by Ashley West
At least they had a solid idea of part of what they were dealing with.
They still had to figure out how the Vekosh were doing this, but they knew that it wasn’t a contagion. That was only going to be so much help, though. Khaos remembered Calin’s words from when he’d first learned of the real reason why he had been made champion. More of them were dying every day, and there had to be some reason for it. Something that was speeding up the way the venom worked through their systems or something that was introducing more of it into more people.
None of the Kaspersi were really very present for the rest of the briefing. If they were anything like Khaos, then they were lost in their thoughts about the Vekosh and people they’d lost to them.
He had to work hard not to get angry when he remembered that his parents had been stolen from him by that scum, and his knuckles cracked with the force of him clenching his fists together.
Finally, they were released from the room, the scientists promising that they would keep them updated on any new developments and keep working to find out how the venom had been passed into their bodies in the first place.
“Don’t go running off,” the leader of their little group said to Khaos as they filed out of the lab. “We need to report to Calin.”
“And it takes all of us to do that?” Khaos snapped back, but he stayed with the others. He was the champion, after all, and he supposed it was only right for him to be there when they delivered the news of what was happening.
But as soon as that was over, he was going to find Kayla. As frazzled and unhappy as he was right then, he wanted nothing more than to hold her and smell the light floral scent of her hair and clothes and try to get his mind off of the fact that things were simultaneously better and so much worse than any of them had anticipated.
The report to Calin was tense, and their leader assumed the news was good up until they broke it to him that the Vekosh were behind it all. Khaos didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone swear that much, but he supposed it made sense, considering.
When it was finally over, he walked to Kayla’s house, arriving just in time to see her pulling into her driveway.
“Hey,” she said, frowning as she got out of the car and closed the door with a bang. “Where’ve you been? I mean. Not that you have to tell me where you are all the time or anything, but I thought you were going to meet me at the clinic.”
“I was,” Khaos replied. “I’m sorry. Can we go in? It’s been a really rough day.”
Her expression softened instantly, and she ushered him inside, pushing him down to sit on the couch while she shooed Charlie away from him and put the dog outside.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, tilting her head as she looked down at him.
Khaos reached for her, and he didn’t have to wait long before she was in his arms on his lap, making herself comfortable and humming with pleasure into the soft kiss he pressed to her mouth. He wanted more than that, really. The softness of it didn’t suit his mood at all, but he knew better than to take out his frustration on her, even when it came to something like kissing. She wouldn’t like it, and the last thing he wanted to do was mess this up because he was upset.
“Tell me,” she breathed against his mouth, eyes concerned.
“They figured out what’s killing my people,” Khaos told her, glancing into her eyes and then away. “They called us in to tell us about it today.”
“Ordinarily I’d say that’s a good thing,” Kayla murmured. “Only your expression pretty much proves that it’s not. Is it something horrible?”
Khaos almost wished that it was some terrible illness. Something that couldn’t be cured and was a force of nature or something. It would be better than what it actually was and what that meant for his people. He didn’t even know how to begin to explain it to Kayla, though if what he’d been taught about humans was true, then they knew all about people trying to wipe out certain groups that were different.
He took a breath and tipped his head back, letting out the exhale in a messy sigh. “It’s not an actual sickness,” he said. Kayla had seen the cells and their state of decay, so he was just going to assume that she could keep up with him as he explained what he had learned from the scientists that day. “They’ve been killing us for decades, and we thought that it was over. We thought that we’d won, and there was nothing else that we needed to worry about, when it turns out that they’ve been continuing to kill us even after we beat them back.”
And just saying it felt like admitting defeat. It felt like admitting that they’d lost, when the last several years had almost been a celebration of the Vekosh no longer being a problem.
Kayla’s eyes were wide when he looked at her again, and he knew that she could understand why he was so upset about this.
“So all those people who died… It wasn’t even a sickness?”
Khaos shook his head. “Nope. It was the Vekosh. This is probably going to mean war, you know. The leader, he already hates them, and with good reason considering how many good people died in the attacks. And at least that was honorable, you know? At least that was fighting. The Kaspersi who died at their dignity and they stood and fought back. This...this is just dirty. It’s cheap, and it’s wrong.”
“Tell me about the Vekosh,” Kayla said, eyes intent.
Khaos had to work to keep the growl of disgust out of his tone. “They’re foul creatures. Many of the races on Blessini are kind of reptilian depending on how much or little of the more humanoid genes they have, but you’re never going to find a humanoid looking Vekosh. They’re all scales and claws and fangs, and venom, of course, which is how we got in this mess in the first place.”
Kayla hummed thoughtfully. “Venom would explain a lot. Although I don’t know how they’ve been getting it into your people.”
