Mera

MERA

His hands slid around the back of my head, fingers knotting in my hair as he drew me slower, his lips falling on mine in a blaze of hunger.

As his tongue demanded entrance to my mouth, twisting and turning, tangling with my own, a low moan escaped me.

This was wrong.

It had to be wrong.

This sudden need, the rush of dampness between my legs was embarrassing. I barely knew Kovas, he was still wounded.

But I couldn't stop. Every touch of his body against mine sent electric shocks through me, heating my core, fanning this desire until it threatened to overwhelm me.

Dizziness swept over me and I clutched his shoulders.

"Kovas," I groaned as I broke away, gasping for air.

He didn't answer, instead his lips moved to my neck, burning kisses soothed with his tongue, the tingling sensation combining to drive me wild.

Wildly, I struggled to regain my reason.

"You're still hurt. We should stop."

His hands slid down my back, pulling me even closer to his chest, making it clear he had no intention of letting me go.

But his hot, hungry mouth stopped the curve of my shoulder. "I will stop if that is your wish. Of course."

I melted against him again. "That's about the furthest thing from what I want," I admitted, my cheeks burning. "But I don't want to reopen your injuries either."

His hands tightened, then moved under my hips to lift me into his lap. "Let me worry about that. Let me worry about everything."

"I'm dirty," I mumbled. "And…"

He obviously didn't care, his hands, his mouth, his very presence was enough to drive me past all resistance, leaving only the awareness of his touch searing through my skin.

Then heavy footsteps rang out.

I shook my head to clear it.

"It's the guard. We've got to stop."

For a moment, I didn't think Kovas had heard me, until with a low growl, his hands fell to his sides and I scrambled off his lap.

"Lay down, quickly."

With a baleful glare from his red eyes he complied.

"I will add this to their list of sins for which to pay."

I curled up in the far corner of the cell, doing my best not to look at him, to get my breathing back under control.

The Nazok guard stepped into the light, and I winced.

There was no way he wouldn't know what was going on. They'd immediately know Kovas had been healed. What would they do? Would they just beat him again?

I should have been worried about other things.

"Just wanted to share the good news with you," the guard said, his eyes glittering with cruelty. "Garlku just returned to the station. May as well spend some time saying farewell to your little home."

His lip curled. "I'll be glad not to deal with you anymore."

My heart beat thudded, the noise almost deafening me.

This was it. Conii was finally going to give me to Garlku.

But there was another reason terror sent icy fingers down my spine.

"What about him?" I tilted my head to indicate Kovas. "Are you just leaving him here to die?"

The guard shrugged. "Not really your problem anymore, is it?"

He leaned closer, his face almost touching the bars. "You should worry about yourself. I reckon there's just a couple of hours before your lover boy finishes his meeting with her and wants to blow off a little steam with you."

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, trying to fight down the shaking that threatened to overwhelm me.

"Why are you telling me this now?" I whispered.

"Don't they say anticipation is half the pleasure?" The sheer malice in his expression made me want to retch.

He turned around and stomped away and I slumped back, desperately trying to keep it together.

"He will not touch you." Kovas's strong arm wrapped around my shoulders. "They will all die first."

Somehow, either between just surviving on Thodos, or the last few months of imprisonment, my moral compass must have been terribly set askew.

Because that was the sweetest thing anyone had said to me.

Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and a feeling of relief swept over me. I suddenly felt like a child being comforted by an adult who cared. That's what I imagined it felt like, anyhow.

I couldn't remember the last time I had cried like that, and I swiped the tears in frustration. They kept coming, though.

I was still in danger, but someone was on my side. Stupid, stupid Mera.

It wasn't nearly enough reason to be feeling this way.

"Look, that's nice, but you're hurt. We can't change that in the next couple of hours. We've got to think of a better plan, and my brain is dry."

"Is that bad in your species? For your brain to be dry?"

The flat tone made me laugh. He hadn't struck me as obtuse, but maybe hadn't met too many humans.

"It just means I'm tired of thinking of escape plans. None of them ever work, anyway." I rubbed my eyes. "The terrible thing is I used to think if there was a way for me to sneak into Garlku's bedroom, I'd take it."

