Desert World Savages: The Complete Series (14 page)

She was amazing.

He wasn't going to lose her again.

With a start, Tracy woke. The sun threw long shadows through the chute. Rev sat next to her, eating a food bar and drinking water. He smiled when he saw her awake.

"Imagine my surprise when I woke to find my mate with me," he said with a big grin.

"Imagine my surprise when I found out that the man who claims to be my mate is green. When were you going to tell me?"

"Does color really make a difference? Are you a racist?"

"It makes a difference. You weren't honest with me."

He nodded. "Of course, I admit. I haven't been honest with you on many points, but in my defense, we were in a difficult situation."

"Were?" said Tracy pointedly.

"We ARE in a difficult situation. At the least, we are alive."

Tracy snorted. "From what I can see, that could change at any moment."

He shrugged. Then he smiled at her. "You've done well."

"Me? Yesterday, I had to kill a giant crab, and then I see this man dropped from a space ship in the middle of the desert. I had to drag him through the desert to get here. Tell me, how did you get so well so fast?

"The medical nanobots plus my own enhancements. Thank you for that. How did you know to give that medication to me?"

"Helmet told me."

"Really? The counterfeiters have upgraded their equipment."

"Really! Really?" exploded Tracy. "Is that the kind of answer you give me? After everything that happened?"

"What kind of answer do you want?"

He spoke with deliberate calm which only annoyed her more.

"Everything! I want to know everything!"

Rev shifted and put his arm around her.

"You're upset."

"Damn straight."

"I don't blame you."

Tracy eyed Rev with suspicion. "You don't?"

He shook his head. "Tracy, you were abducted from your home, and you were brought light years from it. You had to make a high altitude jump and survived your first day all alone on an alien planet. Not only that, you found me and did all the right things so I could get well. You are amazing. There are second year cadets at the academy who couldn't do all that." He kissed the top of her head.

Tracy alternately warmed and was suspicious of what was said. She did have to admit though. It did feel comfortable with his arm around her.

"So what's going to happen now?"

Rev took a last sip from one of her precious water pouches.

"We have two choices. One, we contact the miner colony and see if we can get their cooperation in getting transportation off world."

"Why wouldn't we do that?"

"I don't trust them. My last encounter with them didn't go well."

"What happened?"

"We tried to kill each other."

"I could see how that would be a problem," Tracy said dryly.

Rev shook his head. "How do you do that?"

"What?"

"Make a joke about our circumstances."

"Better to laugh than cry."

Rev hugged her closer. "Is that a Terran attitude?"

"What? Oh, I guess so, for some of us. There are so many things to cry about on our world."

"There are?" he said softly. He breathed deeply, taking in her scent. Having her next to him made him feel things he didn't expect. He felt comfortable, strong, and centered. All his priorities were shifted. Before, he had only cared about his next mission and there was just one thing that mattered: the mission. Now he had Tracy, and he had bad news to tell her.

"There could be more of a problem than the miners TRYING to kill me. Jaal plans on attacking the miner's camp and killing everyone there."

"What!" she said sitting up straight, breaking his cozy grasp. "When was he going to do this?"

Rev took a deep breath.

"I don't know," he said.

"WHERE IS CAROL? You left her with the miners, right? Was she alive when you left her?"

Rev was taken aback, and looked her in the eyes. She was fierce. His mate was absolutely fierce. Rev found with some wonder that he liked that.

The politics of his family didn't suffer a weak person of any gender. She was worthy. The word popped into his head again like it did on the ship. Yes, she was, and Tracy deserved the truth.

"She might not survive attack or no attack. She wasn't doing well."

"What does that mean exactly?"

"Sometimes the conversion process just breaks down. The woman's body rejects the new DNA."

"What are you trying to tell me?" said Tracy. "Spit it out!"

"How fast an individual dies varies depending on the species."

"Carol's not going to die." She stood suddenly and started pacing around the small space they shared. She turned suddenly and stared at Rev.

