“Trust doesn’t come naturally for me. I’m sorry I didn’t ask for your help in finding Tal. I should have. And I’m so sorry I violated the bond between us. Most of all I’m sorry I left you.”
He flinched at the last one. Yes, that was the crux of the issue for him, she was sure of it. His mother had left him, and she’d done the same.
“It was a mistake, and I was relieved when you caught me. If you’ll still have me, I swear I won’t leave again.” That was the honest truth. It was why she’d had Tal brand her flesh with his name. She needed to prove her commitment. She drew a breath. It was odd how facing her imminent death in a flaming battleship was easier than what she had to ask next. “Am I still your female?”
Lundric’s irises turned violet, and something in his shoulders relaxed. “Always,” he growled, reaching for her.
“Wait, wait.” She skittered back out of his reach. “I want to show you something.”
He frowned. “What is it?”
She rotated slowly, giving him the view of his name tattooed at the base of her spine between the two dimples on the back of her pelvis.
Lundric said nothing, and she waited, legs trembling, breath rasping in her chest. She dared to look over her shoulder. Her warrior had his fist stuffed in his mouth, and his face had flushed a deep purple.
“Do you like it? I know this isn’t the way Zandians show ownership, but it’s the way humans are marked by their masters.” She touched the barcode at her nape, put there at birth by her first Ocretion master.
“I have this, too, if you want to mark me in the Zandian way.” Her hand shook as she drew out the piercing gun Lily had lent her. “But I understand if you don’t want to mate me anymore. Or yet. Or whatever.”
Zander dropped his fist away from his mouth and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Take down your hair.”
The deep command surprised her, but her nipples stiffened. She heard the promise of retribution and sex in the roughness of his tone. She pulled her hair from the thread gathering it behind her.
“The braids, too.”
She unwound the small braids holding the hair back from her face, letting it all cascade to her shoulders in thick waves.
“This is how you’ll come to me, always.” Lundric advanced, a predatory tension to his prowl. “I’m glad you’ve become inured to the idea of mating me, because I never intended to let you go, Cambry.”
His words should have offended her, but instead they made her heart sing, her pulse race with anticipation of his touch. She wanted to launch herself at him but forced herself to remain still. To allow him to claim her in whatever way he chose.
“Do you know where a Zandian pierces his female?” Lundric’s horns were stiff and thick, tilting toward her. She longed to suck one deep into her mouth.
“N-not exactly. Her ears?” Her breathy voice sounded over the scrape of his exhale above her. She’d seen the glint of crystals in Lily’s ears.
He pinched both her nipples and pulled. “Anywhere he likes,” he said darkly. “The ears show all others she is mated. But he marks her nipples and clit to claim the most intimate parts belonging to only to him.”
A thrum of energy pulsed between her legs. Would he really pi
erce her there?
“Interlace your fingers on the top of your head.”
She obeyed. He picked up the piercing gun and shook out the tiny bag filled with Zandian crystal jewels that had come from Prince Zander, himself. They were meant for Rok and Lily, but Lily promised their mating ceremony was complete and she and Lundric were welcome to use anything that was left.
Lundric fit a stud into the gun. His lids drooped as he slid one nipple between the jaws. “Don’t move, Cambry.”
She held her breath.
Lundric pulled the trigger, and the stud punched through her nipple, causing her to cry out. Lundric swallowed her cry with a kiss, the gun clattering to the floor as his arm circled her waist and his hand cradled the back of her head.
He kissed her with an open mouth, tongue sweeping against the seam of her lips, mimicking the motion of his hips against her belly as he plunged it in and out of her mouth. When he pulled away, his expression was soft. He cupped her chin. “Good girl,” he murmured. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
He screwed the cap onto the open end of the stud then picked up the gun and loaded it with a second stud. “You’re taking a lot of pain for me tonight, little female.” There was pride in his tone.
“Anything you ask of me,” she whispered, legs still trembling.