The Bonding

by Imogen Keeper

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  I’d like to thank a few people without whom this never could have happened. My husband, who works so hard and makes it possible for me to pursue my dreams. My son, who reminds me that the most important things in life are sticky hugs and giggles. My mom, for her unflinching support (well… maybe a slight flinch when I told her I write erotic alien-warrior romance novels). I love you all. My incredible editor, Monika Holabird, who doesn’t miss a thing… not one little, tiny, insignificant thing. The fantastic people in my critique circles—you’ve made this happen. And finally, my readers—none of this would be worth it without you!

  I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to find me on Facebook, Twitter, or on http://www.imogenkeeper.com.

  Thank you!

  Immy

  Sample from

  THE BREAKING

  AJAX CLOSED THE DOOR carefully and left his patient alone. She was finally asleep.

  The fever, nausea, chills and aches that plagued her body were nothing compared to the onslaught of her emotional pain. It was difficult to believe a person could sustain such aggressive tears. The woman had sobbed so hard and so long he’d considered sedating her just to make it stop.

  He’d never cried like that in his life, not even as a kid during the Plague of Days when half his family died. He’d never seen anyone cry like that, shuddering and soundless, as if her soul were trying to separate from her body, as if her bones were breaking and her skin fragmenting into a thousand tiny pieces.

  That’s what the breaking of a Bond did.

  Bonds should not be broken.

  If he were ever lucky enough to form one, he’d never let it happen.

  The thought of Bonding immediately brought an image of vibrant yellow-green eyes to the front of his mind. And as always, his body responded.

  He ran his hands through his hair, his cock swinging in front of his body like a flag pole, waving and bobbing in his pants. He lowered his hand, maybe to tuck it away, maybe just to squeeze the stupid throbbing monster. He’d just laid the flat of his palm along the shaft when he froze.

  There she was, standing in an open doorway directly across the hall, watching him with those eyes, yellow green and wide.

  Feola. As if he’d thought her into reality. She’d had him hooked like an addict desperate for an overdue dose since the first second he saw her. He’d never wanted anything in his life like he wanted her.

  He swallowed.

  “Ay-shocks.” Even the way she said his name made him harder. As if she were singing and whispering and moaning all at the same time.

  Her gaze dropped to his swollen cock. The look in her eyes said she knew exactly what it was, and exactly what it was for, and exactly what he wanted to do with it. Her mouth dropped open. Her skin flushed a pretty shade of pink

  He didn’t think. He did something he’d never done in his entire life, just acted. He crossed the hall, reached out, took the back of her head in his palm, and moved in close. As he slid his other arm around her back, her body bowed.

  She gasped but kept her gaze locked on his. When he lowered his mouth to hers, she whimpered. Her lips were full, and she tasted like summer on his home planet, Argentus. Like sweet fruit and fresh water. Her tongue against his was as soft as velvet.

  “Ay-shocks. I—”

  He kissed her again, silencing whatever she’d been about to say with his tongue, too frantic to stop.

  His cock pulsed happily against her stomach, feeling the press of a warm, female body for the first time in fifteen years. He backed her up against a wall, tugging at her skirts, and pushed his hand up her dress, along silken thighs. When his hand found her pussy, so warm and so wet, he nearly came in his pants.

  Her clit was rock hard under his thumb, and she kept repeating his name, crooning it out, breathless in his arms. It almost sounded like a prayer. Ay-shocks, Ay-shocks, Ay-shocks.

  He’d never felt so powerful and so humble in his life. Like he was as big as the entire universe and as tiny as a quark, all at once. Nothing mattered. Everything mattered.

  He stroked his thumb over the slippery button of her clit, sliding his finger deeper inside her tight, wet passage, hooking it in, knowing instinctively what she needed.

  Her hands roved through his hair. He closed his free hand over a perfect little tit and the turgid rise of her nipple.

