Warrior (8 page)

“No.”

He
had made her wet. Urazi trembled with the urgency to haul her under him and complete the deviant deed. He stifled a groan, imagining damp heat, tightness. He growled.

“I am sorry,” she repeated.

“Stop apologizing,” he snapped, torn between his honor and his regard for her. The wisest move would be to let her believe her wetness disgusted him, but his feelings would not permit him to hurt her. Not when the truth seared him from the inside out. He flung a forearm across his eyes, and exhaled. “You are not at fault.”

“Then I do not understand.”

“It is best you do not.”

For the longest time, they lay in silence, but as he’d begun to hope Anika had fallen asleep, she brushed his shoulder. Urazi flinched.

He had used her many times—but that had occurred
before
. Before she’d been pledged to another, before his need had overridden his sense, before he desired more than anal contact to slake his lust. He hungered to mate with her as an alpha did with a breeder, to have sons and perhaps a female run to him and call him
seppa
like little Miri did with Dak. Just the touch of Anika’s hand on his shoulder ignited a torrent of longing that could never be satisfied.

Urazi shuddered.

“Are you still cold? Let me warm you.” Anika curled herself around him. Her mammary glands felt like pillows against his back—except for her nipples, which had grown hard like acca nuts.

How swiftly he’d plunged into depravity. And once he’d done so, the gates fell open, releasing a flood of perverted desires: to lick her entire body, even taste that anomalous wetness. “I am not cold.” He tried to ward her off.

“You are shivering.” She fitted the cradle of her hips against his buttocks and slid her hand over his waist. “But you feel feverish. And your breathing sounds labored. I hope you are not becoming ill.”

Urazi swallowed. Anika’s hand lay mere centimeters from his tumescence.

She had claimed his role offered him more options than hers, but it was only a matter of degree. They had no recourse but to follow their prescribed paths. Once Marlix, Dak, and Ilian defeated Qalin and Artom, Protocol would be restored because that was the way of Parseon. An aggressive, violent race, they required its civilizing influence—at the societal and personal level. If not for Protocol, he would have succumbed to his aberrant urges.

Protocol promised the sole sure path to honor.

So why did honor hold so little satisfaction? Why did her soft body, her wetness seem to offer so much more? Since Anika had been mated to Jergan, Ilian would never know if Urazi used her in a similar fashion. Unless she confessed her transgressions—and that was unlikely.

But
he
would know. A beta did not usurp a Commander’s property. Nor did he betray his own Alpha, a former partner and friend, who’d gone to great lengths to ensure his younger female sibling was cared for in the best possible manner. If Urazi undermined the transaction, Anika would pay the harsh toll. He could not hurt her by destroying her chance for security, the best life a breeder could hope for.

Urazi was beta. He could provide Anika with nothing.

Except Jergan had been beta. She’d thrived with him
.

Anika smoothed her hand over his hair-roughened abdomen. His aching manhood throbbed.
Lower
. Muscles contracted in resistance, or was it supplication? He could no longer distinguish a difference.

Space. He needed space to shore up his willpower, for reason to prevail. He reached out to push her away and untangle from her embrace—just as she grasped his turgid manhood.

Honor and duty fell like villages razed under Qalin’s march.

URAZI’S MANHOOD LEAPT within Anika’s palm, throbbing and weeping the fluid of his essence. Moisture production was normal for a male and abnormal for a female, yet Urazi’s bodily response caused another surge of embarrassing wetness. He had said her unseemly display did not matter, but she wondered. His tumescence seemed to indicate desire, yet ambivalence resounded loud and clear.

The way it had always been. He would take her, then ignore her for days. Why? BCF guards had had no qualms about using her. Nor had Jergan, who’d been one of them, though he’d come to hold her in regard.

Anika tightened her grasp on Urazi’s shaft and pumped, eliciting a groan that sent a ripple of pleasurable pain spiraling into her womb. She pressed her lower abdomen firmer against his buttocks in an attempt to alleviate it.

