by Rie Warren
Leaning up against X’s chest, I whispered, “Say something to me in Zenithian.”
A slow lazy grin stretched his firm yummy lips. He did one of those flicky motions with his fingers, which must’ve turned off the embedded ear translator because there was a small pop and fizz in my ear.
I waited eagerly to see what he’d say, but then his lips parted and he emitted a series of creepy clicking noises and scary hissing sounds like something straight out of a horror movie.
When I blanched, he started laughing.
“You’re messing with me.” I swatted at him. “Say something.”
“Lyrakagling.”
The mellifluous sound turned distinctly guttural at the end.
I nestled closer to him. “What does that mean?”
“Something.” He smirked.
Slapping his arm, I demanded, “Stop screwing with me.”
“I like screwing with you.” He spoke in English before flipping me to my back and hovering above me, so big, so full of harnessed power.
“Prairie, taw Ze stas verst Idris Neoas, liw redna nat enoch reet Zev vite. Nedra teh evel zem, leere net sed zem, meehri.”
His voice crooned, slipping over me, his lips ghosting against mine as he murmured. I only recognized my name and meehri, but when he captured my gaze, the utter depth of feeling in his eyes was nearly enough to translate the sentiment of his foreign words.
“What does that mean?” I whispered, brushing my fingers over his cheek.
“Prairie,” he rubbed a thumb across my bottom lip, “what I feel for you is more vast than the Idris Sea, will endure longer than the three centuries I’ve already lived.” He pressed my palm to his mouth, lids dropping over blazing gold topaz eyes. “Even if you leave me, there’ll be no one else for me, meehri. My beloved.”
My heart buoyed in my chest. I pulled him down over me, locking my hands behind his neck. A strange sense of wonder filled me, not because aliens really existed or because I was a foreigner on a planet I’d never heard of a week ago.
None of those things mattered.
My heart lifted because a man so fine loved me.
“So, is there a term of endearment a woman says to a male?”
“Meehra,” his low voice rumbled.
“Noted,” I whispered, but I didn’t say it to him, not yet. “I want to learn your language,” I breathed the words against his lips, tasting him with light pecks.
“Then I will teach you.”
But we both knew my time here was closing in.
****
It was my sixth day on Zenithia.
Yay, Fight Day had arrived. Go me.
“Hey, X, do you have super fuck-powers or something?” I called out, finishing up the laces of my thigh-high boots.
He appeared from the grotto bath, glistening wet and totally nekkid and completely hard . . . again. “Obviously.”
So unfair of him to distract me with all his potent maleness when I had to get my head battle-ready. “X! I’m serious.”
“Why do you ask?” He conjured his clothing and started dressing while I internally swooned at the sight of him.
Especially his taut ass when he bent over.
Hmm, maybe I should rim those sexy tight globes sometime.
He turned to me, his leer wicked. I still hadn’t perfected that mind-block trick, and maybe I didn’t want to anymore.
“Because we fucked all night. You didn’t let me get any sleep, but I feel freaking unstoppable today.” I stood up from the bed. “Am I taller?”
“No.” He smirked, gaze roaming all over me.
I scowled, flexing a bicep. “Are my muscles bigger?”
Leaning down, he ran his tongue along the small hill. “Your muscles are perfect and smooth, and I wouldn’t want them any bigger.”
“I still think your cum packs a punch.”
“Want another hit?” He waggled his eyebrows before a serious look overshadowed his amusement.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Are there really no other people you left behind on Earth that you care about?”
My eyes popped wide. “Why? Like next of kin ’cause you think RBF is gonna kill me?”
“As if I'd let RBF kill you.”
I laughed at his use of my nickname for Hippodylka, but then X took me into his arms.
“Jedrek filled me in on more about your past, Prairie.”
Lurching back, I tried to break his hold. “I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“That’s not even possible.” His embrace tightened, his voice lowered. “I love you.”
