Claimed by the Alien King (4 page)

Chapter Six: Lir

The time rolled along and Lir was content that the human had found something to occupy her time and attention. Mostly content—not completely—if he were honest with himself. In a short time, he'd grown accustomed to her presence and there were moments when he couldn't resist the pull to seek her out. He liked to blame the urge to be around her on the thrall, but he knew that wasn't the entire truth.

She…amused him. He found her thoughts and behaviour curious and entertaining. He was also impressed by her intelligence, learning bits and pieces of his language merely from the games she'd discovered on the ship and his occasional help.

In the moments when the thrall enveloped him, pushing hard against his willpower to resist, a part of him wondered what was so terrible about claiming the human. He wanted her. With or without the thrall, he wanted her beneath him, his hands and lips mapping ever single area of her flesh. That day in the hygiene station when her naked body had called to him, he had seen the need in her eyes too. The thought pleased him that she would not refuse him when he decided to take her.

If
he decided to take her. Which he should not. Could not. She was a human female and he a male species of a different planet. He was not certain if it was wise to couple with her. What if their coupling bore fruit? A child of mixed species could encounter significant complications—

His thoughts were interrupted by the alarm on the monitor alerting him of the upcoming jump site. Relief coursed through him as he began preparing the ship for the jump. Arriving at the site meant he was almost home. He'd be on solid ground again, free of the confines of the ship.

And free of the human too.

Lir tried not to think on the disappointment he felt at that thought. Instead, he paged for Maya to come to the bridge. When she showed up, there was a concerned look on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"You must sit. We are about to jump."

She took the seat to his right. "What? Is the ship going to launch itself higher?"

"We are about to pass through a wormhole," he explained, pointing at a bright spot of blue in the distance amidst the blackness of space. "This shortens our journey."

The concerned look on her face deepened as her hands searched behind her. "Well, I feel something like that requires a seatbelt but I can't find any."

"There is no need. The ship will restrict movement."

"Are you sure?"

Lir looked at her. She held her hands in her lap, her fingers twisted together. She stared at him with worry in her eyes, seeming so small and in need of protection. A powerful sense of possessiveness overcame Lir, pushing him to believe that only he could protect her from any harm that might come her way. The more Lir thought about it, the more he both marvelled and despised the varying emotions the human inspired in him.

"You will be fine," he said in reassuring tones.

Refocusing his concentration on the rapidly approaching wormhole, Lir pushed the ship faster. It shook as it drew closer to the gaping black center and Lir fought to keep it steady as the wormhole began pulling them forward. Up close, the wormhole looked huge and terrifying. Its outer edges an electric blue-purple that seemed to rotate around its black center.

"Oh my g—"

The human's words were cut off the instant they fell into the wormhole. In that short moment, there was no sound or sight. No sense of self. Just total nothingness until they were ejected from the other side of the wormhole. Lir's breathing was ragged as the ship spun wildly from the force of its ejection. His skin damp with sweat and nausea roiling in his stomach, he commanded the ship back onto a stable flight path.

Another successful jump
, he thought. Then he glanced over at where the human sat and found her unconscious.

He didn't know how long she'd be unconscious, so he carried her to the room she favoured and stayed with her. It was so long since his first experience jumping through spacetime that he'd forgotten the harsh effects on the body. He should have adequately prepared her for the jump. At least warn her of the effects.

She stirred awake, groaning. Her eyes blinked open and Lir sat on the edge of the bed beside her.

"Lir," she said softly, her fingers reaching to touch his forearm. He had intended to ask how she felt, but the words were lost by her touch. She groaned again. "I feel like someone launched me against a hard wall. Everything hurts and—" She lifted her hand away from him to cover her mouth. "God, I want to throw up."

"The soreness in your body will subside during rest," said Lir as he got to his feet. He retrieved a health pack and returned to Maya's side. Taking a square, brown patch no bigger than the palm of his hand from the pack, he showed it to Maya. "This will relieve your nausea. It is absorbed through the skin."

