by Roxie Ray
They put a bag over my head, which I hated. It meant that I couldn’t see where they were taking me—somewhere in a hovercar, I guessed, based on the speed we were traveling at, but I couldn’t guess anything beyond that.
Their mistake, of course, was in thinking that just because I couldn’t see who I was struggling against didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight them anyway.
“Stop—struggling—you filthy—oof!” When we finally stopped, I felt the soft gut of a man’s belly caving beneath my skull as I stumbled out of the hovercar and straight into a satisfying headbutt.
Unfortunately, I was a one-hit wonder. Two sets of big, angry hands grasped at my elbows immediately, reeling me back and hauling me away.
“Keep fighting us and we will knock you over the head, human,” a rough voice barked in my ear.
“It’s not me you should be worried about,” I spat back at him. “When Kloran finds me, he’s going to give you more than just a knock to the head.”
I was marched for several minutes in darkness. In the hovercar, they’d tied my hands behind my back, so there was no way that I could pull the bag free. And without my sight, fleeing wasn’t exactly an option. With my luck, I’d run into a tree and knock myself out. Or even more likely, I’d stumble off the edge of a cliff or something. I was beginning to think that whatever the worst thing was that could possibly happen to me—that’s what I’d get.
It was a theory that I felt validated in when we finally stopped walking and the bag was removed from my head. At first, I had to squint and turn my face away while my eyes became accustomed to the light.
But then, I saw her.
Yep. My worst-case scenario hypothesis was still checking out nicely, then.
“Hello, little human. How pleasant it is to see you again.” Queen Lieja’s dark honeyed purr made me feel disgustingly sticky just for having to listen to it.
I’d been brought to the base of what must have been Lieja’s ship, where she stood with more than a dozen warriors around her, all of whom had skin so pale I could see straight through it. When I tried to count their kidneys, I lost track at around six or so.
Weird. Another exciting new alien race had abducted me, then. Again.
“Oh, no, the pleasure’s all mine.” I rolled my eyes as I stood before her. Queen Lieja was taller than me, more muscular than me, and she had a bunch of transparent guys hanging around her who’d probably snap my neck in an instant if she told them to, but I had one thing that she didn’t: cleverness. “How lovely of you to have me transported all the way here for a private audience, Your Highness. I did get the sense at our first meeting that we were going to be just, like, total besties.”
Immediately, Lieja dropped her saccharine grin into a frown. “You watch your tongue, human. I do not know what these bez-tees are, but I will not have you insult me again.”
“I’m trying to stop, honestly,” I said with a little shrug. “But sometimes low-hanging fruit is just irresistible, you know?”
Lieja scoffed and strode forward. Unfortunately, when she leaned down to get a better look at me, she was just out of range for another headbutt. “You’re an insolent, preposterous little female, human. Luckily, your price on the black market will be higher if you remain alive—though the gods themselves could only guess at why. I certainly do not see what is so special about you.” She straightened and turned to the soldier holding my left elbow. “Take her aboard the ship and put her into stasis. We must leave immediately once the human is secured.”
I gulped. Oh, no. I might have been treating Lieja as a joke, but I already knew this punchline. Once I was on that ship, we’d be gone from Lunaria—and Kloran would never be able to find me then.
I needed to keep her talking was what I needed to do. Lucky for me, from what little I knew of Lieja, she never missed an opportunity to pontificate.
“Right,” I said, my voice dripping with boredom. “Because if you don’t leave immediately, you know Kloran will find you. You think he’ll finally fuck you once he realizes that you’ve kidnapped me, or do you think he’s more likely to cut your head off and put it on a stick?” I whistled lowly and shook my head. “It’s such a shame—with all that hair of yours, you’re gonna be pretty top-heavy. He’ll probably have to shave you bald first.”
“Oh, how cute,” Lieja sneered. “You think you are so amusing, human. You know, I was just wondering if the Rutharians would find your sense of humor to their tastes. I think not, though. Generally, they prefer to take the tongues of mouthy slaves and roast them over spits. I cannot imagine your General Kloran will have much use for you then—if he can even find you, that is.”
