Dark Strength Read online

  “Father and Mother are dead.” There was an endless depth of sadness in Paloma’s voice. “They aren’t coming for us. We won’t ever return home. Our lifespans will never go back to what they once were.” Tears ran down her cheeks.

  Rhea hugged the girl, her stomach making the embrace clumsy.

  “I can’t return home either.” Elyce shared. “I’m not that female anymore.” She had more solar cycles than Paloma but the loss of her innocence had been even more soul-shredding. “I’m stronger.” Those were Balvan’s words. “You’ve changed also.” That was a calculated guess. The girl’s experiences would change anyone. “You have your sister, friends who love you, care for you. You’re strong and beautiful and intelligent.” The girl had so much. “You can create your own lifespan, your own happiness.”

  “We will all create our own happiness.” Rhea smiled, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. “The Refuge will be our new home.”

  Paloma sniffled.

  Elyce glanced behind her, meeting Balvan’s gaze. Was the Refuge her new home? She was happy here but she suspected that feeling was because of her big green male, not due to the settlement.

  “Can I see your guns?” Rhea held out her hands.

  Elyce gave her the weapons. The female took them apart, naming all the pieces, telling Elyce what she should look for, how to clean them.

  Most of the first session was learning about her guns, perfecting how to hold them, stand, aim. Elyce did squeeze off a few rounds of projectiles. She missed the target, but not by much, hitting the wall beside it.

  Elyce cleaned her guns to Rhea’s satisfaction. Brimming with confidence, engulfed in the glow of power that came with being able to defend herself, she bounced back to where Balvan was patiently waiting.

  “Did you see my shooting?” She jumped into his arms. “Rhea says I have potential.”

  “I saw.” He grinned. “That’s high praise from Rhea.”

  Rhea was now her friend. She settled against Balvan. Paloma was more prickly, but she had friend potential also.

  Friends were important, not only emotionally. They were protection. When she was abducted, she had been alone. If she’d walked with a friend, Marowit might not have taken her.

  Or maybe he would have. The male thought himself untouchable, had boasted of the things the Humanoid Alliance would allow him to do.

  Balvan was right. The abduction wasn’t her fault.

  Her big male carried her through the settlement. She recognized some landmarks. They were heading toward their domicile.

  A male pelted along the pathway, veering directly toward them. He looked over his shoulder as he moved, not paying attention to where he was going.

  They’d collide. Elyce cringed, pushing backward into Balvan’s big form. The stranger would touch her.

  Her great green male’s arm blurred, sweeping before them. The stranger flew across the pathway, slammed into a wall, and fell to the flattened sand.

  There was a crack in the wall at the point of impact. That was how strong her mate was.

  “Is he”—she gulped air—“is he dead?”

  “He’s unconscious.” Balvan continued walking, carrying her away from the scene of the accident. “His head will hurt when he wakes.”

  Two more males ran toward them, huge knives in their hands. They saw Balvan and immediately changed direction.

  “Kralj has informed residents about the siege.” He explained. “They can’t leave, not without risking their lifespans, and are becoming restless. You won’t go anywhere without me.”

  She hadn’t planned to leave his side. “I have my guns.” She touched the holsters. “If you need help, tell me and I’ll shoot in their direction.”

  Elyce doubted she could hit moving beings. She wasn’t that skilled. But she might scare them, make them think twice about attacking him.

  “Will you protect me, my little female?” His lips quirked upward.

  “You can protect yourself.” She rolled her eyes. Balvan was a huge, strong male, with enhanced senses and bewildering speed. He was in no danger. “But you’re not alone.” She reached upward and smoothed his eyebrows. “I want you to know that.”

  “I would never forget that.” His voice lowered to an arousing rumble. “Every part of me is aware of you, Elyce. I draw your distinct scent into my lungs every time I inhale. I listen for your little breaths, watch you with a fascination I don’t ever want to shake.”

  Her mouth dried, passion curling her boot-clad toes. “Oh.”