  The walls of her pussy fluttered around his finger, soft as the wings of a butterfly, and his heart swelled. Holy gods, there was nothing sweeter than holding a woman while she came. He swallowed her moans, but they echoed down the halls, ricocheting and rising in a crescendo of their own.

  His cock throbbed again, demanding attention, but he ignored it. Slid his finger from her body and righted her clothes, tracing kisses along her cheekbone up to her temple. Her breasts heaved against his chest. Her wide eyes locked on him.

  “Feola,” he murmured against her lips. “I….” He paused, right on the cusp of declaring… what? His undying devotion? That wasn’t fair. First, he needed to clear the proper channels, make sure his superiors wouldn’t forbid a union with one of the few, precious remaining women.

  He needed to make sure she was thinking clearly. Give her time to process, before he asked for a Bond. She wouldn’t be able to think with his tongue in her throat. She needed space. “I’m sorry.”

  She froze.

  “I didn’t mean to do that. I just lost control.”

  Her cheeks flooded with heat, and she backed away.

  As soon as he got clearance, he would talk to her. And pray to every whispering power in the universe that she’d say yes.

  1

  Four months later

  FEOLA HAD A COMM of her own, a thin transparent disk the size of her palm. It even buzzed sometimes, too. Just never for the reasons her friend’s did.

  Samila’s comm buzzed as they walked through the lacy purple reeds in The Fields of Base Romeo-Two. Like the rest of the women on the ship, Samila was Bonded and nauseatingly blissful in her union. Samila’s mate called to check in, to say he loved her, to hear her voice. The smile on Samila’s face was unmistakable. It was the same smile Feola had seen on the faces of the women from her home planet, Triannon, after they’d been mated. It was the smile she’d dreamed of wearing herself one day.

  The smile said: I love—and in turn—I am loved.

  Feola had worn that smile for a sum total of seven days.

  Seven days of serum-induced, mind-blowing, unnatural joy. She’d lived for her mate during those days. For his smiles and kisses. For the intoxication of his serum, and her own unnatural addiction to it.

  Then it had all changed. Evaporated.

  It was not a smile she would ever wear again. She knew that now. Had accepted it long ago. She’d never have that smile.

  When her own comm buzzed, she felt only fear, and lately a newfound rage that simmered below the skin.

  Utto’s presence pulsed in her chest where their Bond united them permanently. His emotions, as always, seethed and rippled, oily and viscous across her sternum, like a parasite that had taken up permanent residence in the marrow of her bones.

  He was the only person who ever called her comm because he was the only person with her number, and her comm couldn’t contact anyone else. He’d made sure of that.

  He checked in too, but it didn’t make her feel safe or comforted. He called to make sure she hadn’t contacted anyone else in his absence, hadn’t seen anyone else, hadn’t even thought of anyone else.

  He wanted her alone, weak, and pathetic. Desperate for him.

  Sometimes he told her he loved her, but when he did, she knew it was a lie. He didn’t love her. He hated her. The line might be a fine one, but she knew the difference, now. She’d learned the difference between love and
hate, the hard way.

  She and Samila met at The Fields occasionally to walk for a stolen hour together, while their mates trained. It was the only guaranteed time that Utto wouldn’t show up at random. During Utto’s training exercises, she would sneak across the hall to Samila and her mate’s chamber. Her friendship with Samila was just one of the many secrets that she kept from Utto.

  If he found out, he would forbid it.

  He would do worse than forbid it.

  “Let’s sit by the water awhile,” Samila said with a sly smile. “I’m a little sore from last night.”

  Feola tuned out the senseless chatter, the idle bragging of her smug friend. Samila was nice enough, but she was oblivious, thoughtless, and complacent in her happiness; she tripped down the grated path through a patch of solar light that filtered down through the crystalline domed ceiling of The Fields.

  The woman placed her comm negligently on the steel bench overlooking the irrigation canal that had been dug into the artificial terra of The Fields that comprised the ship’s hydroponic farms.

