by Mina Carter
“Forgive me, my son, but I did not see your true nature sooner. I allowed my grief over losing your mother to blind me.”
Nyek’s eyebrow winged up. “So you punished me, over and over, for anything because you missed my mother? You told me I was to blame for her death… that I had brought down the curse that killed her and every other female. That I was solely responsible for the death of our race…”
His voice had grown colder and colder, each word wielded like a whip that made the older man flinch.
“I-I… Ursal-Kai made me do it!” he gasped. “I was blinded by his glory. Everything I did was to mold you into the weapon you are now.”
Nyek leaned in. “To steal a phrase from humanity… fuck you!”
Indra flinched as the older man gasped and then gagged. Blood spilled out over his lips, cascading down his front, and then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. With a soft sigh, he collapsed, sliding off the blade Nyek had thrust into his heart to lie on the deck by his son.
Nyek looked up and around, obviously searching for her. Their gazes met, clashed and she ran across the hall toward him, almost slipping on a large pool of blood. But then she was in his arms, holding him tightly as his arms crushed her to him.
“I thought I’d lost you,” she murmured, and once she started talking, she couldn’t stop. “I was so mad with you for saying I couldn’t hold your attention, that you were bored with me and then... that asshole was here and I realized you’re not that bad at all and you could have been a lot worse and now you came and with these bots. And you really killed your brother and dad for me?”
He smiled softly as she was forced to stop to draw breath, reaching up with blood-stained hands to push the curls out of her eyes.
“Yes. They laid hands on you, hurt you. The moment they did that, their days of breathing air were numbered,” he replied, so matter-of-factly it was scary. “It would not have mattered how long it took, or whether in this life or the next, I was going to track them down and kill them for that.”
She nodded, not able to meet his eyes for a moment. She wanted the answer to her first question and didn’t, all at the same time. Annoyed with herself, she looked up.
“Why? If you were bored with me? If you were never going to claim me anyway?”
“Ahhh,” he lifted his gaze, nodding in realization. “You were eavesdropping on my conversation with Tavik in the shuttle.”
“Uh huh.” It seemed pointless to lie about it now. “You said I couldn’t hold a warrior’s attention and that you’d never intended to claim me.”
His smile was tight as he let her go and stepped back. There was blood on her dress but she didn’t care. She planned on burning the fucking thing as soon as she could anyway.
“I didn’t intend to claim you.”
His words punched what was left of her breath out of her lungs. Pain welled and she whispered, “But... why? Why everything then?”
“Wordplay, to try and deflect Tavik’s interest. But I was partially correct. I never intended to claim you,” he carried on, that soft smile heart-rending. “Because I was going to ask you to claim me. My heart and my soul will always be yours, Indra. You are the home I have never had.”
Slowly he sank to his knees in front of her, holding her gaze with his own. Spreading his arms again, he revealed the scars on his wrists. “I am Vesh. A warrior with no place in the universe but that he chooses for himself. A lone warrior. Many years ago I was cut from my clan, in spirit and,” he nodded toward his wrists, “in body and blood. I cast myself on the mercy of the goddess, letting her decide whether I lived or died. For years I wondered if she had let me live only to punish me further for my sins. But...”
He smiled as he reached for the dagger at his belt. “I know now, she saved me for this moment. To be her champion and defend you, my very own goddess.”
She held her breath as he reached up, taking the braided section of his hair and cutting it off. He leaned forward and laid the braids at her feet.
“My honor is yours. I dedicate myself to you, body and soul. I... love you, Indra.”
Her heart swelled, eyes filling with tears. He hadn’t abandoned her after all. He... loved her.
“But,” his voice was like a whip as he rose to his feet. “That love and dedication will have to be from afar. I am not a worthy mate for any female, much less a goddess made flesh like you. I will honor my vows and return you safely to the Izal’vias, but then I will resign my commission and leave.”
Her world crumbled, the pain in her chest so searing she struggled to breathe.
“Leave? But... why? If you love me. Where will you go?”
He smiled softly, reaching for her but then stopping himself halfway. His hand fell back to his side. “I will seek admission into one of the sanctuaries for followers of the lady and live my life out there in solitude.”
“Well fuck me sideways.” She couldn’t help the harsh laugh, nor the tears that streamed down her cheeks. “The one guy I fall in love with and he wants to become a fucking monk. Sucks to be me, huh?”
“You love me?” he asked, surprise in his eyes as though that possibility had genuinely not occurred to him.
“Right now? No, because you’re a fucking moron,” she threw back, wiping her face on the voluminous sleeves of the stupid gown. It made no difference. The tears kept falling and since she was an ugly crier, soon there would be snot.
“But before right now?” he asked and then indicated the scene around them. It looked like the set for a low-budget slasher horror film. It was bizarre that the real thing looked so fake and set up. “Before you saw all this?”
“This?” She shrugged. “This was righteous. They were not only asking for it, they sent a fucking invitation with an RSVP attached.”
He smiled. “I have no idea what that means.”
