ThunderClaw: Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 2)

by Penelope Fletcher

Outside the unit, finger combing my curls, I shuffled towards the squashy bed. I planned to curl up and repair my mental state for the changes to come.

  I needed to be strong for my baby, not twisted with desire.

  Sleep would straighten me out.

  And if it didn’t, there was always the neck massager.

  Relocating galaxies was not only exhausting, but mind altering.

  What had I been thinking letting Éorik corner me? I’d gone years without letting a man screw me over. I couldn’t let the pair exploding into my life mess me around, no matter how seductive.

  Walking past a snug looking cubby, I backtracked then crawled onto it, flopping onto my side. I didn’t have enough energy to drag may ass all the way to the sleeping platform.

  It took a while to relax. My mind was crammed with doubts, my body humming from Éorik’s touch.

  I smoothed a hand over the cushiony softness below me, turning my head to gaze out the porthole into the black vastness of space.

  Fergie had spent the day with Patrick, and would be content sleeping with him. At first, I’d been stressed and annoyed when he’d commandeered her, but now, I neared tears I was so grateful.

  Alone time was precious, a commodity, and one I sorely I lacked. When was the last time I had space to just be? No work, no baby to run after, no bills, no flat to clean.

  Guilt flared but quickly passed.

  It didn’t make me a bad mother to need time to myself, and I was looking forward to being a bigger part of Fergie’s life day to day. I’d get to witness all the little things I missed because I’d worked all the time.

  My eyelids drooped. Brightness kept me from sleep. ‘Lights dim.’ Lines illuminating the room lowered to hazy splotches on the pristine walls.

  The temperature was perfect, tepid, but with a cooler edge.

  Silence had never meant so much. I tumbled deeper into my mind, lazy thoughts drifting here and there.

  Gradually, my tense muscles relaxed.

  Bliss suffused every pore as palms stroked my calves. Rough and hot, they chafed against my skin, lingering at the bend of my knees to apply pressure. I moaned. Weight settled between my thighs, and a barbed tongue lapped at my pulse in languid scratches.

  My clit pulsed, and my thighs trembled.

  Gentle hands rubbed a trail from my shoulders and down my arms. Low, raspy growls accompanied a thick length sliding against my pussy.

  My eyes flew open.

  A large silhouette blocked the overhead light.

  A startled breath escaped my mouth as it swooped down, and a pair of firm lips closed over my parted ones.

  Purrs of satisfaction sent ticklish vibrations across my damp flesh. A wild scent, and sweetly bitter cacao shredded my senses. A moist tongue flicked at my own before pulling back to trace the shape of my mouth, tasting me.

  I chased the muscle with my own and locked it into twisted clinch, sucking hard, mewling as heat arrowed to my sex. Insides liquefying, the tension coiled into the sweet spot beneath my navel. My legs shifted restlessly. The empty ache made me think of being filled, made me think of being fucked.

  My hips thrust to meet the erection growing harder and heavier against the apex of my thighs.

  I gasped, and it felt as if my lungs would explode.

  Everything was sharper, bolder, more piercing.

  My arms lifted to twine around my tormentor’s neck. They were caught and pulled high over my head. Claws pricked my skin as long fingers held my wrists with brutal strength.

  My eyeballs rolled, and I stared.

  Éorik.

  Seraphic face cruel with need, his eyes were afire, fangs bared as he watched the dark head of the male suckling on my neck mouth his way down to my breasts.

  Fuzzily, I recognised this wasn’t right, wasn’t something I’d agree to, but I was there, and I wasn’t afraid. I was wanting. Everything but the carnal urge to fuck was a distant fog, easily forgotten under the sensual onslaught.

  Sharp pain in my breast had my attention snapping down.

  Beowyn.

  A twist of the lips warped his expression into something unabashedly naughty. He graced another hard nip from his sharp teeth to my turgid nipple, and then quested downward. His tongue laved my navel before he levered himself lower, pushing my ankles to my buttocks, so my knees pressed either side of my breasts. He buried his face in my cunt. My whole body heaved, back arching until the crown of my head and ass were the only things attached to a surface. He put his mouth on my pussy and slurped, sucked and tongue fucked me until I vibrated.