With the exception of breeding, sexual congress between males and females was discouraged, although it was tolerated with
betas,
who lacked an alpha’s constitutional strength. But, in practice, both ranks of males availed themselves of females with such regularity it was as if Protocol counted for naught. Anika sensed Urazi cared for her and, from her experience with Jergan, had learned that affection meant a male would be more apt to use her.

So why did he deny himself the release? She’d strongly hinted she would be amendable so he had to be aware he would not have to employ force to overcome her resistance.

While anal penetration was uncomfortable at best, and often sharply painful, she’d heard breeding penetration tore up a female inside, and she hemorrhaged.

Yet she longed for it, as if mating would soothe the odd ache emanating from the very core of her. Perhaps Tara and Omra had planted the absurd idea in her head. Both had insisted breeding brought a female great
ecstasy
if performed in a
relationship
of mutual regard. They wouldn’t lie, but how could their claims be true? Of course, Tara was Terran, of alien physiology, so anything was possible, but Omra was
Parseon
so her stories could not be so easily discounted.

Could breeding bring pleasure?

Anika did not know. She had never been bred.

Jergan had not been prepared to sever that tie to Protocol. He had used her—as gently as he could to minimize her pain—but he had not attempted to impregnate her.

She might end up with Ilian, but if she could control only one aspect of her life, it would be her first breeding experience. Her first time would occur with someone of her choosing, someone whom she held in affection and regard.

Urazi. Even if he did hand her over to Ilian at the next juncture.

Maybe there would be pleasure—though most likely not—but she still wanted him. She did not worry about impregnation because of the tea she’d prepared before they’d retired. Fortunately, she’d thought to grab some medicinal herbs the females of the camp had collected before she and Urazi had left. Her tea had contained contraceptive agent, while his had an extract to ensure his sleep would be deep to enable her to slip away afterwards.

Decision made, Anika tightened her fingers around Urazi’s manhood. He grabbed her wrist, and drew her arm away. A lump thickened in her throat at his rejection. Why did it have to be like this? Why could they not have the liberty to choose whomever they desired? Why was it considered perverse?

Urazi released her and rolled to face her. In the flickering firelight, his face seemed etched in stone, his eyes piercing—yet unreadable. He’d never appeared more alpha and fleetingly she pondered if Protocol made mistakes—misassigned status—for clearly his musculature, his bearing were as fierce as any alpha’s she’d ever known. Commander like. He could stand shoulder to shoulder with Ilian, Dak, or Marlix and, without foreknowledge, one would be challenged to identify who was
not
Alpha. A frisson of awareness, part fear, part excitement heated her blood.

He slid his hand into the mass of her hair and wound the strands around his fingers. “Look at me,” he ordered.

She raised her eyes.

Tugging on her hair, he drew her face so close that wisps of his breath caressed her face. Then he covered her mouth, and
kissed
her. Using his lips, and tongue and even teeth, he commanded control of her senses. She moaned in surrender under the pleasurable assault. He plundered, but this was no war she had any intention of resisting.

Anika wound her arms around his neck. Urazi rolled them over so his weight landed on top of her and continued to ravish her mouth. At last unleashed, his passion poured forth like spring floodwaters cresting the bank.

Anika mashed her face against his, their noses bumped, and their teeth clashed in a needful dance eliciting moans from her throat and a growl from his.

He nipped the side of her neck, the tiny sting shooting pleasure darts into her sex. Was this what Omra and Tara had talked about? This crazy, urgent yearning? But where did it lead? And what of the moisture that leaked from her now? She would have pressed her legs together to halt the flow, but Urazi had wedged a strong, sinewy limb between them. With his thigh resting against the mound of her sex came the urge to grind against him in a most uncommon manner.

She was on the verge of doing so when he ducked his head and captured a nipple in his mouth.

Pleasure rocketed through her so strong, she gasped. He seemed to hesitate, and for fear he would stop, she threaded her hands through his short alpha hair and arched her back. Moving from breast to breast, he sucked and pulled on the taut peaks.

Her hips did rock then—she had lost control over her body.

