Feral Fever

by Feral Fever (lit)

  "Beacon?" I threw the pack's flap open to find a circular box with a button.

  "It's a transmitter. I've planted a larger one on Luvk. Borun took me to an excellent location the first time I visited. The larger transmitter will signal to any Free World satellite or spacecraft nearby. And hopefully we'll locate Luvk shortly. Then I'll bring your pod fighter. You know the drill, as Darla loves to chant."

  Okay, maybe this planet is still in the universe I came from… Can I say whew or what?

  "The smaller version you're holding will activate a sensor beneath my skin as long as I'm on Slaken."

  How can he know that? "You tested it?"

  He paced beyond Var and Borun's shoulders. Everyone watched the commander.

  I guess Goro believed everyone in the room loyal. But how does anyone trust an alien leader notorious for manipulation? Albeit, the Blood Wars were over. "So, you're telling me that all I need do is press this button to contact you?" I studied the tiny raised surface on the hockey-puck-sized remote and pressed it.

  "Aisling, don't do that," Goro ground out through grated teeth and glared at me.

  The man had to be bipolar. "Somebody needs to test it."

  "The signal I receive is an electric shock. And it's not very comfortable."

  A giggle tortured me into gulping. "From what I hear, Xquine males are the toughest warriors in the universe. Well, until I visited Luvk and got a chance to push this teenie weenie button."

  Goro smacked his lips. "I see why Darla is drawn to you. She harbors an equally wicked sense of humor."

  Oh, did Darla? "Let's blame that on Earth, the cradle of the humorous female mind." The impulse to push that button again hung like a howling phantom, goading me from overhead.

  "Now," he dismissed my joke, "I've placed the rest of the equipment you'll need in that backpack."

  All eyes in the room turned to me.

  Glowing eyes. As if I held some great treasure. Or a damned torch. I met Goro's stoic gaze. "I don't want a torch. It's like having a viper or a tarantula in your suitcase. With my run of luck lately, I'll end up torching myself."

  "No. Not a torch. Standard gear."

  Like that made a lick of sense. "Okay, so you're escorting the princess to Slaken in a few days?"

  "Yes. And I'll be there for three more days until I depart for Titan."

  Good for you. I'm not into frozen moons even if they're in my solar system.

  "Johnson will remain in contact with you over the course of the next year. Or until the Free World Council locates this planet."

  My heart sunk a little.

  Maybe everything just suddenly seemed so real. I was staying. Goro would be leaving. I'd be swinging things alone. With my guards. I scanned the attentive gazes sitting around the table until my gaze landed on Borun's. Yes, he'd take care of me. Until Kruk showed up. And then all I could hope for was all the guards beating the shit out of the Thunder bastard.

  "Aisling?" Goro asked.

  Crap, I need to pay attention. "Yes?" I stared my boss down.

  "If anything happens to you, my mate is going to make my life miserable. She promised me that when I told her I was bringing you here a few weeks ago. You'll be fine. So, don't worry."

  Why didn't I feel like I was going to be fine?

  ?

  Chapter Fourteen

  After dining with the guards, Borun pressed his chest against Aisling's back where she sat on the pile of furs used for drying off, encircled by flickering candles, facing the pool with his attentive hands cupping her breasts. Now this was dessert, she mused. Although I still wore my bra, the warmth and pressure of his hands on the small triangles of fabric made my heart race.

  He leaned his mouth against my neck and scratched out a whiskery kiss, soft enough to send gooseflesh erupting along my arms. His breaths were almost steady, patterned, except when he'd suddenly exhale, vigorously.

  I sucked in a breath for myself.

  Moments like this lured me deeper into his darkness, so far that I forgot about my woes. I thought of nothing except how Borun made me feel as if everything was going to be fine. Hopefully all would go as planned.

  "You still haven't dug into the bag, little one." His hot breath warmed my skin with fleeting comfort.

  What could possibly be in the bag that could be any more significant than Borun making love to me?

  "Are you happy with me, Aisling?" he whispered.

