by V. K. Ludwig
“He would never do that to me,” I said with a certainty that hadn’t been there yesterday.
Before I watched the public announcements.
Before I learned that, somehow, Melek was my match.
Something that hadn’t shocked me nearly as much as it should have. I didn’t know how it happened. Didn’t understand what it meant. But I knew that it was true because it only explained the way I felt around him.
Everyone shoved in their seats and pulled their stares from me, awkwardly dropping them to the edge of the table in unison. Except for Grace, who gave me a pained smile and rubbed her hand up and down my trembling arm.
K’terra got up with such force her chair slammed against the wall behind. “No shift for me tonight. I’ll go down to the dock and find him.”
“I’ll go with you,” I blurted.
“Absolutely not. The last thing I need is to babysit a human in a place like that.”
Adora rose and held her hand up in an appeasing manner. “Now, now, we all need to —”
The click of the back door made us all swing around, and I thrust myself up from the chair. Slow, dragging footsteps ground into my brain, but it had nothing on the way my heart faltered but a moment later.
Melek stepped into the kitchen, his white uniform soaked red on both sides. As much as I expected his face to be scrunched up in pain, his mouth carried a smile so wide one would have thought he wasn’t about to bleed to death. And he pointed it right at me.
“Oh my god.” I hurried over to him, my hands shaking, uncertain as where to put them. “What did they do to you?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “A bit banged up, but nothing Grace can’t take care of. She’ll have to stitch me up.”
“What happened?”
“Jal’zar tail claw,” K’terra said. “Pissed off the wrong kind of people, huh?”
Melek chuckled. “You bet.”
“I’ll get everything ready,” Grace said as she breezed past us and disappeared into the hallway before she clip-clopped up the staircase.
“Stop standing around like this,” Adora hissed. “Get him upstairs and in bed before he collapses onto the table.”
K’terra hurried over to us. With her on one side and me on the other, we supported Melek and brought him upstairs into our apartment. There, we sat him onto his bed, the blood quickly imprinting on the blanket underneath.
I knelt in front of him. “Grace?”
“Prepped and ready.” She walked up beside us and placed items onto the nightstand, needle and thread the only thing I recognized. “Take his shirt off, and maybe his boots as well since they need to come off anyway.”
K’terra took care of his boots while I carefully rolled up his shirt, my stomach turning upside down when I spotted the two wounds. Each one of them drilled deep into his chest, pieces of flesh clinging helplessly to the edges of torn skin. White, small particles stuck to pink meat, and I swallowed a bubble of bile.
“Sorry for ruining the shirt you gave me.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Shaky hands pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it onto the already ruined blanket beside him. “Who gives a shit about that? I was so scared you wouldn’t even make it back.”
“Can’t get rid of me so easily.” His eyes gleamed with something that hadn’t been there when he’d left, matching that brightness I’d held in my chest this morning. “I’ll always come back to you.”
“Can you hold back with the devotional love speeches for now?” Grace asked with a shake and a grin. “There are bone splinters, Melek, and I have never helped you remove them before.”
“Nothing to it,” he said. “Grab the tool and pull them out one by one. You made a great assistant, now you’ll have to prove your worth as a future healer.”
Grace took a deep breath and grabbed one of the many tools, pulling one piece of bone after the other from Melek’s wound. Watching her work precisely and without hesitation filled me with pride. That was my daughter right there, a future doctor.
“Should I put some of that salve on for bruising?”
“Nah, we don’t have much left of it, and I’ll need it for other patients. I don’t mind being bruised up for a few suns.”
“Pain killers?”
“Won’t say no to it this time and pump some wound-close accelerator in there.”
K’terra eventually excused herself to start her shift. Bloody healer or not, Brot Adnak had to run its show to keep a roof over our heads. I understood that now.
Grace grabbed the needle, and I turned around. With my arms clasped around me to keep myself from shaking, I paced the room until she finished, announcing it with a high five slapping through the air.
“Told you, you can do it,” Melek said.
“I have a great teacher.” She grabbed the medical supplies from the nightstand and stacked them on her arm, then she leaned into me. “He needs rest, okay, mom? Rest.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “As if I don’t get that. Why would you even suggest that?”
“You know why,” she said and walked off with a dismissive wave as if she’d aged a year in the last fifteen minutes.
I closed the door and returned to Melek, immediately wrestling the stained blanket off the bed. He shifted from left to right, assisting me as best as he could before he lowered himself down. His face fell into wrinkles, and his lips pressed into a white line against pale skin.
“Please tell me what happened.”
His gaze went adrift on the ceiling for a moment, then he nodded, smiled, and let his eyes catch with mine. “Come here. I want to hold you.”
I sat down beside him, not even managing another breath before he pulled me onto his chest. “I have bad news and good news. Which one first?”
“Are you telling me this isn’t even the bad news? Jesus fucking Christ…”
“I’m officially broke,” he said. “Everything I saved up after I got my license back, is gone. Poof. Probably never to return.”
