by Naomi Lucas
“You can’t. If you do, you get burned, you lose respect, and you lose rank. But it’s easier being alone amongst others, than being alone without anyone.” I force my gaze to meet his eyes. “Vruksha, I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
I bite down on my tongue, trying to find the words. “Because…”
“—Don’t. Don’t say it, Gemma.”
I inhale.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he hisses.
He lifts me in his arms and carries me deeper into the bunker, back to the pile of furs and pelts. He places me gently atop them.
And suddenly, I’m bone tired. And sad.
He knows why I’m sorry.
That despite everything he is, the marvels of this place, and everything he has done for me, including giving up his life, I can’t stay. I’ll never be able to stay.
Not while Daisy is out there, lost. Not while Peter and Collins remain on Earth. And not when there’s a chance that others from The Dreadnaut will come looking for us.
That they could hurt him.
I can’t keep Vruksha, because of this.
And he can’t keep me.
Nineteen
Reflections and Bloody Kisses
Vruksha
Gemma plans on leaving me.
I see it in her eyes every time she wakes to eat, have her bandages changed, or tries to take a step. I’m always there to catch her when she falls.
My only comfort is seeing her on the mend. It has been over a week since I carried her limp, lifeless body back to my bunker, and in the days since, she has gotten better—stronger—every day.
Some of the fury, the guilt has lifted watching her get better. But it will never fully go away. I hope it never does.
I failed.
She was wounded… Wounds that, if I had been more diligent, if I had been keener, she would have never received. Zhallaix should have never been able to sneak up on me. He should have never been close to Gemma. I’m not comforted by his death, but I am glad I won’t have to worry about him any longer.
No wonder she chose another male over me.
She’s all I think about. My mind is clouded with thoughts of her. It’s a poor excuse though it is true. She is my weakness. I have never been weak before, not until she entered my world. Now, it is all I am.
I’ve had plenty of time to think while she healed. I’ve spent so much time watching her sleep, lost in thought as I’ve tried unclouding my mind.
Flicking my eyes over her, she’s burrowed in the soft pelts of my many, many kills. She’s chosen the thinnest pelt to use as a dress since her clothes are beyond repair. They had plastered to her skin from blood and sweat, and I had to tear them off with my fangs to undress her. Now they are nothing but shreds of cloth buried deep in the ground.
I curl my finger under a strand of her hair and twirl it.
The thought of her leaving worries me.
She only has one place to go…
Back to the facility where there’s a ship to take her to the stars. Far, far from me. To a place I couldn’t follow her. Not unless she takes me with her.
A soft moan escapes her parted lips, stealing my attention. She is so beautiful that it hurts. Staring at her in my nest, where she’s firmly mine, I can’t imagine not having her here. I do not want to gaze at the stars and wonder where she is among them.
It’s true what I told her. Loneliness hurts, especially since I know what it’s like to not be that way. Especially when, until recently, there was no hope for anything but a lonely existence.
I gently pull her hair from under her head and span it out on the fur above. I work the tangles out of her strands. Worshiping her this way eases me. I can’t keep her knowing she is hurting, but I can have this. I can groom her to my heart’s desire. She is in my nest, after all, and a naga male is king to his nest.
But I nearly lost her. Again.
The recollection of her on the mountainside, curled, bloody, and trapped with nowhere to go sickens me. With the amount of blood and her pallor flesh, I thought she had died, but she’s a fighter, my female, and she managed to survive long enough for me to find her.
I kiss her hair, breathing in her scent.
A shiver streaks through me, hardening me with lust.
How can I lose her again? She wants to go back to her humans. To her puny males. To a world where she is clearly not treated like the precious jewel she is. She has told me some about her life, and it sounds miserable. I am better than what awaits her there.
So why does she want to go back?
I pull away and find her looking at me when I do.
“Vruksha,” she says my name with a softness that rends my heart into pieces.
“I did not mean to wake you.”
Her face scrunches cutely, and she brings her hands up to rub the sleep from her eyes. In doing so, her pale breasts lift upward. They beg to be devoured and suckled until peaked, but I hold off, knowing she is not ready for such attention.
“I’d like to try and walk again today.”
I grab the cup with my tail and hand it to her. “After your bath. I’ve made you some tea.”
She pushes it away. “Not today. That stuff makes me sleepy, and I want a clear head today.”
I put the cup away. I like her sleepy, I like her like this, needing me. If she’s awake and alert, she may want to take risks again, and knowing her, she needs to be watched at all times because of this.
I’ve learned.
“Later then,” I say.
Gemma rises from my nest, sitting up. Her silky, wavy hair falls around her shoulders to tease me. Her strands caress and brush her upper breasts, her tips, and my mouth waters. But I still don’t push her into my furs and devour them.
It’s taken days for her to be comfortable enough to be naked around me.
And as an obsessed male, her nudity tortures me constantly.
I like her needing me so, but burning tech, I want her healthy again so she will let me spill my seed inside her. I need to claim her, to reassure my soul she is well. I need to cover her, coil my tail around her, and clear my head of the dark thoughts of possessing her.
She nearly died.
If I had not gotten there in time...
