But thinking of that made her sad. Because she and Raak were never going to be able to bond.
“Thank you,” she said, trying to push her regret away. “For…for helping me. For healing me.”
He frowned. “Don’t know if I managed to heal you, exactly. I think only time will tell about that.”
Kara bit her lip. “You think it’ll come back? The essence, I mean? You think it’ll happen again?”
Raak looked serious.
“I hope not for your sake, baby girl. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
“I guess,” Kara said hesitantly. “But I feel so much better now, Raak. So much…” She yawned suddenly. “Oh my, so much sleepier.”
He smiled at her.
“Not surprised, considering how hard you came. Of course you’re all tired out afterwards.”
“Will you hold me?” Kara held out her arms to him. “Can we just take a nap together, please? I…I feel better when I’m in your arms,” she confessed, though she knew she shouldn’t.
His dark eyes, which had been half-lidded with lust, went soft.
“Of course I’ll hold you, baby girl. I’d love to hold you.”
He climbed into the sleeping platform with her and pulled her close to his broad chest.
Kara sighed and snuggled closer, not even minding that both of them were nude. In the past such a sleeping arrangement might have felt dangerous. But she trusted Raak to do the right thing by her always and besides, it was so comforting to have his bare skin next to hers.
I’m better now, she told herself as she pillowed her head on his broad chest. All better. Raak cured me by sucking out the essence that had been flowing in and down and out the wrong way. I’ll never have to worry about it again.
That was what she thought, anyway…until the sharp, aching pains woke her again in the middle of the night.
Twenty-Eight
“We can’t go on like this.” Raak ran a hand through his hair wearily. Not that he didn’t love going down on Kara—Seven Hells, he’d do it forever if he could. But the constant cycle of her need was wearing after a while, even for her.
Her tight little nipples were sore from him sucking them so much and her little clit was swollen and over-sensitized from the way he’d been licking her almost constantly for the past twenty-four hours.
It had been a non-stop marathon for the past day and night, Raak thought as he looked at her, lying panting on the bed from her last orgasm. Her hips had begun to twitch away from him, her body trying to protect itself from over-stimulation even though she needed to come to get over an “essence attack,” as he had started calling the episodes in his head.
No matter how gentle Raak tried to be when he sucked her nipples and lapped her pussy, those sensitive areas weren’t meant to be continuously stimulated over and over for hours on end. Yet there was no other way to ease Kara’s pain and need and she swore that the electrical shocks she got in her nipples and pussy were worse than the over-stimulation of those same areas when Raak licked and sucked her.
He was willing to keep on for as long as it took for her to get over the essence attacks but as time wore on, it became clear that they weren’t going to stop on their own. Kara needed help and he could only think of one place to find it.
“We need to go back to the Palace of the Unseen,” he told her. “Need to go back and see Qi again. Maybe he can undo all of this.”
“And make my fangs grow out again?” Kara looked near tears at the thought.
“What other choice do we have, baby girl?” Raak asked. Seeing her pale blue eyes swimming with tears, he gathered her close to his chest and held her.
Gods, how his heart ached to see her pain! He didn’t know why he was feeling the way he was for the sweet little female—he’d been around the galaxy and been with plenty of women but none of them had touched him like Kara. He wanted desperately to make her well—to help her through this crisis.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was falling in love with her, he told himself dryly.
But of course that was impossible. He had no soul and without one, it was impossible to fall in love or to bond—everyone knew that.
“I don’t want my fangs to grow out again,” Kara whispered against his chest.
Raak cuddled her close.
“I know you don’t, baby girl,” he murmured gently. “But if it’s a choice between visible fangs and feeling like you’re being electrocuted in your nipples and pussy all the time, which is better?”
“The fangs, I guess.” She looked up at him, her lovely pale blue eyes swimming with tears. “You’re right, Raak—we have to go back. We have to ask Qi to make my fangs grow out again. I know you’re willing to help me as much as you can, but I’m exhausted. And you must be getting lockjaw by now from, uh, licking me so much.”
