I nodded to avoid admitting what my mother had done to me.
She returned to the ledge and reclaimed her seat, facing me. "You can have anything you want of me. Like the others. You do more for me than I could ever repay you in kind. So, you see, I understand the value of mates and don't want you to ever feel used."
If a warrior could have cried, I would have then.
My heart rammed up into my throat.
"You're quiet, Var. Is there something profound you'd like to say like you typically do?" She fiddled with her hands in her lap as if she contemplated running from the room.
She must have felt pretty awful sitting there, nude, wringing her hands, wondering what I was up to. I tried to gulp the cursed lump from my throat so I could speak. So I could keep from having to lift her chin and gaze to mine. But touching her was dangerous. All that beautiful skin… And warm curves.
She cleared her throat and rose, turning, stepping from the bath.
Don't go. "Wait." To speak with her alone. I'd be a fool to pass up this opportunity.
She turned to me, those almost-hurt blue eyes almost glowing in the pool's white light that gilded the bends along her body.
What had I done? I was always the one pointing out how the others frightened her. And here I am stoking her sadness. I hurried to climb onto the pool's ledge and stand before her.
Maybe just admitting why I was aloof would be easiest. "Among my mother's guards, there were few she could use for political advantage."
Aisling stared into my eyes a good head shorter from me where she stood at the rim of the pool. Her gaze began to pinch with realization. "High-castes? You mean your coloring?"
She did understand. But I wanted her to understand my caution had been founded in something deeper. A betrayal so horrible that I feared bonding with her. "My mother forced me to sleep with other Queens that took a liking to me."
Aisling didn't flinch. "Without the security in marriage? No wonder you didn't want to have anything to do with me."
"But every word you utter, every action you take, everything you do is for my well being. Nothing like my self-centered mother." I wanted to draw her delicate curves into my arms, to make her feel my sincerity in my rattling heartbeat.
She sighed. "Mothers are an enigma. My mother died because she couldn't stand being separated from her sister. She left me all alone to find my way in life. I was an adult though." She smiled. "That's why I became a Marshal. I didn't have anything left on Earth. So, you see, I understand that mothers can make strange choices."
How could she say she had nothing left on her home world? Were the warriors there so blind they couldn't see her beauty? Or her warrior's heart?
We just stood there and stared at each other.
She reached out to lay a palm against my cheek. "I'll always be there for you." She reached up with the other palm to hold my face in her hot hands. She petted the thick stubble of my beard with her thumbs. "Always, Var. Just tell me what you want. I can't read minds, or I'd have already found a way to make you happy."
My heart thrashed.
All my blood raced to my groin.
She stepped to the absolute edge of the pool's rim, pulling my face down to hers, kissing me with the softest lips, her gaze locked upon mine. "Always," she whispered against my mouth.
Blessed stars, I ached to feel the warmth of her body. To lean my ear against the beat of her heart. To curl up in sleeping skins and hold the female who would save me from myself. I slid my hands across her back, down the slender slope to the curve of her ass, and ran my fingers around her cheeks to pull her body against my aching shaft.
She sighed into my mouth and closed her eyes.
Her heartsong dipped and silenced only to begin a beggar's beat when my touch wandered across her curves.
She wanted me. And nobody was forcing us together. I could have stood there forever holding her against me, probing her moist mouth with my tongue, staking claim over what was rightfully mine. But it'd been so long since I mated. And her hands were all over my ass. I had to be careful not to throw her down and plow into her wet heat.
* * * *
Aisling clung to the strangely reclusive male's steely body who just shared his darkest secret. What a secret, she thought. And I wasn't going to let him walk away. Not until I'd made certain he understood not all women were like those who'd hurt him. And after that heart melting kiss… He'd liquefied my insides to the point if he didn't lie me down and pound into me, I'd never let him kiss me again.
Var stepped up the six inches to the pool's rim and nudged me backward with his iron body. His stiff erection poking my belly like a dull but soft blade.
