Alien Claw, page 2
This wasn’t even a Sea Sand man.
This was a behemoth.
Even in the murky light, with the lanterns washing his scales in shades of blinking silver, I recognized him immediately. His size alone gave him away – he was the biggest warrior in the ranks of the Bitter Sea men. The right-hand man to the Bitter Sea king. He was the one who’d beaten Valeria’s mate Grim to a bloody pulp – no easy feat considering the size and strength of that massive red alien.
Outside, during the daytime, he shone in shades of gold and rich brown. In this light, he looked like some brutish combination of grey marble and steel – metal and stone. Scales and teeth.
He remained still, standing at least ten feet tall on his two legs. Through the steam, I couldn’t quite see where his gaze had landed. But I didn’t need to see his eyes to feel that they were on me.
What the hell happened to the unspoken rules about no lizardmen crowding the nakey lasses?!
Heart pounding in my throat, my shock at the giant alien’s arrival was starting to fade, replaced by irritation. Was he just going to stand there, staring through the steam, forever? I’d come here to relax alone, for bloody hell’s sake!
I opened my mouth to say something to the looming giant, but he beat me to the punch.
His voice rolled through the steam, rocky and deep.
“May I join you?”
CHAPTER THREE
Taylor
For some reason, I hadn’t expected the alien giant before me to say anything at all, least of all that. I mean, for one thing, again with the unspoken rule about intruding on vulnerable naked humans! But even outside of that, this guy had a very... Strong and silent feel to him. Emphasis on the strong, because, och, that body was insane. The swirling humidity shuddered to a halt against his scales, turning to glistening rivulets that ran down his carved body. Everything between the knees and shoulders of the lizardmen was vaguely humanoid in shape – powerful thighs, sculpted abdominal muscles and pectorals, bulging arms with recognizable five-fingered hands. But their thick necks led up into a dragon-like snout and they had large eyes beneath heavy, scaly brow ridges. And of course, there were the spikes – some of them longer than knives and just as sharp, trailing down the back of the neck, the arms, and the thick, muscled tail.
His words echoed unanswered between us.
My instinct was to scoff at him. To tell him, no, he couldn’t join me. I’d come in here to relax and he could bloody well wait. But I stopped myself. It probably wasn’t prudent to offend a ten-foot-all alien. If I was going to tell him to wait, I’d have to do it at least a little more politely.
He didn’t move, waiting expectantly for my response.
I mean, I guess it is good he asked for permission first...
He hadn’t just barged in and plopped his big scaly body down next to me or anything. And now that my irritated shock at his surprise appearance had worn off a bit, I was starting to feel a little bad about hogging the whole place to myself just because I’d gotten here first. There was the problem of my being totally naked, of course. But then again, so was he. Other than Kor, all the lizard aliens walked around naked 24/7. So maybe it was a bit daft to feel so embarrassed about my own lack of clothing, especially partially hidden by the water and the steam as I was.
Before I could finish my thought process he spoke again, more gruffly this time.
“I have something I would speak to you about. I would prefer not to wait if it is agreeable to you.”
What the hell could the alien lizard king’s right-hand man have to talk to me about? I wasn’t a soldier like Valeria or Chapman, figuring out the future of our strategy here. And I wasn’t working on developing weapons and defence systems like Kat and Zoey. I felt my brows furrow in confusion.
Then it hit me.
Maybe he has a human mate. Maybe he needs advice...
I’d seen the same thing happen before – male warriors seeking out the advice of other human women in order to woo their own women. It was kind of adorable, really. Seeing these proud, gigantic warriors come to the human women, ready to take notes.
I grinned, suddenly feeling a hell of a lot more welcoming towards this big guy. I’d never fancied myself a matchmaker before, but it seemed like it could be a lot of fun.
“Alright. Fine,” I said with a quick nod.
The huge lizard warrior stiffened slightly, then pounded his fists against his forehead ridges the way the Bitter Sea people often did for their king. Not gonna lie, feels good to get the same amount of respect as a king!
But if I held information that could potentially help this guy connect with his human mate, then it made sense he’d want to be on my good side.
I held myself back from saying something goofy and not at all translatable like “Welcome, grasshopper.” I smiled more widely now, getting excited about the thought of helping this guy out. From what I’d seen, all the human lasses with alien mates were out of their minds happy with their partners, so I felt pretty comfortable assisting an alien in his endeavours. I was already wracking my brain wondering who could be meant for this big lug. Hopefully not someone too small, like Camille... She’d get broken in half.
The massive warrior moved forward with large steps, slipping into the water. Despite the heat of the water against my skin, a slight shiver went through me as I took in the sheer alien power of his body. He rolled his massive head on his shoulders as he sank into the water. I tensed a little, wondering if he’d get too close, and tightened my arms over my breasts, clenching my thighs together on my underwater stone bench. Maybe this was a bad idea...
But thankfully, he didn’t come too close. He found a place to sit on the other side of the pool. He settled himself on a stone bench similar to mine – at least I assumed he did – I couldn’t really see beneath the water, even with the glow of the lamps here and there. There were no lanterns or lighting beneath the water of the pool itself, so the water was inky and reflective. Which was good, considering all my private bits would be a little more hidden under there.
