Claimed (12 page)

Tina gasped as he ducked to enter the bathing room, then wiggled in his arms when the bath came into view. A gentle warmth flowed through him. Sorvar grinned, not an easy feat with the mouth of his changed form. Somebody was happy. He set her down on the wooden bench next to the bathing pool and turned to check the temperature of the water. In his present form, the pool seemed small, but it had been big enough to accommodate him in his pre-mated form with room to spare.

A tearing sound made him spin around to find Tina ripping her top from her body, baring her beautiful breasts and the now red and cream scales around her waist. Lust surged through him. God, she was beautiful, delicate, yet ferocious at the same time. Her wings had slumped again, but not as much as before. They stretched out on either side of her body, the new membranes so thin that he could see the veins through the almost translucent pale skin.

“Tina,” he chided. “Let me help you.”

She looked up as her emotions crashed into him. Desperation, pain, embarrassment, fear, and anger. It was all there, a storm inside him, whipping around and shredding him from the inside.

“When were you going to tell me that I’m pregnant? And how do you even know? I haven’t had any scans.” Her voice trembled, the rough, husky sound skating across his scales in a gentle caress. “And when were you going to explain to me exactly what being soul bonded means? Damn it, Sorvar. You never even asked me if I wanted a mate. You just bit me. You stole my dream and changed my life and you didn’t even know who I was. Do you know how rude that is? Do you even care?” She looked away as her shoulders slumped, then mumbled, “Why am I even wasting my breath? You have what you wanted.”

Sorvar walked towards her across the polished stone floor, the same stone that was on the floor of the throne room. He reached for her, cupping her face in his hands. She looked up at him with those big green eyes, pain swimming in their depths, her anger burning inside him.

She’d been holding this inside for a while, hadn’t she? She wasn’t going to like some of his answers, but he’d be damned if he’d be sorry for taking her. She was the best thing to ever happen to him, but she probably wasn’t ready to know he loved her already. Their relationship was so new and tenuous. He had to be careful what he said. Only the truth would do, and he had to hope that she accepted it and it didn’t make her angrier.

“You’re right,
pavri,
I didn’t ask you to be my mate or even explain what soul bonding is, because I wasn’t going to risk you saying
no.
What female in their right mind would volunteer to go through the change and possibly die for a male they don’t know? But you’re also wrong. I do care about you, more than you know and probably more than you can accept this soon. I knew the minute I smelled you that you were different, special, the kind of special I wanted as my mate. The kind of female I wanted by my side and mothering my sons.”

He took a deep breath, gazing down into the deep pools of her eyes.
“
I knew when I bit you the last time on the ship that you had conceived. Your blood tasted different. The hormone change was subtle, but there. I was going to take you to Medical and have Seklan scan you to verify it, but I passed out and did not get the chance to tell you or confirm it.” He stroked his thumb down her cheek, being careful of his claws. “Tell me about your dream,
pavri.
Tell me of this thing that is so important to you.”

She studied him, her gaze travelling over his face before she looked away. He knew the instant she accepted his reasons—not only did she relax, but he felt it inside him.

“I wanted to be a doctor ever since I was ten years old. I wanted to help people, make them better. My mother was... sick a lot, and I could never do anything to help her and I hated it. I hated seeing her in pain and not being able to
do
anything, and aliens—” She glanced at him quickly, but when he didn’t react she continued. “I’m sorry,
other species
fascinated me, space fascinated me, and I decided I wanted to live on a space station and work as a medic, but of course females weren’t allowed in space when I was a kid. It was only in the last two years I thought I might actually get to live my dream.”

Sorvar sighed and shook his head. “And I stole that from you. I’m sorry, Tina. More sorry than you can know. If there is anything I can do, anything you want, please, tell me, and I will try my hardest to make sure you have it.”

Her anger lessened until it was a mild warmth. He would let her hold onto it for a while longer, but he wouldn’t let it come between them. He wanted her to love him like he loved her, and he would do anything, say anything, to make that happen.

