Table of Contents

NOTICES

ALIEN KEEPER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TRIGGER WARNINGS

CHAPTER ONE | Grim

CHAPTER TWO | Valeria

CHAPTER THREE | Grim

CHAPTER FOUR | Valeria

CHAPTER FIVE | Grim

CHAPTER SIX | Valeria

CHAPTER SEVEN | Grim

CHAPTER EIGHT | Valeria

CHAPTER NINE | Grim

CHAPTER TEN | Valeria

CHAPTER ELEVEN | Grim

CHAPTER TWELVE | Valeria

CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Grim

CHAPTER FOURTEEN | Valeria

CHAPTER FIFTEEN | Grim

CHAPTER SIXTEEN | Valeria

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Valeria

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Grim

CHAPTER NINETEEN | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY | Grim

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | Grim

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | Grim

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | Grim

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | Valeria

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | Grim

CHAPTER THIRTY | Valeria

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE | Valeria

NOTICES

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.

Alien Keeper Copyright © 2022 Veronica Doran

ALIEN KEEPER

Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords

Book Nine

By Ursa Dax

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks, as always, to every reader, reviewer, and new friend on this journey. And to my husband, RSH, and my parents, who support everything I do.

TRIGGER WARNINGS

On-page fighting and violence, including gun violence. Abduction-by-the-hero trope. Mentions of parental deaths due to illness (off-page). Graphic (consensual) sexual scenes involving biting/fang/venom/blood play and size difference/alien, non-human hero.

CHAPTER ONE

Grim

“Grim.”

At the sound of my name I turned. My scaly tail swept across the stone floor of my bed-chamber cave. At the entrance to my cave stood the Hakah Gog. I pounded my fists against my brow ridges in respect for the Hakah, our king. The stones in my cave, luminous from the glowing blue slick that coated them, made Hakah Gog’s deep bluish-grey scales look even more brilliantly blue than normal.

“Yes, Hakah?”

“We leave tomorrow. Be ready.”

My jaw tightened at the back of my snout, fangs clenching against each other. It was time. Time for me, for all of us, to leave this place. To leave the Bitter Sea and the island of our birth. To travel out into deserts to meet strange men and even stranger women.

The Hakah and his guards had already done this – had journeyed far to visit the homeland of his newly discovered nephew, Kor. The tales they had told of that place since their return – tales of scaleless men with glimmering shards for eyes and tiny females with skin so soft it had to be protected from the very sun – were almost too absurd to be believed.

And yet, it was all true. As was, apparently, the threat coming to our world. The threat driving us inland to ally with these foreign desert people.

“I will be ready, Hakah,” I declared, pounding my fists against my brow ridges once again.

“Good,” he said, before turning and leaving my cave. I stared after him, into the blackness of the cave’s entrance where he’d stood a moment before.

I turned back to my own modest warrior’s bed-chamber. Glowing, slippery stones cast everything around me in silver-blue light. That same light illuminated all the rooms and halls beneath the island of our home. In that glow, I surveyed the bare corner I slept in, as well as my weapons – hok-scale spears and sea stone knives with bone handles. A low flat stone created a natural little table where childhood trinkets dwelled – a few shining gems and shells I’d collected as a boy from the beaches, as well as the cracked bone handle of my very first knife, its blade long lost to the teeth of a krikka – the foul predatory serpent of the shallows.

It is not so very much I leave behind…

Especially considering the fact I did not have living parents, nor a mate, nor did I have children. Some of the other males were leaving behind their women, their families, to rise and meet the threat beyond the sand. Compared to them, I was lucky. I left only shreds, stone, and memories.

Though I had been tired from a day of swimming and hunting, I did not sleep long that night. I rose in the blue-dim light of my cave, gathering the things I planned to take into the desert. The journey would take some time, and it was best to travel light. Besides, when one’s own body was a weapon, one did not need to carry many more with him.

I settled on my best spear – the one with the thickest bone handle and the sharpest hok scale at its tip. I considered bringing a knife, too, looking at my collection. Their jagged, death-sharp blades glinted, their pale pink sea stone colour turned milky purple by the blue light.

As my eyes tracked over the line of knives, I could practically see my own life unfolding in their progression. I’d made each one of them, starting when I was a child. My blades grew larger, more artfully crafted, the older I became, the line of the weapons signalling the days of my history like landmarks. I was still a fairly young warrior, but there were many ages to reflect on, looking at those blades.

I chose my most recently-constructed blade. The longest and strongest one, the same way I had chosen my spear. I turned to leave my cave, possibly for the last time, then stopped. I remained in the dark mouth of the cave, the glowing past behind me, the future a murky tunnel ahead. At the last moment, I spun and swiped the bladeless and broken bone handle of my youth from the table. This little thing was no weapon, not anymore. It was short – much too short for my adult’s hand to grip adequately now. It would be pointless to try to fit it with another blade.

And yet…

And yet I could not leave it behind.

Working quickly, I grabbed some spare seagrass twine from the same table. Claws flying, I wound the tough twine, attaching the small bone handle of my lost boyhood’s blade to the strong handle of my adult’s spear. The new (yet old) small bone handle was now tied tightly to the end of my spear’s bone shaft, like a crooked, stunted tail. I grunted to myself, satisfied, then hefted the spear and my other blade again.

This time, when I plunged forward, I did not hesitate.

I moved through the dark tunnels swiftly, knowing every turn, every stone, by heart. It did not take long for me to reach the large opening that led from the inner caves where we slept to the open air.

To the sea.

Two guards stood with their own spears at the entrance to our caves, facing out towards the water. They turned and gave me grunts of greeting before looking forward once again. Ever since the stranger Kor, son to the lost warrior Kon, had risen from those waters and shocked us all, the guards had been twice as diligent at their posts. Impressive, considering they had already been diligent to begin with.

Behind the guards and me, our island hulked up and out of the water, a warm dome of sand and shrubs and trees and birds in the endless waves around it.

Almost endless.

In the distance, nearly impossible to see in the pre-dawn gloom, even with my sharp eyes, I could just make out the thin, ominous line of the foreign lands Kor had come from. The lands we were destined to travel to today.

I was a strong warrior. Vicious and brave. I did not fear these new lands. But something about leaving the sea and being among all that sand and stone felt unnatural and strange.

It just means we must be victorious. Beat every enemy and survive so that we may come home.

I still had some time. I did not have to abandon the sea just yet.

I moved past the guards, my spear in one fist, the bone handle of my sea stone blade in the other. I picked down the slick, sea-sprayed rocks that led into the shallow lagoon in this little inlet.

When my claws touched water, I dove.

My body sliced powerfully through the water. In this inlet, things were calm. It was easy, pleasurable, to glide through the briny dark, even with my weapons in my hands. It was something I’d done countless times – swimming these waters.

I left the calm inlet, moving into the deeper water. I rose to the surface, drawing a breath before plunging down again. Unlike some of the creatures of the sea, my brethren and I could not breathe the water. But my lungs were strong. And I could hold my breath as long as was necessary.

I powered through the darkness, the water cold from the night. Soon, the sun would be rising, warming the surface.

It was not long before I had travelled down a good length of the island’s coast. I reached a quiet area of beach, rising from the water and stalking through the shallows to the sand. Behind me, the sun, too, was rising from the depths. It reached long fingers towards the island, turning the water as red as my own scales.

I felt the water dripping down those very scales, pooling between ridges and spikes, rolling down my legs and tail. Standing tall and planting the newly augmented butt of my spear on the sand, I watched the sunrise from that quiet, lonely spot, wondering if it would be the last time I stood here like this.

I would have to leave before the morning light grew too strong. The Hakah and the rest of the army would be waiting for me, ready to begin our journey to the desert.

So almost as soon as I’d arrived at the quiet beach, I knew that it was time to go.

I waded back into the water, trying to memorize the lapping feel of it on my legs and tail. Scalding the memory into my body so that it would sustain me on the sands.

I tightened my grip on my weapons, poised to dive.

I froze.

Something caught my eye, something in the distance, out on the water.

I cranked my head, hissing slightly, aiming my spear for whatever it could be. Could this be the new enemy we’d been warned of?

But… no. No, this was no enemy.

The Kell.

It glowed in the distance as if one of our many moons had plunged into the sea. I’d never seen it before. It only showed itself to the men it summoned. The men it called to see the faces of their future mates.

The men it urged to claim their fates.

My heart crashed, a relentless cycle of battering waves, sending dark blood pumping. My jaw worked as I stared at the water. For the first time in my life, I doubted my own eyes. I doubted what I saw.

No.

There was no other man on this dawn-quiet beach. And my eyes had always been strong.

The Kell was here for me.

It was here to show me my mate. To awaken the sacred mate bond, and make me into the warrior I was always meant to be.

No more hesitation.

I dove again.

And followed it.

I was fast, and the Kell moved slowly, almost leisurely. This allowed me to catch up to the sacred creature quickly. As I swam behind it, I took in every feature – the round body with its translucent, starlight armour. Its powerful head with its two knowing, illuminated eyes. Its four paddle-like legs and its long, snaking tail.

It swam ahead of me, the two of us swimming at the surface. But soon, its head dipped down, its paddles shifting, forcing the rounded shell of its torso down into the darkness.

But with the Kell, it was not darkness. The Kell was light itself, beating back the shadows. And it was a good thing, too. Because we were going deeper and deeper into the water. Deeper than I’d ever been before. So deep that without the Kell’s ghostly light, I would have entirely lost my way.

My strong lungs burned, my warrior’s heart thundering. I could not tell if it was from the lack of breathing for so long, or from the churn of emotions plaguing me now that I was about to see the face of my fated mate.

Wonder and dismay. Gratitude and confusion.

Why now? Why would the Kell grant me a mate right before I am meant to leave the women of my homeland? Before I go to battle, possibly to my death?

Already my heart ached at the thought of leaving her.

But there was no point in questioning such things. The Kell was destiny incarnate. It did not answer to the likes of simple warriors.

Deeper and deeper. Lower and lower. Until the Kell was the only thing I could see. Until its powerful light began to be swallowed up all around us, the water black as blood and almost as thick.

Will I make it?

My limbs quaked, the muscles of my throat collapsing on themselves with the desire to suck in air. I knew from other men that the Kell’s cave, though deep beneath the sea, had air. But I worried I would never get there at this rate.

I have to.

I had to get there. The Kell would not have called me if I were not ready. If I were not worthy. I would do this. For myself and for my mate. For our future.

Swallowing a snarl, I pushed harder, every muscle straining, my fangs clenching.

The Kell disappeared.

My eyes snapped back and forth, and I almost lost the breath I’d been holding in confused shock. Where the Kell had been before me but a moment before, now there was nothing but blackness, hard and impassable as stone. My throat contracted, my tail going rigid as I turned my head back and forth.

I would not make it back up to the surface with this breath now.

Was this it? Was this why I had been called?

To meet my own death, instead of my destiny?

No! I would not allow the sea that had been my life’s blood, my home, to be my death. I would find the Kell.

And I would find my mate.

With my last surges of strength, I plunged downward further. I jerked as the tip of my spear met rock. I swiped my claws along a rocky surface until they met nothing.

An opening.

I stared into the opening, and I did not know if it was some illusion of a dying brain or if it was really there, but I thought, far ahead, I could see a faint glow.

Throwing all caution to the waves, I sank into that opening.

Breathlessness drove me faster, but I once again hit stone.

Up. Up!

I thrashed my tail, forcing my body into an upward motion.

And mercifully, beautifully, my head broke the surface.

I sucked in a massive breath. If this had been any other moment, any other time, I would have allowed myself a few breaths to recover. But anticipation was already driving me to movement once again.

The face of my mate.

Any moment, I would see her.

Her.

Who is it? Who is meant to be mine?

There were women I admired, women I had lain with, but none I loved.

But I supposed that did not matter. Just because I’d never felt love for a woman did not mean I was not ready. I wanted this. Deep between my ribs, I wanted this. Between my legs, I needed it.

I swam to the edge of the water, pulling myself up onto slick stone. The glow I had seen from the water – the glow that had been my lifeline – was much stronger in here now. I followed it down a shadowy tunnel until that tunnel opened into a glittering cave.

I’d never seen such a cave. The caves we slept in beneath the island were lined with brown and grey stone, turned blue from the luminescent slick that coated some of them. This cave had walls that looked like polished gems. The whole interior glinted with uncountable facets, almost blinding me after the darkness of the water.

It was impossible to tell what colours might be present in those gem-lined walls. Because they all reflected the pure silver-white of the Kell’s light.

The Kell watched me from the centre of the cave. It did not move. It did not appear to breathe. I squinted, my gaze piercing right through its rounded armour, right down to the stone. Half here and half not, the Kell watched me with unmoving eyes.

Before the Kell was a very small pool – so small I’d almost missed it. Glowing the same way its body did – healing milk of the Kell. This was the source of it. There was a spring of it in our own caves supplied from somewhere beneath the waves. This was where it flowed from.

The Kell opened its snout, showing three upper and three lower rows of translucent fangs. One of the fangs, though, was not actually translucent. As I peered closer, I saw that one of the largest teeth, a tooth bigger than my hand, glinted harder and darker than the others.

I knew what I was meant to do. I’d heard this tale countless times before. From my Hakah. From my male cousins. From my father.

I dropped my weapons at my feet and stepped forward, wading into the shallow pool of the Kell’s milk until I was before the sacred giant. I was a large warrior, but even standing tall on two legs like this, the Kell was taller.

I stared into its great mouth, locating the tooth again. Yes, that had to be the one. The Vision Fang I’d heard so many stories of. It was different from all the others.

I reached deep into the Kell’s cavernous mouth, gripped the Vision Fang, and pulled.

It was not easy. For some time, the tooth did not budge. But I had made it this far. I would not fail now. I braced myself on the Kell’s lower jaw with my free hand. Though its many fangs were see-through and strange, they were still sharp, slicing my left hand to the bone as I grappled with that single fang above with my right. I did not feel the wound, too focused on my task and what would come when said task was complete.

The vision of my mate.

Remembering why I was doing this was enough. The thrill at the thought of my own mate strengthened my arm, my grip. The Vision Fang loosened, then with a final twisting tug, it came free in my hand.

“Thank you, Kell,” I breathed, in awe of the massive fang in my grip. I withdrew my hands from the creature’s mouth, letting it close its jaws. My blood seeped down its shimmering skin, a sign of what I’d done. What I’d lost.

What I’d gained.

I kept my injured hand away from the surface of the fang so I did not bloody it. My breaths were short and shallow, and I forced myself to take a deep one and still myself in preparation.

I hefted the fang in front of my face, staring into the dark glassy surface.

Before my eyes, the surface of the tooth shifted and swirled. In the shining dark, a figure took shape. A huff shuddered out of my nostrils as my blood once again surged. I pressed the fang as close to my eyes as I could, trying to see better. Trying to see the colour of her scales, the lines of her face.

Except there were no scales.

And the lines of her face were unlike anything I had ever seen before.

My claws tightened on the fang, shredding my fingers further, but I did not care. I was too transfixed, too consumed, by the strangeness of the vision. This was no woman of the Bitter Seas, not one of my people. This was not even a woman from the desert.

This was a woman from beyond. One of the so-called “new women” that the Hakah had told us of. She had to be.

I had no time to feel dismay at this development. I had no time to rear back in surprise. The sacred mate bond was working too quickly for such reactions. Even now, searing affection made my muscles clench, made my forked tongue lash against my fangs. I stared into the Kell’s tooth, memorizing each flat plane of her snoutless face, the dark strands of hair and even darker discs of her eyes settled in rings of white.

A fierce possessiveness made my spikes emerge along my shoulders, neck, and tail. This female, in all her strangeness, her scalelessness, her clawlessness, was mine.

And as soon as my mate had appeared, she was gone, the Vision Fang fading back into blankness. I hissed, staring harder, trying to draw the image back. But the tooth cracked, then crumbled in my hands, the pieces falling into the pool of Kell’s milk at my feet. That tooth would grow again, anew, for the next warrior. But there was no more left for me.

On the way here, while following the Kell, I’d wondered why I was being granted a mate from my island just to have to leave her the very same day.

But she was not of my island.

So it was. I would not have to leave her after all.

I had to find her.

CHAPTER TWO

Valeria

“You ready, Val?”

I tightened my grip on my gun, nodding tightly. That’s Corporal Steel to you, I said inside my head. At least call me Valeria if you’re going to use my first name, asshole. I fucking hated when the name my mother gave me got shortened to Val. It was one of the only things I had left from her and shortening it felt like some kind of disrespect. But then again, Sergeant Green didn’t give two fucks about anything besides getting shit done. Cold and cruel with the deadest eyes in his head that I’d ever had the misfortune of seeing on anybody. Maybe I should just call you Cole instead of Coleman. Since apparently we’re using first names and not using actual titles, Sergeant Green…

Of course, I didn’t say any of that out loud.

“Yes, Sir!” I replied sharply but quietly. The two of us were crouched at the side of the partially destroyed craft the first Earth mission had landed on this planet with. Apparently, a bunch of alien cockroaches or something had come right up and out of the sand, crashed through the viewscreen, and killed the crew of this vessel when they’d first landed on this sand planet. The only survivors, from what the orbiting research vessel could see on their scanners, had been taken in by the native alien population, nestled among a massive stone formation nearby. Sergeant Green and I had come down in our own tiny vessel – the smallest one available, only big enough for us two. The hope was that we wouldn’t attract more of those fucking bugs in a small craft. So far so good. The only problem was that the craft was a one-way vehicle. The kind of thing that could weather the trip down through the atmosphere, but that wouldn’t take us back up again. Nope, the two of us were here for the long haul, stationed planet-side to figure out just what the hell was really happening down here and to find out if any of the original mission was salvageable. And we were to communicate everything, using our tiny vessel’s comm system, to the orbiting research vessel.

Our first recon mission? Surveying the destroyed ship. From what we’d seen in orbit, there were always a few aliens and humans stationed here, doing… Well, we weren’t quite sure yet. That’s what we were here to find out. We were going to have a quick look around, unseen, then rendezvous back at our own craft, camouflaged by light-scatter tech.

We each wore our US military uniforms, along with a specialized jacket that incorporated the same light-scatter tech that kept our vessel hidden. It wasn’t perfect invisibility, but it diffused our appearances into the air in a pretty impressive way. Sergeant Green activated his jacket, his frame wobbling, then dissolving into the night air. I put on the augmented sunglasses that allowed my vision to penetrate through the light-scatter tech so that I could once again see him clearly. I activated my jacket by pressing a small button inside the hood. Sergeant Green snapped his own augmented sunglasses into place.

I adjusted the controls at the sides of my glasses, shifting the dark lenses to something lighter. I needed to be able to see Sergeant Green, but the sun hadn’t quite risen yet (though it would very soon) so I didn’t need the full solar protection aspect.

After we were as camouflaged as possible we stood, still keeping low.

Then, we split up.

Sergeant Green took off in one direction, I in the other. I picked around the outside of the craft slowly, my gun ready, glancing at the screen on my wrist every few seconds. So far, the only life signs in the very near vicinity, besides Sergeant Green’s, were inside the ship. So it was unlikely I’d run into anyone out here. But still, I’d always been cautious. Careful. The way my father had taught me.

So I stayed low and moved quickly but steadily, taking everything in around me. All around the ship stretched miles and miles of rolling copper-gold desert. In the pre-dawn light, the sand looked velvety and dark, with silvered streaks cast down by brilliant stars and the ring of asteroids that went around this planet like some kind of bedazzled hula hoop. Those asteroids orbited the planet, and they were moving towards the horizon, now. Dawn was coming.

When I reached the open back of the ship that led into the cargo bay, I once again stopped to check for life signs. None in the cargo bay, which I confirmed visually. I stole inside, running silently between shelves and boxes and crates. The cargo bay was a bit of a mess, and I remembered somebody on the research vessel talking about a sand storm that had gone through here recently. Nasty stuff.

Another glance at my wrist had me sprinting for the sands. Two figures were approaching. My light-scatter jacket would keep me pretty hidden if I stayed still. But the tech wasn’t perfect, and it wouldn’t hide things like the sound of my breathing or my scent. And depending on how sharp the aliens’ senses were, that could get my ass killed.

So I got out of there, running out on the sand and then crouching down far enough around the side of the ship that I would be able to observe whoever came out of there. Just as the life signs entered the cargo bay, a third one appeared. I looked up, matching the third life sign to Sergeant Green across from me on the sand. Sucking in a sharp breath I stood and signalled to him, my movements aggressive in my rising panic. The two life signs were about to emerge out onto the sand, right beside where he was standing. What was he doing?

When he deactivated the light-scatter tech on his jacket, casting himself into stark visibility in the glow of dawn now at the horizon, that question quickly became, “What the fuck is he doing?”

But I couldn’t yell at him to stop. For one thing, he was my superior officer. And for another, the life signs were now stepping out onto the sand.

I crouched again, gun ready. My jaw was tight, my eyes wide behind my glasses. I’d seen the aliens on the scanners on the research vessel, but the images were pretty grainy. We’d had some clearer footage from a drone before it got destroyed, but even that was nothing compared to seeing one of these guys in real life.

The alien man I saw before me now was a hulking, massive wall. Easily seven feet tall, with black hair that hung well past his shoulders. Dark, dog-like ears perched near the top of his head on the sides, and a thick, powerful tail swished over the sand behind him as he walked out of the ship’s cargo bay. I was immensely grateful for my light-scatter tech at that moment. I was not keen on one of these big bastards turning their eyes on me. I was a skilled fighter, but man – that kind of natural strength was mind-blowing. He was so huge and so strange that I almost didn’t register the human woman at his side. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, the two of them were… Holding hands?!

“Don’t move!”

Shit! I’d been so distracted by seeing my first alien up close and personal that I’d completely forgotten that Sergeant Green was over there with his fucking ass hanging out, completely visible under the rapidly rising sun.

The alien reacted with shockingly impressive reflexes, shoving the human woman behind his back and raising the spear he was holding. Sergeant Green had his gun aimed at the alien’s chest.

This was not the plan. These were not the orders! We weren’t supposed to engage with the aliens or even the humans yet. We were supposed to be doing fucking recon! And yet there Sergeant Green was, shouting commands at them with his weapon raised. Even though I was looking at the alien’s back, and his form was partially obscured by the woman he now held behind him, I could see the tense, bulging stillness of his muscles. I had no doubt that if Sergeant Green made one wrong move, he’d have that huge spear hurling his way before he could even pull his trigger.

Goddamnit. I had my own gun ready, but I lowered it. At this rate, even if I took a shot, I could hit the human woman. And I didn’t want to have to shoot anyone unless it was in self-defence. Even the alien seemed to be trying to protect the woman with him, which already put him a notch above Sergeant Green in my books.

“We’re not moving! Don’t shoot!” The woman sounded frantic. Terrified. I wondered if the fear she felt was for herself, or for the big guy putting himself in front of her like some kind of alien shield. They had definitely been holding hands. That told me there had to be some kind of relationship between the two of them. It also meant that the aliens were sentient, intelligent, and capable of emotion. At least, I assumed so. Which meant it was extra fucked up that we were suddenly jumping in like this with our guns out.

The woman was speaking again, and rapidly, in a language I didn’t recognize. The alien answered her, and even through the foreign words, I could hear the deadly rage of his voice.

“Tell it to stand down!” Sergeant Green called, obviously wanting the woman to translate for him.

He is going to get us both fucking killed today. More rapid conversation flowed between the woman and her alien guard or boyfriend or whatever he was.

Sergeant Green was getting agitated. “Tell that motherfucker to lower its weapons, now!”

“Please! Just wait! Put your gun down and we can -”

Sergeant Green cut off her desperate plea. “Don’t try to negotiate with me, you alien-fucking whore. Just tell it to do exactly what I said.”

I hissed out a tight breath between clenched teeth. So he’d seen what I’d seen then. The hand-holding.

Anger mounted in me. This was all wrong. Cole was ruining everything and putting potentially innocent people in danger. Yeah, he was Cole now. No more Sergeant Green. He’d lost my last shred of respect, and frankly, the little respect I had had for him had been mandated by our respective positions. Calling this terrified woman a whore while he pointed a gun at somebody she apparently cared for was fucking low. I mean, I wasn’t exactly interested in banging an alien that looked like some kind of gigantic kangaroo bodybuilder, but I also knew that people survived the best way they knew how depending on their circumstances. And no matter the circumstances, it was clear that this big guy was doing everything he could to protect her.

Fuck it. If the other two weren’t directly in my way, I’d have had my own gun trained on Cole at this point. My father had always taught me to resist authority. Frankly, he’d be rolling over in his freaking grave to know I was even in the army. But when he’d died and I’d had nothing and no one else, it had seemed like the best option.

To say I was seriously regretting that decision now would be putting it… Lightly.

Uh oh. Things were happening. The warrior said something else, fury thick in his alien words. His tail pounded the ground and he raised his spear.

He stopped.

I’d fully expected that spear to go flying, but everyone had frozen, now looking off towards the horizon. I looked, too. Despite the heat of the morning air, goosebumps exploded on my skin when I heard it – a fierce, sky-shattering roar in the distance. It was a sound more than animal, more than primitive. It was… Primal. It echoed in my ears and ran a dark jagged claw down my spine.

A quick glance at my wrist told me that a large number of life signs were coming towards us at top speed. So many of them that they looked like a cloud of light on the screen instead of individual dots. More kangaroo alien dudes? Some kind of backup?

Looking up, I realized with shock that I was wrong. Totally, completely, utterly wrong.

Because those weren’t more of the kangaroo-looking guys coming our way.

They moved with astonishing quickness over the sand. My fingers shook as I pressed at the side of my glasses, turning on the binocular function. My breath caught in my throat as I got a better look at what was coming.

Monsters.

The word came into my mind unbidden, but frankly, it seemed appropriate. These guys looked like fucking Godzillas or something. Huge croc-creatures pounding over the sand with hard scales that glinted like gems in the sun. Many of them had spears or knives in their mouths, which meant they weren’t just animals. They were some kind of people.

Not like any fucking people I’d ever seen, that was for sure.

“You’re outnumbered, pal!” the woman called, sounding giddy. “A gun might hurt us, but it won’t do shit to the guys coming our way right now. And they’re our allies!”

Honestly, she was right. Those scales looked like natural armour. If I’d thought the big guy in front of me looked tough, then these guys were a whole new level. And there were so many of the lizardmen coming. Too many.

Time to fucking go.

Cole seemed to have had the same thought.  He started backing away, gun still raised, his head swivelling between the two people here and the army approaching.

“Wait!” the human cried, coming out from behind her muscly shield, “you can’t just leave after aiming your gun at us. Who are you?”

I had to hand it to her, she was brave. Most people wouldn’t be asking questions like that after having a gun pointed at them.

Cole didn’t answer her, instead turning to run. Which was the first smart thing he’d done all morning.

“No!” the woman screamed again. Her alien guard didn’t appear to say anything else. His spear did all the talking, flying through the air and smashing clean through Cole’s right thigh, sending him sprawling face-first on the sand.

My heart slammed, my breath catching. I knew this idiot was going to get us killed. Look like he’d already achieved it for one of us.

I shook my head, disgust rising in my throat. What would he have done if those lizards hadn’t shown up? Would he have tried to take these two hostage or something? Abduct them and interrogate them? Kill them?

Well, if this idiot died with an alien spear up his ass, it was his own damn fault in my opinion and he fucking deserved it. He’d gone way off the rails and put us all in danger.

But what if he hadn’t gone off the rails? What if this was the plan all along?

What if I don’t really know what’s going on here? Maybe I don’t know the truth behind any of this…

Had I been lied to from the top down? I’d been told that we were here to check up on the health of this mission, to make sure everything and everyone was alright before we moved forward with trying to re-establish whatever the hell it was we’d come to this planet for in the first place. But what if that was a lie? What if we’d been sent here for worse things, but only Cole knew about the real plan?

If there was one thing I hated more than being called Val, it was being lied to.

That hate hardened in my guts, and if the alien and woman hadn’t still been in my way, I would have shot Cole myself when he raised his gun again. But there was no way for me to do it where I was, and when the gunshot rang out, it wasn’t mine.

The alien man jerked, throwing himself in front of the woman once more, grasping her tightly to his chest and taking the bullet in his own back. I forced my teeth together to keep from shouting in dismay. I didn’t know this guy – he was a fucking alien! And yet for some reason, I just knew he didn’t deserve this. Even if he did just take Cole’s damn leg off with his spear.

For the first time, the alien was now facing towards me, clutching at the woman whose back was to me. And for the first time, I saw his eyes. Large, dark, and strange, but undeniably deep and full of fearsome, protective rage. Instead of pupils or irises, there were pulsing copper-coloured shards. I knew exactly when Cole’s bullet hit, because those strange shards exploded, swirling outwards and losing focus just before he slumped to the ground. The woman collapsed down with him, sobbing and clawing at him. Cole, too, collapsed back down, his blood pulsing out onto the sand, staining it.

I stood, shoving my gun into its holster, before taking a few quick steps forward. They had no reason to trust me – I’d come with Cole, after all. The guy who had just shot one of them. But I decided that it just didn’t matter. They needed help now. And I’d do whatever I could to fix this.

I froze, though, when more people came running out of the cargo bay, including one kangaroo alien dude that looked a hell of a lot crazier than the one who’d just gotten shot. He stalked towards Cole with two long sword-type weapons in his hands. Their black blades flashed as he brought them both crashing down against Cole’s back, killing him if he wasn’t dead already. Two more human women crouched with the first woman – one with freckles and ginger hair pulled into a neat bun and another with glasses and long black braids framing her pretty brown face. I gawked as another lizard creature emerged from the ship, standing behind the woman with the braids. The other lizard aliens were getting much closer now, too. Now that I was seeing this one up close, I could tell that he had to be nine feet tall. And unlike the ones running on all fours towards us, he stood on two legs like a human man, the sun drenching his dark blue, grey, and black scales.

Rapid conversation in their alien language took place among the small group. The lizardman, apparently directed by the woman with braids, bent and carefully picked up the injured alien man. But the ginger-haired woman started shaking her head, gesturing with sharp movements while she spoke. Though she was wearing the same clothing as the other two women, something about her tight bun and her commanding tone of voice screamed military to me. I filed that observation away.

It looked like the red-haired woman had ordered the aliens to change tactics. I noted this fact with some surprise – surprise at the fact that the huge, deadly alien warriors seemed to listen to everything the human women told them to do. The big blue lizard guy gingerly lowered the bleeding alien into the other kangaroo-looking alien’s arms. He’d put the blades that he’d used to kill Cole away, strapped to his back so that his arms were free. Carrying the injured alien, the crazy guy with the swords moved back into the ship, followed closely by the first woman, still crying, and the woman with the braids.

The red-haired woman spoke quickly to the lizard guy, and the two of them turned to face the approaching reptilian army. I no longer needed the binocular function of my glasses to see the other lizard aliens clearly. They glinted, jewelled behemoths, charging over the sand in shades of gold and brown and green and black. One near the front of the group was a stunning crimson colour, scales shining like rough-hewn rubies.

Or like blood.

I grimaced at that image.

OK, it’s really time to go now. Some other people had come to help the guy who’d gotten shot, and there was nothing else for me to do here now except save my own ass.

So, making sure my scatter-light tech was still obscuring me, I turned away.

And I ran.

CHAPTER THREE

Grim

Icould see it now. The structure the Hakah had told us about. It was sand-beaten, with the desert driving up against its sides, but still it shone, strange and skeletal. Its rounded shape, for the briefest of moments under the moon and starlight, reminded me of the armour of the Kell. Which only sent faster fury driving into my limbs.

This was not merely a mission at the urging of my Hakah. I was not simply following my king into battle.

I was searching for my mate.

The entire journey, my eyes had scanned for her. Though I was certain she must be residing in this settlement with the other new women the Hakah had described, as she was of their people, I could not help myself from searching as we travelled. Just in case. Just in case I missed her, somehow. Such a thought was not to be born. It was the press of a blade between my scales.

It would not happen. I would find her. I was already getting closer – this thing in the distance was a sign of her. A tangible clue. Something she’d touched, something from her world. A world, if the stories were to be believed, that was beyond the sky itself.

As we got closer, I sped up, leading the charge alongside my Hakah. This was not impatience for battle or to meet these other men. No, this impatience had only one name.

And her name I had not yet learned.

My heart thundered as, for a moment, I thought I saw her as dawn rose. We were still some distance away, but getting closer every moment, the sand flying beneath our claws. But my vision was very good, and it did not take me long to realize that this was not my mate. This woman had a softer and rounder face and body. The woman I’d seen in the vision fang had seemed somehow harder, more angular, broader of shoulder and longer of limb.

This woman was accompanied by one of the desert men. I narrowed my gaze as I ran, taking in these strangers. It was the first time I was seeing these new people. Until recently, I’d thought – we’d all thought – that the men and women of the Bitter Sea were the only people alive.

I stared at the two people before me, then with a start, realized there was one more person there. The person had been crouching, but they now stood. The new woman was shoved behind the back of the desert warrior. The other person looked to be from the same people as the new women, but they looked different…

I snarled.

A male.

We’d been told there were no new men here. We’d been told that they were coming, though. Coming to fight. To destroy. Maybe even to take back the new women. I loosened my spear’s handle from my mouth so that I could speak.

“Something’s happening,” I growled, pushing myself to run faster. My Hakah was running at top speed beside me.

“An enemy is here,” he hissed back.

An enemy that could be here to harm my mate.

I could not stop the roar of fury that tore from my throat. It ripped out of my body, a call of unrelenting love and territorial rage the likes of which this desert had never seen.

The heads of all three people snapped towards us, and soon the male was backing away, ready to run.

Good, let your body fill with fear. Go ahead and flee. I will not let you get far, I promised him silently, my spikes emerging, ready to kill.

He turned to escape, though there was nowhere he could run where I would not catch him. Where I would not find him. He was slow and small.

And I was not.

He did not get far, though it was not because of me. The spear of the desert warrior flew, injuring the enemy male’s leg and knocking him to the sand. He raised up and twisted, throwing his arm back towards the other two.

The sky shattered with a terrible sound.

The desert warrior crumpled.

I sucked in a furious breath. This was what we had been warned of. Weapons we could not imagine. I’d seen no blade, no spear fly. And yet, with a toss of his tiny, weak hand, the male on the sand had brought down a warrior much larger and stronger than himself.

The small male had collapsed back down. The new woman screamed and cried, fawning over the injured desert warrior. At that moment, more people emerged from the shining structure. The rising sun behind us painted the picture in searing golden light. Blood, black and red, staining the sands. Another desert warrior charging with blades drawn. The death blow to the fallen enemy male. The rapid movements of three new women. Kor, the half-Bitter Sea, half-Sea Sand male, the Hakah’s nephew, bending to retrieve the injured desert man from the sands. Though he was not as large as us, his Bitter Sea brethren, he was certainly larger than the desert men and had no trouble lifting the bleeding one.

But he soon transferred the injured man into the arms of the other desert warrior. That warrior and two of the new woman disappeared into the shining structure, leaving only one woman and Kor on the sands. I already knew this woman was not my mate. Her hair was the colour of an orange koba shell. My mate’s was dark, like the deep brown stone of our caves.

Our army stopped as we reached Kor and the new woman outside the structure.

“What has happened?” hissed the Hakah from beside me.

Kor spoke, apparently translating for the new woman. She spoke, too, and Kor answered for her.

“Our enemies are here. We believe only a small number of them, but we do not know for sure. We do not think this male was alone. We need to search the area for more warriors.”

I stared at the fallen male on the sand, my jaw hard as more words flew in translation around me. As the others spoke of what had happened and what was to be done, my eyes searched over every space. I breathed deeply through my nose, memorizing the scents. The scent of this new woman. The scent of the pathetic dead male. The blood. The breath. The curl of voices in the air. Anything that would help me in my search for my mate.

