Escape (Project Vetus Book 1)

by Emmy Chandler

  “Please…” she groans, tugging on the hand I have pinned while she clutches me with the other. “Please…”

  “No.” Though my balls are so tight they ache with the need for release. “Not until you say it. We belong together.” Her body would not be desperate for your seed if that were not true, the beast insists. Your cock would not attain this size for anything other than a genuine bond.

  “Mine,” I lean down to whisper in her ear as I rock in and out of her. She gasps against my cheek as her body begins to clutch at my cock, and I slow my motions until she groans. “Mine… Tell me, and I’ll give you what you want. It’s just one little syllable.”

  “Yours…” She hardly breathes the word, but that counts. The beast is satisfied that deep down, she understands what’s happening, and that’s enough. For now.

  “Mine,” I agree, as my own release builds. “Come for me now, Lilli. My fierce little flower.”

  “I…” She groans as I thrust harder. Faster. “Oh!” Her eyes fall closed and she shudders around me. Pulling me closer to the edge with every clench of her inner muscles. Until I can’t—

  The purring of the beast inside me reaches a fever pitch as I spill inside her, over and over. I groan, thrusting desperately, and the ecstasy that rolls over me reaches well beyond this physical pleasure.

  I feel right, for the first time in my life. This moment is perfect. This is how it should always be. How it will be, now that she has accepted me.

  Now that she is mine.

  “You are perfect,” I murmur as I bury my nose in her hair, at the base of her skull. Where her delicious scent is strongest.

  Well, where her scent is second-strongest.

  “And you’re delusional.”

  “What does that mean?” I run my hand over her hip and frown when my fingers brush the side of her panties. Lilli insisted on cleaning up and pulling her underwear on, but I drew the line there. She doesn’t need any further clothing. I will keep her warm.

  She rolled her eyes at my insistence, but she indulged me.

  “I am far from perfect,” she insists. “I’m outspoken. Opinionated. Stubborn.”

  I rise onto my elbow and frown down at her as my free hand strokes her arm. I can’t stop touching her. Reassuring myself that this moment is real. “Why are you listing strengths as if they are weaknesses?”

  “Because… Wait, strengths?” she sounds surprised. “Do you really think so?”

  “Of course. Only weak people have nothing of substance to say. I was thrilled to discover your fire. Your passion. I will never let danger near you, but the fact that you’re willing to defend yourself if you need to, with that sharp little tongue, brings me nothing but pleasure.”

  She rolls her eyes again. “So, basically, you think it’s adorable that this weak little woman has such a big mouth, worthless though it is in a survival situation?”

  I drop a kiss on her nose. “You also have an adorable spear.”

  “I know you’re making fun of me, but your spear is pretty noteworthy too.” She tosses a glance down at my crotch.

  “Noteworthy? Ouch. That mouth of yours is a weapon.” I lean in for another kiss, and though I’ve just had her, my cock begins to swell again. I think I could spend a solid week in bed with this woman and never want to leave.

  The beast seems to think that’s a perfectly rational plan. “But on a more serious note, you should never underestimate the power of your own voice. Wars are won not with guns, but with words.”

  She sits up and reaches for her bra, and I stroke her warm thigh as she puts it on. Though I voice my disapproval with a soft growl. “Well, they’re certainly fought with guns. And usually started with words.”

  “True,” I concede. “Regardless, I am thrilled with your powerful voice,” I assure her. “With your steel spine. You will be an excellent mother to bright, fierce children.”

  Children. Plural. Huh.

  I’m not sure where that thought came from, because on Tethys, even with the proper license, a couple can only have one child. That’s all there’s room for.

  “I…what?” Lilli stares at me, her brows drawn low. “What children?” Her voice shakes, and her scent floods with the sour stench of fear. Of pain. I’ve upset her, but I don’t understand how.

  “Our children.” I sit up and try to tug her into my lap, to comfort her, but she shoves me away, and the rejection stings like a cut from a knife.

  “You can’t just start talking about children on the first…well, this definitely isn’t a date, but on the first…abduction under false pretenses.” She sits straighter, and I can see her effort to push past whatever’s upsetting her. To rein in her own reaction. “I mean, you’re going to have to stage a large-scale deception three or four more times before I’ll even be sure I want to have breakfast with you. Much less make brand new people with you. I don’t even know your middle name.”

  “Anthony.”

  “Okay, that’s not the point. Carson, this has been fun in a bizarre, whirlwind, scary/sexy kind of way, but I need you to come back up to the surface with me for a second.”

  I sit up, frowning. “The surface of what?”

  “Of reality. Come take a deep breath. Get a really good whiff.” Before I can figure out how deeply mired she is in this metaphor and whether I should actually take in a breath, her next words suck all the air out of my lungs. “I’m certainly grateful that you want to get me off this rock, and you’re one hell of a good lay. But we will never have children together.” She reaches for her shirt, frowning at the small tear I left in the hem, and the gulf between us widens as she pulls it on. Hiding herself from me.

  “But you accepted me. And you took my seed.” That’s an odd phrase. It’s nothing I’ve ever said before. Yet the words feel right. As if they mean something very specific and important.

