by Ella Maven
His hand sifted through my hair. The purple of his eyes was so vivid, his irises nearly glowed as he stared at me in what I could only interpret as awe and reverence.
“I’m not often speechless, but there aren’t words for what we just shared.” He sucked in a breath. “Holy Fatas, your mouth. My fierce lioness has a perfect mouth.”
I rolled my lips between my teeth. No one had ever looked at me the way Sax currently stared into my eyes. Like I was his everything. I drifted my fingers over his damp brow. “Well, your tongue is a work of art.”
He stuck out said tongue and curled it under his chin. I squirmed as the echo of its abilities still throbbed between my legs.
“I didn’t know that type of pleasure was possible. The way it felt to release in your mouth.” He shivered, and his thick black lashes fluttered. He palmed my ass and squeezed as he nudged my nose with his. “I can only imagine what it will feel like to sink into your cunt.”
He was hard again, the tip of his cock once more making a mess on his stomach. Sax’s libido might have been dormant for most of his life, but it was returning with a vengeance. I wished more than anything that I could give him my whole body, to show him what it felt like to be connected while he plunged that thick cock into me until he found his release and I found mine. He spoke with such certainty that it would happen, and I wished I had that confidence.
I cupped his face and pressed a kiss on his lips. “When that happens, it’ll be the best day of my life,” I whispered.
He hummed under his breath, and then his chest began to vibrate in that soothing purr of his. I rested my ear near the steady beat of his heart and closed my eyes. I thought I heard him say, “It will be mine too,” before I fell asleep.
Sax
Fatas had been dropping me hints, urging me to stay alive, telling me I had a purpose here in the Uldani fortress of Alazar. When I’d first seen Val, I’d assumed my purpose was to protect her from as much suffering as I could for as long as I lived.
But now that I’d tasted her, and felt her body melt into my hands, I knew my purpose was much greater than protection—it was to save her. My reason for being taken and kept alive through all the pain and torment was to escape with Valerie. She was meant to live a long, happy life, to meet the other women, and to see how beautiful this planet could be.
She would not die here on the hard floor and harsh lights. She’d see the sun again. I would make sure of that.
Val slept, her head resting on my biceps and her hair tickling my forearm. I still couldn’t believe the pleasure she’d been able to give me. The way she wrapped her lips around my cock. The heat of her mouth. The undulation of her body as she bucked against my tongue with a strong grip on my horns. Fleck, I was already hard again.
I had to focus less on merely staying alive and more on securing a future for myself and Val. I scratched at my forehead, then frowned as something poked me in the back. I reached under me and withdrew the package that the young Uldani had given Val. With a curl of my lip, I raised my arm to hurl it across the room, but something—maybe Fatas—made me stop. As carefully as I could, I extricated my arm from under Val’s head. She murmured something in her sleep, but didn’t wake, only curled into a tighter ball against my hip. I sat up and placed the package on my lap. With a slash of my claws, I cut the string holding the folded fabric together.
I’d expected to find some flecked-up syringe of medis for Val, but a scrap of paper slid out along with a metal tool. With a frantic glance at the room’s glass panels, I confirmed we were alone. I exhaled slowly.
Whoever this Uldani named Gram was, he had just given me the most precious gifts. Was this a trick? Why would he provide me with a key to my collar? The writing on the paper was a hasty scrawl. I will free you if you kill Borhan first. You’ll know when it’s time.
There was nothing else in the package—just a key to my collar and a kill note. This Uldani was hilarious if he thought I was going to leave here without killing Borhan, even if he hadn’t asked me. Because it was clear what Fatas wanted me to do—escape with Val and take out every one of these flecks from the breeding program.
You’ll know when it’s time.
Well, that was vague as fleck and frustrating. I could only be wary. Why would he be helping me? I’d seen too much to believe anyone on this planet was purely altruistic. Except Val. My fierce lioness had the biggest cora of anyone I knew. I smoothed her hair off her face, and she stirred. Her pretty eyes opened, hazy and unfocused before she yawned and stretched.
