ELEVEN
VIKAN WAS…DIFFERENT, Taylor thought, about mid-way into their afternoon.
It wasn’t quite the expression ‘night and day,’ but the change in him was noticeable.
And it flustered her.
Because for one, she was discovering that the ‘new’ Vikan was definitely more affectionate than the ‘old’ Vikan. He seemed to always find a reason to touch her, whether it was helping her over a rock the size of a snail or bending down before her to adjust the twine across her makeshift sandals, making sure to touch her ankle or her hips as he pulled himself to stand.
It was maddening. At first, she’d been taken aback, stiffening with every graze of his palm or when he’d wiped dirt from her cheeks in a gentle way.
But eventually, she’d grown used to it and she didn’t know when that had happened. After taking her hand to wade through an area deepened with black mud, Taylor began to suspect that she might like his attentions, his touch.
It had been a long time since she’d had a boyfriend. And even then, her longest relationship had only lasted five months. It was a bad habit she had, of breaking up with men before things got too serious, just another layer of protection she knowingly wrapped around herself.
It was something she’d been trying to change. The night she’d been captured by the first group of aliens—the ones that had kept the women caged, in the dark—she’d just gotten home from a great date with a wonderful man.
His name had been Karl. He’d been blonde, with kind brown eyes, and he’d worked for a local non-profit organization. He’d been safe, yes, but he’d been the perfect gentleman, kind, open, and he’d made his interest in her clear.
Taylor had been excited for a second date with him. Now, she realized he must’ve thought she’d ghosted him…when in fact, she’d been captured by aliens and taken against her will.
Taylor sighed. Most of her adult life, she’d purposefully chosen men that she knew she wouldn’t have a future with, because it was so much easier to let them go when she got too invested. It was an awful cycle.
Karl had been her attempt to end that cycle because as she ventured deeper and deeper into her late-twenties, she’d begun to realize that she wanted more from her life. She’d built up her own little boutique shop. It wasn’t much, but it let her lead a comfortable life, and she’d worked damn hard to make it a success. She had her group of girlfriends and a fulfilling social life. And yet, she realized that she wanted a family one day, she wanted children she could love and dote on and spoil.
From the outside, Karl had been just the kind of person she could envision a future with: dependable, loyal, kind, safe. Sure, maybe their chemistry wasn’t off the charts, but Taylor knew she wasn’t looking for that. Not anymore.
As she glanced at Vikan out of the corner of her eye, she realized he was all wrong for her. For one, she couldn’t look into his gray areas without remembering her erotic dreams about him. Already, that was dangerous territory. Secondly, he was about as unsafe as they came. Perhaps a few years ago, Taylor would’ve been okay with that.
Now? She was looking towards her future.
A future which might include him, that little voice in her head whispered. She couldn’t deny that her dreams were strange. She couldn’t deny that she knew things she couldn’t possibly know, like his ex-mate’s name or the color and feel of the furs on his bed, something she had a terrifying feeling she’d come to know quite well. And quite soon.
When the twin suns were high over their heads and sweat had begun to bead down her back, they’d just threaded their way through more sandpaper grass when, through the clearing, she could see a shimmer.
“Is that a lake?” she asked, incredulous. Yet, excitement rose in her breast. What she wouldn’t give for crisp, fresh, cold water to float in right about then.
“An inlet,” he corrected. “The shore is not far.”
As they cleared the heavy forest of the sandpaper grass, the inlet came into view more clearly. The water looked silver, gleaming underneath the sun. It rippled with the slight breeze, but was otherwise calm.
“Is it safe to go in?” she asked, hoping that he would say yes.
Vikan looked at her, close enough that she could feel his arm pressed against hers.
“Tev,” he murmured. “You wish to?”
Taylor nodded eagerly, already walking towards it. The inlet was narrow but bulged slightly at the very end, where a small beach with sand lay. Like a mini-ocean, she thought.
One thing she certainly hadn’t thought to have on this planet was a beach day.
Then she realized she’d either have to swim in her shirt…or she’d have to go in naked. Neither option appealed to her, considering she didn’t want to travel the rest of the day in wet clothes, nor did she want to undress in front of Vikan.
And, eyeing the bag he carried around his shoulders, she knew he used his spare shirt so she could wash herself the previous night, considering he was still distractingly bare chested.
Nibbling on her lip, she weighed her options, peering into the water. She would be cooling off in there one way or another.
She heard Vikan’s bag drop to the ground and when she turned to look at him, he was unlacing his pants.
Taylor jolted, her lips parting. “W-what are you doing?”
He quirked a brow in a very human expression. “Taking off my leg coverings.”
And then he did, bending over to peel them off his legs until they lay in a heap next to his bag.
When he straighten, Taylor’s mouth went dry, her heart throbbing in her throat.
