by Ivy Sparks
“He should be here shortly,” Lord Kali concluded, before downing an entire mug of asnir.
As if on cue, Ryker appeared behind me and put his large hands on my shoulders. “You look breathtaking, my mate,” he whispered into my ear.
I smiled up at him and patted the seat beside me. He sat, having only eyes for me. He hardly even noticed when Lord Kali set a mug of asnir down in front of him.
I subtly nodded toward Lord Kali, then widened my eyes at Ryker. That was when he shook out of his stare and realized the king was at the table. “Ah, Lord Kali. A great hunt this evening. You even struck a Sand Elk in the heart… for once.”
Lord Kali balled up his fist playfully before Ryker lifted his mug for a toast. The entire table joined in, me included, shouting out, “Savast!”
My eyes scanned Ryker’s hardened body, his newly vibrant markings, and how well he wore his warrior armor. He was the most handsome damned man I had ever seen.
“Earl Ryker,” a woman’s voice called behind us. Ryker and I both twisted around to see a tall beautiful Xeki woman, her brows perked up, an asnir in one hand while her other hand rested on her hip. “Remember me?” She winked.
I bristled like a porcupine. Just who the hell was this bitch?
Ryker put on a very polite smile, not the warm one he always wore for me. “Hello, Aulek. Of course I remember you.” He nodded, but the smile faded.
“Judging by your markings,” she began with the slightest hint of a suppressed sneer, “you’ve finally found your mate. Congratulations. Who would have thought this would have been the one?”
I jerked my head back as I gave her my best oh no you didn’t look.
Enough silence on my part. I had to put this bitch in her place. “Yes, I’m his fated mate. And you might be?” I gave her the same judgmental look she was giving me.
“The last person Earl Ryker laid with. He was so convinced I was his mate, but it seems fate had more amusing plans.”
“Huh.” I let out a sigh, turning to Ryker. “She really did it for you once, huh?”
Ryker remained stoic and poised. “To think, not so long ago, I was such a foolish young man.”
Aulek rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’ll see you around, Ryker.”
She put a hand on Ryker’s shoulder which he removed immediately and replied in a growl, “Earl Ryker.”
Everyone around the table shifted uncomfortably. Mumbles sounded from nearby onlookers. Aulek’s pretty pale skin turned red, and she lowered her head in submission. “Right. Earl Ryker. Excuse me.” With that, she disappeared into the crowd.
“Remember your place, stupid bitch,” I shouted at her as she walked away. I knew she heard me by the way her shoulders tensed, but she maintained her pace, not looking back.
As I continued to eye her, I saw Ryker gaping at me in my peripheral. I turned to him and asked innocently, “What?”
“You’re so direct. Xeki women… as you saw there, tend to be more…”
“Passive aggressive? Yeah, I’m aggressive aggressive. Especially if someone is disrespecting my man.”
He laughed and kissed my forehead, saying only loud enough for me to hear, “Sassy little human. I love you.”
Hearing those words again made my heart flutter. I was too dumbfounded to say anything back, but thankfully he didn’t seem to expect a response. Instead, he turned his attention back to the cheerful mood of the table, downing the rest of his asnir.
He was so handsome. So confident. I loved him, but I had a mental block against saying the actual words. The last time I did, my then-boyfriend laughed in my face.
Ryker would never do that, of course. But he would have to be patient.
I needed time.
After the festivities died down, Ryker and I bid our farewells and headed back to the castle. I walked barefoot, holding the heels in my hands while Ryker wrapped his cape around my shoulders. His fingers laced with mine as we both strolled up the hill and into the castle.
As we walked through the long corridor of Ryker’s wing, I asked, my echoing voice breaking the silence, “I was wondering about Sophie and Nora. What does the tribe have planned for them?”
I looked up at him, into his striking yellow eyes, and saw no concern on his face. Whether that was a good thing, I didn’t know. “It doesn’t matter for now,” he said after some consideration. “It’s still several moons before they can even consider crossing the desert safely.”
