Prime Imperative (The Prime Chronicles Book 3) (36 page)

Jotak snorted. “Brianna is a doctor. The one woman is old, and the other I scented as with child.”

“Tell that to the men they killed,” retorted the only Dornian who seemed to have a brain.

“Mere luck, Davi.” Then Jotak called out. “Give up, Brianna, and we’ll let the other females go. We came only for you.”

“Speak for yourself, cousin,” replied Davi. “We can sell the others back to the Prime. They have worth to their mates.”

Don’t they know I can hear them? Dumb-asses.

Iolyn snorted. The sound, both angry and amused, tickled her senses.
Bad battle-mate.

Aim true,
peata
. If you get hurt, I
will
tie you to the bed for a month and make you beg for your release.

Nasty warrior-
gemat
. They’re coming.

“Brianna! Didn’t you hear my demand?” Jotak bellowed like a wounded ox-steer.

Bria got ready to throw.

“It’s a trap, cousin,” Davi said.

“Are you afraid of three small women, cousin?” Jotak’s words were met with laughter from the other in Jotak’s party. Yes, Davi was the only bright one in the bunch. Too bad he had to die too. He’d be the one to hang back. She’d save a nice sharp blade for him.

Jotak walked into the lantern’s beam of light. He stopped and squinted to look beyond the glare. His gaze passed over her hiding place. He turned his head, maybe to speak over his shoulder to the shadowy images of the men who’d come up behind him. His carotid was there. She could see his pulse, almost hear the beating of his heart.

Perfect throw,
peata
.

I know.

Bria pictured the anatomy chart on her lab wall in her mind. She needed a thousand-point shot to disable Jotak. A preternatural calm settled over her, aided by Iolyn. She inhaled slowly and as she exhaled, she took her throw. The carved animal-bone knife split the skin on Jotak’s throat and sliced his carotid open. The instinct to pull the offending object out also worked to her advantage. Jotak could bleed out before he healed.

Holding his throat, blood spewing from his wound, Jotak stumbled and ended up leaning against the stone wall, then sliding down it. This opened up her next target.

She threw her knife as the man stupidly gaped at Jotak’s fallen body. She skewered the thin bone of her target’s reptile-like, fragile temple. He fell to the stone floor, the knife lodged in his forebrain. He was dead.

The other Dornians hurried away from Bria’s position, but not quickly enough. She threw one more knife and hit another man in the ear and into his brain. He went down also.

One, dead. Two were out of commission for the time being. She had bought herself time.

Exactly how many Dornians had been with Jotak?

Six. Mel’s here. She said six, including the
apayebo,
Jotak. Move back. We’ll be there in less than four standard minutes and take out the rest.

And finish off all of them so you won’t have to
—was left unsaid, but understood.

I can’t. It’s dark. I could fall. They could get to me then.

Iolyn’s curses rang in her head. She’d never heard half those words before. She’d ask Lorinda what they meant once she got out of this mess.

“Brianna!”

She looked toward Jotak, but he lay face down, unmoving, in a pool of blood. It had to be the smart one, Davi, calling to her.

She didn’t respond, but readied another knife in her dominant hand, with a backup in her left.

“We wish to get past you and escape from the Alliance Military. We will leave you and your friends alone.”

As if she believed that.

This time, she answered, “Sorry. But the Alliance Military is also coming in this way. So you’re stuck.”

The low rumbling of voices sounded heated. Any words she did hear were in their language. The tone was vicious. They’d try to fight their way out.

Her heart was heavy and her soul, weary. She’d killed Tenar, the one Dornian, and probably the guard in the library. If these three charged her, she’d be forced to defend herself and possibly kill again. She really didn’t want to, but—

You will. You will survive. I’m almost there.

Iolyn’s iron will bolstered her. She sensed him coming closer and closer. His fear for her was strong and acrid. But it was—
Too late.

The remaining three Dornians rushed her all at once. They had blades in their hands and laser pistols. Off-balance and panicking, she threw a knife and caught the leading Dornian in the throat. Pure dumb luck. He fell, and the other two leapt over his body and continued coming at her.