  Letting go of my ankles, he wedged his shoulders between my thighs to keep them spread. I dug my heels into his broad back hard enough to bruise.

  Frantic to grab fistfuls of his mane, I tugged to free my hands. Coarse hair tickling my inner thighs drove me mad.

  Éorik chuckled. He nibbled the round of my ear. ‘Hush, little wife. Take your fucking.’

  I groaned, the words a sinful invocation I was summoned to painful arousal by. My hips bucked, grinding erratic circles, needing the solid bulk of a male body to writhe against.

  Licking the juices wetting his cheeks, Beowyn patted the aching space he’d vacated. ‘Greedy for me, sweet puss?’

  ‘Please.’ My plea strained thin.

  The six points of his pupils thickened. His feral grin made my toes curl. ‘Open your mouth.’

  Warmth pooled in my cheeks and my lips tingled.

  A big hand cupped my cheek to turn it to the side. Éorik’s cock was there. Bulbous tip seeping, his balls drew up tight. ‘Suck me.’ He leant over to kiss Beowyn in a scrape of lips and teeth.

  I stifled a moan and latched on. A dick thrust into me, so hard, I slid up, and a blast of sensation rocketed through my body. Éorik howled into Beowyn’s mouth, coming down the back of my screaming throat, and my eyes flew open on a breathless shriek.

  I flailed upright.

  Sweat slicked my brow, and my eyes showed too much white as they darted around. The room was dim and silent aside from my harsh pants.

  I was alone.

  There were no aliens fucking me into oblivion.

  Scrambling out of the cubby and off the daybed, I noted its glowing dimmed. My hands flittered across my body. Every inch was tight. I was dressed in the loose pants and blouse from earlier, but my nipples were hard, and my crotch soaked.

  ‘Shite.’ I dragged a shaky hand through my sexed up hair. The chain at my neck was tangled. ‘What the hell was that?’ Who had dreams like that? Fantasies of being dominated, sure. Of a man going down on you, yeah.

  Watching two guys kiss as they fucked you, not so much.

  Uncomfortable, I changed my clothes and shoved my feet into my pumps. I tottered out the automatic hatch and down the empty corridor.

  The subsonic hum of the spaceship’s engine soothed me long enough to reach the larger quarters my cousins shared.

  Sticking my head around the various corners and doors, much to Patrick’s amusement, I threw myself down on the bunk next to him, hair flying, one slip on shoe clucking to the floor.

  I stared at the metal lattice overhead, toes curling into the silky bedding at the thought of what I wanted to discuss. My mouth worked soundlessly, but I managed a quiet, ‘She was okay today? No tantrums or homesickness?’

  ‘The wee bit was fine. You worry overmuch.’ He hooked a finger under the chain at my throat, a Celtic cross dangling from it. ‘Knotted silver.’ He smoothed it out. ‘What you been up to, lass?’

  I slapped at his hand. ‘I took a nap.’

  That mocking eyebrow climbed higher, and a wicked smile creased whiskered cheeks. ‘Alone?’

  I threw an arm over my face.

  ‘Out with it then.’ Bare toes nudged my ankle. ‘Whatever you’re bent out of shape about seems worse than it is.’

  Grossed out by his stinky, hairy man feet, I kicked his shin and mumbled the gist of it into the crook of my elbow.

  Patrick pushed my arm down to grip m
y chin. His face was amused, but his eyes were sharp. For all his gruffness, my cousin loved me and was protective. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘There’s something wrong with me.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’

  ‘I had a dream.’

  His knee hooked up so he could itch it. ‘I’m needing more information than that to help you now.’

  ‘I took a nap on a daybed by the porthole in my cabin, which is no what you think by the way. I dreamed things.’ I flushed brighter. ‘Sexual things.’

  Patrick’s expression cleared. ‘Wyn told us about that. It’s called a pleasure couch. All the cabins have them. The Veraks see it as a home fixture from what I can tell.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘We took turns on it earlier. Fergie loved it.’

  Hearing my innocent child sat on that couch, my jaw dropped.

  Patrick barked a laugh and dodged a hit. ‘The wee bit dreamed of rainbows and teddy bears. Da muttered something about haggis. Rowan did no say what he saw. The device is about pleasure and no all pleasure is sexual, so calm it down.’

