Tribe Protector

by Stacy Jones

  Life on a primitive alien planet with danger at every turn and monsters hunting them didn’t allow for much of a honeymoon, but they could at least have this. She wanted him close, wanted to feel his velvety fur cut through with silky scars against her skin, and wanted him to know she took their mating as seriously as he did.

  He looked confused as she guided him to lay down in the middle of the nest, over the slightly thicker layer of feathery leaves in the center of their sleeping section, but he went willingly. She damn sure wouldn’t have been able to move him if he hadn’t wanted to go. He was the size of a mountain.

  He let her arrange him until he was laid on his back, with Arruk on one side, Tor on the other, and Frrar near the trunk at their heads so he’d be safe from Tor’s flailing.

  Drrak’s fixed stare tracked her every move as she took off her makeshift cardigan dress, boots, and worn wraps on her feet. Lily left her panties on, not wanting to give him the impression this was about sex. She was definitely looking forward to doing that with him again, soon, but this was about closeness and, for Lily, cementing their new bond.

  Mostly naked, and feeling oddly vulnerable, she crawled up his huge body until she was laid on his wide chest, her toes stopping at his shins and her cheek pressed directly over his pounding heart.

  She felt him suck in a shuddering breath, lifting her body with the deep inhale, as Arruk and Tor rolled closer, their arms and tails coming over her to make a blanket of their limbs. Drrak haltingly added his arms to theirs, holding her securely to his chest and purred for her, the sound unmistakably happy.

  Right before she fell asleep, she heard him whisper.

  “Me ha khalik.”

  I am home.

  W hile the day was still quiet, the forest and his harem brothers taking their time waking up, Tor watched Lily sleep. She’d slept without thrashing or calling out for the first time in days, and Tor felt supremely thankful for that.

  He hated seeing his Pasha fight terrors in her sleep that he couldn’t defend her from. It made him feel helpless.

  He wanted to do something to make her smile again, something to take some of the shadows from her beautiful green eyes. He missed her baring her teeth at him and her happy sounds—her laugh. Even her face creatures had been distressed, scrunching up and trying to touch each other in the middle of her brow for comfort. It made him feel bad for the little, furry things. Not bad enough to pet them, since he was still suspicious and worried they’d bite his finger, but he wanted to comfort them as well.

  Tor had a thought and felt his lips stretch in what Lily called a devilish grin. He knew one thing that never failed to relax her.

  He settled in to wait until she woke up, contemplating just how many times he’d need to make her peak before those shadows in her eyes were gone.

  Lily woke feeling rested for the first time in nearly a week. Blinking open her eyes, she came face to face with a grinning Tor, looking as mischievous as ever.

  She rubbed one eye, keeping the other open and on him in case he pounced while she wasn’t looking.

  And she was definitely getting pouncing vibes from him.

  “What are you up to? And how are you always so chipper in the mornings?” she whispered groggily, not wanting to wake up everyone else.

  I miss coffee.

  Tor’s answer was to smile wider and crook a long finger at her, his pale blue eyes sparkling with a decidedly naughty glint.

  She knew exactly what that smile meant and instantly felt heat pool in her belly.

  Screw coffee. I’ll take what he’s offering instead.

  “You want sneaky morning sex, don’t you?” she asked with an excited hitch in her breath.

  He nodded slowly, his eyes hooded and his naughty smile turning downright panty melting.

  Wanting what that smile promised, Lily very carefully slid off of Drrak’s chest, trying not to wake him, then scooted into Tor’s waiting embrace.

  His arms came around her, and he quickly shifted her farther away from the others before rolling her onto her back.

  With only a quick, teasing kiss on her lips, he crawled down her body, stopping to lick and suck on her nipples until they were stiff points before moving on to nip and suck hot, wet patches on her stomach.

  They’d only just started and already she was breathing heavily and shifting on the nest, unable to lie still while he purposefully tortured her, not staying in any one place long enough to satisfy the need for his touch before moving on.

