Page 12

A few days later, Zoran stepped into his home and secured the door behind himself. Wearily, he shrugged out of his robe and raked a hand through his hair, smoothing it behind and around his horns. He’d had parties out combing the surrounding jungle since the night Mia caught a glimpse of something. Parties comprised of his finest warriors, his best trackers. What she’d seen, he couldn’t say, as they’d found no trace of the vicious predators that had once preyed upon his people. They’d wiped out the vyirkolen after eliminating the Var’Kol. Native predators with that coloring seldom strayed far from their natural habitats.

Was his mate seeing ghosts among the trees, or had something else caught her eye?

Mia glanced up at him and smiled. She was sitting on a cushion in the sunken area below the kitchen, a bright spot among the paper scattered around her. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders, gleaming richly, and he gritted his teeth against the urge to stalk across the room and bury his face in her throat.

She beckoned him forward. “Come sit with me.”

“I have been in the jungle, mate.”

“Want me to help you clean up?”

A growl worked its way out of his chest. Would that he could accept her innocent offer. “What are you working on?”

Her eyes glinted knowingly at him as she dropped her hand. “Several things, to be honest. I’ve got a list.”

Her humor drew him forward as surely as a rope fastened firmly around his heart. He found himself yet again standing before her without having a conscious memory of moving. To distract himself from the heat kindling low in his gut, he squatted beside her and picked up one of the papers. It was a hand drawn sketch of a local tree, carefully labeled in her own language.

“We have these diagrams aplenty, Mia,” he chided gently.

“Labeled in Xeruvian,” she responded, seemingly unoffended. “Dissecting plants this way helps me learn. It fixes the information in my mind.”

“If you drew me, would it fix me in your mind?”

She laughed lightly and took the paper from him, setting it aside. “You’re already fixed in my mind. How was your day?”

“My day went well, thank you. And your own?”

“Busy, as usual. There’s a million things to do.” She leaned forward and brushed her fingertips along his jaw. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit with me for a while?”

And taint his mate with the sweat and dirt accumulated during his long day? “I need but a few moments, then I am happy to comply.”

“Good. I waited supper for you.”

He bit back a reprimand, clearly remembering how upset she had been when he suggested that she take the evening meal without him. “Families eat together,” she had stated, as fierce as any warrior he knew. That she considered him family had hit him so hard, his rebuttal had died on his lips.

Once he bathed and pulled on a fresh set of loose trousers, he padded barefoot back to her. She had put away her papers while he showered, pulled together their meal, and set it on the low table in the seating area.

He joined her there, sitting on a cushion beside her. They ate silently for a while, companionably, and he had to admit that she was right. Eating together was far better than the solitary meals he had endured before meeting her. It had been many years since something had drawn him home at night. Their food was different, but that was of no consequence. What mattered was this, sitting beside her, feeling her limbs brush his, eating a meal she had prepared for him with her own hands.

He had not yet provided a meal for her, a lack his mother would scold him over. Was it not his duty to see to his mate’s wellbeing? Yet, he knew such could not always be helped and raised a silent prayer to the Fates that Earth bred such self-sufficient women as his mate.

But there were other ways to provide, and this he addressed now. “Are you satisfied with this studio apartment?”

She huffed at his carefully phrased question. “It’s fine. Cozy. I love the view.”

He hummed an assent. “It is not too small?”

“For us? No. Why?”

“You are my mate. Thus must I please you in all things.”

“Are you teasing me?” She leaned in, caught the glimmer in his eyes, and laughed. “I like the apartment, Zoran. It’s a little spartan, but it suits you.”

He fixed his gaze on his meal, searching for the right words. “It should suit you as well. If you should want to change anything, perhaps add color or the fripperies females enjoy, then you must feel free to do so, with my blessings.”

“What would you know about fripperies?”

“I have a mother and a sister. Had a sister.”

Her humor drained away and she set down her spoon. “Had?”

“Her life was claimed in the earthquakes. She was working in another jutji —” His throat closed, and he laid his own spoon aside. “She liked colorful things. Feminine things.”

Mia’s hand slid into his, small and warm and comforting. “You miss her.”

“Every day. My father, too.”

She sucked in a breath. “Oh, Zoran. I’m so sorry. Come here.”

Mia held out her arms, and he, in this unexpected sorrow, was helpless to resist her. He drew her against him, there on the cushions, and buried his face in her throat as he had wished to do earlier. She accepted him now, cradling him to her, her touch tender and thrilling and welcome.

