Kragen

by Chloe Cox

  “Ok,” she said, finally, looking up at the Leonid who had invaded her life like a wrecking ball. “Take me to my grandmother.”

  Andie didn’t know, exactly, how she expected they would get back to Gramzy’s house, but she also hadn’t given it much thought.

  It turned out “running at the freaking speed of sound with a woman in his arms” was well within Kragen’s abilities.

  Do not get sick. Do not throw up all over the hot alien. Do NOT.

  Andie clung to Kragen’s neck as he ran, his breathing barely changing. This was apparently a light stroll for him. The extended physical contact—her bare hands wrapped around his neck, his arms underneath her, cradling her—was building the now familiar furnace inside her, a hungry fire that demanded more. It was only counteracted by the unsettling, vaguely nauseous feeling she got every time she opened her eyes.

  The trees were a total blur. Occasionally they passed a light on the highway, and she’d watch it fall away from her like someone had tossed it down a well. There was no way Andie was going to turn her head to see what that looked like coming at you.

  Nothing in nature should move this fast. Was this how the first people to ride a train felt? Or the first passengers in a car? Like they were flouting the rules of nature, and nature was sure to be pissed off about it?

  None of it seemed to bother Kragen. He was a machine, seemingly impossible to tire, even though by his own admission he’d injected himself with some kind of poison, after being literally stabbed in the back, and while fighting off this whole mating call bond thing.

  So he was impressive. There was that. Andie shut her eyes hard and tried to think about the future, rather than the hard-working giant of male muscle that currently held her in his arms.

  She was nervous to introduce him to Gramzy. For obvious reasons, but also because Andie did not have a great track record with the guys she’d brought home to meet her grandmother, and Gramzy was not shy about that. And after everything Gramzy had done to help Andie clean up her life after Trevor sold her out, the idea of disappointing her again was heartbreaking.

  Of course, Kragen the Leonid warrior of wherever the hell was definitely not her boyfriend. They had both made that very clear to each other. Plus, they’d literally just met. At a kidnapping.

  On the other hand, whenever Andie closed her eyes against the blurred background of what should be a normal tree line, what she saw was…Kragen’s face. Specifically the expression on his face when she’d laid down the law.

  His reversal—his apology —was immediate. His dedication was absolute. It was like he didn’t question it at all. He was on Andie's team, so he was on Gramzy’s team. He would get it done.

  That is not a helpful line of thought, Andie.

  It didn’t matter. She opened her eyes, she saw the warm skin of his neck, shining slightly in the low light. She closed her eyes, she saw his face. And every passing second fed the fire in her core that wanted him inside her.

  And now he was stopping.

  Shit.

  “Are we there?” she asked.

  “No, lubcha,” he said. “This is the border of the settlement called Silver Creek. I require directions from here.”

  Her eyes opened wide.

  And he asked for directions when he needed them?

  Also, what the hell was a lubcha?

  “What did you just call me?”

  “Andromeda,” he growled her name low. “I am sure you feel the hunger growing between us. Please do not delay.”

  “Go down this road until you get to Rooster Lane. Make a right. It’s at the end, and I can show you when we get closer.”

  “We will not stop again,” he announced, gripping her tighter. “I will be able to smell your kin as we approach.”

  Which begged the immortal question: was that sexy or creepy?

  Andie didn’t have time to answer that one, because Kragen raced the couple of miles to her grandmother’s block in what felt like literally seconds. But they did stop again, and not in front of Gramzy’s house. Instead, when Andie was finally able to open her eyes, and when she’d steadied herself on her feet—without Kragen’s help, because she felt like she was going to explode—she realized they were actually hiding in the hedges of a neighbor’s house a few doors down.

  And then she saw why.

  There was a police car parked outside her grandmother’s house. Andie's first instinct was to run to the house, screaming her head off for Gramzy, but Kragen wrapped one arm around her body and put a hand over her mouth, saving them both.

