An Alien for Her Heart (A New Home #2)

22. Catherine

22

CATHERINE

T he oogas move much faster than I expected, their powerful legs eating up the distance with every stride. The wind whips through my hair as we race across the Hudoian landscape, the morning sun rising high over the horizon and warming my back as we go.

Beside me, Xarion has been peppering me with questions about Varek’s rut for the entire ride, his brow furrowed in contemplation. But I can barely focus on his words, my mind consumed with thoughts of Varek. Is he okay? Will I reach him in time? Will our love be enough to see us through this?

I’m jolted out of my thoughts by Xarion’s next question, his tone unusually hesitant. “Catherine, I must ask…has Varek ever been in contact with your lifeblood?”

I blink, mildly surprised by the unexpected query. “No. Why would…” But then my memory twinges. Memory of Varek soothing the wound on my forehead comes back clear as day. The sensation of his tongue on my skin. How he rumbled with pleasure and teased me about consuming me. It all comes back. Something hurts deep inside me. I want to see him like that again. I want to see him well.

“Yes, actually. He has. Why?”

Xarion’s ears twitch, his expression turning pensive. “I have a theory,” he says. But he doesn’t continue and I’m too distracted to push him to. Because the town is just ahead.

I lean forward, pushing the ooga to go faster as it barrels down the road. Beings already on their way to whatever task they have for the day, step out of our way as we hurry into the town square.

“Do you know where—” Xarion begins, but I’m already nudging the ooga toward Varek’s dwelling. The ooga responds to my urgent commands, veering down the narrow street that leads to Varek’s home. My heart pounds in my chest as we draw closer, a mixture of fear and desperate hope swirling in my gut.

Please let him be okay, I pray silently. Please let me not be too late.

We skid to a halt outside Varek’s dwelling, the oogas snorting and stomping their feet as I leap to the ground. I barely register Xarion’s startled shout behind me as I race towards the door, my entire being focused on one thing and one thing only.

Varek.

“Catherine Richmond,” Xarion calls, and I turn to find him watching me with a sort of resigned respect. “I can go no further.”

I nod, my throat tightening.

“May the gods be with you.”

I nod again, holding those words close as I push the door open and head into the building.

I remember my way. After all, I spent one of the best nights of my life within these walls. Heading to the end of the corridor, I stand before Varek’s door, my heart beating hard in my chest.

I take a deep breath, my hand hovering over the door. A part of me is terrified of what I might find on the other side, of what state Varek might be in. But a larger part, the part that loves him with every fiber of my being, knows that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Gathering my courage, I pound my fist, my knock echoing on the other side.

There is silence, and for a moment, I wonder if I’ve come to the wrong place. What if he ran off somewhere else?

The potential of that makes me unsettled and I knock again, calling his name this time. “Varek? Are you in there?”

That’s when I hear a sound behind the door. Directly behind it, as if he’s right up against the surface, listening to me.

I press my forehead to the strange material, my breaths coming hard from the intense journey or probably from the swell of emotions within me.

“It’s me…Catherine. Will you? Will you open the door for me?”

I can’t hear much, but I swear I hear a rustle on the other side. He’s in there. I’m sure of it. But he’s not opening the door.

“I’m not afraid, Varek. I…I want this. I want us. I want to try.”

Another rustle, but he still does not open. Is he really that afraid of hurting me? Eleanor has a Kari mate. She’s as happy as ever. The rut can’t be that bad. Varek must just be overly concerned that I’ll break or something. But I’m stronger than that.

I pound my fist on the door again. My voice rises a little higher than before. “Open up or I’ll find a way in.”

When there’s a sound behind me and another door down the corridor opens, my fist pauses midway in the air.

For a moment, I think I’m seeing double. But the Kari that steps out from about three doors down is not my Varek. He has similar green hair, similar yellow eyes, but his hair is shaved at the sides, and he is tall, but not as tall as Varek.

“Need some help, little female?” he purrs, his gaze heightening on mine the moment he seems to recognize me. “You are one of the new females who has found a mate with my kind.” Something rises in his gaze that makes me completely aware he is male and of the fact I’m wearing ripped clothing. “I am Tovan of the line Kamesh, and I would be happy to assist—”

A deep growl chills the air as the door before me opens. I only have a moment to gasp before I’m pulled inside Varek’s room and the door slides shut once more. He bolts the door and I only get a moment where his sweet scent almost overwhelms me before he’s gone. He disappears from beside me, his absolutely scorching touch leaving my arm. Only the brush of air and movement tells me he’s put himself on the other side of the room.

I’m left with my heart in my throat, my breaths coming hard as my back presses against the door and my eyes try desperately to adjust to the absolute darkness in the room.

The next thing that hits me is the heat. It’s like walking into a furnace, the air thick and heavy with a primal, masculine energy that makes my skin prickle and my blood sing.

