“There are only two women left,” he says with a shrug, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Besides, my lady, the Mayvina, is all the female I need. Speaking of ships, I’d better check on the terrainsters. I’m sure Galen has ridden his near to broken.”
“Will he be all right?” I ask.
Breccan places a hand on my shoulder, but quickly removes it when Draven cracks his neck. “I’ll check in on him later. In the meantime, we need to go over what you found in the caves, and we must train, Draven. With the baby and procuring the rogcows it’s been weeks since we visited the training room.”
Draven only has eyes for me. The heat from them makes me blush. In my head, I start to sing, although it’s more of a croon. “Tomorrow,” he answers. “Tonight is for my mate.”
Breccan begins to speak, but Aria places a quelling hand on his arm. “He just got back from The Graveyard. Let the man rest. Besides, you need to spend some time with your own mate and your son.”
We share a very female look and she leads Breccan away, leaving Draven and me alone. I turn back to him and wrap my arms around his muscular shoulders. “I changed my mind. I don’t want you to leave me again. I’m an independent woman. I can survive on my own. But I like it better when you’re around.”
His eyes gleam with possessive pleasure. “My mate missed me,” he says.
“Very much,” I answer. “Why don’t we go back to your quarters, and I can show you how much?”
He nuzzles my throat. “I would like this very much.” Sniffing my throat, he groans in pleasure. “I’d forgotten how good you smell. With my seed inside you, they said you’d become more and more attractive. I didn’t realize how much.”
“Maybe you missed me, too,” I tease.
“Why don’t I show you?” He lifts me into his arms in one smooth movement, and I squeal in surprise.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Taking you back to our rooms.”
“Sugar, I can walk, you know.” But he’s too busy licking at my throat and trying not to walk into walls to listen. “What’s with you?”
“It’s the baby. When implantation is successful it makes a female smell intoxicating. Irresistible. The longer mates go without mating, the more the attraction grows. The toxica serves as a nutrient to the growing mortling.” His panting breaths puff along my neck as he tries to lick and nibble along my throat.
Giggling, I say, “Watch where you’re going, or we’ll never get there. Why don’t you put me down? We’ll get there faster.”
His hands tremble where they grip my flesh. “I can’t.”
By the time we reach his rooms, the need grips me as tight as he does. “Hurry,” I urge.
We stumble through the doorway and fall to his bed. He’s careful to land in such a way that his arms take all his weight. My hands rake at his suit. “Get this off.”
He’s aware enough to grin at me. Grin. I think back to the man I’d met when I first stumbled out of the cryotube. The one who could barely stomach his own mind. I’m not the only one who’s changed.
Maybe I’m his home, too, is my last sane thought before touch, taste, and desire burn away everything but him.
***
“I think we should make training a daily requirement,” I say to Aria, who is idly bouncing a slumbering Sokko in her arms. The combination of rogcow milk and colostrum had fattened his cheeks and thighs. Seeing them together is bittersweet. It reminds me of when Willow was a newborn, and I spent hours cycling between being overwhelmed and luminously happy with new motherhood.
Willow.
I begin to hum in my head as I focus back in on the conversation. “We’d have to spin it about protecting the mates and mortlings,” I suggest. “Breccan seems like he would go for that. I’m not sure if they’d let us watch all the time, though.”
And boy have we been watching them.
Breccan and Draven are evenly matched. Where Breccan is bulkier, Draven is more agile. They’re both relentless. Several times I thought one of them would get hurt. But just as they got to that point, they’d break apart.
Right now, they’re circling the mats, both of their sub-bones cracking loudly. But it’s their outfits—or lack thereof—that have Aria and me so entertained. In an alien version of spandex shorts, our two guys remain topless, and all their yummy muscles are on display. Aria and I giggle like a couple of teenage girls any time we sneak a peek at their giant cocks straining against the fabric. It’s so inappropriate, but neither of us is keen on leaving this show. In fact, all we need is for Galen to figure out how to make us popcorn. The mort version, whatever that may be.