Desert World Savages: The Complete Series (16 page)

His balls, pressed between her legs, felt her juices run down them. She wanted him. Her body called for him. His gums tingled. His fangs emerged from their sheaths, and he pulled his head back to touch the tips of them to her precious skin. At this moment, he didn't care that she feared his bite. She would come to appreciate it in time.

Her hands were at his cock, pulling it towards the entrance of her slick, waiting folds. The instant the head of his cock felt her warmth, he thrust hard and deep, and as he pushed into softness so sublime he could not put words to it, he sunk his fangs into her flesh, releasing chemicals that would bind her to him. Her back arched again, and she screamed. It was not from pain. His venom took care of that. It was all primal passion. The rush came from the chemicals he put in her blood. The primitive thought pounded through his brain. He marked her. She was his.

When his venom was spent, he sucked her blood up through his fangs, taking her blood in and making her essence a part of him. Forever, it would be her scent that drew him. It would only be her scent that would call him to passion. His people thought bonding extracted too high a price, that it restricted their freedom. Now Rev knew it to be foolish. Who could give this up?

The ridges on his cock puffed to an overwhelming stiffness, driving his sensitivity beyond all reason. He could not last long, but he had to make sure Tracy felt what he did.

He stilled a moment and stroked her hair, reveling in the beauty of her face and form. Her body stretched out under him as he filled her, and her face was fixed in an expression of need and desire.

"Please, Rev," she said, a subliminal hint of desperation in her words.

She did not have to ask twice. He drew out with a hiss and instantly slammed into her over and over. He lost count of the strokes as he pounded her, gritting his teeth, trying to hold back. He wanted one thing. It was to hear her scream once more.

She did, and the walls that surrounded his cock clenched, furious and desperate, calling for that one last urge that was the reason for the intensity.

With a cry, he came. His seed rushed into her, seeking its ultimate home. He pumped and more sped out, and again, spurting as he exploded, his heart hammered in his chest.

Mine.

It was the last thought he had before he fell next to her gasping for breath.

As the sun went down, Rev made preparations for their trip. Together they took down the parachute, and Tracy showed him with pride how she figured out to collapse it into a ball. He drained the water that was in Tracy's suit into the water pouches, and he made sure Tracy got back into the protective gear.

"It's hot in here," she complained.

"It just feels that way," he said as he smeared the skin balm on her face, "because it's an enclosed space and you are sweating into it. It is designed to keep your body temperature regulated so you won't get heat stroke. It's still too hot out there for you."

"You didn't worry about that this afternoon," she said with a sexy pout.

"You," he said with a smirk, "were more likely to give me heat stroke than the other way around."

"Hah!" she said a self-satisfied smile curling her lips. Then she became serious. "No really, what about you?"

"When I went into the service, they did a number of biological enhancements to ensure my ability to survive in unusual conditions. I'll be fine."

He checked the different pockets in Tracy's suit and felt the knife. Rev pulled it out and saw a dark stain on it.

"You used this?"

"Against a land crab."

He slipped it back in her pocket and smacked her bottom. "Good, you can keep it then."

"I'm sure you could make more use of it."

"Tracy," he said, giving her a little kiss on the cheek. "I am very well trained. There isn't anything that I can do with a weapon that I can't do with my hands or my feet."

Tracy pursed her lips thinking of how rough Rev looked when she first found him, but she thought it wise not to say anything. No one likes to be reminded of when they got beat up.

"Yes, sir," she said. "I remember very well how well trained your hands are."

He grabbed her from behind suddenly and lifted her off her feet.

"You keep saying things like that, and we'll never leave here."

"Yes," she said dramatically. "Our bleached bones found locked in a passionate embrace."

He laughed. She said things like this so unexpectedly. It caught him off guard, but she never failed to lighten his mood. She acted like nothing was impossible to achieve.

"My little fool," he said softly.

"What did you say?" she said.

"We should start moving. I'd like to get to the camp before sunrise."

Rev took her helmet and used the tracking map to locate the direction of the miner's camp. He put the helmet on her head.

"You be our navigator. If we get off track, let me know."

"Yes, sir," she said giving him a salute." I can't breathe through this thing though."

Rev was surprised. Tracy had impressed him with figuring out the different functions of the suit so far, but she was occupied trying to survive.

"Here," he said pushing aside a panel in the helmet to open it. The panel slid seamlessly into a hidden recess. "Better?"

"I wish I knew about this before," she said.

"It is better to leave it closed, but if this makes you more comfortable, we'll do that." He smiled at her.

Tracy was struck at how much Rev tried to care for her. Even during sex he tried to please her before he took anything for himself. A warm glow threatened to envelop her heart, and she shook it off.

"No," she scolded herself. "Better not go there, Walsh. This is what it is for now."

As the night deepened, two moons rose, almost bright enough to knock out the light of the stars. She stopped a moment and stared at the two orbs.

Rev stopped too and put his arm around her waist, looking up.

"Yes," he said. "This world only has two moons, but they are beautiful."

"How many moons are on your planet?"

"Depends on what planet you are on."

"Your people have more than one planet?"

"We have an empire actually. One hundred and ten planets within our sector."

"What about your world though, where you grew up?"

"The capital planet has three moons: Endra, Mikten, and Phaben. There is a story about our moons. Do you want to hear it?"

"Sure."

"Endra was a powerful queen, mated to Mikten, our fiercest warrior, but Phaben, Mikten's twin brother, felt a mating urge towards Endra too. Mikten beat Phaben in battle for rights to Endra, so Phaben couldn't be her mate. However, Phaben would not be denied. On nights where Mikten wasn't with his queen, Phaben would steal inside her bedchamber and pretend to be Mikten."

"Didn't Endra know the difference?"

"She claimed she didn't because the men were twins and shared the same scent."