Vikan stood in front of her, completely naked, save for the strap of sheathed blades across his chest, which he quickly unfastened and dropped too.
Taylor tried to suck in a breath discreetly, since she’d realized she’d been holding hers. But she still sounded like a gasping fish out of water when she did.
He was massive. Not only his hard, pulsing cock—that drew her gaze completely for a short while, with its ridges and knobs that would hit all the right places inside her—but his whole body. Briefly, she thought of the statue of David. At one point, she thought that he was the epitome of masculine strength and power and sensuality, but then she’d seen Vikan.
Every muscle was sculpted and carved to perfection. Every scar somehow enhanced his strength. Every shift of his body was sublime. And Taylor had never been an artist, but suddenly, she wanted to capture and immortalize him.
“You stare as if you have not seen me before, female,” he suddenly murmured. “Yet you have. Many times before.”
Taylor was thrust back into reality and her head swam with the implication of what he was saying.
She knew he could smell her lust and desire, because she was positively drenched with it. And even though she knew she was playing with fire, she murmured, “Turn around, Vikan.”
Her voice sounded like she was an operator on a sex line, but she had to be sure.
And this would be the confirmation that she needed, to know that even though she was going crazy, there was at least an explanation for it, albeit an unbelievable one.
But what else could she believe? Because she had seen him before, just as he said.
When Vikan did as she asked, pivoting on his feet so she could see his long, sculpted backside, the confirmation to all her fears resided in a long, horizontal line that ran along the small of his back.
It was a scar she knew would be there, but she didn’t know how to feel about it. She’d touched it a thousand times in her dream. And if this moment had been a dream, she would’ve approached Vikan, reached out to run the pads of her fingers across it, and then let her fingers run around his hips until they found his aching, hard cock.
She would’ve stroked him until he spilled into her hand.
But this wasn’t a dream. This was real.
“Go in the water,” she told him finally, her voice soft, still eyeing the telling scar. “And don’t turn around until I tell you to.”
For a moment, Taylor thought Vikan might’ve denied her because he didn’t strike her as the kind of male who liked to take orders. Evidently, he didn’t mind hers because he did as she asked.
Slowly, with her heart beating in her throat, she pulled her shirt over her head, letting it drop beside his own clothes, until she stood naked on the banks of the inlet.
Slowly, she descended into the water. Vikan’s back stiffened slightly when he heard the soft, rippling sound, but didn’t turn around.
Not until she said, “Okay.”
When he turned, his eyes were like fire, intense and hot enough to scorch her. She was so nervous, so shaken that she almost didn’t realize how nice the water felt, how refreshing it was after a long morning of travel.
The small inlet wasn’t that deep, considering Vikan was able to stand and touch the bottom. However, Taylor had to tread water as she approached where he stood and she made figure-eights with her hands and legs, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to see her nakedness.
But then she realized it didn’t matter. If what she was beginning to suspect was true, then it truly didn’t matter.
“What were you looking for?” he asked, his voice deep and rich and lovely. The ends of his hair floated around him in the water, darkening it to a deep inky black.
She didn’t see any reason to lie to him. Not now. “Your scar,” she murmured, watching him closely. “The one across your lower back.”
“The one I received from my sire?” he questioned softly.
Taylor swallowed but it felt more like a gulp. “You never told me how you received it,” she said. In her dream, she thought she remembered asking once. But the dream had gotten fuzzy or she’d just been about to wake when he told her. “You got it from your…father?”
“Tev,” he said, much more at ease than Taylor was about her knowing about his scar. But if what he told her was true, that he’d had the gift of foresight his entire life, then it wouldn’t be anything abnormal to him.
“On purpose?” she asked, wondering how in the world a father could injure his son in that way. The scar looked like it had run deep.
“My sire was a war general,” he told her.
“What does that mean?”
“War generals are highly respected in our culture,” he said. “They train young warriors and mold them into the males that keep our race defended and strong. I was proud to have a war general for a sire.”
“But…but he hurt you,” she exclaimed.
“All warriors get injured during training. Half of my scars are from warrior training,” he tried to explain to her even though it was hard for Taylor to grasp. It sounded…intense. Like a Spartan culture. “My sire, however, was harder on me than the others. He did not wish to show preference during training. In order to accomplish this, he had to be more strict.”
“Wasn’t that hard for him?” Taylor asked after a brief moment, looking down into the water, wondering how in the world a father could willingly do that.
“Tev,” he said. “I knew it was hard for him. Our relationship was never the same because he would always be a war general in my mind, no longer a sire.”
Taylor’s heart ached a little in her chest and she treaded closer to him. “What happened to him?”
“He died in battle,” he said. “He was off planet, on Urvenia, fighting for our alliance. He died a warrior’s death, the way he wanted.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It couldn’t have been easy for you.”
She’d known loss as well. She knew it wasn’t easy.
“And your mother?” she asked.
