Page 9 of Bound By the Alien King

“I wouldn’t leave you like this.”

“Tied up and naked?” she asked. “How kind of you.”

“Needy,” he murmured, reaching to apply his seed between her legs. She gasped when his fingers brushed her inner thigh and clamped her legs around his hand. He had to clench his fist so he didn’t accidentally get any of his seed inside her. “Careful,” he cautioned her.

“Sorry,” she panted. “I can’t help it. I think it’s getting worse, not better. How much longer?”

“Not too long, if you relax and let me take care of you.” Her vise grip loosened momentarily, and he swiftly coated her folds. She moaned at his touch, and he almost hated to stop. He wanted to hear her cry out his name again, hear her beg to have him inside her. But he could not bring himself to be so selfish.

His people needed peace when the treaty expired. For two-hundred years, they had paid a blood price. It was penance because the Nightborn king had stolen a human woman, the daughter of a powerful man. A war had resulted, and the tenuous peace brokered at the end of it meant that since then, the nightmaids had been held hostage, forced to serve the human colony.

For generations, Nightborn males suffered without their mates. Infants suffered without their mothers, brothers without their sisters. There was only one more payment due, the one he would make when he chose a bride from among the eligible humans during the Revel and make her his queen. A final gesture of goodwill to bind their two peoples together. He couldn’t jeopardize that, so he sat back while Aster whimpered and whined for him and tried to block it out.

After a few minutes, she quieted. “I—I think maybe it’s getting better,” she finally said. “What did you give me?”

He flexed his wings, embarrassed to admit the truth. But what did it matter? “My…essence.”

She sucked in her breath and gave a soft oh. “You seeded me.”

“No,” he said flatly. “I only put it on the outside. You’ll likely feel some residual effects of the venom, but I hope it will help you feel more in control.” I hope it will help me stay more in control, too, he added fervently to himself.

“Thank you, I do already,” she said, her prim tone a delicious contrast to her posture, spread out on the floor with her hands bound behind her back. “Will you untie me now?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to grab my cock again?”

“I don’t know,” she echoed. “Are you going to strip me naked and rub it against me again?”

“You ungrateful—” he began, but broke off when she turned her head and he caught the wry twist of her mouth over the curve of her shoulder. She was only teasing. His anger cooled to something warm and undefined that he refused to examine more closely.

“Thank you. For saving me.” She cleared her throat. “For…helping.”

“Thank you for your lifeblood,” he returned solemnly, more thankful that her senses seemed to have returned so he could master his own. With a practiced pull on the knot, he released her wrists, and Aster pushed herself up to sit, clutching her ribbons to her chest when he pressed their coil into her hands.

Gray dawn seeped down the passageway from the mouth of the cave and tugged at him. He would sleep soon.

“As soon as the sun rises enough to light your way, follow the edge of the Bite to the sand bridge and wait for ebb tide,” he directed her. “Manna and Corek will expose a path to the colony gates. You may have to wade part of the way since the conjunction isn’t complete, but it won’t pass your knees.”

“What will I tell them when I get there?” she whispered.

“Whatever you like. Retie your ribbons, and they won’t know the difference.”

“I can’t pretend none of this happened.” Her voice broke at the end, and her forlorn expression nearly drove him to comfort her.

“You must. For both our sakes,” he muttered. He wrapped his wings around his head and sank into daysleep.

When he woke again, he scented her before he even opened his eyes. She hadn’t left. When he dropped his wings he saw her immediately, swathed in her velvet and armored by a stiff bodice as she sat on the opposite side of the cavern, staring at him. How long had she been watching him sleep?

“Aster,” he hissed, shifting to crouch on his haunches. “You disobeyed me.”

“I’m not bound to obey you. There’s no law that says I must.” She’d rebraided her hair during the day, he noticed, and she didn’t smell of salt, so she’d found fresh water to wash and to drink. The thought relieved a worry he hadn’t even acknowledged.

Why on Salaan did he care?

In two strides, he found himself face-to-face with her. He leaned close, showing his fangs as he spoke so she would not mistake his words. “No human law binds our behavior, only natural law. The one that says that I am predator, and you are prey.”

With cool slowness, she tilted her head to the side, allowing him better access to her throat. Was she tempting him or defying him? Either way it made him heat, desire and anger fanning him in tandem like the two wings on his back. He stepped back before he did something irreversible, and she straightened, triumph playing on her features.

Did she think she was safe from him?