Venomous: Erotic Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 1) (16 page)

Venomous hugged Lumen to his chest and rubbed his brow to hers.

She smelt of him, spiced, but that would change.

Yofk would scent mark her.

Venomous’ guts pitched and he repressed a snarl.

She would be distraught and annoyed with him.

Lumen disliked not having her views heard.

She was so proud.

“You will forgive me,” he murmured. “I think you will know what is in my hearts.”

He imitated her intimate act as best he could and pressed his mouth to hers.

It made him feel so close to her.

Another male would not give her up.

He would fight and let her die if needs be to maintain his honour, but I cannot do that.

Hearts sinking, he passed her over and watched as the Krael took his mate to protect when he’d failed to.

“
Who the holy fuck are you, and where is Venom
?” I held a hairy branch like a rounder’s bat to keep the alien at bay.

I’d woken in a hovel I didn’t recognise with the insect
thing
looming over me.

Bulging eyes, wet pincers at its mouth, swampy scent, and its sodden breath blowing over me.

I didn’t want to be a discriminatory bitch, or anything,
but what the fuck was he
?

Although I felt as if I’d gotten a grip on the whacked out shit I’d encountered since my abduction, I wasn’t handling the shock of the unidentified creature to my system well at all.

Tears pricked my eyes as they showed too much white and rolled seeking escape from the strange den.

Venomous had been right; I’d fallen asleep then gotten snatched.

Did he search for me even now?

Could he?

Would they let him leave the pit to find me?

A worse, near impossible thought occurred.

Did this fiend kill my alien?

Sonofabitch.

“I am Yofk. Venomous One toils. He will retrieve you at the end of this rotation when his shift ends.”

That sounded like welcome news yet I remained wary.

I lowered my weapon a fraction.

Our translators seemed to communicate well with our respective languages.

He didn’t sound as stilted as Venomous, and there were no annoying blank spaces where words or phrases should be.

“He knows where I am?” I asked still suspicious, and justifiably in my opinion.

“We traded for your protection. You are safe with me in my mound.”

“Oh.
Thank goodness
.” The air left me in a giggly rush. “I worried there for a second.”

“Be comfortable.” He pointed to a pile of decomposing leaves. “Touch me before you present. The Rä warrior is protective of you, and it would not do to harm you. Touch helps prepare females for males.”

Able to stop channelling my inner badass and take stock of my body, my arms and legs felt tingly.

My stomach ached, and my mind was foggy as if I’d taken drugs.

As I watched Yofk lower to his leafy, moss speckled pallet these symptoms faded into the background.

Something uglier took their place and sick crawled up my throat.

Seeing how he studied me, his expectant gaze lingering at my breasts and groin, I experienced a hideous foreboding.

“What,” pained swallow, “did Venom trade for my protection?”

Yofk’s antennae lifted straight up into rigid points. “You will copulate with me. The Rä do not have hundreds of hive males like my species.” He made it sound as if that was foolish. “They have one lesser mate to watch their females. There are no other Rä here, so I offered.”

Reeling, I tried to think through the insinuation, no,
declaration
, that Venomous, the alien I’d begun to think of as
my man
traded me out for sex.

Something he said he’d never do.

He never said never.

My gut clenched and my heart pounded.

I’m an utter fool.

I’d trusted him, accepted belonging to him wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it’d be, and he’d turned around and betrayed me.

“I–I thought mating meant something different.” I grasped for an excuse. Maybe I’d misunderstood what a mate meant? “I thought it meant I’m for Venom alone.”

“You are.” Yofk sounded confused. “You are his mate. He told me so. You made him male.”

Muddled and frightened, I shook my head, my fingers hurting.

Why did my fingers hurt?

I looked down and felt surprise at seeing them digging into the branch.

I brandished my makeshift weapon again, shaking it like I knew how to use it. “You’re not making any sense.”

Yofk muttered, “No wonder he worried about giving you over.” He peered at me with curiosity. “Venomous One gave you to me so he could finish his shift. You were stung by an Opda that tried to steal you away.”

I jerked. “
What
?” I remembered nothing of this little tale.

Is that why my muscles twitched and I felt so spacey?