They sat like that for a long time, while their meal grew cold and Zephyria’s small moons shone like bright jewels against the sky beyond their home. She stroked his hair, murmuring nonsensical things to him, and gradually, the sorrow and guilt loosened within his chest.

When he could draw himself away, he shifted his hold on her, pulling her across his lap with one arm supporting her back and a hand on her hip. Her eyes were brilliant and calm, and in them he found a quiet understanding.

“You smell nice,” he said.

A quick smile flashed across her face. “I just washed my hair.”

“Your hair is beautiful.” He skimmed a hand up her side and fingered a strand, letting it slide against his palm over and over again. “Soft. Like midnight.”

She softened against him and pressed her palm flat against his bare chest. “Thank you for the chocolate. And the comb. And the clothes.”

A pleased growl rumbled through him. “The chocolate was good?”

“Chocolate is always good.”

Her hand skimmed down his chest and back up again, and he realized she was petting him, as if he were a wild animal she had caught and sought to tame. How right she was, he thought, inordinately pleased. She was his to claim. He was hers to tame.

“Were you serious about the fripperies? I’ve already spent so much on clothes.”

His upper lip curled in a faint snarl. “Woman, you have barely enough clothing to last a senna.”

“Senna?”

He held up four fingers to show her the duration.

“Four days?” she guessed.

“Yes, mate. And what little you bought is not nearly enough. You will have to work much harder to beggar me.”

Her grin flashed like lightning through him as she curled her hand around his nape and pressed a fleeting kiss to his mouth.

“More,” he growled.

“Come down here and maybe I’ll—oh!”

He caught the exclamation with his mouth, breathing it in as he settled his lips on hers. She relaxed against him, returning his kiss more eagerly than he could have hoped. Was she perhaps softening toward him, forgiving him for forcing the mark on her?

Though that had not been his intent, not entirely.

She scraped her fingernails lightly down his chest. He gentled their kiss and drew away reluctantly, pressing his forehead to hers so that their breaths might mingle a while longer.

“Zoran?”

“Yes, beloved?”

She sucked in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. “Can we spend more time together? I mean, we’ve both been so busy. You must have so many things on your plate, and I—”

He silenced her with a kiss. “Yes, mate. Anything you desire, you have but to ask.”

“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Like you never want to let me go.”

The request sent a tremor through his body. He groaned helplessly and shifted his head, lightly touching his lips to hers. Happy to oblige her simple, beautiful need.

The next morning, Mia woke in a cocoon of warmth. The day was bright. She could tell even without opening her eyes. A pleased smile touched her mouth, and she snuggled into the curve of Zoran’s body. It was the first time since they’d arrived on Zephyria that he hadn’t been gone when she woke up.

His hand slid over her hip, glancing along her waist and shoulder, igniting the most delicious heat wherever it landed, even through the thin tunic she wore. He’d kissed her senseless last night, thoroughly exploring her mouth while holding her hand in the most tender gesture of affection a man had ever given her. And then they’d gone to bed and cuddled into sleep, and it had been perfectly, incandescently beautiful. No pressure to rut, no snarling or growling.

Well, just a few sexy growls when she opened for him or accepted his touch or ventured to explore him the way he explored her. But she liked those growls. They made her feel special and naughty and his .

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was courting her.

He stiffened behind her and whispered, “Be still, pjora-la .”

Her eyes opened reflexively. There, not a foot from her face, crouched a stocky winged animal no longer than her forearm. It shimmered an iridescent, metallic azure. Its wings were translucent black membranes flaring away from its back, but what caught her attention were the needle-like, blue-black teeth it bared at her.

Zoran’s hand snapped out and captured the creature’s head, sealing its jaws shut. The thing writhed in his grasp, slashing wings and a prehensile tail in absolute fury. Zoran rolled across her still holding it, then walked casually through the wall’s open archway onto the balcony, thrust the creature through the invisible field with an audible pop, and let it go. It plunged back at him, attacking swiftly. The field popped again, stinging the tiny creature, and it reared back, hissing angrily at Zoran.

He watched until it wheeled and flew away, and just as casually turned and slipped back into bed with her, pulling her against him with a startling abruptness. “Mia, be calm. You are safe.”

Her gaze was locked on the spot where the creature had squatted. There were holes in the bedding. Not little holes. Holes big enough to poke her pinky through.

Claws , she thought, trembling. It must’ve been standing there for a while, working up the courage to attack, for its claws to have ripped the bedding that much.

