Primal Heat (21 page)

Glancing back, Kyber arched an eyebrow at the three of them. “Guardians have gotten disrespectful in the last few months.”

“I like them this way.” Defensiveness crept into her tone at the criticism of men who'd put their lives on the line for this mission. “They did a good job.”

Both Kin looked startled and grinned but said nothing more. Then she was outside, and nothing had ever looked more beautiful than the pink, orange, and yellow that streaked the horizon. She dragged in a deep breath but didn't get a chance to release it before Bren came barreling out the door behind her.

The older woman keyed a small handheld comm. “Admiral Belraj, I think it's time for the cavalry to make an entrance. Army reinforcements should be here…about thirty seconds ago.” As if to emphasize her point, a bullet slapped into the side of the cinderblock building and sprayed debris at them. Two camouflage-painted Hummers exploded through the compound's gate, huge guns mounted to the back.

The Sueni group reacted en masse, ducking and zigzagging across the wide lawn. None of them could return fire, so it was time to run like hell.

Kyber took a position just behind her, following Dhalesh and Natheem. Her legs burned as she sprinted to keep up. Every muscle in her body screeched in protest, but she pumped her arms and legs and refused to let herself stop, even when machine gun fire made dirt and rocks explode into the air beside her feet. Sweat slid in rivulets down her face, sticking her stolen uniform to her back. Her lungs were on fire, starved of oxygen as she fled their pursuers.

The air vibrated with the sound of approaching aircraft, moving too fast to be anything from Earth. Jana grinned and watched a shuttle settle on the grass near them, while two fighter wings fired razer cannons on the soldiers behind them. The transceiver in Bren's hand chirped and the gravel voice of Johar Sajan, captain of the Imperial Guardians, came through. “My One is as prepared as always.”

Bren barked out a laugh as she pelted up the ramp onto the shuttle. Her voice was breathless when she spoke into her comm. “If I swung that way, I would seriously make out with your One when I got back up there.”

“As long as I got to watch.” Johar sounded so nonchalant, Jana blinked for a moment before what he'd said processed. Her lips twitched as she threw herself into a seat. Kyber landed next to her and the shuttle was off the ground before the ramp was finished closing.

“No.” Tylara's amusement rippled through as she interjected into the comm.'s channel.

Bren dove for a chair as the ship banked hard and rocketed skyward. “Aw, but honey.”

Bracing her feet against the floor and her hands on the ceiling, Jana tried to keep herself from tumbling into Kyber's lap. He arched his eyebrow at her and buckled himself into his seat. “Apparently, those who choose the military life are insane, regardless of species or culture.”

“You caught that, too, huh?” Jana managed to get her straps in place before the ship shuddered and passed through the planet's atmosphere.

“Pretty much, Majesties.” The older woman slumped back with a deep sigh. “Mission accomplished with minimal injuries and no lives lost.” Her sea blue eyes flashed sadness for a moment before she closed them. “Sueni lives, anyway.”

Not for the first time, Jana wondered how Bren had managed to admit that everything about the way the military had handled the Sueni arrival was wrong and then defied everyone and everything she knew to help the Sueni defeat Arthur. Just because it was the right thing to do. It took guts Jana didn't think she'd ever possess.

She folded her still-shaking hands, exhaustion sweeping through her in a rush. The last year had been such an emotional rollercoaster for her. She'd been twenty-one when the Sueni showed up on Earth, and she was as terrified as everyone else by what their arrival meant. When the war broke out, she'd believed the press that said the Kith had come to take over the planet, to conquer and make humans their slaves again. Especially when Emperor Kyber showed up in the small town her parents lived in to examine all the young women for one to fulfill his notorious Kith sexual appetites.

He'd chosen her, claimed her as his One…and a whole new world opened to her, but someone like her—a Kin woman—couldn't possibly be destined to be an empress of a powerful race of people. She was a flight attendant who hadn't even gone to college. No one special. Just an average American girl with nice parents in a nice town. She'd had a pretty
nice
life. She wasn't a world leader, would never truly match Kyber, but she'd loved him the moment she'd met him. It had been like a fairy tale—too good to be true.

She'd dreamed of him for years before he arrived. Maybe that was why when he had arrived, when her eyes had met his, everything had clicked into place for her. There'd been no hesitancy, no fear, no shyness. He was hers, this powerful alien emperor. He'd always been hers.

