The howl of a great beast was followed by the crashing open of the door. What came through was not what Jax jumped up expecting to see.

A young golden-haired, violet-eyed girl who looked like her legs were new to running came toddling in at a speed that threatened to topple her painfully.  She looked to be aiming for the hard edge of the table but her sights were off enough to have her crashing into the Lady Danika instead, who had stood with everyone else in the room when the excitement started.  The remarkably dirty toddler, with her tiny floral sarong askew, was followed by a child of around six with the black hair and impressive wing span of an Avian.  He was shirtless and his pants and bare feet were nearly as disheveled as the girl’s.  The sight of an Avian, let alone a juvenile, away from his home quadrant was so unexpected Jax blinked at the sight before what followed the children appeared and took all her attention. 

Seeing what chased the children, she was up and had vaulted herself over the table in a graceful dive and flip.  She did not stop to think why no one else was stepping into the breach; she simply did what came naturally when children were in harm’s way.  Her stun stick was in hand heating with power as she landed on silent feet.

The nearly six-foot-high golden-haired beasts had to be where the feline roar had come from, and indeed they did resemble the fierce jungle creatures from her home world with their short manes of fur that looked thick, impenetrable, and as soft as their teeth and six-inch claws looked hard.  That was where the resemblance ended.  These two thickly muscled beasts barreling into the room barely cleared the door coming at it single file, and the frame shook as they passed through.  She whirled into immediate action, using her Dainaree speed and her stun stick to best advantage, pressing the beasts back and away from the table and the shocked children standing there. 

The unexpected whirl of her silent attack and the snap of stinging power coming at them had the beasts instinctively springing back on nimble paws and growling.  It gave her a little more room to maneuver.  She accepted it gratefully, knowing she was going to need all of it to keep out of the impressive reach of those claws and teeth.  She was about to spring into action while the beasts were looking confused, when she felt a whisper of movement at her back. 

With a whirl and silent spring up she was crouched on the table so that she had eyes on the new threat and the cats.  She had already raised her stun stick for the attack when she realized it was Tolan who had come from behind, and now stood between her and the great beasts.  Once again, she was treated to the sight of him in full Shakien Warrior form.

He stood between the rest of them and the beasts and growled a warning at the big felines.  His teeth and claws looked no less impressive, and when he roared she had to fight the instinctive need to run and hide.  But he was no danger to her, and she knew that even before she saw him shift his body more fully in front of her, placing her at his back and protected as he faced the other felines.

"Stop!"  the Lady Lara shouted into the melee, before Tolan Lark or the beasts could spring.  "They aren't dangerous."

Everyone turned to look at her, except Tolan Lark--even Jax, though she kept the beasts and Shakien in her sights as well. Barnos was giving Lara such an incredulous look at her words that it made Jax nearly laugh, despite the circumstances.

"I mean," Lara amended quickly, also seeing the look Barnos was giving her.  "They aren't attacking the children.  They're the nannies."

It was such a ridiculous thing to say that even the lady danika took a millisecond to look at her.  Barnos snorted and the giant security chief Tuft was shaking his head, his eyes on the ceiling.

"They protect the children," Danika amended quickly, a small smile playing across her mouth.  "There is no danger here."

Jax doubted she was considering the dangerous man at her side.  Lucan Warrung had eyes only for Jax and Tolan, not that she could blame him for the way he fingered the sword at his side.  The Shakien was still in his warrior form, and she was crouched on Lucan’s table, armed and ready to attack, not a foot from him and his lady, not to mention the awestruck children who were watching them both with big eyes.

Jax flicked off the stun stick and placed it back in the hidden sheath at her back. Jumping from the table with the same silent grace she had jumped upon it, she landed at Tolan’s broad nanite-covered back.  It was an impressive sight at any time; in warrior form it was a thing of deadly beauty seeing all that muscle lovingly coated in living Faustian nanite that grew and shrunk when he did, and hid nothing from view.

But unlike her, Tolan Lark had not moved, despite the explanations that had been given.  When she tentatively placed her hand to his back and nudged him, he growled but stepped back, pressing her between him and the table and keeping her wedged there.  When she would have made a move to change that situation he growled another warning and pressed her tighter against the table.

It dawned on Jax that he was in full protection mode, and she was the one he was protecting.  She still didn’t understand the danger inherent in the situation until Lara broke the long silence.

"He's gone feral," she whispered.  "Don't even think about getting close to Jax right now."

