Like a splash of cold water in the face, she woke to the fact she’d let her inexplicable attraction to this alien interfere with her concentration and her need to escape. Once bound, it would be doubly hard to do so, if not impossible.
She tried to pull free, but he was ready for the repeat move, grunting something in his unintelligible language once more—threatening another spanking, no doubt. Again, she disregarded it.
Since her girl tactics had worked before, she had no qualms about using them now. She kicked him. And when her squared-toed boot bounced off his shin, she followed it up with a sharp upward thrust of her knee right into—she hoped—his most vulnerable spot.
He twisted at the same time and she missed her target, although she came close, catching his inner thigh. The errant blow hit hard enough to make him shift, likely protecting his precious man goods from further attack, as any male would.
Gaining the break she’d hoped for, she pulled free.
Whirling, she took off once more, running like her life depended on it, which it probably did after her repeated attacks and escaping from him three times.
Not daring a look back, she dodged trees and ducked under branches. Despite her focus and her above-average speed, the thudding sounds of his pursuit drew nearer. Or it could have been the pounding of her heart in her ears. Either way, she prayed her endurance would hold up.
With length of stride in his favor, Eryn depended on her agility, wending her way through the forest in a zigzag pattern in the direction she hoped would take her to their shuttle, and freedom.
A flash of color appeared in the dark—the fluorescent-yellow markers they’d left to lead them back. Not long after, Eryn caught sight of the clearing where they’d landed.
Elation gave her a burst of energy and quickened her steps. Almost home free!
But how would she board with the giant on her heels when she got there? She veered right through a break in the trees, the last obstacle prior to reaching the clearing where the shuttle awaited. Then, out of nowhere, her body lurched forward as she tripped on what had to be a tree root leaping into her path. Eryn went airborne, hurtling straight toward another tree in her path.
She closed her eyes, bracing for a painful impact, when, from behind, something snagged the back of her flight suit, and she jerked to a sudden halt. The snag turned out to be a large hand gripping the material, followed by a hard, muscular arm snaking around her body. He’d saved her from a nasty fall, and an even nastier collision with a tree, perhaps a concussion, or worse, a broken neck and, at the same time, recaptured her.
He shoved her straight to the ground, facedown in the dirt with his weight pinning her then pulled her hands behind her back and tied her securely.
Smacking face-first into the tree may have been better than a mouth full of dirt and being manhandled.
Once finished, he leaned over and murmured something incomprehensible in her ear.
Eryn had no doubt his words didn’t praise her for her awe-inspiring athletic prowess. When he emphasized his point by delivering two more smarting swats to her backside, her conclusion solidified.
Picking her up, he tossed her over his shoulder once more.
His beefy arm clamped around her legs kept her from kicking this time. Like a trussed-up game animal after a valiant fight, she’d been well and truly caught.
With no option except to lie there—spanked ass up, dignity having taken a sound beating—she stared at the clearing and the shuttle gleaming in the moonlight. The sight lingered like a beacon of hope for a split second then darkness gobbled them up as her alien captor carried her deeper into the forest.
In a moment of utter exasperation, one out of character for her, she tossed her head back and shrieked her frustration to the sky.
* * *
“Good, you’re here.”
Eryn jumped at the enthusiastic voice coming out of nowhere.
She’d been leaning back in her desk chair, and her sudden movement knocked her off-balance. She reached for a hand hold, grabbing the flat of the desk with splayed fingers trying to keep from flipping over. Except the freewheeling chair rebounded, shooting her forward, and she hit her knee on the pedestal drawer underneath.
Items on top of her desk went flying, including her pencil holder which rolled onto the floor, scattering her styluses and pens everywhere. Her full coffee cup teetered on the edge of her calendar desk blotter—still safe. But when she reached for it, the damn thing tipped over and saturated the documents she needed to finish by the end of the day.
She groaned at the same time the formerly enthusiastic voice cursed.
“Oh, hell, look what I’ve done.” Maggie, who stood frozen in the doorway, watched coffee drip off the edge of her desk and onto the floor. Rushing forward, she grabbed a handful of tissues from a box on a nearby shelf and started blotting up the spill in an attempt to help Eryn salvage what she could on her desk. “Wow, you were checked out. Pondering world peace?”
“And solving global warming, El Nino, poverty, and, in reward for the vast expenditure of brain power, having vivid dreams of Ra—” She snapped her mouth shut at the last moment, unwilling to reveal her deepest secrets to yet another friend.
“Dreams of Ram,” Maggie concluded. “That’s what you practically bit off the tip of your tongue to keep from saying? You don’t fool me for a second, Eryn Lockwood. The question is, when are you going to stop fooling yourself and admit you have feelings for the big, surly Master Warrior?”
“Never. Because I don’t.”
“Like my sainted Granny Nell used to say, poppycock and balderdash.” She twisted to toss more soaked tissues in the trash, and when she turned back around, winked at Eryn’s bemused expression. “She always thought because the words contained cock and balls she was cursing. We didn’t see any need to correct her assumption, and, besides, everyone got a kick out of it.”
