FOUR
Lihvan watched the female leave, feeling tension coiling through his body, tightening his muscles. His Instinct clawed at his chest within him, urging him to go after his female, to pin her up against a wall and take her, hard and thoroughly, and to spend his seed deep within her.
Lihvan swallowed, wrestling with his control. He saw the sideways glances that his warriors were giving him, no doubt sensing the hints of arousal he was giving off. Her scent still lingered in his nostrils, so sweet and thick that he could almost taste her on his tongue. She’d been aroused by his body when she’d seen him. Her own scent had given her away.
Once Lihvan felt his control return and his Instinct recede a little, he strode over to his post, barking orders at the males with more frustration than he intended.
Pushing the female from his mind, he knew that his sole purpose at the moment was to get his warriors and the human females to safety and out of range of the Pit. Even though the Krevorags were not likely to follow them, they would soon be alerting their allies, like the Jetutians, whom Lihvan did not want to encounter, especially with their newly arrived guests.
Vikan came over to him from his post, his expression guarded. Vikan had always been more closed off than the others, which was perhaps why he and Lihvan got along so well. Out of all of the Prime Leader’s appointed Ambassadors, all males that Lihvan considered close friends, all males that he had gone through military training with, Lihvan and Vikan were most similar.
Vaxa’an, the Prime Leader, now mated to his human female, Kate, was the great leader of their people and had been raised as such. Rixavox and Cruxan enjoyed the more carnal pleasures of life, enjoying their share of females, Luxirian and otherwise, and relishing the pulsing heat of battles. Kirov, the technology advisor, pursued whatever he wanted—whether that was perfecting the tracking devices for their crystal-fueled weapons or determining exactly how many times he could make a female orgasm within the span of a few hours—with single-minded intensity, almost to the point of obsession. He was a genius and a ruthless warrior, a deadly combination.
Vikan kept to himself, continuing to mourn the loss of his Breeding partner after she’d been killed by the virus the Jetutians had unleashed among their female population, virtually wiping it out. Those that the virus did not kill were rendered infertile, thus the reason why Vaxa’an had sought out a Breeder in another species only to discover his fated mate in a human instead.
As for himself…Lihvan kept a level head. He was the peacemaker among the strong personalities of the Ambassadors and in the Luxirian council. Vaxa’an relied on him to make sound decisions that would further their race, decisions based on logic, not emotion.
Lihvan knew what others thought about him. They thought him cold, distant. His physical appearance didn’t help matters either. While scars were seen as markers of a warrior, the scar on Lihvan’s face distorted his features just slightly, making others avert their eyes. And his horn…his chipped horn. That was the worst of all. Horns were seen as a sign of virility among his people, a sign of age and strength. He’d injured his in a battle that had almost cost him his life.
“Why was the female here?” Vikan questioned, staring out over the command center.
Lihvan pushed his thoughts from his mind and tapped in coordinates into the system that Kirov had designed. It would take three spans to reach their home planet of Luxiria, perhaps shorter if they cut through the Jetutian’s territory, but he wasn’t sure whether it would be safe to chance it or not. The Jetutian had spies everywhere.
“She said she had some questions,” Lihvan answered, keeping his voice level, praying to the Fates that his friend would not sense his inner turmoil.
He wasn’t so lucky. Vikan was watchful, observant. His quiet friend said, “You know there is no place for the humans on our planet. The unrest that Vaxa’an’s mate has caused should be proof enough.”
Lihvan felt a swell of anger and cut his gaze to Vikan. Before he could stop himself, he said, “If your Instinct wakened for one of them, I do not believe that you would be saying that.”
“How do you know that my Instinct has not?” was all Vikan asked before he turned from Lihvan and returned to his post.
For a moment, Lihvan was stunned. Had one of the females caught his friend’s interest?
When he looked over at Vikan, the male purposefully avoided his gaze and Lihvan knew better than to confront him about it. He pushed his friend’s odd remark to the back of his mind and continued with his duties.
It was what he was best at, after all.
Once Lihvan felt comfortable that they were far enough away from the Pit and once he confirmed that no nearby allies of the Krevorags were in pursuit of them, he finally retired from the command center. A quarter of the warriors went to eat their third meals on the meal deck and even though Lihvan should join them—he hadn’t eaten since the night before—he decided instead to take two plates of rations back to his quarters. His female, Beks, would be hungry and it filled him with an odd masculine pride to nourish her body.
Not his female, he corrected silently. He couldn’t afford to think like that. In fact, it would be better if Lihvan simply sent her to stay with the other females, but his Instinct didn’t like that thought.
I promised to answer her questions, he reminded himself, as if he could justify his selfish need to be near her.
She was lying down in the middle of the sleeping platform when he entered his quarters. Immediately, his body went tight, his Instinct battling within him, a purr thrumming from his throat. Greedily, his eyes scanned every inch of her body.
- Mine. -
His Instinct was staking its claim and Lihvan already felt like he was losing the battle. He was not used to the feeling of failure. He had molded his entire life around not feeling failure ever again…and he’d been successful, in his military career, in battle and war.