And she was his.

It was simple, uncomplicated. For the first time in her life, everything was
exactly
as perfect as she always pretended. She had known no one would ever fit her like he would. He was her soul mate, would love her forever. What wouldn't she give for something like that? Who wouldn't hold on to that with all that they had?

She'd been a virgin the first time he'd touched her. No man had ever lived up to the one in her fantasies. Their kisses didn't elicit a tenth of the response as the man in her dreams, so she couldn't even fathom going further than a simple kiss with them.

And then her dreams were real. Touching Kyber was like touching a live wire. Explosive. Passionate. Wonderful. He was everything she'd ever imagined and more. The ecstasy of it had left her barely coherent, her thoughts and memories and life tripping over his in her mind. But he had been with her, and she'd known she'd never been safer in her life. Even their shared dreams hadn't prepared her for how good it would be with him. His touch, his kiss, his desires, his barely contained animalism.

God, she'd loved it. Inexperienced or not, she'd known what she had was precious. Something she would fight for, sacrifice for.

She'd never have guessed she'd do both.

But it only reinforced what she'd learned so long ago when her brother was killed—that was just how life went. There was no such thing as fairy tales, no matter how handsome the prince who came along, no matter how bright your smile or how hard you pretended, the other glass slipper would always drop.

And shatter.

I
t took hours for Kyber to get himself free of the medics, his military and political advisors, his cousin, Tylara, his Imperial Guardians. When they finally left him in peace, he lay back on the soft pillows piled on the gelpad in the medical ward. “
Vishra
, lock the door and allow no one else in.”

The ship answered in its well-modulated, androgynous voice. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

A series of clicks sounded inside the door as the locks engaged. He sighed and closed his eyes, swallowing. Relief flooded him, but it was also tinged with wary uncertainty, and a sense of unreality expanded inside him, numbed him. After so long, could it be true?

He was free of pain, clean, on his own ship, among his own people, and had full use of his powers now that the agonizing static ringing had left his ears. A low growl rumbled in his chest at the thought. So many months without the psychic power to leash his feral nature meant the beast had a deeper grip on his body than he'd ever allowed before. He wasn't certain if he could completely cage it ever again. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to.

He, like the animal, wanted nothing more than to rip his enemies to shreds.

But that was wrong. He was the emperor—he was supposed to be in control at all times. Instead, this expedition had been one disastrous failure after another, and he'd learned when his father was murdered that if an emperor failed, it cost lives.
Kyber's
failure had cost lives.

Windows lined one side of the room, the many ships of his armada spreading out around the
Vishra
. The vast blackness of space, the flicker of millions of white stars, did little to soothe the seething rage and pain inside him.

Nothing was right, nothing was as it should be.

At the center of all that darkness twisting and knotting inside him were two people. Jana and Arthur.

Jana had gone to Arthur because she hadn't trusted Kyber, hadn't listened to him when he'd told her that he could free himself, that she should relay his psychic messages on his location to his Guardians and keep herself safe. Instead, she had sacrificed herself for him.

Not that. Anun, please, anything but that.

His stomach pitched and rolled, and he wanted to flee the reminder as badly as he'd wanted to flee Arthur's clutches. There was no agony greater for a man than knowing his woman betrayed him with another. With his mind linked to hers, the memories were etched into his thoughts like acid. His greatest enemy's hands on his One, fucking his One, the man who would use every means available to torture Kyber. The same horror he'd felt then gripped him now, the searing agony he'd have done anything to escape, including try to tear himself free of the psychic One bond.

Even away from Arthur's constant torment, his gleeful reports of how Jana had grown to like what he did to her and vivid descriptions of Jana's body—things only Kyber should know—there were some pains Kyber would never get away from, some wounds the medics couldn't heal.

Exhaustion crashed over him in an overwhelming wave. He hadn't slept in more than fits and starts since he'd been taken. The constant noise, the nudity, the freezing cold, the beatings, druggings, and restraints made real rest impossible. Which was Arthur's aim. Kyber's world had come down to
surviving
each moment, each heartbeat. A snarl wrenched from his throat, his fangs pressing against his lips as hate burned in his soul and spread until not a single particle of Kyber wasn't consumed by it.

The man might be free, but the beast's lust for vengeance wasn't satisfied. His mind latched on to that, spinning his thoughts out of the rational man's control. Darkness tunneled his vision, and he shook his head to try and clear it. He needed to chill the rage to cold calculation, needed to plan for what to do next. He was the one who was supposed to have the answers, but answers evaded him now.