But that was not whom I was ordered to search for now.

“This woman is the mate of a desert Hakah, a Gahn. She is called Gahnala Kapman and is a warrior among her kind,” my Hakah said to his gathered warriors. “While I do not wholly trust the desert men, I do trust her. She has proven herself honest and worthy of respect. Respect her as you would my own daughter, Gigga. She is wise in her decision to search. Bitter Sea men, spread out! Search for any man who looks like the fallen one there. Try not to kill them so that they can be questioned.” His blue eyes flashed, his fangs dripping with venom as he hissed. “But kill them if it is necessary. Do not fall to their foul and unnatural weapons.”

No doubt he was speaking of the invisible blade the fallen man had cast. As my fellow warriors took off at high speeds, spreading out to canvas the area, I approached the body lying face-down on the sand.

There was something in his hand. A black, armoured thing. I nudged his white hand with the tip of my spear, only to hear a shout from behind me.

“Caution, it could go off,” Kor said as Gahnala Kapman hurried towards me. She took the black thing from the man’s hand.

“What is it?” I asked Kor, my gaze tracking between him and the new woman. It was shocking to see one of her kind so close. She was… Tiny. Only a little more than half my height. Worry lanced me.

I hope my mate is larger than this woman…

The thought of trying to mount a woman this small was… Incomprehensible.

I will think about that after I have found her, I thought. The Kell would not have bonded me to a mate who could not match me.

I was shaken from my thoughts by Kor’s voice as he translated Gahnala Kapman’s response.

“It is a weapon of the new people called a gun. It has the power to send a projectile through the air so fast that it destroys flesh as powerfully as a blade despite its small size. It cannot easily be dodged or blocked.”

So that was why I had not seen what had hit that warrior. It was too small and moving too fast.

Another voice spoke from behind me, distracting me from the unnervingly shattered blue shards of Kor’s gaze.

“Join the search, Grim.”

I turned to find the Hakah behind me. His eye discs expanded as he stared at me, no doubt wondering why I had not already followed orders. I pounded my brow ridges with my fists in acquiescence.

I turned to go. As I did, something out on the sand caught my eye. The strangest shimmer of light, a flicker of something seen yet unseen.

But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. Perhaps some figment of the desert dryness plaguing me.

I shook my head, not letting odd visions distract me. I had to move quickly. Find the enemies and get this done so that I could go and find my mate.

I got to work.

CHAPTER FOUR

Valeria

Imade it back to our ship in one piece.

Well, it had been our ship.

I guessed now it was just mine, considering what had happened to Cole out there.

Our – my – ship was hidden about two klicks away from the crashed ship I’d just come from. It was nestled among an outcropping of black and red stone, the light-scatter tech keeping it veiled from view. Of course, with my glasses on, I could see it just fine. A small vessel about the size of a bus. Just enough room for the cockpit, storage, two tiny beds, and a water closet with a tiny sink, toilet, and shower area.

I tapped the screen on my wrist to the ship’s door, unlocking it, then wrenched it open. I stepped in and pulled the door closed behind me, my teeth clattering at the sound. Fuck. I needed to be more careful than this. I needed to be quiet and stealthy and still. Not slamming doors so hard every fucking alien in the desert was going to hear it.

I waited, holding my breath for a long moment. Without moving my head, I let my eyes dart to the left, looking out of the big view screen in the cockpit. So far, beyond the rocks, there was just empty desert. If anyone was searching for me, they hadn’t come very far this way yet.

That’s if they’re even searching for me at all.

Light-scatter tech wasn’t absolutely flawless, but I doubted I’d been seen. But then again, anyone with half a brain in their skull would be on high alert now that Cole had gone and blown everything to shit, so I wouldn’t be surprised if people were searching for his reinforcements now.

“Idiotic fuck,” I snapped, striding into the cockpit and slamming myself down into one of the seats there. I whipped off my glasses and wrenched back my hood, wiping yet more sweat from my face. I’d grown up in bum-fuck nowhere in the Nevada desert. I was used to heat. But this was another level. That, combined with the slightly lower oxygen levels on this planet and the adrenaline dumping out of my system, left me drained with a pounding headache. I’d trained for the lower oxygen levels. But not exactly for my mission falling apart this fast.

That’s not true.

I had trained for situations exactly like this. With my father. After my mother’s death – a tragic complication from a burst appendix and frantic surgery when I was four – my dad kind of lost faith in… Everything. Modern medicine. The school system. The government. Society at large became his enemy. So he’d pulled me out of school, retreating into the desert, teaching me how to survive no matter what life threw my way. I’d learned to hunt and hide and suture wounds. How to use a gun.

How to use a lot of guns, to be honest.

He died of cardiac arrest when I was nineteen. At that point, I’d had no one else. Nothing but our house which was barely more than a desert bunker stuffed to the gills with guns and canned food.

So I’d joined the army.

I sighed, tipping my head back against the seat’s headrest. Dad would have hated that I’d joined the army. That I’d joined the muscled arm of what he saw as a beyond-corrupt government.

And based on what I’d seen so far here, maybe my dad had been right. Even though I was part of this mission, my own people hadn’t taken care of me. They hadn’t even told me I was going off-world until it was far too late to back out. And even after that, they hadn’t let me know what was really going on here. What our real orders were.

“Lack of fucking foresight,” I said, shaking my head. What the hell was the use of that? Keeping so much of everything secret?

All I knew now was that I was going to have to figure out my next move alone.

I stared at the screens in front of me, chewing on my lip. At that moment, one of the screens lit up. There was a slight delay in communications between here and the orbiting research vessel, so they’d probably sent this a little while ago.

I slammed my hand against the touchscreen, opening the message. It was only three words.

Status report required.

The scanners up there weren’t perfect, but they’d probably seen a life sign blip out in the vicinity of the ship.

“Voice to text reply!” I barked. As I spoke, my message appeared in green letters against the black screen.

“Sergeant Green is dead. He compromised the mission by turning off his camouflage tech and engaging with the aliens with his weapons drawn, presumably to take hostages,” I spat. I paused, huffing out an irritated breath, then continued. “Need orders and clarification on mission objective.”

I waited for the message to be received and for the response to come through.

Maybe my superiors were just as surprised by Cole’s actions as I had been. Maybe he really had gone off the rails, and there was still hope the outcome of this mission could be saved and that no innocent people were going to get hurt. Maybe the sinking feeling in my gut, the feeling telling me that I was on the wrong side here, was way off-base.

My dad had always told me to trust my gut, though. And right about now, it felt like it was full of lead.

I cracked open a water bottle and yanked down a medkit, pulling out a bottle of painkillers and popping a pill, trying to ease the pounding in my head as I waited for the reply to come through.

A few minutes later, the reply flashed before me, its garish letters confirming everything my gut was telling me. That I’d been lied to. That this was a lot worse than I had thought.

That I was working for the bad guys.

Continue recon procedures, the message read. At the first opportunity, take a hostage, alien or human. My eyes blurred as I read the last four words over and over again, searing them into my brain:

By any means necessary.

CHAPTER FIVE

Grim

We searched all of that day, through the night, and into the next day as well. I did a preliminary canvas of the nearby desert on that first day, then quickly volunteered to start searching the cliffs of the settlement. Of course, this area needed to be searched. The vast stone structure was called the Cliffs of Uruzai, and those cliffs contained untold hiding places for spies. However, I did not volunteer to search there to find an assailant.

I did it to find my mate.

My mate was one of these people, these new women. And all the new women were together at the settlement. At least, that’s what I’d been told. But as I surveyed the cliffs around the settlement, always keeping one eye primed on the new women, it quickly became abundantly clear that my mate was not among them. Either she was hiding, or being hidden from view…

Or she was somewhere else entirely.

Somehow I knew, I knew, it was the latter. The new women here seemed social and appeared to enjoy their time together. Though I could not understand what they said, they clearly seemed to get value out of being together. It did not seem as if they would keep one female isolated and alone somewhere.

By the afternoon of the second day, as I stalked through the cliffs, killing any foul beast that came upon me in my irritation (including the winged things the desert men called krixel) I knew I could not stay here much longer, even on orders.

My first duty had always been to my Hakah and my people.

Until now.

I exited the cliffs, stepping into the beating sun of the settlement and straightening to stand on my two legs. I rolled my head on my shoulders, aching to drench myself in water. There was water here, a hot spring below the stone. I had not yet visited it, too preoccupied with the search. My Hakah thought I was a diligent warrior searching so endlessly, not resting until I found the interlopers.

Little did he know…

Little did anyone know. I’d hoarded the secret of my mate, kept her locked in my maw. But I might have to tell my Hakah, and soon.

Because I would need leave to search for her.

And if he does not grant such leave?

I’d never considered defying my Hakah before.

I considered it now.

More than considered it. If it came down to it, I’d turn my tail on my people for this. To find her. She was my destiny. My only fate and future.

I stared at the bustling settlement, my eyes sweeping over desert men and women, their children, and the new women, two of whom were with child. I could not help myself from searching for her, even now. Even though I’d already looked a hundred, a thousand times. Even though I’d already memorized the face of every other new woman, searching for her features among them.

She is not here…

“Grim!”

A voice speaking my own language beside me made me turn. It was Tok, the Hakah’s closest advisor and one of our best warriors. I stiffened, narrowing my gaze, almost as if I were suspicious that he had heard my thoughts. That he could smell my defiance. As if he knew, somehow, that I had other priorities than serving Hakah Gog now.

If he could sense such defiance, he did not show it.

“The Hakah has ordered all warriors to visit the caves of the desert Kell. The Kell here is called the Lavrika. Dipping in the pools imparts the language of the desert people.”

I cocked my head, my tail swishing behind me. If our own Kell could not show a man’s future, I almost would have doubted such a claim. But I’d heard the new women speaking the desert tongue with fluent ease, and though I knew they were intelligent, it seemed unlikely they had all learned the language so quickly.

But my mate was not even among them…

“What use have I for such things?” I scoffed. I knew I was acting the fool. And yet I could not seem to stop myself. I was frustrated – angry, even – that I had not yet found her. That she could be out there, somewhere, needing me. And I was not with her.

Tok looked surprised, his rich brown forehead ridges tensing. His yellow eye discs regarded me closely as the sun poured over his golden scales.

“Though you are a young warrior, I have always known you to have sense. Surely you must see what a boon communicating with our allies is. Relying on translators, even one as close as Hakah Gog’s nephew, is not sustainable. We must be able to hear and speak openly, with our own minds.”

He was right. Of course he was.

“You are the last warrior to do it. You have been searching the longest and without reprieve. It has been hard to track you down. Go and do it now.”

He saw me hesitate. Now that I’d decided my mate wasn’t here, I didn’t want to waste one more second in this settlement. The desert pulsed around me, beyond the cliffs, beckoning to me.

But then it hit me.

Even if she is not here now, she may still speak the language of the desert.

Just because she was not here now did not mean she had not been here in the past.

Doing this may be the only way I can understand her.

“I am going now,” I said quickly. I put my spear’s handle in my mouth, clutching my blade and taking off at full speed on all fours.

I knew where the caves of the desert Kell, the Lavrika, were. I’d seen the female warrior stationed outside the entrance, dressed in her odd white clothing. Then again, all clothing was odd to me. My people wore no garments. None were needed. The desert men and Kor wore brown hide loincloths. I did not. My cock was sheathed behind a hard, muscled slit, protected by scales. From what I understood, the desert men had cocks that hung outside of their bodies all the time. Even when soft, they were fully emerged and visible. It was yet another sign that the Bitter Sea men were the stronger warriors. We did not let our most important parts dangle for any man’s blade.

And thus we did not need loincloths.

The warrior woman at the entrance to the dark tunnel into the cliffs did not wear a loincloth like a man, but rather a long white tunic. The other desert women at the settlement wore the same, though theirs were green and grey, the colour of desert grass called peet grass. The new women, when out in the sun, were covered from head to toe, their skin vulnerable to everything from the day’s sun to the night’s cold.

As I did not yet speak the desert language, I could not communicate why I was there. But obviously, she knew, as she’d likely seen a whole parade of Bitter Sea men coming past her in recent days.

She did say something, though, then motioned to my spear and my blade with the tip of her own spear.

She wants me to leave my weapons.

I restrained my spikes from rising. If the Lavrika was anything like our Kell, weapons would be pointless in its caves. And this warrior woman, strong though she looked, would be no match for me alone, even if she had weapons and I did not.

I laid my spear and blade down. For a moment, I stared at them on the sand. They looked so out of place. Ocean weapons, glinting in shades of moon-white and sea-washed pink on the deeply-coloured desert sand. Of course, we had sand on our island’s beaches. But it was lighter in colour and hemmed in by the glistening waves. A different world.

Leaving the weapons of my home behind, I passed the guardian and pressed into the darkness.

And press, I had to. At points, the tunnel seemed almost impassable for someone of my size. At the tightest points, even in the darkness, I could see gouges where my brethren’s spikes and scales had scraped the stone in their passage. But I was larger than many warriors even among my own kind. For a moment, I was tossed right back to visiting the Kell. To the moments I thought I’d drown.

But I hadn’t drowned.

And I would get through this, too.

Growling, I shoved forward, using the strength of my tail and legs to push me forward on all fours. I would conquer this tunnel and this darkness as I would conquer anything and everything that stood between my mate and me. If this was a test, I would be victorious against it. A battle, I’d win it. There was no other way.

I grunted as I popped forward out of a particularly tight stretch of tunnel. The space widened, and ahead I could see the telltale glow of milk of the Kell, or, as the others called it, Lavrika’s blood.

Hurry. Get this done then get back to your search.

I powered forward quickly, coming to the end of the tunnel.

The humidity in the air made my throat clench, my tongues lashing. Pools of Kell’s milk – Lavrika’s blood – dotted the huge cave. Though I knew they would not feel wet like water would, I longed to plunge myself into them.

And isn’t that what I was meant to be doing here, anyway?

I saw no sign of the Lavrika, but I decided to go forth anyway.

I dove powerfully into the closest pool without waiting for sign nor signal.

I was finished waiting.

It was time to take what was mine and find my mate.

CHAPTER SIX

Valeria

Ispent the next day huddled in the ship, trying to figure out just what, exactly, I wanted to do. I already knew I wasn’t going to follow orders as they’d been given. Fuck taking a hostage. These were our fucking people! OK, maybe the aliens weren’t. But I’d seen the way that first guy had lunged to take a bullet for the human woman. I’d seen the way the lizardman and the other kangaroo-looking guy had worked together to help him, directed by the human women. The humans and aliens were clearly enmeshed now, relationships forged between the different species. And frankly, I had no interest in whatever bullshit colonialist violence my superiors were dreaming up right now.

I probably should have thought of that earlier, but…

But I was here, now, and I could still change things.

I just had to figure out how.

I didn’t think I could walk into the camp at the cliffs nearby and turn myself in. Even though there were humans there, I wasn’t exactly one of the group. The guy I’d come here with had shot one of their own, maybe even killing him. I didn’t envision myself getting a warm welcome if I strolled in, tossed down my gun, and said, “Howdy.”

No, it was more likely they’d do something like what my superiors probably wanted to do with a hostage – capture and interrogation.

However I chose to proceed, I needed to stall my superiors by appearing to do what I was supposed to be doing.

Which meant that after a day and a night camped out in the ship, I finally emerged the next day to do recon. Not that I planned to feed much of what I learned back to my superiors now – just the bare minimum to string them along. But I knew I’d have to give them something.

So at dawn, off I went.

After everything that had happened with Cole, it made me wrinkle my nose in disgust to bring my gun along. Frankly, it made me feel like an asshole, barging around a world that wasn’t mine with my shiny US army firepower. But the reality was that any number of things out there could kill me, from giant cockroach crab things to demonic-looking bat pterodactyls. As shitty as this situation was becoming, I wasn’t ready for my own death to be on the table quite yet.

I spent most of the day familiarizing myself with the two klicks of distance between my ship and the big busted-up one, as well as some of the surrounding area. Towards dusk, I found myself approaching the large ship in the sand. Compared to the little vessel I now called home, this one was a behemoth, a massive domed structure rising out of the sand like some kind of techno-tortoise. No, actually, not really rising up. If anything, the desert itself was rising up, sand sweeping up along the ship’s sides as if to swallow it. This land was wild and ravenous and unforgiving. I wondered how long it would be before there was no sign of that ship at all.

Or no sign of me.

I shivered in the rapidly cooling air. The sun dipped further, the asteroid ring rising.

I didn’t get too close to the ship. It had become a hive of activity since the thing with Cole. A hive that somebody had just kicked. That somebody being us. Huge aliens, both of the kangaroo and lizard sort, lurched in and out of the ship, searching and circling with spears and knives that made my guts curl. When a terrifyingly-large lizard alien swung his great head towards me, I frantically checked that my light-scatter tech was engaged. At night, the tech was even more effective, rendering me almost perfectly invisible.

Almost…

I really fucking felt the “almost” in that moment. That moment when the huge lizard appeared to lock his eyes on me, even from a distance of at least 200 metres. I realized with a start that this was the same giant lizard I’d seen leading the charge the other day when the whole army of them had arrived. The massive red one. The one whose scales spoke of raw beauty and blood.

He can’t see me. He can’t.

I assured myself of that, over and over again, as I turned to run.

But no matter how many times I assured myself, no matter how many times I told myself it was impossible…

He followed me anyway.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Grim

When I emerged from the Lavrika’s caves, night was falling.

“Here. You may retrieve your weapons now.”

I jerked with a start, turning to stare at the desert woman guarding the entrance to the caves. Where earlier her words had been a clash of unknowable sounds in my brain, now they formed into words I understood as easily as those of my native tongue. It jarred me.

She stepped aside, gesturing to my weapons against the cliff. Clearly, she’d moved them. A hot prick of angry pride at the thought of someone else touching my weapons dissipated as I realized she had done it to keep them safe – safer than where I’d dropped them further out on the open sands.

“Thank you,” I said slowly, testing the new language in my mouth. It was odd, hearing such foreign words come from between my teeth and yet completely understanding them. Some of the sounds and words my brain now knew to make were not easy for the shape of my mouth, though. My snout made the softer sounds difficult. But the guardian seemed to understand me just fine.

I picked up my weapons, and just as I turned to go the woman spoke.

“They tell me you have a Lavrika, too. One of the sea instead of the sand.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, turning back to face her and wondering why she’d asked. But then again, it seemed her whole purpose here was to guard the desert spirit of the Lavrika. It made sense she might be curious about our own such creature, our Kell. The Kell required no guardians, being so protected by the deep and dark water as it was.

The shattered shards of her eyes, which I now knew to be called sight stars, pulsed then tightened as she looked at me.

“Has it summoned you?”

I was already standing straight up on two legs, but my spin went even straighter. Tenser.

I had no reason to tell this guardian woman my truth. I had not even informed my own king. And yet, something told me that she would know instantly if I tried to conceal it. My jaw worked as I recalled that morning. The Kell and its vision. The face of a mate I’d simultaneously found and lost.

No. She is not lost. I will find her yet.

“Yes,” I finally growled. My spikes emerged as I gripped my weapons harder. “It called me and granted me a mate. A strange and precious one.”

“A new woman?” she inquired.

“Yes.”

“And yet you have not claimed her?”

My spikes emerged to their full size. It was an instinctive reaction to the woman’s prodding. It made me feel… Vulnerable.

I did not like it.

And clearly, neither did my spikes.

Despite the sharp power of my body, the guardian did not seem afraid. Realization dawned on her face.

“She is not at the settlement.”

I said nothing as she turned and cast her gaze out over the sand, her long silvered braid shifting against her shoulder.

“Fear not, water warrior. From the stories I have heard, your kind has travelled over the sands to find a foreign mate before. Kor and his father before him have done so. They travelled perhaps even further than you will have to. If your Lavrika is anything like ours, its choice for you will not be in vain.” She turned to look at me once more, her sight stars like blades cutting me. “Your fate is out there, warrior. Even now, I can practically see it shimmering around you, threads waiting to be pulled apart and followed.”

“Are you saying the Lavrika will guide me?” I pressed, suddenly desperate for any information she could give me.

But she responded with a flat, “No.”

I was about to ask her to clarify when she continued.

“No, I am not saying the Lavrika will guide you, nor will your Kell. You must now guide yourself.”

It was as I’d thought, then. It was solely up to me now. A hard claw of determination curled in my chest.

“I will do it,” I hissed. Even if I had to split apart every minuscule grain of sand in this desert. Even if I had to travel the hok-infested waves of the wide sea. Even if I had to cleave the cliffs down to their very core, I would find her.

“Good,” said the guardian. “Let instinct drive you forward. Follow the dark beats of your body, warrior. The unseen paths.”

I grunted at her, a wordless acknowledgement of what she’d said. It did not matter if my paths were seen or unseen. I would forge my own path if I had to. Carve it right down into the desert. I’d remake the whole world until every stone and step and swipe of my claws led right to my mate.

I refused to live in any other world but that:

The one with her at its centre.

I did as the guardian said. I let my body, my instinct, pull me forward. This way, I found myself further out in the desert, away from the settlement. I approached the huge skeleton of the structure out there. The one we’d seen the other day, where that warrior had almost died, killed by the puny pale man. I said almost because I had learned that he had survived.

I watched men, both mine and the foreign desert ones, surging back and forth, monitoring this structure, this ship, as well as searching the area around it. In the distance, I could see desert men roaming on their brutish steeds, the irkdu.

But this was not what I needed. This was not what I came looking for.

I swung my head, turning away from the heaving activity, looking out towards the open sand. The rolling dunes were stained in equal turn by night shadows and starlight.

I relaxed, breathing out slowly, trying to feel something, see something. Anything. Anything that might provide my next steps.

And see something, I did.

It was like what I’d seen before, the first day I’d been here. But it was fainter this time. A mere wisp of existence in the air. Some distance away, the air seemed to shimmer and curl inward on itself, reminding me of the tiny whirlpools that sometimes appeared back in the salt pools of my island. As soon as it appeared, it was gone – a disappearing web of wind. My muscles thrummed as I recalled the Lavrikala’s words. Even now I can see your fate shimmering around you, like threads waiting to be pulled and followed.

So I followed.

It was not so simple. The vision, whatever it had been, was gone. I moved steadily but quickly towards the spot I’d seen it, hoping for yet another glimpse.

I got no other glimpse.

But I did get a scent.

A scent that lit up my veins like venom, like fire. A scent that made my throat clench and my lungs heave as I breathed it in sharply. Behind my muscled slit, a deep throb went through my shaft, making my fangs crunch together.

There was the slightest hint of familiarity in this scent. As if I’d scented it before, but hidden and muddied by hundreds of other scents – other people, other things…

Back at the ship.

Of course. I’d seen this odd shimmer in the air before. I’d probably caught the barest edge of the scent, too. But here, away from others and away from the ship, it was all I could smell. All I could fathom. I closed my eyes, groaning, letting that scent wash through me, once again feeling the brutal throb of my cock.

It’s her.

I wrenched my eyes open.

It was her. It had to be. What other scent would affect me so?

But there was no one. Nothing. Not even the echo of whatever I’d seen, rippling in the air.

Follow the unseen paths.

It did not matter if I could not see her. I could smell her.

I breathed in deeply, thrusting my arms with their weapons out to the sides as my chest expanded. I opened my mouth, letting my long forked tongue dart into the air to fully take that scent into me.

With that scent in my mouth, I felt the glands at the back of my jaw ache. My venomous glands retracted and my mating glands swelled, sending mating fluid gushing into my fangs. I hissed, letting the liquid drip from my mouth before spitting it into the sand. This fluid was meant to prepare a mate’s body for a cock. It was of no use to me right now.

But maybe soon…

First, I’d have to find her.

And now I had my first clue.

Falling to all fours, spikes thrumming along my shoulders and back, fangs slick with fluid, I panted, drawing as much of that scent into my body as I could. I had to force down my predatory instincts, remind myself that this was not a hunt. But as more mating fluid gushed into my fangs, mirroring what venom would do during a chase, it felt like perhaps this was some sort of hunt after all.

A hunt with the most precious prize I ever could imagine.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Valeria

OK, how the ever-loving fuck was this thing following me? My light-scatter tech was definitely engaged. In the darkness, I should basically be unseen!

Fuck! Maybe they had abilities we didn’t know about. Maybe their eyes could see past our tech. It wasn’t like we’d dissected one of these guys’ eyeballs.

Yet.

I shivered, even while I sweated from my running, as I remembered my orders about taking a hostage. Once they get whatever information they want with the hostage, is that what they’re going to do?

Knowing humanity? Probably.

But then again, if they could all see past my tech, then other guys would have seen me by now, too…

Less thinking. More running.

I dared a glance over my shoulder and swallowed a cry of surprise. He’d gained on me, and fast. He was moving on all fours like I’d seen him and the others do the other day when they’d come running over the desert.

I forced myself to stay calm as I ran harder, trying not to breathe too heavily. Too loudly.

I can lose him.

My dad had taught me all sorts of shit for situations like this: how to hide, how to cover my tracks. Not to mention my more professional training. But then again, that had been for human pursuers. Not for a ten-foot-tall death machine with weapons clenched in his toothy mouth, coming for you like little Nevada orphan soldier girl was his favourite thing on the menu.

If I weren’t so focused on being quiet while running, I would have snorted. Little? At six-foot-one with a muscled frame, I’d never once thought of myself as small.

Until now.

But maybe small is good. Small can hide…

But where? I didn’t want to lead him directly back to my ship. That was my headquarters down here, my shelter and safe haven. But I didn’t have anywhere else to lose him now. Like an idiot, I’d instinctively started running back towards my ship and away from the cliffs. The cliffs had nooks and crannies and hidey-holes this giant red bastard definitely couldn’t follow me into. But the cliffs were pretty far away. Way further than my ship was.

I don’t know if I’m gonna make it…

I tossed another glance back, my eyes widening to see that the alien following me had stopped. He lowered himself further to the ground, opening his massive jaws until his weapons fell to the ground. His glittering body was low, his arms and legs corded with thick muscle beneath his scales.

I realized I kept calling the alien he and him when I had no evidence for any gender or sex. The massive lizard alien wasn’t wearing any clothes – no loincloth like the kangaroo dudes wore. But even so, I couldn’t see any genitalia. And I’d seen him standing up on two legs, so you’d expect everything to have been on full display…

And yet, I knew instinctively this was a he. He wasn’t human – not even close, and yet there was something… Something in the carved set of his spiked shoulders. Something in the hard gleam of his snout and fangs. Something in the ravenous depths of those eyes that screamed male.

I kept moving, jogging backwards and keeping him in my sights. His eyes flashed and a dark forked tongue emerged, prodding the air. A bolt of pure primal heat went through me.

It was fear. The fear prey feels.

I’m not prey.

I had my gun. I wasn’t sure if it would do fuck-all against this guy, but I’d use it if I had to. I didn’t want to have to, but if things came down to it…

The creature shuddered, his awesome black spikes twitching along his shoulders, the backs of his arms, and his spine. His huge croc-like tail thudded the ground as he inhaled deeply.

Fuck me. Fuck me all to hell.

He was smelling me.

That’s how he was following me. Not by sight. By scent.

I really should have had that fucking shower this morning…

I stopped my backward jog and reached under my clothing, yanking at my bra so hard the fabric ripped. For good measure, I gave it an extra rub along my neck and under my arms before I dropped it on the ground. I kicked sand over it, but not enough sand to hide the scent.

Then I turned the other direction, towards the cliffs, and sprinted for all I was fucking worth.

I ended up doing this a couple more times, trying to throw the big red guy off my scent. Or, rather, to keep him on my scent… Just going the wrong direction. By the time I made it to the cliffs, shaking, with black dots in my vision from the low levels of oxygen on this planet, I was down a bra, both my socks, and some of the tensor bandages in the first aid kit in my bag that I’d hastily wiped on my sweatiest parts before abandoning them in the desert.

It had worked. Kind of. It had definitely slowed my alien stalker down somewhat. But as I plunged into the cliffs, I could see him once again on the horizon.

He was still fucking coming.

Well, shit. At least I’d made it this far. Now I could cram myself into some little crack in the rock. Somewhere he couldn’t reach me.

I generally knew where the settlement was located based on what I’d seen on the orbiting vessel’s scanners, so I avoided that whole side of the massive stone formation. Instead, I was exactly across from the settlement, on the other side. I didn’t have much time to stare up and admire the massive red wall of rock before me, a jagged curtain in the night. Nope, I found the first entrance into the stone that I could and booked it right in there. I knew there were predators in these cliffs, but considering the odds, this seemed my best bet. Either stay out on the sand and definitely get eaten by the big hungry alien who’d followed me this whole time, or go into the stone and maybe get eaten by a bat monster thing.

Between definitely getting eaten and maybe getting eaten, I chose maybe.

The darkness fell like a hammer on me as I pressed into a tunnel. The asteroid ring around this planet reflected sunlight like moons, and since there were so many of them in such a long band over the sky, they actually provided a startling amount of light at night, especially when combined with the stars. So coming into the cliffs was a shock of blackness.

As I hustled further into the darkness, I yanked my glasses out of my pocket, slamming them onto my nose and engaging the night vision. The stone around me came to life in garish green hues, and I was able to move faster now that I could see better. As I hurried, I forced my breathing to slow and become steady. Just because I’d made it into the cliffs didn’t mean I was safe, and being quiet would be paramount.

The tunnel I moved through eventually opened into a sort of stone clearing. I took off my glasses and then tilted my head back. I could see the sky here. It wasn’t a huge space – the sandy floor of the clearing was about the same size as an in-ground pool – an open oval in the stone. I scanned the space quickly, cursing under my breath as I realized this was a dead end. No more tunnels, no more paths.

I’ll have to go back out and find another way in…

I needed to lose my pursuer in these cliffs. Not trap myself and make it that much easier for him to catch me.

But as I heard the sifting of claws in the sand behind me, I knew it was too fucking late for that.

I pressed myself into a nook in the cliff wall, grasping my gun in sweating hands, as I watched the monster emerge into the light.

He was even more gargantuan up close. A beast drenched in the silver of the night. He prowled into the clearing on all fours before dumping his weapons on the ground and straightening to stand on two legs.

Holy shit.

Massive didn’t even cover it. Yeah, he was definitely a solid ten feet tall. And built like a goddamn tank. Standing on two legs like this, there was something man-like about him. His general shape – the way his muscled legs connected to his torso, as well as his chest, his shoulders and arms –  those parts were actually quite human in shape. But any illusions of humanity completely evaporated when you got to his head.

That was not a human face…

It was more like an alligator’s. His thick, strong neck led up into a scaled snout. Two large, piercing eyes looked out from beneath heavy brow ridges. A heavily spiked tail that looked like a lethal weapon unto itself sawed through the sand as it tracked back and forth behind him.

The tail wasn’t the only thing that was moving. The huge lizard’s head was, too. It snapped back and forth as he huffed deep breaths in through the nostrils at the end of his snout.

My own breath came in tight little bursts that seemed deafeningly loud in my ears. I sucked in a deeper, steadier one, then held it, pressing my lips together as I stared at the lizard creature before me.

He sniffed the air, a shudder rolling through his broad frame. Horrified, I watched the spikes on his arms and shoulders protrude further, as if he could sense his prey was near and he was ready to slice her to bits.

And it wasn’t just the spikes that could rip me up. My eyes moved down his muscled arms to his huge, clawed hands.

Wait…

His claws weren’t empty. Clutched in one of his sledgehammer fists was…

My clothes.

What the hell?

He had my socks, the tensor bandages, even my fucking bra in his claws.

Why? Does he plan to punish me for trying to throw him off my trail or something? He wants to wave them in my face and prove that he beat me before he kills me?

Well, that was absolutely not going to happen. My life was not going to end like this – with my throat clamped between the fangs of an alien in some shrouded corner of a foreign world.

I hefted my gun. Just in case he comes closer…

But for some reason, when he did indeed come closer, I didn’t use it.

I kept waiting for him to attack or something. But instead he just… Stalked slowly forward. He left his weapons on the ground as he advanced towards me. Not that it mattered much. His whole body was a weapon.

He breathed in heavily again, the large disc-like pupils in the centre of his eyes contracting sharply. He took one slow step, then another, then another on his huge, scaly feet. He was mere steps from me now, and my heart was pounding so hard that there was no hope of holding my breath any longer. It skittered out of my lungs, hiccuping into my throat.

The creature’s pupils blew wide open, his nostrils flaring. He advanced quickly now until he was directly in front of me. He placed the palms of his oddly human-looking hands (I mean, human-looking in the four fingers one thumb thing. The fact that they were covered in red scales with claws longer than my own fingers was a whole other story.) His massive frame caged me in against the stone, and all I could do was stare up at him.

I had my gun. I had it right there in my hands. I could do it. Shoot him and be done with it.

Flashes of Cole shooting the other alien made my stomach turn. And honestly, as terrified as I was in that moment, this alien hadn’t actually made any move to hurt me yet. Even though he couldn’t see me, he had to know exactly where I was. My breathing was a goddamn symphony of shakiness stirring the air between us. Plus, he was so close now he had to be getting a snout full of my scent.

He knew I was there and he wasn’t trying to eat me yet?

He bent, his claws raking down the stone until they rested on either side of my head, his snout level with my own face. His eyes slid across my face and down my neck. Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I felt that gaze. Felt it in the deepest reaches of my soul. He was flaying me. Peeling every layer back.

Despite his alienness, I knew he wasn’t just some brute creature. There was an almost haunting intelligence in his gaze. His eyes were fearsome and foreign and frankly fucking terrifying. But they weren’t the eyes of an animal. They were the eyes of someone who was… Searching. My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and his nostrils flared again. His snout dipped forward until the tip of it was a mere breath from my lips.

The gun. The fucking gun…

I should shoot him. I really need to do it. Do it now…

A screech from above stopped any thoughts of shooting the alien in front of me.

Because another alien was advancing on us from above.

I knew about these creatures from my training on the research vessel. They had some long-ass Latin name the researchers has assigned that I couldn’t remember. They looked like huge, man-sized bat things, with squashed snouts, beady eyes, and claw-tipped wings.

The lizard alien spun immediately to face the threat, pressing backwards, crowding me into the cliff.

I let out a yelp as the razor-sharp spikes that lined his spine and tail came for me like shark’s teeth. As soon as their tips got near, though, they instantly retracted, flattening down into his muscled back.

But it was only the ones along his back, the ones close enough to cut me, that had flattened. His other spikes were on full display, black blades piercing outward from his shoulders, even going as far down as his forearms.

He… He stopped himself from hurting me?

The lizard alien bellowed, a sound that made my teeth clatter.

If this lizard guy was intelligent, the bat-thing coming for us was the exact opposite. Any creature with half a lick of sense would have turned tail and run at that territorial roar. I, for one, was immensely glad that roar hadn’t been aimed in my direction.

But it was more than that.

Not only was the lizard alien not doing anything aggressive towards me, he seemed like he was… Protecting me.

The realization left me slack-jawed, but there was no other conclusion to come to. The lizard had me hemmed in against the rock, his body a physical barrier between me and the bat-alien. For a second, I thought maybe he just wanted to defend his dinner from another predator. But if that were the case, why bother to flatten the spikes that could have hurt me? If he planned to kill me, why would he care if I got a little cut up now?

I gave another yelp of shock when I realized the lizard’s gigantic tail was rapidly pushing backward between my legs. The scaled tip of it connected with my ankle. At that point of contact, it was as if an electric shock went through him. His tail tensed, then shifted, its tip looping around my ankle, while one of his thick arms shot out to his side in what could only be described as a defensive, protective stance.

