Breeder (12 page)

“Omra.” Her name rolled off his lips like a song of praise. He massaged her folds with his thumbs as if to ease the way. Another thrust. Then another, and he seated himself. His member pulsed.

She feared he would leave when he pulled back, but then he slid in. Long and slow, satisfying her in a most elemental way, yet…not. She craved the rest of it, the sensation that she was exploding into hundreds of pieces.

Dak curved his arm over her hip and cupped her mons. He pressed his fingers onto the protruding nub and massaged. She gasped with joy and spread her legs until she risked splitting herself in two. Her hips bucked. Sensation coiled in her sex, in the nub in particular. Winding, winding. Burning. Tightening.

Dak’s breath grew ragged in her ear, and his body slickened with sweat as he pumped his erection harder and faster, working his fingers in tandem.

With a snap, she was hurled into the flames again, her body bucking and spasming.

He groaned her name, and his body shuddered, and then he was pounding into her with a force that would have driven her to the floor if he hadn’t been holding her. His erection jerked, and a flood of wetness merged with her own.

Her knees gave way, and she collapsed, Dak atop her, still inside her. Her passage pulsed, continuing to milk his member, unwilling to relinquish the most incredible sensations she’d ever experienced. He buried his face against her neck, his jaw rasping, his breath steaming. Her hands rested palms down on the bed, and he covered them, curling his fingers between hers. Though the compression of his body made it hard to breathe, she relished the intimacy of his weight. She felt safe, secure.

For a long moment, they remained like that; then, without breaking contact, he rolled to his side and tucked her body into the crook of his. Held snugly with his member still inside her, Omra surrendered to slumber.

Chapter Eight

Morning fog shrouded the ground and dampened the sound of Dak’s footfalls as he crept along the tree line, hugging his injured arm to his chest. His ears filtered out the chirps of awakening insects and fowl, listening for sounds that did not belong. He’d evaded capture thus far. His comrades-in-arms? Not so fortunate. It was common for prisoners to be beaten half to death for the sport of it. Bloodlust of friend and foe ran high.

Their team of four had set out a fortnight ago with orders to seize the crested grail. Under cover of darkness, Dak had crawled through the enemy camp and whisked it away under the noses of the men guarding it. Their safety, their win had seemed assured until Dak’s brother, who’d led the operation, committed a serious blunder, allowing the enemy to swoop upon them.

Of the four, three had been captured. Only Dak remained free, though he’d been wounded in the battle. His arm ached, and red tracks spread from the deep laceration in his shoulder. He’d bound the wound with a length of cloth torn from his uniform. Irony mingled with the burning pain. What if he survived the fight only to succumb to infection?

In his pack, he carried the enemy’s crest.

He’d marched all night, but now, the grayness of a waning eve covered the land. The earth released fecund odors, which seeped into his nose and into his pores as he trod across the spongy ground padded by decaying leaves. Dawn would break soon, and he would be forced to hide until he could travel under the cloak of darkness once more.

The hairs on his nape stood up seconds before a twig snapped behind him.

Dak whipped around, feinting to the side, but not soon enough. Agony lanced through him as a dagger sliced between his ribs.

His injured arm hung useless, and Dak roared with pain and rage and shoved his attacker. His assailant’s face contorted into a rictus of hatred as he latched on to Dak’s shoulder and twisted the knife. “You shall not best me, brother!”

“Dak! Dak!” From the forest floated Omra’s voice, and fear arose, not for his life, but hers. He could not see her, but he could hear, feel her panic.

“Run, Omra, run!” he shouted.

A smile as evil as a serpent slid over his brother’s face. “So she is what you hold dear…”

“Dak! Commander!” Omra sounded frantic.

Lodged inside, the poison-tipped knife burned, and his life force began to slip away as the toxin spread. He had lost everything—failed in his mission, placed Omra in harm’s way. She materialized out of the wood. He tried to yell again for her to flee, to hide, but his tongue and lips had swollen. His mouth would not form the words. Fog clouded his vision. Weakness paralyzed his limbs, and he would have fallen except his twin gripped his injured shoulder and was shaking, shaking, shaking—

Dak jerked awake.