“Better a tongueless human than a jealous bitch,” I shot back at her. “Seriously, why are you so obsessed with him? I don’t know if you’re just, like, really bad at reading social cues or what, but he ain’t interested, lady. Are all those men in your harem genuinely just that bad in bed?”
“The men in my harem bring me pleasures you could never dream of, human!”
I smirked at her. Obviously, I’d touched a nerve—not that it was exactly hard to, when you were dealing with someone as full of themselves as her. “Or maybe you’re bad in bed and you’re hoping Kloran’s good enough to make up for it. You’re supposed to do more than just lie there, you know. No one likes a pillow queen.”
“Enough!” Lieja shrieked. Every time I opened my mouth, she seemed to get a little more unhinged. “You know nothing of General Kloran, you pathetic little runt. Frankly, I am doing him a great favor by handing you over to the Rutharians. They will leave my people in peace then, and Kloran can return to the woman he was promised to. Everyone goes home happy—except for you, I suppose, but then again…does anyone truly care about your happiness?”
“I don’t know how else to tell you this, babe, but he was not promised to you.” Seriously, how could she possibly be so dense?
But then, Lieja smiled again. Not a look on her that I liked. “Oh…but that is hilarious. It is as I suspected. He did not tell you about Dianella, then.”
Dianella. There was that name again. After everything that we’d been through since leaving Jeorkana, I’d all but forgotten Lieja’s first mention of it. But now…
Crap. I could figure out what she was implying. Dianella must have been the woman Kloran had been promised to. If that was the case, though, why had Kloran announced to an entire crowd of his people that I was going to be his wife?
She was obviously trying to get to me. Maybe she was even succeeding a little. I’d suspected Michael had been having affairs for most of our marriage, even though I’d never been able to confirm anything. Being the other woman wasn’t exactly something that made me feel all sunshine and butterflies inside.
But I couldn’t let her get to me. Not now. Kloran might have done some downright questionable things, but the point remained that I was carrying his child. He’d said he wanted to marry me—and after that big display in front of the palace, I didn’t have any reason to doubt that.
I curled my lips into a smile again. Whoever this Dianella woman was, worrying about her right now wasn’t going to get me out of the pickle I’d found myself in.
“Let’s get one thing straight, hon. I don’t care who Kloran was promised to, and I don’t care what you think about me. Because at the end of the day, he chose me. Not you, not some other lady—me.” My smirk grew even wider. “Which, when you think about it, really just means that I’m better than—”
A roar cut though the tree line, so loud that I could feel the ground shudder beneath my feet. It was met with the sound of a hundred wings flapping as the birds in the trees behind us flew the proverbial coop.
“You,” I finished softly.
In the next instant, the alien holding my left elbow let out a gurgle and collapsed to the ground at my feet. Sticking out of his back was an ax. A big one.
General Kloran Dyoval, that had better be because of you.
The next few moments were dif
ficult to track. Lieja shrieked at her men to take action, but every one of them that moved quickly found himself dying in the dirt as well. When the alien holding my other arm collapsed, I didn’t exactly stick around to catch what was happening. I took off toward the tree line at full speed. Or what I thought was full speed, anyway. When I looked over my shoulder, there was something—or someone—moving between Lieja’s men at such a swift pace, all I could make out was an orange blur.
Looking back was never a good idea, though. That was a lesson I should have learned long ago. With my hands still tied behind me, I was already off balance. My rubbernecking made me trip up over my own feet so hard, all I could do was roll to the side the second before I hit the dirt.
Nice going, Bria. Real, real smooth.
Luckily, my bad shoulder had taken the brunt of the fall. I hadn’t hit my belly, and aside from a shooting pain in my shoulder, nothing else on me hurt.
Having assessed my damage, I raised my gaze to Lieja and her ship again. At first, all I could see was the sheer number of translucent alien bodies on the ground between us while Lieja stood in front of her ship, looking absolutely terrified.