  Who wouldn't be? "I'm so happy that I can't stop thinking about you touching me."

  His hot mouth latched onto my neck and sucked the heartbeat out of my jugular. My heart melted away into nothingness, soaking his favorite panties. He growled a low sinister sound while toying with my bra clasp as if his sense of smell was as strong as his hearing and sight. Strong enough to smell the fluctuation in my faint scent, noting how wet I was for him.

  "Teach me how to unlatch this garment before I die, little one."

  Anything to get him feasting on my breasts in his ravenous way. I turned, straddled the leather covering his lap, and presented my whitest laciest bra for his perusal.

  He groaned, fingering the small closure, wiggling a finger beneath the clasp.

  God would he not hurry? I covered his fingers with mine and showed him how to press the mechanism.

  He sighed the most pitiful sound of relief and gently slid his warm eager palms underneath each bra's cup.

  The starvation on his face revealed by the light from the pool almost killed me. More than the hunger in his palms.

  The biggest baddest Luvk warrior was putty with my breasts in hand. And my breasts responded to his affection with tensing, aching, beading nipples. I snaked my fingers through his hair and pulled his lips to suck the pressure from one of those aching buds. To release me from the torment.

  He growled.

  I needed him there. Satisfying both of us, now.

  His python arms slid around me, pulling me up onto my knees, raising me so he could nibble and tug one tender nipple into a peak before finding the other to antagonize.

  He obviously wanted me extremely wet.

  I ached so badly that if he didn't throw me down and take me I was going to yell. Or cry.

  He must have sensed my state of deprivation because his fingers slid underneath my panty's edge, and he shoved his palms along my ass until he could test my wetness with his fingertips.

  He growled and withdrew his hands, looking up into my eyes. "Aisling, there is no way a warrior can have you and walk away without losing his mind." His glowing orbs reflected that very message.

  The blood bond was talking. Driving us to unite. To touch. To exchange blood. But his romantic comments made the motions more intimate. Necessary, Dangerous. I could wallow in his words and never care to see the light of day again. I pressed my lips against his and traced out the seam of his mouth with my tongue.

  He growled, tugged off my panties, and pulled his engorged cock out of his pants.

  That's just the type of tool I wanted to see him whip out for a round of interrogation.

  He started to raise me up with those muscled arms.

  To position me right where he wanted me. Fantasy or not, I could take him myself. I slid my fingers beneath his palms and pried them off of me.

  His eyes glinted with confusion.

  My actions would clear up the foggy mists between us. I curled my fingers around his thick iron erection and watched his eyelids flutter. He couldn't keep his eyes open as I milked his long silken length from the smooth tip and back to the root.

  "You're my blood mate, Borun. Are you happy with that?" What would he say?

  His eyes opened halfway. "Yes," he hissed.

  * * * *

  Borun almost fell against the hard rock of his home world where his mate took him by his manhood and made his eardrums threaten to explode with the blood throbbing through his veins. Blessed rock, my mother planet, that threatened to knock the sense back into me before I lost her precious seed, he gasped. I threw a
hand back and balanced myself upon an arm where I sat.

  "We can't live without each other," she whispered above her excruciating grip stroking my tender shaft.

  Those lovely lips spoke unnecessary words. I almost grabbed her and pulled her hips down until I buried my root inside that hot vise of her womb that called to me. But she seemed to have other things in mind. Watching. Waiting.

  She leaned down, onto her hands and knees, and trailed her tongue out to trace shivers into my soul. Along the length of my manhood. Her unyielding gaze was relentless as she curled her tongue around my engorged erection until she got to the blessed tip and sucked on my body like she savored my very being.

  No warrior could sit and watch his body writhe beneath her intensive stare. I grabbed her underneath her arms, pulled her up to lean her back, to open her soul to me, crawled between her legs, and rammed into the delicious crackling dampness beyond the tight mouth of her sex.

  She was so wet her body whispered a greeting as my aching hardness slid along the length of her slick channel.

  My mate wanted me. The stars were truly rewarding.

