Alien Champion (Fated Mates of the Sea Sand Warlords, #15)

by Ursa Dax

“‘Zanta Claws day?’ You mean Christmas?” “Yes,” I said. Blast, now my arm was tingling. I uncrossed them and hoped she would not notice as I subtly shook them out at my sides. “The one where the man with long claws dressed all in red comes into your home at night and you fight him.”

“He comes into your home at night,” I said slowly, wondering if she’d be offended that I was trying to explain her own strange celebration to her. “And then you fight him. And you’re rewarded with gifts if you win.”

“It seems rather more insane not to fight an unknown male who wanders unbidden into your dwelling. And I’m not talking about the krizzmas father. I’m talking about Zanta Claws. The red one. With the chin hairs.”

“It’s... it’s a heart.” My tail snapped in surprise. “This does not look anything like a heart,” I protested. “You guys didn’t have any kind of scanning tech before we got here. How do you even know what a heart looks like?” she countered, placing her small hands on her prettily curved hips. “I have seen them,” I answered honestly. “On the battlefield.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re the one who ripped them out,” she said weakly.

I swished my tail, trying to appear nonchalant but nonetheless proud of my achievements, proud that I was able to tell her I was a strong male, a victorious male, one who could pull out another man’s organs if I so wished.

“It has been known to happen,...

“How did you manage that?” he demanded in that inevitably intrusive way of his. “I thought you saw nothing,” I growled low in my throat, a warning if there ever was one. One which he promptly ignored. “I saw enough to know that she was sitting in your lap and stroking your bare, hard cock!”

“I want you,” he echoed back at me. “I have wanted you for so long I have forgotten what it’s like not to want you.”

“It’s a shame that you must hurt for all that beauty.” He paused, pressing gently against my collarbone, as if relishing the sensation of feeling that shelf of bone beneath my thin human skin. “But perhaps, in a way, it makes sense.” “What do you mean?” “Sometimes your beauty hurts me too.”

“I want to keep you,” I murmured unsteadily, pumping into her mouth. “I want to mate you, not just once but every day. Every night.” Fiona’s eyes got bigger. Brighter. Shiny, as if with more tears. But maybe not, because none fell. “I want to share my tent with you,” I went on because I found I could not stop now. “Or even a cave, if that is what you want. I would live in a putrid pool of water with you if only you would have me. But it has to be with you, Fiona.” This was the heart of it. This was the hard and urgent truth. The inescapable centre of my life. “I have to be with you.”

“The only man I’d ever want to be is the man who can be with you.”

“You do not know,” he groaned against my neck as I hurried to remove my jacket, “how your skin has haunted me. Imagining touching you again, kissing every flower and dark shape upon you. It drove me forward. I dreamed of you so many times. Dreamed of hearing your voice. Smelling your scent. Tasting ink.”

“Mine,” he snarled, “Only mine. For this day and all days.”