Lords of the Deep (18 page)

And the worst of it was, she’d begun to feel like she could completely trust them, that she’d been wrong. They weren’t a threat to her. They didn’t mean her any harm even if they had kidnapped her to study her like she was a lab rat!

She sniffed, struggling with the urge that assailed her to give in to tears and cry her eyes out.

She couldn’t even
ask
them why they’d done it or what they meant by it!

It occurred to her after a while, although she’d been trying very hard to ignore it, that they’d been doing that toward each other the day before, turning red, flexing all their muscles and fanning their fins threateningly at each other. Why would they threaten her, though? What had she done to make them angry with her?

Nothing that she could think of.

But she hadn’t been fed.

Almost on the thought, Damien appeared at the door bearing a tray. She flicked a glance at him from beneath her lashes, trying to decide if he still looked angry and finally concluded that he actually looked more uncomfortable than angry. Slightly relieved, but still wary, she sent several quick, searching glances at his face as he settled the tray, seemed to debate briefly, and finally joined her on the bed as he usually did.

That show of reluctance, or maybe uncertainty gave her pause.

Why would he act as if
she
had done something to him after he’d scared the pee out of her?

That didn’t make any more sense to her than what had happened before.

He spoke a little stiltedly when they’d both been merely sitting and staring at the tray for several moments. “Want … I … go?”

Angie finally met his gaze, mulling over what he’d said. Did she want him to leave?

She didn’t. She wanted to know why he’d behaved the way he had. Unfortunately, she didn’t even have as much of a ‘grasp’ of his language as he did hers. “Why scare me?”

He stared at her blankly. Frustrated, she pointed to the spot where he and Miles had been standing, then tried to flex her muscles. “Why?”

His lips twitched, amusement lighting his eyes briefly.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

The amusement vanished from his eyes. He stared thoughtfully at the floor and then glanced at her curiously. It hit him abruptly that she’d never once flashed red when he’d coupled with her. Her skin had flushed a light pink—but not red. The only time he’d seen her turn red, he’d realized she wasn’t flashing to signal her readiness to mate.

He suddenly felt like an idiot. She hadn’t understood the flash … because
they
didn’t flash red as a mating signal!

He cringed inwardly, realizing they’d frightened her—which sure as hell hadn’t been what they’d had in mind. That was why she looked so distressed.

And he should’ve known better—actually had. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that she meant something else entirely when she flashed red—even though he wasn’t entirely sure of what that something was, he knew what it wasn’t.

Wryly, he acknowledged that the breeding hormones tended to lower mental acuity considerably—even Miles wasn’t an exception, though he was reputed to be a brilliant scientist.

Picking absently at the food, he turned his conclusion over in his mind. Shouldn’t she have realized the display was a mating enticement even if the color confused her? Of course, she didn’t have fins and he didn’t suppose the males she was accustomed to would either, but what the hell did they do to show their interest if they didn’t display their physical superiority?

It didn’t make sense that they wouldn’t. Catkins couldn’t be that unique. Any female, surely, would look for the best donor when they were ready to breed. They would want the very best they could find in a specimen—strength, intelligence.

It must have been the flashing that had confused her.

And what the hell were they supposed to do about that, he wondered? It wasn’t a conscious decision. It just happened—or didn’t if an okean wasn’t interested in the female. It wasn’t as if he could control it and
not
do it if she found it upsetting!

He glanced at her speculatively after a time and discovered with more than a little dismay that she was still upset.

Because he couldn’t explain, gods damn it! “Don’t … ‘fraid,” he said finally when he couldn’t think of any other words that would be the least helpful. “Don’t hurt Angie.”

She looked at him fully for the first time, but she looked confused. He could see she didn’t actually understand what he’d been trying to get across. “Damien don’t hurt.”

She understood that. He could tell she did and that she was still confused and wary because he couldn’t think of a way to explain.

If Miles didn’t get the gods damned translators working soon, he was going to be a blithering idiot before much longer between the frustration of trying communicate with a handful of words and the semen backing up into his throat.

The thought had hardly gelled in his mind when Angie picked up a piece of
bocite
and bit in to it. The juices ran down her arm and dripped onto her breast.

His mind went perfectly blank as he watched it roll right to the pink tip that had been driving him insane ever since he’d discovered her nipples were pink. His throat closed as if someone had wrapped their fingers around it and was trying to choke him to death. He didn’t know why it was that he desperately wanted to suckle her breasts when the thought had never occurred to him before—why it was that every time he looked at her all he think about was sucking and licking her all over—but there was no denying that was he wanted—before, during, and after ramming his cock as deeply into her as he could possibly go.

Shoving the tray from the bed abruptly without really considering anything beyond the fact that it was a barrier he didn’t want in his way, he yielded to the urge. If he’d known, with absolute certainty, that she would kick him clear across the room for touching her, he didn’t think he could’ve resisted.

She sucked in a sharp gasp, but he was in no state to care if she followed it with the high pitched sonic blast that nearly deafened him whenever she used it. He grabbed her around the waist with both hands and covered the tip of her breast with his mouth, suckling at her greedily.

She gripped his shoulders, her fingers digging in to him.

He tightened his hold on her waist, sucking harder, rolling the tight little pink bud around with his tongue, vibrations of pleasure humming through him. A tremor went through her. Her hands moved from his shoulders to his head, clutching at him tightly for a moment … and then she began to stroke him. Surprise flickered through him briefly but the pleasurable jolts that rippled through him with each light touch of her hand drove him further from reason.