  She covered her mouth with her hand, smothering an excited groan when she felt him hook his fingers into the sides of her panties and slide them slowly down her legs.

  She barely had time to brace herself before he spread her legs wide enough to fit his broad shoulders and attacked her pussy.

  He sucked on her clit, lashed it with his tongue, then pushed a finger deep inside her, pumping it in time with his licking.

  He set a hard pace and her orgasm built faster than she expected. When her hand wasn’t enough to quiet her sounds of pleasure he brought his tail up. He used the prehensile limb to lift her hand away, then traced her lips teasingly with the tip until she parted them for him .

  She felt the vibration of his growl when she opened for him then closed her mouth around his tail. His movements between her legs froze for a moment as he waited, tense, to see what she would do.

  She knew exactly what he wanted, knew intimately his kinky obsession with using his tail on various parts of her.

  With her own naughty smile, she circled the tip with her tongue before sucking the velvety limb just as she would a cock. She felt the hard shudder that passed through his body right before he resumed his assault on her pussy, his movements taking on a frenzied kind of speed.

  Lily choked out a sharp, surprised moan when that frenzy sent her over the edge, her eyes widening before they rolled into the back of her head.

  He didn’t let up or slow down when she came.

  Pushing another finger inside her, he sucked her clit into his mouth and purred, knowing what those vibrations did to her. One orgasm turned into another with no break in between, until she was shaking so hard she thought the whole damn hut should have been moving.

  Just as her second peak began to lessen, Tor crawled up her body and exchanged his tail for his tongue as he reached down with a lower hand to press on his knot, clearly too impatient to wait for her to do so.

  He kissed her deeply as he pushed inside her slick, swollen pussy, muffling her moans.

  He didn’t give her time to recover but fucked her hard and fast.

  Locking her legs around his hips, she spurred him on, canting her hips up to meet his furious thrusts, so he went deeper inside her.

  It didn’t take long until they were both gasping and shuddering, swallowing each other’s cries of pleasure as they came together.

  When their releases passed, Tor collapsed on her, his gasping breaths heating her shoulder as he rested his forehead on the nest beside her head.

  Lily still had her eyes closed when she felt him push himself up on his upper elbows a few seconds later.

  Cracking open one eyelid when she sensed him staring at her, she found him watching her expectantly. Before she could ask what he was waiting for, he brought his lower hand up and used a fingertip to poke at her lips before hooking it in the corner of her mouth, stretching one side of her lips up into a smile.

  Lily immediately busted up laughing, gasping through her giggles as the movement made his still-hard cock shift inside her.

  “Mushh bettrr,” Tor purred, looking smug and extremely pleased with himself.

  “You’re a damn mess, and I love you,” she chuckled, stretching up to kiss him.

  They were both still smiling when he rolled off of her to sprawl on the nest beside her. Lily snorted when he coiled his tail around one of her breasts and cupped his lower hand over her pussy, lightly petting both as if thanking them.

  Shaking her head at his weirdness, she nev
ertheless lay there and let him pet her until she’d caught her breath, then sat up.

  When she turned to look for her panties, she found three set of eyes on her, staring at her heatedly.

  “Uh, good morning,” she squeaked .

  She felt like she’d just been caught doing something naughty. Which she had.

  So much for being sneaky.

  Arruk and Frrar were used to occasionally waking up to her and Tor having morning sex. Sometimes they joined, sometimes they watched, and sometimes they—Arruk—purred before rolling over to go back to sleep, but Drrak wasn’t used to waking up to quite so much… excitement.

  Lily felt shy and awkward, frozen as she tried to decide if it would be weirder to stay naked and play it cool, or cover up.

  Drrak obviously noticed her deer-in-the-headlights expression. He slowly lost his surprise, but none of his heat as he quirked a smile and pushed himself into a sitting position before moving to his hands and knees.

  She felt her eyes open wider as he moved closer. She had no idea what the unpredictable male was about to do, but stayed frozen as he prowled nearer and nearer.

