The Vilka's Mate: Scifi Alien Romance (Shifters of Kladuu Book 2) Page 7

  She had nearly passed him, her dark hair streaming behind her like the tail of a shooting star. He blinked at her, forgetting for a moment the Draqons and the peril they were in, and he had that all-consuming sensation again.

  A word whispered in the back of his mind, and his Vilkan instincts answered with a deafening howl inside his mind.

  Mate. Mate. Mate.

  He shoved it aside and ran.

  10

  Jude

  There was a moment, with the Draqons clashing overhead and arrows raining down around them and Gerrit’s skin shuddering, that Jude thought her heart might explode. She’d never run this fast or this hard or this long.

  Right when she thought she might pass out, Gerrit lurched to the side, jerking her behind him. He swerved into a dark shadow, which turned out to be a cave. He hit the sliver of an opening at full speed and slid into it on his stomach, pulling her in after him.

  She scrambled over rock and moss, slipping and falling into the cave. Gerrit cursed and tumbled in front of her. In the dark, she only caught flashes of his shining hair and the faint glint of his clothes.

  After a bruise-riddling, bone-bending fall that felt like it had lasted forever, Jude fell to a stop, landing squarely on Gerrit’s chest.

  Before she could even catch her breath, he twisted his hips, flipping her over onto her back and behind him as he spun around, crouching, his knives flashing in the shadows. A deep sound vibrated up from within his chest as he watched the mouth of the cave.

  Wings rustled outside, and a few arrows skittered off the rock, uselessly. Outside, the Draqons’ mates screamed in frustration, and it sounded all too human. All too female. How many times had Jude made a similar sound during her Falconer flight simulations? Goosebumps prickled across her skin.

  Finally, the noises went silent. Gerrit waited a few more minutes before he rose from his crouch.

  She’d moved only enough to lift onto her elbows and watch the mouth’s opening in horror. But as he turned to her, she slumped backward, hitting her head on the rock. “Holy fucking shit,” she gasped, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Are they going to send their mates down here and kill us for good?”

  “No,” Gerrit said breathlessly. “Draqons are useless on the ground. They only fight in the sky, and they would never send their mates in alone.” He sheathed the knives on his legs.

  “Thank God for overprotective men.”

  “They’re not—”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.” Jude waved him off. “They’re not men. Whatever.”

  Loose rock scuffled beneath his boots as he crossed over beside her and sat down. They waited in silence while their breathing returned to normal.

  Jude’s stomach grumbled with hunger.

  “I can go catch us something,” Gerrit said instantly.

  “Do you think it’s safe?” Jude pushed herself up into a sitting position, dizziness washing over her. “What if they’re still out there?”

  She was starving and so thirsty that her lips felt ready to crack. But thinking about her lips reminded her of the seconds right before the Draqons’ attack: Gerrit’s kamikaze kiss. Her heart rate kicked back up.

  Beside her, Gerrit tensed. “They’re not going to stick around out there, Jude. They left to call in fresh patrols. We’re safe for a while.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “I can hear your heart, and your smell changed.”

  Jude shot him a glance. “What do I smell like?”

  He avoided her eyes. “I can’t describe it,” he mumbled, scratching the scruff along his jaw. “I’ve never smelled anything like it before.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “It’s not … bad.”

  It was easier to focus on her annoyance at being told she smelled than to dwell on her fear. “Pardon me if I stink. I haven’t had a shower in a while.”

  “I don’t think a shower would help.”

  The words were so quiet Jude almost missed them. He sounded serious, almost forlorn. Did she really smell that bad? Did she have an infection from the bite or something?

  Or was it something else? Did it have something to do with that kiss?

  They needed to change the topic. She was thinking things about herself, about him, about them that she couldn’t process after a freaking pissed-off lizard attack. “What’s shifting like?” she blurted without thinking.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Gerrit’s face transform. His scowl disappeared, and the lines between his brows smoothed out. For the first time since she’d met him, he looked almost happy.