  I shimmied onto my side, propping my head up. ‘What did you dream of?’

  ‘Mine was no kinky like yours. I fucked a lass I kenned years back. Before my last deployment.’ His gaze drifted to the middle distance. He shook off his daze with a sigh. ‘Too late to do anything about it now.’

  Sympathetic, I left it alone. ‘What about Aled?’

  ‘Aled dreamed of Cait.’

  My throat closed.

  Her loss still felt fresh even after so many years.

  Aled lost Caitrìona to uterine cancer. Though he’d recovered as well as one could, he’d never taken another.

  Patrick and Rowan rarely spoke of their eldest triplet. A part of them died, never to return. She’d been like a mother to me. I didn’t want to talk about her much either.

  Patrick nudged me with his shoulder. ‘It’s okay to want them.’

  I looked at anything but his face. ‘Them?’

  ‘I’m no blind, woman. I see how you look at them.’ He shrugged. ‘They obviously have a very open culture.’

  ‘You don’t think it’s weird? Is it no wrong?’ I blushed. ‘I dreamed of them kissing while being with me.’

  ‘That’s filthy unnatural that is.’

  I cringed. ‘Be serious.’

  ‘I can no see why you’re upset about something millions of people do the world over.’

  My brows pulled together.

  ‘Men have watched women loving on each other since time began. Why so strange to think the reverse?’ He huffed when my expression creased. ‘Do you want to fuck women?’

  I imagined having sex with a woman. Aside from a vague curiosity, it did nothing for me. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why would the pleasure couch show you a scene of another woman touching what’s yours? The male body attracts you. Why wouldn’t you want to see two braw lads giving and receiving pleasure? Do you want to see other women with your males?’

  Éorik made me aware he was there for the taking, but at no point did he offer exclusivity. Beowyn didn’t expect monogamy. Did I lusting after both of them as I was? I gulped. The thought of making myself vulnerable to them, requesting they bed only me made me break out in hives.

  Gaze drifting, my mouth shut.

  ‘So you have no problem with these concubines they talk about?’

  Jaw flexing, I glared. ‘I–.’

  A thunderous boom reverberated through the ship.

  I was tossed off the comfy bunk halfway across the room, squashed after impact by Patrick’s stocky bulk.

  Alarms screeched.

  Chapter 6

  Dragging a fresh tunic over his head, flesh damp from cleansing and smelling of sharp chemical soaps, Beowyn entered the command centre at a run.

  He dropped into his seat.

  Gaze flitting over reels of data as the onboard computer tabulated the resulting damage from the continuous blasts rocking the ship, he scowled, eyes darkening alongside his mood.

  He slicked wet hair back from his face. ‘Who?’

  Green light from the console highlighted the strain etched into Éorik’s features. ‘Dei San.’ Claws jabbed buttons. Commander SnowBlade’s voice turned menacing. ‘L’Odo. Look.’

  Silvered metal hull transformed into a viewing screen, three male-lengths high, and five lengths wide.

  Their eyes were drawn to the curve of a rufescent planet, its sparkling ring system of ice and minerals lucent vermillion on their starboard side.

  Sprawling starships with sickle pincers and bristling armaments closed in on their smaller craft. Behind them, a dented, cobbled-together looking craft doggedly advanced, its stalking flight path a reflection of the sly hunting tactics of the soulless fiends within.

  Beowyn sucked chill air between his teeth. One vessel they could defeat, but two? Numbness spread through his extremities. Their options for survival had narrowed to a knife’s tip. ‘Thrusters to full. Slingshot around the red star.’

  ‘We’ve pulled ahead, but they’re determined.’

  ‘How far into uncharted space have we penetrated?’

  ‘Further than is sane. The maps already intermittently report a failure to retrieve coordinates. The way back will be lost to us imminently.’

