GalacticBurn Page 3

  “My name is Ezra,” he said at last. “Ezra Gwynt Mearwon.”

  “Lillian,” she gritted out. “A name you hold in high regard, so I’m told.”

  Ezra raised a dark brow, and a small gem piercing glinted in the sun’s rays that flooded through the strange fabric of the dwelling. “Unlike Dar, I think I would rather wait and see if you earn the right to such a title.”

  “How considerate of you.”

  He smirked, but this time amusement glittered in his stare. “I understand now why we stopped at nothing to find you. You’ll keep all three of us…preoccupied.”

  She ignored the stupid little thrill within. Three men! She should be outraged and disgusted! Shouldn’t she? “Where is Dar?”

  Ezra shrugged. “He had to yield all rights of you to me…at least for this coming night and the next day.”

  She gritted her teeth at his careless revelation. Only, when he all but flicked the dress onto a hook in the wall and set the tray onto the floor, wrath became all but an afterthought. Her mouth watered at the enticing scent coming from the bowl brimming with thick gravy and meat.

  Ezra stripped off his long pants that were just like Dar’s, and her mouth immediately dried. She wanted to turn away from the sight of his unveiled cock that reared up like a stallion’s, but she couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away from its magnificent size.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, voice strangled.

  “I am in need of a bath.” He moved down the stairs and into the water, his eyes holding hers as he added, “A meal…” He moved close and whispered, “And a woman. Not necessarily in that order.”

  Goose bumps skittered over her sweat-slicked skin, the steam from the water now making her uncomfortably hot. “Then you’ll have to hypnotize me, or whatever the hell it is you do,” she said through gritted teeth, “because I’ve never been one to share.”

  Had she?

  “That’s the beauty of it though, isn’t it, Lillian?” he murmured seductively, moving behind her to whisper in her ear, “You don’t have to share, we do.”

  Her pussy clenched at his logic, at his hands that dropped low to cup her ass cheeks, his fingers deftly massaging. She groaned, and she heard his low laugh of amusement, felt his hot breath brush over her nape.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She just wasn’t sure what she hungered for most.

  He moved away to retrieve the bowl from where he’d left it beside the pool. He chose a piece of meat and offered it to her. “Excuse the fingers,” he murmured. “We aliens don’t see the need for cutlery. We’re a barbaric species,” he added mockingly.

  She took little notice of his derision, too caught up in the taste of the spiced meat that melted in her mouth, bursting with flavor on her tongue.

  “You like,” he asked dryly.

  She closed her eyes. “Mmm.”

  “Here’s another.”

  She opened her eyes and took the next chunk from his fingers, savoring it as she slowly chewed, all too aware of Ezra’s watchful and increasingly lustful stare. She shrugged, a little sheepish as she explained, “I’m not sure when I had my last meal.”

  “Then you’ll enjoy this meat. Caltronian is our planet’s most sought-after beast.”

  She spluttered, half choking as she asked, “It’s not beef?”

  He frowned, thoughtful. “Beef? Ah, cow.” He shook his head. “No, we don’t have such creatures on Carèche. Our caltronian beasts are much like your grizzly bears, only almost twice as big and much more aggressive.”

  She thought back to the red rug on the floor where Dar had laid her. Literally. “Do these creatures have red fur?”

  Ezra took a morsel and chewed, his bright stare a little amused. “No doubt you were thoroughly fucked by Dar on his caltronian fur.”

  She squirmed a little. “I guess…yes. Yes, I was.”

  Ezra’s stare narrowed. Then he smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m glad.”

  She felt her brow crease. “Why?”

  He chewed another morsel, and when he offered her one she took it and swallowed quickly, still too hungry to be offended by the source of her meal.

  “You and we Carèche brothers are one unit now. Having a harmonious relationship is paramount if we have any hope of making it work. My brothers and I, we are learning how to shut down our possessive natures.”

