Chapter 10
TEN
Taki
Zanner had looked large and terrifying on Xal. On Radix, he was larger than life. He stood tall above my father and the rest of the males in my family. His shoulders were broad, hands massive, and thighs too large to fit most of the pants my sire had tried to purchase for him ahead of time. And it seemed odd to see Zanner in a shirt. I missed the sight of his muscled chest and firm abs.
Zanner had exuded confidence on Xal, but here on Radix, he buzzed with a nervous, defensive energy that I wished to eradicate. I understood his worry. Humians rarely stepped foot in the wealthy areas of Halian, and my father's villa was one of the largest properties. As our hover car pulled to a stop in front of the floating stairs leading to my childhood home, Zanner only seemed more agitated. I gripped his hand tightly, but his face was turned away from me. Away and up at the massive villa that rose before us. I tried to see my home from his eyes—sparkling and gold. Accented with fraxis accents from the statues on the house to the inlay details on the door. The villa rose three stories, and round columns held up several balconies.
I tried to draw his attention. "Mate."
His green gaze swung to mine, but he was distracted. "Yeah," he murmured. His leg bounced, and I could smell the anxiety wafting from his skin.
"You belong here."
He snorted. "I belong with you, but I don't belong here."
"Zan—"
The door to the hover car swung open. Galix, one of my father's Trayger guards, didn't hide his dislike of Zanner as he spoke in a reluctant tone. "Welcome."
I pressed my lips together as I exited the hover car with Zanner's hand still clutched in mine. My large mate unfolded his frame from the car and stood taller than even Galix. He took a deep breath, his chest inflating, before exhaling roughly. "Let's do this, I guess," he muttered.
My father owned a large villa on the outskirts of our city, Halian, and I lived in a small cottage house on his property near a sparkling waterfall. I had wanted to do nothing but retreat to my sanctuary with Zanner, but my sire and family and friends had other plans. My sire had made his way up the stairs, and he stood at the top as we ascended. His eyes crinkled, and when he opened the door, I understood why.
"Welcome home!" the crowd inside yelled in unison. The large foyer was filled with my Radian friends and family—all dressed in their finest and holding half-full glasses of ferm. Food lay spread out on tables behind them, much of it already eaten. I could see the party had started before I'd gotten there.
And while I'd been able to cleanse myself on the cruiser, I was still a mess in mismatched clothes. Zanner wore ill-fitting pants and a shirt, and every bit of exposed skin was a mess of cuts and bruises. He walked with a limp and needed rest. I shot my sire a glare, but he was already mingling among the crowd.
I kept my firm grip on Zanner, and the crowd must not have been warned about my humian mate, because as soon as the initial welcome shouts died down, an eerie calm descended on the crowd. Whispers started. The stares began. And Zanner looked one second away from fighting them all or bolting. Maybe both.
G'ersh proved herself to be a friend I could count on. She burst from the crowd without hesitation and drew me into her arms in a tight embrace. "Taki," her voice wobbled with emotion. "I'm so sorry. I should have stayed with you. I should have?—"
"Stop," I patted her back. "You deserve zero blame." I pulled back and brushed her carefully curled silver hair from off her face. "And it worked out in the end."
Her gaze shifted to Zanner, and I could tell the moment her body registered attraction to my mate. Not anything major, but her vettes warmed to a blush pink. Her gaze took in his long, thick legs, broad chest, and weathered face. Her lips parted in awe before she pressed a hand to her chest. "I, um, I'm G'ersh."
On the cruiser, while I'd made Zanner recover, I'd talked to him about G'ersh so he was aware of what she meant to me. For the first time since we'd arrived on this planet, his features softened. "I've heard a lot about you. All good things. Nice to meet you."
G'ersh, the flirt, fluttered her eyes. "Oh, well, I am pretty special."
Following G'ersh's lead, more of my friends stepped forward to personally greet me and meet my mate. I didn't miss the way many of the young Radian females hungrily eyed Zanner. But other than his slight smile to G'ersh, he remained cool to everyone. And that was fine with me. I didn't need him to charm anyone. I just needed him at my side. And at my side he stayed, even as his expression grew pained from standing too long on his injured leg. I forced him to eat and drink, and he seemed overwhelmed at the food choices. Almost panicked. "Taki," he whispered to me as we sat with plates full of food in front of us. "I don't know… I don't know if my body can handle this food. I haven't had anything but rations for years."
I hated how unsure he seemed. This was a terrible way to adjust to a new life, being thrown into a party full of strangers who either saw him as someone to ogle, or someone to look down on. So I made an executive decision to get out of there.
I flagged down one of the servants and asked them to leave a platter of food at my front door for later. Zanner watched me curiously before I grabbed his hand and made a straight line for the exit. A few family members stopped us along the way, but I didn't have to pretend too hard to be exhausted as I told them I appreciated the welcome, but that I needed a rest.
