Craving: A SciFi Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 8) (35 page)

"I accept it. That's why I have to find a way to help the women escape."

"Where will you go?" he asked.

"As close to Earth as we can get."

His face fell. "Maybe you shouldn't give me the details. It's better that I don't know."

A knot formed in my stomach. It was my turn to study him. "Do you plan to betray me?" I asked.

He was indignant. "No. Of course not."

"Then why aren't you coming with us?"

He was surprised and conflicted. It was funny how the war did that – caused people to confront themselves. "I'm not sure I can abandon my people," he said truthfully. "Allowing you to leave is one thing, but leaving with you is another."

I sat on the bed next to him. "How long can you go on here, just watching? You despise your soldiers. You think they are heathens, as we do. Is this a life you can continue to live? Is your promotion that important to you?"

"No," he determined, and he took my hand. "Not without you. I'll leave with you. I'll help ensure your women make it to safety. They will charge me with treason, but I have already acted against the Captain's orders. If anybody finds out we have mated outside a light bond, I could be executed."

It was momentous to hear. I dropped my eyes and swept my hand over his. "I thought you were my destruction when all along I was yours."

"You are my salvation," he said. "You are setting me free. But escaping does have its dangers. It's possible we won't survive this."

It was true. War did not guarantee life. "It's possible none of us will," I added, my heart heavy.

"When a couple alters their state of being during a light bond, becoming light out of flesh, what do you feel like afterward?" I asked, curious to know.

"From what they have told me, during the light bond, it's like sharing one soul. You are completely exposed to each other. After, you feel connected with the person. Your instincts about them are heightened. If they are in pain, you know. If they are happy, you know. If they are making love to another person, you know. Distance does not matter."

"So the light bond connects you, but it doesn't necessarily make you loyal to your mate?"

"No. Sometimes, the soul you see in the other person can be repulsive. You gain an understanding or compassion for why they have become who they are, but it does not mean you can tolerate it. Your little blonde friend was right to try to kill Kalij. She would have been miserable."

"But it can also be an exhilarating experience," I speculated. "Especially if two people love each other?"

He squeezed my hand, his dark eyes serious, even as the flecks of light within them brightened. "Yes, it can."

"Then let's do it," I proposed. "I want to light bond with you."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You have my loyalty regardless."

"Are you sure?" I returned, wondering if he had his doubts.

In answer, he kissed me, powerful and hungry, causing me to fall across his bed. His weight on top of me was a comfort and my armor in this war. I moved my body beneath his muscles as he kissed me, grinding my hips to an internal rhythm. I ached for him, greater than I had before.

I was his claimed. I was his destiny.

The Fortuna trembled, announcing yet another ship landing within the docking bay, but it did not halt our passion. If anything, it made us more hot-blooded than before.

He kissed me harder. His desire was uncontrollable.

Somewhere between our kisses, he managed to unzip my jumpsuit in the back. Gently but swiftly, he pulled it off my arms and down my waist, leaving me topless. Tossing my bra aside, he took my breast into his mouth and flicked his tongue over the soft skin of my nipple as he began to grind against me.

Feeling the hardness of his large cock through our uniforms and the pleasure of his warm tongue on my nipple caused my sex to soak. He continued to awaken my body with his mouth as he pulled off the rest of my jumpsuit, leaving tender, desperate kisses down my stomach and my thigh. He stopped only to remove his uniform, leaving us both naked across the bed.

No longer were we human and Surtu, defined by the uniforms we wore. We were just Jidden and Terra, undefined lovers.

"You are my light," Jidden whispered to me, cupping my head in his hands. The flesh of his body was hot on my own. "You will always be my light."

He entered me, his cock sliding into my wetness. I moaned loudly, enjoying the pain of his largeness, and I spread my legs open wider, inviting him to fill me completely, to make me whole.

Normally, fucking Jidden had an edge to it. That wasn't necessary tonight. His hips grating against mine was enough. Feeling him thrust in and out of me was enough. It was all more than enough. As his cock massaged the inside of me, I felt a wave of euphoria build within me. My body felt numb with pleasure, then jolted with ecstasy that increased with every thrust of Jidden's cock.

I could feel myself starting to come, a wave of bliss shaking me down to my soul.

And then it happened.

Plunging himself deep within me, Jidden grabbed my hands, pinning them to the mattress above my head, a look of complete bliss about him, and my body altered. I was pure light, as was he, two beacons shining brightly amongst the stars. I could feel Jidden as if he were a part of me. I knew his pain from losing his parents, his need to impress his superiors because they were the only family he had, and his rejection of what the new generation of Surtu soldiers had become.

More than anything, I felt his absolute need to protect me.

Together, we shined bright, embracing our flaws and our strengths, finding compassion in each other. And love.

I was light, but it was a love that left me breathless.

* * *

I
slept
beside Jidden for as long as I could, refusing to leave his side. I was content within his arms.

I knew the Surtu invasion had changed me, but when my being altered into light, not only did I see Jidden's soul, but I saw my own. It was only for a brief moment of timelessness, but there was a complexity to me. I was neither light nor dark, good nor bad. Outside the light, it was hard to understand, but it lingered in my memory, like wisps of a ruined dream.