  He continued forward until their noses were almost touching. He held her stare for a long, drawn out moment, like he was trying to tell her something, before he slowly closed that last inch and pressed his mouth to hers.

  He stayed like that until she kissed him, then slid his mouth to her ear.

  “Mek tinsa roaer, shh ta faethrr osk passt ,” he growled, his low, rough voice sounding hungry.

  Lily gasped at his words, and her pussy clenched in need, as if she hadn’t just had three orgasms.

  My tiny fighter, you are beautiful when you peak.

  She almost grabbed him, the need to push him down to the nest so she could mount him damn near overwhelming, but he slipped away before she could, standing and walking casually to the food pile in the corner like he hadn’t just turned her on something fierce.

  How the hell does he do that?

  Lily narrowed her gaze on his retreating back, both impressed and astounded that he could go from unsure, newly-mated male to a maddeningly sexy lady-killer at the flip of a switch.

  Even more odd, both sides felt genuine.

  She couldn’t even imagine how irresistible he’d be when he lost the last of his uncertainty.

  Between the four of them, I may never leave the hut again.

  She heard Arruk rumble a quiet, knowing laugh and glanced over at him.

  In answer to her stupefied expression, he shrugged his massive shoulders and—repeating something Tor had said in the past—drawled, “Is Drrak.”

  Breakfast was followed by Lily settling in to work on making a bow. Arruk went off to gather more food to add to their stores and refill their water balloons, Frrar was on mandatory bed rest until he could move without wincing, and Drrak and Tor helped her carve.

  She could tell they were all on guard, waiting for the other shoe to drop after the pantari attack the day before. She was, too.

  Learning the pantari had been trained to hunt shevari was shocking, but it made an odd kind of sense from everything she knew. She hoped that if they could either kill or drive the werewolf person away, the massive predators would stop hunting them. That would solve a lot of the tribe’s problems, especially when it inevitably came time to travel to the mountains again.

  But for now, they had much more immediate concerns. Like surviving what she sensed was coming.

  There was a suspicious kind of stillness in the forest, like the calm before a storm, and it set her teeth on edge. It made her efforts to make a weapon for herself feel urgent, as if she was racing against a clock she couldn’t see.

  It took the rest of the morning, and ruining four of the limbs she and Drrak had gathered, before she finally managed to carve something she thought might work. Drrak and Tor placed that bow between them and, after a few mistakes, each made another bow.

  While they carved she went with Arruk to the forest floor directly below their hut, testing different kinds of fibers for the bow strings until she settled on the green stalks of one of the smaller trees.

  She peeled bark to get to the fibers within, twisted, and braided until her arms burned, her fingertips felt raw, and she had a pile of scraps in front of her, but she had enough plaited fiber to string the three bows.

  Lily knew the string wouldn’t last very long since she didn’t have time to dry it out, but she hoped it would hold until they eliminated the threat bearing down on them.

  Once they were finished, it was time to test them.

  She and the guys, with Frrar insisting he join, went just outside their hut to practice.

  Tor, under her direction, quickly fashioned a target from a thick bundle of leaves tied together with vine so she wasn’t just shooting at random things and tied it to a branch roughly thirty feet away. She knew she could make a kill-shot from farther away but the foliage got too dense to see through after that.

  Her guys all took places behind her on the thick branch while Arruk held Trrak in his arms so the cub didn’t inadvertently cross into the line of fire.

  Lily had wanted to move far away from populated areas, but they put their feet down in no uncertain terms, willing to risk a stray arrow to avoid another pantari attack.

  “Fine,” she’d reluctantly agreed. “But you need to make sure no one comes close. I don’t want to shoot somebody by accident.”

  Tor nodded and went higher in the branches, moving in a wide circle around their tree and calling out for people to stay away. His voice was low and if their people didn’t have superhero hearing she knew there was no way they would have heard him. Fortunately, in that instance, they did, so she wasn’t worried about them not making out his words.

