“Bohrir, please.” She shakes her head. “I can’t—”
She doesn’t finish speaking. Instead, she rises up onto her tiptoes, sliding one hand up to hook it around my neck and pulling my head down to meet hers. Her lips crush against mine in a hard kiss, and it feels as though someone connected my body to a live wire. A jolt of something electric surges through me, shocking me out of my single-minded trance. My arms band around Willow, hauling her tight against me as I plumb the depths of her mouth with my tongue, hunger awakening in me as if this is the first time we’ve ever kissed.
Her fingers are in my hair, sliding over my shoulders, gripping my arms. Her nails dig into my skin, and I groan as I crush her soft, yielding body against my larger one.
The kiss only lasts for a moment, but the intensity of the connection that flares between us is enough to drag my mind back from the darkness of wild fury and reckless vengeance. When we break apart, Willow keeps her arms wrapped around my neck, drawing back only enough to look up and meet my gaze.
“You can’t do it on your own,” she repeats softly, something I’ve never seen before shining in her deep green eyes. “But you won’t be alone. I’ll help you.”
I blink. It takes me a moment to comprehend her words, and as they sink into my brain, a vise seems to clamp around my heart. A moment ago, I was ready to go charging through the Nuthoran forest and take on all six of the alien pirates. I would’ve fought them with my bare hands if need be, and the danger to myself was the last thing on my mind.
But the idea of my mate in harm’s way makes my blood freeze to ice in my veins.
As if she can read my thoughts, Willow purses her lips, shaking her head like she’s trying to cut off my arguments before I can voice them.
“You’ve taught me a lot over the past few days, Bohrir. About trapping and hunting and surviving. I’m not a warrior like you, but I’m not…” She licks her lips, pain flickering through her expression. “I’m not weak. And I want to help you. I’m not going to let myself cower in fear anymore. I’m not going to crawl back behind my walls. Gornok took so much from me, and I’ve finally gotten those parts of myself back… but he’ll always haunt me unless I do this. Unless I help you stop him.”
Pride mixes with the worry filling my chest, and I cup her delicate face in my hands, holding her gaze. I could hear the sincerity in her voice as she spoke, and I know she meant every word.
But how can I allow my mate to risk herself like this? It goes against every protective instinct I have.
“Remember the lake?” Willow asks. “When that water monster attacked, you saved my life. But—”
“—you saved mine too,” I finish for her, remembering the determined look on her face as she hurled rocks at the three-headed creature, distracting and injuring it enough for me to land the final blow. If she hadn’t acted when she did, the animal could’ve killed me.
She nods, unwinding her arms from around my neck and stepping back. The difference in our sizes means that she has to keep her head tilted up to meet my gaze, but despite her diminutive stature, she stands as tall as a warrior, her spine straight and her shoulders squared.
“I ran away from your village once,” she tells me in a low voice. “I could run again right now. We know where Gornok and his men are heading, so the safest thing for me to do would be to head in the opposite direction. But what happens if they reach the village? Gornok and his team will be outnumbered there, but they’ll have the element of surprise since the Voxerans don’t know they’re coming. And what if even one of them survives the raid and makes it out with the communicator?”
A fierce look comes into her eyes as she curls her hands into fists.
“I can’t let that happen,” she continues. “I owe you so much—owe your people so much. Even if I couldn’t see it at the time, your village was a safe haven. I want to go back to it. I want to protect it.”
Her expression softens for a moment, and she smiles up at me, looking more breathtakingly beautiful than ever. “For so long, I felt like only half a person. I was missing so much of myself, so many memories, that I never really felt like I knew who I was. But I do now. This is who I am. Who I want to be. Someone who fights for the people I care about.”
20
Willow
I’m a little out of breath by the time I finish speaking. The words felt like they poured out of me, like I couldn’t have stopped them even if I wanted to, and as silence falls between me and Bohrir, I realize just how deeply I meant everything I said.
