Page 59 of Sheltered in the Storm

I thought back to that night on the storm-tossed ocean, when I had witnessed her, bloody and battered but with fiery eyes, bite the Atolani raider’s arm and stare me down with defiance and determination. Her fire had captivated me and stirred feelings and emotions I had not known I possessed, or even dreamed of having, only minutes earlier.

Try as I might, I could not separate my feelings of desire and admiration from the siren call of my mate, but perhaps there was no need to. Perhaps those feelings were one and the same.

She might want to hear that nothing would be different if she had not been my true mate, but I had no way of knowing. Above all, I must be honest with my Calla.

“I did not have a chance to meet you without knowing you were my mate,” I said. “I understand why you ask me this, but I will not lie and say I would certainly have done the same regardless of circumstances. The truth is, I chose to take a chance on happiness with you when I did not have to. In fact, it was far from an easy choice, because my own past persists in telling me I am unworthy of you. With time and effort, I hope to make myself worthy.”

She lay her head on my chest again and said nothing for a long time, keeping our fingers entwined.

“So we’re both sure we don’t deserve each other?” she asked finally, her tone wry. “What a pair we are.”

I rested my chin on top of her head. “You are my Calla and I am your Vos. If that is true, what else matters?”

“I can’t argue with that logic.” Her warm chuckle eased someof my tension. “Will you promise to tell me if ever you feel I have in fact bewitched you?”

She was teasing me now, but still with an undercurrent of disquiet that I would give anything to banish.

“I promise,” I said, very solemnly. “As long as you promise to tell me if you ever feel that you no longer want to bewitch me.”

“Deal.” She kissed my chest. “I’m ready to get cleaned up and do something outside. But before we walk to the ocean, would you spar with me? I feel like I’m healed, but I have to make sure I’m up for a fight if something happens. First blood wins.”

“Of course I will spar.” The thought of practicing combat with my mate sent shivers of anticipation, joy, and excitement through my body, all the way to the tips of my tentacles. “Unarmed? Armed?”

“Armed, if you don’t mind.” She raised her head so she could see my face. “I’m assuming you have at least a few weapons here?”

“A few,” I said, my voice bland. The past was never so far past that a retired assassin shunned weapons. “Shall we wash and dress, and then choose our weapons?”

“That is probably the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She kissed my chest again, and this time she rubbed her nose on my skin as I liked to do with her. “There you go with the perfect answers again. What can I do with someone who always knows the right thing to say?”

“Spar with him,” I said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Then go with him to visit his ocean home.”

“Then let’s go,” she said, and now her eyes sparkled with happiness and even eagerness. “I’m ready to have blades in my hands again. But do you think we can bathe together without getting distracted?”

I looked over my lovely Calla, at the way her perspiration glimmered on her skin, and the marks I had left with my teethand suckers, and the streaks of glowing lavender cum that crisscrossed her body, and felt myself growing hard once more.

“I do not,” I said.

With a lazy chuckle, she pushed on my chest. “Then you go wash up first. I want to lie here and feel good for a while.”

Even for a man who had completed many seemingly impossible tasks over a long career as an assassin, it took no small amount of determination to leave her naked on the bed with the sheets tangled around her legs. Only the promise of sparring and going to the ocean afterward kept me from simply giving in to the desire to make love to her again.

Rather than linger in a tub full of water, I used the overhead shower to clean myself quickly. My tentacles quivered in displeasure at both my choice not to bathe and the ache of my Calla’s most personal scents washing away.

Truly, though, her smell and taste had soaked into my skin deeply enough that no amount of soap and water could take those away. Even under the spray of hot water, with the air filled with the scent of the plants that lived in the bathroom and released oils into the air when the room filled with steam, I still smelled her. That did not make my tentacles any less unhappy, but it allowed me to smile despite the fact she was not in my arms.

When I emerged from the bathroom fully dressed, Calla rose from the bed. “I’ll be quick,” she said, standing on her toes to kiss my jaw. “I can’t wait to see what weapons you have.”

“Do not rush on my account,” I caught her hand and held on so I could drink in her scent for a moment. “Enjoy your shower. The ocean will not boil away in the meantime.”

She squeezed my hand and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Unsurprisingly, despite my admonishment not to hurry, she soon rejoined me, dressed in her Alliance Defense-issued flightsuit and boots, with her hair styled in a long braid she had wrapped with a strip of cloth and tied at the end.

She found me waiting by the bed with my hands clasped behind my back. Nearly two dozen different weapons from across the galaxy, all very lethal, lay in rows atop the bed. I had changed the bedding while she washed.

Hands on her hips, she looked over my offerings. “These are my choices?”

I blinked. “Yes.”

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