by Presley Hall
The protective instinct that fills me is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, a need deeper than my devotion to Droth, a drive that possesses me and fills me with a fighting fury that eclipses everything else.
I lunge toward the animal, driving at it with my dagger, scoring a deep hit in its shoulder as I swing out with my other blade. It snarls, its blood spattering across the white snow. I redouble my efforts, slicing at the creature’s side in an effort to injure it badly enough to make it fall back. But the fur is thick and woolly, making it hard to get a deep enough cut, and my attacks only serves to infuriate the animal more.
It rears back and lunges at me, swiping out with one huge and furry paw, and I don’t have time to dodge. The snow slows me down—I’m not used to fighting in it—and before I can feint away or duck, the creature’s paw hits me hard in the shoulder, knocking me sideways into a snowdrift and leaving me dazed.
“Ren!” I hear Felicity shriek my name, and a second later, I see her dart in front of me, her own weapon brandished in front of her.
She fires the blaster at the animal. The slanching weapon’s fuel cell is running low, so the bolt that flies toward the beast is less potent than it should be. Her aim is good, but it won’t be enough to seriously injure the creature, let alone kill it.
The furry beast screams, all of its anger suddenly focused on her, and seeing her brace herself in the snow like that, standing her ground as the animal roars its rage, awakens something inside of me.
The fog clears from my brain in an instant.
I’ll never allow anything to harm her, I think fiercely, gripping my own weapons with a renewed fury as I scramble to my feet. I leap back into the fight next to Felicity as the beast charges again.
There’s no time to tell her to stop, to back off, to hide and protect herself. She wouldn’t listen anyway, I know that by now, and it’s a source of both intense frustration and pride as I catch sight of her from the corner of my eyes, ready to fight alongside me.
All that’s left is to do everything in my power to ensure that we both live through this.
“I’ll attack from the front!” I shout to her, trying to be heard over the wind and the roars of the beast. “You slip around the side and flank it! Get in any shots that you can!”
Felicity nods, moving sideways as I charge at the creature, my daggers raised to distract it. The fur makes the thing difficult to stab, but I manage to get another blow in below its shoulder, slashing at the animal’s chest as it rears up again, paws flailing. I can see Felicity in the swirl of snow, aiming her blaster at the beast.
I try desperately to think of some strategy, some way to overcome the animal with our limited resources. It’s massive and feral and angry, and neither Felicity nor I are at our peak strength after days of hiking over rough terrain, poor sleep, and questionable nutrition. Felicity isn’t a trained fighter either. She’s brave and stubborn, but she’s not in the physical shape of a warrior.
This is a fight that will require strategy, not strength.
I glance at the edge of the mountain, my thoughts racing. As I look over at Felicity, she catches my gaze and follows the jerk of my chin. Understanding bloom across her face as she grasps my unspoken communication. She nods once, briefly, but it’s enough for me to be sure that she knows what I’m thinking.
Raising her blaster, she redoubles her efforts, circling around the massive animal until she’s standing on the same side of it as I am.
Feeling her so close to me only increases the powerful need to keep an eye on her. It takes everything in me to focus on the fight rather than making sure she’s safe and unharmed, but I know I can’t afford to be distracted. I channel all of my worry, my fear, and my need to protect her into my attacks, driving at the beast with my twin daggers as I urge it closer and closer to the edge of the cliff where the mountainside drops away into nothingness.
I catch glimpses of Felicity in my periphery, seeing her dodge the paws and the massive shifting body of the beast as she strikes out too. Both of us work together to herd it toward its doom.
I know that she’s fighting with everything in her, just as I am. And as we move forward, step by step, dodging the certain injury or death of the beast’s flailing paws and gnashing teeth, I start to feel a faint glimmer of hope.
The beast’s hind paws meet the edge of the cliff, scrabbling for purchase, and it realizes too late what we’ve done. It roars, lurching toward us in one final attempt to save itself.
“Now!” I bellow, throwing my weight forward as I drive my blades toward the animal.
Felicity is right beside me, hurling herself against the creature too. We bury our hands in the fur of the desperate beast’s side, using all of its weight and our own to finish hurling it over the edge of the mountainside.
The yowls of the animal fill the air as it tumbles down, and I watch for only a moment to be sure it hasn’t managed to grab on and find its way back up before I grab Felicity, hauling her back from the ledge before we lose our footing as well.
We stumble backward into the snow together, and I hold her for a brief moment, feeling her panting, shaking body quivering in my arms.
She’s alive.
The thought brings a rush of stark relief—and then in the next heartbeat, worry that she could still be injured somehow hits me in the chest.
Climbing to my feet, I push her cloak out of the way, searching for cuts or bruises.
“Are you hurt at all?” I ask her urgently.
She shakes her head, but I keep talking before she can say anything in response. Now that the fight is over, I’m reminded of how much danger she put herself in for me.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I tell her grimly, running my hands down her arms as I lift my head, pausing in my examination to look at her. “You shouldn’t have jumped into the fight to protect me. It was too risky. You could have been seriously hurt—”
“I had to!” Felicity meets my eyes, her own still wide and full of the adrenaline from the fight, her hair loose and tousled around her face. “We’re partners, remember? I’m supposed to watch out for you, just like you do for me! I’ve fucked up too many things in my life, Ren. I’m not going to fuck this up too. I’m not going to fail.”
