I blinked, trying to focus on anything past the taste of him. The beeping started faint, but the more my mind cleared from the haze of lust the louder it got.
I deflated against the floor. “Dammit.”
Rema gave me a sheepish look. “I think we may have gotten carried away.”
I looked at his flushed face and laughed. “Ya think?”
He smiled, his wings pulling up and away, and he got to his knees pulling me up into a sitting position as he went and then he froze, his mouth falling open as he looked around. I gave my head a shake to finish clearing it and did the same. My eyes widened when I saw the bridge. Vines were everywhere, spread out across the floor, up the walls, across the ceiling. All over the chairs and desks. And they were covered with white flowers, with white petals raining down from the ceiling like snowflakes.
“Holy shit.”
Rema got to his feet, bringing me with him. “I take it this is a sign you enjoyed it as much as I did?” he said, turning slowly to take in the whole room.
His words startled a laugh out of me and he looked at me with a wide grin. I had expected shyness from him afterwards, but he was nearly giddy, his eyes dancing.
“Yes, I enjoyed myself.” I stepped in close to him. “Did you?”
One of his big hands cupped my cheek. “I have never experienced that kind of pleasure before. It was wonderful.” His gaze flicked to the flashing red light of the comms. “Though we certainly picked an odd time to lose control of ourselves,” he continued ruefully.
I kissed his palm and stepped back. “We picked a great time. Nothing says I’m better than you than making someone wait.”
Rema chuckled, straightened his tunic so that it fell over the wet front of his pants and strode across the room to hit the button.
“— kept us waiting long enough! Rema, get off that ship at once!” A squawking female voice all but screamed at us.
Rema’s shoulders tensed, his wings tucking in close to his body. I came up next to him, wrapping my arm around his waist and squeezed. “Guess we’ll worry about cleaning this up later. Come on, let’s go meet the family.”
Chapter 4
Rema
His knees were weak,and his cock was still painfully hard when the belly ramp of the golden shuttle hissed open. Patty walked beside him down the ramp and across the short boarding walkway, her eyes taking in the scene before him with a hard glint in their depths. The star shone down onto them in a dark purple, highlighting the lighter lilac of the midday sky. Great twisting reddish brown trees reached their limbs high on eitherside of the ramp, the jungle far below the cliff face creeping every height in search of the starlight.
The landing pad jutted out from the mountainside, carved directly into the red stone, and Patty craned her head back to stare at the looming red palace, which crowded around them in stretching wings on either side, and stretched high overhead, carved deep into the mountainside. With twenty towers stabbing defiantly into the sky, Patty looked so small standing before the Neldre’s show of power. Shewasso small, the top of her head not even reaching his shoulders, and he could circle her waist with one hand, but she was so fierce, so full of fire. That fire seemed caught in her hair, the golden brown locks pulled back in a tight braid she called French, but each strand seemed to ignite when the light from Tuanov’s star hit it just right.
The shimmering green scales on her face and neck glinted teasingly at him, seeming to beckon him to taste them. He longed to run his tongue across her skin. He was still staring at her when she tilted her head up and caught him, her wide eyes teasing him. They had been blue once, but the change she underwent had deepened the color to a greenish brown, like staring into the gloom of an old growth forest. Wild nature filled her eyes, giving her a near feral edge.
That she seemed so calm after what they had just done was baffling to him. His world had tilted sideways when she’d touched his cock with her little hand, and then she’d continued to stroke him to completion until he came all over himself and her like the newly mated male that he soon hoped to be. His blood heated at the memory of her licking his seed from her hands, her greedy little mouth working over his seed covered fingers while she sought her own pleasure with her other hand. By the Goddess, he’d never forget it.
His feathers ruffled, and a shiver spread over his body until he had to clench one of his secondary fists tightly to keep fromreaching out for her and dragging her back onto the ship, instead of meeting the eyes of his irate family waiting for them. There were five of them, all female, dressed in the long flowing dresses of their rank, the pale colors of the gowns highlighted by jewels sewn into the fabric so that they looked to be bathed in starlight. He’d thought the style beautiful once, but now his preference ran to golden armored, blood covered, green scaled maniacs, especially ones currently wearing his seed like a badge of honor.
They’d taken the time to change out of their soiled clothes and into a new set of tunic and pants, black for himself again, and a light blue for her, but he could still smell himself on Patty very faintly. The knowledge gave him a surge of possessive pride, his feathers fluffing as his wings flared slightly. His wing brushed against Patty walking beside him, and she tilted her head up to smile at him. He swallowed hard at the sight of a white flower blooming in front of her small ear, and had to grit his teeth to pull his attention from her. The sweet scent drifted to him, tantalizing, beckoning him to touch, to taste, to take from her what he most desired.
A trembling in his limbs wasn’t the picture of military stoicism he’d wanted for this familial reunion. His mother’s sister, Sira, was at the head of the welcoming delegation, her black wings flared wide in indignation. His lips wanted to lift in a snarl at the sight of her, and he pressed them firmly together to avoid showing her his fangs.
His aunt had grown even more slight since the last time he’d seen her, her face sharper. The dark mass of her long hair was pulled back in a series of complicated braids, highlighting the severity of her face. She wore the silver chain and jewels of the Matriarch, the piece dangling across her forehead and catching the light to sparkle at him as if it too judged him as its wearer did. The scowl she leveled on him was as dark as ever, flashingblack eyes filled with contempt. It made his spine straighten and his shoulders tighten.
They stopped a few paces away from his family, and dread boiled in his belly when Sira’s nostrils flared and her eyes shifted from him to Patty with a sneer, her fang flashing as her lip curled in disgust.
“So this is the alien you’ve lowered yourself for,” she said, the words dripping with venom. Her head snapped back to Rema, delicate arms crossing over her chest. “I expected nothing less of you than a shameful mating match.”
Hot anger flushed through him as his body went rigid, his fangs baring to defend Patty, when the human in question giggled, halting him in his tracks.
His family froze, hard eyes narrowing to stare at her.
Patty twisted a lock of her hair around her finger, gave his aunt a coy look, and smiled. “Oh, he hasn’t lowered himself for me yet. But don’t worry, I’m getting there.” The look she cast his way could have fueled a thousand ships with its heat. It burned through him like a supernova, incinerating the sick feeling in his gut that his aunt had conjured with her presence. “I’ve recently discovered how fuckingdelicioushe tastes.”
Disgust twisted his aunt’s face, his cousins behind her mirroring her. “Vile creature.”