  The crops spread before them in tidy rows of yellows, blues, and pinks. She sat beside Samila, so close the comm rested only a few inches away from her pinky finger.

  With the wide smile that always calmed Utto when the tempers took him, she pointed at the tiny fluttering birds around a flowering cerulean bush. “What are those?”

  Samila was one of the rare Argenti females. She knew more about the world of the Tribe than anyone Feola had ever met. As Samila prattled away about the birds that fertilized the crops and the canal that watered them, Feola slid the comm into the pocket of her prim lacy white dress.

  Samila didn’t notice.

  Oblivious. Stupidly happy.

  They sat for a while. She nodded and smiled at the right moments. All the while, the comm rested against her thigh, a smooth, light weight that would either save her life or end it.

  Samila finally noticed it was missing and tried in vain to locate it. They spent precious time retracing their steps. Feola furrowed her brow, made sympathetic noises, and looked under the bench and behind the bushes, careful not to get any dirt on her dress. Utto would know she’d left their chamber if he saw stains.

  “I can’t think where it could be,” she lied. She’d become good at lying. A necessary skill. She ignored the vision of her mother’s face in her mind’s eye, sad and disapproving. Mamma had always said lying is bad. It didn’t matter. Mamma had died a very long time ago.

  Anyway, her mother had never met Utto. It was impossible to know Utto and not become a liar.

  Samila laughed gaily. “Jamar is going to tease me—ruthlessly—when I tell him. That’s the second comm I’ve lost.”

  “He won’t be angry, though?” Feola couldn’t help but ask and, when Samila frowned, instantly regretted it.

  “Angry? Over a missing comm? Of course not!” Samila looked for a moment as though she might ask about Utto.

  They rarely discussed him, so she laughed to distract her. It sounded loud and shrill in her ears. She’d need to hurry across the base to Utto’s chambers to have any chance of using the comm before he returned.

  It wasn’t the first thing she’d stolen. Or the first thing she’d put in her stash of supplies. Her mother wouldn’t have approved of theft either.

  She refused to accept the surge of guilt. Resisted the anxiety. If she permitted the excitement to affect her heart or her breathing, he’d feel it through their Bond.

  She never quite knew how much he could actually feel of her emotions, or how clear they were to him, but she did know he could feel her terror. Her sorrow. And he liked it.

  A tiny flare of hope sparked, trilling along her spine. She squeezed her palms and stamped it down. He’d feel that, too. And then he’d know.

  She needed the comm far more than Samila did, with her safe and loving Jamar and her thighs sore from a night of tender lovemaking.

  When she entered, the chamber was empty. Clean and cool. Sterile, just the way Utto liked it. She moved to the sink, pressed the code she’d stolen from the ship’s healing bay to contact a man she’d known several months ago, the only one she trusted to help her now, the only person she knew couldn’t be connected to Utto or his family in any way.

  There was a short series of ticks and a moment of silence. Then a man’s deep voice. “Hello.”

  Ajax. His beautiful, rumbling voice swirled in her ears, bringing back so many memories. Her nipples hardened instantly. That voice, his beautiful pale eyes. They’d be crinkled at the edges now with concern.

  She swallowed thickly, eyes closing, calling up his face, the hard jaw, the gentle smile, his pale, soft hair, the velvety touch of his tongue to her lips. The seductive flavor of his kiss. Utto would feel her arousal—but he’d never know the reason.

  Self-loathing tore through her, and her eyes burned.

  For a moment, her throat refused to function, wouldn’t shape the sounds she needed to communicate. She dug her fingernails into her palms. “Ajax? I didn’t know who else to call.”

  A hot tear escaped to roll down her cheek. Even across the distance of star systems, the frail radio connection of their comms made her feel safer. The only connection to the last person in the universe who might still be able to help.

  “I need your help.”

  Over the line, he sucked in a breath.

  As her body remembered that day so long ago, her stomach coiled, heat pooling between her thighs. He’d backed her up against a wall and plunged his tongue into her mouth as if he wanted to swallow her heart and fuse their souls.

