He turned, stepped outside then closed and locked the steel door. He slumped, leaning his shoulders against the wall before thumping his head back. She gave him filthy ideas every second he was in her presence. Tests! He needed those. He probably had some deadly earth disease.
He went to walk away but something made him silently unlock and open the door again, just to see, whatever, maybe to see if she’d moved.
She hadn’t. From the noises, she was crying. An unfamiliar sting started in his eyes and he had to resist the pull inside that demanded he go to her and hug her to him. Sad. She was so pretty, so small, so in need of a protector. He shut the door quietly, and held the handle tight enough to make his hand white and red from blood flow problems. What was wrong with him?
The two Preyfinders agreed to rig up a surveillance drone to use from the house. They couldn’t help him catch or tend to Willow but Ally was separate. Not his. Not anyone’s. If they needed an excuse for their next report, they could say it was an assessment of her qualifications as future prey. Hah. But this way he kept his promise to Willow.
The march along the white corridor to the ship airlock gave him time to think, to sort priorities. The quicker he did all this, the quicker he could return to her.
Fix finger and do tests. Then go back and, what was it Brask said? Fuck her brains out while he figured out what to do. He didn’t want her getting killed out there. She wasn’t moving without Ally. And he needed to fuck her even if he had no idea why.
Even now he recalled the feel of her pussy around him as he entered her. His mind followed the prompt of that memory. His cock sliding in. Her cunt all wet and hot. Exquisite. Him, claiming her for the first time, biting her neck. Teeth on her, the salty taste of her sweaty female skin. Her small cries. He swallowed.
“Wonderful,” he muttered. At least Nasskia would never know he’d betrayed her. Alas, that didn’t soothe his heart or his soul. Taking this Earth woman was wrong. Anger simmered.
There was a possible cause he hadn’t considered. How devious was Brask?
The medical bay was empty of all bar the medic and him to start with, but while the medic put a regenerative splint on his finger, he called Brask.
The Preyfinder strolled in looking professional yet relaxed in black pants and shirt, his hair spiked up in sand-gold pieces and his face grim.
“What you got there, Stom?” He peered at the see-through splint. The thing was still connected by a lead to the cyber doc. Brask whistled. “Your pet took a good chunk of that finger off. Bone missing?”
Stom let him do his assessment. Besides, it felt like the machine was sucking the very flesh off his hand. He kept his teeth clamped as it hummed through another healing cycle.
The medic replied tersely. “Only the top joint. Minimal blood loss due to Stom’s combat profile. It’ll be about a week and a half before the finger is normal.”
Brask looked up and met Stom’s eyes. “I hope it hurts. You were careless. Walking into that.”
True. “I’ve had worse. I’ll survive. Now. Tell me what you gave me.”
“Me? I gave you nothing. What do you mean?”
“Why am I so attracted to this Earth woman?”
“You are?” Brask smiled. He went back a step and perched on a stool. “I guessed it. I don’t know why you are, let’s say, attracted. Not my doing. Go with the flow. Take her as your pet. Simple answer.”
Nothing? “Not your doing? You didn’t give me anything? No chems?”
“No. On my soldier brother’s honor.”
“Ah.” He blinked. That had been his best chance. An Earth disease had seemed very unlikely. “It must be some bug I picked up here then?”
The medic tapped the display on a screen near his elbow, “No. You’ve nothing wrong with you except for being a Feya with fingers that get in the way of bullets.”
Stom leaned in and peered. “That was fast. You’re sure?”
“Am I sure?” The medic frowned then unplugged the lead to Stom’s finger splint. “No, I’m not. Look! I was wrong. You do have a disease.”
The tone was so exaggerated he was wary. “What is it?”
The reply was matter of fact as the medic rose, packed away cables, and turned off equipment. “A virulent strain of purple kak disease and your dick’s going to drop off tomorrow.”
Brask guffawed. “Well saved, Yakul.”
The man nodded to them both, saluted, and moved away.
