Venomous: Erotic Science Fiction Romance (Alien Warrior Book 1) (78 page)

I sent him a ‘you are so full of shit’ look.

He smiled indulgently.

“I call for the vote,” Dread the Darkness said. “Do we support Ambassador She, Lumen of the Stars’ proposition to, for the interim, ally our military might with that of the Verak?”

I nabbed seven out of twelve yeses that time.

Light-headed, I released a shuddery breath once it was over, unclenching bloodless fists.

“Ambassador She, Lumen of the Stars has the majority,” Calm as Thunder announced. “I believe the deadline is upon us.” She glanced at the taciturn male beside her. “Song of my hearts, holocall the L’Odo Chieftain.”

The powerfully built Rä’Vek prowled forward in his scarlet hardsuit, the embodiment of an honourable Rä warrior.

He placed a communicator a fair distance from Venomous’ to avoid static feedback then retuned to his cushion beside his powerful Rä’Na.

As soon as the hologram stabilised, the hunchbacked L’Odo Chieftain barked, “Are you ready to give up the human female, or face eradication, weakling soft-scalps?”

Frothed drool slicked his scarred snout, and dented armour clanged as he paced a crooked line.

Sorkbhal, crouched beside him, snuffled laughter.

“Chieftain,” Calm as Thunder greeted icily. “In response, I defer to our newly elected Ambassador of Intergalactic Relations, known as She, Lumen of the Stars.”

“Who?” The Chieftain’s bulbous skull crest separated then flared. His tail curled. “Ah, the human.”

Despite all I’d been through, achieved, a welling of fear hollowed my guts.

The L’Odo treated me despicably, nearly broke me into something less than human.

Echoes of Sorkbhal’s debased treatment rendered me mute.

Then I remembered my darling mates.

I thought of my new friends, and recalled the overwhelming acceptance of the Great Senate declaring me Rä, and the immense responsibility of the post I’d fought for.

Reacting to my inner turmoil, likely because my adrenaline levels were wild, I felt my miracle hatchling tumble, punch my cervix then lodge a foot in my ribs.

Wincing, prodding the area in appreciation, I decided such a feisty tyke deserved to have a Mamma Jamma who was as badass as its daddies.

Run this bitch
.

“I will make this brief and blunt, so even ones such as you will understand.” My voice cut like a knife. I flipped inside because I sounded
killer
. “Should the L’Odo threaten or participate in acts of aggression against the citizens of Rök, we will respond with swift, brutal action. All L’Odo craft orbiting our planet will depart without delay. If we find vessels connected with the L’Odo trespassing in our airspace within the next,” my eyes cartwheeled as I plucked a number out of the air, “span we shall see it as a declaration of war, and defend ourselves with ... really ... big weapons.” Running out of things to say, I threw my shoulders back, shook out my crazy hair, and said, “Do you under.... Uh....”

Out the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Fiercely and Cobra signalling for my attention.

Bouncing, waving, stabbing fingers....

Aha!

Pointing at something ... at....

Hand to my stomach, I shifted my weight and so turned a bit.

Venomous.

Kneeling in a mime of a shackled man.

He stood then forcefully broke the chains of enslavement to end with a chin lifted, chest thrust, hand on hips
Superman
pose.

I seriously had to start teaching my males the more upper brow facets of human culture.

He could have chosen a real hero pose like the Tommie Smith, Olympic Podium human rights salute.

I remembered telling him of that, but no, he went with comic book ending.

Okay, so I might have regaled him with stories of a dozen superheroes and their powers, but that was besides the point....

Rubbing my belly, I faced the L’Odo and glared. “And no more slaves! Stop that. That’s it. I think. Believe.” I sniffed in a self-aggrandizing way to cover up my bumbling. “Do you understand?”

Sorkbhal had stopped laughing and gaped at me.

Wily, the Chieftain narrowed his oily eyes. “What allies?”

Shimmering cloak fluttering around me, I swept out an arm in the most graceful movement I’d managed in my life,
ever
, and stepped aside to reveal the resplendent image behind me. “May I present, his most esteemed illustriousness and royal majesty, the Great Alpha Verak, King Beowyn ThunderClaw.”

Eyelid twitching, I could see Beowyn almost had a stroke to keep from busting a gut laughing at the embellished introduction.