Where was he going? I stared into the blue glow of his eyes, stepping where he guided me away from the pool's light.
He slid his palms up to my waist and turned me toward the stack of furs in the bath's dark shadows.
Thank God. He needed me. And I knew I'd never get any sleep without finishing what was undone between us after he initiated the peace talks. Especially the way his strong hands kept touching my body like I was fragile. Pushing me back into the darkness.
My calves bumped the soft furs.
His dark silhouette leaned its glowing orbs down. So far down they vanished as his lips touched mine. He sighed the hottest gust of breath and devoured my mouth.
There couldn't be anything left inside me as my organs had dissolved.
Oh. Dear. God. I opened my mouth to him and grabbed his blond hair. Damp hair. Anything to hold him there. He should be touched. Kissed. Roaring his ass off on top of me. I tried to pull him down. But he lowered me onto my back with two strong python arms, pulling his lips away, just leaning over me.
"Var," I groaned and reached for his black face. "Come here."
He didn't make a sound. The blue glow of his eyes popped into view. "Do you know how beautiful you are, Aisling?"
Not good. Taboo subject. Beauty seemed to be the root of all evil in his life. "Thank you," I whispered and slid my palms up the undulating muscle of his arms. But chitchat was not what I wanted.
Sex.
Right now.
He sighed and settled the magnificent weight of his body upon mine.
Why the hesitation? "I'm yours, Var. Anything you want. Anything."
One of his hands curled around my breast and he thumbed the nipple.
If he'd only just ram that firm shaft inside me. But he'd been so abused. I'd just let him take his time and petted his shoulders, winding my fingers into his hair, and pulled his stubbled cheek down to mine.
He growled softly and nuzzled into my ear. "Aisling."
The big guy just needed me to love him. I kissed his jaw. His neck. The beat of his pulse in his jugular. His bobbing Adam's apple. The hollow of his neck. The swell of his breast. His beaded nipple. I kissed and kissed all of his supple flesh he offered me until his muscled body writhed against me.
He growled a steady gurgle, latched his mouth onto my neck in typical Luvk male fashion, and sucked so hard that I hissed.
My heart reappeared to dissolve beneath his scorching lips, pooling between my legs.
"Var, inside me. I want you inside me," I gasped and squirmed.
He growled even louder. His hand slid down between my legs to investigate every inch of my sex. To toy with my clit until I squirmed and squealed.
I mindlessly bucked my hips beneath his belly.
"Aisling," he whispered against the swell of my breast, his whiskers raking my tender skin until my nipple beaded so tightly I couldn't breathe. But he never relented his conquest of my sex.
I felt so empty without him inside me. So tortured. Was this some game he played with me?
He snatched up my nipple between his teeth and pulled and sucked.
My womb ached so badly for him I almost called for Borun. For help. Almost stopped believing Var wanted to be my mate.
Suddenly, Var slid the smooth head of his erection across the notch of my sex and lock
ed it into place, his glorious mouth teasing me more, devouring my neck.
Oh the damned anticipation. I lifted my hips against his firm presence and waited to be taken.
He shifted overhead, staring at me, snuggling his nose into my hair. "Aisling." Slowly, he glided his iron shaft into my aching channel.
Ever so slowly.
Possessing me.
I bent my knees, allowing them to fall to the furs, spreading myself wider for him. To feel only him penetrating my soul with his deliciously engorged shaft, sinking deeply into the darkness of Luvk.
And heaven found me in the darkness. Nobody could ever convince me I made a mistake choosing to submit to all my mates. I moaned.
He growled and thrust himself the rest of the way inside me with one swift rock of his hips, all the way to his splendid root.
My mind whirled. "Oh, Var," I whispered, "I want to be yours."
He turned his blue gaze to meet mine. "You are."
