Текст книги "Alien On Fire"

Автор книги: January Bell

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

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NYDO

I can’t tear my gaze away from her. What was our morning in space has turned to night on this planet, and she is a flaming star in the darkness.

Leigh. My queen.

She’s stunning in the black fabric, her thick red hair shining in the settlement firelight. The flames play off the gemstone-studded fabric underneath the high-slit skirt. There’s a thick, ropey scar that slides down her spine, but it only serves to heighten the warlike image she presents. Her features are striking and perfect without the traditional female Roth warpaint, but with it?

She is fantastic.

A dream come true.

I cannot wait to have her taste on my lips again, to feel her melt underneath me as she begs me for release.

Leigh’s nervous, though, and her fingers keep flitting to the plas rifle parts she’s strapped in covert places all over her body. The barrel on one thigh, a piece worn around her neck, another strapped to her ankle, and the plas energy barrel tucked away under her breasts.

My lip curls in a half-snarl as I remember the smooth, creamy skin there, the way her flesh felt between my teeth.

Nothing, though, was sweeter than her submission.

My king, she said. Of her own volition.

Roghat, the leader of this outpost and vocal critic of the Overlord, finally appears at the gates to the Roth settlement, and his dark eyes widen visibly as he takes in the three females with us.

His gaze falls on Leigh, and my entire body stiffens as his nostrils flare. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t insisted on traditional Roth garb. I should have put a cloak around her, hidden her from view.

She is mine.

The air around me crackles, and Roghat tilts his head, as though gauging my worth, judging me, before finally inclining his head… just barely. His shoulder taps are perfunctory, not the demonstration of obeisance they should be.

I bare my teeth.

I should strike him down for that insolence alone.

Leigh’s cool fingers circle my wrist, and when I glance at her, her green eyes are troubled, her pretty mouth in a frown. “Cool your jets,” she hisses.

I blink.

“Calm the fuck down,” she continues. “You look like you’re ready to burn the whole place down. I didn’t put up with all this sludge on my face and you braiding my hair just for you to torch it. Let’s get in, get what we need, and get the fuck out.”

She purses her lips, putting her hands on her hips. My ferocious little queen. My flame.

“Fine,” I say grudgingly, and then, because I can, because she is mine, I tuck her hand into mine and drag her along beside me, smiling to myself at her small noises of irritation.

Lyko and Ayro follow along behind us, Piper and Billie at their sides.

“You must be the human mate we have heard so much about,” Roghat says. He stares at her in open appreciation, and I consider gouging his eyes out with fire and watching them melt.

Then Leigh nudges me, stepping into my side so that I may wrap my arm around her. I take a deep breath, and I inhale… her. It soothes me, the scent of her body, the smell of the perfumed shampoo I rubbed into her hair only hours ago.

She is mine.

Leigh’s small fingers glide over the small of my back, and I attempt to tamp down the urge to throw her over my shoulder and take her back to my quarters on our ship.

“The female is small. Are all human females as small as these three?” Roghat asks. “They look like one good fucking would break them in half.” He sneers.

Leigh draws herself up tall, and I force my rage into a smirk of my own. As much as I want to strike him down, she will handle this peon. That, I am sure of.

“We aren’t overgrown like the Roth, if that’s what you’re asking. But we have our own talents,” Leigh answers, that same imperious tone that she used with the tailor coloring her voice. It’s fucking perfect, and I drape my arm around her, squeezing her hip possessively.

“You certainly behave as though you are mated, though…” He sniffs, and I know he’s testing the air. “Though she does not wear the marks of a queen. Are you sure this… species is capable of breeding with us? It seems… unlikely, despite their fragile charms.”

“Is this how Roth greet their royalty?” Leigh snaps out, and when I glance down at her, her green eyes are bright with fury. Her hand, however, is clammy against the thin black material of my shirt. “With,” she pauses, her fingernails biting into my back, “insolence?”

“I—” Roghat starts, but Leigh holds up her hand.

“If I want to hear an excuse, I’ll let you know. What I want now is to eat and be treated with the respect I deserve, even if your little… settlement looks like something a medieval peasant would live in.” She sniffs. Her leg shakes slightly, and I pull her closer, scenting her fear.

I do not want Roghat to realize she is anything but the stern, self-possessed queen she pretends to be.

“I love it when you act like this,” I half-snarl at her. She blinks up at me in surprise as I tip her head back, pressing a searing kiss across her mouth.

What starts as a way to distract her turns into something else entirely as her arousal scent blossoms around us. Her fingers dig into my back, her mouth opening on a moan.

Gods, she tastes… I growl, and her tongue slides against mine, my own desire making me ache all over for her, my cock hard.