“I mean, yeah, I understand that. But what will happen after?”
Ryker eyed me. “That’s not for me to say. I don’t lead the tribe.”
“Ryker, Nora has a family back on Earth. A husband… her mate. And a child.”
He nodded. “If that’s so, then Lord Kali will let her go.”
My shoulders relaxed. I wasn’t even aware they were tense until then. “Good. But can you ask him for me? Just so I can be sure?”
Ryker remained quiet, taking his time opening the door to our bedroom.
“Claire, it’s not my place to ask, though if the opportunity presents itself, I will try. But in the end, what happens to the unmated females of this tribe is the Lord’s choice, not mine.”
I hesitated, displeased with this answer. Ryker noticed and said, “You worry too much. I like that about you, that you care so deeply for others, but you must also accept what you can’t change. Focus on what is in your power. In the end, I’ve found that all things work out.”
“You promise?”
“I’ll give you everything that’s within my power to give you. You know that. In fact, there’s something you want that I can give you right now.” From his eyebrow waggle, I could only assume he was talking about his cock. And he wasn’t wrong that I wanted it.
We entered the room and Ryker pulled me into a kiss. His lips were demanding, and I knew we were going to make love again. I slipped out of my clothes as he kissed up and down my arm. Once I was free of my dress, I pulled at the belt of the armor around his hips.
I didn’t feel shy this time. All I felt was horny. All pretense was out the window.
And there we were. His large cock inside me again as my hips moved to his rhythm. Sweat covered my face as I screamed his name. He took a handful of my hair from behind and pulled my head back, exposing my neck. He kissed my flesh deeply, sucked at it, nibbled on it.
“Oh my god,” I moaned as he buried his giant cock into me, all the way up to the hilt.
I rocked against his hips as he kept thrusting until the both of us were rutting like animals. An intense rush of pleasure shocked me from my clit to my core until a powerful orgasm rocked my body. At the same time, I felt his alien seed spilling deep into me, filling me up yet again.
Both of us laid beside each other, gasping and sweaty.
I almost wanted to blurt out an ‘I love you’ but I bit my lips instead, holding back. I pictured, far more clearly than I liked, how the last man I said those words to so many years ago slapped me with the old ‘I think we’re moving too fast’ line. Ryker had said again that he loved me today, but that was at a feast, after a mug of asnir. Would he say it to me, just the two of us, during a quiet moment like this?
Don’t be a dumbass, I told myself. Enjoy the beautiful moment, dammit.
So I did. I focused on his steady breath, his powerful heartbeat as I fell asleep on his muscular chest, content to just enjoy the moment, a lesson he had been trying to instill in me since the beginning.
Chapter Eighteen
Ryker
A terrible clamor of metal woke me from my deep sleep.
“Claire?” I uttered as soon as I opened my eyes. The room drowned in darkness. I couldn’t feel the warmth of Claire beside me. A lamp on a distant table had been knocked over, and the room was hazy, a pinkish smoke permeating throughout.
I heard muffled screams, and I knew they came from Claire. I tried to get up but my arms wouldn’t move. Not even my fingers would twitch despite my best efforts.
“Claire!”
I yelled but was only met with silence and darkness.
I let out a roar, expelling all my breath in hopes of alerting a guard, Lord Kali—anyone.
But nobody came. Claire’s cries grew faint until I heard her no more. The minutes wore on as I summoned every ounce of willpower just to move a finger. So much time passed, horribly, slowly, and still I had no control of my body. All I could do was breathe and let out the occasional roar to deaf ears.
An hour later, a tingling shot through my body, pins and needles prickling in every inch of me, followed by a surge of heat. I raised my hand and balled it into a fist. I could move now. I rolled off the bed and fell to the ground, but managed to get back to my feet. The world spun as I made my way to the fallen lamp, setting it back on the table and turning it on. Our room was ruined, and Claire, as I already knew, was long gone.
