by Roxie Ray
Sawyer, on the other hand, did not seem to enjoy this attention as much as I did.
“I’m getting a lot of stink-eye over here, Haelian,” she murmured, leaning in even closer so she did not have to raise her voice. “Do I smell bad or something?”
I lowered my nose to the crown of her head to breathe her in and found myself smiling. Her scent was dark flowers and vanilla, the salt of the ocean and the deep green of the forest at night.
“You are perfect, little human,” I reassured her. I could have breathed her in like that all night—but doing so would have impeded our journey, and I wanted to arrive at our destination before the moons reached their peak points in the sky. “I can assure you, any glares you receive are only out of envy—not because of your smell.”
“Former girlfriends of yours?” she asked as one Lunarian woman, the sister of High House Karlan’s reigning lord, let out a snarl while watching us pass. “I get the sense that they kind of, um, hate me.”
I chuckled. “My only female friend is Leonix. These other females…no, we are not friends.”
“No, sill-ee.” Sawyer slapped my arm gently, but based on the sparkle in her eyes, I believed it to be in jest. “I mean, have you dated them?”
“I have not courted them, if that is what you are asking,” I said honestly. It was important to me that Sawyer knew she was special for me. Not just some other woman—the only woman.
“Ah. Right. Bria mentioned that you’re not, um, exactly the dating type, I guess.” She looked up at me, eyes narrowed with curiosity. “She didn’t say why, though.”
I stiffened slightly. I knew that Kloran must have explained my lack of a wife or betrothed to Bria, and it did not surprise me that Bria had passed this information on to Sawyer. But despite the number of Lunarian females who had made advances upon me, none had ever asked me why I refused them before.
In that way, I supposed, Sawyer was unlike Lunarian females more than just physicality. She had an emotionality to her that most Lunarian females lacked as well. To my surprise, her question made me feel vulnerable—but not, I found, in a negative fashion. I had just never been given an opportunity to open up to someone in this manner before.
“I have my reasons, yes. They are…personal.” I lowered my brow, unsure of how to proceed. How could I possibly explain to Sawyer the dynamic that my parents had with each other? Telling her that my father wished my mother to be imprisoned and my mother wished my father, for the most part, to be dead, did not seem like a suitable topic of conversation to set the mood I hoped to create for the night.
“Oh, sorry!” Sawyer’s smile disappeared immediately, which left me feeling guilty. I had not meant to displease her. I was only unaccustomed to speaking so candidly with anyone, let alone a female I so wished to please and entertain. “I didn’t mean to be pushy.”
“You were not being push-ee.” I knew this word, not only from my studies in the human language, but from Bria herself—usually in reference to Kloran. A laugh escaped my throat as I recalled how forward he had been with Bria initially. It was difficult to imagine Sawyer acting in such a way—though, if she had wished to be push-ee with me, I would not have minded in the least. “Come along and cease your fretting. I have something I want to show you, remember?”
“My surprise.” Sawyer brightened again as she recalled my promise. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s go, then.”
We cut through the market and exited the city gates, walking slightly more quickly than we had previously. Sawyer seemed to buzz with excitement at the prospect of discovering what I had prepared for her. Truth be told, I was also thrilled to give her something pleasant and enjoyable after all she had been through. She was too sweet and kind to have been put through the hardships she had endured, and beautiful enough that I wanted nothing more than to put a smile on her perfect lips.
Hopefully, the surprise would do that, and so much more.
I took Sawyer’s hand in mine as I guided her through the scant brush of the wilderness that surrounded the capital. The ground was uneven here, and each time she stumbled over it, I was sure to catch her—as I always had.
“You’re pretty good at keeping me upright when you’re around, you know,” Sawyer commented as I helped her up a rocky incline. Our destination was at the top of the hill. “Either I’m clumsier here than I was back on Earth, or there’s something about you that’s always making me fall all over myself.”
“You have had a difficult time lately,” I reassured her. “I am certain you are simply still recovering. It is my hope that tonight will be…some small reward for all the hardship you have been through.”
