Page 26 of Taken to Kor
“No.” She shakes her head, hair dripping blood as the ropes swing around her shoulders. “Centare, I mean. I wanna stay with you.”
I try not to betray how her words move me, but fail. When I straighten and roll my shoulders back, a grin disrupts my features. Just a small one, but it is enough. Herannathon is near and is watching me again, shaking his head. So do several of the other pirates nearby. We all watch as Deena moves her weapon to her right arm so that she can hold my lower right hand with her left one.
The whisper of her skin against mine makes me shiver. It’s the first time we’ve touched and it solidifies the desire running rampant through my chest.
Deena ismineeven if it means abandoning Kor. Even if it means tearing it down. Even if it means building another empire on another planet.
Her palm is sticky with blood and hotter than mine as we make our way down hallway after deserted hallway. Gerannu and his team meet up with us at a point. He apologizes profusely for not realizing the rot would be enough to cover the lights, which were functional beneath it. I wave him off. Very little, right now, could upset me.
With our larger numbers, I decide that we have the forces needed to keep Deena safe and still break off into smaller groups. We lost none to the carpet creatures in the battle that brought Deena safely back to me, so I don’t worry too much about the pirates I send off to explore the rotating units that flank either side of this central globe. Gerannu leads us towards the center of the sphere, where the one power source once originated, though it is long dead by now.
He’s chatting away excitedly about whatever elements these former humans might have used and organizes a team to collect samples of the rot.Quintenanrretalso departs with a small team, their intention to gather a few of the carpet corpses and take them back to the ship for study. Information is power and these new species — or perhaps, this evolution of an ancient species — is something of note.
I wonder if Deena knows these rugs, as she called them, are humans.
I glance down at her and my swollen heart lurches with an unfathomable kind of desire. I feel it jerk in my core, and then snake lower into my cock, threatening to release it, which would be more than embarrassing. A Niahhorru male leaking seed all over the place would be downright mortifying.
She looks up at me and our eyes meet and I quickly break the connection, while still firming my grip on her palm. I want her to know what I’m too embarrassed to tell her. That she is wanted and desired and perfect and loved.
“Centare.” Her whisper is broken and she clears her throat to try again. “Centare,” she repeats a little louder, but no less shakily.
“What are you talking about, Deena?”
She shivers, like she’s cold. Likely, she is and I frown. I have nothing to give her. “You asked me if I wanted…” Her chest jolts and I stare down at her, shocked by the action.
“What was that?”
“Hiccup.”
“And it does not hurt you?”
She shakes her head, then tilts it to the left. “I guess it’s a little uncomfortable.”
“I’ll call the healer.”
She laughs and shakes her head. Her laughter is…off.It starts as it usually does, husky and damning, but quickly morphs into something lighter and frazzled, something a little manic. Still, even that raucous laughter is a soothing sound. The balm to the satellite’s previous screams. I see how the posture and tension within the pirates who can hear her entirely eases. Mine does, too. At least, until her laughter fetters out and she tries to wipe her cheek with her shoulder, having insufficient arms to hold my hand and carry her weapon and wipe her cheeks. So I do it for her.
I smooth my fingers beneath her eyes, trying to be careful with her right cheek. I can see the cuts and they make me proud. She is a warrior, my female. Mymate. I will have her and she will have me and we will be as the Lemoran and Voraxians are in their strange realms where they share only one mate apiece.
The gesture must startle her, because she looks up at me like I’ve grown yet a fifth arm straight out of the top of my head. I grin. “What is it?”
“I…” The jerking of her chest nearly takes her off of her feet.
I frown. She laughs wildly.
“I was just saying that it’s crazy that I’m covered in cuts and you want to call the doctor to help me handle my hiccups.” She does the jerking motion again and I frown harder.
“Are you injured?” I glance down at her body. Bloody and war-ravaged, ontte, but I don’t see any disabilities.
She shakes her head and does herhick cupagain. “Centare. I mean, I don’t think so.” Another hiccup.
“Do you need me to carry you?” I don’t know why I ask her this. It is clear she does not need to be carried.
A frown pulls the edges of her full lips down and she looks away from me with a purpose that I don’t understand. Her hand tenses in mine and she might have even gone so far as to try to retract her hand had I not tightened my grip, preventing her.
“My leg is fine.”
“Your leg? Is your leg wounded?”
