The Bonding

by Imogen Keeper

  “You will fight for your people, Chingassa. You will respect them. Honor them. Guide them. I will stand by your side as you do so.”

  Tam swallowed thickly. It shouldn’t feel like a betrayal. It shouldn’t feel like a rejection. She’d marry him either way. Did it matter that she didn’t know it was him? He flexed his fists.

  “But not as your wife.” The words echoed around the arena. Hushed as the grave and as loud in Tam’s ears as fury. She spoke with the cutest accent he’d ever heard, in slow, careful Vestige.

  Tam’s heart thundered out a single beat louder than any rocket.

  As he watched, Nissa turned her head to gaze around the arena. She no longer spoke to him. She spoke to her people but it didn’t matter. Her words were a balm, a benediction, a salvation. “I am wed to another. A warrior of Argentus. I cannot, in good faith, be wife to your king. But I can be your queen, if you will have me.”

  He grabbed a wet towel from Reyback.

  “You dumb lucky fuck,” Reyback said and smacked him on the back.

  37

  I won’t be your slave.

  “YOU WERE SLAVES.” Nissa looked around the arena at the silent sea of people in the crowd. She’d rehearsed this speech so many times she didn’t need to look at the little comm she’d been given with it written out in phonetic Vestige. Still, the words stuck in her throat and felt strange on her tongue. Their faces were too distant to see clearly. Her father stiffened beside her. He looked uncomfortable but he didn’t try to stop her, as she’d expected he would.

  She swallowed stiffly, flexing her fingers around the loudspeaker. “You were slaves,” she repeated.

  Tycho caught her eye and offered up a stoic smile.

  “And now you are free. The past is part of who we are but it does not need to define us. Freedom should. And I will not give up mine. Not even for you.”

  Through the bond, something sharp and powerful sliced through her. Where is he? She looked down, back to the man kneeling on the earthen floor of the arena below her. She couldn’t make out his features, only the broad set of his shoulders. Somehow his body language didn’t reflect what she’d expected. He looked joyous almost. She saw a bright flash of white teeth. Is he smiling?

  Chingassa pressed his fist to his chest in a gesture she’d seen a hundred times. Thumb to the skin of his sternum, right over his heart, on the seat of their bond.

  The breath rushed out of her lungs with a whoosh. She dropped the speaker. It hit the stone floor of the dais on which she stood with a loud thud, bouncing and clattering.

  “Tam?” she whispered.

  Beside her, her father clapped smiling broadly. Pinoton and Shanchoton smiled like the sycophants they were. She met Tycho’s eyes. He looked as surprised as she felt.

  “Tam?” She raised her voice. “Tam?” She shouted it this time, turning back to the man, rising to his feet now. “Tam.”

  “Nissa,” he shouted. Just like the first time. She called. He answered.

  She ran.

  Tycho shouted out her name, probably trying to keep up, always the guard. The spiral staircase shook under her feet as she ran. Vaguely, she registered the shocked faces of the people she passed on the six tiers of the stadium’s levels.

  Her heart beat a single rhythm. Tam. Tam. Tam. She couldn’t believe it. How had he done it? Had he come because of her broadcast? Or had he come on his own? And what had her father known about it? He’d been too calm to have been surprised by this. She rounded the final staircase and her sandaled feet hit the sandy floor of the arena.

  Tam stood in the center. The big gray-haired man beside him scrubbed towels over his back and face. Bloody mud still streaked him, covered him, but she could see him now. Only a few feet away.

  Tam. Breath whooshed from her lungs. This man. He froze. Eyes locking dead on her. The gray-haired man backed away, a pile of soiled towels in his arms.

  Nissa ran straight for him.

  He backed away.

  “What?”

  “I’ll get you all dirty.”

  She laughed, almost a cry, a sad, pathetic emotional blend of every feeling she’d ever felt. “I don’t care about that. You think I care about that?” She threw herself against him.

  He caught her, pulling her high off the ground, wrapping her in those big, hard arms, and nothing, ever, in her entire life had felt so right.

