Under By Treaty (SciFi Romance) (9 page)

Jaden reached around her and traced the unusual shape of her spine with the pads of his fingers. She squirmed on the third vertebrae up. Her mouth opened and her eyes half-shut.

“Yes,” she
said on a breath.

The sound rocked his self-control and he fought the urge to lift her up then ease her down. Instead, he raised his head and curled his tongue through the taut nipple dancing provocatively over him.

Her hands splayed either side of him and then she was above him and pushing down. He filled her with no room to spare. She was so wet, oiling him with her juices as the pulsating fullness at the base of his cock sent jagged shards of light through his mind.

“Stop, just there.
”

Jaden held still, inwardly screaming with frustration as Sonil angled her body over the head of his cock.

“Do you feel that?”

She rocked above him firing off a collection of nerve ends at the top of his shaft as he slid over a ridge and hit a soft spot.

Sonil’s reaction was dramatic.

A rattling gurgle deepened into a growl. Her hands clasped the side of his head and fingers gripped the roots of his hair as her lips captured his mouth with a passion that took his breath away. Her
cherry-sweet tongue invaded his mouth, firm and teasing and he returned the pressure. There was no stopping the explosion erupting from his balls, pumping semen against that soft warmth.

Sonil released h
is mouth and let out a feral high-pitched wail of pure pleasure. Jaden arched his back, and gripped her waist, holding her still as pleasure pulsated out and then back to a white spot in his mind.

“Fuck!” he cried out.

“Don’t stop,” Sonil pleaded.

He was still pumping. No way was he stopping.

Sonil froze, pushed down hard then screamed as a second orgasm shattered around him. A heady scent wrapped around him. He had never experienced a sensation like it.

His mind detonated.

Chapter Seven

Sonil checked Jaden was exactly half a step behind her. The market was crowded with K’lahn and the indigenous population. D’ron had lost many warriors to the war with Earth and Jaden reeked of unchecked human pheromones that could attract unwanted attention. She had dressed him in an unwashed D’ron tunic and pants to mask his scent, but it was a mediocre disguise.

She ignored hi
s grimace; he didn’t like her constantly checking on him, but his encounter with Markl should have taught him that – by her decree – he was defenseless without her. Ergo, she was responsible for his safety. If he hadn’t grasped this basic reality, she would be obliged to reinforce the message.

She spotted Dalish
. Her undercover agent was browsing a stall selling spices, providing a suitable place for them to meet.

“Excuse me,” she murmured, expecting the person blocking her path t
o move immediately. However, the woman swung sharply around, evidently intending to berate her.

The D
’ron resident changed her mind rapidly. “Noble one,” she said, bowing and stepping aside. Her gaze fell on Jaden.

Sonil sensed
the woman’s hostility surge up again. Sonil smiled gratitude to placate her as she pressed her way towards Dalish, moving Jaden away as quickly as possible. Conscious the citizen was directing attention towards them, Sonil pulled forward her head covering, hiding her face.

Dalish, Sonil’s informant who’d been keeping watch on the situation with Governor
Tah, was bent forward at a market stall, smelling an orange powder.

“P
’hyta will go well with s’askra,” she said.

He glanced at her and managed not to bow. “
You should try the texru fruit. They are delicious.”

Sonil picked one up
and tucked the tiny white folded message underneath the soft fruit into the palm of her hand. She purchased the texru and moved to the next stall. Eventually, she slipped into a quiet alley.

Jaden touched her arm the moment they were alone. “Why do I get the impression you
’re here incognito?”

Sonil opened up the message. She studied the map inside.
“I want to see the problems here for myself. You did well not to draw attention.”

“I spent some time undercover on a K
’lahn planet. The trick is to avoid eye contact. That woman was scared of you.”

“She recognized my bloodline.”

“That doesn’t reassure me.”

“It wasn
’t meant to.” They had reached a busy quarter of town. “We need to go this way. Quiet now.”

They slipped
into the moving populace. Sonil noticed a shopkeeper throw a young D’ron child out by his ear. The boy had clearly been caught stealing. She paused. The boy was crying. He couldn’t be more than five. She felt sorry for the little one. Then she caught the unmistakable lecturing tone of Governor Tah down the street, in the next square. It seemed she would get the chance to witness his ruling style firsthand.

