Page 4 of The VaDorok's Unexpected Mate
The male’s eyes followed the female only momentarily, but it was enough to delay his reaction as he brought his blaster up that Kull was already leaping through the air when the blaster fired, thrusting his spear out ahead of him. The spear split the male’s neck at a downward angle, cleaving downward into the top of the chest cavity. Blood arched in violent spurts, drenching his fur further, as bones crunched and parted so that he neatly split the torso as he landed heavily on his feet, the remains of the guard falling to the floor wetly at his feet.
Chest heaving from exertion and excitement, Kull’s head rose, his eyes lifting to track the fleeing female. Without hesitation, he raced down the hall after her. He could not let her get too far away, not when his brethren were waiting for him. Hopefully by then, Vidok’s ulukska would have the issue with the door solved.
Running purposefully at full speed as if chasing a wounded alpak through the snow. He made no sound beyond the fall of his feet hitting the floor. The female was smaller with a shorter stride and far less endurance than him. She would not get far.
He followed her perfume until he caught sight of her once more. She was quick, but not quick enough. Lunging forward with a burst of speed, Kull lengthened his stride as he rapidly began to close the distance between them. He drew closer and closer, her scent intoxicating him by degrees with its strange allure until he was finally within range that he could see the exquisite soft strands of her hair fluttering behind her as she ran. A low growl rose unbidden from his chest as he, at last,closed the remaining distance to finally scoop her struggling, screaming little body up into his arms.
She thrashed violently in his arms, screaming all manner of impolite curses—many of them oddly about his mother—that he found baffling. But he did not attempt to analyze it further. Things spoken in moments of terror were usually nonsensical, anyway. She was clearly babbling and not making any kind of reasonable sense. It was possible that the Agraak had even damaged her mental faculties with their torture. If that were the case, he pitied any male who attempted to mate her. She wriggled like a maggot and with her smooth skin was slippery, especially with all of the blood coating him. Suddenly, he jerked, and his breath expelled hard with a growl as her foot collided with crotch.
Correction—he pitied any male who mated with her regardless. Vicious creature.
Drawing her up higher into his arms so that they were nose to nose, he bared his teeth in a growl. “Cease, so that I may save your wretched hide. Unless you wish for me to abandon you here and give my excuses to Vidok’s Sara.”
To his surprise, she ceased her thrashing to blink warily at him. “You... you know Sara? The human Sara?”
“Thankfully, I do not have the misfortune of knowing any other Sara. Especially if they all come equipped with such big... attitude,” he grumbled, but something within him relaxed with relief as he felt the tension drain from her body and heard her weak laughter.
“That... that does sound like Sara. Thank the gods,” she mumbled, her body going lax against his chest.
Alarm raced through him, and he gave her a little shake. “Do not die on me. Your Sara would be most vicious and unforgiving, and I would never hear the end of it.”
She chuckled again and tipped her head so that her brown eyes lifted to his face. “Don’t worry, I haven’t survived all that to die now. I’m just so fucking tired.”
That was reasonable. She was clearly coming down off the adrenaline. “Then rest,” he rumbled.
Without thinking further about it, he shifted his hold on her so that she felt more secure, his tail wrapping around him to curl warmly around her legs. It also secured her more snugly to his body. Heat curled between them, but then he felt an answering heat rise in response, kindling within the depths of him. He froze at the familiar, long-dead sensation in horror and momentarily considered tossing her out of his arms and far away from him. And yet—he could not. Not only because of how vulnerable and fragile she was, but his muscles locked up instinctively against that impulse. He could not have thrown her from him even if he wanted to.
The fire raced higher through him, blooming and spreading until he practically trembled from the lust that rose from the pit of his belly. From within his genital folds, his cock twitched and began to engorge with the blood rushing to it. It would not be too much longer before he was at least partially extruded and battling a desperate instinct to mate and fulfill the ulukskinon. The very thing that he had been afraid of had finally happened. The ulukskinon fire had reawakened within him with the arrival of a compatible mate. He wanted to rage against the female in his arms and the betrayal of his instincts, even though he knew neither were to blame. The female had not asked for this. Nor was it something that he had felt driven toward.
Nature had taken its course as it so often did, and never did he resent it more.