  “It looks like blood. I thought maybe...” His voice in her ear was like a tongue straight to the clit.

  “Don’t think. Just shut up.” She pulled his face to hers, pressed her lips against his. He tasted like Tam. Like home. Like the sweat of a man and the terra of her home planet. She sighed. Nothing had ever tasted better either. “Please, just kiss me.”

  He pulled her close. She felt him against her stomach, hard and full in those ridiculous pants of his, and she writhed in closer, pressing against him.

  “There are thousands of people watching,” he said, in a husky voice.

  “I know. I know. You’re right. You should put me down.”

  “I’m not sure that I can.”

  She pulled back to look at his dark-gray eyes, stroking her hands through his beautiful dark hair. “I love you. So much. I’m so sorry. I should have told you sooner. I shouldn’t have let you go.”

  He shook his head, lowering her feet back to the ground. “I didn’t make it easy. I’m sorry. I should have tried harder. I love you.”

  He stiffened, staring at something over her shoulders. He pulled her close, the massive length of his erection pressing against her stomach. “Your father is coming and my dick is about to rip these pants in half. You need to stay in front of me.”

  She laughed—she couldn’t help it. She was too happy to do anything else. “Why are you wearing them, anyway?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  He looked exasperated as she glanced pointedly at his hard length, clearly outlined in the little pants.

  “Those pants are way too small for the story to be all that long.”

  His lip curved, a gleam in his eyes that she knew all too well. With a hand on her upper arm, he spun her around, and pulled her body close, so her bottom touched against the solid, strong muscles she’d missed, and the long, hard cock she’d dreamed about butted against her, a reminder of everything she wanted him to do with her.

  His voice was so gruff in her ear that her eyes drifted shut. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be in his arms. Lust and love and comfort slithered up her spine.

  Hard fingers closed around her hips, his beard bristled against her jaw. “Believe me, eyana.” He thrust his hips against her, making her belly clench, her nipples harden and her wet heat pool between her thighs. “I’ll fill you in later.”

  Her cheeks flushed, as she opened her eyes to face her father and the people she and Tam would lead together.

  38

  Fuck yeah.

  FUCK.

  It had taken a long godsdamnned time to get her alone. So long he’d started to worry his dick might snap off but finally they’d done it—sneaked away to a clearing where they could be alone. Just the two of them, a couple hundred red ferns and the beating sea a clifftop below.

  If a life without a hope of a woman had been bad, a life without a hope of Nissa had been unbearable. He hadn’t quite wrapped his fucked-up head around it but he’d been in a fog since he’d left Sierra-Six.

  He looked at her now where she lay before him, legs spread wide, the wet, hot pink of her pussy spread before him, the prettiest thing he’d seen in his entire life.

  He rose above her, rested his forehead against hers for a long moment, just reveling in the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair. Her skin was soft under his thumb when he reached out a hand to stroke her cheek.

  Her eyes were warm and the boldest of greens and so close to his they nearly crossed.

  He pressed his lips against hers. “I love you, eyana. So much. Always.” Those white teeth of hers flashed against her newly tanned
skin. She took hold of his hand and brought it between her breasts, to touch the place where the bond pulsed. He felt her inside him. Her joy and her happiness. Her relief even. “Always.”

  “You can’t leave me again.” His voice was hoarse and pathetic as shit but he didn’t even care.

  She shook her head. “I won’t. I’d never.”

  He ran a thumb along the turgid peak of her nipple, watched as it hardened, heard the soft inhalation of her breath. Lust filled her eyes. Arousal thundered in his chest. He shook his head. He’d never imagined this, that he’d get her back with no barriers between them. No Triannon keeping them apart. No chemicals tying them together, confusing their emotions.

  No doubts. No fears. Nothing. Now it was just them. And she loved him. She didn’t need him. She wanted him. His eyes burned as he trailed his hand down her smooth belly, through soft hairs, delved his fingers in deep where she was wet and hot. He pressed a finger inside, in a place he’d never imagined he’d get to touch again.

