A wave of pain and sickness such as he’d never felt before rolled over him. He could not hurt the woman on the bench, ever. And if anyone tried to hurt her, he would kill them.
Dully, he realized that he could hear the sounds of fighting right outside the door. Shouting. The sizzle of laser guns.
The door flew open, and Salvi and Cesaro, another of Lukan’s pack-mates, rushed in. They held laser guns – the cowards! Fighting with a weapon, against another Vulfan? Lukan bristled with rage at the sight.
Several of Lukan’s men were bearing down on Salvi, he realized. They did not hold weapons. Fangor and Kaspar were with them. Salvi’s face went white with fear. He turned and fired at Kaspar, and Kaspar’s arm burst into flames.
Kaspar let out a howl of anguish, as Fangor and his Vulfans dove at Salvi, shifting into their animal form, and took him down. Salvi disappeared under a pile of snarling, snapping fur, and his screams of agony tore through the air.
A male, metal serv-bot rushed through the doorway.
“It’s a trick!” he cried, pointing at Alexandra. “She wiped your mind with the memory—” Alexandra grabbed a –laser gun from a counter-top, pointed it at the serv-bot, and shot him. He froze in place. The female serv-bot clanged harder and made a terrible wailing noise behind her gag.
Lukan lunged through the air and knocked the gun from Alexandra’s hand. She fell to the ground with a shriek, cowering.
“You are not my mate!” he shouted at her as rage flowed through his body. He didn’t even know where the words had come from, but he knew they were true. And now he had other memories, of him and the beautiful woman who was tied up. Which memories were real?
“Say it! You are not my true mate!” he yelled, and his words ended on a snarl as fur covered his body. He was about to turn animal. He’d probably kill Alexandra when he did – that was how furious he was.
“I’m not…I’m not your true mate.” That came out on a furious wail.
He rushed past her, and quickly started untying the woman whose name he did not know. The woman he loved.
Chapter Seventeen
“You promise you forgive me?” Lukan asked Talia for the dozenth time.
“Of course I forgive you. She wiped out your memory.” Talia squeezed Lukan’s hand for reassurance, and leaned against him.
If anything, this had strengthened her love for him. Lukan’s love for her was so powerful that even the memory machine could not destroy it.
Alexandra now lay strapped on a bed in the memory chamber, and an attendant was preparing the machine. Salvi’s accomplices had all been killed. Treason was an offense punishable by death, on Ilyria.
Mar-ee had managed to summon help once they got into the memory chamber. She and Farex had apparently set up a special internal messaging function to speak to each other when they were apart. As soon as Farex got Mar-ee’s message, he had sought out Kaspar and Fangor.
Kaspar was using a mechanical arm now, while he waited for a new vat-grown flesh arm to replace the limb that Salvi had destroyed in his final act of cowardice.
Fortunately, Salvi had been defeated, they’d been able to restore Lukan’s memories. Talia shuddered to think about life without Lukan…without him remembering her at all.
She got up and stalked over to glare at Alexandra. Lukan joined her.
“If you had destroyed Lukan’s mind, I swear I would have killed you, you pathetic, evil witch,” Talia spat at her.
“How did this happen?” Alexandra wailed. “How? The memory machine never fails!”
Lukan scoffed at that. “There is no memory machine that can overcome the bond between true mates once they have met. And the memory machine cannot make a Vulfan want another woman once he has met the woman that he is destined to love.”
“So now…you’re going to murder me?” Alexandra’s eyes went wide with terror, and she strangled on a sob.
“I am going to erase your memory, completely,” Lukan said coldly. “And then, you will be placed in a Federation prison, for life. And now,” he added, “I am going to claim my true mate.”
“First we should check on Farex,” Talia said, ignoring Alexandra’s shrieks of rage and protest “Much as I look forward to the claiming.”
Farex was in the robot repair facility in Donnelle, with Mar-ee by his side. Thankfully, it appeared as if Alexandra hadn’t been able to destroy his central hard drive, so he would survive with his personality and memories intact. She’d shot him in the head, but the serv-bots’ hard drives were actually located in their abdomens.
A short while later, after they called the repair facility to check on Farex, they returned to Lukan’s bed chamber.
“You will never leave me again,” he told Talia as he carried her over the threshold into the room. “When you go to Earth, I will go with you. And our ceremony will be held in thirty solar cycles.” He nipped at her neck. “But I hope you are already bearing my cubs by then.”
He set her on her feet and turned her so her back was pressed against his chest and stomach. He ran his palm around to cup her belly. He nuzzled her ear. “I want lots of cubs,” he told her in a low growl. “All as brave and beautiful as their mother. You are my life, Talia.”
Talia felt a little thrill run through her at the thought of carrying his babies. She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoes to press her lips against his.
Lukan kissed her back with unrestrained passion, darting his tongue into her mouth and running his hands down her spine. He clutched her ass and drew her against him so she could feel the bulge of his erection.
When she finally pulled away, she smiled. “We’d better start practicing, then.”
