The mountains mate, p.3
The Mountain's Mate, page 3
The impran gave a slow blink with her huge, limpid eyes before inclining her head in a nod and resting it back against the bars. If Maja didn’t know better, she’d think the impran was politely indicating her gratitude and declining—the water or her own survival, Maja couldn’t tell. She was definitely reading too much into it, the same way she liked to think that Carra was mothering her when she preened her hair even though it was probably only an instinct triggered by its texture and color.
Just in case, she whispered, “Do you—understand me?”
The impran nodded again.
“Do you—speak?” This time, the impran wagged her head back and forth, clearly saying no.
Realization raked over Maja, clawing through her skin. The impran wasn’t just intelligent. She was sentient. A sentient being was restrained and caged without water or food!
Maja started to explain about Patrek and the tracker and offer a flood of reassurances that help was on its way, but then she stopped. She couldn’t guarantee what would happen to the impran. Though she had an unreasonable amount of faith in Patrek, it was based on nothing but an instinct, too, as fallible as Carra’s mothering impulse. She had no real idea of his plans nor the timeline for those plans. And the impran didn’t have time. This couldn’t wait.
She took off the creature’s too-tight collar and unbuckled the harness that restrained her limbs. Shakily, the impran stepped out of the cage, stretching her wings out to their fullest extent with a whimper that indicated their soreness.
“Drink,” Maja insisted. “Then we’re getting you out of here.”
The impran nodded, dipping her nose in the clean water while Maja went out into the other room and coaxed another yellow nugget from the treat dispenser. She returned and offered it to the poor thing. The impran gulped it down and croaked something in a chirpy language Maja couldn’t understand. Thanks, perhaps.
“It’s nothing. I’m sorry this happened to you,” she said. Then she went to the window and unlatched it, easily lifting the starved impran to perch on the sill. The creature gave Maja one more nod and launched silently into the dark.
Maja had never felt happier in her life. Not even the alarm that began to blare could quench her burning joy that the impran was free.
Chapter 4
PATREKILGAR
When the alarm sounded, it was almost a relief. Since his shift began, Patrek had been arguing through his com with Vilbo, the Nightborn assigned to watch the security cams that night. This was partly to distract him from any view of Maja as she entered the collection house, but it was mostly because the saltlicker wanted to harvest an animal tonight instead of tomorrow, the day Josefat had scheduled.
Djumjum were expensive creatures to keep because they needed space and a lot of feed to thrive. But as expense was no object for Josefat, he preferred to maintain his own little herd to supply his table, lavishing the animals with every luxury.
That didn’t spare them the inevitable execution, though. There was a weekly harvest day. The Nightborn guard only wanted to do it early so he could take the offal home to feed his bloodwed human rather than leaving it for the guard assigned to the next shift.
“I have kids with her!” Vilbo said through the com, like Salaan needed more human-hybrid brats crawling on it. Patrek tried to tamp down his bitterness. What was done was done. No more Skarr would be born. The only thing he could do now was make sure no other species suffered the same fate.
Normally, Patrek wouldn’t get involved in something like the harvest schedule. He wasn’t eager to draw attention to himself, given that he had his own ulterior motives for his employment. But he couldn’t risk Vilbo randomly choosing Maja as this week’s harvest animal, so he’d been threatening to tell Josefat of the unsanctioned change to the schedule when the alarm pierced his skull.
Patrek’s momentary gladness at the distraction was immediately overwhelmed by panic. Had she been caught? “What’s going on?” he asked urgently through the com.
He could hear Vilbo muttering to himself as he looked through the security system for what had triggered the alert. “Window open in the collection house,” he finally said. “Probably nothing, but I’m initiating a lockdown until we can sort out what happened.”
The alarm switched to a different blare, one that called more guards to do a sweep of the estate, and Patrek tensed. Maja would be discovered. And Josefat was unlikely to call in the Authority to deal with her, given that he was trafficking in protected species. No, he’d question her himself or call in a Council crony. Patrek had seen his methods—there was no way the soft little female could withstand them.