  “It’s the best thing in the world. In my Vilkan form, I’ve got no extra room inside for things like worry or fear or guilt. It’s just pure instinct. I become reactions and reflexes. That’s all.”

  “It’s like an escape,” she said.

  “That’s exactly it.” He grinned, and the expression transformed his face. He was younger than she’d thought at first and strangely beautiful with his disheveled hair and broad chest. When he turned his cornflower blue eyes on her, Jude’s heart leaped again. He cocked his head, listening to her stupid, traitorous, loud heart.

  “I feel like that when I fly,” she said quickly, hoping he’d stop listening to her heart. “Back on the space station, everyone can’t get past the fact that I’m a woman, or they just assume I’ve slept my way into Falconer school. No one believes I did it on my own. But in my ship, when I’m flying, I feel none of that. I’m finally free of all the stupid shit that weighs me down back home.”

  She’d never told anyone that. Not even Linnea.

  His grin slipped away, and she felt his attention hot on her face. She brought her legs up and rested her cheek on her knee to look sideways at him. “I get it, you know,” she whispered to him.

  The lines between his brows returned. “Get what?”

  “Why you would hate us. I don’t like what the Falconers do. I didn’t join them to raid planets. I just wanted to fly.” Her throat tightened. Would she ever be able to fly again if she made it home? “All my life, I wanted to be able to go far, far away, and the Falconers travel the farthest. It seemed like a dream to be able to take off into space and explore.”

  Instantly, she regretted the whimsical words of her youth. What was she thinking? She barely knew this guy. This alien. And she was spilling her guts to him.

  “What are you running from?” he asked into the silence, startling her.

  She gritted her teeth. From the dark place in her memories, she heard Linnea crying, a door slamming, their father’s heavy boots stomping through the ramshackle house in rural Alabama. Her cheekbone flared with an echo of pain from long ago. Even now, decades later and with an entire solar system between them, he still terrified her.

  But she’d gotten out. She’d gotten Linnea out. That was all that mattered.

  “Your smell changed again,” Gerrit noted quietly.

  She jerked to her feet, her short stature keeping her from slamming her head on the cave ceiling, and paced away. “Yeah, well, what are you running from?”

  When she turned around to look at him, she practically saw the walls around him slide back into place. He was once again the cold Alpha she’d met yesterday. No more smiles for her. Probably no more kisses either. Damn.

  “I’ll go get us something to eat. Stay here. Keep quiet.”

  “Won’t they smell you?”

  “No.”

  He left without a backward glance, disappearing into the green-tinted jungle light beyond the cave’s entrance.

  11

  Gerrit

  He’d lost his mind.

  Blessed Avilku, why had he kissed her? What had he been thinking?

  It was that smell. That moons damned smell. And now it was even worse after kissing Jude. Even now, half a mile away from the cave, he thought if he stood still enough he could feel her. Inside him. Like a gossamer string had been flung between them when their lips had met to bind them together. He imagined the line tremble
d with her every heartbeat and echoed in his heart.

  If Nestan were here, he’d call Gerrit a lovelorn—

  But Nestan wasn’t here. His father had taken him moons knew where and was doing horrible things to him because Savas loved to torture him. Nestan had sacrificed himself to save Gerrit and Rayner the night Savas had killed Gerrit’s father. So much death. So much sacrifice. So much loss. All for Gerrit and his ascension to Alpha.

  And look at him now. Savas would have been a better Alpha than him. Savas wouldn’t have gotten his men killed yesterday.

  For a split second, Gerrit was thankful his father was gone. At least then he wouldn’t have to witness what a mess his eldest son had become. But the thought was horrible and awful, and more than anything in the world, Gerrit wanted his father back. Wanted him to be Alpha, even though the moon madness had been dogging his heels for months. Gerrit wanted Nestan back and their easy laughs and the long mornings of training with Rayner. He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been. The way it was before Gerrit was Alpha.

  He hadn’t felt like such a failure then.

  A scream tore through the jungle.

  The thread inside him jerked. Jude’s fear coursed down it like he’d grabbed a fully charged inkeel with his bare hands.

