Kragyn (Farseek Warrior Series Book 1) Read online

  She kept trying to choke back the sobs that had been building up for months.

  “Go ahead,” Kragyn said. “You have every right. Let it out.” He made his voice soft and soothing, and just held her rubbing her back as she did exactly that. He had shed his own tears when no one was around that could see or hear. He knew the kind of ordeals that landed people on Julconi.

  Life on Julconi held little joy for anyone living there, but it was better not having to face it alone. His heart ached for what must have been a horrendous ordeal for his soul mate. But perhaps they could find some solace in each other. With that thought, he kissed the top of her head and relished the pleasant scent of her soft hair.

  Kragyn so wished he could take away her pain, but he couldn’t even quell his own. At least he no longer had to face it alone, and neither did she. She cried for only a few minutes before she took several deep breaths then pulled out of his embrace. Reluctantly, he let her.

  “I’m sorry, it just all caught up to me at once,” she said, looking embarrassed by her loss of control. “Before I was taken, I didn’t even believe aliens ever came to Earth and took people. My people have never gone past our moon. In my worst nightmares, I never imagined anything like this would ever happen to me.”

  “Nor did I, though I have been all over several sectors in the galaxy. Our world is part of a consortium of planets, and Farseek Brigade was contracted to aid in defending them as part of the Transtellar Consortium Defense Force.”

  “How do you know I am your soul mate?” She looked at him doubtfully. “No offense, you are very attractive… I feel drawn to you, and it’s more potent than anything I have ever felt before.”

  “Your scent, it is something only I would notice. It’s genetic, hard to explain because I’m not a scientist. The Uatu race has a kind of sixth sense that allows us to recognize our soulmates. I know what I felt, and I still feel it.” He moved to stand before her and gently gripped her upper arms, rubbing his hands up and down in a soothing motion. “I’m not trying to push you into anything. But knowing that you are solmatu makes me want to be with you, care for you, and protect you. I do want you, but I can wait.”

  Reanne gave him a slow smile. “I’m quite sure that I won’t get a better offer… And I want to know you. Not just because you are probably my best chance to stay alive here.”

  “They told you to pick someone to fuck for protection.”

  She blushed at his bluntness.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I heard the shuttle guards telling the women that when I was dumped here. They were right. Half the people here are fugitive slaves or dissidents against the Sargus Empire. The rest are actually criminals.”

  “But I killed someone,” she said miserably.

  “You were justified. Alcranians are known to buy females of other species to abuse and kill. Your instincts saved your life,” Kragyn assured her. “But under Sargan laws he was within his right to do whatever he wanted to do with you, even kill you. That’s why they sent you here.”

  “Well, screw them, and their laws! I can’t believe that a society that can travel interstellar space practices slavery.”

  “That’s why the Consortium was at war with them. They have been raiding our colonies for slaves. I’m sure they are the ones who attacked our world. I just don’t know how they pulled it off. They had to cross a lot of Consortium sectors to get to Farseek. Not that it matters now.”

  She looked up at him and gave him a hopeful smile. “At least we can help each other through it.”

  Kragyn’s big hands moved to cradle her face. “I just have to kiss you.”

  Her eyes lit, and her lips parted as he lowered his mouth to cover hers. Claiming her soft mouth was every bit as sweet as he imagined. He didn’t dare to pull her body against his, because his cock went hard the instant his lips settled over hers.

  Supple and pliant, her lips opened readily to his tender request. He held back the urge to plunder her mouth and dominate her, though everything inside him shouted mate. The alpha male in him longed to claim her and possess her fully. But he could wait until she was ready to yield to his claim as her solmatu.

  Reanne put her hands on his sides and made soft mewing sounds while he was kissing her. She sighed wistfully as he lifted his mouth from hers. They were both panting with desire.

  Kragyn still held her face between his strong hands and stared into her eyes.

  Chapter Three

  “Wow!” Reanne murmured as she stared back at him. She was trembling, and her whole body clamored for more. Her female parts clenched against emptiness and her nipples tightened.

  The look in his eyes told her that he could smell her desire, and her cheeks heated. She gently pulled away from him, because clothes would start coming off if she didn’t. “Okay, I want to, but this is happening way too fast.”

  “That’s how solmatu happens. I am just as attracted to you,” Kragyn said. “I understand you have been through a lot. Finding you is the first good thing that has happened to me in almost two years.” He stood facing her, his hands fidgeting at his side as he seemed to be fighting the urge to touch her.

  She nodded. “I feel it. I don’t deny that I want you. I just want to get to know you a little better with my clothes on first.” Even as she spoke, she felt a profound urge to wrap herself around him and beg him to fuck her senseless. But she resisted.

  Under normal conditions, they would probably go out for dinner and maybe a little dancing and drinks, or a movie. Or, go for a walk. But it was morning, and the temperature outside was at least 100°. The land she had seen on their way to Kragyn’s home reminded her of the Australian Outback that she had seen on some TV nature shows. Only there were numerous hills and caves created by mining before Julconi had become a depository for the dregs and dissidents of the Sargan Empire.