I stared at the alien as he got comfortable, feeling my eyebrows rise at his position. He was sitting in a position that seemed almost absurdly human. Because of his size, almost all of his torso was out of the water. He leaned back against the stone behind him, draping his arms back over the ledge. He looked like he should have had a fucking cigar hanging out of his toothy maw! I felt like I’d just walked into, like... His office, or something. Dark, confident masculinity rolled off of him in waves, undulating over the water, making my skin prickle and my breath catch.
This is fine. This is all fine.
He was way over there.
Except... It didn’t feel like he was. He was sitting all the way across the pool from me, but the pool wasn’t even that huge to begin with – about the size of an above-ground pool from Earth. His size made it seem like he was taking up all the freaking space. Not just his size, but also that intense power that seemed to radiate off of him like heat from the sun.
Am I... Into that?
I squirmed, feeling my nipples pebbling against the inside of my forearms as I considered that bizarre proposition. I didn’t think I had a type back on Earth – and if I had, it probably wouldn’t have included lizard aliens. My only serious relationship was during my undergraduate degree, and Lochlan was just about as different from one of these aliens as one could be. He was a good lad, but kind of gangly and nerdy, like me. There hadn’t been much sexual tension between us. We had been too similar, had gone from friends to lukewarm lovers before eventually breaking it off.
No, this alien in front of me was absolutely nothing like my skinny undergraduate boyfriend. If anything, he’d be a professor. Or the dean. I suddenly couldn’t get that image out of my head – a crisp suit stretched over his wide, brawny frame. Leaning back on a leather sofa the same way he was doing on the stone now...
“What’s your name?” I blurted, trying to distract myself from the whir of thoughts going through my brain.
“My name is Tok,” he said.
I swallowed hard, nodding quickly.
“I’m Taylor. Taylor Bruce,” I said.
The alien shifted, cocking his head slightly as he regarded me. As he did so, the lantern light caught on the reflective discs in the centre of his eyes, making them glint the way a cat’s eyes did in the dark.
“I learned your name many days ago.”
“Oh. OK then,” I said, not sure how to respond to that. “Well, it’s nice to meet you.”
I wasn’t entirely sure if I meant that. This encounter wasn’t unpleasant – if anything Tok had been pretty polite. But he had me a little on edge. He was just so fucking huge and intense and I was so, so naked. I tried not to feel so weird about the nakedness thing – och, even co-ed nude spas were a thing back home! Not that I’d ever been to one, and certainly not one with alien men.
Just find out what he wants, I urged myself silently as my face heated.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” I croaked out, my voice sounding pathetically squeaky. Compared to the thick amber rumble of Tok’s voice answering me, I sounded like a squawking bird. And not a cool one, not like a hawk or something. If I were a bird, I’d be one with a name like “dickcissel” or “tit babbler.” Yeah, if my voice was that of a tit babbler, Tok’s was single malt scotch. The expensive kind, like the Oban or Talisker or Lagavulin that Uncle Bob used to serve in the pub back home. Golden and smoky and burning under my skin as he spoke.
“I came to ask your thoughts about the fated mate bond of this world.”
I sucked in a breath. It looked like my hunch was probably right – he was coming to learn about how to woo his mate. Well, damn. I was becoming more and more convinced that he didn’t need any help from me. I had a feeling that even with his unusual body, he could probably seduce any human lassie he set his eye on. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who failed.
At anything.
“Can you be a little more specific?” I probed. “What, exactly, do you want to know?” The faster I got to the bottom of what he wanted, the faster I could get him out of here so I could just let out a giant breath and try to relax. Because there was absolutely no relaxing happening right now. Every nerve was buzzing, finely attuned to his presence and every small, smooth move he made.
He made a low sound, deep in his chest, something akin to a human “hmm” sound. My eyes tracked down his thick throat to his chest, wondering briefly what it would feel like to have my hands splayed on his scaly, broad pectorals while he made that kind of sound.
“How do you feel about being mated to one of my kind?”
I froze. If he was coming here to ask about one of my friends, why would he need to know how I felt about being mated to a lizard alien?
Another possibility sprang to mind.
An alien wingman?
Maybe someone else in the lizard army was supposed to be my mate, and he was laying some groundwork for that warrior. My heart pounded, my jaw clenching at that thought. For some reason, I hadn’t anticipated getting a mate anytime soon. And if I did, I’d assumed it would be one of the slightly more humanoid Sea Sand men. There were a lot more of the Sea Sand men, so statistically that had made sense to me.
But what if I am meant for one of these hulking lizards?
“I don’t know,” I stammered in response. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
Truly, I hadn’t. Not for myself, anyway. I’d seen how close Valeria and Zoey were to their lizardmen mates, but for some reason the possibility of being in a partnership like that hadn’t crossed my mind.
I licked my lips, noticing the reflective coins of his large pupils pierce the steam, falling to my mouth as I did so.
“You should think about it now.”
Tok’s words felt somehow... Harder than before. Pointed, like his teeth. I didn’t like the way those words clawed at my spine.
