A Civilized Mating (6 page)

Xav stroked his chin. “I was afraid you’d say that. Considering that even from here I can sense your mark, I do not think Talzec will part the two of you.”

“Thank you.” Maht bowed his head.

“But… I am not sure if you will be allowed to stay. Breaking the treaty is not something we can hide.”

“But she wants to stay with me. She is here of her own free will.”

“Yeah?” Skye cut in. “Then why am I here? She sent me a message to come rescue her.”

Maht turned a stricken gaze to Lisa, and for a moment Skye actually felt sorry for him. “Is this true, sweetling?”

Lisa sniffled. “I’m sorry. It’s just… This is so confusing. We haven’t been together long, and you were talking about keeping me here. I mean, I’m from Earth. I work at Welcome. I don’t know anything about your culture. Heck, Maht. I barely know you.” She absently rubbed her belly, and Skye wanted to groan, because the satisfied look on Maht’s face was impossible to miss.

“Ah, now I understand. So much so soon. It threw me as well. We do not normally take to offworlders. Finding you, as much as it is a joy, is a shock as well.”

The intimacy building around the couple felt real. Like a force field of affection and protection at the same time.

Skye frowned and stared harder at them. In the light of the fire, she could almost see lines of light connecting the pair. She blinked and concentrated, wondering if perhaps this planet was enhancing her psychic abilities. That or the weird meat she’d consumed had the same effect as certain hallucinogens at home.

Maht continued, looking away from Lisa to Xav again. “The needs were pressing. I confess I could not wait to arrive home. We settled into the yernax point and I lost myself between her soft thighs.”

“TMI, buddy.” Skye didn’t need to look at Lisa to feel her friend’s discomfiture, so she focused on her stick of meat.

“And then?” Xav prodded.

“Then the noise of intruders distracted me. I heard the female—” he nodded at Skye “—talking with warriors I did not know. I felt danger, and then a Nasuhl entered our post.”

“This means war,” Zhen muttered.

Lore nodded.

“When I left the hut fighting the intruder, I saw Lisa’s friend fighting another of the warriors.” He sounded surprised, which didn’t help Sky’s ego any. “She took him down.”

Lore gaped at her. “She did?”

“It wasn’t you?” Zhen asked Maht.

“I fought the one, but she defeated the other. Then she came after the one
I
was fighting with.” He frowned at her. “She defeated him too. Enemies so close to my new mate triggered the instinct even more. I have the vague impression of pinning Skye to a tree, concern for Lisa my only goal. Skye then battled
me
. I have no idea what else happened until Xav woke me.”

Now everyone was staring at her, and Skye felt the way she had at home. Not fitting in, alien among her own kind. Women didn’t possess fighting skills. If anything, their intellect had risen to surpass most men’s. So to find a “throwback” like Skye, who aligned more with fighting skills than cerebral pursuits, hadn’t painted her in a very good light.

“Truly, Skye?” Xav asked. She couldn’t read the emotion in his voice. Awe or disbelief? Pride or disgust? “You defeated Maht and the others?”

She glanced at Maht but didn’t see the scorn she’d thought she might. Most men didn’t like being beaten by a female. He appeared fine with it.

“Skye?” Xav said again, more impatient.

“So what if I did? I came here to protect my friend. Instead, I find her getting freaky with a giant. Then two more of you guys showed up, and they weren’t all that nice. I did what I had to do.” She grew more concerned with the sober faces looking back at her.

Xav stood. “Put out the fire. Break camp. We’re returning home. Talzec needs to know of this Nasuhl interference.” He kept looking at her. “By now they will have returned to their village and reported.”

The others made haste obeying while Skye tried to figure out what the hell was going on. “Hey, Xav, wait.” He stopped in the middle of his conversation with Maht, the odd dialect of course one she couldn’t understand. “What’s up? Why are we hurrying now? Is it some big deal that I dealt with the Nasuhl instead of Maht?”

He just stared at her, his entire bearing that of a conquering warrior. “Yes, it is.”

Instead of explaining, he turned back to Maht and their conversation, ignoring her.