My hand rose to his cheek. “I love you too, meehra.”
****
The arena was packed. The suns’ heat beat down, but it was nerves that made me sweat. Despite all my bravado, I needed X to be proud of me. The look on his face when I’d called him meehra, when I’d told him I loved him . . . he seemed stunned by pure joy, just because of me.
Now he stood on the sidelines with Jed, Magnar, and Dex. He refused to take his place in the royal box, refused to leave the stadium without me by his side.
He watched me from under lowered brows, and I wondered if he was as nervous as I was, because suddenly I was shit-scared. The seats were filled with Zenithians, and I was pretty damn sure I was the underdog by a mile in this match. The crowd roared, and I wondered what else they did for entertainment besides watching huge Amazonian-like aliens beat the ever-loving shit out of puny humans.
Movie night perhaps? Bingo? Bunko? Charades?
Oh, and there were always the orgies they seemed so fond of.
A laugh almost bubbled from my lips, but it died as soon as I saw Resting Bitch Face stride into the arena.
Jedrek had explained the rules of a challenge, and the referee did so again as RBF loomed in front of me, big as one of the Temple’s columns.
Rules, shmules. I was into dirty street fighting. Besides, the main rule I was concerned with was if I lost this challenge, I potentially lost X to Hippodylka.
Although X was the king, so he could probably overturn any decision he wanted.
RBF dressed similarly to me—tall boots, armored chest plate over a leather vest—but while I held a mace loose by my side, she handled what looked like a cop’s nightstick.
Apparently outright murder wasn’t allowed, so I should be good to go, right?
The fight started before I was ready, but one was never ready when plowed into by a female the size of a tank.
Whoosh.
My brain matter scrambled from the punch she cracked across my face.
“I mean,” I spat blood onto the ground, “I know you’re called Bitch Face, but did you really have to start with a bitch slap?” I sassed, trying to stop the spinning in my head.
I heard a swell of laughter surge from the crowd at my taunt, and hustling backward, I got out of RBF’s reach.
Swinging the mace above my head, I lashed at her with the spiked ball. But before it could make contact with her body, she wrapped the chain around her wrist and yanked it from my grip.
She hurled my mace behind her as a vicious grin widened her mouth.
“Dammit. I really liked that weapon.” Hands on my hips, I scowled.
RBF lunged—all strength, no prowess.
Apparently she wasn’t into chitchat.
I ducked from the oncoming blow, shoulder-rolling onto the ground then back to my feet behind her. With my fan boys cheering me on, I scooped up the handle of the mace then totally fucking face-planted when RBF blasted into my back.
Scrambling to my feet, I spun into a crouch.
“Here, kitty-kitty.” I beckoned RBF toward me.
I swear the ground trembled with each of the Hippo’s stomps. Bam Bam Bam.
That time I aimed the mace at her midsection. The spiked ball carried enough velocity it slammed her back a couple paces.
My weapon dinged off her armor, causing no immediate harm, but at least she’d stumbled several feet away
from me.
Shock crossed her features.
Color me surprised too.
Maybe X’s cum really was as potent as I thought.
With a growing grin, I blocked RBF’s next ham-fisted swing then jumped up to wrap the chain of the mace around her throat. Probably not a regulation move, but like I’d said, rules, shmules.
With a bellow like a heifer in childbirth, RBF spun around and around until she dislodged me from her back.
I landed ass-over-teakettle, shaking my head because boi-oi-oi-oing.
Christ, but she packed a wallop.
Before I could recover, she hauled me up. She got in a wicked blast to my ribs, and probably would’ve crushed them if not for the body armor protecting my much frailer human frame.
I battled down the need to upchuck, or shout mercy, or both—probably both—when I locked eyes with X.
He looked . . . proud. And he nodded his head, urging me to keep going.
Or maybe he thought I looked hot all battle-weakened and bleeding?
Blowing out a huge breath, I faced RBF.
