by Siren Allen
“You’re doing it already,” he said, handsome face marred with a frown. “You simply store it away, block me.”
“And I’m doing it already? How?”
“Your mind is a muscle. You’ve already built up this wall, in fact, you have a lot of walls,” his frowned deepened. “You don’t want me in, so I’m can’t get in.”
“But you’re a vampire, can’t you force your way in.”
His frown disappeared and the darkness left his eyes, leaving behind that pretty blue color she adored. Raynor stroked his thumb over her cheek. “I would never force you to do anything. I would not violate you in that manner.”
Stars, she’d been so wrong about him. How he was able to forgive her for the things she’d done, Lark had no idea. But she was thankful, so thankful.
“Wait, Raynor.” Lark sat up. “There are detonators.”
“Relax.”
“No, I heard the Prince say there were detonators.”
“Yes, and your bomb squad is on it. I have to admit, the males are not as inadequate as I believed.”
Lark relaxed somewhat. “Aphrodite is our military’s home base. The males here were just guards, to protect the harem and the clinic here. And now most of those males are dead.” She really did try not to cry. It was unavoidable though.
Raynor pulled her close. “Shh.” He rubbed her hair as he whispered to her. “It will be okay. You can rebuild, stronger, better.”
Lark nodded against his chest. “And you will be here, with me, right?”
“I will never leave your side.”
The door to the small room burst open. Quick as lightening, Raynor laid her on the floor then spun around, growling.
“Whoa,” Manuel raised his hands. “It’s just me.”
Raynor relaxed, a little. “How are things out there?”
Manuel grinned, “We have our planet back.”
Thank the stars.
“Follow me,” Manuel told them. “We’ve secured a path to get Lark to the clinic. It’s where we’re taking all the survivors to get them patched up.” Manuel left the room.
“Help me up,” she told Raynor, who immediately took action. However, instead of helping her to her feet, he lifted her into his arms, carrying her like a babe.
“Raynor, I can walk.”
“But why should you?”
Males, they were so difficult. But that didn’t stop her from smiling and wrapping her arms around his neck. She didn’t miss the low growl that rumbled through his chest. Lark laid her head on his shoulder as he followed behind Manuel.
Lark tried not to stare at the carnage that filled the halls of the large ship. So many dead, and for what? So the dumb King of Saturn could shut down their harem. He didn’t deserve the title he held.
“Raynor, when you awakened, did you see Ana.”
He tensed.
“I want her dead,” Lark quickly added. “I want to kill her.”
He relaxed. “I did see Ana. I’d planned on killing her myself, even had my hands around her throat. But her Prince shot me and she was able to escape my grasp.”
“But you caught her, right?”
“I’m sorry mate. The Prince and I fought. I broke his neck and ripped his limbs from his body, and then drained him dry. When I went to kill Ana she had fled the room.”
Shit.
“I will find her, mate. She will pay for her part in all of this.”
“I believe you.”
“She couldn’t have gone far. My guess is that she’s hiding around here somewhere. No crafts have left the loading dock.”
There was nowhere for Ana to run. Especially not once they put out an arrest call for her. She was already as good as dead. When they stepped off the ship, Lark was excited to gaze upon the faces of her warriors.
Males and females, suited up in their uniforms, faces bloody and battered, formed a line outside the craft. In unison they raised their hands to their heads and saluted her. It was official. She was a big cry baby.
As more tears poured from her eyes, she saluted them back. Raynor stood still, holding her in his arms as each of her soldiers approached her, shaking her hand and voicing how happy they were that she survived. Some even had kind words for Raynor, thanking him for helping protect their people and their ruler.
“I’m not the ruler,” Lark quickly said.
Her soldier, Lucinda chimed in. “In the absence of Luna Valdese that title falls to you. Until she returns, you are the one we look to for help and guidance. And Lark, I am very proud of what you’ve done. Your cousin, Klaryssa, is holding down the fort at Aphrodite. She sends you a message.”
Lucinda lifted a piece of paper from her pocket and held it up for Lark to read. You better not be dead, was scrawled on the paper. Lark burst out laughing. She wanted to point out to the others that she hadn’t done much.
Manuel, Raynor and those who’d stood up for their home were the real heroes. However, she didn’t get a chance. Manuel began clearing a path for her.
“Okay, we can all chat with Lark later. We have to get her and others that are wounded to the clinic. Plus we need to take our new prisoners to Aphrodite. Lucinda, prepare the rovers. I want two guards following each rover. Let’s get to work.”
The soldiers immediately fell in line with Manuel’s orders. Still shook up and emotional, Lark was grateful for her most trusted soldier’s leadership skills. Lark and Raynor followed Manuel as they strode across the loading dock.
“Damn,” Lark muttered.
“What is it?” Raynor was quick to ask. “Does the jostling from me walking hurt you?”
Stars, he was always thinking of her well being. She wasn’t used to this. But she liked it, she really liked it. “No, I was just thinking of the dome. We won’t be able to reach the clinic if the dome is down.”
“The dome is indeed down. But we will still reach the clinic.”
