His deep voice flooded her mind, his mouth still playing over hers with an expertise that made her toes curl in her boots. Give in to me, khalaa. Give me everything. I want all of you.
The words jolted her out of the spell he’d woven around her. Panic arced through her system. Losing herself to the pleasure, to anything, wasn’t acceptable. It was weak, and she’d sworn to herself long ago to never be weak. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t do this. Not again. She had to get away from this frightening, consuming desperation. She had to escape him, escape herself. A harsh whimper burst from her throat and she brought her knee up hard, catching him in the balls.
A bestial groan of pain ripped from him, and she shoved him away. He hit the ground hard and she didn’t wait to see if he was all right, she spun on her heel and ran. At this point, she didn’t think of Arthur or Earth or anything bigger or nobler than herself. Nothing else mattered but getting away from her worst fear—letting someone close enough to truly need them. Farid could make her need that badly, and she couldn’t have that. Not ever.
Nearly two decades of daily PT meant she could run a hell of a lot farther and faster than most women, and with her own lust riding her heels, she added speed even she didn’t know she possessed.
Bren, wait! Farid’s voice echoed in her mind, which only made her legs pump harder. Her muscles burned and sweat slid down her face, stinging her eyes.
A blur of color and terrifying speed came at her from the right, and she leaped sideways. Too late. Farid caught her around the waist and dragged her to the ground.
His palm slammed over her mouth, his green eyes fierce and sparking with power. Be silent. I sense others. Danger is near.
Her hands closed spasmodically around his upper arms, and she froze underneath him, working to level out her breathing. It was made more difficult by the fact that his long, hard, naked body was plastered to hers from chest to groin and he’d somehow ended up between her legs. Twin reactions sparked within her. The well-trained soldier waiting for a possible ambush, and the woman reacting to a man she craved touching her. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and gathered at her temples. Blazing passion and cold fear sent tingles rippling down her skin.
“They’ll check the fire first. Let’s get out of here.” She pulled his hand away from her mouth and lifted her head to breathe the words in his ear. He shuddered, thrusting himself into the juncture of her thighs. Need screamed through her and she dug her nails into his biceps.
His gaze snapped up, looking at something she had to twist her head around to see. Power flashed in his eyes, a deep, terrifying hiss issuing from his mouth. Fangs bared, he jerked away and rolled to his feet in one smooth motion. She pushed herself upright less steadily, surreptitiously sliding his weapon out of her holster. A soldier in army camo stood with a submachine gun pointed at them. Her heart lurched. The kid couldn’t be more than about twenty. Another of her worst nightmares realized, having to face and maybe kill one of her own.
“Drop your weapon, put your hands on your head, and get down on the ground,” the boy barked. “Now!”
Farid flexed his clawed fingers and hissed. The soldier’s weapon went right to him, and she knew if she left it to them, someone was going to die here. She’d rather that not happen. Her heart pounded, but she ignored it, reaching for that battle calm, that place where the adrenaline only enhanced her reactions.
She shifted her weight to drop to a crouch, sweeping one leg out to catch Farid behind the knees and knock him to the ground. Firing a quick shot with aim honed from long years of practice, she put a laser round in the soldier’s bulletproof vest. He slammed back against a tree, shook as though he’d touched a live wire, slumped over, and lost his grip on his gun. He didn’t stay down though. When he went for the weapon at his belt, she spoke. “Don’t. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to.”
“Fuck you, traitor.” He grabbed his pistol and pulled the trigger. Bren dove left but knew she’d be too damn late to get out of the way.
Farid moved with that stunning speed of his, threw himself to the side, propelled her forward, and hissed when the bullet sliced into his arm. Blood sprayed over the ground and across green bushes, painting them in hideous rust red. Still, Farid leaped and had the kid by the throat, off his feet, and flattened against the tree in the time it took her to blink. The small, round disc of the white noisemaker fell from the soldier’s grasp without turning on. The soldier gagged, clawing at Farid’s iron grip. Farid shoved his face into the younger man’s. The voice that emerged from his throat was more animal growl than human speech. “Speak to her that way again, and I will tear your limbs off one by one.”
