The Warrior's Proposal (Celestial Mates Book 7)

by Marla Therron

  She pulled his already hardening manhood from his pants, heat filling her even at the sight of it. Not quite human, but close enough to be familiar and unthreatening. She pressed a delicate kiss to the head first and heard him inhale sharply above her.

  As she wrapped her mouth around him, she felt him shudder and she purred with delight at her ability to make such a powerful man weak with just this. She moved forward to engulf him, feeling him heavy, throbbing on her tongue and already leaking his copious amounts of tingling, mint and anise precum.

  She had underestimated how much of it there was, how much of him there was. She could only do her best to swallow it as she bobbed her head down his length, feeling his hands tangle in her hair, push her down harder, demanding more in a way that made her moan around him with desire, loving how he could take control, take her roughly, but never make her feel she was in danger. She loved him using her this way because she knew he would never hurt her.

  She opened her mouth wider, struggling to breathe as he rocked his hips into her throat, pouring out his endless stream of precum. One hand gripped her hair just tightly enough to be felt, holding her in place. The other stroked hair, her cheek, full of affection even as he was thrusting into her mouth so relentlessly.

  She felt him throb on her tongue and suddenly pull back, his torrent of cum splashing over her lips and breasts. She worked him with her hands until he was finished, then let go as he fell to his knees to kiss her, ferocious and sloppy with desire, his come slick between them as he pushed her back onto the spread out jacket.

  His seed tingled on her skin everywhere it touched, and as he rubbed it into her breasts, she could feel them becoming more sensitive, every brush of mountain air making her tremble with heat.

  He dove between her legs and pushed up her skirt, his long, talented tongue diving past her underwear to taste her already wet need. Penny writhed and sighed under his skillful attentions, hooking a leg around his shoulders to pull him closer, clutching at the grass as pleasure overwhelmed her over and over.

  He didn't stop until she begged him too, trembling with over stimulation, her face flushed and her eyes hazy with need. He sat up, licking his lips, and moved between her thighs, sitting on his knees as he dragged her hips up into his lap.

  Heated anticipation flashed through Penny as she watched him bring his head to her lips, sliding his length through her wet labia, teasing her before he sank lower to her entrance, pushing slowly in.

  He leaned over her as he sank into her wet folds and she reached up to catch his shoulders and pull him in for a kiss, whimpering as he filled her completely.

  He pulled out of the kiss to look down at her as he rocked his hips, grinding deeper within her. She blushed, realizing he was watching her expressions, the way she gasped and moaned and bit her lip as he thrust deeper, striking the places within her that most wanted his attention. He was always observing, always learning, like he'd dedicated his life to discovering the best ways to make her quake with pleasure.

  He pulled back after a moment and began to thrust in earnest, every strike filling her to all she could bear, every withdrawal leaving her feeling empty and desperate for more. He lifted higher, from sitting on his heels to kneeling forcing her to arch her back to follow him.

  She was tense as a bowstring, supporting herself on her arms, and the tense position made every thrust made her feel even harder and deeper. Even as she struggled to stay up she couldn't focus on anything but him. His hands on her hips, pulling her into his thrusts, the weight of him moving inside her, hot and thick, filling her up.

  He let her back down onto the jacket so that he could lean over her again, meeting her eyes with an intense, passionate stare. She could feel he was close; planting a hand by her head while the other still clutched her hip.

  She stared up at him, awed by the sight of those glittering eyes and all the love and desire they contained. She knew she never wanted to be anywhere more than right here, living this life. All the pain she'd gone through was worth it for this moment, knowing she would never be without his love again.

  He pulled her close suddenly, kissing her hard as she felt him throb within her, finishing in a rush that left Penny shivering with pleasure.

  In the moments after, they lay beside each other, the cool air drying their skin, their hands clasped between them. Tau brought them silently to his lips to kiss her fingers.

  "I love you, Penny Allyn." he said, earnest and so soft she almost couldn't hear it.

  "I love you too, Aiten Tau."

  ***

  ESCAPE

  Bride Of The Beast

  Celestial Mates Book 5

  Marla Therron

  Copyright 2017 by Marla Therron

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced

  in any way whatsoever, without written permission

  from the author, except in case of brief

  quotations embodied in critical reviews

  and articles.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any

  character, person, living or dead, events, place or

  organizations is purely coincidental. The author does not

  have any control over and does not assume any responsibility

  for third party websites or their content.

  First edition, 2017

  Description:

  The Intergalactic Marriage Bureau arranges marriages with fertile human women and wealthy aliens looking for the genetically superior offspring human hybrids provide. Mail order brides for the new millennium.

  Lily lives on the frozen remains of Earth, working with the rest of her village to try and restore a planet that has slid so far out of ecological balance that nothing green will grow on the surface.

  Lily accepts a contract with the Marriage Bureau when the King of Sahria, most powerful planet in the galaxy, makes an offer she can’t refuse. Enough money to fund the research that will save Earth.

  Lily is uncertain at first, but when she sees a photo of the king she decides it’s worth trying. However, the king isn’t who she thinks he is, and her wedding is going to be more complicated than the straight forward contract promised.

