by Bex McLynn
"Aye." She nestled into his shoulder, laving and kissing his neck. "Now you can have me."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Seph snuggled into the bedding, pulled a pillow to her chest, and luxuriated in the cool, crisp scent in the berth. She sighed. Zver.
Her basking, the hitch in her breathing, was her undoing.
The mattress dipped—a lot—as massive fists planted on either side of her. A large body bracketed her back. A cool breath brushed over the sensitive skin of her exposed nape, sending a delicious chill down her spine. A nose nuzzled her hair, burrowing deep, then inhaled. A hungry groan thrummed through the room, causing her limbs to go lax, yet ignited an answering throb between her thighs.
Zver pressed his cock, long and hard, against the cradle of her backside.
"Open,” he said far too evenly, making it sound like a command.
She tucked the pillow further down, under her hips, and pushed her ass up. Zver groaned as he pressed forward again, and he shuddered as he slid into her slick pussy. He slowly pistoned his hips, the new position creating a snugger fit for his cock to invade. Each thrust gained him further entry.
She pressed her cheek to the sheets, eyes locked on his clenched fist by her shoulder, and watched the pop of muscles in his forearms. He held his position above her, refraining from crushing her with his own mass, yet she could hear the frustration, as well as raw bliss, in his harsh breathing. He stroked into her so damn deep, yet she wanted to feel more of him. She arched her ass up and pressed back into his next stroke, biting down on the sheets as he stretched her aching core even more.
Zver snarled a broken Bulanii curse as he collapsed onto one of his elbows. With the other hand, he latched on her hip, his fingers gripping tightly. He shoved a knee under her leg, spread her wider, and pounded gracelessly into her.
"Fuck, Seph." He grated out a hoarse apology into the crook of her neck. The double joints in his hand rippled, rhythmically kneading her hip without easing his grip.
She'd lost all leverage in this position, only able to squirm uncontrollably as she coiled closer to her orgasm. Bracing his weight on his elbow, he gathered her hair into his fist. Guiding her, he turned her so that she no longer moaned into the bedding, but voiced her pleasure to the entire room. Hell, to the entire ship. As her keens grew higher, his growls delved lower, their shattering a harmonious culmination.
She lay there, wrecked, and wondered who had surrendered to whom? Who was bending the other to their terms?
Rolling her onto her back, he rose over her. Slow, bellowing breaths flared his nostrils, and his eyes blazed intensely.
"Open."
She exhaled, her entire body shivering in anticipation, and did as he bade.
Seph flicked her eyes to Zver. He leaned against the wall and ate. She grazed greedily over his broad shoulders and thick thighs. He hadn't donned his entire uniform, leaving off his jacket, allowing her to feast on the hard muscles of his chest and arms. Only when her stomach rumbled did she admit that eye candy didn't nourish the body.
But god, how she wished that it did.
Her hair was still wet from the sani-stall, her body wrung out and sore, and she was pretty sure she strained her vocal cords.
She was so very glad he surrendered.
With Zver propped against the wall, everyone else took up their usual places in the Athel Chamber. She sat cross-legged on the floor near the low table. Therion sprawled out on the couch, and Rannik perched on the edge of the armchair. They all ate in silence.
"This is not awkward at all," Therion said merrily. "In fact, I think I prefer it this way. Zver's mellow. Seph's lethargic. The afterglow is blinding me in its intensity. The musky—"
"Cease," Zver said.
Seph's cheeks heated, but she sighed and said, "Yeah. I missed this, too."
Zver shot her a closed look. "It had barely been three days."
"But it felt like forever."
"I missed you, Seph," Rannik said while staring at his plate.
A sharp ache pinched her chest. The good sort of ache—the one that comes when you think of someone you care about.
She reached out and squeezed his knee once. "Missed you, too, Ran."
Therion rocked forward, planting his elbows on his knees. "What's the plan now, Thane?" Keeping his focus riveted on Seph, he pointing an interjecting finger at his brother. "Not talking to you, Zver. You're not the thane anymore. Seph is."