Then, the blur moved for her and she let out a scream—or, at least, half of one. When the blur finally took shape, Kloran was standing there before her, lifting her off the ground with his hand around her throat.
“Lieja,” he hissed through his fangs. I couldn’t see his eyes, but something told me they were redder than they’d ever been before. “You have made a terrible mistake.”
Lieja could only gasp and choke in reply. Her yellow fingers clawed at Kloran’s hand and her long, red-speckled legs kicked and thrashed—completely in vain. No matter how hard she struggled to get free, I knew Kloran wouldn’t let her go.
“You insulted my mate. You sent mercenaries to kill my men. You attacked my mother…” Kloran growled so fiercely that if I’d been in Lieja’s place just then, I would have passed out on the spot. “And you kidnapped my wife. You are not fit to lead your people, Lieja. In fact, I find you unfit to live at all.”
His fingers tightened around her throat viciously. His shoulders heaved up and down, the muscles of his shirtless back rippling with power. And with every passing moment, Lieja’s thrashing became less. And less. And less.
Holy cow. He was going to kill her—and something told me he wasn’t going to be quick about it, either.
But even though I wasn’t exactly in disagreement that Lieja deserved to die, Kloran already had one diplomatic nightmare on his hands with the Jeorkanian people. He didn’t need another.
“Kloran!” I cried out to him. “No! Stop!”
Suddenly, Kloran’s muscles tensed then released, all at once. Lieja hit the ground like a ragdoll—injured, but still breathing. Alive.
More orange blurs swept in then. Kloran had brought back-up. He’d just been sure to make it to us first. He left Lieja lying there in the dirt for his men to deal with and turned to me instead. When I finally caught sight of his eyes, my suspicion was confirmed.
They were blood red. But for once, I wasn’t scared.
If anything, I was just relieved that he’d gotten to me before it was too late.
“Bree-ah,” he breathed. He rushed toward me and dropped to his knees. One hand he placed on my belly. With the other, he flicked a claw between my wrists and slashed the ties that bound me all at once. “Bree-ah. Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride,” I told him. It was punctuated by an exhausted laugh. “I, um. I tripped and fell when I was trying to run away. Other than that, though…no. I’m safe. The baby’s safe.” I smiled as I saw his eyes soften back into their normal purple color. “Thanks to you.”
“Vringna,” he sighed, then chuckled as well. “I promised I would protect you. Alas, protecting you from your own ridiculousness…”
“I know, I know.” I rubbed the places on my wrists where my bindings had chafed, then reached up to wrap my arms around my neck. “Can we skip the admonishing and just go home?”
“Bree-ah…my home is wherever you are.” Kloran pressed his forehead to mine again, but I was already laughing at his words
“That was the cheesiest thing anyone has ever told me.” I pressed a little kiss to the flat of his nose, then another to his lips. “I mean your big golden castle. You know, the place with all the stairs, and hopefully a bathtub, and ideally, a bed.”
Kloran’s eyelashes fluttered in mock annoyance as he scooped me up into his arms. “Yes, Bree-ah. I will take you home.”
23
Kloran
As Bree-ah had hoped, there was indeed a bathtub in her rooms at the palace. After I had carried her back, I filled it with water myself. I did not dare call in the servants. My warriors were still searching through the worker slaves to ensure that no more of Lieja’s Obarians were hiding within their ranks, and for the moment, if I was being honest, for the time being, I wanted Bree-ah all to myself.
Rage at what Lieja had done still flowed within me as I undressed Bree-ah. Hesitation, too. Before she had been stolen away from me, she had still been angry at me, and despite the little kiss she had given me before she asked to be taken home, I did not wish to push my luck. But Bree-ah’s shoulder was bruised from the fall she had taken, and I did not want her to need to lift so much as a single beautiful finger right now.
To my relief, she allowed me to slip her skirt away from her skin and undo the fastenings of her top. Undressing her like this after all we had been through felt like some sort of divine reward. I unwrapped her like a treasured gift and laid her dirtied clothes aside before I helped her step into the bath, her hand in mine for balance.
“Just like old times, huh?” she said softly as she relaxed beneath the deep blue waters.
