Forbidden 3: Sleeping With the Enemy
Marteeka Karland
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Copyright ©2006 Marteeka Karland
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ISBN (10) 1-59596-372-3
ISBN (13) 978-1-59596-372-7
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Editor: Katriena Knights
Cover Artist: Fabiano Fabris
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Chapter One
Closing her eyes, Akahana tried to block out images she never thought she’d ever see. Her mate, a huge Gothe’maran male in full body armor, stalked and captured a human child of not more than three. When she peeked carefully from her closed eyelids, she found the child looking directly at her, screaming in terror as Gamin’s meaty hand closed around the girl’s throat.
She couldn’t have stopped the shrill “NO!” that escaped her throat even if she’d wanted. In that instant, she knew she’d sealed her fate. Gamin tossed the child aside and stalked toward her.
She’d always heard that when one faced impending death, the souls of the Gothe’maran people who had gone before embraced the soul about to enter their ranks. Instead, Akahana saw only the souls of Earth killed by her people -- the Gothe’maran. The souls of Earth had been good people. Caring people. People who only wanted to exist in freedom, in their own cultures.
The last image to float in her mind was the face of the little girl.
Then Gamin was on her.
He backhanded her across the cheek with his closed fist and immediately followed it with a smashing blow to her jaw in one smooth motion. Blood poured from her mouth, but she didn’t have time to spit it out before he hit her again. Ribs crunched, both her forearms snapped when she tried to block his crippling blows. He kicked her in the stomach, causing her to retch and gasp for breath that was becoming harder and harder to drag into her lungs.
When she fell onto her back, her eyes beginning to swell shut, Gamin grasped the neck of her tunic and ripped it with one sharp jerk. With a series of like movements, it wasn’t long before he had her completely stripped of clothing.
She was unable to resist when he forced her legs apart and wedged his body between them. He was always aroused by violence and had taken her many times in this same manner. It was one of the privileges of being high in Military Command. He made enough money to purchase his own unregulated healing tube. No one monitored how often it was used or the type of injuries it was used to heal, and with no evidence, no one would believe that the mate of any Goth’maran male was abused so, especially that of a decorated soldier.
Gamin freed his cock from the armor and his clothing in a series of quick, sure gestures. Scooping blood and spittle from Akahana’s mouth and chin, he moistened his erect member and forced his way inside her. Akahana knew better than to protest or cry out, so she merely turned her head to the side.
Catching the image of her lifeless body in Gamin’s mind, lying as she was now, Akahana knew he meant to kill her this time. She didn’t mind, really. Although she loved Gothe’mar, Earth was a beautiful place filled with beautiful people, and the thought of spending her soul’s eternity here wasn’t unappealing. Besides, her life was a living death. She’d gladly leave this life and hope her soul’s mate never found her again.
* * *
Sergeant Taber Mahoney of the United World Army of Earth surveyed the bodies on the field of what he hoped would be the last battle of the World Gothe’maran War. Despite all efforts, the blood had flowed for nearly ten years. Bodies, both human and Gothe’maran, lay scattered like fall leaves over the landscape. Most everyone was dead, but those who weren’t were transported to the Earthside Medical Command. He had personally checked each body carefully for any signs of life and used a hand held scanner to record each individual and to locate unrecorded body masses.
Only three left. Two adults and one child.
An image flashed through his mind -- a determined, fair-haired woman standing in his office haunted by the memory of a dead husband and child. He hoped Ms. Garrett had found peace.
With cautious steps, Taber made his way to the only other people alive in this wasteland, careful to keep to the shadows. In the fading twilight, it wasn’t hard. The human child was huddled under a small bush, crying but not making a sound. The adult woman was Gothe’maran and very near death. At first Taber thought the Gothe’maran man over her was grieving or perhaps trying to help her, but he soon discovered the truth.
Aiming his scanner at the pair, he was horrified by what he saw. It was rape. Rape to the point of death for the woman, she was beaten so badly. Her whole body was covered with bruises and she had many broken bones. The scanner detected massive internal bleeding, including a slow but deadly bleed inside her head that guaranteed she would not live long if left untreated. The Gothe’maran was an officer by his uniform -- an officer for the rogue faction unless Taber missed his guess. The man’s hips moved in rapid thrusts as he fucked the helpless woman. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. From her brain patterns, she was fully conscious and knew exactly what was happening.
Fury shot through him, red and out of control. His prided control and ability to use stealth as a most effective weapon vanished, and he ran, screaming a battle cry, straight at the other man. His gun hung holstered at his side. He had no intention of using it. This kill, he wanted with his bare hands.
The Gothe’maran officer’s head snapped up and he pulled himself upright, away from the woman beneath him. He wasn’t able to un-holster his own gun before Taber was on him.
