Alien Mate (7 page)

Harsh fingers dug into her forearm and dragged her up.

“Let me go,” she cried, terrified into action. Diana pulled at the meaty hand grabbing her, but the grip of iron didn’t budge, and she found herself being dragged from her cell.

Diana struggled, kicking at her captor and twisting in his grip, but her kidnapper just chuckled, the rattling sound of phlegm making her feel ill.
I’ll die if he touches me.
She shuddered.

“I like a wild one in bed,” he wheezed with a leer, his fetid breath steaming in her face, making her gag.

Diana’s heart froze at his words while deep despair flooded her.
Oh God, someone please
save me. Please.

Too soon they reached a door that the captain opened, flinging her roughly inside.

Diana, eyes awash in tears, stumbled into a hard body inside, and she sobbed as arms of steel wrapped around her. Diana opened her mouth to scream, but stopped when she felt her nose twitch at the clean scent of the chest she’d landed against, a fresh scent she recognized.

“Kor!” she exclaimed, looking up with relief.
He came for me!

Kor gave her a brief, hard smile, his arms tightening around her briefly before he set her behind him.

“You shouldn’t have taken what was mine,” said Kor in a deadly low voice to the captain, his words sending a thrill to the core of Diana’s being.

“Prepare to die,” snarled her repulsive captor.

“Not today. Today I avenge the honor of my betrothed,” said Kor, who suddenly held a silver dagger in each hand, their blades encased in a shimmering light. The captain, chuckling evilly, pulled out a long dagger of his own and with a bellow charged at Kor. Diana backed up fearfully, looking for a place to hide in the small room, for Kor would surely move aside to avoid that deadly-looking rush.

But Kor stood his ground and provided her with a shield using his own body. The brute hit Kor with a grunt, but Kor, like a wall, remained unmoved. A few lightning flashes as Kor moved his deadly blades, and the fight, as quickly as it had begun, was over.

The captain fell with a gurgle to the floor, and Kor wiped his slimy blades on his prone body before sheathing them on his belt. Then he turned to Diana and opened his arms.

Diana flew into them, sobbing with relief. Clutching at him, she pulled his head down to kiss him frantically. “Thank you for saving me,” she murmured against his lips. His arms crushed her against him as he devoured her lips back.

Diana, her relief over her safety and his assuaged, leaned back. He let go of her reluctantly.

Then she yelled at him. “Are out of your mind? You could have been killed!”

Kor looked stunned for a moment, then grinned. “You mean you’d care?”

“No.” Then at his pointed look, she muttered, “Maybe a little.”

“You’re mine whether you’ve said the mating words or not. No one touches what is mine.”

Diana felt goose bumps at his words. His words were possessive, but God, so hot! She threw herself in his arms again, her lips hot and wet against his.

She felt her feet leave the floor as he swept her up into his arms.

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He lifted his head long enough for her to see they were back on his ship and for him to say, “Finish it, Alphie, and see that we’re not disturbed.”

Then his lips came back to crush hers, and Diana clung to him, relief and desire making her determined not to let him go ’til she was truly his, body and soul.

* * * *

Kor had never felt such relief as when he’d found her safe. And revenge had never tasted sweeter. His little earthling, even without the ritual, had come to mean so much to him already. He might not understand the scary dangerous feelings she aroused in him, but he did know they now seemed to rule him.

Her sweet capitulation, instead of reducing this feeling, had actually increased it.
Mine
, he wanted to shout to the world.
All mine
. And he intended to claim her—no more arguments or interruptions.

He laid her on the bed, his body painfully aroused at the sight of her swollen lips and heavy-lidded eyes. He stripped himself quickly, feeling his cock jerk and dance in anticipation. Diana licked her lips watching him, and Kor shuddered, imagining those lips and that pink tongue licking other things. He removed Diana’s garments quickly, something she didn’t protest. Nay, she lifted her hips and helped him, and when she lay before him nude, his heated gaze visually devoured all that creamy flesh that begged for his touch.

When he would have covered her body with his, though, she raised a hand to stop him.