*****

Jaden winced as the shopkeeper upended the boy and shook him. Dough rolls fell out of the youngster’s numerous pockets onto the ground. The owner of the bakery was furious, boxing the boy’s ear until the kid kicked him in the shin. The baker yelled and clutched his leg. The boy tore out of his grasp and ran.

Relieved the kid had got away, Jaden turned back to Sonil only to realize she wasn
’t there.

Shit
.

He spotted her pink scarf just a few steps away and moved to catch her up
, but his way was blocked. A sharp blade pressed against his throat stopped him in his tracks. The pink scarf turned around. It wasn’t Sonil. A crawling fear rooted in Jaden’s gut.

The owner of the knife moved around in front of him. The
sharp blade digging into his larynx pivoted on the point of contact. Jaden stared into the mean eyes of a K’lahn thug who looked like he had gone a few rounds with a meat cleaver.

“You don
’t belong here,” he said to Jaden. The accent was rough but Jaden got the gist. Hours spent studying basic K’lahn had paid off.

Jaden’s
mind raced. Disarming his attacker was the obvious answer, except Sonil would castrate him for even thinking it. The lesson of the scytah and the chyt worm remained strong in his mind. Talking his way out of this difficulty was tricky given the knife at his throat, not to mention, Sonil was hiding her identity. Doing nothing was his best option. Sonil would come back for him once she realized she’d left him behind.

That thought didn
’t make him feel much better.

“I said:
You don’t belong here.”

Jaden turned his palms outward
hoping to appease the man.

“He
’s human,” someone said.

“A spy.” A crowd
gathered around him.

Jaden
’s stomach turned. This was getting out of hand.

“How
’d he get to D’ron?”

“He was with a noble. I saw them together.”

Jaden recognized the woman from the market.

“
Does she know he’s human?” someone said.

His
assailant tilted his head, thinking. The knife twisted deeper. “Shall I kill him?”

Jaden
searched the crowd. Where was Sonil?

“Are you mad?
He’s a no-touch. Belongs to a noble. I saw her. Nobles grind your bones to dust, watch it blow away on the wind.”

“So where is she? She abandoned him. That makes him public property.”

There was a chorus of agreement.

“Stone him.”

Fuck.

“No.
I’ve got a better idea. The Volkran are in town.”

Jaden had no idea what t
hat statement meant, but it appeared to meet with general approval. He fought the overwhelming instinct to snatch that blade away and bury it in the creature’s abdomen. Sonil might be watching. Testing him. That idea made sense. Hands grabbed his and wrenched them behind his back. Rope bound his wrists. The knife left his throat. Then he was being dragged in the opposite direction to where Sonil had been headed.

“
SONIL
!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Someone stuffed an oily rag in
to his mouth. The thug wielding the knife had vanished.

“Yoke him to
the volkran,” someone said.

“Best stand well clear.”

Jaden struggled and the fingers gripping him tightened. They were taking him out of town. Some sort of livestock fair. The crowd escorting him fell back. He heard the stamping of hooves and a bellowing snort. An iron gate opened. Jaden dug his heels into the ground. His captors dragged him in. The gate slammed behind him.

For a
brief second, Jaden was alone. The crowd fell silent. He turned. Twenty meters away stood what had to be the D’ron equivalent of a horse with a bull-like head and enormous shoulders. This had to be the Volkran. The stunning creature reared up, its metal shoes glinting in the sun before ringing down on the ground. For a moment, Jaden thought he had been deposited into some gladiatorial pissing contest with a beast. Then men were dragging a solid wooden yoke into the ring.

Jaden
gulped. Where was Sonil? She was his protection. That was supposed to be the deal.

He looked for a means of escape as three burly men descended on him with rope. They grabbed his arms and frog-marched him to the
wooden beam. One wielded a stick that hit the back of his knees dropping him to the ground. They untied his hands and stretched his arms across the yoke so he was face up. Panic closed his throat as rope cruelly tightened around his wrists, elbow and upper arms. As his fear increased, he struggled to breathe through his nose.

“
Is the Volkran harnessed?”

The crowd was beginning to roar as five men led a steaming
bull-like horse creature around the ring.