“Asshole.” She glared at him, annoyed to be relegated to standing with Lisa like helpless cargo. Whatever. She’d use her gifts to protect her friend—her
pregnant
friend. To Lisa, she said, “So you’re pregnant, huh?”

“Yes.” Lisa signed and rubbed her belly. “It’s totally weird, but I can feel a little tickle in my stomach.”

“Sure that’s not the
flehik
we just ate?”

Lisa laughed, much lighter about the whole mess than Skye would have thought. “No. I’m… I don’t know. I’m happy about the baby and Maht. Still not sure about living with barbarians away from everything I know.” She let out a breath. “But I feel a sense of excitement and almost acceptance. Weird, right?”

All that talk of bonding and energy melding had Skye thinking. “Maybe not as weird as it sounds. This
phelthar
stuff sounds like a psychic joining. Your psychic skills lay in charming the pants off of people. So at Welcome, you were personnel management, right?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So you managed yourself into a husband, is what I’m thinking. They mate or marry, whatever you want to call it, on a deeper level than finding a justice of the peace. His psyche seems to have bonded with yours.”

Lisa took Skye’s hand and squeezed it. “The Green Moon dance is in another five days.”

“You know?”

“Yes. So I have a little more time before it’s all or none. Life here with Maht and the baby, or life back at home. I know I’m done with the resort. They won’t take me back, not with a barbarian baby. That’s a clear violation of their fraternization policy.”

“You think?” Skye snorted.

Lisa grinned, then a tear trickled from her eye.

“Damn. I’m sorry. I was just teasing.” Lisa had seemed so okay with her pregnancy.

“No. I’m just emotional. Happy one minute, scared out of my mind the next. I mean, a baby?”

“Life is seriously throwing you some curves.” Skye shrugged. “But no biggie. We can handle it.”

“I’m
so
glad to have you as a friend.” Lisa gave her a hug then pulled back, and more tears followed. “Oh my God. I just realized. With you here helping me, your chances for advancement at Welcome are ruined, aren’t they?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Skye, I’m
so
sorry. I—”

“Come.” Maht drew them apart and shot Skye an angry look, one she returned.

“No, little warrior.” Beside him, Lore shook his head. “Save your energy for when we get to the village.” In a lower voice that didn’t reassure her one bit, he added, “You’re going to need it.”

***

Daveen, leader of the Nasuhl Clan, listened with curiosity to the tale his returning warriors told. They gathered in his chambers, deep in the cool caves protected from any enemy by a series of interlocking passages only Daveen, his cousin Morlo, and a few others knew. But Daveen wanted this information kept close. No common area for this discussion. Female offworlders? Sexual offerings from the Maker or a plot by the West to spy on them? And what of this female battling warriors and
winning
?

“So this female, an offworlder, bested you both? And the Vyctore male as well?”

Fleen shifted on his feet. “She didn’t best me, exactly.”

“She threw you,” Haen added with a sneer. “So you ordered me to deal with her while you took the easier of the two. Yet still you lost to him.”

Fleen drew back his hand to cuff Haen when Daveen stopped him. “Hold. The females. Describe them again. And give me details about the fighter.”

She intrigued him, this woman with light-colored hair and brown eyes. Her body had been made for war, apparently, because no weak female could defeat warriors he himself had trained. Fleen and Haen were no ordinary Nasuhl. They were part of his interior guard.

Still, defeat had to be met with some form of discipline. He nodded to Morlo, not only his cousin, but his beta as well. “Fifteen lashes each. But make Haen’s pretty for the females.” Nasul women did so like their men scarred.

Morlo nodded, and like the beasts Nasuhl had trained them to be, Haen and Fleen accompanied a dominant master with their proverbial tails between their legs. Daveen ruled all with an iron fist, but Morlo had all his trust and bestowed authority. The last in Daveen’s bloodline, and the only person in this life he knew would not turn on him.

As usual, at thoughts of betrayal, he thought of Nalla, his dear sister. Once again, he knew deep, never-ending pain.

Daveen had been raiding for years, taking only the most prime female flesh from other villages and training them to handle a warrior’s needs. He had a rougher touch than most females wanted to handle. Only Nalla had seen him for what he was. Only she’d been able to handle him in the special way he needed. And then she’d gone, supposedly rescued by that dishonorable scum, Talzec.

