Claimed: The Warriors of Nur (17 page)

“Why do I need them?”  Her voice hitched, as panic began to melt to frustration.  “Why do I need them?”  She continued to search, spinning in circles as she waved her feet in and out of the short vegetation.

“There’s only us,
Duša
.  I’ve sent my brothers away.”  He inhaled, her scent still strong in the air, tempered now by the tart aroma of her panic.

Temper seized her as frustration melted into anger.  Where the FUCK were her clothes? 

“Leo’Nya!” he gripped her shoulders, a slight shake in his touch.  “
Duša
.”  He gentled.

“Let go!” she jerked back, stepping out of reach. “Just don’t…don’t touch me.”

Oh God, she had to get away from him.  Even enraged, his touch caused shivers, a reminder of the pleasure he’d so recently brought her.

Panting, she pressed a hand to her racing heart and held the other out in front of her, a demand that he keep his distance. 

A demand he heeded not at all. 

He pressed her palm to his own speeding heart, his larger one keeping it there.

“Calm,
Duša
,” he breathed deeply, her hand rising and falling on his chest with each breath. 

They stood there, her hand pressed firmly, just breathing. 

His heart rate never changed.  Never decreased.  Never sped up.  Hers, surprisingly, did.  They stood there for what seemed like hours, but could only have been minutes, one hand pressing her palm to him, the other stroking gently down her arm, then back up her wrist and elbow to her shoulder.  Gradually, her pulse slowed, its frantic beat more even, more calm.

She drew in air, shallow pants giving way to deep, easy breaths.

“I can’t get pregnant, Erol…” Her head lowered; she didn’t see the instant pain flash through his eyes before being solidly snuffed.  “I can’t be trapped here.  I won’t.”

She lifted her head, her eyes begging his understanding.

Erol studied her, his gaze taking in the gray pallor of her usually creamy-tan skin.  She was the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.  Even pale, her lips still plump and swollen from his kisses, he wanted her—was ready even now to renew his acquaintance with the rich softness of her body.

He sighed, the panic still resting in her eyes, not as present as before, but still there.  He’d spent in her, honoring her acceptance of his mating permission.  Or so he thought. 

A Gwerriera Nies female knew the risk of taking a male into her body, a child being a treasure, whether
Mati
or no, but Leo’Nya wasn’t Gwerriera Nies, a fact he should have taken into consideration.  In all honesty, he hadn’t intended for it to go so far.  He had intended only to pleasure her.  To soften her to him.  To begin the process of addicting her body to him.  He’d meant to sample her taste, and nothing more.  To take her pleasure.  To learn her.

After seeing his siblings gone, he’d returned to find her sleeping, body stretched in the sun, an unabashed worshiper—more temptation than he was able to resist with her scent still heavy in the air. 

“You tempt me,
Duša
…” He lifted her chin to stare into her sad, panic-stricken eyes.  “More than I have ever been before.” 

It was true.  He had never desired anything more than this female that stood before him.

He kissed her, a soft brushing of their lips.

“Lie with me.”  A request.  “Allow me to hold you…to calm you.  Nothing more.”  He added, feeling her hesitation.

He lay under the hot afternoon sun, a pillow beneath her, the thick silkiness of her hair a curling caress against his skin.  His fingers trailed her back,sifting the coils across his palm
,
the ends wrapping his wrists like delicate shackles.

“Tell me of your home.”

“My homes.”  She sighed, relaxing into the muscled chest beneath her.

“Yes.”  His hand continued to stroke from her crown to the long trailing ends.  “Where are you from, my little
Aljeni
.”

“Earth.  That’s my planet.  Where I’m from.”

“Earth…” he repeated, the word foreign on his tongue.

She smiled, his pronunciation ‘Uurr-th’. 

“Earth.”  She pronounced, lifting her head.  She tapped her lips, exaggerating the pronunciation for him.

“What’s it like?”

She shrugged, resting her chin on her stacked hands. “It’s…Earth.”

He nodded, recognizing a wealth of description in those two small words.  “It’s beautiful there, yes?”

“It’s…” she hesitated, searching for words.  “It’s not like here.  It’s…different.”

He frowned, a question in his eyes.