“I want you, Diana,” he whispered, “and I know you want me too.” He slid his hand up her calf to her thigh, feeling his breath almost stop at the way her body arched and writhed at his simple touch.

“Oh,” she gasped, her face flushed. “I want you too. But first . . .” She lost her train of thought as he teased an ebony curl at the
V
of her thighs. “Oh, Kor, damn it, I can’t think.

Do the bond thing quickly, would you, before you drive me mad.”

Kor was tempted to take her first and do the bond after. But he just knew what his mother and the Oracle would say about that. And they’d find out somehow. They had ways of ferreting out a male’s shameful secrets.

At least they were already both naked, and the ritual itself was simple.

“Kneel,” he told her, dropping to his knees on the spongy floor. Diana, in all her naked splendor, knelt before him, and Kor almost asked her to postpone this ’til later. His body ached for her in a way he’d never thought possible.

“Put your hands against mine,” he said, holding up his two hands, palms facing her. She placed her pale hands, so much smaller and more delicate than his, against them, the vibration of their bodies’ energy, their souls, sizzling at the touch.

“My life, my soul, I pledge to thee.”

Diana, without prompting, repeated the words huskily. “My life, my soul, I pledge to thee.”

“Forever joined for eternity.”

Looking into the whirlpools of her eyes that tumbled with emotions, Kor heard her repeat the words, and when she said “eternity,” like hot and cold colliding, he heard a thunderclap as their souls merged. He heard Diana gasp as their spiritual signatures, each a distinctive energy, swirled together and forever more into one. The euphoric sensation became so intense it made them both cry out. Then the flare of their joining died down, and all that remained was desire.

Somehow they found themselves on the bed again, skin to skin.

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His erection pulsed and hung heavy between his legs. He could smell her arousal and, when he touched the apex of her thighs, feel her wetness on his fingers. But he wanted her more than ready. He wanted her wild.

With just the tip of his cock, he rubbed it against the nubbin that hid just below her curls. Diana arched, and Kor grinned in male pride. But her arching also drew attention to another splendid part of her body that he had fantasized about, her luscious breasts.

Kor, bracing his body on his forearms so as to keep up the sliding motion of his swollen head against her clit, leaned down and captured one pink tip in his mouth, his teeth lightly grazing the already erect nipple. Diana panted and thrashed, her hands reaching to grab him by the hair and push his mouth down more firmly onto her areola. Kor obliged and opened his mouth wide to suck in more of that perfect globe. He swirled his tongue around the taut nub, and applying suction to the mouthful he had, he pulled his head back ’til his lips snapped off and left her breast quivering. He then switched his attention to the other breast, laving it with the same attention, a sweet torture that had his beautiful mate moaning.

The tip of Kor’s erection slid slickly back and forth still across her taut clit. Too close to the brink himself now, he stopped the torture and pushed his engorged head between her nether lips, an action she approved of judging by how fast her legs locked around him, driving him deep inside, ’til the tip of his shaft nudged her womb.

Kor let out a moan at the exquisite feeling. Her slick muscles tightened around his shaft, squeezing him tight, and Kor almost lost it. He pulled back, then pushed himself as deep as he could to sheathe himself, and Diana arched high off the bed. Kor retreated again and then slid himself hard and deep, the tip of his erection curving to find her sweet spot. Diana let out a short scream when he found it and stroked it. And once found, he’d never lose it again. With long, measured strokes, Kor pushed in and then pulled out, each thrust hitting her hidden spot, making her keen in pleasure, the sound building in intensity until, with a loud scream, she came to the edge of the abyss of pleasure and fell into it. Kor quickly joined her, shouting her name when, at the feel of her muscles orgasming around him, he found himself losing control and finding his ultimate pleasure deep inside of her.

And for the first time since he’d crossed the threshold into adulthood, he saw the universe explode.

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Diana felt her body tremble as it came back down from the intense orgasm she’d just experienced.

Apparently size did matter? Or did he just have more skills than the human lovers she’d had in the past? It had seemed almost like his cock had a G-spot sensor, one that ensured he hit it each time he pumped into her.

