NINETEEN
Devix was obsessed with his female. And in turn, she seemed obsessed with her male, something that filled him with a sublime pride.
Cara kissed him with her sweet lips and Devix groaned deep in his throat, wondering how he’d gone so long without knowing her this way. When he widened her thighs and sunk deeper into her embrace, she pulled back and smiled.
“Nice try, buddy,” she whispered, even as her eyes flickered to his lips, a softened expression slipping over her features. “I’m a little sore,” she confessed.
Devix purred, but told himself to stop. His female was content in their sleeping platform, warm and safe in their furs. The mating call of his Instinct still ran high within him, but he needed to remember that his fated mate was human, not Luxirian. She was more fragile. The last thing he wished was to hurt her, so he would ignore the intense need to mate her until she was fully healed.
Cara had been dead to the universe as Devix had carried her back to their dwelling in the silvery darkness of night. He’d mated her thoroughly and perhaps more roughly and intensely than he’d originally intended. But his luxiva had seemed to enjoy his attentions and his darkest needs, rolling her hips for more even when Devix feared he’d pushed her too far.
Upon returning, he’d cradled her close to his chest in the bathing tube, purring his contentment, as he washed away the soil and mating fluids from their bodies. She’d stirred in his arms and smiled up at him, brushing her fingers over his lips, before falling back asleep. But that look on her face, unguarded and pure, made him realize the power she wielded over him. She could ask anything of him and he’d do it, without question.
Their bond was an absolute. Nothing would be able to break it.
Devix had then cleaned her between her legs, watching his cum wash away, and something had sparked in him. He imagined things he’d long since forgotten…a desire for a family unit of his own, a desire to see his fated mate large with their offspring, a deep need to protect and provide.
Devix had pushed those thoughts away, however. As quickly as they entered his mind. He knew of no Luxirians that had mated other species and produced offspring. He did not think young would be possibly between them, despite the rumors that humans were biologically compatible with other species. His luxiva would be enough for him, a gift more valuable than anything he’d imagined.
If she chose to stay.
After washing, he’d tucked them both into their sleeping platform and held her close, wrapping his limbs around her.
Her slow, even breaths had lulled him to the deepest sleep of his entire life span.
And when he woke, she was watching him, tracing his lips and the column of his throat, that same look she’d given him in the bathing tube spread across her features.
“I have a salve that will ease your soreness, female,” Devix murmured, hesitant to leave her, but slowly pushed himself off the platform. Before he could change his mind, he went to the Coms quarters and retrieved a healing salve.
When he returned, Cara was watching him, tracing the lines of his nude body before her gaze caught on his erect cock, bobbing against his abdomen.
The scent of her arousal hit him like a wall and his Instinct growled low, preparing to mate once more. But Devix shook his head, clearing the fog.
“Now that I think about it,” Cara said softly, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not hard.”
“I am always aroused around you, luxiva,” he confessed.
Devix knelt on the sleeping platform, gently pulling open her legs. Then he froze.
“Cara,” he hissed, when he saw the bruises, aghast. Black and blue, spread across her inner thighs. “Female, I…I have hurt you.”
Cara frowned, looking between her legs. When she saw the bruises, understanding dawned, but she stroked a hand down his chest, trying to comfort him when he was the one that had harmed her. His female. His mate.
“Devix,” she murmured, looking at him, no doubt seeing the pained expression on his features. “They’re just bruises.”
“Nix,” he bit out, pulling at his horn, shame creeping over him. “I did not realize…vrax!”
Cara pushed up from her reclining position and cradled his face in her palms. How could she stand to touch him when he’d marked her in such a way?
“Dev,” she whispered, smiling. “It’s okay. Don’t get upset about this. It’s not a big deal.”
“Nix, female. This is…” he trailed off, not knowing how to explain this to her.
“Listen to me,” she ordered, giving him a little shake so his eyes refocused on her. “I loved every single second of last night, okay? Because, baby, you are seriously an amazing lover. I loved your intensity,” she purred to him, pressing a small kiss to the corner of his mouth. “And you fucked me so many times that I lost count. But these bruises mean nothing. They’re normal. You’re a big guy and I bruise easily. They’re bound to happen in the beginning, as my body gets used to yours, okay? You didn’t hurt me.”
