A Seacat's Love (Oceanan Trilogy Book 1)

by Kong, Jessica

  She began to cry. “I swear I will never betray you again. Rick, please. I am not a baby! I am…I am a woman! A grown woman!” she sobbed using the human terminology. “Please, Rick. Please!” He did not respond. “Do not leave me!” She fell to her knees. “Please, do not leave me because of this. I love you! I love you!”

  After the passing of a few more minutes with no response from Rick, Lance stepped forward and helped the sobbing kitten to her feet. He held her while she poured out her dying soul.

  Rick had not missed a word Leonora said. He remained where he sat behind the locked door with his arms wrapped around his raised knees. He thought back on his moments with her. Not one experience stood out from the others. Just being near her was a blessing to him.

  He remembered when Leonora placed her mark on his back. She had called it a soulscar. Her explanation of what it was and where it came from had made him laugh. He was not laughing now, for he felt as if his soul mourned the loss of its counterpart.

  It was a more intense emotion than the one he had survived when he lost Mary. Rick doubted its intensity has anything to do with it being recent. He had adored Mary, but Leonora had touched a part of him Mary had never found. Alas, he would now have to live without her. The tears he had managed to hold at bay for two days flowed freely.

  It was after two in the morning when Carol Ann slipped into Rick’s bedroom through the adjoining doors. She was immediately touched to see him still sitting by the door, staring into space. Tears welled up in her eyes at seeing his stained cheeks and swollen eyes.

  “Rick,” she spoke in a hushed tone. “What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do?” he replied in a hollow whisper. “The woman I love is sixteen years old.”

  “She’s an adult by Oceanan laws. She isn’t human. You have to remember that.” She did not want this to happen to her brother a second time. The unfamiliar look on Rick’s face made her believe it would be worse this time around.

  “How can I forget how old she is? How can I forget what our laws dictate is an adult? And how can I separate the two?” He placed his face into the palms of his hands. “Oh God! How am I going to live without her?” came his muffled cry.

  “Rick, you know the truth. You know she’s in love with you. And you know she is an adult among her race. You have to decide whether you are willing to put aside our laws and accept Leonora for what she is.”

  He met her gaze.

  “An alien humanoid from another planet. An alien who’s not subject to our laws or standards. I thought you understood and realized that.”

  Rick lowered his sights to the floor.

  “Don’t try to make her into a human, Rick. It won’t work. If you truly love her, then accept her for what she is and leave it at that. If you can’t do that, then stay away from her. Her people will arrive soon enough to retrieve her and Tigif.” With that said, Carol Ann whispered good night and left her brother to his thoughts.

  Wednesday, the 16th of April

  Carol Ann’s words had echoed in Rick’s head for a month. He had done everything in his power to stay away from Leonora. Yet, he searched for her whenever he did not see her. He kept a diligent watch over her, making sure no harm befell her or that Tigif got too close. And today was no different.

  He stood in the shadows by the glass doors, watching her walk along the shoreline. Leonora was alone and headed toward the rocks. Once she passed the house, Rick stepped onto the deck to keep a better eye on her. His sights never left her, and his soul never once stopped mourning.

  “So this is what you’ve decided,” Carol Ann spoke from the doors.

  Rick was unaware that both his sister and best friend had been keeping a close eye on him. Ignoring her comment, he watched Leonora jump onto the rocks and sit by the edge closest to the ocean. She raised her knees and rested her head on them.

  Carol Ann made a dramatic display of exhaling. “It must be hard to love someone so deeply and not be able to be with them—especially when there’s no logical reason for the two of you to be apart.”

  “Back off, Carol Ann,” he warned her bitterly. “You know bloody well why I’ve chosen to stay away from her.”

  “Yes, I know. And so does Tigif.” She walked up to him and leaned her hips against the railing. Looking at her bare feet, she asked, “Have you noticed how happy he’s been lately? It makes me wonder why he told you how old she was. I’m curious—did he bother to mention how old he is?"