  Because in another instant, after she got over the shock of pleasure she felt whenever Kragen touched her, Andie realized there was no police tape. No real presence. Just a guy in a car.

  And she knew that guy.

  Gary Broden. Another one of Trevor’s old crew. Andie had forgotten about him entirely, especially the now-salient information that he had become a cop. After Andie's experiences, she generally tried to avoid law enforcement, especially in this town. She knew that wasn’t entirely fair, but she did it anyway. Unfortunately, Gary in particular had never been one of Silver Creek’s finest, and the uniform hadn’t changed that.

  Trevor must have gone and talked to Gary directly, and now Gary was staking out Gramzy’s house, waiting for Andie to get home. She didn’t know what their plan was after that, but she didn’t want to find out, either.

  “That is an officer of the law, is it not?” Kragen said.

  “Worse,” Andie said. “One of Trevor’s friends.”

  Kragen didn’t seem bothered. “Trevor was assaulted. That he was the guilty party does not matter. An officer of the law still needs to investigate.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in the Silver Creek judicial system,” Andie muttered. “What are we going to do?”

  For the first time, Kragen looked down at her, startled. And then he laughed.

  It was a warm and rough laugh, and it made Andie's spine tingle in variously pleasant ways.

  What Kragen did next made her shake.

  He just walked out. Beyond the hedges he’d hidden them in. He strode down the street, bare-chested and with a sodden bandage wrapped around his muscular waist, his opalescent skin glowing dully in the row of porch lights.

  None of which did anything to hide the fact that he was a freaking seven-foot-tall Leonid.

  Just…walking around. In Silver Creek.

  After a second, Andie followed him. Her body didn’t like watching him get farther away. Plus, she needed to be there to yell at Kragen just in case he forgot her “no killing humans” rule.

  Yeah, that’s the reason.

  Which was why, when Kragen did what he did, Andie was close enough to see what happened.

  Kragen walked out in front of the police car, his massive bulk almost blocking the windshield from Andie's view. But not entirely. She definitely saw Gary Borden’s face, the second he saw Kragen looming in front of him. His eyes went wide and his pudgy cheeks flushed with that spotted red blush he’d always gotten when his friends made fun of him, and his mouth opened and closed a few times, like a startled fish.

  Kragen reached out his hand, and made a fist.

  And Gary Borden slumped forward onto his steering wheel, unconscious.

  Kragen turned, his eyes glowing slightly, and hit Andie with the full strength of his gaze. Her knees went weak. She’d just seen him do…something, to someone, without so much as moving a muscle, and still, when he looked at her, it was like he could make her feel whatever he wanted. Tendrils of heat snaked out from the surface of her skin to wind themselves through her body, wrapping themselves around her nipples, invading her core. Her heart beat even faster, and she knew because she could feel it between her legs.

  “What was that?” she said.

  “That was nothing,” he said, eyes burning into her. “Compared to what I have the strength to do with you by my side.”

  Andie swallowed. Two minutes ago they’d
been hiding. Now they were staring at each other out in the street, because apparently Kragen could wave a hand and put people to sleep.

  “Yeah, but do you literally have magic powers?” she said.

  “There is much about the Leonids that we did not tell you,” he said, with a tone that brooked no questions. “But we have been out in the open for too long. You will get inside. Now.”

  9

  Kragen could smell Andromeda all over the house at the end of the road. Its siding was pink, and a weeping willow twisted over the fence, mirroring the shape of the lacy curtains that hung in the windows. Her scent was everywhere.

  It was driving him mad.

  “You possess a key?” he said.

  “Of course,” she said, and turned to dig into the satchel she called her “purse.”

  Kragen looked at her again, his eyes devouring as many of her curves as possible. Her hair was still wet, brown locks stuck to her wet cheeks, and though she had put his jacket back on, he could still see the tops of her breasts glisten with rain where her green uniform had been torn during their flight to this house.

