Alien Paladin's Redemption (Warriors of the Lathar Book 13) Read online

  The journey back to the shuttle was swift and without incident, the tension between the two of them simmering higher every time Nyek helped her over an obstacle. He made sure there were many, most of which she didn’t need help with, but it gave him an excuse to pull her close and tease her with a breath along the side of her neck or a quick nip on her earlobe. She didn’t complain, the small giggles and soft smiles telling him she was just as eager to be in his arms as he was to have her there.

  By the time they reached the shuttle, Nyek was ready to explode, but he stopped her at the open doorway.

  “When we get inside,” he murmured huskily, pushing the curls away from her forehead with gentle fingers. “I will not be gentle. I do not want to be gentle. I want…”

  He slid his hands down her arms, pushing them behind her and capturing her wrists in one hand. Her breathing hitched, a pretty flush on her cheeks.

  “I want this. Control. Over you. I want to do whatever I want to you… make you scream with pleasure.”

  She looked down, refusing to meet his gaze for a moment, and his heart sank. Had he pushed too far, too fast… was this dark need something humans did not feel?

  Then she looked up and the sultry heat in her eyes almost brought him to his knees. “You’re asking permission?”

  “Consent.” He nodded. “Yes. I will not harm you. I would never harm you. But—”

  “Not gentle is fine.”

  She cut him off with a reply that branded itself on his soul. Triumph roared through him and he scooped her up into his arms, striding into the darkened interior of the shuttle.

  Once inside he didn’t hesitate. He simply strode to the bed, still in place in the middle of the main compartment. He stopped long enough to slide her down the front of his body, making sure she felt every hard muscle and plane. It was delicious torment, especially when she gasped halfway, registering the state of his body.

  He smiled, seeing no reason to hide the way she affected him. That was the whole point of this endeavor after all. Stepping away, he shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it. He bent to scoop up his duty sash, long-since abandoned during their mission, and turned to her, winding it in his hands.

  “Undress,” he ordered, hardly recognizing his own voice. He couldn’t touch her, not just yet. He wanted to enjoy this, savor it.

  She bit her lip, but the sassy reply he’d expected didn’t fall from her lips. Instead, she started to unbutton the front of her ship suit. His mouth went dry as her movements became far more sensual than he’d ever seen them. She kept her eyes on him as she played with the buttons, sliding her fingers beneath each one to tease him before she popped it free and moved onto the next.

  But there were only so many buttons and before long she’d reached the bottom. A soft growl rumbled in the back of his throat as she looked down, acting coy as she slipped the fabric from her shoulders. He’d expected her to shuck the suit, sliding it over her hips, but instead she reached for the bottom of her tank top. When she pulled it up over her head, revealing that she wore nothing beneath, he all but stopped breathing.

  His growl was unstoppable, growing deeper with each second as he forced himself to remain where he was, feet planted shoulder-width apart, sash so tight in his hands he was surprised the fabric didn’t tear.

  A twinkle of mischief in her eyes, she slid her hands up from her waist to cup her breasts and his control broke. He was across the space between them in a heartbeat as he yanked her into his arms and claimed her lips in a hard, demanding kiss. The soft moan of her response inflamed him even further.

  Walking her backward, he tumbled her onto the soft surface of the bed. He fell with her, capturing her hands and pulling them up above her head. It was the work of a moment to secure them with his sash to one of the anchor rings normally used for hauling cargo.

  She watched him, her eyes dark and hooded. Her breathing was shallow, soft pants that drove the arousal in his body higher as he swept a glance down hers.

  “Now… you are at my mercy,” he murmured, sliding down her body. He ignored her lips in favor of swirling his tongue around her nipple, teasing it gently with his teeth. She whimpered in response, her back arching gently, and he growled anew.