“How? You can’t go in the sunlight.”
“I can move fast. I will get us to the other side with minimal damage.”
“Raynor, you’re a vampire. Vampires burn when exposed to sunlight.”
His lips lifted in a slight grin. “I know what I am and what happens to me in sunlight. I will be fine. Getting you checked out is my only concern.”
“But I’m good. I don’t need to go to the clinic. You gave me your blood. I’m healed.”
“I will feel more comfortable if you get checked out. There could be damage done to you that my blood cannot heal.”
“I feel fine. I’m barely even sore.”
Eyes forward, he kept walking, not responding to her statement. Stubborn male. She was not going to allow him to be burned because of her. She didn’t care how fast he was. It was not happening. He’d suffered enough because of her.
She rose up in his arms. Placing her hands on both sides of his face, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. He stilled, no longer walking. Never having kissed a male before, Lark wondered if she was doing it right.
Surely it was the same as kissing a female. She’d only kissed one. Damn, if she was able to think about all of this while kissing, she obviously wasn’t doing it right. Raynor’s lips were unmoving.
Lark leaned away a little, and rubbed her tongue against his lips. The rumble from his chest vibrated her. She licked him again, and his lips parted, giving her a chance to slide her tongue inside.
The moment her tongue touched his, a jolt of electricity flowed from him to her then back to him. Mated. Yes, this felt perfect. This was perfect. Raynor was a quick learner. Soon his tongue was dancing with hers, making her wet in places no male had ever touched. It was time to pull away before things went too far.
She moved back, hating to end their kiss. “Now, I’ve got your attention.” Her voice was husky.
“You do this, kiss me, in front of your people?” He gaze searched her face, looking for answers. “They now know you belong to me.”
“I don’t care who sees. I don’t care who knows.
You are mine Raynor, and I protect what’s mine. If anything happens to you, I don’t care how small, I will be devastated. You will not go to the clinic, understood?”
With a look of wonder in his now blue eyes, he nodded.
“What does that mean, when your eyes turn blue?”
“My eyes, they are blue?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I know not what that means. I have never seen my eyes blue.”
Interesting, she would have to look into that. Someone clearing their throat pulled her attention away from Raynor. Damn. Over a dozen soldiers and Manuel stood staring at Lark and her mate. Busted. Not that she cared. They would accept Raynor as he was. They didn’t have an option.
Stars, she was starting to sound just like her vampire.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“If you two are done,” Manuel said. “Could we discuss an alternative to you going to the clinic?”
Oh yeah, that. Lark tapped Raynor’s chest. “You can put me down now.”
“Not happening,” he told her, to Manuel he said, “Talk.”
“Instead of having Lark go to the clinic, we can have a couple of our medics come to her.”
Raynor stared around him, then back at Manuel. “You will have them access her here, on the mangled loading dock?”
Manuel scanned the area. “Or,” he said. “We could put her on one of the ships. They’ve been swept. There are no detonators on them.”
“The craft my brethren arrived in, we can go there.”
“Or we can do that,” Manuel grinned. “I’ll lead the other wounded to the clinic and return with a medic. Actually, I’ll return with a few medics for the foreigners who also have to wait here. The sun is just as much their enemy as it is yours.”
Raynor nodded. “True. They didn’t make it this far to be defeated by your sun’s solar flares.”
Manuel chuckled and Lark remained silent while her first in command and mate discussed her people as if she wasn’t present. Normally, she would’ve chewed both of them out for ignoring her say in the matter.
Right now, she didn’t care. For just a little while she wanted to enjoy being taken care of. It had been so long since anyone had cared enough to worry about her health, happiness or her safety. Lark laid her head on Raynor’s chest as he turned away from Manuel and headed toward the vampire trading ship.
He sniffed and stopped. “What is wrong?” His deep voice rolled over her.
“Nothing,” she sniffed, unable to hide the fact that she was crying.
“Lark…”
“Just take me to the ship and then we can talk.” She didn’t want her people to see her crying.
He stalked forward, moving faster. After boarding the ship, he locked the panel behind them then placed her down on a big comfy chair.
“This chair is really big,” she told him.
“My people are really big. What is wrong?”
Stalling, she melted into the cushions of the seat and closed her eyes. “Oh my stars this chair is comfortable. I could live on this chair forever.”
“It is yours then. I will rip it out and carry it inside for you. Or we can live on this craft forever, I care not where we life. Just tell me what is wrong?”
How could she tell him what was wrong when she barely knew herself.
“Please, Lark. I do not like this, you shutting me out. Let me in. Let me know what is wrong.”
Opening her eyes, she returned his gaze. Stars, she could see that this literally pained him. It was etched into the hard lines of his face. Lark reached out and stroked her hand over his cheek. She was rewarded with a one of those low growls she was falling in love with.
“What is wrong, sweet Lark?” Raynor leaned into her touch. It seemed he was just as starved for affection as she was. All her life she’d shied away from this very thing, too afraid to take a chance.
No more fear.
From now on she would be the fearless female she pretended to be. Gone was the frightened thirteen year old who was almost raped by her father’s best friends. Gone was the female who was so starved for attention, she didn’t realize she was sleeping with the enemy.
