by Isabel Wroth
It was deeper, just shy of being musky. A smell thick enough she could almost taste it, heavy and delicious on her tongue.
Alec frowned in confusion at the mountainous male behind her. Huh. It was coming from him.
“You smell different. It’s strong enough I can taste it. What is it?”
Kalix made a sound in his throat and went back to rubbing her hips and thighs.
“Desire.” His lips kicked in a crooked grin, glancing at her when she bit into her lip and lay her cheek back down on her arms.
“You are uncomfortable to know this?”
“Yes. No. A little.” Alec stumbled to answer him, biting back a wince at the huskier tone to her voice.
“Why?” His amusement was plain enough to have her growling at him.
“I’m naked and you’re rubbing stuff all over me!”
“I cannot control the scent of my desire, nor do I wish to. I have told you my intention is only to ease your pain, I will do nothing other than that.”
No one had ever given her a foot rub before, so when Kalix caught her leg in his hand and ran it down to her foot, when he pressed his thumbs into her arches, her eyes rolled with the pleasure of it.
He spent a long time there, going so far as to rub each one of her toes individually. Alec felt like she would drip right off the edge of the tub.
He took his hands off her feet, making her wrinkle her nose, disappointed it was over already.
“Why don’t you want to control the scent of your desire?” Alec peeked up at Kalix from under her lashes.
“My mate is naked and allowing my touch. She is beautiful beyond words and I would not wish to insult her by pretending I am unaffected.”
He pulled her away from the edge of the tub. Reaching up for the wooden stool he had set close by, he sank it into the water and had her sit on it.
Now, the water swirled comfortingly at her throat. He stepped up behind her, cupping her chin gently in his hand to tip it back, enough to rest her head on his chest.
He slicked his hands up with more oil, using his fingertips to carefully rub at her jaw, her cheeks, up along her brow and into her hairline.
Just as she thought about falling asleep, he pushed his hands down over her shoulders, pressing his fingertips deeply into the muscles just above her breasts. Between them, pausing when she squirmed and rolled her lips together.
She was holding her breath without having realized it, until he moved his hands back to rub down her arms.
“It occurs to me, no one has ever spent so much time touching you.” Kalix moved to her left, using both hands to rub the oil into her skin all the way down to her fingertips.
“So much time? I can safely say no one, ever, has spent this much time touching me. People usually don’t get cuddly with executioners.”
Kalix sighed heavily, frowning hard while he pressed his thumbs into the center of her palm. Stretching and manipulating those bones and muscles.
Turning her hand over to push firmly on her index finger. Studying the crystal color of the claw that popped out.
“It displeases me greatly to hear you call yourself an executioner,” he stated firmly.
Alec made a face. “If there’s another word to describe what I did, I’d use it.”
Kalix released her with a careful squeeze, repeating the firm massage to her other arm. He was focused on his task, making sure not to miss a single inch of skin.
“I listened to every report you made. From the very first you explained if they became infected, your people would suffer a painful, horrific death.
“As their commander you had two options, allow them to suffer and their bodies to birth more enemies to later take more lives, or spare them pain and protect what remained of your crew.
“You did not have to take on the task of taking their lives. You could have commanded their family or friends to be the ones to do it.”
Alec swallowed thickly, trying to pull her hand free of his as the subject started to turn down a road she wasn’t ready to travel, but Kalix wouldn’t let go.
“It was my responsibility,” she rasped.
His gaze shot up to hers, his eyes seeking, boring deeply. “Why? Because you were born first? Because someone else told you so?”
Alec shook her head, pulling harder to get him to let go of her. Pulling in an effort to get out of the tub and away from him, but he stepped up so that his thighs bracketed her knees.
He took both her hands in one of his, probably so she couldn’t shred him up with her claws again, and cupped her face with his other, tilting her chin up, giving her no choice but to look at him.
“You made it your responsibility, Alec,” his quiet murmur made her flinch. “You chose to spare the others, because you did not wish for them to suffer more than they already were, and they let you, a child, because you were braver than all of them. Stronger.
“You are not an executioner. Executioners take the lives of condemned criminals. The only crime your people committed was allowing a child to shoulder the responsibility of a heavy burden, so they wouldn’t have to.
“You did what they couldn’t. You gave your people peace and denied your enemies victory. An executioner wouldn’t do that.”
Alec didn’t realize more tears had spilled down her cheeks until Kalix bent to brush them away with his lips. The purr that rumbled out of him worked to settle the churning in her gut. Soothed the burning need to rip out of his hands and run. Run from the forgiveness she hadn’t asked for, but was receiving anyway.
“I did not leave you here alone because I found you lacking,” he went on mercilessly, letting his brow rest on hers, speaking barely above a whisper.
“The opposite in fact true. I was the one lacking. I was selfish and stubborn in my belief that I had finally achieved my place. Everything I had worked so hard for, all the times my loyalty had been questioned, I finally belonged.
“Everything I had ever dreamed of having, command, respect from my peers, a mission of utmost importance. I had it all and could not just give it up because my beast claimed you as my mate.