Seph choked on her food, coughing as she said, "I am not the thane. Zver is still the thane."
"But you came. You conquered. By right of might, you're the new thane."
Seph's eyes widened, and she hastily turned toward Zver. "He's joking, right? This is another one of Therion's jokes. You're still the thane, Zver."
She saw the slight tug at the corner of Zver's mouth, and she eased, somewhat. Rising up on her knees, she reached over and shoved Therion. "God, you suck, Ther. Don't do that to me."
"You'd make a good thane," Rannik said.
"Thank you." She smiled at him, relieved that, god willing, that would never happen.
"But, seriously." Therion glanced back to his brother. "What's next?"
Zver pushed off the wall, walked over to the table, and set down his tray. He gracefully hunkered down to the floor and settled behind her.
"We go to Bulan Ero," he said. "Wait for the Dominion to come."
Seph leaned back into him, but a foreboding shiver wracked her. "More battling?"
"Of a sort." He hedged, his hand lightly stroking her neck. "They are appeased for now. But I had to make certain concessions."
Seph twisted to look back at him. He'd been with her the whole time, never once stepping out or responding to his WristCune. "What? When did you have time to do any thaning?"
"You slept for several hours," he said with a casual shrug. "I attended to things."
"Thaning." Therion laughed, then startled and frowned at Zver. "Please tell me you were wearing pants when you were thaning and Cuning me."
Zver continued to toy with her hair and neck. "The Dominion will be sending dignitaries to assess."
Seph sighed glumly. "You mean the Trine, don't you?"
"And others."
"What others?"
Zver frowned as he coiled her hair in his fist, but didn't tug. "Men."
Seph let out her own version of a Teras growl. "I told them, I'm not clutching. Ever."
"Indeed not." His agreement sounded an awful lot like a decree. "It will be a small matter."
"Right." She wasn't convinced.
"And it will benefit us."
"How so?"
He released her hair, cupping her cheek and smoothing his course thumb pad across her skin. "Because while the Dominion's eyes are on you, they're not out there, looking."
"Looking?" Seph turned, resettling so that she faced him. There it was again. A stark chill moving through her. "You think there are other humans out there?"
He nodded once, his expression determined. "I'll not leave them to suffer as you have."
"Zver." She melted into him, her hands cradling the back of his head as she kissed him.
"Gross!" Therion complained. "Rannik, you're just a child. Avert your eyes."
"Stop it, Therion," Rannik said, whining with age-appropriate mortification. "Shove off."
As she sank into the kiss, Therion and Rannik continued to badger. Kimis hummed contently in her mind. Zver growled appreciatively into her ear.
"But, in the meantime," Zver whispered huskily. "We'll make the most of our two months and gaze."
She felt him inhale, holding his breath as he used his technopathy. The lights cut out, and the Cuneiform desk lit up, casting stars all around them. They twinkled on the ceiling and walls.
"Oh, Zver!" She climbed into his lap, clutching him fiercely despite her aching limbs.
He shushed her, cradling her to him. A low, soothing rumble began in his chest. He didn't pull away. He didn't question. He held her st
eady and repeated, again and again, that everything would be all right.
The hatch banged open.
Vedma loomed in the doorway, claws dug into Wies's arm. They looked like a couple about to enter a grand ballroom.
"What the hell is all this?" Vedma said. "I'm a godsdamn prisoner on this ship, and no one comes to see their ol' gamma?"
Zver broke off his rumble with a pained groan, chorused by Rannik and Therion.
Seph froze, locked in that horrid moment, until she finally had voice to speak.
Her search momentarily set aside, but not forgotten, she shrieked.
"Vedma's your grandmother!"
Epilogue
Therion stared at his reflection and cringed. Thick black strands of hair hung long and heavy over his eyes and ears. Not Fleet regulation length at all. He combed his fingers through the unruly mass and held it back off his forehead. By Direis, was this what he looked like? Sickly yellow skin, livid praal, stark cheekbones, and a downturned mouth? Even his hands looked foreign, with the tendons on the back of his hands popping beneath skin that was far too thin.
