Warrior (Breeder Book 3) Read online

  When she’d met Tara, Anika had finally understood what she’d yearned for all along. The females of Tara’s race answered to no male. No wonder so many on Parseon reviled Terran ways and were glad to see them leave. Males of status had much to lose if Protocol were to crumble.

  Though Tara had accepted their ways when she became Marlix’s breeder, she had a way of coaxing him to do her bidding. Anika figured she had a good chance of winning the naming argument. However, even Tara would not be able to change his mind about Ilian. “Thank you for all you have done,” Anika said.

  “I’m going to miss you.” Tara’s eyes filled. “I’m afraid I’ll never see you again.”

  The sight of her friend’s tears caused her own eyes to water. Anika blinked and grabbed her in a hug. Terrans were smaller than Parseons, and Tara’s head bumped Anika’s chin. “I am sure we will meet again,” she lied.

  “You think so?” Tara sniffed.

  “Yes.” Another lie.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll, uh, go get my boots for you. When you do you plan to leave?”

  “This evening, after everyone is asleep.”

  Chapter Two

  Snick…. Click.

  Awake, but resting, Urazi opened his eyes at the sound of his chamber door shutting. In the darkness, he spied a familiar shape creeping toward his sleeping platform. The shadow tugged her shift over her head and dropped it to the floor. A cool breeze drifted across his body when she turned back the sleep cover. Then comforting, arousing warmth when she pressed against him.

  “Are you asleep?” Anika whispered.

  “No.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “How did you know I would come?” She settled her head onto a familiar place on his shoulder, and wiggled a leg between his, which caused her naked mound to press against his thigh.

  “I just did.” He shrugged. Her closeness had its usual effect of causing his manhood to swell. Why was he so weak in body and mind? He always sensed when she would pay him a nighttime visit and would wait for her, instead of making himself scarce like he should. Instead of reporting her behavior to Marlix or applying the sudon to her backside. He had many honorable options to deal with her behavior, yet he chose the path that filled him with selfish elation—followed by acute self-loathing.

  “Why do you never come to me?” she asked in a soft voice.

  Because he attempted to resist her altogether. She was the female sibling of the Alpha he served out of duty and amity. To whom he’d once been anointed. Though he and Marlix had shared females before the Commander had tagged Tara, he knew without being told the Alpha would object to Urazi using his female sibling. “I do not need to,” he answered her question. Because you come to me.

  “Do you need this?” She closed her hand around his erection.

  Air hissed through his teeth. Monto, yes. He needed that. A gust of desire and shame swirled over him.

  With a practiced hand, Anika stroked his shaft, tightening and relaxing her fingers in a way that would bring surefire release. His own hand came up on its own accord and cupped a mammary gland, squeezing the tip between his thumb and forefinger. In a futile fantasy, Urazi pictured her hardened nipple pierced by his breeder ring, envisioned his son suckling on her teat. The satisfaction evoked by the subversive thought of producing a child was bad enough, but worse was the stab of lust arising from contemplation of the act that would plant his seed.

  He thanked the moon and the stars he’d at least been able to resist engaging in that perversion. Too many times, he had nearly succumbed. Only dread of Marlix’s reaction if his female sibling began to swell with the offspring of his lowly former beta had forestalled him. The thought of Marlix’s rage softened his hardness.

  “Is something wrong?” Anika asked.

  Everything. “No.”

  “You do not desire me.” She released him and raised her head from his shoulder.

  He crafted a lie of salvation, but the shameful truth spilled out instead. “I want you more than anything.”

  She hunched and trailed her feather-soft hair over his chest and abdomen, stirring him to tumescence once again. The rest of him went rigid, too, when Anika’s breath warmed the crown of his manhood.

  I should resist.

  But instead of holding her off, he tangled his hands in her hair when she drew him into her mouth. She sucked and stroked with an avidness seemingly imbued with desperation, but he knew he transferred his emotions to her actions. Shame. Need. Always the need.