  She screamed again, and he panicked. With cold, dripping fear twisting his heart up tight, he tried to shift, to tear through the jungle toward her, but he couldn’t.

  He couldn’t shift.

  With a roar of frustration, he ran on all too human legs toward the sound of her screams. He raced over moss-covered logs and straight through dense foliage, not caring about the beating his body took as he barreled toward her.

  He crashed down a slope, seeing nothing but what was directly in front of him, and skidded between two giant trees. The incline continued down—he hadn’t even remembered walking up a hill—and doubled his speed.

  He was close. He smelled her. Her fear. Her rage.

  With a few more bounding strides, he heard the smack of flesh, the grunts of a fight. And Jude’s taunting.

  “Is that all you’ve got, you freaky piece of shit? Really?” A fist cracked against something hard, something muscular.

  He leaped the rest of the way down the slope and dove through a bank of ferns. He emerged into the clearing around the small cave’s opening. With his feet spread wide and his lips curled back in a ripping snarl, he took in the situation.

  Not Draqons like he’d expected, or Katu like he’d feared.

  But Hylas.

  Four of them. Warriors clad in tight pants that looked like scales. Gerrit knew from watching the shifters transform that the pants weren’t pants at all, but tails that propelled the Hylas through water faster and deeper than any natural creature.

  One Hyla had Jude caught around the waist. She kicked out, booting another Hyla square across the jaw. A third was already on the ground, blood pouring from a gash beneath his eye, which must have come from the large stick Jude wielded in her hand. The final Hyla whirled toward Gerrit, ready to fight.

  But the fourth Hyla instantly recognized the new Vilkan Alpha and let out a piercing whistle.

  The other Hylas froze.

  But Jude kept thrashing and cursing creatively. “Put me down, you slimy motherfucking piece of—”

  “Calm down. It’s okay,” Gerrit said, his eyes never leaving the Hyla before him. The shifter with braided auburn hair was the highest-ranking member of his clan, the leader of the most powerful mages on Kladuu. He bore the branding triad of scars on his bronzed chest that marked him as the Mage Prior, but it was his glittering turquoise scales twinkling in the green light of the jungle that made Gerrit finally recognize him.

  “Tavorn,” Gerrit said, nodding at the turquoise Hyla. “I didn’t realize you were the new Mage Prior.”

  Jude stilled in the other Hyla’s grip. Her eyes narrowed at Gerrit, darting between him and Tavorn with suspicion.

  Tavorn smiled widely. “You’re looking at the new generation,” he said proudly. “The elder Prior and his circle were losing touch with their magic. It was time for a younger leader. I see the Vilkas felt the same way about their previous Alpha. Moon madness, I heard?”

  Gerrit clenched his jaw. He’d never liked Tavorn, though Caj had gotten along famously with the Hyla. “Not quite. My uncle Savas killed him.”

  Tavorn tsked. “Shame. Such nasty business succession can be.”

  “Right.” Gerrit’s gaze skirted toward Jude. “I didn’t expect to see you this far from your base.”

  Tavorn’s youthful face creased as he frowned. “We found the crash. And the human who came from it.”

  Jude hissed as the Hyla holding her tightened his grip. She tried to jerk her arms away, but he held her tight.

  Her shoulder dripped fresh blood, her uniform torn worse than before. Wild strands of chestnut hair stuck to her red face. Her lip was busted, and bruises slowly bloomed beneath the Hyla’s fingertips.

  “Release her,” Gerrit growled, feeling his body ripple again.

  Tavorn’s red brows rose. “She’s our prisoner. We will not release her.”

  “You will—”

  “Have you forgotten where you stand? This isn’t your land, Vilka. This is ours. She is ours.”

  That thread inside him turned piping hot.

  Jude thrashed against her captor again, hissing and spitting. She landed a solid elbow to the shifter’s diaphragm.

  He released her with a choking sputter, and she scrambled toward Gerrit’s outstretched hand.

  He grabbed her and swung her around, using his shoulder to keep her behind him.

