His fingers yanked out of her just as she began to orgasm, and he shoved his cock fully in. She yelled incoherently, the intense orgasm taking her over any edge of reality at the sudden force Jax claimed her with. Gripping her hip, he went hard and deep, over and over, until all she could do was hang on. He was impossibly hard and her core tightened around his as though begging him to go deeper and harder. And he did. She crested the wave of the next orgasm with a cry. Her entire essence felt nothing but the sensations Jax fed her.
He pulled out and warm liquid shot across her stomach. He collapsed on her then, kissing her softly and gently. She sighed at the bliss. He backed away and then walked into the bathroom and returned seconds later.
He held up something. “I’m assuming this scrap of material is a towel, though I don’t know how it could work.”
“It’s a towel and it’s very absorbent,” she said.
He wiped her stomach clean. “I wasn’t sure if you were protected.”
Protected?
“Oh, you mean protected against pregnancy.”
He nodded.
“Yes, I am. All males and females have birth control included in our vitamins. If you remain on a core ship, you’ll take the same for optimum health.”
He frowned. “What if someone wants to get pregnant?”
“Then switch to different vitamins, silly. We choose which ones to take.”
“Oh,” he said, tossing the towel onto the floor. He crawled in next to her. With her wings, they struggled to find the right position. Finally, he settled on his back and she sprawled across him.
As Talla fell asleep in utter satiation, running her fingers across his chest, she realized that this moment was the first time she felt at peace her entire life.
A loud beep sent Jax lurching forward, and Talla tumbled off him. “What the fuck is that?”
She rolled over and pulled herself to her feet. “You have a message.” She walked to the wall and hit a button.
Roden appeared on the screen.
Jax growled. “Can he see us?”
“No. It’s a message. If it was a call, instead of a long beep, you get a staggered tone.”
“Good to know,” he muttered, coming to her side.
She pressed the button once again to play the message.
Roden smiled. It was neither warm nor friendly. “
Sheescaten
, lovebirds. I expect you to be in the command room by
sceinan
— that’s eight o’clock sharp for you, Jerrick. So get the fucking out of your systems now, because you’ve got plenty of work to do, starting tomorrow.”
Jax hit the button on the wall, looking disconcerted. “How’d he know?”
“Roden has spies on his spies. He always knows,” she replied, knowing exactly what Jax meant and just as bothered.
“Can’t say I like the idea of being watched, but … ” He turned to her. “Well, we can sleep … ” he pulled her to him and kissed one of her wings. She shivered. “Or, we can do what he ordered,” he said with a boyish grin.
“We’d better do what he says,” she agreed with a smile.
As he led her back to bed, she tried not to think about the war they’d have to face tomorrow. Nor did she try to think about what kind of future a Draeken and human could possibly have when their people were at war.
Talla left Jax’s room early to shower and change. The empty hallways echoed with her footsteps. Her pace increased into a jog, and then she spread her wings, lifting herself into the air. The morning flight through the tall wide hallways was refreshing. It burned off her lagging sleepiness. If she knew Roden — and she did, as well as anyone — it was going to be a busy day.
After two more rounds of mind-blowing sex, she’d slept hard. The physical and, perhaps even more so, mental exhaustion from the previous two days had crept up on her. Sex had been exactly what she’d needed to take her mind off things she couldn’t bear to think about. She couldn’t help but smile, reflecting on the night before. Jax had been amazing, teasing and taking every orgasm she could give. If only she’d known earlier that he was interested, she could have experienced
that
a thousand times over by now.
Back at her sanctuary, it took her no time at all get to ready for the day. This room had been her home for over a year, with a three-month trip to Earth and several months watching the planet from the dark side of the moon. She knew every inch of the layout. Nothing had been touched since she’d left it. The air filtration system kept dust off things, so different from her trailer at the Etzee that seemed to have a thick layer of permanent dust on everything, despite her relentless cleaning. This was
home
, from the purple fabric she’d draped on the walls to her collection unique Earth finds, which mostly included seashells and stones.