Turning his head left, he bared the ink on his neck. Clade tattoos scrawled up his gaunt chest and onto the column of his throat. The red and black ink, though less than a year old, looked faded, like the color had been sucked away. They would be expensive and painful to remove.
Fuck. His tour on Prykimis left its scars on him. That ship had been his hell for three-hundred and seventy-nine days.
He palmed his power clippers and ran a clean line from his temple, over his ear, and down toward his nape. The shorn off hair fell into the sink.
The only positive about all this bullshit was that his cock looked huge. Seriously, his badass, flaccid cock swung like a fucking third limb between his spindly legs. If ever there was a time to impress a woman—if she would just bear with him as he bared himself—he would blow her away with how massive his cock appeared. Hell, his anthers probably looked like ten extra fingers wiggling away down there.
Wistful thinking, though.
Therion had been back at Havrent—House Borac's main stronghold on Bulan Ero—for days and not a single woman had propositioned him. In fact, he hadn't braced with a woman since right before he deployed to Prykimis. Once scrubber's lung took hold of him, he had stopped having erections. Not even when he first saw Seph did his usually eager throbbing nob take note, and the lack of response dismayed him because she was epically sexy. By Unholde, even when he held her after the marauders attacked Prykimis, his cock still couldn't muster the energy to rise and salute to her.
Lekar said to give it time. That he needed to heal. So while almost every single grunt stationed in Havrent tugged himself to sleep using images of Seph as inspiration, Therion fell asleep rereading her ribald Cunes and chuckling over the disasters that were their gods-awful family dinners.
Truly, he shouldn't be complaining. He shared a closeness with Seph that other men envied. Lucky bastard that he was, she treated him like a brother.
Motion in the mirror caught his eye. He turned to see a fleetman fitted with flex armor and armed with a bullpulse rifle looming behind him.
Wies, that fucker, smiled and called out, "Clear."
Therion, brow wrinkling in confusion, set down the clippers and blustered. "Clear? What the—"
"Therion!" Seph barreled into his private apartment.
More specifically, she barreled through his private apartment, into his bedchamber, and then directly into his lav. Where he stood before the mirror. Naked.
She shrieked and slapped her hands over her eyes. "Pants! Why aren't you wearing pants?"
Therion winced, his own hands forced to cover his junk rather than his sensitive ears. He glared at Wies, who just smirked and strolled away.
Gods, the second he saw Wies he should have known Seph was nearby. Zver wouldn't let her go anywhere without her entire entourage. At least, inside Havrent, her guards downgraded their kit to flex armor rather than wearing heavy assault gear all the time.
"Hey, so glad you're here, Seph," he said, raising his hands and pointing at his crotch. "Does my cock look huge, or is it just me?"
Hands over her eyes, she sighed, expelling every damn molecule of air from her tiny person. "I'm not gonna stare at your penis, Therion. Cover up. I've got news for you."
"It will just take a second. Promise not to poke you in the eye."
"Stop fooling around." Her mouth remained uncovered, and he saw a big smile stretched across her lips. "You got the mission, Ther!"
Her words, spoken in Terish, pounded into his head. His body slackened and his hands hung at his side. The mission.
"Shit, I got the mission," he echoed in disbelief.
Seph hopped in place, her hair bouncing around her shoulders. "You got it, Ther! You got it. I'm so excited for you!"
Her Terish sounded sweetly lilting. She had told him that she was determined to learn Bulanii, but Zver suggested she tackle Terish first. Considering that every Great House was intent on sending clutch suitors, he knew his brother was preparing her to say 'fuck off' in a language that left no room for misunderstandings.
The realization hit him then, and he laughed once, a hard bark that pummeled his chest. Shit. Zver was enacting the plan, sending him out into the Tendex to look for lost Human women, while the Dominion focused its attention on Seph.
"Put on pants so I can hug you, Ther!" She squealed and bounced like tyke at a parade. "Hurry up."
