Page 21 of Sheltered in the Storm (The Fortusian Mates # 1)

CHAPTER 20

VOS

I made love to my mate until she lay exhausted and sated in my arms, gasping for air and trembling as I kissed her all over, drinking in the scents and tastes of her body and our lovemaking.

When the rain returned, she murmured protests when I rose to close the windows and door, then nestled into my tentacles again when I returned to the bed, her head against my chest. Though she dozed, she did not lapse into a healing sleep.

My Calla was well again, and for the first time I did not feel fear in addition to relief at the thought.

She wants to stay. She wants to visit the ocean with me .

In my hearts, disbelief warred with joy and profound contentment.

“An Alliance credit for your thoughts,” she murmured, startling me from my reverie. Her eyelashes fluttered open, revealing her lovely green eyes. “So quiet, my Vos.”

My Vos . Such simple syllables, but they filled me with warmth .

“I am thinking of you, of course,” I said, brushing damp, sweaty hair from her forehead. “What else could I have on my mind?”

Her wry smile made me smile in return. “You don’t really have to flatter me so much, you know. You got your way. I want to stay. Now you can just be yourself.”

At first I thought she was teasing me, but some shadow lurked in her eyes, making me think her thoughts had taken an unexpectedly serious turn.

“My Calla, I have never been anything but myself with you,” I said. “In fact, I do not think I have ever been more myself.”

“I was afraid of that.” She cupped my face with her hand and brushed my lower lip with her thumb. “Do you think you would have been half as interested in me if I wasn’t your true mate? If I’d just been a human female pilot whose fighter crashed nearby, would we be lying in this bed right now?”

Unease began to replace my contentment. “Why do you ask me this?”

“How could I not wonder?” My Calla laced our fingers together with her free hand. “You said you’d never sought companionship until you smelled me, and then finding, healing, and making love to me suddenly became everything to you—so much so that you’ve hardly been to the ocean or left my side since you brought me home. Doesn’t that bother you?” Her eyes had that bruised look again that worried and disturbed me so much. “I feel like I’ve bewitched you and you’re not doing this of your own choice.”

I did not need to read her mind to know these questions arose more from her belief that she was not worthy of my care and worship than any fear of having actually magically enchanted me.

“I promise I have made many choices that led to this moment.” I kissed her forehead. “I do not say my biological drive has not been a factor, because most assuredly it has . But that is far from the only reason I call you my Calla. And you have made choices as well. Many more lie before us. We will make our own future.”

“But would you have wanted me? ” Her voice was quiet now. “Imagine you’d found me in the boat with the raiders but I wasn’t your true mate—just myself, Calla Wren. What would you have done?”

I thought back to that night on the storm-tossed ocean, when I had witnessed her, bloody and battered but with fiery eyes, bite the Atolani raider’s arm and stare me down with defiance and determination. Her fire had captivated me and stirred feelings and emotions I had not known I possessed, or even dreamed of having, only minutes earlier.

Try as I might, I could not separate my feelings of desire and admiration from the siren call of my mate, but perhaps there was no need to. Perhaps those feelings were one and the same.

She might want to hear that nothing would be different if she had not been my true mate, but I had no way of knowing. Above all, I must be honest with my Calla.

“I did not have a chance to meet you without knowing you were my mate,” I said. “I understand why you ask me this, but I will not lie and say I would certainly have done the same regardless of circumstances. The truth is, I chose to take a chance on happiness with you when I did not have to. In fact, it was far from an easy choice, because my own past persists in telling me I am unworthy of you. With time and effort, I hope to make myself worthy.”

She lay her head on my chest again and said nothing for a long time, keeping our fingers entwined.

“So we’re both sure we don’t deserve each other?” she asked finally, her tone wry. “What a pair we are.”

I rested my chin on top of her head. “You are my Calla and I am your Vos. If that is true, what else matters?”

“I can’t argue with that logic.” Her warm chuckle eased some of my tension. “Will you promise to tell me if ever you feel I have in fact bewitched you?”

She was teasing me now, but still with an undercurrent of disquiet that I would give anything to banish.

“I promise,” I said, very solemnly. “As long as you promise to tell me if you ever feel that you no longer want to bewitch me.”

“Deal.” She kissed my chest. “I’m ready to get cleaned up and do something outside. But before we walk to the ocean, would you spar with me? I feel like I’m healed, but I have to make sure I’m up for a fight if something happens. First blood wins.”

