by Sarah Marsh
“Apparently it was a botched attack. We don’t have any idea if the assailant was paid by Lara or not,” Kai answered.
“Where is Eve? I was told she was headed back to the suite with you,” Kham said nervously.
“She was ill. She’s in the ladies’ bathroom with three guards posted outside. We couldn’t make it back to the suite in time,” Roan answered.
“Ill? Was it done on purpose do you think? Did someone try to poison her?” Kai was now worried about both of his mates.
“I don’t believe so. I ate the same items that she did, I think it was just a random ingredient that didn’t agree with her stomach,” he replied. “Otherwise I would’ve taken her directly to a physician.”
“I have a bad feeling about this. Let’s go collect her before we go to medical,” Kham said, changing directions.
“Yes, I don’t like her being without one of us there to protect her,” Kai agreed as all three of them ran toward the bathrooms with guards in tow.
After her third round of barfing Eve was finally feeling like the worst of it was over. She had a sneaking suspicion her stomach problems were directly related to one of the little seafood-stuffed mushroom-cap-looking thingies that Roan had seemed to enjoy so much. If there was anything she’d learned on Earth when it came to buffets, it was avoid the seafood. Hard lesson learned…again. She was just pulling herself back to her feet when she heard the door open and close. Before she could turn around she felt fingers draw across the back of her exposed neck and then the sharp sting of nails digging in.
“Fuck!” she yelled as she turned around to see who had scratched her.
Her face paled even more than it already was when she recognized the garish red dress and Lara standing in front of her although it took her a few seconds due to the fact that her previously brassy blonde hair was now a dark brown. She was standing there admiring the stain of Eve’s blood on her nails like it was a nail polish color she’d just decided that would go with positively everything. What a nut job.
“You bitch! What are you doing in here? Where are the guards? Guards!” she yelled out, taking a step back from the other woman.
When Eve put her hand up to feel the deep gouges on the back of her neck she could feel the wetness of the blood on her fingers.
“Don’t fret, little human. I won’t be staying long,” Lara said as she walked over to the sink to rinse Eve’s blood off of her hands. “Males are so wonderfully predictable, aren’t they? Flash a little leg and a lot of breast, perhaps a sweet coy little smile, and they easily let me get close enough to scratch them. Your guards should be mobile again in a few minutes, just long enough for me to be on my way. The toxin on my nails won’t kill them, it was specifically designed to kill your kind.”
As that information began to sink in, Eve started to notice that her fingers were beginning to feel numb as she slowly sank to her ass on the floor.
“Why are you doing this?” She looked up at the woman, wondering why she was trying so hard when it was clear that Roan would never want her. But the crazed look in Lara’s eyes said it all. This woman would never stop until she had everything that she thought she deserved.
“He was mine before, and he will be mine in the end. No one takes what’s mine.” Lara sneered at her before she spun and fled the room, leaving Eve in a crumbled heap on the floor as the poison sped through her veins.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As the men came around the corner of the hall and saw the guards slumped against the walls, eyes wide open and hands on their weapons all three of them called out for their wife.
“Gods, what have I done?” Roan whispered as he flung open the door to see her on the bathroom floor.
“Kham, go get help and call Arkenon,” Kai said as he assessed Eve and found a pulse.
“She’s still alive, but all I can find are the scratches on her neck,” Roan said urgently. “She was either knocked out, or it’s some sort of poison or drug.”
Moments later Kham barreled back into the room with medical attendants and Roan’s brother.
“What happened here, Roan?” Arkenon asked as he took in the scene before him.
Eve had been lifted onto a stretcher, and the medical attendants were taking her out the door with the men following closely behind.
“Sir, the guards are coming to. They say it was a woman in a red dress and that she scratched them with her nails and injected them with some sort of paralytic,” one of the guards updated Kham as a medic was looking at the knife wound in his arm.
“It was Lara,” Roan growled out through his teeth. “I will kill her for this.”
“Go with them to medical, Roan. I will take care of Lara,” Arkenon assured his brother, pushing him and Kai toward where the medical team had taken Eve and Kham.
Once Kai and Roan got to medical, Kham was quickly taken care of. The knife was removed and he was stitched up. But as the doctors endlessly tended to Eve, no matter what they tried she would not wake. The men were told that the doctors didn’t have enough knowledge of human anatomy to know how to help her. It looked like some sort of toxin introduced to her bloodstream through the shallow cuts on her neck, but without more information they didn’t know how to help her, and it seemed they were running out of time as her condition deteriorated by the hour.
Roan knew it was his fault that Eve was dying. He should never have left her alone. How could it be that they had just found her and would be losing her already? They needed to find Lara and make her tell them how to fix this!
“Arkenon.” Roan tried not to yell through the comm device in medical while the doctors were working. “Have you found her? They don’t know what’s wrong with Eve. We need to find Lara.”
“Not yet, brother, but we’ve tracked down the Adoan prince and his mates. They are on their way to medical now, and perhaps if the doctors have a human baseline they will be able to help her,” Arkenon answered above the noise of his busy office in the background. “We will continue to look for Lara, and it’s as if she knows where we are before we get there. She has been skilled at evading us.”