“It ain’t gonna be that easy. I’ve been boning up on the combat stuff. When X isn’t busy boning the hell out of me.” I couldn’t resist taunting the woman, alien, whatever.
She roared again and charged. But I was definitely faster and more nimble. After spinning from her stampede, I struck her with the mace, gouging a long strip of flesh on her arm—ouch. With her momentarily stunned, I tore the nightstick from her grip.
Everyone in the arena stormed to their feet, cheering me on. Perhaps X had threatened his people with punishment if they didn’t root for the potential-future-maybe-queen?
I wouldn’t put it past him.
I was about to unleash my prairie dawg move when burning pain ripped right through my chest.
I staggered, eyes flipping wide. A bloom of bright red spread across my armor, an arrow sticking . . . out of me?
A scream born of fiery agony shredded from my throat, and the last thing I saw was RBF racing toward me, no doubt coming in for the kill.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
X
TIME FOR THE human bitch to die.
I heard the assassin’s thoughts in my mind seconds before an arrow whistled past my head, on track for my mate.
“NO! Prairie, look out!” I roared, but the crowd was cheering so loudly there was no way my voice carried to her.
Horrified, I watched the arrow pierce her chest. I saw her go down, caught at the last moment by Dylka.
I’d let her be a completely open target!
I quickly whipped around. There, in the stands, a male garbed all in black and carrying a crossbow darted through the melee as panic spread. I sent a silent order to Magnar and Dex to go after him.
My hearts beating a furious tattoo, I hurtled toward Prairie, the sight of her blood blooming across the chestplate warping my vision.
The wound would be fatal to a human.
I skidded beside her, taking her from Dylka’s arms. Miraculously she was still breathing. Unconscious and bleeding but breathing.
Jedrek, Kerta, and Zane hurried to my side.
The arrow plunged deeply, too embedded to remove. Prairie’s face paled to ghost white, and she began shivering in my arms as more blood seeped from the puncture. Crimson drops formed on the pierced metal of her armor then ran in furrows to the ground.
Anger inflamed me. Worry knocked deep inside me.
Gathering her close, I set my lips at her ear. “You will not die on me, meehri. You won’t. Do you hear me?”
Eyelids flickering, she moaned with a rattle from her chest. A rattle that heralded death.
I gathered Prairie closer to my body, rising to my feet. Fury leaped inside me, a mounting rage for utter violence directed at the traitor who’d harmed Prairie. I placed her gently in Zane’s arms, my muscles swelling with the need to destroy her attacker’s life.
To sever his head.
Disembowel him.
Leave his carcass for the glecaw birds to tear at his flesh until nothing was left but bone to bleach beneath the suns.
“Take her to my chambers.” My command came out low, forced. Razors of pain cut through my hearts, nothing like the pain I was about to bring down. “The healer will meet you there. Go, all of you, now.”
Jedrek led the way, Zane carrying Prairie, Kerta and Dylka following.
With blood in my sights, I ignored the hysteria in the stadium. I sprinted after Dex and Magnar, who’d bounded into the surrounding forest. Intense fury lengthened my strides, and I overtook both my warriors on the hunt for the bastard who’d attacked Prairie.
Catapulting through the underbrush, I caught up with the assassin. I yanked him around by the scruff of his neck, bellowing my rage with my teeth bared, muscles taut, fangs punching from my gums and dripping saliva I’d replace with his gore.
He swung his crossbow at me, but I batted the heavy weapon aside like it was no more than a toy.
“Why?” I roared, yanking the smaller male off his feet so he twisted like an outlaw hanging at the gallows.
“I’m not the only one who thinks a human queen is an abomination.”
A snarl ripped from my chest. Blind wrath propelled me, and I tore into the traitor with my bare hands, my sharp fangs. Only growls escaped my lips as I punctured his main arteries.
Blood dripped from my mouth. Blood spewed from his body.
I reaped gruesome violent vengeance for my meehri, tearing the male limb from limb before finally losing it completely and slashing his head from his neck, his torso from what remained of his lower half.
