Bane: A SciFi Alien Romance (The Ladyships Book 2)
Page 31
Maude, who sat astride him, panted as she gazed up at the cabin’s ceiling. He wished he could have seen her face, but he wouldn’t give up the fabulous view of her back, either.
Who would have thought that she could straddle him like this! He’d gotten to watch the globes of her ass bounce off his pelvis over and over. Had gotten to see her spine arch as she’d climaxed. And he’d still gotten to clamp his hands on her hips, anchoring her as he pounded hard, rapid thrusts up into her until he came.
But he hadn’t finished with her. Next, he’d held her locked to him and stroked her with his anthers, watching with a clenched chest as she’d come apart one more time.
Now she twisted to look at him over her shoulder. Her cheeks were rosy, eyes languid with release. Strands of her hair were plastered to her sweaty cheeks.
Gods, she was glorious.
“You fucking shred me, Maude,” he told her, his voice almost breaking on him.
Her mood changed instantly, snapping into sympathy.
“Oh, Therion.” She scrambled off of him. “I was too rough.”
“No no no.” He curled up into sitting—and hell did it wound his pride that he grunted like his old gappa—and snatched her.
With a heaved sigh of relief, he lay back down, his weak abs and sore leg grateful. He was also grateful because Maude settled right next to him. She slid in close, filling in all the gaps and dips due to his still-reduced body mass, and she sighed.
“Therion?”
Well, Unholde take him, her sigh had sounded content, but her voice had trembled a bit when she’d said his name.
Not knowing what was coming next, his heart pounded in his chest. He was unaccustomed to all of this. Having sex and sleeping in a bed. Cuddling with someone. Kissing someone. Usually, he just maimed and murdered for the ones he loved.
“Yes, Maude?”
“So, I—while you were with Lekar—I sorta, well, I sorta learned something. And I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Because you learned something?”
“Yes, er, aye.” Her voice stayed small. “But I learned it for you. Seph says the Teras have really good hearing. You do, aye?”
Her voice had gotten softer, but he’d heard her. “Yes.”
She stayed quiet, and Therion’s nerves rioted. He hadn’t understood her questions, not really. What if he’d fucked up the answers?
Then he heard her singing, oh-so-quietly, with her face tucked into his shoulder. Her Bulanii pronunciation was horrid, her tone as flat as a plank, but she astonished him anyway.
Come back home
You needn’t roam
Your drifting’s
Not torn us apart
Wherever you are
You follow my star
The love
That shines from my heart
Into his shoulder, she mumbled, “I learned the rest of that song. Well, your brother sent it to me. Is that all right? Did I—”
He flipped her onto her back as he smothered her with a kiss. He banded his arms around her and chanted in his head, ‘Not too much. Not too much, you ass,’ because he wanted to squeeze her tight. Pull her inside of him. Never let her go.
She blew him apart while holding him together.
He refused to botch this moment with fervent beseeching. There would be no ‘Unholde take him’ or ‘Direis keep him.’ With Therion’s shitty luck, just this once, those ass plug deities would actually intercede.
Like fuck Therion was going to be dragged from this life into the next.
Maude was here. She’d chosen him.
He knew who to praise for this moment.
Thank fuck. Thank fuck. Thank the-cosmos-everlasting fuck.
Maude called him—the Bane—back home.
Epilogue
Dius, following hushed voices, crept between the stacked containers located in Prykimis’s cargo hold. He thanked the gods that he was built like a boulder but moved like a fallen leaf—floating and landing softly. Hell, the silent treading of his big-ass boots was the only soft thing about him.
“Seriously,” Therion was saying, “sponge baths. That solves everything, Ran.”
Rannik’s baffled reply followed, “I don’t see how that—”
“Ran, trust me…”
Trust Therion? Fuck Unholde, he’d gotten there just in time.
With a deep sigh, Dius rounded the stacked containers, stepped into Rannik’s bolthole, and threw his best dagger at the boy’s chest.
Therion, reacting too late, bellowed in alarm as he stared wide-eyed at Rannik. “Shit, Rannik! You just caught that!”
Rannik gaped at the nacre demigauntlet that covered his fist, which was wrapped around the hilt of Dius’s blade. “But… I…”
Rannik’s words crumbled into a small, astonished whimper, and Dius knew why. Rannik didn’t catch the blade. Kora did.
Therion swore as he punched Dius’s shoulder. The strike rocked him some, but he didn’t feel it.
He never felt anything.
“What the fuck, Di?” Therion railed. “You threw a blade at Ran?”
He sure the fuck did, because only a heart-pounding demonstration would penetrate Therion’s asinine stubbornness. There was no way to hide the fact that a portion of Kora refused to leave Rannik.
The bit of Athelasan tech attached to Rannik wasn’t particularly large. It resembled the portions of Kora that had healed Therion’s wrist. Anyone who would observe Kora—the remainder of Kora which currently scuttled about Prykimis—wouldn’t notice its absence.
But Rannik had gotten himself noticed. He had found a Human technopath. He had formed a clade with a sentient spirenought. He had bonded with a new Athelasan artifact that had moya. As a cadet returning to Fleet Academe, thus outside the direct aegis of House Borac, Rannik would be thoroughly scrutinized.
Since Zver had tasked Dius with watching over his son and Therion was distracted by being Fucking Therion, it was time for Dius to get to work.
He jutted his chin toward Rannik. “Fleet’s gonna figure it out.”
Therion gawked at him. Dius gave him a moment to process. Just the one, though. Then he would fall back on his preferred approach: using his fists to rattle his cousin’s senses.