My body ached around him. He was like some phantom mystic settling upon me to shroud me in his therapeutic energy, to bury something magical inside me. And my soul pulsed with each of the medicinal throbs of his heartbeat.
He sucked in a deep gasping breath. "Hold on to me, Aisling."
Dear God, yes, to be ridden through his darkness. I grabbed two handfuls of his halter.
Arching his hard body, he wildly withdrew and rubbed marvelous friction along my channel.
How wonderful it felt to finally wrap my legs around his strong lunging hips. How his iron shaft slid to that hypersensitive bundle of nerves deep within my soul and rubbed it into a raging fire that made me rock my hips as fast as he moved his.
He shoved up to arms' length, away from my grip on his harness, and his gaze vanished as he ignored me and vanished into his own world.
My invisible sex god pounding into my aching flesh… Laboring, building a wall of need inside me stroke by goddamned stroke. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't stop rocking to get the tip of his amazing shaft right where he made me cry out his name. Over and over, I couldn't stop crying at the feet of his glorious temple.
He groaned, his lower body shoving my tender flesh with each of his extremely focused lunges as his body stiffened and strained to burst inside mine.
My god of darkness was climaxing too. I clamped my muscles down around his hard shaft. Held him. Loved him. Until I couldn't see anything but stars inside my mind.
He roared as I screamed. His body went rigid. His throbbing cock ruptured inside my soul.
The blue light flashed between our humming bodies, illuminating the stripes of his corporeal self. How he was as vulnerable and real as I was. If the light could heal anything, I hope it healed his heart. Gave him peace. Or just made him content with me.
Slowly, he began to pump his jerking erection, milking it of any remnant seed while I matched each move of his magnificent iron hips until there was nothing left of him but his sighs and groans.
Var sank on top of me, settling down to lay his cheek atop my heart.
I slid my palms across his damp back. My mate's shoulders. I would love him as much as the others. He was gorgeous. His body felt amazing. But to say anything meant I might utter something one of those horrible queens had said. So, I just let him catch his breath and lie with me.
My heart still ached for him though. Worried he wasn't comfortable.
"I'm alright now, Aisling. Don't worry about me." He slid his arms around my sides and beneath mine.
He cradled me as much as I did him.
He definitely seemed better. I slid my fingers into his hair and scratched his scalp. "I'll never stop worrying about you."
He grabbed me up, rolling, stopping where I lay inside the circle of his python arms, both of us at eye level. "It's my job to do the worrying."
Four princes worrying about me? By the intensity of Var's stare, I knew I was in the best hands.
* * * *
Borun sat near the heat of his hearth inside his lodge wondering how the clans would come together in the future. Was unification even possible?
A presence pushed into his mind.
"Calen's arrived," Var said in mindspeak from his post outside the door.
Three days had passed since we arrived home and all things became normal once again for Aisling. Now Calen would bring back all of her ideas and guilt associated with how she could solve Luvk's problems through him.
She foraged through a chest by the fire's dancing flames. She'd finally given into curiosity and accepted the gifts from each queen. But Calen would set her off on another round of debating responsibility. "I don't want Aisling to know," I said to Var.
"Neither do I."
"Borun?" Aisling called from across our lodge where she held up a breeding top. "What's this?"
"Like your bras."
She shot me a doubtful gaze. "And when do I wear it?"
"It's for women who are breeding. You wear it with a breeding skirt."
"To supper? Around the village? You're kidding, right?"
The shock in her voice made me laugh. "No." And as slim as she was, she'd have the entire village staring at her as she walked among the lodges parading her high-caste beauty and the mark of the younglings brooding in her belly. Maybe I didn't want everyone to gaze upon her flesh. She'd never know I lied. "It's for when we're here."
"That's good to hear." She returned to foraging through the trunk's contents.
Something thumped outside.
"Borun," someone yelled.
Curses. Calen. Undoubtedly voicing his summons to announce his presence to Aisling.
Aisling shot me a knowing stare.