Devix blew out a breath and dropped his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes. “I feared I was too rough with you.”
“You weren’t,” she assured him. “I like it a little rough,” she confessed, giving him a little smile he felt in his gut. “And I could’ve taken more, so don’t worry about that. If you’re ever too rough, I’ll tell you.”
Devix relaxed at that. “Vow to me, you will. I never wish to hurt you, female. Ever.”
“I promise,” she whispered, dropping a kiss on his lips, before her eyes slid down to the silver tube in his hand. “Now, what’s that?”
Devix gently opened the tube. Then he remembered his claws and brought them up to his mouth to bite off the tips so he wouldn’t scratch her. Cara’s lips were parted and she watched him smear the blue salve over the fingertips where he’d dulled his claws.
He reached down between their bodies and Cara gasped when he inserted his fingers with supreme gentleness. He swallowed his growl when he felt her walls clamp down on his fingers, remembering the feel of them around his cock.
“Feel good, female?” he bit out.
“Yes,” she whispered, before biting her lip. “But maybe not for the reasons you think.”
“Do not tempt me,” he warned, leaning forward to nibble on her lip where her teeth had just been. “The salve will help to ease your pain.”
“I already feel it working,” she told him, sighing a bit. Devix retreated from her body, getting more salve before he gently dabbed it around the bruises on her inner thighs, his throat tightening. He hated seeing the marks, but he would trust that she’d tell him if his matings were too intense for her to handle.
When he finished, he tossed the tube over the side of the sleeping platform and pulled her back into the crook of his arm, stretching their bodies out.
Cara sighed into him, snuggling deeper, smiling. And that smile finally made him relax.
“Luxirians like to cuddle?” she whispered, a familiar teasing note in her voice.
“I like to ‘cuddle’ with you,” he murmured, repeating her word, which he’d never used before.
“Charmer,” she said, running her palms down his chest. “You’re an expert at cuddling, which makes sense since you told me you’ve been no stranger to sex.”
Devix stiffened slightly. Yes, he’d told her that he’d had many pleasure mates following his warrior training. Luxirians tended to be open about mating, but were known to be jealous beings, especially with bonded pairs or fated mates. Were humans the same?
“Don’t worry,” Cara said, reading the way he’d reacted to her words. “I’m just joking with you. It’s not like I was a virgin before last night either.”
Devix growled, feeling that jealousy burn in his chest as faceless males entered his mind. “Female. I know I have no right to ask, but Luxirians are possessive of their—,” he’d just been about to say mates, but instead chose one of her English words, “lovers. I do not wish to think of those that came before.”
“Noted,” she said softly, looking up at him. “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t had sex in a while.”
Devix blew out a breath, stroking his fingertip over the tiny shell of her ear that drove him mad. “I have not mated since Arvalla.”
Her eyes went wide. “Seriously?”
“Tev.”
“Why?” she asked. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve had interest. Look at you!”
“Most beings are wary of an exiled Luxirian. You saw even here, at the market, I get a wide berth. The females that have offered to mate are drawn to me because I was exiled. I did not want them. I did not want any female…before you.”
“I thought you were intense when I first met you,” she said softly. “A little broody and quiet. Withdrawn. The intensity comes out still, but not the other things,” she said, a small huff of laughter escaping her. “But…I think I was always attracted to you.”
“Your voice made me hard,” he told her, rasping the words in her ears, “before I ever saw your face.”
Cara bit her lip. “Even then?”
“Tev.”
She was quiet and she traced over the gold bars pierced through his nipples, evidence that he’d completed warrior training. Pleasure sizzled down his spine and his cock jerked against her soft belly, pre-cum wetting her flesh.
“Insatiable,” she teased, but then she asked, albeit a little hesitantly, “So if Luxirians get jealous, does that mean your species is monogamous?”
Devix stilled. “Mostly, tev. Are humans?”
“Mostly, yes,” she repeated.
A small relief burst in his chest, but then he swallowed hard. His gaze searched hers as he said slowly, “There are different kinds of bonds on Luxiria.”
“Like what?”
“Pleasure mates or mating partners,” he started, “are what you call lovers in your language. At least I believe so, in the way I have heard you use it. There are no expectations or promises beyond mating, even though there is affection. These partnerings are the least likely to be monogamous.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“Breeding pairs are monogamous,” he told her next. “They are partners who choose to join their life spans together, to have a family unit together, though they are not fated mates.”