I mentally tracked through the ranks of lizard warriors I’d seen, trying to think if any of them stood out as someone who would want me as a mate. But they’d all been so busy since their arrival, I’d barely seen them around camp. I certainly hadn’t noticed any of them making goo-goo eyes at me or anything, not the way that Grim and Kor did with their mates.
But you did feel someone watching you before you came here...
“How about you just tell me why you’re asking?” I said firmly. “Why are you asking me this? Did you come here as a messenger for someone? And if so, whom?”
I pursed my lips, my arms glued to my chest, my thighs shaking. Had that been rude? Had I offended him? Even on Earth, angering a strange man you didn’t know when naked and alone with him could be a very bad idea, depending on the man. Angering an alien who could end you with one crunch of his teeth was a whole other level.
Never figured you for a stupid lass, Taylor...
I flinched as Tok moved slightly. But luckily, even if I had offended him, he didn’t get any closer. His arms slipped from the stone behind him and he leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on the knees that were hidden just below the surface of the water. I breathed out softly in relief when I noticed that his spikes were still flat against his arms. That meant he wasn’t angered by my questions, or if he was, he had a tight leash on it. Those spikes only emerged when one of these guys was ready to fight.
“I am here on behalf of no other man but me,” he said, his voice lowering an octave. Five-year-old scotch became fifty-year-old scotch as his smoky voice swirled, mixing with the steam and burning down my throat.
“Taylor Bruce of the new women,” he began. “I, Tok of the Bitter Seas and right claw to the Hakah, am yours. Until the last wave hits the shore of my homeland. Until the sun stops rising from the water’s depths. Until the breath of this world is gone – and even beyond that – I am yours.”
His eyes were spheres of fire in the darkness.
“You’re mine... You’re my... My what?!” I stammered, though a part of me already knew.
He didn’t hesitate. Not even for a second.
“I am your mate. As you are mine.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Tok
I fought to keep my breath even and controlled as I watched Taylor relentlessly. My elbows rested on my thighs, and beneath the surface of the water, I pressed my clasped hands against my groin, keeping my cock concealed in my slit. My instincts told me to let my cock spring free, to stand and let Taylor see the full force of its dark shape. For a woman of the Bitter Seas, even one who was not meant to be a man’s mate, it would be an arousing show of power almost impossible to resist. My cock was an impressive one. That was not pride speaking – it was just the truth. Like all of me, it was large, and apart from the Hakah, I had the more studs of grogar pearls in my shaft of any man in our army.
But I’d heard tell that the first time Thaleria had seen Grim’s cock, she’d almost destroyed it with her small but powerful human weapon. So revealing one’s cock to one’s mate did not seem to hold much sway over the new women.
These new women are very strong indeed to resist such temptations...
I stared at Taylor through the steam, straining to try to understand what she was saying. But if the sounds she was making were words, they were not words of any language of sea or sand that I had come to learn.
All in all, this did not seem to be going particularly well.
I tried to force down my surprise and disappointment. I had always been strong and fast and sharp. Things came more easily to me than they did to many other men. So, despite what I’d heard of the new women not feeling the mate bond, I’d still had some thoughts that I would be able to win my mate with relative ease.
Moment by moment, those thoughts were being torn asunder. Taylor did not seem very happy with my proclamation, and I tried not to let it wound me.
“You are unhappy,” I growled, my claws flexing against each other under the water.
Taylor stopped her string of strange sounds and shut her little mouth tightly. Then she opened it again to speak in words that I could finally understand.
“This is just a lot to take in, that’s all.”
“I understand,” I said. It had been a lot for me, too. Seeing such a strange and little face in the Kell’s vision fang. It had changed the whole course of my life, changed the force of my fate in an instant.
She had changed everything.
I wished now that I’d given her longer to answer my earlier question. I’d never gotten the full thrust of her thoughts about being mated to a Bitter Sea man. She’d only said she “hadn’t thought about it.”
On the one claw, that was good, as it meant I didn’t have to rip out one of my fellow men’s throats out for appearing in any fantasy of hers.
On the other claw, it was bad. Because it meant she had no desires for me, either.
Maybe I should just show her my cock anyway. She does not have a weapon like Thaleria did...
Her words kept me in place.
“When I said I hadn’t given the whole mates thing much thought, it was true. I hadn’t considered the possibility of a mate from this world, let alone...”
Her words shuddered to a stop, and she bit at her soft lower lip with her tiny top teeth. She did not need to finish her sentence. I knew what she’d meant to say.
“You expected to have a mate from among the Sea Sand men.”
She raised and lowered her shoulders in a gesture I did not understand. And I hated that. Not understanding her. My gaze trailed over those slim shoulders to her neck, and mating fluid filled my fangs. Such soft flesh. I would have to be so, so careful with her...
If she ever let me near her, that is.
“I am aware that I am very different from the men of your kind. And different, in turn, from the desert men.” That was an understatement, especially when talking about the men of her world. I’d seen one of them – the man killed by the red-eyed Gahn Fallo. Pathetic and tiny and pale with not a single claw or scale to be seen. If that was the kind of specimen Taylor was used to admiring, then it made sense the idea of me as a mate could be jarring to her.
