Bohrir nods, his deep blue eyes glinting. “I will.”
He moved a bit closer to me while we were talking, so there’s less than three feet of space separating us. I don’t know quite what compels me to move, but before I can stop myself, I’m stepping toward him. I rest my hand on his chest, and his heart seems to react to my touch, beating harder and faster beneath my palm.
My own heart is beating faster as well, and I have to tilt my head up to meet his gaze. His size doesn’t scare me like it used to, probably because I’m starting to see him as a protector instead of a threat.
As a friend instead of a stranger.
Bohrir lifts one hand out of the water and rests it over mine, sandwiching my smaller hand between his and the warm, smooth skin of his chest. The pearlescent blue color looks even more mesmerizing with little droplets of water clinging to it, and the white markings that swirl over his torso and arms glow with a soft blue light.
In a sudden rush, I remember that we’re both still naked. Although the water covers pretty much everything, I can’t help my intense awareness of him as we stand in silence. An unfamiliar flush of heat spreads through my body, making my breath catch. After the years I spent being used by Gornok and his men, I never expected to feel desire for any man ever again—and especially not for an alien one.
But that’s what this is, I realize with a shock.
It’s desire.
Bohrir is handsome, objectively speaking. All of the Voxerans are. They’re all tall and muscular, with strong features and attractive faces. Still, I never paid much attention to that before. I learned a long time ago that what someone looks like on the outside doesn’t necessarily reflect who they are on the inside. There are many beautiful monsters in the universe.
So it’s not just Bohrir’s outward appearance that draws me to him. It’s… something else. Something that’s harder to find a name for.
“Thank you,” I murmur, my voice soft.
“Of course, my k—” Bohrir breaks off, then clears his throat. “Of course.”
I don’t know what he was about to say before he stopped himself, but I don’t press him on it. Instead, I shake my head lightly. “I don’t just mean thanks for agreeing to tell me if you hear me talking in my sleep. I mean thanks for… for everything. For saving my life earlier. For making sure I wouldn’t be alone when I left the village.” I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “I thought that’s what I wanted—to be alone. But now I think I was wrong.”
“You will never be alone, Willow.” Bohrir’s voice is a soft rumble, deep and full of sincerity. “Not as long as I’m allowed to remain by your side.”
The warmth building up inside me flares even hotter, and I slip my hand out from beneath his. But instead of lowering it back into the water, I reach up and lightly trace the curve of his strong jaw, enchanted by him in spite of myself.
The Voxeran warrior’s nostrils flare, and his eyelids droop until they’re almost entirely closed. He looks almost drugged, as if this simple touch is doing more to him than I ever imagined it could.
My stomach flips over, fluttering wildly. I’m used to men using me for their pleasure, but this is something else entirely. We’re barely even touching, and yet it feels more intimate than anything I ever did with Gornok or his men.
Part of me is terrified by it—frightened by the powerful emotions that are churning in my chest and the unfamiliar response in my body. But as unsettled as I am, I don’t want to stop touching Bohrir. I don’t want to break the connection between us.
So I don’t.
When I finish trailing my fingers over his jaw, I move them upward and ghost them over his full bottom lip. His mouth opens just a little, and I can feel the warmth of his exhales on my skin as he begins to breathe harder.
It’s addicting, touching him like this. Not just the exploration of his strong, masculine features, but his reaction to it. My gaze moves upward to meet his, and the heat that burns in his eyes makes my toes curl against the soft lake bed. He’s staring down at me as if he’s never seen anything like me in his entire life. As if nothing else exists in the universe.
Just me.
Just him.
Just this moment between us.
“Willow…”
His lip moves beneath my thumb as he breathes my name, and it sounds like a question and an answer all at once.
“Bohrir,” I whisper back, my heart picking up speed until I can’t even distinguish the individual beats anymore.
I lean toward him, rising up onto the balls of my feet as I tip my head up a little more, and he meets me halfway, dropping his head as my fingertips finally fall away from his mouth. I replace them with my lips, holding my breath as I press them against his.
For a moment, it’s just our lips touching in a soft kiss. Then Bohrir wraps his arms around me, drawing me tighter against him. My arms automatically loop around his neck, and as our bodies press together, our kiss deepens. The feel of his slick, warm skin against mine is such a contrast to the cool water that laps at my body, making me gasp into his mouth.
He groans, and the deep, almost desperate sound causes goosebumps to rise on my arms.
I haven’t kissed a man in as long as I can remember. Maybe I did back on Earth in the part of my life I can’t recall, but I never kissed Gornok or his men. None of them ever tried—that wasn’t what they wanted me for.
But Bohrir kisses me like he’s a starving man and I’m the only bit of food left in the universe. One of his large hands splays across my lower back, holding me tight against him, as his other hand comes up to cup the back of my head. There’s something both tender and fierce in the movement of his lips against mine, as if he wants to devour me whole but is also afraid of breaking me.
I don’t feel breakable in this moment, though.
I feel invincible.
I feel powerful.
So many choices have been taken away from me. My entire past is lost in the fog of forgotten memories. But right here, right now, I know who I am and what I want.