We made our way outside of the villa and on the small path that led to my cottage house. The path was lined with colorful, well-tended blooms of erwhistle and lipsich. I let my fingers flutter over the petals. There were times on Xal where I believed I'd never see my home again. Our sun was dropping swiftly, and the cooler air felt good on my skin after the dry heat of Xal. We rounded a bend on the path, and my cottage came into view. It was just as I remembered. The panes of my large windows glittered in the light, and vines of hendron twisted and curved around the sloped roof.
Zanner's jaw was set as he dutifully walked at my side, but his limp was even more pronounced now, and pain was etched into the deep grooves of his handsome face. I leaned into his side. "This is our home," I explained, pointing to my cottage. "Just ours. No one lives here. We will have as much privacy as we need."
A slight drop in his shoulders was his only show of relief. He swallowed thickly and nodded. The front door opened automatically as soon as the sensor read my vette signature. I kicked off my shoes and curled my toes into the plush pad of my soft pink carapette that covered the foyer of my home. Zanner hesitated at the doorway, staring down at his dirty shoes. Without hesitation, I knelt in front of him. "Tak—" he protested, but I shushed him as I unlaced his boots and drew them from his feet along with the coverings he called socks.
His feet were littered with fading bruises, cuts, and white marks he had told me were blisters. He had promised they weren't painful, but I knew that was one of the small lies he sometimes told me so I wouldn't worry. I could see how gingerly he walked on his injured feet. His entire body was a story—scars and bruises. Healing wounds and fresh injuries. And many were gained in defending me.
"Come," I whispered, tugging his hand down my main hallway. "I'll give you a tour later. Let's take a bath."
He blinked at me, clearly unsure as he limped behind me. My bedroom was on the first floor of my two-story cottage, and I exhaled with delight as we walked into my room to see my massive bed still made with plump pillows and soft blankets. But I didn't stop there, as I led Zanner directly into my bathroom.
He whistled in a low tone. "I think your bathroom is bigger than the entire lodging I grew up in."
I wasted no time in turning on the water to fill my bath, which was big enough for four Zanners. I dropped in several fresh-smelling cleansing oils and a few healing tonics before turning on the soft jets. I undressed quickly, and then stood before Zanner naked while he remained frozen and gaping at the room. But as soon as the last of my clothes hit the floor, his gaze slid to me. And just like that, the pain that had lurked in his green eyes cleared as they now sparkled with the beginnings of arousal. I stepped close to him and tugged his shirt over his head, and then unclasped the tie of his pants.
They dropped to the floor, and then Zanner was naked too. And even though I'd always be attracted to my humian mate, the sight of his damaged body made my vettes flutter with distress.
He took a step toward me instantly, running a rough palm across my forehead. "Hey, I'm okay."
"You're not," I sniffed. "You're hurt so badly, all because of me?—"
"And it was worth it." His hand cupped my chin. "It was so worth it to be here with you."
"Even if you had to endure a party?"
He smiled with bared teeth. "Even if I had to endure a party."
"Come," I stepped into the bath and drew him in with me. "Let's relax."
He took a step into the steaming, bubbling water, and immediately let out a hiss and a grimace.
"Are you okay?" I helped him lean back against the side where a large soft pad pillowed his head.
He grimaced and his eyes slid shut. "I'm okay, just… burns on my cuts."
"I added a healing tonic to the water."
"Ah," he moaned softly. "That's why."
"Do you want me to?—?"
"I'm good, Taki." One eye opened. "You're taking good care of me."
I wanted to be good for him. It was in my Radian female blood to dote and care for my mate. And I wasn't sure any mate ever needed as much care right now as Zanner. I reached for the block of bew and worked it into a lather on a soft whorl sponge. Then, as Zanner watched through slitted eyes, I worked the sponge all over his body, starting with his toes and all the way up into the short hair on the top of his head. He moaned a few times and groaned some too as I slowly worked the pain and tension from his muscles until he was a puddle of relaxed humian in the water.
He might have dozed off once or twice, but by the time I was done and had washed my own body, he was awake and alert, watching me with darkened eyes and a hardened cock that was visible beneath the bubbling surface.
"Princess," he murmured as I finished rinsing the bew suds from my body.
"Hm?" I asked as I wrung out my long hair.
He patted his chest. "Come here."
I frowned at him. "What?"
"Put your knees here." He gestured to the ledge on either side of his head.
I didn't understand. "But how--?"
His hand slipped up my thigh to cup my suvette. My inner thigh vettes flushed a hot red at his touch. "I want this on my mouth." His fingers slipped through my suvette folds, already slick with my arousal, and my nipples hardened.