  “I’d offer to show you around, but I have no climate-controlled transport,” he said with a wry smile. “It’s way too hot for a stroll.”

  “It’s hotter than I’m used to. We have warm and cold seasons where I am from. Even in the warmest season, it was never as hot as it is out there.”

  “It’s not this hot on my homeworld either. I’ve gotten used to it, but I don’t spend any more time outside in the midday heat than necessary.”

  “What brought you to the landing site today?” she asked.

  “Looking to see if they brought any people from my world here. I can’t believe that I was the only survivor.”

  “There were other shuttles on the bigger ship that brought us here. They were loading up more people to bring down to other parts of the planet.”

  “This continent is isolated from the rest of the land by wide stretches of oceans. It’s too far to swim, and there is no transportation here,” he explained. “Conditions are deliberately primitive. It limits the power of the gangs that think they run the place. They drop enough food barely to sustain us, but I have found other ways to get what I need.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “I fight in the pit and mostly win. Since nobody has currency or credits, food and supplies are the currency. If I want some fresh food, I hunt or trap. Other than drying or smoking, there is no way to preserve food here because we have no power to run refrigeration or anything else.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing I like camping---but this place is even more primitive than any of the places I ever camped before. It reminds me of those survival programs I used to watch on TV. They’d drop people out in the middle of nowhere with no supplies and maybe a knife or something. They would have to survive and find their way back to civilization.”

  Reanne looked around the cave in the dim light emanating from some rocks in the ceiling. The walls looked like they had been chiseled with a power chisel, and so did the floor. A little deeper in there was a sleeping pallet on the floor and a rough-hewn bench.

  “Why don’t we sit down and have something to drink. I have some instant tea packets that are lightly sw
eetened.” He gestured toward the bench and went to a ledge with various packaged items lined up on it like a pantry shelf. Setting up two plastic cups from the shelf, he poured water from a plastic jug into each and emptied a packet of powdered tea into each one. He stirred each with a plastic spoon and carried them to the bench, handing one to Reanne before he sat down beside her.

  Reanne didn’t know what kind of flavor to expect as she brought the cup to her mouth and took a sip. The flavor was mildly spicy and reminded her a bit of birch beer soda without the fizz. “It’s good, thank you.” She took another sip. “What we call tea back on Earth is a little different, but I like this too.”

  “We get it in the regular supply drops. I either win it or swap for it. You’ll find a supply in your backpack along with protein bars, dried fruit, and vegetables. Not great food but adequate to keep us alive.”

  Reanne looked at him and shook her head. “Not in my worst nightmare did I ever think I would end up in a place like this, lightyears from my homeworld.”

  “That makes two of us,” Kragyn agreed. “But in my wildest dreams, I never imagined my solmatu would be as beautiful and sexy as you.”

  Reanne smiled at him. “Neither did I. So, what is customary when you find your solmatu?”

  “We generally spend from a few hours to several spans of days getting acquainted. We might share sex without sharing our seed. Once we mate and share our seed, we pledge for life.”

  “Do your people ever reject solmatu?”

  “Not that I recall… Is that what you want to do?” Kragyn asked warily.

  “Not really. I can feel the powerful attraction between us,” she denied. “But how are we going to make a decent life in a place like this. It’s certainly no place to raise children, not that it could happen right away. We all got anti-fertility implants that could last a year or more.”

  “There are children here in the mines. A couple of guys live together and take care of a bunch. They’re mostly kids from women in the brothels, throwaway kids.” Kragyn shook his head.

  “We could go deeper into the wilderness, away from where people have clustered about the landing spots, where supplies are delivered. But this area is not that bad. They also gave us seeds for food plants that are supposed to grow in this hot climate. Even the worst of them don’t want to go far from the village where there are buildings to house them. Before Julconi was a prison world, it was a mining settlement.”

  Kragyn reached out and stroked her back down her spine and gave her an appreciative smile. “What did you do back on Earth before you landed on this lovely world?” he asked with a touch of irony.

  “I was an automobile mechanic.”

  “Automobile?” he asked. “It doesn’t translate.”

  “They are transport vehicles that have wheels and are powered by fossil fuel engines. I can fix some electric appliances, too.”

  “Ah.” He nodded his understanding. “How are you at defending yourself?”

  “I’ve never had the need until the Alcranian, and I think that was plain dumb luck that I got the advantage over him,” she said. “I never had to fight for my life back in Maryland. It was one of those small towns where you were acquainted with most everyone who lived there. My family was well liked, and most of the people I went to school with are… were still, friends.” She sighed ruefully.

  “It was like that on our homeworld, but I trained as a warrior because we had a contract with the Consortium to provide our share of defense to them in exchange for the technology, they provided our homeworld,” he said. “I still don’t know how or who got through the Consortium to attack our world like that. I can only think we were betrayed by someone inside. Farseek is called that for a reason. It’s on the far side of the sector from the heart of the Consortium.”

  Reanne looked at him thoughtfully. “Why do you think they would attack your world? Was it rich in resources?”

  “No. The best resource was rich soil and a perfect climate for growing things, raw produce that the Consortium needed to feed the inner worlds. …And people the Sargans could turn into slaves to work their farms, mines, and factories.”

