Page 2 of Captured By The Alien (Starbound #2)
The Vraxian was careful to keep his face immobile as he gazed at Kara. By Vannla’s Sword, she was beautiful. Tired, disheveled, extremely angry – may Ayanlesh protect him, she was incandescent – but beautiful nonetheless. He drank her in.
Away from the strange light frequencies of Minerva-6, her hair was no longer purple but raven-black, her skin more tan than gold. The clothes she’d been given to replace her ragged SDF uniform were comically large - a baggy top tied into a knot at the waist, a pair of trousers rolled up so many times she looked like a child playing dress-up.
The only thing she’d been allowed to keep were her old combat boots, since footwear was not something Vraxians owned. They were scuffed and scratched and looked a thousand years old.
Yet nothing could detract from her magnificence.
His heart contracted painfully. Locking her up had been hard. But he’d had no choice. He had to treat her like any other human in order to avoid suspicion. If he hadn’t taken her prisoner, it would have been dangerous for both of them.
Though judging by her expression, she didn’t see it that way.
“Guards, wait outside,” he said. The two hulking behemoths on either side of him turned and left the detention wing.
“Kara,” he began as soon as they were alone. She didn’t let him finish.
“If you’ve come to apologize you’re wasting your time. There’s nothing you can say that will make me forgive you.”
“I didn’t…”
“And congratulations, by the way. I didn’t think there was any way I could hate Vraxian snakes more than I already did but you proved me wrong.”
She glared at him through the bars and he sighed.
“I did not come to seek forgiveness, Kara. I came to make sure you were all right. Are you eating? Are you sleeping?” He searched her face. “You look tired.”
“And you look like shit.” She folded her arms sullenly. “Up all night celebrating with your pals? Drinking a bit too much melamak ?”
“I haven’t been celebrating.”
“Sure you have.” Her mouth twisted. “I heard what you told your bitch commander. Leverage. That’s what you said I was.”
A look of alarm crossed Vahn’s face.
“You haven’t revealed you can understand Vraxian?”
“Of course not. I’m not stupid. It’s the one advantage I have.”
“Not the only advantage.” He stepped closer to the bars. “You have me.”
She snorted.
“You’re the one who put me in here, you fucking bastard. I’m never going to trust you again.”
Vahn didn’t reply. He was now standing so close he could smell her. Not the faint odor of disinfectant and anxiety that radiated off her, but the underlying scent of her. Of Kara. His kalehsha. His mate.
He closed his eyes as his body shuddered. By the Fountain of Zandarr, it was intolerable. To be this close and not be able to hold her, to kiss her…
“Vahn?”
“Apologies, I just… I’m not…”
He swayed and despite herself she frowned in concern.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill? Is that why you’re so pale?”
He shook his head.
“If only it were that simple, human. No. I am not ill. I’m suffering from teshekalehsh. ”
Her lips moved as she repeated the unfamiliar word to herself. The engineered microbes in her temporal lobe should have translated it automatically but either she or they were struggling with the meaning.
“ Teshekalehsh … some kind of… withdrawal effect? Is that right? Withdrawal to what?”
A rueful smile tugged at his mouth.
“To you, my kalehsha. ”
“Me?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re suffering withdrawal symptoms because we’re not together?”
“We have been apart for a week, Kara. For true mates even a short separation has a physical impact, especially in the first year of the relationship. But perhaps not so much for you. After all, you are human.”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. It had never occurred to her there might be a biological reason for her insomnia.
She’d thought she was just pining for him like a love-sick puppy. But if there was a physiological explanation for her yearning, then at least she wasn’t being an idiot.
Not a total idiot, anyway.
Not that she was going to share any of this with him. She raised her chin.
“You’re talking bollocks. I haven’t been sleeping because I’ve been kidnapped and locked up by a giant blue asshole.”
“You haven’t been sleeping?” He cocked his head. “So you are suffering teshekalehsh? ”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be suffering withdrawal from someone I hate?”
His lips quirked up at the corner.
“You hate me?”
“I loathe you.”
“I do not believe you.”
“And I don’t believe in all that fated mates crap.”
He sighed.
“I had hoped that our time together would have changed your mind. That our sexual compatibility would have convinced you we were destined to be together.”