I blink, eyelids fluttering as I try to make out Varek’s form in the pitch-black room. The only sound is my heavy breathing and the pounding of my heart in my ears.

“Varek?” I whisper, taking a slow step forward.

A low, pained groan echoes from far away, making me freeze in place.

“Stay back,” Varek rasps, his voice rough and strained. “Please, Catherine. You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

I shake my head, even though he probably can’t see me in the darkness. “I’m not afraid,” I inch further into the room. “I trust you, Varek. Completely.”

There’s a rustling sound, like he’s shifting restlessly, followed by a dull thud as if he slams his fist into the wall. “You don’t understand,” he grits out, and I can hear the agony in his tone. “I can barely control myself. And this is just the start. You’re so precious. Too precious.” More rustling. “Leave now.”

“No.” Cautiously, I keep moving forward, navigating by sound and memory until my shin bumps against what I think is the bed. I pause, not realizing I’d made it that far in his quarters. “I’m not going anywhere.” I try my best to parse the darkness as I sink down onto the mattress. “This…rut. It means your core-rhythm has sung, doesn’t it?”

There’s a scraping sound like his claws are digging into the flooring.

“That I’m your mate?” The words make my heart swell. I can hardly believe it. But my disbelief will have to be enjoyed another time. Not now. Not when this is a matter of life and death.

“You’re mine ,” he snarls, his voice sounding inhuman in a way that makes something flutter inside me.

“And you’re mine.”

A shuddering breath escapes him, and I feel the bed dip as he presses down on the far edge, keeping a careful distance between us.

“Leave, Catherine. Leave now.” It isn’t a normal whisper, his voice. It holds a threat beneath it that should make me run. Instead, I remain where I am, against all my instincts of self-preservation. “I could never forgive myself if I…” He trails off.

But if what Xarion said is true… “I won’t leave you here to die.”

There’s silence. Tense silence before Varek curses. “They told you.”

“Yes,” I whisper, inching closer ever so slowly, giving him time to pull away if he needs to. “And I still choose you.” I reach out through the darkness until my fingers brush against his arm. He flinches at the contact but doesn’t move away.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice is so distorted now, as if he’s fighting something primal and dangerous all at once. As if he’s fighting a beast within him.

“You won’t.” I trail my hand up to cup his jaw. Because I know about living with pain. About being hurt and broken in ways that feel like they’ll never heal. And I know this male, this wonderful, gentle, patient male, would never do the same to me, mentally or physically, despite his own fears.

I can feel the tension thrumming through him, the way he’s fighting to hold himself back. “I know you, Varek. I trust you.”

He leans into my touch for just a moment, a soft, wounded sound catching in his throat. I feel the exact moment his resolve crumbles, his body shuddering against mine as he lets out a ragged groan.

“Catherine,” he rasps, my name a desperate, reverent prayer on his lips.

“Shh, I know,” I whisper. Slowly, giving him time to adjust, I slide my hand from his jaw to the back of his neck, my fingers tangling in the sweat-dampened strands of his hair. “I’m here.”

A broken sound escapes him and then he’s moving, his large claws gripping my hips as he hauls me fully across the bed. I barely have time to gasp before he’s hovering over me, his powerful body caging me in, surrounding me with his heat and scent.

But he doesn’t touch me, not yet. I can feel the tension vibrating through him, the barely leashed control as he fights his baser instincts.

“Catherine,” he says again, his voice guttural, on the edge of human and completely beastlike. “If we do this…if I claim you…there’s no going back.” His claws flex against my hips, pricking my skin through the thin fabric of my dress. “You’ll be mine, utterly and completely. My mate. Forever.”

All I feel is a bone-deep rightness at his warning, a soul-deep certainty that this is exactly where I’m meant to be—beneath him, bound to him, in heart, body and spirit. Maybe he was right about fate and the paths we take. Here, right now, I believe I was always meant to be here at this exact place, this exact moment.

I reach up, framing his face in my hands as I stare into the glowing embers of his eyes. “I already am,” I tell him softly. “This is just making it official.”

He shudders violently, a low growl rumbling up from his chest. “I won’t be able to be gentle. The rut…it will demand I take you, hard and fierce and thorough. I’ll scratch you. I’ll bite you. I might…”

A thrill runs through me at his words, heat pooling low in my belly. “You won’t hurt me. Not in the way you’re thinking.” I know he won’t.

A tremor goes through him, like a beast underneath his scales is writhing for release. I half expect him to transform into a creature like those old films I used to watch.

“There’s one more thing.” His body does that rippling thing, as if his bones are about to crack, his flesh rippling and distorting. I lean closer, one hand stretching toward him. He jerks back. “There’s one more thing you should know.”

I pause. “What?” My voice is barely a whisper now. Barely there.