“Commander, please!”

The forest, his brother, the knife—evaporated. Omra leaned over him, jostling his shoulder. “Commander!”

He blinked, drawing breaths of sweet air into his perspiration-soaked body.

“You were shouting in your sleep. I couldn’t wake you.” Her concern deepened the ache inside.

“It was just a dream.” He banished it with a toss of his head and wrapped his arm—the one that ached when winter descended—around her and pulled her to his chest. She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “A dream.” He pressed his lips to her hair and inhaled, let her scent replace the smell of the earth, of blood, of fraternal duplicity.

His brother had not erred on that long-ago training mission but had deliberately led them into a trap. Parseon did not cosset its soldiers or cadets. Training exercises were as real as any wartime battle; men could and did die, but his brother had
plotted
Dak’s demise, aware it would be assumed he’d perished in training. But Dak had survived to return to base with their opponent’s crest, and his performance in the operation had earned him a commendation. Much later, after fighting many wars, going hand-to-hand against Parseon’s bitterest enemies—Dak had been awarded the coveted fifth Parseon province.

He did not know why his dream altered the events of that long-ago day.

His sire’s favored first son had relied on their opponents to kill him—had not laid a finger on Dak—yet in the dream that had dogged his slumber for years on end, his brother always hunted him down to finish the deed.

Dak thought he’d triumphed over the night terrors and had laid them to rest, but the evening’s events had triggered another one. He shuddered anew in contemplation of Marlix using Omra. No female should have to endure a cruelty of that nature—certainly not his. Though Corren did not know everything of what he felt, he was aware of enough to have made his offer of Omra tantamount to betrayal.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
. Had he kept them too near?

Omra caressed his chest, making whorls of the hair with her finger, and under her soothing ministrations, his breathing calmed. He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her palm.
Kissing
her had been an insane impulse. He’d witnessed Terrans doing it, but until recently had never imagined engaging in such an unhygienic, pointless gesture. What was to be gained from pressing one’s lips to another, licking the inside of the mouth, and exchanging saliva? And with a female, no less.

But something about Omra bade him to try it. Demanded he do it. The sensations had floored him. The softness of her lips. The wetness. The heat. And when she’d responded in kind, a lust such as he’d never experienced had unleashed. Stories he’d heard had pounded at his brain, and he’d wondered, what if? What if Terran blood made a difference? What if everything he’d been taught about females was wrong?

He had discovered the answer.

“Your dream was very fierce to have taken hold of you so.” Omra worried her lip.

“But just a dream. It was of no consequence.” He faked unconcern with a shrug. Parseon military training organized around teams, but only one individual of the team could emerge as victor. By the end, the exercises pitted comrade against comrade. Brother against brother. But the contest between him and his brother had begun the moment his twin had preceded him out of the womb. Primogeniture had conferred all birthright and their sire’s favoritism to his elder sibling, yet it had never satisfied his brother. His hunger for power was insatiable.

He kissed Omra, and she twined her tongue around his.
Monto
. There was no going back.

“I like that…kissing,” she said, shyly, when he broke it off. The way she said the Terran word, her accent, made it sound so foreign, exotic. But then it was. Deviant too. Dangerous, should anyone find out.

He cupped the side of her face and stared into her eyes. “Do not go alone with another Alpha under any circumstance.”

“If he is Alpha, I would have no choice.”

“You do have a choice. I give it to you. I will deal with what happens.”
I will protect you
. He wanted to reassure her but worried that doing so might scare her more. He did not want her to creep about in fear but to be cautious, prudent. Stay close to his domicile, so that he could protect her. Corren was gone, and Dak doubted he would risk punishment by returning to the domicile. But the conversation with the other Alphas had left him uneasy. He had betrayed too much of his feelings for Omra. He was probably being overly cautious, but he would post a guard on the morrow but not tell her about it. She could attend to her chores, and he would have peace of mind while away.

She nibbled on her lower lip, drawing his attention to its plumpness, to the memory of its softness under his. “All right,” she said hesitantly.

