When he hooks his arm under my legs, another under my chest, I don’t fight him. I melt into him instead, wrapping my arms around his neck and sighing contentedly.
I’ll have to be Captain Jacks soon enough.
For now? I’m going to enjoy being his.
I can tackle everything else after.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
DRAZ
There are too many things to see to. As soon as we enter my home, my staff rushes us, a million questions on their lips and in their eyes. The zoleh leaps from Ni-Kee’s shoulders in alarm, scurrying up to a high shelf and hiding behind its tails.
“Later,” I tell them. “Bring clothes for my mate and prepare a feast for her. My human needs me.”
They nod, slamming their fists against their sides before scattering.
Ni-kee’s eyes are huge in her face, their luminous green heart-shatteringly beautiful.
I cast a critical gaze over my home. It occupies the topmost quarters of the myza, our tree-top home, closest to the warrior training grounds, a traditional place for the warlord of Edrobaz. The spicy smell of the bark comforts me, as does the familiar, sprawling cylindrical shape.
But will she like it?
If she does not, she can pick whatever home she likes. Even if it is on the ground. Perhaps humans do not like to be so high in the air.
“What do you think?” I scratch my chin, the words gruff.
“I have never seen anything like this.” Her voice is full of wonder, quiet and awed.
“Will you make it your home, my love?”
“Draz.” Her gaze finds mine, and she steps into my embrace. “You’re my home now. Where we live doesn’t matter.”
My heart stutters, and I hardly believe the words from her mouth. It is one thing to accept me as her mate when I am deep inside her, when she is overcome with sensation, or to even admit she is mine later.
“Draz, don’t be so surprised. I love you,” she says, blinking up at me, her heart shining in her expressive human eyes.
“My heart,” I croak, sweeping her up into my arms. “You are the force I will navigate my life by. I will no longer look to the asteroids overhead for direction. My direction does not lie in the sky and the space above, but with you. You hold all of me in your small, human hands.”
Her legs wrap around my waist, and she opens her mouth as I press a savage kiss against it. Desire rises in me, a hot, living thing, as her soft human tongue slides against a fang.
“Bath,” she manages, clasping my face in her hands. “I have to check on my crew.”
I grunt, annoyance flaring in me, along with pride. My Ni-Kee.
“You are a good leader,” I tell her. “Even if I selfishly wish you were not.”
“If you had your way, I would be screwed nine ways to Sunday and pregnant in no time,” she laughs.
“That is correct,” I agree. “But I will honor your wishes, my heart.”
“All of them?” she asks, angling her face at me.
I grin down at her. “What is it you wish for, my Ni-Kee?”
“If I’m going to stay here—”
“If?” I growl the word, tightening my grip on the muscled curve of her ass.
“I want to be a warlord, too. I want the equivalent of my rank on Earth here. I can’t just sit around and do nothing. I want to do what I was trained to do.”
“You would undergo the trials to become a warlord?”
“Do women not do that?” Her tone is accusatory, and I blink in surprise.
“Of course they do. But a human has not.”
“I can do it.”
I nod once, thinking it over. “If that is what you wish, then so be it, my heart.” I scrape my teeth over the tender spot under her jaw, savoring her soft moan.
“It is.”
I lift her easily, and she wraps her legs around my bare torso, her heat seeping into my skin.
“I thought you wanted a bath,” I say, amused and aroused. The tip of my cock prods against her, and she leans forward, biting my neck. I groan, the sensation of her blunt teeth nipping at my skin heating my blood.
“I do. But I wanted a hug, too.”
“This is not a normal embrace,” I inform her. “But if you like, I can think of another embrace I would accept from you?”
“Oh?” she pants, her legs tightening around me, her muscles twitching. “What’s that?”
“I want to sink into your wet heat and feel you clench all around me with my name on your lips.”
Her whole body shudders, and I smirk, my possessiveness roaring to life.
“I want to wipe away the memory of that bastard’s hands on your skin, of his words in your ears. I want to replace them with me, filling you so deeply you can hardly breathe.”
Instead of biting me again, or even grinding against me, Niki slumps, her head limp on my shoulder.
Worry tightens my shoulders, and I walk her into my circular bedroom. Morning light streams through the clear apertures, illuminating the dusting of brown spots across her nose and cheeks.
“I was so scared,” she says, and wetness drips down my shoulder. “I thought you were hurt, or dead, and I couldn’t stand the thought of it.” Her chin tilts up at me, and my heart stutters with love.
“Ni-Kee,” I murmur, pressing my lips against the droplet of eye water on her exposed cheek. “I was scared for you. I was proud of you and terrified all at once. The Roth… they will come for your people, once word gets out about your compatible biology.”
“We can’t let it happen to anyone. They are…”
“They are a troubled species,” I finish the thought for her. “It would not be pleasant for the human females.”
“Draz,” she says, peppering my face with tiny kisses that send pinpricks of awareness through my body. “I love you. I love you so much, more than I ever thought possible.”
“Be honest, my heart, you did not think it was possible to love me at all a week and a half ago.”
She grins up at me, and I pick a leaf from her braid. “Oh, is that right?”
“Very right,” I say solemnly. “And I am very glad that my courtship proved just how wrong you were.”
“Your courtship?” she huffs, disentangling her legs from my body. “This is what you consider courtship?”
“I brought you can-dee. I fed you, kept you safe—”
At this, she holds up a hand. “One word. Snails.”
“The snails were not a part of my courtship plan,” I admit. “But I did nurse you back to health, and feed you many bowls of broth, and I helped you when you were too weak to walk to do your—”
“Draz!” she says, grinning and shaking her head. “Don’t bring that up.”
I clutch her tightly to me. “I will take care of you, my Ni-Kee. Forever. It will be my privilege and my honor.”
She sighs, melting into me. A stick caught in her snarled hair jabs me in the throat, and I pluck it out, tossing it on the floor.
“Perhaps you should bathe now.”
Laughing, she backs up, sniffing at her armpits. “I thought you like the way I smell. Actually, it seems like all you Suevans do, which, quite frankly, is weird as fuck.”
“I do, and we do, and it is normal as fuck.”
She laughs harder at this, her eyes creased as she smiles. The laughter dies, and she runs a hand through her tangles.
“I’m worried for my crew member that’s still out there.”
“I understand. Take care of your body, and I will arrange for food and clothes while you bathe, and then you can meet your crew and tackle the problem as you see fit.”