Her blood froze in her veins. She hadn’t even seen them! They could have done anything to her. She sagged against the table with relief, thanking the gods that the general had kept his word about withdrawing any further action against them.
On the center of the table was the tiny scroll he’d showed her the previous day. She slipped it into her pocket as the proprietress came up beside her.
“The general has covered anything you may want from the dormo. Is there anything I can get you? I see you do not care for our orva,” she said with a wry smile.
Cara chuckled. “Unfortunately, it’s not quite to my liking,” she agreed. “But if I could get an order of eight mishi to take with me, I’d be very grateful. I hear that yours are the best in Lominoa.”
The Kadesh female grinned with pride. “Naturally. It is after all a family recipe. My family is known for our mishi. I made a fresh batch this morning. I will fetch it immediately.”
Cara gratefully accepted the box of mishi with a smile and headed back to their rooms. She only hoped that she arrived before he woke. He was bound to be displeased.
***
Lerix glared at the empty space beside him, disturbed that she’d managed to slip out without waking him. He wanted to throttle his mate. She was supposed to leave with him so that he could follow her. That was their agreement. His anger and fear rose rapidly as he quickly began to throw on his clothes.
When the door slid open his response was poor and entirely reactionary.
“What the hell do you think you were doing,” he snarled as he stalked over to Cara, fury vibrating off him in waves. “Do you have any idea what you put me through, foolish human? How could you do something so stupid?” he bellowed. Despite his anger he reached out a hand as if to reassure himself that she was well.
Cara’s mouth dropped open but then snapped shut, her cheeks flushing crimson. She knocked his hand away inadvertently sending it into the box she held and flinging berry-filled mishi into the air. Several splattered on the walls where he managed to duck out of the way in time, but several bright smears on his scales showed where they’d hit him before he could dodge the sweet confection.
She pinched her lips against the bubble of laughter that attempted to escape at the ridiculous sight he made. Instead of laughing, she pulled the golden scroll out of her pocket and handed it to him.
“I know you are mad, but please believe I did it with the best intentions. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. I had to do this alone. They just didn’t trust your ass not to kill anyone. Since there is only so long that we can dodge assassins, going alone as instructed was the only option I felt that I had. I really saw this as our only chance to acquire that.”
Lerix frowned down at the scroll in his hand.
“What is this?”
“That is the agreement from the Korovik Elite General Fa Covor to no longer pursue us.”
Lerix turned the metal scroll in his hand and pushed the ends. The holograph popped up and Cara was surprised to see the text in English outlining their arrangement. Upon returning the royal jewels, the Korovik elite guard in representation of Princess Koriee Avael Mortashou Azel considers the matter around the Shovor jewels to be permanently closed. No further contact would be initiated, nor any harm attempted. All legal proceedings have been terminated as agreed.
“Did that come up as English for you too?”
Lerix gave her an odd look. “These documents are designed as part of their hologram sequencing to display the correct language to whoever is reading it. You saw your English, but for me it was in Kadeshol.”
“Ah,” she said.
After an uncomfortable several minutes, Lerix sighed. “I understand, why you did it. However, I could have stayed back far enough that know one would have ever known.”
Cara looked at him in disbelief.
“Lerix, don’t take this the wrong way, but you have the impulse control of a five-year-old.”
“What does that mean?” he growled.
“That means I’ve known children to control themselves better than you do. You just reflexively kill everyone!”
“Hardly everyone,” he grunted.
“Oh, forgive me,” she giggled. “Children and females who don’t run afoul of you seem to be the exception. Lovely and entirely helpful for any male who looks at you wrong.”
“Now you are exaggerating,” he grumbled, his lips tilting up with amusement. “You know very well I only kill anyone who I think is going to try to harm me or anyone under my care.”
“Not every suspicious guy is looking to kill someone!”
“I’m not going to take that chance with you.”
“Oh, and why is that?”
“Because you are my mate,” he murmured, and then he drew up short, his brilliant eyes widening in shock as his brain caught up as he fully realized what he just said.
“What?” she whispered in disbelief.
Lerix threaded his fingers through her hair and cupped her cheek lovingly. “My sweet vonri, I told you—Kadesh just know when they have found someone that they want for their mate. Sometimes we don’t make great choices. Mahuura is an excellent case in point for that, but it can be excused because she is young.”
He stepped close to her, his hands reaching forward to grasp her own. “Not only do I look at you and see my mate, I see a female who I love and would give my life to protect and bring happiness to. But I didn’t want to pressure you, nor did I want to steal you in the fashion of my kind. I wanted you to want me as much as I want you.”
Her lips parted as she stared at him in wonder.
“Please tell me that you feel this thing between us too. That you can learn to love me, even if I have a temper and have poor impulse control,” he said with a wan smile. “Truthfully, I need you in my life more than you need me. You are the light of my soul, its wise voice of reason.”
Cara snorted. “Did you just call me your conscience?”
Lerix gave her a lopsided grin. “Yes, I suppose that could be an accurate part of it.”