Barnos must have made a move, because Jax turned to see she was holding Barnos by his big, burly arm and it was him she was talking to.

"He doesn't go feral," the pirate said in argument.

But Lara just jutted her chin toward Jax and Tolan Lark. "He has a mate now.  Believe me, I know what a feral Shakien feels like and what I am feeling from him now is not human."

"She's right, the perceived danger from the Baralians and having his mate near so many other men has triggered something.  I felt him react before," Danika said quietly, moving the children slowly to the other side of her.  "But it was like a switch was flipped when he saw her in danger.  He will kill anything or anyone he perceives as a threat to his mate."

Barnos followed the jut of her chin and really looked at his old partner.  Jax was wedged in close and protected behind him as he faced off against the Baralians.  His eyes of Shakien Lavender took them all in without a spark of humanity to be seen.  Barnos cursed loud and long, but quietly this time. 

For her part Jax wanted to argue that she was not his mate, but it seemed a moot point now.  Instead she focused on what was important.  She left her hand on his shoulder, but moved her other hand to the small of his back and waited a moment to see how he would react.  She felt the muscles move beneath her hand but he gave no other reaction.  So she pushed that hand down and around his side, under his arm, until she was fully pressed along his back in what could only be described as an embrace.  She pressed her cheek against that solid back between his shoulder blades and breathed deeply, trying to infuse calm into the Shakien warrior claiming her publicly and unmistakably as his to protect. 

Not the time to think about it, Jax, she told herself, focusing instead on the man in her arms.

"Tolan Lark," she said quietly and slowly, letting him feel his name as she breathed it.  Then she spoke louder but just as unhurriedly to the rest of the room.  "Tell the nannies to go, and the rest of you follow them out."

"Um, Jax," Lara started, obviously wanting to argue.

Barnos cut her off.  "Not now, Sassy," he rumbled in his deep voice.  "You can save the world later.  Jax says out.  Move that fine ass out."

"Yes," Danika in that same calm voice.  "She is in no danger and the rest of us around his mate at such a time are only making him anxious."

"I could take him," Tuft said mildly enough, and Jax raised her head enough to see the man had Kira by the arm and was shuffling her behind him, his blaster in his hand and pointed at Tolan Lark.

"Don't you dare," Jax said with a growl of her own, at the same time Lucan Warrung spoke.

"Get Danika, Kira and the children out of here," he said mildly enough, careful always to keep his woman and the children sheltered behind him.  Though his next words were far from soothing to the big Shakien cat she was plastered against.  "If they can't get a handle on it we'll gas the room from control."

Jax really hoped it was a stun gas, rather than poison, but she would put nothing past a Warrung.

Quicker than she had thought possible, she was left alone in the giant conference room, wrapped around a feral Shakien who had just publicly claimed her as his mate. 

Right.  Now is the time to think about this.  Jax tried to force her mind into some semblance of logic, but the Shakien were not the only ones with a drive to mate, and her Dainaree nature was fast taking over whatever doubts the woman still harbored.  Yes, she wanted him, feral warrior and all, but did she trust the man behind the beast enough to do this?  She had a feeling she had about ten seconds to figure it out.

***

Tolan watched the others leave the room and had to fight against the drive of his beast and let them leave without at least drawing blood.  The only thing that kept him from springing at the most dangerous threat among them was that it would leave his mate vulnerable to the rest.  And there were too many predators in the room.  Once the door closed behind the last of them he could think again, marginally. 

He could feel Jax at his back, her heat pressed along the length of his.  There had been no conscious decision of the man that she was his; rather, he saw her go into battle and all he could think was, Mine.

He could have fought the drive to claim her that had been building since their first meeting.  The problem was, he didn't want to fight it, and he could not fight himself and the feral call of his cat at the same time, so he didn't.  She was his.

As primitive as he was feeling now, enough of his humanity peeked out that he knew he was not the only one with the choice to make.  He gritted his teeth and forced himself to think of what Jax wanted.  The words were almost painful as he spoke them through a grated throat.  "If you are going to leave, it has to be now."

"I'm not going anywhere."  There was a finality and a heat to her words that told him she understood the question and her answer.

Thank fuck. His warrior form melted away, leaving the Shakien male in his vulnerable human skin--as vulnerable as he could be in nanite armor and bristling with weapons. Fuck, he thought again, and started removing everything that was between him and the female he would claim.