  Pulling her close, he took her mouth with his. She sighed against him. “Tam?” she asked, just like the first time. He nodded, pressed her back, pushed her thighs open wider. Life was too good. He closed his eyes on a sharp inhalation, afraid suddenly. He really didn’t want to wake up in another one of those nasty gray dreams.

  When he opened his eyes she still lay beneath him, soft-eyed. “Gods, woman. You fucking slay me.” He dropped his mouth between her legs, sank his fingers into the soft skin of her thighs, ran his tongue from the bottom of her hot slit to the perfect, hard bead that hid among the folds. She tasted like heaven. She tasted like home.

  “Tam, please.” Her voice was little more than a moan. “Please, I can’t. Oh. Tam, I need—”

  “Shhh. I know what you need.” He strummed her clit with his tongue and she screamed out. When he shoved a finger inside her where she was so warm and tight, his balls clenched and his dick surged. “That’s it, eyana. Fuck my face,” he said against her rocking hips.

  He stroked her down from the high, laving over sensitive flesh in a way that made her squirm. He looked up at her, her slim thighs spread on either side of his face, her skin soft and so sweet, her eyes wide and trusting.

  “I’m going to fuck you now.”

  She nodded. Serious.

  “You want me, right?”

  “Tam.”

  Her lip trembled. She nodded.

  “Say it.” He rose above her, his cock hard as a stone in his hands. He rubbed serum over the tip for lubricant though he could see, smell and feel that her pussy gushed.

  They’d never done this before. Not like this.

  Nervous as a virgin, his hands shook. “Say it, because I have no idea what’s going to happen next and this time I need to know. If I’m Bonding you to me again, I need to hear you tell me you want this.”

  “I want you.” He hesitated. They’d done the act a hundred times. Never before without the compulsion of the chemical bond. His dick pulsed. He vacillated, scant inches from her spread thighs.

  “Tam. I want you. I need you.” Her green eyes went wide. “Not your serum. Not your cock. I just want to feel you. Inside me. You. Where you belong.”

  He needed nothing more. He surged forward with ferocity unknown and a deep primal roar. This was more a claiming than the first time. The first time hadn’t been about choice. The first time hadn’t been about love. It had been about force of fate. This time it was about force of love and gods above, below and wherever, he’d never loved anything in his life like he loved this woman. The soft, sensitive skin of his cock pressed into her warm, wet heat and...

  It just felt right. He sighed against her neck, his dick so deep inside her he didn’t know where her heart started and his love stopped. “Don’t ever move.”

  She laughed out a moan. Or moaned out a laugh. He couldn’t tell.

  “Let’s just stay here for an eternity or two.”

  “Fine by me.” Her voice was so soft and when he pulled back to see her face, her eyes were so luminous that his heart cracked anew, tore a hole right through his sternum.

  Their bond swelled. He kissed her for a long time, maybe hours, maybe years. Time stopped. He barely moved. Just there, inside her, as close as he could get, and if he could climb farther inside, take root inside her, and never leave, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

  He closed his hand over the cheeks of her ass, grinding in deeper. “Please, just let me stay right here, inside you forever.”

  Maybe she laughed again. He couldn’t tell but her breath fanned over his neck and her pussy clenched around his dick. He threw his head back.

  “I can’t—”

  “Then don’t,” she pleaded and pulled him closer. He couldn’t help it, something escaped his eyes that felt wet and hot.

  “Come inside me, Tam. Come inside me, now.”

  “What if it recreates the bond?” he asked, through gritted teeth.

  “You think I care?” He reared up to meet her gaze.

  She shook her head, seeming surprised by the virulence in his gaze. “You think I care? I want that bond back. So you can never leave me again. So I can’t ever leave you again.” Her voice broke.

  Tears fell down her cheeks or maybe they were his falling on her cheeks. He didn’t know and he didn’t care.

  Fuck. What else could he do? He was just a man.