  Lily is pulled into the kind of danger she could never have anticipated. Will she be able to find love for the man who has paid to marry her? Or will her heart lead her in other directions?

  Chapter One

  Alien silk in shades of trembling summer sky sapphire rippled across Lily's dusky copper skin like the brush of a lover's fingers as she stepped through a curtain of a thousand white blossoms that glittered like icy stars and chimed like crystal as they touched.

  The grove beyond dripped in light and color and liquid sound. Flowering trees with trunks of stark ebony were the pillars of this chapel, the walls woven from living branch and bush and budding vine.

  There was no place that was not in bloom, from the hand sized irises the color of a maiden's blush to the jutting violet spears of delphinium and foxglove, to the carpet of plush moss starred with it tiny blue blossoms no bigger than a pinprick.

  Lily gave them terran names, though even these flowers’ earliest ancestors had never known terran soil. These were new life to her, vibrant and lush, each with its own audible voice. The flowers sang with every breeze or touch, each voice unique, mingling into a divine chorus. If the flowers on Earth had a voice, Lily thought, we would never have let them die.

  The crown of blossoms in her sleek black hair still sung, though softer than their rooted counterparts, soothing reassurance in her ear that she was not making a mistake as she stepped deeper into the grove, the floating candle-bells which illuminated it drifting out of her way, opening the flower strewn aisle to where her future husband stood waiting for her, his hand outstretched, ready to take her into a strange future...

  Only a few days before, Lily stood ankle deep in snow, dressed in gray canvas to keep out the deadly wet and cold, her face set in grim re
signation. Barren black trees rattled their bare branches at the slate colored sky as a frigid wind whipped through them. Lily watched the sky they framed, waiting for sign of a ship.

  The dirt beneath her feet was terran, the familiar soil of Earth, but she had never touched it. It was separated from her by a layer of frozen permafrost, cold and unforgiving and barren of life. Those words were the moniker of all planet Earth now.

  "Did you get everything you needed?"

  Lily's uncle Bertram, a tall, dour man with the same dark eyes as her, stood behind her, still in the shadow of the little covered porch that sheltered the entrance of their subterranean home. All the houses in Lily's village, and most left on Earth, were built underground for greater warmth and insulation from the bitter cold.

  He wore the same gray canvas as her, pulled on quickly over his indoor clothes. He was still wearing his work gloves, dusty and scuffed. Though he worked in the labs, like everyone else he donated a portion of his free time to expanding their subterranean warren, digging deeper, huddling towards the warmth of the core. The gloves weren't insulated and she worried about him ending up with frostbite. The cold out here didn't need long to end up deadly.

  "You don't know what it will be like there," Bertram fussed, "Did you bring enough clothes? Food?"

  "Yes, Uncle," Lily sighed, impatient but understanding. He set another small bag with her things where they sat on the porch.

  "Becky from geology made you some chapulines," he said, "In case you get hungry on the trip. And there are a few things from me in there as well. Just to remind you of home."

  Lily smiled, touched, and kissed the older man on the cheek.

  "Thank you uncle," she forced a brave smile, ignoring the emotions that were turning her stomach, "I promise I'll find a way to get a message to you. It might be a while with the distance, but I won't leave you in the dark."

  Bertram nodded stiffly and seemed about to say something, but the boom of something breaking atmosphere interrupted him. The clouds parted around a descending ship, still just a distant black speck.

  "They're here." Lily took a deep breath and began gathering her bags. Bertram caught her hand, making her pause.

  "You don't need to do this," he stared into her eyes, earnest and beseeching, "You can stay here and work in the lab. They always need more botanists."

  Lily pulled her hand away slowly, knowing he meant well but wishing he wouldn't remind her of what she was giving up.

  "The best botanist in the world can't create seeds out of thin air," she said, pulling her bags closer, "Since we lost Svalbard, what we need is money, not more botanists."

  "We can find a way to keep the research going," Bertram insisted, "Even without the seed vault. And we need minds like yours to do it. You were top of your class, Lily!"

  "A class of less than a thousand, hemisphere wide," Lily pointed out, the thought dragging her handsome mouth down into a tired grimace, "There's just not enough of us left, Bertram. We can't afford the set back of starting from scratch."

  Bertram, rather than giving up, took both her hands in his.

  "Lily, we have been watching the planet die for generations," he said, solemn and desperate, "My grandfather saw the ships leaving, taking the rich to the stars and leaving the rest of us behind the day they declared this planet beyond saving. The First Nations could have found a way off the planet as well, but we chose to stay, to search for a way to save the world we were born on. And I know, looking back at that history, how proud we were then, and how we live now, it's easy to think that the mission is all that matters. But Lily,"

  He squeezed her hands tightly.

  "The Earth is gone," he said, voice breaking, "We are only prolonging the inevitable. Please don't give up your future in the name of an unreachable goal. Stay here, with the people that love you. Your parents wouldn't want this for you."

  The ship was slowly landing near a circle of small, snow covered hills, the radio tower that rose from one the only surface level evidence of Lily's village. Lily looked down towards it, and then drew Bertram into a tight hug.