Before Gornok and his men passed by us, I was about to tell my mate that I was okay with returning to the village.
But the truth is, I’m more than okay with it.
I want to go back, not just because Bohrir deserves to be with his people, but because I want them to be my people too. I’ve lived too long without a community, isolating myself and closing off my heart because it was the only way to preserve my sanity while being held captive by the pirates.
That little group of Voxerans and Terrans is the community I never knew I needed, and whether we ever manage to get off Nuthora or not, I want to be a part of them.
Bohrir’s midnight blue eyes blaze, the strong lines of his face softening as he stares down at me. “Are you sure, my kira? That you want to go back? That you want to take on Gornok and his men?”
“Yes,” I reply without hesitation. “We should’ve gone back a long time ago. It was selfish of me to keep you out here so long.”
My mate shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t. Being out here has been good for you. I’ve seen the change in you, and watching you recover your memories day by day has made my heart sing.”
I smile, my own heart squeezing as a rush of emotions fill my chest. Even though seeing Gornok again reopened old wounds in my chest, even though I’m terrified at the thought of facing him, I don’t feel weak. Bohrir looks at me with so much respect and awe that it bolsters my courage, allowing me to override that old instinctual impulse to curl up or flee when faced with danger.
Because the only way to truly defeat this danger is to face it head on. I’m done running.
I look over my shoulder, glancing in the direction the pirates went. Bohrir will be able to track them, but I still don’t want to give them a chance to get too far ahead of us.
“We should get moving,” I whisper, threading my fingers through Bohrir’s.
He nods, then palms the back of my head and kisses me fiercely once more. My head spins from it, and I tighten my hand around his, clinging to him for one second longer. When we break apart, his cat-like irises are large and dark, and his nostrils flare as he scans my face.
If he’s looking for any hint of uncertainty, I make sure he doesn’t see it, allowing my determination to show in my expression.
A matching look crosses Bohrir’s features, and he turns to follow Gornok and his men, leading me through the overgrown forest.
They’ve gotten a fair distance ahead of us now—so far that I can’t even hear the sounds of their voices. As we pick our way through the underbrush, I’m more grateful than ever for Bohrir’s tracking experience. I’m sure he’s using the same skills now that he used when he came after me after I snuck away from the Voxeran village. He seems to read the landscape unerringly, occasionally letting go of my hand to crouch down and examine a patch of grass or a broken twig or crushed leaf.
Every time he stands back up, he takes my hand again and leads me confidently forward, keeping us on the trail of the group of pirates.
“You’re a great tracker,” I whisper, shooting him a sideways look. “Now I understand how you were able to find me even though I left the village during a heavy rainstorm.”
He glances away from the path ahead of us, his eyebrows rising a little as he meets my gaze. “It certainly made tracking you more difficult. You used the rain as cover on purpose?”
I shrug, blushing slightly. He sounds impressed. “Well, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d been planning some
great escape or anything. It wasn’t quite as well thought out as that. But I knew that the storm would be good cover, and I figured it would wash away my tracks.”
A soft noise rumbles in Bohrir’s chest. “There was one point where I almost lost your trail. Mud had obscured your tracks, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to pick up any new signs of your passage. It took quite a bit of searching to figure out which direction you had gone.”
“I’m glad you didn’t give up,” I murmur, my voice rough and quiet. “I’m glad you found me.”
He squeezes my hand, his larger one warm and solid around mine. “So am I, my kira. So am I.”
We don’t talk much after that, lapsing into silence. Even though we can’t hear the voices of the men up ahead of us, I worry about giving away our position accidentally. I want to face Gornok, but I want to do it on my terms, when Bohrir and I can give ourselves an advantage in the fight. The last thing I want is for him or his men to discover they’re being followed and lay some kind of trap for us.