“
And pumping. Hook him up. Don’t let the volkran see him or it’ll take off.”

Jaden heard the rattle of chain. He twiste
d his head. They brought the bull-horse alongside the yoke. Jaden realized the huge snorting beast had blinkers on and a thick harness with a ring on top and it had no idea what was about to be hooked up to it.

“The crowd will want to hear him scream,” the
K’lahn who had whacked him pointed out. He tugged the rag out of Jaden’s mouth.

Jaden
tried to yell, but his mouth was dry and all he managed was a croak.

“
Enjoy the ride, human scum.”

The volkran
’s escort scarpered. Jaden started as an almighty crack of a whip hit the bull-horse’s rump. The bull-horse shot forward, felt the chain on his back, and bolted. The yoke spun in the air, Jaden’s hip thumped the ground with an agonizing jolt and then he was airborne.

The watching crowd erupted
and he gathered they were out of the holding pen and on some sort of racecourse. The volkran was flying over the ground.

Jaden flipped over. His hand caught on a rock. Then his
back was being dragged across the rough ground at impossible speed. The volkran was possessed. It jumped something and Jaden flew into the air. His knee smashed into the track on the way down. White hot pain shot through his leg. The rough surface sliced skin off him before the yoke flipped over and he was airborne again.

A loose rock
hit his cheek, the sharp pain immediately drowned by the excruciating tide of agony flooding his body. He couldn’t catch his breath from one painful blow to the next agonizing jolt. His fear intensified; each new contact with the unforgiving ground potentially fatal.

The
sound of pounding hooves broke through his mounting panic. He glimpsed Sonil race by on a second volkran. She was standing. Preparing to jump. Jaden’s heart leapt into his mouth. Then his thigh was scraping the ground. He screamed. The yoke flipped over. His world slowed down. Then stilled. He had ended up nose in the dirt, the yoke pinning him to the track.

He realized he couldn
’t hear cheering anymore. Sonil had stunned the crowd to silence. A cloud of dust choked him. He coughed and his body erupted with pain, too much to isolate one injury over another.

“Take it easy,”
Sonil’s voice said from close by. “I’m going to turn you over.”

He groaned as
sky replaced the ground. Her face appeared above him, concerned eyes critically running over him. She straightened his legs making him gasp then ran her hands down his body, assessing his injuries. He winced as she probed his ribs.

S
he frowned. “Skal, you’re a mess. However, you seem to have escaped with no broken bones.”

“
My hand…”

He yelped when
she straightened out his fingers.

“Nothing that can
’t be fixed.”

Jaden caught the
edge to her voice. Beneath her calm veneer he sensed fury. He was going to regret this, big time. She began to untie his bindings and, once he was free of the yoke, she helped him to his feet. One knee was unusable, and his thigh on the other leg was so sore he couldn’t put any weight on it. Sonil whistled and the volkran appeared at her side.

Jaden flinched.

Sonil noticed his alarm. “The Volkran and the Qui understand each other. This one is a stunning creature; he really doesn’t belong on this planet. His instinct is to run from something following behind it. You were like a predator chasing him.”

Keeping
him upright with an arm around his waist, Sonil lifted the volkran’s hoof off the ground. The enormous creature slowly knelt forward and then keeled over. Sonil settled Jaden on its back, swung her legs over behind him, and gave the volkran a light tap. The animal rolled onto its knees and got up.

Jaden tried not to panic as he began to rise up high into the air. Then he felt Sonil
’s arms encircle him and hold him steady. He guessed Sonil was using her powerful thighs to keep her seat on the huge beast. The volkran was enormous, but Sonil controlled him with ease.

As
they returned to the main stadium, the crowd that had been baying for blood fell quiet.

Guilt sat like leaden weight in
Jaden’s gut. “I blew your cover,” he murmured.

“
It’s worse than that, Jaden. You let me down.”

His heart sank.
Her words were a clear warning he would pay dearly for the momentary distraction that had separated them.

Captain Markl
was waiting for them together with a well-built K’lahn dressed in regal robes. The captain glowered at Jaden with disapproval.

His companion stepped forward.
“Ambassador, this is an unexpected pleasure, and a fine display of volkranship, if I may be so bold.”