  “Yes, oh.” He increased their speed. “We’re going home where you can show me how not alone I am.”

  She could do that. Elyce wiggled against him, anticipating his touch.

  Chapter Ten

  They got naked as soon as they reached home, stripping each other bare, laughing and teasing and touching. Once Elyce was completely nude, she donned her gun holster set again and jumped onto their sleeping support. His little female brimmed with energy and confidence.

  It looked good on her.

  Balvan stood to the side, watching his mate bounce, vastly amused. Her beautiful face was lit with happiness. Her generous curves jiggled. The leather holsters, green to match his skin, hung low on her hips.

  He was a lucky male.

  “Show me your shooting stance,” he urged. Watching her shoot had been an arousing experience. He had been tempted to sweep her into his arms and kiss her all over.

  “This is the proper stance.” She landed on the sleeping support with her bare feet braced wide apart. “I draw my gun.” She removed one of her guns from its holster. “Slide the lever to shoot.” She struggled with that move, her face scrunching up, her expression adorable. “Aim.” She held the gun in front of her with both hands, pointing it at the far wall.

  His cock, already hard, bobbed, showing his appreciation of the show she was giving him. His little female looked so strong, so badass.

  “Then I press the trigger.” She brushed one of her thumbs over the trigger.

  It must have been extremely sensitive. A projectile blasted into the wall, blowing a huge hole in it.

  “Oh, no.” She covered her mouth with her hands.

  Her gun-filled hands.

  “Give me that.” Heart pounding, he rushed forward at modified humanoid speed and wrenched the weapons from his female’s fingers before she accidentally blew her pretty face off.

  “S-s-sorry.” Elyce squeaked, shrinking back from him, raising her arms to protect herself.

  She was shielding herself from him. His little female thought he’d hit her.

  His darker emotions, stemming from fear and concern, evaporated. “I’m Balvan.” He softened his voice. “I’d never hurt you.”

  Based upon his experience with beaten creatures, he’d be repeating that phrase for solar cycles. Deep wounds didn’t heal quickly. Caring for Elyce meant accepting that, embracing her past and the remnants of that trauma.

  “You won’t hurt me…even when I do something wrong?” She looked pointedly at the huge hole in the wall. “Like shoot up your lovely home?”

  “It’s our lovely home.” He sat on the edge of the sleeping support, the surface sagging under his tremendous weight, and he placed the gun on the nearby horizontal support. “And I’ll never hurt you, even if you shoot me.” He opened his arms.

  She hesitated for a gut-twisting moment and then hurried forward, snuggling against him. “I would never shoot you.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me intentionally.” He petted the golden curls decorating her treasured head, savoring the soft tendrils. Future wounds didn’t concern him. The Humanoid Alliance had taught him to deal with pain. “Accidents happen.”

  “It was an accident.” Her voice was muffled by his skin. “I barely touched the trigger.”

  “I’ll adjust the trigger sensitivity when we wake.” He reclined on the sleeping support, taking her with him.

  “Rhea didn’t show me how to do that.” She propped her chin on her arms,
gazed at him. “You’re not angry with me?”

  “If I’m to be angry with anyone, I should be angry with myself.” He removed her holster set, set it on the horizontal support next to her gun. “I promised to kiss all of your scars and I haven’t yet done that.”

  Her face turned pink. “You kissed the scars around my neck.” She touched the marks.

  “I didn’t kiss them thoroughly.” He pulled her upward and laved the raised flesh with the flat of his tongue, tasting the salt of her skin, the unique flavor of her. She trembled, her eyes flashing with a sexual excitement Balvan shared.

  He lifted her hair, adored her nape with his lips, tried to turn her, seeking to kiss the scars on her back. She resisted.

  He looked up at her, lifted one of his eyebrows.

  “I want to see you.” Her gaze slipped from his. “So I know….”

  So she knew it was him touching her, not one of the previous males. She needed that reassurance and he would give it to her. “I like seeing you also.”