  Her waist was so tiny, his hands almost encompassed it as he explored her curves. Licking and kissing at her ample breasts until she squirmed beneath him, he slid his hands beneath her ship suit. His lips trailed a line of kisses down her soft skin as he pushed her clothing down—over her wide hips and down the long length of her shapely thighs, taking her panties with them. He’d been fascinated by the human undergarments before, but now he wanted them gone. He wanted nothing between them as he explored her, took her… made her scream his name.

  Discarding her clothing and boots somewhere on the floor, he watched her as he crawled back up her body. She didn’t speak but merely bit her lip as he pushed her thighs apart with firm hands, sliding his palms up the inside of her thighs. His gaze riveted on the plump flesh as it was mangled by straight, white teeth, but then the rest of her hijacked his attention.

  He knelt between her thighs, holding them open, and looked down. She was wide open for him, pliant and submissive. For a moment he was forced to hold himself still, so many needs and desires raging through him it was hard to sort through the chaos and focus. When he did, one need rose above all the rest. To get inside her again.

  With a small grunt, he turned her over onto her knees. Her small gasp of surprise echoed softly in the silence of the cabin and then deepened to a moan of need as he slid his fingers between her pussy lips, seeking the sensitive little nub that had caused her to squirm and bathe his hand in the essence of her pleasure before.

  “So hot… and wet,” he murmured, bending over her as he teased and stroked. “Will you be as tight again, I wonder?”

  He moved to discover that answer for himself, sliding two fingers deep inside the heavenly clasp of her body. A rough curse escaped him as she clamped down around him, somehow, impossibly, tighter than before. He would have to be careful not to hurt her in his passion.

  “You are a witch,” he told her, pumping his hand slowly then sliding up to stroke her clit before penetrating her again. Pushing her higher, “sent to tempt me into the pleasures of the flesh. A decadence whose coils I may never free myself from.”

  “Uh-huh,” she managed, her voice halting. “You keep telling yourself it’s my fault, handsome.”

  It was her fault. Until she’d come into his life, he’d never once wanted to kiss, or touch a female… never wanted… needed like he did now. Her soft cries and bound hands, the way her body bent in supplication with her ass in the air all conspired to rob him of reason.

  Pulling his hand from her, slick with the evidence of her arousal, he tore at the front of his leathers. Like before, he couldn’t wait to remove them. He had to have her now. Sooner.

  Lining himself up, he managed to retain enough control to ease himself inside her. His head fell back and he groaned at the heavenly feeling of her wrapped tightly around him. His hands on her hips, he’d barely filled her to the hilt before he moved again. Demons drove him as he took her, his movements faster with each stroke.

  She moaned and writhed beneath him, pushing back and begging in a soft voice for more. He was happy to oblige, hands on her hips to pull her into him with each stroke. She felt good… oh so good… but he wanted more. He’d felt her pleasure before, felt the way she tightened around him as her crisis hit, and he wanted to feel that again.

  Reaching around, he teased her with his newfound knowledge of what she liked. He touched her in the ways he’d noted made her breathing quicken and her hips buck against his. As she sobbed and whimpered, she tightened around him even more until he could barely think. Then with a last stroke of his fingers, she shattered, screaming his name.

  He growled as she clenched around him, ripples of pleasure racing down his spine to encircle his balls. With a grunt, he gripped her hips, pulling her back as he p
owered into her. Harder. Faster. Until… with a final bellow, his world went supernova and he emptied himself inside her in a blazing explosion of pure heat and desire.

  Nyek was… wow, with a side of oh my god.

  Indra sat in the copilot’s chair as they headed back to the rendezvous with the others, their AI cargo safely tucked down by her feet. Conversation since they’d left had been minimal, but she didn’t care. Her mind and body still buzzed with pleasure from when he’d tied her down and ravished her.

  Her lips quirked at the old-fashioned word. It was certainly one she’d never thought she’d ever use, but it was the only one that fit. Nyek was… she’d never had a lover so intense. Her gaze slid sideways to where he was sitting next to her.

  Naked to the waist still, his leathers rode low on lean hips, revealing the glorious, leanly muscled nakedness for her ogling pleasure. Who would have guessed that all that heat and dominance was hidden away beneath Mr. Stick-up-his-ass’s prim and proper nature?