Cara’s brow furrowed. “And what are fated mates?”
Devix had to make an effort to control his breathing as he said, “Fated mates are rare, chosen by our deities, the Fates. Two beings chosen to come together. Their partnership is…right. When a male sees his fated mate for the first time, his Instinct awakens.”
Cara was watching him closely, her expression serious. “What’s an Instinct?”
“A force. It is difficult to explain,” he told her. “It guides the male to create the mating bond. It is like another entity, separate from the male, but within.”
Devix wanted to tell her that she was his fated mate, his luxiva. But something stopped him. Fear that she’d retreat, when everything was still so new for her. He didn’t want to overwhelm her, not when Sarkon might be looking for them, not when they’d just landed on Rozun the span before, not when she was still recovering from their very thorough first mating.
“I see,” she said slowly and Devix wanted to know what she was thinking, whether she suspected what they were to each other, whether she felt it too. “And is that what your parents were?”
“Tev,” Devix said. “It is why my sire followed her to the blackworld. Fated mates cannot live without the other. It destroys them from the inside. The greatest of blessings and yet a curse.”
Cara’s face softened and she leaned up to press a kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sure you miss them both.”
He inclined his head, memorizing the way she felt in his arms. It seemed so long ago when he still thought he’d be able to deliver her to Sarkon, to never look back. It sickened him now to think of it.
“Tell me about your sire,” he murmured. She’d told him, when they were still on the vessel, that he’d died, that she’d been with him, the reason for the scar that ran down her leg. It had been clear to him that she didn’t wish to speak of it, but he wanted to know his mate, wanted to know everything that had made her.
Cara swallowed, her tongue sweeping out to lick her bottom lip. “I loved him. He was my whole world, the best dad I could’ve ever asked for.”
“You mourn him still,” he said.
“Always,” she said. “I grew up without a mother. She left my dad when I was small and he took care of me as best as he could.” Devix couldn’t imagine a mother abandoning her offspring. It was simply…unfathomable. “But my dad was different than most of friend’s dads. He was part of a MC…a motorcycle club. It was in his blood.”
“I do not understand,” he told her. “The language implant does not translate.”
“It’s hard to explain…but the club is like a family. A sometimes very rough, very strange, very unconventional family. My grandfather had been a part of one, my dad had grown up, knowing one day he’d be a member too,” Cara said. “But it wasn’t an easy life. Sometimes it was violent and my dad tried to keep me separate from it.”
“Why would he stay if it was violent? If it put you in danger?” he asked, trying to understand.
“He’d been a member for so long. It was all he knew,” Cara said. “I’m not naive. MCs aren’t known for being the most law-abiding citizens. My dad would’ve done anything for me, but I also know that he’d done some bad things too.”
“Why?”
“For money,” she said. “To prove his worth to the club, I don’t know. But I’m not sugar-coating who he was. I’m telling you that I loved him, despite all of this. And he loved me and he protected me, in his own way.”
Devix might not understand, but he could at least respect that. But if he sired a daughter, Devix knew he wouldn’t even associate with anything that would put her in danger.
“But it made me tough, growing up in that environment, knowing who my dad was and who he associated with,” she said. “I was still around the club at times. I grew a thick skin. It made me realize that it wasn’t the life I wanted and I threw myself into school, into work. I’d always loved to cook, to create new recipes, so I went to culinary school. And my dad was really proud. He always told me so,” she said softly.
Then she sighed.
“It was shortly after I graduated that the accident happened. One of the things we did together was drive along the coast on his motorcycle. It was freeing. I loved it. But then one day, on a normal day, everything turned not normal and my life turned upside down. A car hit us. My dad died instantly. I went to the hospital for my leg, with a long recovery ahead of me. I couldn’t believe that a world existed where my father wasn’t in it. That was the hardest thing to cope with,” she confessed. “I was in a dark place for a really long time.”
“Luxiva,” he said softly, words stuck in his throat, needing to comfort her though he knew that that kind of pain would never heal.