“I’ll go check the animals,” he said. He shut off his com so Vilbo couldn’t protest and ran for the djumjum enclosure. He had to get Maja out.
All the security lamps were on, bathing the paddock in their harsh glare. Careful not to lean on the fence with his bulk, he scanned the area and whistled. A few sleepy animals poked their noses out of the huts to see what was going on, but none stepped toward him. By the twins, he’d made the human’s disguise too convincing; he couldn’t tell if any of them were her from this distance.
He was running out of time. If she was still inside the collection house, the lockdown sequence would soon trap her there. He strode over the fence, barely pretending to inspect its perimeter as he barreled toward the large stone building. He could hear the mechanism engage just as a djumjum snout appeared in its opening.
Her.
He had barely enough time to lunge as the door slammed down, but he wedged his fingers underneath it to stop it sliding home.
“Quickly,” he barked, straddling the ramp and stepping closer to the building to block the view of the cameras, as her scent, sweet and unmistakable even through the full-body suit, reached him.
“I’m stuck,” she panted, her voice slightly muffled by her mask. Her heartbeat leaped, frenzied, in his ears. He could feel her writhing between his knuckles as she struggled to squeeze through the narrow opening.
He heaved upward, hoping to buy her an inch or two more, but the mechanism had locked. Too strong, even for a Skarr. Unless he wanted to break down the stones of the wall itself, there was no more space to be had.
“Try, little one.”
“I am trying. It’s not my fault djumjums have fat asses.” She grunted and hissed and grabbed his wrists, trying to pull herself free. She abruptly released him, along with a jumble of words. “Go. Before they catch you. I won’t say anything, I swear. Just do me a favor, if you can. Find my apartment. Salt District, building G12. Basement. Let Carra out so she has a chance.”
He heard pain lance through her voice. He didn’t know who Carra was to her—a mate? No, a mate wouldn’t be locked away. A child maybe. He ground his teeth and tried again, straining with all his strength against the door. No use.
“Slide out of the suit,” he ordered, no longer invested in maintaining the subterfuge. If she was caught, the secret was out, anyway. He heard the hidden fastening of the costume unclasp as she obeyed him, the glue tear away as she peeled it away from her head and down her body. He glimpsed a stripe of her bare back in the gap between his forearms and shuttered his imagination against the image of her shoulders and chest exposed to the night air.
“Still stuck,” she panted. “Too tight. Go.” She pushed against him—against his cock, making his blood surge and heat—urging him to leave her. But he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
If he let the door go, she wouldn’t just be caught, he realized. She’d be crushed. As the raised voices of approaching humans reached his ears, he grasped for the only solution at hand. Literally.
“Unbuckle my belt.”
“What?!”
“I would do it myself, but my hands are occupied,” he said wryly. “Trust me. It’s the only way. Do as I say, and I’ll get you out.”
He felt her fumble with the buckle and then pull it free, her hands hesitating on his waistband.
“Take it out and stroke it,” he directed, turning his face up to the night and squeezing his eyes shut. He didn’t dare look down and see her touching him. This wasn’t about that.
“You want that now?” Her voice was thick with shock.
“No. Yes—it produces oils.” His face plates ground together as he grimaced with embarrassment. “They’ll ease your way out of the suit. By the twins, female, hurry.”
She was silent, and then her hands dipped into his trousers, pulling him free, and he felt the glide of her tiny palms over his many olje, the oil-producing glands villainized as the spikes that ruined the Skarr females. Ironic that their purpose was the opposite—to soothe and comfort.
It felt so good he nearly swallowed his tongue. “That’s enough,” he choked out.
She knew what to do with it. He felt her twist and shift as she applied his oils to her body where it was trapped in the djumjum disguise. He braced harder against the door and was gratified when he felt the sudden change in pressure that meant she’d slithered free.