Reaching out, he traced the line of her cheekbone with a gentle fingertip. “How can you see me as anything other than a monster after this?”
He expected her to walk away from him. To turn from him because he’d killed people. A lot of people, brutally and ruthlessly. This hadn’t been a battle. It had been a massacre.
“Do you know what they planned to do to us?” she asked in a low voice. “They planned to rape us over and over until we got pregnant. Then take our babies and turn them into more monsters like this...” she gestured around the room.
“I’m not Lathar but I’m not an idiot. Any little girls we had would have met the same fate. Breeding for the glory of that wanker up there,” she spat toward the statue. “I don’t know who he is, but I hate him already. Whatever god can justify that kind of treatment of anyone doesn’t deserve to be one.”
She reached down and scooped up his braids, holding them close to her heart. They were hers now, and she wasn’t giving them back.
“What you did? That doesn’t make you broken... it makes you a man. It makes you a living, breathing being, reacting to injustice and fighting back. And if you’re broken... I’m broken as well,” she admitted, taking a little step toward him.
He watched her every movement, that implacable expression shielding his thoughts and emotions from her.
“And I do. I do want to claim you, have you claim me. I want to belong to you and I’ve never wanted that before. I’ve always fought to be independent, to not belong to any man. But you... I want to belong to you.”
“But... what if I am too broken?” Nyek shook his head, but she surged forward and put her fingers over his lips to stop him talking.
“There isn’t such a thing as too broken,” she told him, easing herself into his embrace. “There’s only not trying. And we can be broken together. Hold each other so tightly it squeezes all our broken bits back together and mends them.”
He studied her face. “That... is not possible. Do humans really believe that?”
“No fucking idea.” She smiled up at him as his arms went slowly around her. “I read it on a card in a hospital once. It could be.
Wanna try it?”
He shuddered, his eyes closing as he bent his head, his lips a breath away from hers.
“Draanth, yes. Please. Forever.”
Then he kissed her and it was like coming home.
Three hours later they’d returned to the base, and Indra had watched with great satisfaction as Miisan had brought the base weapons online and blown the purist ship to kingdom-come. None of those assholes would be hurting anyone. Not ever again.
“Are you sure you should be up and about?” she asked in concern as Nyek re-emerged from the bathroom, his skin washed clean of blood and only a towel wrapped around his lean hips.
He’d insisted she shower first, and she’d been worried all the time the door had been closed. Miisan had put her doctor hat on—amazingly she could apparently fulfil the duties of any position on board—and treated both the deep wounds where the fanatics had tried to peel his skin off and the blinding headache he’d gotten from piloting the drakeen without the right training.
He’d nearly killed himself to rescue her, in more than one way.
“I am fine.” He smiled as he sauntered toward her, intent in every step. “I am more than fine. I am alive, and I have a female who loves me.”
“Yeah... about that,” she managed, taking a step back for every one of his toward her. The back of her calves hit the bed. “That doesn’t mean you get it easy. I’m still going to be a shrew.”
His lips curved as he leaned in, whispering over hers. “I would not want it any other way.”
Then he kissed her.
She moaned, opening up for him as soon as she registered the warmth of his mouth over hers. Looping her arms around his shoulders, she slid her fingers into his now short hair. He’d tidied it up while he was in the shower but the significance of it all rocked her to the core. He’d cut his hair... for her. Miisan had filled her in while she’d treated him. He’d given her his braids and dedicated his life to her, and her alone.
As proposals went, it was epic.
“But right now,” he broke away to murmur, “I would very much like to consummate our new relationship.”
“Hell yes,” she whispered back, stealing kisses as she pushed at his chest. Getting a little distance between them, she walked her fingers down the muscled expanse. The knot of the towel at his waist was no match for her. It slipped free, the fabric falling to the floor behind him.
As he sprang free, she wrapped her hand around him. He was so large she couldn’t get her fingers all the way around, but she tried. And stroked. He hissed, eyes closing and pleasure on his face.
“No...” He stopped her after a moment, his hand on hers. For saying she knew he was capable of such brutality and violence, he was gentle with her... even when he was not, she felt the care in his movements. He would never hurt her—she knew that—but still knowing what he was sent a little shiver down her spine.
He was one of the most dangerous warriors in the empire. And he was all hers...
“Oh?” she asked, eyebrow raised.
He didn’t speak as he removed her hand, the dark look in his eyes she’d come to know and love intensifying. He reached up and undid her towel, letting it drop to the floor unheeded.
“I want you,” he murmured, reaching down and lifting her body. She went easily, wrapping her legs around his hips. A soft moan escaped her as he pressed against her, cock trapped in the grove of her pussy lips.
Biting her lip, she rocked her hips, sliding up and down his shaft.
“Oh, yeah? I dunno... I think I kinda like this...”
His deep growl made her smile, and she gasped as his hand tightened in her hair, knowing what was coming. He pulled her head back, his lips blazing a trail along the delicate skin of her neck.