For a time, he was content merely with the one pink bud he’d captured, but he began to want the other and everything in between and above and below. The taste of her on his tongue, the smoothness of her skin was everything he’d imagined—more wonderful than he’d imagined.

His cock strained to enter her, stroking along her thigh, but as tightly as he’d curled around her there was no satisfying both desires at once. Ignoring it, he finally let go of the nipple he’d captured and licked and nipped his way to the other, a shiver of fire skating through him and setting his lower belly to boiling as he curled his tongue around the mate to the first. He ignored it, tugging at the sweet bud until he began to feel the urge to search out something new to taste, to feel on his tongue.

She had her eyes squeezed tightly shut, her head thrown back when he lifted his head to gauge her reception, sucking in little pants of breath. He followed the slope of her globes to the tender white throat exposed to him and found his way to her mouth.

His straining cock managed to connect with her body as he settled to exploring the heated cavern of her mouth with his tongue. Heat flashed through him. He curled tighter around her, struggling to compress himself so that he could delve both mouths at once. The feat defied him. Disappointment flickered through him, bordered anger, and disappeared as his cock managed to burrow deeply enough it began to vibrate with the pleasure of having her heated channel encompassing even part of him.

He focused on her mouth until his need shifted to a desperation to penetrate her more deeply. He broke from her lips then, sucked in a ragged breath and pushed her down over his shaft until her body was wrapped around his length. She began to jerk almost instantly, crying out in passion, the muscles along her channel tightening around his cock until it almost seemed to squeeze his seed from him. The first convulsion punched the air from his chest in a grunt. He groaned as he sucked in a breath to follow it, releasing the breath in choked grunts as his body forced his seed into her in almost painful spasms.

Profound relief spread through him when his body finally ceased to convulse. Sanity returned with the dousing of the fire. His senses finally expanded beyond Angie to his surroundings.

Miles was standing beside the bed, his face a mask of fury.

Damien met his gaze, feeling possessiveness begin to scour him. “Mine,” he growled threateningly, his arms tightening around Angie.

“It was my claim,” Miles snarled back at him. “I bested you!”

Damien slid a glance at Angie and saw that she’d opened her eyes and was staring at the two of them warily. With great reluctance, he withdrew from her, setting her out of harm’s way if Miles should so far forget himself in challenge as to lash out. “You did not! We’ll settle it now.”

“I’ll have her now. We’ll settle the next when I’ve given her my seed!”

It galled Damien to leave her, but etiquette demanded it. He’d spilled his seed in her and been challenged. If his was stronger it wouldn’t matter how quickly Miles chased it with his own. His would still have first chance.

He didn’t give a gods damn about that—not at the moment.

He relinquished his prize, though, moved away to watch Miles through envious eyes, feeling the hunger move through him again almost at once as Miles explored her as he had. Watching, the memory of what he’d experienced was so strong he could almost taste the flesh he saw Miles taste, could almost feel the texture of her warm skin against his lips and tongue.

A sense of the surreal enveloped him as it slowly filtered through his heated mind that their mating session was so far outside the norm as to border the bizarre. Entrapped within the confines of a structure, hindered by gravity and air instead of surrounded by the swirling, buoyant mists of the sea and the tribal dance of other suitors and lovers, beyond the coupling itself—also hindered by the unnatural light and heaviness of air and gravity—nothing was as it should be, as he’d ever known.

He’d ignored the demand of his cock and the seed boiling to break free of his body in favor of exploring first—just as Miles was doing now, tasting, touching—suckling her breasts.

When had he ever thought of doing such a thing—before Angie?—let alone done it?

Never.

When had he ever felt the touch of his lover in exploration of her own? Felt madness overwhelm him to feel more of her touch? Beyond the intimate nesting of their sex there hadn’t
been
any other objective.

Even if the thought had ever crossed his mind, or his lovers’ mind, the frenzy of the mating ritual precluded it. There was always another vying for the catkin’s attention even while he was pumping into her to force his seed inside her—another battle to be fought if he wanted the chance to case the seed of her next lover with his own.

He shook the strange feeling off as Miles groaned, expelling his semen jerkily and finally pulled away from her. The mating aggression instantly took precedence. He flashed a warning at Miles in challenge.

Miles, still wearing the slack look of satiation, stared at him dully for a moment and finally clambered awkwardly from the bed. He turned and stalked outside as soon as he was sure Miles would meet his challenge, but it flickered through his mind even then that it felt strange to have to struggle with retreating to such a distance before he could engage his enemy, to have to deal with airlocks and waiting.

He didn’t have to wait long once he was outside. Miles was furious. “You sneaking, fucking bastard! Feed her, my ass!”

“Fuck you!” Damien snarled, rotating his hips to strike Miles across his ribs with his tail. It point of fact, he
hadn’t
gone with the intention of coupling with her, but he wasn’t about to explain himself! Not when he had as much right to her as Miles did!

And Miles was certainly no gods damned better! If he’d seen the opportunity he would’ve seized it as fast!

Miles saw the blow coming and twisted, going with the blow to minimize impact. It still sent him tumbling away several yards before he managed to counter with a powerful thrust and stop. With a second flick of his powerful tail, he shot toward Damien again. They engaged briefly, hammering at one another with their fists for several minutes before Damien managed to catch Miles in a wrestling hold. They began tumbling then, over and over, with Miles trying to break the hold Damien had on him and Damien hanging on with teeth gritted determination to wear his opponent down.

Miles had just managed to break Damien’s hold when a hard jolt of current hit Miles, passed through him and into Damien, throwing both of them back and stunning them.