His other arm heaved powerfully into the air, swiping dark claws upward towards the bat thing as it shrieked. It squawked, narrowly avoiding the lizardman’s claws. In its frenzied movements, one of its chicken-like feet scraped down the stone behind the lizard and smacked against my head, making me cry out.

Apparently, my cry of pain did something to Mr. Big, Red, and Scaly. He let out another roar, this one twice as terrible as the first. It was a sound that made my chest feel like it had been split right open. It was the kind of sound that got inside you and changed the way your heart beat.

He grasped the bat-thing’s leg and pulled it so hard that I heard the bony crunch of the limb being ripped from its socket. In the chaos, I barely noticed the tug of the injured creature’s claw against my hood.

The lizardman threw the bat thing down to the ground so forcefully that I was pretty sure he’d snapped the ugly flying creature’s spine. He didn’t stop there, though. Once the bat alien was on the ground, he lunged forward, pinning it with his body and tearing out its throat with his powerful jaws. I stared, my mouth hanging open in shock at the bloody display before me.

The lizard alien growled ferociously before finally standing again and stepping back from his kill. I half wondered if he was going to tear the thing’s guts open with those blood-blackened teeth.

But he seemed to have other priorities now.

Namely, me.

I shivered, my ankle tingling where his tail had touched as he turned to face me.

If he looked fearsome before, it was amplified by about a thousand now. Blood glistened in a dark river down his throat and chest. His chest and shoulders heaved with his breath, his claws flexing as if already aching to tighten around another creature’s throat. And his eyes…

They still had the deep well of intelligence to them. But they were hazed over with feral rage and blood lust.

And they landed on me fucking instantly.

It was only then that I realized it.

Only then that I realized that the bat thing’s claws had disarmed my light scatter tech when it had torn back my hood.

Only then that I realized he could see me.

And that I was totally fucked.

CHAPTER NINE

Grim

She was here.

A moment ago, she had not been.

Now she was.

No. She had been here then, too. Though I could not see her, I could smell her. And with my tail, I had felt her. The solid touch of her body that sent lightning through my limbs.

She was pressed back into a shallow groove in the stone, her strange eyes wide as she faced me. She was just like she’d been in the Kell’s caves, but… Better. Better because she was real. Right in front of me. Like I’d pulled her from the realms of visions and dreams.

On the sand, near the dead krixel, laid the torn-up fabric that smelled so achingly of her. I’d found the bits of it in the desert, tossed down as some sort of clue for me, I was sure. A trail to follow.

The trail had not led me on a very straight path. But that did not matter. I had found her. And we were together now.

“My mate,” I rasped. The moment was so surreal and so potent that the words came out in my native tongue, the language of the Bitter Seas. I switched to the language of the Sea Sands so that she could understand.

“My mate. I have found you. You need fear nothing now.”

She did not respond. The moonlight spilled through cracks in the stone above and behind her, sending silvered streaks down her dark hair and her flat, snoutless face.

It was the strangest face I’d ever glimpsed.

And by far the most beautiful.

Perhaps she does not speak because the mate bond is rendering her speechless. I was feeling that way myself. So many emotions whirled like ocean tempests. There were few words I could put to the crashing chaos inside me. A chaos so thick that I did not just feel it in my mind but in my body – making my claws flex. Making my cock thicken behind my slit.

Perhaps we do not need words.

With one large step, I had her. My claws went to her waist as I bent to her. She was taller than any of the other new women I’d seen, but still much smaller than myself, so I had to bend quite far to drag the tip of my snout down her slim, pulsing neck.

Dizzy, I breathed in her scent, letting it run through my veins faster and harder than my own blood. I did not know the mate bond would be like this. I’d loved her the moment I’d seen the vision of her. But this was stronger than anything I could have imagined. My slit parted, my erection plunging forward with desperate hardness.

I had always imagined the first time I took my mate, it would be in my cave, in comfort.

But now I did not care. I would mate her right here in the dirt and the blood.

That thought excited me. My cock throbbed. Mating fluid gushed from my fangs, mingling with the blood in my mouth. I groaned against her perfect skin, reminding myself not to clutch at her too hard. She is so soft. My claws would wreck her…

But the touch at the tip of my cock wasn’t soft. Though it made my hips buck all the same.

It was stone-hard and cool.

I pulled away, leaning back so that I could see. My mate had pressed something to the tip of my cock. My claws tensed at her waist as I realized what it was.

It was a weapon, like that other male had used.

A gun.

I hope she does not plan to use her weapon on my cock…

Was this some ritual among the new women? Did they test their mates’ mettle by brandishing a weapon towards his genitalia? I remembered what that same weapon had done to the desert warrior outside the ship. It had torn right through his body. It had nearly killed him. And now that same weapon was pressed firmly against my sensitive tip.

My cock was hard.

But not that hard.

I stepped away from my mate, holding my arms out to the sides. I preferred to not have her shoot her little explosive spear at my erection. But ultimately, my body was hers. To love or to destroy.

“Test me however you see fit, my mate,” I growled. One of my fists moved upward to pound against my forehead ridges, a sign of respect usually reserved for the Hakah. But this strange woman, my woman, was owed more respect than any king of any world.

My hand moved out to the side again. I remained as tense as the cocked arm of a hunter who waited to throw his spear.

Because I, too, was waiting.

Waiting to see if my mate chose to bring me pleasure or pain. Whatever she chose, whatever she gave, I’d drink it down and beg for more.

She gave me neither. She did not use her weapon, which was somewhat of a relief. But nor did she fall to the sand, legs open and waiting for me.

Instead, she gave me words.

And with an anguish that rivalled that of my parents’ deaths, I realized I could not understand a single sound of them.

This was not the language of the Bitter Seas. Nor was it the language of the Sea Sands. It was something else. Her native tongue, perhaps.

The words were so perfectly beautiful. But they fell upon me like drops of rare rain during an island storm.

Glittering.

Then gone.

How can this be?

How could I not understand her, nor her me? Even more than that, even without a shared language, why did she not seem to be feeling the mate bond as I was? Why did she still hold her weapon between us? Why were her wet eyes so hard?

A sick jolt went through me. I’d told her moments ago that she had nothing to fear.

But now I realized that the thing she feared was me.

And as I stared at her, I started to understand why.

She was not dressed the same as the other new women at the settlement. She was dressed just like that lone male warrior had been.

She was the one with that male.

It was not just me searching for her this whole time, but everyone. It was not another male, or males, out there on the sands who threatened us.

It was her.

But I did not care.

I cared not about why she’d come. I cared not about why the man with her had attacked.

In that moment, I did not even care if she wanted me dead.

I only cared about keeping her safe.

Images of that other male’s death flashed unbidden before my eyes. I imagined the desert men finding her, capturing her, maybe even killing her…

No!

That was a thought more disastrous than my own death. I would never, never let that happen.

So far it seemed as if the desert men took care of their mates. But I did not truly know them and I did not trust them with mine. Not when they’d already been whipped up into a frenzy looking for her. Not when they might treat her as an enemy.

I will be her keeper and her guardian and her guide. She will need no other warrior but me.

I knew what I had to do.

I reached for her.

CHAPTER TEN

Valeria

For his size, the guy was fucking quick. He swiped a claw forward and knocked my gun from my hand faster than I would have thought possible. Too fast for me to have a hope of pulling the trigger. It skidded off into the sand.

Couldn’t exactly say I blamed the guy after I’d basically threatened to shoot his dick off.

But then again, I couldn’t blame myself either. That cock was terrifying. A huge black shaft that pressed outward from what looked like an open bear trap of black spikes at the base.

So I was definitely right about him being a him.

But being right about that wasn’t reassuring when his nightmare cock seemed to be hard for me.

And now I didn’t even have my gun.

His claws were at my waist again before I could even try to duck out of the way. With an easy, fluid motion, he tossed me over his shoulder. The wind whooshed from my lungs. That shoulder was hard as a fucking boulder. Luckily, once again he’d flattened the spikes there, so at least I hadn’t gotten skewered on impact.

I bucked and kicked for all I was worth, but the massive hand clamped onto my lower back made any hope of escape impossible. I kept fighting him anyway, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to draw even more aliens down here. I didn’t want to be alone with him, but having even more of these guys coming seemed like a bad idea.

So I kicked and bucked in relative silence, the only sounds my grunts and huffing breath.

Then, there was another sound.

Some kind of speech. A pattern of guttural growls and hisses. The sounds vibrated up the alien’s back, rolling through my abdomen and into my ribs as he spoke.

I had no fucking clue what he was saying, but I imagined it had to be something like, “Stop fighting, idiotic human.”

“In your dreams,” I whispered fiercely. I got an arm free and managed to angle it into the pack on my back. Yes! Out came my knife. I snapped it open.

But the sound must have caught the alien’s ear, wherever that ear was, anyway…

A huge red eye rolled towards me, and the knife was scooped from my hands instantly.

My knife looked like a fucking toothpick in his hands. He held it up, looking at it appraisingly in the asteroid light, before he, I shit you not, put the blade between his fangs and bit down.

The metal crunched, then shattered, raining glittering chunks onto the sand.

He made a growly hmmph sound and then threw the handle aside. Then, he scooped up his own weapons, placing them between his fangs.

“How come you only crunched up my knife!” I huffed, seeing the careful way he held his weapons between his fangs. He caught my eye once more, saying something else. Even if I could understand the words, they were garbled, spoken around the spear and big knife held in his snout.

“What are you going to do with me?” I whispered, half afraid and half raging. I bucked and kicked again, rage slowly winning out over fear.

He didn’t bother trying to speak around his weapons this time. Instead, he strode powerfully back out through the tunnel we’d come through. I stilled myself long enough to hold my head steady behind his back, trying to get a sense of where we were going.

But I knew where we were going. He was obviously bringing me back to the main camp to get questioned.

Or killed.

At least, that’s what would have made sense. So I was pretty shocked when he lowered himself to all fours (or all threes, really, since his heavy hand was still like an iron bar against my back) and took off at full speed in the total other direction.

We weren’t going towards the place I knew the settlement was located.

He was taking me somewhere else entirely. Somewhere out over the open sands.

Somewhere where we might be alone.

I had no idea if that was a good thing…

Or bad.

AFTER A WHILE, I STOPPED fighting him. There wasn’t a single hope that I could free myself from his hold, and I figured I needed to conserve my strength for whenever he finally slowed down and let me go.

Which, it turned out, took a very long time.

If it weren’t something to fear, something to cage me, I would have admired his power and stamina. Hell, I kind of did anyway. He didn’t slow, didn’t stop once during the hours-long run. He just kept going and going and going, like a machine more than a living creature. He also, I noticed, (once I stopped kicking and bucking, anyway,) kept me remarkably still against his shoulder. It was still a bumpy ride, and I knew I’d be sore afterwards considering I was pressed against a scaly stone monster of incredible strength. But I could tell that he was making a serious effort to keep me steady. An effort he was balancing against going as fast as fucking possible.

Where is he taking me?

The desert flew by throughout the night. I tried to remember everything – take in landmarks. But for many stretches of distance, there were no landmarks to be seen. At one point, we did end up passing what looked to be a desert oasis – shadowy plant life clustered around the glistening silver coin of a water pool. But the alien slowed only slightly, tossing his head in that direction as if judging if he should stop there.

He didn’t.

He kept going until he finally found a place worthy of whatever it was he wanted to do.

It was a low outcropping of stone, almost like a mini cliff, but only about twenty feet high at the highest point and maybe thirty feet long. An ominous dark opening into the rock indicated maybe another tunnel or a cave, and the whole thing was surrounded by spike-like boulders pressing up and out of the sand.

If he thinks he’s going to trap me in there…

Well, that was not going to happen. But as he finally slowed and then stopped outside the dark opening into the stone, it seemed like that was exactly what he wanted to do. My mind whirled, running over scenario after scenario, trying to figure out just how I was going to get out of here. The screen I wore on my wrist had mapping software and would be able to lead me back to my ship, but would I even survive that journey? I had limited food and water in my pack, and the distance we had covered was immense. Even if I managed to get away from this guy, I might not be able to make it all the way back…

No. I’d figure it out. I knew about the native succulent plants that were safe for humans to drink. If I stayed hydrated, I could make the food in my pack last long enough.

I hoped.

But I’d have to get away from my captor first. Which didn’t seem like an easy prospect without my weapons.

Outside the entrance into the stone formation, the gigantic lizard finally let me down. I braced myself, but I wasn’t quite enough to keep me from half-collapsing as I hit the sand.

My muscles trembled, feeling watery and weak after being held in the same position for so long by the giant lizard. My ribs, too, were fucking sore, though I didn’t have any worse injuries than that.

The lizard alien reached for me immediately, hauling me upright. He gripped each of my elbows with his hands. His hands were so huge that his claw tips reached right up to my shoulders.

“Get off me!” I hissed, knocking his hands away. I was shocked to see that he let me go. There was no way I’d be strong enough to dislodge his grip if he’d actually tried to hold onto me. I quick sweep of my gaze down his front showed that his gigantic cock was safely hidden away now, thank God.

“Look, I don’t know what you want from me,” I started. My sentence petered out. Because I just had nothing else to say. I didn’t know what he wanted from me – I had no fucking clue. He hadn’t hurt me yet, and he hadn’t taken me back to the reinforcements at the settlement. Even when his huge cock had been out, and it seemed like his desires might have been a bit more clear, he’d stepped away from me immediately when I hadn’t welcomed whatever his intentions were.

But I’d had a gun then… I don’t now…

Even without the gun, he didn’t try anything weird. We stood staring at each other in silence until the giant did something strange.

He fell to his knees, which meant his snout was a little below eye level for me. He took his weapons out of his mouth, laying them on the sand, before pounding both his fists against the gnarly ridges over his eyes. Then he placed a clawed hand on his chest, looked me dead in the eyes, and muttered a single English word.

“Grim.”

I swallowed, goosebumps running over my skin.

The guy knew English, and that was the word he chose to use? I guessed it was apt. Things were looking pretty fucking grim for me right about now.

Or maybe he only knows one word and he’s trying to use it to communicate. But why would that be the only word he knows? When you learn a foreign language, don’t you usually start with words like “Hello?”

But it gave me an idea.

“¿Habla español?”

He didn’t answer, instead cocking his head slightly as he stared at me with those gleaming alien eyes.

OK, guess Spanish is off the table too. Not that it would have been super helpful if he spoke Spanish, anyway. My mother had died when I was so young that I barely recalled any of the Spanish she’d spoken to me as a child, learned from her own Mexican mother, my abuela. And my father had spoken it so poorly that he hadn’t been able to teach me any of it during our homeschool sessions.

So it looked like we were stuck with gestures and the random interjection of “Grim.”

The alien was interjecting it again now.

“Grim.” The word was a stony growl from his thick scaled throat. He slammed his hand against his broad chest again. “Grim.” He said a bunch more alien words, then “Grim” again at the end.

Then, he reached a clawed hand for me, placing it on my chest.

“Oh, hell no!” I yelped, swatting at that giant hand and jumping out of his reach.

He said something, and it sounded like a question.

He wants a response from me… But what?

Then it hit me.

I’m an idiot.

But then again, I’d never tried to hold a conversation with someone from another planet before, so maybe it was to be expected.

Grim was his freaking name.

Again, very apt.

“Your name is Grim?” I pointed at him as I said it.

He didn’t exactly smile. I didn’t think his snout was capable of it. But there was a distinct tightening of the ridges over his eyes, combined with a hard swish of his tail in the sand, that made me think I’d gotten it right.

He was silent, still waiting for something more.

My name.

I stiffened. Did I even want to tell him my name? I wasn’t sure what purpose it would serve. But on the other hand, why bother hiding it now? We were already alone in the middle of the desert together. I’d already seen his freaking cock, and had pressed my gun to it.

What was a name compared to that? It didn’t mean I trusted him. And it didn’t mean I was going to give him any other parts of myself.

I placed my own hand on my chest, the way he’d tried to do a few moments ago.

“I’m Valeria.”

“I’m Baleria.”

“No, you’re not Valeria. I am. ‘I’m’ isn’t part of my name. Va-le-ri-a.” I said my name more slowly, hitting my chest in time with each drawn-out syllable.

“Ba-le-ri-a,” he repeated.

The way he said it was weirdly intense. If he were a human, I would have said it almost sounded reverent.

But he wasn’t human. So I really had no clue how he was saying my name

Although, when his brow ridges lowered in an almost comical sort of frown, it was obvious he could tell he wasn’t pronouncing it right. He rubbed the back of his black claws against the underside of his snout in an oddly human gesture, like a man rubbing his chin when deep in thought.

“Baleria. Bal… B… Thaleria.”

As absurd as it was, I laughed. Like, really laughed. The kind of laugh that you can’t stop when it starts.

Snorting, I bent double, slamming my palms to my knees as I heaved. God, I must be going crazy. There was no reason an alien lizard trying to say my name should be this funny.

But it was.

Apparently, Grim didn’t share my sense of humour. He was on his feet in an instant. He wrenched my pack down, then slammed a hand against my upper back.

He thinks I’m choking.

I hadn’t been choking before, but I was now. He’d obviously tightly controlled his blow against my back, but it was still enough to make my bones rattle and to knock the wind out of me.

I gasped, wrenching my head around and throwing a hand backward at him in a soundless plea for him not to do it again. He froze, one set of claws curled at my shoulder, the other raised and ready to strike again.

“I’m fine,” I wheezed, flapping my hand as I turned forward again, trying to take a deep breath with my head between my knees.

As I forced breath in and out of my lungs, staring at the sand between my boots, I took stock of this situation.

So far, it didn’t seem like Grim wanted to kill me or even hurt me. He’d wanted to learn my name and had tried to correct his own bad pronunciation. He’d tried to stop me from choking, even if he’d made that whole situation worse. And earlier, he’d definitely protected me from the bat alien.

Is that why he took me away from the cliffs? Away from the others? To protect me?

If he knows they’re looking for me… If he knows I was with Cole…

He’s trying to keep me safe.

I angled my head to try to look up and back at him again, yelping in surprise to find his snout about two inches from the tip of my nose.

“When did you get there!?” I snapped, standing upright and stumbling away. He may not have tried to hurt me yet, but I still wasn’t ready to trust him unconditionally. He was too quiet, too fast, too strong.

Too alien.

As he fixed me with that alien gaze, I gulped, staring into his eyes.

His pupils widened, slipping down my face, my neck, my chest, then back up to my eyes. His snout tightened, and I thought I saw the faintest twitch in his groin region, though his cock was still mercifully out of view.

Everywhere his gaze landed sent heat spiralling. My breath shuddered and I swallowed again.

That gaze may have been an alien one. It may not have belonged to a human.

But it still belonged to a man.

A man with a body like blades and a name like an omen.

And if I wasn’t very, very careful, his name would be the only word left to describe my future.

Fucking Grim.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Grim

Iknew her name now, and she felt a little less like a stranger to me.

She knew my name, too, and yet she still regarded me as other.

Her breathing had returned to normal and she wriggled out of my clawed hold.

To my chagrin.

This does not make sense…

We may have been strangers to each other, but we were mates. Anything I did not know about her, I longed to learn. I longed to listen, watch.

Taste.

My cock throbbed, and I tightened the muscles of my slit, holding my erection out of view. For some reason, my cock had not pleased her. Perhaps she was not impressed by my grogar pearls. A warrior pressed a grogar pearl under the skin of his shaft for every great monster of the Bitter Sea he killed. I had three pearls in my shaft so far, a line of hard bumps along the top of my shaft.

Perhaps this was not impressive enough.

Some warriors, like Tok, had dozens of pearls. But I was much younger than him. I had not had as many ages to kill the great creatures of the sea.

I was torn between the urge to hurry back to the ocean, to prove myself by killing more creatures and studding my cock with more pearls, and the desire to stay by my mate’s side.

The desire to be near her, no matter how unworthy I was, won out.

She let out a little huffing sound then collapsed onto her tail-less backside, letting her pack fall beside her. From within that pack, she pulled out a shining tube of sorts. As she unscrewed the top part, I smelled water. My claws twitched, my throat tightening. I would need food and water soon. We had passed that desert pool during the journey out here. I had wanted to stop there, tempted by the gleam of the pool. But there was not enough shelter there.

Nowhere to hide her.

And she would need to be hidden.

I suddenly understood Kon, Kor’s father. Kon, the Hakah Gog’s brother and a beloved warrior of our tribe, had disappeared without a trace one night. We’d all thought him dead, lost to the waves. There was no other reason a warrior would leave his people. At least, not that we’d known of.

But in reality, he’d gone to claim his mate.

And he’d never returned, keeping his mate and his child safe, away from any who might want to harm them for being different.

Now I understood him. Never before had I imagined I could so easily turn my back on my duty and my people. But I had done it without hesitation tonight. Because by leaving the forces at the settlement I had abandoned and betrayed my king.

It was unlikely I would ever be able to go back, now.

Not as a free warrior, at least.

And certainly not with my mate.

No. It will just be the two of us, now. No matter what comes, I will keep her safe.

Whether it was desert warriors or my own king or men from another world, I’d destroy them all if I had to. There was no question and there was no other way.

I watched Thaleria drinking the water, my eyes stuck on the pulsing contractions of her slender throat. Compared to the other new women, she seemed stronger. Taller and more muscled. But compared to me? She was delicate. The mere swipe of my claw could end her.

That terrible thought made my spikes emerge. I bit back a growl. Not a single scale of my body would ever cause her pain. It would be all primed before her. To protect her.

She said something to me and I froze, trying to capture each word. But it was in vain. The words were gone as soon as they came, leaving me none the wiser.

Another wave of anguish threatened to drown me, but I forced it down. We might not be able to communicate. But I had always been a steady and determined warrior. Whatever words she had for me, I would learn them. There was no safe way to bring her to the caves of the Lavrika to impart the language of the sands, and the thought of dragging her down to the Kell’s cave was even more stomach-turning. I saw no gills on her, and her lungs were certainly smaller than mine. Though she seemed strong for her kind, I doubted she would survive the swim down into the depths.

Thaleria was seated with her back against the stone, her strangely dark yet bright eyes trained on me. Though she was so different from me, I found her eyes comforting. Like my own, they had a disc in the centre, unlike the broken swirls of the desert men. Though the colours were different – our people had black eyes with coloured discs in the centre. Hers were milky white, the disc so dark it was almost black.

“We should go inside,” I said. I turned to cast my gaze over the sand. So far, no one had followed us. They would have no reason to. No one had seen either of us. They were still searching for her out there, certainly, but they hadn’t seen me bring her this way. And I had some time before my own Hakah noticed I was gone. For some days, at least, he would just assume I was out searching the sands, and my absence would go unnoticed.

And after that?

I might have to take her even further from here…

But not tonight. Tonight, we would rest. At least, we would if we weren’t lost to the mating frenzy. I cast a hopeful look over at my mate, only to have it slammed down with suspicious eyes.

So no mating tonight, then.

“We should go inside,” I repeated, gesturing into the gloom of the cave with my claws. I would have liked to have checked it before her, to find out if it was safe. But that would mean leaving her out on the sand, and that was something I could not do. I’d left her spear-launching weapon back in the cliffs, and I’d crunched her funny little blade between my teeth. That had been short-sighted of me, perhaps – leaving her powerful weapon behind.

As soon as I am sure she will not use it on me, I will give her my own blade.

I’d give her my spear, too, but for the fact that it was far too large for her to be able to use with any ease. My blade, though, she’d probably be able to handle.

“Inside,” I repeated. By now, I was sure she understood. She was clever, my mate. I could tell.

Now that I knew she couldn’t speak the language of the Sea Sands, I’d reverted to my own native tongue. It felt so good to speak to her in the language of my ancestors. Even if she couldn’t understand everything I said.

But she knew I’d said, “Inside.”

Her eyes followed the pointing of my claws and she peered into the gloom. Then she looked back at me again.

It seemed to me that she was calculating something – risk. Deciding whether it was more dangerous to stay out here on the open sands. Or to be in a dark and enclosed space with me.

Though my body wanted her with a cursed, feral rage, I would never be a danger to her. Never.

How could I prove such a thing?

Once again, I fell to my knees before her. The slim, hairy ridges over her eyes rose.

I had decided to give her my weapons after I could be sure she would not use them on me.

But that did not matter now.

Everything was hers.

My blades and body.

“Take this,” I urged, sliding my blade towards us with my tail. Once it was within reach, I scooped it into my claws. I hated the way she tensed at the sight. Gritting my fangs, I angled the blade towards myself, offering her the bone handle. “It is yours.”

Her eyes flicked between the offered blade and my face. Slowly, she reached forward. I pressed the bone handle into her delicate palm. For a maddening moment, the soft tips of her fingers grazed my knuckles. I suppressed a groan, once again tightening my muscles to keep my erection hidden.

This hard, this full of need, just from the brush of her fingers…

I am doomed.

This was what I had always heard of the sacred mate bond. I’d always heard of its unbearable hold on a warrior. But it had always been echoed in the female, too.

I was not doomed because I loved her.

I was doomed because I loved when she did not.

I tried not to let despair sink its claws too deep inside me. There had to be a way forward for us.

Suddenly, I regretted not making friends with Kor. I had been so busy searching for Thaleria that I had not gotten the chance to ask him about his mate, another new woman. Had he struggled like this, too?

Or was there something wrong with me?

If there is something wrong with me, I will fix it, I vowed. I watched Thaleria heft my blade in her hands. It looked large in her grip, but she was strong enough to wield it. She stood, swinging it a few times, getting a feel for the weight, and thick pride made my brow ridges tighten. My chest warmed as I watched her get used to my blade. Despite the difference in size, it seemed natural.

She is very strong.

Then, it seemed as if she had decided.

Her head moved up and down in a sharp motion, then she gestured into the darkness with the tip of my blade. Her blade. I stared at her for a moment in awe, delighting in the way she angled the blade with such determination. Almost as if she was pointing into our future.

But I did not stay staring at her for too long.

She had given me orders and already my body ached to obey.

I stood, moving to the entrance of the cave. I leaned inwards, sniffing deeply. Scents of sand and stone washed over me. There was no smell of warriors here.

I jerked in shock, immediately throwing a protective arm back towards Thaleria as an explosion of light came from within the cave.

“Get back!” I hissed, my spikes rising. If that was fire in the cave, then someone had to have lit it…

But Thaleria was not heeding my advice. She tugged at my arm as if demanding I let her pass.

I looked down at her in confusion, only to feel my confusion deepen when I saw she held the blade in one hand, and something else in her other.

The light was coming from her hand.

Marvellous creature…

We had glowing stones on the island that we used to light dark places, and the desert men had their fires. But this? This beam of brightness, controlled by the flick of a finger, illuminating our path forward?

It was the stuff of other worlds.

How do I possibly endeavour to deserve a creature so strange and perfect?

Thaleria’s light arched into the space. My eyes worked very well in the darkness, but even I had to admit this light was helpful. It ran over the sand at our feet, showing us where that sand led up to a stony floor raised above the ground. Behind that, stone walls led up into a low rocky ceiling. It was not a large space – there was just enough room for me to stand on two legs without bumping my head. There would be enough room on that stone ledge for the two of us to sleep – but barely. And only if Thaleria allowed me to curl around her as I longed to do.

Which, as things stood right now, seemed painfully unlikely.

A flash of movement at the other end of the cave had me hissing. I dropped my spear and lunged, capturing a creature who’d been hiding here. A lone desert rakdo. It was small, but it would provide some good meat.

And after searching all day, fighting off the krixel, then running all night, I needed to eat.

But my mate came first.

I killed the animal quickly and then immediately turned to offer it to her. It was hard to tell when my mate was frowning because she seemed to frown almost incessantly. But the expression deepened.

Definitely a frown.

You fool.

I’d seen the other new women eat. They ate as the desert men did. They cleaned and butchered their kills, then roasted the meat. It seemed a barbaric practice, to char the flesh before you ate it. But if this was my mate’s way, I would learn to appreciate it.

There was only one problem…

“We cannot make a fire. It could draw attention.”

My mate said something back to me, then turned and hoisted herself up onto the stony flat area at the back of the cave. Once there, she placed the blade I’d given her at her side, put her light tube between her teeth (which I liked because it reminded me of how I held my weapons when I ran) and then opened her pack once more. From inside the pack, she pulled a shiny, crinkly thing which she peeled and then began to eat. The scent of whatever it was was… Not appealing. But I was glad she had some sustenance that appealed to her sensibilities.

I just wished I could be a better provider for her.

I will be. I will learn.

And the best way to take care of her now that she had eaten was for her to sleep. The warriors of the Bitter Seas did not need to sleep overly long. A small portion of the night. Meanwhile, the new women seemed to retire to their tent at the settlement not long after sundown and they remained quiet there until dawn. Some of them even seemed to sleep long past dawn.

And as my perfect mate was also a new woman, I assumed she would need the same amount of rest.

Once she was safely stowed away into sleep, I would eat and rest my bones as well.

Though I did not anticipate sleeping anytime soon. Not with the excitement still pounding through me at the fact that I’d finally found my mate. An excitement growing ever-stronger by her nearness in the enclosed space of the cave.

“You can sleep. I will keep you safe,” I told her, settling myself on the sand.

But she just stared at me.

Hmm. I’d never actually seen a new woman sleep. Perhaps they slept with their eyes open? I, like my own people, slept with my eyes closed. But perhaps she was asleep even now.

I reached a tentative hand towards her, waving it slightly in front of her face. In an instant, she had my blade in her grip, the sharp edge a breath away from my thumb.

So not asleep then.

“Sleep,” I urged her. I mimed the motion, putting my head down and closing my eyes for a moment before rousing myself from my fake slumber to see if she’d listened to me.

She hadn’t.

I tried not to feel too dismayed at the fact that I seemed to have no idea how to take care of this glorious creature.

Oftentimes the sound of waves hitting rock lulled me into rest.

I imitated the sound the way my mother had when I was a child, breath whooshing in and out of my snout, trying to sound like soothing waves. I went even further than just the sounds, swinging my arms back and forth to simulate the movement of the sea.

If she had regarded me strangely before, she looked even more alarmed now.

This is not soothing to her. Perhaps there are no waves where she comes from…

I rubbed the backs of my claws along the underside of my snout, thinking, before letting my arms down to my sides again. How did one make a new woman fall asleep when it appeared she did not want to?

I wondered if this stubbornness was a feature of all Thaleria’s people, or just something peculiar to herself.

Do all the new women fight against the things that are good for them?

Such a thing sounded exhausting.

It was lucky that I was such a strong warrior, with very good stamina.

With this woman, I would certainly need it.

Luck or stamina?

…Probably both.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Valeria

In a very short amount of time, I’d gone from seeing this alien’s cock, to having him abduct me, to having him give me a knife, to having him try to feed me raw meat from some animal he’d just killed, to him… Doing an interpretive dance?

He pressed his massive head down to the ground, closing his eyes, before wrenching back up again and making a bizarre whooshing noise while slicing his massive scaled arms through the air.

I stared at him, wide-eyed with perturbed astonishment, trying to figure out just what, exactly, he was doing.

Whatever he’d been attempting, he gave up on quickly. He let his arms fall back to his sides and stopped the weird rhythmic breathing thing he’d been doing. He shifted in the sand, crossing his feet at their thick, high ankles. He rested his scaled elbows on his inner thighs, linking his fingers together in his lap in a shockingly human-looking cross-legged pose. If it weren’t for the snout he stared at me over, and the jagged, heavy tail that curled at his side, you could almost let the shadows of the cave turn him into a regular old person.

Although, even in the dark he was still fucking huge.

I kept the blade he’d given me in one hand, ready to use it if necessary. I hoped it was yet another good sign about his intentions that he’d given it to me. But then again, he’d smashed my gun out of my hand and chewed up my knife. So maybe this was all a ruse.

In my other hand, I grabbed my flashlight again, letting the beam of light illuminate every part of Grim’s body. Including between his legs, which I was relieved to see was currently still smooth and flat.

I blinked rapidly against a sudden wave of exhaustion. My eyes were so dry and gritty, and as the adrenaline began to ease out of my system, I wanted nothing more than to curl up and close them.

But I wasn’t ready to do that. Not quite yet. So far Mr. Grim over there showed no signs of sleepiness. And there was no way I was going to be the first one going to sleep.

No. Let him go to sleep first. Then I’ll think about it.

But that meant I had to figure out a way to stay awake.

“So… We should talk,” I said. Grim visibly tensed at my words. Which was kind of hilarious, because most human men would also get a little cagey when a woman told him they needed to talk. But in those cases, they usually spoke at least a few words of the same language.

“Talk.”

Now I was the one tensing. I hadn’t expected his growly, booming voice to repeat my word back to me.

“Yes. Talk. That’s what we’re doing now. Sort of. When your mouth moves and sound comes out.” I pointed to my mouth to emphasize my point. His gaze hardened, staring at my lips.

“Out,” he said.

“Oh, no. The sounds are coming out of my mouth. This is my mouth.”

“My mouth.”

“No. My mouth. Just… Mouth. Mouth.” Jesus, this was harder than it looked. It wasn’t like I expected to teach him every nuance of English tonight or anything. But this was already too much for my over-tired brain.

“OK, your turn,” I said irritably. “You teach me some words.”

He cocked his head in the darkness, and I tried to clarify.

“Grim talk. Grim – move your mouth. Make sounds.” I held the blade he’d given me up higher. “For example, what’s this called?”

He seemed to understand what I was asking now. At least, I thought so. He answered me, pointing a dark claw towards the shimmering pale pink blade of the weapon.

“Hoklok,” he growled.

“Hoklok. OK, I can manage that.” The sounds were pretty harsh and guttural in my throat, but so far all the sounds I’d heard him make were ones I could more or less imitate. Which didn’t seem to be the case for him, considering how hard it was for him to even try to say my name.

“Lizardman language it is,” I muttered. “What’s this?” I pointed towards my nose.

“Th… Th… Thaleria,” he said, trying and once again failing to get the V sound of it. I snorted, unable to help myself. For a gigantic, rock-hard killing machine, seeing him try so hard to say my name was…

No. Not cute. He’s an alien who abducted you.

But abducted you very possibly to keep you safe…

I shook my head, forcing myself back to the current task at hand.

“No, I meant, what’s this?” I pressed my finger directly to the tip of my nose this time.

He paused, as if unsure how to answer. Their people had snouts after all. Maybe there was no good word for a human nose.

“Nevermind,” I said quickly. If it came down to it, and we needed to communicate important information, the word “nose” probably wouldn’t be top of the list of words we needed to know.

Instead, I quizzed Grim on the names of things like “water,” “sand,” “stone,” “meat,” and “spear.” But soon, we were running out of objects to name.

And I was running out of energy, fast.

Well, if Grim really wanted to hurt me, he would have done it by now. Even without my gun in my hand, his cock was still hidden away too.

But I’d told myself I wouldn’t sleep until he did. And I wasn’t used to caving on things like that.

“Do you sleep or what?” I asked, my tiredness making me grumpier. And I hadn’t exactly been in the peachiest mood when this day had started so, that was saying a lot. “Sleep!” I said. I laid down my head, closing my eyes, before sitting up again.

He said a word, gomga, that I recognized him saying before. And suddenly, I realized that at least part of his interpretive dance earlier had involved the word “sleep.” That’s why he’d put his head down. He was telling me to sleep.

That didn’t explain the whooshing and arm-swinging he’d done afterwards but hey, he was an alien after all. Human logic need not apply.

“Thaleria ka gomga,” he huffed, and I didn’t need to know what ka was to know that he was telling me to go to sleep.

“You first,” I muttered. “Grim ka gomga.”

He jerked back at my alien sentence.

“Smarter than I look,” I said, unable to help myself from grinning. Grim was slashing his claws through the air, speaking rapidly. Something about ka and ko and pointing between his legs, then jutting a claw towards my own crotch.

“Excuse me!” I said, slamming my legs together. “Just what do you think you’re pointing at? Sleep, gomga, does not involve that area of the body!”