“I suspect you fell asleep, and it took advantage of his distraction when the Zozon died.” Pincers bracketing his mouth clicked. “It is what I would do. Your mate did not want to give you up. It was best. The L’Odo would not let him return you to his lair. Not that that would have kept you safe long.” Yofk sounded pleased. “I expect this will be a longstanding arrangement.”

My mouth dropped open with a soft
pop
. “He had no right to offer me for sex without my consent. None whatsoever.”

Twitching antenna drooped. “You will not honour the trade?”

“No, I bloody well shan’t. He had no right.
None
.”

Awkwardly gaining his feet, Yofk itched his trunk segment. “But female, Venomous One will be distraught if I set you outside to be harmed.”

“I’ll wait here.” I glanced around. Dark, dank, but enclosed and safe. “They haven’t bothered me yet. I’ll just wait patiently until he comes for me.”

Yofk again clicked the hard appendages at his mouth. “You expect protection for nothing in return. Why? You are not my female. I have not offered my mound to you free of trade.”

My eyes rounded. “You won’t let me wait here?”

“Do people give things of value away for free on your planet?”

I opened my mouth to confirm that yes people most certainly did, but then stopped.

That would be an outright lie.

Even if I dismissed my own low opinion of fibbers, and lied my ass off, what if the alien detected the untruth by scent, or some other sensitive sense?

It wouldn’t respect me if it thought me untrustworthy.

I choked out a few nonsense syllables before quieting.

Standing outside the safety of this burrow would be astoundingly unwise.

I looked away from the alien, afraid he’d glimpse my terror. “There must be some other way....”

“You want to open a trade exchange for protection?” asked Yofk in an odd tone.

He placed his scraggy arms one on top of the other in a dominant gesture reminiscent of arm crossing.

“Yes!” I jumped at the offer. “Let’s trade. Agreements made about my body should be made by me and me alone.” I lifted my chin. Temporary or not, Venomous trading me for sex was
wrong
. It disgusted me beings who were slaves themselves would stoop so low. “I am not a thing to be passed around.”

“Fine.” Yofk opened his long, thin arms and proffered his seven-fingered hand. “What do you offer?”

I blinked.

Trade; an exchange of valuables.

The only thing I had was my tunic, but if I used that I’d be down to panties again.

Then I remembered Venomous’ deal with Kilboh to hurt this alien.

What would happen if I traded with that, persuaded Venomous not to hurt Yofk in exchange for protection?

Kilboh will be pissed if Venom reneges.

A refund to that alien meant I’d have to give back the tunic, so once again, I ended up disadvantaged.

Why am I always the one to suffer?

I didn’t want to be the whiner that made everything about them, but fate had it out for me big time, and must have put a bounty on my head misfortune and serendipity were hell bound to collect.

Part of me wanted to say fuck Venom, and let him deal with the fallout, but my practical side knew even though he’d made a serious judgement error, Venomous was my best shot at surviving.

He wouldn’t have made the choice to trade me lightly.

Was it stupid to defend him?

Surely I should at least give the male himself a chance to explain before I went off all half cocked and stopped trusting him.

“Well, Human?” Yofk’s warbling drawl filled with pity. “What have you to trade?”

It was humiliating how he eyed me as if I were pathetic.

“Can’t I owe you a favour?”

“What good does that do me here? You might die tomorrow. What returns would my expenditure afford me then? Each span you are here I risk my life.” Bulbous eyes blinked. He buzzed high in his chest segment. “You have nothing but the cloth on your back and your body. I do not need coverings. I need the clasp of a female.”

I shrivelled inside.

Out of options, I resorted to begging and met his gaze, bottom lip trembling. “Please don’t ask this of me.”

“Why? It is an arrangement as old as time.”

“I’m mated to Venom,” I hedged.

“You are loyal. Commendable, but you forget who gave you to me. This is not infidelity. It is a concession to your circumstance.”

“We’re not compatible,” I blustered. “You have no penis.”

Nothing dangled between his legs.

Yofk made a sound of relief as a cluster of fleshy, moist rods appeared from behind a soft flap at his lowest segment to thrust at the air.

