Skhye Moncrief - [Feral 01]

by Feral Fascinations (lit)

  She gasped and clutched the shaking motorcycle seat and shut her eyes.

  He thrust into her with a steady beat, rocking the bike with such force that he couldn’t deny he desired her.

  Oh how the universe faded with the lull of his thrusting. Maybe he would forgive her for tricking him into joining her fight against tyranny.

  If only he’d spread her legs wider and touch her soul. To have him take what he sought and turn her into a whimpering fool. The world became one with this feeling of bizarre powerlessness.

  She dove toward the darkness beyond her eyelids, bobbing on what felt like debris ebbing and flowing in a black void. She couldn’t see the stars overhead spreading a path back to her barren homeland. As if her life was lost to her forever.

  Forever. He was the answer to her problems. The father of legend. A man who could have all of her he wanted if only he would keep her begging for more. She raised up onto her toes and thrust her bottom back at him, matching his movements, binding her soul with the only man who could save tomorrow.

  A spark of energy tingled in her cells and wafted throughout her body.

  Genes tickling into action.

  Destiny unfolded at long last began.

  What waited in its promise?

  Passion?

  Power?

  What did it matter the way she wanted him to ram inside her.

  Ecstasy welled in her soul like a ball of energy threatening to blow her apart.

  She cried out.

  Again and again.

  The pleasured surged until she thought she’d scream.

  Mating. There was no greater reward for her service to The Cause.

  He groaned and grabbed her hips. Jerking both inside and outside her.

  Was his genetic code also igniting?

  He lunged, thrusting, throbbing, pulsing.

  Energy or something more intimately intrinsic to his touch jolted her to the core. She shook uncontrollably, attached to him as if they were one, and cried out.

  Did the universe birth a star inside her soul?

  He collapsed his forehead falling against her back.

  Her mouth watered.

  For a taste of the metallic tinge from salty blood.

  The ritual hunger.

  Blessed Devros, a star was moments from rising to claim its place among the rest in the heavens. Careful not to mistake her target, she aimed the nail pricker at his arm and shoved her finger home.

  Chapter Two

  “Damn bugs.” Her prey said, shaking his arm after Kindrist removed the pricker to release his blood for the binding ritual.

  His body seemed to sink into her.

  One Gabron. Two Gabrons. Three Gabrons. “Jake?”

  He didn’t move.

  Now for the mating blood.

  She slid out from under him, wriggled her clothes back into position, shoved his hair aside from his neck, unsheathed her blade, and made a short cut on his collar bone where soul mates preferred to bite.

  Blood bubbled from the slit.

  She trailed her tongue through bitter aftershave mingled with salty sweat.

  Sweet. Too delicious to stop. To bite down. To take her fill. She anchored her mouth around the oozing opening and sucked.

  “Red Kindrist, I sense you have completed your duty,” Forty Three said with mindspeak inside her head.

  How dare the woman interrupt during this sacred rite of passage. “Right. You were there the whole ride. Just send the ship, Forty Three. I need time to think how I’ll explain what just happened.” She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and stared into space.

  Where was the ship?

  “If The Cause is fortunate, you will wield the yellow eyes of a pregnant Nulvitian upon arrival.”

  * * * *

  Bright light bore through Jake’s eyelids. Asphalt ground into the back of his head. Dammit. Some bastard got the better of him and left him unconscious on the street.

  No pain.

  I probably just got knocked out.

  Mugged. What was that sterile smell? Not the standard stench of beer, puke, and piss on the hidden street. He tried to lift a hand to rub his skull.

  Hard biting metal held his wrist.

  Was he minus a kidney? Shit. Time to wake up. He shook his head.

  Whatever he laid upon was smooth and flat. Not asphalt. Not concrete. And the steady hum wasn’t what one would expect from an alley.

  Why won’t my eyes open?

  At least, he didn’t feel like he was packed in ice. Two kidneys were key to a long life. Time to see a way out of this mess. Open eyes.

  Open.

  The damned things wouldn’t budge.

  How long had he lain there asleep, strapped to something smooth?

  Sweat cooled his brow.

  Just get out of here. But without vision, an ex-mercenary was beyond blind. Dead.

  Sweat trickled beneath his armpits.

  More like baked. Where in the hell was he? The roasting sun could flay a man.

  His eyelids popped open.

  Light flooded the space from overhead.

  Artificial light. Where in the hell was this place? He tried to crane his neck to look around.

  His hard miserable skull wouldn’t lift.

  Fine. He scanned the area.

  Gray walls lurked barely visible beyond the intense curtain of light.

  His wrists were bound in metal cuffs.

  His chest was bare.

  A silver blanket draped his groin.

  What interrogator worried about decency? Crap, they should be hovering, waiting to rip his balls off.

  Something about the scenery conjured memories of alien-abduction movies.

  A sound whispered.

  The hairs on his neck prickled to chilly attention.

  An aching, a longing, need pinned him down.

  What? Need? While in shackles?

  He went uncontrollably rock hard.

  Naked on the table with a boner wasn’t good. Why sex when a man was about to lose his balls of steel that were really quite soft and sensitive?

