Chapter 4 #2
“Reconnaissance. I track down the bad guys and send their location to my commander. He sends in a team to—” Kill them all sounded so crude and not ladylike when I desperately needed this male to think of me as feminine. As his.
“Wipe them out?” Ethan grunted and the sound felt like approval. My beast preened. Maybe he would understand, after all.
“Yes.” I tore my gaze from his to inspect the wound on his shoulder.
It was healing nicely. Few more minutes and—well, I wasn’t sure what would be next, despite my beast shoving erotic suggestions into my mind faster than I could process, or escape.
Most often repeated was me pulling Ethan’s pants down, climbing on his lap and claiming him right here on the kitchen tile. She truly was an animal.
Mine. She didn’t even try to argue with my assessment.
“Good. Who are you? You’re not FBI. I can’t quite place your accent. Perfect English. New England area?” He glanced down at the ReGen wand. Met my gaze. “Where did you get that? That’s Coalition tech.”
I wanted to tell him everything, but all I could hear was the unfiltered hatred in his, and Jenkins’ voices, when they spoke about aliens and the Coalition.
My beast agreed. Claim first.
He was going to hate us. Me. He was going to hate me. “No, I’m not FBI.”
“What’s your name? At least tell me that much.”
“Lyra.”
“Last name?”
I gave him the name listed on my falsified human documents. “Smith.”
He burst out laughing. “CIA then. Got it, Lyra Smith.” He groaned and reached for his shoulder. I shoved his hand out of the way. “I’m surprised they let you keep Lyra.” He redirected his hand, lifted it to run his fingertips over my cheek. “Too unique. Pretty.”
Was he delusional? How much blood had he lost?
“So, the CIA is trading with the Coalition for specialized technology and not sharing with the rest of us.” His sigh made me want to pull him to my chest and hold him tightly. “Why am I not surprised?”
When I didn’t respond, he continued. “So, who were those jerks in the lab?”
“They belong to a criminal organization called the Silver Scions.” I was pleased to have a question I could answer honestly.
“Not all worlds in Coalition controlled space have joined the Interstellar Coalition of Planets. Some refused. Some individuals, like the three in the morgue, join groups that make them criminals on their own planets. They take their chances with the Hive—and the Coalition Fleet—and live by their own rules.”
“You destroyed the body. Why did you do that? You destroyed evidence in an ongoing investigation.”
I looked away, couldn’t maintain eye contact with the irresponsible, lust-filled images running around in my head.
I wanted to investigate all right. His naked body.
My question, when it finally came, was a blatant invitation.
I barely recognized the seductive whisper in my own voice.
“You want to arrest me, Detective? Put me in your metal handcuffs?”
“Oh, yeah.” The timber of his voice had changed. Gone deeper. My gaze darted to meet his and the heat I saw there made every muscle in my body freeze.
I swallowed around a very large lump in my throat and whispered. “They wouldn’t be able to hold me.” One twist of my wrists and the thin metal would snap. I was female, but I was not human. I was Atlan. Even on my world, the enhancements the I.C. had given me made me far stronger than I should be.
“Prove it.” His gaze dropped to my lips. I tried to distract myself by checking his wound for the hundredth time, noticed my hands were shaking.
“I think you’re in pain and delusional from blood loss.”
“Try me.”
Holy. Gods. His meaning was crystal clear and everything feminine and wild in me lit up like an inferno.
Atlan Warlords restrained their females during claiming.
My body was biologically wired to crave that kind of domination.
Our males would transform into their beasts and lock their mates’ wrists in mating cuffs that were then secured over the females’ heads.
The restraints held the females in place for a thorough claiming.
No escape from the beasts’ desires. Their needs. The beasts’ thrusting cocks.
Only one option when a sexy, powerful male like that claimed a female. Surrender. Give in to the pleasure.
Except Detective Ethan Blake was not an Atlan Warlord, nor a beast. He was off limits.
