education, I had shared a smaller bedroom with three other students instead.
Then a treasure: during my internship on Mars, I had finally gained my own living capsule, with no roommates. Sweet solitude. Granted, the capsule had been small, but it had been mine. Finally, a similar living capsule awaited me on Lyra’s third moon, where our Earth base was located. And then, eighteen months and two weeks later, this room, hollowed out of living wood by unknown means within the gigantic tree that served as Lyran master healer Neyilla’s hospice. This time, however, I was back to sharing space with another person. The difference was, this time, I wouldn’t have traded that for anything.
I could hear Dekkir breathing softly in sleep behind me. We had exhausted each other again. I smiled slowly, remembering why exactly I was a mix of slack-muscled and slightly sore. I had already known Lyrans tended to have higher sex drives than humans, but Dekkir was something else again. Once he got started, he didn’t let go until both of us were so completely satisfied that we couldn’t do anything but sleep. It was interfering with my training a little bit, but fortunately, Neyilla didn’t seem to mind much.
Ever since I had deliberately exposed myself to the Lyran symbiont known as the Golden Strain, Dekkir and I had joined as what the Lyrans called True Mates. Before that, I had not been psychically aware enough to understand why it was that Dekkir had become so infatuated with me on our first meeting. Once the Strain had inoculated my body and awakened the psychic receptors in my brain, I hadn’t just known what he had gone through; I started feeling it for myself. We didn’t quite do everything together, since, after all, I was still undergoing training and he still had messages to run back and forth to the capital at Highfort. But as my body and mind adjusted to the symbiont and to the new mating, I found it uncomfortable to be without him for very long.
No one at Neyilla’s sanctuary, including the healer herself, could explain to me how it was that a purebred Lyran nobleman had somehow imprinted on a human instead of one of his own kind. Like many things about the planet, its culture, and my mission there in general, it remained a mystery. Nor could anyone explain to me how it was that once I accepted the symbiont myself, I immediately imprinted on him in return. The idea of such intimacy had frightened me before now. I simply had not had the capacity to be receptive for it. But once it had been
accomplished, I had started . . . changing. And now, nothing felt more right.
I rolled over in the circle of his arms and looked up at Dekkir as he snoozed away in happy exhaustion. I never got tired of looking at him. He wasn’t just bigger than any human I had ever seen—he was beautiful. He had strong, sharp features, very close to human but on a larger scale, and huge hands that clutched at me gently as his heart beat slowly against my breasts. Smooth, pale skin gleamed over hard muscle in the faint light from the single night lantern as his broad chest rose and fell. His hair was long and silky and almost white, tangles of it falling across one high cheekbone as he dreamed away.
Now that I understood the power of the feelings he had been fighting, I realized just how patient he had been with me back when I hadn’t been able to feel the same thing in return. Since then, he had seemed determined to make up for lost time. I could feel his contentment right now, his emotions brushing up against my own and strengthening those we had in common. It was more intense than being in love had ever been for me before. Sometimes, like the rest of my adjustment period, it did frighten me a little bit. But all I had to do was look at his face and feel the happiness radiating from him, even in his sleep, and I knew I had made the right decision.
My skin was starting to itch from all the sweat that had dried on it. Slipping free of his arms reluctantly, I stood and moved somewhat stiffly over to the shower pod at the far end of the room. I had to lean against the wall inside the pod as I rinsed off. I could feel the marks he had left on me: hickeys, little scratches, and finger bruises where he had lost control of his strength. The water made them sting, and that made me smile. I loved it when he lost control a little because of what I was doing to him.
Grace, are you there? Can you hear me?
The voice in my head sounded familiar, but I was still more used to hearing it from my communications earpiece. Chief Science Officer John Stirling had been my instructor and mission commander for most of my visit to the Lyran system. He was not technically my immediate superior, but he did most of the job, as the man actually responsible for that was . . . not very responsible. He was also the one who had recommended first that I inoculate myself with the Golden Strain. He had not made the decision blindly; before any of this had happened, during his own stay on Lyra as a cultural representative, he had apparently inoculated himself in secret.
