by Draven, Zoey
“I already feel it working,” she told him, sighing a bit. Devix retreated from her body, getting more salve before he gently dabbed it around the bruises on her inner thighs, his throat tightening. He hated seeing the marks, but he would trust that she’d tell him if his matings were too intense for her to handle.
When he finished, he tossed the tube over the side of the sleeping platform and pulled her back into the crook of his arm, stretching their bodies out.
Cara sighed into him, snuggling deeper, smiling. And that smile finally made him relax.
“Luxirians like to cuddle?” she whispered, a familiar teasing note in her voice.
“I like to ‘cuddle’ with you,” he murmured, repeating her word, which he’d never used before.
“Charmer,” she said, running her palms down his chest. “You’re an expert at cuddling, which makes sense since you told me you’ve been no stranger to sex.”
Devix stiffened slightly. Yes, he’d told her that he’d had many pleasure mates following his warrior training. Luxirians tended to be open about mating, but were known to be jealous beings, especially with bonded pairs or fated mates. Were humans the same?
“Don’t worry,” Cara said, reading the way he’d reacted to her words. “I’m just joking with you. It’s not like I was a virgin before last night either.”
Devix growled, feeling that jealousy burn in his chest as faceless males entered his mind. “Female. I know I have no right to ask, but Luxirians are possessive of their—,” he’d just been about to say mates, but instead chose one of her English words, “lovers. I do not wish to think of those that came before.”
“Noted,” she said softly, looking up at him. “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t had sex in a while.”
Devix blew out a breath, stroking his fingertip over the tiny shell of her ear that drove him mad. “I have not mated since Arvalla.”
Her eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
“Tev.”
“Why?” she asked. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve had interest. Look at you!”
“Most beings are wary of an exiled Luxirian. You saw even here, at the market, I get a wide berth. The females that have offered to mate are drawn to me because I was exiled. I did not want them. I did not want any female…before you.”
“I thought you were intense when I first met you,” she said softly. “A little broody and quiet. Withdrawn. The intensity comes out still, but not the other things,” she said, a small huff of laughter escaping her. “But…I think I was always attracted to you.”
“Your voice made me hard,” he told her, rasping the words in her ears, “before I ever saw your face.”
Cara bit her lip. “Even then?”
“Tev.”
She was quiet and she traced over the gold bars pierced through his nipples, evidence that he’d completed warrior training. Pleasure sizzled down his spine and his cock jerked against her soft belly, pre-cum wetting her flesh.
“Insatiable,” she teased, but then she asked, albeit a little hesitantly, “So if Luxirians get jealous, does that mean your species is monogamous?”
Devix stilled. “Mostly, tev. Are humans?”
“Mostly, yes,” she repeated.
A small relief burst in his chest, but then he swallowed hard. His gaze searched hers as he said slowly, “There are different kinds of bonds on Luxiria.”
“Like what?”
“Pleasure mates or mating partners,” he started, “are what you call lovers in your language. At least I believe so, in the way I have heard you use it. There are no expectations or promises beyond mating, even though there is affection. These partnerings are the least likely to be monogamous.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“Breeding pairs are monogamous,” he told her next. “They are partners who choose to join their life spans together, to have a family unit together, though they are not fated mates.”
Cara’s brow furrowed. “And what are fated mates?”
Devix had to make an effort to control his breathing as he said, “Fated mates are rare, chosen by our deities, the Fates. Two beings chosen to come together. Their partnership is…right. When a male sees his fated mate for the first time, his Instinct awakens.”
Cara was watching him closely, her expression serious. “What’s an Instinct?”
“A force. It is difficult to explain,” he told her. “It guides the male to create the mating bond. It is like another entity, separate from the male, but within.”
Devix wanted to tell her that she was his fated mate, his luxiva. But something stopped him. Fear that she’d retreat, when everything was still so new for her. He didn’t want to overwhelm her, not when Sarkon might be looking for them, not when they’d just landed on Rozun the span before, not when she was still recovering from their very thorough first mating.
“I see,” she said slowly and Devix wanted to know what she was thinking, whether she suspected what they were to each other, whether she felt it too. “And is that what your parents were?”
“Tev,” Devix said. “It is why my sire followed her to the blackworld. Fated mates cannot live without the other. It destroys them from the inside. The greatest of blessings and yet a curse.”
Cara’s face softened and she leaned up to press a kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sure you miss them both.”
He inclined his head, memorizing the way she felt in his arms. It seemed so long ago when he still thought he’d be able to deliver her to Sarkon, to never look back. It sickened him now to think of it.
“Tell me about your sire,” he murmured. She’d told him, when they were still on the vessel, that he’d died, that she’d been with him, the reason for the scar that ran down her leg. It had been clear to him that she didn’t wish to speak of it, but he wanted to know his mate, wanted to know everything that had made her.
Cara swallowed, her tongue sweeping out to lick her bottom lip. “I loved him. He was my whole world, the best dad I could’ve ever asked for.”
“You mourn him still,” he said.
