He slipped his arms around her waist and started guiding her backwards toward the door to their house, taking off his bag and putting it on the counter as they went.
Chapter Two
"The way I see it, this trip can't be any more difficult than going all the way to Earth to find you and getting into it with Samira's stepfather," Ero said, cuddling closer to Zuri.
"At least when you went to Earth, you knew what you were getting yourself into," she said, wrapping an arm around his waist and tugging him closer.
"No, I didn't," Ero protested, "I didn't know anything about Earth other than that you were there. None of us had ever been there. In fact, none of us had ever been in a spaceship. I was so worried about not ever seeing you again that it didn't really matter to me that I was going to a completely different planet that I didn't know what it looked like or how I would make my way around. I hadn’t met too many humans in my life, and most of the ones that I had were not exactly pleasant."
"Were you scared?"
Ero thought about the question carefully. He didn't really know how to answer. He was being totally honest when he said that it didn't matter to him when he climbed on that ship that he was going all the way to Earth to find her, but when he thought back on it he knew that it wasn't so much that it didn't frighten him, but that it didn't matter to him that he was frightened. It had been his fault that Zuri had left Uoria only twenty-four hours after she had arrived with the intention of being the first professor to come to the planet to be a part of the exchange program the king, Creia, had planned with the university on Earth. He had hurt her so badly with a comment that he made about her to the other warriors that she had left, even after they had bonded for the first time. It was his responsibility to go after her and convince her that he loved her and needed her to come back to Uoria with him to be his mate. It still seemed like an unimaginable gift that she actually had.
"I know that you don’t want me to go, but isn't this exactly what you wanted to do when you came here?" he asked.
Zuri gave a huff as if he had put voice to something that she had been trying to avoid.
"I don't think that's really applicable."
Ero laughed.
"Really?" he said, tickling her playfully, "You don't think it's the same thing that you wanted to know everything you could about the Denynso and to teach us about humans so you came to be a part of the exchange program? Actually, you know what? You're right. It's not the same. You came all the way from another planet to find out more about Uoria and the Denynso. I'm just leaving the compound."
"It's not the same thing. There have been scientists coming to Uoria to study for years. I at least had some kind of idea of what I was getting myself into when I came here. I knew I was coming to a specific compound to interact with a certain species. I definitely didn't have all of the information or know exactly what the Denynso were like, but at least I had a few reference points. You have absolutely no clue what you are walking into. You are literally just going out and wandering around on a planet that not a single member of your kind has ever walked around on, essentially just hoping that whatever you find is not going to kill you. I’m sorry if I don't find that terribly comforting."
Ero lifted up on his elbow and gazed down into Zuri's face. Her thick blond hair rippled around her lovely, round face, still flushed, and her bare shoulders. Large blue eyes gazed up at him and he had to take a moment just to look at her. His mate was truly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and part of him still couldn't believe that she was really his.
"This is something that I have to do, my love."
"But why?"
"Well, not only is it my responsibility and my duty as a warrior of the Denynso, but I have been thinking a lot about the future and what it might hold for us. I don't want to get to that point knowing that I didn't do absolutely everything that I could to make sure that our future is safe and happy as possible."
"What point?" Zuri asked.
Her voice had become soft and when he looked into her eyes he knew that she knew what he was thinking about, but needed to hear him say it. Ero rested his hand on Zuri's stomach and rubbed it gently, looking down to watch his palm follow the curves of her belly and the swell of her hipbones.
"When we will have a little one of our own. Seeing Pyra and Eden get ready for their baby has made me think about how wonderful it would be to see you carrying our child, and to get to be a father. I didn’t have a chance to have a good relationship with my father growing up to really make any memories with him, and I know that I want to be able to do that for someone."
Even though his parents had died when Ero was very young, talking about them and the relationship with them that he had missed out on throughout his life brought the same deep sadness that it always had. He had always been the orphan of the Denynso, but also the smallest among the warriors. These factors had combined to give him a bitter, angry attitude and a propensity for distrust and violence as he got older. The other warriors had never missed the opportunity to tease and bully him about his size, and it was this bullying that had pushed him to the cruel comments he had made about Zuri. It had been the horrible moment when he realized what he did to her that it finally occurred to him truly how deeply the teasing had impacted him. When he saw the painful look in her eyes he saw all of the hurt that he had experienced and knew that he had just done the exact same thing to her that the warriors had done to him all those years.
Zuri let out a long breath and rested her hand over Ero's on her stomach.
"I've been thinking about that, too," she admitted.
Ero grinned and rolled over onto her, capturing her mouth with his and exploring her with his tongue. He pressed into her, hoping that he would be able to memorize the feeling of every inch of her body beneath him when he was away and lonely for her.
"Let's get started now," he growled into her ear and Zuri laughed.
Ero felt her hands pushing on his shoulders and he complied with the pressure, letting her ease her back onto his side on the bed.
"Hold on there," she said, rolling out from under the blankets, "Let me give you this first."
