“My good inclinations are lessening with every passing moment. So it’s either counseling or an ‘ass kicking’ as Gwen likes to put it,” Dorian said with menace, drawing himself up to his full height. “Your choice.”
Cahir walked around the Siren, looking behind him and tilting his head up. “Well, at least you’re taller than she is. I guess that’s a concession. Very well, you may help me.”
Dorian breathed out heavily and motioned with a hand. “Let’s check with the bursar and see which quarters are available. We’ve had several new crew members join the Liberator lately. Rooms are getting a bit sparse.”
Cahir snorted. “I see your Captain Synar is just as loose with his ship as he was when Shenu accepted his contract. Pity—I had hoped the Norblade would be more in control of things by now.”
“Tell me—do you ever stop complaining and finding fault?” Dorian demanded as they headed down the hall.
Cahir looked at him in surprise. “I am just making casual conversation, Siren. Does it offend you to hear me be opinionated? You don’t seem that weak-willed to me.”
“No, of course not,” Dorian said lightly. “It just makes me want to put you into a trance sleep until the next supply ship arrives. I doubt anyone would look for you, not even your child, who is normally a very responsible commander.”
“Trance sleep? You think big thoughts,” Cahir said skeptically. “What do you think you are? A Khalsa warrior?”
Dorian smiled wickedly, glaring down at the male. He had to put his hands in his robe pockets to keep from showing him. “Yes. Actually I am Khalsa—and I’m going to help train Gwen to be one. So it might behoove you to start learning to be nice to her.”
“If such a thing were true—which I greatly doubt—Shenu would die before she made it through the training. Her Earth mother’s genes are very weak,” Cahir said, sneering.
Dorian snorted. “I’ve already extended her life some with our mating. It is up to the Creators how much more she will get. It is now my hope she outlives you just to prove you wrong.”
“Creators?” Cahir said. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those brainwashed spiritual crazies? I cannot believe my logical daughter chose someone like you. I take my parenting seriously and know I raised her better than that.”
“You are a thoroughly detestable male, Cahir. How someone like you helped produced an exquisite female like Gwen is a miracle beyond my comprehension, but I suddenly understand why Ania would invest herself so much in my mate. I now see Gwen is bereft of true family.”
“Now who’s being insulting?” Cahir demanded.
Dorian heard the bursar heave a weary sigh as they came in, their arguing undoubtedly echoing off the metal hallway walls and preceding them. “Is the room by Ambassador Onin still available?”
The bursar on duty nodded once.
“Please code it for Cahir Jet,” Dorian ordered softly.
“That’s Lieutenant Cahir Jet,” Cahir corrected, seeing the bursar looking him up in the com unit.
“Indeed?” Dorian asked, his tone skeptical. “I never would have guessed you worthy of such a title.”
“I thought you were trying to impress me,” Cahir protested, giving in to the urge to laugh at the Siren’s open insults.
“Why bother? I see there is no need,” Dorian said logically. “As usual, my mate was right. You aren’t going to be nice enough to talk to, so I see no reason to explain my devotion to your daughter. Nor do I care what you think of me, knowing what little regard you have for her. Therefore I consider our conversation over. I’ll see you to your room, then see to the needs my mate.”
“Well, I’m glad we’re being honest at least,” Cahir said. “You’re just not the kind of male my child needs. Perhaps when you tire of her, she will do better next time.”
“Tire of her?” Dorian said in total shock, his tone causing the bursar to tense when the Thelorian male was too insensitive to realize the edge he walked. “Your daughter is my life, Cahir Jet. I’m going back to our quarters and consummate our union as many times as she will let me. Then I’m going to repeat that process for the rest of our lives. It is I who will be at her side when she takes her last breath. Nothing you do will ever change that, and I will not hesitate to kill you if you try to come between us. Do you understand what I am saying to you? Gwen Jet is mine to care for now. She is no longer your concern.”
Cahir laughed. “You have a lot of nerve accusing me of wrongdoing. Does my daughter know what a controlling bastard you are beneath all those soft, smooth words?”