“It took me far too long to realize all the things I thought were so important, were nothing. None of it mattered if it meant leaving you to suffer alone.”
NINE
Alec stood frozen as the sounds of what had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of roaring and snarling Sarazen cats surrounded her.
They were everywhere. The rocky terrain acting like a natural acoustic amplifier, bouncing sounds to every corner of the universe.
Her heart thundered in her ears, her back pressed up against the smooth surface of a huge boulder. She looked left, right, up, all around her, finding nothing but rocks, desert and sky.
A deep, rumbling snarl had every hair on her body lifting with fear. Her head turned slowly toward the sound to see a familiar shape perched on top of a boulder the size of a treehouse. Her muscles turned to water in the wake of her relief.
“Kalix.” The beast leapt agilely down from the boulder, padding toward her on silent paws.
He shifted in a shimmering, mirage like veil. Four paws one minute, two legs the next. The look on his face could only have been described as hungry, stalking her as she slid sideways along the rock surface until she hit air. Alec backed up one unsteady step at a time.
He moved like he had wings, surging forward to catch her, hauling her up against his body, her bare skin pressed to his. Fire flashed across the surface of his eyes, a constant growl rumbling in his chest.
She couldn’t recall if she had started out with clothes or not, not when he was kissing her like she was the air he needed to breathe.
He didn’t ease her into it. He just scooped his arm under her butt and lifted her, pressed her back against the nearest boulder to masterfully devour her with kisses.
Alec curled her arms around his shoulders, dug her fingers into the thickness of his hair and hung on, whimpering a little when he moved to cup her breasts, weighing them, rasping
his thumbs against her nipples until they were hard as pebbles.
Kalix tilted his head to get a deeper angle to their kisses, his growling rumbles vibrated along her flesh.
A loud roar in the distance made Alec tear her head back, sucking in desperate gasps, shivering when he tracked his ravenous kisses down her neck. The nip he gave to her pulse made her groan.
“We’re out in the open, anyone could see us!” she moaned.
“No one will see,” Kalix snarled back.
She felt her vaginal muscles pulse, spilling her arousal down her thighs in a thick gush. Her cry of surprise mixed with the snarls and roars when Kalix’s lips brushed across her nipple, licking the little nub into his mouth to suckle strongly. Her eyes crossed with the immediate pulse of pleasure.
“Yes... they... will!” Alec choked on a sound of shock.
His fingers sliced through the lips of her sex, circled her opening and spread the excessively slick fluid of her arousal, around and around until she felt dizzy from mentally chasing his touch.
The combination of her nipple pressed hard to the roof of his mouth and that maddening swirl of his fingertips had her panting and writhing.
Needing to get away from the intensity. Needing closer. Needing more of... something. Anything. Just more.
“No one will see,” he repeated roughly. Alec squealed when he suddenly whipped her around, pressing his hand between her shoulders to keep her pinned to the boulder. “Stay like that.”
She shivered in reaction to that growl. The commanding possessiveness in his tone was one he hadn’t yet used with her.
It dropped his voice down a whole two octaves, so deep and rough it sounded like rocks being ground together. Her entire body seized when he set his mouth to the center of her back.
Not at all what she had expected.
He kissed and licked every scar she had. From the thick, feather-like lines along her shoulder blades, to the raised lines of tissue on either side of her spine.
Alec hadn’t ever considered the area to be particularly sensitive, but what he was doing, she felt like he was worshiping the ugliest part of her.
“There is no part of you that is ugly, mate,” Kalix grated out, as though he could read her mind, rubbing his cheek over her skin.
He straightened and stepped closer to press his chest against her back. Pressed her harder against the boulder, her nipples abraded with every harsh breath she took.
Another loud roar in the distance made her flinch. “Kalix—”
He circled her throat with his hand, and tilted her head back over his shoulder so he could touch a kiss to her trembling lips.
His other hand snaked down, splaying wide between her thighs, tipping her hips up even as he firmly kicked her feet apart.
“No one will see. I promise, they are all much too busy breeding with their own mates.”
*****
Alec’s entire body jolted. Her eyes snapped open to see the familiar pattern of her ceiling. She lay there in total shock for a moment, the silence actually quite deafening as she realized she must have been dreaming.
She was in her bedroom, not in the middle of a rock strewn desert.
Her chest heaved with the breaths she struggled to take in, her body electrified, aching in an entirely new way.
Where the hell had that dream come from?
Her hand shook when she reached to push her tangled hair out of her face, biting into her lip as the movement caused her breasts to lift beneath her tunic, her painfully sensitive nipples pressing into the fabric hard enough to make her wince.
“Alec?”
She seized at the sound of her name. Nearly fell out of bed with the surprise of hearing the same, deep roughness to Kalix’s voice she had heard in her dream.
He was right there, sitting beside her bed for no reason, his head tilted curiously at her, nostrils flared like he could smell her arousal.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” she demanded. Well, she tried to make it a demand. Mostly it just came out as a squeak.
