by Mary Auclair
All mine. You’re all mine.
“Lie down on your stomach. Put your hands above your head.”
Hazel pushed herself up on her elbows, turning around to watch him with wide, passion-darkened eyes.
The snarl left his lips, primitive, feral. He wanted her down, wanted her submissive to his touch, to the pleasure he and he only could provide her.
He moved under the command of pure instinct.
Khal covered her under his body, grabbing her slim wrists and lifting them over her head, careful not to hurt her. He brought the belt up and quickly tied her hands together, pulling on the restraints just enough to hold her tight, to render escape impossible without hurting her.
Her skin shivered under his mouth as he kissed her nape.
“So soft.” He kissed her again, then nipped at her skin. Khal braced himself on his elbow, looking down at the defenseless, offered body of his mate. “So lush and female. You are mine, Hazel. My bloodmate, the other half to my heart.”
His fingers ran along the length of her spine, eliciting more shivers from her perfect, pale skin. He lingered in the small of her back, in that graceful curve that lifted up to her glorious, full ass.
“There never was a female such as you.” Khal bent and nipped at the taut mound of one cheek, this time just hard enough to pinch. Hazel cried out, the sound high pitched and frightened, but the smell of new wetness came from between her legs. Her lust was returning, she was excited by his game.
It made her all the more perfect for him.
He moved, pulling her legs apart, watching the wet lips of her sex reveal the pink flesh inside, glistening with her juices. Her honey sweet scent rushed to his nostrils. His seed stem pulsed with a painful need, heavy and carnal. Consuming.
He lowered himself above her, his seed stem pushing at her entrance. He held her bound wrists with one hand, immobilizing her.
“You will scream for me tonight again, Hazel.”
Khal placed one last kiss at the base of Hazel’s neck before allowing gravity to push him inside her. Her soft, wet and warm channel opened as his seed stem impaled her. He withdrew immediately, then pierced her again, but this time, faster. Harsher. Then again and again.
Khal began rutting Hazel, the movements of his hips fast and punishing, his seed stem going deeper and deeper into the silken depths of her flesh.
A different kind of pleasure was building inside Hazel as she lay powerless under him. He could feel her channel clenching around his sex, trying to suck him in deeper, to keep him there. Her forehead was buried in the blanket and she moaned in a low, tortured voice.
“Say it,” Khal ordered with another harsh thrust. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.” Her voice was plaintive, full of need. Full of yet to be fulfilled promises. “I want only this, nothing else.”
At her words, Khal took her even harder. He could feel the tremors of her sex, deliciously wet and tight, clenching around his seed stem. She was going to come again, and this time, he would come with her.
Then Hazel screamed, the brutal climax washing over her. Her walls closed around his seed stem, pushing him over the edge.
Khal roared with her as his seed spilled into Hazel’s warm channel. The violence of his pleasure blindsided him and for just a moment, he forgot everything else—everything that wasn’t Hazel and her body, Hazel and the pleasure they shared like it was a feast.
When they were both replete and spent, he freed her wrists and cradled her against him. She nestled in his body perfectly, like she was made for it.
And she was. She had been carved from the dust of the universe by the Midnight God to shape his life, to give it meaning.
Hazel turned in his arms, facing him. Her eyes were glistening, but there was no more sadness in her face. He kissed her, the touch light and tender. He kissed her like the treasure she was.
“I need you,” Hazel broke the kiss to whisper against his face. Her eyes were closed and her forehead rested on his own. “I never needed anyone in my life after Sally. But you, I need you, Khal.”
She spoke like it was a confession, her hands on his face, her breathing fast and shallow. As Khal’s hands traveled to her waist, he pulled her against him, molding her to his body, forcing her to straddle him, there on the bare floor.
“You’re my salvation,” she added.
Something broke inside him at her words. Because no matter how hard he had worked, how far he had gone in his training, in his duties, he had never been the hero. He always stood in another warrior’s shadow. First his father, chief of the tribe, then his brothers and their spectacular accomplishments, their great victories, celebrated across the Ring. He’d never begrudged them their success, the fame and honor they had gained, but he had never measured up. Khal had always been the faithful son, the loyal brother. But never had he been the one who counted above all others.
Except to Hazel. Hazel wasn’t just his life now. She was the center of the universe, the fabric of life itself.
* * *
Hazel
Two days later, Hazel made her way to the medical room, intent on visiting Celaith. The Arvak female was good company, if a bit abrasive when it came to talking about Zaxis.
Those two should be closing the deal, Hazel thought. It would be easier for everyone.
As she got nearer, she could hear voices behind the closed metal door, low and cutting. Hazel sighed. They were having another argument.
“I don’t need you to fuss around me like some ancient female matriarch,” Celaith snarled in her singsong, musical voice. “My arm is healing just fine.”
“It’s not your arm I’m worried about,” Zaxis retorted, clearly at the end of his patience. “With all the injuries you’ve sustained, one would think you’d learn to be more grateful.”
“Grateful? Oh, of course, your highness. What would I expect from a Duke’s son if not this total sense of entitlement?” A sharp cry followed, then a string of curses that would put any hardened old pirate to shame. “That’s cold!”