“My work got me through it,” she said. “After physical therapy for my leg, I got a job at a restaurant. My dad would always brag that one day, I would be a rising chef, that people from all over would come to try my food, my creations. It was like…I needed that to be true, to make him part of my life again. So, to get myself through that time, I worked my ass off. I worked long hours in a shitty restaurant as a line cook, in pain from my leg most of the time. Eventually, I worked as a saucier in a better restaurant, worked up to sous chef after three years and just last year, I got offered a position as head chef of a new restaurant in a new city. I was becoming everything my dad said and I was finally happy. I loved food, loved unexpected flavors and surprising people, and the smell of the kitchen, and creating dishes from simple ingredients. I was always fascinated by that, ever since I was little.”
Devix didn’t understand most of the words she was saying—restaurant, sous chef?—but he understood her meaning. And right now wasn’t the time to ask her to elaborate. There would be much time for that later.
So, he stroked a hand down her back and murmured, “Continue, luxiva.”
“And then I wasn’t happy anymore,” she confessed quietly, catching his gaze. “I’d finally achieved my goal. A national magazine called me a rising star of the ‘culinary world.’ I was creating recipes that people loved. Food critics were giving me rave reviews. It was surreal. And I should’ve been happy. But I wasn’t. Suddenly, going into the kitchen every day was a chore. I’d lost my inspiration to create, I couldn’t come up with anything new. I missed my dad, I felt like a stranger in Seattle, I felt alone and lost and restless.”
“Then you were taken by the Krevorags,” Devix guessed.
“No, I quit my job as head chef and then I was taken by the Krevorags. A couple days after,” Cara said quietly. Then she paused. “Sorry. You asked about my dad and I gave you the whole life story.”
“I want to know everything about you, luxiva,” he murmured, frowning. “Do not be sorry. I might not have understood some things, but eventually I will learn.”
Cara nodded and she gave him a small smile. “I’m being dramatic, by the way. I make it sound like my life was bad. It wasn’t. I was very, very blessed, having what I had, having a dad that loved me so much, having the job I wanted. I just…I lost my way and I was struggling to find it again. Compared to what you’ve been through, I shouldn’t be complaining so much.”
Devix shook his head and he said slowly, “Cara, we come from very different places. My experiences will never be like yours, nor yours mine. It is not a competition. You have experienced pain and loss and happiness and success, and I have experienced those same emotions. Just in different ways.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You’re right.”
Affection was warm in his chest as he breathed in her scent. He smiled down at her and she inhaled a sharp breath as he rubbed his horns against her hair.
“I like that you tell me these things, luxiva,” he murmured.
“Thank you for listening,” she said back.
“Now, tell me what a ‘restaurant’ is,” he commanded.
She huffed out a laugh and it helped to break some of the melancholy spilling off her at the remembrance of her sire.
“It’s a place where people come to eat,” she said, smiling, that soft look back on her features which made Devix happy. “They come inside and sit down and order off a menu. Depending on the menu, there could be dozens and dozens of meal options. And then they order and their food is brought out. They eat, socialize, pay, and then leave. Are there places like that here?”
Devix shook his head. “Nix. Just the stalls at the market.” He hesitated and then said, “There is no reason why Rozians would not come to a restaurant though. If we had one.”
Cara’s eyes flashed. “Are you hinting that I should start one? Here on Rozun?” she asked, laughing.
Devix lifted a shoulder against the sleeping platform but then sobered. Quietly, he said, “It could be a long time before…before I find a Luxirian crystal to take you back to Earth.” Cara’s smile dropped slowly from her face and she licked her lips, her eyes lowering to his chest. Devix couldn’t read her. Was it the length of time it might take to get her back home that upset her? Or something else? “You said you loved cooking once. Perhaps you could again.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start with something like that here,” she said softly.
“I would help you.”
She smiled again and leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “I’ll think about it, okay? Besides, I haven’t even cooked you a meal yet. Maybe what tastes good to humans is disgusting to everyone else,” she joked.
“You did say something about a ‘mean steak’ last night,” he reminded her, cuddling her closer.
Cara laughed. “I did. And I do owe you one, especially after all your hard work last night.”
She purred that last part and all at once, he needed her with the intensity of last night.
He growled at the innuendo in her voice. “Wicked female.”
“Come on, baby,” she whispered, running her fingers down his arms. “Let’s get up so I can make my male a steak. Yeah?”
My male.
No sweeter words had ever been spoken.
“Tev,” he purred.