Kovas's arm tightened around me. "Why would you do such a thing?

Leaning into his shoulder, I confessed. "I probably need to stop sticking my nose into things. That's how I got into this mess in the first place. But there's got to be some record of what Garlku and Conii are doing, right? Someone needs to take them down."

A strange tremble ran through his arm. Was he angry? "Why does it need to be you?"

"Who else is there?"

He didn't answer.

In the silence, my thoughts began to spiral.

Maybe we should just go back to kissing. Having that memory might be comforting enough to sustain me through whatever Garlku had planned for me.

Or it would just break my heart more, a bittersweet reminder of what could have been.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. The bigger it got, the grander and more beautiful it became. And it got better, much better.

It could actually work .

Kovas tilted his head to the side, studying me. "What are you thinking about right now?" His finger traced my lips. "You weren't smiling a moment ago."

"I have an idea," I said slowly, meeting his gaze. "A Vinduthi claiming bite on a female. I've heard the rumors - everyone has. But what does it mean?"

Pulling back sharply, his eyes narrowed. He didn't follow yet. "It claims a mate for life. Why?"

I held my hands out as if to soothe him. "Hear me out, okay? The whole draw with Garlku is that he can tell himself I'm his, right? That I'm pure, unmarked. Unclaimed. So what if you bit me?"

Kovas's eyes flashed, the red in the pale light a keen reminder of who I was dealing with.

What.

Not human.

Utterly, terrifyingly alien.

But he was all I had. And strangely enough, I trusted him.

"What would happen?" I coaxed.

"This is not something to take lightly." A rough growl edged his words. "My people claim their mates for life. There would be no going back." He gazed at me seriously. "It's also not just a random bite. You would be unconscious, helpless, as your body adjusted."

Oh. Well, that was a little more than I'd expected.

"Couldn't you just pretend? Bite me, without the claiming?"

His nostrils flared and a flash of hurt chilled me. "Even with a regular bite, a Fanaith will know whether or not we have been together. We would need to do much more than that." His tongue flicked out for a second, drawing my eyes to those full lips. "Surely you would not want such a thing."

Maybe I'd been the only one to react to that kiss.

That would explain it.

I'd gotten dizzy, nearly assaulted a wounded man, thinking there was something between us.

I should have known better.

Still, I couldn't think of anything. "I know, I know. You don't want to do something like that with a human. But our lives are at stake here. If it buys us more time for you to heal up, that's a win, right? Once I'm in his room, surely I'll have a chance to search it. Even if there's nothing that exposes the slaving ring, he might have something else that would help us escape."

"I do not like this idea," Kovas argued. "What is to stop him from simply keeping you there?"

I sat up, turning to face him squarely. "That's where the beauty of the bite comes in. If I can distract Garlku long enough, maybe I can rile him up, leading him back here, into a trap." Reaching for his hand, I squeezed it. "And then you can kill him."

He smiled, a grin that lit up his face. Funny the little things that made him happy.

"But if it does not work, they'll simply kill you first."

Yeah. That was always going to be the risk. "They can try. I trust you to save me."

He seemed to consider for a minute but then held out his hand.

"You trust me."

I nodded.

"To save you." His intense gaze bore into me. "To take you, but not claim you."

"I do," I whispered, my throat tight, the words echoing in my mind with significance.

It was true. I trusted him, and I wanted him, in every way.

His hard body, the cap of dark, wiry hair and protruding horns only turned me on more. My eyes shifted to the red markings on his side, how they seemed to glow.

"You're wearing too much clothing." The heat in his voice caught my breath, and I quickly shimmied out of the tattered gown, but my hands paused at the waist of my panties. "All of it," he demanded.

Well. Maybe I hadn't been wrong after all.

Completely bare, my face leaned toward his, and our eyes met before I pressed our lips together. His large hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me in as our tongues touched and played within each other's mouths.

Lifting me off the ground, he lowered me on my back, making me gasp as I hit the hard cell floor.

My eyes shifted over his injuries. "Be careful," I murmured beneath our kiss. "I don't want your wounds opening up."

