by Mary Auclair
“It’s the bomb, isn’t it?” Suddenly, she couldn’t stand anymore. Her hands reached blindly behind her and she fell into a chair more than she sat. “You’re not just after Knut. You’re after that damned bomb.”
Silence, heavy with meaning, answered her question.
I chose the wrong ship to hide in.
She had escaped Bobbie and his fists only to find refuge on the one ship in the entire Ring that was not only going to hunt down the ex-Trade Minister who had enslaved her entire people, but which was leaving the safety of the Ring’s civilization in order to retrieve a weapon so formidably destructive, it could plunge billions of people into a civil war.
I’m a total idiot.
The sheer absurdity of her situation made her chuckle. Her mind swam, and laughter soon bloomed in her chuckles’ place. Hazel laughed and laughed at the ridiculous turn of events.
“I’m going to die. We’re all going to die out here.”
Khal watched her, his face expressionless no more. Instead, an embarrassed kind of worry spread over his masculine, broad features.
Yeah, this one can deal with a murderous bounty hunter, but he doesn’t know what to do with a girl gone mad.
The thought only made Hazel laugh more, but soon, the hilarity gave way to something darker. Something close to despair. Her laughter turned into sobs and she pulled her knees up to her chest, then bent her head, hiding her face as her short hair fell forward.
All the helplessness she’d felt over the months after her flirtation with Bobbie turned into a nightmare rushed to the surface, and Hazel let it swallow her. She had been alone for so long, had fought all that life had thrown at her without ever falling.
But this was just too much.
She cried quietly until a large, warm hand closed over her shoulder. Strong arms reached under her knees and she found herself cradled against the impossible strength of Khal’s chest.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Khal whispered into her hair in a soft voice, much softer than she’d ever thought he could have. “Now, let’s get you some rest. You’re exhausted.”
As much as she wanted to protest, Hazel felt her entire body shut down as she drank in Khal’s warmth, Khal’s strength, burying her face in his neck, inhaling his clean male scent.
He walked her all the way to his sleeping quarters and tucked her into bed after removing her boots. As she watched him through the fog of a sleepiness induced by shock, his blue eyes seemed to gleam. She didn’t want to sleep. She knew it was absurd, but her mind and body were shutting down. After the almost sleepless night in the cargo container, her fright at finding herself in space, and then the boarding from the Mother’s bounty hunters, her mind was pulling the plug.
Hazel tried to fight it. She moved, pushing the blanket away.
“Sleep now.” Khal brushed her cheek gently, effortlessly pulling the blanket back up to her chin. “You will be back with your sister; this I vow to you.”
As Hazel finally closed her eyes to the world, she realized that for the first time in her short, brutal life, she actually trusted someone other than her sister. She believed.
And it was all because of an Eok warrior whose eyes were too blue and whose mouth she wanted to kiss so bad it hurt.
Chapter 8
Hazel
Her head hurt and her eyelids were heavy, but Hazel forced them open anyway. She stared at the white ceiling, blinking until her mind cleared and she could think straight.
Or just about straight enough.
She sat up in the bed, wincing as the pounding of her headache made her feel like her brains wanted to jump out of her skull and crawl away. Her mouth felt like she’d swallowed a bucket of sand, and her eyes were itchy and dry.
She must have slept longer than she’d thought. She was dehydrated and weak.
I can’t hide in this room forever.
She groaned as her entire body screamed in protest when she got to her feet. It took a moment before she could move and then, she was walking. And she didn’t stop.
The interior of the Myrador was familiar now and soon, Hazel’s feet took her to the kitchen. It didn’t take long for her to find a pouch of water and to drink it greedily.
“Space travel takes a lot out of anyone, but I’ve heard humans are especially vulnerable.”
Hazel turned to see the towering figure of Khal walking in. The Eok was as imposing as always, but there was a weariness to his face that hadn’t been there before, his eyes sunken just a little, fine lines around his mouth.