“Put him down, Arjun!” She barked out the words in the same tone of command she’d have used with a private fresh out of basic training, one she hoped would break through the feral beast to the logical man beneath. Her heart slammed against her ribs, her muscles shaking as her hand wavered from pointing the razer at the soldier to pointing it at the Kith. Fear coursed like ice through her veins, but she kept her voice firm. “Now, damn it!”
“Drop the weapon, Sergeant Major.” Another soldier, older and obviously more experienced, slid from behind a nearby boulder. He clicked a white noise maker and tossed it to the forest floor near Farid. The Kith screamed, the sound of a big cat in pain. If anything, his grip on the young soldier tightened.
Bren focused on this new threat. The one with a gun pointed at her. Oh, God. She knew this man. “Zielinski.”
His eyes were like shards of ice when he glared at her. “Always going out alone, Preston. Never a real team player. This time, it bit you in the ass.”
Everything about this man was regulation army, from his high and tight haircut to his perfectly organized utility belt. Zielinski was probably the only soldier in the U.S. Army more anal than Bren. Until yesterday. If she had been Arthur’s right hand, this man was his left. “Don’t do this, Zielinski.”
He snorted, his gun never wavering. “You’re a traitor and an alien’s whore, Preston. I’m not listening to a word you say. Now, drop your weapon and tell lover boy over there to let the kid go.”
“What Arthur is doing is wrong. Think about it. Why haven’t the Sueni attacked us if they’re so dangerous? We shot down a ship full of their people and they didn’t shoot back.” She didn’t know why it was so desperately important to convince this man, to not be the only one out on this limb, but she kept talking anyway. “How many humans have you been ordered to kill lately, Zielinski?” His gaze flickered just a bit, and she knew she was right. Her stomach clenched at how many had already died in this god-awful mess. “If Arthur was so set on helping people on Earth, then why would he need you to exterminate them?”
“Shut up. Shut up! I don’t want to hear another fucking word out of you, traitor.” He pointed his gun directly at her but spoke to Farid. “Drop my man, Lord Arjun, or I’ll kill you both. Starting with Preston.”
Farid’s head whipped around, and the sound he made was pure animal, the deep, rumbling roar of a big cat. The blood drained out of Zielinski’s face, and Bren reacted, aimed the razer at the white noise maker and fried the thing. Farid screamed again, and then there was silence. Everything froze, the people, the forest around them. Not a single bird chirped, no bugs buzzed nearby, even the wind seemed to stop as the starbursts in Farid’s irises turned to solid green light. Bren felt a wave of white-hot power pulse outward, sending her stumbling back a few steps. Both the soldiers shrieked, grabbing their heads. She heard echoes of more human cries not far from where they stood. A chill ran down her skin as the soldiers slumped over. Farid dropped the boy to the ground, and neither human moved.
The Kith’s chest heaved with every breath, sweat running in rivulets down his face and chest. She stared from him to the unconscious humans and back again. Her heart thudded in slow, unnatural beats in her chest. She didn’t even know how he’d done what he’d done. She didn’t even know what he’d done, but it had taken him less t
hat a second to take out every single man who’d hunted them. “If you could…Why didn’t you do that before?”
“I…” His hands shook, his clawed fingers flexed, and his throat worked for a moment before grating words emerged. “It’s…difficult to cage it…once you let it out.”
Their eyes met, and the explosion of tangled emotions and needs that broke through her were not all hers. Desire shuddered through her—his and hers. Heat followed in its wake, fisting her sex until she bit her lip to keep from crying out. She could see the evidence of his passion, too. His cock rose in a hard erection, precum dripping down the thick shaft, and she swayed toward him. Wanting.
Her nipples tightened to points, her pussy slicking with juices. Her body was more than ready, willing, to fuck him. How had he done this to her so fast? She could no longer push it to the back of her mind, couldn’t ignore it. She pressed her fingers to her temples. “Stop. It. Now.”