But this little human female, with her soft, long hair and piercing eyes could make him do anything. That thought terrified him. The power she could hold over him terrified him.
Her eyes blinked open when she heard him enter and she sat up, looking to the plates of food in his arms.
“For me?” she asked.
Lihvan swallowed and gave a jerk of his head, his eyes straying briefly to the bare expanse of her legs. His tunic, which he had given her to wear, had ridden up her thigh in sleep. That sight alone thickened his cock in his leg coverings and he clenched his jaw, the pulse of lust sizzling through his blood.
Beks, in his clothing, could make him roar with masculine pride. Her, in his tunic, in his sleeping platform, on his furs…it was enough to make him lose all reason and give into his Instinct.
Somehow, some way, he managed to remain in control and carried the plate over to her, thrusting it in her hands before scuttling to the far corner and putting his back against it.
His female was blinking the sleep from her eyes and every moment that passed, she grew more and more awake. When she noticed his distant position, she smiled and said, “Do you think I’ll bite?”
He frowned. Did humans usually bite others? His gaze drew to her dull teeth and he almost snorted. Those teeth could do no damage.
“Nix,” he said, in his own language.
She cocked her head to the side. “Nix?”
“No,” he corrected, his voice gruff. “I do not think you will bite me.”
Her next question made him stiffen, in more ways than one. “Do you want me to?”
His gaze shot to her across the room and when he inhaled, he almost groaned aloud. Fates…her scent. His female was sitting in his tunic, on his sleeping platform, and she was aroused for her male.
Even Lihvan feared he could not retain control over his own body.
To distract himself, he crammed a large piece of trixava in his mouth and chewed, an excuse to remain silent. The food’s taste helped dull the scent of Beks, but Lihvan’s gaze refused to move off her small form, no matter how hard he tried.
The female seemed to realize that he wouldn’t answer and mercifully, she eased her teasings. Poking at the food on her plate, her spine straightened and she said, “Right…I have questions that I want answered. And I won’t wait any longer. I don’t like other people being in charge of what happens to me.”
“What do you wish to know, female?”
“Where are the other women?” she asked.
“Safe,” he replied. “They are being housed on the vessel together. They have bathed and food has been brought to them. They are comfortable.”
Beks stared at him from his sleeping platform, not touching the food he’d brought her. “So…why am I not with them?” she asked.
The question was like a knot in his chest. “Do you wish to be?”
“I…I don’t know,” she replied, frowning. “I just…I want to know why you took us. I want to know what you’re planning to do with us all and whether or not we can go home. That’s all that I’ve thought about since I was captured.”
That knot tightened in his chest, his Instinct howling when it heard that she wanted to leave, wanted to leave him…which was madness.
His voice was strained when he replied, “We have come on orders from the Prime Leader of Luxiria, to rescue any unwilling females from the grasp of the Krevorags. We are traveling to my home planet of Luxiria and once we arrive, we will arrange passage for any that wish to return to Earth.”
A breathy exhale escaped her full lips, her eyes wide. “Really?”
Lihvan inclined his head, his food momentarily forgotten at the soft look in his female’s eyes. “Tev.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Why risk your safety to help us?”
The question confused Lihvan, but then he remembered that there was a time when his race had actively participated in the Pit. It was only after Vaxa’an’s mate, Kate, made their Prime Leader question the morality of it that it became obvious what the right path would be.
“Luxirians do not tolerate violence or wrongdoings against females,” Lihvan answered, frowning, feeling his hand clench tighter around the plate when he recalled the frightened faces of the human females, cramped in that room on the Pit…when he saw the Krevorag scum kneeling behind the female in front of him, prepared to do the unthinkable to any Luxirian male.
“So, you or your men won’t hurt us?”
“Nix,” Lihvan scowled, insulted at her question. “Never.”
Beks relaxed, her shoulders dropping. “I’m sorry, I just needed to hear you say it.”
“There are some Luxirians who have committed crimes against females in the past, corrupted males with no honor,” Lihvan said. “But you can be certain that every male upon this vessel is a true Luxirian warrior that upholds the value of honor that the Fates demand.”
“The Fates?” Beks asked slowly.
“Our deities,” he answered. “Our creators.”
Beks studied him and he both welcomed and rejected her perusal. His Instinct demanded it and his spine straightened in response, letting her look over her male at her leisure. The other part of him, the logical part, said that nothing would come from it. He shouldn’t get attached to her, for there was no future. The honorable warrior in Lihvan would never force a female to stay with him, even if his Instinct had roused for her, even if his Instinct recognized her as his fated mate. The female had been through enough. Her only wish was to return to her home and Lihvan couldn’t compromise that, no matter how much he wished to.
“Eat,” he commanded, in a gruffer voice than he’d intended, his eyes sliding away. “You need to rebuild your strength.”
She was a temptation that he couldn’t afford. The sooner he accepted that, the better.