Page 54 of Shielded in the Shadows

Keela drew back, smiling. A tiny bead of blood welled up on her lower lip. “I’ve never kissed a male with fangs,” she mused. Her little tongue slipped out to lick away the blood.

“I’m sorry,” I said, horrified to have drawn her blood.

“Don’t apologize.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and drew me close again. “I liked it,” she murmured against my lips before kissing me again—this time more roughly. “You can heal me, right?”

I absolutely could.

I caressed that perfectly plush lower lip with my tongue between kisses, careful not to nick her again despite her whimpers and little pleas. My fangs were tingling now in a pulsing rhythm much like the sensations in my horns and the throbbing of my cocks. A new, intense, and almost painful strain at the base of the upper shaft was making it increasingly difficult to think.

With a shaky breath, Keela drew back, her nails digging into the back of my neck under my collar. “Are we done with dinner?” she asked, her heated green gaze searching mine. “Because I’m hungry for something else now.”

We need to be in the nest.

Driven by instinct, I was already moving before the words finished coalescing in my head. I rose with Keela in my arms, knocking over my seat in the process, and strode across the grass to the glowstone walkway that led deep into the dense foliage. With my mouth on hers and my senses filled with her scent, I barely noticed the beauty around us. Even the nebula faded into the background.

My mate was hungry for me. Nothing else mattered but that.

I would have been pleased to share a bunk on the Nivilus with my mate, or a bed in a hotel room, or any other comfortable place, but my Pallasian shadowbat DNA demanded I provide a fine nest, especially for this first mating. In fact, every part of me that was genetically shadowbat had never been as insistent about the proper ways of mating as they were now, from my horns and fangs to my cocks and tail.

I lay Keela in the nest as if she were made of the finest Fylorian crystal instead of tristeel and knelt beside her, taking in the sight of her body cradled on the cushions and silks I’d arranged so carefully.

She smiled up at me as the soft colors of the arboretum and nebula shone on her skin and that lovely gown. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said roughly. “There’s not a single thought in my head. You make me incapable of thinking.”

“Then I’ll think for both of us.” She raised her foot, parting her legs just enough for me to see she wore nothing under the dress. My hearts raced like I’d just run ten kilometers up a mountainside. “Shoes off first,” she said.

I removed her shoes and set them aside with care. She rubbed her bare feet on the silks beneath her with a groan of pleasure, teasing me with more glimpses of all the bare skin under her gown.

“Coat,” she murmured, gesturing at me with a flick of her fingers. “But stand up first, and take your time.”

Body thrumming harder than the Nivilus’s engines at hyperspeed, I rose and slid my greatcoat from my shoulders, letting it glide slowly down my arms to bare my upper body to my mate. She’d seen me without a shirt numerous times during sparring and training, but this was intimate. Hungry. A seduction.

Her gaze drank me in as much as I devoured the sight of her in our nest. She studied the flex of my muscles, the glimmer of my nipple piercings, all the scars from wounds so severe even my enhanced healing ability couldn’t banish them completely.

I let my coat fall to the grass.

“Turn,” she said, her voice husky.

I did, remembering how she’d demanded I show her my back after we’d escaped Ghira Station. She’d wanted to see the wound I’d gotten from Sjer’s rifle while protecting her from his rage. His shots had left small scars I could have healed with a dermal regenerator if I’d wanted to, but I wore them with pride.

How did Keela feel seeing them? I wondered. Did she feel guilty, or did she understand?

When I turned back around, the raw desire on her face nearly sent me crashing to my knees.

“Boots,” she commanded.

Hands not quite steady, I removed my tall boots and set them next to her delicate shoes. The difference in their sizes was almost comical—or would have been if I’d been capable of anything but need.

Her gaze held mine when she rasped, “Trousers. Slowly.”

Eyes on her, I unfastened the waist of my pants and pulled apart the seams at the front and over the base of my tail, every move as slow as possible. As much as part of me wanted to remove my clothes and hers quickly so I could feel her skin on mine and begin hours of worship, I relished this slow reveal of my body to the female who would be my only lover for the remainder of my life.

As slowly as I’d removed my greatcoat, I slid my trousers past my hips, freeing my cocks to the air and her hungry gaze. I guided the pants down my thighs and calves until they reached my feet and I could step out of them.

I was bare before my mate, and it was nothing at all like when I’d knelt in front of her in the maintenance shaft when she’d met me with blades and a gun.

Keela’s pink tongue slipped out to wet her lips and her soles slid more slowly against the silks in sensual movements that made my cocks twitch.