“Neither do we,” Khaos replied. “Calin, our leader, is going to be looking into it. Either way, it’s not good. The Vekosh were beaten back and they went to hide in their shadows and that was supposed to be the end of it, but now there’s this, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. What if it’s too late to stop whatever it is they’re trying to do?”
The passion for what he was saying was obvious in his voice, and he wanted to hit something in that moment. What it really boiled down to was the fact that this was pure treachery. Khaos could understand honorable fighting. He could handle battles and the pain and death that were a result of them, but this was underhanded and downright evil as far as he was concerned, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have any way to work off his frustration.
Kayla seemed to sense that, but instead of being afraid of it, like Khaos would have expected her to, she seemed to be wanting to do something to help. She pressed kisses along the line of his throat, her hips moving where she was sitting in his lap.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked. “I know I can’t make it better, but I can distract you from it for a little while if you want. Give you something else to focus that attention on.”
Her voice was husky, and while ordinarily Khaos would never mix the kind of anger he was feeling with sex or being intimate in any way with his partner, he couldn’t deny that the prospect was tempting.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured, even as he tipped his head to the side to give her more access to his neck. “I can be kinda...rough when I get in moods like this.”
She smirked against his skin and bit down on his neck, making him inhale sharply. “You say that like it’s a problem.”
His eyebrows shot up because he hadn’t assumed she was the type to enjoy stuff like that. They’d slept together a few more times since the first time, and it was never boring, but it was definitely under the category of ‘gentle’ most of the time. Had he known that getting rough with her was an option, he might have tried for it sooner.
“Are you sure?”
She bit him again and then raised her head to show him sincere eyes. “I’m sure. Unless you’re n
ot up to the challenge.”
Predictable as it was, that was enough to spur him into movement. He got to his feet, nearly dumping Kayla to the floor before he caught her up and hauled her over his shoulder. She barely weighed enough for him to consider it a workout, and he placed one hand on her butt to keep her steady.
“You’re going to regret saying that,” he promised, amusement in his tone.
“Oh, I’m so scared,” she laughed, and then yelped when Khaos smacked her bottom before hauling her off to her bedroom.
He dumped her on the bed in a heap and then was on her before she could open her mouth again, crawling up and covering her body with his own, trying hard to pour his frustration and agitation into the hard, hot kisses he was pressing to her mouth.
For her part, Kayla took everything she was given. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him kiss her, arching against his body and rubbing against his front as she released sweet little moans into his mouth.
It was kind of impossible that Khaos had never felt heat like this before. He’d been with plenty of women from all different clans and walks of life, and never before had he felt so undone in the act. Never before had he wanted to bury himself inside of a woman and never move. To take her again and again until all she could do was moan and gasp and scream his name. Not on this level.
He bit down on Kayla’s lower lip, relishing the breathy noise she made for him. She’d said she was fine with him being rough, and he intended to see just how much she could take.
“Stop me if it’s too much,” he whispered between soothing the sting of his bite with his tongue.
“It won’t be,” she murmured back, smirking in a way that set him on fire.
He laughed and slid his hands down her sides so he could dig his fingers into her hips. “We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”
Without any fanfare, he pushed her shirt and bra up, lips moving over her breasts with rough precision. He kissed and licked his way over each breast, paying attention to her nipples as they hardened and peaked under his lips. He bit at the flesh of her breasts, delighting in the sounds she made for him before he moved off of her and then flipped her so she was on her stomach.
Khaos wanted to rip her clothes off, but figured that would be a little much, even for the moment, so he carefully and quickly stripped her, taking in the sight of her soft, lovely skin as he revealed it.
“So beautiful,” he breathed, fingers stroking over her back and then gliding down the swell of her butt. “Mine.”
“Yours,” Kayla gasped back, and neither of them seemed to understand the significance of what they were saying, so caught up as they were in each other.
Khaos stripped her naked and moved back enough that he could get his pants open. There was something profoundly hot about being mostly clothed while she was naked and spread out before him, and then she went and made it better by pushing herself up onto her elbows and knees, practically presenting herself for him.
It was enough to have him swearing in three different dialects, and his hands wasted no time in going back to her hips, pulling her flush against him so he could rub his erection against the soft skin there.
“I want you,” he groaned, teasing her with his fingers and the slick slide of hard flesh on soft, supple skin.
“Have me,” she replied, and really that was all he needed to hear.
His strength had always been an asset, and even though he was holding back a bit now because he really, really didn’t want to hurt her, he was showing off some too, because he wanted her to see and feel what he could do. He wanted to see if she reacted the same way other women did when he took them, but just as quickly as that thought entered his mind, he dismissed it. Thinking about other women while he was with her felt beyond wrong, and Khaos shook his head, focusing on the woman before him. The woman he wanted.
Kayla cried out when he pushed hard into her, setting a rough pace with his fingers digging into her skin. It sounded much more like pleasure than pain, so he kept going, working his hips in smooth strokes that sent him pounding against her body, the sound of skin on skin ringing out loud in the room.
