by Poppy Rhys
He’d never met a being, as small as a Therran especially, that took up so much space when they slept.
Val’Koy considered waiting for Jruviin to join him, but he knew the Draekiin tolerated their hosts even less than he. Better he go alone.
The tower hummed with servants—females—quietly moving about, attending to their chores. He wasn’t against the smaller sex performing duties, even Melierun had female staff. It was their treatment that bothered him.
Val’Koy wouldn’t be taking home any accolades for his indifferent behavior toward those who served his family—but he treated them all with equal disinterest. He didn’t think he was cruel, though. Had he been?
This wasn’t the time for inner reflection of his past conduct.
Not my problem, he coached himself. It usually worked, that reminder. He’d learned long ago the futility of being bothered by things that were beyond his control.
“You,” he called to a passing servant, her head bent as she immediately halted. Val’Koy glanced about, seeing no others within earshot before he murmured, “Could you take me to the Equis?”
By the way the petite Equahn startled, catching herself before she looked him in the eye, he surmised it wasn’t often anyone asked for something.
“Y-yes,” she whispered, her voice oddly ghostly. Her jaw-length, bright, moss-colored hair nearly covered her face. “This way, Sir.”
****
DANIA
Dania’s eyelids peeled apart one at a time, the light of morning filtering in and making her bury her face into Jru’s feathery side. She groaned, sinking her fingers beneath the sleek down and curling them against his tightly packed muscle.
The Draekiin moved with her, rolling into her, hooking his arm over her shoulders, sliding his warm leg over hers, and coiling his thick tail around her thigh. Jru enveloped her with his alien size, making her feel dwarfed, yet oddly comforted.
Dania drifted in and out of sleep for another stretch of immeasurable time before her mind stirred with impish imaginings involving her mates.
Body awakening with that lazy, pulsing heat of arousal, she wantonly arched against Jru’s hard, sleek chest. Her foot rubbed against his muscular calf and high ankle, a tired smirk spreading her lips when her alien twitched, groggily hummed, and the tips of his talons pricked her spine between her shoulder blades.
She looked over, noticing Val’Koy was absent. Her muscles tensed momentarily before she remembered.
The meeting with Sharn.
She exhaled and buried her nose against Jru again.
The seriousness of their current situation and the threat of being discovered while in the Equis’ tower didn’t hold the power it had last night. It was the sleepiness. Important matters always lost their weight that first little bit before fully waking.
“Morning,” she murmured, the greeting muffled into his lustrous chest feathers. Her hand drifted over the ripples of his stomach, and farther down over his taut abdomen. Dania teased the longer feathers near his groin and found a sealed slit.
Jru flinched and rumbled.
It had to be where his cock hid.
“Dania,” he threatened drowsily, which kind of took away the power of it.
“What?” her tone feigned innocence.
“We cannot,” he rasped, his voice huskier than usual after hours of sleep. It didn’t help the pleasant prickle that crept over her skin.
“Please?” she whispered, lifting her face and reaching up to trace his bottom lip with a fingertip. She had the urge to flick his gold, double-ringed septum piercing with her tongue. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”
Jruviin groaned, the sound in his throat disagreeable, but she wasn’t above begging.
“Too dangerous,” he countered, even as his tail slid up between their bodies, the tuft’s tip tracing the curve of her breast.
“Just a morning quickie,” she coaxed, snaking her fingers around the back of his neck to pull herself up for a kiss. Another groan slipped from him, shivering against her lips in the most pleasurable sensation. “You want this too,” Dania accused in between another kiss, her leg already growing damp where his cock had unsheathed and dribbled. “I can feel it.”
“I do want,” Jru hummed against her mouth, their kisses growing more fevered in between murmured words.
Dania exhaled against his lips, the power of his confession spiraling ecstasy through her—a small taste of the rapture she knew Jruviin could provide.