  Urazi groaned, as reluctant pleasure overpowered self-recrimination. As always.

  Her cheeks hollowed as she drew on his member, applying suction while gracing his length and squeezing his sac with a gentle, but firm touch. His gonads tightened, and he ached from the base of his manhood into his abdomen.

  Anika’s head bobbed with her quickening movements. She moaned, and he heard urgency. Did she fear she would not please him?

  “Yes, Anika, yes,” he growled reassurance. “Just like that.”

  She hummed, and he jerked, the vibration heightening the rapture. She had never done that before. Where had she learned that technique? Had she been with another? Savage pangs of lust and jealousy shot through him, but the humming pushed him over the edge. His hips began to thrust. For the honor bestowed upon a warrior, he could not have curtailed his movements. The air thinned, and he could not suck enough of it into his lungs. His chest spasmed.

  Sweat beaded, burned his eyes. Heat and pressure expanded.

  He released his vise-like grip, frantically signaled he’d crossed the threshold, tried to force her head away, but she clung to him. In a surge of ecstasy, he released his essence into her mouth instead of spilling it onto his abdomen.

  He panted, his head still swimming.

  Anika sat up.

  Why had she swallowed his seed? And why did he derive a perverse satisfaction from her doing so?

  Her teeth flashed white in a tremulous smile then she scooted upwards and ran her hand over the lightscan. The room remained shrouded. She waved again.

  They always engaged in their perversions cloaked by darkness. Though unlikely Marlix or Tara would investigate, Urazi had no desire for his shameful transgressions to be discovered.

  “Leave it,” he ordered.

  “I wish to see your face.” Anika persisted and palmed the lightscan again.

  “You do not have authorization to turn the lights on in my chamber,” he explained.

  She sat back on her haunches. “I would wager Terran women may turn on any lights they wish,” she said cryptically. He heard her inhale and exhale. “I would like to see you tonight. Will you please turn on the lights?”

  He hesitated. The need for discretion had not lessened—were she discovered naked on his sleeping platform, consequences would be serious. “All right. For a moment.” He waved his hand over the scanner.

  A low light flooded the room. Anika’s dark hair lay in an appealing tousle around her face and shoulders. Her lips were reddened and swollen from the attention she had paid him. He had the strangest urge to press his mouth to their lushness—and then to suckle the pink tips of her full, rounded mammary glands. Another reason to keep the lights off. Her pleasant appearance incited his carnal appetite.

  He drank in the features of her face, her skin pale and smooth, except for a hint of pink, her golden eyes unusually guarded. When he pictured her—and he often did—her eyes came to mind first. Anika was the first person he’d seen after regaining consciousness following the attack. Despite her grief, she had radiated concern for him. Her bedside presence had comforted him during his long convalescence.

  Though males and females did not become friends, if he had to name the feeling that germinated during those difficult days, what else could he call it, but amity? Frequent contact had grown into physical awareness, and from there, concupiscence.

  As he scanne
d her face, he realized she appeared troubled. Guilt for his lack of control stabbed at him. “I am sorry about spilling myself in your mouth.” He did not wish to disgust her more than necessary. But, then again, she had sought him out. If a male’s physical pleasure repulsed females, why did this one voluntarily engage him? He would never understand the female mind—such as it was.

  Anika clenched her hands and stared at the wall. She took a breath. “Marlix is sending me to Commander Ilian.”

  “Why?”

  “To become his breeder.”

  Dismay rendered him motionless and unable to speak. An image of the Alpha using her, impregnating her, taking her in the way Urazi had denied himself, formed a haze that flooded his vision until Anika blanked out and all he saw was red.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “When?” he managed to grit out.

  “Tomorrow.”

  So. It was done.

  He’d known Marlix had been trying to find an alpha willing to accept Anika, but had counted on her disgrace to lessen her prospects. Foolish to assume an Alpha could not achieve his aim.

  But Ilian? Urazi never would have predicted Marlix could place Anika with a Commander. Alphas demanded breeders of purity. Not soiled goods. Marlix had done well. Although Anika could never have status of her own, she would know the honor of producing an Alpha’s sons. Ilian could give her what Urazi could not.

