Irresistible: A SciFi Alien Mail Order Bride Romance (TerraMates Book 9) (22 page)

"Of course not," I answered. "You know it's not about us. It's about my family. They need me. I know nothing of their fate, but I can assume it is ill-met. The Surtu military will kill off all human men and claim the women as their own. Is my mother now a plaything because she is too old to bear children? Have my brothers been slaughtered, or are they fighting in the resistance? Is my father a casualty or a slave?"

"Not as many men have been killed off as you imagine," Jidden said. "The military has found your men make better slaves than they do corpses."

"That's disgusting."

"It was meant as a reassurance."

"Reassurance is for only those who can't do anything. I can help. I may be the only chance my family has. They're your family too. We are light bonded. My brothers are your brothers. My parents are your parents."

Jidden paused thoughtfully. "The Surtu do not think like this."

I was hopeful. "Does that mean you'll come with me?"

He sighed. "I can't. I have to stay for same reasons you feel you have to go. I didn't betray my fellow soldiers to kill them on the battlefield, no matter how corrupt they might be. I left my position in the military to find a better way for my people. You say you must honor your family by leaving. I must honor my people by staying. I am a fugitive on Earth and Surt. Here, I am free from my past, and this is where I will find my prestige."

Prestige seemed like a meaningless word compared to our promise to stay together, but I sensed it had a more profound meaning to the Surtu than myself. It was why Jidden liked to be in charge and have control of his destiny. He felt he could save his people in a way that honored the values of his ancestors – values the Surtu had held before desperation made them cruel. That's what prestige meant to him – reclaiming the integrity of his people while also preventing their extinction.

I understood Jidden's point of view now, but it didn't alter my selfish hope that he would change his mind and come with me. I didn't want to leave him. The knowledge our separation would soon be reality was devastating.

I lifted a strand of my dark auburn hair, reminding him how he had used his power to make the color change permanent. "You said you stood by me, no matter what. I choose to fight. So stand by me. Help me find our family. Please." A tear rolled down my cheek.

He wiped the tear away. "I do stand by you," he said carefully. "And I will continue to do so right here. Terra, no one is leaving. Don't forget it's my ship. I won't let you take it, for your sake as much as mine."

Before, when he had forbidden me to go, I was furious. Now, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. "You don't have a choice. We're flying your ship to Earth, regardless of whether or not you give us permission."

This time, his hurt showed through his anger. Leaving him was a betrayal, but stealing his ship was a knife in the back. I forced myself to look at him and own my betrayal so it would not haunt me when I left.

"You can't leave. If they take you captive again, or if Captain Fore finds you, I'm worried you won't survive. And neither will I. I can't lose you, not again."

"You won't lose me. I'll come back, just like I did before."

"I believe you'll try to, but you might not have the choice. Captain Fore hasn't forgiven you for allowing the women of the Fortuna to escape. He will continue to hunt you. He will continue to hunt all of you. If he catches you, he won't let you escape again. Your fate will be sealed, and so will mine, my light bonded."

"Then come with me. Don't fight with the resistance but help the network. The network is your people. They're looking for a better way, just like you are. If you're with me, then you will know I am safe. We'll do this together."

"Terra, I've made up my mind."

He spoke sternly, reminding me that not long ago, he had commanded the invasion of the Fortuna. He cared little for the lives of the women he ruined and viewed us as a means to an end. I wouldn't hold his past against him. He deserved forgiveness after everything he had sacrificed to save us, but I couldn't deny that he was capable of great indifference. He displayed it to me these last few weeks, pushing me away and allowing a distance to grow between us as he fought a battle with himself.

I also couldn't deny that while I fought for the cause of Earth, he still fought for the cause of the Surtu.

More tears spilled down my cheeks. "I'm going, with or without you," I declared, feeling like I was betraying our love. Like him, I left no room for compromise.

There was nothing left to say. We were both raw and hurting, full of the anguish of heartbreak. So we kissed, falling into the sand, needing a moment to forget.

Tenderly, Jidden pulled off my clothes, layer by layer until I was naked, my flesh exposed to the scorching heat. Appreciative of my body, he lifted a handful of sand and let it fall onto me, watching the grains cascade down to my stomach. It felt like a thousand soft kisses.

"That feels good," I cooed.

He reached for another handful, but instead of the sand, his hand fell empty beside me, and he fixed his eyes on my stomach. Jidden was a tall, brooding soldier, but beneath his exterior was a depth I had fallen into a long time ago.

"It's okay," I said, reaching for him. "It's going to be okay."

We kissed again, desperate to make ourselves whole and to fill the void of losing each other. As we kissed, I helped Jidden undress, first pulling off the top of his uniform to reveal a hard, well-trained body. When I removed his pants, his cock came into the light, large and erect.

We wanted to please each other and to express our sadness and loyalty together. When I reached down to taste his cock, he positioned himself underneath me. My knees were in the sand, and my feet were close to his ears. I licked the tip of his cock, enjoying the tenderness of his hard, pink flesh as he ran his tongue over my clit.

I had felt the power and arousal of his warm, moist tongue against my clit before. This position was especially intimate. He had access to all of me, and he took me in, sliding his tongue around my opening, up inside me, and back to my clit. He pleasured me with enthusiasm, wrapping his arms around the small of my back and pushing me downward so that his face was buried in me, allowing him to taste everything I had to offer.

The sensation of his tongue exploring my pink folds sent arrows of euphoria across my body. It propelled me forward so that I took his cock into my mouth and sucked hard. It filled my throat the way his tongue did my core. We were an endless circuit of raw, sexual energy that made us seep with love and brought us to the edge.