  "My parents gave their lives to this mission," she said, her voice determined, "I could never give any less."

  "Lily..."

  "Thank Becky for me," Lily stepped away, picking up her bags and heading towards the ship, "And say goodbye to everyone else. I'll get a message to you as soon as I can."

  "I will."

  Bertram let her go, his expression desolate as the last living member of his family headed for the ship that would take her away from him forever.

  "Good luck!" he called after Lily before the snow swallowed his voice, "Good luck!"

  Chapter Two

  "Lily Hunt?"

  The alien standing in the open bay of the shuttle spoke with the modulated accent of an auto translator. He was dressed in a black exo suit, helmet down. Earth's atmosphere presumably didn't agree with him. When Lily nodded he checked a data pad for her name.

  "Another one for the Intergalactic Marriage Bureau," if there was judgement in his voice, Lily couldn't read it through the warp of the translator, which rendered everything toneless and flat, "A lot of you lately. Go sit by the others."

  There were three other women, plucked from other places across the planet, sitting in the cargo bay of the little shuttle. All of them willing sacrifices on the altar of the IMB. She took a seat beside a frail looking red headed girl. The alien closed the bay, shutting out the bitter cold, and the shuttle began to warm at once.

  "That's the last of them," he called, looking down at his data pad, securing the doors with his secondary set of arms. A pilot called back to him from the cabin. He wasn't wearing a translator and his language was a sub vocal roar to Lily.

  "Strap in," the first alien said as he passed them to join his companion in the cab, "We're heading out of atmo in two."

  Lily scrambled for her harness. The other girls were already buckled in from the previous low atmosphere jump that had brought the shuttle here.

  "Where are you headed?" one of them asked. She was broad-shouldered and strong jawed, a fierce looking creature with short blond hair. She eyed Lily appraisingly.

  "Sahria," Lily replied, trying to be friendly, "You?"

  "Nowhere as big as Sahria," the woman laughed, "That's one of the most powerful planets in this cluster. Lucky. I'm Opal. Foxglove and I are heading to Ulalat."

  Opal gestured to the nervous redhead.

  "We've got an arrangement as incubators with a powerful family there," Opal continued, sounding proud, "They're paying for our fertility treatments and all. The marriage contract is only for two years, and the compensation is fantastic. It'll be enough for me and Foxglove both to get a place on one of the new human colonies. How long is your contract?"

  "Three years," Lily replied, thinking uncomfortably of how long it would be, "With an option to renew annually. They want a permanent arrangement."

  "Those never work out," the third woman, dark skinned and picking at a nicotine patch on her arm, her cold suit folded down around her waist, "You should have waited for something more practical. Clients that start out wanting a permanent arrangement before they ever meet you just have their expectations up too high. They'll end up disappointed and send you back. Happened to my sister. And they wanted a refund, which if why I'm going out now. A bad deal out here can screw you up in more ways than one."

  "Oh be quite Chal," Opal rolled her eyes, "Chalcedony is just bitter. She's heading to some backwater."

  "Hey, at least my client owns that backwater," Chalcedony bristled, offended, "My kids are going to be ruling that planet."

  "Yeah yeah, and mine will just be petty aristocrats," Opal snorted, "Better a lord on a planet that means something than king of a barren rock."

  They bickered a moment longer and Lily's thoughts turned uncomfortably to the subject of breeding. Her client hadn't specified that he wanted children, but it was all anyone wanted human women for, really. It's why places like the
Intergalactic Marriage Bureau existed. Humans, as it turned out, had absurdly adaptable DNA.

  With a fairly minor amount of medical tinkering, a human woman could bear children with nearly any alien species, assuming they had even remotely compatible reproductive systems. The hybrids tended to retain the best traits of both parents, with a little in utero genetic tinkering.

  Their alien parent's unique skills and abilities, plus a human's physical hardiness and stamina. Human hybrid had become all the rage among the wealthy aliens of the local galactic cluster.

  "What's your client, newbie?"

  "Lily," Lily replied, smiling, "I have a photo. His name is Turlabon."

  She unfolded a datapad from the sleeve of her cold suit. The paper-thin device snapped rigid as she spread it flat. She pulled up the photo, offering it to Opal. A colorful ensemble of aliens were collected there, most of them floraform in nature.

  A looming fungaloid behemoth flashed its needle teeth from beneath drooping jowls like bracket fungi while beside it a thing like a cross between a praying mantis and a Venus flytrap preened. But in the center of the photo, next to the fungus, stood Lily's husband to be.

  He was tall, more humanoid in shape than most of the others, with broad shoulders and long legs. His skin was the color of rich earth or bark, his hair long and mossy green, starred with white flowers. Protrusions like petals curved from his cheekbones up to his serene green eyes.

  Further petals fanned from his clavicle, up his forearms, over his ribs and calves. He was the most beautiful alien Lily had ever seen. They tended to be too far from human aesthetic to be appealing to her. But this one... She might not have accepted the proposal at all if not for him.

  Opal's eyes widened as she looked down at the photo, impressed.

  "This is King Turlabon!" she said, astounded, "Don't you know he rules Sahria? You're going to be queen of one of the most powerful planets in known space!"