A human male on a planet where my mere presence was a breach of Interstellar agreements and protocol.
For some inexplicable reason, my body was reacting strangely to this male.
That did not mean I could give in to my insane urge to touch him.
Mate! Mine!
Gods help me, I was going to lose my mind if she did not stop.
Maybe touching him was the problem. He was too close. I could smell his skin. See the way the light shimmered in his hair. Count the flecks of gold around the center of his eyes. Two colors in his eyes. An outer ring of dark green and an inner circle of gold.
I shifted my weight to stand, but Ethan’s hand clamped down on top of mine, preventing me from leaving his side. “How did we get here? That fucking hurt.”
He’d already seen the ReGen wand. As ridiculous as it was, I didn’t want any more secrets between us. “Transport beacons.” I plucked the silver button off his chest and held it up for him to see. “Coalition technology. Specifically, their Intelligence Core. It’s the alien version of the CIA.”
“Thought Coalition could only transport between designated transport stations?”
“That is usually true. In special cases, the beacons are used for site-to-site transport.” I spoke with a cool, crisp, professional voice because if I didn’t, I might allow myself to do very bad, bad things. Bad. Lick him up and down and ride his cock until I screamed, bad.
“So they lied about that, too. What did we have to do to convince them to share this tech?”
Buying some time to think of a response he’d believe, I removed my transport beacon from the lab coat and finally stood, placing them both in a charging port inside the toolkit on the kitchen counter. “That’s not my area, Detective.”
The truth was, we didn’t share. Not this.
Not with the humans. Not even with our own military most of the time.
The Intelligence Core was nothing but spies and assassins.
As one of them, I wasn’t supposed to be here.
Earth was off limits. My investigation was top secret.
Yet here I was, chasing rumors, based on myths, born of ghosts.
“How long have you been tracking those assholes?” His voice was clearer. Calmer. Less delirious.
“Three years.” Three and a half, but who was counting?
Commander Helion contacted me via a secure comm link three days after I watched my brother’s execution on a live broadcast. I’d tried to go see my brother when he was locked up.
They’d told me he was too volatile, too far gone with mating fever to have visitors. I didn’t push. I believed their lies.
A mistake I had regretted every day since.
“Three years on one case? You a glutton for punishment?” He lifted his arm off the ground, moved it around, testing his shoulder. The ReGen wand beeped a warning as he sat up.
The burning fire-water called tears gathered in my eyes and I blinked them into submission. I swore I would never cry again. I’d cried enough. “They killed someone I loved.”
The half-grin disappeared from his lips. “I’m sorry. I know how that feels.”
Did he? Did he truly know what it was like to have one’s entire life, one’s family, destroyed by such evil? I’d lost one brother to the Scions and another to first, mating fever, then the executioner’s table. I had nothing left to live for but vengeance.
Mate! My beast reminded me. Now we had Ethan. We wouldn’t be alone any longer.
He hates aliens. He won’t claim us. I argued with her, tried to keep hope from becoming a living, breathing thing inside me. Inside her.
Guess my silence cued Ethan to change the subject. He sat up and rotated his arm around at the shoulder joint. Forward. Backward. Winced, but achieved full rotation. “Thank you. This is incredible.”
“Stop that.” I dropped down next to him again and picked up the ReGen wand, held it over the back of his shoulder. “Give it a few more minutes. You’re not completely healed yet.”
He glanced down at the wand and poked his fingers through the huge gap I’d torn in his shirt, pressed the new, soft, pink skin that covered the entry wound.
“Holy shit.” He reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it off over his head.
Bare chest and shoulders filled my vision.
Muscular. Warm male. He had a small amount of hair scattered over his wide chest. Strong shoulders.
Strong enough. My beast blasted me with the image of me naked, back to the wall, Ethan’s body wedged between our legs, cock thrusting deep as he claimed us. Filled us with his scent and his seed. Made us his.