The one she assumed was Davi stunned her as she tried to throw another knife. Her legs gave way, and she dropped her weapon. It was a stun meant only to debilitate. It worked. Her limbs were useless.

Bria!
The Caradoc battle cry reverberated up the tunnel. The wave of
batel rabia
was so forceful she gasped, but even riding the wave and absorbing her battle-mate’s energy couldn’t overcome the debilitating effects of a medium stun.

Now, they had a hostage.

As Davi pulled her up against his body, her back to his front, his heavily muscled arm around her waist, Bria, to her amazement, was already healing from the laser blast.

In less than a nanosecond, Iolyn had poured energy across their bond. A stream of what in her mind’s eye looked to be white-hot particles flashed around tunnel corners and across the distance between them to reach her. It was as if she were a powerful magnet and the potent stream, a pile of iron filings.

As Iolyn’s warrior-energy entered her body, it was ice cold. But as she gained vitality and her limbs awakened, the power morphed and grew warmer until it got so hot it flashed to the icy heat of
batel rabia
.

Iolyn had pulled on the Prime battle rage to help heal her quickly and to prepare her for the next move in the game.

She was so much better she had to remember to act weak so as not to use her newfound advantage too soon.

She sent her love to her
gemat. What’s the plan?

Peata
, when Wulf makes his overly arrogant demand for them to surrender, use the extra energy I sent you to throw the
bak
off-balance. Then get out of the way. I need a shot at his head.

Okay.

Bria heard the rescue team coming. She had to stifle a laugh. They were being really loud in their approach. Prime could move as silent as snow touching the ground, if they so wished.

Watch it,
gemat
. Davi is not the stupid one.

Let him think we’re clumsy in our haste to get to you. It makes no difference.

Davi stiffened behind her. The only other Dornian who still stood was off to their side and slightly back.

Bria sent Iolyn a mental diagram of who stood where and a warning that the man she’d hit last, lay on the ground at her feet, and still moved. She also suspected the others she’d hit were also healing as time passed.

Don’t worry. Just throw off this Davi’s shot and get the hell out of the way.

She was on board with all that. She took slow breaths and narrowed her senses until she could pick out where Iolyn was in relation to Wulf. Nadia was there, also, as was Mel.

Where’s Huw?

Coming in from behind you.

“Let my sister-kin go,” Wulf roared in a tone she’d never heard before. It
was
super-arrogant. Wulf was a lot of things, but he was never super-arrogant in a lord-of-the-manor way.

Now, Bria!

Using the moves she’d learned from Mel and Nadia, Bria snapped her head back and hit Davi’s sensitive nose slit, stunning him, then kicked back at his knee so she could twist down and out of her captor’s arms. She fell on top of the recovering Dornian. She looked him in his slitty eyes and saw the promise of death. She pulled the knife out of his throat and then used it to slice his neck from ear to ear. His blood spurted over her. Knife in hand, she rolled over onto her knees and faced Davi, who now stood over her.

Stay down!

A battle-blade whirled through the air, close enough that the air displacement ruffled her hair. Iolyn’s aim was true, and the blade sliced off Davi’s head. Before she could cry out, Iolyn pulled her away from the falling Dornian’s torso.

Hyperventilating and weak from the close call—covered in viscous green blood—she buried her head against her man’s chest and went limp. She hoped to hell she didn’t have to think, move, defend herself, or, the One forbid, kill anyone anytime soon, because she was done.

Iolyn rocked her in his arms, alternately muttering curses and words of love.

She giggled hysterically. If she’d been the first medical on the scene, she would’ve given her a bolus of tranquilizer. Then someone did exactly that, and the last thing she heard was Iolyn muttering, “…going to tie you to the bed for two months, not one.”

Chapter 24

Two standard days later

Iolyn and Bria’s suite, Caradoc Estate

“Please…please…” Bria arched her hips toward her mate, seeking the one touch which would finally take her over the edge of what would be her sixth orgasm of the afternoon.