  She shivered. Perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. All that tension and adherence to protocol… And after all, didn’t they say the religious types were the kinkiest? He certainly was. On first meeting him, not in a million years would she have said he’d want to tie her to the bed so he could have his wicked way with her.

  But he had… and god, she couldn’t wait for him to do it again. She looked forward to many more erotic interludes. Although… the walk of shame through the corridors of the Izal’vias could be a problem. She’d stay in his room… a dash of cold washed through her system like someone had thrown a bucket of water over her.

  There was no way she wanted to return to her own quarters. Not after… not after almost being killed in them.

  Shaking her head, she diverted herself by glancing down at his wrists. Mads had told her that Danaar hadn’t gotten his mating marks until after they’d had sex. A sigh escaped her at his unmarked skin, but she wasn’t entirely sure whether it was relief… or disappointment.

  No, it was relief, she told herself firmly. As sexy and delightfully kinky as Nyek was, she knew what mating marks meant. She would no longer have a choice. In the eyes of the entire Latharian empire, she would belong to Nyek—mind, body and soul.

  She wasn’t ready to be tied down just yet. Not in that way anyway. No way, no how.

  “What happened to your wrists?” she asked, nodding toward the deep scars there. They looked too neat to be accidental. Her heart clenched at the idea that they were deliberate. That her proud, somewhat arrogant, alien warrior had once been low enough to try and take his own life. Somehow she couldn’t make that fit with her mental image of him.

  His expression didn’t so much as flicker, but she’d begun to learn to read even the most minute changes in his stoic expressions. He was shuttered, the tiny muscle pulsing in the corner of his jaw warning her off the subject. It didn’t work. Like a dog with a bone, she continued.

  “Did you… did you do that to yourself?”

  “No. I did not.”

  His answer was short and clipped as his hands moved over the console in front of him. Even though they’d traveled on autopilot most of the way, they had to fly through an asteroid belt to reach the rendezvous, so he’d taken manual control. She didn’t mind. It meant she could study him without him being aware.

  “Someone did that to you?” She was aghast, not bothering to hide it in her voice.

  “Yes.”

  “And you let them?”

  He sighed and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You are not going to let this go. Are you?”

  “Nope,” she answered cheerfully.

  He turned toward her, mouth open to answer, but his words were drowned out by a sudden cacophony of alarms.

  “Draanth,” he hissed, turning back. “We’re being target locked.”

  “Shit.” Indra froze. While she’d never been in the military, she’d seen enough films to know that was so not good. “Who? Where from?”

  “Imperial vessel. We have you in our sights. Power down and prepare to be boarded.”

  Nyek growled as the unfamiliar voice issued from the comms speakers and filled the cockpit. “Pirates. It has to be. No one else would dare attack a vessel carrying the imperial symbol.”

  He keyed open a channel on the comms array. “Unknown vessel. This is Sub-Commander Nyek S’Vaan of the Latharian Empire. Be aware you are targeting an imperial fleet vessel. I advise you to release your lock and be on your way. Action against us will result in the most severe of reprisals.”

  He moved his hands over the controls in front of him and the view-screen filled with an image of a larger vessel.

  “Dekinesh class,” he murmured. “An older class. Not as quick and maneuverable as this.”

  “Fucking big guns, though,” she squeaked, ruthlessly quelling the panic that wanted to rise at the sight of the other ship.

  She’d gotten used to imperial ships with their sleek, graceful lines. This… was not sleek. It looked like an ugly pitbull of a ship, very like the one that had rescued her and Madison from Mirax Ruas. Sitting in space in front of them, it even looked like it was hunkered down on its haunches, ready to attack.

  “They will not use them,” he reassured her in an undertone. “They’ll want what technology we have aboard.”

  As if to prove him wrong, the forward gun arrays swiveled in their mount and faced them.

