Daahn Rising (23 page)

And him.
She snagged at his shirt with her hunting teeth, and his musk increased, making her head spin and her body wet.

“Get her into bed. I’ll administer —”

His arms tightened around her, and his voice went rough and hard in authority. “No. We need a shower.”

Miri heaved, trying desperately to control her body. She groaned, her throat bobbing against her attempts to swallow down her dinner a second time.

Daahn’s voice caressed her forehead. “If you have to, don’t stop.”

“Commander Daahn,” Geery protested.

“Med Call has a shower!” he shouted. “Where is it?”

There was a moment of tense silence. “This way.”

Daahn scooped her from the floor. His jogging forced Miri past her endurance, and she emptied her evening meal onto his clothing and hers. He didn’t slow, didn’t complain, didn’t express anger or disgust.

He stopped and settled Miri on a countertop. She gripped the surface with one hand, pushing the foul clothing off her shoulder with the other.

“What do you need, Daahn?” Geery asked.

“Time.”

“What?”

“Get out. This is a crossbred thing.”

Miri forced her eyes to focus, her mouth going dry at the sight of Daahn’s bare back. He tossed his vomit-stained shirt on the floor, then went to one knee and started working on his boots.

Geery tapped one soft shoe on the floor. “This is highly —”

“Out, Geery. Trust me. Water is healing for us.” He pulled off the first boot, switched which knee he rested on, and started on the other.

Miri dragged the gown off her body, wiping idly at the slick of soured meat and vegetables.

“I don’t like this, but I trust you.”

“How magnanimous of you,” he replied dryly.

“I want to see Miri when you’re done... better or worse.”

“Fine. Now go.” His second boot hit the floor. “We’ll need clean clothes,” he added. Daahn stood, working at his pants, heedless of the doctor’s presence.

“Going,” Geery conceded. The door closed behind her.

Miri forced her breathing to a steady stream, watching the last of his clothing slide away, baring taut buttocks and hairless legs. He was beautiful, graceful, sculpted. Next to him, Miri felt awkward and, as Master S’sie had accused, unappealing.

He turned to the shower, spinning the dial and testing the temperature against his wrist. She shifted, trying to see more of him, but he was turned just far enough from her to deny her the view.

Another wave of nausea assaulted her, and Miri wavered, nearly overbalancing off the countertop. Daahn turned abruptly, and her gaze locked on his semierect cock as it brushed against the smooth, hairless plane of his thigh.

****

Aleeks ambled toward her, watching her hand splay over her smooth mound and then slide away to settle on her thigh. Her breathing was quick and uneven, her musk flowing freely, and her
Zhigaaah
in overdrive. It was the quickening of her change, and there was only one way to ease it.

He dragged her to his body, chest to chest, walking them both into the hot spray. Miri tipped her head back, reveling in the cascade of water. She eased down his body to her feet, her heat brushing against him in invitation.

Her skin teased at his as she turned, bringing his primary cock up. If she laid a hand anywhere near his secondary, he’d bind her to him tonight.

No. She can’t control this. This is biological.

Aleeks stroked his hands down her chest and abdomen, washing away the remnants of her rioting stomach. Had she realized what was happening to her, Miri would have known to forgo food, but she was clearly innocent of the realities of the quickening.

She arched into his hands, in a frenzy, her
Zhigaaah
mixing into the steam. Pushing her hair over her shoulder, Aleeks nipped and sucked at her mating stripe, drinking pheromone and water from her, in bliss that was fast rising to a fever pitch. He traced the edges of the blue, from nearly the apex of her shoulders to halfway down her shoulder blades and from one side to the other, ten centimeters out from the midline of her back, in either direction.

Miri reached a hand up and back, fisting it in his hair. Her body stroked up and down his, a female Xxan in need of a cock, at her finest. And his primary was more than prepared to oblige her. Little hisses and mews escaped her lips, both an invitation and a warning that he might have to subdue her.

He ranged his hand down her abdomen to her mound, pressing her buttocks to his length. At her moan, Aleeks stroked at her clit. Her body undulated against his, and Aleeks thrust his fingers inside her.

