Sarazen's Vengeance: Book 1.1 (3 page)

Three

Ohlen walked naked and uncaring through the halls. Uncaring, because even covered in blood and gore, his mate clung to him. Clung as though at any moment she would be torn away from him. Her tears slid down his chest in a constant stream. If not for the nearly overwhelming scent of her relief, he would have been panicking.

He walked into the lift with her. Kneading at her hair in an attempt to comfort her. Not sure how far he could push before she became uncomfortable with his touch.

Andi’s tears had gentled by the time they reached his quarters. He asked if she wanted him to leave her be to cleanse and she shook her head almost violently. Digging her nails into his shoulders to keep him from putting her down. Had the circumstances been different, it would have made him smile.

He walked into the stall with her, murmuring his promise not to leave her. She allowed him to set her feet down and start the wash. Ohlen kept her curled close while the spray covered both of them. Andi shifted slowly from one foot to the other. Pulled her fingernails from his shoulders and moved her arms from up around his neck. Down to press her palms flat against his chest. Turned her cheek to his heart, one side then the other. He was bothered greatly by his inability to control the rigid length of his cock. Angry with himself for the pleasure he found in friction of his shaft against her soft belly. The material of her gown sensually chaffing his sensitive flesh.

“If you are ill at ease with my nudity, I will remedy that immediately.”

“I’m fine. I want to make sure the enzyme can get off all the blood.” she whispered.

Ohlen made a soft sound. Relieved, thrilled by how she continued to allow his hands on her. He rubbed up and down her back. Massaged the enzyme into her dark hair.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

His guts twisted with regret. The human male’s punishment should have lasted far longer than it had. So great was Ohlen’s desire to destroy the despicable creature, he lost his control.

“You need not thank me, my one. Not for that. I lost control. It was over too soon.”

The wash ended and the warm currents of air whipped around them. Forestalling any reply she might have made. Once it was done, he reached down and scooped her up by the thighs. Carried her out towards the main room.

“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.” he commented.

   Andi was already slender. Hardly any weight at all in his grasp. She hadn’t in fact eaten much of anything since she had come aboard.

“Who told you that?”

   He touched a kiss to her shoulder and felt her stiffen slightly. He waited for her to tell him to stop. To his delight, she relaxed not long later,

“You found my presence unsettling and wouldn’t speak to me, my one. I did what I had to, to ensure you were properly cared for.”

“You were worried about me?” she was so surprised by this.

It made his heart hurt. “Of course. I am still.”

Ohlen set her down on the lounge at the end of his bed. Reaching for a blanket to lay over her lap and another to knot around his waist. Andi curled her legs up under the blanket while he typed in a request from the galley. Her lips rolled together. Teeth tugging nervously at the lush curves.

Curves that enticed him after what he’d seen the commander and his mate doing in the temple. Ohlen had gone in to pray for guidance, interrupting an intimate moment between the two. He had inadvertently seen something that had made him insanely curious. Curious and aroused. Thoughts for later.

   “Why did you not stay at the observation deck?” 

Ohlen reached for a soft skein of her hair, moved deliberately slow to give her time to withdraw, rubbing the silkiness of it between his fingers. Andi shook her head, not hard enough to pull her hair from his fingers and twisted her hands around in the blanket. Looking at her lap,

   “Because I’m not a good person and I wanted to watch him die. Listen to him screaming. I wanted to see him bleed.”

She jumped at the touch of his fingers on her cheek, but she didn’t jerk away. Her lashes fluttered. Rose to mee his gaze. To his amazement, the subtle fragrance of arousal wafted off her beautiful self. He swallowed the growl that filled his mouth.

   “How does that make you a bad person? He hurt you irreparably. It is only right that he be hurt all that much more. That you feel vindicated by it. I did not want you to watch and find a legitimate reason to fear me. More than you already do.”

Her lips gave a little wobble as she turned her cheek into his touch. Leaned forward slightly towards him. Her body and her scent telling him without a doubt that she was comfortable in his presence. The relief was unimaginable. Andi sniffled. Scooting an inch or two closer to him. He held his breath to keep from doing anything to make her move away.

“You are the first person to have protected me like that, Ohlen. He’s dead and won’t ever touch me again. You made that happen.”

“You are my mate, Andi. The only one I will ever have. I will allow nothing, no one, to harm you.”

“I believe you.” she murmured. Blushing when he smiled back at her,

“Good. May I ask you something?”

“Okay.”

“I happened to interrupt the commander and your lieutenant in the temple. They looked to be eating at one another’s lips and taking great enjoyment from it. I’ve never seen any of my people do this before. I can only assume perhaps it is a human proclivity. What is it?”

Andi frowned at him for a minute. When she understood what he was asking, her eyelashes fluttered again. That sweet, intoxicating scent of her arousal once more perfuming the air between them.

“Kissing.” she murmured.

Rolling her lips together as she smiled and scooted a little closer. Her breath caught when he rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip. Pulled it free from her teeth to soothe the pressure of her bite.

“Later, when you have come to trust me with all of you. I would like to know this…kissing.”

Before she could answer him, the alert at the door to his quarters beeped. “Wait here a moment, my one.”

Ohlen came back with a tray filled with all the foods she had tried at least twice so far and set it on the small table in front of her. Offered her a quick smile when she stared at him in bewilderment.

“Why does your commander always rub his nose along Clary’s?” she blurted. Hurriedly, as though she worried he would be displeased by her curiosity. He was very pleased to answer her. Beyond pleased, because she was speaking to him.