A fury of hatred and need for justice burned in Daveen’s breast. Soon he would take Talzec down, destroy the man and everything he held dear. To know Talzec had claimed Nalla for his own sickened him. The only thing that made him feel better was the fact they clearly hadn’t bonded, because Nalla had passed and Talzec remained. The weak piece of shit hadn’t even had the decency to take his own life. Nalla meant that little to him.

Enraged, as he normally was, Daveen stormed back to his bedchamber and sent for two of his concubines. He dragged out his favorite whips, needing to play. The females arrived and immediately huddled in fear, knowing that particular look in his eye. Their trainer, an older whore with an able mind if battered body, stood by, watching.

“Present yourselves,” she said in an icy tone.

While he readied to release the tension and anger that never went away, he thought about the offworlder female and her soft, sexy friend. Imagining them giving back the fight he desperately needed, he stripped down and began to flick his whips, warming up. Then he worked the females through their paces, climaxing multiple times while keeping his second seed from ejaculation. His second seed—that which he’d only ever held for Nalla, a woman worthy of his lineage. Just as he’d considered her ready to receive him, to continue his line with child, Talzec had stolen her. And now he was left without an heir. Truth to tell, Daveen feared ever finding a worthy female to bear him young.

Someone who could fight like a man, or at least fuck like one. Though it went against all the Nasuhl believed in, men fucking men made a twisted kind of sense. Daveen could only imagine a male being able to withstand the force he used when expelling his second seed. Still, fucking a male was something no self-respecting barbarian would ever do.

Yet another reason to despise the Vyctore clan. Those hell demons had taken to accepting, even welcoming, male-to-male pairings, spurring many other clans to do the same. That godless reject Talzec had a habit of ruining everything he touched.

Someday, Talzec. I’ll have your head, and I’ll mount it over my bed so that while I’m fucking my way to pleasure, you’ll be watching and knowing you lost everything. To me.

Skye didn’t know what she’d expected, but the words
barbarian
and
village
brought to mind crude structures and even cruder people. What she encountered as they entered the Vyctore clan village stunned her. Deep in the heart of the tropics, surrounded on three sides by dense, well-guarded terrain and on the other by a large lake, the place felt warm, friendly.

Several thatched huts, some open, some closed off, were scattered throughout the large clearing away from the thick tree line surrounding the village. As she watched, a few children raced around chattering and playing a game of what looked like tag.

To the far end near a natural spring, several females stood over tables. Their clothing covered their essential parts—thank God. Skye was no prude, but she hadn’t looked forward to watching naked breasts bob and shake during her stay. Considering how little the male barbarians wore, the females seemed overdressed. Thin, short, sleeveless dresses in dark browns and greens and patterned with bright colors, like the flowers around them, covered them from shoulder to high on the thigh. One or two women bent over the table and showed a thong-like undergarment. Then a few others moved and displayed the fact they wore nothing underneath.

The men working around them or walking by didn’t ogle anyone but seemed to treat those they encountered with respect.

Interesting.

The females were definitely smaller than the men. The barbarian males on average stood seven feet tall. The females were more Earth-like, all dark haired and golden eyed, but about Lisa’s height. Even here, Skye stood out among the females. Honestly, that kind of annoyed her. How could it be that female
barbarians
seemed more feminine than she did?

All the males, even those working with stones and produce—some type of bartering system?—looked like warriors. They had large muscles, a wariness to them suggesting a familiarity with combat, and screamed
danger
. Around the perimeter, she noticed a guard force carrying weapons of all kinds. Battle axes, hammers, spears, and a few long bows.

Fascinating. Her interest caught and held on the challenging energy coming from the guards, especially.

A glance to her left showed a small gaggle of women surrounding Maht had Lisa. Lisa smiled, sheltered by Maht’s towering frame. He looked on proudly while Lisa and the women talked and laughed. Lisa had no trouble making friends, which would certainly help her here.

“Come, Skye. Don’t be afraid.” Xav tugged her after him, and she realized she’d stopped in her tracks to take everything in.

“
Scared?
I don’t think so.” She could almost feel Lore and Zhen grinning behind her. “And you two can piss off.”