From now on, she would be Lark Valdese, daughter of Roland and Layla Valdese, sister to the Sovereign Ruler of Venus, leader of the Venusian Military, mate to Raynor from the Kuiper Belt.
“Lark,” Raynor growled. “Why are you crying? Do you hurt? Have I done something?”
She shook her head. “These are tears of freedom.”
“Tears of freedom?”
Lark nodded. “Freedom from fear. I thought you coming here would be the death of my people. It seems you have been our salvation.”
“You give me too much credit. Your people saved themselves, I merely helped them along.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“My reasons were selfish. I only helped to please you. Your people mattered not to me, at first.”
“And now?” She’d seen the way they stared at him. They were thankful for him.
“And now, I feel I can live here, thrive here, help them become better guardians of this place, this world that is so important to the female I love.”
Stars, he had such a way with words.
“Thank you, Raynor.”
“You’re welcome, sweet Lark. Now tell me what is really wrong? I can still sense something.”
Him and his senses, would she ever get used to them? Lark continued to rub his face, seeming unable to stop touching him. Who would’ve thought there would come a time in her life when she found herself unable to quit touching a male? He didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he was kneeling in front of her, his hands massaging her knees.
“Raynor, I want to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
Where to begin? “When I was thirteen, I talked my best friend into going with me somewhere we shouldn’t have been. She hadn’t wanted to go. But I was persistent, telling her that we only lived once. It was something I’d heard my oldest sister’s friends say to her right before they left our dwelling to go do something fun.”
Lark pushed her hair behind her ear. “Um, I was a couple of years younger than my sister and I never got to go and hang out with her friends. My mother always said I was too young. This particular night, I decided that I wasn’t too young. I decided that I could do whatever I wanted, as long as my parents didn’t find out. And that particular night, I wanted to spy on one of my father’s best friends.”
“Why did you want to spy on him? Was he behaving suspiciously? Did you think him untrustworthy?”
“I wish my intentions had been honorable. I wish I could say I thought my father’s life was at stake so I disobeyed his rules and ran off after his friend to prove my theory correct and save my father’s life.”
Lark sniffed as Raynor wiped a tear from her cheek. “My intentions were not honorable at all. See, I had a crush on my father’s friend.”
There was that low growl again.
“I was only thirteen and he was a handsome older guy. He always smiled at me and brought me sweets from his home planet when he came to visit my father. He gave my sisters treats also, but when they weren’t looking, he always gave me an extra one.”
Lark fiddled with the armrest on the comfy chair she was seated in. “His name was Delbert. At the time, I thought that was the sexiest name in the world. I used to scribble it all over my writing pad when I was in class. Delbert always came to visit during the yearly Solar Festival. During the day, he would attend the parades with my parents. At night, he and his friends would go down to the Red District of our planet.”
“Red District?”
“It’s where the females and males who sell themselves for currency work.”
Raynor’s mouth formed an O.
“It’s perfectly legal here. But Caro and I weren’t supposed to be there, we were too young, plus I was the ruler’s daughter and she was his first in command’s daughter. We kne
w if we were seen, we would be in big trouble. So we disguised ourselves in boy clothing that we stole from Caro’s brother’s room. We shoved our hair under hats and snuck out.”
Lark took a deep breath, not wanting to continue, but knowing she needed to. Raynor needed to know what she’d done, he needed to know why she was the way she was.
“Unfortunately for us, we sucked at being spies. Delbert and his friends found us. They had no idea who we were at first. But that didn’t stop them from capturing us. Apparently, they were in too little boys and thought we were just perfect for them. We ran, but Caro fell and I hid behind a building. I could see what they did to her. I wanted to come out, to try and help, but she shook her head, eyes pleading with me to stay where I was.”
Lark wiped a tear from her face. “I watched them violate her, all of them. I will forever hear her screams in my head, see her bloody face in my dreams. My crying is how they found me. They caught me, and threw me to the ground. I struggled to get away. I even bit my father’s best friend in an attempt to be freed.”
Lark swiped her sleeve under her nose. “He beat me for that, pounding on me with his fists like I was an adult male. After I was too battered to struggle, Delbert, a male I admired, ripped my clothes off of me. He told me I shouldn’t have come and that once he was done with me, he would kill me, so my father would never know. I was terrified. I’d lived a sheltered life. I’d heard of crimes. I knew things like that happened. But it’s different when it happens to you and someone you know. It’s different when it’s your body being beaten. I was terrified. I prayed for death, for both me and Caro. As they beat me, I heard Caro praying for the same thing.”
“They deserve eternal punishment. I wish I could kill them for you, again.” Raynor’s dark voice washed over her. “And for Caro.”
“So do I. My father’s guards hurt them pretty badly though, yet it still wasn’t enough, not for what they did to Caro.”
“How did your father’s guards find you?”
“My necklace. I didn’t know that the necklaces my father had given my sisters and I contained tracking devices. When he noticed I was missing from my room, he tracked me and sent out a search party.”