A memory popped into her head. One of her mother’s figurative war stories that happened before Mia was born, when her mom was still with the CDC. She’d been in Kenya working an outbreak of the Marburg virus. Somehow, a black mamba had found its way into the relief area. Mom had bent down to retrieve something she’d dropped and come face to face with it. Thankfully, the snake had been taken care of without anyone being struck.

Mia shivered. Mom had relayed the incident more than once, always in a casual, unflappable tone. How could she have spoken so calmly? It was like looking up and finding death watching you, counting the moments until he could claim your soul for his own.

Mia made an inarticulate strangled sound. “What was that?”

Zoran replied with a word that didn’t match what came out of his wrist device.

“That,” she said, popping the final tee hard, “was not a dragon.”

“The name is unimportant. What matters is that I would never have allowed it to hurt you.”

“How did it get in?” She couldn’t quite tear her eyes from those holes. It had been so close, just inches away. Well within striking distance for an animal that size.

“Not-dragons are curious creatures, cunning in their own way. Occasionally, one wanders out of the deep jungle and stalks through the protective fields surrounding our open structures in search of prey.”

“I want doors,” she said flatly. “French doors with windows that let in the light and the view. Lockable doors I can seal shut at night because this is not Earth, and I don’t know what the dangers are, and you can’t guard me every hour of every day.”

He growled and, between one breath and the next, pushed her onto her back and covered her body with his own. His eyes glared a hot, bright green at her and he snapped his teeth just above her nose.

“Never,” he said, so distinctly she could clearly understand the Xeruvian phrase above the English translation, “will I allow any harm to befall you.”

“Never?” she repeated back in Xeruvian. “So you’re my shadow now?”

Another growl rumbled out of him. “I do not know whether to be pleased at your attempt to speak my language or irritated that you question the depths of my need to protect you.”

Some of the fear bled out of Mia. “It’s too pretty outside to argue.”

“What effect does the weather have on our discussion?”

“It’s something we say. Human logic.”

“Is this akin to female logic?”

Laughter bubbled out of her at the raw skepticism in his expression. To distract him, she slid a hand down his side and squeezed his hip. “You’ve got me where you want me. What are you going to do with me?”

Heat of a different kind filled his eyes, and his body went taut against her. “What do you wish me to do?”

“Well, that not-dragon just scared ten years off my life.” He scoffed. She dug her fingernails into his hip through the loose pants he wore as a mild reprimand. “You could kiss the fear away.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. “A kiss.”

“Or I could—”

He dropped his mouth to hers, silencing her in the best way possible, and drew back only to bury his face in her throat. “Mia,” he moaned. His teeth grazed her skin once, twice, then settled firmly over his first mark, the mating mark, the one he’d taken from her before she fully understood what he wanted.

And he wanted to mark her again, there, in that place where their union had begun.

She shifted her face away from him, baring her throat. Her hand crept to the back of his head, cradling him there, and she tangled her fingers in his hair. Feeling so much. God, how he made her feel.

“Zoran, please.”

Everything happened at once. His legs shifting against hers, a needy groan rumbling from him, his hand cupping her shoulder, the callouses on his palm scrubbing lightly against her arm. His teeth pierced her skin, and she gasped at the sharp pain, moaned when it morphed into a dark, heady pleasure.

“Again,” he demanded, his mouth grazing her cheek.

“Where?”

“ Everywhere .”

She felt his husky promise in every cell of her being and blurted out a helpless plea. “God, Zoran. What are you doing to me?”

“What I should have done from the beginning, pjora-la , from the first moment of our meeting.”

Claiming her .

His fingers grasped the neck of her tunic and pulled, steadily ripping the fabric away from her chest, baring her to his gaze. He leaned back, studying his handiwork with a satisfied smile. “Do you know the significance of these marks, beloved?”

Her brain couldn’t quite focus through the sensual spell he’d so deftly woven around her. “Alara and Jyrak have them.”

“You did not think to ask why?”

“It seems personal.”

“It is.” His hand slid up her ribcage, stopping just under her naked breast, and he glanced up at her, desire etched sharply in his strong features. “Even human skin will heal, given enough time. This is so?”

She nodded against the pillow, wishing fervently that his hand hadn’t stopped there, splayed along her side, that he’d kept going and covered her breast fully. “Why?”

