by Bex McLynn
That tattered cloak covered her from neck to ankles. As he gazed down at her bits of exposed skin, the instep of her foot and hollow of her throat had just become his favorite body parts in the whole fucking universe.
“Aye, Maude,” he told her as he eased down onto the cot.
A second before his ass hit the mattress, he knew something sublime was about to happen. He could smell her. The utilitarian soap that the Gwyretti had given her, plus her own heated fragrance, enshrouded him. He drew both scents into his lungs, and his chest clenched, as if to trap her essence inside of him.
As he settled onto his back, his arm brushed against her. Through the fabric of the cloak, he felt the soft flesh of her breast and the coiled metal from Kora. His cock hardened.
He froze.
He’d gone over a godsdamn year without an erection, and his body chose to do this again? Fucking twice in so many hours? Was it trying to make up for lost time?
“Do you need me to move over more?” Then Maude shimmied to give him additional space, but her efforts only generated more touch points between their bodies.
Therion swallowed a groan. His godsdamn elbow radiated with awareness, as did his hip and thigh. Unholde must be fucking with him, because his shin tingled like his damn anthers when she slid her foot across it.
“Nope. I’m good.” He rolled up onto his side, giving her his back and being a right bastard about it, too. Here he was, like a green cadet, hiding his aching cock and twitching anthers from a woman.
A silence settled between them.
“I’m sorry about your wrist, Therion,” she said. “I wish there was something I could do about it.”
“Maude, you never have to apologize to me.”
Her adorableness crushed him. His wrist ached nothing like his cock, and the request to have her soothe that discomfort rose up within him. But he bit it back down because she was a nice person and deserved better than his crass attempts to communicate his desire for her.
“What the?” Maude gasped as he felt rough tugs at his shoulder. “Therion!”
She threw herself onto his back, wildly grasping as something heavy and multi-legged scurried over him. With his hands bound, he couldn’t reach whatever crawled over his shoulder. Radost had some nasty, indigenous species living in the sands. The thought of a poisonous akrep had him rolling off the cot and onto the floor, hoping to crush the vermin.
Maude followed him to the ground, landing on him as she continued to make mad grabs for the crawly thing. In a panic, she kept repeating an alien word. Nononono.
He stiffened, waiting for the sharp puncture of a stringer. Instead, his wrist blazed in agony. Hissing in pain, he stared down, struggling to comprehend what he saw. Maude wrestled with a detached piece of Kora. This small bit of Kora tore at his splint and anchored itself to his broken wrist, turning into multiple plates.
The pain started to ebb away.
Well, it ebbed until Maude started digging her fingernails under the nacre sleeve, cursing in the most lyrical language he had ever heard.
Here he lay, flat on his back in the sands, with Maude prone over him, and shock stunned him to his core. By Direis, Maude was thrashing, trying to protect him.
It took a few mad grabs of his own, but he finally captured her tiny hands with his bound ones.
“Maude. Maude. I’m good. I’m good.”
She tugged against his hold and gave him a baleful look as she continued to babble in her native language.
“Maude.” He smiled and spoke softly in Terish. “Terish or Gwyr, Maude, or I won’t understand.”
She gaped at him, blinking tears from her eyes. Gritting her teeth, she bit out in Terish. “It can’t get you too. I need to get it off.”
“Kora stabilized my wrist, Maude. She’s not harming me.”
Kora had encased him like a medical compression sleeve.
Fascinated, he watched Maude’s distinctive facial features whirl with her suspicion and uncertainty. A blush colored her skin. Her green eyes, still so mesmerizing without any gold, glittered with her tears and her bewilderment. Even her golden eyebrows—a feature that only Teras women had—bowed as her lips parted. Gods, her mouth, enticingly delicate without the sharp-tipped fangs that most species in the Tendex sported, tingled his anthers.
“But.” Her stunned gaze batted between him and the bit of Kora on his wrist. “How do you know?”
“I just know.” He shrugged, but telling her more was as good as telling Lider.