“There are parts that are lovely, breathtaking in their beauty.  And there are parts that are awful, savaged to the point of devastation.”

“There were battles…wars?”

“No.” she shook her head sadly.  “I mean yes…there were wars, but that wasn’t the cause.  We just kinda…destroyed it.”

“This savagery…this devastation, it was purposeful?”  Why would a people intentionally destroy themselves?

“No.  I mean…I don’t think so.  It happened long before I was born.”

“Explain,
Duša
.  Why would a people destroy themselves?”

“The history of my planet is….extreme,” she offered for lack of a better description.  “It’s not like here.  We’re overpopulated…VERY over populated.  There’s more people than there’s land.”

“Your women must be very fertile.”

Leo shook her head, the right way to describe the demographic escaping her.  “It’s complicated.  About a century ago, the Earth’s government began to protocol reproduction.  They limited the number of children a woman was allowed to produce in a natural lifetime.”  She shifted, the sun beginning to burn.  “Before that, Earth’s population multiplied continuously.”

Erol rolled, shifting her beneath him to rest in the cool grass, his body shading her from the sun.  “Continue,
Duša
…please.”  His nostrils flared at the warm scent of her--the supple press of her beneath him a reminder of their earlier mating.

“At first, the regulations were only marginally effective, the food and animal growth hormones kept counteracting the mandatory birth control regiments.”

“These hormones, they were stronger than the birth control.”

“Yes…” she smiled at his easy understanding.  “Much stronger.”

“Why would your government regulate breeding?”

“Because no one else would.”  She admitted sheepishly “Humans…that’s what I am, human, were reproducing at an alarming rate; fertility drugs made multiple births very common.”

“Multiple?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes multiple.  As in five…seven…sometimes even ten births at once.”

“A single female breeding ten young…” his eyes glazed slightly in envy, “A true blessing!”

“Slow down there, Tarzan.”

He frowned at the use of her pet name.

“Ten might sound like a blessing, but believe me, a planet can get pretty crowded pretty fast.  After about thirty years of that, people got tired of living on top of each other with not enough food, or money.  They demanded that the government pony-up.”

“What does this mean?  Pony-Up?”  Since activating her translation device, her use of his language was amazing, but there were still times when her words were difficult for him to understand.

“Pony-up?  Ummm…fix it.”  She reached to wipe a bead of sweat as it rolled off the tip of his nose.  “It’s getting very hot out here.”

“Are you ill?” his concern immediate.

“No.  I’m fine” she reassured him “But your sun is unforgiving…your back must be on fire by now.”

He shrugged, knowing that the skin on his back had phased to the thicker, tougher skin of his predator form to protect him.  “My body is used to the punishment of our climates, but you…” his eyes trailed down her neck to watch her nipples pebble at his perusal, “you’re much softer.”  He purred.  “More sensitive.”  He sucked one of the berry-cinnamon colored buds into his mouth, making a popping sound when he released it.

“Mmmmm…” she arched, an unintentional offering of the other.

He treated the other to the same attention.

“So they wanted your government to …‘pony-up’.”  It took everything in him not to taste the rest of her, the honey of her satisfaction was still sweet on his tongue.

She blinked, her mind hazy.  “Hmmm?  Yeah…I mean, yes.  They demanded a solution, but there’s only so much you can do.  I mean it’s not like they could grow the planet.  Make it bigger somehow.”

“So, there was this protocol put in place.”

“Exactly.  It limited the number of children a woman could produce to two.  Birth control became mandatory.  It wasn’t a woman’s decision any longer.”

“Human males must be very weak to allow others to control their females.”

“Some human males are weak, but not all.”  She pinched his arm playfully “But even the less weak ones don’t
control
the females.”

“I would never allow another male to do what you have said.”

“When you’re hungry, and the only way to eat is to fall in line with the government…”

He licked her, his tongue trailing up her neck to nip playfully at her ear, “I would never allow…” He pinched the lobe between his lips, “another male to do what you have said.”

Leo panted, the thread of their conversation fraying with each tingling nip. 

“So, your females,” he refocused her attention, “they are only allowed to breed two young.”

“Yes.”  She answered, becoming irritated that he seemed unaffected by their love play.  His mouth was kindling heat low in her belly, the memory of him between her thighs still fresh.  “At least, that was the idea.”

