Alien, Mine Read online

  “You are steady?” he asked.

  Not if the pounding of my heart is anything to go by.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  One of his hands rubbed comforting circles over her scapular. Her breasts cried for him to reposition his attention.

  “You are sure?”

  A lightness of heart washed her spirit. She smiled, leaned forward, and placed a soft kiss on his chin. Someone gasped. Electric bliss hummed along her lips.

  “Thank you, I am fine.”

  “Very well, I will continue to hold you steady as you stand.”

  “You’re a prince, my General.”

  She swung her legs to the floor, planted both feet and stood. Blood scorched through the veins of her hands and arms. She winced and swayed.

  “Sandrea?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  “Doctor!”

  “It’s alright.”

  “You are certain?”

  The pain receded.

  “Yes.” A moment later she said, “You can let go now.”

  His fingertips pressed gently into her flesh. A good five seconds passed before he released her.

  “The Corporal will accompany you,” he said.

  “I know the way, General. I’m sure Corporal Shrenkner has more pressing duties than to play nurse maid to me.”

  “As I am the one who assigned her to you, that is my decision,” he replied with an amiable touch of steel. He lifted a hand and brushed the long fringe from her eyes. “I am deeply regretful you were injured.”

  She shrugged, wanting to reassure him. “Shit happens. Besides, thanks to whatever the Doc has given me, I can’t feel any pain.” A rueful smile tugged her lips. “So long as I don’t try to use my hands or arms.”

  Chapter 6

  A Heart By Any Other Name . . .

  Due to the damage the frigate S’La had taken during the battle, Sandrea evacuated to the battle cruiser En-Da along with General Mhartak, Lieutenant Graegen, and Alpha squad. The unfamiliar, technological surrounds of the ship and her crew emphasized her alien-ness. At least here she was not the only minority and she took some comfort in that fact.

  She identified the two other races of the Alliance, both upright, bipedal beings. The tall, slim, partially fur-covered Magrans and the quite hairy Legolopanths who, because their physiology boasted well-developed muscles, tended to look like human-shaped bags of rocks. There were even a few females amongst them who seemed to prefer their form hairless. She wondered how they achieved it; her legs and underarms were veritable forests.

  The piped call for evening mess whistled through the speaker system. Sandrea stared at the quarters she and Corporal Shrenkner were billeted to share, without really seeing them.

  She’d killed. Taken the lives of a staggering amount of Bluthen and felt little remorse or regret. She frowned at her reluctance to consider them beings. Okay, so she’d de-anthropomorphized them, it made them easier to dismiss. Or at least for her to dismiss the fact that she’d killed them.

  Was that wrong? Should it bother her?

  Because, quite frankly, it didn’t.

  Mhartak marched into Sandrea’s quarters and scanned the woman whose mere existence pitched him into a tailspin of delight and dread.

  “You are settled?” he asked, stepping close to her.

  Pleasure hummed along his skin as she accepted his nearness as though commonplace. He intended it would be.

  “You could wait until I asked you to enter, Eugen. Is there something you wanted?”

  Yes!

  He quashed that thought.

  “My apologies. Angrigans take friendship very seriously. I am concerned for your well-being. Do your arms pain you?”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  Her delicate chin hitched up and to one side, and her expression turned speculative.

  “Are you in much trouble?” she asked.

  My dervre, I find myself in very serious trouble where you’re concerned.

  “With whom?”

  “Whomever you report to. Your headquarters were blasted to pieces by the Bluthen.”

  “I had not forgotten.”

  Regret twisted across her beautiful features. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be thoughtless. I just thought you might be in hot water and, well, I wanted to offer whatever support I could.”

  A rush of something like honeyed lava flowed along his veins.

  “You are concerned for me?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes smiled into his. “Humans take their friendships seriously, too.”

  He lifted his hands and ran his palms from her bandaged elbows to her shirt-covered shoulders. Longing clutched his heart.

  The sooner you are mine, my dervre, the better.

  He could not help from tugging her closer. Her poor, bandaged hands lifted to rest on his chest. Their bodies brushed and he savoured the warmth of her expression and her body.

  “Your . . .”—Should he use the word?—“affection gladdens me greatly.”

  She did not flinch or object to his terminology, nor his physical familiarity. He slipped a hand around her back.

  Would cradling her against my chest pressure the boundaries of our fledgling friendship?

  “I am not in ‘hot water’ as you put it,” he murmured into her hair and inhaled.

  Her scent spun hot passion through his blood. Beneath his hand, a tremor passed down her spine. His body answered with a mixture of desire and concern. He forced himself to put some distance between them, though continued to hold her within the circle of his arm.

  “We were not the only base to be attacked. We were the only base to capture possible Bluthen camouflage technology.”

  Her upper body drew back and her eyes lit as she stared up at him.

  “Go team! How’d we manage that?”