“Always,” she said. “I grew up without a mother. She left my dad when I was small and he took care of me as best as he could.” Devix couldn’t imagine a mother abandoning her offspring. It was simply…unfathomable. “But my dad was different than most of friend’s dads. He was part of a MC…a motorcycle club. It was in his blood.”
“I do not understand,” he told her. “The language implant does not translate.”
“It’s hard to explain…but the club is like a family. A sometimes very rough, very strange, very unconventional family. My grandfather had been a part of one, my dad had grown up, knowing one day he’d be a member too,” Cara said. “But it wasn’t an easy life. Sometimes it was violent and my dad tried to keep me separate from it.”
“Why would he stay if it was violent? If it put you in danger?” he asked, trying to understand.
“He’d been a member for so long. It was all he knew,” Cara said. “I’m not naive. MCs aren’t known for being the most law-abiding citizens. My dad would’ve done anything for me, but I also know that he’d done some bad things too.”
“Why?”
“For money,” she said. “To prove his worth to the club, I don’t know. But I’m not sugar-coating who he was. I’m telling you that I loved him, despite all of this. And he loved me and he protected me, in his own way.”
Devix might not understand, but he could at least respect that. But if he sired a daughter, Devix knew he wouldn’t even associate with anything that would put her in danger.
“But it made me tough, growing up in that environment, knowing who my dad was and who he associated with,” she said. “I was still around the club at times. I grew a thick skin. It made me realize that it wasn’t the life I wanted and I threw myself into school, into work. I’d always loved to cook, to create new recipes, so I went to culinary school. And my dad was really proud. He always told me so,” she said softly.
Then she sighed.
“It was shortly after I graduated that the accident happened. One of the things we did together was drive along the coast on his motorcycle. It was freeing. I loved it. But then one day, on a normal day, everything turned not normal and my life turned upside down. A car hit us. My dad died instantly. I went to the hospital for my leg, with a long recovery ahead of me. I couldn’t believe that a world existed where my father wasn’t in it. That was the hardest thing to cope with,” she confessed. “I was in a dark place for a really long time.”
“Luxiva,” he said softly, words stuck in his throat, needing to comfort her though he knew that that kind of pain would never heal.
“My work got me through it,” she said. “After physical therapy for my leg, I got a job at a restaurant. My dad would always brag that one day, I would be a rising chef, that people from all over would come to try my food, my creations. It was like…I needed that to be true, to make him part of my life again. So, to get myself through that time, I worked my ass off. I worked long hours in a shitty restaurant as a line cook, in pain from my leg most of the time. Eventually, I worked as a saucier in a better restaurant, worked up to sous chef after three years and just last year, I got offered a position as head chef of a new restaurant in a new city. I was becoming everything my dad said and I was finally happy. I loved food, loved unexpected flavors and surprising people, and the smell of the kitchen, and creating dishes from simple ingredients. I was always fascinated by that, ever since I was little.”
Devix didn’t understand most of the words she was saying—restaurant, sous chef?—but he understood her meaning. And right now wasn’t the time to ask her to elaborate. There would be much time for that later.
So, he stroked a hand down her back and murmured, “Continue, luxiva.”
“And then I wasn’t happy anymore,” she confessed quietly, catching his gaze. “I’d finally achieved my goal. A national magazine called me a rising star of the ‘culinary world.’ I was creating recipes that people loved. Food critics were giving me rave reviews. It was surreal. And I should’ve been happy. But I wasn’t. Suddenly, going into the kitchen every day was a chore. I’d lost my inspiration to create, I couldn’t come up with anything new. I missed my dad, I felt like a stranger in Seattle, I felt alone and lost and restless.”
“Then you were taken by the Krevorags,” Devix guessed.
“No, I quit my job as head chef and then I was taken by the Krevorags. A couple days after,” Cara said quietly. Then she paused. “Sorry. You asked about my dad and I gave you the whole life story.”
“I want to know everything about you, luxiva,” he murmured, frowning. “Do not be sorry. I might not have understood some things, but eventually I will learn.”
Cara nodded and she gave him a small smile. “I’m being dramatic, by the way. I make it sound like my life was bad. It wasn’t. I was very, very blessed, having what I had, having a dad that loved me so much, having the job I wanted. I just…I lost my way and I was struggling to find it again. Compared to what you’ve been through, I shouldn’t be complaining so much.”
Devix shook his head and he said slowly, “Cara, we come from very different places. My experiences will never be like yours, nor yours mine. It is not a competition. You have experienced pain and loss and happiness and success, and I have experienced those same emotions. Just in different ways.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You’re right.”
Affection was warm in his chest as he breathed in her scent. He smiled down at her and she inhaled a sharp breath as he rubbed his horns against her hair.
“I like that you tell me these things, luxiva,” he murmured.
“Thank you for listening,” she said back.
“Now, tell me what a ‘restaurant’ is,” he commanded.
She huffed out a laugh and it helped to break some of the melancholy spilling off her at the remembrance of her sire.