  What made Lily roll her eyes was that he didn’t add any explanation to that statement, leaving it simply at stay away .

  The shevari people were vastly different to humans in a lot of ways, but one of the ways they were similar was their curiosity. She just knew a vague warning like that was going to have the opposite effect and attract people to them, wanting to see what was going on.

  When she said as much to Tor, he shook his head and disagreed, saying something to the effect that he’d used his serious voice.

  Lily snorted and pinched the bridge of her nose, caught between amusement and incredulity because she knew he meant it. Never mind that if their places were changed, he would absolutely be making a beeline to wherever the mysterious thing was happening, serious voice or not.

  “Just keep an eye out please, and make sure no one crosses in front of me,” she said sternly, using charades to communicate her message to Drrak as well.

  Only when she had nods and murmurs of agreement from all of them did she turn away from the center of tribe territory and notch an arrow.

  Testing the pull weight, she gauged it at roughly forty pounds. It wasn’t easy at first, but that she could draw it back at all told her just how strong she’d gotten since being dumped on the planet.

  Sucking in a deep breath, she drew the string back until her fingers touched her cheek, then exhaled slowly. A familiar stillness settled over her, honed from years of practicing archery. She targeted the bundle of leaves, counted her heartbeats, and released the arrow between one beat and the next.

  It flew through the air and thwacked into the lower left corner of the target. Tightening her lips, she made the necessary adjustments and fired again, over and over until she was consistently hitting the center.

  As she fired, she forced herself to imagine the faces of Skaa’s children and mates, and the butchered animal carcasses they’d found.

  She had to remember why she was doing this. She couldn’t afford to hesitate when the time came to aim at something other than a bundle of leaves.

  W hen Lily reached for another arrow and came up empty, she blinked out of the trance she’d been in. She suddenly became aware of the tightness in her back and shoulder, and the rawness of her fingers t
elling her she needed to stop, or she’d be too sore to draw her bow when the time came.

  She glanced back to check on her guys, but her eyes slid right past them to the branches above and behind. She reared back in alarm before her mind could fully comprehend what she was seeing.

  There were at least a dozen shevari, all men with the exception of one woman, staring at her like she was a circus sideshow.

  “What the… How long have they been there?” she whispered from the side of her mouth, not looking away from her audience.

  Arruk pointed at the late afternoon sun then raised his hand to a spot a little higher in the sky.

  “An hour? Awesome,” she grimaced.

  Giving Tor a look she muttered, “I told you just telling them to stay away wouldn’t work."

  He rolled his eyes at her and gave their audience a sour look, muttering to himself that his serious voice was good, and they just didn’t have the sense to listen.

  Lily chuckled at how put out he sounded, but her laughter was abruptly cut off when Rork and Lok landed on their branch, followed by the woman and three more men. The remaining six men moved into their tree but stayed in the branches above since there was no more room.

  “Uh… ”

  She gave them all wide-eyed looks, not terribly pleased to find herself surrounded by giant alien people who had treated her with, at best, suspicion and at worst, disdain. The truck-wide tree limb that had felt so roomy only moments before suddenly seemed entirely too small to hold everyone.

  Before she could freak out about what they wanted, the woman stepped forward. She was tall, at least six-foot-four-inches, and muscular, more so than even Rork, though not quite as beefy as Arruk and Drrak. Her markings were delicate and her features were finer than those of male shevari, but those were the only soft things about her.

  Lily was still learning to tell their ages in their years but thought the woman was a little younger than her, maybe nineteen or twenty in human years.

  She was beautiful in a wild, Amazonian kind of way with full grey lips and pale silvery-blue eyes, but she definitely looked like a warrior. She had a hardness to her and more than a few scars on her arms and a perfect set of healed claw marks on her chest. She had three big knives tied to her vine strap, bigger than what the men carried, and her water spear was tipped with a lethal-looking stone blade .