  My pulse begins to race as Lilli dresses. She’s preparing to leave.

  “Your seed? I took your cock, Carson. And that was fun. I haven’t been in the position to actually enjoy sex in a long time, so thank you for that. And I’m certainly up for an encore, later. But for now, I need to go back.”

  “Back?” The question emerges from my throat like a snarl. “You can’t leave. You accepted me. We belong together.” As crazy as that sounds—and I am aware of that—it feels right.

  Lilli scoots to the edge of the mattress with her back to me and shoves her legs into her pants. “Okay, I don’t know what any of that means. I accepted your offer to take me with you when and if you escape, but we can’t just stay here and play house in a half-crushed building full of corpses until that happens. Those bodies across the hall are going to start to stink. So will you please take me home now? The storm has passed.”

  The rain has passed. The storm is just now gathering.

  “I am your home. And you’re my home.” Why can’t she feel that? It’s all I can think about, other than my need to touch her. To be in constant physical contact with her.

  “Until I leave this planet, my home is a building full of old dorm rooms, where two of the toilets actually work and half the curtains hanging over the windows were hand-stitched by me. My home is full of people I’ve known for more than five minutes. People who’ve put their lives at risk to protect me, and for whom I’d do the same thing.”

  “I will protect you.” I’m trying not to be insulted that she thinks she’d need anyone else. “And I will…make you curtains.”

  “It’s not about the—” She groans in frustration. “Think back to before those scientists did this to you. Back to when you were a normal human. How would you have reacted if our positions were reversed, and you didn’t have that damn beast whispering crazy shit into your head? What would you say if a woman who practically snatched you from your home, after an admittedly really good lay, told you she wants to have your alien babies?”

  “If I’m a normal human man in this scenario, how could I give her alien babies?”

  Lilli groans again.
“I need you to listen less to what I’m saying and more to what I actually mean. Please. Even if we make it off this planet and wind up very happy together—against odds that get longer with every weird thing you say—I’m not going to have kids with you. Even if that were possible…” The scent of her grief overwhelms me. “But it’s not, so that’s not even relevant to this discussion.” She picks up her bag and settles it onto one shoulder. “And I have to go.”

  I capture her arm as she tries to stalk past me. “Wait, why isn’t that possible?”

  “You can’t be that damn thick, Carson!” She pulls her arm free, fire blazing in her eyes, and her sharp words call out to something deep inside me. I want to protect her. But I also crave this fire. This aggression. This spark that challenges everything I say. Every move I make. This woman has a spine of steel, and though I know she’s truly angry and frustrated, the beast interprets her aggression as another step in this mating dance. Another subconscious request from her for me to prove my worth. To win her over.

  But it must be deeply subconscious, because on the surface, all she seems aware of is pain and anger.

  “I can’t have kids!” she shouts. “Even if I wanted them. And I don’t. But what I want doesn’t fucking matter, because they take that possibility away from us—from the women anyway—as soon as we get sentenced to this god-awful place. Because we’re not supposed to leave, and this would be a terrible place to raise kids.”

  “They…what did they do?” My question is a deep growl of outrage, while the beast stalks back and forth in my soul, snorting in fury. Looking for some target to strike out at.

  “I don’t know. Obviously, I was unconscious for the procedure, and when I woke up, they just told me I wouldn’t have to worry about getting pregnant out here, or about finding feminine supplies. Ever. Like I should fucking thank them for cutting me open and playing around in my organs like kids rearranging doll parts.”

  That’s a sentiment I understand quite well. But that’s not what she needs to hear right now.

  “I spent a year at the Resort, Carson.” She speaks through clenched teeth. “As a fucking prostitute. Do you think they would have rented me out on a near-nightly basis if there were even a chance I could get pregnant?”

  The snarl rolling up from my throat startles her, so I bite it off. I’m not angry at her. I’m angry for her. For both of us. I feel like I failed her before I even met her, because I didn’t find her in time to prevent any of that. The men who paid to use my Lilliana. The doctors who ripped our children away from us before either of us even knew there could have been children.

  “Hey.” Her expression softens in the face of my rage, though her stance remains tense even as she lays a comforting hand on my bare chest. “Put that beast on a leash, okay? All of that is over. I’m safe at the Sorority. But no matter what you think is happening between us, it’s never going to work out like…whatever you’re imagining. And if that means you don’t want to take me with you when you leave…” She gives me a brokenhearted shrug. “Well then, so be it.”

  Her resignation makes me ache all the way into my bones. She actually thinks I would leave this planet without her.

  I won’t even leave this room without her.

  “I’m so sorry about our children,” I tell her, while the beast howls in mourning, deep in my soul. “But that doesn’t change anything for me.”

  “I…” There’s a conflict playing out on her features. Some battle she’s waging against herself. The scent of grief is coming off her in waves, and I think she’s lied to me again. I think she’s only telling herself that she doesn’t want children as a method of dealing with the fact that she can’t have them. “Carson, I can’t do this. I have to go.”

  “You’re rejecting me?” The cloud that rolls over me feels more like an eclipse. The end of all light. “Why?”