His tongue, slightly scratchy and inhuman, slid between her lips, mimicking hers and deliciously sliding against the roof of her mouth. That warm, slick, moan-worthy sensation that simultaneously tickled and had her melting when his talons scantily dragged against her spine.
Her lids squeezed shut against the burst of pleasure.
His lips trailed down her throat, warm, textured tongue swirling a path along her skin until he reached her breasts.
Dania hissed air between clenched teeth when he bit her nipple and immediately suckled it, erasing the sting. She squirmed when he repeated the action, igniting another level of arousal.
The thought crossed her mind once again that something was wrong with her for loving the danger that came alongside sleeping with an alien.
“More...”
She wanted more.
****
JRUVIIN
This Therran had learned all his weaknesses in such a short time frame.
She only had to run her delicate hand over his quills, but she always went one step further and buried her fingers into his down and dug her blunt, flimsy nails against his flesh.
Kinokym’s dust, it drove him wild.
He couldn’t refuse her request. Not when she begged so prettily, not when she sucked at his mouth with her plush lips, and certainly not when she emitted a thick, lust-filled wave of pheromones.
Jruviin couldn’t explain the scent—a feminine musk that was nearly floral. The notes so faint he couldn’t truly describe it, but it elicited a consuming hunger, a heat, that couldn’t be ignored.
He lifted, rising above Dania and sitting back on his knees. He flattened his palm between her mounds, trailing it farther down over the soft curve of her belly, below her naval scar, and against the pouch of her abdomen.
“So soft,” he murmured. As if those were the magic words, she parted her fleshy thighs, and Jruviin almost pierced his own tongue with his fangs.
Her darkly pinkened folds were already glistening with slick heat, the substance like a concentrated dose of her pheromones to his senses.
He slid the top curve of his talon up the wet crease, his spine feathers stiffening at Dania’s surprised intake of breath that hastily dropped into a moan when he brought his talon to his mouth and sucked it clean while she watched.
“Don’t tease me,” she lowly pleaded, wiggling her hips, silently asking for his stem.
Right now, he didn’t want to cover her body—he wanted to drink it in, watch every part of her he could.
His hands grasped her ample hips and lifted her backside off the bed. As if she couldn’t keep still, she angled her lower half, sliding herself against his swelling length.
“Mmm,” he groaned and lined up, hitting his target—her sweet, wet, sucking core—and in one thrust that had Dania biting her lips and fisting her fingers into the red sheets, Jruviin was in.
Her cushioned thighs clenched his sides, her inner muscles gripping his stem and pulsing in a way that had his head falling back on his shoulders because it just felt so fucking good.
Her velvety, lush flesh rippled with each drive of his hips starting where their bodies met, like a chain reaction. Her thighs and ass would take the brunt of impact, and the quake would travel under her skin only to crest at her chest mounds. Witnessing those generous peaks jiggle...
Great nebulae.
Those hardened, rosy nipples, red and puffy after his attentions, pointed toward the hidden stars, only deviating from their upward reach when her twin mounds shivered
with every shock.
Jruviin gazed down at their connection, transfixed by the sight of her stretched around his thick length. Watching as she took all of him back into her body after each withdrawal, made every quill on his hide threaten to stand up.
Those whimpers that escaped her reddened lips—lips she bit down on to keep her promise to be quiet—had his fingers squeezing harder, denting her soft skin with the prick of his claws.
He’d been right, so long ago, about this Therran—she’d become an addiction. Jruviin wanted to touch her, bite her, drag his claws in various sensitive spots just to elicit a reaction from her. No two responses were ever the same, this female never ceased to titillate his mind and body.
So overwhelmingly delicious.
This desire to fill her, claim her in a primal way, had his knot swelling in preparation to pin her down, anchor her body to his as he pumped her full of his seeds.
He wanted her. Desired her and only her.
“Dania,” he breathed, shoulder muscles coiling as his body languidly rolled to and from her with every pump of his hips.