She blushed pink as she spoke, which made his heart twist again.
“Well, I will admit you’re testing my endurance.” Raak massaged the sides of his jaw with one hand ruefully. “But I’ll keep going as long as you need me to—I love tasting your pussy, Kara. You know that.”
“I know.” Her blush deepened. “But you’re right—we can’t live like this. These attacks are happening more and more frequently and we can’t spend the rest of our lives in bed.”
“Well if we had to, you’re the one I’d want to spend mine with,” Raak told her, grinning tiredly. “But I think I’d better set us a course for Xephron Five. We need to get back to Qi as soon as possible.”
“Yes.” Kara sighed and then gave a sharp little moan.
Raak’s senses were on high alert—by now he knew all the signs of an impending essence attack, so he knew exactly what that little cry of pain meant.
“Is it coming on again?” he asked her anxiously. “You need me to lick you some more, sweetheart?”
Kara winced and nodded.
“Yes, but I can…can wait while you set a course for Xephron Five,” she told him. “Go on, Raak—I’ll be okay.” She winced again. “For a little while, anyway.”
“I’ll hurry,” Raak promised her. He jumped off the sleeping platform and ran to the front of the ship to lay in a course to the “disco ball planet.”
He only hoped they could get there before Kara was in so much pain he couldn’t help her anymore.
Twenty-Nine
“Because you are in my Palace of the Unseen and have eaten of my xanthos, you can, of course, cause your fangs to return to their normal configuration,” Qi said, from his invisible perch somewhere ten feet or so above them.
“Oh, thank you!” Kara had never thought she’d be so glad to hear that her fangs would be long and sharp—exactly the way they’d been before she messed with them.
She’d been reluctant when Raak first suggested coming back to Xephron Five to get the process reversed. But the constant shooting pains in her most sensitive areas had convinced her that she would much rather have prominent fangs than the feeling she was being electrocuted all the time.
She had eagerly taken off her clothes to enter the invisible palace and had willingly swallowed the biggest, squishiest xanthos ball she could find the minute the invisible plant alien produced them. Anything to be rid of this awful agony!
“I want my fangs back,” she said, closing her eyes and concentrating hard. “Make them grow back just like they were.”
At once she felt the familiar itching-tingling sensation in her upper jaw right where her canine teeth should be. To her relief, when she explored the area with the tip of her tongue, she felt the long, sharp tips of her fangs just where they should be.
“It worked!” she told Raak, who was sitting, quiet and invisible beside her. “They’re back—now we can go back to normal!”
“I am afraid not,” Qi said with a rustling of its invisible leaves.
“What?” Kara looked up into the empty air, wishing she could see the invisible alien to get some idea of what it was talking about. “What do you mean? My fangs
are back—everything should go back to normal, right?”
The invisible leaves rustled again.
“Regrettably, reversing the process may not solve your problem,” Qi murmured in its soft voice. “Only time will tell, but such a drastic physical change is not without consequences, even when you seek to correct it.”
“Are you telling me I got my fangs back for nothing?” Kara demanded, her heart sinking.
“Not for nothing,” Qi assured her. “For at least now you have the means to fix that which was broken.”
“What? I don’t understand. Oh!” Kara gasped. To her horror, she felt the now-familiar sensation of electrical shocks running through her nipples and pussy.
“What is it, baby girl?” Raak asked anxiously. Though he was invisible, Kara could almost see the concern in his dark, silver-ringed eyes. “Is it happening again? Another attack?”
“Yes.” Kara didn’t trust herself to say any more than that. She felt like crying. Why had she gone to the trouble to grow her hated fangs back out if it wasn’t going to solve her problem? And what was she going to do?
“It’s okay, Kara. We’re going to get through this somehow,” Raak rumbled. He squeezed her hand, offering her strength. “And I’ll be by your side, every step of the way—I promise.”