  Off the table. Now. How to get down? How to get my hands on a woman? One like the nocturnal number back on the street. No. No. His medical or specimen-tied-to-carving-table situation was all her fault.

  * * * *

  Kindrist stood inside the spaceship’s sliding silver door, above Jake’s head where he couldn’t detect her presence. Would he forgive her? Or hate her? He was the kind of man The Cause couldn’t rely on. A hothead. A loner abandoned by society because he didn’t fit in. Alas, Violet Children rarely fit in with their evolved psychic abilities. But she had witnessed the good in his thoughts through all those self-less actions. And now they were bound to each other beyond the restrictions of standard mental telepathy—that being he was lesser-evolved and higher-evolved psychics couldn’t mindspeak with him. He had to be convinced to help them defeat Voldon. Or all peoples would be enslaved, including Jake’s own.

  “Is someone here?” Jake snarled.

  The anger in his voice reflected his imprisonment. But releasing him before his debriefing would certainly result in a battle. This was not the time to fight or lie. Better to stand here and answer. “I am. Welcome aboard The Seeker.”

  Jake’s chin snapped upward, and he shot a defiant stare at the shadows in her direction.

  He couldn’t see her if his vision were anything lesser-evolved. But he knew she was there by the glare in his eyes.

  The tranquilizer was wearing off. Time for a little persuasion. “My name is Red Kindrist Lotyl Trekaar. I will release you when you prove to me you can behave civilly.”

  His eyes narrowed to slits. “Me? I’m the one shackled to a table. You need some etiquette lessons.”

  “You feel like a caged animal. As anyone would. But I must know you can behave before I can release you.”

  “If you want me to believe you, step on into to the light.”

  A man who wanted to assess his captor
. Typical mercenary reaction. Bending to his needs might gain her some power over him. Some control. Yet, no mercenary could refuse such a request from her mate.

  His chest was incredible. He lay relaxed without a hint of duress. Oddly enough. One would expect him to fight for freedom.

  The bulging muscles in his limbs called to her fingers. And his apparent interest in her beyond talking, an interest apparent in the bulge in his blanket, was a promise to force him to keep.

  To release his bindings.… To unite again. Only a fool would let him off the table. She stepped into his view.

  “You! What am I doing here?” He sneered.

  So he remembered their encounter. At least, he had that to connect with before the sedative stole his memories.

  “What do you want with me?”

  At least, he seemed to control himself. “I’m free to tell you everything. But I want your promise that you will remain calm and listen.”

  Her husband lay quietly.

  Or the animal inside all beings took over.

  What would he say?

  “All right.” He jerked one of his arms against its restraint.

  Then it begins. Sexual union or not. It was time to show this man she could be trusted. A soul mate had to be trusted. The Cause believed in him. He had to realize this singular point. She reached for the buttons on the bed’s small control panel and pushed the coded sequence.

  His restraints popped open and dangled in the air.

  He rose, grabbing his wrists, rubbing them.

  Not all his body waited relaxed. His was willing for more unification.

  Yet, he just stared at her with patience every father begged a child show.

  Good.

  Heat of desire ebbed through her core.

  To have another round of mating….

  Her mouth watered.

  For sweet salty blood to melt across her tongue. To shove him against the examination table and take more of him. To weave their essences into one basic seed. The seed to grow into the promise of legend—a child who will bring free thinking to the universe.

  Such strange raw need.

  Yearning.

  Animalistic lust.

  A sensation beyond description.

  Genetic mating proved stronger than she expected.

  He stood there like he’d pounce any moment.

  Waiting.

  Why wouldn’t he just come to her? Set her inner beast free? She wanted to jump on him. Throw her legs across his iron body. Extinguish the indescribable craving buried deep inside her core.

  If only she could read his lesser-evolved earthling thoughts.

  To know he craved her.

  To hear what he wanted to do to her.

  How bizarre this detachment was. But that’s what the binding was for—to prevent any psychic being from detecting his presence during an attack. His lesser-evolved brain was the key to covert operations.

  For the love of Devros, what brilliance in the act of marriage to these psychic earthlings.

  Jake lunged across the room and grabbed her, shoving her into the shadows beyond the examination light’s illumination, against the spaceship’s cold hard metal wall.

  The wall bit into her shoulder blades.

  What was he doing?

  His hot breath turned to a faint steam in the chilly corners of the shadowy sick bay.

  Breathing seemed impossible with his twisted mask in her face.

  “Who are you?” he growled.

  Was that the sound of hunger or anger? Dare she admit everything now? If he wouldn’t accept his destiny, if he wouldn’t take her blood, she would turn into a raving beast after forty-eight hours and rampage through the ship on a blood hunt. Seducing him had been stupid. Only honesty would set things right between them. “I am your mate.”

  He snarled. “Not the answer I wanted.” He stared at her lips.

  Mesmerized. He could rip them off and chew them and the universe would continue expanding. “Take them. They are yours. Curtail this madness between us so we may speak civilly again.”

  He yanked her elbow, whirled her one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, and shoved her backward.

  The examination table caught her in the kidneys.

  Pain shafted through her lower back.

  Sweet merciful sensation. Now, she could think clearly again.