He snuffed and tossed his head, slashing his claws again.

“Thaleria ka gomga. Grim ko gomga. Grim…” he said a bunch more words I didn’t know while gesturing to himself and once again between his legs.

It clicked.

“Oh OK, OK. Ka is female, ko is male. Gotcha. What even is that? Is that part of a verb conjugation, or another verb? You know what? Nevermind.” I’d always been a quick study, but I wasn’t a linguist. We’d work on this more tomorrow.

Taking a huge breath, I made my tone as severe as possible. To show this alien giant that I meant business.

“Grim ko gomga.”

Grim stared at me. Then his eyes flicked to the animal he’d killed.

Oh.

“Are you hungry?” He had to be. I mean, I didn’t know much about his alien biology, but he’d been fighting and running most of the night. And he was gigantic. The amount of energy needed to keep that huge machine of pure muscle going had to be substantial.

“Go ahead and eat then, if that’s what you want to eat anyway. How do you say, ‘eat?’”

I mimed eating, saying the English word a few more times.

“Eat,” Grim said. It was so odd hearing him say English words. His appearance had its manlike features but was also so alien. Almost beast-like. So hearing him understand and speak like a human was so jarring. I need to keep my wits about me. He’s smart.

“Yes. How do you say, ‘eat?’”

“Gorga.”

“Alright then. Grim… ko gorga.”

He made a huffing sound, perhaps surprise, maybe even pleasure, at my speaking his language. I grimaced. Learning a language was nice and all, but I was doing it out of necessity. I wouldn’t make it back to my ship without him, and it didn’t seem like he wanted to take me back there anytime soon. So we needed to be able to communicate and figure out our next steps.

Grim hesitated for a long moment, then finally retrieved the dead animal. It was pretty big, vaguely lynx-like with long, floppy ears and a reddish coat.

Grim opened his toothy jaws and dug in.

Holy shit.

I swallowed hard, watching him and tightening my grip on the weapon he’d given me. Any manlike impressions he’d given by standing on two legs and learning and speaking English words vanished when he ate.

He ate like an animal. There was no other way to put it. His jaws snapped and crunched through hide, muscle, and bone, more blood staining his snout and scales.

If he tries to kill me, I don’t stand a fucking chance.

I guess I’ll just have to stay on his good side.

I thought of his massive cock and blanched, hoping I wouldn’t have to go too far to stay on his good side.

Grim ate quickly, devouring almost the entire creature. Once again, he veered between alien beast and man as he used the animal’s fluffy tail to clean the blood from his snout and claws, like some kind of wilderness napkin.

He speaks and stands. He uses fucking napkins. But he has a snout and fangs and eats entire animals raw with nothing but the power of his own jaws…

“What are you?” I breathed, confused and awe-stricken and afraid all at the same time.

Grim dropped his tail napkin and pinned me with an unrelenting gaze.

“What are you?”

I gasped. He’d said that sentence in an almost imitation of mine. And it was startling to have it shot back at me.

What am I here? An intruder, an enemy, a spy.

Not anymore.

Right now I was just Valeria.

A survivor.

I tried to stay awake longer. I really did.

But it was impossible.

Holding the blade and the flashlight, keeping Grim pinned in my fading sight, I was dragged down into sleep.

I don’t remember much of my dreams.

But I do remember the colour red, shimmering and crackling around me, punctuated by Grim’s deep, stony voice.

“What are you?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Grim

My mate’s drop into sleep was so sudden it scared me. One moment she was watching me and speaking. The next, her head had dropped back against the stone behind her and she’d gone limp. Well, limp except for the weapon and the astonishing light spear she held in her hands.

With concern, I scrambled up to my knees, leaning over the stone ledge she sat on, looking at her more closely. The rise and fall of her chest and the soft puffing breaths coming from her little tiny snout eased my worries somewhat. But even so, I did not move away. It seemed that the only time I could easily get close to her was during her defenceless sleep.

My eye caught on the blade held tightly in her lap.

Well, almost defenceless.

My little mate was a fighter. Strong and fierce. It made me exceptionally proud that she was mine.

Is she mine?

I placed my hands on the edge of the stone ledge, leaning even further forward until my face was level with her own.

A deep pain emerged, one I’d been trying to bury, trying to ignore.

She does not think that I’m her mate.

There was no denying it. She gave absolutely no indication that she felt anything for me beyond apprehension and perhaps even a visceral sort of dread. She did not understand my words, nor I hers. It seemed that she did not even know she was my mate. At least she knew I was a man, as she’d seen my cock, hard and swollen for her. But she’d threatened to shoot it off with her explosive spear weapon. Clearly, that meant that none of the feelings of the sacred mate bond had taken root in her.

But treacherous seas, they had taken root in me.

I was anguished and aching for her. Not just my body, though my cock was throbbing insistently behind my slit. It was more than that. The ache went bone-deep. It made each breath hurt. Like someone had dropped a boulder upon my chest.

And she was the only one who could lift it.

Groaning, I wrenched myself away from her sleeping loveliness. The longer I was near her, the stronger the need to touch her became. And I had a feeling that she would not like that.

And I didn’t want to do anything that she didn’t like.

But I needed to do something.

I made a quick sweep of the cave, ensuring its total safety, before stalking back out into the night.

Outside the cave, I breathed the fresh dark air, blood coursing with a vengeance. I’d hoped that some space between us would relieve the ache, but now I felt a different kind of pain.

It was torture being away from her.

But it was also torture being near her and not touching her. Torture seeing how little she felt for me.

Or rather, it seemed she felt a lot for me. But they were the wrong sort of feelings.

Snapping my miserable jaws, I pounded over the sand to a nearby boulder. Raising myself to my full height, I made a fist, then brought it down on the stone, over and over again.

This was hardy desert rock. I could not break it. But the relentless pounding and the pain it induced felt good. It pulled some of the other pain out of my chest and into my fist.

If one hand to punch is good, two are better.

I started alternating fists, punching into the boulder so forcefully that my feet slid backwards in the sand and I had to readjust my position several times.

Finally, when my hands were raw and tender, the flesh behind the scales bruised, I stopped. I collapsed to the sand, turning to face the mouth of the cave, my back against the stone I’d beaten myself against.

My hands pulsed.

Some Kell’s milk… Or rather, Lavrika’s blood will sort that out.

I jolted.

There was no Kell’s milk here. And no Lavrika’s blood.

What if she gets injured?

I’m a fool.

I knew enough of the new women to know that despite the strength of their spirits, their flesh was tender and easily torn. If my mate needed quick healing, she would not have it out here.

But if we go back, she could be in even more danger than from what the desert has to offer…

I would just have to make sure that she never needed Lavrika’s blood. I would protect her. I would take care of her vulnerable body. Even if she didn’t want to let me

You’d do well to not injure your hands then, stupid warrior.

I sighed, pressing the breath out forcefully between my fangs. I’d let emotion take over. I could not take adequate care of my mate if I were not strong and healthy. I needed my hands, my claws, to fight for her.

No more punching rocks, I told myself solemnly.

These hands are no longer your own. Everything they do now, they do for her.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Valeria

Iwoke up slowly, eyes gritty and feeling groggy from the stifling heat. I groaned, leaning forward and gently stretching my head from side to side, rubbing at my stiff neck. I’d slept sitting up against a hard rock wall… Because…

It came back in a rush. My eyes flew open, searching for the giant red alien lizard who’d brought me here last night.

I didn’t need to look very hard. He was fucking right in front of me.

“Thaleria eat.”

“I… What?” Waking up here was disorienting enough. Hearing him speak to me in English was even weirder.

Grim was standing on the sand below the rock ledge I’d slept on. Even though I was raised up at least five feet off the ground, he still towered over me. I rectified that by standing quickly, brushing dust and dirt off of myself by patting my clothing with the flashlight and big knife I’d held all night. My knuckles were even more stiff than my neck, but I didn’t dare let go of the weapon yet.

“Thaleria eat,” Grim said again, brandishing something towards me. Bright morning light seeped into the cave from the desert beyond, making Grim glow at the edges, like some kind of scarlet vision. I tore my eyes from his sun-drenched silhouette to focus on what he had in his hand.

A protein bar.

At some point while I’d been sleeping, he’d managed to fish a protein bar, like the one I’d eaten last night, out of my pack.

“Fuck,” I muttered, dropping back down to my knees. I dumped the flashlight onto the stone and started rummaging through my pack to see if he’d taken anything else out, all the while pointing the blade at him.

“You stay there,” I snapped, rifling through my bag quickly. It didn’t look like anything was missing – the other snacks and water bottles were there, as well as the first aid kit. And he’d already gotten rid of my weapons so there wasn’t much else in there worth him taking. Still, I didn’t like that I hadn’t woken up for that. That he’d gotten so close, close enough to take something of mine, without me even knowing.

But then again, he hadn’t exactly taken anything. At least, not very far. The only thing he’d slipped out of the bag was the very same thing he was trying to give back to me right now.

I guess he realized I didn’t want to eat any of the raw meat like he does.

I sighed, settling on my ass and blowing a stray strand of dark hair out of my face. My hair had started out in a very tidy bun. Now it was all falling apart in dusty clumps.

“I guess I’ll forgive you for going through my stuff since it apparently was in an effort to feed me,” I said, watching him intently.

“Thaleria eat. Eeeeat. Eattt.” He said, “Eat,” over and over again, slightly differently each time, seemingly to perfect his pronunciation. As if poor pronunciation was the reason I hadn’t taken the outstretched protein bar.

That, combined with the fact that he held the bar between the tips of two ferocious claws, so gently so that he wouldn’t crush it with his strength, had me smiling against all odds. This alien may be a killer and may have brought me here against my will, but there’s a chance that he may actually be a decent sort of guy…

“Thank you,” I said, reaching for the protein bar with my free hand. He held it towards me, looking strained with the effort it took not to puncture the wrapper with his claws. As I took it from him, I cast a quick glance down his body.

Well, that’s a relief. Still no sign of the monster erection he’d been sporting last night. If he had the alien version of morning wood, he’d either already dealt with it or had it tucked away in there.

How the hell would he even deal with morning wood anyway? I thought as I opened my protein bar with my teeth. With those scaly hands, those claws.

I took a bite and chewed thoughtfully before snapping myself out of that bizarre train of thought. Just why, exactly, are you at all concerned with how an alien lizardman might jerk off?!

I still couldn’t help a glance at his hands anyway. He was sitting down on the sand in that cross-legged position again, his tail curled around his side. His hands rested on his knees.

I wasn’t an alien expert but they looked… Weird. Some of the scales, especially the smaller ones along the backs of his fingers and his knuckles, looked dented in places and oddly ruffled in others. The red was stained in places with something black, dried like old blood.

“What happened to your hands?” I asked before finishing off my protein bar. Maybe it had happened in the fight with that bat thing last night? I tucked the bar’s wrapper into my pocket then I pointed at his hands again. “Hands. Your hands. What happened?”

Grim heaved his huge shoulders with a harsh breath, gesturing towards the cave’s opening. He made a fist and swung it a few times, speaking rapidly in his alien language. I didn’t catch much of what he said, but I did think I heard one word he’d taught me last night. The word for stone.

I wasn’t great at reading his expressions, but there was a distinct note of exasperation as he explained… Whatever it was he was explaining. He hissed irritably, then rubbed his knuckles under his snout the way I’d seen him do before. Only this time, he grunted and pulled his hand away, shaking it at his side the way a human would when they got a finger caught in a door.

Well, whatever he hurt himself doing, it doesn’t look like there’s any threat to us right now.

Hold on… Threat to us?

Apparently, I’d gone from thinking of this guy as a possible threat to thinking of him as my teammate against other threats.

But maybe that’s OK…

It didn’t mean I had to totally let my guard down. But so far, Grim had proven himself to be a decent ally. And really, he had no reason to help me. I was the one who’d encroached on his territory. I was the one who’d come here with someone who’d brought violence. So I was starting to very tentatively trust him.

Which begged the question.

“Why do you trust me?”

There was no way Grim would understand that question. He cocked his head at me, making a rumbling sound in his chest that probably was the alien equivalent of clearing one’s throat to fill the silence.

Maybe he’s a spy. Maybe he’s trying to gain my trust as some kind of tactical decision…

I narrowed my eyes at him. He did the same right back at me, staring at me through intensely glittering slits.

Finally, I relaxed a little, blowing out another sigh.

“Can’t stay in a staring contest all day,” I said. At the very least, I needed to pee, and soon.

I scooted to the edge of the rock ledge and jumped down, landing on the sand. I pulled the hood up on my jacket to protect myself from the harsh sun as I stepped out of the cave. Grim followed right behind me, a big, stalking shadow. I kept the weapon he’d given me, just in case. But it seemed less and less likely that I’d need to use it. At least, not on him.

It also seemed less and less likely that my “Grim’s a spy” theory was correct. Why would they send one of their guys way out here into the desert with me where we were cut off from contact with everyone else? And if they wanted someone to try to get close to me and gain my trust, it made no sense they’d choose one of the most alien-looking men here. Especially one who couldn’t speak my language. No, if there was any plot to try to learn what I knew, it would have made way more sense to have a human woman try to talk to me.

And at this point, I would probably just spill everything. My loyalty to my mission had evaporated the moment Cole had turned off his light-scatter tech and pulled his trigger.

If I do get captured, they won’t need to torture me to get answers. I’ll tell them everything I know.

They deserved that much. They deserved to know what threats faced their world.

I decided to take what Grim did at face value. He probably wasn’t a spy, and so far he’d helped me and protected me and had even tried to feed me. With this in mind, I turned to look at him with new eyes.

I gasped.

Not only was I looking at him with new eyes, but this was the first time I’d seen him up close in the full daylight. I’d seen him at a distance in the daylight that one time. But it was nothing compared to being right in front of him.

Somehow, he looked even bigger than he had at night. The shadows no longer soaked into his scales, but reflected off of them, turning his entire body into a cascade of crystallized blood. Human blood, that is. From what I’d seen so far, both Grim and the alien who’d gotten shot bled black blood.

He wasn’t uniformly red. The scales glinted crimson, small, the size of my fingernails down his muscled pectorals and abdomen and inner thighs. In other places, like his shoulders, down his back, and along his tail, the scales were much larger, some the size of my fist and looking sharp as daggers, melting from red to black. The terrible black spikes that lined his shoulders, arms, spine, and tail were black, too, and were currently flattened against his body. Which I took as a very good sign since they seemed to come out when he was feeling defensive or aggressive. His thick neck and snout were mostly red, but the heavy, scaled ridges over his eyes were black. The eyes themselves were black, too, with intense scarlet discs in the centre. They were like pupils, though they didn’t seem to contract and expand according to the light conditions. It was more like they changed size to match Grim’s intensity of focus? Or maybe his mood…

As I looked into those eyes, I realized that he’d been staring at me just as intently the entire time. The red discs of his eyes were large, and he bent ever so slightly forward as if to get a better look at me. Absurdly, I felt self-conscious. This guy may have been completely alien to me, but there was no denying the impressive nature of his appearance. He was ten feet tall with a body like carved marble and skin like gems. In the morning light, the sun practically worshipped him, illuminating every hard and glinting facet.

Ten feet of monstrous alien beauty.

And I was six-foot-one of messy, dusty, sweaty human.

Whatever. It’s not a beauty contest. Why do I even care what he thinks of my appearance?

Despite those thoughts, I ran a smoothing hand over my destroyed hairstyle anyway.

“Alright, well, I came out here to pee. So…”

Grim stared at me, not moving.

Shaking my head, I turned and walked away from him, moving behind a boulder as tall as me and twice as wide for some privacy.

But Grim followed.

“Excuse me! I don’t need you right beside me while I do this!”

Grim said something in his language, but the only thing I caught was my name at the end. He let his eyes move from me for a brief moment to look at the boulder beside us. His eye ridges fell, and his fists tightened at his side. If the boulder had been a living creature, I would have assumed Grim had some kind of beef with them. He looked like he wanted to punch the boulder in the face.

“OK, you do whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll be back,” I said, hustling around the other side of the boulder once again. I wasn’t lying – I would be back. There was nothing else for me to do out here without him. Where the hell would I go?

But Grim followed me. Again.

“Look, if you’re going to be this close to me, you need to at least turn around!” I snapped. The press of my full bladder was making me irritable. Why does this have to be so complicated?

I told him to turn around again, making the movement with my own body, then brandishing the tip of the blade towards him in what I thought was an obvious now you kind of gesture.

But if he understood me (which I was pretty sure he did) he ignored me.

He’s not going to let me out of his sight…

A smile slowly crept over my face.

I’ll just have to let myself out of his sight, then.

With a quick flick of my finger inside my hood, I disappeared.

I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of reaction I expected from Grim. Maybe something akin to annoyance, even anger. But what I saw was something else entirely.

His eye discs contracted sharply and he jerked. His eyes were huge, and they only looked bigger with his tiny red pupils. His tail thrashed, and he swung his great head from side to side, looking for me.

He didn’t look angry, at least I didn’t think so.

He looked… Worried.

“Thaleria!”

My stomach tightened, my breath catching. The way he’d said my name… It was like a wound. Raw and ragged.

Finally, he turned around the way I’d wanted him to. But he was doing it to look for me, not to turn away from me. I stared at his back, barely breathing, watching the muscles tense and bunch on his shoulders.

What is he so afraid of?

He stopped the frantic swinging of his head and raised his snout, breathing in deeply.

Fuck. Now I was in for it. I’d turned on the light-scatter tech to have some privacy while peeing, but what if he thought I’d done it to try to run away or something? The way he’d looked so desperate meant he didn’t realize, at least at first, that I was still right in front of him. Maybe he thought I teleported and turned invisible at the same time…

But my scent on the air drew him back to me.

OK, now he’s going to be pissed.

I took a shaky step backwards, but he already had me. His claws closed around my unseen waist. My palm sweated as I gripped the handle of the weapon he’d given me, encased in the light-scatter tech and invisible to him.

I’d always been kind of broad with a rectangular torso instead of an hour-glass shaped one. But even without a narrow waist, Grim’s hands completely encircled me. Sweat beaded along my back as I stared at him.

His jaw was tight, his brow ridges low over his eyes. His eye discs were huge again as if trying to see everything. Trying to see me.

And as crazy as it was, I felt bad for what I’d done. I hadn’t meant it as a prank or anything. It had been my annoyed response to his weird watchfulness. But it seemed like I’d caused him real concern. Even now, with his claws on my waist, he scanned the air with his eyes, inhaling roughly and powerfully to keep hold of my scent.

Ever so slowly, his claws moved upward from my waist. His touch was firm but gentle, which was good considering one twitch of his claws would shred my clothing and likely my flesh beneath.

His hands moved further upwards until they hit my armpits, then slid outward to my shoulders. His body was a wall of red in front of me, his hands like huge warm stones.

Why am I letting him touch me?

This moment had turned weirdly intimate, and I found, for some reason, that I just couldn’t extricate myself from it. Maybe it was the searching darkness of his eyes or the fact that I hadn’t been touched by another living creature besides him in… I couldn’t even remember how long. But for some reason, I stayed stock still. And despite the heat, a shiver exploded down my spine as his claws slipped beneath my hood, brushing my neck. His thumbs came up on either side, caressing my jaw.

And it truly was a caress. There was no other way to describe the touch. The tiny scales along the pads of his thumbs stroked along each side of my jaw bone before one moved inwards far enough to catch my lower lip. His thumbs were warm and dry, the texture oddly pleasant.

OK. Maybe more than pleasant. His touch was… nice. So warm, and rough yet smooth at the same time. Like roughed-up, scratchy leather that had been left out in the sun all afternoon. His thumb caught my lower lip again, making me gasp, while the other fell to the pulse at the side of my neck. He stroked my pulse tenderly, almost fervently, sending tingling sparks into every nerve in my body. My scalp, my face, my neck. Between my legs.

Was it the danger of this situation that was making my whole body spark?

He could kill me in an instant.

His hands were so huge that his palms came down to my collarbones, the fingers looping around the back of my neck as his thumbs stroked.

“Thaleria,” Grim said again. It was much quieter this time, but just as desperate. Maybe even more so. It felt like, by saying my name, he was trying to tell me something urgent. Or maybe trying to ask something of me.

“I’m right here,” I whispered without even realizing it. Why am I telling him that?

And why does he look like he’s in fucking pain?

Speaking to him had sent the tip of my tongue against his thumb. When he felt the wetness of it, tension rolled through his body, making his fingers twitch at the back of my neck. Grim’s massive chest visibly hitched. He pressed in closer.

And slipped his claw into my mouth.

It clacked against my teeth and broke the spell.

I stumbled back, panting as if I’d been underwater. I filled my lungs, staring at Grim and wondering what the hell had just happened.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Grim

Thaleria continued using her powers of invisibility as she, I assumed, went behind the boulder to relieve herself. I heard the stream of urine hitting sand, racing around the rock to try to find her once more. Having her disappear before my eyes had alarmed me more than I could comprehend. The fact that she could be right in front of me and so easily slip through my claws.

No. She didn’t slip through my claws. Invisible or not, you found her. You touched her.

You felt the wetness of her mouth.

I stifled a groan. That groan turned into a hiss of surprise as Thaleria materialized before me once more, standing beside an area of sand she had obviously just kicked over the wet spot.

I trained my eyes on her, unwilling to lose sight of her again. For a brief moment, she pulled off her hood, and I had to stop myself from ripping the hood off of her cloak entirely, destroying it. It seemed the hood contributed to, or maybe even controlled, her powers of invisibility. But I restrained myself. For one thing, I did not want to give her more reasons to be afraid of me. And for another, that power might be needed someday. If ever there came a time I was not there to protect her…

I was distracted from such gloomy thoughts by her sudden unsheathed beauty. Without the hood, I could see her face so much more clearly. She tugged at the back of her head, unleashing a thick black mane of hair that came a claw’s length past her shoulders. Her skin gleamed a warm tawny brown, warm and bright gold wherever the sun hit it. Her fingers flew quickly, collecting up all her hair and pulling it tight against the back of her head, tying it in a sort of knot very similar to the fire-haired Gahnala Kapman back at the settlement.

Clever. Tying her hair in such a way kept it out of her face. It also very handily removed some of the temptation I had to grasp it in my fist, pull it up to my snout, and sniff it. I traced the pad of my thumb with my forefinger, trying to remember the feeling of her wet little tongue against my scales. But already, the feeling was fading in the heat and the sun and the determined distance in Thaleria’s white and brown eyes. She pulled up her hood and then retrieved the blade from where she’d stowed it safely at her feet.

I breathed out slowly, trying not to feel too discouraged. But it was difficult to keep the disappointment at bay.

How will she ever accept me as a mate if she does not even feel safe enough to let go of that blade?

Thaleria had slept late into the morning, so the rest of the day seemed to disappear as quickly as she had done right before my eyes earlier. We spent the afternoon collecting valok from the immediate area to take back to the cave. Thaleria seemed to require significant amounts of fluid, and the water she’d brought in her pack would not last much longer. I assumed that when she’d packed her little satchel, she had not planned to be out on the sands for this long.

She meant to return somewhere… But where?

By the time evening fell, she had consumed almost all of the food she’d brought. I hadn’t eaten since last night.

“We need to hunt,” I said as we stood outside the cave, watching the sun descend. We’d spent much of the day trying to learn each other’s words, but “hunt” was a new one for her.

I hefted my spear, miming throwing it, and pretended to eat. “Hunt,” I said again.

She repeated the word back to me, and I felt a thrill of pride at her cleverness. I soaked up everything she said, memorizing every word I could, but my mouth could not make all her sounds. Thaleria, on the other hand, already seemed adept at saying many of the words I’d taught her, though she couldn’t understand most of what I said yet.

“Yes. Let us hunt. We both require more food. Meat.”

She frowned, then something sparked in her eyes. “Meat,” she said.

Ah, yes. I’d taught her that word last night. She remembers.

I pretended that she remembered what I taught her because she thought the things I said were important. Because I was important. Important to her, specifically.

I ignored the fact that it was likely for purely practical reasons that she remembered the words of my language.

Whatever the reason, hearing her speak the language of the Bitter Seas was like coming home.

I never thought my home would be so far from the water.

Yet there she stood.

Well, actually, there she sat. She collapsed down onto her rump, stabbing the blade I’d given her out towards the desert.

“Grim hunt,” she said, stabbing the blade again. “Valeria…” She pointed at herself.

“You mean you’ll stay? Thaleria will stay?”

“Valeria… Will stay,” she confirmed.

I snorted. “Oh no. I do not think so, my mate. I will not leave you alone on these sands. You will come. Thaleria will hunt.” Aching love crunched my ribs. “With me,” I added with a growl.

Her slim, hairy brow ridges rose in what I was beginning to learn was surprise. Or maybe offence, as she quickly stood and said, “Valeria will stay. Valeria no… Valeria hunt not.”

Foolish warrior. Why had I taught her the negative construction? Now I could not pretend I did not understand her saying, “no,” to me.

But whether she said no or not, she had to come with me. She would not survive against a desert beast on her own with only her blade. With her explosive spear thing, maybe. But it was lost in the Cliffs of Uruzai, along with the knife I’d shattered between my fangs. I hadn’t actually meant to crumble up her knife like that. I’d only been curious about the weapon’s strength.

It had not impressed me.

“No. You must come. It is not safe here alone.”

But how would it be safe for her out there? She was not as fast as I was. How would she keep up?

Unless…

I’d seen Kor’s female do it. I was larger than him, but then again, my mate was larger than his. Maybe it would work.

I moved to all fours, my back to Thaleria.

“Here. Get on.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Valeria

He didn’t seriously want me to ride on his back, did he?

“Absolutely not,” I scoffed in English before saying the word I’d learned for “no” in his language. He twisted his neck, tossing me an unimpressed look over his shoulder. Heat flared in my cheeks.

“Don’t you be giving me that look. you’re the one asking me to do something absurd.”

Or maybe I was being absurd for even trying to argue. I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone here. It wasn’t safe, plus there was some other reason he seemed intent on remaining at my side. What exactly that reason was, I still wasn’t sure. So there was no way he was going to leave me at the cave while he galloped off to catch our dinner.

And we did need food. Grim and I had collected a bunch of the valok plants for drinking, but he hadn’t eaten all day, and I’d exhausted my protein bars. We’d have to go get food eventually, and the one way to do that out in the wild like this was to hunt it.

Together, apparently.

If you don’t get on his back, he’ll just carry you in his arms again.

Yeah, I was not interested in doing that again. It made me feel way too pathetic. Like I had no agency at all. At least on his back I’d be somewhat upright, and I could look around and keep my eye on my surroundings.

Grim must have been getting tired of my dilly-dallying. With a grunt, he reached around behind him, clasping my wrist. The wrist of the hand that was holding the blade he’d given me.

“What are you -”

He pulled my arm until I was stumbling forward. He didn’t stop pulling until he’d positioned the blade at his own throat. I didn’t catch all of what he said, but I did hear the words “stay” and “blade” along with my name.

“You’re saying the blade can stay here the whole time?”

“Blade… Neck,” he responded in thickly accented English, pressing the giant knife even closer against his own throat. I inhaled sharply, staring into his dead-serious eyes. I didn’t realize just how close I’d gotten to him. In order to wrap my arm around the front of his neck that way, my chest was completely pressed into his hard shoulder.

“Thaleria… On,” he said, speaking once again in English. This guy is way too smart. I hadn’t been specifically teaching him English words because it was too hard for him to say so many of them. So he’d been teaching me his language instead. But it seemed that every English word I spoke, he soaked up like an alien sponge. I wonder just how much he already understands of what I’m saying…

As I stared at his face, then the blade that he still held in place against his scaly throat, the question from before once again bubbled to the surface.

“Why do you trust me?”

“Thrusd.” The word was a deep grumble from his throat. It sounded more like “Thrust.” And suddenly, my head was filled with visceral images related to that verb. The thrust of a blade like the one in my hand.

The thrust of a cock like -

Nope.

“Fine. Let’s go,” I muttered stiffly, scrambling up onto Grim’s back. “But I’m not keeping the weapon at your neck like that.” I didn’t need to. Grim had proven over and over that he wasn’t interested in harming me. Putting his own weapon to his throat, giving me all that control, had sealed the deal. If he could put that much trust in me, I could return the favour. I swivelled the weapon so that I held it downwards, the flat of the blade against the front of his shoulder, the tip aimed down his stomach. My other arm looped around his neck from the other side as my thighs parted, settling into position. It was surprisingly comfortable back there. I wiggled a little until I was settled.

Grim said something to me over his shoulder, and it must have meant something like, “hold on tight,” because a breath later we were taking off at top speed. I stifled a yelp of surprise, tightening my hold on him instinctively. It felt strange to squeeze him like this. To hold fast to someone, to rely on them. I hadn’t truly trusted anyone since my father had died.

But against all odds, I trusted this gigantic alien lizard more than I trusted pretty much anybody else. Maybe it was because he was all I had right now. Maybe the heat had gotten to me.

Or maybe it was something else. Something deeper. Something more real.

Whatever it was, I let myself relax a little. At least, as much as I could going at top fucking speed the way we were. The air rushed past us so quickly that it was hard to get a breath in. Grim’s legs and arms churned powerfully over the sand, driving us forward with awesome force.

From my perch on Grim’s back, I looked out over the horizon. For the first time, I let myself absorb the true beauty of this landscape. I’d grown up in the desert, so I had a natural appreciation for land like this. But this was different than home. Wider and wilder, the sands turned black and silver by the asteroid belt overhead. Familiar yet foreign. Nostalgic and alien.

I realized I was smiling. Blood pumped quickly through my veins, exhilaration tingling in my stomach as we sped along. I’d always liked going fast – in cars, on bikes, roller coasters – anything I could. And to be honest, all of that Earth shit paled compared to riding on Grim’s back. It was like we were piercing the night itself.

“There!” Grim called into the wind. That was one of his words I knew by heart now. I’d heard it over and over again today as he’d pointed out valok plants I hadn’t noticed. There’s one. There. There. There.

I squinted, seeing a flash of fur in the distance. It looked to be another one of the animals Grim had killed last night in the cave. Grim growled, speeding up, sending me bumping up and down on his back. I’d never ridden a horse, but I wondered if this was how it felt. Probably not, unless it was some wild stallion and the rider had no training. Because things were getting very rough, very quickly. Grunting, I strained to tighten my arms and thighs against Grim. My pelvis bumped him hard, over and over again, driving pressure against my clit.

Grim speaking again distracted me from all the weird rubbing and bumping happening. I only caught the words “I” “spear” and “blade” along with a word that turned the sentence negative. Despite my crap understanding of his language so far, I managed to piece together what he wanted.

He’d forgotten his spear. He needed the blade I held to throw at the animal.

I chewed my lip, tears streaming from my eyes as I stared into the wind-battered distance. Our prey was a lot lighter on its feet than Grim, especially with me on his back. We could lose it.

But that would mean giving up my one defence. My stomach tightened, dread rising in my throat.

Was I willing to give away all that power? My only hope at protecting myself if I needed it?

I didn’t want to.

But I will.

I trusted Grim.

And it was time to put that trust to the test.

“Take it!” I called to him in English, bumping the blade against his chest to emphasize my words. I’d understood him saying “blade” a second ago in his language. I knew the word, but in that moment I couldn’t for the life of me remember how to say it myself. So instead I just told him to take it again in English.

Grim slowed ever so slightly, moving on three limbs as one hand rose to take the blade from my hand. It was awkward to do it while moving so quickly. I fumbled with the blade, nearly dropping it. Grim’s entire massive hand closed over mine. It completely enveloped my hand, that warm, leathery hide slipping over my skin before taking the weapon from me.

A moment later, that blade was flying through the air.

Thankfully, Grim had wicked good aim, even when running. He got the animal in its neck, felling it immediately.

The exhilaration intensified, and I let out a whoop.

“You did it!” I shouted, grinning widely. I pressed my face against his back, squeezing his neck with all I had. That was the most fun I’d had in ages! I -

I was hugging Grim.

Like, literally hugging him.

And I couldn’t even really stop, because he was still running. So I just held on, confused heat pumping through my chest.

And, I realized with horror, between my legs.

It’s just because of the flattened spikes grinding against my clit. I can’t help that, I reasoned with myself. Because there was absolutely no fucking way I was getting horny for an extraterrestrial, especially one as scary as Grim. That would be astronomically fucked up…

Right?

The other women…

Nope. No way. I was not about to start telling myself, “Well, the other girls have gotten some of that alien dick, so it’s cool if you do too!” The other women had been here a lot longer than me. More time for the desert to bake the sense out of their brains. I trusted Grim. Maybe even liked him.

But not like that.

Definitely not.

When we reached the animal, I slid off Grim’s back as fast as fucking possible, trying to put some space between us. It… kind of worked. It worked in the sense that my legs were no longer spread against his massive back. It didn’t work because now I was looking at him, and my eyes kept snagging on the bunch of his taut muscles, the purely masculine curve of his powerful shoulders, his chest and arms.

Grim cleaned the blade on the fur of the animal, then handed it back to me once more. I blinked, surprised, then took it. For some reason, I’d kind of assumed he’d just keep it after this. It was his weapon after all. But here he was, giving it back to me again. Every time he proved himself trustworthy, it was like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But so far, no shoes. Just Grim and all his weird goodness. It went against every instinct I had.

He went against every instinct I had.

“So I get to keep this, then?” I asked in English, looking down at the blade and then back at him. His giant hands covered both of mine, pressing my fingers into the bone handle of the weapon.

“Thaleria keep,” he confirmed.

I smiled. The movement felt tight and strange, and I realized it was because I was about to cry. Why the fuck was this making me cry?! I hadn’t cried since my father died when I was nineteen. That was ten years ago.

“Thank you,” I choked out. I swallowed hard, staring at the pale, soapy pink of the weapon’s blade, willing the tears to stay inside my goddamn head.

They listened, thankfully.

I may have trusted this alien, maybe even against my better judgment.

But that didn’t mean I had to cry in front of him like a blithering idiot.

Grim took the kill between his massive jaws, holding it gently between his fangs. So gently it seemed impossible.

To have that much strength and be able to hold it back is another kind of strength entirely…

I admired that about him and found myself smiling again. But that smile faded instantly as Grim lowered himself once more, waiting for me to climb back on.

We still had to get back to the cave. Which meant more riding with my legs spread. More terrible friction.

More Grim between my thighs.

Fuck.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Valeria

You’d be amazed how quickly you pick up a foreign language when the only person to talk to speaks English just as badly as you speak their alien tongue. Over the next little while, Grim and I fell into an easy sort of rhythm. Shockingly easy, really. After just a few days, being around him felt… Natural. And the more we learned to communicate, the easier everything became. The days became one week, then two. Days of sleeping and eating and hunting and riding on Grim’s back, with more and more of those bizarre feelings of arousal when I was on him.

We both understood more than we could speak of the other’s language, so we often would say something in our native tongue, only to have the other person answer in theirs. Bit by bit, word by word, we wove a web of understanding between us. We hit a lot of snags, but it worked. More or less.

It worked until the day I got my period.

The day Grim learned the word for “blood.”

The day things changed forever.

We’d been out in the desert for two and a half weeks when it happened. I woke cramping and uncomfortable. Sweating, I kicked off the bedding hides. Grim had saved the skins and hides of everything he’d killed so far, and I’d cleaned them. Grim has pretty much ordered me to use the plushest, softest bits for my bedding. I’d tried to get him to take some, too, but he’d hissed in argument. Apparently, big lizard aliens didn’t need blankets, even when sleeping alone on the sand.

