Chapter 22 #2
Rykal brought his lips up against her ear. “My sweet human,” he said, so softly his words were in-between a thought and a whisper. “I never thought I would find someone like you at this end of the Universe. You’re too good for me by far, but I can’t help but surrender to these instincts of mine.”
What? Arin thought through a haze of mind-numbing pleasure. His words and actions were having a strange effect on her; they rendered her incapable of any logical, coherent thought.
“I can’t help but crave you every waking minute. You invade my thoughts and drive me to near-insanity. I can’t stand the thought of you being with another. I need you to be mine alone. Do you understand that, my love?”
Moaning, Arin nodded. Rykal growled and pressed his lips against the soft skin just above her collarbone, possessively grazing her skin with his fangs. Arin brought her hands up and ran her fingers through his silky-soft hair.
Everything about him was tactile bliss. Even though he looked so hard and dangerous—and Jupiter knew he could be hard—he felt wonderful under her fingertips.
Her hands drifted down to his temples, where she felt a curious bump on each side. A low, throaty moan escaped Rykal’s lips as she touched those points.
Arin liked that sound, so she caressed him again, focusing on those points, which seemed to be sensitive. He groaned and pressed his fangs against the bare skin of her neck, breaking her skin. Arin cried out as the heady combination of pain and bliss sent her into the next dimension.
His warm fingers were deep inside her, stretching her, making her writhe in pleasure as she curled her strong legs around him.
“I need more,” Arin whispered, running her thumbs over his sensitive points. “Give me more.”
She’d turned into a lustful, carnal creature, her mind and body completely possessed by him. She couldn’t think of anything else but giving him pleasure and gaining it in return, and that turned her into a woman possessed as frantic need swept over her.
Rykal slowly withdrew his fingers, eliciting a low, animalistic growl from Arin. They were almost upside-down now, but she didn’t care. She was barely aware of her surroundings.
She grasped his magnificent cock and guided him towards her, teasing her entrance with its glistening tip, rubbing it against her clit. The sensation nearly made her howl. Instead, she whimpered. Rykal let out a deep cry and slammed inside her, the ridges of his cock grazing over her clit.
The sensation sent her already saturated arousal into overdrive, and a new feeling worked its way into her core, a tension that made her grip him tightly with her legs and fuck him hard as they twisted slowly in the air.
Her only anchor in this gravity-deprived place was him, so she clung to him like a demon as they went crazy for one another.
Rykal didn’t hold back any longer. He used his powerful limbs to keep her exactly where he wanted her, thrusting his hips as their lean, sinuous bodies collided and eventually became one.
Arin lost all awareness of time and place. All she knew was that her pleasure was building, and as they moved together, entwined, she took more and more from him, and he demanded the Universe from her, and he took it.
And in return, he gave her release like she’d never known.
The orgasm ripped through her like wildfire. She stiffened and arced her back as Rykal fucked her relentlessly, increasing his rhythm as she yelled out and gave full-throated voice to her climax.
In the depths of space, one could be as loud as one pleased.
Rykal pushed her harder, his breath coming in harsh rasps as he consumed her, his powerful body wrapped around her.
Arin slid her fingers up his muscular back and neck, winding them into his silky-soft hair as he thrust deeply inside her, moving faster and faster until Arin was quivering all over again, and one orgasm became two.
This time, Arin howled to the stars and back as Rykal came with her, crying out her name.
His lips were on her again, planting fierce kisses all the way from her mouth to her collarbone, his tongue feathering over her skin, which was now slick with sweat. He licked the spot where he’d marked her, and Arin relaxed against him, curling her arms around his neck.
She was completely, utterly spent, and she felt brilliant. Arin stretched as Rykal held her tightly. They were drifting slowly through the cabin, and Rykal was smiling.
It was a soft, gentle smile, without the hard, glittering edge she was used to seeing. This smile touched his golden eyes and made her insides melt all over again.
This smile transformed his features, making him seem almost boyish and innocent, even though he was anything but, even though his fangs peeked over his lower lip, a clear reminder of his alienness.
“How is this possible?” she asked, luxuriating in his warmth and nearness, still half-amazed that this being, who could cut through metal walls and survive rocket blasts, was all hers.
“I learned long ago not to ask things like why or how. If it’s good, just accept it.” He placed his fingers under her chin, tilting her face up so that he was looking straight at her. “And we are beyond good together.”
“Mm.” She couldn’t deny it. Even though they were supposed to be enemies, this thing between them had grown until it was an entity of its own.
“I used to question everything, but after a while, I stopped. Being in the military does that to you.” She traced her fingers down his cheek, which was warm and dry.
Apparently, Kordolians didn’t sweat. “But when it comes to you, I have to ask questions, because I need to know you. What are you, Rykal, and how can you be this way with me? I thought all Kordolians were hell-bent on conquering the Universe and enslaving all other races. Aren’t you supposed to be cruel and ruthless? ”
He kissed her on the lips, long, slow, and hard.
“I can be,” he said, with a certainty that sent a tiny chill through her.