  A small smile curled her lips. “Do you?” Her voice was husky.

  “I do.” He swirled his tongue into her jugular notch, the enticing vee at the base of her neck, and her head tipped back, her hair spilling over her shoulders. “Very much.”

  Fraggin’ hole. She was beautiful.

  He licked along her collarbone. That scar was thin and fine, as though someone had slid a blade along her skin. Thinking about the pain she must have felt doubled his determination to kill her tormenters.

  Balvan would show her only pleasure and caring. He flicked his tongue over her bountiful breasts, the numerous tiny pink triangles matching the color of her taut nipples. Elyce wiggled on top of him, moaning softly, that sound wrapping around his balls.

  He sucked first on one pink peak and then the other, drawing the sensitive flesh into his hot mouth, covering her with his nanohumanics. Her breasts were objects of wonder, rigid nipples surrounded by softness, heavy and full, fitting his huge hands. He kneaded her curves as he inhaled them, taking as much of her between his lips as possible.

  Her scent intensified. He breathed her in. She was the oxygen in his lungs, his focus, his everything.

  He drew her higher. She gripped his bald head, pressing her fingertips against his skin. He mouthed over the long scar across her stomach. It bore the shape of a whip mark, was likely representative of many other wounds that hadn’t scarred.

  His female had endured them all, had survived that pain, alone. Unable to change her past, Balvan nuzzled against Elyce, making her unspoken promises of a different future, a future of caring, of company, with him by her side.

  Her private curls dampened, her inner thighs glistening with wetness. He threaded his fingers through the short strands and she jerked.

  “I’m-I’m not scarred there, am I?” She squirmed.

  She was scarred there, her tormenters having abused all of her, but he kept that information to himself.

  “You’re very pink.” Balvan spread her open and gazed at the core of her, small and dainty yet able to accommodate him. “That’s calling for kisses.”

  “You can’t kiss me. Not there.” The need in her voice belied her protests.

  He lifted her pussy to his mouth. Her thighs closed around his face. He was surrounded by wet, hot female and he loved it.

  Balvan licked her from ass to clit. Her spine snapped straight. Only his grip on her hips stopped her from shooting forward.

  “Balvan.” She fought his hold.

  All that did was grind her pussy against his lips. “You’re delicious, little female.” He sucked on her delicate folds, the taste of her coating his tongue.

  “I’m squishing you.” Elyce, seated upon him, expressed her concerns.

  For him, a male who once had an entire domicile fall on his hard skull, a warrior who relished squishing more fragile heads under the heels of his boots.

  Touched by her worry and vastly amused by its source, Balvan laughed against her. That response drew more tantalizing wetness from his female.

  “You’re tiny, Elyce.” His voice was muffled by her flesh. “You can’t squish me.”

  He pushed his tongue into her tight little entrance. A strangled sound came from her, one he interpreted as approval. He stroked her inner walls, drinking her in, reveling in her distinct fragrance.

  “You’re inside me.” She sounded almost frantic with desire, her pitch higher than normal. “I feel you there.”

  He never wanted to be anywhere else. Balvan swallowed, taking her into his body, feasting on her arousal.

  “I’m tingling all over.”

  Her updates on what his touch was doing to her were the most erotic things he had ever heard. He delved deeper, pressing his face into her softness.

  “Oh. Yes.” She grabbed her breasts, holding those lush curves as he yearned to do, her fingers splayed over her nipples.

  He thrust in and out of her pussy hole, breeding with his tongue, staking his claim on her, making her his. Gripping her ass, he squeezed and released, squeezed and released her to the same tempo.

  “It is too much.” She rocked against him, his female no longer concerned about squishing his reinforced head. “Too good.”

  He silently chanted the same refrain. She was liquid passion, dripping into his mouth. He ravished her faster, reached farther, working her pussy with a growing ferocity.

  Her juices speckled his cheeks, his chin. She branded him with her scent.