  Though he said nothing but continued to stare at Leonora, Rick’s ears were glued to his sister’s every word.

  “He’s thirty years old, brother.”

  A swirling heat erupted in his chest. Rick’s eyes narrowed.

  “Funny how he’s older than you and has no problem with Nora’s age. Humph. I wonder why is that; don’t you?”

  Rick carefully regarded her. “How do you know this?”

  Carol Ann appeared to be extremely interested with her feet. She wiggled her toes. “Lance tricked him into admitting a couple of things.”

  His heart started to beat with life. “Like?”

  She shrugged, nonchalantly. “Ooh, just some things about their laws and his age, that sort of stuff. Only out of curiosity, mind you, not because of you or your pigheadedness. Nothing like that.”

  Rick glanced at the double doors as Lance appeared. He stood half in shadow and half in light. He seemed to have heard everything Carol Ann said. He confirmed her words with a nod.

  Nevertheless, Rick was true to his nature and was not easily convinced. “And you believed him?”

  “This is me you’re talking about,” replied Lance. “You do remember who I am?”

  Rick’s vision zoomed in on his beloved on the rocks. “They’ll be leaving soon,” he croaked.

  “Exactly,” said Lance.

  Rick’s gaze switched to the incoming waves. He thought of Tigif, and his jaw clenched. That bastard! He did it to me again! His eyes riveted back to the rocks. The greatest need to have ever enveloped a being’s soul besieged him. Nora. He bolted from his spot and headed for the large rocks.

  Rick easily climbed to the top of the familiar boulders. He stealthily made his way to Leonora, who had her head lowered. Soul mate she had called him—one soul divided in half, each side longing to rejoin with its other half. Only when both sides fused together would either being be complete.

  Rick went down on one knee beside her. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed a hold of Leonora’s chin through the crook of her left arm. In one fluid motion, he brought her head up and captured her mouth in a smoldering kiss.

  He lured her tongue into his mouth. Leonora whimpered and gave herself completely to him. Without releasing her lips, Rick gently lowered her unto her back. He grabbed each side of her blouse and tore it open, exposing her to the cool ocean breeze.

  The past month had revealed to him how much pain and suffrage was in store for him after Leonora left. Rick’s heart beat erratically at the thought. He would not survive. He needed to be a part of her life, a part of her—body and soul. He now understood. Leonora was not just his lover, but his soul’s mate as well.

  Intensifying their kiss, Leonora encouraged him with her movements to raise her skirt. Rick complied while she urgently opened his pants. She grasped his swollen member and eagerly placed him inside her. Groaning, Rick pushed forward and claimed her on top of the rocks. Their mating was as wild as the large waves that crashed around them, sprinkling them with its soft, fine mist.

  Leonora and Rick were snuggled up in Rick’s queen-size bed. Both were temporarily satiated after a second, untamed mating session. Rick stared at the ceiling, while he fingered Leonora’s left arm. He thought about Tigif. The cat had gotten the best of him repeatedly, managing to steal precious time from Leonora and himself. He vowed to repay the alien the first chance he got.

  Leonora was curled up along the left side of him. He thought she had fallen asleep until she started talking.

  “
The cuts on your back have healed quite nicely. You still have scars.”

  “I never thought I would be used as a scratching post if I made love to you. I guess that’s what happens when a man makes love to a wildcat.” He tweaked her nose.

  “I am not sorry about that.”

  Rick’s eyelids dropped halfway in consideration. “Oh?”

  “You do not know what those scares signify on my planet.” She gazed up at him. “Do you?”

  “I didn’t know that a couple of cuts could signify anything other than what they are. So what do they signify?” His gut told him he already knew.

  “They are equivalent to a wedding ring.” When there was no change in his expression, Leonora laid back on the mattress. “On my planet, you would be seen as a married male, and any female that tries to come on to you, would be stigmatized and ostracized.”

  Rick remembered the dream he had. Leonora was his wife and pregnant with his child. “And what about you? Wouldn’t you be seen as a married woman?” He grinned. “After all, it was you who placed those marks on me.”