It seemed as though hours passed as they waited for the prince and his mates to arrive at medical. The doctors had made Kham sit and rest, but Roan and Kai were pacing restlessly as they all listened to the monitor of her heartbeat get slower and slower.
Finally, the doors opened and a disheveled group rushed through accompanied by Roan’s brother who had a furious expression on his face. When he took a closer look and saw that the clearly pregnant human female had deep scratches on her arms and the other two males looked to be in full battle mode he knew something had gone wrong.
“Doctors, please see to Talia’s wounds, and get to work on helping Eve,” Arkenon barked out as soon as the doors closed.
The larger of Talia’s two mates let out a vicious growl as the doctors approached her, and a wave of black iridescent scales seemed to flare in a wave over his skin.
“Grae, stop. I’m fine,” the human female said as she tried to calm him. “They’re already healing, see?”
The doctors were speaking excitedly in hushed tones as they watched her skin slowly knit back together. It was fascinating. But Eve’s mates were quickly distracted as Arkenon came over to them.
“It seems that I had a traitor inside my office that was feeding information to Lara. My secretary was alerting her to our search, and when she found out that Talia might be able to help Eve, Lara tried to stop them on their way here,” Roan’s brother explained.
“Yes, the woman and four other men tried to attack our mate in the hall. I could smell the poison on her as well as human blood when she lunged at Talia,” the larger man, Grae, said as he tried to calm himself.
“This is Prince Asher Rhodan and Grae Derhsavve.” Arkenon introduced the two large men. “Talia is their mate.”
Kham, Roan, and Kai looked over at the other female as the doctors were examining her. It was very clear she was also pregnant.
“I am Pharaoh Khaman-Ra. These are my mates, Roan Quinn and Kai Dallen,” Kham said as he shook the men’s hands. “We cannot express our thanks in you trying to help our mate. We know it must be hard to be here when your mate is pregnant and vulnerable.”
A strange snort came out of the small woman next to the doctors.
“Vulnerable, huh?” Talia said as the doctors were drawing blood. “This little bun in my oven keeps his momma in tip-top shape, I’ll have you know.”
“Did Lara tell you what she did to Eve?” Kai asked impatiently. “I will torture the female if I have to!”
The look on Arkenon’s face was scaring Roan. He almost didn’t want to ask about the other woman.
“Don’t tell me she escaped again,” Roan said angrily.
Grae and Asher cringed as they looked over toward Arkenon to break the bad news.
“I’m sorry, Roan. Lara was killed during the attack on us in the hall,” he answered quietly.
“I’m sorry we won’t be able to get the answers you need from the female, but I won’t apologise for protecting my mate,” Grae grumbled, his muscles rippling again in agitation from thinking about the attack.
Roan looked to Kai and Kham after his brain was able to digest that they wouldn’t be getting any answers from Lara now. The other two men looked just as lost as he felt right now.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eve slowly came awake to the noise of voices around her. She didn’t recognize one of the women speaking, but she thought the other two may have been her new mothers-in-law.
“There she is, back from the dead! Rise and shine, sunshine. Your men have been having kittens worrying about you,” the pretty dark-haired woman sitting next to her by the bed said with a smile.
It took Eve a second to realize what the other woman had said. That and she was distracted by the fact that she was obviously very pregnant as well.
“Oh my God, you’re human!” Eve gasped and tried to sit up, but was instantly pushed back down by her mates’ mothers on the other side of the bed.
“Yes, I’m Talia. I’m so glad to meet you, Eve,” the other woman said before she reached over and gave her a quick hug.
Before the hug was even over she heard a huge commotion, and the door banged open, and a flood of men poured into the room led by her husbands. Rika and Samal were quickly pushed to the side as Roan, Kai, and Kham all converged on her, covering her with kisses and telling her how relieved they were that she was all right.
“I’m okay, guys,” she said, kissing them back. “I actually feel really good. What happened? Did I pass out?”
All three men looked at her rather seriously, and she began to think her little run-in with Lara had been more severe than she thought.
“You were unconscious for two days, Eve,” Kham explained gently. “The doctors finally had to give you a transfusion of Talia’s blood. Your organs were failing.”
She looked from Kham, and Kai, to Roan who was holding her hand. Her men looked exhausted. They’d obviously been very worried about her.
“Really? Wow, why do I feel so good right now, then?” she asked. “I don’t even feel like I’ve been sick at all.”
Her men and their families who were standing behind them all turned to look at Talia who was on the other side of the bed with two huge men standing protectively beside her.
“Well, lucky for us, Junior here is naturally immune to any venom,” Talia explained while rubbing her large stomach. “And ever since I’ve been pregnant I’ve been as well, not to mention I’ve been healing like I have the metabolism of a shifter.”
Eve tried to make sense of what Talia was saying, but the other woman and her mates must have seen the confused look on her face.
“I am a dragon shifter,” the larger of the two men with black wavy hair said in a deep voice. “Talia carries my child and it has had unexpected changes in her genetic makeup.”
Eve turned back to look at Roan as he spoke.