“Of course I will spar.” The thought of practicing combat with my mate sent shivers of anticipation, joy, and excitement through my body, all the way to the tips of my tentacles. “Unarmed? Armed?”

“Armed, if you don’t mind.” She raised her head so she could see my face. “I’m assuming you have at least a few weapons here?”

“A few,” I said, my voice bland. The past was never so far past that a retired assassin shunned weapons. “Shall we wash and dress, and then choose our weapons?”

“That is probably the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She kissed my chest again, and this time she rubbed her nose on my skin as I liked to do with her. “There you go with the perfect answers again. What can I do with someone who always knows the right thing to say?”

“Spar with him,” I said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Then go with him to visit his ocean home.”

“Then let’s go,” she said, and now her eyes sparkled with happiness and even eagerness. “I’m ready to have blades in my hands again. But do you think we can bathe together without getting distracted?”

I looked over my lovely Calla, at the way her perspiration glimmered on her skin, and the marks I had left with my teeth and suckers, and the streaks of glowing lavender cum that crisscrossed her body, and felt myself growing hard once more.

“I do not,” I said.

With a lazy chuckle, she pushed on my chest. “Then you go wash up first. I want to lie here and feel good for a while.”

Even for a man who had completed many seemingly impossible tasks over a long career as an assassin, it took no small amount of determination to leave her naked on the bed with the sheets tangled around her legs. Only the promise of sparring and going to the ocean afterward kept me from simply giving in to the desire to make love to her again.

Rather than linger in a tub full of water, I used the overhead shower to clean myself quickly. My tentacles quivered in displeasure at both my choice not to bathe and the ache of my Calla’s most personal scents washing away.

Truly, though, her smell and taste had soaked into my skin deeply enough that no amount of soap and water could take those away. Even under the spray of hot water, with the air filled with the scent of the plants that lived in the bathroom and released oils into the air when the room filled with steam, I still smelled her. That did not make my tentacles any less unhappy, but it allowed me to smile despite the fact she was not in my arms.

When I emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, Calla rose from the bed. “I’ll be quick,” she said, standing on her toes to kiss my jaw. “I can’t wait to see what weapons you have.”

“Do not rush on my account,” I caught her hand and held on so I could drink in her scent for a moment. “Enjoy your shower. The ocean will not boil away in the meantime.”

She squeezed my hand and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Unsurprisingly, despite my admonishment not to hurry, she soon rejoined me, dressed in her Alliance Defense-issued flight suit and boots, with her hair styled in a long braid she had wrapped with a strip of cloth and tied at the end.

She found me waiting by the bed with my hands clasped behind my back. Nearly two dozen different weapons from across the galaxy, all very lethal, lay in rows atop the bed. I had changed the bedding while she washed.

Hands on her hips, she looked over my offerings. “These are my choices?”

I blinked. “Yes.”

Did she find the contents of my armory insufficient? Lacking in quality? I had long taken pride in my collection, but suddenly I felt as though she had judged my cache and found it wanting.

Humming under her breath, she picked up a pair of Hardanian scythe-knives and spun one in each hand, testing their weight and balance. Perhaps she did not like how they felt, because she returned them to their place and hefted the weapon to their right: a set of heavy Tocanian spiked bolos. Impressive to look at and a showpiece of my collection, but impractical for hand-to-hand sparring. Apparently she felt the same, and put them down. With a glance, she assessed and quickly dismissed my priceless Fylorian sword without even touching it, then moved on to a pair of Fortusian daggers.

My Calla did not look at me, and her expression remained inscrutable, but I knew instantly she would choose to wield them to spar with me because they were the sole weapon on the bed native to my homeworld. I hid my smile. Naturally my mischievous mate would want to show me how well she could use them against me.

She spun the daggers in each hand the same way she had tested the Hardanian scythe-knives. Then she browsed the remainder of my offerings, testing all her options and demonstrating ability and skill with each. My approval and appreciation of my warrior Calla grew .

And every movement, every glint of a blade, every spin and snick of metal on metal or wood made my cock twitch and harden that much more. She must have noted my reaction, but she did not acknowledge it in any way.

In the end, she did indeed select the Fortusian daggers. She spun them forward and backward, switched grip styles lightning fast, and then turned to face me, a blade in each hand.

“You should have chosen first,” she said, with a smile.

In answer, I picked up the heavy plasma-edged Ganaian broadsword that she had swung in a few arcs before dropping it back on the bed. No doubt she had wielded one of these notoriously deadly weapons many times throughout her life.