While he’d been sitting on the floor, he’d glimpsed under her cot. Something rectangular—that he could easily palm—had been mounted there, and he’d bet his anthers it was his theorized surveillance device.
She huffed, her brow remaining furrowed, and crawled off his chest. “I don’t trust it, Therion.”
“Her,” he stressed. “I know you don’t trust her. But trust me.”
She sat back on her haunches and stared at the ground. “Perhaps getting close to me isn’t such a good idea.”
“What!” Therion rolled himself into a seated position and scooted on his ass over to her. “No, no, no. Being close to you is the best fucking idea ever.”
“I don’t want more of it creeping on to you.”
He waved her off, his chains clanging and his wrist nothing but a mild hindrance. “Kora’s got no reason to latch any more onto me. My wrist is the only thing broken.”
Her gaze dropped to his wrist, and she made a sympathetic whimper. By Direis, she was the sweetest thing.
“Come on, Maude.” He started to clamber to his feet. “Back to bed with you.”
The scuffle with Kora must have wilted Maude. She kneeled on the sandy floor, her shoulder drooped and her head down. The sight rushed icy anger through his veins because, at the moment, he couldn’t do more for her. Sure, he planned to rescue her, but here and now, there was fuck all he could do other than bide his time.
He held his hands out to her, but she silently took to her feet without his assistance.
When she lay back down on the cot, she automatically shimmied back against the wall again, making room for him. Fuck, he almost dove into the spot she created especially for him. It had him wanting to bellow that this sliver of worn canvas belonged to him. ‘Mine’ coursed through him, firing up his muscles and expanding his chest.
He eased down next to her, this time not giving her his back. He gazed into her eyes and he brushed a lock of her hair off her cheek.
“Get some sleep, Maude.”
Gods. Right here. Right now. He wanted to swear his oath to her. I am Teras. I am House Borac. You have me.
But giving her his oath was not part of the mission. And what good would his oath be anyway? Seph already proved that a woman like Maude—a rare, non-Teras Athela—needed a powerful thane at her side.
He was only a bane in the shadows.
Maude woke up to a full-body shiver. The refreshing chill had her exhaling a gratified moan. She’d spent weeks sweltering under the rays of the Radost’s two suns. Right now, coldness blasted her front side—like standing before an open freezer—while her backside dripped rivulets of sweat beneath her cloak. She was cool enough that her nipples had puckered into hard, aching tips.
Good lord, she felt marvelous. This was better than finding that cold spot on the sheets during a hot summer’s night. Her only complaint was the elbow jammed into her belly.
She stilled and took stock of her own body. Beneath her left hip, she felt the cot’s thin mattress, but the rest of her sprawled over somebody. A somebody that was corded with taut muscles and radiated cool comfort.
Therion. She must be sprawled atop him. She could hear the thumping of his heart as the slow bellows of his deep breaths buoyed her.
Testing her guess, she tentatively flexed her fingers and encountered cool skin and the beveling of his turquoise veins. Opening her eyes confirmed that she’d nestled her nose into his sternum. The torn fabric of his shirt exposed his chest, and she’d plast
ered her cheek against him.
As awareness of her position flared through her, other realizations hit. Like, that her cloak had been thrown back over her shoulders and exposed her entire front. That was great for reducing her core body temperature, but not so great for her modesty. Also, the spider had retreated entirely, remaining attached to her like a large palm leaf from the top of her shoulders, spread across and down her back, and ending right before her rump.
With her heart kicking inside her chest, mortification skittered across her skin. Damn, she lay pressed against Therion, and she was very much naked.
To add to her dismay, she peeked up to see Therion’s green-gold eyes gazing back at her.
“Oh my gosh,” she whimpered as she fumbled to snag her cloak.
Therion inhaled sharply and tensed. His chains rattled, then stilled as he clamped down on his wrist.
Crap. Despite the bit of the spider that had wrapped about him, she must have jolted his injured wrist in her panicked twisting for her cloak.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She stilled, her eyes drawn to the metal compression sleeve that the spider had formed on his wrist. “How’s your wrist?”