He moved, tumbling them both backward onto the soft surface of the bed. Braced above her with both hands, he looked down at her.
“Mine... for always,” he murmured, and the love and need in his dark eyes speared her right down to her soul. How could she ever have thought him unemotional and cold?
“Yours, as you are mine,” she agreed.
He moved, and then he was there, pressed against the entrance to her body. His gaze didn’t leave hers as he pressed into her. It was a long, slow ride of pure pleasure as she accepted him and they both groaned as he seated himself to the hilt, filling her completely.
“Always mine.” She smiled, reaching up to push his long bangs out of his eyes.
Then she gasped as he started to move. Within seconds she knew she wasn’t going to last. It had all been too much—the kidnap, rescue, him almost walking away from her and then them admitting how they felt about each other.
She moaned, arching her back and moving with him. She saw his need reflected in his dark eyes as though she could read his mind and soul. Each thrust and moment their hips connected drove them both higher and higher until, at last, she hovered on the brink.
“Come with me,” she whispered.
“Always,” he murmured and, with one hard thrust, shattered them both.
The pleasure had been indescribable. Afterward Indra lay still and boneless as her breathing returned to normal. He’d pulled out of her, hauling her into his arms immediately. She smiled, her body a pleasant mass of sensuous aches as she ran gentle fingertips down his forearm.
“That was—”
“Far too short,” he grumbled. “I will have better stamina next time.”
She laughed. “I was going to say wonderful, but if you plan on treating me to all that again... I’m not gonna complain.”
Reaching for his hand, she moved to kiss the inside of his wrist over his scars and paused. Her lips curved.
“Love? Did you make sure to wash properly in the shower?”
“Huh? What did I miss?” His voice rang with the beginnings of alarm as he lifted up, hand on her waist to look at his wrist.
“Holy Liaanas, mother of battle,” he breathed. “She has blessed us.”
There, curling darkly around his wrists were tattoo-like marks. The kind Indra had seen on Madison’s husband, Danaar.
Mating marks.
Excitedly, she turned to look at him. Gentle hands on his face, she forced him to look at her rather than his wrists. His eyes were still stunned as he met her gaze.
“Do they mean that’s it?” she asked. “You’re mine now, and no one in the empire can argue?”
He smiled, pulling her closer to claim her lips in a heated kiss that spoke of devotion, heat and all the forevers she’d always dreamed of.
“In the empire, and far beyond. For eternity itself.”
Epilogue
“Fucking hell!”
Indra swore as her stomach rolled again and made a frantic dash for the bathroom. She only just made it in time, hauling up the lid as what little she’d eaten for breakfast decided to vacate the premises.
It was a rolling, heaving few minutes of utter hell, and at the end of it, she found Nyek on his knees next to her with a cold washcloth and a glass of water to wash her mouth out with.
“I am getting concerned,” he told her in that precise way of his, his brow furrowed. “You have been ill every morning for the last week. Perhaps something in our morning repast doesn’t agree with you... still, I would like you to ask Miisan to run some scans.”
Taking the glass, she rinsed her mouth out and then leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder as the wave of sickness passed.
“No need,” she said, as he smoothed her hair back from her face. His touch was so gentle it made her smile. He hadn’t been so gentle in bed last night... she was still pleasantly sore in some very nice places. She smiled as she looked up at him. “I know what’s the matter.”
“You do? This is something that happens to humans a lot?” He grumbled in the back of his throat. “I do not like that at all.”
“Yes. It happens to humans a lot.”
She knew they should move. This wasn’t the kind of conversation to have on the bathroom fl
oor. But then... she suspected this particular conversation had happened more on a bathroom floor than any other conversation in human history. Plus, she didn’t feel inclined to move at all just yet.
“But,” she added, patting the center of his chest. He still bore the scars from his ordeal at the hands of the purists, but they were silver and flat now, well-healed. “It’s your fault, so no getting grumbly.”
Surprise filled his eyes. “How is this my fault? Did I not prepare your food correctly? I—”
She knelt up, putting her fingers over his lips to stop him talking.
“It’s your fault because I’m pregnant, Nyek. Human women get sickness in early pregnancy... it’s called morning sickness.”
“What? Are you certain?” Surprise and then wonder filled his expression and he looked down at her stomach as though expecting to see her already about to pop.
“Well, I’ve never been pregnant before. But, yeah, I recognize the signs.”
She smiled as she reached for his hand, placing it over her flat stomach. “Ready to be a father, Nyek?”
He looked up, and she caught the telltale glimmer of tears in his eyes. Even with everything he’d been through, all the pain he’d endured, she’d never once seen him cry. But here he was, tears in his eyes in their bathroom as he pulled her closer.
“Ready and willing,” he murmured, his voice raspy with emotion. “I will love and protect this child, and any that come after, as much as I love and protect you. Always and for eternity.”
Thank you so much for reading ALIEN PALADIN’S REDEMPTION!
I hope you loved reading Nyek and Indra’s story.
The next book in the Latharian universe will be ALTAV’S BRIDE!
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