39 Tessi
“You and Azrim seem to be getting along better,” Zorin says as I help him limp back onto my ship. Radar joins us, but curls up on a bed in a nearby room at the back.
“I hope so.” I motion for Zorin to lie back on the medical bed in the bay across from the bedroom. “I need to patch you up.”
“I need a bath first. I am filthy.”
Closing up the ramp, I set us on autopilot for Viriden’s mothership. The skies are clear, and scanners show no enemy ships left in orbit but the two we’ve taken and the debris of the rest.
Zorin peeks into the bathroom at the back of the bedroom. “So are you, by the way.”
I grimace. “Didn’t know he was going to burst like that. I thought he’d just crumple because his bones were dust.”
Zorin chuckles. “Welcome to life with the Aegeris pack.”
I can see why their bloodline might scare Lunas.
Zorin struggles with removing his armor, so I unbuckle his vest and drop it on the floor, then I grab the hem of his shirt and peel it off of him.
The bruises and gashes that glare out at me from his soft blue skin make me want to cry. “Stars, Zorin.”
“It’s been worse,” he says, taking off my armored vest. “Much.”
He peels my shirt over my head, drops it in the pile, and unsnaps my bra. “You know, it’s okay if you want to kiss him, or do other things with Azrim.”
“But you’re my mate. Why would you say that? I mean, I get that we’re sort of co-parenting because packs require…”
“Tessi. Our packs always have a backup male mate. Sometimes, we share. We have fewer females than males. You know we bite claim in front of the pack. You think they don’t get riled up watching other Shifters fuck?
” He strips out of his tactical pants and boots.
“It often turns into a regular mating circle. Every full moon. I’m just saying, if you want him, that’s okay with me. It would make me happy.”
He turns on the shower and steps inside, promptly washing his face. I strip out of my disgusting meat-covered clothes and climb into the shower behind him. The firm mounds of his bare backside are a nice reward after a hellish week.
He wipes his eyes and looks back at me. Teeth elongate in his mouth. His claws come out. But Zorin closes his eyes and inhales deeply. My name rumbles from his lips like the monster inside him is the one in control.
Zorin frantically collects me and buries his lips in mine. He hoists me up by the hips and guides me to the wall. “I want you.”
His whole body trembles as he waits for my response. The hot, soaked tip of his cock grazes my opening as he braces himself beneath me.
Hooking my ankles behind him, I draw him closer and return his breathless kiss.
“The enemy is dead. That means we’re safe, right?” I ask.
“Right. That was what Viriden demanded.”
“Then take me. I am yours.”
“Really?” His body shakes more noticeably now.
I have stared at his toned body all week without a chance to feel all of it. I don’t want to wait and risk never knowing all of him. “Yes.”
Zorin pants as he steadies me against the wall. His firm lips sweep over mine as he reaches below and feeds himself into me. “Forgive me if I mess this up.”
“You can’t mess it up,” I rasp as I strain to accept his girth.
“I never…” Zorin swears and pushes deeper, bracing himself against the wall. “Oh, hell. You’re so tight.”
“That’s all you, Zorin.” I rest my hands on his chest and sense fear and self-consciousness. “You’re huge.” I struggle for air as he spreads my hips. “Why…the hesitation?”
Zorin savors a long lick up my neck. “I never mated Jezza. I didn’t think she wanted me. But I saw them often enough. I mean… I know how it should go.”
Should? “You’re a virgin?”
He bashfully hangs his head. “I was.”
Zorin gathers me against him and turns us around so I can feel the water on my back. “I need a moment. Can you wash?”
“Right now?”
He nips at my throat. “If I move too much more, I’m going to blow. You’re so hot and grip me so hard, I just need a second.”
I wash my hair and what I can of my body in the water, but it isn’t easy with his throbbing shaft buried in me.
“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I had to get inside you, but I…”
Zorin flexes. He’s so large and rigid that I can’t stop the flood of hot need. I clench around him and shudder in delight.
“Oh…shit.” Zorin presses me against the wall, withdraws and thrusts into me.
I tense as his heat floods me with near violent force, and it is so erotic, the way he loses control of himself over me, that I surge to the brink of my climax. Clawing my fingers into his back, I pull him deeper, and buck over his cock, lavishing the way he wrecks me.
Zorin kisses me, then suddenly stops and looks around as my euphoria lingers through my quivering release. Concern narrows his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, feeling him swelling even more as I descend from my high.
“The ship. That’s an alert.”
A screen illuminates in the shower, showing a ship racing toward us and firing.
“Shit!” Zorin carries me out of the shower, grabs a towel and wraps it around me.