“The suit,” he gasped, muscles straining. When he saw it flick past in his peripheral vision, he let the door go. It crashed shut with a terrible noise, and the shouts of the guard team grew louder. He had to hide her now. They wouldn’t make it to the huts.
He pulled the waist of his trousers as wide as he could. Then he plucked her up from the ramp, doing everything in his power not to register the sight of her nakedness, and tucked her into them. “Hold on,” he directed her, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one had seen them.
She balked. He knew she would, so he supplied the answer already on the tip of his tongue. “No one will notice a little extra bulk in a Skarr’s trousers, now, will they?”
He felt her arms wrap around his upright shaft just beneath the head, and one leg hooked over the base. With her ankles locked together, she gripped him with her thighs, her weight pulling him to one side. It was an excruciatingly pleasant sensation. He couldn’t adjust her or dwell on it, though. There was no time.
Swiftly, he pulled the pants up over her head and belted around her body to hold her in place against his belly. He pulled his uniform tunic down to conceal her just as the gusts of wind from Nightborn wings hit his back.
“Problem?” Vilbo’s voice rang behind him.
Patrek stooped, painfully aware of his cock as Maja’s arms squeezed around it, to pick up the flaccid djumjum suit in his arms. He bunched it to approximate a live animal before he turned around.
“Stupid creature got caught in the door,” he said, stroking the suit and keeping his voice lazy and casual as he looked down at the guard and prayed to Night Mother that Vilbo didn’t notice that his cock was breathing. “I pried it out, but it’s injured. Guess you’ll get your harvest tonight after all.”
Vilbo lit up, moving closer to get a look at his prize, but Patrek shrugged him off, cradling the fake djumjum above his head. “Do a headcount,” he directed. “I’ll take this one to the harvest house. Too heavy for your puny arms.”
As he’d hoped, that drew an amused snort from Vilbo, who flew off to count the remaining herd. Its population would be off by one, the one Patrek was supposedly carrying off to be harvested, but it’d take Vilbo long enough to figure it out that there was a hope of getting Maja off the property. Thank Corek that the guard didn’t seem too worried about what had set off the alarm.
What had set off the alarm?
Patrek headed for the gate, unsure if he could straddle the fence with Maja hanging on for dear life. The feeling of her clutched around him was unbearable. Every step, he jostled her bottom with his thigh, sending her in a brief slide up and down his shaft. Sometimes her chin would bump against the glans, sending a jolt of desire through him that tightened his balls to the point of pain.
She could probably feel his arousal. She must be horrified. But horrified was better than falling into Josefat’s hands, he reminded himself. Judging by her pulse that fluttered against his most sensitive skin, her stress level wasn’t elevated—no more than it already had been, anyway—so he hoped her dismay at hiding inside a Skarr’s trousers would not escalate to trauma.
He took the shortest route to the edge of the estate to spare her further humiliation. Wedging his shoulders between two large shrubs to ensure privacy, he pulled up his tunic and unbuckled his belt to let her out. “Go on, now. I can’t guarantee you more than ten minutes of safety, but that should get you far enough that they won’t find you.”
To his utter shock, she tightened her arms around his cock and shook her head, jutting out her chin as she stared up at him. “No!”
Amusement twisted his mouth as a laugh rumbled out. “What do you mean, no? You’re going to live in there now?” He reached down with two fingers, intending to gently pry her away from his body. “If you’re worried about payment, don’t be. I set it to transfer automatically.”
She batted his hand away. “I’m naked, you big saltlick! I can’t run through the city like this. I won’t make it two blocks before I’m sucked dry by Nightborn. Anyway, my keys are at your house. How am I supposed to get into my apartment?”
“Ah.” He rubbed his brow ridges. For all the time he’d planned this, pored over his notes to account for every variable, distilled and simplified the plan until it was idiot-proof, he hadn’t considered this scenario—a tiny naked female wrapped around his cock, her glare as sharp as a krulloct’s claw as she refused to climb out of his pants. “Of course. I’ll take you to collect your things.”