"You told me that your people can reverse the process."

"We've had some small successes. They're work on new procedures all the time."

"Then we have to get your people here and rescue Carol. You told me you have a device to call them. Do it!"

"Tracy, you don't understand. If I call them…"

"Just what is the problem here?" she demanded.

"You are from a non-aligned world. They'll separate us. We won't be allowed..."

"Is that what you are concerned with? Listen, buddy, it doesn't make a difference what happens to 'us', whatever 'us' means. Carol is my best friend since kindergarten. She's more like a sister than a friend. She's my family, and if you don't do everything you possibly can do to help her, I'll...I'll never speak to you again."

She turned her back to him.

Rev lowered his head. Her words tore at him. As much as he wanted to protest, he knew that she was absolutely right. It was his job to protect women from the non-aligned worlds, and so far, he was doing a piss poor job of it. His mate knew it.

"As you wish, Tracy," he said sadly. Of course, it was the right thing to do. He pressed down on a hard spot in his upper thigh, activating his emergency beacon. The signal would travel light years to his command center.

All they needed to do was wait.

Tracy felt childish making that threat against Rev. In fact, she felt like an idiot. Why would threatening to not speak to him would move a fucking alien to do what she wanted?

After he spoke, she turned in shock, surprised he would acquiesce so quickly.

"As I wish?" she repeated.

"Yes, Tracy. You've reminded me of my duty. I've activated the beacon."

"How long will it take for them to get here?"

"Honestly, I don't know. The enforcement wing works on limited resources. We are stretched very thin."

He did not mention that a runaway tracker would be a low priority on their list.

"So what do we do in the meantime?"

"Protocol says to wait."

Tracy sat down next to him with a thud. "I can't sit here and do nothing."

"We'll have to, for a few hours at least."

Tracy looked out beyond the canopy that was their shelter. "The sun's going down."

"I'm not ready to travel yet."

"Are you in pain?" she asked.

"In some places. The injuries are healing fast though."

Tracy lowered her head. Here she was going on about Carol, but she had ignored the fact that Rev was injured, and he was right next to her. Her anger was misplaced. She shouldn't be angry at Rev for doing what he could. If it wasn't for him, Tracy would have suffered the same fate as Carol. It sucked. It all sucked, but he wasn't the cause of it.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think..."

Rev stared at Tracy, amazed once more. She was apologizing to him? "You don't need to apologize to me. I shouldn't have rushed into a situation I wasn't prepared for, and I was overwhelmed by what I found myself in. I have been taught better, but I was being stubborn. I thought I knew better than my superiors. I do have much to answer for."

"Where angels fear to tread," said Tracy said softly.

"What do you mean?"

"A famous poet on my planet once wrote, 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.'"

"Fool? You think me unintelligent?" Rev said sadly.

"No! A fool is a special symbol. It can mean unintelligent, but the fool acts on instinct, in the moment, innocent of consequence. There are some people who think the fool is an apt description for humans, explaining how we've gotten as far as we have. We believed we could do things when all odds were against us."

"Sadly, I learned that the odds were against me."

"At least you tried. That's the important thing. On my world, the biggest sin is not failing. It's failing to try. I'm sure whatever reason you had to ignore your training and your superiors, it was a good one."

"I was looking for my brother. He's also a tracker. The last message I got from him led me to Jaal's ship. I thought he might be on it, but as it turns out, I think Jaal and his crew killed him."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Tracy said.

"I was stupid. Jaal and his crew suspected me right off. Cax tried to strand me on Earth and frame me for the murder of a local woman, but I beat him in a fight. I took his identity and left him for the local authorities."

Rev looked into her eyes. "That is why my true appearance was concealed from you. I used a disguise to impersonate him. I needed to advance my mission. I hope you're not disappointed."

Tracy swallowed hard. "Do you think I'm shallow or that how you look matters? Listen, buddy, I like to look just like every other girl, but looks definitely are not the most important thing." Your muscles don't hurt though, she thought to herself.