With my gaze on hers, I turned my wrist, swinging the sword in a circle, followed by a series of fast lunges with right-to-left and left-to-right slashes that blurred. The point of the sword whizzed past the end of her nose and stirred the loose hairs around her face, but my Calla did not so much as flinch. In fact, her smile grew.

“Oh, Vos.” She chuckled. “You want to play? Then by all means, let’s play.”

I had hoped the rain would ease to a drizzle by the time we went outside, but if anything the downpour had increased in volume. If the deluge bothered Calla, she did not say so. Poe moved out of our way, trundling in a perimeter around the inside of the wall, monitoring our surroundings with two eyes while the third watched us.

“I am used to heavy rain, but it puts you at a disadvantage,” I said as my Calla and I faced each other in the garden. “We can postpone this match until it eases, if you want.”

She smiled as if she knew I was provoking her. “It’s just rain, Vos. I won’t melt. ”

“I will not use my tentacles, then.” I tucked them behind my back and made my expression sympathetic. “I am already much faster and larger than you. We are only sparring, but even so, the fight must not be so lopsided in my favor.”

“I’d be more susceptible to your goading if I hadn’t spent so many years taking shit from the rest of my squad. They’re much, much better at it than you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want to forfeit because you’re scared to hurt your sweet little mate? I’m disappointed in you, Vos. You didn’t have any trouble giving me pain an hour ago when I asked you for it.”

I went for her before she finished speaking, moving at about three-quarters of my true speed, with the crackling edge of my sword facing away from her chest so only the sharp metal would touch her skin. We had agreed we would draw blood, but the plasma would cause an excruciating wound.

When my blade reached where she had been standing, though, she was no longer there.

The point of a dagger prodded my lower back, directly above one of my kidneys.

“Missed me,” she said, laughing.

My tentacles darted to grab her as I spun, blade raised. I turned just in time to see her roll out of their reach and flip to her feet. I felt the sting where her dagger had poked me, but my back was not bleeding.

“I took pity on you,” my Calla said, smirking as she braced herself with blades at the ready. “That was too easy. I think you might be out of practice. I’ll have to move slower to give you a chance.”

“There is more to you than meets the eye, Calla Wren.” I studied her stance. A modified J’noran close-combat position, ideal for someone her height and weight. She had adapted it to account for wielding mid-sized daggers rather than the longer curved blades of J’noran intanas . Perfection.

How was it possible that each time I thought I could not desire her more, she found a new way to be utterly captivating? Perhaps she had bewitched me, but not with magic—with the many facets of her wonderful, glorious, complex self.

“Are you going to stare at me all day, or come at me like you actually want to win?” she taunted. “Come on, Vos. Stop looking at me like you want to fuck me and come play with me.”

Come play with me .

I would, forever, if she gave me the chance.

With a grin, I went for her, sword raised. She met me with her daggers and a laugh before spinning out of my grasp and the reach of my blade once again.

We traded parries, thrusts, and light blows around the garden. And gods above, she was good. Better than good—exquisite, fast, and light on her feet, more like a dancer than any opponent I had faced in a very long time.

True to her word about wanting to find her limits after her injuries and recovery, my Calla came after me with all her skill and ability. She pushed herself hard, and once she found her confidence, she drove herself harder, until she dripped with sweat in addition to rain.

Her blades sliced through the fabric of my tunic and my pants three times, never quite drawing blood, while she avoided the edge and point of my sword altogether.

My warrior Calla was truly magnificent, and my awe knew no bounds.

Even so, I could not forget that much of her skill had come at an unfathomable cost: eleven years in the arenas. I had not asked her age, but she seemed more than twenty-five standard years, if not closer to thirty. What had she done during the intervening years between leaving Ganai and enlisting in the Alliance Defense? She had only spoken of that time obliquely, alluding to its violence and peril, but given no specifics.

Someday I would ask, but not now. The fact she had not told me indicated she did not yet wish to say .

All too soon, I felt I must call a halt to the match. We had a long walk to the ocean. My Calla must have enough energy and strength not only to make the journey there and back and swim if she wanted, but to fight if necessary.

And so a few steps at a time I backed her up to the wall of the house, blocked her escape with my tentacles, and crushed my mouth to hers, hoping she could feel all my adoration and admiration in my kiss. If not, I was not above falling to my knees in the mud so she would know how in awe of her I was.

A sharp sting in my thigh and a trickle of heat from the wound made me gasp.

“First blood, but we can call it a draw if you want,” she murmured against my lips, her eyes twinkling. “Now, my Vos, take me to the sea.”