  Star maps were detailed and extensive, but the universe was endless, expanding, and losing your way was a reality. They were maintained and adjusted by Vudwani contracted into the Alliance–an insular, cerebral species renown for its mathematical prowess–to keep vessels from being lost, but you had to stick to the flightpaths to stay safe. Deviation meant you ran the risk of the maps becoming useless and your craft would float aimlessly through the vast emptiness–hoping to stumble across a planet to survive on if you didn’t come in range of a communications array for the maps to update and the navigator to get back on track. Earth was in a distant galaxy far off the beaten path. An offshoot of an offshoot. The illegally sourced coordinates the L’Odo branded onto Lumen grew more outdated by the nanosecond. Space was not fixed and finite. It was alive; moving, growing, collapsing and exploding. They needed to reach an officially charted route for the systems to recalibrate or soon the window to find a way back would close.

  ‘I cannot shake them.’ Éorik gritted his teeth. His strain showed through the bulging tendons in his neck. ‘Orders?’

  Dei San were pirates who preyed on ships regardless of affiliation, incapable of loyalty–even to each other. It would have been a simple thing to swallow pride and out run them. The L’Odo, however, sought vengeance. They would not give up the chase like the Dei San. The slavers had been brought low in a joint effort between Lumen of the Stars and the Great Alpha. Dozens of species had logged complaints with the Intergalactic Council at his urging. The L’Odo had been stripped of their membership, banned from trading with registered worlds and were on the cusp of devolving into the Dei San scum they looked upon with unforgiving animus.

  If the L’Odo caught them and discovered the importance of their prize, they would hold captive all on board and subject them to the depraved tortures reported by his warriors.

  ‘Send out a distress signal to our closest allies.’ Sweat gathered between Beowyn’s shoulder blades. ‘Notify the Royal Paladins and upload the humans’ bio-metrics. Demand they send enough rescue drones to shorten the retrieval time.’ If they had to jettison onto the nearby planet, one drone could mean hours of scouring a planet to hone in on a pods tracker. It would mean wasted time the humans might not have marooned on a dangerous planetoid.

  ‘Connection established. Sending data now.’ Éorik gripped his seat as the room shook. ‘Our protective shield will not withstand much more.’

  Though it was the flagship of his armada, the Dragonfly was designed for speed and stealth raids, not prolonged battle. ‘Get the humans to safety.’

  ‘We cannot send them in the escape pods. Even if we sacrifice ourselves to provide a distraction, they will be taken before long retrieval.’

&nb
sp; Mind drifting amidst chaos, Beowyn mentally blocked the wailing siren and strobing blue lights, gathering information to make a decision. He palmed the console, skimmed the readouts. ‘Registered planet 977543 has negligible atmosphere but it could work.’

  If they pulled ahead, they could hide on the red gas giant until rescue. Built for evasive manoeuvring, the Dragonfly was petite enough to go unnoticed when running on standby mode. It remained cloaked from enemy sensors by using a planet’s natural radiation.

  Éorik gave a sharp shake of ivory horns. ‘If hull integrity is compromised between now and then and we survive a hard landing, we’ll still perish. Look at these atmospheric readings. Toxic.’

  After a longer bombardment from their assailants, the ship’s shuddering turned to a ominous rattle and groan.

  Acrid smoke singed their nostrils.

  It sounded as if the whole chassis readied to shake apart.

  ‘Head to the moon.’ Beowyn exhaled. ‘The air is thin, a hardship for the human body but not fatal.’

  Banking and dodging astroids to speed towards the growing yellowish dot orbiting the red star, another barrage hit the ship. Dampeners shrieked under the strain. They pierced the moon’s foggy atmosphere at a recumbent angle.

  Fumbling with the steering toggles, Éorik cursed. ‘Distress signal sent.’ He slammed a fist into the dashboard encircling his lower body. ‘Upload…to Paladins…interrupted.’ He jolted as the ship tossed violently. One of the unsecured containers tumbling behind them streaked past his head. Blood seeped from high on his cheek.

  Readouts of their falling altitude plummeted as gravitational pull rocketed, accelerating them beyond what their auxiliary thrusters could negate at their current trajectory.

  Beowyn turned to order the other male to assume crash position. His eyes widened at a shrill cry. He twisted in his seat. ‘Why are you not strapped down?’

  Rowan stood with one arm braced in the doorway, distressed cub swaddled to his chest in the other. His daughter-by-mating was red faced, pudgy checks wet as she tried to stuff all her fingers into her mouth and wail around them.

  Both humans looked around without seeing, blinded by the strobe.