by Alana Khan
A burst of gratefulness swells in my chest as I realize that meeting him in his Slag form was the luckiest thing that has happened in my lifetime. If I had met him like this I would have been attracted to the superficial beauty and perhaps never would have met the strong, protective male who lived inside his skin. And now I’m rewarded with both.
He dips his head and laves my nipple. This angle reminds me that this A’Zul has hair. Long, golden hair pulled into a braid. I watch it snake along the golden skin of his back, riding in the valley along his spine.
My pleasure builds as his teeth nip one nipple and his hand plucks the other, teasing it, twisting it just enough to grab my attention. Capturing his hips between my hands, I urge him to climb between my thighs, releasing a pent-up breath when I feel his weight against my pubic bone.
“Right where you belong,” I tell him, my voice breathy.
“Yes, Love,” he says, only because he knows I need to hear that word from his lips. Then he returns to my nipples, licking and teasing and blowing and nipping until I press his shoulders down, urging him to taste me.
“So soon, Love?” he asks. “You don’t need more time to get to know me?” Oh, the piercing blue of his eyes. It’s almost too beautiful.
“Not soon enough,” I tease as I tip my head back and get ready to enjoy the ride.
He reveals his stubborn streak, not budging from where he is. Smart man. As he keeps tending to my breasts, I find that he can take me to many higher levels of arousal.
His skin feels different against mine. Neither better, nor worse, just different, smoother. It has its own appeal, just as his textured green skin always felt soft and sturdy against me.
I’m making little mewling sounds that signal both appreciation and impatience. Finally, he slides between my legs, all the way to the inside of my knee, and kisses his way north, licking and nipping and biting along the way.
I’m so sensitive there, and the closer he edges to my core, the more desperately I want him. I motion him up, but he just attacks my other inner thigh and begins the process again.
“Please, A’Zul,” I beg.
“Yes,” he says, as if he was just waiting for my breathy plea, or maybe it was just to hear me say his name. His real name.
Then his face is between my legs and the leisurely pace he had set is an ancient memory. He’s attacking me like a starving man diving into a sumptuous meal. His moans of pleasure are incendiary as he dips his tongue into my core. His noises and the fervent way he attacks his mission tell me he loves my taste.
Sliding his tongue up my folds, he finds my needy nub and circles it until I moan a sound that’s a cross between delight and desperation. He grunts his own pleasure as he brings me to the edge of satisfaction, then puts me in a holding pattern.
“A’Zul!” I scold, hoping he can read my mind.
Pressing harder with his mouth, he slides his finger into my waiting channel and I moan my appreciation. When a second finger joins the first, I press his head harder against me. I luxuriate in the feel of his hair beneath my palms even as I groan in pleasure from the bliss he’s bestowing with his mouth.
It’s perfection—everything about this moment is better than I could have ever dreamed. It’s with that thought that his fingers make the beckoning motion and push me over the edge into the most beautiful release I’ve ever had. The confluence of having the male of my dreams and the pleasure of my body is almost more than I can bear as I ride wave after wave of crashing, clutching, spasming bliss.
I should be sated, but I want him inside me right this minute. No. It’s more than want, it’s need. It’s urgent that we completely join together, bonding, becoming even more than mates. He’s my partner, my everything.
“Come inside me, Love.”
His joyous smile lights up his golden face as he places himself at my entrance and eases into me. Many things are different with A’Zul in this form, but his cock feels the same. Large and wide and perfect inside me.
He waits until my eyes find his. This reminds me of our first days together, when he couldn’t talk but we learned to communicate on another level. I know exactly what those blue eyes are telling me, and I answer him back with all the love I have to give.
And then everything shifts. His hips start a slow rhythm that quickly transforms into deep, powerful strokes. At the end of every thrust, he bestows the little circling press of his hips that wrests a tiny grunt of pleasure from my mouth.
His hips are pistoning now, slamming into me. He’s staking a claim, shouting his possession. My nails bite into his shoulders in response, urging him on—faster, deeper, harder.
I come, my inner muscles spasming around him. My whole world contracts to the feelings in my body, and then narrows further to the spasms radiating from my core. He waits a few seconds for me to recover, smiles more broadly, and begins again.
This time, though, I don’t start from level zero, I start at a nine out of ten and build from there, discovering ten is nowhere near the limit of my pleasure.
I am Icarus, flying too close to the sun. I spiral higher and higher, feeling free from the constraints of my human body. Then the most powerful orgasm of my life slams through me, capturing my breath and stealing my ability to think.
Feelings. Pure pleasure. Bliss. Perfection.
Then I circle down, and my eyes seek his. Those flame-blue eyes hold mine as he releases into me. I watch the muscles in his face tighten as he throws his head back in pleasure. The cords in his neck bunch as his bliss flies through him, scattering his molecules. For a moment I see his green form shimmer. Slag. I love him too.