Maya nodded, watching him and Lir held her gaze as he continued. "It has to be placed on your stomach. I will have to partially undress you."

Her cheeks turned slightly pink but she nodded again. "That's fine."

Leaning closer, Lir reached for the jacket's zip. As he tugged the zip down, slowly revealing her body, Lir realized that the jacket was not closely fitted to her. He could have pushed his hand underneath and applied the patch without undressing her. But the thrall had taken over the moment she'd touched him, burning stronger within him than ever before. It demanded her flesh be unveiled to him, and Lir already knew the other urges that would manifest when he put his hand on her to apply the patch.

She was naked beneath the jacket and Lir knew he was fighting a losing battle to stop himself from touching her. He forced his attention away from the soft curves of her breasts that the opened jacket revealed to remove the adhesive covering of the patch. Placing the patch on her stomach, he rubbed it into her flesh. She gasped at his touch and Lir grew hard from the sensual sound of it.

Her skin had absorbed the patch but he did not move his hand. He watched his hand splayed on her stomach and the way her chest rose and fell with her breathing. Then his gaze rose to meet hers as his hands slid further up. He told himself to stop but he didn't. He wished she'd tell him to stop but she didn’t. His fingertips found the underside of her left breast. His palm came up, covering the full, supple flesh. The pads of his fingers roved across her hardened nipple and she released a soft whimper. Lir bent forward, wanting to capture the rest of her whimpers with his lips. She raised a hand to caress his cheek, pulling him closer.

"Lir." The sound of his name was soft on her lips but it was loud enough to clear his head, to show him the foolishness of his actions. What was he doing? The human was off-limits. He retracted his hand from her body and retreated from the bed as though it burnt him. The weight of the disappointment in her eyes was similar to the one he felt in his chest. He opened his mouth to apologize, to explain himself, but none of the words sounded right in his head.

So Lir did what he did best.

He left without saying another word.

Chapter Seven: Maya

To Maya's recollection, she'd only been in two semi-serious relationships since she began dating at seventeen. The first had lasted eight months; the second, a year. In both of those relationships, she'd waited a while before having sex. She'd assumed she needed to love a man first before giving her body to him, but her latest encounter with Lir had disproved that notion. Earlier that day—or was it yesterday? Time was no longer easy to predict—when his hand had touched her…she'd wanted to fuck him.

And he'd wanted that too. The lust and hunger in his gaze had enthralled her, and his hand fondling her breast had inspired a desire of similar intensity in her. So why did he pull away? Why didn't he finish what he started? These were questions she'd asked herself over and over, questions she longed to ask him but lacked the courage to. Even if she were brave enough to approach him, she'd have to find him first. Since their last encounter, she hadn't seen him since.

He was avoiding her. That was obvious. 'Why' was yet another question added to the many on the list. She tried not to feel slighted by his behaviour but she couldn't help it. Worse yet that she'd started to feel a little more for him than was wise. She barely knew him and clearly he had something against her. Was it because she was a human? He disliked her kind for what they'd done to his uncle. Perhaps that was why he wouldn't touch her? Perhaps it shamed him…
disturbed
him to be intimate with a being he despised?

Maya felt sick at the thought and she longed to be off the ship, far away from Lir. She comforted herself with the knowledge that soon she'd be back on Earth where everything stayed the same. No strange and new occurrences, no zipping around in space, no growing feelings for some alien guy who had a penchant for sending mixed messages.

She'd emulate Lir for the duration of the trip. Hide away somewhere until they arrived at Aqueloc and then demand a prompt return to her home planet. How she intended to manage the trip back home all alone with him again she didn't know.

More time passed. Maya still wasn't sure how many hours or days the time equated to. But as it went by, she'd set up a routine: sleep, eat, entertainment room, gym. The equipment in the gym looked intimidating at first, but before their last encounter, Lir had shown her how to utilize some of them. Alien exercise equipment was insane. She was sweating buckets after a mere few minutes of use. No wonder Lir was so toned.

