Craving: A SciFi Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 8) (28 page)

* * *

T
ERRA

An explosion erupted across the Fortuna.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the fire to consume me and the lover I held in my arms as the sunlight shined on us.

Vesta was a goddess of fire. She protected the home and the hearth. Were we not dead, she would have made a great namesake for daughters born during this war. Though she ruled fire, she refused to take a lover. She was wise. Her passion would have burnt too strong, destroying all around her, the same way the Fortuna was being destroyed now.

Soon, we would be nothing but ash.

Jidden woke and jumped out of bed when he heard the explosion. He was confused and his muscles tight like a lion ready to pounce – a dark haired lion with flecks of light circling around his elfin blue eyes.

My alien Surtu lover.

Perhaps he was no alien. Perhaps he was a god. A flawed, self-absorbed god here to mate with mortal women, like me.

"Terra," he called, pulling on his black uniform. "We should go."

"Why?" I asked as I lay naked on the bed, embracing the warmth that poured in through the ceiling of my sleeping quarters. It had been so long since I'd felt the sun. Day and night on the space station were not like how it was on Earth. "You've claimed me," I sang, "so come and take what's yours."

I tempted him, but he resisted, throwing my white jumpsuit at me instead. "I don't know what dream you're living in, but it's time to wake up. There was an explosion."

"I know," I said, rolling over in the sheets. "We're dead. The Earth blew us up – one space station for three Surtu ships."

Jidden froze. "What are you talking about?"

"My sister warriors and I – we are the fallen. Instead of saving us, the Earth decided to blow us up, killing the Surtu with us. Well, some of you. So now we are dead." I giggled as if it were a joke. I think I was becoming hysterical.

"Terra, wake up. We're not dead. We're very much alive." He began to pace, his temper rising. "Did Earth think they could destroy us so easily? We prepared for this. Our scanners must have picked up whatever the hell Earth launched our way. That explosion must be our weapons stopping yours."

I blinked. The sunlight suddenly felt harsh. It lost its warmth as I crashed down from my fear-induced high. We were alive. "I thought..."

"I know what you thought," he said. There was nothing comforting about the way he spoke. His anger blazed. "You knew about this?"

"Yes," I admitted, feeling sick.

Following Jidden's lead, I dressed, the skintight jumpsuit suffocating me. I was glad to be alive, but I wasn't prepared to face it. Hours earlier, I had told Jidden to claim me, thinking we were about to die. Now what?

"Don't you realize what this means?" he yelled, interrupting all thoughts I had of what happened earlier. "Captain Fore won't let this go unanswered. The war has begun."

The war. If I wasn't wide awake before, I was now, my daze completely gone, like a fog lifting from a naive, trusting sea.

"Why are you so upset?" I demanded, matching his anger as my heart shattered. I realized how many people would die in the war – a war I failed to prevent. "That's what you came here for, isn't it? You started this. You should be elated."

I went to the door to leave, but Jidden stopped me. Standing close to him, I could see anger wasn't all he was feeling. I had hurt him as well. "You were willing to let everyone onboard die?"

Yes, I was. Or I had been. Not only had I been willing to sacrifice myself unnecessarily, but I was going to let Jidden die as well. And worse, I was ready to sacrifice the women of the Fortuna, women I was supposed to protect, even if my title as Commander was false.

After Gallia told me what Earth was planning to do, I should have warned Jidden so that we could evacuate the space station. But once again, I'd failed. My allegiances shifted, resting solely with my sisters. We were warriors, not pawns. We would die to protect our families at home, but that didn't mean we had to do so on the whims of our so-called leaders on Earth.

We were worth more than three Surtu ships.

I didn't tell Jidden this. I refused to tell him any of it. We were at war. Our positions on the opposite ends of the chessboard felt greater than ever.

My lover was my enemy.

"I was protecting Earth," I defended bitterly.

He softened, feeling me pull away. "You shouldn't have," he said, brushing a piece of my messy brown hair away from my face. "Earth does not hold value. It does not have you. You can't let yourself die, Terra. I won't allow it."

My defiance weakened. "We are at war, and I am Commander of this space station. You may not be able to control what happens to me."

As the reality of our situation sank in, Jidden took me into his arms and held me tight. "I promised to protect you," he said. "That promise remains."

To seal his words, he kissed me, and I kissed him back, feeling renewed. I thought my life was over. Perhaps it soon would be, but for now, a new power ran through my veins. The source of that power was deep within me, pulled forward by Jidden's touch. Soon, our clothes were on the floor once more.

"That didn't take long," I remarked as Jidden guided me towards my desk in the corner of the room where the light was brightest. He pulled out the desk chair and sat on it, his cock fully erect, ready to pleasure me.

"Make yourself come. Let me watch," he implored, refusing to let go of my hand.

With a sly smile, I indulged him, using my free hand to rub a finger against myself tenderly, remembering how he'd grabbed my thighs and lowered his head between them. His tongue had felt so good licking my clit, drinking me in like a cowboy thirsty for water.

Reliving the sensation, I moaned out loud and rubbed myself harder, growing wet with anticipation. His hand tightened around mine, sending a shiver down my spine. I wanted to feel his cock slide into my wetness. Aching for more than just my touch, I straddled him on the chair and threw both my arms around his shoulders. I teased him, cruelly circling myself over the tip of his cock, enjoying the way it massaged my inner flesh.

He had no objections. He teased me back, sucking on my breast, taking it completely into his mouth as my nipple hardened with joy, matching the pulse inside me. My entire body was on edge, burning with an electricity that reminded me how alive I was.

