Daahn Rising (4 page)

“Maybe.”

“Might as well kick me while I’m down.” Something told him Aleeks would, given the chance.

Aleeks didn’t comment.

MacNair smiled a tight little smile. “If the attraction lasts past three days... If she feels the same way, Zondra is legally an adult and allowed to make her own choices.”

“Meaning?” Evan tried not to focus on the comment about Zondra being legally an adult. That was a road his mind didn’t need to travel in his present state. If it did, his body would be breaking promises made twice in the last half hour.

“Once both of you have your heads on straight again, no one will stop you from”—he raised an eyebrow—“from doing whatever you want to do.”

That succeeded in bringing Evan fully erect. His mind turned the offer over. “Can we —” He shifted his attention to Aleeks and back to MacNair. He’d heard that it took a Xxanian male to make a female fertile, that they were sterile without that step.

“I can’t, Duncan. Can’t have a child. It’s... medical.”

“Is she able to... reproduce...with me?”

MacNair’s smile faded. “I don’t know. The doctors believe —”

“Then she won’t want me. A woman like Zondra... she’ll want children.” He didn’t question it. “She deserves them.” If that meant she’d have them with someone else, he’d live with it. The wish for more was her damned pheromone talking.

“Duncan,” MacNair began.

“Get lost... sir. You won’t be seeing me again.” The rest seemed to stick in his throat, and he looked away from Aleeks’s surprise. “I guarantee it.”

Evan stomped to the bureau and scooped up his clothes, his head reeling at the pungent scent of Zondra and sex. He pulled on his shirt, trying to hide his response from the two men exiting the room.

“You won’t see me again,” Evan whispered, a stern reminder to himself that it had to go that way. Her family wanted him gone anyway. It was better that he stay gone.

Chapter Three

Zondra lay curled on her bed, wishing she could shed tears as her friends did. Anna told her a good cry solved everything, and Sandy said it was better than chocolate, but Zondra couldn’t cry. Her parents had told her it was a blessing that she couldn’t cry, that the pain of tears on her sensitive Xxanian skin wasn’t worth the emotional release shedding them provided.

“And even if I could cry, it wouldn’t solve anything.”

“Sure it would,” Aleeks stated. “I’d go beat some sense into him.”

She laughed, though her heart was breaking. “What’s the point? He doesn’t want me.” Her throat bobbed in overwhelming emotion. “And what are you doing in my room?” She stopped short of saying she’d tell
Gran-seir
on him. That would make her sound like a pouting child.

“I’m worried about you, little sister.” There was a moment of comfortable silence. “And I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Bet on...” Was he insane? “It’s been a week, Aleeks. In case you haven’t noticed, Evan hasn’t come back.” Zondra buried her face in the plush Angora pillow, wishing she could soak it with tears — pain or no pain.

“And he’s not going to come back,” he added.

She shook in silent dry sobs at that pronouncement. It was time to move on, and Zondra knew it, but she didn’t have the heart for it.

“He doesn’t think he can be what you need in a mate.”

“He’s a Dominant,” she protested. Evan was much more the Dominant than she’d thought a human alpha could be.

“He doesn’t think you can have children together.”

Her heart stuttered, and she turned to look at him. She picked out Aleeks easily, even in the darkened room. “How do you know that?”

“Because he said it that morning. He said that you deserved children. He wants you to have them, without him, if that’s the only way.”

Aleeks raised one knee, planting his foot on the dresser before him. He must not have been home long; he was still dressed in trousers and not the
S’suumea
. Like all males in Daahn’s nest, Aleeks was barefoot and bare-chested.
Gran-seir
tolerated trousers on the others for short periods of time, as Zondra could wear human clothes in and to her room but had to don the
S’suuhhea
before she ventured into the center nest and lounging areas.

Her brother continued, a smile pulling up at the corners of his lips. “How... protective of you he is.”

“But I don’t believe that,” she managed shakily.

“You think Dominants always fight? You think he can’t make a harder choice for you than that? If he reasons it’s the right choice?” He was lecturing her, chiding her as if she was a child.