Then A’Zul is back, panting and smiling and connected. He drops the softest, sweetest kiss on my lips and turns us, still linked, onto our sides.
“My mate,” I say, cupping his smooth, golden cheek with my palm.
“Mate,” he replies, a satisfied smile radiating from his face.
Epilogue
Two years later . . .
KJ
“I have the perfect life,” I say to the women as they walk me to the gangway.
“You won’t miss us? Just a little?” Brin asks as she hugs me.
“Of course, I will. With a caper like this, you know I won’t be able to stay away long. The adrenaline is delicious—and addictive. Just comm us when you need our help again.”
A’Zul strides down the hallway, laughing with Thantose and Devolose. I love the way his eyes light up when he sees me even though we just had breakfast together.
“You ready to see our son?” he asks.
“Can’t wait.”
It’s not like I haven’t seen our one-year-old at least twice a day for the weeks we’ve been gone from To’mah. His grandma learned how to operate the long-distance comm like a champ and we know the minutiae of his life down to what he eats for breakfast every day.
My arms ache to hold him, though.
Being on the Ataraxia I can’t help but think about my first ride on a spaceship two years ago. My heartrate jackrabbits at the memory of the terror of being ripped from my home and forced to choose between being a sex slave or laboring in an irradiated mine.
My glance darts to my mate. He saved me from that. He protected me, then befriended me, then loved me, then transformed me, along with himself.
We’ve had a wild ride these past two years. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it.
When I learned I was pregnant, we decided that when it was closer to my time we would stay on To’mah. I love the simple life there, and his mom, indeed his whole tribe, have welcomed me with such love.
I had worried that his people wouldn’t accept a woman of a different race who came to them from a distant planet. I shouldn’t have been afraid, though. They are people who take shape-shifting and flying as everyday occurrences. Why would a little human make them uncomfortable?
We were unable to communicate with To’mah, so they had no idea we were coming. Usually, a spaceship meant the reapers were there to abduc
t people. So everyone in the village was hiding, fearing the reapers had come to steal someone.
When A’Zul walked down the gangway and called out to assure them, the shouts and cries and rejoicing brought tears to my eyes. Every soul in his village came to welcome us. I watched as he and his mom hugged for long moments. She couldn’t keep her hands from cupping his cheeks or swiping a stray hair off his forehead.
Many of the males clasped both his upper arms in greeting, and later they renewed their friendships over fire pits and hunting expeditions.
There was an especially poignant moment when the high priest, elderly and walking with a beautifully carved cane, brought a goblet of water from the source of the Malee River and had A’Zul drink from it, welcoming him back to his tribe. I was shocked and honored when the male walked directly to me and offered me a ceremonial drink. I’m a fully accepted member of his people now, as is our son.
I think I’ll forever be honored as the female who brought their az’rah back to them after a decade’s absence. For that alone, I’m sure they’d all tolerate me. But it’s more than tolerance. I’m genuinely accepted.
We have the best of both worlds, really. When the pirates need us for a caper, they pick us up and grandma babysits little Bran’Zen.
The caper we just pulled off was the best ever. The last three weeks have been an intricate dance of bait-and-switch, sleight-of-hand, and outright theft with heads of state across two planets and six continents.
“You sure you don’t want your credits?” Thantose asks, cocking his head. This man is mainly concerned with three things in life: loving his mate, protecting his crew, and accumulating credits. I’m certain our lack of interest in money baffles him. I smile wryly when I think about how much money he made on the insurance claim for the damage to his house on Kallion two years ago.
“What would we do with credits on To’mah?” A’Zul asks. “The society runs on barter.”
“Well, it’s all in an account in Bran’Zen’s name. That young male is on his way to becoming very wealthy.”
“That’s kind of you, Thantose,” I tell him. “You never know what he might want to do when he grows up.”
“Perhaps he’ll become a shifter and join our crew.”
“To’Mahns don’t shift until the ceremony on their eighteenth birthday,” A’Zul reminds him.
“Primians live to two-hundred. I’ll be waiting for him.” Thantose winks. “Lower the—”
“Wait!” A’Zul says. “I have a little surprise for our son.”
With that, he strips and hands me his clothes, then shifts into a dreambaby. Just to be ornery, he makes certain to have far more blue coloring than purple. I lift him into my arms, rub his adorable nose with my own, then nod to Thantose who lowers the ramp.
Most of the tribe has already gathered. It’s not every day a space vessel lands near their village. They now know the Ataraxia is not to be feared but instead is bringing their beloved az’rah and his mate home to them. Grandma’s there, holding Bran’Zen in her arms.
“Look at you! Oh my, you’ve gotten so big.” I hurry to my son who looks like a miniature A’Zul —same golden skin, same blue eyes, same warm smile.