Her moans and cries were like music, soaring over his own grunts and groans at how good and wet and tight she was, and if her plan was to make him forget about his negative feelings and lose himself in her, then she was definitely succeeding there.
“Oh god. Oh god,” she moaned, bucking under him and shuddering with each drag of him inside of her.
When she started to clench around him, he moved harder, faster, taking her again and again until she fell apart, crying out his name in a way that sent him right over the edge with her.
The two of them spent the rest of the night together, wrapped up in a blanket, sharing take out and body heat. Khaos was calmer, his hot irritation dulled to something more easily ignored in favor of relaxing with someone he cared about.
He didn’t know if he believed that they were mates, but he knew that this was something that made him happy, and when all of this was over, he was going to have to find some way to keep it.
Unbeknownst to Khaos and Kayla and any of the other Kaspersi, their problems were really just beginning. Kaspersi and other peaceful races were not the only ones who had representatives on Earth. No matter how well regulated the intergalactic traffic was, it was always possible for someone to slip through unnoticed.
Unfortunately, the Vekosh, for all their hatred of Earth and the humans who populated it, had representatives there, too. And when the signal to find Khaos went out, two of them made it their mission to hunt down the Kaspersi champion.
Khaos, in his need for comfort, had unwittingly made the Vekosh’s job much easier. Not only did they now know where he was, but they knew that there was someone on Earth that he cared for. Someone who it would hurt him to lose.
And now they had a plan.
Back on Blessini, Nambroc received this news from his minions and sat back on his throne with a terrifying grin. It wasn’t what he had been expecting, but in a way, it was better. Khaos was formidable, everyone knew that, but now they would have some leverage against him, and it was really a much better plan than the one he had been toying with before.
Everything was falling perfectly into place.
Chapter 9: Too Close to the Fire
Despite the fact that things were not going so well for Khaos and his people, Kayla kept catching herself grinning a lot over the next couple of days. She hummed to herself as she made coffee and dealt with patient files, and more than one patient had commented on the fact that she seemed more cheerful than usual lately.
She didn’t want to admit that her new and improved mood had something to do with being in something like a relationship because she firmly believed that you didn’t need a relationship to be happy, but she wasn't too proud to admit that there was something uplifting about not being completely alone.
Khaos understood her, and he was willing to work with her and her job and not spend all his time pouting because he couldn’t have as much attention as he wanted, and that was perfect. It made things so much easier, and having something to look forward to at the end of the day was such a welcome change.
All of the nurses noticed, and Kayla was just waiting for them to say something about it.
It wasn’t until a particularly slow day, just after Khaos had found out about the Vekosh, that any of them said anything. They’d all met Khaos before since he tended to hang around the clinic when he had the time, but they’d refrained from asking too many questions, which had made Kayla suspicious instantly even though she’d decided not to push and try to find out what they were up to because not having to answer a bunch of questions about it was nice.
When she looked up from a chart to see Nina standing in her office door, she knew her reprieve was over.
“Something I can help you with?” Kayla asked, arching an eyebrow in a way that let Nina know that she knew exactly why she was there.
“Probabl
y. I was just noticing that the big guy you’re usually with isn’t here today. Did something happen?”
Kayla barely contained her snort. “He’s having something of a family emergency,” she explained. “So he’s off dealing with that.”
“Oh. Well, I hope it’s nothing too serious. He seems like he’s been good for you. Is he your…” She trailed off, clearly hoping that Kayla would fill in the blanks for her. Any other time, she might have, but for the moment, she was having too much fun with this.
After all, how often did she get to do this? Usually she had to just sit back and listen while the rest of them went on about the men they’d gone out with, all the teasing going over her head because she’d spent the night with leftovers and her dog. It felt good to be able to do this for once, to be a part of it, even though she kept telling herself that she’d been fine before.
“My what?” she replied, smiling just a little because she couldn’t help herself. “My brother?”
“We all know he isn’t your brother!” Christina called as she walked past.
“Not with the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking,” Nina agreed with a nod and a knowing look.
“How does he look at me?” Kayla asked. That caught her off guard and made her forget all about how she had been planning on teasing them. She knew that Khaos looked, but she’d never noticed anything special about it, really.
“Depends,” Nina replied, leaning in the doorway with her arms folded. “Sometimes like you’re his own personal hero. Sometimes like he wants to eat you. A couple of times like you were some puzzle that he couldn’t figure out. Definitely nothing familial about it.”
At the mention of him wanting to eat her, she was reminded of the bite marks Khaos had left on her breasts when she’d been ‘comforting’ him, and she knew that they were probably right. “Okay, so he’s not my brother,” she admitted. “I don’t know what we are, and I’m not trying to rush into anything. It’s good the way it is.”