  “Alpha Marlix has made a wise decision. Commander Ilian is kind. To become his—” he broke off, unable to force breeder and its connotation past his lips.” To serve in his household is a great honor for a female.”

  Anika worked her mouth. “That is all you have to say?” She stared at him, her eyes huge in her face.

  Urazi blinked to avoid embarrassing himself. “I wish you many sons.”

  * * * *

  Anika leaned against the locked door and released the tears. Patchy memories explained how she’d reached her chamber: leaping off Urazi’s sleeping platform, grabbing her shift—she had no recollection of putting it on, but she was wearing it, so she must have—then stumbling from the room. Had Urazi called her name, or had she only wished he had?

  Anika pressed a fist to her mouth. What did you expect? He would accept responsibility for you? Would stand up to Marlix? To Ilian?

  She’d offered herself one final time to say good-bye and, with a foolish hope, had apprised him of Marlix’s intention. She understood Urazi owed his fealty to the Commander. And only the most mentally deficient beta would challenge an Alpha, let alone two of them, but couldn’t he have cared a little that another might use her?

  “Oh Jergan,” Anika cried, her loss crashing down upon her. She’d always been grateful to the beta whose possession had liberated her from the BCF, and had served him dutifully, but the secret she had not shared with anyone was he’d held her in greater regard than she’d had for him. Jergan had died protecting her. Urazi had killed Jergan’s attacker, but the reason Urazi had appeared at all was because Marlix had dispatched him to locate Tara. With Jergan gone, Marlix intended to send her away, and Urazi did not care.

  Anika had never felt more alone than she did in this moment. A female against the world. She hugged herself. In the warmth of Marlix’s subterranean abode, one could forget winter froze the planet’s surface. Would she leave here to sleep under a bridge? She might locate a refugee camp, but scarcity prevailed during war, and camp denizens might shun another mouth to feed, a female one. Qalin had razed or burned numerous villages. Many were homeless. Hungry. Desperate.

  Perhaps Marlix was correct—maybe she did need a male to provide for her. Maybe she should acquiesce and go to Ilian. He was no Qalin. Or Artom. By everyone’s accounts, he was tolerant, not prone to the violent excesses characteristic of Alphas. And, if she produced a son, she would find favor. Perhaps, after she bore him several, he would not use her very often, and she could spend her remaining days cocooned in the memories of the small freedoms she had had.

  Except, that was no existence at all.

  She straightened from her slumped position.

  Did a warrior surrender when the battle grew fierce? No. He fought harder.

  If she accepted defeat then she deserved what she received.

  She needed to remember her origins. Parseon. Female, yes, but still the offspring of a sire who had produced a Commander. Alpha blood ran in her veins.

  She would not go down without a fight.

  Anika scrubbed the tears from her eyes and changed into her warmest winter shift and leggings, layering two of each for added warmth. Woolen foot sheaths came next, and then she tugged on her gifted boots. The Terran footwear felt stiff and constrictive, but at least she had plenty of toe room. For such a small person, Tara had surprisingly large feet. In the bottom of the skein bag, she discovered one of her friend’s long, pointy knitting needles. It was more knife-like than the small pocket dagger. Probably, Tara hadn’t intended to include the needle, but she owned many and would not miss one. Anika tucked both objects into her boot.

  Around her thigh, she strapped a sheath with Jergan’s dagger.

  Finally, she double-checked the contents of her bag to make sure she hadn’t omitted anything important. Though she doubted she would have use for the bleeech or the contact lenses, she appreciated the sentiment behind the gifts and would carry them as mementos of a treasured friendship. From the food preparation room, she’d appropriated a small elasticene travel pouch for water, all the panna as she could get her hands on, a few dried pomes, and a hunk of meat, which she’d wrapped in a cloth. She would eat that first, before it spoiled.