Her bare breasts jiggled, and I couldn’t resist leaning down and teasing one of her nipples with my tongue. She scratched the sensitive skin around the base of my horns, and I moaned.
I lifted my head and kissed her, eager for another taste. She opened for me, her tongue dueling with mine until I pulled away with a frustrated growl. “One day, I will mate you,” I said, looking into the pretty blue depths of her eyes. “I will enter your cunt with my hard cock and hear you scream my name over and over until I fill you with my seed.” I placed my hand on her belly. “I’ll see you round with my child. But not here.”
Her eyes watered, and she rubbed them before dropping her hand to rest it over mine. “Sax, it hurts to wish for what we can’t have.”
“Before you got here, my goal was to survive as long as I could and kill as many Uldani or Kulks in the meantime. Just so they wouldn’t try to take more of my kind.”
Her nails dug into the back of my hand as her eyes flashed with anger.
“Then you came. And now it’s all changed. I have to be smarter because I can’t die. I can’t, because I know my purpose is escape with you.” I bent my head to brush my lips across hers. “You will not die here, lioness. Not while I breathe, and I don’t plan on my lungs quitting anytime soon.”
“But how?” she asked. “There’s no way out—”
“The package the young Uldani gave you. I opened it.”
“You did? But he said—”
“Fleck what he said. And it doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no medis inside.”
“What?” Her pretty arched eyebrows rose up her forehead. “What’s in it?”
I held up the key. “A key to my collar.”
Her mouth dropped open. She stared at the key as if it might disappear if she looked away. “What? How? Why?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is he said he will help you escape if I kill Borhan.” He didn’t actually specify Val in the note, but she was the priority. She had to be saved.
“Help me? But what about you?”
“I don’t know yet. But it’s not about me—”
“Of course, it’s about you!” she shouted. Her gaze darted to the glass panel before meeting mine. “Of course, it’s about you,” she said again, softer. “What am I going to do on this planet without you?”
“You’ll go to my brother. He’ll protect you until I can get to you.”
“Th-this,” she sputtered and bolted to a sitting position, grabbing the blanket to cover her bare breasts. “This is insane. It’s a whole planet and you expect me to find your brother?”
“Gram said he’d get you to safety—”
“I don’t know Gram! And I don’t want to live peacefully with your brother.” She was full-on crying now, not even bothering to wipe away the salty tears that streaked down her face. “Sax, I know this is crazy, but I don’t want to be here without you. Please. You have to come with me.”
I wanted that too. Fleck, I wanted that. “You won’t have to live on this planet without me. I’ll get out too. I’ll find a way. Fatas has chosen us for each other; I know it.” Val was meant for me. She might not be a my cora-eternal like my brother had with his Fra-kee but finding such a mate was rare. Once in many generations. Still, Val was mine. I knew it with every beat of my cora and with each breath in my lungs.
“How do you know for sure?” she asked. “Fuck, I hate this. I hate crying. I hate feeling weak.”
I gripped he
r chin. “You. Are. Not. Weak.”
“You make me strong,” she whispered. “Without you, I’m not sure I can be.”
“That’s a lie.” I shook her softly. “A flecking lie. You’ll be a fierce lioness with or without me.”
“I wish I believed in myself as much as you believe in me.” She sniffed.
I pressed my lips to hers, pouring as much as I could into the kiss—how much I cared for her, and how brave I thought she was.
We only broke apart when a faint knock echoed around our room. I whirled to face our intruder but froze when I saw Gram’s silver face in the clear panel on the door. He glanced up and down the hall nervously and waved me over.
I slowly rose to my feet and didn’t bother with my pants. He wasn’t fazed by my nudity. He’d seen it before.
I stopped at the door, and Gram met my gaze before beckoning me even closer so we could speak through the thick door. “Drixonian.” He wrung his hands and his eyes darted up and down the hallway repeatedly.