Taber dove into the air and caught the large man in the midsection, propelling him backwards and onto his back, effectively knocking the wind out of him. Before the woman’s assailant could get to his feet -- or even to a sitting position -- Taber straddled him and hit him repeatedly across his face. Blood flew in all directions, splattering across Taber’s face and covering his fist and arm and uniform.
Over and over Taber hit the other man. He kept hitting him until his hand would no longer close into a fist. Then he used the other hand. The man’s face was a mass of bloody meat and smashed bone. Still it wasn’t enough. When both Taber’s hands were basically useless as fists, he took the man by the neck and banged his head against the ground.
He couldn’t stop! It was as if he were looking at himself through a mirror. The rational part of his mind was horrified. What he was doing went against everything he’d ever believed in.
And he didn’t give a fuck.
Then he felt a light touch on his shoulder.
“You can stop now.” The voice was soft, feminine, and a bit muffled. “I think he’s dead.”
It was all it took to bring him back to himself. He dropped the man he’d just beaten to death in a pool of dark, congealing blood and sat back to one side of the body. He took a deep breath before looking over his shoulder. It was the woman the Gothie had been raping and beating.
Her face was sw
elling, and she looked worse than when he’d first seen her. Hair so fair it was almost white was caked in blood. Her eyes were so swollen, he wasn’t sure if she could still see. How she was conscious at all was a mystery.
They stared at each other for a few moments before her strength left her and she slumped to the ground. Taber lunged for her and caught her head and shoulders as she fell over. He was afraid to touch her. Afraid he’d add to her pain, but it didn’t matter. She’d finally passed out, his shirt firmly twisted in her hands.
Chapter Two
Akahana was wrapped in warmth. Light and warmth. She floated somewhere between life and death, both beckoning to her equally. She was about to make her choice when another presence filled her mind.
The masculine presence was filled with anger and worry. His thoughts kept returning to the scene on Earth, Gamin in his grasp. Dying. His only thought had been to kill the man torturing the woman. His woman. Something deep inside him had claimed her as his own.
At first, Akahana shrank deep within herself, refusing to go to the huge man who had been her savior. She wanted no man ever again. But his anguished thoughts were filled with nothing but how his actions would affect her. Would she recover from her injuries? Was she comfortable in the tube? Was she as aware of him as he was of her?
Would she hate him?
Every time his thoughts drifted in that direction, pain sliced through his heart, and a fresh wave of confusion swamped him. He didn’t know what was happening.
Akahana did.
This man, Taber, was her soul’s mate.
She didn’t want to think about it. But despite her mind screaming for her to run from him, her heart recognized the goodness in him and reached out. She wanted a mate -- she just wanted one who wouldn’t cause her pain.
With a tentative brush to Taber’s mind, Akahana made contact as a mate. Her mind gently probed his, hoping he would realize what she was doing. He was startled at first, confused. He didn’t know what to do. So Akahana introduced herself.
“I am Akahana Di’Var. You saved my life.”
“How can you talk to me?”
Had she been awake and in her own body, she would have sighed. “It is complicated. I only wanted you to be at peace with what you did.”
“You can forgive me for killing a man with my bare hands?”
“He would have killed me. I saw it in his mind.”
“So you can read minds, then.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. Not as you perceive it, anyway. Every Gothe’maran can touch the mind of his or her soul’s mate. It seems we have found each other against all odds.”
“You were right.” His voice sounded weary. “I guess it is complicated.”
Akahana would have laughed if she’d felt like it, but she just couldn’t summon the energy. “I’m tired.”
“Rest then. I’ll be here, watching over you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” There was a mental caress to her cheek as he tentatively reached for the unfamiliar and touched her mind. “Rest well, Dearheart. I’ll be here when you wake.”
The light surrounding her faded, replaced by a night sky filled with a myriad of stars, but no moon. She had a few moments to appreciate the beauty of it before her mind slowly sank back into unconsciousness. Back into a healing sleep.
* * *
Taber had never been so exhausted. His head pounded. He had been trying for hours to get back into Akahana’s mind without success. He had an almost physical need to touch her mind again, to know she was alive and well. True, he could check the readout on the healing tube, but it wasn’t the same. He could see her through the portal -- clear during the “day” cycle -- but only her outline was visible during the “night.”
He hated not being able to see her at will.
He hated not being able to hold her, to comfort her.
He wanted this woman, but he wanted to protect her, make her happy. Shield her from all the bad things in the universe. He wanted more as well and cursed his body for betraying the lovely woman in that damned tube. She needed caring and love, not some horny soldier lusting after her lovely body.
She was the one he’d been waiting for his entire life. He never thought he’d find her. Now that he had found her, he would not let her go. No matter the personal cost. He would do whatever it took to win her heart.
