Terran Times 01 - Arena Station (9 page)

Eirac, however, became enraged with the pain.

His claws bit deeply into her flesh. She screamed as they tore furrows down her arms.

Pain gave her extra strength. She wrenched herself away and to her feet. She picked up one of the chairs in the room and had it raised over her head to club him with it when the door hissed open.

Tiergar stood in the doorway for a few seconds.

Then, with a roar of rage, he lunged at Eirac. The younger male did not stand much of a chance against the fury of the outraged Ambassador. He was soon unconscious on the floor. Tiergar’s talons dripped blood, but it was not his own. He turned to her with the light of battle still in his eyes. It faded rapidly when he took in her pallor combined with the grip that her bleeding arms had on the chair.

“Kyra, it’s ok. You can put the chair down now.

He won’t come near you again.” His voice was quiet and soothing as he slowly approached her.

Just as slowly he removed the chair from her white-knuckled grip.

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Behind them Mela and Taldan were lifting a groggy Eirac to his feet.

Taldan looked over at Tiergar, “Take care of her. We’ll take him to medical, you take her to her quarters. Mela will bring the healing supplies.”

Kyra stood shocked and confused, blood dripping down her arms. She turned wide blue eyes to Tiergar and asked, “Why would he do that?” In a tiny whisper and folded onto the carpet in a faint.

Tiergar lifted her in his arms, swiftly carrying her to his quarters. He stripped her of the torn jumpsuit carefully. Then supported her dead weight in the shower, cleaning the gouges on her arms and drying her carefully while running his hand along the limbs and curves that he had been aching for. The lock on his door chimed. After laying Kyra in his bed he went to take the supplies from a bemused Mela.

“I thought you were to take her to her own quarters.” Mildly curious she stood in the doorway watching him charge up the portable regenerator and begin to apply it to Kyra’s wounds.

“My quarters are now hers for the remainder of the trip and until the gods separate us.” His muttered tone was a counterpoint to the careful application for the healing device.

“I did suspect as much. Does she know?”

“Not yet, but she will soon. She thinks that she 52

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has a choice.” He continued his ministrations without once looking up. “You can go now.”

“Just so you don’t try to kill him again, Eirac is in his first m’daken. We would never have left if we had known it was so close. He has been sedated and will remain in stasis until we reach Azon. Unless of course your arrangement with Kyra changes. Then we could let him out.”

“Fine. Go.” His voice was ragged with concern but his hands were steady as he finished with the left arm and began on the right.

He had closed two of the wounds and was starting on the third when she regained consciousness. His head snapped back to avoid the fist that came flying at him. However, he was unable to dodge the kick that sent him tumbling to the floor.

Blood began to ooze sullenly out of the wounds on her arm that still lay open and raw. She came up on her knees and then rolled off the far side of the bed putting distance between them. Her eyes were wild and blind with pain.

“Calm down Kyra. I need to patch up that arm.” Tiergar’s voice was calm and infinitely reasonable as he got to his feet but did not advance.

“What…?” Her voice was a croak strangled by the tension in her throat as she tried to remember how she came to be wounded.

“Have a seat and let me finish. I’ll explain as 53

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best I can.” He gestured to the bed and raised the tiny regenerator in explanation.

She finally noticed her nudity and flushed scarlet. Grabbing the coverlet off the bed, Kyra tucked it around her body then stood uncertainly shifting her weight.

“Please.” His voice was soothing as he waved his hand for her to be seated.

It was his lack of movement that calmed Kyra enough to take a seat perching on the end of the bed as she took in the room around her.

Furnishings that looked at once rich, ornate and yet basically masculine sparsely decorated the outer walls. A small facility chamber was open to her view off to her right. A desk and communications center was directly across from her field of view. The colors were dark and clean; blue, bronze and black.

She turned her eyes up to his face as he resumed his ministrations, “Ok, talk.”

“Eirac was in the same state that I was in when you and I first met, but being a decade younger, it hit him harder. I had the benefit of experience to detach from it slightly, but he was unaware of anything except the urge to mate.”

“Fine, that I understand. But why me and not Mela, she is of your species after all?” She raised one eyebrow while watching his features carefully for any sign of deception.

“Mela and Taldan are firmly bonded, not only 54

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would he not let her out of his sight with an unattached male in the vicinity but Eirac would have been able to smell Taldan on her and avoid the confrontation.”

“You mean you actually scent mark your females?” Her voice betrayed her astonishment.

He laughed. For the first time she heard his laughter and the rich sound issuing form the depths of his chest caused her to smile in return.

He withdrew the restorer and held it clear of her until his chuckles eased.

“It is a side effect of sharing a bed. In the same way the males are marked as unavailable to encroaching females. Equal opportunity scent marking. No Azon would pursue a relationship with a person who has been so obviously bonded.

It would not be honourable.” He resumed, once again, at closing the last of the wounds on her arm.

“So the reason that Eirac attacked me was…?”

She blushed at his explanation in remembrance of her own scent mingled with his for several days after their joining despite daily visits to the hygienic chamber.

“To his senses you were an available female. In his need to relieve the mating urge he came to you in the hope that you would be receptive. You were not.” He moved the device to the small cut in her forehead. “Which saved him a painful death.”

“What?” She could not keep the surprise out of 55

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her voice.

“If he had been successful in his attempt to mate with you, I would have had to kill him.” He was completely matter of fact about it and she was slightly chilled by his tone.

She tightened the coverlet over her breasts then looked around in a nonchalant way. “Why exactly would he have had to die?”

She drew her eyes up to his face and met his warm golden eyes.

“Because you are mine, I have chosen you and my government has made sure that you are available to live on Azon. I want you here in my chambers for the remainder of the flight.” The tones were calm and measured, but the heat in his eyes blazed.

Her face flamed, “Oh. I thought I was supposed to choose when I got to your planet.”

At a loss for what else to say her hands twisted the coverlet into knots as the muscles of her stomach clenched.

“Yes, oh.” He smiled and scooped her up, depositing her on the pillows.

His lips met hers in a searing kiss that left her breathless. His tongue thrust into play with hers, touching and tasting. When he pulled his head back she found that her hands had fisted in his hair and the coverlet had fallen to her waist.

With his eyes locked on hers his knuckles glided over the mound of one breast, then the 56

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other. She inhaled violently at the sharp bolt of pleasure that flowed from her nipples to pulse and pool between her thighs.

His lips were full and moist as they twisted into a smile at her reaction. The heady scent of her own growing arousal reached her nostrils. She squirmed in discomfort at the fact that she was so transparent.

A sudden knock on the door brought Tiergar out of his sensual plans. A masculine voice was muffled through the steel but was still understandable. “Tiergar, I need to speak with you.” Taldan’s tone was unmistakable.