“What are you doing?” I ask. “Just put me down.”
“I can’t.” He braces me to him as he runs, naked, through the ship toward the pilot’s seat.
“Zorin, what’s happening?”
He sits, adjusts my legs so they hang between the armrests, then he straps us in, pulling me down over his painfully erect cock. “That’s a rogue Neb. Looks like they’ve been hiding.”
My hips stretch more as he flies us in erratic movements trying to shake the Nebs. His cock stiffens until I’m dripping with fresh need.
“But why do I have to stay?” I demand as the ship’s movements make me sway and jolt in his lap. Every jarring movement builds on a secondary high. “Oh…Zorin…”
“It’s…” He hesitates, blushes, and refocuses on the sky. “I can’t pull out. It’s…stuck. It just happens.”
“What…like you are knotted in me?”
“If that’s what you call it. It’s going to be like that until I calm the fuck down. Which right now is going to be a minute.”
There must be defensive weapons or something we can use. “Flares?”
He taps a dash screen. “I got it. Hang onto me, Tessi.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and hold him tightly. He flies the ship in a spiral. The rapid thumps of munitions echo through the cabin. Flares flicker in vibrant gold streams behind us. I watch them fly by the windows just before we bank around a chunk of a dead ship.
Light blooms behind us, and Zorin celebrates.
“Right into their own debris. Ha!”
But when he kicks down the engines, the jolt is too much. His hard, swollen cock shifts in me just enough to tip me into another blissful climax. “Zorin!”
He rips the belts off, scoots to the edge of the seat, and rocks his hips into mine. We become a sweaty tangle of arms and legs as he pumps into me again.
When he knots this time, he remains still, except for his lips which caress mine with admiration.
“Thank you for going after my brother, for fighting with us instead of running away when things got hard.”
I smirk and draw his bottom lip between my teeth before letting it slip free. “I like your kind of hard.”
He hangs his head and laughs. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Don’t hold me to a standard above you.” I lift his chin so he’ll meet my gaze.
“I realize now that you felt left behind by Azrim, and like his mate didn’t want you.
But I do. And to me, every life in this universe has equal but different potential.
Radar may only be a dog, but he has helped with things I could not do on my own, just like I stitched up his paw because he doesn’t have thumbs.
“But this is my point. No one is better than anyone else. We all have potential. Some use it. Some abuse it. And some ignore it. We have what we do because we fight for it. That is what I have learned…since I met you.”
Zorin draws my hands to his chest. “Can you feel it? How much I love you?”
The sensation is powerful as it resonates through my palms. “Yes.”
“Good.” Zorin picks me up and carries me back into the shower. When he’s finally calm, he eases himself out of me and sets my feet on the ground again. Then he washes every inch of me and refuses to let me help.
“I have not properly cared for my mate,” he defends. “That changes, starting today.”
Zorin dries me off, wraps my hair in a towel and folds it over my head like he knows what he’s doing. He puts our dirty clothes in a bin in the wall and grabs me a fresh set. He doesn’t bother with caring for himself until I’m taken care of.
“You should pilot your ship into the hangar on Viriden’s vessel. I will ensure I am clean and presentable to your long lost family.”
I hesitantly leave him behind to take the pilot’s seat.
“Tessi, Lumen Command. Come in.”
I answer. “This is Tessi.”
“Do you need assistance? Our scanners showed a ship out your way.”
“No. Zorin handled it.” And me.
I notice Zorin bracing his injured side.“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Zorin stretches through his obvious pain, releases his side, and enters the bedroom.
I roll my eyes as I guide us into position with Viriden’s ship. Zorin comes out later in his cleaned uniform, however damp, and his cleaned vest with wiped down weapons.
I request a dock site through the dash and am approved for a hangar. The door opens in Viriden’s ship, and I hover us inside.
Zorin is quiet as we hike down the ramp and are greeted by Viriden’s guards. They escort us to a large meeting hall where other Shifters and Isonians gather.
Viriden looks up from a table screen as someone speaks into his ear. He stalks toward us, smiles at me, and frowns at Zorin. “You disobeyed orders.”
Zorin’s body sags.
I take his hand in mine. “Any punishment you give to him, you also give to me.”
“Tessi, don’t say that. You don’t deserve that.”
I confidently face Viriden. “I am the opposite of my father. I unmask, see through shields, even those around hearts. Zorin is a good soldier. If you punish him for any reason, it will discourage others from wanting to be like him.”
Viriden chews a lip and nods. “Walk with me. We need to discuss the future with your brother and your M-pack.”