  That anyone would feel that way about her sent a frisson of delight through her body. It was a sensation that gave her pause. Perhaps the men of her planet really had found her repulsive and ugly?

  She studied Ezra’s gorgeous features. Lifting one hand, she traced his skull with its very short—almost shaved actually—dark hair. He sucked in a lungful of oxygen, hardly breathing as she outlined the green jewel embedded in the outer edge of one brow, his full lips, and finally the slight dent in his smooth chin.

  Hot damn! Every inch of him was pure masculine perfection. So like Dar—and yet so not.

  “You’re different from Dar,” she murmured. “And it’s not just your eyes and hair.”

  “Every province has differences, particularly eye color.” His harshness shifted a little. “Each province also tends to have its own traits. The people under my rule don’t only have green eyes, they all raze their hair to their scalp.”

  Her hand dropped, splashing the water. “Still, it appears all Carèche people are like humans. You and Dar would be considered very…handsome.”

  He chuckled, the throaty rasp pure masculinity. “I’m pleased.”

  “Do you…do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.

  His eyes gleamed, emphasizing the odd silver band around the pupils. “You’re gorgeous.”

  Something within melted at his absolute sincerity. “Thank you.”

  They shared the rest of the meal in intimate silence. With her hunger for food appeased, a much different hunger grew.

  She was almost certain Ezra wasn’t using any form of mind control—so what of these new urges? With Dar she felt safe and, as silly as it sounded, loved. What she felt in that moment with Ezra was much different. It was primal, powerful and a little bit wicked.

  “You are sated now, yes?” he asked.

  She nodded. “For food.”

  His lazy smile was all male satisfaction. “Sometimes the best foreplay is in the waiting.” He moved forward. “Come.”

  Her mouth fell open. Disappointment surged. “Where are we going?”

  But then she was distracted by the way his back muscles shifted, the water sliding off his skin like silk over polished glass, his buttocks and long, hard thighs flexing as he climbed the steps.

  He turned, and she wondered if her eyes were popping out on strings. She couldn’t get enough of the eye candy that was his cock.

  “Dar prefers this Earth base,” Ezra explained with a wry twist of his lips. “Me, I prefer the mother craft.”

  “You…you mean I’m…I’m going aboard your UFO?”

  He used his pants to dry off before slipping them up and over his muscled calves and strong thighs. They appeared completely dry when he snapped the waistband into place low on his hips, his mouth expanded into the crooked smirk she already found aggravating and yet so sinfully attractive. “My aircraft is hardly unidentifiable.”

  She waded after him, and while climbing the stairs, she thrust her breasts out in deliberate provocation as she squeezed the water from her hair. “But it is a flying object,” she said archly.

  “So it is,” he agreed, his gaze devouring her.

  She retrieved the dress from the hook and dried the droplets from her skin, her breasts, the strip of light fuzz on her pussy, with slow, rhythmic circles. “Are you done with waiting yet?” she asked huskily.

  There was fire in his eyes by the time she drew the featherlight fabric over her head and tugged the snug-fitting length down her body, the hem falling mid-thigh.

  He cupped her chin, lifting her gaze to his much higher stare. “You’re p
laying with fire, my Lillian.” His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowing as they zeroed in on the twin punctures at the base of her throat. “Dar has marked you.”

  It wasn’t a question. And yet she wouldn’t have answered anyway. There was something almost…frightening in his expression. Dangerous.

  He stepped back. “Son of a—”

  “What?” she managed weakly. This was the side of him she’d immediately sensed at first sight. A side that both scared and excited her.

  He shoved an outspread hand over his bristly skull. “The ‘marking’ is allowed only at the bonding ceremony. Dar has broken long-held Carèche rites.”

  “Well, you’re not on your Carèche planet now, are you?”

  As if he’d been sucker-punched in the hard planes of his belly, his breath expelled with a hiss. His expression hardened briefly into pure unbridled savagery then relaxed into a dark, satisfied grin that showcased the long canines. “You really will make us a fine queen.”