"Stay here," I ordered.
She nodded.
I opened the door to find Lehd and Var blocking Calen from my lodge. Calen stood weaponless except for the curved battle claw at his hip. He stared at me through his Royal Guard mask with a body at his boots. A black and white warrior at his feet. Kruk.
"He's dead," Calen stated and tossed a Royal Guard mask on top of the body. "Kruk won't bother Aisling again. I want to talk to the Marshal."
Calen was a fool. "No."
Aisling shoved between my arm and Var's. "What?" She gasped at the lifeless carcass.
Did she never listen? I shoved her arm back into the lodge.
A strange whir hummed through the air.
"Did you hear that?" she blurted, searching the clear blue sky.
"I've never heard that sound before," Var said.
"It's a shuttle. A spacecraft." She tried to shove past my elbow.
Not with an insane Royal Guard afoot. "Wait inside." I pushed her back into the lodge, blocking her smirk with my body, and closed the door at my heels.
"Borun! It might be someone from The Order of the Marshals. And the Orders' Marshals have the knowledge to close the portals!"
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Chapter Thirty-One
Aisling didn't know what to do sitting there with her four mates across the fire from Calen. But Calen had killed Kruk, she kept telling herself. For me.
A chill feathered across my skin.
Calen saved me from Kruk. What did that prove? The act amounted to something.
Borun leaned toward me just enough to warm away the chill where he knelt on bended knee, ready to pounce.
"I've sent for the Marshals," I said, staring into Calen's blue gaze. "I can't do anything else until I hear from my commander." Although, my mates wanted Calen out of here. Calen obviously meant business. And he'd killed the one Luvk who held my future over his head.
Calen measured me with his gaze as if he knew what I had just been thinking. That I owed him a favor.
What whirled in his hidden thoughts? Had he protected me with Kruk? Dare I believe that?
Calen shifted, unfolding a leg where he sat. His long black and white arms almost hypnotized me in the shadows the way shadows moved upon his skin. Almost fooled me into forgetting his bizarre behavior. "I can't unite the clans alone," he finally said.
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Borun growled a deep sound in his chest.
Lehd rose to his full height as if something else was clarified in mindspeak.
But what if the truth was Calen could unite the clans and just needed our assistance? I slid my gaze to Borun.
He focused solely upon Calen.
My husband, the hunter. My guardian. "Borun?"
"No, Aisling," Var said without one drop of emotion.
"He can wait for your commander," Borun ground out.
There was no bargaining with any of my guardians. I met Calen's unwavering gaze. "Find a place to wait. When my commander arrives, we'll see what is happening on the other side of the portal. Until then, my hands are tied." But, at least, Kruk was out of the equation. Somehow, Calen would get reciprocation for that little favor.
Calen sighed, rose, and left with Lehd, Ovh, and Var on his heels.
Borun cast off his mask, grabbed my chin, and tilted my gaze to his. "Well done, little one." He kissed me quickly on the lips. Softly. Not enough to set off a round of mating. Just enough to show he was happy with my actions.
Oh to have married a man who couldn't kiss. I could make some serious decisions with that deal.
"Aisling, your commander is meeting with Ishan. We have been summoned to the great hall," Borun announced.
I really hate telepathy. "Alright. I'm ready to find out who arrived in what spacecraft."
All of my mates followed me to the great hall. Fortunately, Kruk's body had disappeared. That was one less thorn in my hide. But I could breathe easily now.
Now to get Goro to work on the portal from the other side. Thank goodness, Goro and two other male Marshals stood on one side of the platform where the Queens lounged. Those females would be happy to hear Kruk was dead and they could return to their realms. We claimed a place to stand before the Queens.
The crowd of Royal Guards silenced.
Goro nodded at me and joined us where we stood. "Johnson has been working with the Slakens since my departure. I trust you've news for me."
Ishan might go radical with news of a second portal. "Yes. We should speak privately."
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