  Her fingernails clawed fire at my shoulders, finding the halter strap, scratching in beneath the strip of leather, as her bucking hips matched my strokes perfectly. She became the warrior, and I her mount, her legs sliding around my waist to squeeze me into a full gallop. Slowing was impossible with Aisling. Or I drank far too much wine.

  She groaned. "Harder, Borun. Please."

  And my body responded, mindlessly, plunging, deeper and deeper until I could think of nothing but the way her channel possessively clamped around my member and how my sac slapped her sweet ass.

  I was hers.

  She is mine.

  Her cries spoke of little else.

  Her body went rigid beneath me. Around me. Choking my erection. And she threw her head back, crying out. I couldn't hold back the tide of rapture. My seed burst inside her.

  Her body's spasms squeezed every last drop of searing germ from my body.

  There was nothing but Aisling. I shut my eyes and desperately plunged again and again to wring every kernel of my essence into her womb. Into a dark warm place where only Aisling could nurture it into life.

  A blue light forced its way between my eyelids.

  The healing light. If there was a way to gift her a youngling, she would have one soon. Very soon. I settled my racing heart down upon her trembling body. Those breasts. My heart to embrace and protect. "Aisling," I whispered her name as if she might vanish for want of hearing me say it.

  Her fingers released my halter to gently slide along my back. "What?" She petted and loved me.

  Tenderly. "You're right. I can't live without you."

  She silently raked her fingers through my damp hair and cradled my skull against her drumming breast. "That's what they say love is on Earth. Even if we call it blood lust now, I'm glad we have it between us."

  Hopefully, my actions proved I would protect her, treasure every moment I had with her. Did females from her world know these things males thought? I shoved onto my palms and raised up to meet her gaze. "I swear it, Aisling. You are safe here with me." Her commander was right. I pulled her hand from my hair and planted a kiss on the palm. "Always safe with me." She had to realize and give no thought to her commander's departure.

  Her heart hitched into silence.

  She believed me. I grabbed her up into my arms, carried her into our sleeping skins, laid her in the silky softness, stretched out beside her, and pulled her into my heart.

  She clutched my chest like Kruk lurked behind her. "Don't let go."

  I'd never seen or heard anything close to this passion and vulnerability uttered from my mother's lips during all those years I monitored her sexual rites with her consorts. Coming from Aisling, the words quaked my planet. I slid my hand down her lower back and petted the gentle curve of her sleek body.

  Did she know what she did to me? How much she moved me? How she'd shown me what life was like after all my years of a son's sterile service to his mother?

  * * * *

  "Queen Grana has been murdered," a female voice spoke in Borun's mind.

  Borun's eyes popped open from a deep sleep in the darkness where the only light in his lodge radiated from the dying coals of the hearth fire nearby. Was that a dream, he wondered.

  Aisling didn't move where she laid tucked into my side underneath my arm.

  But she wouldn't have heard a telepathic message. Was I dreaming? Most likely. Nobody had ever murdered a queen. And here I lie on the brink of change. Why wouldn't I have a nightmare? Aisling was like a queen herself.

  The bath's doorway whined.

  "Borun," Lehd called out in mindspeak. "Queen Grana has been murdered."

  Slakens or fools, someone would pay for the transgression. "I'm coming." I tucked my manhood back into my pants, pulled a fur over my mate's body, and grabbed my mask.

  The Royal Guards huddled steps away near the pool.

  Ovh, Grana's son, appeared calm.

  I reached out to him with my mind. "My deepest sympathies, Ovh."

  Ovh nodded, his gaze serious, but not harboring pain.

  Why would any noble son pity his mother after the lives we had to endure? "Have you heard any other news?"

  "Only that she was found in her bath chamber by her guards."

  "Have they called for action?" Or whatever what would come from this fiasco.

  "Royal Guards have been alerted to keep watch throughout the night." Lehd nodded toward the door leading to Aisling. "She should be guarded as well."

  And I left her alone. I nodded. "I'll stay in the room with her. I trust you'll guard the doors. Ovh, if you wish to check on your mother's guards-"

  "No," Ovh interrupted. "My place is now here with Aisling."

