by Tana Stone
“Why do you fight this?” His words came out in pants as he held her, and she could feel his crumbling restraint as he clung to its last shreds.
Max backed away. “Because we’re too different. You can’t possibly want someone like me.”
“But I do want you,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. “You are the only thing I have ever wanted for myself.”
“I can’t…” she said, then stopped herself. She couldn’t believe him. It was too much of a mismatch, and her rational brain hated things that didn’t fit.
His face twisted in pain, then he turned away, picking up his pants and tugging them on over his wet skin. “Do not worry. I will leave you alone.”
“Kush, I…”
“Get some sleep.” He cut her off, his back still to her. “I will keep watch.”
Max watched as he strode to the door, scooping up the agasi cloak and disappearing under the dark hood.
Nice going, Max, she told herself. You just pissed off your only friend and your only chance out of here.
Chapter Fifteen
K’alvek tapped his heels into the furry side of the jebel, urging it forward as his mate leaned into him, her back flush against his bare chest. He was still fuming from the argument he’d had with the clan leader, but in the end, his mother had stepped in and argued sweetly for the mission, managing to convince Zatvar with her fluttered eyelashes and enticing voice. As glad as he was to be on the sands heading for the Crestek city, he wished he had not had to witness that. Even though he’d made a begrudging peace with his mother’s choice, he preferred seeing as little of the clan leader as possible. It was another reason he was happy to be back on the sands, where he belonged.
“Is there any chance of riding a more graceful animal?” Danica asked, shifting on the saddle that covered the creature’s wide back.
“Graceful?” he asked, as the jebel ambled down a steep dune, his wide feet sending powdery sand up in a cloud behind him. “We don’t need grace, we need speed. Nothing can move faster across the sand than a jebel. Except perhaps a Dothvek.”
Danica twisted her head to peer up at him, shielding her eyes from the pounding rays of the planet’s two suns. “I know, I know. The humans are slowing you down.”
He shrugged, not denying her statement. The human females were slowing them down, but their presence on the mission had been unavoidable, although not completely unwelcome. He used one hand to tug her so that she bumped up against his cock, which had been hard since she’d settled herself on the saddle in front of him hours earlier.
She elbowed him gently in the ribs. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I would think by now you’d know what I’m doing. I am enjoying the feel of your—”
She nudged him again, this time harder. “Keep it down. I don’t want everyone to hear you.”
“If I could keep it down, I would, but your ass is making that difficult,” he whispered.
“Anything you feel like sharing with the group?” Tori called out as her jebel came up on theirs. “Like maybe how much longer until we’re there?”
K’alvek turned his attention to Danica’s crew mate. She was the only female who had insisted on riding her own jebel, and he was impressed she was handling the ornery creature as well as she was.
Holly turned around, craning her body to see around the Dothvek warrior she rode in front of, her red hair spilling down her shoulders. “We haven’t even left the desert yet.”
Tori let out an impatient breath. “This is taking too long. Who knows what’s happened to Max by now.”
“Don’t say that,” Holly said. “I’ll bet she’s terrified to be by herself.”
“It’s not your fault she was taken, and you were saved,” Danica said. “You can’t keep beating yourself up about it.”
Holly didn’t look convinced. “You don’t understand. We were in it together. We’d worked together on the ship, we were taken together, and we stuck together the entire time. She looked out for me. I should have made sure she was with me. It’s my fucking fault.”
“The captain’s right,” Caro said, as her jebel drew alongside Tori’s. “Everything happened too fast. The Cresteks ran off with her before we knew they still had her.”
“And she’s not alone,” Vrax said from where he sat behind Caro, his dark hair flowing down his bare back. “Kush is with her.”
“A lot of good that does,” Tori mumbled. “Max has never laid eyes on him before. As far as she knows, you’re all crazy, half-dressed aliens trying to kill her.”
Vrax growled low and shot her a look. “I would not kill her, but maybe some females.”
Tori flashed him a menacing smile. “I’d like to see you try it.”
“We should not fight among ourselves,” K’alvek said, his voice firm. “We are one clan now, and we all want to get Kush and your bounty back.”
“Max,” Holly said. “And she’s not our bounty anymore.”
Tori grumbled something about making friends with all the wanted criminals in the galaxy, but Holly ignored her.
“So how are we going to get them out, anyway?” Danica asked.
“From what I could see, the walls went all the way around their city,” Tori said. “And they’re high.”
“We could always use one of us as bait,” Holly suggested.
“What? Like having you dance outside the gates and see if they’ll open up?” Tori let out a snort of laughter, then stopped. “Actually, that might work.”
Vrax shook his head as he looked at Tori. “For warriors, you have very strange tactics.”
Tori pulled one of the sharp, metal sticks from her mass of dark curls and twirled it expertly around her fingers. “I’d be happy to show my tactics anytime, pretty boy.”
A growl rumbled in Vrax’s throat. Clearly he didn’t like being called pretty, although with his long hair and startling, green eyes, the young warrior had seemed to attract the attention of the females, mostly Holly, although Danica assured him that the flame-haired engineer flirted with everyone as a kind of sport.