  She slipped her arms into the pack. It felt heavy on her shoulders, but no weightier than the journey ahead. Anika took a deep breath. I can do this. She eased open the door, slipped into the corridor, and tiptoed through the domicile to the elevation tube that would transport her to the surface. Light glowed from the gene scanner mounted on the wall.

  Did she have access? What would she do if she couldn’t get out? The few times she’d gone to the surface since the start of the war, she’d been with Marlix or Urazi, who’d operated the scanner. She hadn’t had authorization to turn on the lights in Urazi’s chamber!

  I cannot go to Ilian. I cannot!

  Heart in her throat, she palmed the screen. For moment, nothing happened, then the screen changed color, and the elevation tube doors whooshed open. Anika scooted inside, and the doors closed. The tube ascended.

  When Marlix could not locate her, he would check the scanner and discover her imprint record. But, by then, she would be far away from his domicile.

  The doors parted, and a blast of icy night air rushed in. Her face tingled with cold. On the chill wind, she detected the taint of warfare, of the discharge of weaponry, of villages reduced to smoke and cinders.

  It smelled like freedom.

  Anika stepped out of the tube.

  Chapter Three

  “Commander, I fear the morning meal will grow cold—shall I serve it or continue to wait?” Nibor, the beta cook, checked with Marlix, then eyed Anika’s vacant seat.

  “Bring it.” Marlix waved his hand.

  The cook departed, and Marlix leveled a scowl at Urazi and Tara. “I have been too indulgent. My female sibling assumes too many liberties. Perhaps, if she goes hungry, she will learn.”

  Urazi would go hungry, too. He did not know how he would force down a morsel with his stomach twisted by anguish. The Alpha was within his rights to send Anika away for breeding, but did he have no empathy for her situation at all? To never again see her friends or the family of her birth? To be sent to a strange household, to be used by a male she’d only met once? Impregnated.

  Tara had softened Marlix, but today he demonstrated none of that tenderness, his face appearing as if cast in stone, except for a tic beneath his eye. He glanced at his breeder and arched his eyebrows. “Have you nothing to say?” He seemed to challenge her.

  Usually when Marlix “went all Alpha” as Tara ca
lled it, she would rebuke him with a sharp comment—or at least a scowl. This morning, she did neither, but focused on her eating utensils. The cook must not have placed them on the tabletop to her liking because she realigned them. “About what?” she asked, without looking up.

  “About anything.”

  “No.”

  A concerned frown drew Marlix’s heavy brows together. “Are you unwell? Is baby Arak causing you discomfort?”

  “I am fine. And Ramon is fine too,” she answered.

  “My son—” Marlix broke off when Tara’s head shot up. “Our son,” he amended, “will be not be named Ramon. He shall be called Arak in honor of my sire.”

  As angry as he was with Marlix, Urazi sided with him on this one. The half-breed offspring of a Parseon and a Terran faced enough hurdles. To saddle him with a Terran name would exacerbate the ostracism to which he would be subjected.

  But Tara refused to see reason, and the naming argument continued. Marlix could have ended the contention by applying his palm to Tara’s backside without adversely affecting Arak, but had not done so. Another example of how much Tara had softened him.

  But he remained firm on sending Anika away. Urazi’s gut tightened. Once, Marlix would have discussed the matter with him. These days, only Tara held his counsel. Did she know about Anika? Urazi surveyed her face. Other than the glint of ire over the naming issue, she did not appear upset. Her only other preoccupation this morning had seemed to be with her eating utensils.

  Nibor wheeled in a cart laden with food. He set a bowl of ground, creamed acca nut before each of them and laid out platters of smoked meats, shredded and fried tubers, and sliced fruits. When he’d been Marlix’s beta, Urazi had done the cooking and household chores. But, during his convalescence, Marlix had hired another to perform those duties. After Urazi had recovered, the male had stayed. And Tara had supplanted him as Marlix’s confidant.

  Urazi had failed at everything—had been unable to fight off Qalin’s guards, no longer managed the domicile, could not hold Marlix’s ear any longer.