Jaxin roared, lunging down toward my shoulder but, at the last moment, shifting to stifle my moans with a kiss. I tasted salt then and realized tears had been leaking from my eyes. It was all that intense. His dark eyes met mine, and I knew he wasn’t done yet. Not quite. His cock rippled inside me, hips rocking, and as my orgasm began to fade, a new one began to build. It was his roar as he came that set me over the edge, followed by each hot blast of seed inside of me and the feeling of his pleasure—his satisfaction—as he crested.
Rolling us, our bodies still locked tightly together by his clasper, I ended up sprawled across his chest, legs splayed wide around his hips. His cock was still buried so deep, and his hands were folded around my ass with possessive claim, like he planned to keep me locked to him for a long time. Beneath my ear, his chest was rising and falling rapidly, and his heart was pounding furiously. He was wrapping control back around his mind, though, pulling the tatters of shredded discipline back into place. It wasn’t the same as before; he didn’t go numb, he didn’t go quiet, but the warmth of his satisfied mind was like heat I wanted to bask in.
Unfortunately, this peaceful moment couldn’t last. When a branch creaked in the distance, I was abruptly remindedthat the giant had been our audience to all this. How could I have forgotten that? Jaxin’s mating claim, my desire to be his, and to finally experience true passion, had erased the giant’s presence from my mind. I sensed him now, though, curious, excited. I wondered how much he’d seen of our coupling through the tall grass, with Jaxin on top of me.
“We must go,” my Rummicaron protector groaned. “Daylight is wasting.” He was the one still keeping us locked together with his clasper, holding his seed deep in my channel. It didn’t seem to me like he’d begun to soften. When he tugged, sensation burst through me, pressure on my opening that told me he was still too big to slip out. A firmer tugging, my body refusing to let him go, and then, with a gush, he was out, and all his seed dripped from my stretched-wide opening.
I was in a euphoric cloud, floating and still too filled with pleasure to move quickly. Jaxin did not seem to want to move either, but he rose to kneel beside me and wiped himself clean. He cleaned me, too, and then took out the tissue regenerator to check my core, humming with satisfaction as he prodded my folds and opening with gentle fingers. “No tearing. You took me so well, little one.” His eyes locked on my face, and he seemed to be saying,You were made for me,but that had to be wishful thinking. No mating for life for either of our species.
Chapter 14
Jaxin
Dani was quiet as we left the clearing and resumed our trek toward the extraction point. My chest didn’t ache anymore, but I wasn’t sure if that was because it was better or because the rest of me was so blissed out I couldn’t tell. What we’d done not long ago—I had no words for it—and it had unraveled parts of me I knew could never be put back together. That stone-cold, emotionless Rummicaron control, for instance, there was no putting these feelings back behind those walls.
My little scientist was walking with that same graceful step that had started this. It was almost a dance without music, her limbs falling in a graceful rhythm that emphasized the smoothness of her motions. Yesterday, exhaustion had dragged on her every move, and I’d seen it in the way shewalked this morning, too. Reaching the clearing had lifted her, energized her. It would be arrogant of me to think that our mating had done that. More likely, it was the large bag full of flower samples I was carrying for her that had done this.
Did I ask? Did I test the newness of these bright feelings inside me by exposing myself to possible rejection? I’d lost control so massively that I was still in shock over how well Dani had taken that, me. My cock twitched as I recalled the way she’d felt when I sank into her, or how she’d responded to the swelling locking us together. The technical term wasclasper, but Rummicaron had adapted speech to usecock, as it was a much more widely accepted term. Now I wondered which term Dani would prefer.
“We’ll need to think about making camp in a couple of hours, won’t we?” Dani asked before I could say anything. She was smiling at me over her shoulder, her long braid slinging back and forth, the tip brushing along the curve of her ass.
I tipped my head back to track the progress of the sun in the sky, partially obscured by the dense jungle foliage. Then I checked the time on my comm device. We still had several hours before true dark, but our stop in that clearing—while very pleasurable—had cost us several hours, not to mention that it had put us several more hours in the wrong direction.
“Not yet,” I said. Did she feel the unease that was seeping under my skin and slowly replacing the languor from our mating? I couldn’t explain it, but I was beginning to feel like we’d made a grave mistake by delaying. The giant was still following us, keeping his distance—though not quite as much of it as he had this morning. He wasn’tthe danger that suddenly made me feel harried; I only needed to check with Dani to be told that the giant still meant no harm.
“What do you think he wants? He was… not so curious until we showed interestinthe flowers in the clearing. Do you think the blooms mean something to him too?” Dani was musing out loud now, a smile on her face that told me no, she did not sense my unease. What did that mean? How could she not? It felt like all my mental exercises were failing, so my unease had to be loud and clear. I didn’t even want to make myself numb if that meant I couldn’t feel the things Dani made me feel.