Growling quietly to himself so as to not disturb the female in his arms, he turned back toward the direction from which he had come. Instinct or not, ulukskinon or not, he would not beclaiming or giving his heart to another mate, especially not one who could die so easily and leave him alone and in pain again.
He would see to it that she arrived safely within their territory, and then he would abandon her there to whatever fate the gods and the tribe had in store for her. It would be best for both of them.
Chapter 5
The big furry alien carried her so gently that Katie could have easily fallen asleep in his arms if it weren’t for the fact that the male smelled strongly of blood and the viscera clinging to him. The scenery was pretty much straight out of a horror movie, too, but she could forgive that, all things considered. The Agraak certainly wouldn’t allow any other aliens to come in and just take their stolen humans. She certainly wasn’t of mind to grieve for any of the guards who had treated her contemptuously or even cruelly over the time that she’d been there.
All the same, that didn’t stop her from wincing from the bite of cold that immediately stung her face when he ran out into the bleak icy wasteland with her. For a heartbeat she found herself missing the humid heat of the laboratory before relief set in. As shocking as the cold was, the air was clean and sweet. It seeped into her, fragmenting and breaking away the stranglehold that the Agraak had over her even as the humid heat of the laboratory quickly dissipated, leaving behind only a clean, fresh chill.
Katie turned into the embrace of the alien holding her, burrowing into his warmth even as she pressed her face into the thick fur of his shoulder and mane. A deep grunt of surprise echoed through his body, but he, mercifully, didn’t relax his hold on her. Instead, he seemed to clutch tighter as he broke into a ground-eating lope across the snow with startling ease.
Did he plan to run across miles of ice holding her? Gods, she hoped not. Even pressed against his warmth, she would be a lump of ice before long.
A quiet growl of voices rose around her, and her alien slowed into a steady jog. She had the impression of other aliens nearby, though she didn’t dare lift her face from the warmth of his fur to look. She was confident that the male hadn’t gone through allthat trouble saving her only to hand her directly over to danger. Yet, that didn’t stop her from flinching when something heavy flapped as it was passed over her head. Katie froze, every muscle locking with tension as it settled over her heavy, thick... and warm?
Frowning a little, she shifted her head just enough to peek to the side as she lifted a hand and came into immediate contact with fur. He had wrapped a pelt around her. She nearly whimpered with gratitude as the fur began to gradually warm her extremities, and parts of her that had gone numb without her notice suddenly began to tingle back to life as feeling slowly returned to them. The realization of just how quickly she could freeze out there made her feel sick to her stomach. Not to mention that it put her completely at the mercy of the alien carrying her. Had she escaped one terrible situation only to land in another?
Katie stilled, forcing herself to breathe in light, shallow breaths as she tried to absorb and weigh every bit of information her senses gave her. The male carrying her seemed to be as big as he had appeared... and powerful, given the way he was holding her easily against his chest as he ran. He wasn’t breathing hard, and his pulse was strong and steady rather than labored, though it had begun to beat a hair faster than it had when he initially picked her up. There didn’t seem to be anything nefarious going on, or anything to make her suspect he had some kind of fucked up intentions towards her. Sure, that wasn’t any kind of guarantee, but considering how excited the Agraak guards got whenever they had a woman cornered, she was willing to take a small leap of faith.
Closing her eyes, she settled more deeply into his embrace but was jolted moments later when he left the snow to run up a hard metal incline that jarred her with every footfall. And he wasn’t the only one. The thud of boots striking metal vibratedthrough her, forcing her head up as she attempted to take a look around only to be met with the stark metallic interior of a ship. Giant, furry aliens pressed in around her on all sides, many of them carrying humans while others looked on with concern and began to pass out supplies.
One by one, the aliens found a place to sit with their human bundles. Katie shoved her elbow against her captor’s chest in panic. Were the aliens taking them into space again? No, no, no! She had just escaped one prison. She could be sent off to yet another unknown world and risk the chance of running into the same fate.
“N... no,” she whispered between stiff lips, but the alien holding her stroked her back comfortingly.
A deep purr rose from within his chest but, somehow, he still managed to speak over it in a soothing rumble. “Do not be afraid. The Edoka is just transporting us a short distance to our territory. You were kept far out on the ice flats. Too far to go by foot.”