“More,” she pleaded. “Daahn, pl —”

“Aleeks,” he corrected her. “Call my name, Miri.” By the stars, he wanted her to say it. It was a Dominant thing, he was certain.

What did S’sie order her to call him? Master?
He pushed that thought away, unclenching his jaw. That was a discussion for another time.

“Aleeks, I need,” she whispered.

He needed, too. Aleeks forced her down to her knees, sliding his hand free of her body. He bent Miri forward at the waist, and she raised her ass, baring her swollen slit to him.

Aleeks pushed inside her, reveling as she rose up against his length, taking more of him. For a long moment, they held that position, locked together, water streaming over their bodies, her musk coating his cock, making his length sting pleasantly.

Miri ground against him, and Aleeks started thrusting.

There was nothing soft and gentle about it. She was in her quickening, her first true mating frenzy, and Aleeks was a Dominant. Had there been another Dominant to witness it, he would have fought the rival down for her. Aleeks would have won.

Though Geery didn’t know it, her push to treat Miri and not let the quickening run its course had endangered her life. By the grace of his human side and his military training alone, the doctor still drew breath.

Their mating was fierce and fast, their sounds and musk rising, surrounding them in the cloud of steam.

Aleeks didn’t question that it would take more than once to sate her. It had taken his sister Zondra hours.
Hours!
He shivered in delight at the thought of it. No human woman could take his fervor that long.

Of course, Zondra had taken a human as her first. Evan, potent and talented as his sister proclaimed him to be, might not have been able to sate her as quickly as a crossbred male might have. In order for them to bind and produce young, the human doctors had to manufacture
Zhigaaal
of Evan’s musk. Zondra still argued that he didn’t need it, that he could stay erect without massive amounts of her
Zhigaaah
, and that his cum alone was nearly enough to bind them.

No. It will be hours.
And they were going to enjoy every moment of it.

As if in agreement, Miri slid off his length and turned to him, tracing one finger down the ridge plate at the left of his neck, bringing it up in Dominant show. She dipped her head, chasing water droplets down his chest with her lips, flicking her tongue over one flat nipple, bringing it up for her. Miri moved to the other, trailing her hands down his abdomen toward —

Aleeks gripped her wrists, stopping her. He wouldn’t bind her in this frenzy. At the same time, they both needed more.

He guided her to the shower wall. “Wrap your legs around my hips.”

Miri complied, using the wall to balance herself. Once her legs were out of the way, Aleeks forced her to the wall, pinning her arms above her head, thrusting into her again.

She screamed in pleasure, her voice echoing off the stark walls. Encouraged by her show, Aleeks pounded into her.

He was vaguely aware of the door opening, but it was a minor annoyance. Miri was more important.

“Commander Daahn!” Geery protested. “I cannot allow —”

He turned his head, glaring at her in the dim light, his ridge plates coming up fully. His move to order her away was cut short by Miri’s climax, her rippling grip on his primary setting off his own. Instead of an order, a groan escaped his lips.

“Commander!”

Miri nuzzled at his throat, oblivious to their audience. “Aleeks, please. I need.” She licked a taunting line up his extended ridge plate.

Aleeks beat back the urge to rip out the well-meaning doctor’s throat
. Diplomacy. I have to convince her to leave us, without harming her.

“I know you do,” he soothed Miri, searching all the while for the words to defuse the situation, without the waste of too much time. “Doctor Geery, you have my vow to explain this. But not now. I’m asking you to be patient long enough for me to care for her.” She would have to be patient, because he was incapable of it.

“And if she conceives?” the doctor challenged.

“She can’t. Not yet.” If she was quickening now, there was no way her womb had been ripened for it.

I hope. Please, let him not have gone that far.
Aleeks wasn’t certain if an insufficient amount of
Zhigaaal
to bind, given before quickening, was capable of forcing the change.

Miri nipped at his chest, drawing a thin stream of blood in desperation for more. The move was expected, and it fired his instinctual urge to dominate her. Aleeks thrust his hips up, and Miri’s head rocked back, a drop of his blood on her lower lip.