Dorian looked at Gwen’s father with contempt. “Actually—yes. It’s one of Gwen’s favorite things about me because it gives her something to conquer when she pleases. We are well suited since I respect and admire her power.”
Cahir snorted. “I wonder if you ever hear yourself and how ridiculous you sound.”
Dorian lifted an eyebrow as the bursar looked at him with wide eyes, swallowing hard. He didn’t need to read the young male’s energy to know how much he was sincerely hoping not to have to deal with a dead body before his shift was over.
“It’s all right, Ensign. This loathsome male is Commander Jet’s father. I can’t really kill him without her permission. I just want to get him into a room before someone else does.”
“Aye, Lieutenant,” the bursar said, bowing his head. “Glad to help with that.”
Dorian sighed at the sympathy and led the still complaining male out of the bursar’s area and straight to his room for the evening.
Chapter 21
When Dorian finally walked into his quarters, it was to see Gwen wearing one of his meditation robes. She had fastened it closed with the belt Sarinnea had given her. He had an immediate sense of coming home, of being with the right person. How was it, he wondered, that the least feminine female he’d ever known brought him such a sense of contentment?
“I don’t think the dress can be fixed, Zade. Sorry about ruining it early,” Gwen said, frowning. “I was planning to make you crazy enough to rip it off me.”
Dorian smiled. “You certainly looked beautiful in the dress.”
Gwen nodded. “Thank you. Sarinnea and Ania talked the head bursar into making it.”
He walked to where she stood in the middle of the room. “My apologies for leaving you. I had hoped to put your father at ease about us. I failed miserably. Your sire is one of the most contemptible males I have ever met,” Dorian said bluntly.
“You’re just full of profound truths today, aren’t you? I’m starting to believe all your mental faculties really are working again,” Gwen said, looking away from his gaze. “I’m sorry my father said those things and that you had to hear them. He does care for me—just has an odd, annoying way of expressing his caring. I completely understand why my mother couldn’t stay in a relationship with him.”
“He thinks I’m not good enough for you,” Dorian declared flatly, watching amusement dance in her eyes.
“Cahir never was a great judge of character,” Gwen said, reaching out to put a hand against the front of his robe. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore. He just makes me mad. What was your father like?”
Dorian put his hand over hers where it rested against his chest. “My father has been dead for over four centuries now. Both Sarinnea and I tend to idealize our recall of him. Nothing I tell you would be a whole truth, but I remember him being loving for all our days. I took my first mate shortly after he returned to the Creators.”
Gwen let her hand drop from under his and stepped clear. “You were lucky then in both your parents. My mother doesn’t seem like a mother most of the time. I look like her but have many traits of my contemptible father. She can’t stand being around me any more than she could Cahir. You have a great mother, Zade. I like Sarinnea—very much.”
“She likes you too,” Dorian said, putting his hands in his robe pockets to keep them from pulling her back to him. “You now wear the jewels of her Rylen house. She never gave them to
my other mates.”
“Jewels?” Gwen said in alarm, looking down and pulling the pendulum up to her. “You mean these are real jewels?”
“Well of course they’re real,” Dorian stated, looking at her strangely. “Did you think they were fake?”
“No—well, not exactly. I guess I thought they were just for adornment,” Gwen protested. “Am I going to have to keep this belt locked away?”
Dorian laughed, scoffing at the thought of such a worthy female not wearing the symbols of his family.
“Of course not,” he said. “Sarinnea wore that belt more than any other. You will wear it to let people know which family you belong to on Rylen. We’ll find someplace safe to store it when you’re in uniform.”
Gwen thought of her box and the lock in the trash. Ania was right—as usual. “I have a safe place to store it,” she answered, running a hand through her hair.
Dorian walked to her and put his arms around her. “Tell me about this week. Tell me about—our first time.”
Gwen’s forehead wrinkled. Then she realized Dorian’s gaze was very sincere. She couldn’t handle his regret.
“Well, you lasted about three seconds,” she teased.
