Page 34 of Doom

My hands caressed and clawed his back. My mouth kissed and sucked the tender flesh above the scales of his neck then bit the crook of his neck. His blissful growls every time I did that resonated straight to my core. It also spurred him into increasing the pace to almost punishing levels as passion overtook him. My legs trembled as I again began to crest.

As if sensing my impending climax, Doom lifted his head to look at me with an almost feral expression. His lips parted, and a vicious pair of double fangs descended from his gums. His body seemed to grow bigger, and the bone spikes on his shoulders and along his spine expanded. A bolt of fear exploded in the pit of my stomach, quickly replaced by a burst of lust and the thrill of anticipation. His dragon was taking over to complete the bonding.

Moving at the speed of a cobra’s strike, Doom buried his fangs in the fleshy part of my right shoulder. My scream of pain almost immediately turned into shouts of ecstasy as pure, concentrated bliss poured into me, coursing through my veins. My body shook from the violence of the orgasm. My inner walls clamped down on his cock, contracting spasmodically. Doom roared, and his searing hot seed shot into me.

But my man didn’t relent.

Three more times he brought me over the edge and filled me with his essence before he gave in to his final climax. Bodies slick with sweat, hearts pounding, breaths labored, we lay blissfully destroyed in each other’s arms, Doom’s soul tightly wrapped around mine. I fell asleep to my man whispering sweet nothings in my psychic mind.

* * *

As we had feared, the war did not end quickly. Living aboard the mothership made me realize how little we humans knew of the Xian Warriors and the entire Vanguard organization. Discovering that Doom no longer had an assigned Soulcatcher—his having burned out from rescuing too many other Warriors—majorly freaked me out. Granted, my mate was of the—mostly—unkillable type, but it only took once. Shoyesh wouldn’t be able to Soulcatch again for months; a problem shared by many of the Soulcatchers.

I discovered that turning humans into psychics hadn’t really been about adding more Operators—telepathic messengers to safely relay sensitive war information between members of the Vanguard—but to create new Soulcatchers.

One month after my arrival on The Avenger, and exactly four months after the start of the enzyme tests, the first group of human females in their mid-twenties began to display the soulcatching ability. Even at this early stage of their psychic development, the women were already proving capable of rescuing a soul from a greater distance, faster, and with more accuracy than the Hulanians. The best part was that, with them, the duration of the Warriors’ rebirth sickness dropped from seven to three days, with the bonus of much milder side effects.

The Hulanians didn’t take offense at being thus upstaged. Quite the opposite. Many of them were exhausted from years of traipsing around the galaxy from war to war. But duty and their fraternal love for the Warriors had kept them going until they became burned out and were unable, either temporarily or permanently, to soulcatch. Still, it would be another six months before those Hulanians wishing to return to their homeworld were released from duty.

To my dismay, Doom’s new human Soulcatcher turned out to be a stunning blonde with legs for days, lips that could put Angelina Jolie’s to shame, and a body to die for. I remembered seeing her in the room at that first presentation of the program by Dr. Shivani and Dr. Landon at the Camp 485. I’d never been the jealous or insecure type, but then I’d never had the living embodiment of male perfection as my boyfriend before. How could any hot-blooded woman not be drawn to him?

It shamed me even more that Tina was a sweetheart and never acted improperly towards Doom in the couple of weeks I’d known her. But walking into the mothership’s meditation room to find them both sitting cross-legged on a mat, face-to-face and holding hands with their eyes closed threw all rational thinking out the window. Never mind that other Warrior-Soulcatcher pairs were in a similar position, scattered throughout the large room.

I don’t know how long I just stood there by the entrance, my gaze locked on them while a whirlwind of emotions raged through me. While jealousy and envy dominated, an increasing sense of longing and of being inadequate rose through me. After all this time, my psychic powers were still embarrassingly feeble. They could do so much more together than Doom and I probably ever would.

Over the past few days, the Soulcatchers and their Warrior had begun performing what they called Dream Walks. They were essentially psychic simulations where one’s consciousness experienced the virtual environment with all five senses as if it were real. As the Warriors hadn’t used this technique with their former Hulanian Soulcatchers—who naturally possessed psychic powers from birth—they didn’t master that skill sufficiently to create the Dream Walk on their own and needed their Soulcatcher’s assistance to do so.