  She took a step back, logic dousing the fire that was overheating her body. She shook her head. “No. I’m…I’m no queen!” Panic reinstated itself in her mind. “I’m no one special. I’m just a normal girl who survived some terrible epidemic!”

  “If being a survivor doesn’t make you special, then what does?”

  “I don’t know!” she burst out. “I just want everything to be back the way it was! I want to be with my family.” She looked down at the plain gold band on her finger. “My husband.”

  The silver ring around Ezra’s green eyes sharpened as he swept her an intent look, seemingly seeing into her soul. “You no longer have a husband or family,” he said softly, but she heard every decibel of possessiveness in his tone. “You have us.”

  “What, you think I’m grateful?” she spat. “Thankful my life has been spared by a trio of alien kings while virtually the rest of humankind has been wiped off the face of the Earth?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Not grateful. No. That will come later. Just be thankful you are alive. Thankful that, for now at least, you have been spared the memory of the horror of what you went through.”

  “That’s just it, I’ve lost my family now and I don’t think I want to remember—not ever,” she admitted.

  He nodded. “I believe I can relate to that.”

  She wasn’t the only one who’d lost everything, who had lost their memory. She swallowed. “When did you and Dar remember you were kings?”

  “Everyone starts to recall the things they want to remember—just as you will in the coming days.”

  So what Dar had told her was right. Everything was true…real.

  Shivers overtook her body. Suddenly it was as if a yawning pit opened up before her, her world as she’d known it collapsing around her. The strength she’d desperately held together came apart at the seams. “Damn you!” She lurched close, hammering his hard chest with her fists. “Bastard!”

  “Take it easy,” he said quietly, his voice gentle. “Stop. Breathe.”

  Emotions reeling, she bit her lip and sucked in a wobbly breath. Her hands dropped to her sides. Tears spilled down her face. “Damn…everyone.”

  And then she crumpled.

  He easily caught her and lifted her into his strong arms before she hit the ground. “That’s it,” he said gently as she stared up at him, tears sliding down her cheeks. “Let it out. We all go through it.”

  “How,” she whimpered. “How do you bear it?”

  The pain of loss that lanced through her, even without any recollections, was now so sharp, so unutterably painful she couldn’t begin to imagine what it might be like once her memories—the ones she apparently wanted to remember—came flooding back.

  “We get by,” Ezra said starkly, and as she looked up at his hard face she could imagine him as an innocent young man before all his family had died, before the virus had wiped out everybody he’d loved. Before his world had been ripped asunder too.

  She shook all over, her teeth chattering.

  “Shock,” Ezra explained grimly. With long strides he carried her through the rooms, pushing aside each colored shield until they were outside. It was growing dusk, a promise of the new night to come.

  She pressed her face into his shoulder, sensing the alien males long before she heard their growing voices. She didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to give any of them a reason to approach her.

  “Don’t let me go,” she said in a muffled voice that resonated with fear. “I…I want to stay with you.”

  It was then that she felt another pair of eyes boring into her. She gasped with awareness, turning her head to search for the stare she’d come to know all too well.

  “Dar,” she whispered.

  He stood at the head of the sixty or seventy long-haired males. Something flickered in his yellow eyes as he held her stare for a beat, too quickly for her to grasp his true emotions.

  He dragged his attention from her, then nodding at his Carèche brother, he barked out something in his language before he and his followers stepped aside.

  Ezra nodded in return and moved between the bodies that formed a temporary pathway. Lillian craned her neck, soaking in Dar. Seeing him, somehow the shock of before drifted away. He had seduced and fucked her so thoroughly that even now he set her heart aflutter, caused a strange trembling that reached into the pit of her belly.

  But it hadn’t been just a seduction. He’d cared for her, looked after her well-being. Worshipped her.