Instead of her statement embarrassing him, he was just amused, so Dorian laughed and shook his head. “Now I need to ask the humiliating question. Did you get any pleasure from the experience?”
“The top of my head came off when I climaxed, and my spirit may have left my body,” Gwen answered dryly.
Snorting at her reassurance, Dorian pulled her into his arms for a hug. “Please do not be lying.”
Gwen laughed then and hugged him back. “I’m not, and your endurance improved radically by the fifth or sixth time. But our bonding was just all physical, all the time. That definitely has its place, but after a few days, I realized it wasn’t you. We share a complicated past, and that version of you didn’t know it. I started missing the real you, no matter how great the sex was.”
Sighing, Dorian put his head on her shoulder and turned his face into her neck. “Your smell intoxicates me. I need you more than you can imagine, and it’s a great gift to know you want me back so much.”
“Well, I’m trying really hard to be patient,” Gwen whispered. “I didn’t know we’d be getting another ‘first time’. Now I’m frustrated and feeling like you’re holding back.”
“I fear my reaction. How’s that for a truth? Are you wearing any clothes under that robe?” Dorian asked, running hands over her, feeling nothing but her under his robe.
“No. I took everything off because I didn’t want to slow you down,” Gwen teased.
Dorian shook against her, hugging her tighter. “I cannot match your honesty.”
“Don’t feel like you have to do anything. I just want—I just want what you always meant me to have with you,” Gwen said, lifting her lips to his.
Dorian felt the touch of her mouth on his, saw an image of what she wanted in her mind. He shook against her again, his hands gripping her as she broke the kiss. And his warrior mate, the fiercest female he had ever met outside Ania, lifted her chin and closed her eyes, waiting to be taken like a female who had never bonded before.
“Gwen, don’t give me too much control. I’ll take advantage of all you give me. It is my true nature. To utterly possess a female is a secret desire that I hide from all. Sirens have to work to keep their possessiveness in check. What I feel for you is already madness enough,” Dorian whispered.
Gwen opened her eyes a little. “Thanks for the warning. You got about ten seconds to do what you want before I do what I want. I’m trying to let you set the pace here, Zade.”
Dorian laughed again, looking to the ceiling as if the Creators would write instructions there for him about how to proceed.
“I want you to call me by my given name when we bond. It will segregate our time as mates apart from when I must follow you as my commander,” he said, unhooking the belt from her waist and setting it aside. “Do we have an accord in the matter?”
Gwen heard the jeweled belt land heavily on the rug a short distance away from them, and then Dorian’s hands were unfastening the robe.
“Yes, Dorian—we have an accord,” Gwen answered, leaning into experienced hands that fondled her breasts just as she liked, while trying not to be too giddy.
“Say my name again,” Dorian encouraged. “Say it and tell me how to please you.”
Gwen laughed. “My language will not match your poetic words. How about we skip the mind games and I’ll go straight to begging? I know that’s what you really want.”
Dorian’s hands froze on her. “That’s not what I want.”
“Dorian Zade, that’s the first untruth I’ve ever heard leave your lips in the entire time I’ve known you,” Gwen said, her hands undoing his belt and unfastening his robe.
“It is not an untruth,” Dorian denied, hissing when her hands reached into his robe to stroke the evidence of his desire.
Gwen stroked hard a couple times, then eased up to let her fingertips trail gently.
“Please don’t make me wait anymore,” she whispered, pulling his hands from her breasts and stepping fully into him. “Please end this torture. I want you so much.”
“Gwen—be careful. I want this to be good for you, to last, to be everything for both of us,” he said, his voice choked when she trapped his erection against her belly, reaching behind him to grab and hold his hips hard against hers.
“Please don’t wait,” Gwen whispered breathlessly, moving her mouth softly over his as he trembled. “Please, Dorian. I need you now.”
Dorian held his arms behind him until his robe fell to the floor. Then he grabbed Gwen’s wrists to pry her loose from him long enough to strip hers away. Her nipples beckoned him, her mouth moaning as he looked at her, her body energetically glowing with arousal.