“I don’t care about that. Grace and I never had much left over, and we always made it work somehow.” I rolled myself onto my stomach, elbows lifting me up so I could observe that permanent smile of his. “Well, the good news must be incredibly good. Either that or the painkillers are kicking in.”
He laughed and pulled me into a kiss, all traces of hesitation gone from his sure lips. They tugged on mine, sucked them into his mouth before he massaged my tongue with his. It had something ferocious, something claiming, making me go slick between my legs.
“You’re mine,” he whispered between kisses.
I leaned my forehead against his and took a deep breath. “Is this the moment where you’re telling me that you are my match as well?”
His head pulled away as if he needed more distance to make sense of my words. “Who told you?”
“After you left today, I grabbed that media sphere you had Grace buy at the market.”
He eyed me for a long time, observing my every move, my every breath. “You don’t look nearly as shaken as I thought you’d be once you found out.”
“I mean, I was confused at first, but…” I cupped his cheek, taking in those stunning eyes of his. “In the end, it made sense and only confirmed something I’ve been wondering about for a while now. Because everything I searched for in Kidan, I found in you. Though I don’t understand how he plays into all this.”
His smile tugged higher. “He never did, Katie. Our link was never broken. Never split, or compromised, or whatever I told myself.”
Pain came over his features, and not only from his wounds. “Kidan paid to be linked to you, Katie. That hacker I went to today? He charges Vetusians without a match to be linked to an available Earth female.”
Gravity stopped existing.
Everything floated around me, and my heart physically rose inside my chest right along with it. Then it plummeted, making a hairline crack gain a few painful inches.
“That’s why he said I cost him too d
amn much.”
My thoughts drifted so far away, I sounded like a stranger to myself. Until Melek cupped my cheek and brought me back into the here and now, back to where I belonged. Officially belonged.
“You and I are victims of organized crime,” he said. “This goes beyond the two of us because I’m sure there are more Earth females matched to someone other than their fated one.”
“But why did I match you as well?”
“Because I wasn’t supposed to be on Earth, Katie. I’m a sgu’dal, and I only managed to get the assignment because others helped me. Kidan didn’t expect me to pop up as your match as well. Do you understand what this means?”
I stared at him the answer so clear now. “That I’m yours.”
“Fuck yeah, you’re mine.” He swung his arms around me, pressed me against his chest, and rolled on top of me underneath a strangled groan. “I was harvested to love you, Katie. To give you my life, my eternal loyalty, my devotion. I would kill for you. I would die for you.”
A laugh freed itself from my chest along with that hatred it held for so long. “If you don’t rest, then that dying part might happen sooner than you think.”
“I never intended to be dishonest. But you’ve been through so much, and I, um… I was terrified I might lose you again.” He stroked a hand over my breast, his cock already hard against me. “Mate with me. Bond yourself to me.”
“But your injury —”
Another kiss swallowed the rest of my sentence. He leaned slightly to the side, letting his patient hands shove up my dress in one, smooth, gentle caress. It tangled in my hair when he pulled it over my head, which he smoothed down with tender strokes.
“Soft and gentle, that’s what I promised,” he said. “And that’s about all I can do right now.”
My body screamed to be touched, to be wanted. Had ever since I kissed him and refused to shut up. His words turned that thrill into aching need. I took his hand and guided him to my breast, and together we kneaded the warm flesh underneath.
He moaned into my mouth in a mingling of pain and lust. “I love you.”
Tears blurred my vision. “And I love you, too.”
With my feet digging into his pants, I slowly worked it down, faster once my toes reached the waistband. Melek released my breast and shoved his briefs down. A hard cock hung heavy from his crotch, the veins lining his shaft making me want to trace them with my tongue.
He tugged my panties halfway down my thighs until the twist of his waist made his elbow give in. “You need to help me. I’m a bit compromised here.”
“We can wait.”
“Oh, no no no,” he groaned, taking himself in hand and giving three hard pumps. “No more waiting. I want you now, and I don’t care about the pain.”
I bent my waist and helped him strip down the rest of my panties. I was naked now, fully exposed, but vulnerable, I was not. Underneath Melek, a sense of safety spread across my body.
He shifted around and nestled himself against my pussy. Pressure built against my entrance, parting my lips wider. I sucked in a sharp breath, tensed up, but Melek tugged on my chin and brought my eyes to his. His lips breathed a near soundless shh, and he gently rocked in and out of me with little more than his crown.
“Look into my eyes, anam ghail.” He held my gaze as the rim of his cock slid along my walls, slowly, giving me ample time stretch for him, open up for him. “Am I hurting you?” When I shook my head, mute with fearful excitement, he pushed deeper. “How is that? Good?”
“Mmm, yes,” I breathed, giving myself to the moment and the way my body bloomed underneath his caress.
I ran my fingers through his hair, his cock filling me with pressure and warmth. Then he penetrated me deeper and deeper, holding my gaze throughout until he was fully seated inside me.
That was when he closed his eyes and remained motionless for long moments. When his eyes opened again, we stared at each other. This moment was as makeshift as the rest of our lives, with wounds, questions, and uncertainties. Nothing like I had imagined it to be, and yet I wouldn’t have wanted it any different.