Geery’s words came from a retreating back. “If I don’t get a satisfactory explanation, Captain Seaver will be contacted.”

Fuck Seaver.
A completely irreverent thought gripped him.
No, fuck Miri.

****

Aleeks stared down at Miri’s sleeping form, his cock sensitized, wishing against likelihood that she’d wake needing more of him.

As it was, he’d tasted her body as he’d dressed her in a fresh sleeping gown, testing the end of her frenzy greedily, gorging himself on their mixed musk. She’d moved against him, but she’d remained largely oblivious to his attempts to rouse her from sleep, so he’d left her to her recovery.

Her pheromone coursed through his system, making an admittedly dangerous Dominant lethal. If another man challenged Aleeks for her now, there was a very real possibility that the upstart would find himself dead.

A Xxanian
seir
would typically remove the female from her first male at this point, with or without — usually without — the younger Dominant’s agreement. Separating them allowed their fire to cool and each to approach the subject of binding with a clear mind.

There was nothing rational about Aleeks’s state of mind. Beyond the fact that he was going to make certain Miri was sane enough to refuse him, there was no question he’d pursue her and bind her as his own, were she willing to be bound.

He licked his lips, savoring their mixed flavor, imagining what her
Zhigaaah
mixed with
Zhigaaal
would taste like, skating his fingertips along the length of his primary cock through the clean pair of pants he wore.

Near the end, his secondary had emerged. Had her frenzy gone on much longer, Aleeks would have had to resort to condoms to catch his
Zhigaaal
so as not to start the binding accidentally. He’d resorted to the devices when dealing with human women interested in the kink of sex with a man with two cocks. Sex that included both appendages was a bonus plan for Aleeks, condom or no condom.

“Are you ready to explain?” Geery inquired.

He nodded, not taking his eyes off Miri. “It was her quickening, the first —”

“I
know
what the quickening of a young Xxanian is, Commander. Miri is too old for a quickening. It comes at sixteen, eighteen at the latest, in both pure Xxan and crossbreeds. She’s twenty-five Xxanian years, twenty-one in human. By either scale, she should have done this years ago. Don’t try to bullshit me.”

“She was starved and constantly wasting her reserves to heal. A few famine seasons can push quickening back a full year. Miri has had nothing but famine in her life. It wasn’t the right environment to produce young. You heard her. Miri has only been blue for a month or less. They stunted her development. Believe me, she’s so potent, even I hadn’t realized she was prequickening, until the quickening took hold of her.”

Geery settled into the chair beside him, looking from Miri to Aleeks. “Why did the Xxan... ? Why the blunt trauma? It was targeted; it had to be.”

Aleeks sighed. “She’s potent, much more than any crossbreed I’ve ever met.” Not that there were many on Earth. “I imagine...”

Why was it so difficult to face his suspicions? S’sie was dead. He wasn’t a rival Dominant she might choose to mate with, to bind herself to.

Because I know she fears him. I know this might be why she does.

“Go on,” the doctor urged him.

“The Xxan would have been appalled by an attraction to Miri. Rather than admit she was an enticing female, they would have punished her severely for tempting them, for arousing their interest.”

“But she has no choice,” Geery protested, her hands fisting on the arms of her chair.

“She has no choice in the fact that her eyes tear when exposed to light, either. That didn’t save her from them.”

She paled, her eyes locking on Miri. “Did he... ? This S’sie... ?”

“I don’t know. If he did before she had reached the quickening, his disgrace would be all the deeper.”

“And the punishment to Miri all the more severe,” she guessed.

“Yes. As you said, it would have been agonizing. He wouldn’t have sent for a doctor. He’d want it to be agonizing.”

“And... he wouldn’t want proof of the crime revealed to them when the doctors might interpret it?” she ventured.

“No doubt.”

Chapter Six

Miri looked around the room in confusion. “It’s not a cell,” she noted, peeking up at Aleeks.

Commander Daahn!
He hadn’t repeated the offer to call him by his given name since she’d awakened in Med Call, aching but sated, her fever broken.