“The mating mark is not permanent. It was never intended to be, not from one mark alone. To imbue permanence, the mark must be renewed continually over the life of the bearer. For that mark to never fade is a symbol of the mating bond’s strength.” His eyelids lowered and he seemed almost shy now. “We find them beautiful, a testament to a love that can only be shared between mates. You are my mate, Mia, and I will never let you go. Thus does my desire to mark you run high in my blood. Yet I find myself reluctant to mar the delicate beauty of your skin.”

A tiny piece of her heart melted for him, falling through the barriers of mistrust and forgiveness into love. She stroked his hair gently and let her fingertips trail down the line of his spine, petting him, taming him to her.

“Where else do you want to mark me?” she said, her voice as tender as her touch.

His thumb brushed across the side of her breast and came to rest against her nipple, and heat spasmed through her. “If it so pleases you.”

“Yes,” she breathed, already anticipating the wet heat of his mouth.

He dipped his head to her throat instead, murmuring so softly, the translator failed to catch his words. His lips traced the column of her throat, sucked gently on the hollow at its base, then trailed along her collarbone. She shrugged restlessly beneath the featherlight caresses as a yearning grew within her for something more, something harder, faster, for all of him everywhere.

But Zoran took his time, lightly flicking the tip of his tongue down the slope of her shoulder, nuzzling the plane of her upper chest, rubbing his chin over her upper arm. Then doing it all again with his claws, scoring her in deliciously sensual, teasing strokes until her legs shifted against his and her hips arched into his abdomen.

His mouth came down on hers, and it was as if he’d heard her silent yearning, for now his kiss was firm and demanding, sharply contrasted against his gentle play. Give to me , this kiss seemed to say. Give me everything .

She whimpered into his mouth, felt him swallow it down, felt the stroke of his thumb across her nipple. Instinctively, she dug her fingernails into his back, and when he rewarded her with one of his lovely, ever so pleasing growls, she grew bold enough to run a firm hand along one of his horns.

He reared back, panting hard, his irises so dark, they were nearly black.

She bit her lip in dismay. “Did I do it wrong?”

“No, my love,” he murmured. “Do it again.”

And finally, he bent and sucked her nipple into his mouth, pulling hard against the tiny bud, his fangs penetrating her skin above the areola, pushing her over the edge. She gasped as a sharp orgasm rolled through her, swamping her under a tidal wave of emotion and heat, and she felt that small measure of love rise to meet it, rising, rising.

Zoran rasped the flat of his tongue across her nipple, then rose above her, kneeling between her widespread legs. She’d worn no underwear to bed; her single pair from Earth was drying in the bathroom, leaving her fully on display to his wickedly hot gaze.

He raked his palm down her body from breastbone to the feminine mound between her thighs. “The thought of all the marks we will give each other in the coming years brings me a great deal of pleasure, mate.”

Her gaze snapped to his. “That many?”

“As many as you will allow me,” he rumbled, satisfied. He pushed down the waistband of his pants, freeing his erection, and stroked it once from balls to tip. “Will you trust me, my love?”

She eyed the length of his hardness, uncertain. He was built like a human male, very nearly identical save for the shape of the tip. No mushroom cap, just a broad head tapering straight down to a thick base.

“Why?” she said. “What are you going to do?”

His husky laugh feathered over her as lightly as his mouth had. “My inquisitive little klika . Trust me.”

Before she could say another word, he leaned forward and pressed the tip of his erection against her clit.

She stiffened automatically, one hand flashing down to land atop his free hand where it gripped her thigh.

“Have no worries, Mia. We will not take that path today.”

“No rutting?” she said, her voice so small she wondered that it had come from her. “No penetration?”

“Not with my manhood. My tongue, yes. Perhaps my fingers. Does it please you to know what plans I hold for you?”

She squinched her eyelids closed on a wave of embarrassment. “Oh, my God,” she said, drawing another husky laugh from him, accompanied by the faint click of his teeth. “Ok, alright. I trust you.”

Still, when he slid the head of his cock down and teased her entrance with it, she stiffened again. Immediately, he eased it away and played it over her clit again. Down again and up, spreading moisture along him and her both.

She tore her gaze away from his cock and watched his face instead. He studied her with the same intensity he brought to every task, focusing on whatever pleasure he meant to share with her. His eyes narrowed slightly when he slid his cock down, and she saw him hesitate for the briefest of moments, no more than a second each time he repeated the action.

Amazement bloomed in her as she realized what he was doing. He was trying to accustom her to his touch, to get her used to the feel of him in this most intimate of places, readying her for…what? Not penetration. He really wasn’t going to push into her. Not today.