“Just like old times,” I agreed. Perhaps somewhere down the line, when I was more certain that she had forgiven me, I might pick a fight or two, just to see her spirit flare up at me. I loved the way she challenged me, confronted me without fear. It moved something within me, her sass and her temper. It made me into a better man. But for the time being, I could not envision myself disagreeing with her ever again. “Only, I suppose, there is no lust potion in the water to make you think of me this time.”
Slowly, as though she was fighting it, a smile rose on her lips. “Kloran, you’ve got your hand on my breast. It’s pretty much impossible not to think of you when you’re squeezing me like that.”
I looked down and found what she said to be true. As though it was acting with a mind of its own, my hand had instinctively cupped her breast in my palm. Already, Bree-ah’s bosom was beginning to swell slightly as the pregnancy hormones worked through her body.
Since I was already touching her though, I decided another squeeze couldn’t hurt.
“I can stop if you want to,” I told her, though I was not entirely sure that was true. Now that she was in my hands once more, I never wanted to stop touching her again.
“No, don’t,” she instructed me. “It…mm. It feels really good, actually. I didn’t want to say anything, but they’ve been kind of sore over the past few days. Being squeezed like that…”
Boldly, I plunged my other hand into the water and took up her other breast as well. My eyes scanned her face, searching out even the slightest expression of distaste for my caresses. I did not find any, though. There was only serenity on her lips. Her eyes were closed. Her body was relaxed.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s really good.” She giggled, a sound that still made my heart swell with adoration for her. “Keep doing that and I think all might be forgiven.”
“You mean it, my love?” My heart leapt up in my chest at the very thought.
“I’m working on it, anyway,” she said. “You did just kill, like, a dozen men at least, just to keep me safe. Stuff like that…it definitely makes you easy to forgive.”
“I would kill a thousand men for you if it would earn me your forgiveness, vringna.”
“Whoa. Slow down there, bud-dee.
” She laughed again, shaking her head. “I don’t want you to go killing anyone. Just…let’s just enjoy this. After the way the rest of today has gone, this is really nice. Is that okay?”
“Anything for you, Bree-ah.” I released her breasts and took up a bar of soap and a sponge instead. “Let me wash you. Care for you. Then, when you are clean, we will get you to bed.”
It was difficult to pretend that the way Bree-ah’s body felt beneath my hands only stirred gratefulness within me. My cock was dangerously hard in my breeches the entire time I washed her. I ached to have her body against mine again, longed to leap into the bath with her as I had done the first time we had mated. But the moment was too tender and delicate to spoil with greediness. I wanted her, yes, but I wanted her to feel safe again so much more.
When the dirt and blood of the skirmish had been washed from her skin, I dried her with a large, soft towel and wrapped it around her shoulders like a cloak. Leading her to bed gave me a strange sense of pride I had never felt before. Not pride that I had claimed her, or even that I had killed to protect her.
This was…different. I was proud of how gently I guided her to her room, proud of the gentleness with which my hands lifted her up and placed her into bed.
“You could, you know, get in here with me.” She patted the space on the bed next to her and stared up at me with wide, hopeful eyes. “If you wanted.”
I drew in a breath. “I am filthy, though, precious one. The blood of battle is still on my skin. I should bathe first, perhaps, and even then, I do not know…”
What exactly I did not know suddenly eluded me, however, as Bree-ah drew the sheets back, placing her body on full display for me.
“Do you want to lie with me, Kloran?” she asked. Her voice was husky, almost teasing.
“I do,” I said immediately. “I want that very much.”
“Then get in.” She smirked up at me. “That’s an order, General.”
I was not accustomed to taking orders from anyone anymore. But for Bree-ah…she was my mate. My love. Mother of my cub. And what she ordered was not exactly difficult—especially not when she looked so soft and beautiful as she always did. I slipped between the sheets with her. After a moment, she wiggled her nude body across the mattress and placed herself in my arms. Her hips—those gorgeous hips that I had lusted for from our first moment right up to this one—moved against me sensually. More teasing.