“Although I hate to contradict Granny Nell, she would have been wrong, as are you,” Eryn shot back. “I wasn’t thinking about him, rather the work involved in getting the five hundred candidates on our list processed, educated then signed, sealed, and delivered to the Intrepid before it blasts off for Primaria next week.”
Maggie tilted her head, her expression unconvinced. For her part, Eryn stayed focused on rescuing what she could from her desk, moving papers and other items aside and out of the path of the ever-widening circle of coffee, long since gone ice-cold.
She picked up her soggy spreadsheet with its obliterated half-completed calculations. “Damn, I’ll have to run this one again and start over.”
“I’m really very sorry.” Maggie straightened. “Can I help with your report? I’m responsible for this mess, although I did knock first. I promise.”
“It’s not your fault I have a bad case of woolgathering, Mags.”
A flash of humor crossed her face as she exclaimed, “Granny Nell used to say that, too. But really, I want to help. I feel awful about ruining your work.”
“I’m sure you have better things to do than crunch numbers.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, why are you crunching numbers? Don’t you have soldiers to torture, or new mates to scare?”
She did, except her C.O. had called her on the carpet for not completing her monthly reports which were already two days past due—the part of the job she despised the most. For this same reason, she kept putting off coming clean with her superior about her pregnancy. She loathed desk duty, and everyone knew it, but she hadn’t argued or complained, not while standing in front of the Major’s desk, because she had been eyeing her suspiciously.
She’d known Emily Aldridge for ten years. Before she moved up the ranks and attained her position as base commander, Eryn had served alongside her in the regular Army. They’re lives had taken divergent paths about five years earlier, when Eryn transferred to USIF security and later signed on to the Odyssey. Emily, who had taken shrapnel to her knee during a skirmish in Central America, had ended her f
ield career and focused on administration. She’d shown an aptitude for leadership and organization, and Eryn hadn’t been surprised when she’d learned upon returning home she would be her C.O. on the base.
“What’s with you, Lockwood?” she’d asked. “Something is different.”
“Um…” She stalled, not wanting to lie and deny her pregnancy outright. “I, uh, got my hair trimmed a week ago.”
“No, it’s not your hair.” Emily narrowed her eyes in scrutiny. “I can’t put my finger on it.”
And she wouldn’t be able to, either. It would require all ten fingers and both of her hands, because the change she noticed was all over, in the fullness of her face, her boobs—up a full cup size already—and her ass, which had always been round, had also become quite wide. The scale that morning showed she’d gained almost thirty pounds. Fortunately, her height gave her extra room, or she wouldn’t have been able to hide her bulging belly this long.
“If I’m to get those reports to you by five today, ma’am, I better get on it.”
She’d frowned but nodded. “Dismissed.”
Eryn had left her office sweating bullets, only to be treated to the same scrutiny a few hours later, by her former C.O.
“I’m behind on my reports,” she told a frowning Maggie. “You know how it is. You always put forms and reports off until the last minute, too.”
Her old friend, all five feet nothing of her, peered down at her, arms crossed over her chest. “What’s really going on with you?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary.”
The lies in this cover-up were mounting, but she wasn’t ready to get into all the issues surrounding her mother-to-be status. And she didn’t want to talk about her sleep problems, not when her slip of the tongue had already raised her suspicions.
Daydreams of Ram had become a common occurrence, and he’d been invading her sleep for months. Lana had said three times a week. Her count didn’t include the ones where she woke trembling, soaked with sweat, and, more often than not, with her hand between her legs, moaning with desire. Those Eryn kept to herself.
Not so much fragments of the past or fantasies of what had never occurred, her dreams replayed actual memories of her time with Ram. So vivid and so realistic she could smell, touch, and taste him. Most left her shaking.
“Hmmm.” The hum of skepticism came from her former captain and friend for over a decade. She knew her better than anyone, including Lana who she had grown close to since coming home. Maggie seldom let matters rest if she had doubts, so when she changed the subject, Eryn stared at her in surprise. “Well, I did have a purpose for stopping by, other than to wreak havoc on your day and your desk.”
“Oh?” She twisted and dumped more coffee-soaked tissues in the trash.
“I came to invite you for dinner.”
A glimmer of interest sparked her mood. She hadn’t done anything in the evenings lately except work. Dinner with her friend would be a nice change of pace. “I’d love to. Will the commander be joining us?”
“Of course, Eryn. Roth and I are mates. But other people will be there, too. I’m inviting Lana and a few of the key EPIC personnel. It’s casual, but some dignitaries in suits will show up, I’m sure.” She wrinkled her nose. “The big boss insisted I invite them.”
“So, it’s a party?” She wiped down the side of her desk where a few drops had rolled over the edge.
“More like a celebration, but an informal one. We’ve reached five thousand applicants for integration already and seven new contracts with builders who will have teams ready to go to New Earth by next month. The Dauntless is on its way back to pick them up, along with another group of prospective mates.”
At this news, she glanced up. “So soon? We’ll need to step up the pace. Maybe I don’t have time for dinner.”
“You’ve got to eat. Besides, it’s still a few weeks away. With things going so well, after all the hard work we’ve put into this in the past few months, and the long hours we are facing in the future, I thought we deserved to have some fun.” She pitched her wad of soggy napkins into the trash. “Pulled-pork barbeque, potato salad, beer, and we’ll cap off the evening with fireworks which can be seen over the park from the backyard of our residence.”