Ero groaned in protest as she got out of bed, but let himself enjoy watching her naked form wiggling its way across the room to the desk against the wall. He let out a grunt of appreciation when she bent over to look in the drawer and Zuri glanced over her shoulder at him. She smiled before straightening and making her way back over to the bed so that she could hand him what looked like a large book.
"What's this?"
"It's a field journal. I brought it with me from the university and I want you to bring it with you on your trip. I planned on recording all of my observations about the Denynso in it so that I could present them to the university board when I went back. "
"We're just like big giant specimens to you, aren't we?" Ero teased.
"Yes. You're my favorite, though."
Zuri leaned over and kissed him. Ero tossed the journal over to the bedside table. He was happy that he would have it with him when he left the compound and needed to feel her with him, but in that moment she was there, close enough for him to touch and kiss, and he was going to take absolute advantage of it.
Chapter Three
Eden ran her hand down the back of Pyra's head, stroking the long white hair that he usually wore in the customary Mohawk of the Denynso men but was now laying soft. His breath tickled on her bare skin as he whispered to her belly, but it was so sweet that she didn't want to giggle and stop him before he was finished. He was explaining to their baby why he had to leave and that he was going to get back as soon as he could.
"I just want you to be safe," he whispered, running his hand along the side of her belly as he spoke, "and that means I have to go out there and find out if there are any scary things that I will have to fight off for you. I don't want you to worry about me. You just stay in there and concentrate on getting all big and strong. I'll be just fine and when you're ready
, you'll come out and we'll run and play and I'll teach you how to climb a tree."
Eden laughed then and her enormous mate looked up at her.
"What?"
"I don't think that climbing a tree is something that will happen directly after birth." She stopped, realizing that there were still many things that no one knew about her pregnancy or the baby that she was carrying, "Right? I mean, this will be a baby, right? Like a small baby. Not a toddler that will be able to get up and walk around right after birth?"
Pyra returned her laugh and stroked her belly again.
"I don't think so, Babe. I, for one, have never actually seen one, but I'm fairly certain that Denynso babies are small and baby-like. I don't think walking around is a thing for a couple of years, but that doesn’t mean that I can't start planning now."
He leaned down and kissed the swell of her belly, closing his eyes briefly. Eden could feel his hand pressing more firmly into her skin as if he were trying to get close enough to the baby to touch it even through her body.
"You can plan anything you want. He's going to be yours."
Pyra sat up sharply and looked directly into her face.
"He?" he asked.
Eden immediately regretted what she had said. She had been so careful not to say that, but now there was no way that she could just scoop the words out of the air and put them back into her mouth. He had already heard them.
"I don't know for sure," Eden said cautiously, drawing out each of her words as carefully as she could to make sure that Pyra heard her and understood what she was saying. She didn't want him to get his hopes up when she wasn't entirely sure that she believed it herself, "The midwives don't have any way of knowing what the baby is."
"Then why did you say 'he'?"
Eden sighed. She wasn't sure how her mate was going to respond to her little experiment with Loralia a few days before. It wasn't the custom of the Denynso to try to find out what a baby was before it was born, but when the strange and mysterious creature who had come from the mirrored realm beneath the compound told her that she could tell her what her baby was going to be, Eden's curiosity had simply been too much for her and she couldn't say no.
"When the girls and I went over to Bannack's house the other night to meet with Loralia, she was telling us about her kind. She was fascinated by my belly and she asked if I knew if the baby was a boy or a girl. I told her that the midwives didn't have any way of finding that out, but I mentioned that if I was going through my pregnancy on Earth, my doctors would be able to tell me what it was."
"They could?" he asked, seeming both fascinated and a bit upset that this was not something that was available on his planet.
"Yes. So she told me that she would be able to tell me."
Eden thought about the gorgeous and completely unexpected woman that was Loralia. The very last of her kind, she had been living in the hidden realm under the compound her entire life, but had been alone for many years. When the young, impulsive warrior Bannack brought her up into the compound it had been the first time that she had ever been above the surface of the ground. Though she hadn't had the opportunity to spend much time with her, Eden had felt a connection with this misunderstood creature, and was thrilled that she and Bannack were now mated.
Pyra had been staring at her expectantly, but Eden was still unsure whether she wanted to tell him what Loralia had said.
"And?" Pyra said, widening his eyes like he was trying to encourage her forward, "What exactly did she say?"
He looked so excited that Eden couldn't help but smile.
"She put her mirror against my belly and told me that the baby is a boy."
Pyra looked delighted and he bounded to the head of the bed to gather Eden in a tight hug.
"A boy? Really?"
"Yes. She said he will be a strong warrior just like you."
"I'm so excited," he said, rubbing her belly again, "I mean, I would have loved a daughter, too, but having a son…"
His voice trailed off as if the emotion he was feeling was just too much to try to condense into words. Eden felt a surge of pride at that moment that was difficult to explain. She loved that she was carrying her mate's baby, and that she had the privilege of being the mother to the first of the new generation of Denynso, but watching Pyra at that moment as he slithered back down the bed and rested his mouth to her belly again, it all felt even more meaningful. Giving Pyra a son felt like the most important, precious, and valuable thing that she had ever done, and she felt so blessed to be able to do it, even if she was still somewhat fearful of the unknown about her pregnancy.