“So the population of…Ear-th,” he pronounced the word carefully “decreased.  Your females became less fertile.”

“Not right away.  At first it—the new protocol—only worked on a small percentage of the women: only the ones who didn’t eat meat and other foods grown with hormones.”

His forehead wrinkled, questioning.

She sighed. “This is so much more complicated to explain.”  She shifted, her butt going numb from being pressed into the ground.  “What I wouldn’t give for a hammock.”

“Are you hungry,
Duša
?”  He shifted.  Standing, he lifted her into his arms, unconcerned with their lack of clothing.  “Come, we will eat.”

“Come, we will eat.”  She mimicked, her voice deepening in imitation.  “I said a ‘hammock’  not a ‘ham-hock’” she joked.

Erol completely missed the meaning of her word, but couldn’t miss the obvious humor in her eyes.  He loved to see her this way, laughing.  Open to him.  “You will not mock me,
Duša
.”  He scowled in feigned reproach.

“But you make it so easy.  ‘Come, we will eat.’  I said a hammock.  It’s like a net, which you string in the air between two trees.  You lie in it, and it sways from side to side.”

“Who would want to do that?” he asked, a look of horror on his face.

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

“No matter.”  He bounced her gently in his arms, her arms wrapping his neck to keep from falling.

He smiled, his nose pressed to the crown of her head.  Again, her scent was thickening the air.  Her reaction to their last mating sat heavily in his chest.  He understood her resistance to his claiming, to taking his seed, but understanding did not make her rejection any easier to swallow, not that he had right to feel rejected.  Truth was, she’d had no choice in this, and as much as he knew it would hurt her, he had no intention of giving her any other choice than him.  Before their time of seclusion ended, she
would
accept his claim.

“You need to eat,
Duša
.”  He turned to leave her oasis, as he’d heard her call it.  “And then, you need to rest.”  He had plans for her later.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 
Three
moon coverings--or days--as Leo called them,
three
.  He wasn’t sure how much longer he could maintain his sanity if he remained in this constant state of painful need.

Erol stripped the feathers from the
putns
that would serve as their quarter day meal.  The feathers, an iridescent brown-green, fell heavily into the stone basin he worked over, their usual light fluffiness altered by the briny combination of salt and tangeli juice it was stored in. 

It had been three long, painful days since their mating.  Since he’d sunk helplessly into her warmth.  Since he’d tasted her sweetness.  Since he’d feasted on her soft lushness.  He craved more.  Had been craving since the moment he’d left her body, and that he would not be invited to return was growing more evident as the hours passed.

He set the meat aside to begin washing and slicing roots and vegetable to season it.

His excellent hearing told him that his unwitting tormentor was up and about.  A deep breath told him she was heading his way.

He turned, his gaze angled towards the entrance to the ‘kitchen’.  He tried to use the words that Leo was more familiar with.  Making her comfortable was his priority at the moment, and a vocabulary change didn’t even register on his difficult-to-do scale.

She stepped into the room, mussed and sleep warm.  He smiled.  She wore two furred skins, one wrapped around the firm fullness of her breasts while the other guarded the heaven between her legs.  She’d been less than pleased to find all of her clothes gone, and, stubborn female that he was discovering her to be, refused to go without.  She’d commandeered his loin cloths, which --ironically-- looked hellishly sexual on her.  The top strained, the pert thickness of her nipples outlined clearly, the trialing point ending just above the slight curve of her belly.  The bottom dipped low, knotted snuggly on her hips.  He glimpsed cheek and thigh with every movement. 

He groaned, watching the slow languid movements of her stretch, an unintentionally sensual dance.  He inhaled her ripe citrus scent, mingled with the musk of her ever constant arousal.  Not mounting her, over…and over…and over again, was the hardest thing he’d ever done.  Literally.  He was hard, throbbing, and strained.  A state that he’d become used to in the last three days.  He would have hidden his own clothing, but he was absolutely sure that the visibility of his aggressive need would have sent his sweet captive into a rapidly escalating panic.  He was a large male in normal circumstances, and every day that he spent aroused and un-satiated only grew him more.  It was one of the reasons newly transitioned males were taken to the
Tobba
.  A male, new to his more mature sexual desires, was all that was uncontrollable until he was instructed.  The longer he went without release, the greater both his physical and his sexual aggression grew.  It made him dangerous to any female in his proximity.  Un-mated or otherwise.  Erol’s restraint was well learned, but the physical toll was still painful in the extreme.  Her scent called to him--constantly--from every room she entered…left… or strolled past.  The entire dwelling was thick with her body’s need.  It called to him to claim her.  To spend deep.  To seed her well.  All things that he could not do.  A call he she would not permit him to answer.

