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My perfect, delicate mate rears back her head and slams her skull down on my forehead, whacking me with a force I’d not thought possible from such a tiny species. As she strikes me, she lets out a warrior-like shriek and follows it with a swift elbow jab in my neck. All I can do is groan as blinding pain lights up my head. She takes theikanifrom my limp hand and jumps to her feet. I take her jarring attack without responding. I cannot very well defend against my mate and risk hurting her.
The Plax who was watching us backpedals, saying, “Niko, you gonna do something about this? Your female’s readying to shank me.”
I glance up, my focus returning well enough to watch my mate squat into a fighting stance. With her back turned to me, I have the perfect view of her ass and the silhouette of her figure. She’s got muscle and thickness, narrow in the shoulders but quite sturdy on the bottom. She’s got the firmest, juiciest bottom . . .
“She looks rutting good doing it too.”
CHAPTERTHREE
NIKO
My mate’seyes are still hazy from her recent lack of consciousness. At my words, she jerks around, stepping back so that neither of us is behind her. Her glare pings around the cargo hold, noticing the others that are tearing the place apart looking for goods. Another male stops to observe the developing scene, a Verguli named Varger.
“What thehellis this?” she demands.
“A raid,” I tell her, rubbing my forehead and dragging myself to my feet. “The ship this cargo hold was attached to is long gone.”
“More pirates,” she bites out.
“You should be so lucky,” the nosy Plax says to her. “Jumpy one, ain’t she? Niko here seeks to offer you matehood. I don’t know what his finances are like, but I suppose you could stand to do worse.”
“Female, please,” I try to reason with her. “We mean you no harm.”
“You expect me to believe that?” she snaps. “Anyone here seekingmatehoodcan mate this knife!”
She crouches, backing away but ready to strike. What a female she is—knows just how to handle a fight. Her tongue is sharp. The way she looks with anikaniblade in her hand makes me salivate for the taste of her cunt. I suppose she has no sense of the matebond. Can she not feel it because she is not Kar’Kali? That’s a disconcerting thought. From the way she looks upon me no differently from the Plax and Varger, I can tell the mating call has not reached her.
Varger comes closer. I don’t like that male. He’s shifty. “You found a female? That’s quite the find for an abandoned hold.”
His eyes are lighting up at the sight of her. Theamma’kahits me, and I let it flow through. The strength of the new bond will turn my eyes black with mating aggression.
“She ismine,” I snarl at him.
“The captain’s first rule of raiding is that the first to touch wins the loot,” Varger reminds me. “And don’t claim that you touched her before, because the secondrule is that you must carry all that you take.”
He is technically correct. One cannot put down good loot and expect to find it waiting for them.
“Those rules are for inanimate objects,” I say. “This female only belongs to me through the will of the Kali’Ka and cannot belong to you.”
“The rules,” he growls, “are for abandoned cargo. That is what I see before me—a slave left behind. Your matebonds mean shit to me, Kar’Kali.”
With that, he launches himself at my mate, intending to take her for his own loot. I leap over to stop him. Before I can intervene, my female turns to face him head on as he rushes her. Instead of running or cowering, she jumps toward him, blade in hand. As he takes hold of her, she digs her claws into his face and stabs down with a wild cry.
Varger lets out a scream that shakes the entire cargo hold. My mate stabbed him, sinking my blade deep into one of his five bulging black eyes. I am stunned, my chest thumping with pride at the realization that this feral female ismine.This is what the spirit chose for me—a warrior at heart, a fearlesskaia. She pulls out the blade and raises it to strike again.
But even as I quake before the great giftKahas brought me, Varger is grabbing hold of her slender neck with both claws. He means to throttle her.
What I’d like to do is blow a hole through his skull with my stinger, but I fear that conduct would be frowned upon. It might even get me spaced before I ever have the chance to claim my female. So instead, I take him out at the knees with a swift kick and land a sharp open hand strike to the back of his neck, where his exoskeleton gives way to a fleshy juncture that goessquishwhen it makes contact. He jerks and releases my female, who drops to the floor.
Before he has a chance to hurt her again, I grab him by his antennae and hurl him across the room. He slams into a stack of empty crates that topple down on his head. I check on my mate, who’s gasping for air and clutching her neck where Varger squeezed her.
I don’t know why I expected her to hurry into my outstretched arms, but it alarms me when her eyes widen at my approach.
“No,” she croaks desperately when I step toward her. Scrambling backwards, she searches the ground for the fallenikani.She’s afraid of me, and if she could, she would have stabbed me just like Varger. “Don’t come any closer!”
“Calm,” I say in soothing tones. I show her my palms. “I want to help you, not hurt you.”
She gets hold of the blade and brandishes it at me, even as her back hits the wall. I’m searching for the right words to make her understand, to show her that I can be trusted.