“I wanted to make certain you suffered no nightmares after your shift. Jonas informed me you might find it difficult to process such an emotional release.”
Alec screwed her face up in disgust, her arousal immediately snuffed out as though it had never been. Now Kalix was getting instructions on how to deal with her from Jonas?
Great. Just great.
She flung back the covers, ignoring how Kalix sat up straighter in his chair, stumbling a little because her legs were still rubbery from her outrageous dream.
Kalix leapt up to catch her, frowning when she jumped up gracelessly and slapped at his hands.
“Your scent tells me your dreams were anything but nightmares, and yet you are angry. Why?” he asked.
“Because Jonas needs to mind his own damn business! And you need to stop asking everyone else for advice on how to deal with me!”
“I did not ask for advice, Jonas sought me out. Were you dreaming about the breeding festival?”
Alec froze with her hands on the bathroom door. His question was delivered in a dangerously sensual purr, one that made her skin prickle again, made her breasts give a nearly painful throb, and her sex give a traitorous flutter.
“Excuse me?” she rasped, turning all the way around when he stalked her deeper into the bathroom, just like he had in her dream. His hands caught her by the hips when she bumped back against the far wall.
“You were,” he growled, a fierce grin curving his way to sexy mouth. One she vividly remembered doing amazing things to her body. In a dream. Only in a dream.
Alec jerked her chin back when he made to rub his cheek against hers. “How could you possibly know what I was dreaming about?”
“Because you were sharing my visions.”
“I was what?”
“It is a sign of our bond manifesting. Mates will sometimes share one another’s more pleasurable dreams. I was imagining our meeting, our mating, at this season’s festival.
“It is in four days’ time and we have yet to speak of it. My desires must have traveled to you via our bond.”
Kalix attempted to tell her all about the breeding festival and S9, but Alec was still struggling with the part where he had shared his sexual fantasy with her through their bond. It had been undeniably arousing, evident by how her body and her cat both reacted.
The new feline part of her wanted to reach out and do something with the tidal wave of arousal pouring off of Kalix.
Thankfully, her brain was occupied with an attempt to identify what had happened between her and Kalix to begin forming that mystical Sarazen bond.
Alec’s thoughts were a jumbled mix of hurt, distrust and irrational feelings about actually being his mate.
She didn’t want a mate, yet she was hurt and upset Kalix had started out not wanting her either, which was just a study in ridiculousness.
She didn’t trust that after almost a year, Kalix suddenly changed his mind and had come running home to claim her.
Just in time for the Breeding Festival that Clary was insisting Alec participate in.
Now they had shared a very intimate, physically stimulating dream through a mental link that was proof of their bond, and Alec was torn.
Torn between wanting to jump on Kalix and find out where else his fantasy might lead, and wanting to kick him in the balls again for sitting at her bedside staring at her, because Jonas had interfered. Again.
Jonas. The nosy, ignorant man had overstepped this time and Alec was done with it.
*****
Kalix did not understand why Alec was upset. Sharing his fantasy meant they were growing closer, meant their bond was strengthening. At least enough for a link to form between their minds.
He thought explaining to her further about S9, about the festival, might put her at ease. Clearly he had been mistaken.
She ducked out from between his arms and marched straight into the enzyme shower, firmly shutting the door behind her.
Though the scent of her desire was deliciously thick, evidence enough to say she had enjoyed something of their shared dream, Kalix wondered if perhaps his fantasy might also have frightened her, as his thoughts hadn’t exactly been on the gentle side.
She came out of the stall, the scent of her arousal more subdued, scowling at him when she shoved past and back into her chambers.
His mate was so difficult to understand sometimes.
Kalix looked back and wondered, if he hadn’t left Alec so quickly after that very first time she had touched her lips to his cheek, if he hadn’t left after giving her the crystals made from her sister’s ashes, would she have come to trust him sooner?
Would their bond have already been assured if he had shared the burden of her grief when it was still so fresh?
Guilt lay thick on his shoulders to think it might have been so.
Alec was not one to talk as openly about her thoughts as some of the other humans seemed to be.
As their bond strengthened, he would be better able to differentiate her feelings, but understanding them would still take communication.
It made him think of the very first encounter he had had with humans. With Clary, demanding a vow from Brennaugh to leave nothing unspoken between the Sarazens and their potential human mates. Clary’s words came back to haunt his thoughts.
What humans fear, we fight. Even if it means our death.
Was that what was happening? Was Alec afraid and fighting because he had failed to explain a detail irrelevant to him, one which might be vital to her acceptance of their bond?
“Alec, I did not mean for you to wake and be this upset. It was only a dream. A fantasy.”
Kalix watched her angrily jerk on her boots, give her fair hair a toss and turn her bright eyes to him with a glare.
“And it’s going to remain a fantasy!”
Now her scent edged on embarrassment. What was he doing wrong?
“It is normal, natural for mates to breed during the festival. It is not something to fear—”
Her hand sliced through the air accompanied by her little hiss. “I am not afraid!”
“Then why are you so upset?”
“Because I am!”