  “Won’t your warriors retaliate?”

  “Probably, but we only have ten ships. If indeed the Consortium betrayed us, they won’t help,” he mused. “Even if they mount an attack against the Sargans with any success, that doesn’t help us. They’ve got battlecruisers and carriers patrolling this system all the time. And I haven’t seen another Farseekan since I have been here, nearly a year. Nor did I see any others in the year they tried to make me a slave.”

  Reanne understood what that meant, that probably no one would come looking for him. Their chances of escaping were hardly better than someone from Earth coming for her. That reality almost made her want to cry again. But she didn’t want to put Kragyn through that again. Instead, she moved closer to him. Draping her arms around his broad shoulders, she kissed his cheek and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “Then I guess we’d better suck it up and help each other get by because it seems like we’re all we’ve got.”

  Kragyn pulled her onto his lap and held her close, claiming her lips in a breathtaking fiery kiss that left her with little doubt that they would finish getting acquainted naked.

  It felt a bit slutty to have sex with a guy so soon after they met. She never had before. Then, she had never been abducted by aliens, and ended up on a barbaric prison planet, either. As he kissed her again, she couldn’t think of anything that would feel better than getting laid by this gorgeous man who called her solmatu.

  Chapter Four

  Kragyn couldn’t resist the soft lips that beckoned to be kissed as he watched them while she spoke. He had lived too long without the hope of anything better in his life than spending the rest of it in this gods’ forsaken place so far from his home.

  She was his, and he was going to claim her, consequences be damned. As he lifted his mouth from hers and stared into her eyes, it seemed she was of the same mind. But he had to say the words.

  “Will you be my mate?”

  “I will,” she replied solemnly.

  Kragyn stood with her cradled in his arms and carried her the few steps to his pallet, setting her on her feet. He took her back into his arms and kissed her even more thoroughly than before. It was a deep, claim staking kiss that drew soft sounds of pleasure from Reanne as she pressed her sensitive peaked breasts against his chest.

  She raised herself on her toes, pressing her mons against his hard cock with their clothes between them. Kragyn might have smiled except that his lips were pressed to hers and their tongues were slow dancing together. He wasn’t the only one making his claim, and he liked that she made it clear she wanted him to mate her.

  As he kissed her, he slid his hands under the standard issue prison t-shirt she wore. Her skin underneath the cheap knit fabric was smooth and soft, but toned. She wore no undergarment over her breasts that fit perfectly in his hands. He cupped them briefly then flicked his thumbs over the hard, erect peaks of her nipples.

  Reanne moaned her approval against his mouth, and he kept doing it while kissing her. Then he pinched her nipples, and she ground her mons against his erection and moaned more urgently. He broke the kiss long enough to pull the shirt off up over her head then peeled his off as well.

  Unable to resist, he cupped his hands over her breasts again, and she smiled up at him. While he squeezed and massaged them, Reanne boldly reached for the fastener on his trousers that were a worn version of her own. Instead of a zipper, the fly was secured with hook and loop strips. She wasn’t surprised that he wore nothing under them as she had not been issued any underwear either.

  His long, thick cock was impressive and proportionate for his size that was close to 6’6”. Just looking at it made her intensely aware of the empty feeling between her thighs. She was about to reach out and stroke it, but Kragyn slid his fingers into the waist of her pants and tugged them open.

  Then he toe
d off his boots and pushed his trousers to the cave floor. Reanne followed suit. Kragyn sat down in the middle and held out his hand, inviting her to join him. They lay down together, and he turned up on his side and pulled her against him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment basking in the warmth of her skin against his and the feel of her in his arms. Kragyn always knew if he found his solmatu it would feel fantastic, but his imagining came so far from the reality, it took his breath away. He wished he could offer her more than a life on the barbaric prison planet.

  Finding her was so much more than he dared to hope for since the day he woke strapped to a bunk on a slave ship.

  As he kissed her, he pulled her hips tight to his, nestling his cock against her mound. Eventually, he rolled her onto her back and crawled over to kneel between her legs. Lowering himself over her, he held himself on his forearms, so his full weight was not crushing her. He started kissing her at her forehead and worked his way down from there. He kissed the tip of her pert nose, her cheeks, her lips, her neck, shoulders, and over her upper chest until his lips closed over one taut nipple.

  He alternately laved and sucked on it making Reanne squirm and coo her pleasure. She ran her fingers through his hair and stroked his shoulders and back with her hands. As he alternated to her other breast, he stroked her belly and slid his hand down to her mound and between her folds, dipping a finger into her slick opening.

  As he kept suckling on her nipple, he added a second finger and pushed it inside her. Reanne moaned and gripped his shoulders, arching her pelvis to his intimate invasion. Then he found her sensitive bud with his thumb, massaging it while his fingers moved inside her.

  She murmured his name in a tone that made it sound like an endearment and continued to caress him while he fondled her intimately. He shifted from her breast to kiss her lips slipping his tongue between them. Attentive to every nuance of her reactions, Kragyn felt that she was close to release as her body tensed.