  Ezra stilled, and a sheer curtain of snowy-white shields dropped from above, surrounding them. She looked up, her eyes growing wide. The underside of the craft was above them, hovering but silent. Her gaze dropped as Ezra stepped onto the living material that expanded beneath them.

  “Hang on tight,” he advised.

  The walls drew close, rippling around them like elastic. The motion stilled for a couple of seconds then they suddenly shot upward, like a stone from a slingshot. Lillian felt her belly lurch at the powerful acceleration and had to shut her eyes to the blur of everything disappearing below them at a dizzying rate.

  When their motion slowed she opened her eyes. Ezra stepped off the shield substance as it rippled outward and opened up around them, folding into itself like a concertina before withdrawing into the hatch below, plugging the hole they’d entered.

  Ezra strode through the bowels of the monster aircraft, his tread all but noiseless on the shimmering surface that had the appearance of metal. She had the strangest sensation that Ezra was floating, and that she was almost weightless in his arms.

  “You’ll get used to it,” he said, evidently reading her mystified expression. “Our ship creates its own atmosphere to lighten the load. Crucial when one goes from one solar system to another. Don’t worry though, it’s much more pronounced here, where the pressure levels aren’t automatically adjusted.”

  All sorts of questions raced through her mind. But she blurted inanely, “Your ship uses fuel?”

  His lips twitched. “In space our ship absorbs all the energy it needs from outside its protective shields. Hydrogen, neutrinos, plasma. Inside your Earth’s atmosphere it absorbs nitrogen, carbon dioxide and of course, oxygen, much of which is diverted to our holding tanks in this area, where we are now.”

  Her head swam with information overload, and she was only too thankful then that he carried her.

  “All a bit much, hmm?” At her nod he said brusquely, “You will learn more than enough over the next few weeks without looking for answers.”

  He stepped up onto yet another shield, though this one was like a mat on the floor. He set her gently onto her feet and braced his own feet apart. “Hold on to me.”

  She slipped her arms around his waist and locked her hands on the smooth skin of his back, breathing in his exotic scent. She wouldn’t think about this automatic act of trust. Not now.

  Her belly dropped to her toes as they ascended with speed yet again, the shield pushing upward before coming to a smooth and sudden stop. Lillian
gripped the bulge of Ezra’s forearm as the lyrical babble of alien talk inundated her ears.

  Behind them, a long, horseshoe-shaped instrument panel gleamed beneath blue-tinged downlights. Before them, about twenty feet below, a large floor space was packed with dozens of the aliens she’d heard conversing. Balls of white light floated high above, brighter than any chandelier.

  She swallowed hard. “These are your people?” she asked weakly. But of course they were. All had close-cropped hair, and even from where she stood she could make out their bright green stares.

  “Yes.” He took her arm and led her forward, onto a dais that jutted outward.

  She got the impression this was where the captain of the ship issued orders when he and probably a handful of other skilled aliens weren’t operating the ship.

  Ezra chuckled wryly. “They’ve started their celebrations without us.”

  “Celebrations?”

  He turned to her. “Yes. They’re celebrating the finding of you. Our future queen.”

  Before she had any chance to respond, he faced his men and raised a hand into the air. The aliens below ceased all talk, every green stare pinned on their leader. His hand dropped, his powerful voice breaking the silence, “Eckn’a sa, Lillian.” At the roar of approval from the males he twisted back to her, his green eyes gleaming as he translated for her, “Welcome our queen.”

  Chapter Three

  Another sheer, snowy-white shield rose from the floor below and unfurled into a small platform. Ezra stepped onto it and beckoned her to follow.

  Trepidation filled her. “We’re going down there, to them?”

  “Of course.” He raised a brow, the shield beneath quivering but immobile. “You do not wish to meet your subjects?”

  Oh, this was too much. How did she come from being some ordinary, nondescript human, to the queen of Carèche—with three would-be king lovers, no less?

  Pushing back hysteria, she nodded and stepped up beside him. “Sure. Why not. What’s the worst that can happen, right?”