I looked over the stone ledge to see if he was on the sand down there now, but he wasn’t. This was to be expected. For the first few days, I’d woken up with him staring at me. But waking up with an alien’s snout hovering over your face was not exactly the best way to start the day, and he’d quickly learned that I didn’t enjoy that particular form of wake-up call. Grim seemed to require a lot less sleep than I did, so whenever he woke up in the very early morning, he went outside, standing guard on the sand at the mouth of the cave. It was pretty smart, considering the fact that the other aliens might still be scouring the desert looking for me.

And maybe looking for Grim now, too.

He’d been gone a long time from the settlement. I had no idea how their political structure worked, but when he’d arrived he’d looked to be part of a group, if not an army. If I knew anything about being part of an army, it was that just disappearing from your duties was usually not taken lightly.

I sat up and scrubbed at my face. Since I hadn’t been back to my ship, I didn’t have everything I needed. Namely, menstrual products. Luckily, the one thing I did have was an extra pair of socks, which had come in very handy after tossing my old ones out in the desert that night I was trying to throw Grim off my scent. But it wasn’t like I could use the socks for a pad. They were too thin, and I needed them for my feet.

I glanced at the pile of hides that I wasn’t using for bedding. Grim has cut some of them into rags for me to use while cleaning myself. He’d introduced me to a desert plant that had soapy, milky innards. He didn’t use it – the guy didn’t seem to sweat or produce any kind of oil that I could see. When he felt like he needed to, he scrubbed himself with sand, even going so far as to roll in it like a happy dog in the dirt. From what I’d gleaned with my broken understanding, he usually used water to clean himself, and he did a hilarious pantomime of a swimming gesture for me to understand. That was something we had in common – water for bathing back home. But obviously, we didn’t have any of it out here. So sand and cactus gel would have to do.

I jumped off the ledge and crept to the edge of the cave. Grim wasn’t having a sand bath at the moment. He was standing upright, the butt of his spear planted firmly on the sand as he stared out over the dawn-brushed sands. I froze inside the cave, staring at him.

He looked… Majestic. Huge and powerful but still and steady. His grip on his spear was easy, his spikes flat in his relaxed posture. I jerked in surprise as a small desert bird flitted down, landing on the tip of his spear. Well, small compared to Grim and his spear. It looked a lot like a hummingbird from Earth, but much larger than that, with glinting metallic green wings.

Grim glanced at the bird on his spear, and I wondered for a moment if he was about to kill it for some breakfast. The creature would only be a mouthful for him, but it would be like an entire quail for me. I was practical and had nothing against hunting for sustenance, but I hoped he didn’t kill the pretty thing.

And he didn’t. Instead, he spoke to it.

I recognized the verb for “wake up” as well as the parts of the sentence that turned everything negative.

I clenched my fists, sticky warmth spreading through my chest as I realized he’d just told the bird something along the lines of, “Do not wake her up.”

Over the past two and a half weeks, hell, since the first night and day I’d spent with Grim, I’d come to do more than trust him. I liked him. A lot. I admired his strength and capabilities. The power of his body that allowed him such command of the desert. I think it was the fighter in me, the soldier, that respected his sheer insane strength. But I admired more than just his abilities. I liked the way, for someone so huge, he could be so unabashedly tender. Whether it was trying not to crush a protein bar as he handed it to me, or talking to a little bird in the first light of morning. I liked the way he learned every single English word I spoke as if understanding me was more than just a practical need. As if it was something precious. I’d even grown to like the way he stared at me so intensely sometimes, like he was trying to catch a glimpse of my soul.

I sighed, keeping the breath low and quiet, not wanting to disturb the moment between Grim and the little bird. The warmth inside me spread, tingling in my limbs. I pursed my lips, suddenly slightly worried about the fact that this warmth inside me, this reaction to watching Grim, felt stronger than simple admiration or liking.

It felt a lot like affection.

I sighed again, louder this time, my mood souring at the realization. This new complication.

The bird took off, startled by the sound, and Grim wrenched around.

“Good morning,” I said in English.

“Good mornig,” he replied. He struggled with the English “ing” sounds. But for some reason he insisted on saying “good morning” in English every day, always striving to improve his pronunciation.

The warmth inside me turned to blistering heat as Grim’s gaze settled intently on me.

“I’m bathing,” I said quickly, stepping backwards into the gloom of the cave. “So don’t come in,” I added in English.

“I will stay,” he said stiffly in his language, raising his free fist to pound it once against his brow ridges. He’d tried to explain what the gesture meant once, but the explanation involved too many nebulous non-noun words that I didn’t understand. I figured it was something like acknowledgement, or maybe sometimes used as a greeting of sorts.

I hurried back into the cave. The rising sun outside began to lighten the interior so that I could see what I was doing pretty easily.

Beside our stock of the valok plants we drank from was the other kind of cactus that Grim had called talka. I grabbed up the blade Grim had given me, using its deathly-sharp edge to slice open one of the talka stalks. I placed the blade back down. The weapon had been a little neglected lately, especially inside the cave. I no longer felt the need to hold it whenever Grim was around. In fact, now it was the opposite. I felt safest when Grim was close, and the need for the weapon became less and less. I still brought it with me when we went outside or went hunting, but that was more for general protection. Not protection against Grim.

I placed my split-open talka stalk on the stone ledge beside me before quickly stripping out of my clothes. I frowned at my stained, sticky underwear, then got to work scrubbing at it with some sand mixed with talka gel. I did the same for my other clothing. Once that was done, I tossed the damp, herbal-smelling clothing into a patch of sand near the mouth of the cave where the sun reached. The sunlight would dry them quickly and would help kill off any odour, too.

I stepped back into the shadowy area at the back of the cave, tossing a surreptitious glance at the cave’s entrance to make sure Grim was still outside where he said he’d stay. So far, so good.

I grabbed a clean rag from the pile of hides, dampened it with talka gel, and quickly cleaned my inner thighs and between my legs, before cleaning the rag itself and adding it to the pile of laundry drying in the sun. I pressed a second clean rag and held it between my legs as I scrubbed the rest of my body. The talka gel sudsed up like soap, smoothing over my skin, cleaning away the dust dirt and oil. Once my body was done, I squeezed a bunch of it into my thick wavy hair, washing my scalp and finger-combing the gel through my strands. As I massaged my scalp, I let out a small breath, relaxing somewhat.

Relaxing, that is, until Grim came crashing into the cave.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Grim

Ihad no intention of spying on Thaleria, nor did I wish to surprise her. My desire to please her, to bend to her wishes, outweighed the carnal urges of my blood that told me she was naked and that I needed to go to her right now.

So when she told me she planned to clean herself inside the cave, I agreed to remain at my station. As much as it pained me.

And my cock.

But that agreement fell apart the moment I scented her blood. I knew that scent as well as I knew every other scent that belonged to my mate. She’d nicked a finger some days ago, and I’d breathed the perfume of that red beading fluid as deep into my body as it would go.

And, as I listened to the rustle of her clothing coming off of her body, below the sharp tang of the talka, I smelled it again that morning.

Her blood.

My grip tightened on my weapon as I turned and charged into the cave.

I stopped in the shadows, eyes racing back and forth until I saw her.

Naked.

She saw me, too, and immediately began to screech.

“What are you doing?” she cried in her language. That was a question I heard often and had learned well. Even so, I almost didn’t process it. The air in here was choked by the scent of her blood.

She is injured. But where?

I dropped my spear, closing the space between us in two large steps. She went all skittish, throwing her arms across her chest and backing into the stone ledge behind her.

“What are you doing?” she asked again. This time she was much quieter. Less shocked. More angry.

Her safety and health mattered more than any anger she felt towards me in that moment.

“I smell your blood. Where is your wound?” I growled. I placed my hands on the edge of the stone ledge on either side of her, leaning forward until my snout was at her neck. I sniffed, trying to locate where the blood was coming from.

“You smell… What?”

With one arm still tight across her chest, she loosed the other, placing a palm against my chest and shoving.

My mate was strong. But of course, I did not budge.

“Blood,” I repeated. She knew the word, having learned it from me the day she’d hurt her finger. But had perhaps she had forgotten it. I moved my snout up to probe at her scalp. No, just the smell of talka there at her head. The damp strands of her hair were cool and smooth against my snout. I bit back a groan, and without realizing it my hands moved to her shoulders.

“Where is your wound?” I asked against her temple, my voice laced with desperate panic. I wrenched back from her, staring down at her body. She poked at my snout, telling me to look away. But this was no time for modesty. She was bleeding. I had to stem the flow and clean the wound. We had no Kell’s milk here, no Lavrika’s blood.

I will not lose her to anything, least of all a wound I cannot even see.

I stared down at her, my fingers stony at her shoulders, my chest heaving. I tried to keep my gaze focused as I searched for her wound. But I could not help the wave of arousal inside me.

My gaze passed over her collarbones and the swells of her breasts with their brown peaks. Down her flat abdomen to her navel. To the dark patch of hair between her legs.

I squeezed the muscles of my slit, not allowing my erection to press outwards.

“Grim, go out. I have… I not wound,” Thaleria said slowly in the language of the Bitter Seas, continuing to poke at my snout. She must have noticed the way my gaze had snagged between her legs because she tried to squeeze them together. I ignored the pain of rejection at that, knowing that there were more important things to worry about right now.

The movement of Thaleria’s legs made something fall. I bent further, realizing it was a bloodied bit of hide. As I moved downwards, I realized the scent of blood was stronger here.

It’s coming from her cunt.

What could have possibly injured her there? I had not tried to mount her, and besides, that was the purpose of the mating fluid in my fangs anyway. To ease the way for a cock so that there was no pain. I would let Thaleria shoot my cock off with her weapon before I let it cause her any harm.

So what then?

“Talk to me, Thaleria. Please. Tell me how you are hurting.” I had to restrain myself from squeezing her shoulders and shaking her. Something was wrong with her. Why wouldn’t she just tell me?

Thaleria spun in my grasp so that her back was to me. She crossed her arms firmly over her chest again.

“It’s fine!” she cried in her language as I wrapped my arms around her frame, dipping my snout to bump against the side of her lovely face. “It’s… female blood!”

Female blood?

Oh. I am a dunce.

How had I not realized that before? Women of the Bitter Seas had the same thing. They carried their young in their wombs, and fertile females bled sometimes when not pregnant. I knew this, but my mate’s foreign beauty, and my desperate need to protect her and keep her safe, had blinded me to sense.

“You have no wound,” I repeated slowly. Just to be sure.

“No!” Thaleria said. I breathed out, sagging until my snout rested on her shoulder, my arms still wrapped around her torso.

No wound. No need to fear.

Fertile blood…

My fear for her safety was instantly replaced by a slam of arousal so powerful it made my fangs clench.  She was naked in my arms, healthy and fertile and alive, with a womb that bled because I had not yet filled it.

I could no longer hold back my erection. My slit parted, and the engorged organ fell forward. Because I was bent over so far at the waist, my cock did not touch Thaleria.

I ached to turn her around, to make her see it, to have her touch it. But I ached even more badly to keep her like this, in my arms. And I was worried that the sight of my cock would send her careening away from me.

Don’t push me away, I said inside my head.

Outside of my head, into the air, I said, “You are my mate.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Valeria

“You are my oroka.”

This whole situation had gotten so insane that I almost missed what Grim had said. A second go, I’d been minding my own business, trying to subtly clean myself up and have a moment to myself. And then Grim had barrelled in here, spear raised, ready to fight off whatever had made me bleed.

Which were just hormones. And I didn’t think his spear was going to do much against those.

Though he’d probably try to find a way to fight them if he thought it would help me.

Face on fire, I remained still in Grim’s hold. Now that my back was to him, I didn’t feel as exposed as I had when my naked front had been bared to him, so I didn’t bother continuing to push him away. We’d both calmed down a little. Me from my shock and embarrassment, and Grim from his apparent worry that something had hurt me. In the quiet moment, I let myself appreciate just how nice his solid arms felt wrapped around me. How natural it felt to have him rest his snout on my shoulder.

Then I remembered he’d spoken.

You are my oroka.

“You’ve used that word before. Oroka. What does it mean?” I asked in English.  Sometimes Grim threw that word, oroka, at the end of a sentence when speaking to me. It had never altered the meaning of the sentence, so I’d come to largely ignore it, assuming it was a nickname, or maybe his word for “human.” Was he saying I was his human?

He raised his head from my shoulder. “Oroka is my… My…” He snapped his jaws, growling, obviously frustrated by the lack of language between us.

Yeah, well, that makes two of us, I complained internally. Here I thought we’d been communicating so well for having spent only a few weeks together. But so much of our conversations consisted of repetitive practical phrases. “Get the valok,” “Let’s go hunt,” “I will stay,” “Eat this,” “Turn around and stop staring at me while I pee.” That sort of thing. But when it came to whatever he was trying to say now, we were at an impasse.

But Grim kept on trying. And it made that damn affectionate warmth pound through me. My elbows were pinned to my sides in Grim’s hold, but I was able to angle my hands upward to rest my palms on his bulging, scaly forearms as he continued fighting to find the right words.

“Oroka is my… For male and female… Together…” Suddenly, he was spinning me in his grip. I gasped as I once again faced him. His hands were heavy on my shoulders. The scrape of the stone ledge pressed into my back as Grim’s dark eyes met mine. He pinned me with a meaningful look and said, “You are my one female.”

“Your… one female?” I repeated dumbly.

“Yes. Mine,” he replied huskily. “Oroka takes this.”

He gestured downwards. I followed his pointed claws with my eyes, shocked to see his thick cock out, hard and huge.

“Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I sputtered. The calm from the moment before had completely evaporated. My heart thrummed in my throat and my ears and my pussy as I gaped at his cock. I’d seen it once before, of course. That first night I’d met him. But seeing it today felt… Different. Maybe because it was daytime instead of night.

Or maybe because so many things between us had shifted.

I stared at the massive organ, unable to help the widening of my eyes. It was almost like I needed to widen them to get the whole massive thing in my sights. It stuck out, fully engorged. It was black and at least as long as my forearm. I was relieved to see that the massive organ tapered towards the tip, the end of his cock looking somewhat close to something a human woman could take inside her. Just why I was worried about whether Grim’s massive cock would fit inside a human woman was something I wasn’t prepared to think about right now.

Even with that slight taper towards the tip, the whole thing was still extremely intimidating. At its base, a dozen black barb-like things stretched outward from the slit, creating a ring around the base of his shaft that once again made me think of the teeth in an open bear trap. And, I noticed, squinting somewhat in the shadows, that the shaft wasn’t completely smooth. There were three distinct bumps on the shaft’s top side, each about the size of a dime and raised outward slightly. Like domed ridges, but under the skin. The one nearest his tip would probably hit the G-spot…

“What the fuck?” I said out loud in English. It was a response to… Everything. Grim’s massive alien cock. And my startling reaction to it. The fact I wasn’t pushing away, ready to shoot it the fuck off. The fact I was so curious about it. What the fuck? barely even began to cover it.

“What is fuck?” Grim asked, his thumbs moving up from my shoulders to stroke along the frantic pulse in my neck.

“Fuck is…” It was a swear word, obviously. But it also meant…

Sex. My blood heated. “Fuck is like… Like what you said before. A male and female… Together…”

Grim’s hold on me tightened and his nostrils flared.

“You want fuck?”

“No! I didn’t say that!” I yelped. We were getting into dangerous territory here. Scratch that. We’d gone past dangerous. We were in deadly territory.

“I do things not you want not,” Grim said slowly, each word tense and measured as I tried to parse them. I won’t do anything that you don’t want to do. Phew. OK then. I didn’t need to worry about anything. We could both just go back to normal and -

“But I want fuck,” Grim rasped. “Fuck with Thaleria. My oroka.”

So oroka certainly meant something sexual, maybe even romantic. He was pretty blatantly saying he wanted to have sex with me.

I held my breath and thought about it. Really thought about it. I let myself imagine Grim’s hands running over my skin, the rough, scaly pad of a finger stroking over my nipples, my clit. I imagined what it would be like to try to take him inside me. I wondered if he would be slow and gentle. Or if something in him would snap, turning him into a beast who rutted me the way his powerful body seemed built to do. Arousal flared in my belly as I considered the possibilities.

Not a single image of us together, not a single possibility, felt wrong to me. I clenched my thighs together, the pulsing heat between my legs pushing the sensations of my cramps to the back of my mind. Not only did none of those images seem wrong…

They were turning me on. A lot.

I’m fucking crazy. I’m insane.

Apparently, I wanted to fuck Grim too. A literal ten-foot-tall lizard alien.

But he’s not just that. He wasn’t just an alien. He was a man. He was my friend. He was someone it turned out I massively cared about.

“Oroka take not this only,” Grim said, gesturing once more to his cock. He grasped my hand. I tensed, thinking he was going to drag my fingers down to stroke his stiff organ. But instead, he pressed my palm to his thundering scarlet chest. “Oroka have this.”

“Your heart?”

“My orok.”

The name or title or whatever it was that he was calling me, oroka, had the same root as the word heart.

And that broke down my last shred of resolve.

“Grim,” I whispered, drawing my palms up to the sides of his snout. I pulled down until the tip of his snout was pressed to my forehead. I was his only female? Well, he was my only… Anything. I’d left my planet, my whole world. I’d turned my back on the people, the career I’d devoted the last ten years of my life to. And through it all, through all the chaos and confusion and loss, Grim had been there. Helping me. Protecting me. Putting blades to his own throat for me.

It made me feel… So much. Too much.

How the hell do you kiss a lizard alien?

The question came to me at the same moment that I realized I wanted to kiss him. It may have been fucked up and wrong and in total contravention of the mission I’d been sent here to complete. But I was going to kiss this big red alien if it was the last thing I did.

I pulled his snout a little further down and pressed my lips firmly to its tip, where his upper jaw met his lower.

To say Grim tensed would be an understatement. Energy bolted through his entire body. I felt it shudder through his jaw, tracking downwards until every muscle was locked and thrumming. His fingers twitched at my shoulders, the claws so perilously close to piercing my flesh. But I knew they wouldn’t. Because they were Grim’s.

“Open your mouth,” I whispered against his scaled flesh. It was odd kissing such a hardened snout, but it wasn’t unpleasant. His scales here, like the ones on his hand, were small, fitted closely together and creating that warm, scratchy leather sensation. A shiver rolled through me as he parted his snout, bumping my nose, dragging those rough-yet-smooth scales across my lips and chin.

I pressed my tongue tentatively into his mouth, feeling the blunt front surface of his fangs. Careful, I told myself. One wrong move and I could slice my tongue right open.

But a second later, it wasn’t his fangs I was feeling. It was his own tongue, forked and huge. Grim made a rough, snuffling sound into my mouth as he slicked his tongue into my mouth.

I could tell he was trying to hold back. And kind of failing. His breath dragged hot and heavy from his chest as his forked tongue plunged into my mouth, slipping over my own tongue, my teeth, before reaching the back of my throat. Even if he were able to hold completely back, his tongue was so large that only half of it filled my mouth.

Gasping for breath, I wrenched back, panting. Electric sensations zinged from my stretched mouth to my puckering nipples, my pussy. Grim stared at me with ravenous eyes, his tongue probing the air, already searching for more of me.

I leaned back against the stone ledge and looked at him, running my hands from his snout down his thick neck to his muscled chest. Apart from the colour and the scales, his chest pretty much looked like a man’s. A fucking giant man’s, that is. I trailed the tips of my fingers over the shimmering scales, taking a moment to admire the sheer powerful beauty of him.

Grim’s grip moved from my shoulders to the edge of the stone ledge at my back, his huge hands settling on either side of me. A hot throb went through me as I glanced to one side, then the other, seeing his claws digging into the stone. A low growl trilled in his throat as I fingered his scales, and his claws dug in so hard he created tiny fractures in the stone.

That was how badly he wanted me. Enough to crack stone.

And bone… That was probably why he’d moved his hands off of me. He didn’t want to hurt me.

Grim’s snout came for me once more, his tongue this time swiping against the edge of my left ear before moving down my neck. The fork of his tongue spread, the two tendrils of dark flesh trailing down each side of my neck like some kind of gentle velvet chokehold. I moaned softly, tilting my chin back, baring more of my throat to him. I heard his claws sink deeper into the stone as I did so. My own hands were clutching and digging in now, too, holding the sides of his head as he ground the two edges of his tongues against my sensitive neck.

A sudden gush of hot fluid at my neck had me pulling back.

“What was that, saliva?” I asked, knowing Grim probably didn’t even know what saliva in English meant.

Grim moved back slightly, and I moaned in quiet complaint at the loss of the exquisite tongue stroking at my neck.

“It is dok oroka,” Grim growled. I stared at his snout as he spoke, watching in slightly disturbed fascination as dark fluid gushed from his fangs. Dok oroka… Dok was similar to his word for water. And obviously linked to this oroka thing…

Wife water?

“If it’s for drinking, I’ll just say thanks but no thanks,” I muttered. The fluid leaked from the sides of his snout leaving dark, blood-like trails down his scales before splattering to the sand below in fat drips. Even though I wasn’t exactly interested in drinking this mystery fang fluid, there was something brutally arousing about watching it course from his mouth in rivulets. It reminded me of the first night I’d seen him, when he’d unleashed his primal power on the bat alien and had the creature’s blood running from his mouth…

Is it weird that thinking about him covered in blood is a massive turn-on?

Then again, he is a literal lizard alien. The blood thing is possibly the least weird part of all this…

“Dok oroka drink not. Dok oroka… It make oroka…” He stopped speaking, pulling his hands from the stone at my back. He cupped them together, then rotated his wrists in an opening motion.

“It makes me open?” I asked, feeling my brow furrow in confusion. What the fuck did that mean?

It seemed my vague understanding had been correct.

“Yes,” Grim replied huskily. “Make oroka open here.”

My core clenched and I cried out as a huge rough knuckle grazed my inner thigh before coming to a hovering stop between my legs. My clit ached and my breath came ragged. I wasn’t sure I’d ever needed anything as badly as I’d wanted to press my hips forward and grind my clit against Grim’s thick finger.

Grim looked like he was feeling the exact same need.

“Let me do it,” he groaned. That was a sentence I didn’t have to work hard to translate. He said it to me all the time, usually when he was trying to stop me from doing something he thought was too dangerous or difficult. But in this instance, the meaning was slightly different. Let me touch you. Tension wracked his body, and his tail jerked on the sand behind him as he waited for my answer.

“But I’m still bleeding,” I whispered. But even with that in mind, my hips were already creeping forward, searching for connection.

“Bleedig?” Grim asked hoarsely.

“Bleeding. Blood.”

We’d been using his word for blood up until now, so he didn’t know the English equivalent.

Grim let out a harsh breath, his knuckle drawing maddeningly closer. It brushed my pubic hair, making me bite my lip.

“Thaleria’s blood give not me fear,” Grim said, his knuckle once again brushing me, this time a little harder. “Only if come other places.”

It took me a second to get what he meant there before it hit me.

“This blood doesn’t bother you. But you’d be scared if I got wounded?”

He hissed, the sound turning into a furious rumble in his throat.

“I fear not so many things.” He paused, pressing his snout to my ear as he murmured, “But I fear this. I fear this very big.”

I smiled at my interpretation of his words. I was sure, in his language, he was perfectly eloquent. But my crappy understanding of everything made for some odd, and often kind of adorable, translations. “Very big” in that instance probably meant something more like “a lot.” I think I like how I heard it better. “I fear this very big” is cute.

Speaking of very big…

Grim’s knuckle hovered, the size of a golf ball, against my clit. With a sharp intake of breath, I wrapped one arm around his neck, using the other to pull his hand slightly upwards and inwards, creating glorious pressure against my clit. Sighing, I buried my face into the side of Grim’s snout, using my hand to guide the motion of his massive hand. I wanted to flip his hand, to let him grind the pad of his huge finger against my clit. I wanted to let one of those fingers slip inside me. But with his claws, having him finger me would be impossible.

But honestly? This was more than good enough for now. I was so sensitized, so aroused, that after only a few rough strokes of the back of his hand between my legs, I was already close to coming. My cramps had almost totally receded, leaving only hot pulses of pleasure deep in my pelvis. My neck tingled where he’d licked it.

“My oroka,” Grim groaned, his hot breath fanning my neck and shoulder. Soon enough, he’d figured out the movements that I liked, and he no longer needed my hand to guide him. Unfortunately, with the size difference and the way he was bending to reach me, his cock wasn’t in reach. As pleasure thickened inside me, I wanted more and more to grasp his cock. To explore it.

Have it inside me.

Not yet. I wasn’t quite ready for that. One step at a time…

Grim’s hand moved faster, and more of the dok oroka spilled from his snout, coating my shoulder. Dribbles of the stuff rolled down my front, trickling over my breast. Everywhere the fluid touched me felt hot, and when a drop of it rolled over my hardened nipple, I cried out in sharp, explosive pleasure.

My orgasm took me, quick and urgent. I ground my clit furiously against Grim’s hand and reached up to stroke my nipple, unable to help myself. Whatever this fluid was, it had some kind of sensitizing ability. It lit up the nerves in my skin, especially on my sensitive nipple. I felt my fingertips heat as I dragged them through the warm liquid, and tremulous shudders went through my pussy as I rubbed the stuff harder into my breast.

Grim had pulled back slightly and was watching me with fevered eyes.

“Is this what you do with the dok oroka?” I choked out as the last pulses of my exquisite orgasm ran through me. Having it on my skin caused some kind of visceral physical arousal. And it may have been the orgasm I’d just had, but it definitely felt like my pussy was somehow… Loosened? All the ligaments and muscles in my pelvis felt eased and open and fucking needy. As another drop of the fluid zinged against my nipple, I moaned, clenching.

“This not… No. Dok oroka on outside… Do thing not.” He dragged the knuckle of his free hand over my slick breast, grunting as he reached my peaked nipple. “But Thaleria is soft… Like me not.”

I panted, almost losing myself in the rough stroke of his knuckle over my nipple. I forced my pleasure-slackened brain to focus, goddamnit.

So the dok oroka wasn’t for “the outside.” Maybe it didn’t have this kind of effect on women of Grim’s race. That made sense with the other thing he’d said: “Like me not.” I didn’t have scales and hardened hide protecting my body. I had sensitive, vulnerable human skin. So whatever this stuff was, its effects were heightened on my skin.

“So then what do you do with it?” I asked. Maybe I was supposed to drink it after all.

Grim tensed, making me writhe as his hand pressed upward against my wet pussy. His other hand moved from my breast, drawing the smooth back of a claw down my abdomen before he gripped my hip. His thumb dug into my hip bone as he leaned forward and bumped the tip of his snout just under my chin, dragging down my neck.

“I bite.”

Dios mío.

“No,” I said quickly. But even as I said the word, I tipped my head back further, pressing the vulnerable front of my throat harder against his snout.

“I do things not you want not,” Grim growled against my pulse, repeating the phrase from earlier. God, he was so good. One flick of his head and he could do it. Take my whole throat in his jaws. He was so huge, so powerful, he could take whatever he wanted from me without a second thought.

But he didn’t.

Instead, it seemed like he was channelling all his vicious strength into doing what I wanted. Or into not doing what I’d told him not to do. His harsh breaths filled the cave as his fangs ground against each other. More fluid gushed, coating the front of my neck, sending yet more heat flooding between my legs.

What would it be like to have this stuff not just on my skin, but coursing through my veins?

I couldn’t even imagine.

If I don’t change things up, I’m going to be begging him to bite me right now. I knew I wasn’t quite ready for that, as much as my body was burning for it.

Instead, I decided to focus on him.

“Grim,” I breathed, licking my lips in anticipation of what I was about to do. “Go up and sit on the ledge.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Grim

Thaleria could have told me to chew on hot coals and I would have done it. I was woozy with her heat, her beauty. With all the blood rushing to my cock.

So I did not argue with her when she told me to sit on the ledge. I did so quickly, watching her closely as she stood on the sand before me.

Bitter waves, she was beautiful. So beautiful, so beloved, that it almost filled me with dread. Because she was too perfect. It made me feel like I would lose her.

Her hair had dried in tumultuous dark waves that spilled over her shoulders. Her eyes were glazed and large. And that achingly soft skin was stained with mating fluid, dark paths of it streaked down her pulsing throat, her breasts.

Feral possessiveness raised its raging head inside me. That was my fluid on her skin, marking her. And it was her wetness and her blood on my hand. I had not yet claimed her with my cock, but this was almost enough – seeing her drenched in my mating fluid, her body pulsing with the pleasure my hand had brought her. At the sight of her, yet more fluid gushed from my fangs, and my cock throbbed.

Because I was now seated upon the ledge, it meant my pelvis was at Thaleria’s shoulder level. She stepped up to my parted thighs, slipping between them silently. My leg muscles clenched as she dragged her tiny fingertips over my knees and along my thighs towards my groin.

She had not allowed me to bite her, so there was no chance she could mate me. My head swam, thick with desire, as I remembered how powerful Thaleria’s reaction had been just to the fluid touching her skin. That did not happen for women of the Bitter Seas. Their scales were too tough to penetrate without biting. But Thaleria, with all her strange suppleness, was so brutally exposed to me.

It was an immensely arousing thought.

And a terrifying one.

No. She is strong. And she will never be vulnerable with me at her side.

Thaleria bit down on her lower lip, her tiny blunt teeth drawing no blood. She’d moved all the way between my spread thighs, her small hands coming to a stop at the sides of my hips. Keeping my gaze locked with hers, she drew a single finger inward, stroking it in a gentle line up the underside of my shaft.

My tail slammed the rock behind me as my muscles tightened. Once again, I dug my claws into the stone of the ledge, fighting to keep control. I would never do anything to harm Thaleria. I’d never do anything she didn’t want. But the urge to sink my teeth into her arm and then rut her was a need unlike any I’d ever felt. It made my guts clench, made my cock harder than I’d thought possible.

Thaleria watched me closely, drawing that single maddening finger back down again.

“Is these…” she pointed tentatively at the many cock spears that ringed around my shaft’s base. She said something in her language that I did not understand. She bit her lip again, shaking her head in that odd way of hers, making her thick dark hair fly back and forth.

“Is these… Blade?” she asked in the language of the Bitter Seas.

“Do you mean… Are they sharp?” I asked, surprised. What a sickening thought, to have something sharp down there! I narrowed my gaze at her, wondering what the men of her race possessed between their legs. “Not like blades. Not sharp,” I confirmed. My hips hitched upward, already anticipating the return of her touch. I did not know what Thaleria planned to do with the information I’d just given her, but I hoped she do something soon. Sitting here untouched like this, with all her bare beauty before me, was utter agony.

Thaleria shook her head again, this time up and down, before moving her hand back in. With a little gasp, she probed the tip of one of my cock spears. Her eyes widened, and she pressed downward, bending the firm but pliable flesh. My jaw clenched, my claws tightened against the stone. Soon, her other hand joined the first, her soft fingers playing with my cock spears, her eyes shining with what looked like fascination. She spent so long stroking and pressing the flesh of the spears that I almost begged her to touch my cock once more. But I held my forked tongue. I should just be grateful she is touching me at all, and she no longer seems inclined to use a weapon on me down there…

But my precious, good Thaleria did not leave me wanting for long. In a movement that made me hiss in surprise, she bent and sucked the head of my cock into her mouth.

Every muscle in my body twanged with the shocking pleasure of it. This was not something I’d ever experienced before. Not something I’d even known to be possible. People of the Bitter Seas could flick their tongues along a cock or a cunt, but we could not suck like this.

It took everything I had not to shunt my hips up into the hot wet suction of her mouth.

Thaleria moaned, sending vibrations running down my cock, and I grunted.

With such a small mouth and jaw, she could not take much of me. But she took more than I would have anticipated, sucking me down until my sensitive tip hit the back of her throat. When that happened, she stopped, yanking her head back and coughing.

“You do not have to,” I said quickly. As much as I wanted to bury my cock in her mouth, her throat, as far as it would go, I did not want her to do too much.

But the determined gleam I’d seen all too many times had entered my pretty mate’s eyes.

“Stay,” she commanded, and I pounded a fist against my brow ridges in response before returning my grip to the stone. She took a moment to stroke her hands up and down my length. Her flat pink tongue darted out to wet her lips, making my fangs ache and leak yet more fluid.

I had never produced this much mating fluid with a female before.

My fangs know she is mine.

And, perhaps, they knew she was so small compared to me. It would likely take more mating fluid than usual to make sure she was ready to take even part of my cock.

Valeria slurped and sucked, her hot wet mouth making a shuddering, growly whine build in my throat. It was so much. It was not enough.

It was everything.

And I wanted more than everything.

All in its time…

I had told her she was my mate. Whether she entirely understood my proclamation or not, this was still closer to mating than we’d ever come. Excitement at that thought had my slit twitching, my cock pounding. Her little mouth kept working me, her blunt-edged teeth creating frissons of friction. Her hands worked me, too, caressing my cock spears and then working the length of my shaft that was not in her mouth. Her fingertips traced the ridges of the grogar pearls nudged under my skin, and she paused, lifting her mouth from me.

“What is these?” she asked, crooking her neck to look around the side of my shaft. She pressed lightly upon one, sending the pearl pushing into my sensitive flesh, making me gasp and snap my jaws.

I tried to explain what they were – pearls inserted under the skin to mark a warrior’s prowess. But there were too many words she did not know, too much nuance in the explanation. I huffed with hot irritation at the language barrier. Thaleria shook her head side to side, then closed her eyes, bringing her mouth down to suckle upon the ridge of the first pearl.

My head tipped back, my claws pressing into the stone so hard it hurt.

There was even the tiniest touch of pain at her pressure on the pearl. A flicker that made the pleasure run deeper. Thaleria’s soft tongue worked each of the three pearls, one after the other, while her hands stroked and squeezed me.

“Thaleria… My seed,” I groaned. I would erupt soon. I did not want her to be surprised.

But either because she did not want to stop, or because she did not understand what I was talking about, she kept going. Her tongue flicked and pressed over the pearls, and when the fingers of one of her hands stroked up to my slick dark tip, I exploded. She flinched slightly, her teeth scraping against my hard shaft, which sent another shock of pleasure, another jettison of seed.

As her head was bent around the side of my cock, the seed sprayed back over her shoulder, glazing her back in inky lines. She stood, panting and staring at me as my still-stiff cock softened ever so slightly in her hands.

I groaned at the pure erotic beauty of her. Of the dark mating fluid on her front side, mirrored by my seed on her back. I’d marked her.

And I would keep her.

She is mine. Forever mine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Valeria

That encounter with Grim woke me back up to reality. I’d gotten too comfortable with Grim out here, existing in some kind of limbo. But things were changing. Between Grim and me, and out there in this alien world.

I have to go back to the ship.

I couldn’t play this weird alien version of house out here with Grim and stay hidden forever. At the very least, I needed to send a status report back to the research vessel soon.

I’d need Grim to take me back there.

Now I just had to get him to agree to do it.

For some reason that made me feel physically sick. I assumed Grim generally knew I was considered an enemy of the other aliens. I assumed that was why he’d taken me out here to begin with – to protect me from them. But what if, once he learns the extent of it, he wants nothing to do with me?

The thought of Grim looking at me with disgust, turning his back on me, knocked the wind right out of me.

So I worked my way up to it, taking my time.

We stayed at the cave for the next six days. Our routine stayed fairly normal during the day – hunting and eating and keeping ourselves alive out there. But the nights were a whole different story.

For one thing, Grim started sleeping with me up on the stone ledge. It was a tight fit with the alien giant curling around me, but it was remarkably comfortable.

But despite how comfortable it was, we didn’t spend all that much time actually sleeping. We continued to explore each other’s bodies, the intense need growing between us every night. Every moment.

But I still had my period, and I wasn’t comfortable with going all the way. Not yet.

And I still had to get back to the ship. And show Grim who I really was. What my people were really capable of.

On the seventh day, my bleeding stopped. And I decided it was time.

Time to re-enter the world and face reality.

