Captive Surrender

by Mooney, Linda

  It would take them three days to reach Vias Daruggah. Three days, unless she redirected the ship to take them elsewhere. But they needed supplies now. And by the time they arrived on Vias Daruggah, they’d need fuel. Unfortunately, supplies and fuel took creds, which they were also fresh out of.

  She bit her lip. It was hard to think straight. She was wrung out from using her power on Bansheer and hadn’t had the chance to rest and build her strength back up.

  “What are you thinking?”

  She answered without turning around to face him. “I’m wondering how we’re going to restock our supplies.”

  “How’s your fuel?”

  She looked back down at the console. “We have enough to get us to Vias Daruggah. After that, it’s get-out-and-push time.”

  “Then we need to figure out a way to earn enough creds so we can restock and refuel before we track down Vol Brod.” He belched softly. Maurra turned to see him slowly get to his feet. Pain reflected on his face, reminding her of the conditions he’d been forced to endure inside the mines.

  “You need to rest,” she urged him.

  He shook his head. “I need to get rid of the stench of the mines first. I take it this bucket has a cleansing stall?”

  “In the back corner.”

  He started for the rear of the ship, then paused. “Where did you put the medical kit?”

  “Would you like me to dress the rest of your wounds?”

  “If you don’t mind.” He limped off toward the rear.

  With every passing minute she could see him lowering his guard and finally allowing himself to relax. He trusted her. The realization was like a bright halo shining around her. In the past other people had trusted her to get the job done and make the bad guys pay for their crimes. This was different, and she rather liked the warm sensations it gave her.

  She took one last look at the navigation panel. Safan had the right idea. A good cleaning, some food and lots of rest would make a world of difference for both of them.

  Going to the rear of the ship, she sat on the floor. She couldn’t open the bed until Safan finished. She was removing her boots when the cleansing chamber stopped humming. Safan stepped out.

  She’d forgotten how large his dick was. She dragged her eyes away from it to focus on the ugly black-and-purple splotches across his chest, arms and legs. There were also some claw marks and a couple of suspicious puncture wounds. Fresh blood oozed from several deep scratches. She was unaware she’d gotten to her feet and was approaching him until he grabbed her by the wrist to stop her from touching the wide bruise across his ribs.

  “Oh, dear gods, Safan!” Her throat closed up, and she felt the now familiar flush of heat leap into her face, along with the burn of tears in her eyes. “I had no idea.”

  “They’ll heal.”

  She pulled her hand away. “What about the rest of you?” She walked around to look at his back, and was sorry she did. He had been whipped to the point where the flesh had been torn and nearly flayed from his body. It was healing in ragged and sometimes overlapping strips. Impulsively, she pressed a kiss to a small patch of clean skin next to his shoulder blade. And another. And another. With the morbid scent of the mines no longer covering him, he once again had that wild, earthy aroma. Musky and masculine. She nuzzled his shoulder.

  “Maurra.”

  Lifting her face, she waited for him to turn around.

  “We need rest.” He cupped her face, cradling the entire side of her head in his huge palm.

  She gave a nod, and Safan withdrew his hand, but not before running his fingers through her hair. “Let me put something on the worst of these first.”

  He sat on the floor, where she could easily reach the areas needing medication. Once the ugliest wounds had been treated and sealed, she ordered the ship to open the bed.

  The floor slid away without the ship responding. Maurra dropped down onto the covers. He followed, moving over to avoid taking up the majority of the bed. They settled into comfortable positions as the lights dimmed.

  The last thing she remembered was Safan rolling over, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up against him, the way he had done on the Kronner ship. With the heat of his body blanketing her, she fell into deep sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  His hand was hot on her breast. Slowly, the palm rotated her nipple, making it grow taut and sending searing desire to the place between her legs. Maurra carefully arched backward until she rested her head against his chest. His huge hand reached across to her other breast until his fingers captured the other nipple and gently pinched it.

  A moan vibrated in her throat. His touch felt tentative, almost fearful, and she understood why. Except for his hand, the rest of his body remained distant, nothing more than a warm presence at her back. Her next move would mean everything for their future together.

  She rolled over. Despite the shadows, she could see his questioning gaze locked on to her face. Would she accept him? Or would she reject him? Was her coming to the mines to get him because of something they had yet to admit to each other? Or because she felt it was her duty?

  Slowly, she plucked the hand touching her breasts and lifted it to her lips. After placing a soft kiss on his fingers, Maurra lowered them to her already wet mound and parted her legs for him.

  It was all she needed to do.

  It was all he needed to know.

  Safan growled as he rose over her and grabbed her hips. A quick twist, and she found herself flipped onto her stomach. Sitting on his knees, he pulled her back toward him and lifted her buttocks. A glance between her legs revealed his erection jutting directly toward her. A single drop glittered at its tip, showing he was as ready as she was.

  He bent over to reach between her thighs. Long claws lightly trailed across her belly, leaving her shivering with want and anticipation. She peered back over her shoulder to see his attention focused on her rear. He placed a hand on her thigh to steady her. The other hand he used to guide his thickness to her entrance. Pulling back the foreskin, he set the tip against the glistening opening and steadily began to push.