Through the shadows, I watch as Varek strips down his pants, and for the first time since we’ve been together, I get full sight of what he’s working with.

“Good God.” My eyes widen as it springs forward, bobbing in the air like a thick plank. There’s no way that thing has ever fit inside me. But even as I lean closer and more heat pools within me, I know that I’m not deterred.

Pink and purple scales, more pink than purple now, splatter across his base. The rest of the shaft is a dark purple that almost looks black as my eyes adjust to the dim light. He’s ridged, both on the upper and underside. I lean closer, unable to stop myself, my eyes widening at the small frills that decorate the upper shaft. They alternate between raised bumps that form a line straight to his slightly curved tip.

I move a little closer and Varek steps back. Looking up, he’s hidden in the shadows, the little light available highlighting this thing he’s showing me. He’s magnificent. I don’t know why this is so important to him. Frankly, if he’s scared I’ll be turned off by his alien dick, it’s a little late for that. But then I realize what he’s showing me. I see them then.

I see the scars.

“Varek—” My breath hitches as I reach for him. He steps back again, just out of reach. All over his shaft and his lower abdomen the scars crisscross, telling a story of cruelty. Of pain. “Who did this to you?”

I look up at him once more, blinking through my suddenly blurry vision. I can hardly see his face in the shadows.

“The Tasqals. Their tests. A story from my past,” he growls. “One I cannot let go. But with you…I can move on.”

His words strike something deep within me. They’re the same words he said to me. Just like that night at the festival and now as I gaze upon the scarred evidence of his pain, I realize we are more alike than I ever knew. Both of us bearing the marks of old wounds, both of us seeking healing and wholeness in the shelter of each other’s souls.

“Come to me.”

Varek hesitates but his will is weak. Like a prowling cat, he slowly leans down. I shift back as he crawls on all fours, his breaths ragged things as they force through his nose.

“Take me,” I breathe, arching up to nip at his throat. I suck at his pulse point, reveling in his answering groan. “Claim me. I need it. I need this, too.”

That seems to shatter the last threads of his control. With a roar that shakes the very walls, he surges against me, his mouth crashing over mine in a bruising, passionate kiss.

I moan into it, opening for him, welcoming the thrust of his tongue as he licks into my mouth, staking his claim. My hands scrabble at his back, my nails digging into his heated skin as I give myself over to the utter rush of sensation.

Clothes tear, seams popping as he rips the fabric from my body, too far gone to bother with niceties.

“Mine,” he snarls against my lips, his claws tracing possessive lines down my sides.

“Yes,” I gasp, my head tipping back as he blazes a trail of open-mouthed kisses down the column of my throat. “Yours, always.”

He makes a rough sound of agreement, his body moving over mine. With a throaty growl, he claims my mouth once again, his tongue delving deep as he presses me into the mattress with the weight of his body. I can feel the hard, thick length of him nestled against my thigh, pulsing with heat, and I moan into his mouth, my hips arching instinctively to meet his.

When his head dips, his mouth blazing a hot trail down my throat to my breasts, he nuzzles into the soft swells of my breasts before drawing one aching peak between his lips, sucking hard.

I cry out sharply, my back bowing as pleasure jolts through me like lightning. He lavishes attention on my breasts, licking, sucking, grazing my sensitized flesh with his fangs until I’m writhing beneath him, whimpering with need.

“Varek, please…” The teasing makes me ache for him so badly, but he’s not done yet. He makes a trail down the center of my chest till he’s between my legs. I barely get a breath before his mouth is pressed against my core, his tongue speaking a language the little bud at the center of my folds reacts to. Varek lathers me with saliva, making me ready for him as he brings me to a peak that crashes through me out of nowhere.

With a low snarl, he licks his lips as if the taste of me is like sugar and surges up to cover my body fully with his own. I feel the broad head of his shaft notch against my entrance a moment before he drives forward, sheathing himself to the hilt in one powerful thrust.

I scream, my nails digging into his shoulders as I’m stretched and filled almost beyond bearing. He’s so big, so hot and hard inside me, the fit so tight it’s nearly painful.

But it’s a pain edged with the most exquisite pleasure, a feeling of utter rightness and completion, as if I was made solely for him, to accept and welcome all that he is.

He stills for a moment, his breath gusting harshly against my neck, letting me adjust to his girth. Beside my head, his claws dig into the bedding and I know that even now, he’s exercising control.

“Let go,” I whisper, reaching up to thread my fingers through the hair at his nape. “Give me your all.”

With a deep growl, he moves, withdrawing almost completely before slamming back in, driving a rhythm that has me seeing stars.

“Catherine,” he groans, his hips churning relentlessly into mine. “My Catherine…” His thrusts grow harder, faster, spurred by the rut and my pleasured cries. “Going to fill you…”

The words send a dark thrill through me. The “yes” that pants past my lips makes him roar, the sound primal and triumphant. His body practically blurs with the force of his thrusts, every stroke reaching that secret place inside me that makes me see white. I feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter at the base of my spine, my inner muscles fluttering wildly around his plunging length.