“You look like the rear-end of a Mantrilla.”
Khal lifted surprised brows and a quick, easy chuckle escaped his lips. He shook his head and gave her a wry grin. His deep blue eyes gleamed with a sad kind of humor.
“You really are an insolent little thing!”
Hazel stared, wordless as the smile transformed Khal’s face. It lifted some of the weariness from his eyes and softened the hard angles of his face, making him appear almost vulnerable and, at the same time, a thousand times stronger. Once more she saw the ghost of another Eok—a younger, carefree Eok. One who laughed easily and enjoyed the sweet things in life.
What made him this way, turned his heart to stone and stole his smile?
Something churned deep in Hazel’s belly. A need roared to life inside her body; feminine and imperious. Hazel locked gazes with Khal as his smile faded and the same raw, primal attraction glittered in his alien eyes.
This is wrong. This is the worst kind of wrong.
“How long was I asleep for?” She cleared her throat and tried to look away, but she couldn’t peel her eyes away from Khal.
“Fourteen hours, give or take.”
She gasped, then frowned. “Why did you let me sleep that long?” Shock gave Hazel the ability to look away from Khal and she sat down heavily on a kitchen chair. “Did you and Zaxis manage to repair the hyper-propulsion?”
She watched as Khal came to stand beside her, drinking an entire water packet within a single long stride.
“The Myrador has resumed its course to Garana, but Zaxis still hasn’t fixed our communication.” Khal looked at her with a strange, almost reluctant expression. As he stood so close, Hazel could smell him in the nearly aseptic air of the kitchen. That good male scent, woodsy and musky, made her fingers twitch with the desire to reach up and trace those tiny scars along his muscular, powerful arm.
Focus.
Hazel mentally shook the attraction away. Losing herself in that direction wasn’t only a surefire way to get hurt, it was a dangerous way to get hurt.
“Then you’re going to send me away.” She shouldn’t feel pain at the idea of Khal leaving her on Garana. She should be glad for it, but she wasn’t. All it made her feel was a hollow kind of pain, nagging and aching somewhere between her ribs.
“I have already notified Commander Gerkin.” Khal nodded soberly, his face unreadable. “He will send you an escort back to Aveyn as soon as possible. From there, you will be granted passage to Earth within a week.”
This was it. Everything she wanted on a silver platter.
Then why do I feel like screaming?
“But I will never see you again.”
His face remained unreadable as he took a step closer, his broad chest almost touching her. Without meaning to, she found herself on her feet, standing just in front of the Eok’s towering form. She had to tilt her head all the way back to keep looking into his eyes. Her chest heaved deep and fast, her breasts straining against the confines of her tank top.
“No, never.”
His already deep blue eyes went a shade darker as he bent slightly over her. Heat radiated from his skin and suddenly, Hazel felt a dizzying kind of need. Her head swam and her mouth went dry. She swallowed hard against her closed throat as her body sang with ravaging lust.
Khal’s hand reached behind her waist, sliding so easily to the small of her back. His vigilant stare missed nothing of her reaction as his flesh made contac
t with hers. All seeing. All knowing. Strong, hard fingers dug into her soft flesh and his hot breath fanned her mouth. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. All Hazel could do was watch as his face changed, the harsh alien features softening impossibly.
He pulled her in and Hazel took the last step. Her body molded to his, all her softness craving his hardness like a thirst. A glow started inside her body, filling her with an almost painful anticipation. The heat of Khal’s skin radiated through his heavy synthetic leather clothing, making her skin prickle with the desire to touch it.
“You should be running away from me.” His voice was husky and low, his face painted with the shades of lust. “If only you knew how dangerous this is.”
“I can’t,” she answered truthfully as his other hand moved, traveling up her stomach, making her skin quiver as his fingers trapped one breast. They were so large they covered its fullness completely.
Khal’s face lowered until his mouth hovered just above hers. Their breaths mingled as he looked at her—really looked at her. For the first time in her life, Hazel felt like someone truly saw her for who she was.
