by Chloe Cox
He was not done, however. He would never be done ensuring her safety.
“What are you doing?” she said, now huddled at the end of his bed.
Kragen wrapped the chains around his waist, made another loop, stepped through it. It was a crude harness pattern that he extended around his wrists, made of Leonid chains, but it would do.
He would have to unchain himself if he wanted to ravage her. Enough time to rethink his decision.
He clicked the padlock into place, took the key, and extended his hand towards the only woman who would ever make him feel this way.
“Take this,” he said. “Put it somewhere. Somewhere I will not see it.”
Andromeda came forward, slowly, hesitantly. She took the key.
“Why?” she said.
“I do not trust myself in my sleep,” Kragen said. The hunger was finally receding, like a storm surge that left only destruction in its wake. For the first time he could remember, he was exhausted. “I might dream. If I dream, it will be of you. And I will not risk claiming you in my sleep.”
Andromeda took this information in. He could see that she had many thoughts, many feelings whirling around inside her head—he could feel her ambivalence—and knew she would demand more of him in the morning. But to her credit, she simply nodded now. And she hid the key.
“What now?” she asked when she came back.
Kragen looked at her, for the first time letting go.
“Now,” he said, as he collapsed on the bed, “I sleep. And heal.”
Andie woke up to what looked like late-afternoon sun streaming in through windows high, high above her, and smiled. She felt amazing.
Then she started to remember. Slowly, at first, and then very, very quickly.
The parking lot. Kragen. The first time he touched her. The woods. That kiss. His wounds. The Leonid who called him a traitor.
The other Leonid—the prisoner—in the basement.
And…healing Kragen. With orgasms.
Andie squirmed at the memory. It wasn’t a normal memory; she thought about Kragen’s fangs on her neck, his mouth between her legs, and she could, for a moment, literally feel it all over again.
She closed her eyes again, and let the small shudder of pleasure spread through her body. She couldn’t even fight it. Resistance was basically pointless. She just had to let it take its course.
Eventually she felt—sane? ‘Sane’ might be a strong word—but she felt almost normal enough to try again. Andie opened her eyes, confirmed that she was, yes, in a freaking Leonid hide out warehouse, that she had slept until late afternoon, and that, yup, there was a giant silvery Leonid with freaking chains wrapped around him sleeping next to her.
Kragen.
Andie shook her head. It was all real. At least she’d remembered to text both Gramzy and Kat before she’d basically passed out next to her outlaw Leonid. So she hadn’t totally lost her mind.
Absently, she touched the silvery mark on her left breast. It was warm. It got warmer when she looked at Kragen.
He was almost entirely healed. It was, honestly, miraculous. There were only faint marks where the raw wounds on his back and shoulder had been, only a few bloodstains on the sheets.
Andie let herself look at him.
Even with his wrists and midsection bound up in chains, he was simultaneously the sexiest and the most frightening thing she’d ever seen. The light reflected the late-afternoon sun in lazy colors that seemed to swirl around his silvery skin, once again reminding her of mother of pearl. His arms were like the steel cables that held up the major bridge outside of town, the one that crossed the actual Silver Creek, and Andie would bet they were at least as strong. His broad, muscled chest rose and fell slowly, in an easy rhythm that made her think of the rhythms he’d set last night.
Andie leaned her face on her knee, unable to look away from him. Thank God his eyes weren’t open. If she looked into his eyes, she wouldn’t be able to think clearly.
That’s what had happened last night.
Actually, a lot of things had happened last night.
She still smiled when she thought about it, but this time it came with a pang of embarrassment, even anger. Kragen hadn’t rejected her, really, but…
Andie had been completely, utterly his. She couldn’t believe how easily Kragen had turned her into a woman with no self-control. She would have done everything, anything he told her to do. All she had wanted was to please him. No, more than that: she’d wanted him inside her, everywhere. She’d wanted him to own her.
Hell, he pretty much did already, if he could get her to act like that. The memory of being so totally at his mercy and loving it both embarrassed her and turned her on. It was like being possessed.
And he hadn’t claimed her. She’d wanted it. She’d wanted him. But he’d kept his word, and had the self-control of a true Dom.
It was almost like Kragen was everything she’d ever wanted from a man, and the mind-melting, miracle orgasms didn’t hurt, either.
Well, everything she’d ever wanted, minus some pretty scary stuff in the basement.
Andie felt a chill run down her back as she thought of what she’d seen down there. She would never forget those eyes. She would never forget that feeling of being hunted.
She looked at Kragen one more time. The truth was, she’d only known him for less than a day, even though she felt as though she’d known him for a lifetime. She knew that was because of the crazy mating bond, but here was the thing:
How did she know she could trust the mating bond?
Andie knew what she’d seen in Kragen’s heart when they’d touched: all that pride and honor, all that moral courage, that fierce love for family. But how could she be sure any of it was real? Maybe the mating bond just showed you what you wanted to see. How could she trust any of it?
Especially when Kragen had a terrifying Leonid prisoner locked away in a murder basement.