I stare at the woman in front of me, this fierce, beautiful, stubborn woman, and the way she says those words, the wildness in her voice and in her eyes, snaps something inside me.
Mine.
She’s mine. The words reverberate through my mind as I reach for her. She is mine. And no one will take her from me.
I can’t stop to consider what that thought means, to tell myself how I shouldn’t feel those things or to rationalize them away. All I can do is grab Felicity, hauling her up against my body and kissing her with a ferocity that I never knew I had in me.
Her arms go around my neck as her hands press against the back of my head, burying themselves in my hair as she slants her mouth over mine. Her tongue slides inside my mouth as hungrily as mine does for her.
The kiss only serves to inflame me more, and as I grip her tightly in my arms, there’s only one thought pounding through my head.
I lift her into my arms, and her legs wrap around my waist as I carry her toward a massive boulder far from the edge, near the stand of trees. Everything around me is forgotten—the cold air, the deep snow, the purpose of being up here at all.
All I can think about is her.
The moment I lean her against the boulder, one hand tangled in her sunlight hair as I kiss her again fiercely, I can feel her arch against me. Her hands pull and push at my clothes in the same way that I’m grabbing at hers, trying to move enough leather out of the way so that we can slake our need.
I can’t explain all the feelings raging through me in this moment, but I know one thing for certain.
I need to be inside her.
Now.
18
Felicity
I feel like I’ll die if I don’t get closer to Ren, if I do
n’t feel his skin against mine, the heat of his body, that sweet, overwhelming pressure of him sliding into me. I’m on fire with need, every part of me aching for him.
But there’s more to it than that. So much more.
I almost lost him.
He could’ve died.
Those thoughts keep tumbling through my head, and every time they repeat in my mind, my emotions ratchet up higher.
It’s not just lust, but the desperate need to remind myself that he’s alive. That we both are. That we survived that massive snow cat thing’s attack and made it through the battle unscathed. We could be shredded in the snow now, a meal for that beast, but we’re not.
We’re alive. Still breathing. Still fighting.
Our story won’t end here.
As we’ve climbed higher up the mountain, we’ve added some layers to our clothing: furs wrapped around our thighs and calves and bound with leather to keep our legs warm, and another piece of fur wrapped over my shoulders and around my waist like a vest. These extra layers were the majority of the weight in our packs, and when we put it all on, I was doubly grateful for it—both to have the weight off of my back and to have the added warmth.
But now, all those layers are just more cumbersome things in the way of our hands on each other’s bodies.
The first time we had sex, it was hungry and intense, but there was an element of exploration too. It was about Ren discovering how I was made and me doing the same for him, learning the differences about each other. The human parts of me that he’d never experienced before, the alien parts of him that were new to me, like the sensitive nodes down his back or the ridge along his cock that made him shudder when I touched it, and that node at the base of his shaft that seems custom-made for my pleasure.
But now, as I kiss him, my tongue tangled hotly with his, all I can think about is the desperate, driving need that’s setting my blood on fire.
Ren’s kiss is full of the same desperation, and he groans when I finally manage to get my hand around his cock, pushing his loincloth and furs out of the way to wrap my fingers around him. He’s so thick that my fingers don’t quite go all the way around, and I moan at the thought of him inside of me, filling me up, how good I know it will feel.
His hand fists my hair, gripping so tightly that it makes my scalp sting, but I like the feeling. Even as he keeps devouring my mouth, holding me in place with that punishing grip, his other hand roams beneath my furs, pushing them aside so that he can slip his hand between my legs.
“Felicity,” he whispers.
My name is a ragged sound in his mouth, and it sends shudders of lust through me. I arch into his hand, my arousal soaking his fingers as he starts to stroke my clit, his fingers fierce and needy against my swollen flesh.
For a moment, that’s all we do—kiss each other fiercely while our bodies grind into each other’s hands. Ren’s hips buck against my fist, and I shiver with the pleasure of touching him, of feeling his hot, throbbing flesh against my palm.
When I run my fingers down the thick ridge along the top, he growls. His crown is slick with precum, which makes it that much easier for me to stroke him. I slide my fist all the way down to his tight, heavy balls and back up to the dripping head, until I’m no longer just stroking him but pulling him toward me, my thighs opening wider with the need to have him inside of me.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I’d be fucking an alien on the side of a snow-covered mountain, out in the open, but right now I’m not thinking about any of that. All I’m thinking about is Ren. How he makes me feel. What my body and soul crave.
They crave him.
His mouth, his hands, his lips, his cock. All of him.
I don’t care where we are or what we should be doing. All I care about is that he’s alive, and in this moment, at least, he’s mine.
“I need you,” he growls against my mouth, his cock throbbing in my hand as his lips hover over mine. “I need you so slanching much that it hurts.”