It took only moments for them to discard their clothes and crawl onto the bed. Neither of them wanted to wait. Talia was dripping wet, panting with desire to feel Lukan inside her, and his cock was as hard as satin-sheathed steel.
They rolled and tumbled together, touching and tasting, limbs sliding against each other, lips and hands exploring. Their skin heated, heartbeats falling into a syncopated rhythm, breath intermingling.
“I love you so much,” Lukan whispered between swift, sipping kisses to her lips. “I want to mark you and make you mine forever. Please say that I can. You are my heart. I have nothing if I do not have you.”
Talia rolled onto her stomach, baring her back to him. She drew her hair away from her neck, exposing the unblemished skin.
“Mark me,” she said. “I’m already yours. I always have been.”
Lukan growled – a low, rolling, possessive sound. He tucked his fingers beneath Talia’s hips and drew her back and up so she was on all fours, her pink, glistening sex exposed to his hungry gaze.
“You’re beautiful,” he told her, drawing back and lowering his head so he could give her a long, slow lick. She shuddered with desire and pressed back against him, pussy pulsing and wet.
“Lukan…” she pleaded.
He teased her for a long time, flicking his tongue over her clit, then dipping it into her pussy in a dizzyingly intimate French kiss. Talia let her head drop, closing her eyes so she could concentrate on the sensation spiraling through her. Her thighs trembled and she dug her fingers into the coverlet, moaning blissfully as she trembled on the brink of orgasm.
Almost there… Her heart skipped erratically in her chest and every muscle tensed in almost painful expectation of the pleasure to come. Almost…
She groaned with frustration and swore viciously when Lukan pulled away, leaving nothing but cool air against her heated pussy. He gave a low chuckle, but he didn’t leave her frustrated for long. He nuzzled up behind her, his big body warm against her spine, his cock nudging her entrance as he pulled her back against him.
Talia tensed and shuddered as he pushed inside her all the way to the hilt in a single smooth, easy thrust. He cupped her breast, pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling the taut bud as he rocked his hips, pushing in and out of her greedy bo
dy.
Almost at once, orgasm swept over her, saturating every muscle and wringing a wild groan of release from her. Its force left her ragdoll limp, too overwhelmed to do anything but hold on for dear life as Lukan pistoned into her. She came again and again, each wave of pleasure cresting only to be overtaken by another, and her pussy spasmed stickily around his thick cock, drawing staccato, effortful grunts from him as he fucked her.
“Please…” she managed to gasp. “Do it, Lukan. Mark me. Make me yours.”
Lukan nuzzled the side of her throat, licking the skin with the flat of his tongue before taking it between his teeth. Talia moaned with anticipation, then cried out with a mixture of pleasure and sharp, slicing pain as he sank his teeth into her throat.
She spasmed around him, and his fingers dug into her breast hard as he came, his shout of completion muffled by the flesh of her throat, the claiming mark he had laid on her skin.
Epilogue
Talia Anders, Reginar-La of the Wor-Lan clan, executive director of Star Crossed Matchmakers, leaned back in her seat with a smile of satisfaction.
The latest reports were in. In the past month since they’d launched the new dating agency, they’d already made fourteen successful matches. Eight of them with the Thorolf Pack, six with the Wor-Lans. She was sending fewer women, but vetting them much more carefully. Her projections showed that they could expect a few hundred matches a year from now on.
She was getting ready to tell Rosamund about Ilyria, because she wanted to invite her to try Star Crossed’s mating services. She’d held off because Rosamund’s sister was still in nursing school, and she didn’t know if Rosamund would be ready to move to another planet the majority of the time and leave Madison behind. However, Madison was getting ready to graduate soon…maybe she’d be able to convince Madison to give Ilyria a try too.
A plate of home-made cookies sat on her desk, courtesy of Mar-ee and Farex, who were inseparable these days.
As Talia chewed a sweet, gooey chocolate chip cookie, the screen on her desk lit up.
She waved at the face that appeared on the screen. “Hi, Grandad!” she said. “What’s new?”
“Oh, nothing much.” He had a smug look on his face. “Just went fishing.”
She laughed. She knew her grandfather. He was dying for her to ask, so she asked. “How did it go?”
“Just caught a thirty-pound bierla fish, that’s all.” Her grandfather stepped back from the camera to show an enormous purple-scaled fish.
Her grandmother was standing next to him, smiling indulgently. “It’ll be fifty pounds by the time he goes to the next meeting of the bierla fishermen’s club,” she said.
She and Lukan had decided that it made sense to move her family from their sketchy neighborhood on Earth to Ilyria. She had discussed it with her family. If they hadn’t agreed, Lukan would have been obligated to wipe that conversation from their memories, but thankfully, they had agreed. She would be spending the majority of her time on Ilyria, and they wanted to be there with her. They wanted to help raise her cubs.
Not only that, but with the advanced technology on Ilyria, her father could walk again without the use of his crutches, and his pain was gone.
Her family had fit right in there. They’d made friends with the pack, her grandmother had started a gardening club, and her father and grandfather had joined the Wor-Lan Pack’s fishing club.