Shut. Up. We can’t keep him. He’s human.
Mine.
There was no reasoning with her, and I suddenly had an acute, and very sympathetic understanding of the literal hell our Warlords must suffer when their beasts drove them mad with mating fever.
Incessant demands. Urges. Desire. Need. I could also understand how easy it would be to direct that pent up frustration to violence. Rage.
No wonder males of honor requested execution if they could not find their mates.
Distressing thought when my beast was fighting me for control of my limbs. My fingers twitched with the need to touch. Unable to stop her, I placed my free hand on his back, just below the wound in his shoulder, convinced myself he needed assistance.
He stilled, his gaze darkening as his lips hovered so close I could almost taste them. “What happened to Doctor Pearson? I assume that wasn’t my imagination and he’s gone?”
The reminder of the doctor’s death should have cooled my ardor.
Nope. My beast literally did not care about anything but the warm whisper of air Ethan’s question fanned over my face.
Our face. Her face. “He was shot with an ion blaster on its most powerful setting. Without protective armor, the energy blast atomizes the target instantly.”
“Jesus.”
“I am sorry for the loss of your friend.” Apparently, Ethan was a religious man. I bowed my head to honor his beliefs. “Do you need to pray?”
“What?” He shook his head. “No. You going to try to convince me you’re religious?”
Had to be careful here. “No.” Once upon a time, I’d believed in the gods. These days, if I ever met one of them, I’d strangle them with my bare hands.
He snorted. “Yeah, well, hard to swallow the love and light bullshit in our line of work.” He reached out and turned my head to face him with gentle fingertips. “And I don’t believe in turning the other cheek.”
The movement of his thumb over my bottom lip was driving me to distraction. His eyes seemed hypnotized by the movement as well. “So, you’re a spook.”
Spooks were scary, right? Like ghosts?
“Boo.” Dumbest thing I’d ever said to a sexy, irresistible, incredible alien male part of me wanted to keep forever. My beast didn’t care that he was a human. Did. Not. Care. She simply wanted.
The soft curve of his lips made my stomach flip. He shifted his attention and our gazes locked. “I must have lost more blood than I thought. I think I’m delirious.”
Alarm coursed through me. “What is wrong? Tell me.”
“Despite everything that just happened, all I can think about is kissing you.”
Yes! Yes! Yes! My beast lunged toward him, the push strong enough that my body shifted, leaned in. The warmth of his breath fluttered over my lips. So close. “So kiss me.”
“This is insane.”
“I agree. And I don’t care.” The whispered confession should have shocked me. Less than one day ago I was a female on a mission. Focused. Determined. Now?
His lips closed over mine. Hot. Demanding.
As out of control as I felt. He consumed me with a desperation bordering on anger.
My beast answered in kind. I dropped the ReGen wand and crawled on top of him, straddled his hips.
I buried my hands in his hair and held him in place for my kiss as my hips shifted, rubbing my clit against his hard length through his pants and mine.
There was no gentleness in me. Only need.
Too many clothes.
His hands came to rest on the curve of my hips and he pulled me down on top of him. Harder. Grinding us together until I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
Gods, yes. His cock was hard. Wide. Ready for me. He groaned softly and my beast answered, the sounds coming from my throat unrecognizable. Animalistic. Frantic.
His unique taste rolled through my system like a drug, and I knew, in that moment, I was lost. I would never get him out of my system.
The beast was drunk on his flavor. His scent.
The way his fingertips dug into our flesh and pulled us in.
The way his lips moved. His tongue explored.
Tasted. Demanded entry. Moved, fucking our mouth the way we wanted his cock to move in and out of our hot, wet pussy.
If we were naked, he’d be inside me already.
We weren’t naked because to take off my clothes, I’d have to move away from him. Stop rubbing my clit against his hard cock. Stop touching him. Kissing him.
I didn’t want to stop.
I couldn’t stop.
She wouldn’t let me.