“I need to go back,” I said in English that morning. If I had any wonder about Grim understanding my English words, the tension that smashed through his body as he held me told me he understood just fine.

“No,” he growled, his snout bumping against the top of my head. His arms tightened around me, pulling my back harder into his huge scaled chest.

“I have to,” I said, my throat tightening with unexpected agony.

“Safe not,” Grim grumbled. He stroked the back of a claw up my neck, bumping it against my earlobe.

How was I supposed to explain this to him? Our shared language was so limited.

I pushed against his arms until he reluctantly let me move. I sat up, turning slightly to look down at him. He was lying along the ledge, his massive red form running the whole length of the edge, even forcing his tail to bend and curl against the stone wall at one point. The claw that had been hovering at my earlobe a moment before slipped downward to brush my bare nipple, making me gasp and clench.

“Don’t distract me. I have to go. We have to go. You have to take me there.” How was I supposed to tell him that none of us would be safe if I didn’t go back and do something? If I didn’t at least send some kind of report back to the research vessel, who knew what could happen? They wouldn’t wait forever.

“Safe not,” Grim repeated, sitting up himself and facing me, crowding me backwards into the stone wall. He said more I didn’t catch, something about males and blades.

“We’re not going all the way to those cliffs,” I replied, realizing he was probably talking about the other aliens finding me. I softened, brushing my fingers along the seam of his snout before pressing my palm against the side of his jaw. He nuzzled into my touch, his massive head forcing my hand downward with its weight. He was so good. He just wanted to keep me safe.

But I had to do this. And I would never make it across the desert without him.

“We just need to go to my ship,” I said quietly. I switched to his language, trying to communicate what I wanted. “We go… my cave.”

“You have cave?” Grim asked, straightening up so that his head was no longer pressing into my hand. I curled my hand into a fist, my palm feeling cold at the sudden lack of him.

“Yes. Sort of. I need to go there,” I replied in English, my words a tumbling mess. Now that I’d decided it was time to go, I wanted to go and get it over with. Right now. We’ll go to the vessel, I’ll see what’s happening, send up a quick report to stall my superiors…

Then what?

I’d figure that part out afterwards. Grim and I could make our next decisions together.

I clenched my jaw. More and more, I was factoring Grim into everything. Everything I did. Every choice I made.

I want him to be a part of my future.

After losing my parents, I hadn’t expected to feel this way for a long, long time. I hadn’t expected to feel such a connection to someone else. Especially not to a literal alien. But this connection grew stronger every day, working its way between my ribs and my lungs into my -

“We go, Thaleria seen not,” Grim growled. He looked mightily unhappy. I realized he was considering agreeing to the trip. And telling me I had to use my light-scatter tech.

“Yes. No problem,” I said with a sharp nod.

But there was a problem.

The light-scatter tech would only camouflage me – it only worked on the person wearing the uniform. Even if I was riding on Grim’s back, he’d still be visible.

Will he be in danger?

I mean, if anyone saw him, it would be his own people, after all. He only seemed worried about going back for my sake. And we didn’t have a choice. Going back and sorting out what was happening with my ship and the research vessel would be instrumental to keeping everyone safe.

I realized with a sharp blow of clarity that that was all I cared about now. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to my the bidding of Earth authorities any longer. But I had a new goal now. Keep Grim, and the other people of this world, safe.

To do that, we had to go back.

I couldn’t explain that in so many words to Grim. Not in a way he’d understand, anyway. But he must have seen something in my expression. Something that surpassed language. Something shouting along the thread of our deep connection.

He lowered his great head until we were eye to eye before opening his jaws to say, “We go.”

IT WAS WEIRDLY EMOTIONAL to leave behind the cave we’d been staying at. Maybe we’ll come back here soon, I reasoned. We could stay together in the ship considering it was camouflaged, but I had a feeling Grim wouldn’t want to stay so close to the cliffs where the other women and aliens were settled. Besides, even though the ship was about the size of a bus, it would still be pretty tight in there for him. He definitely wouldn’t fit on one of the flat single beds Cole and I had used.

But emotional or not, I still packed up my shit and prepared to leave anyway. We ate in silence, then I climbed onto Grim’s back as I’d done so many times before. It felt so comfortingly familiar at this point. So familiar that it seemed as if my old human life and preferences and ways were becoming a thing of my past. And my future was one of sand and red scales.

I held tight to him as he took off, my pack on my back and the blade he’d given me in one hand. Grim held his spear between his mighty jaws as he charged over the sands. This wasn’t the usual thrill of the ride I felt when we hunted together. This journey thrummed with deadly tension. We both kept our eyes peeled, scanning back and forth over the sand. Of course, as Grim had requested, or ordered, really, I had my light-scatter tech engaged. Grim, fully visible, never let his guard down even for a moment.

As we got closer, I had to start directing him, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to see the ship nestled between the dark boulders the way I could with my glasses. We reached the ship just as the sun was setting.

Once, after Cole had died, I’d considered this my ship.

Now it was just the ship. The things I clung to, the things that were mine, were forged back in that cave.

And were held fast between my arms and legs, sprinting over the sands at my command.

Grim…

I pressed my cheek against his scaly neck as he slowed, entering the outcropping of boulders that housed the ship.

We hadn’t seen anyone else out here yet. I wondered if it was just luck, or if it was because they’d called off their search for me.

Probably luck…

After Cole had come in and killed one of their own, I doubted they’d have stopped searching even though it had been almost a month now. If I were in command, I’d probably scale things back a bit, but still have patrols and increased security at the settlement.

Grim stopped moving, lowering himself closer to the sand so I could slide off. I wasn’t used to riding on his back for so many hours in a row. My thighs ached and trembled as I hit the ground and I steadied myself against Grim’s arm.

“It’s here,” I said. A tremor had entered my voice. I was about to show him who I was. At least, who I had once been. The kind of person who came to another world with tech and guns and violence. But there was no way to hide it. He needs to know all of me.

And as much as it made me feel like shit, I wanted him to see it all. I wanted him to know every dark twist of my past and love me anyway.

Love…

Not getting into that right now.

I strode up to the invisible structure, at least invisible to Grim, and opened the entrance.

I reached my hand for him. He remained on all fours, moving forward tentatively, a hiss of suspicion rising in his throat. For a panicky second, I thought that suspicion was meant for me. That he’d already decided that I was too treacherous, too damned. But he bumped his snout into my hand, and instead of looking at me with disgust, he looked at me with trust. I nodded, swallowing, then led him inside.

It was an even tighter fit for him than I’d anticipated. He squeezed in behind me like an adult trying to get into a kid’s playhouse. He did fit, though, and I used voice command to order the door shut behind him. He snaked his spiked tail out of the way just in time, astonishment clear on his features.

“So this is it. My ship. The ‘cave’ I was using as my home base.”

Grim stared at me for a moment before turning in the tight space. He moved left, towards the front, where the cockpit area and scanners and screens were. He crouched, his wide shoulders crumpled inward in the space as he stared at the screens before him. Beyond those screens, the viewscreen gave us a wide, empty view of the desert.

“So this is me. Was me,” I said. I couldn’t get past his bulk, so instead, I vaulted over the back of one of the chairs, settling into the seat. “This is my people’s ship. I came here as an enemy, even though I didn’t know it.”

Grim’s brow ridges were heavy over his eyes, his gaze narrowed as he looked around the space, then at me.

He’s not understanding me.

There was a chance he already knew who I was and what I’d done. But in case he didn’t…

I have to tell him.

Jaw tense and breath shallow, I leaned forward, snapping my fingers against a keyboard nearby. The largest screen in front of us lit up as I scrolled through files of footage. My heart turned to stone, sinking into my guts as I found the timestamp I needed.

The timestamp of Cole pulling out his gun. Of him shooting that other alien.

This footage was recorded by the long-range cameras on this ship, so though it was a little grainy, it was still a lot clearer than what we’d see up on the orbiting research vessel. Since the drones had been put out of commission by some resourceful soul down here, the research vessel was relying on super grainy black and white still photos and little blips of life signs moving around their black digital maps. It was part of the reason I was here in the first place – to see what the hell was going on up close.

Breathing out heavily, I started the footage. Grim grunted, leaning forward, so far forward that the tip of his snout bumped the screen, causing him to jerk back in shock.

The light-scatter tech didn’t hide us from the augmented camera. It had the same tech that my glasses did, penetrating the camouflage. Shame bloomed with ugly dark flowers inside me. But I didn’t turn away. I kept my gaze firm, staring at what we’d done.

And Grim stared, too. That part was… Fucking hard. I didn’t want him to think poorly of me. And even more than that, I didn’t want to lose him.

Together, we watched it all unfold – Cole and I searching the perimeter. Cole turning off his light-scatter tech and stepping forward with his gun. The line of Grim’s people approaching on the horizon. Cole turning to run. The throw of the spear.

I watched myself watching it all, feeling like I was looking at some stranger. Or that I was dreaming some dream. A total disconnect had opened up between who I’d once been and who I was now. With Grim.

Despite steeling myself, I flinched when Cole’s gun went off and the huge alien hit the ground. I stared at myself on the screen, willing that woman to move – to do something, to help. She rose as if she could hear me, stepping forward to help as I remembered doing. But then the others arrived and the group erupted into quick chaos. Cole was killed, and the other alien was carried away.

I paused the footage.

“That was me,” I said. No shit that was me. What a stupid thing to say. Obviously that was me.

I turned to look at Grim, holding my breath, waiting to see his response.

I’ll be OK no matter what he thinks, I told myself, even though I knew it wasn’t true.

Grim turned his gaze from the screen to me. I couldn’t wait to hear whatever his response was, if he even had one. But I also couldn’t stand the silence. So I blurted out a stumbling but sincere apology.

“I’m so sorry. For everything. I didn’t know this was going to happen. I never would have…” I stopped, biting down on my lip hard, feeling tears burning at the back of my eyes. I forced those burning eyes to remain locked with Grim’s. “You need to know that you can trust me. All I want is to keep you and the others safe. That’s why I had to come back here. To see what was happening, to figure out what to do. I would never hurt you, Grim. Never.”

I panted, chest heaving after I finished speaking. Out of all those frantic English words, Grim had probably understood about five of them. He shifted with a grunt in the tight space, the power of his body completely knocking the other chair from where it was anchored to the floor, sending it crashing into a nearby screen. A huge hand reached for me, and for a horrible second, I wondered if he’d kill me now that he’d seen what I’d seen and what I’d done and hadn’t done.

But the touch was gentle. His scaly knuckles dragged along my cheekbone, down to my jaw.

“My oroka,” he said.

My breath shuddered out of me, pain and relief intermingling. He’d seen it all. And he still wanted me.

I leaned into his touch, rubbing my face against his scales so hard that it hurt. He pulled his knuckles away before I could rub my skin completely raw. Then he turned his attention back to the screen. I looked, too, seeing the tableau of me, half-waiting to reach forward to help as the injured kangaroo alien was about to get scooped up into the arms of another lizardman like Grim.

Grim poked the tip of a long claw against the screen, pointing at the alien who’d been shot.

“Xyan dead not,” he said.

“He’s… He’s not dead?” I repeated, my brows rising. That was pretty shocking. I’d seen how the bullet had torn through him. I’d seen the blood. And it wasn’t like these guys had hospitals nearby with trauma kits and shit.

“Dead not,” Grim confirmed. My relief doubled, a weight that had settled in my chest, a weight I hadn’t even realized was there, lightening instantly. Xyan, Grim had called him, was OK. The woman who so clearly cared about him still had him, just like I still had Grim.

I sighed, feeling a smile unfurl on my face. It was worth coming back to the ship just for this news. Just to know that Xyan wasn’t dead after all. But if I wanted to keep things that way, I’d have to figure out the next steps. I straightened, flicking my fingers over the keyboard again.

Luckily, there were no requests for a status report yet, and no new orders. I tensed, realizing that the research vessel might be seeing our two life signs on their screens right now. I knew from being up there that they couldn’t tell life signs apart. Hopefully, if anyone saw us right now, they’d just assume it was two aliens poking around. If they knew it was me with someone else, they’d want to know why I hadn’t updated them about my new hostage, as they’d ordered.

I’ll have to figure out a way to come back here alone for when I actually want to send a status report or contact them…

But for now? Now, it was time to relax. Just a little bit at least. I was feeling giddy, almost high, on the fact that the alien, Xyan, was OK after what had happened. And that feeling only intensified when I thought about how Grim had watched that video and had still called me his oroka anyway.

I jumped out of my chair, startling Grim.

“Come on. I’ll show you around,” I said, smiling and holding my hand out to him once again.

When he took it, it felt like home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Grim

Even though it was hers, I did not like Thaleria’s cave. I could not rise to my full height in here, and even down on all fours I was cramped, constantly smashing my tail against things. Luckily, she did not seem to mind this. She was too generous to care about my huge, clumsy tail.

Never before would I have considered myself a clumsy warrior.

In this unfamiliar space, I considered myself one now.

That was not the only reason I did not like this cave. I also did not like it because of the male stench in here. A male scent that was not mine. It had grown fainter, no doubt belonging to the dead man who’d come with Thaleria. But still, having it mixing with my mate’s scent made my fangs fill, this time with venom instead of mating fluid. I swallowed it down, cursing inwardly as I turned in the cramped space to follow the elegant gestures of Valeria’s golden-brown hands.

She was speaking quickly, her mannerisms seeming lighter and happier than before. Like she was relieved. She had appeared anxious earlier when watching back that ghostly vision of what had transpired. It was similar to seeing a vision in the Kell’s fang. Only the fang here was a shiny rectangle, and it did not seem to belong to any mighty spirit I could glimpse. And this fang showed things that had already happened – visions of the past. For what purpose, I could not fathom. But Thaleria had obviously felt it important to show me. Whatever her anxieties, whatever her reasons, I hoped I had comforted her somewhat. I did not care where she had come from or whom she’d come with.

I only cared that she was safe.

Tell that to your fangs.

I could not exactly claim I did not care about whom she had come here with as my fangs itched to crush the windpipe of the male I smelled.

It is a good thing he is already dead. He will not distract me from Thaleria.

I bumped my snout to her neck, breathing deeply of her scent, letting it overpower all others.

She tensed then relaxed against my touch, tilting her head. And just like that, my venomous glands receded and others swelled. Mating fluid flushed venom out of my fangs, neutralizing the deadly stuff. My cock thickened in its slit.

“Wait!” Thaleria cried with her high human laugh. She said something else in her language, something about wanting to show me a…

“What is a zk… zg… szower?” I asked. I heard the mispronunciation in my own voice, but Thaleria understood me.

It felt good. For her to understand me.

I will get better. I will make my words perfect. Like her.

“Shower,” she corrected. She jabbed her finger towards the back of her tightly crammed cave. “I’ll show you.”

Thaleria led the way to a part of the cave wall that opened into a dark sort of corner. With a single command, light flooded the corner she’d opened. A shiny set of bowls, one on the floor and one on the wall, caught my eye.

“Toilet and sink,” she said in her language, jerking her chin towards the shiny bowls.

“What are they used for?” I asked peering closer. “Grinding herbs? Serving food?”

She threw her head back and laughed, a shockingly lovely sound. I stared, watching her tawny cheeks bunch up with mirth.

She said something about no food in the toilet, still smiling. I had grown used to her smiles by now. So different from my own. And so beautiful it made me hurt.

She continued speaking, mentioning this shower again. I felt my brow ridges lower in a concentrated frown. Where exactly was this shower she spoke of? And what was it?

Though I’d wondered about it just a moment before, I suddenly no longer cared about the shower or toilet or anything else. Because Thaleria was stripping out of her clothes right in front of me. I growled, my tail tensing and spikes twitching as Thaleria’s garments all fell to a heap on the shiny smooth floor. She grabbed up the bundle of clothing and opened a square hole in the wall, throwing the clothing inside before closing the hole again.

This truly is the strangest cave I’ve ever seen…

It made me long for my own cave, so comfortable and familiar. Home.

But that cave did not have a naked Thaleria in it…

Because this cave did have a naked Thaleria in it, it was therefore vastly superior to any other.

I pressed closer to her in the space, body heating, cock lunging out of my slit. She laughed, pushing playfully at my snout as I pushed for access to her slim throat.

“Wait,” she said, the force of the word making her throat vibrate against my snout. “The shower!”

“Do not try to distract me now,” I grumbled. My head was full of her. And my cock was full of seed and blood.

I would have thought nothing could have distracted me from Thaleria’s nakedness.

But a moment later, a clanking screech rang out, making me jerk away, ready to protect her. And after that…

“Water!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Valeria

“Water!”

Grim said the word in his language with such vehemence that I almost worried I’d made a mistake. I’d been trying to be playful, of course, by turning on the shower while we were both in it. Plus, I just really, really wanted a shower. But maybe he hates water… Maybe it hurts him… Maybe -

OK, nope. He definitely did not hate water. And I remembered he’d told me before that he liked swimming. Grim straightened in what looked like giddy excitement, smashing his head against the showerhead and ceiling. He recoiled downwards, twisting to look at the showerhead straight on. Water sprayed right in his face. Instead of closing his eyes and letting the water run over him like a human would, his eyes were wide open. So was his snout. As if he were trying to get as much water on him and in him as possible.

I grinned, tipping my head back against the stainless steel wall of the bathroom and watching him. I’d never seen Grim so boyishly happy. He started snuffling, tossing his head back and forth, doing that brow-ridge-tightening smile of his.

He exclaimed something about the shower that I couldn’t understand. But I didn’t need to know the words he spoke to know he was probably saying something like, “I love shower! Shower is the best!”

“So you like the water, huh?” I asked, a smile still lingering on my lips. I watched beads of water roll down his magnificent red scales, his colour still so stark and beautiful even in the sterile lighting of the ship. He tossed his head back and forth again, sending spraying drops ricocheting against the walls.

Laughter bubbled up in my throat once more. I couldn’t help it. I was so happy. Happier than I’d been in years.

And it was all because of Grim.

The affection I felt for him was deepening. Growing achy in my chest. Growing almost desperate.

Muttering something about him hogging all the water, I pushed off of the wall at my back, squeezing around Grim’s front. Even like this, I wasn’t getting much of the water – just a few dribs and drabs. His giant snout was positioned right under the showerhead, forcing the water to sluice down his scales. But I didn’t really care at this point. Steam frothed in the air, dampening my skin and hair even without being directly under the water’s spray.

Grim turned his face from the showerhead, bending to look down at me. He wasn’t standing straight up – he was too tall to do that. Instead, he was sort of crouching. He placed his hands on the front wall of the shower, on either side of my shoulders. Breathing out softly, he crowded in against me, trying a couple of times to fit his tail into the shower area and failing.

“Don’t worry. I’ll wash your tail myself,” I murmured, turning my head to the side so that I was speaking against his thick neck. Grim grunted in response, and my stomach fluttered, then clenched, to see his cock hard and ready.

I ran my hands down his neck to his chest, shivering as warm water ran along my arms. I was getting pretty well drenched now that Grim had lowered his head a bit. Closing my eyes, I sighed, revelling in the soft roll of the water and the solid wall of Grim. It almost felt like we were caught in some rare desert rainstorm. I could pretend we weren’t on this ship. I could pretend we were somewhere far from here. Just us alone…

“Thaleria… Oroka,” Grim groaned. I opened my eyes, blinking water out of them in time to see his cock jerk with need. It wasn’t just the water and the steam making me hot now. A bolt of raw desire went down my spine, right to my pussy.

I wrapped my arms around Grim’s thick neck, tossing my head back until I felt the graze of his snout, then his fangs at my throat. I froze, wondering if he’d bite me now for the first time. Electric tension ran through me. My arms trembled around his neck as his deadly fangs hovered. I let out a shuddering breath when those fangs moved away, and I was shocked to find that that sigh was less of relief and more of disappointment.

The disappointment faded pretty fucking quickly when Grim crushed himself downward in the tiny space, pressing his snout to the drenched curls between my legs. Instantly, I stepped further apart, giving him access to my pussy. My clit throbbed with intense need and my breath caught as Grim inhaled sharply and tensed.

Then he tasted me.

I cried out, my fingers scrabbling at the top of his head as he ran his long forked tongue up and down my slit. I’d thought the feeling of that tongue at my neck and ears and mouth couldn’t be beat. But having his forked tongue between my legs blew everything else completely out of the water.

Grim had tried to do this before. In previous dalliances over the past week, he’d flicked his tongue along my inner thighs, searching for access I hadn’t given. He may have been an alien with a totally different set of taste buds, but I wasn’t personally ready to get eaten out while bleeding.

But now? I don’t think anything would have stopped me from letting him in. This had gone too far. We’d gotten too close. I was falling too fucking hard.

I love him.

The realization hit me just as the twin tips of his tongue found my clit, swirling over the sensitive spot until I was grinding my hips forward.

But it wasn’t the skilled stroking of my clit that made me realize I truly loved Grim. It was everything. Everything about him. He’d helped me, protected me. He’d seen everything and still wanted me. He still called me his oroka.

“My oroka,” I said into the steam, testing the word out on my tongue. Whatever the hell it meant, if I was Grim’s oroka, then he was mine, too.

When I said the word, his tongue froze against my clit, making me gasp in hot complaint.

“Don’t stop. Please,” I begged, pushing my pubic bone against the tip of his snout.

“Oroko,” Grim said, the word a tickling breath against my agonized skin.

Right. I knew that. Ko for male, ka, for female.

“My oroko,” I corrected. Grim made a raw, guttural sound, his fingers skimming up my thighs to grip my hips as he drove his tongue between my legs once more. He feasted on me in with a feral fury that was intoxicating beyond belief. If I didn’t know him so well, it would almost be frightening. That raw and frantic hunger. The devouring.

I stared down at Grim as his tongue tips swirled over my clit before moving back to probe my entrance. I spread my legs wider. Yes. Fuck yes.

His tongue plunged inside.

It was almost like a cock in its own right. Thick and muscular. Though much more agile than a cock. The forked tips twisted and flickered inside me, creating sensations I hadn’t even known were possible. To get his tongue inside me, Grim was pressed right up against me. The tip of his snout created gloriously firm pressure against my clit as his tongue stroked in and out of me.

“You’re going to make me come, oroko,” I choked out. Now that Grim was lower to the ground, I was getting the hot stream of the shower in full force. Its beading rivulets rolled down my face, my neck, over the peaked points of my nipples. The water made me think of dok oroka, and I didn’t have time to wonder what dok oroka would be like on my pussy before I felt it.

I couldn’t exactly see what was going on down there, but I could feel that the dok oroka was overflowing Grim’s mouth and mixing with my wetness. The dark fire of the fluid spread over my folds before being pressed inside me by Grim’s thrusting tongue.

My core was on fire in the best possible way, hot pleasure pounding through every nerve. And when a slick of the dok oroka found its way to my clit, I screamed, an orgasm exploding through me like a white-hot shooting star.

But it wasn’t enough. Grim’s tongue wasn’t enough. I needed to be filled even more. Needed to be stretched to the limit.

Is this what the dok oroka does? Makes you so horny you’re desperate to fuck even if the cock is too big to even make sense?

A flutter of Grim’s tongues inside me had me clenching again, whimpering. My whole pussy felt languid and soft and so fucking empty, even with Grim’s tongue still pressing inside. I knew that some of this sensation was due to the dok oroka, but I couldn’t blame everything on the sensitizing fluid from Grim’s fangs. The dok oroka was only heightening the physical pleasure I already felt. It wasn’t making me want anything I didn’t already want. It wasn’t swaying my judgment. And it certainly hadn’t created the trust and love I felt for Grim. He’d done that all on his own.

And in return, I wanted Grim all on my own.

If the liquid fire from his fangs made the experience more pleasurable, then all the better.

“Grim, stop, stop,” I panted, pushing against the slick scales of his head. He growled, the vibrations of the sound running up his tongue into my body, making me buck against him.

But he withdrew, despite the growl of protest. Because I’d asked him to. A hot thrilling throb went through me at the thought of his reaction to what I was about to say next. His reaction when I told him I was going to let his cock inside me.

He raised himself up on his knees. We were almost face-to-face like that. I looked down slightly at him and took in the sight of him – the dark, intelligent wells of his eyes with their crimson centres. His muscle-wracked body. The cock that sent a tremor down my spine into my pelvis. That tremor was met with a tight squeezing of my cunt – a combination of my own need coupled with the internal burn of the dok oroka.

Am I really doing this?

Am I really about to fuck an alien?

In my old world, my old life, such a thing would have been unthinkable. But I wasn’t in my old world anymore. Those rules didn’t apply. All that mattered now was this world. This man.

“Grim,” I said, taking a shaky breath. I drew a wet finger to my aching entrance, pressing it inside. Grim’s eyes flashed down to follow my finger’s movements, his expression dark and hungry. That expression only intensified, his nostrils flaring, when I said, “I want you here.”

Before I could even react, Grim was up. He stopped himself from smashing into the showerhead, but barely. He curled over top of me, his huge hands at the sides of my face. His chest heaved raggedly, his cock probed against my abdomen. Moving his head downwards, his fangs dragged down my throat before taking my shoulder into his great jaws. Dok oroka spilled and spilled, mixing with the streaming shower water, turning my skin into an exquisitely raw set of nerves. The intensity of the moment was driving me insane. It took everything I had not to grip Grim’s snout and force his fangs deep into my flesh. I’d never been into pain. I didn’t even really want to feel pain right now. But I wanted his bite. I wanted more of this, of him.

Grim’s hands fell to my waist, his jaw trembling with the force it took not to crunch down on me. If he bites me too hard, he could break my shoulder, my collarbone… A lick of fear mixed with the arousal, making every sensation bloom ten times bigger in my belly, my pussy. Each tremor of his jaws sent his fangs scraping against me, and more dok oroka gushed down my body.

This is it. This was the moment where I either threw caution to the wind, threw it to Grim. Or the moment I turned around and ended everything.

I made my decision with a tilt of my head, baring more of my neck and shoulder to him.

“Bite.”

Grim’s hands clutched at me, his fingers jerking with need. At the same moment, I felt his cock jump against my skin below. Fuck, that sharp movement of his cock against my body was so arousing. Knowing he needed me that much.

I gasped as a nip, then slice, of heat burned in my shoulder. My eyes flew wide open, not even blinking against the torrent of shower water running through my hair and over my face. I couldn’t close my eyes. I couldn’t move a fucking muscle. Everything was locked up in trembling tightness as the dok oroka sluiced through my veins.

If there was pain, it was so brief and burning that I didn’t feel it. Grim must have really held back and only sunk his fangs in the slightest bit. I could still feel them there, now. Penetrating me symmetrically on the front of my shoulder and the back.

If I’d thought the dok oroka on my pussy was intense, I was not prepared for it being in my bloodstream. It made arousal into a tsunami so huge I could barely breathe. I gasped, shaking and sputtering, trying to speak, to move, to do something to ease the burn. Even the pricks of water against my skin were too much.

And every second Grim wasn’t inside me was utter agony.

“Hurry,” I finally managed to grind out, my voice high and strangled-sounding. My pulse throbbed in my head, my chest, between my legs. Grim groaned, gently prying his jaws from my flesh. I moaned in complaint at the loss of his fangs. My hand shot up to my shoulder, trying to massage away the cold feeling of emptiness there now that his teeth had left it.

Grim snapped his jaws and snarled, “Hurt?”

I shook my head dumbly.

“Hurt without you,” I moaned, spreading my legs, my feet sliding away from each other on the slippery metal floor.

Grim let out a shuddering breath. He flicked the tips of his tongue over the teeth marks. That alone almost had me going over the edge again. I grasped the sides of his snout, forcing his head up so that we were eye to eye.

“Need you now,” I commanded. I begged.

But Grim didn’t need any begging from me. Clearly, he was just as desperate for this as I was.

He bent his legs more, nudging his cock against my pubic bone. I cried out, arching my hips forward to meet him, trying to connect his fat tip with my clenching entrance.

But this position was too difficult with the height difference.

“Here,” I said, quickly spinning and planting my hands on the shower wall. I bent my knees slightly, letting my hands slide down until I was bent over at a right angle, my ass pushing back towards him.

Grim made a sound that was dark and raw and unholy. A grinding animal growl that had me arching my back, pressing my hips towards him until only my fingertips were making contact with the shower wall.

I looked back over my shoulder, watching Grim so intently that I didn’t even take note of the bleeding red wounds on my skin. Grim fell to his scaly knees in a desperate movement. He gripped my hips with his huge hands, his fingers digging into my hips and pubic area, his thumbs pressing into my ass. With a tightening of his hands, he spread me open wider.

“Yes,” I moaned, wiggling my hips back and forth. I couldn’t believe how fucking wanton I was acting. But I couldn’t stop myself. If I didn’t get Grim inside me right now it felt like I would collapse into the floor and die.

I bent my knees a little more, helping line myself up as Grim slid forward on his own knees. When his wide tip nudged my entrance, I almost screamed with the anticipation.

“Stay still,” he choked out, his fingers like metal bars on my skin.

“I can’t,” I whimpered, bowing my back further than I’d even known my spine capable of. I moved my hips again, swaying side to side against Grim’s tip, trying to get him inside me.

“Still,” he said again, his voice like shattered steel. His hands tightened on me further, a physical element to back up his command. He held my trembling hips in place as he finally, finally nudged inside.

My head tipped back, my mouth falling open in a soundless moan. I was too overwhelmed to make any noise.

It was tight. Super fucking tight. But I could tell the dok oroka had done something to me down there. Grim was so huge that it would have taken a massive amount of work to make him fit before. I would have had to train myself. But even now, for the very first time, with only his tongue to warm me up and the hot pulse of the dok oroka rushing through my veins, I felt myself loosening, melting, opening for him. That’s right. That’s what he’d said before when trying to explain the dok oroka to me. Makes oroka open…

Well, it was working. I didn’t think it would be physically possible to get his entire forearm-length cock inside me. But he was getting further than I ever would have thought he could. His firm girth stretched and stretched me, his controlled movements aiding the dok oroka to open me as far as I would go.

And I wanted that. I wanted to be split open, torn apart. Fucked so deeply that it felt like there was nothing else in my body but him and my heart.

And, at this point, it seemed that even my heart was his now.

Grim’s hands held me mercilessly still as I thrummed, my body pulled taut and wanting. Well, everything was taut but my pussy. My core felt like it had turned to languid honey – sweet and golden and soft for Grim’s hardness. The sudden image of Grim’s cock coated in thick honey, slick and shining, had me moaning the word “More!”

I couldn’t remember if he even knew what “more” meant. But there was no doubting what I wanted, even without him knowing the word. I felt Grim’s hips twitch, a slight break in his careful control. His thick fingers flexed away from my skin to keep his claws from piercing me. He swivelled his wonderfully rough palms against my ass, turning his hands so that his fingers pointed down the backs of my thighs. The size of his hands was almost impossible to comprehend. His grip warmed me from the top of my ass to mid-thigh. His thumbs circled the sides of my hips as he drew back slightly.

I cried out in complaint but he didn’t leave me wanting for long. He pressed back in.

Even though he was keeping tight control of his strength, the force of that little thrust sent me forward. My palms slammed to the slick shower wall, my knees buckling slightly. One of Grim’s hands shot forward to steady me, his forearm creating a hammock of support under my torso as his huge hand gripped my left breast. He shunted his hips forward ever so slightly more, and my breath whooshed out of my body as I felt that first hard, domed ridge of his cock press inside.

If we were oriented differently, that hard, rounded bit of him would have ground deliriously against my G-spot. But this, I was discovering, was almost just as good. It nudged against my perineum from the inside, arousing the nerves in my ass.

I didn’t have to ask him for more this time. Grim was starting to move, tentatively but hungrily. I could practically feel the tight leash of his control shuddering against his need. The sounds of his powerful groans and panting echoed, dulled slightly by the shower raining down on us.

As his hips began to hitch slightly faster, pushing a little deeper each time, I spread my feet even wider apart, aching for more. He got himself deep enough that I felt the second domed ridge press just inside my entrance before the limits of the dok oroka and my body became apparent. There was no more I could take. Everything was stretched and filled to absolute capacity. But even still, I wanted more. Needily, I reached back with one hand, clawing at the part of his shaft not inside.

“Thaleria,” Grim groaned, thrusting tightly into my pussy and against my fingertips. His words became garbled nonsense in my ears as he spoke rapidly. I didn’t understand most of it. I caught something about waiting and being hungry. But then I was pretty sure he wasn’t speaking at all, his words dissolving into vibrating snarls. He massaged my breast and his other hand moved around the front of my hip, the huge pad of a finger pressing roughly against my clit.

“Yes!”

He was moving a little faster now and making a total mess of me. If he hadn’t had his huge, strong arm snaked under my torso, I would have collapsed. But all at once, he steadied me, held me, and pleasured me. His domed ridges rolled like leather-wrapped beads against my stretched and sensitive core, and the tips of those firm tendrils of flesh that ringed the base of his cock brushed against my outer folds and my ass in the most tantalizing way.

Grim curled further forward, the shower water sealing his abdomen to my arching back. Tingles sparked in my scalp as dok oroka leaked from Grim’s mouth and into my hair. I craned my neck back until the top of my head bumped the underside of Grim’s snout. Letting go of his slippery cock, I raised my hand to drag his head down. His snout moved down to my shoulder, more dok oroka sluicing into the wounds his fangs had left.

That extra pulse of dok oroka in my bloodstream sent me tumbling over the aching edge. I was no longer all melty and eased open. Now I was clenching for all I was worth, the pleasure winding through my body, making me feel like a wet rag being rung out. Grim snapped his jaws next to my ear. I could feel the throb of his cock inside me as I involuntarily squeezed him.

Grim’s thrusts suddenly slowed. On the third slow thrust, he froze. A husky growl emanated from his throat, which morphed into a deep, bone-rattling hiss. Tension rolled through his body as he remained frozen for a long moment. Then, with one final stroke forward of his thick cock, he exploded inside me. I clenched again and again, coming apart with the intensity of the moment. His tongue flickered furiously at my hair, my ear, the side of my throat, as his hips trembled against mine, pleasure grinding through his body and into me.

I wished he didn’t have to stay so still during his climax. I wanted him to be able to thrust into me as powerfully as he desired. I wanted him to lose some of that iron alien control. Maybe we’ll be able to work up to that, I thought, already looking forward to the next time this could happen.

Grim’s grip shifted slightly, and I gave a yelp of surprise as we moved together. He sat back heavily, drawing me backwards against him. I sighed in post-orgasm contentment as I settled back against him, still seated upon his half-stiff cock. Grim leaned against the shower wall, his massive red frame taking up all the spare space. His tail twitched, stretching out of the bathroom. Idly, he lapped at my shoulder with his tongue, swirling the tongue tips against the fresh wounds. I made a small sound of pleasure at the feeling, a bolt zinging through me as more dok oroka spilled onto the pricked flesh.

“Hurt?” Grim asked huskily again, pressing the tip of a tongue into one of the shallow wounds.

“No,” I said, tilting my head to the other side to give him better access. He grunted, his tongue stroking faster. Almost without realizing it, my hand fell between my legs, strumming at my clit. It was almost too much – too sensitive. But I couldn’t resist touching myself. The arousal was still working its way through me, making me needy. Before I knew it, I was rocking in his lap, another orgasm building. Grim’s tongue kept working my sensitive skin, his rough hands clutching at my waist as I came again.

“I’m never going to be able to get off your fucking cock,” I murmured, my head rolling limply back against Grim’s chest. Even now, after that third orgasm, I felt like I could have another. And another.

Grim drew a careful claw along my forehead, slicking back my drenched hair.

“I go hunt,” he said, bumping his snout affectionately against my jaw.