His gaze flashed with wild green sparks. His voice was ragged with hurt, the usual coldness wiped away. “For the love of Anun, woman, I’ve done nothing to you that you didn’t want.”
“All those nights—”
He cut her off. “Were shared dreams between two willing minds. I no more controlled them than you did. If you really think I could ever hurt you, why would you trust me to help you with Arthur? Why me? Why not one of the dozen other Kith you’ve met? Why not the emperor himself?”
“I…”
He hissed at her, fangs bared. He turned away, stalking in the direction of their campfire. She couldn’t let him leave, not like this. The pain was too evident, too raw to ignore. It was even worse than when he’d told her about his family. This was a fresh wound, one she’d caused. A tormented man, an injured animal. It should have scared her, the angry beast, but it didn’t. Whatever she might doubt about him, she knew he’d never hurt her, no matter which of his forms he was in—or even if he was somewhere in between as he seemed to be now. This side of him called to her in a way the cool, controlled lord never had. That was what scared her. But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t let him go when he was hurting, when she’d been responsible for his pain.
She owed him that much. He’d saved her life.
He’d failed.
It twisted through him, a dark ugliness that threatened to drag him under. He could feel the control slipping through his fingers as the feeling ate at him. His cock ached with the desire Bren had awakened in him—even the echo of pain from her kick didn’t quell his lust. At the same time, his flesh throbbed around the gunshot wound in an agonizing symphony that ricocheted through his brain. It did nothing to help him hold on to any kind of self-discipline. It also didn’t keep the self-recrimination at bay.
He’d failed her, failed to sense the danger, failed to keep himself alert enough to notice they would soon be under attack. He’d let himself be distracted by the hunt for food, let the beast take over. Then beast and man had both been distracted by the old misery of his family’s loss and the overwhelming connection with Bren.
It had nearly gotten her murdered. A split second slower and that bullet would have hit her square in the chest. The boy had aimed to kill. A snarl reverberated in his chest, the beast clawing for freedom, wanting to shred the one who’d threatened Bren. The only way to control the feline was to open the floodgates on his psychic power. Maintain the balance by loosing the reins on both.
It shuddered through him like electricity, sizzling and sparking. He held on with the tips of his claws, praying to Anun that his people would come looking soon. It might be another day before they did. He’d gone along with Bren’s excuse of a sexual rendezvous, and no one was likely to want to interrupt him unless they were certain something had gone wrong. Kith never reacted well to harnessing their appetites, especially those as powerful as Farid.
He shook away the thoughts, trying to focus and yet…not focus at the same time. He’d likely zero in on the only person still moving besides him. Bren. There was only one logical conclusion to what would happen if he focused on her. Bonding, with or without her consent. And he could never let his One that close. To let a One in was to love them, to love them was to lose them. He refused to lose another person he loved, so he would never love again. He had his friends, his distant relatives, and none of them owned a piece of his soul. There was no one he couldn’t live without if he had to. Bren wouldn’t own his soul, either. He could want her, but he couldn’t keep her. He couldn’t even want to keep her.
So he walked away.
“Arjun, wait!” He heard her footsteps pounding behind him and shot her a fulminating glance over his shoulder. He didn’t stop until she ran to plant herself in front of him.
With more effort than he’d ever expended on it before, he retracted his claws, but he doubted he looked anything other than what he was—wild, half-feral. Everything he didn’t want to be. Her ocean blue eyes locked on his cock, and he could smell her desire, her lush dampness. He groaned, his hands shaking with the need to touch her.
Her gaze slid up his body, and she froze and swallowed when she reached his arm. He glanced at it and saw how red streaked down his skin. “Jesus, that’s a lot of blood. Let me look—”
“I don’t care.” And the vestiges of his control evaporated. He didn’t want to think about how he’d failed to keep them from being set upon by enemies, how she’d nearly been slaughtered before his eyes. He wanted to forget, to be distracted.
The beast was in command now.