“It’s a place where people come to eat,” she said, smiling, that soft look back on her features which made Devix happy. “They come inside and sit down and order off a menu. Depending on the menu, there could be dozens and dozens of meal options. And then they order and their food is brought out. They eat, socialize, pay, and then leave. Are there places like that here?”
Devix shook his head. “Nix. Just the stalls at the market.” He hesitated and then said, “There is no reason why Rozians would not come to a restaurant though. If we had one.”
Cara’s eyes flashed. “Are you hinting that I should start one? Here on Rozun?” she asked, laughing.
Devix lifted a shoulder against the sleeping platform but then sobered. Quietly, he said, “It could be a long time before…before I find a Luxirian crystal to take you back to Earth.” Cara’s smile dropped slowly from her face and she licked her lips, her eyes lowering to his chest. Devix couldn’t read her. Was it the length of time it might take to get her back home that upset her? Or something else? “You said you loved cooking once. Perhaps you could again.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start with something like that here,” she said softly.
“I would help you.”
She smiled again and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “I’ll think about it, okay? Besides, I haven’t even cooked you a meal yet. Maybe what tastes good to humans is disgusting to everyone else,” she joked.
“You did say something about a ‘mean steak’ last night,” he reminded her, cuddling her closer.
Cara laughed. “I did. And I do owe you one, especially after all your hard work last night.”
She purred that last part and all at once, he needed her with the intensity of last night.
He growled at the innuendo in her voice. “Wicked female.”
“Come on, baby,” she whispered, running her fingers down his arms. “Let’s get up so I can make my male a steak. Yeah?”
My male.
No sweeter words had ever been spoken.
“Tev,” he purred.
TWENTY
“Tev, female,” Devix rasped, his eyes flickering from her eyes, to her bobbing breasts, to the place where his cock slipped in and out of her pussy as she rode him hard.
A choked moan tumbled from her lips when his palm struck her ass and she snapped her hips down harder, grinding onto his cock.
Cara looked down at him, her eyes half-lidded, hands splayed across his heaving, wide chest to balance herself. Up and down, she rocked her hips, a constant moan sounding from her throat as she fucked her male on the floor of the room she’d dubbed the ‘kitchen’ a week before.
Deep inside, the ridges lining his cock hit her in all the right places and she knew she was done for when she’d barely just started.
“Baby, I’m gonna cum,” she murmured, her tone edging on a whine. “Y-your cock feels too good.”
“Cum then, luxiva,” he growled, his hands coming to grasp her hips, gripping them to take over. Her head lolled against her shoulders as he held her in place before jackhammering his hips up to fuck her harder, their flesh slapping together in a delicious sound that echoed in the room. “Tev, I feel your tight, greedy cunt.”
Cara was right on the edge and she groaned, her whole body shaking as she tried to hold her orgasm off for as long as she could. “Cum in me, Dev. Please, I need to feel it, I need to feel it.”
Her alien male was helpless against her command and she’d discovered that he loved dirty talk. So, naturally, she gasped naughty things in his ear all week as he’d fucked her. The result? He fucked her so good that her knees always shook for hours afterwards.
“You need my cum?” he growled, fucking her harder. “Need it deep inside you?”
Cara gasped, “Yes.”
Her orgasm crashed down on her, making her choke as her breath whooshed from her lungs. As every muscle in her body clenched, as intense pleasure radiated from her core, she heard Devix’s bellow, felt his hot cum shoot inside her, coating her walls.
Afterwards,
Cara drew in ragged breaths as she slumped over his torso. As the pleasure gently subsided into a dull throb, she gave a soft laugh against his chest, still feeling his cock pulse inside her, a familiar sensation to her now. Feeling him inside her seemed as natural as breathing.
“I fear I’m distracting you from your work,” she whispered, leaning over his lips for a quick little nibble. His lips drove her crazy sometimes.
“I managed two hauls of the pillerva pods before I needed you,” he groaned. “That is better than the one haul I managed before.”
“True,” she said, smiling. She hadn’t smiled so much in her entire life as she had that past week with Devix. Nor had she had so much sex in her entire life than in that past week. And not just sex, but amazing, mind-blowing, bone-quivering sex.
It was no wonder why she was smitten. It was no wonder why her stomach erupted into butterflies whenever she saw him. It was no wonder why she felt like melting whenever he kissed her, or he murmured luxiva in her ear, or when he brought her new herbs and roots for her recipes he’d come across as he worked in the forest.
Between them, she felt his cum begin to slip out and she kissed him again. Earlier in the week, once she’d recovered from their first mating, she’d brought up the somewhat awkward subject of pregnancy, an already awkward subject between two humans, made more so between a human and a Luxirian.
Basically, she’d asked him if there was a possibility she could get pregnant and whether it was something they needed protection for.
Devix had said, after a brief moment of silence, “I know of no offspring that have been produced by a Luxirian and another species. I do not believe that I could sire offspring with you, nix.”
Cara realized after that the strangest part of that conversation was that she’d felt out of sorts for the rest of the day. Not quite moping around, but definitely…sad, disappointed. She didn’t know why because it didn’t make sense.
Was she upset because her alien lover couldn’t get her pregnant?