She shook her head, bemused, as his arms and tail went around her and drew her close against his body. Instinctively he wrapped himself around her. Burying his nose in her hair, he breathed her in, his body slowly relaxing by degrees.
“You will stay and be my mate, willingly then?” he whispered into her hair.
“Yes, of course—wait, what do you mean by willingly? Was that ever a question?” She tilted her head back to peer up at him.
He grinned wickedly down at her. “There may or may not have been a plan to lock you away in my estate.”
Cara huffed and shook her head. “Gods, you are ridiculous.”
“Is that a yes?”
Her lips quirked. “Yes, that is a ‘yes.’ I’ll be happy to stay with you at your estate for the rest of our lives—even if you do drive me crazy. But no locking me in anywhere,” she said with a scowl.
Lerix laughed. “Of course not, my love.”
Chapter 22
Mahuura frowned at Esha, who hovered at her elbow. He’d been doing that ever since they heard Lerix yelling from the other side of his door. She was certain that the male was overreacting over something stupid.
“Don’t you think we should go back to the room and check on her?” she asked hesitantly.
They’d seen Cara from a distance heading toward the room she shared with Lerix, and Mahuura had been a bundle of nerves and worry since. Esha’s hovering wasn’t helping.
Who did he think he was to take such a possessive stance over her? He wasn’t her mate. She certainly didn’t pick him. She’d picked Ben. Granted, Ben didn’t satisfy her urges or her instinctive need, but he was a safe male that she could control.
Mother always said that was better not to trust a male of a larger, more dominant species that tended to attract her. Esha had some nerve to assume anything with her. Never mind that she couldn’t control the way her feminine core heated and became wet with him so nea
r her. It wasn’t appropriate. She was to soon be mated.
She scooted away with an irritated flick of her tail as the male shook his head.
“No, leave them alone. They will not thank us for interfering. Especially not if they are reacquainting after their disagreement.”
Mahuura frowned up at him. She hated the fact that she didn’t always understand certain inferences regarding mating.
“What do you mean?”
Esha blinked in surprise. “Don’t you know what happens between male and females?”
Mahuura felt blue seeping into her scales. Gods, now she was blushing like an untried female, which was the case until she met Ben. But she’d been an experienced female since the day she’d lain with Ben. She didn’t want to seem ignorant in front of the Ikoru.
“I know the technicalities of mating,” she said stiffly, her chin lifting with pride. “I lay with Ben many times. I know how to do it.”
Esha scowled down at her but then chuckled humorlessly and leaned into her, inhaling with a low groan as he caught scent of her pheromones. Humans seemed almost nose-blind compared to other species. Ben had never said more than that he loved her perfume, but never had he groaned with such appreciation as the Ikoru.
His breath was hot on her as he whispered, “You may have fucked, but it was just sex. You, little female, haven’t truly mated and bonded. In many ways you are still… innocent.”
She didn’t know if it was his talk of sex and bonds, or just the heady scent of him and his hot breath on her scales, but her arousal spiked to an uncomfortable degree. To her embarrassment, moisture slicked down the delicate scales of her thighs. Esha shivered with pleasure and slowly opened his luminous blue eyes, the clawed tips of his upper limbs twitching as if he wanted to snare her.
“Exquisite,” he rumbled. “You waste yourself on a male who doesn’t appreciate you, Mahuura.” She shivered at the exotic way her name rolled off his tongue with a dark purr. “Wouldn’t you rather have a male who would desire to be sustained on nothing more than the sweetness of your body against his?”
She clenched her thighs together, trying to ignore the pulsing need of her feminine core. What was this? She never experienced anything like this with Ben. Her tail curled around her legs defensively. She decided to ignore his observation, because she didn’t want to admit that maybe he had a point about her joining with Ben.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said coolly with what she hoped with the appropriate amount of disdain that her mother always seemed to master flawlessly.
Undeterred, Esha grinned down at her, all four of his arms crossing over his dual sets of pectorals as he leaned a shoulder against the nearby wall.
“Determine little female, aren’t you?” he observed with a husky rasp.
She pinched her lips together and kept her eyes on his in silent expectation. Suddenly, he laughed and shook his head. He unfolded his arms and raised his palms in a sign of submission, but the humor in his eyes told her that it was anything but submissive.
“Very well. You win,” he crooned. “When mated, even almost mated as those two are, they will fuck after they have settled their argument.”
That was certainly an odd way to settle an argument. She couldn’t imagine it being very satisfactory to the victor. She never let Ben win an argument, and she certainly never let him touch her until he had appropriately apologized and won her forgiveness.
“To what purpose?”
Esha chuckled once again, this time warm with humor. “Ah, to be young again.”
Her scales rose aggressively. “I am not that young. I have twenty-three revolutions. I am not a child.”
“No, definitely not a child,” he agreed, his eyes slowly traveling down the length of her body.
“The purpose is to reconnect and strengthen the bond. To share of each other in your most vulnerable, fragile moment and celebrate the affirmation of your bond. Is this not what you desire to have with your ‘mate?”’