An uncontrollable, unstoppable vibration left him, washing over the female he wasn’t even touching anymore. For a moment he truly was embarrassed at his lack of control. Then Dorian watched Gwen ride the wave of release his errant vibration brought her. She didn’t display a single shred of modesty about letting him watch her surrender to it. His hands fisted at his sides as he fought to calm himself.
The Siren male he truly was thought about the many ways he could brand his mate as his. He let image after image float through his mind, filing them away. The enlightened male he had made of himself wanted to fall to his knees and thank the Creators for sending him such a female.
He waited, his own excitement growing, knowing that when his mate opened her pleasure filled eyes he was going to have to choose which part of himself would be released on her first.
“Thanks for taking the edge off, honey, but I want the real thing now. How much begging are you going to make me do tonight? I hate it, but hell I’ll say anything to have you,” Gwen admitted, her gaze challenging him to act.
A feral sound started in his throat and by the time it left Dorian’s mouth, he had Gwen in his arms and they were both falling onto the bed wrapped in each other. He didn’t even have to wait for an invitation, her thighs surrounded him, leaving him no choice but take what she so freely offered him. He slid inside her as slowly as he could while Gwen let out a keening moan of satisfaction over the physical connection.
“Oh God, I’ve missed you,” Gwen declared loudly, finding his mouth as he surged hard and deep.
Dorian tore his mouth free, stilled inside her, fought to stay there as her body arched, her body lifting them both with her straining.
“Say you are mine, Gwen Shenu Jet. Say it is a truth and I will please you in ways you have never dreamed,” he declared, the desperate Siren male in him willing to bargain anything to have exclusive access.
Gwen laughed as she tried to open her eyes enough to see him past the red haze of lust clouding her mind.
“Now look who’s begging,” she declared happily in a whisper, body tingling as he throbbed in her depths.
Doria
n ran restless hands up her sides, lifting her hands over her head, bracing himself and his weight on her wrists, leveraging his hips against her to hold her in place. He almost lost his mind when her thighs tightened. A calm, sure sense of rightness swept over him.
“You know that’s not how this works, don’t you?” he asked, hearing his wicked mate laugh again. “A Siren male never begs. His mate does.”
He stared deep into her half-lidded gaze.
“Always,” he reiterated, as if she had argued.
Dorian could see Gwen enjoyed teasing him, torturing him, and that she liked the advantage she thought she had. It really wasn’t going to work with him. He couldn’t let her make the rules in their bed, so he might as well start out their relationship showing her the one place she wasn’t going to be allowed to control him.
Pressing as deeply as he could inside her, Dorian felt Gwen throbbing and straining towards release.
“In one hour, I will allow you physical release,” he said.
Gwen snorted, using her heels to walk up and down his legs, stopping to hook him behind his knees. “I’m going to explode way before then, if you manage to last that long.”
Dorian narrowed his eyes, banked his desire, and focused his intention on her like a laser beam. “Maybe if you genuinely beg, I might reconsider and pleasure you sooner.”
Gwen laughed outright then, feeling the male in her arms tighten more, on the inside of her as much as the outside. She pulled her hands free to run them from his rear up his spine, enjoying the tremors he couldn’t stop.
“You are absolutely the most well-formed male I’ve ever met. Each time I hold you, I have this little sense of awe that you even want me when you could have a harem,” Gwen said.
“Indeed, some Siren males require multiple females. I prefer not to split my energies. I prefer to torture and control one mate at a time,” Dorian bragged, absorbing her soft laughter. “You’re going to prove quite enough challenge, I’m sure.”
He moved down her body, sliding out of her to protests, but feeling her moan again when his mouth covered the peaked end of one breast. Nibbling and sucking, he moved between them lavishing attention on each. Then he plunged inside her again as he moved back up her body to her neck. He felt Gwen adapting herself to his rhythm, felt her letting him set whatever pace he wanted.
The Siren's Call (Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance) (FORCED TO SERVE) Page 24