  As loyalties should be with a Royal Guard taken to be a consort.

  * * * *

  Aisling wiggled inside the warmest place she'd ever slept. Alone, she noted with a groan. Where was Borun? I bolted upright and scanned the room's shadows.

  He sat by the hearth, nursing the fire with a long stick.

  Lehd sat with him.

  Neither acted like he noticed I sat up with my breasts exposed. Good because Lehd might be adoringly attentive. But I wasn't ready to bare my soul to him yet. Why were they sitting around together in my living area when they could mindspeak at a distance?

  My gut flopped.

  Something had happened. I pulled the fur tightly up to my neck. "Borun?"

  He turned to me. Lehd respectfully did not.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  He shot Lehd a glance across the dancing flames and turned his glowing eyes back to me. "How did you know?"

  Maybe because they looked like two old men ice fishing. "You don't normally sit around with another warrior while I'm sleeping in my birthday suit."

  "Birthday suit?" He quickly joined me, blocking Lehd's view with his broad back.

  They might have learned English but not everything. "It's what we call our nude bodies on Earth," I whispered and shot him a weak smile.

  "Wait here." He disappeared into the bath.

  Leaving me with the big puppy. Would Lehd jump my bones now that we were alone? I was easy fruit for picking. He could just pin me down and take a big bite.

  Lehd stared at the fire.

  Seconds later, Borun reappeared with my clothes bundled in his arm and hastened to my side. "Dress, little one. There is much to do."

  "What are you hiding from me?"

  He handed me the clothes I wore yesterday. "One of the Queens has been murdered."

  "No." I needed to get dressed. In clean clothes after I bathed. "Can Lehd step out a moment while I dress?"

  Lehd rose and departed through the lodge's entrance.

  That damned hearing! "I hope I didn't offend him."

  "It's alright, Aisling. Just dress yourself."

  "I need to bathe. Real fast."

  His gaze se
ttled on me with a knowing flicker. "Quickly."

  By the time I rinsed soapy lather from my private areas and pulled on my other pair of clean khaki pants, white t-shirt, and underwear, I felt human and was ready to hear the entire story. I dragged my combat boots and socks to the fire and sat beside my mate. Maybe ten minutes had passed. "I'm sorry. I tried to hurry."

  "It's alright, little one. I bathed myself while you slept. Lehd watched over you."

  Lehd slowly proved he had the morals of a saint. And huge protective saints packaged in muscles were really nice to have around. Especially those suffering from crushes. "So, what are the mindspeak rumors?"

  "Murder. Slakens. They can't determine the route by which the Slakens entered the palatial grounds though. Nobody saw or heard anything." His gaze locked on mine. "Someone always sees a Slaken in these attacks though. The sky demons don't know how to sneak around us. They may have wings, but our heightened sight and hearing wasn't gifted to them. And they have never attacked the Queens. Something isn't right, Aisling."

  Lehd strode back to the fire and nodded at me. "Blessed sunrise, Aisling." His gaze slid to Borun's. "Should we leave now that you both have prepared?"

  Action? A girl finally got to get out from under the unyielding watch of her harem? But Kruk might be out there, somewhere, lurking. The creep. And then there are the bastards who killed the Queen. "Just where are we going?"

  Within minutes Lehd carefully hefted me up to sit behind Borun on Jonner. I grabbed a handhold of leather strap at my mate's chest. Jonner hopped into a trot. My Royal Guard surrounded us as we cleared the front gate and headed back… To the portal.

  Good. With all the gargantuan tigers around me, what could possibly go wrong as Borun searched for evidence of the Slakens passing through the gateway?

  * * * *

  Two days later, Borun agonized, focusing his vision on scanning the ground around the portal in the bright light of the late afternoon's sun. If someone had stepped there recently, a footprint would press down grass or pebbles. Something would indicate an invader walked here, he insisted internally. Especially after we traveled two days to investigate.

  "Borun?" my mate asked.

  I dared not lose my spot on the ground. "Yes?" I scanned another patch of grass.