“Right,” I said, forcing myself to focus on something other than the feeling of his thick cock inside me, Even not completely hard, it filled me, teasing the nerves. “Yes, go. Go,” I said, a little more strongly now. Grim hadn’t eaten in a long time. Neither had I, but I had quick access to rations and protein bars on the ship.

With a single easy movement, he lifted me off of his cock. A shock ran through me at the emptiness left behind. I clenched my jaw, knowing that as soon as Grim left me in the shower to go hunt, I’d be fingering myself, desperate to get some of that fullness back.

And when he did leave, after one last long drag of his tongue over my shoulder, that’s exactly what I did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Grim

Idid not have to go far to hunt. I would not have gone far anyway. I would have rather starved than let any real distance come between Thaleria and me. No, my spear caught a desert creature that came too close, and I feasted. Though that feast was nothing to what Thaleria had offered me.

We are mated.

The thought buzzed in my brain, crackling, taking up all the space in my skull. I felt as if… As if there was nothing left in my mind but that fact. Nothing left but Thaleria and her love and the impossible tight heat of her body.

She called me oroko…

Pride and dizzy love surged at that memory as I stood guard outside of Thaleria’s hidden place. I would return to her soon. But for now, I wanted to survey the area. Now that I was not completely distracted by the primal sweetness of her cunt, I was itching to make sure these sands were safe.

I hope she has accomplished whatever it was she needed…

I still was not entirely sure what Thaleria needed to do here. But I trusted that it was something important. She was clever and of a steady mind, my strong little mate.

Though she lost some of that steady mind with your cock inside her.

I tightened my grip on my spear, growling against my shaft thickening in my slit. Seeing my stark and serious Thaleria let go so completely, become so hungry on my shaft, was an erotic vision I could have only dreamed of until now. If she is willing, if she is not sore, I will take her again. Preferably in the shower. The water had made things even more perfect. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been aching for the water. It had been hotter than I would have preferred, but that was a small complaint considering the pleasure of those moments. The way Thaleria’s golden-brown skin had glistened and heated. The way her hair had gotten even darker, her eyes blinking and glazed…

Focus.

I forced myself back to attention. The memories of mating Thaleria were so strong that they overtook my vision until I was no longer seeing the night-drenched sands before me, but rather her face, her hips, the arch of her back.

And that cost me dearly.

Because I was not prepared for the press of a spear against my ribs.

I tensed, hissing in warning as I cranked my head to the side to see just who was foolish enough to challenge me.

Dread lurched inside me.

It was of the only warriors whose strength matched, and probably exceeded, my own.

And he was no fool.

“Tok,” I growled, my tail thrashing on the sand behind me. My arm tensed, ready to use my own spear if needed. I liked Tok and respected him as a fellow Bitter Sea warrior and the right scale to the Hakah. But if he came to threaten the safety of my mate then he would die.

“Where have you been?” Tok snapped, stepping closer, the tip of his spear pressing between my scales. “Clearly, no creature of the desert has killed you, so there is no excuse for your prolonged absence from our ranks.” His yellow eye discs tightened. “Tell me what you’ve been doing that has caused you to abandon your duty thus.”

I remained still and silent as a stone. I would tell him nothing of Thaleria. I knew they all considered her an enemy. I knew the others wanted to capture her, maybe even harm her. That will not happen. I will die before it does.

“Grim,” Tok growled in warning. He would not accept my silence, it seemed.

“I have been fulfilling the Hakah’s orders and searching the sands,” I replied. It was not exactly untrue. I had been searching the sands… Until I found her.

The rest of my time away had been spent much more pleasantly than fulfilling the duties of my king.

Tok leaned forward, glaring down his snout at my face. I stared back, trying not to give anything away. I fought the urge to glance backwards at Thaleria’s invisible cave. I wanted to make sure she was still safe and hidden. But I did not want the direction of my glance to tell Tok anything.

But I did not need to give anything away with my eyes.

The scents did it all.

Tok’s nostrils flared, his sight discs blowing so wide they almost took up his whole dark gaze. His muscles bunched beneath his burnished gold scales. Sharp shadows cascaded down the fury of his face as he hissed, “You smell like mating fluid. And new woman.”

Cursed waves. There were ways to hide Thaleria from sight, as she was completely hidden now. But there was no way to disguise the scents in the air.

“Get much closer and you will find the scent of mating fluid replaced by that of venom,” I said, my voice low and laced with danger.

Tok snapped his jaws. “You dare threaten me? The Hakah’s right scale? You have no right, Grim, after abandoning your post and taking a new woman for yourself. It goes against every rule of the settlement, every treaty of our alliance to the desert men.” His brow ridges contracted sharply, and he reared back slightly. “But no new woman is missing from the settlement. So that means…”

I tried to plan my next move as realization dawned in Tok.

“She is the one we are all searching for. It is not another male warrior, but a female.” He leaned close once again, sniffing deeply then growling, “And you have mated her.”

“It was declared by the Kell,” I roared, driving my own spear up towards Tok’s throat. He dodged my weapon and then stepped out of my reach.

“Whether she is your mate or not, we must bring her before the Hakah. Her people threaten us all. She must be questioned.”

“No,” I snapped, slashing my spear through the air again, venom gushing from my fangs. After the mating fluid, the venom tasted acrid on my tongue. “I will never let you take her.”

“I do not need your permission, Grim,” Tok snarled. “Where is she? I smell her as strongly as if she were right here…”

He turned from me, breathing in deeply, lowering himself to all fours. When his snout turned towards the unseen cave that kept Thaleria safe and hidden, I panicked.

“Only I know where she is. You will never find her without me,” I cried.

Tok’s head swung towards me.

And then I did something I’d never done in all my warrior’s life.

I fled.

I was not running in fear of Tok, though he was probably capable of killing me. No, I ran to protect Thaleria. To lead Tok away from her and her scent.

Tok was larger than me, but his limbs were thicker and more packed with muscle. I was a large warrior in my own right, but my slightly longer, leaner limbs, combined with my head start, allowed me to get a good distance away from Thaleria and her cave before Tok caught me.

This was good for two reasons.

One, because Tok was now far from my beloved.

And two?

She did not see the shame of my defeat when Tok’s spear came down.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Valeria

After pulling two more orgasms out of my body, both of them feeling pale and pathetic compared to the ones Grim had brought me, I finally cleaned myself. I stayed on the shower floor the entire time, my legs too loose to try to stand. Luckily I was tall enough to reach the soap dispenser from my spot. I strained upward, my shoulder flaring with heat, pumping some of the blue gel into my hand. I wrinkled my nose at the chemical fragrance of the gel that acted as both body wash and shampoo. I’d gotten so used to the natural talka gel that I found I missed it now.

Oh well. At least I have running water.

The talka got me amazingly clean out in the desert, but sitting in a hot shower was like a fucking revelation. Especially the shower sex. Holy shit. How is it that the first time I have shower sex, it’s not even with a human man?

I felt a dreamy smile pull at my mouth as I remembered everything Grim and I had done.

As soon as I can stand, I might have to drag him back in here…

The ability to stand took longer than I would have guessed to return. Whether it was the exhaustion from the day’s travels or the heat from the shower or the orgasms or the dok oroka… Or maybe a combination of all of them… Whatever it was, I remained slumped under the streaming water for a long time. Luckily the solar-charged batteries lining this ship were charged quickly in the brutal sun on this planet, which meant the water stayed hot. Though maybe it would be better if it were cold…

With that in mind, I cranked the handle, letting the water turn icy. I gasped as the cold fluid rained down on my skin. I shivered, feeling feverish, finally turning the water off and gingerly getting to my feet. My muscles trembled and there was a distinct ache between my legs. But I didn’t seem too much worse for wear. Grim had maintained his control and he hadn’t hurt me.

I towelled off quickly, the growling of my stomach urging me to hurry up.

I hope Grim found something good while hunting…

I’d told him he could have all the meat he caught. After only raw meat and cactus gel for weeks on end, I couldn’t wait to dig into a protein bar, no matter how bland and chalky the bars actually were.

Before leaving the bathroom, I smeared steam from the plain, utilitarian mirror above the stainless steel sink. I took in my reflection appraisingly, my eyes lingering on the oblong ring of teeth marks that ran down from my shoulder, across my collarbone, to the top of my right breast. Turning, I twisted to inspect my back, seeing the same thing there. Shockingly, they weren’t bleeding anymore – they didn’t even seem to be open wounds at all. I faced the mirror again, leaning forward and frowning as I poked at one of the marks. I knew he hadn’t bitten down that hard, but these seemed way too shallow… Too… Healed.

Dios mío. How amazing would it be for the dok oroka to not only have those arousing effects during intercourse but also have some kind of innate healing properties? That was the only explanation. They weren’t perfectly healed or anything, but it looked as if they’d been healing over for a day or two already, not half an hour or however long I’d been spacing out on the shower floor.

No more spacing out.

Time to eat then formulate my next moves. Maybe I can send some kind of report saying I’ve been injured, or that I’m dying… Then maybe they’ll just give up on me and this whole thing and move on.

But no, that wouldn’t work either. I didn’t know a way to disguise my life sign from their radars. They’d still see my little dot glowing as I claimed to be dying. And besides, that was no guarantee that they would just abandon this mission. They might just send someone else down here to make an even bigger mess of things.

Wrapping a plain grey towel around myself, I stepped out of the bathroom area. The bathroom was at the back of the ship and the beds and storage were in the centre, taking up the most space, hemmed in at the front by the cockpit and view screen area. I rummaged in the storage area under my old bed, letting my towel drop and pulling on a fresh uniform. Man, that felt good. Clean clothes after the first shower in weeks? It was almost as good as the insane fuck session we’d just had in the shower.

OK, who was I kidding? It was nowhere near that good.

Speaking of shower buddies…

I grabbed a protein bar from a nearby storage container, ripped it open and started munching as I padded through the ship, wondering where my big red oroko had ended up. I went into the cockpit, taking a look at all the screens and all the various security footage of the surrounding areas.

I didn’t see him anywhere.

I swallowed, the protein bar suddenly dry and sticky in my throat, making me cough.

That… Didn’t seem right. Even though I knew he was going hunting, I didn’t think he would go that far. After literal weeks of not letting me out of his sight, it seemed impossible he’d disappear now. The idea that he could be the type to fuck and run didn’t even enter my mind. Because I knew Grim, and that wasn’t him. Everything he’d shown me over the last weeks was how much he cared for me and wanted to keep me safe. He wouldn’t abandon me if he could help it.

“Fuck,” I whispered, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand and slamming myself down into a chair. I dropped the last bit of the protein bar onto the floor and started barking commands at the ship, ordering different security footage at different timestamps. The languorous post-orgasm relaxation had vanished. Tension thrummed through my body. My heart pounded as my eyes flickered across the screens, searching for him.

“Stop!”

There he was. Thirty-eight minutes ago he had speared some desert animal outside the ship and had eaten it within minutes. Then he took up what looked like a guard position, standing with his spear and looking out over the desert.

So what the fuck happened between now and then? I thought, holding my breath.

It turned out it wasn’t what had happened, but who.

Another lizard alien stalked into the frame. I narrowed my eyes, jaw set, watching with hatred pooling in my guts as he pressed his spear into Grim’s side. Even though this had already happened, I found myself itching to jump out there and help Grim. But it was too late. Fuck! While I’d been lazing around in the shower, Grim had needed help. And I hadn’t been there.

I ground my teeth as I watched the events unfold. The two of them spoke rapidly – much more quickly than Grim normally spoke to me – so I didn’t catch anything they said. But It was pretty clear the huge lizard with golden and brown scales was the aggressor.

Shit. I had been a fucking idiot. I hadn’t weighed the risks to Grim heavily enough by coming back here. I’d hoped we would completely avoid detection. But we hadn’t. And clearly, his people weren’t happy about his absence.

I swore as Grim on the screen took off at full speed, and I winced at the fact that he left his spear behind. The other guy followed quickly, his own spear clenched in his jaws.

I frantically switched between cameras, accessing the longer-range footage, and I cried out as if in physical pain when I watched the golden lizard alien strike Grim with his spear. A frantic battle of limbs and claws and tails ensued, but ultimately, this new alien overpowered Grim. Hateful tears burned in my eyes as I stared, unblinking, tracking the golden alien’s movements. He was dragging Grim…

Back to the settlement.

Well, I was not about to let Grim take the fall for anything, least of all protecting me. Especially given the violence in how he’d been captured – who knew what the other aliens would do to him once he got back to the settlement. He’d be outnumbered…

He could die.

Nope. Not happening.

I leaped out of the chair, clawing open my pack and stuffing it full of protein bars, water, and sunscreen. After that?

Then came the guns.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Grim

Weak rivers of venom and strong rivers of blood coursed down my neck. I barely felt it, barely registered anything besides the plod of Tok’s paces over the sand.

I did not care where he was taking me. As long as it was further away from Thaleria.

She is safe, I told myself dizzily. Even without me, she was strong. She had her invisible fortress and her tiny, deadly weapons. She would survive without me.

I was not so sure about my own fate now.

But that was no great matter. I would sacrifice myself for her ten thousand times, only to be ready to do it again ten thousand times more if needed.

I grunted weakly as I was deposited on the ground. Tok was speaking to me, and there were other voices, too. Some of them sounded sharp and angry. I tuned them all out, burrowing into my past, burrowing into hot rain and steam and Thaleria’s scent.

But all too soon, I was torn from those memories.

Fire danced behind my eyelids, and I cracked them open.

No, not fire. Sunlight.

I took a sharp breath, my ribs aching. Why was I in pain?

And why could I not move my arms?

I grunted, tensing my arms, yanking them against some kind of resistance. I blinked slowly, turning my head to look at one arm, then the other.

Something I’d never seen before kept my wrists fastened. Loop after loop of what looked like rope made of glinting black stone were tied to my wrists and driven into the cliff wall at my back with black blades.

And it was not just my wrists.

My ankles, too, had these same black rocky ropes. Even my tail was held fast. I grunted in my seated position, trying to rise and stand, trying to pull away from these terrible hard ropes.

But it did no good.

“The desert men call them chains,” said a familiar voice.

My head jerked up to find Tok striding towards me on two legs. A warning growl built in my throat at the sight of him, memories of last night’s battle returning to me. I had lost in the fight with Tok, but I had led him away from Thaleria.

All things considered, I was surprised to be alive. Tok had delivered at least one near-fatal blow upon me. Instinctively, I reached up to my neck where his spear had injured me, but I could not reach it with these chains. I hissed in frustration, gnashing my fangs.

“You have no wound. I dragged you back here and immediately called for the healers,” Tok continued. He lowered himself to a seated position in front of me so that we were eye-to-eye.

“Why?” I growled.

Tok cocked his golden head, his deep brown brow ridges clenching downward.

“I know you are a wise warrior, Grim. I will consider these questions a result of the blows to the head you took.”

I stared at him flatly until he continued speaking.

“I had no interest in killing you, Grim. I respect you, as does our Hakah. But you must know that we could not take your treason lightly. Not when it puts this entire world at risk.”

I continued staring at him, saying nothing. Protecting my mate at the expense of my duty could never be treason. She was my only reason for existing. Neglecting her, letting her come into harm’s way, would be the only treason possible for me now.

“Tell us where she is,” Tok said, his eyes fast upon me.

“Never,” I hissed back, tensing against the chains until they rattled and groaned.

Tok’s brilliant yellow sight discs flicked to the chains binding my arms, then back to my face. “You woke up at one point in the night after you’d been healed. You broke free of your chains, shouting and delirious. We have bound you again with dozens more chains so that it does not happen again. It is for everyone’s protection, Grim. You have proven yourself untrustworthy and have put all of us in danger.

I did not believe that to be so. I did not believe that aiding Thaleria, hiding her, was putting us at risk. She’d shown true anguish, pain, even shame, when she’d shown me that vision of her comrade trying to kill Xyan. She did not want to cause this world harm. I was sure of it. Besides, why would the Kell bind me to someone who meant my people harm?

I wish I could speak to her again… Fluently, with every word at my disposal…

But at the moment, the only way to speak to her now would be to have her here. And I would not allow that to happen.

“I will not allow harm to come to her,” Tok said, more quietly this time. “I would see no new woman harmed. It would be too much like seeing my own mate hurt.”

“What?” I asked sharply. Had Tok just admitted to having a mate from among the new women?

He did not get a chance to elaborate. Another voice cut through the air, causing both Tok and me to turn our heads to the sound.

I was currently being held in a small clearing area in the cliffs, not unlike the area where I’d first seen Thaleria. Tok and I were closed in on all sides by a rough, red circle of stone, sand beneath us. A small crack in the stone on the other side looked to be the main entrance to and exit from this cell. A new woman was striding out of the crack towards us.

“I said I wanted to be here when he woke up!”

The strong, commanding tone of her voice had me tensing, thinking for the briefest of moments that it was Thaleria speaking. Relief and pain filled me as I realized it was not her, but rather the fire-haired Gahnala I had met the first day here.

“I was coming to check his chains when he just happened to awaken,” Tok said, rising to face the Gahnala. A moment later, my own Hakah followed the new woman, the three of them looking down at me.

“I would pound my brow ridges for you,” I said to Gahnala Kapman and Hakah Gog. I purposely did not address Tok with that statement. He would get no shows of respect from me today. “But as you can see, my arms are held fast.”

I rattled the chains, straining to demonstrate, then relaxing. To relieve some of the bitterness in my limbs, I sank my claws into the sand, feeling the grainy heat contrasting against the stony coils at my wrists, ankles, and tail.

“I didn’t want to have to do that,” the Gahnala said with a sigh, tucking a stray orange strand of hair behind her little ear. I tried to ignore the pang I felt, seeing that soft ear, so similar to my own mate’s.

“But we didn’t know what you would do when you woke up. Tok tells us that the soldier we’ve been looking for is a woman, your mate.” She paused, frowning slightly. “Let’s just say I know how crazy someone can get when they’re trying to protect their mate. We didn’t want anyone getting hurt.”

“Hurt? I have been the only one hurt,” I hissed, feeling venom leak from my fangs. Tok smelled the venom and growled in warning. Hakah Gog stepped forward. I wrenched my head back to meet his blinding blue gaze.

“This is why you are chained, Grim. Because you have lost all sense and reason. You dare, you dare, to spew venom before your king?”

“There is venom for any man who would hurt my mate,” I snarled, my spikes rising. Before now, I never would have imagined speaking to my Hakah like this, let alone threatening him with my venomous fangs and my spikes. But now, my number one allegiance was to Thaleria.

Tok stiffened at my words, his gaze darting to the Hakah. Hakah Gog seemed to get even larger above me, his chest swelling with anger.

But the Gahnala stepped in front of him before he could land a blow upon me.

“This is not going well. We need information, and snapping at each other won’t achieve anything,” she said, her voice remarkably calm even when faced with the angry twin behemoths of my king and Tok. So much courage in such a small body. She is certainly of the same people as my Thaleria…

“Careful, new woman,” Gog hissed, his dark blue fingers flexing. “You may be mated to a warlord here, but you do not command me.”

“But the woman we seek is one of my people. Therefore I am the authority on this matter. I assume responsibility for her.”

I listened to the Gahnala’s words, unsure if they brought good tidings or bad. What did she mean by “assuming responsibility” for Thaleria?

She turned to me, still standing in front of the Hakah. I could see the sparking fury in the Hakah’s blue eyes as he stared at me over her head.

“Don’t look at him. Just look at me,” Gahnala Kapman muttered. I tore my eyes from the Hakah’s to meet hers. Like Thaleria’s, they were round, with white rings at the edge. But the little fringe of hair that lined her eyes was not as dark and thick as Thaleria’s. And instead of deep brown with sunset-gold streaks that glittered in the sunlight, her sight discs were grey with points of black in the centre.

“I don’t want to hurt your mate,” she said.

She was off to a good start with that statement. It still didn’t mean I was going to tell them where Thaleria was, though.

“Why should I believe that? Tok, one of my own kind, already drove a spear through my neck over this issue,” I grumbled.

“That was because you wouldn’t answer my questions nor would you come with me willingly,” he shot back. “And as I said, I had you healed immediately upon our return.” He muttered something under his breath about how he should have let me bleed a little longer before getting me healed.

If the Gahnala heard that remark, she ignored it, continuing to speak.

“Look, from what we understand, the Lavrika and the Kell seem to choose mates in order to maintain harmony. They seem to want to maintain the health of this world and its people. I don’t think the Lavrika, or your Kell, would have chosen a mate for you, or for anyone native to this planet, if they actively meant to harm us. We aren’t going to kill a woman alone in the desert. If anything, we can help her. Keep her safe here.”

I longed for this – for Thaleria’s safety. But I did not trust these words yet. So I would give nothing away.

Chapman waited for me to answer. When I didn’t, she ploughed on.

“I understand your hesitation. You saw us kill the other soldier, and we’ve been searching for her relentlessly. But you have to understand that we would never harm a human woman who doesn’t pose a threat to us. We just need to find her to make sure she isn’t a threat that way I think she’s not. I don’t think she poses a problem at this point, but I’m worried about her superiors. I need to know what she knows. We need to know what’s coming.”

A sternness had entered the Gahnala’s voice, but I did not care. No sternness, no commands, no pain would sway me.

“I will never lead you to her,” I hissed.

The Hakah snapped his jaws behind me, but the Gahnala raised a white hand to silence him.

“You can search all you want. She is powerful and clever. Even if you scent her, you will not be able to see her.” I said this with pride. Pride at my mate’s abilities. I glared at Tok at that part, remembering how close he’d come to finding her by scent alone. But ultimately, he had not found her. And no one would.

“Well, see, that’s actually where you’re wrong,” Gahnala Kapman said. She fished something out of her pocket. I frowned when I saw a pair of eye-shells different from the ones perched on the top of her own head, but identical to Thaleria’s, in her hand. Dread sank in my guts. The dead man’s eye-shells.

“I think I actually will be able to see her with these. Our engineer has been examining them, and we think they penetrate whatever tech keeps her hidden,” Kapman continued, dangling the eye-shells between us. I growled, straining once again against the chains, urgently needing to crush those eye shells between my claws so that nobody would ever see Thaleria again but me.

“I wanted to give you the chance to lead us to her, to talk to her with us. To show her that it’s safe. We could go to her together. You could convince her to come back with us. We’ll offer her protection and a place here. And in return, she can help us prepare. She can give us information.”

Kapman’s soft lips thinned into a hard line.

“But if you refuse to do that, we’ll have to track her down on our own. I don’t want her to get hurt. We won’t attack her. But if she has more guns – human weapons – and she tries to defend herself, it could get very messy.”

Messy obviously meant bloody.

She wanted me to convince Thaleria that it would be safe to come back here. But how could I tell my mate such a thing when I did not even know if it were true?

No.

“I would rather let Thaleria blow the cocks off of every warrior in this world with her tiny weapons than have her come back here,” I spat.

The Hakah and Tok jerked their tales in fury at my words. Kapman’s orange brow ridges shot upward in astonishment. I expected her to join the other two in anger, but she didn’t. Instead, leaving me speechless with shock, she started to laugh.

“You sound like Fallo,” she said, still chuckling. She tucked the eye shells into her pocket, and my claws curled into involuntary fists.

“Alright, well, I guess that’s that. We’ll track her down ourselves.” She levelled her grey gaze on me, her smile fading. “I mean it, Grim. We’re going to do everything we can to keep her safe. We don’t want her harmed. And I’m sorry about the chains. But for now, I think we need to keep you here. Just until everything is sorted out.”

As much as it irked me, I could understand that, at least a little. I had just talked about blowing the cocks off of every warrior in this settlement, after all. A man without his mate was not to be trifled with, and though I hated being stuck, it made sense for their own safety to keep me subdued.

I said nothing as Kapman, Hakah Gog, and Tok turned and left. As they disappeared, one by one, into the crack in the stone, the only words I had were for Thaleria, spoken inside my head.

Run and run and run, Thaleria.

Run from here and never look back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Valeria

Iran the whole distance from my ship to the settlement at the cliffs where Grim had been taken. A run that distance would have been pretty normal for me on Earth. But here, with the reduced oxygen, slogging through the sand on not enough food and or sleep, it was tough.

But I was tougher.

Even if I hadn’t been so physically strong, my desire to get back to Grim would have propelled me anyway. Adrenaline coursed through me, driving my limbs forward even when my muscles screamed at me to stop.

In my panic, I’d almost said “fuck it” and taken the ship. I’d fantasized about flying it over the desert and crashing it into the cliffs to get Grim back. But that would probably have been a suicide mission. Plus it would have alerted the research vessel that something crazy was happening. No, I needed to be smarter, even if it made me maddeningly slower.

So instead of flying, I ran.

By the time I reached the cliffs, the sun was rising. As five alien guards came into view, standing at the entrance to the settlement, I forced myself to slow down to ease the sound of my breathing. My light-scatter tech was engaged, but that didn’t mean that the aliens wouldn’t hear my haggard panting. Hell, even the human women would probably hear all my huffing and puffing. There were three of the kangaroo-looking aliens here, along with two lizardmen like Grim. But neither of the lizardmen I saw were Grim or the other one who’d taken him. In the rapidly brightening dawn light, I could see that one of the massive lizard aliens had scales that glinted like crushed emeralds. The other had scales and spikes like flame – orange, yellow, and even stark white in places. I looked between the five men. Compared to the lizard aliens, the kangaroo-looking dudes were smaller. But they were still fearsome in their own right. They each looked to be at least seven feet tall, with thick corded muscle and numerous deadly blades strapped to their backs and chests. Their swirling eyes never stopped moving as they held their spears at the ready, scanning the horizon for any threat.

If I tried, I might be able to get past them…

But even with the light-scatter tech, it would be difficult. With the five of them together, there wasn’t much space to slip between them. They might smell me, slice a blade through the air, and cut me down without even seeing me.

The guns I had strapped to my body felt suddenly heavier. If I needed to, I could use them…

But then I wouldn’t be any better than Cole.

Well, I’d be a little better, at least. At least if I hurt someone, it would be fighting for the person I loved.

But I wanted to avoid that at all costs. Even if I took out the guards here, other warriors would follow. I was massively outnumbered.

What I wanted to do was to break Grim out of here secretly. I wanted us to slip away from the others and go back to living alone in the desert the way we had been, away from everyone else. I’d figure out how to keep my superiors off our backs, and we could try to build some sort of life together.

A cynical part of me whispered, Wishful thinking. But another part of me, a buoyant optimistic part I hadn’t even known was there, told me that I could do it. I could save him. I could make this all OK.

I decided not to try to pass these five guards yet. No, I’d look for another way into the settlement to find Grim. If that was unsuccessful, or if it took too long, I’d come back to this option.

I stole along the sides of the cliffs, ducking into crags of stone and shadow every time an alien search patrol went by on the sand. The first entrance into the cliffs I found, I took.

One thing I had to my advantage was the screen still clipped to my wrist. It showed me a rudimentary geographical rendering, and it pulsed with little points representing life signs. I glanced down at it as I ran into the cliffs, hoping with everything I had that one of those little dots was Grim. If they killed him…

A bolt of fury made me burn, but I forced it down with a clench of my teeth. I couldn’t let rage cloud my judgment. I needed a clear head to figure my shit out.

It was easy to see the settlement on the map on my wrist – clusters of life signs all together. There were the five dots representing the guards at the edge.

And there…

There was one lonely little life sign, all alone in the cliffs.

My heart thudded into my throat. I didn’t know for sure if that was Grim, but something in my gut told me to check it out. Even if it wasn’t Grim, maybe if it was one person alone, I could corner them, get them to give me some info. Make them help me.

I realized miserably that I might end up having to take a hostage after all, even after I’d pledged not to do it.

With that single dot guiding me, I started trekking through the cliffs. I had to stop and backtrack several times when I hit stony dead ends. I sweated in the morning sun, frustration rising. I realized the only way into the clearing of stone with the single life sign seemed to be from within the settlement itself.

Unless…

I could try to get at it from above. It would be risky with those bat aliens flying around, but it might be the fastest and easiest way to get a glimpse at who was alone down there.

With that in mind, the first place that looked remotely scaleable, I started to climb.

I’ll be honest, climbing that rock fucking sucked.

I had strong hands and calluses galore, but they were still ripped open by the jagged rock after only a few minutes of climbing. I had my eye on a flat ledge above, though, that looked like it continued upward and might lead me in the direction I needed.

Drenched in sweat, boots scrabbling, pack slipping, and hands bleeding, I pulled and pushed and clawed and fought until I reached that ledge. Scrambling up onto it, I started running, keeping low to try to avoid detection. My instincts had been right – this ledge kept inclining upwards, snaking like a stony path towards the clearing I sought.

If I hadn’t had the screen on my wrist to guide me, I would have gone right past the clearing. The ledge/path I’d been following had plunged into the rock, leading me through a narrow rocky tunnel. I realized halfway through the tunnel that the life sign I’d been tracking was almost directly below me.

I stopped my frantic pace, looking around. I contained my yelp of elation to see a small, sunlit opening by my feet on the left. I dumped my pack on the ground, flattened onto my stomach, and army crawled forward.

The opening was small. Really small. Too small, I realized with dismay, to fit through. I could get my head through, though. Carefully, I pressed my head through the opening, hoping nothing was on the other side to bite it off.

I swallowed against a sudden rush of vertigo as I tried to get my bearings. I’d gone up higher than I’d realized. This opening in the rock was a good twenty metres above the ground. My head poked out into the open air. I scoot back a little so that only my forehead and my eyes peered down the stone through the opening.

And there he was.

My whole body jerked, and I braced my hands on the stone inside the tunnel. The only thing that kept me crying out for fear that he was dead was the fact he was chained up. They wouldn’t chain up a dead man.

I never thought I’d be so fucking happy to see Grim bound.

And damn, they hadn’t played any games when it came to binding him. There were so many chains attaching his arms, legs, and tail to the cliff that they looked less like individual chains and more like curving black tree trunks. I felt a flare of pride at that – that they needed so many chains to hold him. Because he was so strong.

But he still needed me. He was in this mess because of me. I had to find a way out for him.

I pulled my head back into the tunnel to click the buttons on the sides of my glasses. With the binocular function engaged, I looked down once more.

I could see him so closely now it felt as if I should have been able to reach out and touch him. Behind me, inside the tunnel, my fingers lurched, aching to do just that. Ignoring my heartsick fingers, I scanned his body, noting with thick relief that he didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere. From what I’d seen on the security footage, he’d taken quite a beating before getting dragged back here. Remarkably, he seemed to be all in one piece.

And when he stirred, as if waking up, that relief doubled, tripled, and turned into fireworks inside me.

I was just trying to figure out how to bust Grim out of there when I saw him. The big gold bastard who’d captured him.

My fingers twitched again, this time wanting to reach for a gun. If he makes one wrong move, if he hurts Grim…

I’d shoot him the fuck down.

Luckily for him, though, he didn’t seem to be making any aggressive moves. His massive gold frame folded, sitting in front of Grim. Grim struggled against his restraints, which broke my fucking heart, before relaxing back against the stone. Before long, a human woman, the ginger-haired woman I recognized from the big ship, appeared, followed by a hulking blue and black lizardman. Again, no one made any moves to actually hurt Grim. They all seemed to be talking.

About what? I had no fucking idea.

They weren’t speaking the language Grim had been teaching me, and they weren’t speaking English. Whatever language it was, I was shocked and begrudgingly impressed by the human woman’s fluency. I was even a little jealous – jealous over the fact that she could speak to Grim so easily when I’d had to work so long and so hard for the few words he and I shared.

I watched from my hidden place above, suddenly grateful that the opening in the stone was so narrow. Having most of my body back inside the stone tunnel was likely keeping my human scent contained. Which was a very good thing, considering how much I’d been sweating.

The four of them kept talking. Though I couldn’t understand him, I could read the tension, the anger, in Grim’s body language. They’re probably asking him about me…

I didn’t let myself get swallowed by guilt, even though I could feel it in the background. I needed all my energy to focus on fixing this situation. So far, Grim was imprisoned, but he physically seemed OK. I would salvage this for him, for us.

I kept watching and listening, trying to glean anything I could from the conversation. But the only real thing of value I learned was from something I saw, not something I heard.

The red-haired woman had Cole’s glasses.

Which meant that if she figured out the controls, she’d be able to penetrate my light-scatter tech.

Well… That’s a complication I hadn’t anticipated.

Obviously, she hadn’t been using them long enough out in the desert to find my ship yet. But if she popped them on here at the settlement and activated the correct setting, it would make it a lot harder for me to move around undetected.

Not long after she showed Grim the glasses, she turned to leave. The other two alien lizardmen left, too, until it was just Grim alone. I wanted so badly to call out to him. To let him know I was there, that I was going to save him. But I couldn’t risk drawing any attention to myself. These guys had insane hearing. What would be a quiet call to me might sound like an alarm to one of the guards.

I stared down at Grim. Slumped back against the stone with all those chains… He looked defeated. It made me want to punch a hole right through the rock.

Instead, I scooted backwards on my stomach until my head was back in the tunnel. I’d do a tour of the cliffs, trying to find another way to get to him. And then I’d have to go back to my ship and see if there was something to deal with those chains. I didn’t think I could shoot through them, and that would draw too much attention anyway.

But I never ended up going back to the ship for tools. Because the more I searched the cliffs around the settlement, the clearer it became.

There was no way to get him out.

He was contained in a tight circle of stone. The only entrance was one crack in the cliff wall that served as a tunnel leading back out into the settlement. On the settlement side, the entrance to that tunnel was guarded by three hulking lizard aliens. I couldn’t access Grim’s cell from above, and to get to him on the ground I’d have to go through the entire settlement on foot, then make it past those three guards.

Even the newfound optimist in me didn’t like those chances.

So what then? I couldn’t leave him there.

I could still try to come down on them with the ship. But the absolute havoc that would wreak… It made my stomach twist into knots. As angry as I was about how Grim had been treated, I didn’t want to open up an all-out war by bringing the ship here and freaking everyone out. Nor did I want to draw the eye of the research vessel.

There was only one option left.

I walked and walked until I arrived back at the entrance to the settlement. Holding my breath, I stole past the five guards. They stiffened, and the ears on the kangaroo guys twitched, but ultimately my light-scatter tech was enough to keep me safe until I was inside the heart of the settlement.

And it really did feel like a heart. A home. A lot of the men here looked ready for action, weapons ready, heaving to and fro. But there were also women of the kangaroo alien sort chatting and laughing together. There were human women too, looking just as happy. Alien children skittered between brown tents, laughing and slicing with small blades. My jaw fell open as I saw one pretty blonde human woman with a pregnant belly walk within just a few feet of me, beaming as she stroked her stomach.

This wasn’t just a hive of enemy aliens who’d taken Grim. This was… A family.

My throat tightened with unexpected pain. Fucking hell, I wished things hadn’t happened the way they had. What things could have been if only I’d been with this first group of women. I could have met Grim as part of whatever alliance they had here, and we could have lived in peace.

That’s what I wanted. Peace. Family. A life with Grim. I didn’t want him hurt, and I didn’t want anybody else hurt, either.

It’s up to me, then.

I lowered my hood and deactivated the light-scatter tech. Right there in the centre of the settlement, surrounded by aliens who probably wanted me dead, I showed myself.

And I surrendered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Valeria

The next few moments were pure chaos. The blonde pregnant woman who’d just walked by me saw me appear, apparently out of thin air, and screamed. Her scream brought forth a brutal-looking bastard with his hair shaved at the sides of his head and murderous silver eyes. In a split second, he had a blade at my throat. More warriors, both lizards and the kangaroo-type dudes, came running, surrounding me in a tight, aggressive circle. I fought to keep my calm, raising my hands.

“I surrender,” I said quietly but firmly. The blond woman who’d screamed shouted something from outside the circle, her voice trembling and high.

I hoped she was translating for me, but I had no clue what she’d said. The big guy with the silver eyes didn’t cut my throat, at least. But he didn’t lower his weapon, either.