Once the danger had passed and Iolyn had her checked out by both Lia and Kerr, he’d taken her home, tied her to the bed as promised, and made love to her as often as possible for forty-eight standard hours—in between a few spankings for putting herself in danger, hand-feeding her, and giving her soothing baths that led to bath-sex.

It had been a wonderful place out of time, but enough was enough. She had a lab to run, research to do, and findings to prepare for the Elder Council. Plus, she was fairly sure she was pregnant, unsurprising since the moment they’d completed the physical mating on the
Galanti
, they’d had a lot of sex and done nothing to prevent conception.

Right this instant, all she wanted was to come, and for Iolyn to be inside her when she did.

“My big strong warrior-
gemat
—” She strained to meet the tip of his tongue as it hovered tantalizingly just out of reach above her swollen-to-the-point-of-pain clit. “I need your cock. Now.”

“So demanding for a bad
peata
.” Iolyn shifted his head down and to the side to nip the top of her inner thigh.

Bria heaved a frustrated sigh and relaxed into the bed, which was about all the movement she could manage since her wrists were tied to the headboard and Iolyn’s body weight had effectively trapped the rest of her.

“I love you, Iolyn. But you’ll have to get over what happened.”

When he opened his mouth to give her what she was sure would be the same lecture he’d parroted each and every time she asked to be allowed out of their rooms, she talked over him. “I see what’s in your head. Deep inside you’re impressed about how I handled myself. Amazed at my skill with knives. Proud I worked in tandem with Mel to save your mother. Pissed that I blocked you during part of the ordeal. But you know why I did it now, and so you were mostly over your manly snit a whole day ago.”

“Manly snit?” He growled and teethed her clit.

Bria inhaled and mewled with need. “If the boot fits—admit it.”

“You’re correct,
peata lubha
.” Iolyn chuckled and rewarded her with a lick over her clitoral hood with almost, but not quite enough, pressure to get her off.

And he knew it, the bastard. Her loving, sexy bastard. Her man was in her head, had been ever since she’d awakened in the medica after the tranquilizer Nadia had given her in the tunnel. He’d been reading her every mood, thought, and desire since then.

“Are you
one
with me, yet, little menace?” He caressed her hips in long, slow, soothing, and, above all, loving strokes.

“Yeah, I’m with you.” She wiggled her butt as much as she could. “I’d like to be with you more—and soon.”

She licked her lips.

Iolyn purred low in his throat like a large predatory cat who’d successfully snagged his prey. He liked it when she licked her lips. His brain went straight to the last blowjob she’d given him, which had been an hour or so ago in the shower.

“We will talk about this snit thing, later. But for now, we’ll have…” Iolyn rubbed his beard-roughened cheek over her mons and placed a reverent kiss on her rumbling tummy. “…one more orgasm—together—and then I will let you up.”

Iolyn licked around her opening. “We’ll get dressed…”

He flicked the tip of his tongue lightly over her needy clit. “…then go to the family kitchen…”

Then he nipped the swollen bud. “…and eat a snack to tide you…and our child…” Pride and overwhelming joy flowed from his mind to hers. “…over until dinner.”

As his last words died, he moved up her body and thrust into her with one powerful surge of his hips.

“Iolyn!” Bria just managed to get his name out as she exploded into a climax that threatened to send her into orbit around Cejuru Prime. And it only got stronger and better as her mate began to pummel her pussy.

When he reached his climax, he arched his back and shouted her name. With his cock lodged deep within her and flooding her with warmth, his mind sought hers and he stroked the path which connected them, made them one.

The mental touch threw Bria into another explosive orgasm that threatened to tear her apart.

I’ve got you, Bria. Hold onto me,
peata.

As their orgasms swept through their bodies and across their bond, Iolyn released her hands. She placed her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. Her mind automatically sought and burrowed within his. Her safe harbor against a raging storm. As their bodies were buffeted by mutual orgasms and they clung to one another, Iolyn’s presence in her mind soothed and cherished her. Her warrior-
gemat
would protect her in all things, even their turbulent lovemaking.

Now, you’ve got it.