****
DANIA
“Your little moans will be my undoing,” he confessed, followed by a body shivering rasp.
“I’m... trying—” to stay quiet, she finished internally.
Almost there...
Half lidded, she drank in the view of Jru lost in the act. His powerful, lithe body assailing hers in the age-old rhythm she had no hope, or desire, to deny.
Breath hitching, eyes widened, she grappled with what she witnessed.
Jruviin’s tail rose behind him like a serpent called forth by her whimpers, and curled around his side, beelining for her core.
The quills that could harden and mutilate peeked from the tuft of feathers, the shiny white weapons glinting in the light.
No, he wouldn’t...
But he did.
The firm, yet soft, feathers flicked across her swollen clit in its vulnerable position. Jru could do whatever he wanted with her exposure and, clearly, he was.
Swipe.
Again.
Again.
“Jruviin,” she moaned, his name but a whispery plea. His quiet response came in the form of another flick—faster, hands gripping harder, driving impossibly deeper.
He shifted, no longer on his knees, but hovering above her, chest to chest.
“Need... more...” he finally returned, the rough admission filled with wanton promise; the buck of his body in firm, claiming stabs that had the bed shaking.
His tail brushed her cheek and slithered around her throat. Dania gasped when it tightened as if to choke her. She was ready, but held herself back, just a little bit longer—
Their eyes locked.
In one, teeth-clenching plunge, his hips melded to hers, and his knot squeezed into her, the pinching stretch eliciting a none-too-quiet cry from them both.
That was it.
This was all she could take.
The strain of her held back release to prolong their joining... She shattered.
Hips rocking, bodies locked together, mouth-watering heat surged through her being, fracturing every part of her until she wasn’t sure she could stay silent.
Jruviin’s mouth crashed against hers, teeth clashing, lips hungrily sucking, and muffling her screams into hushed babbling as he released, spurting his seed into her belly and rocking her with another thrilling wave.
****
VAL’KOY
“My son wishes to bargain with you and your mate."
Val’Koy accepted a silver goblet from a servant while he sat in the main gathering area of Sharn’s tower. After a subtle sniff—water—he took a swallow, giving himself time to prepare for whatever Sharn hinted at. Nothing good would come of this, he felt in his gut.
"A bargain for...?" he finally asked.
"Your female."
Val’Koy schooled his features and gulped down his immediate response—which was to bite into Sharn’s thin neck and then tell his corpse to fuck off—with another sip from the goblet.
Tundrin had been in his blood too long.
"She is not for trade.”
"She has given you offspring then?"
Another hearty gulp as he clenched the goblet a little too hard. "No."
Sharn brightened. "Then under Equahn law, she is able to be bargained for. And my son is prepared to offer you something that cannot be refused."
Val’Koy’s blood simmered, every trained etiquette lesson drilled into him as an adolescent on the verge of incineration. Acid boiled up from his stomach and burned the back of his throat at the blasphemous idea of Dania in anyone else's arms except his and Jruviin’s.
"I am..." he searched for the word and the patience, "honored to be in possession of a female admired by your son." A’Drast, that was excruciating. "My mate and I respectfully dec—"
"I must politely remind you our laws are ironclad." Though Sharn canted his head as if in apology, it didn't reach his eyes. "As our guest, you are held to those same laws. She is a bargaining chip."
His thoughts raced, an oppressive hand figuratively clamping down on his shoulder. When it came to Dania, his first instinct wasn't diplomatic. He didn't want to talk it out, debate, and come to a conclusion that satisfied all parties involved.
No. He wanted to fucking massacre with fang and claw.
Val’Koy knew that would only pitch them into a disastrous situation. They were trapped.
The ship’s hull might not survive another atmospheric breach and they had no provisions on board. With no estimated arrival of the repairman, Equah was their only refuge.
The male before him knew this. The slant to his left eye spoke to his cunning.
"I will inform my mate.”