  Maurra bowed her head as she fought the frightened sense of taking his enormous size. Like it had the first time, her body clenched up.

  Steady, girl. Take a deep breath and remember how fucking wonderful it felt. You want him to take you again. You need the kind of sexual high only he has been able to give you.

  “Yes, yes…” She barely breathed it aloud. That was exactly the reason she’d gone to him. But there was another reason. A reason she didn’t dare think about or even mention, much less admit to herself.

  His erection continued to burrow into her slowly, inexorably. Giving her time to stretch. Giving her time to remember how she was able to accept him, to swallow him.

  Maurra felt her whole body tremble with expectation as she waited, wondering what he would do next. She never expected him to arch himself over her, releasing her thigh to grasp a breast with each hand. Or for his mouth to close over the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

  Without hesitating, he started pressing harder into her, entering without pulling back. Drilling her a centimeter at a time until her body finally convulsed. Immediately he paused, and that was when the little vibrations went through her, teasing and rippling and sending minute shockwaves under her skin. She remembered those from that time in the cell. Vibrations that had sent her spiraling into wild, orgasmic frenzy.

  Her channel dripped with wetness as it tried to expand, to accept his length and girth. He started breathing heavily and she could feel heat of each breath across her shoulders. His teeth remained locked in place, unrelenting but not hurting her.

  His hands released her breasts to glide over her belly until they reached her mound. Once they reached her swollen lower lips, he placed his fingers on her clit and carefully pinched it.

  Her whole body jerked as the pleasure pierced her. He took advantage of her movements and sank a little deeper i
nto her.

  This was nothing like the way it had been when they had been forced to copulate in the cells. This was totally different. Different position, different method…different reaction.

  He wanted her to let go, to surrender herself to him. It was something she had never done before in her life—allowing herself to lose all control. She had always been the dominant one, the person calling all the shots, even in bed. But not anymore. She would never be totally in control anymore as long as Safan was her lover.

  Suddenly, without warning, he put his hands on her breasts and lifted her until her back arched and she was balanced on her knees. Without thinking, Maurra clasped his hands. She gasped as Safan removed his mouth from her neck.

  “I take you.” His voice sounded almost like a growl. “I take you as mine.”

  Her head swam. Was he confessing his feelings or demanding an answer from her?

  “My people do not fornicate without purpose,” he whispered. “It is our way, and always will be. Back in the cell, my purpose was merely survival. But here, here now with you, my purpose is possession. Pure and simple. I possess you. I take you as mine, Maurra. What say you? I need your answer if we are to complete ourselves.”

  Maurra froze. She had heard stories about how the Ellinod took their mates in what was rumored to be a bestial way. Mounting them. Taking them savagely.

  She would be his mate, but she already knew her soul and his were bonded. Her womb clenched in anticipation.

  His huge erection continued to sink into her a bit at a time, boring into her and sending her nerve endings into overdrive. His hands manipulated her nipples until every movement shot streaks of pure desire into her womb. She tried to wriggle her hips, pumping with her knees to push him farther inside her, but his grip on her was solid as well as gentle. He would not complete the act until she gave him her answer.

  “Take me.” She wasn’t above begging.

  “Are you mine?” His voice was ragged with desire. Maurra felt his muscles tense. His body trembled with unreleased passion. He was burning as hot as she was.

  “Yes.”

  “It will not be an easy life. My kind will never accept you.”

  “I know, but I don’t care.”

  “Then say so.”

  “I am yours, Safan.”

  There was a pause when she heard him give a huge sigh. “As I take you, Maurra,” he vowed. In the next instant, he threw back his head and roared. The sound of it vibrated all the way to her bones. At the same time, he rammed himself all the way into her. Her scream caught in the center of her throat. It wasn’t until he started pounding away, forcing her to take his whole length with every piercing lunge that she managed to gasp, allowing herself to breathe again.

  Her entire focus was centered on their connection. On the pain and pleasure flooding her body. On the searing, wonderful agony tearing through her as the bulbous head of his erection bruised her and his cock threatened to tear her apart. His hands were holding her so tightly, she knew she would be sore for days, inside and out.

  Her breasts swayed painfully as he rocked her forward and back, slamming her against him as he thrust his hips forward. It was all she could do to keep her ass up in the air.

  Then, suddenly, he stopped. Before she could comprehend his next step, Safan withdrew from her. Releasing her breasts, he bent her farther downward until her forehead touched the bed, and sank his teeth into her back, bracketing her spine with his jaws, beginning behind her head. Sharp, hot pain sliced through her. Maurra cried out as he slowly dragged his extended eyeteeth over and through her flesh, not stopping until he reached her tailbone. Although the furrows weren’t deep, they bled profusely, and to her shock she felt him lapping up her blood. As he tongued her torn skin, a numbing sensation replaced the pain. Something in his saliva soothed the hurt.

  Once he reached her neck again, he lowered his body over hers and placed his hands beneath her and between her legs. “Now we can complete each other,” he murmured.