Another human voice, this one not trembling, but forceful, filtered through the crowd of waiting warriors. The red-haired woman I’d seen in Grim’s cell a few moments before elbowed her way into the group. She came to a stop before me, planting her hands on her hips and looking me up and down.

“I’m Corporal Chapman,” she said in English. I nodded tightly.

“Corporal Steel,” I replied, my hands still raised in the air. “And in case you didn’t hear me before, I’m surrendering.”

“I heard you,” she said. She took off her sunglasses – Cole’s old glasses – and pinned me with a serious grey gaze.

“Why are you surrendering?” she asked.

Could it be possible they didn’t know why? If Grim didn’t say anything at all about me, maybe they didn’t know we had a relationship. Maybe I can protect him still…

“Because I don’t believe in the mission I was sent on,” I said quickly, deciding to leave Grim out of things for now. I didn’t want to get him into any more trouble than necessary, and who knew if fucking me was against some kind of rule. It probably was, considering I had essentially been a fugitive up until now. “I wasn’t apprised of what was actually going on here,” I continued. “When Cole – Sergeant Green – shot that alien… That man… I was done. Essentially, I’ve defected.”

It felt fucking weird to say those words. But was true. Any allegiance to the Army was gone. Any connection to them now was simply a facade to buy time.

“Well, join the club, soldier,” Corporal Chapman said. She didn’t quite smile, but her mouth softened slightly. “Let’s go somewhere quieter and talk.”

I pursed my lips, wanting to say no, wanting to beg to see Grim right fucking now. But that wasn’t going to be how I got what I wanted. And ultimately, that wouldn’t be how we figured out what to do next about human authorities and their big bad plans for this planet. We’d have to communicate and work together.

But only if they let Grim go.

“Fine. Let’s talk.”

“Weapons?” she asked.

“Yes.” I rattled off the list of firearms strapped to my body beneath my jacket. Chapman moved forward and carefully removed everything, even the knife in my boot. I felt naked and vulnerable. But I didn’t feel alone. Because I knew that, not far away now, Grim was waiting.

We started to head towards a tent, but another huge alien dude, this one with swirling red eyes, barked something at Corporal Chapman.  She said something back to him, then turned to me.

“Sorry. We need to make a quick pit stop.”

The pit stop, I quickly learned, involved heading deep into a set of caves in the cliffs. Corporal Chapman led me through the gloom into a cave that glowed with pools of bright white, milky liquid.

“This is going to sound weird, but you need to dunk inside one of the pools.”

I swivelled my gaze from the liquid to her, wondering if she was joking. By the set of her orange brows, that didn’t seem likely.

“Why?” I sputtered. Did she want to drown me? Was this stuff made of acid or something?

She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose vigorously with her thumb and forefinger.

“It sounds crazy, but if you dunk in the liquid, it will impart the desert language to you. We need to meet with all the Gahns and the Hakah, and having me translate from English is going to complicate things too much. If you have any wounds, it will heal those as well.”

I stared at her for so long that she sighed again and dipped her own hand into the liquid.

“See? Not poisonous acid or anything,” she said, straightening once more.

“You read my mind,” I muttered. Was I honestly supposed to believe that dunking in this stuff was going to make me magically fluent in an alien language? But then again, I has been surprised by how fluent Corporal Chapman had seemed…

I could talk to Grim.

That decided it. Even if it was some trap, if there was a chance I could speak fluently to Grim… It would be worth it.

Without another moment’s hesitation, I strode forward, splashing into the liquid before I dove, dunking quickly and coming up for air. A bizarre, thrumming energy ran under my skin everywhere the white liquid touched. I stood, settling my boots on the bottom of the pool, before turning to return to Corporal Chapman’s side.

“Can you understand me?” she asked.

“Of course I can,” I said, confused for a moment. But the confusion dissipated when I realized she wasn’t speaking English, but some other language I understood as if I’d spoken it all my life. I thought about the other thing she’d said, about the liquid healing wounds. I reached up to stroke my shoulder under my clothes. A pang of grief went through me when I realized that the shallow divots Grim’s fangs had left were completely gone.

“You were telling the truth,” I mused, more to myself than her. But she answered me anyway.

“Yes. I did tell the truth. Did you?”

I froze, staring at her, wondering what else she knew. The silence stretched on between us until she finally said one single word.

“Grim.”

My hands clenched into anxious fists.

“What about him?” I asked, trying to figure out how to play this. Chapman breathed out heavily for a third time and suddenly looked exhausted.

“I have no interest in playing games, Corporal Steel. We are balanced on a knife’s fucking edge here. We need to know what you know about the humans’ plans for a potential attack. We’re willing to offer you protection and a place here, but we need the truth.” She paused, raising a slim brow. “I know Grim’s your mate.”

“My… My what?” Of all the potential words – partner, boyfriend, big alien… Something – mate hadn’t exactly been what I’d had in mind. But then again, how else could one describe our frenzied coupling in the shower? Mating.

My cheeks heated, but I gave a tight nod of agreement. He was my mate. My oroko. Everything I had left. There seemed to be no point in hiding it now – she already knew.

“We don’t think the Kell would have chosen you for him if you meant us harm. And you obviously haven’t gone on to fulfill any orders the way the other soldier did to try to harm anyone here, even when we captured Grim. So I’m already inclined to trust you. But I want us to be open and honest with each other.”

“OK. Well, in the name of open honesty… What’s the Kell? What do you mean, ‘chosen?’”

She smiled a little, her face relaxing. “I tend to forget just how much information overload it can be at first. Come on. Let’s go meet with the Gahns and Hakah Gog and we’ll explain everything. And you can explain everything too.”

IT TURNED OUT “EXPLAINING everything” took a long fucking time. We spent several hours in a tent, “we” being Corporal Chapman (who asked me to just call her Chapman, and I told her to likewise call me Valeria), Chapman’s mate Gahn Fallo; Gahn Buroudei; Gahn Taliok; Gahn Baldor (the guy who’d held the blade to my throat whom I kept an extra close eye on); Gahn Razek; and the big blue lizard alien I’d seen talking to Grim earlier, Hakah Gog; along with another blue alien lizard, who was apparently also mated to a human, Gog’s nephew, Kor.

It was… A lot. A lot of new people, a lot of questions and rehashing old histories from both sides. But somehow, through the lengthy conversation, suspicions eased. I was open and honest about everything – my orders, what I knew, what had happened in the desert with Grim. When the subject of Grim came up, I added all the caveats that he shouldn’t be in trouble, he was just trying to protect me, and that he needed to be released as soon as possible. And from what I was starting to understand about the concept of “mates” for these guys, they really shouldn’t have been so angry about what he’d done.

But Hakah Gog was not so easy to convince.

“He betrayed his orders and left his people. He should have come to me, his king, to explain what was happening and ask permission,” the massive, regal lizard alien said. The sunlight slipping in through the open tent flap illuminated his grey, black, and blue scales and made his brilliant blue eye discs glow.

“You cannot blame him so much for this. He thought we might harm his mate. Until now, we all considered her a potential enemy,” said the scarred Gahn Taliok.

I nodded to him gratefully, glad to see that we had some people on our side. It was just too bad the person who was so angry about Grim’s disappearance was his own king, the one who had command over him and would ultimately make the decision about keeping him chained.

“My father did the same thing, Uncle,” said Kor. Kor, from what they’d explained, had a Bitter Sea lizard father and a Sea Sand mother. His father, the Gog’s brother, had disappeared from their island to claim his mate and had never returned. He had died some time ago, but Kor’s mother lived here at the settlement. Kor was a little shorter than the other lizard warriors I’d seen, but still almost nine feet tall. And his eyes were similar to the Sea Sand people – he had those swirling sight stars, blue shards that misted and danced in his large dark eyes.

“Exactly,” Hakah Gog hissed, flexing his claws. “And look what happened to him.”

“Do not let grief from the past blind you to good sense in the present, Uncle,” Kor said softly.

“You may be my dead brother Kon’s son, and you may not have grown up with our ways, Kor, but mind the tips of your tongues when speaking to me,” the Hakah snapped, his massive tail jerking.

“Kor is right,” said Gahn Baldor. I blinked at him in surprise. After he’d been the first one to come at me with a weapon, I hadn’t expected him to side with Grim and me now. But he did. “I believe that the warrior Grim should be released from his chains. He has not done more than any of us would do, or have done, to claim our own mates.”

That was an understatement if I’d ever heard one. Apparently, Baldor had led a vicious and violent attack on this settlement to find his mate, the blonde pregnant woman I’d seen earlier. Compared to that, what Grim and I had done seemed much more forgivable.

“Now that his mate is here, safe and sound, I don’t believe Grim will pose any threat to anyone. I don’t think he’ll leave again, either, if she stays with us. With all due respect, Hakah Gog, I also think he should be released. You can still discipline him, but keeping him chained is excessive now,” Chapman said. I let out a shaky breath and mouthed, “Thank you” to her in English. She nodded, then turned to face her own mate, the red-eyed warrior who’d killed Cole.

“I agree with whatever my mate’s judgments are,” he growled.

One by one, the other Gahns – the Sea Sand warlords – and Kor all voiced their opinion on the subject as I held my breath. All of them voted to release Grim.

All but the one person who mattered most – Grim’s king.

“I will think on this,” Hakah Gog said, irritation clear in his gravelly voice. A moment later, he swept out of the tent, followed by Kor.

Chapman shook her head and then turned to me.

“I’ll work on him. We all will,” she promised. “As you can see, there’s a lot of politics going on. Trust between everyone is growing but still shaky at times, and negotiating different cultural values between the groups isn’t always easy. Even Kor got captured and imprisoned in a cave when he went to act as an emissary to his uncle.”

That didn’t make me feel much better, but I’d decided that I liked and trusted Chapman. I’d even grown to feel some trust for the Gahns here, too. They’d all spoken up in support of Grim. And it seemed like they’d taken very good care of their human mates, as Grim had done for me.

“But I have to see him,” I said. “Chained or not, I have to.”

“We’ll make it work. And if the Hakah doesn’t like it, he can answer to me,” Chapman said, squeezing my shoulder with a freckled hand.

“And me,” her mate Fallo growled from behind her, his claws flexing.

“And me,” said Baldor.

“And me,” echoed Buroudei, Taliok, and Razek.

“Thank you,” I said, clenching my fists so hard my fingernails dug into my palms to keep myself from crying. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for everything. For what the other soldier did to Xyan. For what my superiors might still do. All of it.”

Chapman smiled, and the Gahns grunted and growled their acknowledgement of my words.

“I’m sorry this has turned into such a mess too,” Chapman said. “Trust me, if anyone here knows how you’re feeling, it’s me right now. I’m the only crew member left from the original mission. I understand the position you’re in.” She squeezed my shoulder harder. “And I know how much you’re probably dying to see Grim. Come on. Let’s go.”

And true to her word, we went.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Grim

Not long after he had left with Chapman and the Hakah, Tok returned. His shining golden frame prowled into the clearing until he stood before me.

“I am unhappy with your recent behaviour, Grim. But I must admit I do understand it.”

I shifted, sitting up straighter to face him from the ground. I may not have been able to stand fully, but I would face him like a warrior.

“You said you have a mate from among the new women?” I pressed, wondering where he was going with this conversation. But he waved my question away with a swish of his tail.

“I am not here to talk about myself, nor her. I am here to say I understand why you did what you did. And I still have respect for you as a warrior. It is that respect which has brought me here to tell you this now.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

But when he finally did say it, I was not at all prepared.

“We have your mate.”

In an instant, every chain was pulled taut. I roared, my muscles pulling and bulging against my restraints.

“Calm yourself, warrior!” Tok snarled over my roar. “She is unharmed. She came here of her own volition and surrendered to plead your case. She has visited the pools of the Lavrika to gain the Sea Sand language, and now she meets with the Hakah and the Gahns.”

“She needs me,” I hissed, still fighting the cursed chains. The thought of my beautiful mate, alone among all these strangers, ate me up inside. My king had been so angry, so bitter about what I’d done.

“If anything happens to her, you know no chain of this world will be able to hold me,” I rasped. My hands shook as my claws reached forward with all my might. Tok watched me impassively.

“I know you are suffering, Grim. It is punishment for what you’ve done. But I promise you, she will not be harmed. Already, the Gahnala Kapman stands by her. And that red woman has a will of sea stone. I do not think even our Hakah would try to cross her.

I relaxed slightly, breathing out harshly. I hoped Tok was right.

“I did not come here to tell you this to make you anxious or afraid, Grim. That was not my intention. I just…” He paused, his posture softening slightly. “I would want to know where my mate was if I were you. Even after everything, I thought I owed you that.”

My anger abated somewhat. Even though I did not regret a single one of my actions – protecting Thaleria was my mightiest goal – I did begrudgingly understand why Tok had done what he’d done. I understood he’d been following the Hakah’s orders, that he’d had to physically subdue me to bring me back. I understood that everyone thought Thaleria could be putting us in danger, even if she wasn’t. It was not acceptable for a Bitter Sea male to disappear from the ranks. The only one who had done it before was Gog’s brother, Kon. And Hakah Gog had grieved in bitter anger and regret ever since that day.

“I must see her,” I growled.

“I understand this, too,” Tok said. “But that is not my decision to make.” He looked down at me for a long moment before saying, “When the Hakah finishes the meeting, I will make your request of him.”

“Thank you,” I said, sinking back against the stone. Tok had been a sharp claw between my scales since last night, but I appreciated the gesture. It was not easy to face the angry Hakah and ask things one knew he likely would not want to grant. But after the beating Tok had given me, it seemed fair for him to do so.

And it seemed as if he kept his word. Or at least, someone somewhere was answering my heart’s call. Because later, as dusk approached, sending shadows licking down the stone over my body, my mate appeared, like a vision, through the crack in the stone.

Once again, the chains were pulled to their very limits as I strained to touch her.

“Thaleria,” I croaked, every limb on fire.

“Grim!” she ran for me, her clawless feet encased in their hard shells flying over the sand until she collapsed onto my chest.

My chest heaved, my fangs gnashed. I’d been away from her for less than an entire cycle of night and day, and it already felt as if I were close to death without her.

“I want to hold you,” I murmured in my native tongue, my arms tensing uselessly against the chains.

“Do you speak the other language?” Thaleria asked breathlessly, planting her hands on my chest and looking into my eyes. I froze, realizing I had understood her perfectly. Tok was right. She can speak the language of the Sea Sands now.

“Yes I do, perfect one. And I have so many things to say,”

A smile like bright morning lit up her face. She threw her arms around my neck, her mouth rising to meet my snout.

“Ahem. I’ll, um… Give you two some privacy.” I jerked, ready to defend Thaleria from whoever had spoken behind her. It was the Gahnala Kapman. Her grey eyes met mine over Thaleria’s shoulder. “We’re going to figure all this out, Grim. But you don’t need to worry about her. She’s one of us now. No one will harm her.”

Tok had already promised me something similar, but it felt good to hear this other woman say it too. Kapman gave a smile and a single up and down shake of her human head, then turned and left the clearing.

“I hate seeing you in chains,” Thaleria said, her smile from before disappearing.

“I’d wear chains over every scale on my body if it meant seeing you,” I growled. Well, preferably not every part of my body, I thought to myself as my cock throbbed and emerged from my slit. It swelled, probing upwards against Thaleria’s rump.

She moaned, sliding down my chest slightly to rock against it.

“I searched for you, Grim. I tracked you through these cliffs until I saw you here.”

I groaned, dying to touch her with my hands but unable to. Mating fluid flushed the angry venom from my fangs, filling my mouth.

“Just as I once searched for you,” I replied, pressing my snout downwards to her cheek. She moaned again, opening her wet mouth. Her hands came to meet the sides of my face as my tongue plunged into her mouth, claiming her with the forked tips. She ground her hips quicker against me, creating exquisite friction against the top of my shaft and my cock spears.

I drew back slightly, panting, to say, “But you should not have. You should have stayed away. Crossing the desert alone and coming here was dangerous. I wanted you to be safe.” I could not even fathom the thought that she could have been injured, that she could have died.

I would have destroyed everything if that had come to pass.

“I couldn’t leave you here!” she cried, tightening her hold on the sides of my face. “You’re in this mess because of me. No way was I going to let you get hurt because of me. I saw what that other guy did to you…” Her voice dropped away in seething anger. Loving pride swept through me. My strong, fierce mate.

“He was doing what he believed to be right in the eyes of our people and our king. Let us not speak of him or those things now,” I said huskily, rocking my pelvis up against my mate’s backside. I felt her inner thighs tense, spread as they were across my lap.

“Fine,” she agreed in a hot breath against my chest.

“Undress,” I growled. My claws ached to tear her clothing off of her myself, but I could not do it restrained as I was. Thaleria scrambled off of me, casting a hasty look back to make sure no one else had entered the clearing, before she stripped out of all her human garb until she was nude in the night.

I groaned, letting my gaze trail down her body, feeling my cock throb with yet more blood and seed. The rapidly falling night turned her skin a rich brown, with shimmering silvered highlights along the waves of her hair, her shoulders, the peaks of her breasts. As I stared at her, her hand fell between her long legs, pressing into the curls there. Her scent filled the air, and more mating fluid gushed.

“Wet,” I hissed, knowing she already was. She nodded wordlessly, working her fingers until her cheeks darkened and her eyes grew glazed.

“Come back to me,” I begged, grinding my hips up into nothing. She came to stand between my thighs, removing her hand from between her legs. I almost ripped the chains from the stone right then as she brought her fragrant wet hand from between her legs to my face. I opened my jaws greedily, my tongue searching for any taste of her. She watched me, breathing heavily, as I tasted every drop of her I could find. Then she drew her fingers downward slightly, catching the gushing rivulets of mating fluid as it ran from my mouth. Her other hand did the same until her fingers and palms were blackened with the fluid. Biting her soft lower lip, she dragged her hands down her front, massaging her breasts, arching and moaning as the mating fluid aroused every nerve in her skin. She came back for more of the fluid, scraping it from my scales, dousing her hands in it before returning one hand to her chest, the other between her legs.

“Dios mío,” she breathed, a set of words I had heard before but did not understand. Her head fell backwards, baring her beautiful throat, making my mouth fill once more with fluid. It spilled from my jaws, running down my neck and chest in a dark river.

Thaleria’s chin snapped back down, her gaze finding mine. She mounted me once more, spreading her legs over my lap, her feet settling in the sand on either side of my hips.

“Hurry, Grim. Use your fangs. I need you inside me.”

The thick arousal in her voice almost had me spilling seed right there. Her fingers scrabbled against my chest as she rubbed her soaked entrance against the tip of my cock. Fighting to maintain some semblance of control, I opened my jaws, grazing her throat and sliding downwards before nipping gently at her shoulder.

I only needed the slightest exertion of force to puncture her soft skin. It went against every instinct – my body’s instincts were to bite down hard, then thrust into a cunt as firmly and as fast as I could. That was how mating with Bitter Sea women went. That was what their bodies enjoyed and responded to. But I had to learn new ways for my strange mate. So I bit down as softly as I could and I fought to keep my hips still, refraining from jerking my cock up inside her.

But even that gentle bit was enough. Thaleria cried out, her whole body arching and tensing against mine. I removed my fangs from her skin, lapping at the little wounds as she rubbed her peaked breasts against my scales with abandon. Then, when the mating fluid had truly gone to work inside her, easing the way for my cock, she pressed downwards, taking my tip inside her all the way up to the first grogar pearl.

“Fast,” I grunted. I wasn’t asking her to go fast, but rather remarking upon her speed. Last time, it had taken more time to get the first pearl inside her.

“I need you fast,” she murmured, her face screwed up in tense arousal. She adjusted herself, rising up slightly, before pressing back down even further upon my cock.

My limbs and tail jerked against their chains. For the first time, I was grateful for the chains. Because without them, I was not convinced I could stop myself from crushing Thaleria against the stone wall and rutting her as desperately as my body wanted to.

The tight wet heat of Thaleria’s core stretched and stroked me as she worked my cock. My breath was ragged and broken, hers was high and fast. Soon enough, she’d taken me up to the second pearl. I jolted as the sensitive tips of my cock spears grazed her wet flesh. Two of the cock spears at the top parted, lining up perfectly on either side of her sensitive nub, their tips stroking up and down as she started to rock faster.

“Grim, I need you. I love you. I can finally say that to you,” she said as she braced herself against my chest with her palms, moving her hips even faster.

“I’ve loved you since before I even found you,” I heaved back in return, my hips losing some of their control and rising to meet her movements.

We both lost our words, then, our hot breath taking over as our bodies collided. Thaleria cried out, her climax squeezing around me just in time to take my seed as it exploded from me. But even after this we did not stop, both still hungry and desperate and trying to rut away the fears we’d had while we’d been apart. She rode my post-climax cock until it was fiercely hard again, drawing yet more seed from my body as she came. Then she wrung one final climax from her own body, working my cock spears against her nub while still seated upon me, until she was whimpering and coming undone.

Only then did she finally slip off of me, collapsing against my side on the sand.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Valeria

Ihadn’t slept at all last night, and after all that running and stress and searching and now, all the orgasms, I could already feel exhaustion pulling me down even harder against the sand. I fought it, snuggling into Grim’s side. It felt like if I closed my eyes and went to sleep now, he’d disappear again. The thick wall of his arm moved against my back – as much as it could, anyway. I angled my ass backwards so that could drape his hand over my hip.

Our breaths slowed as we rested together.

Soon, I scooted up a little, nestling into the crook of his upper arm, resting the side of my head against the front of his shoulder.

“It’s so weird to just be able to talk to you now,” I said.

Grim gave a low rumble.

“Nice,” I added quickly, “but still weird.” We’d spent so much time and effort just to be able to speak in the sparsest words. Having this fluent communication come so suddenly was exhilarating and disorienting.

“I am glad for it. Now I can tell you all the ways I love you in words that you will understand. I have already told you, many times, but you could not truly hear me,” Grim said.

My chest ached. The thought of Grim telling me such lovely, meaningful things, over and over, while his words fell on my deaf human ears, was heartbreaking.

“I hear you now,” I whispered. I stroked my fingers slowly along the scales of his chest before asking the sudden question that had come to me. “The language we’re speaking right now isn’t the one you were teaching me before. Why not?”

“The language we speak now, given by the Lavrika, is the language of the Sea Sands. When I was alone with you, I did not want to speak a stranger’s tongue. So I spoke to you in the language of my homeland.”

I nodded, my cheek scraping pleasantly along his scales.

“That makes sense. Well, I suppose we’re even. You know some of the language of my homeland, too. Well, one of them at least.”

“One of them?” Grim pressed.

“Yeah. The language I speak fluently, the one I spoke with you, is called English. But I used to know another language from my world. Spanish. My mother spoke it, and I spoke it with her when she was alive. But after she died and I didn’t get to practise I got rusty. And before I knew it, most of it had disappeared.” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat.

“This brings you pain?” Grim asked softly, squeezing the upper part of his arm against my back and nuzzling downward against my scalp with his snout.

“Yes,” I admitted. “It just feels like another way I’ve lost her.”

“But you remember some words, yes?”

“Yes, a few,” I replied. I knew some basic conversational stuff still. And some other words and phrases from my mother that had worked their way right down into my bones, impossible to dislodge.

“Then speak those words now so that you may reach back and find her. And teach them to me, so that I may find her, too.”

I was pretty sure I literally felt my heart swell with love at that moment. What else could explain the throbbing expansion I felt in my chest? I loved him so much. He was protective and thoughtful and generous and good. He wanted to know the language of my past as much as he wanted to be my future.

I went through every Spanish word I could think of, from hola to agua to cielo. That last one, meaning ‘sky,’ brought forth another phrase, this one much closer to my heart.

“One thing I remember best is the phrase mi cielito. It’s something my mom used to call me.”

“What does it mean?” Grim asked. I smiled against the rumble of his chest as he spoke, loving that he was so interested in learning about my family, my past.

“It’s a term of endearment. It means ‘little sky.’”

He made a thoughtful, growly sort of sound before slowly saying, “I would never cast doubt upon the words of your mother. But to me, you are not a little sky. Though you may be smaller than me, you are not so little.” He curled his snout even further downward, speaking his next words directly against my ear “You are my endless sky. You are everything in my world and everything beyond.”

My throat clenched, and I swallowed back tears. Damn, I hadn’t cried, or come close to crying, this often since I was a little kid!

“I never knew you were so poetic,” I said with a shaky laugh, forcing myself to chuckle instead of cry. I’d always known Grim was intelligent and that he was probably saying all sorts of smart things in his own language. But when it sounded like garbled, half-untranslated caveman-speak to me, it was hard to see just how eloquent he truly was.

“I do not think I am an especially well-spoken warrior,” Grim said. “But perhaps, because my feelings for you are so painfully beautiful, the words come out more beautifully, too.”

I nestled closer to him. My smile widened as I remembered our very first conversation.

“You know, your name has a meaning in English. When you introduced yourself to me, I thought you were saying the word, not your name.”

“Oh? What is the meaning? It must be something like, ‘strongest of all warriors.’ Or maybe, ‘owned by Thaleria.’”

I laughed out loud. It’s nice to get these glimpses of his sense of humour.

“I like your definitions better,” I said, still laughing. “But really, it means… Hmm, how do you define it? It means, like, ominous… Or forbidding… Scary, sad…”

“Let my enemies know only those meanings, then. And you will know the others we have created ourselves,” Grim said. “Grim is the colour of the rising sun on the waves in my language. What does Thaleria mean?”

“It means ‘strong.’ My mother chose it for me.”

“Then she chose very well.”

I didn’t have a good response to that. Too many emotions were bubbling up inside me. So instead I stayed quiet, just enjoying the feeling of Grim’s rising and falling chest.

I shivered slightly, and Grim tried to pull me even closer, stopping short when the chain rattled at his wrist. I tensed, then sat up.

“I can’t wait to get these things off of you,” I said, sitting up hastily. “In fact, I’m going to go get that done right now.” I stood up gingerly, letting my loose muscles acquiesce to standing, and got dressed.

“Just stay with me, my mate. Chained or not, I’d rather have you here with me.”

Luckily, I didn’t have to choose between staying with him and going to yell at someone to let him out of here. Because a few seconds later I heard the soft English call of “knock knock,” before Chapman, her mate Fallo, and the Hakah entered the clearing.

My hackles rose as I turned to face them, already preparing for the Hakah to be angry again. For him to say Grim was going to stay imprisoned here.

“Grim,” the Hakah said stepping forward. “You have disobeyed your king and abandoned your duties. For any reason besides the one you had, this would be treason.”

I looked back and forth between Grim and the huge king, my hands in fists at my side.

“But I knew and loved a wise, strong warrior who once did the same thing you did. My own brother, Kon. I would not keep my brother in chains if he returned to me, and every day I wish that he could.”

I held my breath. Could it be…?

“You are to be released immediately.”

I grinned and ran back to Grim’s side. The Hakah and Fallo got to work using their blades and spears as levers to dislodge the chains’ anchors in the cliff walls while I remained beside my mate protectively.

Finally, Grim was able to rise. I leaned into his side as he clutched me tight.

“You are still not in good standing, Grim,” the Hakah grumbled. “But you will not remain a prisoner. For the time being, you will only leave the settlement on my command to assist your mate and the Gahnala Kapman with their duties as they further investigate the threat that faces us. You will be supervised on these outings by another Bitter Sea warrior. You will not take your mate from here on your own again, nor will you go beyond this settlement alone unless specifically commanded.”

I wanted to argue with the Hakah on that front, but a quick squeeze from Grim had me holding my tongue. This was a good start, at least. I couldn’t overturn this king’s authority and their entire culture by stamping my foot. At least this way Grim and I would still be together, and he wouldn’t face any more painful punishments for what had happened. Together, we’d work hard to repair the rifts, to help keep this world safe, and earn back any lost trust.

It felt good to be able to think like that. To make plans for the future with him.

Together.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Valeria

“OK, check your smartwatch’s screen now. Did it work?” Zoey asked, peering from behind her glasses at my wrist. I raised it up to my face, amazed to see that her contraption had in fact worked. Her life sign; as well as mine; Grim’s; Chapman’s; and that of the other Bitter Sea warrior assigned to supervise Grim, a brown-and silver-coloured man called Kohka; had disappeared from the screen on my wrist.

“Yup, it worked,” I said, grinning at the brilliant engineer. I’d only been here a few days, but already Zoey had been able to figure out a way to scramble our signals enough to hide the life signs so that they wouldn’t show up on either my screen or the research vessel’s.

“Great. I’ve also been working on creating more jackets with that light-scatter tech that you have. When that’s done, a whole group of people will be able to cross the desert, visiting your ship or wherever, pretty much invisible to the naked eye or to the scanners.

We were in the security room of the big human ship, the one the first mission had come on. Most of Zoey’s tech and tools were out here, so we’d made the trek today to test her new invention.

“That’s fantastic, Zoey. Thank you,” said Chapman, her freckled face splitting into a rare, broadly beaming smile. She turned to me then. “So our next move will be to use this tech to go back to your ship undetected.”

I nodded. Once I’d told the others where the ship was located, a scout group of alien warriors had gone to survey the area, just to make 100% sure I hadn’t lied about any other soldiers lurking about. But with this tech, we could go now there as a group completely undetected. I’d be able to show Chapman all the files and weapons and everything else I had, and we’d be able to plan our next move without the pressure of the research vessel’s scanners on our backs the entire time.

“I wonder if I could make one powerful enough to conceal the life signs of the entire settlement,” Zoey said, leaning back against the computer desk behind her and fingering the small silver contraption she’d created.

“Hmm. That could backfire,” I said. “If all the life signs go out, they might assume we all suddenly died or something. Then they might advance their timelines and just come down immediately to take whatever they wanted.”

“True, that wouldn’t be good,” Zoey replied.

“Well, every day we get closer to sorting everything out.  Every day we learn more. Every day we’re slightly more prepared,” Chapman said.

I sucked in a quiet breath, then leaned back slightly as I felt Grim step up closer behind me, his broad chest warming my back. Slowly but surely, we were making headway on what we wanted to do. We hadn’t quite figured out how to broach the “take a hostage” command from above yet, but we were working on it.

GRIM, KOHKA, AND I returned to the camp together a little while later, stopping briefly to have a quick bite of hunted rakdo. As we stepped back into the sunset-illuminated settlement, only a few glances were tossed our way.

Better.

Every day, people got more and more used to Grim and me being back here. The first day or two had been stare-city. But now, we were barely a blip on anyone’s radar.

Now that we were in the settlement, we didn’t need our Hakah-assigned chaperone. Kohka slipped away towards the evening fire. I watched him go, wondering if we should sit there tonight. But I was exhausted from the day’s travels, and just wanted to be alone with my mate.

“Let go to our cave,” I said, placing my hand in Grim’s huge one.

“Anything you desire,” he said, his deep voice heating my blood.

Our cave was small but perfect. Perfect because it was ours. It was nestled in the cliffs, slightly underground with a tunnel that led in and out. The night Grim had been released from his chains, Chapman had asked me if we wanted to share a tent or a cave. Zoey and her lizard mate, Kor, shared a tent, for example, but most of the other Bitter Sea men preferred caves because it was similar to their home. Since I’d been staying with Grim in a cave out in the desert for so long anyway, it only felt natural to continue along that path. But at least this time I had a lot more amenities at my disposal in the settlement.

Grim curled into the corner of the cave that was our sleeping area, slipping a claw into the waistband of my pants and dragging me down to the hides he’d smooshed into a sort of nest for me.

“Sleep?” he asked.

My stomach flipped and I whispered, “Not yet.” I had been exhausted earlier, it was true. But now that I was alone with him in our cave, my seemingly insatiable desire for him was rearing its head once more. Ever since I’d come here, I’d been desperate for him, as if keeping his cock inside me would somehow keep us both safe.

Grim must have felt the same. He growled, urging my pants down over my hips. I shimmied, helping the movement along. Soon enough I was naked, feeling the thick prod of his cock between my thighs. I shivered and moaned as he dragged the tips of his fangs down my throat, mating fluid soaking my skin. I needed that hot burn inside me. Now.

I jerked my head so that his fangs sliced into my neck. He tensed and withdrew.

“Careful,” he growled. “I don’t want them to go too deep.”

He was right, of course. Even though I wanted all of him as deep as possible.

He let out a shuddering, hoarse breath. “But I do like it when you’re needy.” The tips of his tongues flickered against my pulse as my heart pumped the mating fluid through my veins. I soaked my fingertips with more of the mating fluid, then dragged it against my clit, my core clenching as sensation zinged through my body. Aching so hard I thought my whole body might implode, I fumbled for his cock, stroking it and rubbing at those hard domed ridge things.

“What are these?” I asked. He’d tried to explain it before but I hadn’t understood. And I hadn’t asked again since we’d been able to communicate better.

“They are grogar pearls from the sea. We notch our shafts with them, pressing them beneath the skin, to celebrate victories when we kill one of the great beasts of the sea.”

Interesting. So kind of like a cultural piercing?

“I see,” I said, pressing slightly upon each pearl, one after the other, feeling a thrill when Grim bucked his hips and grunted in response. I wriggled, tossing my thigh over his hips as we faced each other on our sides. Angling my hips forward, I guided the head of his cock to my entrance.

I’d gotten used to this. The mating fluid certainly helped, but even outside of that, my body was becoming more and more accustomed to his hugeness. I still couldn’t take him to the hilt, of course. But I could take him more quickly and easily. After three thrusts, he was seated past the second pearl, the third one, the one closest to the base of his shaft, bumping against my clit every time we moved. That third pearl and the grazing tips of his cock spears on my clit, combined with the two pearls rolling over the sensitive parts inside me, had me coming almost immediately. My pussy clamped down on his cock just as my hands clamped down on the sides of his thick neck, squeezing, digging my fingernails between scales.

“My oroka,” Grim choked out, returning to our old words, our memories. His homeland and our beginnings. I crested again as he exploded inside me, now breathless and totally wordless.

This was the last place I’d ever have expected to have ended up – deep in a dark cave in the arms of an alien warrior.

But as Grim tightened his hold on me, calling me his oroka again and again, I knew it was exactly where I was meant to be.

And for the first time in a very, very long time, the future looked bright.

Bright red.

Thank you so much for reading Valeria and Grim’s story! I really loved writing this one – language and cultural barriers make everything so fun. I hope you enjoyed the story, too! Book ten will be Tok’s story, then it will be another one of our beloved Sea Sand kangaroo warriors for book eleven. If you want to keep up with all my updates and new releases, make sure to sign up for my newsletter at www.ursadaxwriting.com/contact

Until the next Sea Sand love story!

-Ursa

FATED MATES OF THE SEA SAND WARLORDS

BOOK 1 ALIEN TYRANT

“If you should flee, no matter where you run, I will always follow.”

Book 2 ALIEN ENEMY

“They call me the Mad Gahn. But I never felt truly mad until I saw her face…”

Book 3 ALIEN ORPHAN

“I have trained, battled, and fought my whole life. But winning my mate’s love is the greatest challenge I have ever faced…”

Book 4 ALIEN REJECT

“She is a difficult creature, my tiny Kat. But I have never met with a creature I could not tame…”

Book 5 ALIEN EXILE

“Beneath all that makes me strange to you, my heart recognizes yours…”

Book 6 ALIEN HUNTER

“Now that I have found her, I refuse to lose her…”

Book 7 ALIEN VICTOR

“I found her, I saved her, and once I am Gahn, I will claim her. There will be no other tribe left for her but me…”

Book 8 ALIEN SHIELD

“I have always been a patient warrior. But now that I have her in my sights, I cannot wait to claim her…”

Book 9 ALIEN KEEPER

“I will be her keeper, her guardian, her guide. And I will keep her safe no matter the cost…”