“Ummmmm…” Leo took a deep whiff.  It was a plus for her was that Erol was a great cook.  Who knew a culture archaically dominant in men had its benefits for the women?  One of them being that they all had to learn to cook.  Either that or they didn’t eat.  Or not well, at least.  She enjoyed the most delicious alien food she’d ever had--not that she’d had an overabundance of it, but she’d had Earth food that didn’t taste as good as the blue goo she’d had here.  “Breeeeeeeaaaad…” she loved bread--the fact that this was red didn’t change that at all--and the scent of its fresh baked goodness in her nose was paradise.  She looked hopefully towards the table.

“Not yet,
Duša
.”  Erol hid a grin. 

His little Leo had a nice appetite.  A fact that pleased him well.  He’d even taken to making twice as much bread in the mornings just to make sure there was always some available to her during the day.

Sighing, she sat.  The table was made of some kind of stone, almost reminiscent of marble, with swirling patterns or varying colors within its surface.  It was round, with circular benches that wrapped it. 

Stacking her hands, she laid her cheek on the table, absorbing the smooth warmth of the surface through her palms.  This was definitely a sight she didn’t think she’d ever get tired of.  She watched the muscles bunch and stretch as Erol scraped the peel from an array of vegetables he was preparing, his back sculpted with canals and trenches that only hard won muscle could create.  His thighs, thick and equally well muscled, were braced apart, his stance unintentionally commanding with a slight bend in his knees.  She shifted.  The memory of how it felt to have all that strength concentrated on her-- in her-- began a wet ache.  She closed her legs, pressing her thighs together in an attempt to assuage the throbbing there.  It’d been three days, and she could still feel the fullness of him buried inside her.  Could still feel the tugging demand of his deep, sliding strokes.  She shivered at the memory of his growls when he demanded her climax. 

She scowled as she remembered the last few days.  The last few
strained
days.  Since the garden, he hadn’t touched her.  Not once.  He’d deposited her in her room with a command to ‘rest’, which she’d been more than willing to follow after their mind-numbing sex.  When she’d awakened, it’d been to dinner and more talking--mostly she answered his questions about her world.  After that, she was escorted back to her room with another command to ‘rest’. 

The following two days had been pretty much the same, with a few questions from her about him and his planet to spice it up.  He fed her.  They talked.  That was it.  So much for her ‘irresistible mating scent’.  He was resisting her just fine.  It wasn’t like he didn’t want her. 
Good Lord
the man couldn’t hide just how
much
he wanted her.  For the love of all things horny, he was constantly throwing wood.  But for all that, he hadn’t once tried to do anything about.  Not once.

“Smells good,” she said, clearing the huskiness from her throat.

His head turned towards her, pulling a breath deep through his nose, before he growled low in his throat. 

“Goddess mother, you’re killing me.”  He grumbled, too low for her to hear.  He adjusted himself beneath his furs before turning to her, a plate of sliced fruit in his hands.  “Eat,
Duša
, the
leipä
, um…bread, will need to cool.
”

He turned back to the basin, refocusing his attention, or at least tried too.  She smelled so good.  Ripe and wanton.  He knew by the thickness of her scent that she would be wet and swollen.

A sticky wetness smacked the back of his head.  Another splat of juicy wetness hit his back, to slide slowly off and onto the floor.  Erol rolled his shoulders, slowly turning to the female behind him.  Her elbows were propped up with the plate of fruit before her on the table.  She lifted the fruit, her tongue slurping up the juice that rivuletted down her wrist to her inner arm.  Chewing slowly, she lifted her eyes to stare innocently into his face.