“No,” K’alvek said, interrupting before Vrax could fire back a response. “Out of the question.”
“You haven’t seen Holly dance yet,” Danica said, and all the females laughed, including Holly, who wiggled her hips and made the Dothvek behind her stiffen.
“We cannot risk any females,” Vrax said. “It would be best if the Crestek never knew there were so many of you.”
“Agreed,” K’alvek said. “You won’t enter the city with us.”
“Excuse me?” Tori fixed him with a murderous gaze. “If you think I’m riding this smelly thing halfway across the planet to wait outside for the men to have all the fun, you’re crazy.”
K’alvek sighed. “I knew this was a mistake.”
Danica laughed, and his body reverberated, as well. “The mistake would be not using us and our special skill sets.”
He nuzzled her neck. “I am very aware of your special skill set, mate.”
“I mean, the fact that we have a shapeshifter with us who can get into the city without being detected.”
His eyes scanned the rolling, gold dunes and spotted Bexli and Pog far in the distance. They’d transformed into some sort of creature that moved even faster across sand than jebels or Dothveks could, and he saw a flash of their long, green tails.
His pretty little mate might have a point. As far as he knew, the Cresteks had no idea shapeshifters existed, and wouldn’t expect an incursion by someone like Bexli and her curious little pet.
“If Bexli changed into something that could either get over or through the city walls, she could let the rest of us in,” Danica continued. “That way no one has to try to scale the walls.”
He glanced down at her, momentarily startled that she knew his plan before he’d said it, then remembered she could sense his thoughts as easily as he could pick up on hers. One advantage—and drawback—to having a mind mate. Feeling a rush of affection f
or the small alien who’d stolen his heart, he leaned down and feathered a kiss on her neck. “You are as wise as you are beautiful.”
She squirmed, her ass rubbing up against his cock as she laughed. “Kiss ass.”
K’alvek gave a half shrug. “If you wish, although you will have to lift your ass higher for me to kiss it.”
She shrieked as he put one hand under her round ass and pretended to lift. Tori cut her eyes to them before muttering something that contained the word “intolerable” and spurring her jebel to move ahead of them.
“Don’t worry,” Caro said, although she looked straight ahead. “Tori’s never been great about sharing, and that includes her friends. She’ll adjust to the captain having a new number one.”
“Remember how long it took her to accept Bexli?” Holly called back.
“That’s because Pog kept leaving presents on her bunk,” Caro said, putting a hand up to stifle a laugh.
“Not presents,” Tori shouted back from where her jebel loped along in front of Holly’s. “Shit. Little pellets of weird, shapeshifter dog shit.”
The rest of the females broke into peals of high laughter that rang across the wide expanse of sand, and K’alvek saw that even Tori’s shoulders quivered a little. He’d never been around a group of females like these bounty hunter ones. Even though they weren’t even all the same species, they interacted like a family, teasing each other and talking in a shorthand he’d thought could only exist within a clan. He supposed they had formed their own clan of sorts. They certainly defended each other with the ferocity of a clan.
He felt a swell of pride that his mate, the pale-haired female tucked into his chest, was the leader of the odd little clan. Despite her size, she had the heart of a warrior, and he recognized in her the same stubbornness and determination that had always driven him. She was his perfect match, and he gave thanks to the goddesses each day that she and her crew had crashed onto his planet. Even if it meant he was now trudging across the sands to rescue one of them.
“So,” Danica said after they’d stopped teasing Tori and the procession of jebels had settled back into a steady rhythm. “What do you say to my plan?”
He leaned back, as their jebel jogged down a steep slope of sand. “I think it is worth trying. You are correct that it will give us the element of surprise, always an advantage in a battle.”
“You’re saying I was right?” Danica asked.
He chuckled. “I am saying you are almost always right, my mate.”
“Fast learner,” Caro said out of the corner of her mouth.
“I hate to break up this love fest,” Holly said, swiveling around to look at them. “But should we be worried about that?”
She extended one arm out to the horizon and K’alvek’s stomach clenched into a hard knot. Beyond the glimmering, golden waves of sand, the sky no longer blazed white in the distance. Instead, sheets of red seemed to fall from the sky and appeared to be racing across the dunes.
“Sulala,” he said, his voice almost a whisper as it caught in his throat.
Danica jerked her head to meet his eyes, her face clearly a mask of confusion at the word her internal translator had given her. “Blood rain?”
K’alvek nodded, his lips pressed together in a grim line as he kicked his heels into his animal’s flank.
“V’allah,” he bellowed to the other warriors as the jebels began running, their long necks extended and their furry waddles swinging back and forth. The Dothveks let out piercing war cries to urge their steeds to move faster, the deafening sound of their shouts combining with the growing roar of the approaching torrent.
K’alvek felt Danica’s fear and confusion as she pressed her body into his, but he couldn’t slow. They had to reach the shelter of the rocks before the blood rain overtook them and created deadly, swirling eddies beneath the sand. He flattened both of their bodies together, her heartbeat knocking against his own chest. Faster.
Chapter Sixteen
Morning light was beginning to trickle in from the skylight in the center of the room, but it was still a dim, early light and not the brightness of the suns high in the sky. Not yet, at least.