But even though we barely speak a word, I find myself glancing up at Bohrir’s face often, studying his features as we walk. My gaze wanders over the strong line of his jaw, the shaggy dark hair that I know feels soft between my fingers, the broad plane of his forehead, and the curve of his cheekbones.
He’s so familiar to me, even though I haven’t known him long in the grand scheme of things. He’s become a constant in my life, and every time I look at him, I feel a rush of both comfort and desire.
Bohrir will always be there for me. He’ll never stop caring for me, never stop trying to protect me.
He’s helped me find a strength in myself that I didn’t even know existed. He’s absolutely right: this time in the woods has been good for me. It’s been exactly what I needed, even though I never knew it. I’ve faced dangerous predators out here and opened my heart to love, both of which require a certain kind of bravery.
And now, when it comes time to fight Gornok and the others, I’ll know exactly what I’m fighting for.
After several hours of walking, careful to moderate our pace as we follow the pirates, Bohrir holds one hand up in a gesture to stop. I come to a halt beside him, my heart leaping as I peer through the trees ahead.
“What is it?” I whisper.
“They must’ve stopped for the evening. I can hear voices up ahead, which means we’re getting close to their camp.”
“Should we attack now?”
My stomach clenches with anticipation at the thought, a burst of adrenaline flooding my veins. But Bohrir shakes his head.
“No, not yet. We’re still a couple days’ travel from the village, so we have time to intercept them before they reach it. And we need to assess their weapons and prepare our own. I only got a brief glance at them when they passed us earlier, and I don’t want to go into this fight blind.”
I nod, partly relieved and partly disappointed. Everything he’s saying makes sense, and it’s a somewhat welcome reprieve—but I’m eager to get this over with, come what may.
We left our packs behind in our camp site. There was no time to retrieve them without risking getting too far behind Gornok and the others, and there’s nothing in either of them that we can’t live without. Bohrir has his weapon, at least. But we need to know how heavily armed the pirates are before we launch an attack on them. We’ll already be fighting against the odds, so we need to stack the deck in our favor as much as possible.
“I need to spy on their camp.” My mate’s jaw clenches as he looks down at me. “My instinct is to have you wait here, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I’ll come with you,” I say quickly. I don’t want to be separated from Bohrir either, and I think doing a bit of recon will help me. Seeing Gornok for the first time since I was stolen away from his lair in Pascia left me reeling, and I can’t afford to get lost in emotions or memories when we fight him. I think spying on him now will help me work some of that out of my system, allowing me to face him later with a clearer head.
Bohrir nods. I can tell he doesn’t like this, that it goes against all of his protective instincts, but I’m grateful that he’s letting me make my own decisions.
“Stay behind me,” he instructs in a low voice. “And stay low.”
I do as he says, following carefully behind him as he works his way closer to the pirates’ camp. As we near it, we end up basically army crawling over the soft grass, keeping ourselves hidden behind several massive flowering shrubs. Through a tiny opening in the leaves, I can see Gornok and the other men sitting in a rough circle, passing around a flask.
One of the aliens wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, catching the liquid that seeps messily from the corners of his lips as he finishes drinking. He has bright red skin and blunted horns that protrude from his forehead. His name is Hexa, but I always just thought of him as the devil.
“Gods, I’m sick of this kasuk,” he says in his raspy voice, making a sour face as he looks at the flask before passing it on. “I’d kill for a tall flagon of Gavarian mead.”
“Once we get ourselves off this rock, you’ll have all the mead you could ever want,” Gornok says with a laugh, running a hand over the tight braids that cover his skull.
“True,” Hexa agrees with a grin. “Who would’ve thought your little Terran pet would prove to be so useful, eh? She got herself stolen from us, but if that blue giant hadn’t run off with her, we never would’ve found out about the bigger prize.”
Gornok laughs again, the vertical slits of his eyes gleaming in the waning orange light. “Once we have her back, I’ll be sure to thank her for that.”