“Will you be home for dinner tonight?” her grandfather asked.
“Sure will. Are you going to fry up that fish?”
“This beauty?” Her grandfather looked shocked at the very suggestion. “No way – I’m going to have this stuffed and mounted.”
“I’m cooking darfleen steak,” her grandmother chimed in.
“Then I won’t be late,” Talia said. “Better let me get back to work so I can get home on time.”
That was not be, however.
As soon as she signed off, Lukan came into the office. Just as he did every time she saw him, he took Talia’s breath away. Even dressed in conservative Earth clothes, he was anything but ordinary. He walked with the grace of a predator. She’d never get tired of watching him. His size and strength meant he dominated any room he was in. His glossy black hair tumbled in waves that framed his high cheekbones. And his eyes…he had eyes only for her.
He walked over to the desk, bent down and kissed Talia’s neck. “This new group of women you have chosen are excellent.”
Talia looked up at him and smiled. “Hello, Mr. Anders,” she said. “Did you know that on Earth it’s against the law for bosses to sexually harass their employees?”
Lukan snorted. He kissed the other side of her neck, then nibbled it, and she moaned in pleasure. “Good thing that I am not from Earth, then,” he said.
“Yes, it is a good thing,” she said. “Do that again.”
He obliged.
Talia sighed contentedly. “Do you know how many times I fantasized about this during that terrible year when I thought you didn’t like me?”
“I intend to spend the rest of my life fulfilling every fantasy you have,” he told her.
He stepped back so she could swivel around on her chair, and held out his hand to help her to her feet.
She patted her round belly. Only halfway through her pregnancy, she was already huge – in another five months she’d be giving birth to two big, healthy cubs. “You can’t possibly find me attractive in this state,” she said wryly. “Mar-ee says I look like Ilyria’s lesser moon.”
Lukan snorted irritably. “I don’t care what you say – one day I’m going to reprogram that metallic menace to be seen and not heard.”
But Talia knew he didn’t mean it. She adored Mar-ee, although she wasn’t as ever-present now that she and Farex were courting. And that meant Lukan would never have the heart to change a thing about her.
He looked down at her, his expression solemn now, and placed his hand over hers on her baby bump. “I adore you,” he told her. “You are my love, my Reginar-La, and you are carrying my children within your body. That makes you more beautiful to me than you have ever been. And now I’m going to prove it to you.”
He scooped her effortlessly into his arms and carried her towards the couch. He was going to have to be pretty inventive to ravish her in her current condition. She had no doubt whatsoever that he was up to the task.
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About the Author
Hello, I am Georgette St. Clair, writer of hot, sexy romances which star all Alpha heroes, all the time. The road to love may be rocky and fraught with peril, (and humor and scorchtastic sex and healthy heapings of snark) but my shifters will stop at nothing to claim their fated mate.
A little about me: I live in Florida. My checkered career involved stints as a newspaper reporter, EMT, internet marketer, cocktail waitress, temp, nurse’s aide (but not all at the same time...)
Now I’m living my perfect life, spending my days in a fantasy universe where I nudge my smart-mouthed, take-no-guff heroines onto the path that will set them on a collision course with true love.
Check out my website for a complete list of titles and what’s coming soon. Or connect with me on Facebook.
Also by Georgette St. Clair
The Mating Game Series:
The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf (The Mating Game Book 1)
Dating a Dragon (The Mating Game Book 2)
Shifters of Silver Peak series:
Mate Marked: Shifters of Silver Peak
Shifters of Silver Peak: Mate for a Month
Shifters of Silver Peak: A Very Shifty Christmas
Bridenapped Series:
Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles
Bridenapped: The Alpha’s Choice
The Alpha Meets His Match (A paranormal romance) (Shifters, Inc. Book 1)
His Purrfect Mate (A Shifter Romance) (Shifters, Inc. Book 2)
Pixie the Lion Tamer (Shifters, Inc. Book 3)
Shifters, Inc. The Bear Who Loved Me (A BBW Paranormal Romance)
Spotting His Leopard (Shifters, Inc.)
Blue Moon Junction Series:
Blue Moon Shifters: The Alpha Claims a Mate (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 1)
Blue Moon Shifters: The Bobcat’s Tale (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 2)
Blue Moon Shifters: Hard to Bear (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 3)
Blue Moon Shifters: My Heart Laid Bear (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Blue Moon Junction Book 4)
Timber Valley Pack Series:
Bride of the Alpha (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 1)
Purr for the Alpha (A Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 2)
Hard as Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack Book 3)
Timber Valley Pack: Lynx on the Loose (A Paranormal Romance with Shifters)
Taken by the Alpha (Timber Valley Pack Book 5)
The Alpha Won’t Be Denied (Timber Valley Pack Book 6)
Standalone titles:
Grayslake: More than Mated: Grayslake: Furrever Yours (Kindle Worlds Novella)
Badlands: The Lion’s Den
The Vulfan's True Mate (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Starcrossed Dating Agency Book 1) Page 10