“But what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? If Qi can’t help me, who can?” Kara asked, her voice tight with tears. She felt sick with fear—she couldn’t live like this! But there didn’t seem to be any options left, since restoring her fangs hadn’t fixed the problem.
“Don’t know,” Raak admitted, squeezing her hand again. “But we’ll think of something—I promise you that.”
“There is a Tolleg hospital ship visiting our quadrant of space at the moment,” Qi said unexpectedly, breaking into their conversation. “One of their surgeons came to visit me—a female by the name of Silki. She asked for some of my leaves and xanthos for experimentation in her lab—a request I was glad to grant for the Tollegs have a fine reputation as healers of all creatures—both meat and plant based.”
“The Tollegs—of course!” Raak’s voice was excited. “Why didn’t I think of that? If anyone can help you, they can, baby girl,” he said to Kara.
“Oh yes—we have a Tolleg surgeon on board the Mother Ship,” she exclaimed. “Yipper is his name—he’s amazing.”
“Would you rather go back and see him, then?” Raak asked. “I mean, it’s probably a longer trip than finding the Tolleg surgical ship in this quadrant but if you’d feel better being at home…”
Kara thought of going back to the Mother Ship and being forced to admit to her parents what was going on with her and what Raak had been doing to help her with her problems.
The mental image made her cringe with embarrassment.
“No,” she said quickly. “No, I can’t wait that long. Let’s find the Tolleg ship, Raak. Let’s find it as soon as we can,” she added, feeling the electrical pain run through her again. “Please.”
“You got it, baby girl. Come on.” He rose and Kara followed him.
“Thank you, oh Qi,” she said, though she couldn’t help thinking that the plant-based creature had certainly done her more harm than good. After all, it could have warned her in a less cryptic way how badly her wish to shrink her fangs would turn out!
“You are thinking that I should have warned you of the consequences of your original wish more clearly,” Qi said, surprising her.
“I, uh…” Kara fumbled for a moment. Then she decided that she was through being polite. “Well, yes, actually,” she said boldly. “Why didn’t you?”
“It was not given me to see any more clearly,” Qi told her. “I warned you as strongly as I was able. But you meat creatures are so stubborn in your desires I do not think that anything I could have said would have dissuaded you.”
Reluctantly, Kara had to admit he was right. She’d been so set on shrinking her fangs that she’d barely paid any attention to the warning Qi had tried to give—she’d even brushed off Raak’s misgivings without a second thought. Maybe she would have gone ahead, even if Qi’s warning had been clearer.
I did this to myself, she thought ruefully. I can’t blame anyone else. I let my own vanity and my wish to look “normal” get in the way of my common sense. I should have just learned to live with my fangs instead of trying to get rid of them or shrink them.
“Kara? You okay? You’re awfully quiet over there,” Raak murmured, pulling her out of her self-recrimination.
Kara sighed and then winced as another bolt of pain shot through her.
“I was just thinking that this is all my fault,” she said in a low voice. “I did it to myself. I never should have messed with the fangs the Goddess gave me in the first place.”
“Look, baby girl, you can’t change the past,” Raak said reasonably, squeezing her hand. “All you can do is move forward and hope for a brighter future. And I promise, I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Kara felt a surge of grateful affection for the big Unbondable. She was certain any other male she didn’t have a soul bond with would have abandoned her by now for being too needy. But Raak was sticking by her, despite his lack of a soul. He was her rock—the one certainty she could cling to in this sea of swirling chaos she suddenly found herself swimming in.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was in love with him, she thought, leaning towards him and feeling his heavy, muscular arm wrap around her shoulders and squeeze comfortingly. Of course, she knew better than that—she couldn’t let herself feel so deeply for the big Unbondable.
But the seeds of gratitude, caring, and affection were already planted and she couldn’t help the way her heart throbbed when he hugged her and whispered encouragement in her ear.