“Yes,” I said.
“Did you get my package?”
“I did.”
He licked his lips. “So? Will you?”
“Why are you helping us?” I asked. “What’s your motive.”
“I want Borhan to die.”
I cocked my head. “Why?”
Anger replaced the nervous twitch to his eyes, and he stood straighter. “I’ve worked my whole life to make it into his lab so I could kill him, but I know now that I can’t do it alone. I’d get caught. And if I get caught, my whole family is punished by Uldani law.” His hands fisted at his sides. “My mother favored my father over Borhan, and Borhan’s jealousy caused him to set my father up for a crime he didn’t commit. My father was convicted and died working in the mines after cycles and cycles of abuse. I fled after my dad was sent away, and Borhan doesn’t remember me. He has no idea who I am. But this is my life purpose.” He gritted his teeth. “He has to die.”
I studied him for deception, but despite his nerves, Gram held my gaze with a lifted chin and determination. I decided Gram told the truth. I could see it in every line of his body. I knew a thing or two about purpose. I glanced back at Val, who had dressed quickly and stood beside the bed watching us.
I turned back to Gram. “I’ll do it. But you have to get Val free. She’s the priority.”
“Of course—”
“Sax too,” Val said, standing beside me. “You want him to kill for you. You have to save him too.”
Gram nodded. “I can get both of you out of here. But you have to do exactly what I tell you. Understand?
We both nodded.
“I don’t have much time. I risked a lot coming here. So, listen up, and by tomorrow at sundown, you’ll be free.”
He told us the plan in a rushed voice. His nerves were evident, but in the end, I knew he offered the best chance we would get. I hated relying on an Uldani for anything, but I’d do whatever it took to free my fierce lioness from this cage.
Eight
Val
The numbers on the countdown clock didn’t make sense to me, but Sax said we were three-quarters of the way through our time to mate. Soon, we’d be joined by Polu, who would march us to Borhan’s lab for the initial tests. At some point between our arrival in the lab and getting the test results, Sax would kill Borhan and Gram would help us escape.
Gram’s plan had a lot of variables that could go terribly wrong, but Sax and I had agreed this was our best shot. We certainly wouldn’t get another Uldani eager to help us. I was starting to believe in Sax’s Fatas. I’d started to view her as karma’s sister, even if I held a bit of a grudge against the ol’ girl for letting me get kidnapped by aliens. Seriously, what the fuck?
I looked over at Sax. He had just come from the cleanser, so his muscles gleamed under the lights. His hair shone as he deftly braided it with skilled fingers until it rested over one giant shoulder.
If karma was going to make me a human breeder, at least she’d given me him. I wished my mom could meet him. I knew she’d like him. Once she got past the horns. And tail. And uh, built-in weapons, she would’ve seen he was a good person. He had all the qualities I’d looked for in a partner but had never found on Earth. I wasn’t sure what karma and Fatas had planned for us, but I’d begun to hope. Like a rising sun in my chest, that hope grew brighter and brighter with every minute. I wanted to believe Sax and I were thrown together for a purpose. And that purpose wasn’t to provide a child to these assholes and then die here. No way.
We’d unlocked Sax’s collar, but kept it latched around his neck so it appeared to still be locked tight. The ruse he could still be controlled by Kulks bearing poles was necessary to get into the lab and near Borhan. Gram has been very specific in his instructions—if we didn’t kill Borhan, the deal was off. We’d be left here to rot. I didn’t fault him for not being altruistic. It was a trade for a species that struck me as self-serving and cruel.
I sat on the bed with my back to the wall, my knees tucked against my chest. I’d bit my lips to hell, and my head pounded from a stress headache. I felt like I was one step away from another panic attack, which I couldn’t afford. I had to remain alert. Sax had enough to do without me losing my shit.
