Page 13 of Entangled by the Alien Mercenary (Monster Mercenary Mates #4)
Tasseloris
My thigh was throbbing again, but I ignored it and kept up a steady pace with my female held tightly in my arms. The one vine I’d managed to grow I used to prop her up and support the bag of supplies she’d had the foresight to grab. Nelly had skittered up my leg as I booked it out of the clearing and was hanging from my shoulder and throat, her thin pink vines and tendrils clinging snugly. “I know,” I said against Elyssa, though I hated what she was proposing. There was no point in running far with the tracker still on her person—she was right about that.
“Are you sure it is a sub-dermal one?” I asked for the third time. Removing one of those would involve cutting into her fair skin, and I couldn’t stomach the idea. It was making me sick to my stomach just thinking about it. She was small and pale, all wet and cold; it made her blue eyes seem even larger in her face than they already were. It made her seem like a half-drowned Riho—all cute but sad. The desire to just bundle her tightly against me and make all her hurts go away was strong.
“Yes,” she said firmly, fearlessly. “It’s probably in my arm. I thought about it, and I distinctly remember waking up one morning a few weeks before Elpherian died with a sore spot there.” Elpherian? Why was she referencing the death of Jalima’s right-hand man several months ago? It had been an occasion loudly celebrated on the Varakartoom, with good Aderian wine and bad Rummicaron ale, as was customary.
There was a small cave not far from here. We’d be dry in it and safe from the hungry Takchaw. Although the underground-growing, carnivorous plants did not like the wet season and went into hibernation when the first rains hit, I wasn’t going to take any chances with them. It would be the perfect location for a quick stop to remove the tracker. What remained of my med kit sat tucked in the back of my belt and would stretch to treat the small wound I’d have to inflict.
“How did you get your hands on data vital to Jalima, anyway?” I asked the small Elrohirian woman. She was not so different from the three human females who had recently made their homes aboard the Varakartoom, and I began cataloging the minor differences as I sat down inside the cave, her slight frame cradled in my lap. With my vine, I extracted the heavy backpack from her back and propped it nearby against the wall.
Elyssa had bright eyes; they had a hint of bioluminescence that brightened with heightened emotions. Her chin was pointy, her cheekbones sharp, and her ears had delicate points. In that, she was similar in shape to a Viradara female, though my species grew slightly longer points, and my ears could twitch and change angle slightly to orient towards sound, while hers couldn’t move. Then there was the Caratan chain that, by custom, all Elrohirians wore. It draped from a ring in her nostril to her earlobe and was decorated with medallions that declared her name, her family, and other important information.
The woman began to struggle to sit up more in my arms and was already working to open her jumpsuit at the front so she could free the arm in question. “Oh, you don’t know?” she asked. Then she bit her lip, and a wry grin emerged. “Of course not. Brace is like the least talkative person in existence.” I wanted to laugh at that, certain that Solear had Brace beat in that department.
I tried not to get distracted by the discovery that she wore a thin, white, sleeveless shirt beneath the jumpsuit and that the slopes of her breasts were dotted with little freckles. They rose above the neckline of the shirt, and it was all I could see, no matter how hard I tried to focus on what I was supposed to do. Her bright, amused laugh tinkled like bells, and I jerked my eyes from her pretty breasts to her face. “Ah, Tass. You make me feel pretty despite being a bedraggled, unwashed mess.” Her smile made it clear she appreciated that, and I grinned back at her.
“You are pretty—the prettiest female I’ve ever laid eyes on,” I said truthfully. Nelly cooed indignantly from where she perched on my shoulder, and I amended the statement. “Along with Nelly, of course.” But I winked to make it clear that I really had eyes only for my mate. Pink appeared in her pale cheeks, and I decided that was a good sign.
Then, it felt like she’d dropped a bucket of ice water down my spine with her next words: “Elpherian was my brother.” I blinked, certain I’d misheard her, but the slow diminishing of her smile made it obvious this wasn’t a mistake. Her brother? She was the sister of Jalima’s former right-hand man? A male who, until recently, had ranked high on Captain Asmoded’s to-kill list? I wasn’t sure what to make of that. And how did Brace come to know her? How could she know Brace? I recalled her mentioning that he’d once been a gladiator in Jalima’s stable. Was that how? Had she watched my crewmate fight till he bled on the sands?
When she began to rush through an explanation, I felt like someone had taken hold of my heart and was squeezing it. The loss of her parents, the way her brother had kept her locked up on his ship or in his home on Elrohir—it was clear she'd had it rough, and it was a miracle she’d managed to slip away right after his death. Apparently, it had taken Jalima’s men a while to discover that she’d stolen data, but she’d been running ever since.
That brought us back to the reason I’d ducked into this small cave in the first place: the tracker. She thought it was in her arm, and we needed to get it out before they tracked us down. It wouldn’t be long, though—the rock and the rain were hopefully masking the signal. Already, we’d spent way too long in one place to play it safe, but I was glad I had heard her story. Now I understood the strange undercurrents I’d sensed between her and De’tor and why that Elrohirian male seemed a little obsessed. Both had slipped from my grasp in the last battle, but they wouldn’t be so lucky a third time.