Hazel laughed out loud and stepped in.
“Good, you’re here,” Zaxis growled, muttering under his breath in a completely uncharacteristic display of temper. “Scan her if you can, or drown her in the bath. I don’t care. She’s too infuriating for this early in the morning.”
Zaxis pushed the scanning wand into Hazel’s hands and stormed off, his eyes flashing bright purple, his pupils slashed as thin as his temper.
“You have a way with him.” Hazel turned to Celaith with a bright smile. “You know just how to brighten his day.”
“Brightening his day is the last thing on my mind,” the Arvak female growled, her skin flashing in tones of magenta, a color Hazel had since come to recognize as betraying emotions Celaith would rather keep secret. “He thinks I’m weak. I’m a bounty hunter from the Mother. I’ll show him just how weak I am.” She shook her head, her small mouth pressed into an angry line. She sat up straighter in the bed and carefully swung her legs to the side. Pain etched across her features, but Hazel didn’t try to stop her. She understood Celaith more than Zaxis or Khal ever would.
“Need help, or are you going to kick me?” Hazel asked, lifting her eyebrow as Celaith tried to put weight on her legs but blanched under the strain.
“I’ll kick you, all right,” Celaith retorted, but her face lit up and her lips spread in a grin. “Then it’s going to be you in this bed, and that Eok won’t be nearly as fun as Zaxis to bully around.”
“You’re right about that. Khal would chain me to the post to make sure I recover.”
Hazel laughed as she passed an arm under Celaith’s elbow, helping her take her first steps. Celaith accepted Hazel’s help despite her warning, and together they walked slowly around the room. It had become a habit over the last two days. Hazel filled her empty time with Celaith, helping the Arvak recover from her ordeal. They had become close, as close as Hazel had ever been to having a friend.
And
she suspected Celaith felt the same way.
A few minutes later, Celaith’s face was becoming pale and her features drawn.
“I think we’re done for now,” Hazel stated firmly. Celaith’s dark pink eyes reduced to slits, but she nodded grudgingly. “Don’t think you’d let Zaxis lead you back to bed,” Hazel added, knowing very well that would elicit a strong reaction from her new friend.
Celaith’s eyes flashed, but she chuckled. “Don’t try to rile me up.” Celaith sighed as she sat back down on the bed. “I’m too tired to argue with you.”
“You’d argue until you dropped dead.”
Hazel pulled the covers back over Celaith’s legs. All traces of humor were gone from her mood. “What was it like, growing up aboard the Mother?”
Celaith’s good hand flattened on the cover and she looked up sharply at Hazel. “I saw many worlds, did many things.” Her voice was a whisper, and her eyes took on a vague expression. “Most of all, Roohl taught me that the only value I had lay in how much bounty I could collect.”
Hazel sat on the bed, staying silent. Somehow, she knew this was what Celaith needed; silence to say the things she had not said to anyone else before.
“I was only a babe when the civil war started on my home planet. Our species had fought before, as sharing a planet isn’t easy and such is the way of life. One species always has to be on top. No two civilizations can simply coexist.” Celaith spoke softly, but her voice was stronger than before. “I don’t remember any of it. My mother and father fled, leaving behind everything they had. They were wealthy, rich enough to possess a great ship, and they probably thought they had a better chance of just rebuilding their lives on another planet. Or they just wanted to hide until things quieted down. I’ll never know. I don’t even remember their faces. All I know is things didn’t go their way and they died. They were killed by pirates, and I was going to follow them. Then, Roohl came. He was after the bounty on the pirate captain. He found me, hiding in an air circulation duct. He took me in, fed me, clothed me. Taught me. Being a bounty hunter is the only life I’ve ever known.”
Silence descended as Celaith stopped talking. A wealth of pain hung in the air between them, full of unhealed wound and untold secrets.
“I’m an orphan, too,” Hazel said. “But I still have a sister. I haven’t seen her since Knut sold her. Maybe, when all this is done, I’ll see her again.”
Celaith looked up at Hazel, a faint smile on her lips. “I hope you get to see your sister.” She opened her mouth to speak more, but whatever the Arvak said was lost in the noise.
The Myrador shook like its frame was collapsing all around them. A deafening, blood-curdling screech of tearing metal filled the air.
Then another quake, this time strong enough to throw Celaith and Hazel to the floor in a heap of panicked flesh.
“What’s happening?” Hazel shouted above the howl of sirens. “Are we being boarded again?”
Celaith screamed as a third quake shook the room. Her dark pink eyes turned to Hazel, full of panic.
“No.” She shook her head. “We’re being attacked.”
Chapter 17
Hazel
Her knees almost buckled under their combined weight and Celaith’s small hands dug into her flesh painfully, but that was just a remote fact in the back of her mind. Hazel didn’t care about the pain, didn’t care that her legs and back were screaming under the strain. The only thing that mattered was the fast succession of explosions that rocked the Myrador like it was a bug trying to fly in a storm.
Celaith was trying her best to walk, but she was losing her strength fast, and they were nowhere near the command center where Khal and Zaxis were no doubt trying their best to fend off whoever was attacking.