I am starting to love him, she thought, even as she hugged him back while they made their way out of Qi’s invisible palace. I can’t help myself. Oh Goddess, what am I going to do?
Thirty
Luckily for Kara, the Tolleg ship was closer than they’d thought. It was orbiting the next planet over— Xephron Six—and they hailed it within the hour as soon as they got back to Raak’s ship. An hour later, they were docking in the massive Tolleg hospital ship and introducing themselves to Silki, the same Tolleg that Qi had told them about.
“It’s very nice to meet you. Yes it is, yes it is!” she said, nodding her head so that her sharply pointed, furry ears swiveled with the rapid motion.
Kara had always thought that Yipper—the Tolleg surgeon who lived aboard the Mother Ship—looked like a cross between a baboon and a hound dog. But Silki looked much more like a Pomeranian. She had reddish fur, fox-like features, and big bright eyes which she trained with laser focus on Kara as she hesitantly explained her problem.
“I know of the Blood Kindred, yes I do, yes I do,” she said nodding rapidly again. “And I have studied the anatomy of their fangs. I will need to run some tests before I can make a diagnosis but I think I have some idea of what your problem is. Indeed I do, indeed I do.”
“You do?” Kara felt a rush of relief. “Oh, thank you! So you’ll be able to cure me, right?”
“Let us hope so,” Silki said—a little more carefully than Kara liked. What she wanted to hear the Tolleg doctor say was that she was certain she could make everything all right again.
“But…you can cure me, can’t you?” she asked. “Please, I need some help!”
“I will do everything in my power for you, my dear. Yes I will, yes I will,” Silki said firmly. “Come—let’s get you to our diagnostic suite. We must run some tests at once. Yes we must, yes we must.”
Kara’s feeling of relief faded and she looked at Raak uncertainly.
“It’s okay, baby.” He looped an arm around her and gave her a comforting squeeze. “Everything is gonna be all right. And I’ll be with you every step of the way—I promise.”
“You must be her mate. Yes you must, yes you must,” Silki said, looking up at him from he
r diminutive height of about two and a half feet.
Kara opened her mouth to say that they weren’t mated but Raak said firmly,
“For all intents and purposes, yes. I’m Kara’s mate. And I want to be with her through every bit of the testing.”
“Very well, very well.” Silki nodded, her furry ears swiveling. “There is only one scan that I know of where you cannot be present but it is non-invasive and painless. We will save that one for last. Yes we will, yes we will.”
“Okay,” Kara said and winced as a familiar shock of pain ran through her.
Damn it, she was so tired of this endless cycle of agony and need! Despite the fact that Raak had gone down on her and made her come three more times right before they docked in the hospital ship, another essence attack was already hitting her.
“Can we please hurry?” she asked through clenched teeth. “I’m, uh, already in pain again.”
“You need me to help you, baby?” Raak asked, looking at her anxiously.
“No, I’ll be okay.” Kara shook her head. She was determined to get through the tests and find out what was going on as soon as possible. She would just have to endure the agony until that was over.
“All right. Well if you change your mind…” Raak raised his eyebrows expressively. “I mean, we can always go back to our ship for some, uh, privacy.”
“Thanks.” Kara felt her cheeks get hot with a blush. “But I’d rather just get these tests over with.”
“This way then,” Silki said to them, gesturing with one paw-like hand. Though most Tollegs were skilled surgeons, they did their surgeries with their long, talented, prehensile tongues, not their fingers.
Kara followed her, trying to suppress the twinge of fear and uncertainty she felt. Why wouldn’t the little Tolleg give her assurances that everything would be all right? Why did she look so serious?
It’ll be okay, she told herself, trying to ignore the fear that tried to fill her like dark water pouring into a cup. Everything is going to be okay. Everyone knows the Tollegs are the most skilled surgeons and doctors in the galaxy. I’m sure they can help me—I’m sure of it.
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