Chapter 8 #2
It was much easier to take offense at what he said than to allow the simmering heat between us to flare.
His laugh was sexy, his surprise at laughing was cute, and on top of that, he was simply too pretty and big not to be appealing.
I was the one invading his personal space?
No way, I’d kept a polite distance most of the time.
He’d been the one pinning me to a wall, twice.
He was the one kissing me, although I had dared him to do that.
He looked too big to fit through the hatch, so he could slide down into the pod.
Wide shoulders, thick thighs, and arms that bulged with muscle.
Somehow, he seemed to twist and then slide in with ease, gracefully landing in the open seat, his knees bracketing mine.
If he’d appeared big before, crowded in such a small space, he felt huge now.
He dwarfed me by a good foot, and his shoulders did not properly fit inside the seat.
He casually reached over his head to pull the hatch shut, then touched the control unit and initiated the launch with competent fingers.
He knew what he was doing, all right, as if he’d been inside one of these before, or one very similar to it.
Sons of Ragnar lived for as long as they did not die in battle, and killing them in combat was nearly impossible.
Their symbionts were immortal, strange beings that nobody had ever been able to study.
It was very possible that while I’d slept for over seven hundred years, Sin had actually lived through each and every one of them.
Val had become part of him while inside the pod, coating his body like a second skin and somehow managing not to take up all that much space. In her Gracka shape, she never could have fit in here with us, but as armor? You wouldn’t even know she was there, very impressive.
As the control unit began counting down its launch in a monotone female voice, I hurried to secure the safety harness around me.
Sin did not bother with his, and I did not tell him that he should.
I doubted he needed it. When he pushed my fingers away and tightened the straps over my chest, every brush of his hands seemed intentional, and it made me clench my thighs tightly together.
Sharp noses didn’t need to know how that made me feel, even if the point was probably moot. His smug smirk said it all.
To distract him, I talked over the sound of the countdown.
“Have you been to Earth? You seem familiar with our technology, and it must be pretty dated by now…” Ah, damn, why did that suddenly make it feel like a rock had lodged itself inside my throat?
So what, I’d slept through the war and we’d lost. Nothing I could do about it now.
I should be glad Kadri and the others would never know.
“I don’t remember,” he said, and I knew that was a lie.
The last buckle was secured, but his fingers lingered on it, gleaming silver.
I watched more of it spread across my chest like a stain of mercury, pooling there and then spreading in a web-like pattern.
When it reached my shoulders, it curled over them, and I knew he was adding his own layer of security to keep me in my seat.
See, I knew he’d never harm me; that was simply not his nature.
Trap me, tie me up, boss me around, sure, I could see him do all those things.
The way my pulse hammered between my legs at the thought, I clearly liked that.
“What’s Earth like now? Did the UAR take control of everything, or did others manage to stop it?
” I asked. That was the most important question, and one I was almost certain I already knew the answer to.
Maybe I shouldn’t ask it; maybe I should let him distract me with more claiming kisses and intimidation tactics.
It would make me feel good for a while, and maybe I’d be better equipped to deal with the answer afterward.
He didn’t answer, but whether that was because he knew I was not ready to hear it, or because he was not willing to give me the bad news, I wasn’t sure.
Then the pod finished its countdown and launched, abruptly forcing me back into the seat, noise roaring as we rattled around in the tinny canister, packed together like sardines.
It took several endless seconds before the rattling faded and our escape pod’s route smoothed out.
Like this, it was impossible to even tell if we were moving.
I locked eyes with Sin, wondered only once if I had been mistaken in putting so much faith in him, and then brushed that thought aside.
“Fine, don’t tell me,” I said, and then threw down my dare.
“Tell me what this means instead.” I raised my wrist to point at the silver Val had left around it.
Nothing in any literature I’d read about the Sons of Ragnar mentioned anything like it.
As far as anyone knew, the symbiont never touched other people—only their bonded master.
Then again, the symbionts were supposed to be black too, not silver.
Sin’s silver eyes were so dark beneath his brow that they reminded me of thunderclouds.
I squirmed uneasily, and that made my legs bump against his.
We were packed so closely together that the only way we’d be more comfortable was if I climbed into his lap.
I couldn’t, because the safety harness—and Val—kept me restrained, pinned to the seat.
“Play with fire, you get burned,” Sin drawled—a warning, voiced in a tone that seemed designed to be cruel.
I bumped my legs into his again, just to annoy him, because he really didn’t scare me.
His arms rippled as he crossed them over his chest, and now they almost brushed against the harness over my breasts.
If I inhaled deeply, would we touch? Tempting.
“Coward,” I told him, and got a furious growl in response.
It had been too big a shove; he couldn’t let it pass without some kind of retribution.
I knew I had to get my words in now, before he silenced me.
Although I was pretty certain I’d enjoy the way he’d do it, every aching second of it.
“You’re the one invading my space, you big lunk.
You’re the one who woke me and then ran away.
And you’re the one who can’t give me a straight answer, and it’s not for the reasons you think.
You’re scared you’ll hurt my feelings, aren’t you?
You’re scared of facing the truth. You’re scared to make yourself that vulnerable. Well, I’m not.”
The harness dropped away from my body like it was nothing, and then I really was in his lap, and also pinned, by his arms, by the way his symbiont had curled around me.
He roared, and it made my ears ache, but it was a pain that instantly vanished.
Soothed by the silver that rushed to cover them, protect them, heal them.
He kissed me next—all teeth and fang and tongue—definitely meant to punish, and it just made me ache for him.
“Mate,” I snarled in his face. Val let me raise my hand, freeing it from his restraints to press against his cheek.
The faint shimmer of markings that lay beneath his gray skin gleamed brighter at the touch, exactly as I’d known it would.
“That’s right,” I said, when he snapped his teeth but only glared in silent fury.
“I knew it, you knew it, and you tried to walk away, anyhow. Coward.”
If I hadn’t studied alien life forms as thoroughly as I had, I probably wouldn’t have realized.
I had, though, and the signs had begun clicking together when Sin tore into Val the moment he noticed the silver clinging to my wrists.
No wonder his scent was like catnip, and every word he’d snarled or drawled at me in mockery had felt a bit like foreplay.
It was kind of a relief to know this, to call him out on it.
If there was anyone I could trust to see to it that I had a future beyond this wreckage of a mission, it was my mate.
Sin certainly did not appreciate being called a coward, or being called out, period. Given his arrogant attitude, he probably rarely encountered anyone who tried. I was not going to accept anything less than a full partnership, though, so he’d better get used to it.
There was nowhere for him to retreat inside this tiny escape pod, and I was certain he regretted that very much now.
His teeth snapped together in my face, like he wanted to bite my nose off, but he wouldn’t.
His arms were still around me, holding me to his chest, pinning me in his lap: a chaotic contradiction, push and pull.
“Mate?” he growled from between clenched teeth, a vein pulsing at his temple and fury radiating from his eyes.
“You think you want to be my mate? Just when I was starting to think you were no idiot.” Oh, the self-loathing in those words was so intense, it practically crawled down my spine, leaving me feeling dirtied myself.
Well, he could be messed up, I was too, after what I’d been through.
“We won’t know until we give it a try, will we?
” I asked. I didn’t think that would get me what I wanted.
There was no way this Talacan was even remotely capable of saying soft, sweet things.
That should make me run, but I’d had relationships with all the right words and gestures, and they hadn’t worked out.
Maybe it was time to see what was on the other side.
His genetics were telling us we’d be perfect together, but a mating drive that was all about procreation didn’t mean we were right for one another.
Just that we’d make strong kids. Romantic, I was not.