He was exercising again, pushing his body to its limit. If I wasn’t absolutely terrified of what was to come, I might have enjoyed the show as his muscles bulged beneath his sweat-slicked skin.
He finished his last rep of some complicated leg exercise before grabbing a bottle of qua and plopping down on the bed. He still smelled good. How was that possible? He clearly didn’t have the body-odor gene. I sniffed my armpits self-consciously.
He placed a hand on top of my foot, his thumb caressing the arch in way that sent shivers up my leg. Great, and now I was turned on. My body didn’t know what to do.
“I can tell you’re nervous,” he said, and then grinned wolfishly. “I wish I had time to distract you.”
“Seriously?” I huffed. “You can flirt at a time like this?”
“What’s flirt?”
I waved a hand in the air as I wracked my brain for a definition. “Teasing someone because you like them. Or making suggestive comments.”
He took a gulp of qua, and I had to force myself not to stare at his corded neck. “Makes sense. I enjoy both of those things.”
“I’m sorry I’m not much fun right now,” I said. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
His expression sobered. He tapped a black claw against the container of qua. “When we get to the lab and I give you an order, you have to listen to me,” he said.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m not trying to go rogue here.”
He nodded. “I know, but what happens in there might not go as smoothly as Gram would like.”
“I’m sure it won’t, but why do you say that? Do you know something I don’t?”
His eyes darkened to nearly black, I could almost feel the anger simmering under his skin. As jovial as he could be, his rage was tangible and potent, especially when I was threatened.
“I’m not just killing Borhan. I’m taking out Polu and Hawn too. Then I’m flecking up their entire lab. All their machines, all their research. I’m sure they have the raw data backed up somewhere, but without Borhan, it’ll be nearly useless. I can’t leave here knowing they’ll replace him with some other sick fleck and carry on. It’s all gotta go.” He squeezed my thigh. “Fra-kee is pregnant. They know and they have her blood samples. Her biological information. My gift to my brother and the rest of the warriors is to destroy it.”
I cupped his face. “Don’t you think you’ve given your species enough by refusing to do what the Uldani ask?”
“My species? Yes. My brother? Never,” he said. “After the virus, he made sure the three of us stayed together—him, me, and Rex. He held us together when we were chits, and I’ll never forget that. During the Uprising, he was one of the leaders. He put himself on the line every day. He made many right decisions, bu
t he also made some tough calls that resulted in the deaths of Drixonians. He did his best, but the guilt weighs on him heavily. Knowing his genes will be in the next generation of Drixonians is what’s been getting me through since I saw him last. Until you.”
I rubbed my thumb over his cheek. “Okay, Sax. I’ll listen to you.”
“And do what Gram says.”
“I will.”
“My fierce lioness is being agreeable.”
“Because I understand this plan isn’t foolproof. A lot can go wrong, and I want to do my part to make it as successful as it can be.”
He frowned. “You’re worried?”
“Of course, I’m worried.”
He sighed. “We’ll get through this.”
“We’ve made it this far.”
He nodded and reached for the food tray. “Eat up. We’ll need our strength.”
We were polishing off the last of the food when the door clicked open. Two Kulks stood in the entrance, holding the poles connected to Sax’s collar. He rose to his feet and stood with his shoulders back, arm muscles flexing.
Standing from the bed, I fought to inhale deeply as my lungs tightened, fear constricting them and sending my heart into overdrive. I pressed myself against Sax’s back and peered around his bulk. Polu and Hawn strode inside, and I didn’t miss Hawn’s evil gaze immediately found me. Sick fuck.
“Time’s up,” Polu announced, cracking the tip of his shock rod on the floor. “Did you follow instructions?”
I didn’t speak. Sax heaved a breath but remained silent.
Polu narrowed his eyes. “I made the consequences clear, right? We’ll get what we want from the human, Sax. We made concessions and allowed you the use of this room. But now the human is ripe, and she’ll get bred by the time the sun goes down today.”