Before either of us came, Jidden lifted me up and spun me around so that I was underneath him.

"I want to look at you when I come," he murmured.

Once I was comfortable in the sand, he set his hand on my thigh and pried my legs apart before thrusting his cock inside me, filling me with the joy of his stiffness. He slid in and out of me, the intensity of his thrusts increasing as the seconds we had together counted down.

I grabbed my thighs and lifted my hips up to allow his large cock to sink further inside of me, to penetrate me deeply, moaning with every push of his flesh against mine. A glorious heat built up inside my body, possessing me until we both climaxed, crying our bliss out loud as we came together, our orgasms amplified by the light bond we shared. I felt his release as much as he felt mine. It blinded us with ecstasy.

"I love you," he said, burying his head in my hair. "Don't go."

I ran my hand across his head. "I'll come back," I promised quietly.

We lay there for as long as we could. When I couldn't keep them waiting any longer, I kissed him in the sand one last time. I silently slipped out from under his arms and walked away as rain started to fall.

Unable to bear the elements, I looked down at the ground. Two sets of footprints went into the cove, but only mine left it.

* * *

T
he women
of the Fortuna gathered around me on Jidden's ship. We were close to Earth. It felt like we were traveling with the light, but I'm not sure the description was accurate. As I understood it, the ship moved faster than light. I was taught to imagine our vessel became light, seared a hole in the universe and brought us where we wanted to be.

When I had transformed to light myself, the experience had been different. My body had changed physically. It was as spiritual as it was scientific. Now, on the ship, I remained in my physical form. At least, I thought so. Perhaps we were the light after all, all of us, and we didn't realize it. Maybe the light was relative. I had not asked Jidden these philosophical questions, and it would be some time before I had a chance to speak with him again.

The thought of Jidden made me feel week. I missed his presence. I was thankful that I had my sisters around me for support. They were excited. Most of them had not stepped foot on Earth's soil in years.

In our previous life, we were stuck on the space station. Only those who manned the cargo ships between the Fortuna and Earth remembered what it was like to be home.

"We're here!" one of the women shouted as Bellona settled the ship beside a riverbed in the woods.

When the loading doors at the back of the spacecraft opened, an army of three hundred dangerous women stepped into the light.

We were home.

We did not wear white jumpsuits that had been our typical uniform on the Fortuna. Godfrey had been right about one thing – if the Surtu discovered us, they would follow our trail back to the refuge on the new planet.

We didn't want to make it easy for them to catch us, so we all wore civilian clothes. They were clothes we could easily fight in and clothes that symbolized our strength. Many of us wore flexible leather leggings and armbands. Leather protected the skin and reminded us that we came from a long line of warriors. I wore a black sleeveless tunic over a pair of leather leggings. I changed on the ship as soon as we left, rejoining my sisters and reclaiming my role as their Commander.

Taking joy in the feel of the dirt beneath their feet and familiar air in their lungs, many of the women ran to the river and gleefully splashed around.

"Cannonball!" Juventas yelled, stripping off her clothes and jumping straight in.

Smiling as much as my heart would allow, I looked up at the soaring waterfall that rushed down the hillside into the river. We had landed in a familiar spot. Not long ago, Jidden and I had made love up in the rocky cliffs that surrounded the waterfall before boarding a rescue ship to the refuge.

"Where is the Surtu encampment?" Bellona asked. Her outfit was the most similar to our uniform on the Fortuna – a form-fitting red leather jumpsuit.

"Just west of here, in a grassy plain beyond the woods. It's small and only has a few soldiers. They are the misfits of the Surtu military, assigned to mechanical duty far from the front lines. There are more broken down pieces of equipment than soldiers."

"And your friend Kista is one of them?"

"She goes by Kist. No one knows she's a woman. She disguises it well."

Bellona huffed. "Why disguise you're a woman at all?"

"Surtu women are treated as if they are delicate flowers. Only a few remain, and the men restrict their activities. Joining the military is not permitted."

"But she did join. According to you, it was so she could help the women of Earth," Bellona recalled.

"We are part of her bloodline. Her grandmother is human. She was a colonist on Florentine when it was attacked sixty years ago by the Surtu."

"So her grandmother is a slave? Was she one of the first women forced into a light bond to children?"

"Yes. Her grandmother is a slave, and her grandfather is her captor, though I don't think Kista sees it that way. She admits her grandfather is a heathen, but she doesn't realize that as long as her grandmother remains on Surt, she is still a prisoner."

"I'm interested in meeting this girl," Bellona admitted, "but it'll be hard not to hate her if she looks anything like the rest of the Depraved."

"She does," I told her. "She's much smaller than the Surtu men, but she has the same unique eyes. Surtu traits are dominant when the bloodlines are mixed."

Bellona clenched her fists. "That's why we must find a way to end this."

"If we can, this is the best place to start. Kista is our link to the network and the resistance. But we must tread carefully. You and I will sneak into the camp. We will speak with Kista and take Juventas if she decides to put her clothes back on. Everyone else will stay here with the ship. If the Surtu saw us land, the ship will be their only means of escape. They should not scatter into the woods. They should return to the ship and leave."

"I'll let them know," Bellona said. She was not my second-in-command. As a lone assassin, she ruled herself. But her loyalty was with the women of the Fortuna, and her actions were guided by whatever was in their best interest.

I glanced back at the waterfall, marveling at the power of its current. A drop of water was insignificant, but an entire river was strong enough to carve out a mountainside.