“Ha ha. Not funny.”
“I’m not sure why you have to question it, Stom. Be happy. My men tell me you have her locked in at the house. Go to her. You can keep her there for a day before you have to release her. Then it’s one more capture. One dose of the nano-chem and that’s it. Take her home with you.”
Home. “I have no home. I have no use for a pet.” Why didn’t he understand that?
“Feya honor? I don’t get that. This is sex. You deserve some fun in your life. No one can live without fun. You are an honorable man. This changes that not at all.”
The man was trying to make him feel good about this situation. “Thank you.” He hauled himself upright. “I’ll think about it.”
He would. That was true, but he also knew his honor was his own to regulate. He was the only one who could decide what was right.
A tap at the entrance to the hospital facility, at the far end of the room, made him turn. “Bambi,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” Brask looked also. “Brittany? Come in!” He gestured to her as he spoke in an aside to Stom. “She’s fine, Stom. Just a quiet sort. She likes to check on anyone who’s ill.”
A sparrow flew into the room and landed on her shoulder. Strange.
He watched her stride lithely toward them, curious to see if he felt any of the same extreme attraction to her as he did to Willow. Her mane of glossy auburn hair flicked across her shoulders. Her hips swayed under the close fitting white uni-suit. But she meant nothing to him despite her beauty. Pretty, yes, but no more than that.
Whereas Willow, even now he felt the lure. He imagined her still crying and for once the need to comfort her dragged at him more than the need to have sex. Good. That was something any normal and good man would feel. Though perhaps not Brask – the Igrakk had a casual regard for women.
“You let her do this? See all the injured? Without questioning her why she wants to?”
“Yes, I do. I have a theory about the healing rates here. Just haven’t quite figured it out yet.”
He gave Brask a sharp glance before greeting Brittany. When asked, he let her examine the splint and even smiled and thanked her. With Brask’s clue he was especially alert.
When she left, he stared into the splint. There seemed a subtle change.
“Wish it had still been connected to the lead. Yakul might’ve been able to get some data.”
“You think she heals people?” Stom flexed his finger. It certainly stung less.
“I do. I’d discuss it further with Dassenze but he’s gone off-planet. Small escalation of the war. There’s a Bak-lal accumulation of war ships in a nearby system.” He shot Stom a serious look. “Dassenze has an on-running investigation of some of the earth women. Odd things have been happening. Spikes in data.”
“Does Brittany’s bond mate, Jadd, know of this?”
“Not yet. Though I think he suspects.” He sat forward, face still as stone, staring at the floor a moment. “If this is correct, it’s the stuff of myths. No other starfaring race can do anything like this.”
They regarded each other. Momentous, if true. Why had he not already told Dassenze? Obviously, he wanted more proof. Besides, the god was already aware of the possibilities.
Dassenze was the current Ascend god assigned here. If he’d left to assist in the war, what was he doing fooling around with capturing a woman? Stom drummed his fingers on the counter top beside him. He grimaced at the lance of pain. Wrong hand.
“Perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to Willow. I knew there was something.”
“A suck you what?”
His grin widened. “That’s a type of mythical Earth creature that lures men to have sex with them. Stom, if you do continue with this, I should tell you we may be short of Preyfinders for a while. We’re gearing up to raid a possible focus of Bak-lal soldiers in the USA. We have to be doubly cautious without a god here to oversee. You’re lower priority. So be careful.”
“I thought this planet was clear? That you destroyed the only known factory queen?”
“We thought so. But it’s possible there are more. Deep-buried ones. We can handle it. Last time we used the ship.” He knocked on the arm of his chair. “Doomslagger did her job well, but I doubt we’ll need her.”
Taking out a queen would need ship firepower. He relaxed a little. They must only expect some stray soldiers.
He stood. “I’m going back to her. I’ll keep mindful of what you said. But I am me. I march to my own brand of honor.”
Brask twisted his mouth then grunted. “You do what you feel is right.”