  With a growl, he looked away. Too tempting.

  “I will secure the property,” he said. “Go inside. Now.”

  He watched her unlock the door and disappear inside before he took off on a circuit around the house. Kragen could feel the triclosan burning still in his veins, and he was grateful for it. It was the only thing keeping him from claiming Andromeda. As he walked around the edge of the property, looking, sensing, for more “idiots,” his large frame brushing against the lowest of the tree limbs, he wondered how long he had until the dose of triclosan wore off completely. It had already started to fade.

  Would he have the control of a true Dominant once it wore off? Or would he succumb to kravok? No Leonid could resist it forever. That was why they were here, on this pretty blue planet. That was why they needed mates.

  If he felt the madness of the hunger overtake him, he would leave her, no matter the consequences. Kragen would not risk condemning Andromeda.

  He climbed back on the porch from the other direction, satisfied that the location was reasonably secure. It wouldn’t be for long. Eventually their bond would be too strong to go unnoticed. Out on the street he’d been able to smell her arousal, and it had nearly undone him. He’d wanted to bite into her throat, nip the skin, drink of her kuma. He wanted to slam himself inside her, his fangs and his cock.

  Kragen paused, his hand engulfing the tiny human doorknob. His plans had been carefully laid out before he’d defected from the Leonid fleet with his bounty. He had always known he would be sacrificing himself on some level, but it had been worth it. But none of those plans accounted for finding a mate.

  Incredible. Andromeda was never part of his plan, but she was now his responsibility. And now, all of the things that Prince Rhazian and Queen Vana had decided to keep from the humans, even as they negotiated the Alliance treaty—before, Kragen had understood. There were things the humans did not need to know. Things that would only make the process more difficult, and would not change the outcome. The Leonids wanted mates. They would have them.

  The Leonids needed mates.

  The humans did not need to know that Kragen’s species fed off of kuma, and the humans were compatible, by some quirk of genetics. To humans, kuma might translate as “life force,” or something similar. But to a Leonid, it just meant “blood.”

  They did not need to know that the Leonids had certain abilities, especially when feeding off of kuma.

  They did not need to know that they hungered for it.

  That mated pairs sustained each other.

  And most of all, they did not need to know what happened when a Leonid began to starve. The eventual madness of the mating hunger was not something they should ever see.

  Kragen himself had been doubtful that a Leonid-human mating bond would ever be anything other than a meeting of these physical needs. The humans had seemed, to him and to others, fundamentally weak, both physically and mentally.

  But Andromeda was neither.

  Despite her physical frailty, she defied Kragen, regularly. Not defied—she would obey a rightful order. She had. The thought made Kragen hard again, and he dropped his hand from the door.

  Challenged. She challenged him. She secretly had a warrior’s spirit, like a Leonid. He liked that about her. He liked that she showed mercy to those who did not deserve it. She was better than him.

  And she had risked all for family. Her “grandmother”—a matriarch. Kragen liked that most of all.

  Yes. If circumstances were different, Andromeda Knowles would make an excellent mate. She would have had his heart.

  There was no use thinking about it.

  But he might have stood out in the dark a moment longer, thinking about it, if the door in front of him hadn’t opened suddenly inward.

  “So you’re Kragen?”

  In front of him was an old woman, her hair white and worn short and, Kragen believed, “styled,” her hands knotty with blue veins, her weight balanced on what he believed to be a “walker.” But her blue eyes danced at him.

  This was the matriarch.

  “My name’s Betsy, but you can call me Gramzy for now,” the old woman said. “What on Earth are you doing outside on the porch? Get in here.”

  Kragen nodded, unsurprised that Andromeda’s matriarch would be so utterly unfazed by the sudden appearance of a Leonid on her porch, and ducked his head so he might fit under the low doorframe. He entered the house that smelled of home.