His focus narrowed to watch her suck her bottom lip between her teeth, her tongue escaping to lazily clean the juice from the top.  Hissing, he turned away, his intention to feed her and put distance between them as soon as possible.  Another splat of cold wetness met his back, this time with enough force to cause it to stick for a moment before rolling down to hit the floor.  He turned, the meal forgotten.  If she wanted his attention, he would give it, and
Goddess
help her. 

She stood, the plate of tangeli fruit balanced on one palm, the other holding a fist full of the wet mess.  She aimed, pulled back, and hurled it with all she had.  Her target?  His smug… uninterested…commandingly…frustrating face.  She giggled in satisfaction, her three previous attacks paling in comparison to the bliss she felt at seeing him wipe at the sticky mess as it dribbled from his chin and cheeks.

He looked up, his eyes crimson now as his body began to phase.  “Run” the only warning he was able to give before he leapt across the short distance.

It was all the warning she needed. 

She darted, her legs pumping with the adrenaline now racing through her. 

What the freaky-eyeball was that?

She grabbed a corner, swinging her body into the next hall, rushing towards the exit to her garden oasis.  A loud angry roar exploded down the hall from the kitchen as she sprinted the last few feet out into the sunlight.  She turned in circles, panic rising at the understanding that there was nowhere for her to hide.  There was nothing here.  No bushes to climb under.  No rocks to crawl behind.  The only thing here was grass and a few trees, neither of which were thick or high enough to offer any protection. 

Another roar echoed, this time closer.

Oh hell…tree it is!

She ran to the closest tree, her shortness making it difficult to reach even the lowest hanging branches.  She squatted, springing up into the air…and missed.  She tried again and again, on the third spring catching the edge of the lowest branch.  She stretched, her arms screaming as she pulled herself up, her feet dangling until finding purchase on the thick trunk.  She pulled, fear giving her more upper body strength than she’d had in her entire life. 

Oh crappity!

A soft hissing-growl stood the hairs on the back of her neck at attention.  Her gaze shifting to the exit of the dwelling, she gripped the branches, unable to shield her eyes from the glaring sun, and squinted at…Erol? 

What in the holy who-what?
 

She tracked up the thick yellow-green skin, now layered with raised leathery scale-like protrusions.  The furs at his hips were the same.  The lethally sharp
sikkina
, wrapped in its leather sheath, at his thigh…the same.  Her gaze continued up to the sharp fangs protruding from his gums--and
that
was new.  He growled-- an aggressive baring of those fangs--as he scanned the clearing; his deep crimson eyes shifting beneath armored plates that extended from his forehead to shade his eyes and nose.  Tilting his head back, he drew a breath and held it, his throat working as if he were--tasting it?  His eyes popped open; his head, low on his shoulders, swiveled toward her.

Crap…CRAPPITY!

She struggled, adrenaline now mixing with panic to make her movements jerky and uncoordinated as she tried to pull herself farther into the branches.  She screamed, the surprised sound wrenched from her when her foot caught below the branch that supported her.  She scrabbled, her nails ripping as she fought to keep herself in the relative safety of the tree.

Erol roared, the scent of needy female wafting from the branches above to fill his nose. 
Mine!
  The mindless lusts of his predator self was not able to move beyond that fact.  He wanted her…needed her…would have her! He pulled, his strength barely tempered to avoid damaging her, and relentlessly reeled in her from the branches of the
aħdar injam
tree she fought into.  Her thighs opened, in an attempt to wrap her free leg around the thick trunk, giving him an unfettered view of the dark curls between.  He wanted in there, his sole focus the pink wetness that silky nest guarded.

He snuffled, her half-exposed rear at eye level now, and pressed his nose beneath the non-existent protection of the fur skimming the rounded curves.  He drew her scent, straight from the source, into him.  His tongue, elongated in this form, snaked easily to her opening and back, bringing with it the dewy evidence of her recent arousal.

He shredded the thick material, the curved claws of his hands like razors in his need to remove all barriers.  His arm wreathed the narrow waist, the violence of his actions resulting in her momentary paralysis.

“Soft,” he growled, his voice deep and gravelly with appreciation.

He caressed her, curling the razored tips into his palm to avoid slicing the vulnerable skin of her back, and with one sharp point, sliced the top fur in half, baring completely her unmarred perfection.