“I want to be a medic, Sorvar. I want to help your people and learn about them. I want to learn about how the transformation works and how I’ve changed. I want to be able to help other human women who might become mates, and I want to help your medics understand humans and find out why our changes were different from other peoples’.”

The passion in her voice astounded him and resonated inside him. It was exactly how he talked about technology and developing new devices to help make peoples’ lives easier. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like never to be able to work with his tools again.

“
Pavri,
I would like nothing more than to give you everything you want, but it is not my decision. My father will have to give permission for you to have access to our Medical history. I know it seems unlikely right know that he would be willing to do that, but give it time. He will come around. He will see you as I see you and be happy to give you whatever you want, too.”

Her disappointment almost crushed him, his heart turning heavy in his chest, like all the sunshine had been sucked away never to brighten the world again. Tears glistened in her eyes, and a fierce pain ripped through his chest. “Tina,
pavri,
don’t cry,
please.
I can’t bear to see you cry. You can’t give up. I know it seems like everything is lost, but sweetness, I promise, you
will
get your dream.”

She squeezed her eyes closed and nodded, but his heart remained heavy. Her eyes opened, her unshed tears making them shine like wet gems. Tina wrapped her delicate clawed hand around his wrist. “Please, Sorvar, will you help me? I’m not too stubborn to know when I need help.”

“Of course, you only needed to ask.” He smiled down at her, but the Morgath face didn’t allow for a great range of facial expression, so he knew that she wouldn’t be able to tell. Instead, knowing she could feel his relief inside her would have to satisfy him.

He tore her clothes from her body with a few hard jerks, making sure he looked her over as he stripped her, noting any injuries and the change in colour of her scales. They were now blushed with red, still pale around the outside, but they had a distinct red centre. He dropped her clothes, now bloody rags, to the floor and helped her into the pool.

“Will you join me?” she asked standing waist deep in the water staring up at him with eyes he wanted to drown in.

He stared down at her, his eyes wide. “Like this?” he asked, indicating his body with his clawed hand.

A bittersweet wash of amusement filled him with its sweet biting song. “I need somebody to wash my back, Sorvar, and you’re right there,” Tina said, her voice tinged with soft amusement.

Her mood was changing as quickly as he had torn her clothes from her. She was a volatile little thing. She’d definitely keep him on his toes.

A low chuckle rumbled up from his chest as he stripped off his clothes. To have survived two shifts, they must be far sturdier than he knew.

The water was the perfect temperature as he slipped into the pool, but it barely reached halfway up his thighs. Tina’s head only reached his lower chest. She was small next to his mated form, but next to this form, she felt like a child.

He settled down on one of the seats built into the pool and gripped her hips, pulling her between his spread legs. The water lapped at her belly, her luscious breasts right there in front of him begging him to stroke and caress them, but he held back, not wanting to force something on her she wasn’t ready for and they couldn’t complete. A welter of lust and need roared through him, almost drowning him. Fuck! That wasn’t him—that was all Tina.

Tina settled her hands on his chest and stroked him, scraping her claws in a gentle caress across his scales. A deep shudder ran through him, not all of it from the lust that slammed into him with the gentle caress. She stroked his shoulders, or what she could reach of them, down his arms and back up, down his chest, and towards his stomach. His wings shifted restlessly between his back and the side of the pool, the movements unconscious and completely out of his control.

The last of the rage inside him washed away under the gentle exploration of her hands, which kept inching lower and lower.

“Tina.” The warning was clear in his voice.

She looked up at him with a look of pure innocence on her face, but her sultry desire swirled inside him. He gasped as her fingers slid along the length of his vent, the barest of light touches.

He closed his eyes and groaned low in his throat as his body shuddered, the tremble starting deep inside him and spreading out through his limbs and wings. He felt strangely peaceful and relaxed, his breath rushing out of him in a huge gust as he opened his eyes and looked at her.