  He caught his tongue between his teeth, biting down in a fierce grin, and grabbed her legs, wrapping them tight around his waist, pulling his knees up to rest outside her shoulders. He pulled her arms over her head, trapping her hands in his.

  They rode each other hard, spurring each other on. She fought his hands, reared up against him and he didn’t want it to end. He couldn’t wait for it to end, because then they’d start over again. And again. He slammed into her.

  “Yes,” she demanded. “More.”

  He did. They both came hard. Shuddering and sweating and groaning. Her teeth clenched tightly, her thighs shaking around him. He saw the moment his serum hit her system. Her pupils dilated. He felt it through the bond. She screamed out another orgasm, the walls of her pussy squeezing around him, drawing him out.

  He released her hands, pulled her head back, dipped his tongue in her mouth, swallowed her shouts.

  She dug her fingers hard into the skin of his back. They rolled off the bed and he turned, taking their weight on his back. She sat astride him, eyes wild. Nothing had ever been more beautiful.

  EPILOGUE

  The scariest thing on this planet

  Fits in my hand.

  About a year later

  TAM’S EYES WERE WIDE and terrified as he stared down at her. She’d never seen him so scared. The whites of his eyes were visible all around his dark-gray irises.

  “It’s okay.”

  He shook his head.

  “You won’t hurt her.”

  He looked down at their infant daughter, swaddled in Nissa’s arms. Barely an hour old. Nissa had just nursed her for the first time, and she was asleep again. She held the baby toward him again.

  A hundred questions were written all over his face as he hesitantly slid one of his big palms beneath the tiny bundle.

  Their daughter fit in the palm of his hand. Tam’s face crumpled so briefly she couldn’t even be sure it had actually happened. She couldn’t help it, she laughed at him and he sent her a dark glare. Tam didn’t cry. Not ever. Not even now, as she watched a tear slide down his cheek.

  There was something ridiculous and wonderful about seeing such a big man, with so tiny a human in his hands.

  “She’s so beautiful.” He dropped a hip to the bed to sit beside her. Rosy morning light poured in through the windows of the recently completed Palace of Trian.

  She glanced out at the world they’d build and lead together. The main square had been rebuilt, the bricks replaced with careful hands. Down on street level, the market thrived, busy and crowded. People wore red again, if they chose. Her daughter would be raised speaking
Vestige because that was the language the Trianni spoke now, but she’d also speak Trianni and Argenti.

  The people were free. And she had Tam, and now they had a daughter. That was all that mattered.

  In the recovery from her delivery, she and Tam would find out just how long they could go without satisfying their cravings. It didn’t really matter anymore. She needed him, chemistry or no. And if she got sick or he became irrational, there were other ways to satisfy their needs.

  Tam traced the delicate shell of their daughter’s ear. Ran a gentle thumb down the tiny bump of her nose. “I can’t believe you made her.”

  “We made her together.”

  He shook his head, shifting the baby so Nissa could lean against his chest too. He slid his arm around her. She felt her eyes grow heavy. She’d never been so tired in her entire life. “Do you mind if I go to sleep? Can you watch her?”

  Tam nodded and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll watch over both of you.”

  The last thing Nissa saw before her eyes drifted closed, was Tam pressing a kiss to the queen-designate’s tiny cheek.

  The last thing she heard was his deep, rumbly voice, barely more than a whisper. “You’ll get to choose your own husband someday and together you’ll rule this place. But not for at least five hundred years, okay? That’s how your mom did it. So we’ll stick with tradition.”

  Thank you for reading! For more by Imogen Keeper, check out The Breaking.

  Turn the page for a SNEAK PEEK at:

  THE BREAKING

  Feola and Ajax’s story.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading The Bonding! It means the world to have my work out there. If you feel moved to leave a review, I would be so grateful. It helps spread the word.

  KEEP READING FOR A GLIMPSE OF THE NEXT STORY IN THE SERIES – AJAX AND FEOLA’S SEXY LOVE-STORY, THE BREAKING.