  The Hylas turned toward him again, the three flanking Tavorn. If it came to a fight, Gerrit prayed he could shift without his fear for Jude’s life blocking his ability. If he couldn’t, they’d both be dead.

  “You will address me as Alpha,” Gerrit warned. “Or have you already forgotten the terms of our peace negotiation?”

  Tavorn smiled, a tight-lipped thing that revealed the sharp points of his teeth. Behind Gerrit, Jude sucked in a shocked breath. “Have you forgotten our tech ban? Her ship is in direct violation, and as such, she is ours, Alpha. You will not interfere with our questioning any further.”

  Blessed Avilku, they were going to question her? He knew how the Hyla got their information. He’d seen the victims after they’d been nearly drowned. That wasn’t happening to Jude.

  “I’m not anyone’s,” Jude said from behind him. “And I certainly won’t be questioned like some criminal. I crashed here. If anything, you assholes should be bringing me a fucking beer.”

  Gerrit gripped her hand tighter in warning before she stomped past him. He held her back, his eyes never leaving Tavorn’s. “Calm down,” he told her. “You’re not making this any better.”

  He felt her burning gaze swing to him.

  She glared at him. “Calm down? Are you kidding me? These guys are monsters! That one punched me.” She jabbed a finger at a dark Hyla with gleaming purple scales wrapped around his muscular legs.

  In response to the challenge, the Hyla’s cock hardened, sending his scales shuddering down his legs. He grinned widely at Jude. A forked tongue darted out and licked his lips.

  With a low rumble in his chest, Gerrit pushed Jude farther behind him and out of the dark Hyla’s sight.

  She went willingly, having seen the alien’s reaction to her fervor.

  “I don’t think our Vilkan guest is taking kindly to your interest, Merick,” Tavorn told the purple Hyla. “It seems he might have already had a taste. Tell me, Alpha, is she any good?”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  Caution forgotten, Jude tried to pass Gerrit again. Reading the intention on Tavorn’s face, Gerrit thought fast.

  After questioning her, Tavorn would most likely turn Jude over to Merick to finish off. As much as Gerrit hated it, they were on Hylan land—without backup. And all he had with him was his name and status and the respect his fathe
r had won after decades of tenuous attempts at peace with Kladuu’s oldest and fiercest clan.

  Gerrit could tear down his father’s legacy with a few words, but that would be just another failure. Even thinking of it sent painful waves cramping his gut. His father’s legacy was all Gerrit had left. He wouldn’t ruin that too.

  And he couldn’t hand over Jude.

  An idea struck him. It was horrible, but it was the best he had.

  He lifted his chin toward Tavorn. “I have tasted her—”

  “The fuck—” Jude started, but Gerrit gripped her harder, begging the moons for her to let him handle things, just this once.

  “And she’s mine,” Gerrit said. “I’ve claimed her.”

  Tavorn’s brows spiked. Behind him, Merick’s face flushed with anger. “They haven’t had time,” he started to complain to Tavorn, but the powerful mage lifted his hand. Merick fell silent.

  “Merick has a point,” Tavorn said, a touch of amusement in his voice. “She only crashed yesterday. It takes such little time to claim?”

  Gerrit felt Jude tense beside him, but he gave her another warning squeeze. Bless the moons, she actually kept her mouth shut. “My Vilka knew immediately upon scenting her,” he said. “I was waiting until we returned to the mountain for the ceremony as I am the Alpha.”

  Tavorn’s eyes danced; the Hylas had a penchant for ceremony. “Why wait? If you’re not bluffing to keep her and her information from us, then why not do it now?”

  Dread coiled in Gerrit’s stomach. He hadn’t thought it would go this far. He had been bluffing, and Tavorn had read it all over his face.

  Inside, his Vilka howled with joy at the idea of claiming Jude.

  He clenched his teeth, thinking. The ceremony was binding. There would be no going back—for him, at least. He wouldn’t be able to marry again, which could call into question his role as Alpha if Jude left the planet. Not to mention Jude would have no idea what it meant, what she was participating in.