  Kragen was not satisfied with securing the outside of the property, though this seemed to amuse “Gramzy.” Andromeda seemed upset with him again, and had gone off to “freshen up.” This left Kragen alone, mostly, to check the house.

  “You think someone is hiding in my linen closet?” Gramzy said from behind him. Without turning around, Kragen knew the matriarch was smiling.

  “Perhaps,” he said. He gave his own, smaller smile. He liked this matriarch. She reminded him of the queen.

  But he was also happy with what he saw in this closet. Truthfully, it was more of a small room. There were many cases of common household supply items, many more than two women living in one house could possibly need.

  “I buy in bulk,” Gramzy said from behind him, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “You’ve got to be prepared.”

  But Kragen’s attention was on several cases of antibacterial detergent, each stacked on top of the other.

  He recognized antibacterial detergent from his research. It was one of the readiest sources of triclosan.

  “They had a sale,” Gramzy said.

  This time Kragen turned. He had an idea. He could use this. He…

  He saw that Gramzy had winced slightly.

  “You are in pain,” he said.

  It was a mere statement of fact. Even with the dulling effects of triclosan, Kragen still would have been able to sense pain in his mate, and this matriarch was his mate’s kin. He could sense Gramzy. Not like he could sense Andromeda, but enough.

  Kragen looked into Gramzy’s light-blue eyes, and saw.

  “You know, don’t you?” she said, after a while.

  The pain in Kragen’s heart was sharp and sudden. He did not know this woman enough to grieve for her, but she was his mate’s matriarch. He already loved her, in a way. And Andromeda’s pain would be considerable when Gramzy died.

  “Andromeda does not know?” he asked.

  “No,” the older woman said, and turned back towards what she had called the living room. She waved off Kragen’s help, even though he could have carried her with one finger if he wanted, but she did allow him to help her into her favorite chair. Once she was settled, she fixed Kragen with those same eyes.

  “No, Andie doesn’t know,” she repeated. “And that’s the way I like it.”

  “You cannot protect her forever,” Kragen said. “And I believe that Andromeda would want to know.”

  “A
nd you know her so well already?” Gramzy said, raising an eyebrow. But then she laughed again, a big laugh for a small woman. “Well, you’re right, anyway. But I have to tell her in my own way.”

  Kragen nodded. He would not argue that. He sat on the couch next to Gramzy’s armchair, his huge frame nearly buckling it as he squatted low so that he might look this matriarch in the eye again.

  She laughed.

  “That cannot be comfortable,” she said.

  “It does not matter.”

  Gramzy matched his gaze, and her eyes began to dance again.

  “What is it about you?” she asked. “Andie told me all about how you rode in like a knight without any armor to protect her from a bunch of idiots, and believe me, I’m grateful for that. But you’re obviously a fugitive, too. And yet for some reason I don’t mind it.”

  Kragen said nothing. But perhaps he smiled a little.

  This was a good matriarch.

  “You’re not going to volunteer much on your own, are you?” Gramzy said. “Well, there are some things I need to know if you’re going to be my granddaughter’s ‘mate’.”

  Now Kragen smiled. He liked the idea that there was someone who made Andromeda’s happiness her responsibility. He liked that very much.

  And Gramzy was so unperturbed by the idea of a Leonid mate for her granddaughter, Kragen hated to disabuse her of that notion. But he must.

  “I will not be Andromeda’s mate,” he said. “But I can show you whatever it is you might like to know about me. Anything important. If you will allow me to remove some of your pain.”

  Gramzy blinked her blue eyes at him, much like Andromeda had blinked at him.

  “What on Earth are you talking about?” she said.

  “It is not something that can be explained with words,” Kragen said. “Give me your hands.”

  He could feel the connection to Andromeda as soon as he took Gramzy’s small, wrinkled hands in his own, and through that, he could nurture a small connection to Gramzy herself. Kragen concentrated. He opened himself up, the kuma flowing between them. And he fed his mate’s matriarch.