Her cheeks warmed. Sexual compatibility. Such a clinical way of describing what they’d shared.
She’d never in her wildest dreams experienced the kind of earth-shattering sex she’d had with him. Those months they’d spent together on Minerva-6 had been the best of her life.
“Being good in the sack doesn’t make me your kalehsha ,” she said scathingly. “It’s just biology.”
“So you keep insisting. Nevertheless, among Vraxians it is well-known that not being able to touch their mate for prolonged periods, particularly in the first flush of kalehsh, produces unwelcome side-effects. That, too, is biology.”
“Seems a bit cruel. What if one mate decides to skip town? Or has a fatal accident?”
“As I said, it ebbs with time. But for us, teshekalehsh is very much an issue.”
“And I expect the cure is a roll in the hay?” She raised a brow. “Is that what you came here for? A shag? Because strangely, I’m not in the mood.”
His locked his yellow eyes onto hers.
“If we were anywhere else, I would take great pleasure in changing your mind about that.”
He held her gaze and the breath caught in her throat. She was suddenly hyper-aware of the large, muscular body just inches from hers. The hard, familiar planes which fit so well against her own pliant curves.
She swallowed, her mouth dry.
“And how would you change it?”
“I would unlock your cell, strip you down, and lick every inch of your body until you begged me for release. Then, and only then, I would use my serpetri to fuck your sweet feresh until you came so hard that you would dream of it every night for the next month.”
The quiet intensity of his words set her heart pounding. Heat flooded between her thighs. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, locked into the erotic image dancing through both their minds.
Her eyes drifted to his mouth. His wicked, sinful mouth that had made her scream so many times in the months they’d been together. It took her a moment to clock what he was saying.
“But since I know that cannot happen, perhaps I could just hold your hand.”
She blinked,
“Huh?”
“Simple skin-to-skin contact. Your palm against mine. Please, Kara. It will make us both feel better, I promise.”
He held his hand out and she looked down at it, fighting an inner battle.
She would do almost anything to ease her insomnia and those infuriating night-time fever dreams. But holding his hand would also be an admission that she believed his ridiculous tales of fate and destiny.
In the end, curiosity won out.
She took his hand, not bothering to hide her scepticism, her fingers tiny against his huge palm. She paused a beat.
“You see? It’s utter…” She shivered into silence.
A feeling of calm and wellbeing, of rightness , washed through her from head to toe. Her heartbeat slowed and the dull, persistent ache in her chest receded. For the first time in days, she felt at peace.
The relief was indescribable. And undeniable.
Startled, she twined her fingers more firmly around his, reveling in the sensation. Was this what it meant to be addicted to someone?
She looked up to find Vahn staring down at her, his yellow gaze so direct and commanding she couldn’t look away. Unspoken words danced into her head.
I love you.
The unbidden thought flew from her mind and hovered on her lips. Somehow she kept from saying it. Declaring love for her captor would be an unforgiveable weakness. And yet the feeling in that moment was so strong, it was as if her heart was connected to his by an invisible thread.
The impact on Vahn was no less pronounced. His pupils dilated as the chemicals and pheromones he’d been missing flooded back into his system, and his emotions surged.
She is my elixir. My reason for living. My kalehsha.
He vowed to make her understand. To lay his heart at her feet and beg her to take it back. But as he opened his mouth to tell her how he felt, the door to the detention wing opened.
He let go of her hand.
“What is it?” he asked curtly as his bodyguards came in. Kara’s eyes narrowed when she saw who was with them.
The bitch commander. The head of the Vraxian army, General Elaryx Solarun. A formidable military strategist and the bane of every SDF operation in recent years.
The stern female was as tall as Vahn and had a palpable air of authority about her. But as she approached, her face held an expression that instantly put Kara on edge.
The officer halted in front of Vahn.
“We have received news from Vraxos.”
“What news?”
The general looked pointedly at Kara.
“Perhaps we should give it to you in private.”
“She is Terran. She does not understand our tongue. So whatever you have to say, say it now.”
“As you wish.” Solarun and the bodyguards bowed their heads in unison. “It is with the deepest regret that I have to inform you your father, the Zhaal, is dead.”