“I thought this was a date, not a—oof!” The rocks skidded from beneath Sawyer’s feet and I dug in my heels to help pull her up. “A reward.”
“I do not fully understand the human ways of courting yet,” I admitted. “But ideally, it is a little of both.”
“Oh, this is definitely the best date I’ve been on so far,” Sawyer told me. “The guy I was engaged to before…” She made a small sound of annoyance. “Well. Before all of this. He used to take me out to nightclubs for dates, then spend half the night making eyes at the waitresses.”
I let out a low growl. I could think of nothing ruder—and nothing more impossible. When it came to finding places to set my gaze, Sawyer’s gorgeous form was by far my favorite thing to look upon.
“I would never,” I professed. “A man should only be concerned with his chosen female. Any other manner of behavior…it is simply unacceptable.”
Sawyer laughed as I tugged her up the last slope of the hill. “I get that sense from you, yeah. You definitely don’t have to sell me on that idea, anyway.”
Pleased with her praise, I guided her through the mouth of the cave at the hill’s peak with some small amount of pride. If having a man who only had interest in her was Sawyer’s desire, then I could provide that in excess. If she was mine, I knew, I would never have need for another woman in all my life. My mother, my sister and Leonix, of course, I had fondness for—but they were family. When it came to longing, I only had eyes for her.
“What is this place?” Sawyer asked, squeezing my hand a little tighter as the cave’s darkness engulfed us. “This is way darker than any nightclub I’ve ever been in, that’s for sure.”
“It is…a holy place, I suppose you could say. There are many of these caves in the areas around the capital. It is believed that once, before we Lunarians built our cities, we came to these caves to worship the moons. Among other things.” I closed my eyes for a moment to allow my vision to adjust to the darkness. When I opened them again, I could see the path ahead of us with ease. Humans like Sawyer, though, would not have as functional night vision as I did. My research had warned me of as much.
Just a better reason to pull her a little closer to me. My arm wrapped around her shoulders, drawing her near so that she would not misstep or stumble through the dark.
“Oh,” Sawyer said softly. “I guess I didn’t realize that you guys had a religion. But yeah, of course you do. Obviously. What do you worship?”
I guided her a few steps further, until a light purple glow began to light our way. The space around us was full of crystals, large purple ones that crawled all the way up the sides of the cave and climbed up to the ceiling, where they let in the light of Lunaria’s nine moons, all aligning overhead.
“Those,” I told her, pointing upward. The purple glow engulfed us completely now. It set fire to Sawyer’s hair, turned her eyes a shade of blue the same color that mine did when I felt passion. Desire.
Sometimes even love.
“The moons,” Sawyer whispered. Her body moved closer still to me, her fingers weaving themselves into the spaces between my own. “You worship the moons.”
“They are things of beauty, yes. Wonder, too.” I smiled a little as I stared down at her. My own eyes were shifting now, changing color to match hers. “They move our oceans—and, as our priests will tell you, our hearts as wel
l. Heavenly bodies moving our physical bodies here on the ground.”
“That’s poetic, Haelian.” Sawyer’s voice was gentle with awe.
“It is not just poetry,” I said with a nod up to the glowing crystal ceiling overhead. “It is religion. Faith. The stories say that our ancestors were hatched from a tenth moon when it fell to Lunaria. They are symbols of fertility. In these caves, sometimes, lovers still come to mate, bathed in the glow of the moons, in the hopes that their union will be blessed with many cubs.”
“Fertility caves for mating, huh?” Sawyer giggled. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were coming onto me.”
I blinked in disbelief at what she had just said, then drew back in horror. I had known that it was a thing of great meaning, bringing Sawyer to the moon caves at a time when our courtship was so fresh and I knew she must be reaching peak fertility, but I had not meant for her to get the idea that she did not have a choice in the matter. “No, of course not, Sawyer. I would not dream to disrespect you like that. To spill my seed on you, without your consent—”
Sawyer stared at me for a moment, looking as confused as I was. Then, a laugh fell from her lips, so strong that she clutched at her stomach and doubled over with it. “Oh, wow. Okay. No—” She struggled to find her words through her giggles. When she straightened again, she had to wipe tears from her eyes. “I think we’re having a bit of a misunderstanding.”