“I am glad you’re with me now,” I told her, my voice gravelly from the anger coiling in my gut. My brave female had gone through so much. She was strong, and somehow, she’d kept her spark. I could see it in her eyes. She was braver than I was when she prodded her biceps with her other hand and then declared that it was definitely there. She couldn’t reach it correctly to cut it out herself; this task was going to fall to me. I steeled myself for the job, but it was hard, so I was relieved when Nelly popped up between us and held out a handful of soggy Haysher leaves.
“Chew those,” I said immediately, and I picked them up and raised them to her mouth. She pulled a face as she eyed the dark purple, wet mass I held pinched between my fingers. “It’ll numb the pain. Please.” When she obediently opened her mouth and leaned forward to accept the bite of medicinal herbs, I fought again with my concentration. My cock leaped in my pants at the touch of her lips and tongue against my fingers. Losing that battle, I caught her chin as soon as she withdrew and covered her mouth with mine.
Her startled, eager moan was music to my ears, and though the Haysher leaves gave the kiss a bitter taste, it was still divine. Braced with my vine, I kept her upright, chin clasped firmly so she could not escape. As the kiss began to ebb, I prodded her biceps as she had with my fingers, my calloused skin rough against her silky flesh. She was right—there was a tiny, hard bump beneath her skin, exactly the right size for a tracker. It felt close to the surface, and as the kiss broke, I acted immediately.
Pulling one of the throwing knives that had gone unnoticed during my capture, I struck without hesitation. If I paused, I knew I might not be able to go through with it. She was distracted—the Haysher leaves in her system—it was now or never. Her blood smelled like copper and beaded bright red as I cut her skin. The narrow tip of the knife dug beneath the implanted tracker, and out it came, so slight it did not even make a sound as it fell to the cave floor. I crushed it beneath the toe of my boot and hurried to press a bandage to her skin. Even though the cut was very tiny, I still felt like I’d done her major harm.
She had not made a sound through any of it, but when I raised my head from her arm to meet her eyes, I could see it had not gone unnoticed. Her teeth dug roughly into her lush bottom lip, and her eyes were wide and startled. Tears made the blue sparkle like sapphires, but she valiantly held them back. “Damn it, that stung,” she muttered. I rubbed the pad of my thumb over her abused lip, and when that made the corner of her mouth tilt into a smile, I leaned in and kissed her again.
“We can’t stay here!” Elyssa muttered against my mouth, but then her arms curled around my neck, and she clung to me. Neither of us wanted to go anywhere. She held on tight, the same way I wrapped her in my arms and vine, as if that would ward off the dangers that awaited us. Against my better judgment, I kept that kiss going as long as she let me, my hands sliding along the delicate arch of her spine, shaping the soft roundness of her rear, and parting her thighs to press her closer. It was like holding a live wire, power arcing through me at each touch. My cock was an aching bar pressing against my armor and her curvy ass.
“We’ll leave soon,” I told her as I left her mouth to trail kisses beneath the chain that draped her cheek. Next, I nibbled on the edge of her jaw and sucked on the delicate skin at her throat. She moaned—not a sound of protest, but encouragement. The upper sections of her jumpsuit were still draped around her waist, and the thin sleeveless shirt was damp and nearly transparent because of it. “I’ll have you soon,” I groaned as I laved kisses against the upper slopes of her breasts.
Her hands were in my hair, the strands responding to her touch by shivering and twitching, unfurling. That felt good—that felt like pleasure lancing from my scalp straight to my cock. When I sucked her nipple into my mouth, straight through her shirt, she arched her back and shouted, “Ah, stars, Tass. We don’t have time for this!” I wanted to laugh and howl at those words at the same time. She was right, but she didn’t sound like she wanted to be right.
Curling the tip of my vine around her hip, I slipped it between our bodies. I felt it brush against my cock, but that was not the goal. When she shouted again, going tight as a bowstring in my arms, I knew I’d hit the mark. Letting go of her pretty breasts was hard, but it was worthwhile when I got to watch the look of wonder on her face as she came. Her mouth dropped into a little, tempting circle, lips still moist from our earlier kissing, cheeks flushed a beautiful pink, and her sapphire eyes glittering. As the orgasm ebbed and her expression smoothed, I knew I wanted to do it again immediately. I wanted to see that expression over and over, hear her moan and shout again and again.
My vine twitched between her legs, pressing against her slit and sensitive nerves. My cock did the same, aching with unfulfilled desire. It wouldn’t take much: curling my vine, I could shred her clothing, pull open the tab on mine, and sink inside her. The white square of the bandage stuck to her arm—where I’d taken out the tracker not long ago—was the only thing that kept me from doing so. We really did have to go. But we didn’t have to go far.