  “The cannon you and Corporal Shrenkner secured and the bodies of the Bluthen that accompanied it. Engineers are evaluating each piece of equipment and isolating anything unfamiliar to them for further investigation.” He glanced around the cabin. The only places to sit were the cots. Not a good idea. “Did you mean it?”

  “Did I mean what?”

  “That you like the sound of my voice.”

  “I said that?”

  He nodded, and honesty compelled him to admit, “You were under the influence of drugs at the time.”

  A thoughtful veil shaded her gaze and anxiety stabbed through his gut.

  “I mean it, Eugen. Is that a problem?”

  Triumph contracted his biceps.

  “Not for me.” He pulled her soft, warm form closer.

  Her willing acquiescence and the way she moulded her body to his slammed red-hot waves of wanting along his every long nerve. The steamy sensation boiled across his lower abdomen and surged into his sex. He took a hasty step back.

  Damnation, I want her to know I care! Thrusting evidence of my untamed desire on her too soon could well derail my quest to make her mine.

  A sudden thought rocked his world. Did human females enjoy monogamous relationships? Or did they prefer a ménage as many Magrans did? A possessive streak roared that he would not share her. He would simply have to convince her he could fulfil her every desire. A project he would more than happily undertake.

  An erotic shiver rippled through him and he forced restraint over his libido. If she could arouse him to this extent simply by welcoming his embrace, what would it be like to make love to her, to have her mouth on him as it moistened his skin with long, wet strokes . . .?

  He fought for command over his body.

  “What happened to the other bases?”

  The calmness of her words surprised and, admittedly, annoyed him. He peered down into h
er face. Her widened eyes held a dazed quality and her breath seemed to hitch and stumble, as though her heart skipped and her torso leaned toward his as though to bridge the slim gap between them. Her shirt outlined the hardened nipples of her breasts and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. They had done that before.

  A sign of arousal?

  He’d felt their hard thrust across his cranial ridges when she’d massaged him and again in the turbo car when his hands held the exquisite weight of her breasts.

  Is she trying to hide her desire as well? Or are these signs of fear?

  She did not pull away and he was not inclined to offer a freedom she may not wish.

  “Utterly destroyed, I’m afraid. Fewer casualties than could be expected, no doubt due to the relentless drills we implement.”

  “Have we, you, lost much territory?”

  A thrill of pleasure gripped him.

  Has she aligned herself with them? With him?

  He lifted a shoulder. “A marginal area. No populated planets. If they’d taken Kintista, the result would have been considerably worse.”

  “And there is a fleet of ships deployed to protect that sector,” she remembered.

  “Yes, I formed a strategic defence plan and ordered ships on patrol.”

  He wasn’t above a bit of posturing to impress her.

  “You ordered?”

  “Yes. Do you find that hard to believe?”

  She shook her head and tapped a hand on his chest. “No, it’s just that where I come from a general is in charge of the army or in some countries the air force. He doesn’t have tactical authority over maritime military.”

  “Ah. Well, here I am General in Charge of the Galaren Sector. That means I can order anyone about.”

  Her quirked eyebrow disputed that claim and he amended, “Almost anyone.”

  The glow of rapport radiating from her answering smile washed over him in a gentle, all-consuming wave. The undertow tugged at something profound buried deep in his heart, threatening to drag forth an emotion he suspected he would quite willingly drown in. The urge to wrap her up and keep her somewhere safe, out of harm’s way, bit into him.

  “So, General, what happens to me now?”

  He reached up and encased one of her hands where it lay on his chest, allowing himself the pleasure of brushing her long hair from her face. “Hmm?”

  “Am I still going to Mrilala?”

  He twirled an auburn lock around a finger. “Mrilala, yes.”

  “Eugen.”

  The beguiling texture of her hair entranced him. “Mmm?”

  Her wrapped fingers prodded him in the chest. “Eugen, are you listening to me?”

  He blinked, drew in a sharp breath, and focused on what she was saying, not on how her locks felt like the finest Bahan silk or how its colour rivalled the cascading leaves of fall. How her skin—

  “Eugen!”

  “My apologies. I was . . . thinking. The En-Da will rendezvous with a destroyer, the Vega, at Charnos Space-Station. Alpha squad will escort you on board the ship as well as the station. The Vega is not expected until the third day after our arrival at Charnos.”

  Her silent regard seemed searching. She moved the hand he had not captured to slide behind his neck and rose on tiptoe toward him. The plump firmness of her breasts teased across his chest. An explosion of hot, needy spikes rampaged through him.

  “I think, Eugen,”—her lips almost brushed his jaw, her breath puffed against his mouth—“you’d better tell me why either I need the protection of a squad, or if it’s the Vega and Charnos who do.”

  For a split second, Mhartak thought he could control the blistering response of his body to her closeness. Then, like a colossus surrendering to the inexorable force of gravity, he crumbled.

  His arm wound around her narrow waist and lashed her to him. Hot need surged along his veins in a flare of blazing lust. His chest and abdominal plates softened in arousal. The approval and welcome in her eyes took his breath.

