Page 3 of Protected By the Alien Warmachine

Vibrations in the air startled the intruder, and my hearing had returned enough to make out a voice. Radio waves mirrored the sound, and my systems had no difficulty decoding the primitive encryption. It wouldn’t help me understand the unknown language they spoke, yet, but it was a start.

For one thing, it let me count the intruders. A dozen of them, most remaining outside in the grounds of the tomb complex. Two had entered the upper levels, one stood beside me, and one in the corridor above my crypt. Signals flickered between the upper three, and I learned what I could from them. Most of the transmissions were pure data shared between their primitivecomputers, which I left for the tomb to analyze. My attention was on the voice channels.

The upper two had deep voices, their signals bounced through the tomb to connect them with the softer, sweeter voice. A female voice, I guessed—her signal was easier to match to the radio transmissions, because her words reached my ears.

Which meant there was a hole from the corridor into my crypt. If I could have snarled at the self-repair mechanisms, I would have, but my lungs had not yet re-inflated.

A fourth voice interrupted, stopping my thoughts in their tracks. It came from the creature at my side, and commanded my attention far more than the others, leaving me transfixed. Warm, calm strength wrapped in smoky resonance, it hit me hard, far harder than it should have. I would listen to her until the stars burned out, given the chance.

That voice came from the intruder standing beside me in my crypt, and as soon as I heard her voice, I knew with a fiery certainty that she would be mine.

3

TALIA

Alive, he was even more impressive than dead. Despite his massive, muscular frame, he moved with the lethal grace of a tiger, and I was acutely aware that I’d intruded on his territory. Eyes blazing with golden light fixed on me, weighing and measuring. My cheeks burned as he gave me a quick once over, then a slower, more careful up-and-down. It was like he looked into my soul as well as at my body.

He obviously liked what he saw. Between his legs, his cock stiffened and pulsed, crystal nodes glittering along its impressive length. The sight made me swallow nervously, and I realized I was biting my lip.

He stalked closer, each movement a step in a dance, alluring, exciting, intriguing. Transfixed, I watched, caught in his gaze like prey in a predator’s trap.

No, fuck this. I refuse to be a passive observer here.

“H’hedrahn yos?” My pronunciation of Old Galactic was based purely on theory. The language was thousands of years dead. Despite that, it was the only language we might have in common, so I did my best. If I got it right, I’d asked ‘who are you’ in a formal but friendly manner, but I couldn’t rule out that I’d told him his spaceship was full of eels.

He stopped, cocked his head to the side, and smiled. His reply came too fast to follow, sounding nothing like the Old Galactic I’d studied.

My confusion must have been obvious, because he slowed down and tried again, slow and clear, pointing to himself. “Kal’va.”

Was that his title? Description? Name? Hard to say. In Old Galactic, thevaending meant ‘of war’ andKalI didn’t recognize. I played it safe. Putting a hand on my chest, I said, “Talia.”

“Tal’ia.” His voice was deep, echoing, powerful, a sound Ifeltmore than Iheard.Spoken like that, my name sent a shiver down my spine, and blood rushed to my cheeks.

I could listen to him for hours,I thought.He’s said two words to me, and I’m melting.

A more appropriate emotion would be fear, even existential terror. Entire colonies had died because someone activated the wrong bit of Ancient tech, and here was Kal’va, alive, moving, and dangerous. It could be the end of everything I’d known.

Instead, my body tingled with a much more pleasant emotion as he advanced on me. What would his touch feel like? His skin, his crystals? I tried to tell myself it was curiosity alone burning in my heart, but that wasn’t all.

My back hit the wall, leaving me nowhere to go, and he loomed over me. Intimidating? Yes.Hell yes. The only thing scarier than the immortal alien standing over me was how much I wanted,needed, him.

All the evidence that he shared my desires was there, plain as day, in the magnificent and terrifying shaft of blue flesh and luminous stone standing proud between his legs. I shuddered at the idea of that monster inside me, though I couldn’t say whether I shook with desire or fear.

His firm, full lips parted in a smile—one that bared sharp carnivore teeth. Glowing eyes bored deep into my soul as helicked his lips. “Tal’ia,” he said again, and I gasped. “Tal’ia prChek.”

What did that mean? I had no idea, and my brain wasn’t up to thinking about it. Any thought more complicated than ‘alien man hot’ was beyond me.

He growled my name a fourth time, even deeper, and reached out slowly. His long fingers swept the hair from my face with only the lightest brush against my skin. Even that was enough to feel the razor-sharpness of his claws, but I had no fear of them. Of him. Kal’va didn’t plan on killing me.

No, what he wanted was plain. My breath caught, and I struggled to think through the fog of need and desire pulsing through me.Am I really going to do this? I’m in enough trouble for waking him up, let alone fucking him.

While my mind wrestled with that dilemma, my body decided for me. I didn’t even notice my hand was moving until my fingers closed around the steel hardness of his cock. It was big enough that my fingers barely reached all the way around, and crystals dug into my palm, sending strange energies tingling up my arm. How would that monster fit inside me?

I didn’t know. I couldn’t wait to find out.

It took a moment to realize the whimper came from my own throat. The guardian’s smile broadened at the sound, and he ran his fingers, tipped with diamond claws, down my throat to hook the neckline of my t-shirt. For a moment, neither of us moved, and then with a single clean movement, he sliced down. The white cotton parted without resistance, and the remains of the tee fell open.

My gasp of fear and anticipation only seemed to push him further, and with two swift movements, he tore off the rest of my t-shirt. I opened my mouth, trying to speak, but all that came out was a gasp as he tore off my bra.

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