  He gazed up at her. She panted, her full lips parted, her eyes glazed with passion. Sweat beaded on her pale skin, glistening under the lights. Her eyes were the darkest blue, her hair glowed like a rare and precious metal.

  This female was his. She trusted him and only him. Only he would touch her, bring her pleasure, see her like this, burning bright with wanting, ready to fall apart in his hands.

  He licked and sucked and plunged his tongue into her, building her need more and more, until she writhed on top of him, her speech reduced to, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  His balls throbbed to the same beat, ready to explode, his cock as hard as his skull. This encounter was supposed to be all about her, about her pleasure, her release, but it had entranced him also. When she came, he’d come.

  He didn’t need her pussy or her mouth or her hand around him. All he required were her throaty cries, the sight of her body slick with wetness, her flavor dancing on his tongue.

  That was enough. She was enough, this female plucked from Carinae E’s hot sands, delivered to his arms. Elyce was strength and passion, beauty and resilience, a survivor, a lover, his.

  “Balvan.” Her inner walls closed around his tongue. She squeezed his head with her thighs, buffering him with softness.

  She was close, was asking for more to push her over the edge. He rubbed his nose lightly over her clit.

  She screamed, clamping down on him, her spine bowing. The exquisiteness of her release stripped his control. He roared into her pussy. Hot cum jetted from his tip, splattering against his stomach.

  Pleasure coursed through him. Every sense amplified. He could hear the brush of her skin against his, the hitch in her breath, the rush of wetness down his throat. The image of her face would be scorched into his brain forever.

  She shook and twisted and cried out. He held her to him, devouring every drop, sucking her dry. The pressure in his balls eased, replaced by euphoria.

  Although he was physically pinned to the sleeping support by his curvy female, connected to her in all ways, his mind, his heart, his soul floated. He kissed her sweet little pussy hole.

  “Too good.” She fell forward.

  He caught her, slid her downward, layering her body over his. Elyce sighed, her breath blowing hot against his neck. She rested on top of him.

  A comforting silence filled the chamber, broken solely by their breathing. He rubbed her back, savoring the press of her curves against him.

  “You came,” she whispered.

  “I did.” Balvan gri
nned. He’d come hard.

  “I didn’t touch you, didn’t pleasure you.” There was a tinge of guilt in her voice.

  “Giving you pleasure gives me pleasure.” He brushed her curls away from her forehead and kissed that smooth skin. “The truth of that is on my stomach.”

  “I’ll tidy you.” She reached toward the horizontal support, grabbed a cleaning cloth.

  He said nothing. It was important to his female that she do things for him. It seemed to make her feel equal, more in control.

  Elyce drifted the square over his face, against his cheeks, wiping the wetness off his skin. She snapped the cloth to refresh it, dabbed it daintily around his lips, treating him, a rough warrior, a being others called a monster, like he was a precious object.

  “I’ll repair the wall also,” she murmured, not meeting his gaze.

  He looked at the huge hole, visual proof of the power she now had, her ability to protect herself. Elyce might benefit in the future from seeing that, from having that reminder.

  “We could leave it like that for a while. It’s not every being who can do that much damage to a wall with one shot.” He allowed his pride in her to show. “You’re powerful, little female. Never doubt that.”

  Her cheeks turned red. “I’m not as powerful as you are.” She slid the cleaning cloth over his stomach, her touch enthralling him.

  “No one is as powerful as I am.” He flexed his biceps, teasing her, and was rewarded with one of her wonderful laughs.

  While she tidied him, he told her stories about walls, structures and other things he’d destroyed, often by merely bumping into them. By the time she was done with her cleaning, his little female was smiling from ear to ear.

  He felt a great sense of satisfaction over that accomplishment.

  She returned the cleaning cloth to its spot on the horizontal support and settled against him. “Orol is very different from you.”

  Balvan became still, a chill settling upon him. Many females considered Orol to be handsome. Did she prefer his friend also? Was Orol the male she wanted? “He’s not for you, my little female.”

  Elyce was his. He would kill any male, friend or not, who touched her.