And desired her for it.
“I want to run away, but I can’t.”
“Then you are as lost as I am.”
Then he kissed her, and all her thoughts vanished. Khal’s mouth landed on hers like a dream she never wanted to wake up from, hard and warm, demanding everything from her and taking it. Her willpower shattered and she ceased to be herself. She became a creature of flesh and lust, and Khal was the master pulling her strings. His mouth opened and his tongue pushed through. She responded, allowing him in as his taste slid inside with his tongue. His taste invaded her mouth, clean and masculine, and as her tongue slid over the sharp tips of his fangs, a tangy taste spread over her taste buds.
Fire spread under her skin, making her kiss Khal harder. Her hands reached for the hard, thick muscles of his arms and slid around to the back of his neck. As her fingers ran over his skin, a tangible shiver traveled through Khal’s body, deep and slow. Primal.
The kiss deepened impossibly, until it became raw, animalistic possession.
And she wanted every bit of it. Hazel wanted to belong to Khal’s mouth, to Khal’s hands, to Khal’s body more than she wanted to breathe, more than she ever wanted to admit. The tangy taste of his mouth filled her mind as his hands ran feverishly over her body like he wanted to touch all of her at once.
Then, suddenly, it was like a dam breaking and he became a feral, wild beast. His hands slid to her ass, then to her thighs. He lifted her in a single fluid movement, parting her legs on either side of his body, pinning her to his throbbing, fully erect sex. At the feeling of his arousal, Hazel’s core clenched with need and a flood of wetness answered.
Khal moved, sitting her on the high counter, her legs still parted on either side of his waist. His mouth left hers and she breathed hard and fast, like she had been thirsty for air for days.
The growl vibrated from his chest all the way to her throbbing clit as his mouth closed over her throat.
No, not his mouth.
His fangs.
The sharp points closed around her throat, the sensitive skin quivering to the rhythm of her heartbeat. The hot wetness of his tongue lapped at her jugular like a large cat’s, slightly raspy and entirely erotic.
Fear mixed with arousal as Khal maintained her in complete submission.
Is he going to bite me?
His jaw tightened, the tips of his fangs barely breaking the skin, and pain shot through the fog in her mind. An incredible bloom of erotic pleasure erupted inside her body as he held her like that, alien and strange, like a drug, but impossible to dismiss.
She knew she was going to come before the orgasm hit her like a blow.
Hazel contorted under Khal, a strangled scream leaving her lips as pleasure shot from her clit to the tips of her fingers in an absolute, all-consuming climax like nothing she’d ever felt. Like nothing that she’d ever thought possible. Khal held her down, his fangs around her throat, his tongue lapping at the tiny wounds on her jugular as Hazel’s body was ravaged by the orgasm.
Then, as her mind still rebelled against the incredible amount of pleasure, his hand moved to her face. His large palm rested against her cheek, but still, the push of those fangs against her jugular increased until she knew he was going to break more than just her skin. It was like he was fighting against his own impulse to bite down—and slowly losing.
This was more dangerous than any kinky alien sex game.
Hazel became very still, all her instincts telling her that if she fought Khal’s predatory hold, he would react like the feral beast he was. He would bite down and claim his prize—only in the process, she would be injured. Humans were not Eoks, their bodies were much more fragile. She could die from a direct bite to her jugular.
Then, with a dizzyingly slow pace, those sharp fangs relinquished their pressure and then completely withdrew. His tongue loitered behind, dragging up and down her jugular like he could taste her blood flowing under the skin. She could almost feel his reluctance to let go, the almost irresistible push to bite down again and go all the way through this time.
But Khal didn’t. His mouth left her body, and soon, way too soon, he pulled away from her. His too-blue eyes were even bluer, lighting up like fiery diamonds, and in those mesmerizing pupils was a lust the like of which she’d never witnessed. A lust that consumed and burned, a lust that defied all the laws of the universe to put her right there, at the center of it.