  She felt his erection began to reenter her from the rear the same time his fingers spread her lower lips. They covered her clit and started manipulating it. He lifted his hips, working himself in and out, sliding with greater and greater ease as her body accepted this gentler lovemaking. Coating his heavy length with her juices. Slowly pressing deeper and deeper a bit at a time until he could go no farther.

  She tried to breathe. Once again she was being impaled, but this time it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Every time she inhaled, her body tried to suck his erection deeper inside her burning channel. But he had gone as far as he could. The slightest movement told her the end of his dick rested inside her as far as it was physically able.

  His fingers caressed her clit. The fire expanded, rising and ascending inside her with increasing intensity as he masturbated her, as he filled her and as he brought her closer and closer to perfection.

  Just when she thought she was on the verge of combustion, Safan started to pump her with long, relentless strokes. Reality exploded. Intense pleasure flooded every nerve ending. Maurra gasped, unable to fill her lungs with enough air to scream. He closed his fingers around her thighs and continued to hammer into her, grunting with every heavy thrust as he reached for his own pinnacle.

  She vaguely heard the Ellinod’s triumphant roar filled the spaceship as she fell into exhausted sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “So you were an Orgoran. That explains a lot of things.” She lifted the immense hand from where it was cupping her breast and held it closer to her face.

  “How so?” Safan rumbled as he watched her place her palm against his and compare their sizes, as well as their differences. When their hands were matched wrist to wrist, her nails barely reached his first finger joints.

  “Why you weren’t dressed like Ellinods I’ve seen in the past,” she explained. “Why you know a smattering of other languages. Why you were in that bar on Cura-Cura. Why you’re even built a little differently. Good heavens, Safan! I bet you could wrap your hand all the way around my neck!”

  “Want me to see?” He smiled. Turning onto his side so that he faced her, he drew his fingers around her throat and neck until his middle finger and thumb met. “You’re right. I can.” He snorted softly and resumed his position, rolling onto his back next to her until they were once again touching side to side, skin to skin. He shifted slightly, trying to find a comfortable position again, and she remembered his injuries.

  “I need to doctor those wounds again.”

  He said something that was more of a rumble than a word. Maurra turned to her side to face him. At the same time, she lifted her leg and threw it over his until her knee nudged his testicles. “What was that?”

  He stared at her. “Nothing.”

  “Naw. You made a comment. I just didn’t catch it.”

  The ridges over his eyes lowered slightly. “Which reminds me, what are you using for a translator?”

  She held up an arm so he could see the inner wrist. “The little gizmo your hospital put in me.” They could both see it, no more than a pale little disk just under the skin.

  “That wasn’t meant to be permanent.”

  Maurra shrugged. “It works fine for me, so until it goes bad and I need a new one—”

  “Which may be sooner than you think. We need to get you a decent translator if we’re…” He paused and turned his face away, but Maurra wasn’t about to let it go.

  “If we’re what?”

  He did it again, giving her an indistinguishable grunt in lieu of language. But he had brought it up, and they would have to face the issue sooner or later. Licking her dry lips, she gave his balls another gentle jiggle with her knee.

  “Here we are, Safan. Now what? Where do we go from here?”

  “What do you mean? I thought we were heading for Vias Daruggah.”

  By this time, she knew how intelligent he was. She could also tell when he was pulling her leg. She started to tell him that w
hen he suddenly rolled on top of her, supporting his weight so as not to crush her. To further surprise her, he started nuzzling her under her chin and over her breastbone. It was a tender gesture, the way he gently ran his mouth over her skin. Nuzzling. Without thinking about it, she reached up and took a horn in each hand and began stroking them. He didn’t last long, and with a hard shake of his head, dislodged her hands. She had the urge to scan him, to see what kind of vibes he was putting out, but she hesitated.

  She had changed. The admission wasn’t a new one. She knew she had crossed a threshold back on board the Kronner ship. Breached an invisible personal barrier when she trusted him to protect her. She wanted him to trust her in the same way.

  “You possessed me,” she whispered. “You marked me. You claimed me. That means we’re inseparable now, doesn’t it? You’ve made me your mate.”

  His gaze shifted to a spot next to her ear. “It is the way of the Ellinod.”

  “It is not the way of the Ellinod to claim a mate outside of your species.”

  The goad worked. Safan glared at her. “My own species has disowned me. To them, I am dead. Therefore I no longer have to follow their edicts. I can take whomever I wish.”

  She didn’t try to hide her smile. “So you chose me.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “You chose me,” he said.

  His earnestness got a giggle from her. “Explain that one to me.”

  “You were rid of me, but you made the choice to come for me at the mines. You led me to your bed. When I reached for you, I gave you the chance to decline.”

  “And I didn’t decline.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “I guess changing my mind is out of the question too?”

  His eyes widened, and she sensed a flash of definite worry. She smiled to ease his concern.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Then why did you say it?” Tension outlined every part of his body. He wasn’t convinced. Not yet. She felt comforted knowing how deeply she affected him.