Everything inside me burned with lust, and I was torn between rocking against him and preserving this moment of connection.
In the end, he did it for me and pulled back with a stuttered breath. When he rocked back inside, he released one, long, drawn-out moan that etched pleasure and pain to his face.
“You feel wonderful,” he murmured. “Like made for me.”
I wrapped my arms around him and brought him closer, being extra careful around the puncture wounds on his sides. He rocked in and out of me like he said he would, the movements soft and gentle, and yet they shook me to the core. They sent a tremble deep into my womb, making my clit throb whenever his shaft rubbed over it.
One bad memory after another, Melek made it all go away until nothing remained but this moment. Nothing but us. And I replaced each one by running my hands all over his body. The softness of his skin, the hairless chest, and his abs shifting against my fingertips with each thrust. But most of all, the way he stared at me from the most beautiful eyes among all Vetusians, telling me of the things he went through to find me.
I picked up my legs and placed my soles beside him, careful not to touch his wounds. My pelvis lifted, meeting him stroke for stroke, grinding myself over his pubic bone.
My moan peeled the last of his restraint away, and his pace quickened. His eyes filled with lust, and his hips pushed through the pain of his injuries.
“I love you,” I whispered as I kissed his muscular chest. His arms gave a little at the words, giving me a sense of his weight before he lifted it off me again.
“By the Three Suns, Katie,” he groaned. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
Eager fingers stroked over my breast and played with my nipple my eyes fluttering shut once more. He was ravenous and licked over my nipple before he sucked half of my breast into his mouth.
He pumped in and out of me, making me breathe his name while waves of heat swept over me. By the time I opened my eyes again, he carried a self-satisfied smile on his face, drinking in how I let him claim me as his mate.
His lips parted, and he squeezed his eyes shut, two wrinkles forming between his brows. He was close to coming, so I rolled my hips and ground myself against his cock. Seconds later, my moans turned into shouts. My pussy clenched, and everything convulsed, sending tiny spasms along his shaft, making the universe expand right behind my eyes.
“Take my seed,” he whispered, involuntary jerks tossing from his hips as his climax rippled between us. “You’re mine. Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
He pushed deep and stayed there, his cock throbbing against my walls each time he spurt more cum inside me.
It was quick.
The most beautiful necessity.
We stared into each other’s eyes. Blue ocean met pale veins snaking through green orbs. Everything the Empire had promised they’d delivered, and this time with the right male.
Eighteen
Melek
* * *
I held Katie in my arms, the puncture wounds between my ribs nothing but a faint throbbing against a chest too filled with content to care. What Kidan had tried to rip from her, she’d given me willingly. The honor of that swelled my chest with a pride this no-good hadn’t sensed in a long time — if ever.
My fingers stroked up and down between her breasts, soft skin draped over a warm heart that beat for me. As much as I had cursed fate a lunar cycle ago, it had sure come around for me this time.
“Are you cold?”
“You’re like a furnace, Melek,” she said with a soft laugh. “Do you think Grace heard me?”
“I sure hope so; otherwise I didn’t do it right. Give me a few days to recover, and we’ll give the entire floor something to gossip about.”
She lifted a brow at me, but a smirk followed soon after. “I can’t believe I’m bonded to this young, sexy Vetusian.”
“Y
ou forgot tall,” I said with a wink. “And I can’t believe I’m bonded to this beautiful female who accepts me with all the failings of my past. If my seed takes root in your womb, you’ll have to teach me everything about how to care for the child.”
“Like changing diapers?”
“You can throw the worst baby duties at me, I wouldn’t care, and would relish every moment.”
“It would be nice to have another baby with someone by my side,” she said, her eyes far away once more. “A dad who would tackle bedtime stories, diapers, and rocking to sleep. Guess that’s something neither of us ever experienced. I’d love to make that memory with you.”
My core warmed at her words. “Whatever the Three Suns bless us with, I’ll take, but for now, I have you, and that’s all I need in my life. I want us to grow old together.” I shoved my lips over the area behind her temple. “Want to kiss every white hair you sprout.”
She shoved her fingers through her hair. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I chuckled. “You’ve got a single white hair back there. You didn’t know? But that’s alright, look, I’ve got one right here in the front.”
“Shut up! That’s like platinum blond, Melek. You’re lying.” She gave a playful punch against my chin. “Do you have any idea what guys your age would call me on Earth?”
“Tell me.”
“MILF.”
“What’s that?”
“Mom I’d like to fuck,” she said. “It’s an abbreviation.”
A chuckle vibrated through my chest, the wounds on my ribs flaring up again. “Sounds accurate to me. You’re a mom, and, yes, I’d like to fuck you.”
All insecurities gone she wiggled her brows. “Ready again so soon?”
“I’d love to, but I worry I might start the bleeding again,” I said, and lowered my forehead against hers. “So, what’s the abbreviation for mom I’d like to fuck every day for the rest of my life?”