Whether he wanted it or not, his body dragged him toward unconsciousness. His fingers bunched in the bedclothes beneath him as he fought it, his words slurring as the last question he had slipped from his lips. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know the truth. “
Vishra
, how long after I was taken did the empress come aboard?”

There was a short pause before the ship answered. “There are several variables that could affect the answer, but by the simplest calculation, it was approximately seventy-nine hours, six minutes, and twenty-three seconds, Your Majesty.”

“Three days. Not months.” His chest tightened, some fierce emotion cutting off his breath, but his exhaustion would no longer be denied.

The ship's response was the last thing he heard before the oblivion of slumber claimed him. “Yes, sire.”

Some part of his mind remained alert, refused to relax, to trust that this wasn't some drug-induced hallucination that he would wake up from, that he wouldn't still be writhing on the floor in agony when he opened his eyes. It wouldn't be the first time Arthur had done such a thing to him.

He didn't know what was right, what was
real
anymore, but sleep pulled him in directions he couldn't control, deep into dreams of the last time he had made love to his One. What stunned him was that he could
feel
Jana on the other end of the fantasy. As much as he'd tried to shred the ties that bound him to her, the thinnest thread still connected them. So minute, he doubted she could even sense it, but it was there. Now that his psychic powers had returned, he had no doubts that they were still linked. Anun help him.

But in the dream, he was smiling, so happy, so content. Kyber doubted the muscles in his face remembered how to relax into such an expression anymore. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled. It might have been that day, that moment.

They were aboard his personal shuttle, sumptuously appointed with couches, a wide bed, and every amenity an emperor could desire when skimming through space. Most of the time, Kyber never used any of those things. He just enjoyed the few moments of privacy and independence flying himself alone in his own ship afforded him.

He tapped his fingers over an imager, finishing a communication to the commanders in his fleet. Jana wandered up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. She was naked and smelled of warm woman, hot sex, and Kyber. A smile curved his mouth when he stood and turned in her embrace to kiss her.

She hummed against his lips, leaning into his body. “Take me back to bed.”

“Yes.” He danced them in slow circles to the rear of the shuttle before he pushed her backward onto the bed, watching the way her lovely breasts bounced when she landed.

“I could have gotten down here myself.” She propped herself on her elbows.

He winked, already tugging at his shirt. “Yes, but it's my turn to be on top.”

She laughed, then frowned when she poked her fingers into the gelpad beneath her. “You know, I've been meaning to ask you, what's this made of?”

“The gelpad?” He flung his shirt over his shoulder. “I have no idea. Some kind of gel.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes but bit her lip as she watched him strip. Her gaze heated, and the desire he saw there made him groan.

“Have you any idea how long I have dreamed of this moment? Of having you in my bed?” He shed his garments as fast as possible, fumbling with buttons until he could finally wrench the last of his clothing off.

“And here I am.” A quiet smile bowed her lips, her gray eyes serious. Too serious. He loved it when she laughed best, it loosened something deep inside him.

“Yes, here you are.” He grabbed her legs to pull her toward him.

She pressed her thighs open in invitation. He ran his tongue over his teeth, staring at the wetness gathered on her vaginal lips, his fingers tightening on her ankles. Fire blazed within him, her every reaction calling to him through the wide connection they shared. His chest tightened with wonder at having finally found her. He had waited so long. “I want to lap up all your sweet cream, Jana, and fuck you with my tongue until you come for me.”

A hot blush pinkened her cheeks, her eyes closing, her innocence a delight to him. As delightful as knowing that he was the only man who had ever touched her. She was the most precious gift fate had ever given him. He loved her with a pure, deep passion that made his chest ache.

Even her shyness couldn't disguise how his words made her wetness increase, and her scent made his cock throb with a fierceness he couldn't contain. If he sank himself inside her now, he wouldn't last long enough to make her come. It was embarrassing how simply being near her, sliding his hands over her, shredded his vaunted imperial control to nothing.

He moved to the end of the bed, sprawling catlike, and propping his head in his hand. He didn't touch her. He didn't think he could stand it if he did. Instead, he opened his thoughts to her, seeking that link that bound his heart and mind and soul to hers.