As she picked up a conch shell, her heart ached, and she pressed the shell against her chest. She’d found this prize while on a scouting mission with Laze. Her gaze fell across her collection. She exchanged the shell for a stone with brilliant lines of blue and black running through it. Laze had given this one to her on her lifeday, a day similar to human birthdays but more meaningful in that each Draeken selected his or her own lifeday once they reached the age of maturity.
Nearly every piece in her collection had a connection to Laze, and she leaned against the wall. She couldn’t fathom adding another item to the collection. It felt like a betrayal to his memory.
Sheescaten, ta deiti. Peace, my brother.
She’d been just a toddler when the Noble War broke out. Her parents were murdered on Blood Night, the night that started the collapse. She would’ve died too if her father hadn’t sent her and Laze into the woods to hide. Laze, only a few years older than her, became a man that night at the ripe age of seven.
He did what their parents could no longer do. He’d found them shelter in the basement of a burnt-out estate and only left her side to scavenge food and supplies. They survived like
fregee
for nearly two years, until Laze returned one morning with a tall man with eyes that saw into her soul. His name was Lord Roden Zyll, and he took both Kohlm children with him to his base.
Roden could never be mistaken for a father figure. Though he revealed a softer side every now and then, he’d seen them as assets and treated them as such. But they’d been treated fairly. At the base, Laze and Talla were sheltered and fed. In exchange, they learned how to become guardsmen. Talla killed her first Sephian at eight, and fought in her first battle at nine. She’d been small and fast for her age and made an excellent messenger. She could crawl into tiny spaces and fly though narrow pathways to relay orders.
Talla had been beaten, shot, cut, and starved. Yet, she’d survived. And she’d continue to survive. With forced calm, she pushed off the wall and headed straight for the briefing room.
I will survive for both of us, Laze.
People were starting to move about. When she came across a familiar face, she smiled and moved on. She was a guardsman. Guardsmen weren’t driven by emotion. They weren’t laden by remorse or guilt or grief.
By the time she arrived in the command room, she’d built a stone cushion around her heart, safely hiding away precious memories.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Ace said as she walked in.
She dipped her head in response. Ace was sitting down next to Jax and three other humans, soldiers she’d recognized from the Etzee. She wasn’t surprised to see them defect to the
Striga
. All three had treated the residents fairly and made no secret of their dissent with Etzee’s hard regulations.
Even with his dark skin, Ace looked pale. It would take him at least another day before his lung was fully repaired. Jax, on the other hand, looked healthy and delicious. Her blood heated. She perused his body before giving him an affirming smile.
He watched her, with that same intense look he’d given her every day at the Etzee, and certainly not the intimate gaze he’d given her last night. When he looked away without any further acknowledgement, Talla frowned inwardly, careful to not betray any hint of emotion. He was acting as though last night hadn’t happened.
Was that how he saw it?
Oh, that burns.
They’d crossed a line last night, there was no doubt about that. It had been more than mind-shattering sex.
Hadn’t it?
Determined not to let Jax’s avoidance plummet her thoughts into chaos, she walked around the table and chose a chair next to the three Draeken already in the room, a safe distance from the humans.
Several others entered over the next few minutes. She noticed how the room was divided into three sections, the fences around them invisible. Human, Sephian, and Draeken — each sitting with their own race, all the while warily eying the other two.
The next Draeken guardsman who limped into the room had Talla springing out of her chair. “Laze!” she screamed and ran to embrace her brother.
“
Ta deitan
,” Laze murmured, embracing her, though his voice sounded weak.
She clutched him to her and he grunted. Relaxing her grip, she stepped back to study him. He was slumped over, using a cane for support. One of his wing spurs had been replaced by a metal spike. Many of his tattoos were missing from his wings, which meant that the skin had been patched.
Her eyes widened. He must’ve been nearly a corpse when he was rescued. “Your body is still repairing. You should be resting.”
He snorted. “That’s all I’ve been doing for two days.”
“I don’t know how you pulled it off,” Jax said from Talla’s side and she startled, having not noticed his approach. “But it’s damn good to see you. You saved our lives.” He held out a hand, and Laze accepted, returning the human tradition of shaking hands.