Then one broad claw snakes between our straining bodies, his fingers finding the swollen pearl at the apex of my thighs. He rubs the sensitive nub in tight, knowing circles and that’s all it takes to send me hurtling over the edge into ecstasy.

I scream his name as I shatter, my release crashing over me in wave after wave of searing bliss. I clamp down on him like a vise, rippling along his shaft, trying to milk his own climax from him.

With a harsh shout, he buries himself to the root, forcing that impossibly wide bit at the base of his shaft inside me. It swells, becomes so engorged I feel my core stretch to its limit. There, he stills, his hips jerking as his scorching seed pulses deep inside me. He’s so swollen, it locks us together as he marks me from the inside out, staking his claim.

For long moments, we simply cling to each other, shuddering through the aftershocks, lost in the haze.

A little giggle rises in my throat. Chest heaving with heavy breaths, I gaze down up at him. “That…that wasn’t so bad.”

But as Varek eases up enough so he can look at me, the look in his eyes sends a deep thrill through me. As if I’m looking in the eyes of something I shouldn’t face head-on. Like a rabbit caught in the hypnotic stare of a wolf. There’s something so raw and untamed in those molten depths, a wildness that sends a thrill of both fear and exhilaration racing down my spine.

“Again,” he rumbles, his claws kneading my hips as he nips at my shoulder. “Going to take you again and again, until the whole nestkans knows you’ve been well and thoroughly claimed.”

With a growl, he flips me onto my stomach, blanketing my back with his muscular torso, his still-hard shaft nestled along the cleft of my bottom.

I moan at the dark promise in his words, my body already stirring back to life, empty and aching despite the seed running down my thighs. With a ravenous snarl, he sheathes himself to the hilt once more.

The moment Varek surrenders to the rut, it’s as if a switch is flipped inside him, turning him from a rational being into a creature of pure instinct and primal need.

One large claw fists in my hair, holding me still for his taking, while the other roams feverishly over me, his claws leaving stinging trails in their wake. There’s no art or finesse to his touch, only a blind need to map and mark every inch of me, to imprint himself on my very skin.

I can do nothing but surrender to the onslaught, my own hands scrabbling desperately at his back, my nails raking down the corded planes of muscle as I give myself over to him. Time doesn’t seem to matter anymore. We move from the bed to the floor. The floor to the wall. At one point, I’m even sure we switch rooms. Things crash and shatter. Things are ripped and torn. And all the while, Varek takes me.

There’s an edge of pain to the pleasure, a sharpness that only serves to wind me higher, tighter, until I’m writhing mindlessly beneath him, mewling into his mouth, his neck, his skin.

He tears himself away from the kiss with a ragged growl, his chest heaving as he stares down at me with those wild, glowing eyes.

He doesn’t give me time to adjust, just pulls back and then surges forward again, setting a punishing pace that has the bed slamming against the wall with every jarring thrust. He’s so deep, I swear I can feel him in my throat.

I’ve never been loved like this and I know I never will be again. And even then, I know this is what I needed. This. Him.

There’s no tenderness here, no gentle lovemaking. This is raw and rough and almost brutal, a carnal claiming in the truest sense of the word. Hours pass. Days I suppose. I keep track of the passing time by little changes of light my consciousness picks up. And though some distant part of me knows I’ll be sore, aching, bruised after this…I can’t bring myself to care.

Because there’s something profoundly, primitively satisfying about being taken like this, about being the sole focus of all that strength, all that fierce, wild need.

So I give myself over to it, my body going soft and pliant even as my inner muscles clench greedily around his pistoning length. Let him wring cries and moans and broken pleas from my lips, the sounds muffled by the ripped bedding my face is pressed into as he ruts into me with single-minded purpose. Let him use me, fill me, flood me with his seed, until there can be no doubt that I belong to him, that I was made for him and him alone.

The thought has me clenching even tighter around him, my nails scrabbling uselessly against whatever I can grasp as I hurtle toward the edge of some great, looming precipice. I can feel it building at the base of my spine, in the uncontrollable flutters of my core around his driving hardness.

“Oh!” I keen, the sound thin and thready and desperate. “I don’t know if I can again…I’m going to…”

He snarls in response, his pace growing even more frantic, more relentless. He leans down over me, his chest pressing me into the pillow on the floor as his fangs find the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. He bites down hard, the bright burst of pain, the final spark that sends me into oblivion.

I scream as I shatter, my body convulsing almost violently as wave after wave of ecstasy crashes over me. I feel him crash into his own release, but the moment is not done.

I’m lifted and spun as he settles over me again, his lips lapping at my core to soothe me for the next round and I am lost…so lost…lost without him.