“Brother,” Ayro’s voice sounds amused. “We know of your obsession with the queen, but it is time to move on.”

She bites my lip and, too late, I remember her asking me not to kiss her on the mouth.

It is too bad that her defiant streak only makes me want to do it more.

I force my mouth away from Leigh, but not before I yank the back of her head to my ear.

“Well done, my mate,” I whisper.

The look she gives me is full of fire and fury, and she tosses her head before following me into the archaic-looking village the Roth sect leaders here prefer. A stone wall guards a bevy of houses, though from the looks of it, they are mostly empty.

I try to hide my disappointment.

Our species is dying, withering away under my uncle’s idiocy and warmongering, and for what reason?

Am I truly any better?

As Leigh saunters just ahead of me, her smooth skin tantalizing under the dark fabric of the Roth-style gown she wears, her head held high, I have to believe I am better.

For her, I will be better.

The Roth at the settlement gather close as we walk through the small array of buildings. They watch us with careful, hooded eyes, their heads bowed in the barest of respect. These are the males that would not bend the knee to the Overlord.

They are thin, their cheeks hollowed out and the circles under their eyes darker than they should be. They pound their shoulders in respect, their heads bowed slightly. They look… weak. But they are Roth, and the fight is in their blood.

If I can convince them, they will war for us. For the future we could have, instead of the extinction that looms ahead.

This is my duty to my people, to my mate, and to the females of Earth.

My heart squeezes as my gaze lands back on Leigh, always on Leigh. I’ve known her all of a few weeks, and how it has shifted my entire worldview.

There will be no more hiding, no more waiting and biding my time.

I would carve a place in the world for the both of us, and ensure Earth is safe… My hands clench at my sides as we walk through an arched doorway to a large, bare meeting room. A large table spans the length of the room, and there is a chair set apart from the others on a dais.

Earth will be safe, I will stop the Roth Overlord from carrying out his plans, but…

She will not return to Earth.

She may be all defiance and fire right now, but I will break her down, until she craves me, until she needs me… loves me. No matter the lies it takes.

I will be king, and she will be my queen.

Leigh turns her face towards me, as if she knows the direction of my fevered thoughts. I can’t help myself—I tangle my fingers in the thick length of braids wrapped around her head, and she gasps, eyes wide, as I tug her back to my side.

“What?” she snarls, as violent as any Roth queen should be.

“Trust no one,” I tell her quietly.

“I don’t. Especially not you. You promised not to kiss me.”

I pretend not to hear her. “I do not like the way he looks at you.”

“Let her go,” the female Billie mutters, her hand at her thigh, where I know she’s strapped a plas knife under her skirts.

All I have attention for is Leigh though, for the green fire in her eyes, so reminiscent of the borealis over the Northern Roth ice caves.

“You may have the place of honor,” Roghat says, a faint smile on his face at seeing the tension between us.

I release my mate and she pats her hair, sitting down defiantly at one of the many chairs along the long table. Roghat immediately sits next to her, and her lips purse, as though she’s not thrilled with that development.

I nod to Lyko and Ayro, and they position themselves as close to her as possible, the other females following suit.

What choice do I have? I have the position of honor, a position I must take if I want them to respect me as king.

I don’t like it. My mate should be with me, at my side, but… I need Roghat’s allegiance. The numbers here are large enough to make an impact in a fight against the Overlord, and I know from experience that the appearance of many Roth settlements are often deceiving. I guarantee there is more to this outpost than they are showing us right now.

The rest of the settlement sect file into the building, taking their seats and speaking in quiet voices. I lean forward on the chair. They’re too interested in her. In all the human females.

My skin prickles, and my power begins to build beneath my fingers.

Roghat leans towards her, his shorn hair so different than mine and my brothers’. A strange think to have done, to cut his hair off like that. It is not like the Roth to wear our hair short. A frown turns my lips down. Maybe this was a waste of time. Maybe this sect is too far gone from Roth culture to even wish to involve themselves with our politics.

I sigh, leaning back against the chair. My fingers drum against the arms, sending orange sparks flying where my energy slips free.

Leigh laughs at something Roghat says, though it’s a tight, unnatural sound. The noise in the hall diminishes at the sound, and nearly all the males stare at her now. I don’t like this.

My lips pull back in a snarl. Something is wrong. I should have insisted she stay with me, at my side, or even better, in my lap.

Roghat cuts me a sly look, and I half-stand in response, already infuriated. He meets my gaze, and I gather my power around me, wearing it like a mantle.

His hand flicks out, and when he grabs Leigh by her neck, time seems to stand still.