I want this.
Pressing up even higher on my tiptoes, I slide my fingers through Bohrir’s thick dark hair. He hasn’t ducked beneath the water yet, so the strands are still dry, and they feel like silk against my skin. His chest is firm against mine, and my nipples turn hard and sensitive as they rub against him.
His cock presses into my lower belly, pulsing between us, and my inner muscles clench in a way that makes my clit throb.
He smells good. So good. I can’t describe the scent using any words I know, but it’s musky and rich, something masculine and wild.
“Willow,” he murmurs, and my name comes out muffled as he keeps kissing me. His strong arms are wrapped so tightly around me that he’s practically holding all my weight. I can still feel the lakebed beneath my toes, but barely. It would be the easiest thing in the world to wrap my legs around his waist instead, to grind against the hard, thick length that’s pressed against my stomach.
I want more.
Maybe I was wrong before. Maybe I’m the one who’s been starving, because the longer I kiss Bohrir, the stronger this craving inside me seems to grow. I’ve never felt like this before—at least, not that I can remember—and I never want it to end.
“You taste… so good,” I pant in between kisses, hardly aware of what I’m saying. It’s true, though.
“Akhi.” He growls the Voxeran curse word against my lips, although I can barely hear it over the rushing in my ears.
Then a new sound reaches me, one that’s loud enough to break through the bubble that seems to surround Bohrir and me. It’s wet and harsh, like someone gargling with their mouth open, and the big warrior must hear it too, because he stiffens.
We both move at the same time, our lips breaking apart and our heads whipping to the side in the direction of the strange noise.
My stomach drops as three pairs of slitted eyes meet mine.
12
Bohrir
My mind is still reeling from Willow’s kiss, but years of training make me act instinctively, overriding the dazed fog in my mind.
The three-headed creature lunges out of the water toward us, I shove Willow behind me and turn to face it, roaring a battle cry as I swing my fist. My knuckles collide with one of the beast’s heads, and the force of my swing is enough to send the animal careening sideways. Its two other heads let out high-pitched shrieks, and its scaly body writhes in the water.
I don’t know what this thing is called—I’ve never seen one or heard of anything like it—but I don’t need to have a name for it to recognize it as a threat. It has a long, supple body that’s almost as thick around as mine is, and four short legs. Each of its three heads are long and pointed as well, their mouths equipped with wickedly sharp teeth.
The creature whips around in the water, recovering from my blow and hurtling toward us again, its body undulating in a sinuous shape. Willow gasps, and I roar again.
I’m ready this time when it lunges for us, but the beast is smart. As I lash out at one head, another one bites at my forearm.
“Slanch!”
I yank my arm back, but sharp teeth scrape my flesh. Blood wells, dark blue against my skin. All three of the creature’s heads hiss as if spurred on by the scent of blood. It rears up, its upper half rising out of the water to loom over us, and Willow makes a strangled noise in her throat.
“The shore,” she whispers. “We have to get to the shore.”
She’s right. The creature can probably move around on land as well as in the water, but it’ll be slower outside of the lake. That will even the odds and give us a better chance to defeat it.
But the shoreline is too far away, and turning our backs on this thing would mean certain death. The water is up to my mid-torso and all the way up to Willow’s chest at this depth.
I don’t have a slanching weapon with me, but in all my training, I’ve learned that it’s not the weapon that makes the warrior. It’s the determination. The fighting spirit. The drive to protect.
And right now, I’m protecting the most precious thing there is in all the universe.
My mate.
“Run,” I tell Willow in a low voice. “Run toward shore, and don’t stop until you reach it.”
Although I can’t see her face with her standing behind me, her sharp inhale lets me know that she’s heard me. I can practically feel her opening her mouth to argue, but I don’t give her the chance.
“Run!” I bellow.
Then I launch myself toward the creature, ducking under its many heads and throwing my full weight against its midsection. The water slows me down a bit, but I still manage to hit the beast hard enough to bring it down. We both go under the water’s surface, and for a brief moment, everything around me is dark and muffled. Bubbles escape from my nose as I wrestle with the beast, not even sure which way is up.
All I know is that I can’t let it go.
I can’t let this thing get to Willow.
The creature writhes in my grip, bending its long body and whipping its tail as we finally resurface. One of its heads tries to snap at me, but I duck out of the way, rolling off the creature’s slick body. I need to keep it distracted, so I grab one of its short legs and pull.
One of the heads screeches in fury, and the other two whip around to try to bite me again. With a snarl, I punch the nearest head so hard that it smacks into the one next to it. They both droop slightly as if dazed, letting out twin noises of pain.
Suddenly, a rock slams into the side of the third head, catching the creature right above one of its beady eyes. I rear back a little in surprise before my gaze flies toward the shoreline. Willow ran, just as I instructed her to, but she didn’t go far. Rather than fleeing the lake entirely, she’s standing in the shallows with water lapping at her legs. She’s completely bare, her pale skin glistening in the sunlight, but she hardly even seems aware of that. Her focus is entirely on the three-headed creature as she palms another rock and hurls it.