“I have been cruel in the past. I will probably be cruel in the future. But not to you. Never to you. We protect our own, and now that you’re mine, even the fucking Empire itself can’t come between us.
I might be a wretch, but I know how to take care of what’s mine. ”
Mine. He declared it as if it were the most natural thing in the Universe.
The enormity of it made Arin’s heart flutter. It was both terrifying and exhilarating. “I would do the same for you,” she confessed, although she had no idea what she could possibly protect him from.
He kissed the top of her head. “I know you would. You’re a natural protector.”
Arin shook her head. “You give me too much credit. I just try and do what’s right.” She didn’t mention the persistent sense of failure that dogged her; she was a misfit who should have been sitting in some cushy officer’s position back on Earth.
If everything had gone to plan, she would be following in her mother’s footsteps, but instead, she’d been relegated to a floating backwater called Fortuna Tau.
Ever since her demotion, she’d felt a constant need to prove herself; she’d forced herself to be faster, stronger, and more hardworking than the rest of the peacekeepers on that ill-fated mining station.
It hadn’t been enough.
What was it her mother had called her again?
A colossal fuck-up.
So what? You’d better stop ruminating, Varga.
There was no point in thinking about those things now.
After all, she’d come to enjoy the relative freedom of operating in space. They did things differently up here.
Rykal’s golden gaze dragged her back into the present.
“That’s the difference between you and me,” he said, a trace of admiration in his voice.
“You try to save people. I merely follow the orders of my commander, and occasionally, I take what I desire.” His expression turned wry, his tone half-serious.
This was his way of becoming guarded, and there was that smile again, the one that never quite touched his eyes.
That expression of his could be brutally mocking or scarily bleak.
“Why do you get flashbacks, Rykal?” she asked in a subdued tone, surprising herself. The question had been on her mind for some time, but she was almost afraid to hear his answer.
For a split-second, so quickly she almost missed it, his eyes turned hard, like polished amber.
A gamut of emotion crossed his face as he warred with himself, but a part of him finally won.
Absently, he pressed his thumb to the spot where he’d marked her with his fangs.
“I don’t really know. You see, I’m a half-person.
I don’t have any memories of who I was before they changed me. ”
Arin’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You sure don’t act like someone who’s lost their memories.”
“I was taught not to question such things. I was brainwashed.”
“Was?” Shocked, Arin stiffened. He’d admitted it so easily, as if it were no big deal.
“It was very effective at first, but over time it started to wear off. They thought they could control us by erasing our memories. They thought they could put a mindbond on us just like their cursed Silent Ones, but nano-particles interfere with mindbonds, and eventually things come back, including fragments of memories long past. So you see, I’m walking around with half a brain in my head. ”
“You aren’t a half-person,” Arin said vehemently, suppressing a shudder.
What had her Kordolian been put through in order to become what he was now?
Perhaps she would never know the full extent of it.
“Don’t you ever call yourself that again, Rykal.
I don’t care if you can’t remember everything.
You are who you are, and I’ll take you as you are.
” She was only getting a small glimpse into the dark world Rykal had come from, and it was unsettling.
What would happen to the human race if the Kordolians ever reached Earth?
She didn’t know, and neither did Rykal, but the fact that she’d just made transcendent love to one of them gave her hope. He wasn’t at all what she’d expected a Kordolian to be like.
Rykal shook his head in wonder. “See how much I need you?” he mused, half to himself, before raining another storm of kisses upon her.
They were still floating, like capricious spirits out of some ancient tale, except that they were in an escape pod, waiting for somebody to find them.
As soon as they’d ejected, a distress signal would have automatically gone out to all spacecraft in the near vicinity.
Right now, that would consist of the Arawen and the Marcia.
It was a little concerning that neither of the vessels had tried to make contact yet.
Had Rykal heard from his people yet? She had no idea what the range of his hidden comm device was.
As they drifted, Rykal’s arm shot out and he snagged something out of thin air. “I get the feeling we’ll have company soon,” he draped her jacket over her shoulders, then hooked her utility suit with his toe.
“That’s just a hunch?”
“I felt something just now. Vibrations.”
She stared at him blankly. “But you’re floating.” He wasn’t touching any part of the escape pod’s hull. How could he possibly feel any sort of vibration?
Rykal shrugged. “Just a feeling I get. Happens sometimes.”
By now, Arin knew better than to doubt Rykal’s weird preternatural instincts, so she started to dress herself. As if on cue, the pod’s comm started to chime.
Rykal withdrew from her, raising his eyebrows as if to say: I told you so.
“Shit.” Arin tugged on her utility suit and smoothed down her cropped hair, trying to make herself look presentable, and not like she’d just had wild sex with a sensual alien.
As she settled back into her seat, buckling herself in, the heady afterglow of their lovemaking faded, and cold, hard reality hit her like a wet slap in the face.
The rescue team that had been sent to retrieve her from Fortuna Tau was dead, and Rykal and his fellow warriors, who just so happened to be near-indestructible super-soldiers, were going to force their way into Earth, and…
She was probably in big fucking trouble.