It was too late for any hope of hiding his involvement anyway. He’d walk to the warehouse, put her in a transport, destroy any evidence of the operation, and retreat to the mountains. At least the impran’s tracker was in place, so someone else could carry out the rest of the mission.
He paused, mid-buckling of his belt. “You were successful? You found the impran?”
“Yes?” The hesitation in her voice dug at him.
“But you didn’t place the tracker,” he finished for her, stones in his guts. She buried her face in his cock, sending those rocks in his belly tumbling and dragging a groan from him. “Night Mother, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“Sorry. I’m so sorry—I tried, but I couldn’t.”
He’d failed. Months of work, wasted. He didn’t blame Maja; he blamed himself for not following his instincts and turning her away when she knocked at his door. It would have delayed him, delayed the plan, but maybe on another night, it would have worked.
He swallowed the stone that rose in his throat, finished securing her in place, and with a glance over his shoulder to make sure none of Josefat’s guards had noticed him lurking in the landscaping, set off in the direction of the Warehouse District.
Chapter 5
MAJA
She owed Patrek an explanation, not the apology she’d given. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done, even though she could tell he was disappointed, just as she was disappointed to lose out on the payment. Gutted was more like it.
But he was walking now, moving swiftly through the streets, and she didn’t dare make a noise under the tent of his tunic, not at night when the Authority had jurisdiction of the city. So she just clung to him and shut her eyes, relaxing into the rhythm of his strides.
It must be so awkward for him, carrying her like this. Her breasts were pressed tight against him due to the tether of the belt around her back. She had to put her hands on him, squeeze her legs around his cock, just to keep from flailing and sliding around. Every step rubbed her core against the small, flexible nubs that covered his shaft, which made them gush the oil that she’d used to free herself from the djumjum door. She was bathed in it already, and they had miles to go.
Even more awkward, it felt good. Too good. So good she wanted to rub against him more, not less. Heat built between her legs with every swaying step. It wouldn’t take long for her to tip over the edge if things continued like this, and it wasn’t right, taking pleasure from him without his consent. He was trying to help her, not fuck her. He wouldn’t want her quaking on his cock like a suffocating sea star.
She dug her feet into the crevice between his belly plates and thighs, using the leverage to put whatever space she could between their bodies to spare them both the friction. Her movement made him freeze, and she felt his hand on her back through his clothing.
“Maja,” he rumbled. She felt the rise and fall of his breath as he clasped her tight, stilling her movements. Her traitorous body pulsed and throbbed, begging for more, and she felt him twitch, jostling her whole body.
He knew. He had to know. And he wanted her to stop. Though they were both still and silent, the moment was shocking in its raw intimacy, and a burning blush crept from her hairline down to her toes.
How mortifying. What would he think of her after this? She’d ruined his plans and then shamelessly taken pleasure in a dire circumstance that shouldn’t have been enjoyable at all. He was doing her a favor and she was just perving on it. Even under the canopy of fabric, she could hardly endure the embarrassment, let alone when she had to get out and look him in the eye.
It didn’t matter, really. She would never see him again. But she still felt sick about it, and the shame was almost enough to quench her arousal completely.
He stroked down her back once, the pressure of his hand reassuringly firm, and then started walking again, his movements jerkier now as though he were trying to avoid jostling her so much. The effect was the opposite. Every unpredictable jar zinged through her, ricocheted between nerve endings and set her afire in places she’d never been aware of. The backs of her knees tingled, and her lips hummed with desire.
But at least she had come to her senses and didn’t get carried away by it, just clenched her teeth and tried to push the feelings down.
She heard the noise of the rolling door purr upward and then crash down, saw a glow through the weave of the fabric that surrounded her. And then he pulled up his shirt, letting in a rush of cool air and light so bright that she had to blink while her eyes adjusted. He unbuckled his belt and set her gently on the floor without even looking at her.