  The idea of being married to Leonora under her laws was exactly the ammunition he needed to convince her to stay with him. Question was, even though she loved him, would she consider living among the race that had killed her friends?

  Leonora shook her head negatively. “No. I have no such markings on my body. So on my planet, I am seen as a single female, eligible for a male to claim.”

  Rick’s smile vanished as he stiffened. It was not the answer he wanted. He did not like any man looking at Leonora, for it meant he was interested and Leonora belonged to him.

  “Just as you are seen here. Remember, here on Earth only a wedding ring signifies you are married, not some scar on your back.”

  Rick said nothing, nor did he make a move. Leonora was staring at the ceiling, so she did not notice his expression darkening. Had she seen the deadly gleam in his eyes, she would have stopped, for the storm that was brewing promised to be an ugly one. And it got worse with each word that left her lips.

  “When I leave, you will find someone else to warm your bed. Being attractive and unattached, you would have no problems in finding another willing female. As for myself, I do not intend finding another mate so soon. I would dedicate my time to my research. Perhaps even broaden my studies.”

  “Don’t you want a family? A husband? Children?”

  “Perhaps one day,” she answered, shrugging her slender shoulders.

  She sounded so aloof that her meaning concerned Rick. “Perhaps?”

  “Uh huh. Maybe someday down the line I will find another mate—a good male who would give me a lair full of kittens, as long as I am the one who chooses the mate. If Challen ever finds out that I am no longer a virgin, he just might join me off to the first male who asks for my hand.”

  Rick thought back on the dream. Images of Leonora in that pregnant state, making love to another man, made him extremely jealous and dangerously angry.

  Without missing a beat, she snorted. “That is if he does not decide to give me to Tigif. We both know Tigif is going to open his big mouth and tell Challen about us. And I know my brother. When he gets angry, he has the tendency to act first and ask questions later.” With a wry chuckle, she added, “I can just see myself married to Tigif and pregnant with his kittens.”

  “Never!” Rick suddenly jumped on top of her. “I’ll never let another man touch you! Ever!” He slammed his lips hard against hers with the intentions of punishing her for saying such hideous things. Once the painful kiss was over, they both tasted blood. Neither knew from whom.

  “Don’t ever say anything like that to me again!” he snarled, a savage, fury shone in his eyes. “Don’t ever think about leaving me and going to another man, Leonora! I forbid it!”

  “Then mark me.” Leonora quickly reached over the side of the bed to where she had hidden a small kitchen knife between the mattresses. “Brand me yours so that no one will touch me.”

  Rick was rendered immobile at the sight of the knife.

  “Mark me on my legs, Rick, like I did on your back. No less than three cuts. Do not let another male take me from you.”

  Rick stared at the knife. For a moment, the need to do so entered his being. Then he thought of the pain Leonora would suffer afterward. “I can’t.” He gingerly took the knife out of her hand and placed it on the dresser table.

  “But…”

  Rick read concern in her eyes. He understood. It warmed his heart that she wanted to be his wife. In his mind, she already was. There was no need for him to hurt her. In time, he will make the proper arrangements that would make them man and wife under Earth’s laws.

  “Sweetheart, I can’t hurt you, you know that.”

  “So you would rather have me go to another male, is that it?” Her voice trembled with the emotions she valiantly tried to contain.

  “No, of course not.”

  “The blazes, you say!” Her eyes watered. “You would rather share me with every male alive instead of having me for yourself!”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is true. You would rather see me as Tigif’s lifemate and pregnant with his kittens!”

  “Nora,” Rick warned in a low, frigid tone.

  “Fine then.” Leonora threw the sheets off her body. “I do not see why I should remain here.”

  Rick snatched her arm as she got off the bed and yanked her back down. His legs became entangled in the sheets. Enraged, he flung them to the floor before pinning Leonora with his naked form.

  “Get off me! Since I am going to become Tigif’s lifemate when we return, I might as well start sharing his bed. After all, he does want me. He has said it a thousand times. He is eager to make every male know I belong to him.”

