Barbarian Alien (9 page)

He looks up at me, his face feral, eyes glowing with an unholy light. His hard, sexy mouth is wet with the taste of me, and as I watch, he bares his fangs and gives me a look that makes my nipples perk all over again.

“Mine,” he growls, and buries his face between my legs again.

He begins to lick me again, and I squeal. I lie back, ready to be all his like he just said and—

Wait a fucking
moment
. Was that
English
?

I sit up on my elbows and stare down at the alien licking me out. “What did you just say?”

RAAHOSH

A small hand jerks on my horn before I can bury my face between her legs again and drink the sweet nectar that flows from my mate’s body.

“What did you say?” she repeats again. The look on her face is utterly furious.

I narrow my eyes at her and try to dip my head again, but she twines her fingers in my hair and jerks instead, and I snarl at her. I want nothing more than to taste her again, to lick her for hours and hours until she’s trembling beneath me. Then, I will slide my cock into her warm, waiting well and we will be together as mates. As it should be. But the hand in my hair is insistent, and she snaps her knees together, trying to push me out.

“You spoke fucking English.”

“I did,” I say, and force her knees apart again. I want more of her thick, sweet honey. I want to lose myself between her legs for hours. The men of my tribe say that there is no taste like that of a resonance mate on the tongue, and they are right. I never knew what they referred to until now. Now, I want to taste nothing but her for the rest of my days.

Her cunt can be my sustenance. All else is unworthy of notice.

I dip my head again, determined to lick her. She likes it when I lick her. Was she not pushing her slick, wet petals against my face moments ago? Demanding more? I will give her more. My cock aches, as hard as the stone in my spear-tip. I long to bury myself inside her, but I want more of her on my tongue first.

She gives an angry screech and slams a small fist into my eye. Then she cries out in pain and shakes her hand. “Damn you! Why is your head so hard?”

That gets my attention. My mate is hurt. I sit up and take her small hand in mine, only to have her try to hit me again.

“Stop touching me,” she bellows in my ear. “I am so stinking pissed at you! You speak
English
!”

“I do.” I catch the hand that rises to strike me before she can connect with my forehead again. It’s not that her hits hurt – it’s that she’s going to damage her soft little human hands. My brow is plated, and her tiny fists are weak.

“You lied to me!”

That makes me angry. She thinks I willfully deceived her? For what purpose? “How did I do such a thing?”

“You never told me!”

“You never asked,” I counter, my irritation rising. “You simply talk and talk and assume I don’t understand you. You never bothered to ask me if I could.”

Her pink face flushes, and I watch as she pants, her breath puffing in the cold air. “You are a dick.”

“I do not know what this word means.”

“Oh really?” Her voice is a sneer. “Here I thought you were the expert on the human language.”

“There are words you speak that have no match with what I have learned.”

“Funny. I thought ‘dick’ was the language of your people.”

I frown down at her. “I do not know this word, dick. I am sa-khui. That is my people.”

Her eyes roll and she pushes at my chest again. “It’s called sarcasm.”

“I do not know this word, sarcasm—“

“Never mind,” she bellows, clearly furious with me. “God!”

She’s mad at me? I saved her. If she’d have fallen into the water, they’d have torn the flesh from her bones in an instant. The thought of her suffering – dying – fills me with an incoherent rage. I straighten and stare down at her, naked legs still sprawled in the snow. She’s scowling up at me, which makes it easier to resist her beauty. “You shouldn’t have run from the cave.”

“Running? I wasn’t running.”

She can lie to herself, but not to me. I step forward and grab the front of her tunic, then haul her to her feet. She slaps at me, but I right her anyhow, and then she tugs on the hem of her tunic, a fierce frown on her face. I lean in close to her. Her scent is in my nose, making my khui resonate with hunger. I want nothing more than to press my mouth to hers and mate with it again.

But not while she is looking at me as if I am filth. My heart hardens a little and I lean in. “You belong to me, female.”

She smacks a hand to my shoulder, angry. “I don’t belong to anyone.”