He chuckled, the low sound making me quiver. "I have better things to worry about right now." His lips touched mine as the weight of his body loomed over me. "And you shouldn't worry about anything at all."

My fingers splayed against his dark gray skin, pulling him closer to me with a deep hunger in my gut. His hands gripped my hips hard, shifting my motion to grind against his cock while he hardened over me. My eyes widened when I felt his size.

I hadn't thought that far ahead.

For all the time I tended to him, I'd carefully looked away from that area, trying to preserve a little bit of his modesty and dignity.

Maybe I should have looked and gotten an idea of what I was in for.

Too late now.

His hand moved to my neck, touching my collarbones and pushing up slightly. The dominance made me melt even further. It was nice not to have to be the caregiver, the one in charge, the one doing everything for everyone else for once.

His confidence shone through his actions, like when he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

"Are you sure you can take it?"

"Yes," I whined, lost to pleasure. "Yes, I want it."

He pressed against me and ground against my clit. "I don't think you're ready." His fingers curled into my hip. "Spread your legs."

Biting my lips, I obeyed, watching my thighs swing to the sides as he leaned down to kiss them, moving slowly, implacably closer to my dripping folds. Everywhere his tongue touched tingled, like tiny firecrackers under my skin, and the gentleness of his lips in contrast with his barking orders surprised me, the mix of softness and rigid commands making me even wetter.

Kovas didn't hold back. Right after his lips pressed against my pussy, he began sucking on it, sending me into ecstasy as my body twinged and convulsed, the pressure combining with the tingling to send me right over the edge.

His large, wide fingers slid into my hot channel and made a beckoning motion, making me scream before he lifted his head up quickly and covered my mouth.

"Don't let anyone hear you," he commented with an evil grin. "Those noises are only for me."

I couldn't help myself. I kept moaning underneath his hand, partially because I didn't want him to release me from his grip. His fingers kept stretching, massaging my pussy while my hands grappled for his arms, digging my fingernails into his biceps as my eyes rolled back in my head, already lost to sensation.

Shifting to lay over me, Kovas leaned down to nibble at my neck, the pain of the bite good enough to enhance my pleasure tenfold. I tried to dig my fingernails into his back, desperate for something to hold onto, but he pinned my hands down over my head.

Red eyes glowed above me as the broad head of his cock pushed against my dripping core. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," I begged incoherently. "Please, more."

As he slowly filled me, his mouth covered mine to capture my low moan.

Too big, too thick, too alien. It wasn't just the size of his cock that drove me crazy, the very shape was different, brushing against the walls of my pussy in terrible, wonderful new ways.

I whimpered beneath him and my wrists flexed beneath his grip as he filled me up completely.

Then he stopped and I nearly cried in frustration.

"Are you all right?"

My eyes flashed down to his wounds, but he lifted my chin back to him, pausing his thrusting.

"Keep your eyes on mine," he demanded.

"Yes, sir," I whispered, falling into his gaze. "I can take it."

Maddeningly, he slowed his pace even further, pushing against me, then pulling back, slow and gentle like he was afraid to break me. His lips touched mine, and I savored the taste of him as he stretched me, filled me, changing everything I thought I knew about pleasure.

My muscles relaxed until I felt like I was floating.

"Give me more," I whispered, making eye contact with him.

"I don't know if you can handle it," he responded with a sly grin.

"Try me."

His frenzied motions came like a strike of lightning to my body, one hand skimming down my side, nails digging into my hips as he slammed into me, driving his hard cock relentlessly deeper and deeper, branding my body with his desire.

I arched against him, bucking, desperate to take him, all thoughts burned away leaving nothing but this madness.

And I didn't care.

"Please," I whimpered, not even knowing what I begged for. "Kovas, please!"

Without slowing down, he nuzzled my neck, lips grazing over the sensitive skin. "Whatever you want," he murmured. "Always."

Then he bit down on my left shoulder, hard, and my orgasm shattered through me, turning the world inside out, the pleasure so overwhelming, I barely felt my skin tear beneath his teeth.

And yet, he didn't stop.