“Just a little further,” Hazel encouraged as they turned into the long hallway leading to the command center. “We’ll get there.”
Celaith nodded, her face scrunching with resolve, but she missed her next step as another quake made the Myrador shake to its foundations. Both of them ended up on the floor, screaming mindlessly.
“Hazel!”
“Celaith!”
Two male voices rang out from just beyond her field of vision and soon strong, steady arms lifted her to her feet, untangling her from Celaith. Hazel locked gazes with Khal, noting from the corner of her eye that Zaxis was picking up Celaith.
“Who’s doing this?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Khal’s truthful answer chilled her to the bone. “There was no warning, no attempt at communication. They just started blasting us as soon as we were in range. All I know is that it’s a warship, and the technology is from the Ring, but there’s no identifier on it. It doesn’t even emit its serial identifier to the required frequency.”
“How can this be?”
Khal’s hands closed around her shoulders, helping her walk to the control room where she sat heavily in one of the seats backing up to the wall. Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the restraints.
“It’s not supposed to be possible,” Khal answered as he helped her secure herself in the seat. “No ship built inside the Ring escapes the Identification Agency.”
Khal turned from her after answering, going back to his captain’s seat, strapping himself in in a few efficient, fast motions. Zaxis already sat in his own co-pilot seat, his fingers running over the controls like across a piano keyboard, his face focused, his gaze intense. At Hazel’s side, Celaith lay slumped in her seat, unconscious once more. She wasn’t nearly as strong as she wanted everyone to believe, and there was no telling how much this had set her back in her healing. Gerkin had really done a number on her.
Another quake rattled the Myrador, this one longer, stronger. Too long. Panic invaded each of Hazel’s cells as she watched Khal pilot the Myrador away from the warship, dodging many explosive charges, but not all of them.
“The shields are going to fail,” Zaxis stated in a detached, remote tone. Efficient, unafraid. “The next direct hit and we’ll have a hull breach. Then, it’s down to seconds.”
A long pause, another missed detonation, close enough to rock the Myrador.
“We have to land.” The only indication of Khal’s feelings was the pale tint of his knuckles as he held to the controls. “We’re in range of Muhar—set the calculations and divert all powers to clouding.”
Zaxis’s hand ran over the controls, then he lifted his gaze to Khal like he’d just understood what the Eok was saying. “If I divert all control, we won’t have the engines to land. We’ll crash.”
“The Myrador can take a crash landing, but not another hit.”
“Not with the current state of the shields, she can’t.”
Khal tilted the Myrador in a dizzying escape maneuver, his knuckles almost white as he strained to steady the failing ship. “We have no choice.” His tone was cutting and he shot Hazel a glance over his shoulder before returning his attention to the controls. “Muhar is in range. Set the calculations.”
“The surface is uncharted. The whole damned Beyond is uncharted.” For the first time, there was an edge of fear in the Avonie’s voice, a crack in the polished surface. This chilled Hazel to the marrow of her bones. If Zaxis was panicking, then they were doomed. “We have no idea what we’ll find down there! We could land right in the middle of a sea or crash on a mountain!”
“Better die trying to survive than die waiting.”
Khal’s final answer shut down the argument and Zaxis bent over his control panel, inputting the complex set of data that would permit the calculation for their safe entry into the atmosphere.
If they even survived that long.
Weightlessness made Hazel’s stomach churn as the Myrador’s artificial gravity faltered. The next second, a darkness flooded the control room, a blackness so complete, Hazel could not see the tip of her nose. The darkness invaded her lungs, her veins, the hollows in her bones.
She screamed, her mind finally ripping apart under the terror.
More detonations shook the darkness, loud and evil sounding.
Hazel’s ears rang as Khal uttered a curse, but her universal translator couldn’t work it out. Another quake agitated the Myrador, but it was smaller. Farther away.
“All power has been redirected to clouding.” Zaxis spoke clearly, but Hazel barely understood his words. “We have only a few minutes to get out of that ship’s scanning range and down on Muhar’s surface. More than that, and we lose all power.”
Lose all power. Lose heating. Lose oxygen. Lose their lives. They wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes in space without power.
“A few minutes is all we need.” Khal’s voice was lined with steel, with a resolve that pushed death away, defied the odds and laughed in the face of danger.
Then, there was no place for words. There was no place for thoughts, there was only weightlessness and fear as the Myrador surged into the aseptic void of space, all lights down, racing for the surface of an unknown world where they might find salvation as easily as damnation.
But anything was better than dying in this cold, all-consuming black void. Hazel reached blindly for Celaith’s hand, closing her fingers around the frail, cold knuckles of the Arvak.
A golden orb appeared in the distance, growing at a fast pace in the window. There it was: a savage planet, a world of the unknown and danger.
Their only chance.
The planet grew and grew until it filled their field of vision. Hazel’s hand around Celaith’s held tight as the Myrador started to shake—but not with the great, teeth-chattering quake from before. No, this time it was a familiar tremor, one she’d felt before. They were entering the atmosphere.
Fire filled the glass window as they dropped at an uncontrolled speed toward the unforgiving ground below. At some point during the fall, she began to scream again.