Whatever the case, Diana felt like purring, and judging by the look on Kor’s face, he wanted to thump his chest and strut. He had a right. That had been amazing. Diana laid her head on his chest and listened to the steady sound of his heart beating. His arms snuggled her tight. And to think she’d come so close to missing all this.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” she whispered, cradled in his arms. Now that the bliss had mellowed and reality returned, she had to ask.

“I will always protect you,” he vowed with such sincerity that Diana felt her heart tighten. Perhaps the term “love” might not exist in his vocabulary, but it seemed possible the emotion existed under a guise of other actions.

“But you could have been killed.” The thought of him dying terrified her still.

He shifted position until he could cup her face tenderly between his big hands, his calloused thumbs gently rubbing her swollen lower lip, his eyes pools of light as they stared into hers. “You are my mate. I will not allow you to come to harm.”

Diana thought about retorting,
I’ve only been your mate for a few minutes
, but instead she let the sincerity and pure maleness of his words wash over her, making her body shiver with arousal and renewed need. She saw that same need mirrored in his eyes, and even more titillating, she felt it against her thigh.

God, is he ever hung. I wonder what he tastes like.
Feeling reckless and suddenly possessed of an insatiable curiosity, she slid down his body, her lips and teeth grazing the taut skin of his abdomen ’til she reached his hairless groin, the skin here smooth and soft, not to mention so temptingly lickable.

Diana felt her body flush with desire when she saw him already erect and getting bigger the more she stared at it. She reached out a hand to grasp his erection, eager to play, but as soon as she touched him, she found herself distracted by her wrist.

“What is that?” she asked, staring curiously at the smoky gray band around her wrist, a band she couldn’t feel, and when she tried to touch it with her other hand, her fingers went right through it to her flesh below. She let go of his shaft and played with her new piece of smoky jewelry.

“It’s our mating band.”

“Our what?” she said, looking up from the bracelet that kept changing shape.

“Mating band. With females being so scarce, a way was needed to ensure that males did not just claim any female they found. In the early days, once our madness had settled, there were many arguments and misunderstandings caused by females being claimed twice, sometimes even three times. Once again our ancestors came to the rescue with a solution.

When a pair bonds now, a small piece of our ancestors forms itself into a bracelet on the female. This band cannot be removed, except by death, and can identify a female’s mate should a challenge arise.”

Kind of like a wedding ring,
Diana thought,
just not as sparkly.
“And what do the men get marked with?” she asked, looking over his body for a mark to show he’d bonded to her.

“Marked? No, the males do not get a band.”

Diana sat up in the bed and frowned at him. “Well that doesn’t seem fair.”

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“No one’s trying to steal us,” he teased.

But Diana found herself annoyed with this indication, once again, of a male-dominated society.

Kor, as if sensing her mood, smiled and raised his hands in mock surrender. “If it bothers you that much, then I will let you shackle me. You’ll have to settle for metal instead of a spirit band, but . . .”

Diana tuned out his voice as she watched his wrist in fascination. Kor stopped talking and looked down at his wrist as well, and Diana giggled at the stunned look on his face.

“Well,” she said, holding her spirit-banded wrist up beside his now-matching one.

“Looks like your ancestors just heard me and agreed. Now we match.”

Kor, however, looking at the gray band he now sported, didn’t seem as happy about it as she did, though.

“What’s wrong?” teased Diana. “Now everyone will know you belong to me.”

“I suppose,” he said slowly. “But I’m the only male I know of with this mark.”

“I’ll give you another mark,” said Diana impishly. Suddenly she felt frisky again. She pushed him onto his back and straddled his abdomen. She leaned forward, and her heavy breasts brushed his chest while her hair fell in a curtain around his face. Diana could see his eyes beginning to glow, and her lips curved into a sensual smile. Hovering close to his lips, she stuck out the tip of her tongue and licked his lower lip before tugging it down with her teeth. His hands came up and pushed her hair back to cup her face. But Diana laughed and shook her head and his hands free. She grabbed his hands and pushed them up over his head. She bent over his face and teasing him with the sight of her breasts hanging so temptingly close, close enough his warm breath made her nipples tighten.