There was a library in the entertainment room too, and Maya was delighted to discover it translated its alien text into English when she touched the holographic image. How did it know English was her first language? How did it even know she wasn't alien? The wonders of alien technology never ceased to amaze Maya. It made things seemed so dull and outdated on Earth.

She wondered what Aqueloc would be like. She'd never asked Lir. Was it like Earth with divisions of land and seas? Was it hospitable for humans to live there? How would she even be able to breathe its air when she finally got there? Lir had found her suffocating the first time they met. She'd felt like someone had affixed a pump to her lungs and was rapidly filling them with more oxygen than her body could handle at the time. She'd never realized it was possible to die from oxygen overdose until that moment.

Thankfully, Lir had adjusted it. He'd made various changes to accommodate her on the ship, actually. His actions didn't reflect his hate for her kind. If he'd really hated her, he wouldn't have given a shit whether or not she was comfortable…right?

It didn't matter. She had to stop thinking about Lir. She had to begin the process of purging him from her mind because soon he would no longer be in her life. Walking into the entertainment room, she moved around the circular tables. She'd fiddled with most of them to the point of boredom. She wanted to try something new and engaging.

She wandered deeper into the room, further than she'd ever been. All this time, she'd not noticed the room was divided into two. In one half were the circular tables where she'd spent most of her time and in the other half was one larger table. On the floor just in front of the table was a wide, charcoal-grey circle with a shiny, metallic material around its edge.

Curiosity bid her forward. The instant she stepped onto the grey circle, holographic images of beautiful mountains, jungles, and seas surrounded her. She looked around at all the images in amazement then lifted a hand to touch one featuring a scenic mountain area. Maya's awe increased tenfold when the ship's surroundings were suddenly replaced by sloping hills covered with grass and trees.

Seriously, is there anything this ship can't do?

Maya looked all around her, taking a deep breath and finding the air breathable. She could smell the fresh scent of nature and feel the cool breeze on her skin. She looked down at her fingers, touching her face and arms to find she was still made of flesh and blood. She bounced a little on the solid ground beneath her feet. It looked and felt so real. Had she teleported or something? No, this seemed like yet another cool feature of the entertainment. A virtual reality that was as real as reality itself.

She took a few tentative steps, her stride growing bolder the further she walked. She'd not realized how claustrophobic the windowless ship had felt until now. She stood at the top of one of the higher hills. Land progressed as far as the eye could see, but close by sat a lake. The area looked remarkably like a peaceful nature trail found on Earth. She might have even believed it was Earth if most of the grass and trees weren't blue-and-purple tinted instead of fully green.

She was on Aqueloc, at least a computer rendered version of it. As she walked down a natural path grooved into the grass toward the lake, she marvelled at the planet's beauty. Everything seemed so fresh and clean, unmarred by human's touch. At the lake's edge, she stared out at the wide expanse of water. The temptation to roll up her pants legs and dip her feet inside was too strong for her to ignore. Shoes off, pants legs rolled up, she sat on the edge of the lake and dipped her feet inside it. Sighing with contentment, she leaned back on her hands and stared out at the lake as she swished her legs lazily in the water.

"Earth lakes are often home to all manner of creatures that enjoy the taste of human flesh. Why do you not believe Aqueloc's lakes are the same?"

Maya turned her head sharply at the sound of Lir's voice. Why did he always sneak up on her like that? And did he just mention that the lake might be filled with creatures that would eat her? Maya quickly pulled her legs from the water, turning her body to frown up at him.

"This isn't the real thing, though," she countered. "It's like a virtual reality."

"That reflects reality as close as possible," he said. "There could have been harmful creatures in it but this lake is safe."

Maya's frown deepened. "It is? So why did you tell me it wasn't?"