Squalling, I plastered myself to the wall, dropping the branch in my haste then too scared to bend over and pick it up.

“You have a vent.” Yofk stared at my groin as if he could see the space between my legs through the tunic. Who knew, maybe he could. “This will work.”

“I’m not having sex with you,” I snapped my fear deteriorating into fury. “I’m not attracted to you. Even if I was, I already said, I’m mated and will not sleep with another alien for safety that should be offered out of common fucking courtesy. Been there, done that.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” His stiff, beetling brow pulled lower. “I want to enter you.” He inhaled. Downy appendages on his hands uncoiled. “You are in heat, but there is nothing I can do about that. I would think Venomous One has planted his seed, but if I breed you, it only ensures my protection for life.”

Horrified didn’t begin to describe my thoughts on birthing a child in this hellhole.

I got that’s what Venomous assumed would happen, but I clung to the feeble hope we were too different to conceive.

I pressed closer to the wall, sticky with a sour, whitish secretion I didn’t look too close at. It stank. “I won’t do it. Don’t come near me. I’ll scream.”

He screeched laughter. “Go ahead. Waste your breath.” He studied me. “Some females are difficult. I will touch you until you need release. My female considered me skilful until they killed her. I was a great favourite of hers.” Yofk lowered himself to his knees. “Come.”

I lunged for a dark hole that just had to be the exit.

“Have you seen the Vudwani? She was not always Grol’s property.”

A flash of memory; the leashed female pinned between two rutting males.

I slammed to a stop.

Satisfied he had my attention, Yofk carried on. “She ran from her protector too. She once belonged to the Verak Venomous One bested.” Buzzing in a sigh of irritation, Yofk inelegantly rose and strode to a rocky slab that jutted from the wall, his waist high. The spotted shell of his back to me, he chopped something I couldn’t see. It smelt herby. “By the time the Verak tracked her to the inner tunnels where she fled, she had been taken by three males.” He paused then added matter-of-factly, “He didn’t want her after that. Verak are territorial and possessive of their harems. They do
not
share. Once a concubine is soiled they cast them aside.”

“Venom,” I whispered, “isn’t Verak.”

“It is much the same with his species. They set their damaged females aside,” he explained and continued to hack up food.

My stomach rumbled.

“So now the Vudwani services the males in this place,” he continued. “Lines and lines of males per rotation. They would
eagerly
welcome a new female.”

A high keen strangled from my throat. “Right.” I dragged in a ragged breath. “So it’s better to only whore for you and him?”

“Venomous One is your mate,” he reproached. “He did not agree to this without personal cost. It damaged his honour to give you to another. He did so to spare you worse.” Yofk plated a portion of the raw food on a leaf then placed it near the mound of dry leaves that made up his bed. A lure. “On his planet, he would be considered weak for sacrificing honour to spare your life.”

Anger tore through me in a jagged spike. “
Spare me
?”

“If you stayed in the pit bad things would happen. Understand the outcome for you would have been the same no matter what he did. Venomous One would have fought to protect you from the next male that tried to grab you. He would have been subdued by the L’Odo, and you would be ravaged by any who could get hold of you. They would not be patient. They would fill any orifice yielding enough to take them. Brutally. Without care of killing you.”

“The guards would have stopped them.” I wrapped my arms around my middle. How sad imagining the best was my only comfort. “They want them to work.”

“The frenzy that would begin when word spread the warrior Rä’s female was unprotected would have been fierce. You are more attractive to them
because
you are his. All want the female of a strong male. They would wonder what you had that was special enough to ensnare such a male as he.” Yofk sent me a gloomy look. His antennae wiggled. “No, small one, the L’Odo would not save you. They would let the slaves take their fill until you expired.” He paused. “Do you believe your dead are sacred? Some species do. Many here do not. They would mount your corpse, or simply touch your sex to gather your pheromones and expend over you. Venomous One would rampage, but they would subdue him. In the end, you would be a sad memory. Maybe even a source of sorrow to him as the solars wore on.” Yofk sighed. “The next rotation the desperately hungry would eat small one stew. That is if your meat was not carried off to be eaten raw by the more savage creatures.”