Page 66 of Defiance
Novak heard it for real this time, surreal and small because of the distance, but no sound had ever shattered him so thoroughly. He broke into a sprint.
She was there in the hall with bare, pale legs, hugging a white care gown to her chest. Her hair was matted, hanging like a curtain of fire around her face, but she stumbled to a stop with wide eyes, staring at the darkness in fear. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear him running.
“Charlie!”
His sunset shuffled forward in hope, then started running straight for his voice in the darkness.
Her light drew closer, faster, bigger, brighter and he ripped into it from the shadows. As soon as she saw him, her face crumpled in a sob. They barrelled into each other and their arms tangled in desperation. She clutched the back of Novak’s head as his tail spiraled around their waists together so she couldn’t pull away. When her legs gave way, he held her up, heaving for breath. He stumbled back against a frigid wall, curling his shoulders around her in his arms.
“You found me,” she whispered in awe, her voice trembling.
Novak buried hiscolearainto her throat to comfort himself, then jerked away in horror.
“No,” he gasped, scrambling to push her silk away from her neck. Beneath her unruly curls was an injection site, tainted with a neurotoxin that made hiscolearasting just from a brush. He cradled her face in a panic.
“Hexane, whatever that is,” Charlie rasped, rubbing her thumbs on his wrists to soothe him. “I’m okay. The parumauxi—”
Novak slid to his knees and pressed his face to her sternum. She brushed down on his scales as he breathed her in,tolerating the tight pinch of his claws where he couldn’t give up his desperate grip on her waist.
“I’m alright, love,” she soothed. “I’m alright.”
“You’re safe,” he hissed, repeating it like a mantra.
Then the pounding of his heart morphed from terror to something hot and throbbing. Charlie’s scent burn overwhelmed him like a drug, his helices so tight that his groin cramped with need. Precum slathered the interior of his cloaca.
“You’re mine,” he panted with wide eyes. His fangs pulsed, filling his mouth with venom in anticipation. His claws twitched on her bare legs, held captive in his grip. The hiss of relief turned to a seductive, crocodilian growl. He shoved her closer, crushing hiscolearaagainst her navel.
“Novak?” she asked, fisting her hands on his shoulders.
“You’re mine,Charlie,” he intoned in an ancient growl, baring his teeth. They glowed against his dark scales, his red eyes dilated to near circles. His tail slithered over her ass and up her spine, making her gasp. It curled around her neck of its own volition, pressing against her racing pulse with relish.
Charlie gripped his ears and pulled his face back, staring at him with a crease in her brow. His grin was feral, split tongue spilling from his mouth and dripping venom down the one piece of clothing separating their bodies. He wanted to rub it into her fucking skin—
“I am,” she said slowly, brushing her thumb over hiscolearaas it swelled. The gears turned in her mind. He saw it behind her stormy irises. “You won the Hunt, love.”
Ohh,he liked the way she said that. He snapped his teeth in triumph, licking at the venom dripping from his fangs.
“If we leave, eh,right now,”she said, biting her lip with a squint, “how likely are you to kill someone?”
Novak heard the word leave and snarled. He pulled her down so that she was straddling his thigh where he knelt andcurled his tail around her neck so there would be no mistake. She swallowed against the authoritative squeeze.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume the Hunt is usually consummated on the spot.”
“Yes, but—” Her question pulled him back with a grimace.Usually?No advenan in the Union had participated in the Hunt in living memory. He didn’t know what was normal, just stories from the Outer Rim over drinks. Thinking about it made him so worked up that his vision vibrated. Every scale tingled, and the ones she touched went soft like a bird. His plumage hadn’t been soft since he was a knee-high neolate.
“Novak.” She pinched his ears until they stung, bringing his attention back around. “You caught me, sotakeme. Let your instincts go.”
30
A dam broke in Novak’s soul. I felt it. The moment the chains holding him back snapped and went into free fall.
He sliced my plas tunic down the front and pushed me down on the floor in one graceful sweep, twisting his tail around my neck and coiling it beneath my head as a cushion. Its thicker middle slid across my collarbone, as heavy as a bald python, and the hair stood on my arms and legs as he dragged his nose down my stomach.
I didn’t forget about HIXBS as his nose disappeared into the junction of my legs, but willfully ignored it. When we emerged, I wanted the world to know that I’d been fucked thoroughly and enjoyed it. I wanted them to see my mussed hair and stupid smile and know that HIXBS didn’t scare me. Because Novak would find me. Anywhere. Anytime. He wasn’t a danger to me.
He was my lifeline.
Novak’s blown out red eyes glinted like reflective discs as he pressed the bridge of his muzzle into the swollen entrance of my pussy. He rumbled, sinking his claws into the thick pads of my hips. I held the back of my knees and pulled them open.