“Your nipples are as hard as the stones of fruit and taste like berries,” he murmured.

What could she say? No male had ever made such a praiseful-sounding comparison. Her face heated in embarrassment as more moisture pooled between her legs.

In a flash of epiphany, she wondered if moisture was related to pleasure. Did the dampness create the pleasure, or did the pleasure result from the moisture? Further inclination to analyze vanished when Urazi pushed both breasts together and alternated between the two, nipping and sucking.

Her body burned as if she’d slept too close the fire. A sharp shaft of disappointment stabbed at her when he abandoned her breasts and scooted downward, although she found pleasurable compensation in the slight rasp of his hirsute body.

He settled between her legs, his broad shoulders forcing her thighs wide, exposing her disgraceful wetness. Her face flamed. “Urazi….” She protested, but her breathy utterance sounded encouraging even to her ears.

He took it that way. Heat flared in his eyes then he lowered his head and touched his mouth to her sex. Employing lips, tongue, even nips of his teeth, he consumed her flesh like she was all that existed between him and starvation.

Rapture so strong it rendered all other pleasures insignificant rippled through her body. With a keening cry, she arched. He drew her labia into his mouth and sucked then parted them and lapped at her slit. Whether by accident or intent, she could not guess, but he swiped his tongue over a spot at the apex of her sex and a sensation of such intensity knifed through her she could hardly bear it.

She grabbed his hair and twisted hard, to hold him off, but he fluttered his tongue over that same special spot, reducing her to a writhing, howling creature.

“Monto, Anika, Monto,” he growled. He thrust his tongue into her breeding channel as if to scoop out her moisture. What he found must have pleased him, because he groaned with such satisfaction, she nearly expired right then.

With his thumbs, he spread open her sex, teased the little nub. Fire spread through her loins, into her womb. Pressure, such pressure. Ecstasy detonated at the site and reverberated in a shockwave.

Anika cried out, thrusting her hips at Urazi’s face. He wrenched away, flipped her over, and hauled her to her hands and knees. He guided his manhood to her entrance and pushed inside. Something tore, and she cried out, but the pain evaporated, and her body was driven by passionate need to thrust against his. He continued to pound into her, eliciting another blaze of rapture.

Her whimpers mingled with his hoarse exhortations, harmony and melody flowing to a perfect beat. Urazi shuddered, and, deep inside her very being, his manhood contracted to spew forth his essence.

He collapsed then, flattening her to the mat, but he sought her hands and threaded their fingers together. He buried his face against her neck, his breath steamy and ragged.

Deep in her core, small tremors continued to ripple, but, as the tide of ecstasy receded, she was dragged into an undertow of sad resignation.

The gratification she experienced with Urazi confirmed she could not become Ilian’s breeder
ever
. She could not stand to have her body invaded by him—to have the memories of
this
evening slowly erased by contact with the Commander.

But despite the incredible intimacy they’d shared, she suffered no illusions about Urazi’s fealty. He would fulfill his duty by hauling her back to Marlix, who would present her to the Commander.

She had to leave.

Chapter Eight

Urazi awakened to the blushing chill of dawn and warmth in his chest that came from acceptance.

He could never give Anika to Ilian. He suspected that had always been the case—he had fooled himself to think he could allow another to use her, had clutched his self-delusion in self-defense against his growing feelings. But he held no illusions about the future. After Qalin and Artom’s defeat, the hunt for Anika would ramp up, she would be found and punished. As would he. One did not flout an Alpha’s edict without consequence. Marlix’s word was law, and if he did not enforce it, adversaries would view him as weak and would challenge his command. Honor and sovereignty would force Marlix to make an example of them both.

Under the camouflaging chaos of war, he and Anika could elude capture. But when peace reigned, they
would
be found.

But in the meantime, they would have this time. They could indulge in newfound
mutual
ecstasy.

Anika had joined him in physical rapture! He had been taught mating caused breeders intense pain—and his experiences using females in the sexual ways Protocol begrudgingly sanctioned had not discredited that promulgation.