He held it down and turned a stony face to the L’Odo. “I am indeed allied with the Rä. Through this alliance, they command the might of my legions. Through me, they hold alliances with the Yoni, the Hydok, the Drakni, the Baxnon.” Beowyn stopped to stare his enemy dead in the eye. “
The Azteka
.”

The Chieftain’s sallow scutes leached what little colour they had.

“You might win against one, even two warrior species, but seven? You are cut off from decent trade meaning soon you will run low on supplies, and will have to scavenge for scraps like the Dei San. The pirates will not take kindly to you encroaching upon what they consider their spoils. All but one of my named allies were wronged by you over the aeons, and recently, you had but a taste of our collective fury on the slave planet, where you held captive many of my own warriors.” Gripping the edges of his throne, Beowyn looked lethal as he leaned forward with a feral snarl. “I
want
you to be stupid enough to move against the Rä.
I long to crush you
.”

The Chieftain glared at Beowyn, at the Elders, and then, finally, at me.

I smirked. “That’s right. Schadenfreude, asshole.” I thumped my chest mimicking my mates then ended with a finger snap. “Feeling it, loving it.”

“She was doing so well,” Fiercely muttered.

Quaking with pent up fury, the L’Odo Chieftain bent over double, opened his mangled snout and roared like a prehistoric monster.

It was a beautifully horrific sound of unmitigated defeat.

Mountainous body lumbering a turn, he hefted a spiked cudgel.

As it descended in a death blow on the squalling Sorkbhal, the hologram wavered and the projection flickered out.

“And that is that,” said Beowyn. He looked at me, and his domineering manner vanished. He grinned. “You. Me. Paniki pleasure station. Comm me once you drop cub then we will go.” He paused. Purred. “Bring your males.” The hologram disappeared.

Calm as Thunder’s Rä’Vek picked up his bleeping communicator.

He glanced at me broodingly then peered at the screen.

His brow ridge bounced then he looked at me again.

Harder.

“I receive word from our planetary observation squadron and the advance scouts,” he said then paused. “The L’Odo battleships are pulling out of our orbit and retreating.”

She, Deathly as It Goes hooted into the silence, startling her Rä’Vek.

The burly male stared at her with heat, scandalously open about his desire for his life mate.

The gruff huntress intimidated the crap out of me, but we shared a grin.

Striding forward, Venomous picked up his communicator.

Calm as Thunder’s Rä’Vek bowed low to him in deference, and then it clicked for me.

“I am so freaking slow at times,” I muttered.

‘He commands all aboard until your mate is ready to assume authority.’

‘Worse, they would use you to control the strongest of us.’

‘...
I knew that he was to be the greatest of us.’

‘...his might is surpassed only by his arrogance
.’

Venomous wasn’t just a warrior, he was considered
the
warrior by his people.

And he’d been willing to relinquish that honour for his family.

He tucked his communicator into a thigh pocket on his matte black hardsuit then stood before me, powerful, strong, a warrior that defended me mind, body and soul.

Hissing a sigh, he cupped my face between his rough, warm palms.

His sensual mouth puckered, and I readied for a kiss of inconceivable beauty, but he paused, glared then rumbled, “We are
not
going Paniki.”

Biting my lip, thinking, ‘We so are,’ I took his mouth on a rush of breath then smiled radiantly as we parted.

I turned in his embrace to face the stupefied Great Senate. “I feel we should discuss my salary.”

A deafening crash of sound thundered into the enclosure from the citizens outside and merged with the hissing, stomping victorious mayhem setting the Senate roof afire.

V
enomous asked, “How did you do it? How did you persuade the Great Alpha to agree to such decisive action without making us beggar ourselves for it?”

“Verak are notoriously ruthless marauders and skilled in negotiation,” Cobra added.

Apprehensive, Venomous scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “
How?
”

You know those people who are modest, demure, and shrug off feats of cunning and internal strength as part of a higher calling to help others, and so don’t preen like brazen hussies when they achieve greatness?

That’s right, I’m that good, bow down bitches.

Yeah, I didn’t quite get there.

I strutted my stuff as we walked towards the goodbeasts and didn’t try to hide my awesomeness.

I’d probably fuck up the next diplomatic task.

Wisely, in my lauded opinion, I felt it important to bask in my accomplishment. “It helps when your best friend is the overlord of those ruthless marauders.”