  “You’re mine, not his, damn it!” His grip on her shoulders tightened. “You’re not going to him.”

  Her pale eyes narrowed up at him. “But you do not want me. Release me. Let me go to the male who does want me. Let me go!” She managed to remove his hands and move to the edge of the mattress. “I am going to mate with Tigif.”

  “NO!” Flinging Leonora back onto the bed, Rick pressed her into the mattress with his full weight. He kissed her with another out-of-control kiss. “You’re never going to Tigif! No other man is going to touch you! You’re mine, damn it!” He roughly spread her legs apart. “I’m never going to let you forget it!” He forced himself inside her, driving his meaning across with his body. “Never!”

  Rick was conscious of only one thing, of making certain Leonora never forgot to whom she had given herself to—to whom she belonged. The only way he could think of in accomplishing this feat was by impregnating her; that way she could never forget him. For each time she gazed upon their infant, she would be reminded of the father.

  “Stop it, Rick! You do not want me!”

  “The bloody hell I don’t want you!” He tilted her hips to his incoming force.

  Leonora shook her head. “You do not want me. I will never be yours! You do not understand. I will never truly be yours!”

  There was a click inside his soul. Rick lost total control. His hips rammed into hers. “You’re mine!”

  “Then mark me, blast you! Mark me!”

  Leonora urged Rick on with her clawing fingers. Her slender legs wrapped around his mad driving hips. Rick snatched the knife off the table and held it at his side, near Leonora’s left thigh. He paused to look into her pale blue eyes.

  “Mark me so that Tigif can never touch me. Or is that what you want?” She raked her claws, not gently, into his long, blond hair. Grabbing two fistfuls, she forced him to look more closely at her. “Is that what you want? Do you want Tigif to fuck me like you are doing right now?”

  She closed her eyes and arched her back. She made certain the tip of Rick’s nose grazed her neck downward, stopping in the valley between two hardened peaks. To have her respond this way to another man’s touch made Rick’s last doubts of hurting her disappear.


  “No. No!” he growled against her chest.

  Grabbing his wrist, Leonora lowered her left leg and directed his hand, plus the knife, to her thigh. “Then do it, Rick. Do it before it is too late! Before Tigif takes me from you. Forever!”

  “Never!” Rick yelled as he tore into her tender flesh with the knife. He cut her twice more to reinforce his meaning.

  The young Seacat screamed out in triumph and in pain. Rick dropped the knife and poured his seed deep inside his soul mate’s body.

  Tuesday, the 20th of May

  Leonora sat on a chair facing the beach, fingering her puffy red scar with a dreamy look on her face. She was thinking back on how she had to use Rick’s jealousy against him, so he would mark her.

  Carol Ann exited the house onto the deck. “I hope you never intend on doing something as foolish as that again.”

  “What?”

  Carol Ann gestured with her chin to Leonora’s leg. “Rick could’ve killed you with that knife.” She shook her head. “According to Lance, making my brother as furious as he was that night was in any intelligent person’s opinion a very stupid and deadly thing to do. It was more than obvious that his anger was out of control. Lance mentioned that whenever the Predator’s temper rose to those heights, a few dead bodies never failed to show up, unless he was there to stop Rick personally. I suggest you never make him that angry again. You might not be so lucky next time.”

  “It was the only way I could think of to get him to mark me,” explained Leonora. The pain she had felt was a small price to pay for having Rick make love to her in such a wild, uncontrollable, possessive manner. She released a long, nostalgic sigh.

  “Those scars look painful,” commented Carol Ann with a grin.

  Leonora beamed as she proudly displayed her scar. “A pain worth enduring.” She met Carol Ann’s eyes. “Like childbirth.”

  Carol Ann laughed. “Unbelievable. Has Tigif seen it yet?”

  “No.” Leonora lowered her skirt before felinely walking over to her new sister-in-law. “And please do not tell him. Rick and I wish to keep our union a secret until the right time comes.”