She couldn’t lie to herself. Whatever was in the basement, that was part of who Kragen was, too. And Andromeda Knowles was getting tired of guessing. She wasn’t running away from this one, like she’d run away from every other messy man situation she’d ever gotten into. She was going to see it through.
She looked at Kragen. She looked at the chains that imprisoned him. And she remembered where she’d hidden the key.
Andie smiled. She was her grandmother’s granddaughter, after all. And even if she had to take off all her clothes again, Andie was going to get this witness to talk.
“Time to wake up, sleepyhead,” she whispered. “I’ve got plans for you.”
17
Kragen opened his eyes to find his female straddling him. Andromeda was staring down at him, arms crossed, seemingly oblivious to the torture she was inflicting.
Kragen rolled his hips, just slightly. Enough for her to feel what she did to his cock. Then he remembered he had chains wrapped around him.
“What are you doing, female?” he grunted.
Andromeda swallowed. She was trying to hide how much pleasure she felt from just this contact. She should know by now that she could not hide such things from him.
“I’m asking the questions,” Andromeda said. Her expression was determined.
Kragen rose to a sitting position using just his abdominals, until his chained hands were close to the heat between her legs and his face hovered just above hers. He looked at her, hard, until she started to quiver. It amused him.
“Very well,” he said.
“And I’m not letting you out of these chains until you’ve told me what I want to know,” she said.
“Yes, I understand the concept,” Kragen said. He did not bother to hide his smile.
Yes, his mate had a warrior spirit. However misguided.
His amusement angered her, however. Her face clouded, and he could feel, more than see, the weakening of their connection. In its place, suspicion flared.
That angered him. He had displayed more self-control than he had th
ought possible last night. The only reason Andromeda was not claimed and marked as the mate of a condemned Leonid was because Kragen had seen to it. Had he not earned her trust?
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
“For starters, I want to know why you’re torturing a prisoner in the basement,” she said.
Kragen did not bother to suppress the growl that rose in his throat unbidden. That is what she thought? He stared into her eyes so that she would have to stare into his.
“You do not trust me?” he said. “Even after last night?”
Andromeda blinked her lovely eyes at him, and for the first time, there was a glimmer of sadness.
“It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong about a guy,” she said softly.
Kragen’s lip curled in snarl. Once again she mentioned “other guys,” as though that had anything to do with him. He was not a “guy.” He was her mate. And if circumstances were different, he would find any “other guy” who had treated her badly and make him apologize. Profusely.
“You think I am keeping secrets from you for my own benefit?” he said, his voice deceptively cold.
Andromeda hesitated. Kragen knew the anger was coming off of him in waves. Anger, and desire. He could not look at her without desiring her.
It was true torture. Well, he would not be the only one tortured.
“It did not occur to you,” he said, rolling his hips again, “that some of the knowledge you want might be dangerous?”
Andromeda snorted, and pushed herself off of his lap. The absence of contact only made his irritation worse. He wanted her, he could not have her, and she was being difficult.
“Um, yeah,” she said. “It’s occurred to me that there’s a whole metric crap-ton of stuff about Leonid mating that is not, shall we say, common knowledge on Earth. And frankly, I can see why you’d keep it a secret.”
“And why is that?”
“Because,” she said, holding his gaze, “it is one thing to volunteer. It is another to be conscripted.”
The insult hit Kragen like a blow to the belly. He knew that word, “conscripted.” It had a military origin. It meant that she—his mate—had been pulled into this situation against her will.
“That is how you feel?” he demanded.
“I’m asking the questions, remember?”
“You ask questions that will endanger you. I am not obligated to cooperate.”
“You are if you want out of those chains,” she said. She stood up, her frustration obvious, and ran a hand through her brown hair. Kragen remembered what it had looked like the previous night, splayed around her face as he’d made her come.
The chains around his wrists burned, but not enough.
“You don’t remember anything I said, do you?” she asked him. “I told you, I’m the only person who gets to make decisions about my life. You haven’t claimed me, right? You don’t own me. And even if you had, even if I submitted to you…”
The mention seemed to give them both pause. Kragen’s cock heard her, loud and clear, and Andromeda herself licked her lips.
“It wouldn’t be like this,” she finished. “And I hate to tell you, Kragen, but the cat’s pretty much out of the bag here.”
Kragen tilted his head. “What cat?”
“I already know Leonid mating isn’t just some genetic-matching thing,” Andromeda said, ignoring him and ticking off her points on her fingers, one by one. “I know it’s something that happens to you, whether you ask for it or not.”
Kragen growled. She had succeeded where countless enemies had failed. She had wounded him.
“I know you Leonids feed off of our…kuma, right? Somehow?” she said. “I know if you don’t have your mate, bad things happen. And I know you’re a fugitive because, once again, you have a monster locked up in the freaking basement. Which you still haven’t explained.”
Kragen shifted his massive weight on the bed. Idly, he wondered whether he would stop this here, now. He could.
But even though she insulted him, Andromeda did not deserve that. She might not trust what she saw in the mating bond, but Kragen did. He knew her. He knew her heart.