Fiercely took one look at my face then snorted. “And?”

“Sweetheart, Wyn is so dazzled by my beauty and charm he’d deny me nothing.” I slid him a withering glare. “Learn from him.”

“Lumen....” Cobra warned.

“Oh, alright.” I stopped and crossed my arms in a snit. “I used the skills I’ve learnt on my amazing adventure across the universe. I traded Wyn the might of his legions for something....” I airily wriggled my fingers then looked down at my nails. “Something he wanted that only I could give.”

“Indeed?” Venomous asked timbre laden with dangerous undercurrents. “What price did a rutting warlord ask of our Rä’Na?”

Sensing I’d waded heedlessly into treacherous depths, I avoided his gaze to peer straight up at the star strewn night.

Ooh, shooting star.

Finally, because I was a bit mental, I drawled, “Me. Naked. Willing.”

Edgy silence.

“I am going to smother that male with his own severed seed sac.”

A considerably longer silence.

Venomous threw back his head and roared laughter as he staggered to the side.

Totally deadpan, Fiercely added, “I spoke aloud?”

“
You jest,
” Cobra finally exploded. Anima rising, he planted two hands on the back of his head. The other two fisted. “Tell me she is jesting.”

“Let us say,” I began, rubbing my forearm, “theoretically, of course, that I, um, gave Wyn the location of a blue and white planet third from the sun in a milky way galaxy eight hundred billion stars that-a-way.” I overextended my arm to point up and to the left of nowhere. “How would you react?” I squealed, “
Theoretically,
” when all three males bellowed, “Lumen!”

“You did not,” Venomous stated more to himself than the rest of us. “You would not.”

“
Whaaat?
Look, I made him swear he’d only take one adult, unattached, mentally sound human per Rök solar who agreed to leave without sexual or violent coercion, and to not share the coordinates on pain of death.” After counting the stipulations off my fingers, I flung out my arm. “Everybody wins. This is the part where you clap.”

“It is against Universal Edict to poach humans from Earth.
We
lobbied the Intergalactic Council to make it so.”

“Balderdash.”

“It is only endearing to use words I do not understand when I am not maddened by you.”

“We did that to
protect
Earth, babe. Not to restrict the magic of true love conquering inconceivable odds.”

“And that,” Fiercely muttered, “is how she justifies it in her poor, addled mind.”

“Wyn can afford a fine if he’s daft enough to get caught.” I slanted them each a coy look. “Just admit it.”

I slipped my foot in a stirrup to mount the goodbeast they’d ridden to the Senate Quarter earlier.

Wind Dancer and Dawning Light had taken our glider, too overcome with the conclave to deal with their temperamental mounts.

I said, “Admit my diabolical genius gets you hot.”

They eyed me warily.

Venomous turned to Fiercely. “I blame you.”

“Unmerited!”

“Who taught her how to use the communications matrix?”

Fiercely’s indignant protest died.

He crossed his arms. “How was I to know our female, who looks so guiltless, would wreak this chaos? How?” A guilty scowl cleared to distort into one of accusation. “And which of us, infallible Venomous One, said no harm would come of her being
best friends
with a warmongering sovereign? A conniving male with a harem four hundred strong, and a predilection for raiding planets abundant with the nubile when in the mood to get, I quote,
frolicsome
.”

“
Wyn has four hundred concubines
,” I shrilled almost breaking my ankle as I twisted to gawp at them. “I dodged a bullet when I told him no. It’s going to take one hell of a woman to straddle that stallion.”

Cobra mumbled, “Truth, I believe she jested.”

Abandoning the stirrup altogether, I faced them, balled up hands on my hips. “Did I, or did I not, singlehandedly, negotiate a transient treaty of peace between the Rä and the Veraks that might lead to a stronger, permanent alliance securing peace for our future offspring, scare the living shit out of the L’Odo, averting a world war, win the respect and approval of the Great Senate, bag a kick ass job, and accomplish all this looking fabulous as I did so?”

They glanced at each other in angst.

“There is no pleasing some people. I’m only one woman. There’s only so much I can ...
oh my gosh
. We locked Nāga in the garden! We have to get back to the lair.” Flustered, I spun to the goodbeast then spun back to them. “Seriously? You couldn’t remember this? I had sooo much on my mind
and
I’m pregnant. What’s
your
excuse?”