I hadn’t recognized the male . . . and now I made sure he was even more unrecognizable.
Shaking, I crouched over the remains of the body. Dex and Magnar swam into view.
I lifted myself from the ground, flinging blood from my hands. My fangs returned to normal, and I tightened my jaw.
“Find out who he is—”
“Was.” Magnar glanced at the grisly heap.
“Then destroy what’s left of the traitor.”
****
As ordered, I waited outside my chambers while the healer tried to keep Prairie alive. Zane, Kerta, Magnar, Dex, and Jedrek remained by my side, forming a ring, all of them bristling with weapons.
Every time I heard Prairie moan, my hackles rose.
She’d only just admitted she loved me and now she might be taken from me. The swift elation from having won her heart plummeted into gut-deep worry.
I paced back and forth, raking my hands through my hair. “How did I not know there was a plot against her?”
“None of us did.” Jedrek looked officially pissed off.
“Did you question Dylka?” I asked my brother.
Zane glanced up from his worried pacing that matched mine. “She’s innocent in this, X. She would’ve protected Prairie if she could have.”
“She conceded the fight to Prairie anyway,” Kerta added.
Dex shifted his gaze from the closed doors to me. “Not that it’ll matter if Prairie doesn’t—”
I was at his throat before he could utter one more word. “Don’t you say it. Don’t you fucking say it!”
Jedrek pulled me away. “Perhaps you should go for a walk.”
“A walk? A fucking walk?” Fear for Prairie’s recovery clutched my insides. “What I need is to know she’s okay!”
Hours passed.
I walked up and down the hallway.
Kerta had food brought to us, but I couldn’t eat.
I was just about to bust down the doors when the healer silently exited.
I spun to the tall regal female who’d first inspected Prairie when she arrived on the planet. Only now there were blood splatters on her robes.
“The barb was poisoned with toxins from the mortilla flower. And the arrow alone should’ve meant her death. If the queen-elect were any other Earthling—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” I interrupted, reaching the limits o
f my patience. “Just tell me, does she live?”
“If she wakes in the next twelve hours, she should make a full recovery.”
Delirious relief almost made me collapse on the spot. I knew Prairie. She was strong, a fighter.
The healer eyed me curiously before venturing, “My king, did you breed her recently?”
All eyes swung to me. Magnar, who’d been on guard outside the chambers last night, coughed into his fist.
“I guess you could say that.” I’d had Prairie in every single way imaginable . . . except for her ass.
The healer nodded. “Your life force saved her.”
More eyebrows arched in my direction, but I shrugged. I was just thankful my mate was alive, that she was on the road to recovery.
I entered the rooms on my own, rushing to Prairie’s side. Shallow breaths raised her chest. The freckles on her cheeks and shoulders stood out starkly against pallid skin. But when I rested my hand above her breast, I felt her heartbeat. Slow and sluggish, but alive.
Twelve hours.
She was supposed to give me her decision about staying, but that didn’t matter now, so long as she lived.
I sat beside her every single minute, every single second, tending her, compelling all other caretakers and visitors away. I swabbed her skin and held her hand. I kissed her neck and reclined next to her, carefully so I didn’t disturb her.
The healer had injected Prairie with one of the most potent miracle drugs on Zenithia.
She’d survive.
She had to.
The tenth hour passed. She still lay unconscious.
As the twelfth approached with no change in her condition, I clasped her hands against my chest, resting my lips against her clammy forehead.
Wake up. Please come back to me, meehri.
“Are you going all hive-mind on me now?” Prairie mumbled, eyelids fluttering.
“Meehri.” I lunged up, framing her face in my hands. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes. God. No need to shout.”
You can . . . hear my thoughts?
“Trippy.” A sleepy smile curved her lips as her pale eyes, green like the verdra stone, blinked open. “This is gonna make sex even more awesomesauce.”