“It was a rough going for a bit,” Laze replied honestly.
Jax shook his head. “I saw the collision. How the hell did you make it out there?”
“I’m not crazy. I bailed just before I rammed the truck down their throats. I took to the air, but one of their fifty-cals took me down. I was lucky they left me for dead. I was even luckier that one of the scouts from the
Striga
found me.” He sobered quickly. “Luckier than most.”
Silence filled the space in between them, and Talla rested her head on Laze’s shoulder. After a moment, she pulled back and gave a little smile. “
Fyet, deiti
.” She punched Laze lightly on the arm and he winced. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”
He held up a hand in defeat. “Wasn’t my intent. I stopped by your room last night, but you weren’t there.” He glanced at Jax, and then smiled. “About time, I’d say.”
Talla’s eyes widened, heat filling her cheeks.
“It’s not what you think,” Jax replied, far too quickly. “We were just blowing off steam.”
The heat in her cheeks moved right to her temper, and she flashed a glare at Jax, but he’d already turned and returned to his chair.
Laze’s lips thinned as he looked from Jax to Talla. “Want me to kick his ass?” he whispered in Draeken.
A smile tugged at her lips. Seeing her brother quickly reset her priorities. Suddenly her world made sense again.
“No,” she said, chuckling. Jax’s dumbass-ness could wait. She touched Laze’s face. He was real. A smile filled her face. “
Deiti
… ”
“
Deitan
,” he said, returning the smile.
Uncaring that her behavior may be considered un-guardsman-like, she clasped Laze’s hand and walked them where there were still two open seats in the Draeken contingent. The room was nearly full. She glanced at the wall screen. It was
sceinan.
A badly scarred human woman entered right behind them and, not surprisingly, took a place with the two Sephians in the room. Sienna Wolfe, co-leader of all Earthside Sephians, watched the Draeken with less disdain than she had a year ago, but the animosity was still clearly there. The human blamed Talla’s people for her mother’s death and knew how to hold a grudge. Talla had no problem glaring right back. The Sephians had killed Talla’s parents and kicked her people off Sephia. Everyone in this room had suffered plenty of loss.
When Roden and Nalea entered, Talla stood along with the other guardsmen in the room, and nodded in respect to Roden’s consort, the Grand Lord Nalea Puftan. Nalea was a woman Talla had respected immediately. Despite being a Draeken-Sephian hybrid, Nalea led the Draeken people with confidence, strength, and — the one thing her father had lacked — mercy.
“It seems we have a conflict of interest,” Roden said, taking the seat next to his consort. “The United Nations wants us dead. We want to live.”
He paused for effect. “The peace treaty we negotiated a year ago is now officially null and void. Since we aren’t lining up to be executed, they are treating us like outlaws, though they are the lawbreakers in this case. With the firepower on the
Striga
alone, we could destroy all the military forces against us.”
That last sentence raised a murmur across the room … consent from Talla’s side and dissent from across the room on the human side.
Roden held up a finger. “However, that serves no value to our end game.”
“The Draeken people refuse to be the aggressors,” Nalea said firmly from Roden’s side.
“You may not have much say about that,” Sienna said. “How about Otas’s core ship? Can you prevent him from attacking?”
“The
Grax
has not responded to any of our communication attempts,” Nalea replied. “We only know that Otas Olnek has taken control of the ship. The
Artox
and
Evo
are maintaining orbit at his coordinates. Should the
Grax
attempt to fire upon Earth, the
Artox
and
Evo
will destroy it. But that is the worst-case scenario. There are over fourteen hundred Draeken on that ship, nearly all of whom are innocent. We have no intent to condemn them for a single traitor’s actions.”
Otas Olnek, who had once been the body double for Nalea’s father, the Grand Lord Hillas Puftan, had been deemed a nobody. It was a horrible mistake in judgment learned painfully a year ago. Otas had shadowed the Grand Lord for so many years that he’d learned all of Hillas’s secrets, spies, and plans. No one suspected Otas had any ambitions, let alone power to carry it through, until the minutes following Hillas’s death. Then, it quickly became all too clear that the doppelgänger had been the greater threat all along.