"Is that another human attitude? I assure you, on other planets, looks ARE the most important thing. On Qualtax, the males grow feathers on the top of their heads, quite tall ones too. They look ridiculous to many other races, but it's the ones with the tallest head feathers that find mates."

"Feathers, seriously?" Tracy laughed. "Well, human women like big things too, but we aren't looking at the top of men's heads to find it."

"Where do you look?" he asked in all seriousness.

Involuntarily, Tracy glanced down at Rev's crotch and, catching herself, lifted her head quickly. It was too late. He had caught the movement of her head.

"That is what you look for in a mate? How big his sexual organ is?"

Tracy's face flushed. "Well, not exclusively, let's just say a good fit there is desirable. What is important to your people?"

"Scent."

"How a person smells?"

"Yes, we say 'one whiff contains a thousand words.'"

"Well, there you have it. Humans have a notoriously poor sense of smell compared to other animals on our planet."

Rev gave her a tense smile.

"We do have a similar saying though. We say one picture is worth a thousand words."

"See, we aren't so different," he said.

"You want to believe that," she said. "Yet you tell me that as soon as your people come, we'll be separated."

"Not for long," he said. "I'll find you."

"You said that the last time. Who did the finding?"

"Maybe it was more like we found each other."

The light in their shelter faded. Rev pulled Tracy tighter to him.

"You know," he said. "We don't look different in the dark. You smell very delicious."

The breast where Rev bit her and left a mating mark started to tingle.

"I hope that means you don't want to eat me for dinner? I've been in this suit for two days now, I'm probably more than a little ripe."

Rev breathed in deeply. "Wonderful," he said. "Delectable, intoxicating." He leaned over and kissed her. "Mmmmm," he said.

Tracy swallowed hard. "I thought you said you needed to heal some more."

"I could go for some light activity."

"What does my scent tell you about me?"

Rev licked the back of her ear, and she melted.

"Ummm," Rev said and Tracy trembled as his hum rumbled through her. "That you are sweet, tasty, and a feast for the senses." He kissed her, hot and passionate. It was as if he couldn't get enough. Rev's tongue slipped forward, taking advantage of when Tracy parted her lips. Their tongues met. His slid forward, filling her mouth.

She pulled him to her, needing this. She wanted to feel him against her.

"How do I get this suit off?" she said.

His hands slid around the suit, undoing latches, and with a few shrugs of her shoulders, the suit lay on the ground. He got up, and in the dark, she felt him tugging off her boots. She felt them slide off and felt the planet's sand beneath her toes.

A hot breeze whipped in from the outside, blasting her skin. It dried off her sweat. Rev took her nipple in his mouth and sucking on it hard. Pleasure shot through her, every nerve responding and calling for more.

"Rev," she whimpered.

He kissed and licked down the length of her ribs and stomach. When he got to her mound, he did the same. His tongue searched every fold he could find. Her hands reached for his hair and pulled him closer into her.

She rode his face.

She made little noises. As good as it felt, it was too much sensation. He was assaulting her at different places in her intimate geography. Fire built as he tasted, licked, and sucked, but he didn't stay in any one place long enough to release it.

It was wonderful and awful at the same time.

"I need you," she said. "Now, please, please, please, oh god."

She descended into incoherent noises as Rev pushed his tongue inside of her, but just as she got close to coming, about to release the scream that built inside her, he pulled away.

What are you doing?" she moaned. She could not see his face in the dark. She couldn't see his expression. Rev pulled her hands forward, putting his cock in her hands.

She touched him, palming the head in one hand and gripping the length with another. On the shaft, she felt something strange.

"What is that?" she said, an edge of fear in her voice. Her hands worked ran across his length and felt horizontal bumps up the length. "I feel ridges. They weren't there before."

"You are right," he said. His breath was ragged. "You did that to me. When a male is mated, he develops these. It is said to ensure the pleasure of his mate."