Therion shook his head as he scoffed. “No way. Fleet isn’t gonna figure it out. Ran and I have a solid plan. Sponge baths, Di. Sponge baths.”
Dius glared at Therion. “What about Fleet physicals?”
Therion waved him off. “Ech. Lekar just sent updated records. Ran’s good until next semester.”
Dius offered a silent retort by lowering his brow and frowning.
“And then,” Therion stretched out his words, answering Dius’s unspoken criticism, “I’ll have an even more brilliant plan.”
Rannik’s brows rose. “More brilliant than sponge baths?”
Dius gruffly grunted to mask his true amusement. Rannik had sounded amazed—hell, even intrigued—that Therion could out-do something as ineffective as sponge baths.
He restrained the urge to smile. Thank fuck Ran was nothing like him, whose singular purpose was pummeling—be it people’s bodies, or people’s feelings. Dius excelled at grinding things into gristle.
For Rannik’s sake, he’d gladly use his narrowly applicable talents on the rest of the Tendex; but first, Therion needed the bullshit flushed from his brain.
Dius glowered at his cousin. “Dodging the sani-stalls sets Ran up for hazing.”
Therion opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He turned back to Rannik. “Do upper classmates still strip-and-dip the cadets who avoid the general-use sani-stalls?”
Rannik lowered his gaze to the deck. “Aye, but you did come up with an interesting plan, Ther. I’m sure I could have made a go of it.”
Dius’s lip curled into an involuntary sneer as he growled at Therion. His cousin often forgot that his half-ass plans only succeeded for himself, not for others. Rannik lacked Therion’s gods-given gift to misdirect by spouting truths that people perc
eived to be nothing but shit talk.
There was only one thing for Dius to do. “Ran ain’t goin’ back to Fleet Academe.”
“I’m not?” Ran sounded relieved.
Therion gasped. “But… that means telling Zver about Bitty Kora!”
Ran batted his hopeful gaze between Dius and Therion. “Can we not tell him?”
Dius shrugged. “We don’t tell him.”
Sometimes it was necessary to manage Zver’s annihilation-level responses. To redirect the thane’s aim as if retargeting a cannon, firing a broadside rather than a direct hit. Plus, it was an easy thing, to give Ran what he wanted.
“Right.” Therion chuckled in disbelief. “Don’t tell Zver.”
Dius silently regarded Therion and decided that he needed a jostling to shed his imbecilic Bane charade and access his exceptional mind. So he counted to a generous ‘one’ and then whapped Therion upside the head.
“Fucking ouch, Di!” Therion scowled at him as he rubbed his noggin. “I get it. We can’t tell Zver. He’ll rampage.”
Dius had no doubt that Fleet would threaten Rannik over a scrap of Kora. Then Zver would damn the blowback as he struck at Teras Ero, the Teras’s capital world.
How the hell could the Dominion still discount Zver? His thorough retaliation against any threat, such as crippling House Jahat or strangling Fleet into rescinding an order, declared his uncompromising stance.
Don’t. Fuck. With. Rannik.
Or Seph.
Or Therion.
Despite being baffled, Dius already had proof that the mongrels of the Dominion hadn’t learned a damned thing. When they had attempted to curb Zver and control Therion, House Borac had let them stagger away from those failures. Now those Dominion arses stood upon the mound of their own heavy losses—as if on a grandstand—and declared their schemes a success.
Fucking fools. All of them. To their detriment, they had only considered two of House Borac’s defenders: the Thanemonger and the Bane. Self-proclaimed victors always forgot that someone had to sort the bodies and cull the stragglers.
That was when Culler went to work.
Ne’er-Do-Well
Say farewell
To the ne’er-do-well
A drifter
No roots in the loam
Across field and dale
Over the sea he’ll sail
A drifter
Forever to roam
Come back home
You needn’t roam
Your drifting’s
Not torn us apart
Wherever you are
You follow my star
The love
That shines from my heart
Dearest Reader
Thank you, so much, for reading Bane. Matching Therion with a kind and loving woman who rolled with his crazy was so much fun for me to write.
If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review. One or two lines make all the difference and are greatly appreciated.
Thank you!
All the best,
Bex
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Acknowledgments
I am so incredibly grateful that I have many wonderful people who helped me complete this story.
Chris - You checked in weekly. You kept asking the hard questions. You supported me when I thought it all was a disaster. Thank you for not giving up on this story.
Honey, Emmy, Mara, and Tracy - Thank goodness you were in my corner. Your enthusiasm for this character had me returning to the manuscript over and over. You soothed doubt. You cheered loudly. Thank you so much.
Kathryn and Tammy - The Therion Thunderdome is now ready to receive you. Good luck. (Oh, and refrain from hair pulling.)
Kitty - Thank you for your eagle eyes. I’m so glad you like potty humor.
Janet - You’re a mighty typo-slayer who sees perfection in my imperfect heroes.
Those Who Waited - You have my endless gratitude.
Greg - Whelp, it’s done. There is no way this could have happened without you. You gave me love and support and a plot twist that saved Bane 4.0 from joining all the other discarded drafts. So, thanks for that. XOXO
Other Titles
The Ladyships
Sarda
Thanemonger
Bane
Tidefall
Rein
Treasured by the Alien with Honey Phillips
Mama and the Alien Warrior
Cosmic Fairy Tales Collaboration
The Ugly Dukeling
About Bex
Bex loves to read all kinds of romance: science fiction, shifter, fantasy, regency, contemporary... (Seriously, all of it!) Currently she writes SFR and Fantasy/PNR. Her writing style—a mixture of action, humor, tenderness, and heat—features worlds and characters that captivate her readers.
Visit my website at www.bexmclynn.com
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