“There you are,” she whispered as she reached for him and pulled him down with a hand around the back of his neck.

Her lips brushed against his and Sorvar sucked in a breath. She’d made him change! And he was still conscious. He pushed the worry aside for another time, and with a groan, he gripped her shoulders and sank into her kiss. Sorvar let Tina control their kiss, let her set the pace and intensity. She was still in pain, still adapting to the change, and he didn’t want to push her away and risk hurting her further.

But she soon started to drive him wild with her gentle nibbles and the delicate stroke of her tongue. The hint of blood on her lips incited his feral side. The need to bite her almost drove him to rip away from her and sink his teeth into the tender muscle of her shoulder, and she didn’t stop with kissing him. Before he could stop her, she positioned herself over him and sank down on his cock. He ripped his lips from hers and dropped his head back with a deep groan to expose the long line of his throat as she took him inside her hot clutching depths.

She stopped with just the tip inside the heated silken grip of her sheath. Sorvar had just gripped her hips with the intention of pulling her off when she put her mouth on his shoulder and bit him with those sharp new teeth of hers.

He roared, the sound ripped from him as his whole body spasmed with the sudden force of his orgasm. He jerked, pleasure rushing through him as he came and came and came.

“Fuck, Tina,” he growled as his body jerked with another spurt of come and surge of overwhelming pleasure.

She released his shoulder when his spasms softened to small shudders and sat back to smile at him, his dark blood staining her lips.

Hello, mate,
she whispered into his mind.

Chapter Nine

Sorvar had rushed Tina through the rest of her bath before dragging her from the pool and wrapping her in a plush cloth. He didn’t say a word to her either verbally or telepathically until she dodged away from him in the bedroom after he’d donned another one of those strange skirts.

“Sorvar, talk to me,” she almost begged him. She couldn’t work out what he was feeling. So many emotions were swirling around inside her that she couldn’t figure out which were hers and which were his.

He shoved his hands through his hair, making a mess of the braid that was still mostly intact. “Tina, this is wrong. Something’s gone wrong. We shouldn’t be able to do this.”

He was really worried.
Truly
worried. Tina let out a breath. She felt like a whirlpool swirled inside her, and she was going to be sucked in at any moment.

“Well, all right. Let’s go see your medic and see what he has to say, but Sorvar, none of this” she waved her hand between them, “has been normal.”

“No shit,” he growled.

He sounded so human with that expression Tina just gaped at him and didn’t even protest when he scooped her up and carried her out of his quarters. He didn’t even bother to put shoes on or strap on any weapons. The males they passed in the corridors looked at him aghast. Each and every one of them zeroed in on the fresh bite on his shoulder that she suspected should have healed already, but hadn’t. Whispers started up around them, spreading like wildfire.

By the time they reached Medical they had a crowd following them.

Wings.

Bite.

The words were whispered and talked about in hushed voices over and over again. Tina was starting to understand some of Sorvar’s alarm as he barged through the door into what could only be Medical. They were an anomaly. His being able to change. Her wings. Their mating was not normal by Morgath standards by any stretch of the imagination.

“Bavric!” Sorvar yelled and Tina rolled her eyes.

He was such a worry wart. Really, there was probably a perfect explanation for everything. An unmated male wearing a strange smock-like top, and for a change only one weapon strapped to his thigh, rushed out of one of the Medical rooms and skidded to a stop when he saw them.

“What in the name of the gods is going on, Bavric?” Sorvar asked. “Tell me that all the weird shit that is happening can be explained by Tina’s human DNA.”

Bavric’s eyes zeroed in on the bite on Sorvar’s bare shoulder. “B-B-Bite!” he stammered. “Females don’t bite. Why did you bite him?” He looked straight at her.

Murmurs came from around them and Tina looked around to see males surrounding them, talking quietly. She looked back at Bavric and replied, “He bit me and it felt really good, and I wanted to share that with him. Ever since my teeth came in, the need has been growing inside me, and it felt like the right thing to do, a natural part of mating.”