"I don't know. It sounds like Endra was getting double her pleasure."

Rev smiled. "Perhaps, it is said that when Mikten covers Endra in the sky, he lays with her, and when Phaben conjoins her, he is in her bed. When Mikten and Phaben are together, they fight over Endra, but neither can win, their loyalty to each other is such that neither can hurt the other.

"That's some story. What happens when the sun eclipses all of them?"

He shrugged. "It's never happened in living memory. It's an old story," he said.

"So where did you live on the capital planet?"

"The palace," he said nonchalantly.

"The palace? Wait, did your parents work there?"

"You could say that. They did carry out many diplomatic missions."

"Ambassadors?"

"Sometimes they are expected to be those. The brother of the Emperor is also expected to stand in the Emperor's place in formal ceremonies and such."

"The brother of the-" Tracy stopped short. "Wait, are you royalty?"

"I'm part of the royal family, but no, I'm so far from the chain of succession. I'm not royalty."

"I don't see the difference," she said.

"Only the Emperor, his siblings, his wife, and his children carry titles, and they are considered royalty. The rest of us have honored positions in court, but we are considered commoners like everyone else."

"On my planet," she said, "It's much different. Anyone who can claim a bit of royalty does so. I, myself, am related to the future King of England."

"You are," he said dryly.

"Oh yes, my great, great, great, grand something was a brother of the man who was the head of the Spencer line in England, and the Spencers married into the Windsor-Mountbatten line. Technically I'm a cousin many times removed, but then again, so are a couple million other people in my country."

He laughed.

"I am duly impressed, my lady," he said with a chuckle.

"You should be." She stuck her nose in the air in mock imperiousness.

He took her arm and twirled her around to face him.

"I am impressed," he said huskily. "And awed. I could have searched the thousands of planets in the Aligned Worlds, and I would not have found someone as perfect as you are."

A few snarky responses ran through Tracy's brain, but the earnestness in which he stared at her stopped her from speaking. Again, a warm glow threatened to take over her heart.

"You better stop talking like that. Otherwise, I'll end up falling in love with you."

Rev blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"Love. The Big L. What two people feel so that they seek each other. The warm feelings that bind two people together?"

Her voice rose when she spoke these last words. Rev saw she was frustrated with trying to communicate what was to her an essential point.

"Tracy," he said. "I hear the word you are speaking, but my people do not have an equivalent word in our language. There must not be, otherwise it would translate through the language chip, but I assure you that I am bound. There is not a single force in this universe that can sever that bond. Even if we were to live apart, which seems to be your wish, I will always be your mate."

It was her turn to blink. "Always?"

"Yes, there can never be another for me now."

Her response shocked him.

"Oh fucking shit!" she sputtered. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I just did."

"No! I mean before. Don't you think you should have discussed this with me before you took a hunk of me with your mating bite?"

Rev recoiled, struck by the anger in her words.

"If I recall, we weren't doing much talking then," he said with heat. "And you insisted we have sex. Do you forget saying 'You are denying me the one thing that would give me pleasure out of this mess?'"

"I didn't know sex would bind you to me PERMANENTLY! You don't even love me! Oh, this is bad, very bad."

Rev didn't know what to do in the face of Tracy's distress.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Oh course you don't fucking understand, you big dumb alien. Love is everything! It is the most important thing between two people, and your people don't even have a word for it!"

Rev stood there paralyzed, not knowing what to say, but he understood that something was missing. It was a thing she found important in a mate. Again he struck the brick wall of his many failures these past few weeks, and he couldn't provide one thing that she found important.

"So it's all just sex to you," she said.

"Just sex? Tracy, the sex, the binding, that is everything. Those warm feelings that you speak of, they could or could not last, but a mate is a mate, always."

She stared at him, struggling to understand what he was trying to say. This was a cultural divide, not a biological divide. It was something that separated their two species.

"Sexual feelings that may or may not last. Real love never dies." she said.

They looked at each other unblinking in the moonlight. Neither one said anything for a long time.

"We are aliens," she said finally. "Alien to each other."

Rev's face crumpled. Tracy kept talking, but he didn't hear her words. Did she understand what she was saying? What a rejection from a bond mate would mean to him?

"Things can never be the same between us, Tracy."

Rev wouldn't even look at Tracy.

It wasn't fair, she thought.

They walked towards the miner's camp in the light of the double moons. The only sound between them was the relentless crunching of the darkened sand. Ever since Tracy called Rev an alien, he hadn't spoken a word to her.

She didn't know what to say herself.

After all, it wasn't her fault that she was abducted, shoved out of an airlock to fall thousands of feet to the ground onto an alien world, or find herself mated to a big, green guy whose native language didn't have a word for "love."

Right?

Okay, maybe that last thing was a tiny bit her fault. Because when it came to dancing the horizontal mambo with Rev, she was more than a willing partner, and she didn't know why. It's not as if green was her favorite color.

Until now.

It was all very confusing.

But one thing she did know. Tracy did not like the silence between them.

"Rev."

He stopped walking and turned to her. His face, though healing rapidly, still had traces of the dark bruises he suffered when he was tossed out of a hovering space ship like garbage.

Tracy wasn't usually the type of girl who bit her lip, but she was biting it now.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

Rev's eyes widened just a bit, and then he looked away, shaking his head. When he looked back at her, his face was so sad Tracy wanted to cry.

"No, my Tracy, I am the one who is sorry."

He turned his back to her and continued his walk.

Tracy just stood there, tears blurring her vision. How dare he? How dare he just say he was sorry, as if everything was a huge mistake? As if SHE was a huge mistake?

"You fucking asshole!"

He turned back toward her.

"What?"

"You heard me! How dare you! How dare you treat me like I'm the biggest mistake you ever made in your life!"