As he walked back along the underwater tunnel, a thought occurred to him. If Brittany could heal soldiers, she was a valuable prize. Lucky for him that Willow might only be a – what had Brask called her? A succubus. An enticer of men. Lucky because no one was likely to command him to make her his pet. Of course, Brask had been joking, but he didn’t know what this desire for her felt like. Powerful enough that he had a hard-on whenever he even vaguely thought of going to her. Like now. He adjusted his cock and sighed.
Not since he was a youngling had he been so constantly aroused.
But, wait, if she did have any odd powers they’d still want her to see how she did it. Even if it was a useless power. Which meant if he didn’t capture her, someone else might be ordered to. Anger crackled through his bones. He crushed his fists into tight balls.
Wait. Wait…
He pressed his fingers to his head. There was a flaw in his idea. No one else felt like this around her. His argument was kak. Something must be happening. But not that. Scratch succubus off the list.
When he resumed walking, a sense of dread occupied him. Not understanding this was unraveling his sense of self. He didn’t know who he was anymore, except that he wasn’t the pristine hero Nasskia and his younglings had clung to when he returned home from battle, not anymore.
He wanted her, he didn’t want her. He wanted to keep his honor intact as well as her. Most of all, he wanted to stay true to his first love.
With barely twenty yards to go, he received the first automated warning. The room was on fire. And she was inside.
He sprinted.
He tore through the lock sequence in seconds, ripped open the door, and beheld a large inferno in the middle and bonfires reaching toward the ceiling elsewhere. The bed was on fire. At the opening of the door, a torrent of smoke poured past him, blinding him, choking him. As he strode forward, he was already barking out a command to the Preyfinders to manually activate the fire suppression systems, and in between that, he was screaming her name.
Why weren’t the Preyfinders here? If this was rules again, he might kill them both.
Was she dead? Hurt? Lying somewhere among this fire writhing from burns?
“Willow! Willow, where are you!” He spun, tears streaming down his face from the terror that possessed him as well as from the smoke. If she were dead… An arm raised from the shadows and fire to the left then seemed to twist in an unnatural way. Stom leapt over and threaded past burning debris, racing to get to her. Was she on the floor?
But she wasn’t there. Or had he missed the place? Was she here? He spun, searching through the pall of smoke, but couldn’t see her. “Willow! Answer me.” He kicked and tore flaming clothes from the blazing piles, making sure she was not beneath them. Then he spun around in another circle, searching with his eyes, though they stung. “Willowww!”
The smallest sound drew him to look behind him, and above the roar and crackle of flame, he heard footsteps.
Suppressant foam hit the room as he ran out and he passed the two Preyfinders as he dashed up the stairs.
“Seen her?” he yelled.
They kept going but one jabbed backward over his shoulder.
When they’d opened the secret door, she must’ve dashed out. They’d not stopped her. Fucking Preyfinder rules.
He caught her in the corridor, tackled her, then threw her over his shoulder and left the house and burning room to the others. The subtle whine of an engine and lack of smoke out here said they had some way of concealing the fire. The Preyfinders had easily controlled it, yet without his intervention, they’d have let her burn.
Terrifying. It hammered home the fact that she was his and no other’s: his to throw away, to let die, or to guard from all the dangers of the universe. He could be her world, if he so desired. She could be his world, if he’d let her in. Complicated, so complicated. Where was the thousand page Guide to Your Heart and Soul when he needed it?
“Stom,” she demanded in a wobbly voice. “Let me down.”
He smacked her on the butt once and kept walking. Apart from a weak couple of kicks, she gave in.
Outside, beneath the trees at the edge of the lake, he waded into the water with her in his arms, letting the cold water soothe the burns on his hand. Weeping willows and the angle of this tiny cove shielded them from onlookers.
Though he hadn’t restrained her, to his shock, she made no further attempt to escape. Instead she slipped to her feet when he let her down then stood shaking from head to foot. She didn’t meet his eyes.