  She looks surprised. Confused. “I’m not rejecting you. I just… I left the Sorority a few hours ago with no idea you even existed, and now…this is all pretty overwhelming. I need to think.”

  “You can think here. With me. I need to think too. About how to get us off this planet.”

  Lilli blinks at me. “You don’t have a plan?” That heavy streak of sadness swells in her scent. “Was this ever real?” A bitter tang pervades her scent as her gaze hardens. “Do you try this on a lot of women? ‘In case my silver eyes and weird abilities aren’t enough to get you into bed, I’m also going to rescue you! If you’ll just spread your legs…’”

  I can almost feel fur rising to stand on end along my spine—fur I don’t have—as my indignation rouses the beast’s.

  “This isn’t some kind of con, Lilli. You’re the only woman I’ve made this offer to, and the only one I want to take with me.”

  “But you have no idea how you’re actually going to get off the planet, yet you’re selling the idea to me as if your plan is set in stone.”

  “I didn’t mean to mislead you. Even if the details are still a bit fluid, the goal is set in stone. I took control of a shuttle once, and I can do it again. And that should be much less difficult, now that I know I can assume someone else’s identity. I will get us off this rock, Lilli.”

  “Fine. I truly hope that all works out.” Her nod feels patronizing. She doesn’t believe me. “But until then, I have to go back. I can’t just disappear from the Sorority and let my friends all think I died in the woods, at the hands of some alien hybrid super-soldier.” She smiles and she pats my chest again with one hand, and at her touch, that soft thrumming begins deep in my throat, even though her scent and her gaze both tell me she’s trying to placate me. “So I’m going back. But I expect you to come get me when you figure out how to get out of here. Or the next time you want someplace to bury that alien cock.”

  “Now. I want that now.” She can’t leave. I can’t be separated from her. Every cell in my body feels pulled toward her.

  “We just had sex, Carson.”

  “I’m ready again. And so are you.”

  She shakes her head. “I’m not—”

  I pull her close and nibble on her earlobe, while that soft thrumming swells from deep in my throat.

  She groans as the scent of her need blooms anew. “Stop that!”

  “No. Stay. I promise I’ll lick you all night long.”

  “Then you’ll be too tired to plan an escape. Tomorrow.” She backs out of my embrace, but I can practically feel her reluctance. “Come see me tomorrow, and I’ll give you a proper introduction to my friends.”

  That can’t happen. Not after I attacked Warren to get his DNA. “No, you—”

  “Carson!” Her eyes flash with irritation sharp enough to bite through the scent of her arousal. “Step aside right now, or I’ll rescind the invitation!”

  I bite back a growl—the beast doesn’t understand this rejection, but I do. Despite her mid-coitus admission, this isn’t as simple as “I fucked her, and she liked it, so now she’s mine.” The beast may not be human, but Lilli is. And I used to be.

  She needs time. She needs to know more about me than how many times I can make her scream with my head between her thighs. She needs to trust me. And I owe her that time.

  So I step away from the door, though that simple act feels like ripping my own heart in two and handing her half.

  “Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow, if you still want to come.”

  I give her a grin and force my voice into the light-hearted range. “I want you to come.”

  “Not gonna argue with that.” She steps into the hallway.

  “Wait, you can’t go by yourself in the middle of the night. Let me get dressed, and I’ll take you back.”

  “Not gonna argue with that either. I’m just going to see if one of the other toilets still works.”

  I listen to her footsteps while I pull on my shirt and step into my shoes. I’m tying them when I hear her footsteps head back down the hall, toward the front door.

  “That’s a negative on a functional
toilet,” she calls. “I’m gonna pee outside. Meet me out there, okay?”

  “Be right there.” She forgot her bed sheet, so I shake it out and fold it up, and I’m shoving it into my own pack when I hear the soft sound of several sets of footsteps.

  Shit. Her friends found us.

  Then Lilli screams.

  I drop the pack and race into the hall. I’m outside in less than a second, and in the waning moonlight, I see three men. Three strangers.

  Two of them have their hands on my Lilliana.

  I feel the seams on the undersides of my forearms split open as I lurch into motion. And I let the beast take it from there…

  12

  LILLI

  There’s no way I’m heading into the woods by myself, in the middle of the night, so I head for the side of the building, intending to relive myself out of sight of…well, no one. I’m alone.

  I’ve made it eight steps toward my goal when the whisper of footsteps at my back makes my blood run cold. I scream as a set of hands clamps around each of my arms, just above the elbow, and in seconds, strange men have dragged me several yards from the building.

  There are three of them, and one has very short hair. Which means he has some way to cut it, and anything that will cut his hair will cut my flesh. But before they can even whisper a threat, the squeal of ripping metal shrieks from behind us, and I twist again to see the front door of the half-crushed building fly open so hard that the top hinge rips free.

  Carson bursts through the doorway, his pale eyes flashing with an inhuman silver glow.

  I’ve never in my life heard a sound like the roar that rips free from his throat. I’ve never seen anything like…whatever’s happening to him. I can’t see very well, with clouds muting the moonlight, but he definitely looks…different.

  “What the fuck is that?” the asshole clenching my right arm demands, backing away from Carson. Dragging me with him.