  Very slowly, her hand skated up the back of his head and halted just shy of his swelling ridges. The bandages felt so soft against him yet he craved the touch of her skin. He longed to tilt his head back, rub his ridges against her, but that would sever eye contact and that he could not bring himself to do.

  “I would have you guarded,” he rumbled in a voice roughened by desire to a pitch he’d never experienced.

  “Oh?”

  Her lips feathered across his chin.

  Have mercy!

  Her tongue flicked like lightning against him. Testosterone pumped through his every cell. Her lips closed on his jawline and her tongue lathed a hot, moist stroke over his skin. The need to possess her hammered his restraint.

  “Sandrea, I must warn you . . .”

  “Mmm?”

  Her husky, sensual tone savaged his control. Then she thrust her hips against him. The hard length of his erection buried into her soft abdomen and he came within a thought of expending himself there and then.

  Dear g’Nel, does she have any idea of the effect she has on me?

  He managed to grasp her shoulders and push himself back, about a millimetre. He called on his soldier’s discipline, but the sideways slide of her pelvis reduced him to atavistic fervour. He made a final grab for sanity.

  “You must stop this unless you wish to be ravished.”

  She pushed an open mouthed kiss into his neck. “I have no objection to that.”

  His brain seized.

  Slowly, he perceived the pounding in his ears to be the insistent knocking on the door.

  Sandrea flopped to her cot and stared at the door through which Eugen had returned to the duty that summoned him.

  “We will speak later.”

  That’s what he’d said in an odd, strangled sort of tone.

  What caused his expression of severe displeasure? Had her loss of control repulsed him? Or had he found his own reaction to her repugnant?

  Dear Lord, that had been one hell-of-a—a back-arching shaft of pleasure twisted through the core of her sex—impressive erection.

  She sighed. Once again she’d been too forward, thanks to her lack of control around him, and once again he hadn’t reacted badly. Well, he’d threatened to ravish her, then scorched her with a look of utter impatience.

  Had it been a warning? Was that to be the subject of their ‘talk’? A definitive explanation on the etiquette of Angrigan friendship and the boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed?

  Mhartak strode towards the bridge where his presence was required, his mind struggling to replace stunned, yet ravenous lust with pragmatic calm. Libidinous energy sizzled in every muscle and forced his stride from brisk to vigorous.

  She has agreed to a closer more intimate relationship between them.

  Well, not quite so categorically, but her words and actions had implied more than an acceptance of his atavistic warning.

  Hell and damnation, he had to get her alone. Somewhere he could investigate, without interruption, her apparent mirroring of his desire.

  The next morning, in the limited space she had in the cabin, Sandrea unwound from a yoga side stretch pose into a mountain pose and breathed deep. Her muscles flowed with quiet energy, her mind relaxed.

  “How in all the levels of hell do you do that?” Shrenkner asked.

  Sandrea lifted one shoulder in an offhand shrug. “Humans are quite flexible as a general rule, but to remain agile takes practice. I’m a bit stiff, no doubt because I haven’t done any stretching exercises in”—she pulled in a sharp breath—“let’s not go there, but it won’t take long to regain my former suppleness.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to execute any of those positions, practice or not.”

  “Perhaps not, Shrenk�
�, but I bet you could bench press a—” She hesitated, Holden GTS wouldn’t mean a thing to her, “—ATVEH. I couldn’t lift a tire. Each to his own, as my mother says.”

  Shrenkner nodded. “Your mother has a lot of sage advice. She must be a woman of wisdom.”

  “That she is. I’m starving, Shrenk’. Fancy a trip to the mess?”

  “Certainly.”

  Shrenkner stood and offered a finger-sized metallic cylinder. Sandrea was almost afraid to ask what she was supposed to do with it.

  “This is a communications pod. You will be able to contact any member of Alpha with it.”

  Ohh, right. Alpha, my armed escort, forgot about that.

  She scrubbed a hand over her forehead. “I’m sorry, Shrenk’.”

  “For what?”

  “For being the cause of . . .” She compressed her mouth in an apologetic grimace. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been the cause of a demotion for you.”

  “I received a promotion because of you.”

  She waved that aside. “You’d have gotten that without my intervention.”

  “Debatable. But we’re straying from the point. Why do you consider my appointment as your guardian a disadvantage to me?”

  “Well, you’re a frontline soldier. I can’t imagine nurse-maiding behind the lines is an appealing duty. And what about the rest of the squad?”

  Shrenkner’s regard remained steady for a moment. “Kiresel, Ragnon, and Dovzshak were on the asteroid with the Lieutenant and me.”

  “So?”

  “So it doesn’t matter what they think, they’ll follow orders.”

  It matters to me.

  “Sandrea, General Mhartak believes your olfactory sense may greatly benefit our cause, if that’s not worth guarding, I don’t know what is.”

  Well, when you put it that way, I guess I’d better not catch a cold.

  Shrenkner laid a hand on her shoulder. “And I, for one, would gladly protect you simply for what you have already done for us.”