He checked a reflex to brush the damp hair from her face, to trace the line of her mouth, to kiss her eyelids and feel the flutter of her lashes. He needed to impart the seriousness of the situation without frightening her unduly. “And
I
am
your
Alpha, and you shall obey,” he said sternly.

“Your will is mine,” she answered. The trusting,
tender
expression in her eyes thickened his throat. He kissed her because he had to explore the wonders of her mouth, her pouty bottom lip, the equally luscious top one, the avidness of her wet little tongue, the sweetness of her breath. A man could lose himself in a mouth like that, in a female like her. Forget his responsibilities. Had that been the intent of Protocol? Keep the sexes separate so Parseon’s warriors would not be distracted?

Lies.

Omra had reached the pinnacle of satisfaction under his mouth, his hand, his manhood. Her response had been so much more than he’d hoped for, which had been to mitigate her discomfort. Her cries of rapture, her writhing body, had excited him beyond all experience or hope, and he’d almost lost control. To surge inside her welcoming channel? Unparalleled ecstasy. He had succumbed quickly.

So had she. She’d ascended bliss even faster the second time.

Lies.

And if Protocol had fabricated untruths about a female’s inability to enjoy mating, what other falsehoods might it have promulgated?

From Omra’s mouth, Dak trailed his lips to her neck to nuzzle her flesh. Softness, everywhere he touched. He licked the juncture of her shoulder, kissed his way across her collarbone to the other side. She rolled her head to accommodate him and settled her hands on his shoulders. Her nipples poked at his chest, hard like fruit stones, begging for his mouth. Something else he’d never imagined himself doing—sucking a teat. But the feeling of Omra’s nipple in his mouth, hardening on his tongue, her whimpers…

How the mighty had fallen. He’d been taken down by a mere female. From conversation, he’d discerned Terran males revered the female body. And he’d seen videos of men sucking a female’s breasts. They seemed to prefer large ones. He’d never expected the desire to suckle like a babe would arise in him. But it had. He’d violated so many proscriptions…

The skin of his neck tingled when Omra threaded her fingers though the hair at the base of his skull. It was as if the individual hair strands were energized, sending jolts of pleasure through his body. Her breasts swelled against his chest as she inhaled, and her whisperfly touch stilled.

“Dak?”

His name, uttered in her throaty voice, sounded sweeter than her honeyed pastries. No one, save Corren in private, called him by name anymore. The man called Dak had vanished with the completion of military training. He’d surrendered his right to fulfill his personal needs when he’d assumed command of his people. Even securing a breeder had been mandated by his position.
Dak
did not exist. He was only Alpha.

“Yes, Omra?” He savored the vibration of
her
name; it hummed like a mantra on his lips. She calmed him—when she wasn’t causing claws of lust to rake his body until he thought he’d go insane. He could not resist the lure of her nipple any longer. He dipped his head in search of it.

“May I touch you?” She spoke before he could latch on. He froze. Her innocent question ignited a stream of salacious, perverse ideas. He almost groaned.

“You are touching me,” he said thickly. He raised his head.

She flushed. “I mean—” She licked her lips and dropped her gaze, sweeping it over his body. “More.”

Heat blazed in his groin. “You may touch me wherever you like.” He picked up her hand, kissed her fingers.

Though he’d given her carte blanche, his eyes widened when she pushed at his chest. “Lie back,” she commanded boldly, although pink had deepened to rose on her face. Bemused, he rolled onto his back. She sat up.

“Am I permitted to respond in kind?” he asked, hoping to learn the rules of this new game. Envisioning her hands on his body caused him to ache with lust. Her breasts were so close, her nipples so red and hard. The sight of his insignia, his mark, his claim dangling from her right one, pleased him in a primitive, sexual way. She was
his
. No one would take her from him as long he was alive.

“You may touch me too.” She paused, ducked her head, and peered at him through her lashes. “I give you permission.” Probably no female since Protocol had been implemented had spoken those words to a male.

All further contemplation of the significance incinerated when she scraped her thumbnail over his nipple.
Monto
. The sharp sensation shot straight to his erection.