Slowly, I slid myself fully onto his cock, claiming him and becoming whole. As I grated my hips, feeling his shaft moving within me, we kissed, losing ourselves in our ecstasy. His hand found my breast, taking over where his mouth had been. Very lightly, he caressed my nipple, igniting my body further.

I bobbed harder on his cock, feeling it rise deep within me, filling every inch of me. Taking his hand from my breast, I stuck his finger in my mouth, sucking on it the way I wanted to suck on his cock. He moaned as he grew further within me, ready for release.

"Let me watch you come," he gasped. "I want to see your face."

Hearing him, I sucked harder on his finger and clenched myself around his manhood, feeling his full firmness within me. He pushed himself further, and I came, crying my pleasure out loud. He came as well, his finger in my mouth as he shook and released himself. He held me close with his other arm, so our bodies were pressed together, joined physically as well as emotionally.

Out of breath and soaked in sweat, he kissed my breast. He bruised it while we were fucking. "You are the beauty where there is war," he murmured. "And you are mine. I have claimed you."

I rested my head against him, almost too tired to speak, but a thought invaded my happiness, one I couldn't push aside. "We are not light bonded," I said, remembering what his Fleet Captain had ordered.
No soldiers are to mate with the women unless they are light bonded.

"No," Jidden acknowledged, full of remorse. "We are not."

"What does that mean for you if your Captain finds out?"

He didn't answer.

"Jidden, tell me," I insisted, looking him straight in the eyes, searching for an answer. The flecks of light around his pupils dimmed.

"Death," he finally replied. "This is wartime, and a war that could save the Surtu from extinction. The punishment for disobeying the Captain's orders is death."

* * *

N
o one knew
.

That was my first realization as I made my way through the embellished corridors of the Fortuna. No one knew how close we'd come to all of our demises. At least, not the women who gathered in the south lounge, impatient to fight back against the Surtu who occupied the station.

Warriors didn't adjust well to being under siege. The Surtu soldiers may not realize it, but the Fortuna had become a snake pit, and there was venom in the women's fangs.

I left the inner station and went to the temple in the gardens, ignoring the soldier who stood outside. For once, I was not going for appearances or to find someone. I did need a moment of quiet and inspiration. My head ached with doubts.

In the temple, the painting of the goddess Fortuna looked down on me from the blue ceiling, resembling the sky on Earth. I could feel her judgment.

I had failed.

My mission as the false Commander had been a simple one – collect as much information about the Surtu as I could. It was an intelligence mission and something that should be my specialty. But I had not realized that the Surtu knew about our plot to strike and that the envoy ship was as much a lie as the Fortuna advertising itself as a spiritual place. Nor did I have the courage to protect the women of the Fortuna when I knew of Earth's plan to blow up the space station.

And I was sleeping with the enemy. I was a traitor – not to Earth, but to my sisters around me.

Worse of all, I didn't care. I mean, I cared about betraying my sisters. But I didn't care that I shared a bed with Jidden. Nothing about our time together felt wrong. It felt like sunlight.

In Fortuna's hand above her, she held the crescent moon, the symbol of the space station. It was both divine and feminine. I wasn't supposed to honor the sun. I was supposed to honor the moon.

I jumped when I sensed another body near me.

"Here you are," Gallia proclaimed, joining me inside the temple. "I've been looking for you."

With her raven-black hair and stern green eyes, Gallia belonged here among the goddesses on the ceiling. She was one of them – strong and relentless, like a leader should be. Standing up to her was going to be difficult.

"We shouldn't have risked it," I said, looking up at Fortuna. "Earth was wrong to send the nuke, and we were wrong for not protecting the people who look up to us here. We should have told the Surtu to evacuate the station."

She didn't agree. I could see it in the way she carried herself. There was no remorse. "We live, so there's no point dwelling on the past. We have to figure out a way to get back to Earth and join the fight there. Out here, we're useless. Our training is going to waste. The last week has proven it. We have to return to Earth."

"I couldn't agree more," Bellona said, sauntering into the temple. Against the dusty rose stone, her red hair was more aflame than ever, as was the smolder in her amber eyes. Her features were but one of many reasons she'd earned the name the Red Assassin.

"How did you get pass the guard?" Gallia asked.

"He won't be a bother," Bellona purred. "He sleeps in the heather."

I doubted sleep was the accurate term, but it didn't bother me as much as the first soldier she'd killed. The first soldier I knew about, that is. Plenty of soldiers had died during the siege but exactly how many and by whose hand I didn't know.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"In the shadows." She replied as if it were something I should already know. "I hate how bare the temple is. It feels defenseless."

Before the Surtu invaded, when we disguised the Fortuna as a sanctuary for women of the cloth, we covered the large stone altar in the middle of the temple with a sword and daggers. They were weapons dressed up to look like artifacts. They had been Bellona's toys. We all had weapons cached in secret places.

Now the stone altar lay empty, like the rest of the walls and tables throughout the space station.

"Can you at least tell me what the key is for?" I pressed.

Bellona looked over at Gallia. "You gave her a key?" She wasn't upset. She was curious.

"She's earned the right to know," Gallia answered.

"I agree," Bellona said. "She should have been given one a long time ago, before any of this. The women look to me for my wisdom, but they look to her for support and compassion. They always have."

I appreciated the sentiment, but I still needed answers. "What is the key for?"

"Tunnels," Bellona revealed, the secret burning in her amber eyes. "The Fortuna is full of underground tunnels."

Gallia went to the entrance of the temple to stand guard while Bellona pushed the stone slab of the altar. The slab moved with ease, exposing a wooden door lying flat inside it. The door had a keyhole.