“Fireworks? You’re going all out for this.”
She stared at her for a moment. “Eryn, you are aware Monday is Memorial Day, right?”
“Oh.” Her gaze shot to the calendar on her computer screen. How could she not know?
“Sleep isn’t overrated, Chief, it’s necessary,” Maggie stated, using her captain’s voice effectively, and, she still outranked her. Leaning forward, she reached over and squeezed her hand like the dear friend she was. “See Juna so you can get some.” She surveyed the top of the desk and nodded, except for the ruined spread sheet, everything had been set back in order. Brushing her hands together, she headed for the door. “Show up Saturday night ready to eat, drink, and par-tay! You know I won’t take no for an answer.”
“You never do,” Eryn whispered to the empty space where her friend had been. She smiled wistfully. Maggie looked happier than she’d ever seen her. Despite giving up her command at the end of their mission, she had easily transitioned into the position of Primarian Ambassador, and her lifetime role as Roth’s mate. She had blossomed in both.
She’d always been confident, smart, in control. Now she possessed an effervescence she hadn’t before. They used to tease her about being a workaholic and driving the crew hard during a mission, forgetting they needed downtime. And here she’d stood, preaching about rewards, fun, and sleep. No one would have ever believed it possible.
“What a difference regular sex makes,” Eryn remarked dryly, turning her chair back to her console and, with a long-drawn-out sigh, pulled up her report again. She hit reprint while grumbling to herself. “Leave it to the USIF to limp into the future, insisting on paper in this day and age.”
* * *
Dressed in a loose, mid-thigh length tunic that flowed freely around her waist and hips, concealing much more than her revealing uniform, Eryn mingled for a while amongst friends and peers before seeking out a darkened corner of Maggie and Roth’s big backyard.
While she took in the beautiful landscaping, she came to realize rank did indeed have privileges. As commander of the space fleet and all Primarian forces deployed to Earth, and because his mate was the liaison between their two worlds, their housing assignment resulted in an upgrade to a sprawling four-bedroom home in a residential area of the base.
With the alliance formed months ago and the treaty long since signed, the Army reopened the base on Long Island, designating it and a dozen other sites across the country as transition centers. More cropped up daily in other Alliance countries around the world—England, France, Germany, most of the old NATO nations, in Mexico, two in South America, and they also had a few in Africa and Australia, although the majority of the work took place in the U.S. Such a huge operation required additional Primarian resources, which arrived on the Intrepid a few weeks ago.
As the senior Primarian official on Earth, Roth had the success of the operation on his shoulders. It had to be stressful, but with his beautiful mate at his side, he didn’t show any signs of feeling the strain as he mingled with his guests. In fact, his laughter rolled low and husky across the gathering, reminding her of another very similar Primarian male.
Tall, broad shoulders, bodies bursting with muscle, hair ranging from dark brown to jet black, each male of their species possessed these common traits. Even with subtle differences, this posed a problem for Eryn—all the warriors reminded her of Ram. So alike in appearance, whenever one passed, it startled her enough to require a closer second look, to be sure. And always, she walked away torn between relief and heartbreaking disappointment.
What would she do or say if she ever came face-to-face with him again?
She huffed a small humorless laugh, drawing strange looks. Considering his last words told her she would ru
e the day, it would be better to keep right on being disappointed.
When she scanned the crowd, she noticed Lana’s absence. Smart girl. These events only reminded them both of times they would be better off to forget. Often, they found being around the Primarians so disturbing they had talked of leaving the service and finding something in civilian life. But with the world in flux, both politically and geo-physically, they both wanted to stay involved. Intent on being one of the first with boots on the ground when they colonized their new home planet, Lana had been scheduled to leave in a few days.
Eryn blew out a heavy breath. Due to her circumstance, she couldn’t consider leaving for a long while.
Not in the mood to celebrate anything and far from feeling social, she made her way through the crowd to where the host and hostess stood surrounded by guests. As she waited for an opening to say good-bye, she gazed up at the three-story house and dreaded going back to her apartment. Though in truth, her dinky two-bedroom was far bigger than her quarters on Odyssey where she’d resided much of the last few years, so she shouldn’t complain. And when Lana left, the place would seem empty.
Still waiting to tell Maggie good-bye, she let her gaze wander to the wrought-iron accents adorning the back porch. Noticing movement in the shadowy corner next to it, she froze. Tall, with long glossy black hair, and wearing a familiar red tunic, the man, unmistakably a Primarian warrior, had his powerful forearm pressed again the side of the house as he leaned in, putting the moves on a willowy blonde. From behind, he looked so much like Ram, her body reacted, humming with a familiar tingle. When he dipped his head to go in for a kiss, the moonlight glinting blue off his onyx hair in the exact same way it had Ram’s, her heart lurched.
Is it him?
Even though jealousy burned like a hot knife in her chest, wedging deeper the longer she watched, she took a tentative step closer. She had to know.
His Rebellious Mate (Primarian Mates Book 3) Page 5