“The translator chips are not perfect, admittedly.” I rubbed the back of my neck as my cheeks flushed.
“I didn’t mean you were, um, ejaculating on me,” Sawyer choked out, still laughing. “I meant that you were, like…hitting on me.”
“I would not beat you, either.” This was most perplexing. I did not wish for her to fear me any more than I wished for her to feel taken advantage of. “I am not a Rutharian, Sawyer. I am nothing like them. To raise my hand to you…I would rather cut it off before I did something so cruel.”
Sawyer let out a final giggle, closed her eyes, and sighed. “Haelian. Calm down.” When she opened her eyes again, her hands moved to my chest. I could feel their coolness through the thin linen of my shirt. My heart quickened at her touch. “I thought you were flirting with me. Because of, you know. The atmosphere. The thing you said about lovers coming here to, um, to make love. I was trying to flirt back. Do you understand that?”
“I…think I am beginning to, yes.” I let out a little laugh of my own. What a disaster. In my eagerness to reassure her, all I had done was muddy the mood.
But the smile on Sawyer’s lips lingered, and her hands moved up to wrap around my neck.
Perhaps the mood wasn’t dead yet, then.
“Let me make things a little clearer,” she said, turning her lips up toward mine. “Kiss me again, Haelian?”
That, at least, I understood.
I understood that loud and clear.
My mouth moved against hers with hunger. Our kiss was gentle at first, soft and sweet, but it quickly spiraled into something more desperate, unguarded, full of need. I had been aching to kiss her ever since I first saw her standing there in the center of Bria’s rooms, dressed in gold and looking more delicious than anything else I had ever laid eyes on. And now, in the cave of my ancestors, bathed in the holy light of the moons, my longing for her only grew.
“I am desperate for you, Sawyer,” I admitted in a breath when our lips finally parted again. “I have been for… Blood, for as long as I have known you. Please do not think me untoward, but…”
“Haelian.” She said my name like it was a prayer. “Do you really think I would have let you bring me all the way here to a fertility cave in the middle of nowhere if I didn’t want you, too?”
“Mm.” I closed my eyes and let my hands do what they had yearned to do for so long now. I stroked down her waist, capturing it with my fingers for a moment then slipping my touch down to her hips. “Then you will allow…”
I teased the waistband of her pants away from her hips and heard her breath catch in her throat.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Take me. Touch me. Please.”
My smile would not quit as I dropped to my knees. Her pants came down with me, clinging to her thighs until I tore them down to her ankles.
“Please,” I repeated as I pressed my cheek to her hip. Her scent unfurled around me, sweet and mouthwatering. There was a smattering of golden-blonde hair there between her legs and I wanted nothing more than to bury my nose in it so I never had to stop breathing her in. But before I dove in, I tilted my head up toward her to smile at her—this time, like the scoundrel I truly was. “That is the first time you will say that to me tonight—but mark me, Sawyer, it will not be the last.”
15
Sawyer
Haelian’s cheek against my hip burned my skin, so hot it was hard to tell if he was still blushing, or if that was just how warm he always was. The way he sniffed at me was strange, almost animalistic—but that didn’t mean I didn’t like it.
In fact…I was pretty sure I liked it a lot.
Which wasn’t like me. None of this was like me at all. Aiden had begged me for months before I finally gave up my virginity to him. At first, it had been flattering, but by the time I finally gave in and he rolled off of me, I’d only felt used. All his cheating had only compounded that feeling. Like I was something for him to fuck then throw away.
But the way Haelian held me…it was like I was something precious. He crushed his lips against the little valley where my thigh met my pelvis like he couldn’t help but kiss me. Like he’d die if he didn’t have his mouth against my skin.