The words were out before Jax realized she had made her decision. But she didn't regret them; she didn't have time to, even if she had the inclination.  A bare instant after he had divested himself of weapons, and his armor fell to his waist, he had her up and over the table on her back, his mouth on hers and his body an unforgiving heat and hardness pressing into her, holding her for his hands and mouth and branding her everywhere he touched, which seemed to Jax to be everywhere at once. 

Not that she was complaining. It had been so long since she was touched in any way, and so long since she had wanted to be. In her years as an outcast she had never found any one that she was interested enough in to claim, even temporarily.  Besides, she had too many secrets to hide to let herself be that vulnerable to just anyone. Not until she met Tolan Lark and he got under her skin like a burr and itched maddeningly. 

Him, she had wanted from the first, but she had known he was going to be trouble and had kept a careful distance, sending him on his way as quickly as possible and knowing even as she did so that she had done it in such a way that she would see him again.  Thinking back, she could admit that to herself she wanted to make an impression on the Shakien warrior.

Then she felt air on suddenly naked skin and she was no longer thinking anything at all.

From one moment to the next he had opened her ship suit and his hands were on the bare skin that it always hid.  Jax heard his growl in every nerve ending and shivered at the feel of him everywhere.

Lady, how long had it been?  It was less a full thought than a need, and their hands quickly divested each other of the rest of their armor, the nanite working with their will to make it an almost seamless disrobing.  The last of her weapons fell away from them with the armor and with a minor struggle the boots and everything else followed, pooling at their feet on the floor.  Then Jax was pressed flat to the table once again, this time fully naked, skin to skin. She almost wept it felt so good.

"Now," she gritted out with an effort, doing her best to position her hips so the harness she was embracing hit her where she needed it.  And she needed it; between the scent of his heat and the feel of him pressed so intimately to her open wetness she was done.  If he didn't claim her soon, she would take her own action.

But Tolan did not make her wait.  With a guttural, growled "yes," he found the hot wetness of her channel and plunged inside.  Hard, fast, and perfect, to Jax's way of thinking. In one thrust he was seated fully inside her and she cried out, because nothing had ever felt so good.  They both moved, their primitive natures pushing all thoughts but the need to mark and claim from them, and Jax gave as good as she got, pushing her hips and clutching at him whenever he pulled out, just as he impaled her with every inch of his hardness again and again until the heat built and exploded around them. 

He bit her, tasting the heart blood that seemed to surge under her skin trying to get to him, and she retaliated by biting him back, his neck vulnerable to her teeth.  The magic of the Dainaree surged forward through her and into him and everywhere they touched a heat built and branded until she had to look to make sure they were not both on fire.

They cried out together at the burn before it snuffed out, leaving them nearly the same as before they had mated, with one exception: she bore the mark of her house just above her breast where he had bitten her, an almost identical mark to the one on the back of her left shoulder she had been born with, only smaller and the flowers that surrounded it were unknown to her.  Tolan Lark now bore the same mark just at the base of his neck at his collar bone, where she had bitten him.

They were still breathing hard and clinging when he fingered the marks at her breast with satisfaction.  He was still hard inside her, and he had not moved from where he lay over her on the table, his touch on the flowers nearly shooting her out of her skin she was so sensitive there.

"The Shakien fire lily," he murmured. His eyes, still liquid lavender, rose to her face.  "I have not seen one since I left home.  How did you know?"

"I didn't," she said, trying for an ease she did not feel.  "It is the Dainaree magic that chooses the mating mark."

"Dainaree magic," he said quietly, as if tasting the words.

"The Shakien are not the only ones who can stake a claim," she said mildly enough, but could not keep the satisfaction from her voice or eyes as they landed on her mark upon him.

He could only see part of the mark across his collarbone, and none on his neck, but he did not get up to look.  If anything, he settled himself more firmly on her, his still-hard cock hardening further inside her so that she could feel the change happening.  She licked her lips.

"I am not finished yet," he said in clear warning, the growl returning to his voice, as if she said something to the contrary.

Jax leaned up and bit him over the mark she had made on him, then licked it when he firmed even further all around and inside her.  "Neither am I," she stated in an almost purr, then ran her nose up his neck and bit the underside of his chin.

If he thought a Dainaree in the throes of a mating could not keep up with a Shakien, he had some things to learn.

Though it must be said, he was not complaining.  Not even when things got a little...rough.