“There is no place you can run that I will not find you and return you to me.” She doesn’t realize that every day she ignores the call of her khui, it will grow worse. There is no reasoning with it, or changing its mind. It simply wants what it wants.

And it wants Liz to be my mate.

I want that, too. She’s mine, and I’m going to claim her yet.

“God, you are such a stalker,” she mutters, crossing her arms over her chest. “And if you must know, I was looking for materials for a bow.”

“A bow,” I repeat. This word is known, but the thing it calls to mind is not familiar to me. “It is a weapon, yes?”

“Yes,” she says, and gives me a challenging look. Her chin lifts. “I know how to shoot a bow. I can hunt, too.”

I grunt. Part of me is pleased that she wants to hunt, and part of me worries. The women in our tribe are so few that they do not participate in the hunting treks. They stay close to the caves, because we have lost many in our tribe over the last few years, and if we lose more, we cease to exist. But I see the determination on Liz’s face and know she will not like that answer.

So…a grunt is what she gets.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She gets right in my face and tries to reach for one of my horns, no doubt to tug me down to her height and get my attention. My Liz is brave. I have respect for that, even if it’s infuriating.

I stand at my full height so she can’t pull any more of my hair or tug on my horns. “You belong to me. If you need something, you come to me. My job is to provide for you.”

“Well, great,” she says in a testy voice. “How about you provide my friends to me, hmm?”

I ignore that. I’m not taking her back until we are mated. Instead, I head over to the face-eater I killed for her. If she wants it for her bow, she’ll have it. “Come. You need to go back to the cave. Your human flesh is still weak despite your khui.”

“Gee, you didn’t think it was so weak when you grabbed me and ripped my pants off.”

I turn to give her a quelling look. Was she trying to pretend that she didn’t like it when I touched her? Her cheeks are bright pink, which is curious. I study her for a moment more, and she squirms under my hard gaze. “You did not seem to mind my touch.”

Her face turns even redder. “Oh, just throw that back in my face why don’t you.”

Her words make no sense to me, but the color in her cheeks tells me plenty. She is embarrassed. I find it charming, even more so when her hands move to cup the tiny tuft of hair between her legs and shield it from my gaze. Does she think that protects her? I licked every inch of her mere moments ago. I study her bare thighs, her feet still covered in my boots. My own feet are barely aware of the cold, but I see her soft human skin is prickling with the cool temperatures. I must ensure that she is warm and taken care of.

But Liz is a fighter, and she’s choosing to fight me. So I grab the dead face-eater and the long tube they use as a lure, and sling it over one of my shoulders. “Are you coming, or do I carry you?” I ask her.

She scowls darkly at me. With a jerk, she scoops up the torn halves of her pants and storms ahead of me. “You are such a dick. I hate you.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” I ask.

She raises her middle finger in the air in my direction. I’m not sure what it means, but I can guess it’s not pleasant. “I guess I’m walking back pantsless. Thanks a lot.”

“Do you want my loincloth?”

Her face turns that bright red again, and she gives me a scandalized look. “So you can be naked? No thanks.”

Her refusal just further emphasizes how unattractive she finds me. It stings. “Whatever will silence you,” I jab back.

She makes an outraged noise, and then storms ahead of me.

Liz is silent as we make our way back to my secret cave. I let her walk in front of me, so I can guard her…and so I can watch her small, pert bottom as it flexes when she walks. She has no tail, so the view is a curious one…but still arousing. I mentally picture bending her over, spreading her bottom, and then licking all of her wet female parts again until she screams her pleasure once more.

By the time we get back to the cave, my khui is resonating and my cock aches fiercely. It strains against my loincloth, the ache almost unbearable. Is she not suffering, too? Why does she fight this?

A resonance mate is always final.

Liz heads into the cave without a backward glance at me. She’s still angry – it rolls off her in waves. That’s fine. Let her resist if she thinks it will make a difference. She is mine. She was claimed the moment her khui resonated for me.

Nothing she does will change this.

As if she can sense my turbulent, possessive thoughts, she grabs one of the furs and wraps it around her waist, then turns to me. “I know what your goal is, here.”