Vikan’s expression slipped a little, his mouth tightening. “She died bringing me into this world. I never knew her, only stories my sire had told me.”
Taylor sucked in a breath. “Vikan…”
“My sire and I hardly ever spoke of her though,” he admitted after another moment. “Sometimes I wish we had. I wish I had asked of her more.”
Taylor had not quite expected them to have this conversation when they’d entered the water, but somehow she found herself saying, “I never knew my mother either. She left when I was just a baby.”
“She died?” he asked, frowning.
“No,” Taylor said. “I think she is still alive. Somewhere. She chose to leave me and my dad.”
“A mother who willingly leaves their offspring?” Vikan said. “That is…unfathomable.”
“Perhaps it is different on Earth,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around her body. She cupped some water in the palm of her hands and splashed her face to cool off. She also used it as a way to buy time. Taylor usually didn’t speak of her family, but somehow she felt safe to do so with Vikan. “She was an addict apparently.”
“An addict?”
“I never asked whether it was alcohol or drugs,” she admitted softly, looking into his eyes, feeling very vulnerable and not entirely liking it. “I couldn’t bear to know. My grandmother told me about her because my dad would never even say her name.”
Vikan shifted in the water.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “It’s not the most comfortable thing to talk about. Just ignore me.”
His lips downturned. “I wish to know about you, luxiva. I wish to know everything.”
“Everything, huh?” she repeated quietly.
“We have time for it still,” he said. “To learn about one another.”
“Only three days,” she reminded him. “Can you really know a person in three days?”
“You have known me a lot longer than three spans, luxiva,” he told her, referring to her dreams, which he called visions. “As for me, I am a quick learner.”
Taylor almost smiled, despite what they’d just been talking about it. “You’re awfully confident in your abilities.”
“I have a right to be,” he murmured, holding her gaze.
Barely suppressing a shiver, Taylor changed the subject to one she’d been thinking about a lot lately. “If you’re able to see the future like you claim, why haven’t you been seeing visions of us?”
Vikan stilled. “My gift does not work that way. It is unpredictable at best and causes a great deal of pain.”
“Go on,” she encouraged, rapt with attention.
“It is a gift that has been passed down through my mother’s line. Her sire had the same gift, but his strength was in dreamwalking.”
Taylor froze. “Dreamwalking?”
“Tev,” he murmured.
“And…you can do this as well?”
He hesitated just long enough to make Taylor’s heart race. “Tev.”
“Did you…have you entered mine? Is that why I dream about you every night?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.
Vikan approached her until he was close enough that he could reach out and touch her face. “Once.”
Taylor’s breath hitched. “When?”
But she had a feeling she already knew when.
“When we sat on the shores of Lopitax together,” he answered, confirming her suspicions. It had been the only dream in which he’d rebuffed her sexual advances, when she’d sensed something off.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. But she had to know. “Why did you…why did you deny me? For everything I know about your Instinct, you could have had sex with me and yet you didn’t.”
“Because it was real,” he told her, reaching out to hold her steady, so that she wouldn’t have to tread water. His touch made her skin sensitive. “I was coming to you as myself in the present, not as the male you will come to know.”
Her head swam, but in a strange way, she knew exactly what he was saying.
“I would not take advantage of you that way, female,” he told her softly, bringing the pads of his fingers to caress the top of her cheekbones. His touch was gentle, though his hands were roughened.
“You truly believe that I’ve been seeing visions of our future, don’t you?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Of course I do. Do you still deny it yourself? Even after everything you know?”
“I…I,” she paused, licking her lips and tasting the strange Luxirian sea. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
“What will it take for you to accept this?” he asked. “Accept us?”
“There are too many variables to even think about before there ever can be an ‘us,’ Vikan,” she murmured.
Instead of his expression tightening at her words, he looked…slightly smug. “At least you admit that there could be. I am a driven, stubborn male, luxiva. As long as there is hope, we can overcome any variables there might be.”
Taylor gave an unexpected, nervous laugh before sucking in a breath when his hands drifted across her bare shoulders.
“You’ve been touching me a lot today,” she noted.
“Do you mind it?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, never lifting his touch. She didn’t answer because she didn’t want him to know the truth: that she liked it very much. “We decided to start anew, did we not? Part of that means I will no longer deny my instincts when it comes to you. And Luxirians crave to touch their females.”
For once, Taylor didn’t correct him when he called her his female. She wouldn’t dwell on why she didn’t correct him.
“Do you mind it?” he asked again, true to his word that he was a driven, stubborn male.
Taylor huffed out a breath, knowing he wouldn’t let it go. Perhaps she was learning about him, after all.
His fingers fluttered over the pulse in her neck, so he felt the way her heart sped up. It was…unexpectedly intimate, especially when his eyes sought hers as he did it.
“No,” she whispered. “No, I don’t mind it.”