The memory of my mother, fighting for her life, for her freedom, as the Overlord’s troops dragged her from our home, flashes before me, and I shake my head, refusing to let the weakness of that past moment ruin my future.

She lets out a furious noise, and then a knife I didn’t even know she had presses to his throat. A thin trickle of blood blackens the blade.

“She should be mine,” Roghat spits out, and the knife cuts deeper into his skin.

Without the tough hide other species have, Roghat is vulnerable, and Leigh uses that knowledge as well as she can.

“You have not fully mated her,” Roghat sneers. “She doesn’t wear the marks of Roth. The humans may be breedable but they are not fit to call queen. They are not Roth.”

A roaring fills the otherwise silent hall, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me.

Nobody moves.

She digs the tip of the knife into his neck, sputtering for her own breath as his knuckles whiten and her feet kick.

“Let her go, or you die,” I tell him, my muscles straining with the effort of not incinerating the entire gods-damned settlement. “You all die.”

“And you’d kill her with us?” he asks, but sweat beads at his temple.

When his fingers flex around her throat, she makes a small noise of distress, and I raise a finger, my entire hand cloaked in white-hot fire. The chair behind me catches, too, and the rest of the sect shouts, crying for water.

Fools. Don’t they know they are powerless against me?

Don’t they know I would burn the world to save her?

“Release the queen! May the stars shine on them both! Nydo flames as the gods once foretold, a true King of Roth,” a voice cries out, the only sound that pierces my awareness long enough for me to register it.

The hand around Leigh’s neck, the only thing in the universe that matters to me, falters, and she slices a thick line across Roghat’s neck as she takes a huge, shuddering breath. Her feet smash into the ground.

In the next instant, I’m moving as fast as I can to get to her side.

I haul her against me, the flames around me guttering, save for those around my hand, which I reach out to Roghat.

“I promise you this, Roghat of the Ikkox sect. I do not need you badly enough to allow you to live.”

Dark red-black blood seeps through where his fingers are clapped against his throat.

Leigh shakes like a leaf in the wind against my arms.

“I can finish the job,” she murmurs. “I’d love to.”

“Bloodthirsty,” I say approvingly. “And they say you are not worthy of the crown. She is more vicious than any male here,” I boom.

She starts forward, the plas knife only slightly trembling in her grip. “Should I chop his balls off first?” she asks. “Make him eat them?”

Roghat drops to his knees, and the hall falls completely silent. “You have my troops. You have my ships. I only beg of you, help us find females like these. You have my allegiance, my king. My queen, you have my apologies. I am at your service.”

Leigh flips the knife around in her hand, a practiced, showy move demonstrating skill I didn’t know the tiny human possessed.

The rest of the males in the hall kneel as one, thumping to the floor so heavily the table shakes at the impact. Shoulders move as one, grey Roth fists beating against them, a sign of respect. For both of us.

Leigh raises her chin, and I scent the female’s fear behind me. But for all her hand trembles, my queen, my mate… she smells like rage.

“Well, my queen,” I drawl out lazily. She doesn’t take her eyes from Roghat kneeling before us. “Do you want to take his manhood or his life? Both? Neither? I’ll leave it up to you. Consider his life a mating present between us.”

She turns her face to me, a smile flitting across it—but not before I see the disgust plain in her eyes.

“The last thing I want is this sad excuse for a Roth as a,” she pauses, clearing her throat, as if her words stick in it, “a mating present. He can live… for now.”

I let my power rage around me for a brief moment before drawing the energy back into me. “Then you live, Roghat, but do not forget that it is because of my queen’s generous heart.”

He glares up at me, blood leaking from between his fingers.

“Aw, come now, you can’t be angry about that little scrape. We all know how fast we heal, don’t we?” I raise my voice, making sure to keep my tone light, even though I’d very much like to finish the job my Leigh started and send his head rolling from his shoulders. “We have to, seeing as how we are the most elite fighters in the universe! There are none stronger than the Roth!”

Cheers roar through the hall, and Leigh steps back, further into me, as Roghat stands up.

“We will show the Overlord that Roth don’t need to annihilate others to prove their worth,” I continue, my voice echoing off the walls. “We will return to Roth with glory and honor! Beautiful human females will come flocking when they hear of how we treat our mates!” My words boom out, and each new comment is met with more raucous cheering as the hall returns to normal, food served and drink passed around.

“Come,” I tell Leigh, wrapping my arm around her waist. The heat of her skin blooms through the sheer fabric, and it’s utterly tantalizing. “You do not leave my side for the rest of this night, do you understand?” I keep my voice low, and she places her hand over mine on her hip, nodding once, her chin held high.