His fingers snapped around her wrist, dragging her toward him. He brought her hand up to his lips, swirling his tongue around her palm, biting the soft flesh beneath her thumb. His heart pounded, his breath rushing in pants as the taste of her filled his mouth. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. He wanted more.
His free hand grabbed the hem of her shirt and wrenched it over her head. He was already at work on her bra when she let her shirt fall. The scraps of lace peeled away just as quickly, landing in a heap on the forest floor. He cupped her small, pert breasts in his palms, running his tongue over an extended fang as he stared at her bare flesh. “Do you want this or don’t you?”
He circled her nipples with his fingers, chafed them until they hardened to tiny points, made her gasp in shock. “Yes.”
“Good, then don’t kick me again.” The way her lovely face flushed, her breathing sped, her heart hammered beneath her breast made lust explode with volcanic heat and force inside him. Beads of precum slipped down his cock, he needed her so much.
She shivered, arching herself into his touch, and he could feel any remaining resistance fleeing her mind. It aroused him even more to feel her passion flow toward him through their mental link. Her low moan kissed his ears. “Will those men wake up and find us like this?”
“No, they’ll be out for some time. Stop talking.” He backed her against a nearby boulder, forcing her torso to bow over the sun-warmed surface. He bent, sucking one nipple and then the other into his mouth until they were ripe and red. His tongue batted the sensitive crest, his fangs scraping her flesh. She wrapped her legs around his waist, rubbing herself against his erection.
A growl vibrated his vocal cords. Anun, he could sense how aroused she was, how hot and wet for him. He wanted inside her and thrust against her sex, stimulating them both until there was nothing left in him but the wildness. He burned for her. Twining her fingers through his hair, she held him close and arched to push her breast deeper into his mouth.
He groaned and purred in the same breath, his fingertips skimming her ribs lightly, making goose bumps break over her skin. When he shoved her nipple hard against the roof of his mouth, she tugged on the strands of his hair. The sharp pain only fed his pleasure, knowing how much she craved him. She writhed against him. “Please!”
Yes. Yes, he wanted what she wanted. His cock working into her tight pussy once more. He kissed his way down her stomach, his fingers busy unfastening her pants. His teeth nipped at her belly button. “Lift your hips.”
She braced her feet against the boulder, leveraging her pelvis up so he could slide her jeans and panties down in one smooth motion. Her boots and the rest of her clothing hit the ground and were kicked aside. His fingers slipped into the thatch of hair that covered her sex, a satisfied grunt rising from him at her slickness. He stroked her clit and her hips rose in quick snaps to meet his hand.
It wasn’t enough. He wanted to be inside her, the feline craving that carnal connection. He pulled his fingers away and jerked her legs open, cupping her hips to hold her up. He settled between her legs, pressing her thighs flat to the rock. It was startling, that full-body contact. And so good. His lungs seized, his eyes closing as he savored the moment. Her sweet, female scent filled his nose and her soft, soft skin sliding against his made him clenched his teeth. She tilted her head back on the boulder, arching under him. He took the silent offering, his lips and fangs grazing her exposed throat. A backlash of pleasure whipped through the psychic link between them, making his dick throb as he felt her deepening passion, her wet readiness for him to take her.
Yes. Anun, yes, he needed to be inside her now.
The head of his cock rubbed against the damp, swollen lips of her pussy. She moaned, clamping her hands over his biceps. A feline roar ripped from his throat and he jerked back, pain exploding through him as she touched his wound. Spots swam before his eyes, cold sweat beading on his forehead. She yanked her hands away. “Oh, my God! I’m sorry!”
He closed his eyes, a shudder rippling through him as the agony receded again. Releasing a slow breath, he looked up to see her blue eyes wide with regret, but the tie between their minds still pulsed with her body’s clamoring needs. He ignored the remaining pain and kissed her—inhaled her, really, plunged his tongue into her mouth, licked her, bit her lip. He tasted her blood, and it fed the animalistic pleasure rocketing through him. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck, and fire exploded in his gut. She wriggled between his hard length and the unyielding surface of the rock, working to lock her legs behind his waist. He purred at the friction of her skin against his.
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