My brows draw together. My goal? I have no goal other than to claim her as my mate. So we can be one.

“You’re going to hide me away until I’m pregnant, right?” She sounds defeated, the look in her eyes miserable.

“And what if I am?”

“Once again, I’m being held hostage for my vagina.” She sighs. “What is it with you aliens? Can’t a girl just make her own decisions for once? Is that so freaking hard?”

“The khui has decided,” I tell her.

She gives a small shake of her head. “It’s always someone else’s decision. When’s it going to be mine?”

I watch her, frustrated. There is no decision to be made. The khui has decided. And yet…I don’t like the way her words make me feel.

Or the defeat in her voice. Liz is a fighter. I don’t want her to give up.

LIZ

Things are uncomfortable in the cave when I come back. I ignore Raahosh and concentrate on sewing my pants together again with a few scraps of leather that I use as thick ties. I knot my pants every few inches instead of using one long thread in the hopes that things hold together better, and I blush the entire time I work on them.

Raahosh putters around the front of the cave, getting water and melting it, gathering more dung chips for fire fuel, and then butchering the thing that we killed at the river. He saves the bamboo for me, and then takes the bits of the creature with him, mumbling something about ‘bait for traps’ under his breath.

I say nothing. I’m still pissed at him. Actually, pissed is not the word. I’m frustrated. Frustrated beyond belief. I know it’s not his fault that our cooties decided to become friends, but can the guy throw me a bone and freaking help me out instead of acting like I’m the problem? Excuse me if I don’t want to automatically jump in the sack and demand that he squirt me with his baby batter.

My face grows hot as I remember our little throw down in the snow. I think of him ripping my pants off, and my cootie starts vibrating and I get wet between my legs again. Gah. This is so frustrating.

I don’t know which is worse – the endless horniness the cootie brings, or the fact that Raahosh has let me yammer on and on without telling me that he understands English. I try to recall all the things I’ve said and draw a blank. Truth is, I ramble and I don’t remember what has come out of my mouth. Ugh.

A few hours alone lets me fix my pants, and when I put them on, they’re a lot tighter, but they still fit. The downtime away from Raahosh also puts me in a better mood and gives me some perspective.

Really, he’s just as trapped as I am. And maybe it’s the orgasms talking, but he did a lot of giving and very little taking in our, ahem, snow incident. Maybe I’m being too hard on him. He is right about one thing, though – I never bothered to ask him if he spoke English. I just assumed he was an ignorant alien…which makes me a jerk.

I sigh. I’m not sure if I’m ready to apologize, but I do know I’m mentally exhausted from fighting with him all the time. It’s getting me nowhere. My dad used to tell me I could catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Lately, all I’ve been doing is spewing vinegar. No wonder I’m not getting anywhere.

And while Raahosh and I still have opposite wants – he wants a wife and baby-carrier, and I want to be left alone – we can still act like adults.

It’d be nice to have a friend again, I think wistfully. The girls I was captured on the ship with? Those were forced friendships. If we hadn’t been stuck together, would we have ever spoken two words to each other? I miss home. I miss my friends. I miss my dad, gone for five years now.

When sunset approaches, I take stock of the cave, knowing Raahosh will appear soon. I’ve tried to make things as presentable as possible. I’ve gotten extra water, braided my hair to keep it out of my face, repaired my clothing, stoked the fire, and started working on a cord for my bow. The bamboo we’ve gotten is different than what I expected, but it’s hollow and has a bit of give to it, not unlike bone. I’m going to try wrapping it in leather at certain spots to reinforce it, and hope for the best.

He enters the cave shortly, two smaller creatures hanging from his hand. Tonight’s dinner.

“Welcome back,” I tell him.

Raahosh pauses and frowns at me, and I can see the wheels working in his mind. He’s trying to figure out my angle. Like I have an angle other than trying to be a decent human being? I sigh. “Look. We started off on the wrong foot, all right? You forced me to get the cootie, and I’ve been making you pay for it ever since. Can we call a truce for a bit? I’m tired.”

He grunts and kneels by the fire, stoking it.

“You’re not a chatty sort even on the best of days, are you?”