My mind scattered. "You—your mouth?"
One corner of his lips kicked up, and his tongue teased the corner of his mouth. "Let me show you. Come on, princess."
So I listened, because of course I did. I slid up his body and rested my knees on either side of his head. My vettes fluttered, and my suvette seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat as it hovered above his mouth. My thighs shook with the effort. "Here?"
"No," he shook his head as he grabbed my hips and tugged me down. "Here." My suvette touched his lips, and he opened his jaw.
I knew a mating possibility was for me to take his cock into my mouth and let him release his seed down my throat, but I hadn't known it was a possibility for my male mate to use his mouth on my pleasure center. At least, I hadn't known until this moment, and I couldn't imagine who was keeping this a secret, because this was incredible .
Zanner, his hands on my hips in a death grip, ground my suvette down onto his face as he sucked and licked and nipped at my suvette folds. I had to brace a hand on the window beside the bath as my body shook from his ministrations. His tongue was everywhere—inside of me, on me, all over me. He hummed in his throat, which vibrated the sensitive flesh of my suvette until I gushed with arousal that slipped down the sides of his face to taint the water of our bath.
My mouth was working too, as I cried and whimpered and gasped. I said Zanner's name, I babbled, I said things I would never admit to as my body shook and shivered. And just as I grew frustrated at being kept on the brink but unable to cross over to a climax, Zanner's mouth left my suvette. I turned to look over my shoulder to see him rising out of the water with glowing eyes and outer thighs red as fire.
I cried out as he tugged my hips back while simultaneously spearing me with his cock. With one hand on my hip and the other clutching my neck, Zanner growled as he plunged into me over and over again, displaying strength that seemed to belie his exhausting and injuries. He was fueled by the smell of our arousal and the slick feel of our vettes bonding.
"I do belong here," Zanner rasped, and I turned to find his lips peeled back off his teeth in a feral grin. "I belong here with you, my mate. I belong on this planet, in this house, right here."
"Yes," I whimpered as his cock seemed to flare to an impossible width inside me. "You do, mate."
He leaned over my back, coating my skin with his heat. His nose nudged the base of my ear. "I will make you proud."
"You always do." I could barely form the words as the beginning of my climax began to tingle at the base of my spine. My suvette gripped his shaft tightly. "Always."
With a roar, Zanner's cock pulsed and released its seed inside of me at the same time that my suvette quivered with my climax. My arms gave out, but Zanner caught me as my suvette sucked and latched onto his cock with a vengeance. My vettes knew who my mate was, and I had never been more grateful that I'd listened to my body. I might have blacked out for a moment, because when I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by water, seated in Zanner's lap in the bath while he gently lapped water over my sensitive breasts. My suvette maintained its grip on his cock, and every so often my inner walls would squeeze him. He'd let out a soft grunt and press a kiss to the side of my head.
We were quiet for a long time, and I thought about falling asleep when Zanner murmured in my ear. "Ready to get out and get some sleep?"
I blinked at the window, realizing now the sun had dropped. We sat in the dark, the only light provided by one of our four moons as its glow illuminated a small patch in my bathroom. "Yes," I said. "But I can't move."
He chuckled, and when he shifted his hips, my suvette finally let go of his cock. He slipped from my body, and I sighed at the loss.
"Later," he said as he hauled me into his arms. "We'll do it again, and again, and again."
He dried me and himself quickly, and then carried me into the bedroom before carefully placing me on my bed. My limbs were nearly liquid, and my muscles had gone all soft. I blinked up at him blearily as he stood naked above me. I noticed that his freshest wounds were looking much better, so the healing tonic had done its job. "Come to our bed."
His gaze roamed over me and then over my massive bed. He smiled. "Our bed."
"Yes."
He crawled over me before settling at my side and drawing a blanket over us. He pulled me into his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "This will take me some time to adjust, so be patient with me."
"Of course. As long as you continue to believe you belong here. My vettes chose you. And I chose you. I'll always choose you."
"I'll always choose you too." His fingers combed through my silver hair. "And I want to make a difference here. I want to do something about Xal. There are humians who don't belong there."
"I already talked to my sire about it on the cruiser on the way here while you slept. He's willing to help us, and he wasn't just appeasing me. He is very concerned he's benefitted from some of the corruption. And he owes you."
His muscles went lax. "I'm glad to hear that."
I lifted myself up on an elbow and held Zanner's face. In the moonlight of my bedroom, he seemed younger. I smoothed the lines in his forehead and pressed on the creases in his cheeks. "We will make a difference, mate."
His eyes crinkled. "We already have."
Our lips met, and I let myself fall all the way into the desire for my perfect mate.
Thank you for reading Saved by the Prisoner!