Max rolled away from the light and nuzzled closer to him, the heat of his body warming her. His big arm was draped over her hips, and her head was tucked in under his chin. It took her a few moments to wake completely and a few more to piece together why she was sleeping next to a half-naked alien.
She lifted a hand to her head. Crestek wine wasn’t different from regular wine—both gave her headaches the next morning and made her memories fuzzy. The last thing she recalled was ditching her wet dress and crawling into bed as he’d stood watch by the door. At some point during the night, he’d obviously laid down on the other side of the bed and she’d somehow rolled over to him. Not a total surprise, since his body weight made the entire bed sink toward him.
They’d made it through a night in Crestek captivity, and she’d apparently made it all night sleeping next to the biggest, fiercest guy she’d ever seen without him making a move on her. Max wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It was still hard to wrap her mind around the ideas that someone so hot would be attracted to her, and that a seriously badass barbarian would also be so honorable.
She knew it was probably crazy, but she felt safe next to the barely dressed, tattooed warrior. Even though the last thing they’d done was fight—and he’d walked away from her—she was still comforted by his closeness. Touching him seemed to have a strange calming effect, and made her feel safer than she felt around the more civilized aliens, with their fancy city and eunuch guards. Pulling back the blanket that covered both of them, she stroked a hand down his chest, loving the feel of his hard skin and the rigid muscles beneath it. Despite being firm and clearly impervious to extreme heat, his flesh was smooth and soft. She wondered how that was possible, since it didn’t feel so different from human skin.
When her fingers brushed across one of his nipples, the skin around it beaded. His hand shot up, gripping hers tightly as his eyes flew open. For a moment, his entire body coiled as if he was ready to strike, then his gaze focused on her, and he seemed to remember where he was and who he was with. His hand relaxed, but his body did not.
“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You thought I would sleep through a beautiful female touching me?” His voice carried no trace of anger, and she thought she saw a hint of a smile teasing the edges of his mouth.
“No,” Her face heated at the surprise of being called beautiful. It wasn’t something she’d often been called. Smart, yes. Accomplished, sure. Beautiful, not so much. “I guess I was curious. You’re different from humans, but I wasn’t sure how different.”
Now, he smiled fully. “Touching me was like one of your experiments?”
She opened her mouth to protest, but stopped. He was exactly right. “I’m really sorry. I guess I’m used to satisfying my curiosity. I never should have touched you like that.”
His gaze met hers. “I like you touching me.” He released her hand. “You may continue to satisfy your curiosity, little one.”
She laughed nervously. “No, that’s okay. I mean, I don’t want to—?”
“But, you do,” he said. “You do want to, don’t you?”
He was right. She wanted to run her hands over his skin and explore his ridges and touch the peaks of his ears. Her fingers almost buzzed in anticipation, as she rested a hand on his chest and pushed herself up on one elbow. “You sure you don’t mind?”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “No, I do not mind.”
Max swallowed, her mouth dry, as she sat up completely and turned her attention to the massive alien stretched across the bed. He was so tall, he took up the entire length, his heels hanging off the edge. Even though he hooked his hands behind his head in a relaxed posture, she could see that his muscles in his thick neck and broad shoulders were bunched. Both nipples had hardened, the skin around them dusky gold.
>
“Your skin is harder than ours,” she said. “But it’s also so soft.”
“Not as soft as yours.” His words were controlled as she feathered her fingertips over the hard swell of his chest.
“I guess not, but there must be some compound in it that protects you from the sun and sand.” She pressed gently against the gold flesh. “And that makes it such an amazing color.”
Kush had closed his eyes and was breathing in and out slowly, the veins in his neck rigid.
She moved her hand to his stomach, bumping across the tight, corded rows and brushing the top ridge in the v-shaped rows that led lower. She tried to keep her eyes from drifting to the hard bar of his cock that strained the still-damp leather pants. Her heart stuttered. It couldn’t really be that huge, could it? But she knew it was, even from the brief flash she’d gotten when he’d dropped his pants and sat next to her. She wrenched her thoughts away as she saw his eyebrows rise in amusement. “So, what are these for?”
“My ridges? I do not know their true purpose,” he said. “I only know that females enjoy them.”
“Femal—? Oh!” She pulled her hand back, as she imagined how much farther the ridges went below the waistband of his pants and how good they would feel if her legs were wrapped around his waist, and she was rocking against him.
He groaned. “You should not do that, little one.”
She took both her hands off him. “I thought you said it was okay.”
“I will have a hard time controlling myself if you continue to imagine riding me like that.” He opened his eyes and they were blazing with desire.
Her cheeks burned. “You read my mind?”
“I could not help seeing what you envisioned. Your mind is very loud.”
The empath thing again. She spluttered for a moment, not sure if that was a good or bad thing to have a loud mind. “You can’t just go around reading people’s thoughts, you know.”
He sat up quickly, and she almost fell back, but he caught her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to keep her upright. “I do not. I have never been able to sense the emotions of one who is not Dothvek.” He cupped her face in one hand. “And never have I felt another’s emotions so clearly. Your kind must have empathic abilities.”