  “Yeah… you sure about that?” Indra swallowed. If that wasn’t the damn things targeting them, she didn’t know what was.

  “No. I am not.” Nyek’s hands moved on the console, but even Indra’s limited knowledge of these things told her they didn’t have much chance against the larger vessel.

  A bleep by her ankle made her frown and she looked down. The AI they’d retrieved from the crash site was no longer inert. Soft lights glowed on its side and, as she watched, tendrils of… something she didn’t recognize but looked like liquid metal extended from the side, reaching for the main console between them.

  “Errr… Nyek? Is it supposed to be doing that?” she asked in a careful voice, as if the thing could hear her. Perhaps it could because more lights illuminated on her side and she could swear it was listening.

  He glanced down and froze. “No. It certainly should not.”

  He lifted his hands as the console went black. “Draanth, I just lost control!”

  Her eyes widened as the engines roared to life, swinging them around. Alarms rang through the cockpit, almost deafening her as the AI took control and sped them away. She squeaked, trying to fold herself into a tiny ball for protection as the view screen showed the raider ship’s guns coming to life. Bullets or whatever the hell they used zipped toward them, bright against the blackness of space. She held her breath. This was it. They were going to get ripped apart.

  At the last moment, just before the bullets tore through their shields, the engines flared and they leapt… sideways.

  “Fascinating,” Nyek breathed, leaning forward to study the screen readouts. “This should not be possible. The computations required are… staggering.”

  “Will it keep us alive?” she demanded, uncurling from her ball a little. “Can we get away?”

  More bullets lit the space around them up, but each time it looked like something was going to hit them, the shuttle gave a little hop, skip and a jump. Somehow, unbelievably, they were managing to pull away from their pursuer.

  “This is shuttle three,” a new voice came over the comms. “We’re at the RV now. Registering your position moving away from us.”

  “Stay in cover,” Nyek thumbed the comms to order. “We have pirates in the area. Repeat, pirates in the area. Stay in cover and return to the Izal’vias as soon as you can.”

  “Affirmative.” That was Keris’s voice, the mechanical tones unmistakable. “Errr… actually negative. We just lost flight control and navigation.”

  “Same here,” Seren replied, his voice terse. “What’s going on. New flight vector
s have been initiated.”

  Indra’s eyes widened as she turned to Nyek. What the hell was going on?

  12

  An hour later Nyek was still fascinated. Somehow the AI from the crash site had linked all three of their shuttles, piloting them all simultaneously to an entirely different system close by.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  He looked up at Indra’s comment to see… something forming in space in front of them. Blue light blossomed from a central point, spiraling outward and then opening like the petals of a flower. The center of the “bloom” rippled with light, different colors that sped outward toward the edge of the petals. It was beautiful, mesmerizing.

  “I… have no idea.”

  He’d never seen anything like it or read any reports of anomalies or creatures in this area of space. Before he could open a comm to the other shuttles, though, three bright lights formed within the myriad of others. They shot out with laser focus, hitting the three shuttles. He was forced to close his eyes against the blinding light.

  When he opened them, the light was gone and so was the space flower. Instead, a large orbital base loomed ahead of them.

  “Holy shit, was that a wormhole?” Indra asked, blinking as rapidly as Nyek was to clear the spots from his vision. “Or a flowerhole? Wait, that sounds vaguely dirty.”

  “Wormhole was accurate.” He looked at the console, which was now relaying their current position. “We’re over forty tetra-parsecs from our previous position. There is no way we could have traveled that distance in mere seconds. The flower as it appeared must have been some kind of wormhole. Or…” He mused, looking up at the base the AI was piloting them toward. “Some kind of space folding technology I am not familiar with.”

  “That place is huge,” she murmured, sitting on the edge of her seat. “Is that likely? That there could be technology you don’t know about?”

  “Experimental technology from the engineer’s hall? Yes, certainly.” He rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. A gargantuan set of doors opened in front of them, revealing a hangar. “But this looks much older, like it has been here for many years.”