And she had seen too much already.
“He is not a monster,” he said, finally.
“Then what is he?”
“He is my brother,” Kragen said.
The energy between them crackled, dancing across the mark on Kragen’s chest. He looked up to find Andromeda staring at him, but for the first time, he could not read her expression.
“Your brother?” she whispered.
“Rune. His name is Rune. His family took me in after I was orphaned during our civil war. He is my brother,” Kragen said. “I owe him my life.”
Andromeda crossed the room, her eyes locked on him. They were softer now, warmer. She paused, for just a moment, and then sat near him on the bed, her body turned to face him.
Kragen was struck by just how beautiful she was.
He allowed himself the pleasure of looking at her. He was sure she would consider herself to be, as she would put it, “a mess,” given that she had spent the night in a warehouse. But to him, she was…
He felt the growl rising up in his throat. The way her soft skin flushed slightly when she realized he was looking at her, the way her breasts moved as she breathed, the way the mark—his mark—glowed slightly on her body, all of it stoked the undying fire in his chest. She turned slightly, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing the small red points on her neck where Kragen’s fangs had met her flesh.
Where he’d held her in position and fed from her.
Kragen would fight through an entire army to claim her. He would level this entire building with the force of his desire. He would bind her, tease her, and fuck her until she begged for his seed. And then…
No.
“Kragen,” she said. He looked up again, forcing himself to ignore his painfully swollen cock. “I’m a little confused. He’s your brother, so…why do you have him locked up like some kind of animal?”
“Because he is an animal,” Kragen said. “He is the most dangerous animal in this galaxy, and probably the next.”
“Why?”
There was no point in hiding it any longer. If he had to, he would find a way to erase this knowledge from her mind. He would make sure no one knew that his Andromeda knew the Leonid’s terrible secret. He would destroy anything and everything he held dear before he let her become a target.
“Because Rune is in the final stages of the kravok,” Kragen said. “When hunger turns to sickness. To madness.”
Kragen had often marveled at the fact that the human female who was fated to be his unfortunate mate was also the most beautiful female on this entire planet. He did not know what humans considered beautiful, but if it was anything other than Andromeda Knowles, they were wrong. That was why he found himself looking at her so often.
And so he was looking directly at her when she heard his words. He saw her reaction. He saw, finally, how little Andromeda Knowles trusted in the mating bond. How little she trusted in him.
Because it was a look of complete and utter horror.
Andie kind of didn’t know what to do with herself. She also couldn’t believe she hadn’t figured it out on her own. It made sense that the mating sickness would be a really big deal if you never found a mate. And if that’s what the final stages of the mating sickness looked like…
“Wait,” she said, “wait, wait, wait. I had the mating sickness a little bit, right? And so did you, because we were separated before we had, um, ‘consummated’ the bond. But there’s the drug you used—”
Kragen shook his head, and Andie watched her hopes evaporate. She knew that idea was probably too easy, but still.
“Rune’s father discovered the potential of triclosan before he died. It is not a cure—yet—but it can buy time. And when Rune’s condition became impossible to ignore, I had to make a decision.”
“But don’t you have
super-advanced medical technology? Why—”
“No,” Kragen said, and the force of his voice echoed off the walls. She would have done anything he said in that tone of voice.
Andie was very much reminded that even chained up, Kragen was powerful.
But he didn’t take advantage of that power. His shoulders heaved, and then he leaned back against the wall that served as his headboard. When he spoke again, all emotion had left his voice.
“A Leonid who has not found a mate is not taken to a hospital when the sickness comes,” Kragen said. “He is executed, by his closest family, by his sworn rivka, before he can become what Rune is. It was my sacred duty to execute my brother. I chose this instead. And I would do it again.”
Andie stared at him. He was only a few feet away, on the other side of the bed they had shared just minutes earlier, but he felt miles away. She was only just now realizing how strange that was for her. In less than a day, she had become so accustomed to the “mating bond” that…
No. Don’t think about that.
She forced herself to speak. “What happens if Rune escapes, or the triclosan no longer works?”
This time, Kragen looked her in the eye. The mark on her breast ached with his sadness.
“Without the triclosan to slow the process, he will no longer be Rune,” he said. “He will be the hunger. He will consume everything he touches, like a fire, but without a mate it will never be enough. He will destroy everything in his path until he is dead, or we are.”
Andie whispered, “Who’s ‘we’ in that scenario?”
“The inhabitants of this planet. Earth.”
“And that’s what happens to all Leonids who can’t find a mate?”
There was a long, deathly silence. Andie had been afraid to say it out loud, but she had to know. For the first time, when Andie looked at Kragen, he didn’t return her gaze. He was looking up, as though he could see through the ceiling, the clouds above it, all the way to his home in the stars.
“We are an honorable people,” he said, finally. “We will not allow it to come to that. But the answer to your question is yes: kravok is what awaits an unmated Leonid. The Alliance has not publicized this fact, because it would make mate-matching more difficult. And because nobody wanted a war.”