“He can’t be interested in your cure,” I said. He had nothing to do with Roka pollution, after all; he did not even know what Roka was. There were groups that must be interested, though—like the one that had hired those mercenaries who had infiltrated her research facility and taken Dani hostage. Very clever, to use a Kertinal crew to replace the security detail the empire had supposedly sent to protect the scientists.
“No, probably not. Maybe he knows something about the flowers, though?” She seemed pensive as she considered this, her pace slowing, so I pressed my palm to the small of her back to keep her going. The way she flashed another smile up at me made my chest feel warm, while at the same time, it felt tight too, like I couldn’t breathe. She didn’t see me as a monster compared to her; she didn’t seem to mind all my teeth. I couldn’t believe it.
“You said it’s not working yet. Do you know why?” I asked. Maybe getting her to talk about her work would distract her enough not to feel the tiredness when it hit her. Scientists tended to be like that, I knew Dravion was; hecould go forever if you directed his mind to his work. Mitnick too, come to think of it.
It worked. She launched into a detailed explanation of her tests. My mind blurred, unable to keep up with descriptions of chemical reactions, of atoms and neurons and formulas. She was frowning as she talked, but her pace had picked up despite the tiredness I knew had to weigh on her as much as it weighed on me. What we’d done earlier in the clearing had lifted my spirits and changed the path I’d walked all my life, but it was no longer enough to mask the pain in my chest. We did need to find a place to camp soon, but I doubted we’d be lucky enough to find another underwater cave like the one from last night.
When Dani suddenly slowed her chatter and paused in her tracks, I halted at her side. Unable to resist, I slid my arm around her slender waist and hugged her close. “What is it?” The unease from before had not abated, and I wondered if her empathic gift was telling her something that was beyond my ability to sense.
“I just realized that our giant shadow has been avidly listening in. He’s so curious, so focused on us, I almost wonder…” she trailed off and shook her head, as if she thought that what had crossed her mind was too impossible to contemplate. I pushed Bex, on its strap, further to my back so I could hug her even better, and she sighed and burrowed into my embrace.
“Do you think he might be one of the giants the Kertinal gave translator implants to so they could negotiate?” Oh, that really was a nearly impossible thought to entertain. I twisted my head to gaze into the shadows beneath the trees, where I knew the giant was waiting. There weredozens of clans of Radin giants, and only a handful with implants. It was highly unlikely.
“I tried to find his language on my tablet last night, but I don’t think such a file exists, do you?” Dani asked. She was touching the delicate arch of her pointed ear as if she were touching her own translator implant. Cold settled in my veins, even though the gesture was so innocent.
“You did what?” I asked, but I had heard her just fine. She’d accessed the information streams, thinking it would aid us, but she might as well have drawn a massive arrow to our location. She was so sensitive to my feelings now that her eyes grew huge in her face, and her hand dropped to her throat. I wasn’t all that adept at reading emotions, but even I recognized the worried gesture.
“What’s wrong? Should I not have done that? The search might be finished now; I could update our translators with your regenerator if it found anything.” She was so hopeful and so sweet, I couldn’t blame her for the mistake. She was a scientist, not a warrior, and one who had lived sheltered and safe for most of her life on Aderia.
“Your search means they could track us,” I said, shifting on my feet and scanning the trees for any sign that I was right. The dread that had been mounting all afternoon—this could be it: the feeling of being tracked by something other than the giant. There was no sign and no strange scent I could pick up, but that didn’t make me breathe any easier.
Drawing her tablet from one of my pouches, I quickly flicked it on and aborted her so-far-fruitless search. That didn’t make things better—I had a feeling it was already too late—but at least that meant they couldn’t track us further.I’d have to call this in to Mitnick, see if he couldn’t do something to hide our tracks.
“Why would anyone other than that giant be chasing us?” Dani asked, sounding so genuinely baffled that it surprised me. She wasn’t stupid, and I didn’t think she was naive, either. “Your crew took care of the mercenaries that held my people and me hostage, didn’t they? So who else could possibly be out there?”
It was not an entirely invalid question. Radin was a planet with a fairly remote location, annexed by the Kertinal Empire because it was rumored to be rich in ores. For another party to get here and chase Dani and me… that would mean they’d already been close to make it this fast. Perhaps my worry was unfounded, but it was so powerful that I couldn’t shake the feeling. I didn’t want to push it to the back of my mind either—with a Rummicaron mind-numbing exercise. What if it was a warning I needed to heed?
“Whoever hired those mercenaries must be very eager to get their hands on your cure. Do you know who it might be?” I asked. I could see the tactical advantage of being the one in control of the cure. It could be the kind of leverage that gave the crimelord controlling the cure control over the entire Roka market. Healthy workers meant better production—a bigger production—and you could lure away workers from rivals with the promise of that cure, too.
Like most research, what Dani had been working on was done in secret for exactly such reasons. The Aderians were no fools; they knew the risks their scientists took to advance medical science, and they took great care to protect them. That’s why my crew had been sent here: becausewe could do what they couldn’t, and they knew it. That’s why they’d labeled Dani their priority.
