Page 44 of Venomous Lust
Khal took a step forward, his entire body radiating dominance and control, his eyes on her like a bird of prey: cold, remote, utterly unused to being defied.
The ultimate Eok warrior.
“The point is not whether those creatures deserved imprisonment or not. The point is that you defied my direct order.”
“The point is exactly what those creatures deserved.” Hazel crossed her arms and pursed her lips to prevent herself from whimpering in fright. If Khal took another step, she was going to break.
“You maintain your defiance of my authority?” There was an edge of cruelty in Khal’s voice and his entire demeanor changed. Darkness edged around his gaze as it slid down her body. When he locked eyes with her again, Hazel’s breath came short and shallow.
“You have no authority over me.” Hazel heard the defiance in her voice, regretting it immediately, but her pride wouldn’t let her back down. She knew she had done the right thing in Garana’s jail, but openly defying Khal wasn’t a smart move under any circumstances.
Then why couldn’t she bow her head and pretend to be a meek lamb like she should?
Because she was done. She was done being a lamb sent away to sacrifice. For her entire life, Hazel had been used and pushed around.
No more.
Those deep Prussian blue eyes glittered with a dark, bottomless desire for total and utmost dominance that shook her to the deepest part of her soul.
“You will follow my every order. I will not tolerate any defiance on your part.” Khal’s voice was like a blade, cutting through the air and setting Hazel’s cheeks on fire. Her temper flared, pushing away the fear, clearing her mind. She embraced it wholeheartedly.
“Or what? What can you possibly do to me that you haven’t already done?”
The question hung in the air as Khal’s eyes shimmered. His mouth twitched and his lips curved down into a fearsome grimace as the sharp planes of his face moved into a merciless frown.
“You do not wish to know what I can do to punish you for disobeying me, Hazel.”
There was such a depth of threat in Khal’s demeanor, in the way his voice never wavered, his eyes never softened. Hazel paused, her mouth going dry and her heartbeat quickening. Something deep in her belly quivered and a tiny spark spread between her legs, but she forced herself to stay still.
“I never agreed to this.” She bit out her words, throwing all caution to the wind now that her temper was getting the best of her.
“You agreed to this the moment you stepped out on the red sand of Garana.” Khal’s left arm moved, one hand bracing on the wall behind her. He wasn’t trapping her, but his gaze pinned her in place. Hard. Ruthless. Alien. “There is no going back now.”
A chill went from the top of Hazel’s head to the bottom of her spine. She knew what a bloodmate was to an Eok warrior. Every human on Aveyn knew after Commander Arlen took doctor Ava for his bloodmate in front of the entire population.
“I know.” Emotions filled her throat, overflowed through her eyes in bitter tears. She tried to stop the flow, but she couldn’t. “I know what a bloodmate is and I know you never wanted this. I know you got stuck with me.”
And now, she was never going to get back to Sally on Earth. Khal would never let her go. Eoks were too possessive, too proud to free their mates in the best of circumstances, but a bloodmate? His very life was tied to her.
She was never going to be free of him. Even if he didn’t want her, he was going to keep her.
Why does this hurt so bad? Why do I care what he feels about me? Because I just had the most amazing sex of my life with this big hunk of blue jock?
“Wanted this?” Khal’s face turned into a mask of pure wrath, somehow becoming even more handsome, with his strong nose marred by the prominent ridges and his sharp, high cheekbones. In that instant, he looked every bit the fearsome alien his kind had been in eons past, before the Ring’s faint varnish of civilization. “Finding a bloodmate is the greatest honor an Eok warrior can hope for. An honor that was bestowed on my father and my brothers before me. An honor I would gladly sacrifice my life to deserve.”
Hazel held Khal’s gaze as his words made their way into her mind.
“So, you want me?” She hated the edge of need, of near despair in her voice.
His eyes, so devoid of softness, yet full of yearning, of unleashed passion, pinned her with his gaze, blue upon blue, deep and bottomless.
“I don’t want you.” The words lashed like a whip, flaying the skin on her face, tracing tears down her cheeks. Khal took another step, his body almost touching hers, taunting her with its heat, its strength. She lusted after him like a famished beast looking at a feast, but unable to eat. “Ineedyou like I need the blood in my veins. Like I need the air in my lungs. You are not part of my life, Hazel. You are my life. Don’t ever question that again. I am furious not because you freed those prisoners, but because you endangered yourself.”
Hazel opened her mouth to speak, but her words were cut short. A hard set of full lips closed on hers and the world faded away to a whisper as Khal kissed her. His hands closed around her waist, pulling her against a hardness that made her knees week and a now-familiar heat spread between her legs. The tangy, mind-numbing taste of the Mating Venom entered her mouth, crawling under her skin, kindling fires of lust in her body. Her hands reached for Khal, desperate to feel the heat of his skin under her fingertips. The small bumps of his scars made her hotter, hungrier as she ran her fingers up the roundness of his biceps, all the way to his wide, square shoulders.
All that time, Khal never stopped kissing her. His mouth was on hers, his tongue inside her mouth, his taste mixing with her own. There was more than lust in that kiss, there was a need that went beyond the physical. Like it was he who needed her, and not the reverse.
Finally, just when Hazel thought she would run out of oxygen, Khal freed her. She breathed hard, her forehead resting against his, this stranger who, in the span of a few days, had become her savior and her tormentor. This stranger who had become the center of her small universe like no one before him.