And he had the wrong idea about what she’d meant. “No. I meant that I don’t believe he can’t ripen me. I think — Oh, Aleeks! I still ache for him. I still carry a bit of his scent. I’m telling you, he’s strong enough. If we’d had three days instead of the night, I know he would have bound me.”

His smile widened. “Even if you’re wrong about him being able to ripen you, you can be ripened.”

“By another male?” she shot back. Her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought of it. “No. I want Evan. I won’t take another male just to secure children.”

Aleeks laughed heartily. “He’d kill me if I suggested it. And I won’t.” One brow went up. “I’ve been talking to MacNair’s buddies... Steven Rayn and the other scientists up at SLAL. They’ve done a lot of research in the last three generations, examining Xxanian and crossbred physiology.”

Her breathing hitched. “And?”

“
Zhigaaal
is no more than highly-concentrated musk, heavy in sex pheromone.”

Zondra nodded, her hands fisted in the blanket, praying her brother was going where she thought he was.

“They can concentrate Evan’s own musk if he’s willing —”

“I have to see him.”

“I have a plan for that... if you want to hear it.”

“Anything.” She meant it. If Evan was willing, there was no question that she wanted him to take her as his mate.
And a Xxannian female will go to any lengths to secure the mate that calls to her.

****

She was over him, surrounding him in her heat. Evan bit back a moan, arching his back. He could smell her... taste her. He ached to finish, ached to thrust into her as he had the first time.

The knocking shattered the illusion; Evan snapped awake, coated in sweat, gasping for breath, rock hard. To his knowledge, he hadn’t been fully flaccid in over a week. That was all it took to set his temper on a rolling boil.

“Yeah?” he demanded, tensing to give someone a verbal trouncing.

They’d been told not to wake Evan for less than an emergency. With the way he’d been working himself to death — sleeping only when he literally staggered into berthing and collapsed into his rack — an emergency was unlikely.

“Captain wants to see you, Duncan.” Reynolds’s voice was gleeful.

“What time is it?” he grumbled. He’d wager he’d only slept an hour or two, which would make it nearly dinnertime.

“Eighteen hundred.”

Evan pulled the curtain back, dropping to the deck plates from his top rack, dressed in a pair of dungaree pants. “What’s he still doing here?” he wondered aloud, coding himself into his coffin locker.

“Looking for you, I’d say.” Reynolds leaned against the upright between the columns of racks. “So... Duncan, what did you do this time?”

Evan didn’t look at him. If he looked at Reynolds, memories of the asshole touching Zondra would lose Reynolds some teeth. “Message delivered. Get lost.”
Permanently.

I should be so lucky.

Reynolds strolled away, no doubt smirking at the idea that Evan was in trouble.

And he probably was. When Captain Pira wanted a status report, he asked for it when Evan was awake. Moreover, there were no major repairs going on that would require updates. Excellent repair record or not, it was unlikely Pira was rolling Evan out to recognize his efforts.

That in mind, he dragged on a clean T-shirt, dungaree shirt, and his grippers, steel-toed climbing shoes that would hold to wet decks and oily equipment. Evan didn’t procrastinate; he’d always been the type to take problems head on and not hide from them.

Yeah, right. And that’s why I won’t admit I still need Zondra. That’s why I’m hiding from her.

He hadn’t even gone home since the third morning, because she could come to him there, and he wouldn’t turn her away. Aboard ship, there was no chance of that.

But it was more than that. Confining himself to the ship had been a necessity. Three days in a row, he’d found himself heading for the base club, the command building where MacNair had an office, or the Xxanian consulate building. Evan had even looked up MacNair’s home address.

What he’d say when he showed up on MacNair’s doorstep aside, they both knew why Evan shouldn’t do that. It was better for Zondra if he didn’t. Evan couldn’t ask about her — even to assure himself that she was okay — or he’d want to see that she was for himself. He’d feel he had a
right
to see it for himself.