“How can I ever let you go?”
There was such a depth of emotions in those words, in that voice, a vulnerability just there under the surface of the rough Eok exterior, that Hazel didn’t know what to think. Or how to think anymore.
She let out a shaky breath as her eyes and her soul remained prisoner of Khal’s.
Then he pulled away. The loss of his contact sent a shudder of pain rippling deep in her body, where her most female need resided. Without having the strength to resist, she whined in protest. Her hands reached up blindly, intent on preventing him from going away, then stopped when Khal’s eyes flashed, the danger just there, below the surface. Feral. Primal.
“If you know what’s good for you, Hazel, you will stay away from me.”
And with that, the Eok was gone and Hazel was left behind, her need a gnawing, angry beast in her belly.
Chapter 9
Khal
It can’t be happening. I won’t let it.
But what could he do about it? Khal stormed down the long hallways on his way to nowhere in particular, a fiery inferno coursing through his veins, lighting up his body like never before. He felt each one of his cells responding to the fire crawling under his skin, taking hold of his entire being like some otherworldly shadow, a force from deep within the ageless instincts of his kind.
The Mating Venom had come to him in all its persuasive, bold lure, and now he was lost.
Because so help him and the Midnight God, he wanted Hazel so bad it hurt, and now that the Venom had come, he had almost welcomed it like an animal. Like the primitive savages his kind had once been, stealing mates in the night and rutting them before they had a chance to protest.
What held him back had been the long life of strenuous training that allowed him to reign supreme over his instincts, hone them like a blade instead of being their victim.
It wouldn’t be long before he wasn’t able to resist, though.
And then, what would he do? Would he become the monster he had fought so hard not to be?
Khal stalked down the hallway and stopped abruptly as a tall, pale-skinned alien stood in front of him.
“Zaxis.” Khal’s voice was gravely and raw as he fought the instinctive impulse to growl at the other male. “What are you doing here?”
“Communication is restored.” The Avonie eyed him suspiciously, his brow furrowed and his pupils thin and wary in the dark purple of his eyes. “I sent notice to Commander Ge
rkin that we will land on Garana in twelve hours.”
“Good.”
Khal turned his back on Zaxis and walked away.
“What’s happening to you?” the other male called a few seconds later and Khal stopped. He could feel the tension running down his shoulders and arms like a poisonous drip, calling for violence.
“Nothing. I’m going to the command room. Keep monitoring the hyper-propulsion until we arrive on Garana.”
“You got it, didn’t you?”
Khal turned sideways, looking at Zaxis over his shoulder. His purple eyes were set on Khal with a careful intensity, like he wasn’t sure if he should reach for a weapon, or offer him his hand to shake.
Khal would suggest the weapon if he could. “Careful. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about that thing that happens to you when you find the female who will become your mate,” Zaxis insisted, but didn’t come closer. “I’m talking about the Mating Venom. You’ve got it.”
“An Eok doesn’t just get the Mating Venom.” This time, Khal couldn’t control himself. He turned on Zaxis, wrath coursing through his body, driven by the pernicious effects of the Venom. “It’s not a drug. It’s a call, one that an Avonie like you can never understand.”
Khal watched as Zaxis’s face twisted in the telltale signs of pain, then recovered just as fast. A tiny stab of guilt shot through Khal’s mind, but it was quickly overcome by the relentless torment of the Mating Venom.
“Just because my species doesn’t feel a biological urge like yours doesn’t mean I don’t understand the bond between mates. Or that my kind cannot feel it just as strongly.”
Zaxis stood still, his face smooth and dignified as Khal reigned in the fury in his blood. A new respect for his second in command bloomed inside Khal as he collected himself. With a renewed effort, Khal nodded slowly. The Avonie male was not an Eok, not a true warrior, but he had steel in his soul, and showed great courage just by standing this close to him when he was obviously on the verge of losing control.