Then her mind replayed what he’d said, and she blinked and whispered, “Oh.”

His tongue. His fingers.

She swallowed to wet a suddenly dry throat and sucked her lower lip into her mouth. “Zoran?”

His gaze remained fixated on his play. “Yes, pjora-la .”

“I think I’d like you to mark me again.”

His eyes flew to hers, and she was relieved to see that some of the color had returned to their dark depths. A slow smile spread across his face. Before she could answer him in kind, he was flat on the bed below her, chest down, with his teeth buried in her thigh and his cheek pressing hard against her lady bits. Her hips thrust against his face, seeking both pleasure and pain, and he snaked a hand under her other thigh, nestling it in the crook of his arm as he splayed his palm along her lower abdomen and held her still, right where he wanted her.

He took his time with this mark, piercing the flesh once, lapping the sting away with his tongue. Sucking lightly until she moaned and writhed, then digging his fangs in again in the exact same spot. His cheek provided a counterpoint to his movements, brushing against her clit in the best kind of tease until she had to curl her fingers into the bedding to keep herself from begging him.

Harder, faster, more .

With one final lick, he abandoned her thigh and captured her clit in a hard, demanding kiss, sucking her into his mouth as he had her skin, so hard she rolled her hips against him and crested sharply in another orgasm.

“Good girl,” he growled, and she whimpered and panted, and still would not beg.

His tongue slid lower, echoing the path his cock had taken, and pushed gently against the skin around her opening. There was no hesitation this time, however, no patient play as he accustomed her to his touch. One moment his tongue teased the edges of her pussy. The next it pushed deep into her, so deep his fangs grazed her skin.

He drew back long enough to murmur, “Taste so good.” Then his mouth closed over her clit and his finger replaced his tongue, easing slowly into her, filling her. He hummed against her skin, flicked his talented tongue against her clit, and touched a livewire buried deep in her channel. She came apart then, her hands clenched into fists against the bedding, her hips grinding into his mouth, and the plea slipped unbidden from her mouth.

“Please, Zoran!”

His laugh thrummed through her, strangely sensual and dark, and a second finger joined the first, stretching her so well, she cried, “Good mate.”

The words spurred him into a frenzy. Where before he’d been first gentle and then firm, now he ravaged her like a wolf savaged its prey. His touch didn’t just demand her response; it commanded her to obey him, commanded her to yield, to give herself wholly, to shatter.

And so, she did, shattering into an infinite interplay of light and shadow meant for him and him alone, hanging suspended against him as he wrung every morsel of pleasure from her, swallowing it greedily into himself.

Mia floated for a while in the downdraft, heady on the depth of the high he’d given her. More than once, she thought, amazingly unembarrassed. Her senses returned to her slowly, first the feel of his hard thighs under hers, then the weight of the day’s growing heat, and finally the slick sound of his hand stroking his cock.

She opened her eyes and couldn’t quite hold back a grin. “That was something.”

He rumbled agreement, his gaze firm on hers, his hand almost lazy on his erection.

“You’re not going to, ah.” She cleared her throat and glanced at his cock. “Finish?”

“Are you so eager to wear my seed?”

That did draw a blush. “Wear it?”

“All along the smooth ivory of your stomach, dripping down the pretty flower folds of your pussy.”

“Oh, my God,” she breathed.

He flashed his fangs for her in a dark grin. “One day, I will empty my seed into you and pray it takes root so that I may watch it grow within you into a child born of your blood and mine. This is what I think on now, beloved. The rutting you so feared.”

Images flooded her mind, of Zoran making love to her, of his hand splayed across her gravid midriff, of him cradling their infant tenderly against his chest, his eyes bright above the sharp lines of his cheekbones. The images ignited a longing as deeply rooted as her need for belonging. A child to love and protect. Zoran’s child. The permanence that child represented. How could he have known how much she wanted to belong?

She stretched her hand toward his and glanced her fingertips across his knuckles and the weeping tip of his cock. “Someday,” she said.

“Mia,” he replied as he dropped his head back and his hand moved faster, more urgently, his chest muscles bunching under the movement. A moment later, he gasped and brought his gaze back to hers, and cum splashed in hot ribbons across her stomach, bathing her in his seed. He leaned forward and braced one palm on the mattress beside her, the other hand still holding his cock.

He brushed the tip of his nose against hers, slid a gentle kiss along her mouth, and she understood then the real lesson.

She had nothing to fear from her warlord, and everything to gain by trusting him.