But locking himself away in the massive starship hadn’t stopped the dreams. They varied from slow, sweet shared candlelit baths to hot sex where he claimed her as his own by pinning her down and taking what she’d offered the night they’d spent together. Though he didn’t want to examine them too closely, there had even been dreams of her carrying his child, a child that could never be. Just thinking of her carrying someone else’s baby made Evan want to put his fist through the fictional other man’s face.

I’d settle for a wall.

Fuck that! It was an illusion. It was a mating cycle.

But Evan’s memories of that night called Aleeks a liar. There had been more between them than a biological imperative. He knew it. Biology didn’t explain the tender feelings he had for Zondra.

Maybe there is more. MacNair said her pheromone would only last a few days. Maybe I should go see him, just to ask if feeling the attraction this long is a problem.

If there’s more, it’s more that can’t go further, and going to see MacNair is just an excuse to get close to Zondra again.

Evan shook away the thought that he was nothing but a spineless coward, looking for reasons to see Zondra again. He had reasons for staying away from her. It was for her own good.

He strode down the corridors, heading aft and up until he reached the captain’s office. The chief yeoman at the desk buzzed Evan in, then jerked a thumb at the door. The lack of announcing his presence to Pira confused him, but Evan headed through the door without questioning it.

Face it. Just get it over with.

His greeting short-circuited halfway up his throat. Pira wasn’t the only officer sitting behind the desk. A second chair contained the most unlikely of apparitions — Admiral Matthew MacNair. Evan swallowed hard, his jaw aching from the healing bruise Aleeks’s punch had left. His gaze locked on the yellow-green of the bruise on MacNair’s cheek.

I am screwed.
He wasn’t sure why MacNair had changed his mind, but that fact was a given. Whether the charge was statutory rape, drunk and disorderly, assaulting a superior officer, or all of the above, there was little question that MacNair would have his balls on a platter.

“At ease, Petty Officer Duncan,” Pira called out, his mouth quirking up in amusement.

Evan forced his shoulders to relax, waiting for the hammer to come down.

The haunting scent of Zondra surrounded him, and Evan let his eyes slide shut, taking a deep breath reflexively.

I’m dreaming again. I must be dreaming.

If it wasn’t a dream, he didn’t want to know it. If he knew it was real, he’d have to do the right thing and put an end to it.

Her hand settled at the small of his back, and her heat soaked into his starved body.

The words to dismiss her stuck in his throat. He didn’t want to dismiss her. Not when she was so close, smelling so good.

Then she was moving, circling his body like a cat, her hand cupping his already erect cock between their bodies.

Evan licked his lips, his mouth watering to taste her again.

Common sense slapped him upside the head. “You need to stop now, Zondra.”

“You don’t want me?” she whispered into his chin. Her stroking hand challenged any negative response he might have made.

Hell yes, I want you!
His hands twitched with the need to touch her, to hold her.

No. This can’t happen.

Oh but I want it to.
Evan didn’t question that she wanted it as well.

As if in reply, she squeezed his cock lightly and started to massage.

She was taunting him. The need clawed at him. His reasons ceased to matter. All that existed was Zondra and himself. She wasn’t going to get away with teasing him.

Evan grasped her by the back of the head, meeting her parted lips, trading need for need and heat for heat. His senses reeling, Evan forced her backward, seeking out a surface other than the floor, locked in a soul-searing kiss.

I’ll take the floor. I’ll take any available —

They landed hard against something. Evan thrust his right hand out to steady them, to keep their momentum from crushing her beneath him. His hand settled on paper-covered wood, and visions of the bureau in the lodge room danced behind his eyelids.

As if in agreement, Zondra hoisted herself to the edge. Evan fisted his left hand in her hair, cupped the right around her thigh, and pushed at her short skirt. He broke off the kiss, trailing his mouth down to her throat. He inhaled the scent that was uniquely Zondra.

“You
never
tease me,” he growled at her.

“I’m convinced,” Pira stated calmly.

Evan forced his eyes open and his head back, fighting the turmoil inside him, his libido at war with what little remained of his rational mind. His heart rate and breathing were erratic.

He met Zondra’s gaze, noting the narrowed slits that announced how aroused she was through her dark lenses. He wanted to see the green-gold again, to watch her eye slits widen at climax.