Warriors slammed open my door and marched inside. My best warrior approached me breathlessly. “I’m sorry, Earl Ryker. They’ve taken the human women.”
“Who?” I intoned.
“The pirates. They used a chemical weapon, like nothing we’ve dealt with before. It paralyzed everyone, from the village to the castle.”
He hadn’t gotten through half his sentence before I started suiting up my armor. I found my largest spear then faced him again. “Is Lord Kali unharmed?”
“Yes, Earl, thankfully. Actually, Lord Kali calls upon you now.”
I nodded and marched down the halls into the castle keep. I fought back all the mental images of what those bastard pirates might be doing to my Claire.
“Ryker,” Lord Kali said as soon as I entered the keep. “They have taken… taken all three of them.” He was walking back and forth, sweat covering his face.
He was panicked. That wasn’t like him. Then I noticed his markings. Like mine, they were now vibrant. “Sophie…?” I started to ask.
“Yes.” Lord Kali stopped pacing to finally look at me. “Sophie and I mated tonight.” The hurt and loss in his eyes was visible. “She is my fated mate, Ryker. After all this time, I found her, and now she’s gone.”
Seeing he was in no mindset to lead, I said, “Lord Kali, I ask that you stay here and watch over the village. I’ll leave half our warriors here and take the other half into the desert to track down our women. We shouldn’t leave the village unguarded.”
“A good idea,” Lord Kali said, his eyes unfocused, his mind elsewhere.
I crossed the wide open keep over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I will get them back. I promise. Even if it kills me, I’ll make sure our mates are safe.” Lord Kali simply nodded. I turned around and saw the army of men forming just outside the keep doors. I raised my spear and told them, “Suit up. We’re going to destroy every last one of them.”
The warriors let out an affirmative bark and made their way toward the armory.
“Claire,” I whispered, feeling that somehow she could hear me. “Don’t worry. I’m coming for you, my mate. And I’m coming with an army this time.”
Chapter Nineteen
Claire
It took an hour before my body could move again. Once I started kicking and punching the Ixol pirate that was holding me over his shoulder, he dropped me to the sand and tied my hands behind my back. I struggled as much as I could, but the Ixol were strong. Not Xeki strong, but strong nonetheless.
I looked around, seeing that both Nora and Sophie had started struggling too, and their Ixol handlers were tying them up in much the same manner.
“Walk!” ordered the pirate king who had brought us to the Xekis in the first place, and we began stumbling through the desert.
I did as I was told, knowing now wasn’t the time to stage an escape. The Ixol had come with almost twenty men this time. Even with a larger army, though, the cowards had to use some kind of gas to knock us out and stand a chance against the Xekis.
After another hour of trekking through this hellish desert, the pirate king stopped and motioned all of us to sit.
I sat beside a panting Sophie and breathless Nora. I put my head on my knees and tried to calm down my breathing when I felt someone’s eyes on me.
I looked up and saw the pirate king looking down at me with a smirk. “What?” I spat out at the hideous fiend. He sat right in front of me, drinking from his mug as other pirates started setting up camps.
“You humans are so naive,” he laughed, placing his mug on the ground. “You really think the Xekis will come to your rescue, don’t you?” He studied my eyes, and I looked away.
I knew Ryker would come for us. For me. But I felt no need to convince this asshole of that. Better for him to be caught unaware, anyway.
“Ah, foolish girl.” He shook his head sympathetically, as if he cared one bit about me. “I made a secret deal with the Xekis.” All three of us looked up. “The deal was simple, yet so advantageous for the both of us. Once you women were mated, the Xekis agreed to sell you back to us for ten times the price. A human who has gone through the mating process is so much more powerful. So much more fertile. You’ll catch a good fortune on the black market, so we win, the Xekis win, and you? Well, you lose.”