Therion slipped past her, snagged a pair of sleep pants from the bed, and put them on. The pants fit him fine a year ago. Now they hung low on his hips, and he pulled the waist cords much too far to his liking to compensate.
Through his bedroom door, he could see her entourage milling about inside his apartment, mucking with his stuff. Fuckers. Their only collective redeeming quality was that the lot of them adored Seph—would and had defended her with their lives. They barely tolerated him. It didn't matter that he was a son of a thane and the brother of another. He had always been Fucking Therion.
Sighing, he accepted that there were some things he could never change.
"Ther? You done yet?" Seph was still bouncing on her toes with her hands over her eyes.
He opened his arms to receive her.
"All right," he said in Terish, "come on over here, Starburst."
She squealed, yet again, dropped her hands, and slammed into him, almost knocking him onto his arse. She tucked in there so tight and tiny, her body an itty-bitty furnace, and squeezed her little arms around his middle. Fucking adorable.
"God, I am so relieved you'll be going. Those other women, they're so lucky. You understand what they're going through. And Zver trusts you to keep them safe and bring them back to Bulan Ero."
Ah, yes. He was good at secrets and misdirection. Bringing any women he found to Bulan Ero, rather than to Teras Ero, would be delicate work.
"You weren't cutting your hair, were you?" she asked, leaning back and eyeing the shaved patch of hair.
"Just a bit."
She pulled back further and looked up at him. "Well, don't cut any more. You need it long, so you look like a marauder."
He sighed. He was bone weary of looking like a marauder.
She assessed him. "You still look like a badass. Very edgy. I like it." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't cut any more off."
"No more cutting."
"And I need to show you some things, too." Seph was caught up in her excitement, chirping away like a little bird. "Proper greetings, so any women you find will know you're familiar with Humans." She thrust her hand out toward him, fingers straight and her thumb pointing toward the ceiling. "This is called a 'handshake.' Go on, grasp my hand."
When he enveloped her hand in his, he remained conscious of his own grip and thrilled at the heat exchange. "You're going to 'shake' my hand?"
"Yes." Her warm hand clasped him back, and she began pumping her arm up and down.
He let his arm go limp, and
it felt odd to have his limb flapping about, yet tethered to her praal-free hand. "Is this to test my strength? Should I be working with you or against you?"
She laughed. "No. It's a greeting."
"Can't we just say 'hello' to one another?"
"Ther." She sighed and rolled her eyes, startling brown, yet eerily white. "If you want to greet a Human woman and put her at ease, have her believe that you are really there to rescue her, you need to demonstrate courtesy and understanding."
"How long does it typically take to communicate one's courteous and understanding nature?"
"How long does... Oh," she said, an otherworldly rose color rising on her cheeks as she released his hand. "Well, we shook hands for far too long. A good three seconds should do it."
"What else?"
"Don't stare at her boobs."
"Boobs?"
She smacked his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Breasts, Therion. Don't stare at her breasts."
Ah, 'boobs.' What a brilliant Human word.
"If she's been hiding as a Lassie, she'll be sick to death of men ogling her. So say hello, shake her hand, make eye contact, and make sure she knows you're there to rescue her, not kidnap her."
Therion listened, heard every word Seph said, yet still she made no sense. "Why on Ero would any woman not want to be rescued? And especially by me? I'm amazing."
Seph took up both his hands and squeezed, pumping heat into his skin. "It's about trust, Therion. You'll be coming in, a complete unknown, and asking them to take you at your word. They'll be scared, maybe even brutalized."
The thought of someone like Seph being brutalized gnawed at him. "I'll get to do some thrashing, then?"
"Yes," she said, patting his shoulder. "Very likely, anyway."
Did Seph know that he had been drunk when he asked Zver for the assignment? That he'd downed a bottle of okiimi while lamenting his limp cock and his jealousy of his brother's relationship with Seph? Unholde take him, he had become so very desperate. Not for Seph. She was Zver's, and she refused to clutch with other men. But still, he longed so damn badly for something besides his endless aching.