My stomach feels like it’s full of cement, and that heavy feeling is spreading up into my chest, radiating through my limbs. The back of my throat is coppery with the taste of bile, and I realize belatedly that I’m squeezing Bohrir’s hand so tightly my knuckles ache.
Wrenching my gaze away from my former captors, I glance over at the man beside me. His face is like stone, harsh fury burning in his eyes.
Oh shit. He looks like he’s about two seconds away from leaping out of our hiding spot and taking them all on, consequences be damned.
I loosen my grip on his hand, giving it a gentle tug to draw his attention to me. When he glances my way, I shake my head urgently, mouthing the words, not now.
Bohrir presses his lips together, and I watch him struggle to master himself. Finally, he nods. The anger hasn’t left his eyes, but I can see cunning assessment in them too as he turns his focus back to the pirates’ camp.
I mirror his action, deliberately tuning out what Gornok and his men are saying as they drink and eat their evening meal. I’ve spent far too much of my life listening to these disgusting pirates banter and boast. I don’t need to hear any more of it.
Instead, I focus on doing the same thing Bohrir is, analyzing their weaponry and supplies, looking for weaknesses that will help us plan our attack. After a few minutes, my mate catches my gaze again, then jerks his head back in the direction we came from. I nod, only too happy to comply.
We wriggle back through the grass, moving as silently as possible, and only stand up once we’re certain we’re far enough away from the camp not to be seen. Bohrir leads me to a small tree with drooping branches, and we slip into the shelter it provides.
“Wait here,” he murmurs.
He brushes the branches aside and steps back out, returning after just a few moments with a few large round fruits he must’ve plucked from somewhere nearby.
We settle onto the ground near the base of the tree, and Bohrir glances at me as we eat.
“What do you think?” he asks.
I know what he’s referring to, and I answer without hesitation, keeping my emotions at bay by focusing on the practicalities of our mission. “They don’t have any blasters, just blades. So that will even the playing field. Hexa—the one with red skin—is a good fighter hand to hand. I saw him go at it with a couple of the other pirates sometimes, and
he’s really skilled. The one with gray skin, Cowel, is slow but vicious. And Gornok is the best fighter of them all.”
Bohrir nods. “I also noticed that the man with the thick fur on his face seems to favor one arm over the other. An old injury, perhaps.”
We keep talking as we polish off our simple dinner, assessing the pirates and coming up with a plan for our attack. I don’t know whether it’s the food or Bohrir’s steady, calming presence, or the fact that I’m seeing all of these men in a new light—as enemies to be taken on rather than as captors to be feared—but the knot in my stomach begins to slowly unwind, allowing me to breathe more easily.
By the time we finish eating and settle down for the night, preparing to get some sleep while Gornok and his men do the same, I feel as ready as I can be for what will come tomorrow.
Without any hesitation, I curl up next to Bohrir, leaning into his warm embrace as he wraps his arms around me. My fingertips trail over the strong muscles of his forearms, and I gaze down at them in the dark. His markings are glowing the faintest bit, making it look like he exudes moonlight.
“Thank you,” I murmur softly, breathing in his scent.
“For what, my kira?” Bohrir rumbles.
“For caring about me.” I shake my head a little, trying to find a way to put my emotions into words. “Gornok and his men treasured me. They guarded me closely, and they treated me like something precious. But it was so… dehumanizing to be treasured as an object and not as a person. They cared about me because I was their pet.” My lips twist over the word. “Not because they really knew me. Not because they liked me.”
My eyes sting with tears as I speak, but it feels like something in my chest is loosening. Some old pain that I’ve held on to for far too long is crumbling away to make room for something new and better.
“But it’s so different with you,” I continue. “You make me feel cared for because of who I am. You make me feel precious, not as an object to be traded or locked up, but as a whole person. You were my friend before you ever became more, and I… I don’t think I even realized how much I needed that until I found you.”
Her Alien Protector: Voxeran Fated Mates #6 Page 15