“Mama,” he says, opening his arms to me.
“Look what we brought you.” I put A’Zul on the ground and he scampers to his mother’s feet and puts his paws on her legs.
I grab my son, give him kisses and hugs, try to stem the happy tears from falling down my cheeks, and set him on the ground next to his father. He wobbles a bit, but with a little help from me, he stands.
“Dreambaby,” I tell him. “Touch nice.”
He laughs delightedly and touches the cute, furred creature that has walked up to him.
“Make nice.”
He gently pets the velvety soft creature that will turn into his father in just a moment. Except the next shift we see isn’t the dreambaby turning into A’Zul, but my son turning into a dreambaby.
“Holy. Shit,” I say in a not-very-motherly tone.
A’Zul shifts and lifts his furred son into his arms. His eyes are wide, his mouth falls open in surprise.
“You told me it starts at eighteen,” I exclaim. I’m not even sure how I feel. As a mom, I can only think of all the trouble my son will be able to get into if he can shift at will.
“It does. I have no explanation for this.” He says in astonishment as he puts the clothes I hand him back on.
“It might be the combination of human and To’mahn DNA,” I suggest.
I lift my adorable son, who in my opinion has just the right ratio of blue to purple on his ears, feet, and tail. He shifts back into Bran’Zen again and can’t stop laughing in glee.
“Yes. Very funny,” I say. And it is. A’Zul and I had wondered if our son would be able to shift, figuring his half-human DNA would be a liability on that front. We never dreamed it would make him better at it, and without any magic words from the priest.
A’Zul’s mom prepared a feast for the crew, who brought gifts for her. Bittersweet goodbyes are said all around after dinner. After hugs from me to the women, and hearty handshakes and pats on the back between the men, the ship flies off.
A’Zul, Bran’Zen, and I walk to our house. It’s a sturdy wooden structure with enough room for the three of us and an extra bedroom for future expansion.
Bran’Zen falls asleep as soon as we put him in the crib his father made him, and A’Zul and I stand in silence and just watch him sleep.
“Are you happy, mate?” A’Zul asks, his head tipped to the side as he looks at me.
Sometimes I still get that melty feeling when I gaze at him. The swirly, lovey, I could die happy right now feeling knowing this wonderful, beautiful man loves me more than anything in the universe.
“Deliriously so, my mate.”
“Come to bed, Love. I want to play my flute for you and maybe get to work on another baby. I wonder what it would be like if my whole family could fly,” his voice is full of wonder.
“Well, I can’t.” Will I feel left out?
“Of course you can. I’ll put you on my back when I’m in dragon form.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me to our room as I think about how happy I am and how many adventures, both on To’mah and with the pirates are in store for me.
I’m a very lucky woman.
The End
Dear Reader,
I love all my book babies and book boyfriends, but wow! I sure loved this book. From Slag’s poignant one-word scenes to the red-driven sex, to the couples’ growing love. There were narrow escapes from villains, sexy sojourns at the waterfall (was that not one of the most romantic proposals you’ve ever read?) and ya gotta love that dreambaby, right?
Perhaps it’s TMI, but my father took up sculpting late in life and here’s his piece called “Sweet Dreams.” I put it as an homage to my dad in the scene where Kylie stops Oz on his run through the castle to steal it for Thantose. You can see the front and back of it in this mirror shot.
Next up in the Alanaverse will be WarDog. Book Twelve in the Galaxy Gladiators series. Keep scrolling for a sneak peek at his story.
Do you want to know about upcoming books, see cover reveals, hear about my new series (I’ve got two in the works plus a shared world with a bunch of other fabulous Sci-Fi Romance and Paranormal Romance writers)? You’ll be the first to know if you Sign up for my newsletter here.
I’m what’s called an Indie author (short for independent). That means I don’t have a big publishing house behind me to pay for pricey ads and book tours. It’s just little old me sitting at my desk seven days a week writing romantic heroes and kickass heroines grinding out newsletters, writing blurbs, editing, and so much more trying to keep a roof over my head. (And my faithful assistant). How do we do it, you ask?? We work hard and we ask wonderful readers like you to spend one minute writing a review on Amazon. The folks at Amazon even make it easy for you. Their link should appear right after you finish reading chapter one of W
arDog below.
Hugs,
Alana
Sneak Peek of WarDog (The great cover is coming, just picture a humungous dog with a large ruff of mane and a metal collar with four-inch spikes.)
WarDog
Book 12 in the Galaxy Gladiators Alien Abduction Romance Series (Shifter)
By
Alana Khan
Chapter One
Willa
The air is redolent with humid warmth as I wander through a dense forest crowded with tall, leafy trees. A few shards of dim light drift through the thick canopy and dapple the ground, but it’s dark down here on the forest floor.