***
Esha inhaled Mahuura’s arousal, his body crying out at him with need. This female was perfect. He never wanted another female for his mate more than her. Her scent appealed to him, but more than that, the luminous body of her aura that Ikoru were able to see far more clearly than many other species shone with such beauty that its energy drew him in.
He was hers, and she was his. She just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 23
Cara woke, her sweat-slick skin sticking to Lerix. She huffed with silent laughter as she gracelessly peeled herself off him with enough force that it sent her toppling over the side of the bed. She cursed as she hit the floor.
From the bed she heard a muffled noise and then, “Vonri? Are you hurt?”
Cara giggled from the floor and waved her hand up at him. “I’m fine!”
The mattress shifted as he rolled to peer over its edge at her, his hair floating around him like a dark aura as he grinned down at her.
“What are you doing on the floor, my love?”
Cara made an exaggerated show of looking left and then right before smiling up at him. “I thought I would see what the view was like from down here,” she quipped.
Lerix laughed. “Come back to bed, female.”
She didn’t waste any time scurrying back onto the bed. With a small bounce, she plopped down into his lap. Folding her arms over his chest, Cara leaned forward, rested her chin on the back of her crossed hands, and peered at him with a small smile tugging at her lips.
“So what exactly is the technical part involved in mating?”
His hand came up beside her face and stroked along her cheekbone before sliding affectionately through the length of her hair. He seemed to admire the blond curls against his red scales for a moment before wrapping his arms around her.
“That is not until after the ceremony.”
“Wait, you’re saying you want to do the whole mating ceremony thing?”
Lerix stared at her, appalled that she’d even suggest eloping alien-style.
“Of course there must be a mating ceremony. All matings are blessed and recognized by the family before one can officially take their mate.”
Cara lifted a skeptical eyebrow at him.
“You’re telling me that every single Kadesh male who’s left the planet waits to claim his mate until they return to Kaidava?”
He looked away stubbornly. “They are supposed to wait until they arrive on Kaidava, but even if they don’t, they still have the ceremony and pretend that they waited as soon as they return. And those who don’t return aren’t worth mentioning in this case because they choose to separate themselves from Kadesh customs.”
She lifted a hand to poke him in his thick muscle. “I thought you were rebelling, never to return and all when you left.”
“That is different. I left because I didn’t intend to mate, and if I had I would have immediately brought her back to Kaidava for the blessing of my family before I solidified our mating.”
Sighing, Cara relented. She recognized that she wasn’t going to win this argument.
“Okay, so after the ceremony, which will be small and simple, what is involved?”
“Then we make love.”
“And… anything else?”
After a long silence, Lerix finally nodded. Cara restrained herself from doing a victorious fist pump. She was going to get the details even if she had to pry them from him.
“There is a thing that Kadesh males do when they seek to establish their claim on their mate.” He hesitated, obviously reluctant to share. Well, too bad. It was going to happen to her, and she wanted to know.
She rolled her hand in a gesture for him to continue. “Which is?”
He grunted and rolled his eyes in a humanlike gesture that made her want to giggle.
“Concealed within our tails is a blade that is often used for fighting. I am sure you have seen glimpses of it.”
Cara nodded silently. It was alarming enough when just the t
ip was poking through while they were making love, but it was downright scary when it was fully extended and slashing at an enemy.
“This blade is used for defense but also serves another purpose once in a male’s lifetime by providing a unique gift to his chosen female.”
Cara didn’t interrupt, even though part of her demanded irritably that he hurry it along. No, she could see that it wasn’t easy for him to tell her this. That alone was a bit worrisome.
“There is a gland inside a hollow portion deep within the blade that carries a concentrated amount of pheromone. When we mate, we deliver this by lightly inserting the end of the tail-blade into the tissue along the back of our female as she reaches climax in order to deliver the pheromone secretion directly into her skin.”
A look of horror must have descended over features because Lerix rushed to reassure her.
“It won’t hurt—I swear it. You’ll probably either not feel anything, or any slight pain may be unnoticeable while your nerves are overwhelmed by your climax.”
“That’s… reassuring,” she said dryly.
He shrugged helplessly.
“And this marks me as your mate, as in a forever kind of thing?”
Lerix nodded.
“What if something happened to a male’s blade—like if it breaks off at some point before he’s mated?”
“As unlikely as that is given how strong the tail-blade is, if such a thing happened then he would continue his mating as the females do, by gradual doses of pheromones over time. The drawback is that it takes some time to make a strong pheromone signature that will repel other males. He would have to constantly safeguard his female and would likely suffer from aggression and paranoia until his pheromone mark is firmly established.”
“Wow, that sounds terrible. How do females manage not to suffer from it?”
Lerix grinned wickedly. “That is what her male relations are for. They keep control of the male until her pheromone mark has settled into his skin. That is also why Kadesh females are encouraged to target males from smaller species, like humans, as they are far safer and easier for them to control during the mating period.”
A Kiss on Kaidava Page 16