  If only he had. She’d have let him. She’d never wanted anything more at that moment. He’d been so big. And so hard. So desperate for her. He’d touched her body in a place no one ever had, and he’d made her feel the first burst of strident, unadulterated, breathless pleasure in her life.

  She’d been terrified. She’d hung in his arms like a ragdoll after, as he’d stroked and petted and kissed her face.

  Until he’d apologized, which had been humiliating beyond belief.

  And then nothing. He’d turned away.

  For days, she’d wondered. And he’d done nothing more than nod politely.

  Utto had. He’d done plenty. Utto had told her he loved her, and he’d die for her. He’d asked her to Bond with him. He’d kissed her. Whispered promises she’d been stupid enough and blind enough to believe. And maybe a small part of her had wanted to prove to Ajax that someone wanted her, even if he didn’t.

  Her body had betrayed her, responding to the unknown call of Utto’s serum snaking its way through her system.

  She parted her lips to tell Ajax she was sorry, that she’d made a mistake, that she should have waited longer, but her throat just wouldn’t obey.

  “What do you need? Are you okay?” That voice again, and all the warm shivers that came with it.

  Behind her, the door to their chambers hissed, providing no more than a split-second warning.

  Her heart jumped into her throat.

  Utto. He’d come back early.

  Moving in a fluid, practiced motion she’d learned in her three months at Romeo-Two, she opened the drawer that held their plates and mugs.

  Smooth, deft motions drew no attention. Jerky behavior garnered suspicion.

  With her thumb, she ended the connection with Ajax on the comm and dropped it at the back of the drawer, where Utto would never find it. He hadn’t stepped in the kitchen more than once in their entire time at Romeo-Two.

  “What are you doing?” His voice sounded from the entrance of their chamber, distrustful as ever. His suspicion slithered in her chest through their Bond.

  The door slid closed with a hiss.

  “I thought I’d make some eeffoc.” She pulled two mugs from the drawer and slid it closed with her hip, wiping her damp cheek calmly, slowly, so as not to draw his attention.

  “You drink too much of it. It’ll stain your teeth.”

  She turned to find h
im, unstrapping the holsters that held his rezals, but he kept on the straps of knives that crisscrossed his barrel chest.

  “They can be whitened if they bother you, can’t they?”

  He made a face at that, somewhere between a scoff and a snarl, jerking his head in a sharp motion that set his dark-blue hair shimmering. She had loved that thick shining hair at the beginning. So different from her own. She loathed it now.

  She loaded the fragrant, brown-black powder into the machine, and set it percolating. Lifting one of the mugs, she moved to put it back in the drawer.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want any,” he bit off, voice caustic and low.

  She closed her eyes, pictured Ajax’s soft eyes.

  Utto’s tone augured conflict. Experience had taught her that although his anger could only be staved off for so long, she could frequently soften the intensity of it by forcing herself to remain gentle and sweet.

  “Sorry, my love.” The false words tasted bitter on her tongue, but the smile she offered was sweeter than the lintorippi berries they grew in The Fields.

  “My cousin, Rennie is going to come for a while. He’ll stay in one of the guest chambers, but he’ll eat meals here. I expect you to make him welcome.”

  She didn’t want to ponder the meaning behind those words too deeply. “Of course. Please let me know what his favorite meals are. I can find recipes.”

  When the eeffoc was ready, she poured it into the mugs, pouring cream in his, just the way he liked it, and brought it over to him where he sat in the lounge.

  He put his mug on the table in front of him and met her eyes with a look she knew only too well.

  She smiled for him again—the big, wide-eyed, vapid grin that he loved, the one that had probably gotten her into this mess. With Ajax’s turquoise eyes in her mind, she dropped to her knees in front of the man she’d chosen.

  He spoke, but she ignored his words, conjuring up the sound of Ajax’s deep rumble across the distance of space.

  She’d find a way to call him again soon.