He laughed, and, unbelievably, he sounded delighted. “No worries, Maude. And no more ‘sorries,’ aye? You don’t have to scramble to cover up. I wasn’t looking.”
Maude’s brow crinkled in confusion. “You were staring right at me.”
“Felt you wake up. Trust me. I wanted to look, but I didn’t.” He exhaled. “You feel fucking amazing lying on top of me, Maude.”
“I—” She didn’t quite know how to finish that.
“Besides, you’ve cooled down a bit. Thought I was sharing a bed with a burning spaceship thruster, you pumped out so much heat.” He resettled underneath her, then shocked and delighted her when he raised his arms, the chains around his wrists clinking, and lowered them over her shoulders. A fresh shot of cold moved through her, and she moaned.
“I know, right?” Therion gave her a squeeze. “This is just the best. Want nothing more than to swelter in a bed with you on Radost. We should riot tomorrow.”
He stretched his words through a jaw-cracking yawn, almost pulling a lulling response from her already relaxed limbs, but his offhanded suggestion cut right through her. They couldn’t laze about in each other arms. Not when other people depended on them to mount a rescue.
“Therion,” she injected his name with a hint of reproach.
“I know. I know,” he sighed and gave her an awkward pat on the back with his bound hands. Again, the chains clinked. “We’re still gonna riot. Don’t you worry none.”
She never intended to cuddle up to Therion while he was injured. Honestly, she never intended to cuddle up to him at all. When she had decided to become a surrogate for her sister, she accepted that she would be single for at least ten months. Her life had become too complicated for her to begin dating.
Dating?
Maude bit back a frustrated groan. How could she think about dating? She needed an ally, not a boyfriend.
“Do the other slaves know about the riot?” she asked.
“Hell, Maude, everyone knows about the riot. Even the guards know.”
True. Therion had gone around inviting everyone like it was his birthday party. “But do you have a plan now? You’ve had time to come up with one, right?”
She felt him shrug. “Course there’s a plan. You stand back once the thrashing bit starts. Then we bust on outta here.”
Her hope sank. “Therion, we’ve talked about this. That’s not really a plan.”
“That is totally a plan.” He squeezed her again. The rattle of his chains upset the reassurance that he offered. “Best damn plan I ever concocted. Know why? ‘Cause I hardly had to think about it. Nothing but thrashing bastards then walking out the front gate.”
“I still think—”
“Hey, Maude.” At his tone—sounding solemn and very much unlike himself—she tilted her head up to look at him again. He stared her right in the eyes. “I have you. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“You have me?”
Therion tensed, his expression becoming unreadable. She suspected that she’d said something wrong.
“[I wake.]” That insidious voice piped up, as if wanting her to acknowledge that it had been quiet, not souring her time pressed against Therion’s cool body.
Good lord, she hated that voice. That voice would crack her mind, plummeting her into insanity, long before the spider threatened the growth of the baby.
The spider flared, rattling its plates in warning. Maude found herself back where she started—tangled up in Therion’s limbs while groping hopelessly for her cloak—while someone approached.
Therion rolled onto his side and put his back to the door. The rattle of his chains mirrored the noise of the spider. “Easy, now. I’ve got you covered.”
He literally had her covered. Therion was the tallest person she’d ever seen. He probably stood a few inches over seven feet. Although he wasn’t as bulked up as Culler, he wasn’t a beanpole of a man, either. The expanse of his back shielded her so well, that she couldn’t peer around him. Therion’s golden skin and turquoise veins filled her entire view.
As she strained to hear whose boots crunched down on the sand, her eyes darted over the hollow at the base of Therion’s neck. His pulse pounded slow and steady, not fluttering like her own heartbeat. As she ran her gaze up the column of his neck, taking in the red and black ink of tattoos that she couldn’t decipher, she noticed that his skin had pores, but no hair follicles.
“Maude?” It was Kesken.
She raised her hand as if a teacher had called attendance. “I’m here, Kesken. It’s okay.”