"I did not. I cautioned you that it could be unsafe."

"Yeah, well, thanks," she said, looking away. She was beginning to remember the events of their last time together as well as the hurt and disappointment.
Forget him
, she thought, but that was impossible because he was standing right behind her.

Isn't he supposed to be avoiding me? Why is he here?

"Would you like me to leave?" he asked quietly.

Maya closed her eyes in slight embarrassment, remembering belatedly that he could hear her thoughts.

"I—no," she said. "You can stay."

She swung her legs back into the water, listening as he moved about behind her. Soon, he sat down beside her, his shoes gone and his pants legs rolled up too. The sight of his bare feet in the water amused Maya for some reason. She supposed it was because he seemed so serious all the time that something as simple as being shoeless deviated from his character.

Her gaze roved across the beauty surrounding them, the sight of it squeezing her heart free of the anger she felt because of Lir and replacing it with peace and contentment.

"You own all of this," she said, caught between envy and wonder.

"It belongs to my people too, but it is mine, yes."

"Your humble generosity leaves me breathless, Your Highness."

Lir gave her an amused look. "Severe is the punishment for mocking the king, human."

The smile playing on her lips dimmed. "I am not just 'human'. I am Maya. I am more than just a species, Lir. I am just as valuable as your kind. Someone you can talk to. Someone you can touch—" She broke off, her face growing hot as she began to stutter. "I-I mean, not like you have to touch me if you don't want to—"

"You are mistaken," he said, cutting her off. His fingers closed around her forearm and she gazed up at him, her heart pounding faster. "Touching you is all I've wanted to do since I first saw you, Maya." He pulled her closer and Maya went to him willingly. "I want to do more than touch you. I want to have you, claim you as mine."

Maya's lips parted on a soft gasp that was cut short when Lir bent his head to kiss her. It felt sudden yet it felt so right. Climbing onto his lap, she held his face and kissed him back. His hands trapped her against him, pressing her to his hard chest as he devoured her mouth with a desperation she returned in kind.

Her skin burned with the need to feel his hands all over her. As if he could sense this urgency, his hand found her jacket's zip and pulled it down. She broke their kiss to hastily remove the jacket, flinging it away from her mindlessly. Lir's gaze feasted on her naked chest and she revelled in the hungry, appreciative look on his face. Whatever doubts or self-consciousness she had quietly disappeared.

"You are exquisite," he said in gentle, reverent tones, his hand roving across her back to slide around her sides. She shivered at his touch, moaning when his questing hands found her full breasts. She thrust her chest towards him, wanting him to see all of her, feel all of her. His rough hands on her sensitive skin electrified her, fanning the fire of her arousal in the pit of her belly.

He recaptured her lips in a softer kiss, his tongue curling sensually with hers as his hands fondled her breasts. Every stroke of his tongue against hers and every moment his thumbs caressed her nipples sent a jolt of pleasure between her legs. She was so wet and ready for him, longing to feel him moving inside her. Spreading her legs a bit wider, she pressed her crotch to feel the hard bulge where she needed it most.

His lips moved to her neck. He pressed gentle kisses across her collarbone then past her chest. Tilting her back, his mouth covered the pink and hardened tips of her left breast and Maya moaned aloud. She sifted her fingers though his silken hair, pressing his face closer as his warm, wet mouth pulled pleasured moans from her lips. He devoted ardent attention to her breasts, sucking and licking one while his fingers played with the other.

Maya was awash with desire and disbelief. She couldn't believe this was happening to her. A moment ago she was angry with this man, now she couldn't imagine not having him holding her in his arms. She yearned for him more than anything she'd ever wanted in her life. Her body physically ached for him to have her, take her…
claim
her like he wanted.

With a low growl, he moved her off him to the soft, grassy ground. Lying on his side beside her, he licked her lips as his hand continued its exploration of her body. Her tummy quivered as his fingers ghosted along her midsection, going lower until they were at the waist of her pants.