He stopped to soak in our expressions of horror, as if it fueled him. I could almost see his evil heart flutter with glee. “The poor Xekis,” he continued. “So desperate for funding, that they’re willing to sell their fated mates. Such a pity.”
“You lying piece of shit,” Sophie said under her breath. I looked over her closely and realized she had changed. More color to her skin, more vigor. She must’ve mated with Lord Kali this very night.
So that meant she and I both knew the power of being a fated mate. And just like her, I knew there was no way the bond I felt for Ryker could mean so little.
I craned my neck to find Nora on the ground next to Sophie. She kept shaking her head, until she argued, “But I haven’t been mated. They haven’t touched me at all.”
The pirate king was unfazed. “Yes, you’re a dud, as you already have a family elsewhere. We didn’t know that at the time but we will be selling you off as a servant instead.” He shrugged and continued, “But these two are going to go for a lot of money.” He grinned at me and Sophie.
The timing was really bad, now that I thought about it. The pirates only attacked after Sophie joined me in being mated. Could they have really been waiting for that this whole time? And what about the sandstorms?
“How did you cross the desert with all the sandstorms?” I asked.
“What sandstorm?” From his blank expression, it really seemed like he had no idea what I was talking about. Another Ixol called him over to a tent, and he left us.
With those two words, my world came crashing down around me. I couldn’t believe Ryker lied to us. To me. I was his mate. How could he do that to me? I turned to look at Sophie with teary eyes. “How can they mate with us, and then throw us away like this, Sophie?” I whispered between my sobs.
Sophie shook her head, determined. “I refuse to believe it, Claire. Don’t you feel the pull? That connection to your fated mate? I can feel Kali even all these miles away. He’s sent us help. I know it.”
I turned my face away from Sophie. She was so confident but all the facts were adding up. The story of the storm was just a lie. The timing was too perfect. And I knew the Xekis needed money, needed resources to grow their village.
I really thought Ryker was different.
I hung my head low, burying my face into my knees as hot tears drenched my cheeks.
Chapter Twenty
Ryker
I stopped for a moment, bending down and placing my hands on my thighs, panting for air. For the past couple of hours, my men and I had been running nonstop through the desert night, in search of my mate, Lord Kali’s mate, and Nora. It was only now that we stopped to catch our breaths.
I couldn’t help but think of how I had failed as Claire’s mate.
It was my duty to make sure she was all right, in my protection, my care, yet I failed to keep her saf
e. The thought of her being somewhere dark, being scared, made my heart wrench. I wanted to hold her, feel the warmth of her body around mine, touch her soft flesh with my weathered skin.
I would rip those pirates limb by limb.
One of my men noted, “Unusually calm, this weather.”
I had noticed too. The storm that had been raging not so long ago had completely subsided. Of course, the horizon lied, and farther off could very well be a storm, but all signs suggested otherwise. Would Claire know I didn’t lie to her when I told her the desert wasn’t safe to cross yet? I hoped she wouldn’t think of me that way.
The desert wind wasn’t entirely still, though, blowing just enough to hide the pirates’ tracks. In any other case, even the best tracker wouldn’t be able to find them. Yet somehow I knew we were moving in the right direction. I could feel the pull in my heart toward the human, my mate, Claire.
“It’s impossible, Earl,” I heard a warrior say.
I turned around to look at him sitting on his knees, panting and breathless.
“Listen to me!” I caught him by the collar and made him stand to his feet. “Those humans are under our protection. One of them is my mate, and the other is Lord Kali’s. They both are the future of our tribe. They are women of our tribe; they fall under our protection. And we are Xeki warriors. We never accept defeat.” I heard only a few soldiers agreeing and nodding.
“Did you hear me?” I roared to the rest of my men.
“Aye!” came the unified answer I expected.
Satisfied with the response, I nodded and motioned them to follow me as I led the way.
I knew where Claire was. Not even miles of desert could keep her from me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Claire