The fist-sized stone hits the same head as the first rock did, and the creature’s body jerks with the impact. All three of its heads now look slightly dazed, and I don’t waste the advantage that gives me. Taking the chance that it won’t be able to launch another attack yet, I duck beneath the water’s surface, following Willow’s example and searching for a rock I can use as a weapon. The water is too cloudy to see through, so I go by feel, running my fingers quickly over the stones that dot the lake bed.
At last, I find what I’m looking for.
I wrap both hands around a long, jagged-edged stone and haul it out of the muddy ground. Surging back up out of the water just as the water creature lunges toward me, I swing the pointed rock in a wide arc.
The sharp edge of the stone catches one of the beast’s three necks, slicing across the scaled flesh. Blood gushes, and the two other heads let out keening shrieks. Its body shudders, its tail whipping back and forth, and I raise the blood-stained stone, ready to attack again. But before I can, the water-creature glides backward, putting distance between us. It lets out another plaintive sound, its injured head sinking beneath the lake’s surface as the other two heads turn away from me. Then it slips away into a deeper part of the lake, its long body undulating as its short legs tread the water.
I don’t know if losing one head will be enough to kill the creature entirely, but I don’t particularly care. I’ve never been the bloodthirsty type, so as long as it leaves us alone, I have no wish to see the beast dead.
My chest heaving with exertion, I turn and stride quickly through the water toward the shore. My only thought now is to get to Willow before anything else can attack her. Nuthora is the kind of planet where no place is truly safe, and even the most idyllic of scenes can be transformed into a nightmare at any moment.
I can’t allow my mate to be hurt.
She’s holding another rock in a tight grip, her arm slightly raised as she scans the water around me, and I’m struck for a moment by her wild, raw beauty. Her gaze lands on me as I near her, and something changes in her expression. The fierce determination in her eyes gives way to concern as she drops the stone, stepping forward to meet me.
“Your arm,” she murmurs, wincing. “Your chest.”
Without even seeming to consider what she’s doing, she reaches up to run her fingertips over my chest, where I realize the creature’s scaly skin must’ve scraped me as we were fighting. The scrapes burn, although I’ve sustained much worse injuries in my life—and as soon as her delicate fingers brush over my skin, the pain seems to evaporate, burned away by the intense pleasure of her touch.
Memories of the kiss we shared right before the water-creature attacked rise up in my mind, desire mixing with the battle high still coursing through my veins. My cock twitches, threatening to grow fully hard, and I have to fight against the impulse to haul her into my arms and claim her right here and now.
“We should… get to shore,” I say thickly, catching her hand in mine and dragging it away from my injured chest.
She blinks, her green eyes going wide as she shakes her head a little. “Right. Of course.”
We wade through the shallow water until we reach the rocky beach that surrounds the lake. My discarded loincloth is still lying where I left it, and I pick it up and tie it on while Willow redresses quickly. She picks up her walking stick before I take her hand again and lead her through the woods toward our encampment.
“We need to do something about those cuts,” she says quietly, looking up at me as we walk. “They don’t look too deep, but they’re still bleeding. They need to be cleaned and bandaged at the very least.”
I nod. My impulse is to tell her it doesn’t matter, that I’ll be fine. But if I’m hampered by poorly healing wounds, it will make it more difficult for me to protect Willow, and that’s more important than anything else.
“There are a few plants on Nuthora with antiseptic qualities,” I tell her, then describe what each of them lo
oks like. “I don’t want to wander too far from our camp, but if you see any that match that description, we can harvest them.”
She makes a noise of assent, turning her head to scan our surroundings as we walk. Her dark red hair is damp, the strands clinging to her neck and shoulders, and droplets of water still glisten on her skin. With effort, I drag my focus away from the beautiful Terran woman beside me and join her in searching the foliage as we make our way back to our small campsite.
Luckily, we spot a small patch of taurfa plants near our encampment, and I crouch down to pluck a few leaves. As soon as we reach the small area we’ve claimed as our own, Willow turns to me, resting her walking stick against a nearby tree.
“Sit down,” she says, and the note of command in her voice makes a smile tug at my lips.
Although I’ve always known that Willow is a strong woman—she’d have to be, to survive what she’s been through—I feel as if I’m seeing a new side of her. Back at the village, she often seemed wary and cautious, withdrawing from others as a means of protecting herself.
But her demeanor now is entirely different. She moves confidently as she directs me to sit on a fallen log nearby, taking the taurfa leaves from me as soon as I’m settled. She rummages through her pack before pulling out a water skin and a piece of cloth, then comes to stand in front of me, lifting up my arm to prod lightly at the worst of my gashes.
“I’ll clean them first, and try to get the bleeding to stop” she tells me, her gaze flicking up to meet mine. “Then you can tell me how to apply the plants, okay?”
“All right.”
I watch her work, the pain of my injuries nothing more than a distant, dull throb as I study her face, entranced by the small expressions that flit across her features.
Her Alien Protector: Voxeran Fated Mates #6 Page 8