It wasn’t something he was used to feeling, and it was a very uncomfortable emotion.
Taber leaned back in the chair provided by the staff at Earthside Medical Command and took a deep, calming breath. The flowers he’d set on the table beside the healing tube earlier provided a cheerful color and pleasing smell in an otherwise stale, sterile environment. Closing his eyes, he went to sleep, imagining Akahana slept beside him, cuddled against him in his protective embrace.
* * *
Akahana’s warm womanly body stretched languidly against his. She smiled up at him and caressed his jaw line.
His cock twitched at the simple touch, and the baser man inside him roared at him to roll her over and simply sink into her. Oh, God, how he wanted to do just that! Instead, he smiled back at her and lay there, pulling her closer against him, hugging her affectionately. He savored the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair.
For this woman, he could wait as long as it took.
“Why do you hold back?”
“Because you don’t need a lover to devour you.”
“You want to take me hard, fast, and violently. Yet you don’t.”
“Yes. The things I want to do with your body are probably illegal in most parts of the galaxy, but the only thing that stops me from fucking you every way I want is that I don’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you in any way.”
“Taber, this is your dream. You can give me as much pleasure or pain as you want, and it won’t be physical.”
“Dream.” He mused over what she’d said. Damn! This was strange!
“Look at my body, Taber. Even after the healing process is over, I will be marred. I am as you wish me to be now -- whole and beautiful.”
“You are now as I see you. I have very little imagination.”
She smiled. “You will understand. Later.”
Taber brushed back her thick dark hair, tucking it behind her ear. “I will not add to your pain.”
Akahana didn’t say anything as she trailed her fingers down his torso to tangle in the hair at his groin. Taber inhaled sharply as her fingers made contact with his cock. He thought he’d lose his mind.
Her touch was tentative, yet firm. She obviously knew how to handle a man to create maximum pleasure. Moving over his body, she kissed and licked his chest -- his nipples and the valley separating his pectoral muscles. She nipped and sucked the taut flesh, blurring the line between pleasure and pain, all the while steadily gripping and pumping his cock.
“Akahana, you don’t have to --”
“I want to. I can do things in the dream world I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do in the real world.”
Down and farther still she went, following the line of his abdomen, over each ridge, kissing each muscle, making his cock jump in anticipation. When she kissed the flesh just above the tip of his now very fully erect cock, he couldn’t repress the groan of anticipation and excitement.
With a swift move that took his breath, Akahana licked the length of his shaft from tip to balls. It took every ounce of self-control Taber possessed for him not to come all over himself. When she took one testicle in her mouth and rolled her tongue around the flesh surrounding it, occasionally giving the organ a squeeze with her mouth, Taber knew there was no way he could keep from coming.
Grabbing her head with both hands, he urged her to take his shaft in her mouth. She did. Eagerly. The head of his dick hit the back of her throat three times before every muscle in his body clenched, and he shouted her name. Spasm after spasm took his body, pumping his seed into her mouth, and he felt her swallow several times before his o
rgasm passed…
And he woke, still in the chair, with very damp underwear.
Chapter Three
Akahana awoke in a soft bed with covers tucked around her torso, the shared dream still fresh in her mind. Her arms were free, so she felt cocooned instead of trapped, and the familiar tingle her body always had after being healed was prominent in her muscles and bones. Judging from the sensitivity to pressure on her heels, she had been lying on her back in a healing tube for a very long time. When she turned her head to the side and opened her eyes, her first sight was a modest vase of colorful flowers on the table at her bedside.
“You’re awake.”
Akahana sat straight up in bed, startled by the sound of a very deep, familiar, masculine voice. Taber sat in a chair next to her bed. He was dark skinned with irises so dark they contrasted sharply with the whites of his eyes. His dark head gleamed in the moonlight pouring in from the window, and she caught a hint of the tattoo covering it.
He raised his hands in a non-threatening manner. “I didn’t mean to startle you, Dearheart.” His voice was so calm and reassuring she almost forgot what had happened to her. All she wanted to think about was the dream. “How long?” Her voice was gravelly, rough. She must have been in the tube for a very long while this time.
He shook his head. “How long… what?”
“In the tube,” she managed to say. “How long in the tube?”
“Nearly three weeks. The doctors say it was far longer than it should have taken.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t entirely sure she prevented the sadness and pain from entering that one single word. Perhaps having scientists know of this particular fact would work in her favor when her part in her husband’s murder was investigated.
She tried to clear her throat, but she was parched. Her throat felt like it was stuck closed. Without being asked, her visitor stood and went to her bedside table. He took a small pitcher, poured liquid into a glass and handed it to her.
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