"Sensational!"
FORTY-TWO
VAL’KOY
“What do you mean, they want to bargain for me?” Dania nervously asked, her dark eyes wide as she stood. “I’m-I’m a person—”
“Not on this planet,” Val’Koy grated, watching as Jruviin withdrew his talons from Dania’s hair. She’d been sitting in the Draekiin’s lap while he worked her locks into a strange, yet intriguing, style. Her crown puffed, reminding him of a surprised bird, while braids lined her scalp above her ears and tied at the back of her head.
She looked stunning, fierce, wild—especially with Jruviin’s colorful feathers twined through the sandy wisps. A talent Val’Koy didn’t know the Drae had.
He shook himself. “Here, only your womb matters.”
Dania’s forehead wrinkled and the stench of angst tainted her usually enticing scent. A scent that thickly perfumed the room like she’d recently...
The mussed sheets and damp spots evidence of— “You fucked her while in this place?!” he growled at Jruviin, the Drae seemingly unbothered by his tone.
“I—”
“It is too dangerous!” he harshly scolded. In truth he was irritated he’d missed a chance to join in.
“I begged him,” Dania defended Jruviin. “He tried to stop me, but, well, you already know how that ended.”
Bewitching human.
“And that clearly is the least of our troubles,” she added and nibbled her bottom lip. A nervous tic he simultaneously found arousing and... cute.
Val’Koy shook himself. Her curious habits wouldn’t matter if Trik and Raim got their undeserving paws on her.
“What are they offering to trade for Dania?” Jruviin grimly asked.
“Sharn never said.”
Jruviin’s feathered brow bunched, his chest quills flexing, attempting to puff up.
“I know this seems like a no-brainer but...” Dania smiled, though the normal brilliance of her dark eyes dimmed, the only sign of her outward unease. “Don’t trade me, okay?”
All four of Val’Koy’s hands fisted at his sides.
He would never.
“We would rather die first,” Jruviin said with a sincerity Val’Koy felt down to his heavy bon
es.
****
DANIA
People trickled into the main gathering room after nightfall until alien men wandered about the edges with their predatory gaits. Dania felt the weight of one hundred eyes prick her skin as she stood behind her mates who’d been invited to sit in the sunken center of the space.
Across the center sat Trik and Raim, three Equahn women standing behind them. Sheer black fabric hung on their slight frames. Dania wore the same style but in a rich indigo moderately darker than both her mates.
Even though they wore the same style dress, it certainly didn’t fit the same. Her fingers clenched into the gauzy thin material along her thigh that made Dania feel every ounce of her not-so-slim human body. It had tightened around her thighs, threatening to rip on either side, before she bunched the fabric around her hips to give her legs more freedom.
The only solace she had was the fact that alien men didn’t seem to be concerned with what they could see of her body.
Only my womb, or so Val’Koy pointed out. She knew it to be true from everything Zed read to her from the Alien Species Database.
Sharn stood and the room silenced.
“Family, friends, guests,” he momentarily regarded Val and Jru, “your attendance to witness this trade, and any negotiations entailed, shows your devotion to this tower.” With a dip of his chin, “It is noticed, and valued. Those who wish to trade, rise now.”
Trik and Raim got to their feet first. When Val’Koy and Jruviin stood, their agile, athletically toned bodies loomed, their full height putting them a head above most Equahn’s in the room.
“What is it you’ve brought to bargain, Trik and Raim?” Sharn asked. Through the sliver of space between her mates’ arms, Dania watched Raim pull forth one of the three females.
She was shorter than Dania, with a bright green plait that draped over her shoulder and nearly touched her ankles. Wide, ruby-colored irises stared at the ground before Val and Jru, like every Equahn woman did.
Like I keep forgetting to do...
That small reminder didn’t keep her from spying though.
Trik spoke, his voice a stoic, rock-grinding rumble. “We offer this female called Oril. She has only just reached maturity.”