Carefully, I take the blood-stained plas knife from her hand, clicking it off. Her hand falls to her side, and I know she’s more rattled than she appears. With slow, gentle fingers, I part the slit of her skirt, skimming my fingertips over her bare thigh until I find the hidden holster and tuck the knife away.

I turn her towards me, making sure her eyes stay locked on mine, and lead her away from the table. Lyko and Ayro are on full alert, as are the other two human females, though the yellow-haired one seems close to tears.

“You did so well,” I tell Leigh, whose hand sweats against mine. “I am… honored to have you by my side, and I am sorry. I should have brought you up here with me as soon as we arrived.” I inspect her throat, rage filling me again as it’s clear his fingers have marred her skin. “Twice now, I have failed you,” I growl, clasping her to me as I sit in the chair. “I won’t do it again. This was not the plan.”

“My throat hurts,” she whispers.

“Water for the queen,” I shout, and a server appears, filling a goblet, then drinking from it, proving it hasn’t been poisoned.

Lyko and Ayro nod approvingly, and I pass the glass to Leigh, who sips it gratefully. She’s white as the ice-capped mountains of Northern Roth.

“Are you entirely sure that you don’t want to execute him?” I ask. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

I steady her shaking hand, helping her hold the glass. I pull a soft cloth from my pocket, blotting up the few droplets that have spilled across her skin.

“Benefit of being a queen, I guess,” Leigh finally answers. “You can take out all your enemies and no one can stop you.”

“Benefit and burden,” I agree. “Is that a yes?”

“No, it was sarcasm.” She sighs. “He’s sworn allegiance, and if you think we can trust him, then I say we take what we came for and get the hell out of here.”

A platter of food appears before us.

“We will leave sooner than I planned,” I tell her. Worry gnaws at me. “Unless you need to leave now. Are you in much pain?” Perhaps I should have us make our exit now, before things truly escalate…

I grit my teeth, well aware the night will only get worse. There is a difference though, between causing the mayhem and being the victim of it.

“I’m not leaving now,” she says stubbornly. “I spent too much time getting ready to waste this outfit because one asshole acted like a jerk.”

“He tried to steal you from me. Physically.” I keep my voice low, continually scanning the room for fresh threats. “He hurt you.” I run my finger over her collarbone, and she winces at the barest touch. “I should kill him for you. And the one who gave you this scar.”

“Is that what all this is about?” she asks, settling more deeply into my lap. “More bloodshed? Didn’t your little pep talk about honor and glory and returning to Roth mean anything?”

“How did you get this?” I murmur, running my fingers down the scar on her back.

“Don’t deflect. Answer my question. Was it all bullshit, or did you mean it?”

I nod, distracted by the press of her body against mine, the weight of her gaze on my face, the delicious scent of her skin, bared as it is in her tantalizing dress.

“I meant it,” I finally answer, when her green eyes turn toward me, searching. “I meant what I said.”

My throat goes dry, and I take her glass, draining it, then signal for more.

Leigh sighs, still staring at me. “Why do I believe when you say that? I shouldn’t, and then—”

“My mother was hauled off by the Overlord’s lackeys. When I was a boy. You asked about her, earlier. Seeing you…” I grit my teeth, forcing the words out as I search her face, like all the answers to life’s great mysteries are written there. “Seeing him hurt you, seeing him threaten you, it… reminded me of what that felt like. To be powerless, to be weak, to watch the ones you love hurt, to fear for the ones who are left.”

My gaze skips to where my brothers sit, on edge but eating and talking.

“I don’t want the Roth legacy—my legacy—to be one of casual cruelty. To be the invaders who kill until they get their way. Violence has long been a part of our culture, a part of who the Roth are, but not like this. Our gods have abandoned us over it, of that, I am sure. The Overlord dishonors our species through his actions.”

She’s silent.

The Roth sect at the tables eat and drink, and though there is a certain festive atmosphere, it’s also tense. Everyone’s on edge, waiting for something to happen.

“I’ve said too much,” I finally tell her.

The servant scurries past, refilling our drink. Leigh shifts on my lap, and I bite back a groan. Her shaking’s mostly subsided, and I run my fingers along the exposed skin of her thigh.

“No,” she says.

I begin to remove my hand, and surprise skitters through me when her fingers circle my wrist.

“You’ve said just enough,” she meets my gaze, and I drink her in.

The dark war paint, aggressive and bold. The way the fabric cascades down her body, the crimson mass of braids a crown on her head.

She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life.

I still, as though I’m on a great Roth hunt, waiting for the prey to step out into the clearing. Leigh tilts her head up, our mouths mere inches apart. Her breath dances across my skin, and I wet my lips.

Her gaze dips to my mouth, and for a moment…

For a moment I think she’s going to close the distance between us.

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