I can’t form words to respond. My throat feels choked with emotion, my body straining toward his, and so I answer in the only way I possibly can. I grab his face in my hands and drag it down to mine for another kiss.
Ren grabs my thigh, hiking one leg around his waist, and with a groan of pleasure that mingles with my own cry, he drives his cock inside me to the hilt.
The single hard thrust shoves me back against the boulder and sends an electric jolt of pleasure through my entire body. My hands wrap around the back of his head as I slide my lips from his mouth to his jaw, trailing them up the ridged scars that run over the side of his face.
He shudders as I kiss them, thrusting harder in response.
The sensations are overwhelming, and as I cling to him, he lifts me higher against the boulder and wraps my other leg around his waist too, pinning me to the hard, cold stone.
I’m still wearing too many layers for him to touch much of me, but it doesn’t matter. He grips my jaw with one large hand, guiding my mouth back to his as his cock continues to pound into me, and my heart flutters wildly from the onslaught of sensations. I’ve never felt anything so good, and all I can do is ride out the feelings that are building within me, both physical and emotional.
An orgasm is barreling toward me like a runaway train, and as desperate as I am for that release, I try to hold it off a little longer.
I don’t want this to end.
I want more.
Ren’s massive frame shudders against me, and I can tell he’s getting close too. With every thrust, that node at the base of his cock grinds against my clit, and when he changes the angle of his thrusts just a bit, a fresh rush of pleasure surges through me.
“Fuck,” I gasp out. “There. Right… fucking… there—oh god!”
I wrap my legs around him, my walls clenching around his thick cock, my arousal dampening my thighs as he thrusts harder. His groans turn to animalistic growls of pleasure as my body flutters and squeezes around him.
“More,” he grunts, his mouth pressing against mine as he tips my head back, his cat-like green eyes dark with lust. “Come for me again.”
Yes.
That’s what I want. More of all of this. More of the pleasure he brings me, more of the way he makes me feel, beautiful and wild and fierce and strong, as much a warrior as he is, all of my past meaningless.
To him, I’m not just some washed-up, fucked-up girl who can’t get her life straight. Who can’t control her addictions.
To him, I’m brave, stubborn, fearless.
A woman who helped him fight off a wildcat, who fought it off and threw it down a mountain with him, who has faced down other fears, other dangers, all at his side. A woman who can fight with him, fuck him, give him everything he needs.
I feel powerful. Beautiful. Free.
Ren’s cock throbs inside me, swelling as he nears his climax, and I clench my inner walls around him, rolling my hips against his as an orgasm pours through me.
“Again,” he demands in a harsh rasp. “Let me feel you come again. Come on my cock while I spill my seed in you.”
I have never in my life orgasmed multiple times in quick succession. Hell, there were some times back on Earth when I didn’t even finish once.
But it’s like Ren truly has the ability to command my body. His dirty, gruff words, muffled against my lips as he fucks me against the boulder, push me over the edge for a third time.
And as I come hard, gripping him tightly, my body arching and writhing and straining under his, he thrusts into me one last time with a savage roar. I can feel him let go, feel his cock throbbing rhythmically inside me as his hot release floods my pussy.
I bury my face in his neck, wrapping my arms and legs around him and holding on tight as I momentarily forget how to breathe.
As the pleasure slowly fades, shifting from deep, intense waves of bliss to sweet, tremulous aftershocks, I wait for the need to fade too, for me to come back to my senses.
But it doesn’t.<
br />
I don’t.
Even after we’ve both finished, his cum trickling down my thighs, I keep my legs locked around his hips, the pull that I feel toward him nearly unbearable.
He’s still hard. I don’t think he’s softened at all. I take advantage of that fact, grinding against him in a way that rubs my clit against the node at the base of his cock. My entire core feels swollen and flushed with arousal, but even the knowledge that I’ll be sore later doesn’t stop me from wanting more now.
This is more than addiction.
More than the need for a high.
It’s something deeper and more serious, an emotional bond that I’ve been fighting against since the first time that Ren kissed me in the woods.
It’s the mate bond. It has to be.
But I can’t admit it yet, not even in my own head. And I can’t say the words that sit on the back of my tongue, begging to be spoken.
I’m too afraid.
Too afraid of what it means, of the finality of it, of the loss that it promises if anything were to happen to Ren. We have plenty of danger still to face, and even if we succeed in getting off Nuthora, there will be more danger on Vox.
For so long back on Earth, I didn’t have anyone. I pushed away all the people who tried to care about me, driving them out of my life with my poor decisions and inability to change. I told myself it was better that way, convincing myself I didn’t need them.
But if I let myself need Ren, if I let myself fall in love with him, I think it would kill me to lose him.
And that’s a risk I don’t know if I can take.
19
Ren
Rhael.
Mine.
That word beats inside my skull as my cock twitches inside Felicity, still aching and almost at full hardness despite the force of the climax I just experienced. I’ve already spilled my seed in her, but my body wants more. I want more, down to my bones.
Down to my very soul.
I was drawn to Felicity from the beginning, but this is more than that. More than a physical appreciation of a beautiful woman, more than the natural desire born from years of deprivation.