It was, well…sexy. Incredibly sexy—and it made me feel sexy, too. Another thing I’d never really felt before. Everything I’d done with Aiden since had been playfully tentative. I’d still been trying to figure out what I even liked, what made me feel good and how our bodies worked together. Sometimes, it had almost been good.
Most of the time, it had just felt silly.
But as Haelian kissed across my hip down toward my pussy, I didn’t even have to figure anything out. I didn’t even have to think. He touched me and my body lit up like a fireworks display. Here I was, standing with my pants around my ankles while the crystals of the cave washed everything in an otherworldly purple glow. That should have felt silly. Uncomfortable. Awkward and weird.
But the way Haelian growled every time he breathed in my scent didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. It made my entire body tingle. It made my heart tap out a beat beneath my breast, racing faster and faster with every nuzzle of his nose, every kiss he pressed into my skin. It made heat flow through me from my core until it pooled between my legs like pale fire.
This wasn’t like me—or, more accurately, it wasn’t like the old me.
The more I thought about it, the more I was realizing I wasn’t some shy, naive, stupid girl anymore. I wasn’t just with a different man on a completely different planet. I was a completely different person now. Sawyer Aniston of Earth, kindergarten teacher and emotionally neglected fiancée of professional philanderer Aiden McBride would never have stood in some random fertility cave out in the middle of the night, half-undressed with her fingers running through the thick red hair of another man.
But the kind of person I was now…she liked being undressed in eerily beautiful fertility caves. Not for Aiden McBride—for General Haelian Mihor. The man who had saved me. The man who had killed to keep me safe. This new, improved version of Sawyer…she liked being touched in the way Haelian touched me. She liked being kissed where he was kissing me. She liked the noises he made, half whimper, half snarl, and the way his hot breath felt against my sex as he pressed his forehead to my stomach, cupping my ass in his big, rough hands and letting out a ragged sigh…
Yeah. Yeah, she liked that a lot.
I liked that a lot.
With a growl, Haelian wrapped his arms around me. One hand pressed firm against the small of my back. Gently, I could feel his claws tickling as they b
arely brushed my skin. With his other hand, he grabbed one cheek of my ass possessively. When he squeezed it, the points of his claws poked into my flesh there, just hard enough to make me gasp in surprise.
“Oh!” I whimpered.
Immediately, Haelian shifted his fingertips as he looked up at me with concern. “Did I hurt you, Sawyer?”
I drew in a breath, then shook my head. “No…no. Just, you surprised me is all. Your claws…”
“Mm,” Haelian purred. His fingers shifted again. This time, he settled the tips of his claws against the curve of my ass so delicately, when he moved them across my skin in a slow, zig-zag pattern it made my whole body shudder. “And how are my claws now, Sawyer?”
I shivered and closed my eyes, letting myself give into the sensation. His touch was making something inside me bubble up deliciously, like the fizz from a freshly poured glass of champagne.
“That f-feels…wow. Amazing, actually.” I arched my back and shrugged my shoulders as I tried to contain this exciting new pleasure—but it wasn’t anything that could be contained. I’d seen Haelian use those claws to kill the Rutharians who had tried to recapture me back on the ship—but now, they weren’t being used for brutality. Now, they only made me feel, well…good. Better than good.
“I will not hurt you, Sawyer.” Haelian’s lips were curved into a smile as he kissed over the hair on my pussy. I normally kept myself a little more clean-shaven than I was right now, but if Haelian had anything against the little smattering of blonde curls that covered my folds, he didn’t give any indication of it. “This especially, I think, should not hurt at all.”
The next time I gasped, it was in ecstasy. Haelian’s tongue was long and hot as it pressed between the lips of my pussy. Its forked tip wriggled against my slick folds until he found what he was looking for—and then, I couldn’t help but moan. He settled my clit between the forks of his tongue, pressing down hard until I could feel something thrumming against me there, steady and strong.