Gemma grabs her dress-pelt and wraps it around her body, tying the lanks I’d cut days earlier to keep it in place. I hand her the other ties so she can position the pelt more securely. She moves to rise, and I catch her in my arms.
She gasps. “I wanted to try walking.”
I cradle her close, carrying her away from my nest to the tub of water I have waiting. “Bath first.”
“But I just dressed.”
“Perhaps you ssshouldn’t have.”
She grumps and kicks her legs halfheartedly in reply.
I set her by the tub and picking up a fresh cloth cut from one of my oldest pelts, I dip it into the water.
“You only want to bathe me so you can touch me.” She says this as she moves onto her knees. “I’ve figured you out.”
I ring out the cloth. “Mmm.”
She tugs it from my hand. “I can do it.”
My nostrils flare as she presses it to the bruised skin of her shin. The glistening water left behind entices me to lick it off. She works the cloth over her arms, neck, and finally under her dress.
My hands clench.
“Can I have a moment of privacy?” she asks sweetly.
My eyes snap to her face and discover she’s studying me shyly. Her cheeks are pink. I grunt and turn my head.
“More privacy than that,” she demands less sweetly. “It’s not like I can go anywhere, Vruksha.”
“Until you do,” I growl, slipping away and to our nest. Her quiet movements reassure me as I straighten out and repair the pelts. I haven’t felt comfortable using our nest while Gemma recovered, but perhaps tonight, I will join her in her sleep. I sniff the blankets she’s been sleeping in, sucking her scent deep inside me.
I groan.
&nbs
p; “I’m done,” she calls out.
Dropping the furs, I return to her side. She’s dressed and wrapping her feet in fresh cloth when I do. I tug her fingers away and finish the job for her.
“You don’t have to keep caring for me so much…” she murmurs.
“I like it.”
“But I can do it myself.”
“And that matters how?”
She laughs, startling me.
“You’re not nearly as terrifying as I thought you were. If I’d known that first day what I do now—” She laughs some more, pushing her hair back. “Maybe I would’ve just followed you home instead of running away.”
“Perhaps you would have chosen me instead of Azsote.” I don’t know why I say it, but I do, the old jealousy returning viciously.
She’s quiet until I finish up with her feet.
“I didn’t choose him because I wanted him…”
I look at her. She’s digging her finger into the material of her dress, eyes downcast.
My heart ramps at the submissive posturing.
“You didn’t want him?” I ask gruffly.
She shakes her head, still not meeting my eyes. Oh, how I want to dominate her until she vows to let me rule her. If she allowed me to take over, I would impale her on my member and bind her body to me as I rutted her continuously for days on end. I’d make sure she’d never make it to the stars.
“I chose him because I thought he would be easier to manipulate.”
She goes quiet again, but I want to hear more.
“Go on.”
Gemma sighs. “I was terrified. For a minute there, I thought suicide would be a better fate than what awaited me. Males who barter for women like we’re nothing more than items to own are not good males. When Azsote snatched me, I wanted to get away from him just as badly, but in the frenzy… and when you came for me… Azsote seemed less likely…”
“Less likely to what?”
“Eat me alive.”
“If I ate you, then you’d be dead, and that is not my plan for you.”
She laughs again. “Oh, I know that now.”
She’s in a good mood today, a talkative mood. It’s odd. I like it. “You chose him,” I snap anyway, bothered still.
Her eyes finally meet mine. “If I could go back in time, I would choose you.”
“Why?” Give me more. I’m a greedy male.
“You’re…” Her eyes flick over my face, even briefly to my chest. I straighten, showing off. “You’re kind,” she says.
I guffaw, slumping. “I am not kind.”
“You are to me. I… I don’t know anyone else who would have done for me what you have.”
“I am your male.”
“That’s not a good reason. I still don’t know many human males who would do what you did. Maybe my dad.”
“Your males are pathetic,” I growl.
She swallows. “Maybe you’re right, but it’s not their fault. It’s how life is up there.”
“Do not make excusesss for them,” I hiss. “They do not know what they have lost when they gave you up, and as a male who knows what he has gained, they will always be lesssss than swine to me.”
Her lips twitch. “You have a way with words.”
I don’t understand her meaning, but I don’t care. I lean forward until my face is all she sees. I want to be all she sees. “Let me show you what you mean to me, female.”
Her lips part, and it takes great willpower to not capture them and taste her.
“I think,” she whispers. “You already have.” She tries to pull back, and I let her, knowing exactly that she has only one place she can go.
Down.
I lean over her, corralling her as she leans on her arms, further still, chasing her with my mouth until she’s flat on her back. When I have her where I want her, trapped beneath me, I close my eyes and breathe her in.
Honeyed and sweet. Her chest rises and falls as her heartbeat drums in my ear.
“Vruksha,” she says my name. But it’s not in warning or fear… It’s something else.
I want to believe she likes this.
Me.
I want to show her that I’m not like any other male, that I am the best. That if she stays, I’ll give her everything, and she’ll never be hurt again. I’m a fast learner. An avid one. I’ve done nothing but study and watch her, protecting and caring for her. Trying not to touch her, letting her heal. She’s healed now. Mostly.