"My son," Pyra whispered against her skin, "My boy. Your Papa loves you, little one."
Eden reached carefully under her pillow, trying not to disturb Pyra as he continued to whisper to the baby, and took out the braided ribbon chain she had been keeping there. On it was a pendant cast from iron that looked like a hand cradling a heart in its palm. A smaller heart in the center of the larger heart featured an inlay of copper so that it stood out against the other pieces.
"I want you to bring this with you," she said to Pyra and he sat up, looking from her face to the pendant in her hand, "I designed it a couple of weeks after I found out I was pregnant. Jem," she paused and choked back the painful emotion that suddenly tightened in her throat at the mention of the warrior who had died in the recent battle with the Klimnu, "crafted it for me."
A brilliant blacksmith, Jem had taken her vision for the pendant that would represent Pyra holding her and their baby and crafted it into something so beautiful it had taken her breath away when she saw it. She had intended to give it to Pyra when the baby was born, but now that he was leaving with the other warriors, she wanted him to take it with him so that he could have them close to him even while he was far away.
Pyra took the pendant from her hand and ran his massive fingers along the design.
"Thank you," he said softly, "I can't tell you how much I am going to miss you. I feel like I'm not going to be able to breathe without you."
"I'm going to miss you, too," Eden said, "I can't bear the thought of sleeping in this big bed without you. I'm going to be alone more nights with you gone on this journey than I was when I first got here before we bonded."
The mention of their first bonding brought a flash of heat to her cheeks. That had been such a tumultuous, emotional time, but as Pyra lifted up to lie down beside her and pull Eden in against her so that he could cradle her in his arms, she knew that she would never trade a single second of it.
Chapter Four
Leia's hand clutched at the sheets beside her, her knuckles clenching so hard into the fabric that they whitened as she pulled it away from the mattress. Her eyes closed as her head dropped back against the pillow and her back arched up off of the bed. Gyyx flattened one massive hand into the middle of her chest and pressed her back down, holding her against the mattress with just enough pressure that she could feel his dominance. This sent even more of a shiver of excitement and arousal through her and she couldn't hold back the cry of pleasure as her mate flicked his tongue through her hot, wet folds again.
Gyyx had spread her thighs against the bed and pushed them up so that she was fully open to him, making her totally vulnerable to his touch. He pushed them up a little higher now, using the very tip of his tongue to concentrate fast, intense strokes directly on the pearl of hypersensitive flesh just at her peak. The sensation rolled through her like thunder, sending nearly overwhelming ripples of pleasure all the way along her body. Leia writhed against the bed, but Gyyx was far larger and far stronger than she was, and the pressure of his hands ensured that she would stay exactly where he wanted her for as long as he wanted her to stay there.
Of course, there was nowhere else that she would want to be in that moment. She reveled in being at her mate's mercy and in the way that he could so masterfully manipulate her body to create feelings within her that she had never experienced before.
Just as Leia felt lik
e she was going to lose all control, Gyyx pulled his tongue away from her body and pressed a series of soft kisses along the inside of her thigh. He was allowing her to cool, to come down from the spiraling heights of pleasure he was sending her into so that he could just bring her right back there again. It was delicious, delirious torture.
She felt him guide her legs down and his hand slide from her chest down to one of her hands so that he could ease her up to a sitting position. As he did this, Gyyx came around to her side, changing positions with her so that he lay with his head on the pillow and guided her to kneel in between his slightly spread legs. Leia bit down on her bottom lip as the position brought her right into view of his powerful erection. Her mouth watered as she looked at it and she couldn't resist running her tongue from its base to the tip. There was already a crystalline drop of fluid collected there and she licked it up, allowing the tip of her tongue to dip inside just briefly.
Gripping the base of his cock in one hand, Leia traced the edge of the crown with her tongue, pausing for a moment to concentrate her licks on the bundle of nerves on the underside of the head just as he had concentrated on her. As Gyyx began to groan beneath her, Leia started to stroke with the hand that was holding him, gliding her palm and fingers along his hard, thick length as she continued to memorize his ridges and veins with the tip of her tongue. The taste of his body made her shiver, making her want him even more.
Suddenly Gyyx sat up and grabbed Leia by her upper arms, turning her and laying her down on her stomach so that she faced the foot of the bed. He climbed over her, balancing on his hands and the balls of his feet so that he didn't press too much of his tremendous body down on her tiny frame, and she felt his erection gliding along her thighs as he rolled his hips to stroke against her without entering her. Leia whimpered and lifted her hips, displaying herself to encourage him to fulfill the ache within her that he had created with the skilled ministrations of his tongue.
Loralia & Bannack's Story (Uoria Mates IV Book 4) Page 48