He watched her grimly as he dipped his hands in the fluid coolness. The water trickled musically.
“Do you have a death wish?”
Her shoulders slumped. Then she gave one wrenching sob and took his blistered hand at the wrist. At least it was the same one she’d shot. There were fresh tears on her begrimed face and more ran down through the soot as she gently turned his hand.
“I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “You’re hurt…I never meant to get you hurt. I’m so sorry.” Her sobs wrenched at his heart and he raised her chin with his other hand and caressed her cheek with his thumb.
Then, wordless, he pulled her to his chest and sat in the sandy mud at the edge of the water, among the reeds and water lilies, with her clutched to him. He bowed his head and kissed her hair.
“It’s okay. I’m not hurt badly. Small burns. It’s nothing. Can you breathe okay?”
She nodded.
As she kept crying, he could feel the shakes of her body but gradually she calmed.
She might have meant to escape but he didn’t care at all about that, not in the face of her misery over his pain. He’d been ready to explode with grief at the thought she might have died back there. And she – he took in a long, aching breath – she felt something the same. This was crazy.
He patted her, the water lapping at his knees where they stuck above the lake’s water. “What are we going to do, Willow?” he whispered.
But she only shook her head a little, laughed in a wretched way, and snuggled in closer.
Chapter 10
She hadn’t meant to hurt him, but she had. And if he’d not returned in time, she would have died in the room.
“I thought someone would come to get me out before it got that bad,” she said to him, not courageous enough to look him in the eyes. He’d yell at her now, but he didn’t.
“I’m sorry they didn’t, but you’re safe. I’ve got you now.” Then he did make her look at him. The sadness in those blue eyes made her bite her trembling lip. “Promise me you won’t do that again.”
Why should she promise that? But before she could think it through some more, she nodded. Then she felt underwater in her shorts pockets, and pulled out the lighter. When she put it on his palm, he smiled and tsked at her.
The gentle forgiveness in his words and actions made her s
mile back. Was her mind going? All she wanted to do was please him and keep him safe. The tears kept dripping down her face. She sniffled and wiped them away, feeling stupid. When he only hugged her more, the trickle of tears turned into a constant flow and ragged sobs choked from her.
At last he struggled to his feet with her in his arms. “Come. You need something more than this. I don’t want you to say anything. Just let me…” With her head laid against his chest, she could hear him swallow. “Let me take care of you.”
The words, I’m not a child, came to her but remained unsaid. As her personal colossus walked up the steps and through the garden to the house with her cradled in his arms, she kept her eyes open and yet she wondered if she’d truly died and gone to heaven.
Let me take care of you. For as long as she could recall, no one had ever said those words to her.
She clutched at his shirt, wrinkling her forehead as that thought sank in deep, and something inside her broke.
Chapter 11
There was a shower upstairs next to the big bedroom so he carried her up there, wanting to wash away the smoke smell and still overcome by this grating, incessant need to make her whole again. That she’d almost killed herself trying to get away from here, from him, seemed the worst condemnation ever.
Under his feet were pretty rugs and a polished timber floor. He left footprints of soot and lake water on everything he walked over. The shower was big enough for a small war. The walls and floor were made of some pale stone and the shower bits and pieces were shiny and looked like poetry in metal. He didn’t pay any of this much heed for the woman in his arms meant so much more.
When she tried to speak he shushed her. He removed the collar from her neck, despite a momentary regret. It looked so right on her. Then he set to work undressing her, pulling off her wet T-shirt and shorts, kneeling to ease down her panties, getting her to step out of them, undoing her bra. He told his rude cock to stay out of it despite the unrelenting sexual reminders as he handled her pliant female body.
With her undressed, he swallowed, held his breath, and turned away to adjust the faucets. Then he urged her under the flow of water, found the soap and stopped dead, mouth dry. Nipples, breasts, and when he looked lower, the gorgeous way her legs met and her sex peeked out in that pretty divide…and his cock was so upright he’d snap it off if he tried to get it down.
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