When the moonlight disappeared from the room, I had to leave. Lucina needed me much more than my mate. Slipping out of Jidden's shielding arms, I left his ship and returned to the Fortuna, watching the docking bay and looking for weaknesses in the patrol that guarded it.

In my quarters, Lucina continued to sleep. Her pale blonde hair matted against my pillow as her body trembled with heartache. She still wore the Surtu uniform forced on her before her ill-fated light bonding ceremony. The uniform was like a chain caging her to her terror.

I would have removed it, but I did not want to wake her. Whatever horrors she faced in her dreams would multiply when she woke.

Moving quietly, I grabbed the perse-thistle from my dresser. The herb-stained my hands blood-red as I carried it into the bathroom.

Later, when I emerged from a long shower, I stripped out of my white jumpsuit, and I put on the black Roman-inspired dress that lay across my desk chair. I had worn it previously to the Surtu remembrance of their fallen soldiers, but I had not wanted to put the dress back into my closet.

Now I knew why.

Leaving Lucina, I went to the temple, the dress billowing behind me. I walked through the gardens past the wildflowers and into the shelter of the woods where the temple was.

Bellona was inside, still keeping Gallia company. When she saw me, her eyes opened wide in surprise. That said a lot. It was hard to surprise an assassin. She no longer saw the Terra Lynch she had earlier that day. She saw a woman with auburn hair dressed in black – a warrior goddess. A Commander.

"You're like nightshade," she commented, but there was a mistrust about her. She looked at me as if I were of the Surtu.

"We have a war to fight," I told her. "It's time I accepted that."

Her eyes burned. "And what side will you be fighting on?"

I didn't understand. "The side of the Fortuna," I answered.

"Yes, but for the women or the men?"

I was offended and confused. I watched Bellona move around Gallia, a snake about to strike. "I don't believe I have to answer that question."

"I think you do. I saw you by the wildflowers with your Surtu man. You seemed to be enjoying yourself on today." With sorrow, she touched Gallia's hand.

"If you were playing spy, you should have opened your ears," I chided. "Then you would know that he is on our side."

"I heard everything you said, but we can't trust the Surtu. They use us. Was your Surtu lover truthful when he claimed to be the Lead Officer of an envoy ship? Was he truthful when brought you out into the gardens to negotiate the terms of our surrender while his men took our weapons? Don't be weak, Nightshade. He's using you by filling your heart with false promises."

Her fears were valid, but I knew the truth. "Except that we mated before we were light bonded. He risked death to be with me. He still does."

She stopped cold. "You are light bonded?"

I lifted my chin. I was not ashamed. "Willingly, but without his Captain's approval. His sentence will be death for disobeying his Captain."

Her mistrust turned to pity. "And what if his Captain knows already? What if this is all part of their game?"

It was impossible to explain the light bond to Bellona. I had seen Jidden's soul. I knew he was truthful. She wouldn't understand, not unless she experienced it one day herself, so I appealed to her reason. "What would he have to gain? The Surtu already have control of the Fortuna. They have moved their efforts to Earth. The light that blinded us earlier – that was their attack. They have invaded."

"I know. I heard you speak," she reminded me.

"Then you know he spoke the truth."

"I refuse to trust him," she asserted. "But I will trust you. The Fortuna is our home no longer. More ships land. Apparently, the Fortuna will become a center for their command. Get us off this space station, and I'll follow you wherever you go."

Her loyalty meant everything to me. "I've found a way to distract the soldiers," I informed her. And I filled her in on my plan. The longer I spoke, the more she smiled, her humor cold and lethal.

"It's good," Bellona said. "We have to do it soon. Tomorrow, if possible, before more ships land."

"Yes," I agreed. "Tomorrow. And we'll bring our Commander with us," I said, indicating Gallia. "She will have the Earth burial she deserves."

Bellona could be wise and compassionate, but right now she was only vengeance. "The Surtu should get ready. They're about to see what happens when you mix a Red Assassin with Nightshade."

* * *

I
n the underground
tunnels of the Fortuna, at the intersection where all three tunnels met, I aimed my mini-crossbow at the target I had created out of pillow shams and weeds. The target was named Kalij.

Like many of the women on the Fortuna, I had hidden weapons where no one could find them. My cache was in a trick panel on my bookshelf. The Fortuna was full of tricks. We were all one big trick, a trick that failed.

Not anymore. Failure was no longer an option. This time, if we failed, we died. Or worse, we would be mated to those we despised.

Imagining that Kalij stood in front of me with his grotesque smile, I pulled the trigger of my crossbow. The arrow landed deep within what would have been his heart.

Damn it.

Then I shot again, this time hitting his groin.

If only he stood before me in real life, and I was not practicing on a makeshift target. I had never killed someone before. I was not capable of it before, but I would gladly kill Kalij and his friends. I would kill every single soldier that stood and did nothing while Kalij plunged the dagger into Gallia's heart. Not only did they fail to stop him, but they refused to heal Gallia afterward. Her blood was as much on their hands as the target before me.

All of their names were on my hit list.

Unable to sleep, I spent the remainder of the night in the tunnels, practicing my aim with the crossbow. I was satisfied every time the arrow met the target. I barely missed. I had always been skilled. Now the Surtu would see how skilled I was.