Kesken hissed, making a sharp, derisive noise. “Fucking the Teras, are you?”
“Gods, if only I was so lucky a bastard.” Therion craned his neck, glancing over his shoulder as he spoke to the guard. “Hey, you’ll be in the yard during the riot, won’t you?”
The buzz roaring in her ears canceled out Kesken’s reply. She blinked, and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Kesken’s venomous tone shocked her to the point of speechlessness. Never had a Gwyretti treated her with such hate.
All this damn time, was this what the Gwyretti really thought of her?
She took a ragged inhale, her back pressed against the mud-brick wall of her room—no, not a room. This was a cell. She’d been staying three levels underground in a damn dungeon. Her door was made of metal bars, for god’s sake.
Maude squeezed her eyes shut and wanted to pull in on herself. She was such a dimwitted idiot, and the worst part? Her gullibility had endangered Nicole’s baby because she’d given aliens the benefit of the doubt.
Cool knuckles stroked her cheek, bringing her back to the moment—making her conscious of her body’s trembling and her damp cheeks.
“Maude? He’s gone. Don’t let that fuck get to you.” Although Therion whispered, his deep voice thrummed her chest. “Maude, you hear me? He left.”
She nodded and parroted back at him, “I hear you.”
“Do you? Because I’m gonna fuck him up during the riot, just for you.”
“No, don’t do that.” Maude hated that she cried over some nasty words. “Please, it’s not necessary.”
“Maude.” He spoke her name tenderly, not chidingly or impatiently.
But he didn’t get it.
“I’m such an idiot.” She ducked her head. “Every day, I walk into a cell. They don’t even have to lock the door, Therion.”
He hushed her. The backs of his fingers wiped at the tears that squeezed from her eyes. “None of that, now. You didn’t know. How could you know? You’re too good of a person to think like these sick shits.”
She groaned. Perhaps she hadn’t read him correctly after all. Did he also see her as a simpleton because he thought her to be nice?
“Maude.” His fingers slid under her chin, tilting her face up.
The determination i
n his gaze astonished her. It wasn’t the usual mien of someone mustering their resolve to painstakingly walk her through an issue.
She raked her eyes over him, absorbing the features that declared him distinctly alien—shiny black hair, lobeless ears, bi-colored eyes, and golden skin covered in livid veins.
Her second guesses about reading him? Hell, she tossed those doubts aside.
Therion’s determination soothed her.
She sighed as relief-filled tears watered her eyes. “Therion, I’m preg—”
He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
His cool lips pressed against her, almost like an accidental bump, startling her out of her next sniffle. Then, he adjusted his hold on her chin, shifting the angle, and dove into her fully.
She opened for him eagerly, relieved to give up her sobbing for something as wonderful as Therion’s lips and tongue sending refreshing tingles throughout her entire body.
She broke away to release a shuddered breath. Damn, it wouldn’t have surprised her if her exhale misted like an icy vapor. As someone who had spent countless days in the desert, she finally felt quenched. Wanting more, she reached for him.
Only to have Therion pull back.
Again, he studied her as his thumbs swept over her cheeks. “No more tears?”
She blinked, her eyes free of any salty stinging. “No more.”
Therion heaved a sigh. His head and shoulders drooped. “Oh, thank gods. I’m shit with crying women.”
Maude stiffened. “Did you just kiss me to shut me up?”
He chuckled. “No, Maude. I kissed you to stop the crying. Worked brilliantly, right?”
Her heart flipped as he peered sheepishly up at her. “Just don’t tell Seph, when you finally meet her, that I kissed you, all right? She’d be pissed at me. I mean, I’m here to rescue you. Not to take advantage of you. Unless you want me to take advantage of you. Because if you do, I’m totally your man. I know it’s only been, like, ten hours, but I think we have a connection. Or do human women pump out some kind of pheromone that binds a mate?”
He turned his head, glancing over his shoulder as if seeking someone. A befuddled look creased his brow. “Huh. That would explain so much about Zver.”