I obviously couldn’t.

Usually, I avoided hanging around Tina and Doom as, apparently, my tattle tale aura acted up whenever I was in her presence. While she hadn’t needed to capture his soul yet, with my man being the king of survival and all, they had to make frequent psychic contact to reinforce the connection between them, which would increase the chances of successful soulcatching.

Knowing that Tina was likely visiting Khepri with Doom before me in this Dream Walk awakened an ugly side of me that I didn’t know existed. How many ‘firsts’ would they share while I sat on the sideline, feeling inadequate and unworthy of my man?

Doom’s eyes suddenly opened. He slowly turned to look at me while Tina’s eyelids fluttered as she slowly emerged from her trance. He sustained my gaze unwaveringly, the expression on his beautiful face unreadable. Embarrassed and ashamed, I wrapped my arms around my midsection and averted my eyes only to meet another pair of inky eyes devoid of sclera staring at me. Raptor had interrupted his own Dream Walk to look at me, and as my gaze roamed the room, I realized most of the other pairs were also staring at me.

“You were broadcasting your emotions quite loudly,”Doom said softly.

Mortified and humiliated to have made such a spectacle of myself, I turned on my heels to rush out of the room.

“Victoria! Wait!”Doom mind-spoke to me.

Blinking back the tears that wanted to fill my eyes, I almost knocked Meredith on her ass—Chaos’s new human Soulcatcher—as she was entering the room. Mumbling an apology, I walked briskly towards the lift, ignoring the baffled and concerned looks of the people I passed by the training rooms.

Before I could reach the elevators, Doom’s strong hand gently grabbed mine, and I felt his consciousness softly brush against mine in a soothing caress. My throat tightened, and the tears surged again with a vengeance, a stubborn one managing to trickle down my cheek. I discreetly wiped it with a finger, wishing I could simply disappear.

To my relief, two of the three elevators were already here, the first one opening immediately when Doom pressed the button. It was blessedly empty. He selected the personal quarters’ level and as soon as the door closed behind us, my Warrior pulled me into his embrace. I didn’t resist, burying my face in his broad chest and holding him tightly. He caressed my back in a soothing motion, and his soul wrapped protectively around mine, infusing me with his love.

How can I possibly doubt his feelings and feel insecure?

When two souls melded, there was no hiding your true thoughts and feelings. Doom more than loved me, he adored me. I didn’t know what he saw in me that made me so special above all others, but everything in the way he looked at me, touched me, spoke to me, and generally interacted with me broadcast it loud and clear. So, what the fuck had gotten into me?

Too soon, the doors opened. Before I could pull away from him, Doom picked me up in his arms like a bride. I gasped in surprise, and my face heated at the sight of Elisa and Laura—Wrath and Legion’s Soulcatchers—standing outside the lift, staring at us with a knowing smile. I hid my burning cheeks in his neck, embarrassed that they certainly believed he was carrying me to our quarters to do the deed. Doom chuckled and tightened his embrace around me.

His footsteps echoed loudly in the empty, light beige corridor leading to the Xian Warriors’ quarters. A thick, black panel with gold borders ran the upper length of the wall, hiding the light source, the glow giving the hallway a dreamy feel to it. Each of my man’s steps gently rocked me in his arms. Added to the dual beating of his hearts in my ear pressed near his chest, the warmth of his body against mine, and his loving consciousness still cocooning my soul, a sense of peace settled over me.

As soon as we entered our quarters, Doom made a beeline for the large, white leather couch in the living area. He sat down before settling me sideways on his lap.

“I’m sorry,” I said promptly, not giving him a chance to say a word. “I don’t know what got into me. It was silly. I know that there’s nothing unbecoming going on between the two of you. It’s just… I just feel so inadequate,” I said in a small voice, my shoulders slumping. “These girls are amazing and can do so many things that I can’t and never will. They all earned their place here with the Vanguard whereas I just got a free ride because your mating glands reacted to me. If not for that, I’d still be back at the camp and…”

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