   “It is our way of showing affection, tenderness, and desire. Also to press a bit of our scent onto our mate’s skin.”

   “So, the Sarazen version of a kiss?”

He tilted his head at her inquisitively. “Is that why humans kiss their mates?”

   “It’s what they say. I’ve um, never done it.” she looked away shyly.

He moved back to kneel in front of her. Gave her time to pull away in case it frightened her. He brushed his nose up the length of hers, offering a soft rumble of sound meant to reassure and calm her. The sound he would only ever be able to make for her. For his mate.

Andi was very stiff at first. Stiff enough that he almost pulled back. He worried he had gone too far until she let out a slow, shuddering breath and relaxed. Allowing his caress. Leaning into his touch. He rubbed up the other side of her nose. Let his brow rest on hers, murmuring to prolong the sweetness of the moment.

“Then when you are ready, it will be ours alone. I need to dress. Eat.”

Andi ate a third of what he desired her to, but she ate. She seemed to take amusement from him clearing the rest of the plates himself. Asking him where he put it all in a timid little voice. He was delighted by her continued inquisitiveness. His thoughts focused foremost on his body language, doing his best to give her time to watch him. To grow more accustomed to his nearness, now that she wasn’t suffering the immediate aftermath of watching her former tormentor, die an extremely painful death.

   She was exhausted emotionally. Ohlen could see her body beginning to wilt with the tiredness born of such relief. Such release. He suggested she move to the bed and the scent of her fear immediately flooded the room.  Her eyes rolled a little too wide, a little too white. He moved to crouch in front of her again and she flinched back. Then was mortified to have done so.

   “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. Trying to get hold of herself. Instead of taking her hands or curling his arms around her like he desired, he wrapped his fingers gently around her ankle. Rubbed up and down the fine bones there with his thumb,

“You have nothing to be sorry for, my one. The bed is all for you. I will sleep here.”

Ohlen tried to use the gentlest tone he knew. Unfortunately, it still came out as somewhat of an order. She still recoiled. He could hear how hard her heart pounded. Raced like a frightened animal trapped within her chest.

   Andi looked at the lounge she sat on, then sideways at the bed. Looking anywhere but at him it seemed. She again licked the soft swells of her trembling lips. The need surged to taste such soft curves. To taste all of her. He restrained himself. Shoved his beast down and forced it to heel.

“I’m smaller. I should take the couch. You’ll barely fit, and it’s your bed-” she murmured. Shuddered when he growled his displeasure,

“It is our bed, my one. Where you will sleep, alone, until such time as you give permission for me to share it with you.”

   “But-“

“No, Andi. Your comfort and well-being will always be my first concern. These quarters are ours until we reach Saraz. You need not ask permission to do anything within them. I will clean up our meal. You, get ready for sleep.”

****

Andi woke up twice in the middle of the night. Her mind hemorrhaging every horrific moment spent suffering at Ethan’s hands.

The first time Ohlen woke her. She nearly fell off the bed with how fast her body moved. Lurching back purely out of instinctual reaction more than fear of Ohlen himself. Before he had gotten control of it and turned the lights on, she had seen his stricken expression. She calmed almost immediately and apologized to him. It had seemed only to make him angry, despite how gently he tucked her back in and lowered the lights again. Soothing her until she fell back to sleep.

The second time she’d jolted awake, she didn’t go flying off the bed. Ohlen was already there in his cat form. One big paw on her shoulder to steady her. The ginger beast kneaded gently at her skin while he looked down at her. The concern plain on his feline face. His whiskers pulsed with the soft sound he made. Used his paw to pull her closer against his side.

“Sorry to keep waking you. Maybe I should sleep with the other women until my brain is done purging all this shit.”

Ohlen chuffed, lowering his head to nuzzle against her cheek gently. Nudged and pushed her until she turned on her side. Giving him room to curl along her back. He threw his big furry leg over her middle until she was totally surrounded by his unbelievably warm body. Her bones vibrated with the soothing purrs he made for her.

Andi fell asleep thinking about how silly it was that she was more comfortable sleeping with a seven hundred pound monster. One capable of chomping off hands and ripping hearts out with teeth and claws, than she was with his two legged form.

She didn’t wake again from bad dreams. In fact, she had the best sleep of her life.

Andi woke gently. No fearful jolt of adrenaline, no lingering nightmares. It took her a minute to acclimate because that hadn’t happened in…a very long time.

Ohlen had moved from the bed and was sitting in a large chair beside it. Some kind of tablet in his hand, reading or doing work. The moment she shifted, his head came up. His blond hair shimmered in the rising lights.

He was a fascinating study in contrast. Swarthy skinned, the tattoos alongside the long stripe of his hair, a dark bronze. Every Sarazen seemed to have those markings in varying colors. She wondered what they meant. His eyes were startlingly purple. Swirls of blue and violet. They reminded her of the first time she’d ever gotten to look out at the vast vacuum of space. The
Aria
had flown through a nebula when she was ten. She and the other orphans had been allowed up to the bridge to view it. It was her happiest memory.

Ohlen’s face a work of art. The kind she might have spent hours sketching once, a long time ago. He was immense. Muscles packed on muscles on a tall, wide-shouldered frame. His hands were easily three times the size of hers. Though he probably could have crushed her skull in one hand, each time he had touched her, he had been flawlessly gentle.

   “Good rising, my one.”

Those bright purple eyes of his sparkled. His voice a near tangible caress against her skin. It made her body break out in goosebumps. Made her lick her dry lips and shift in the bed to turn over to face him.