I’m desperate for her to choose me. Perhaps it’s because no one has before, not really. Why would they? I’m a lone Viper male with a vicious streak. It was only a matter of time before I left my father of my own volition, instead of the other way around.
I plant my palms on either side of her face, caging her in. My fingers reach out, curling into her red hair haloed about her face.
“I want to keep you, Gemma.”
Her lips part to speak.
“Let me keep you.”
I search her face, needing her to see the truth. I pour every desperate want and every feeling I don’t have a name for into it, needing her to see it. Needing her to say yes.
She cups my face and brings my lips to hers.
Twenty
Beautiful Screams
Vruksha
Heat erupts, surging through my spine. My fingers strain, gripping her hair as she presses her mouth to mine. This is a kiss. I know what this is. I’ve seen them on the screens. It’s affection, a human act of mating, a show of desire, and trust.
She trusts me enough to kiss me—a male with venom. I push my mouth against hers.
Her lips part and her tongue comes out to play. Lust soars through me, and my member springs out from my tail to stab at her body as I lower and press into her. Her legs fall open to the sides, forcing her makeshift dress up.
I ram my tail between her thighs, making sure she won’t be able to close them. Now that she’s open, the primal male in me, the one that wants to coil around her body and rut her into oblivion, needs her open. I have waited for this since the creek. I never finished spilling all I have inside her then, and my bulge still aches.
It’s because of seed she coaxed my body to create when I first laid eyes on her. The pressure is unending, the agony a constant torment.
We’re surrounded by earth, cement, and metal here. There’s no other male but me.
Only me.
Yet I can’t fully relax. Groaning, I deepen the kiss.
My tail straightens out until it knocks at things behind me, scattering them as the need to thrash and bellow constricts my throat.
“What’s—” Gemma gasps, pulling back, but I catch her with my mouth, stopping her. I swallow her mumbled words.
I cup one hand under her neck, squeezing it as I open my mouth to ram my tongue into her. And just like I hoped, her tongue retreats and relents to my dominance. I lick it, rub mine to hers, petting it, tasting her inside. I want her to always submit to me.
The new scent my body creates when she is near floods my nose.
Her hands grab my head and she deepens the kiss. She moans, and her tongue starts to fight back, pushing into mine. My little human fighter.
She gasps, her body going rigid, and blood coats my tongue. I jerk back as her hand covers her mouth. She looks up at me with wide eyes. I lick at her blood, swallowing it down. Oh, yesss.
“Oww,” she whispers, pressing her fingers to her lips. “I forgot you had fangs.”
“Keep your tongue out of my mouth in the future. I don’t want to poison you.”
“You can poison me?”
“I’m a Pit Viper. I’m highly venomous.” So, she didn’t know. “I can control it.”
“Thank god.”
I grab her hand off her mouth and trap it against the floor. I lean down and lick the blood off her lips.
Her breath hitches and her knees come up to press against the sides of my tail. I coax her mouth back open with my tongue. She tastes delicious and flinches when I find
where my fang poked her. I lick the area until she settles. It’s a promise that any hurt, big or small, I’ll be here to take care of it.
Her mouth moves on mine, forcefully, and I deepen the kiss again, thrusting my tongue. Wet and hot, kissing a human female is exactly how I imagined it would be. I curl the tip of my tail and tug down the top of her dress, freeing her breasts.
I tear my mouth from hers and lift to see them. Gemma pants, eyes hooded as she gazes up at me.
I watch as she inhales deeply, taking my scent into her. Her skin flushes.
I drop my eyes to her breasts. I’ve seen them every day in the last week, but they’re still enticing. Plump, symmetrical, and pale, all I want to do is lash them with my tongue. Her legs hook around my middle. I thrust against her.
Her breasts bounce, the peaks rise and fall, and the soft warmth of her body teases my member until I’m thrusting against her again. Her chest arcs, her nipples pop up like they want to be suckled, and I hiss, squeezing her hand under mine.
She is naked, without scales, without armor, and barely wears a pelt from one of my many kills. I couldn’t get harder, but I still do.
“Female,” I grate with painful desire.
Gemma arches her back higher, giving me my answer.
I place one hand on the center of her chest and push her flat to the floor. “Don’t move.”
She wraps her fingers around my wrist. “Why?”
“You’re still hurt.”
I dive forward and capture one of her waiting nipples. She cries out and tries to free her hand from mine, but I won’t let her. I poke her flesh gently with the tips of my fangs but don’t pierce her. After a moment, her tension eases.
Her other hand falls to the floor. I pull her nipple into my mouth, taking all that I can, loving on it. The soft, the tight, the honeyed flavor of her skin floods me, and I cup her other breast with my hand while my tailtip plucks her saliva-slick tit.
She shudders and I release one nipple to suckle the other, poking the wrinkled flesh around her tit with my fangs.
She trusts me.
I could destroy her and she still trusts me.
I dip my head between her breasts and graze my fangs down the center of her chest, down further still until I reach her belly button, which I dive my tongue into. I release her hand and cup her thighs, placing them on my shoulders. My heavy, seed-swollen member hits the floor.