“The doctors are uncertain whether the transfusion will have a permanent effect on your body or if it will cycle out naturally, but it did save your life,” he said in a tortured voice that brought tears to her eyes. “I am so sorry, Eve. It was my fault you were in danger. Can you ever forgive me?”
She pulled him closer and hugged him tight, tears flowing down her cheeks as she looked at her other two mates.
“Yes of course, I love you, Roan.” She reached out with her hands to touch Kham and Kai. “I love you as well, and there is nothing to forgive.”
All three men looked ridiculously relieved at what she’d just said that she had to laugh out loud, and Eve couldn’t help but tease at their baffled expressions.
“What, you didn’t think that I loved you?” she asked.
“We hoped,” Kai whispered low into her ear.
“Well, I assumed you loved me, of course. But who knows about these other two. It could’ve gone either way, right?” Roan answered loud enough that everyone in the room could hear him.
This of course just had Kham, Kai, and Eve all sighing and rolling their eyes at him…along with most of their friends and family.
“Okay, would someone please tell me what happened to Lara? Please tell me she did not get away?” Eve asked, looking from Roan to Arkenon as they began to look uncomfortable.
“No worries, sweetie. Grae flambaed the hell outta her. She’s dead,” Talia said as she shooed Kai down the bed and plopped herself back down on the side next to Eve.
Eve visibly let go of the breath she was holding. She never wanted to think about that crazy woman again.
“Thank God,” she said as she relaxed back on her pillow. “Wait…what do you mean ‘flambaed’?”
Talia stood up with a laugh. “Well, I know your mates are itching to get in bed with you and make sure you’re really okay, so we’ll take all these people out of here with us, and I’ll explain everything tomorrow. We’ve only got two more days here until we need to leave, and I want to spend as much time hanging out with you as I can.”
“All right, people, beat it!” Talia yelled as she ushered everyone out of the room except for Eve’s husbands.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eve couldn’t help but smile as she watched the other woman leave the room, followed closely by her two mates. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been missing the friendship of another woman since this whole mess had happened. There was a lot to be said for the comfort of a little “girl time” when one was stuck on a spaceship full of alien men.
“It’s nice to see you smile, love. We were so afraid that we’d lost you,” Kham said as he climbed onto the bed behind her and pulled her back to rest against his chest, his arms holding her tight.
“I know, me too,” she answered, snuggling in deeper and moaning as Kai pulled down the sheets and began to rub one of her feet. “My last thought before I passed out was that I’d never get to tell you three that I loved you.”
“We won’t be leaving you alone ever again, baby,” Roan said as he began working on her other foot.
When Kham started kissing his way along her neck and pushing the soft gown down off of her shoulders she could feel the heat in her body rise quickly. Eve struggled and felt the need to claw at the men in her bed. This kind of scared the crap out of her, which just had her struggling more against these instincts that weren’t her own. She tried to free herself from Kham’s arms so she could take what she wanted from her mates, but he just held her even tighter, and she felt him bite down lightly on her shoulder, which oddly enough had her pussy getting even wetter than it already was.
“Tsk, tsk, little one,” he said after he released her shoulder and lightly licked over the spot he had bitten. “We want you to be still so we can give you what you need.”
“Grae did mention that until the shifter blood had cycled through your body that your sexual appetite would become slightly more…aggressive than normal,” Kai said as his fingers moved on Eve’s thigh pulling her leg
to the side, continuing his journey up until he was running them through the wetness he found there.
“Well aren’t we a fortunate trio,” Roan groaned as he moved her other leg out until they had a clear view of the prize. Eve was dripping with honey. She was wet and panting to be fucked, but after all that had happened even Roan craved a gentle reconnection with all of his mates this first time…not that he’d admit it out loud.
“Please, Roan,” Eve moaned. “I need to come so bad, I’m burning up.”
“Shhh, don’t worry, baby,” Kai said as he brushed her hair back from her sweat-beaded forehead. “We’ll take care of you.”
Roan couldn’t wait any longer. He could see that Kham’s hands had moved to pin Eve’s arms back up behind her head while he now took her mouth in a deep kiss. Kai’s mouth was latched on to one of Eve’s nipples and had taken it deep. His fingers were keeping the other one occupied pinching and rolling. So Roan settled himself between Eve’s thighs and lowered his face to her drenched folds, taking the tip of his tongue and tracing it lightly along the outside of her swollen lips to see how fast she’d lose her patience. It wasn’t long. He had to chuckle to himself. Before her hips were wiggling, and she was bucking in Kham’s arms again, Kai gave her a firm swat to the outside of her breast, and she jumped, eyes going as wide as saucers.
“Behave, baby. Roan’s setting the pace tonight,” Kai said before he lowered his head back to lick over the spot on her breast that was now sporting a lovely pink hue.
Eve’s mouth was still hanging wide open, when Roan lowered his mouth back down to her pussy and gave her a few long licks all the way down from her anus up to her clit and back again, which ended by suckling the little nub hard into his mouth. Once he began to fuck her with two of his fingers it didn’t take her long until her pussy was squeezing tightly around him, making him wish it was his cock buried balls deep in her right now.
“Ahh, God!” Eve screamed as she came, unable to control her hips as she shoved them up into Roan’s face.