She writhed on the bed covers. Her eyes flew open, latching on to his face. He offered her a smile that he knew bared his fangs. He wanted her and the beast was even more insatiable. She licked her lips, the surprise and uncertainty fading from her gaze as he sank his consciousness into hers. She would feel how much he loved the mental contact with her, how it met needs even the ecstasy of physical contact could not.

Her fantasies overlaid his, their thoughts and desires tangling together. Her breathing sped, her nipples beading before his gaze. Her creamy flesh flushed, the pulse pounding visibly at her throat.

She slid her foot up his calf. His body jolted and he caught her ankle, gently setting her leg away from him. “No touching, my empress.”

“But I want to touch.” Her gaze zeroed in on his painfully rigid cock, and she licked her lips. A shudder rippled through him and he wrestled with the beast within that wanted to spring, pounce, and claim every inch of her as his own. He tamed it easily and focused on her.

Her knees pressed to the gelpad as her hips began to undulate. The musky scent of her arousal intoxicated him. A purr rumbled in his chest, spilling from his lips. “Lovely. If you want to touch, Jana, then touch yourself. Show me what you'd like.”

“You can sense what I'd like. You're in my head.” She bit her lower lip, her white teeth sinking into her plump pink flesh. Anun, he loved how she reacted so beautifully to every stimulus.

He slid his hand down his stomach until he could grasp his dick. He felt the swelling of her excitement through their connection. “Yes, I can tell you like this.”

A soft moan bubbled out of her as he began stroking his erection. His cravings fed hers, and soon she gave in to the temptation to let her fingers slip between her thighs. He could feel how her flesh felt under her own fingers, just as he let her feel how his hand felt moving over his hard sex.

“Oh, my God. This is…” Her voice trailed off into a soft whimper, her hips bucking to meet the thrust of her slim digits inside of her soaking channel.

Working his cock hard, he rolled his thumb over the head. He twisted his hand, stroking the shaft through his tight fist. She moaned each time he pumped himself. He watched her gaze lose focus as the pleasure took her. Her mouth fell open and low cries ripped from her. He let his need slam into her mind, his ecstasy at connecting with her, his joy at finally having her. It was enough to make her come against her hand.

He choked, his own orgasm slamming into him. The muscles in his belly locked, a hiss ripping from him. His fluids spilled over his stroking fingers and onto the bedclothes.

“I still want you inside me, Kyber.” Her gray eyes reflected her unsated greed when they met his. “Please.”

He crawled up until he could settle against her curves, loving how they fit his angles perfectly. She was made for him. His cock hardened with renewed need. He groaned and sank down on his elbows to kiss her. Her legs snapped around his waist and she lifted herself into him. Giving in to the intense yearning, he eased his cock deep inside her. Her narrow walls clamped around him and he had to grit his teeth against the lust that gripped him. He licked his way into her mouth, thrusting his tongue with the same rhythm as his cock moved within her.

She moaned against his lips, any remaining shyness fleeing under the onslaught of their mutual desire. They raced for orgasm together, each feeding the other's most carnal hungers. Her pussy flexed around his cock, her passage so tight he thought it would drive him to utter madness. She bit his lip hard, screamed, and raked her nails down his back as she came apart in his arms. She called to the wildness in him the way nothing else did. He broke his mouth away from hers, threw his head back, fangs bared, and roared as he pumped his cum deep within her.

“Kyber!” Her channel pulsed around his cock, echoing the satisfaction that throbbed through their bond, driving them both to greater heights than they'd ever imagined. “Kyber, I love you. I love you so much.”

“Jana. My Jana. My One. I love you, too.” He sank down on her, more content than he'd ever been in his life. This was everything he'd ever wanted. And he had his whole life to enjoy it. With her.

 

Kyber's eyes flared wide, ripped from a dream that had become a nightmare, and for a moment he had no idea where he was. Confusion and terror exploded through him. He wasn't in his cell, wasn't in his shuttle, or in his own bed. He jerked automatically against the chains that bound him, only to find he wasn't shackled. Instead, he flipped and landed hard on the metal floor on his hands and knees. He groaned as pain shafted up his legs and stabbed into his brain. Anun, but he knew pain now. It was as familiar to him as breathing. Days that bled into endless nights of unending, unstoppable agony.

“Sire, are you all right? Should I unlock the door and allow medics to come in?” The
Vishra's
voice was as close to panic as it could ever be, and everything came back to him in a swift rush.