  “Tell me who you are,” he demanded.

  No wasting time with this earthling. Did he withhold his sexual need for self-preservation or more for pride? “I am mercenary Red Kindrist, the pawn in an endless battle between good and evil. And I have just recruited you.”

  His angry mask transmuted into shock. “What? Nobody inducts me,” he roared.

  He stood nude in all his human glory, muscles flinching as his situation was revealed.

  Still desirous of her.

  And there, in his body’s reaction to the news, he fought the yearning to unite with his mate. How could he refuse the instinctual command of genetic passion? Rather obsession, given her experience. She felt empty, needy, uncomfortable in her pants. Oh to shove them down. To sit on his discomfort and ride it into exhaustion.

  His gaze scanned the room.

  What did he search for?

  He jumped toward the door.

  The door whisked open.

  “Wait.” How foolish of her to release him from his restraints. He’d run through the ship and possibly injure a crew member. What would they call her volatile earthling then? He was a threat enough already. She rammed feet into the metal floor beneath her.

  The clack of her leather boots heralded her bursting into the brightly-lit corridor in pursuit of his contrary muscular backside that he paraded through the ship by running the opposite direction.

  His long hair hid none of the finely-chiseled butt and legs she’d bound herself to. That probably wasn’t the reason the other three white-cloaked operatives in the long hall pressed their bodies against the ship’s silver walls. Jake had to be terrifying, an angered recruit on the loose. Rumored to be unpredictable. Dangerous. Deadly. She forced her legs to move faster.

  Not difficult when you’re inhuman by earth’s definition and reared off-world where gravity was more forgiving. Humanoid, yes. But faster than the lithe perfect specimen of a Violet Child attempting escape. “Stop,” she shouted. “You endanger yourself in this futile attempt to flee.”

  Why bother speaking in such an archaic form of communication?

  Air molecules kissed her skin.

  Have I taken to the air? Am I flying? Swooping down upon my prey? Oh for sweet salty blood. And to satiate the emptiness deep within through ingesting the tasty earthling’s blood after getting him tucked safely within their personal quarters. For that precious moment....

  Gods, would her thoughts steal away her dignity? Soul-mate attraction was stronger than anyone could imagine. Especially for Jake who knew nothing of the madness. He needed help. Her respect. Or he would never find a place among free-thinkers. And she, the last of the Nulvitians, would never mother the child of legend. She reached for his swinging elbow.

  The iron skin slid beneath her fingertips.

  Fool. Could he not see there was nowhere to run in the winding sterile corridor? She leapt at his back and snaked her arms around his heaving chest’s warm pliable tissue.

  Electricity tingled from her core to her toes.

  Oh, what torture the universe played on those dabbling with genetic mysteries defying all scientific study.

  Jake’s legs suddenly slithered between her boots. He fell, taking her along.

  The solid floor jolted them into halting.

  He rolled, knocking her against a wall, and tried to shake her off.

  Not today. She held onto him like a Nulvitian lohl’s seven tentacles encircled his upper body.

  “Enough,” Goro’s monotone voice commanded.

  Surprisingly. The commander never spoke with his mouth. She craned her head to peer back up the corridor at Goro’s black lea
ther pants and boots.

  Jake had the sense to be still where his solid mass laid against the cold hard floor. But his lurching erection didn’t understand the commander’s language where it attempted to wrestle her thigh.

  “This nonsense is beneath you both,” Goro said. “Come with me.” He spun on his heels and stepped down the hall.

  Beneath her? Was that not the truth of things? She’d taken a soul mate and now struggled to contend with her future. Goro’s profound statements never failed to catch her off guard.

  “Who is he?” Jake muttered.

  She stared into her soul-mate’s dark unforgiving eyes. “Our commander. Please, Jake. I know how hard it is to remain calm. But he will answer your questions. I’m releasing you now.” She slid her arms from where they grappled his chest and got her boots beneath her.

  Jake unfolded overhead.

  The indomitable assassin. His movement was more like a blink than a man moving. Strange. Deadly. Bless the stars for Destiny’s forethought. She waved a palm toward the receding Goro’s flapping ankle-length black coat. “This way.”

  Jake sized her up with a lengthy gaze raking up and down her leather mercenary’s outfit. His gaze paused at her heaving breasts.

  Nice gesture. Every girl needs some reassurance. He’d be a bundle of sexual frustration until he burned it off every forty-eight hours though.

  He looked both ways down the hall.

  As if he still fancied escape possible. “Nulvitian mercenaries can outrun any earthling in seconds. You’re better off hearing what our commander has to say.” Would he listen?

  He shot her a standard earthling go-to-Hell stare.

  Chapter Three

  Jake struggled to control the need to jump the woman walking at his side as he followed the large male down the sterile passageway. What was going on with his brain? Some sort of carnal instinct throbbed in every cell of his body.

  Just to thrust inside the sexy minx. Over and over. And her short tight leather, for lack of a better word, shirt didn’t cover those god-damned skin-tight pants she wore. How could anyone restrain himself from running his hand across her curved ass, right to where he knew she had to be wetter than Niagra Falls. The vixen’s scent was sex.