Goodreads | Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Google | Barnes & Noble
Chapter One
Assura
It hurts—my body burns like it’s on fire. I am agony.
Through the haze of pain, I see it. The first break in
the trees since I crash-landed on this godsforsaken planet
a week ago. I stumble from the jungle, my vision blurring.
Days of no one and nothing but this fever scorching
through my veins. It’s not a normal fever. I don’t know how
it’s possible, but it makes me want and think of nothing
but sex. I’m pulsing between my legs, craving to be fucked,
feeling I will burst into flames if I’m not. I’m chafed between
my legs from days of giving myself orgasms, trying and
failing to relieve the lust raging in my veins, the side effect
of some gaseous poison in the air.
I fall to my knees on a stretch of runway. I see buildings,
starships, people. Civilization. I start to shake. I can’t hold
myself up. My will to keep fighting is gone.
I crumble to the ground, writhing in pain.
Voices sound all around me. Whoever is here…they
may be friendly, they may be my enemy, but I’m not capable
of finding out.
I’m too exhausted to open my eyes, but someone touches
me, cradles my head in their lap. I want to scream at them
to stop. I can’t bear to be touched; being held hurts like a
thousand knives scraping my too-sensitive skin.
“What is your name, human?” The deep voice resonates
with a trace of revulsion. My humanity is something he
doesn’t like. By his accent, heavy on the consonants and
slow on the vowels, I think I know what language he speaks.
Which means I likely know why he would hate me on sight.
I open my eyes and see nothing but his face—his golden
face. His skin shimmers metallic in the sunlight, and the
sharp planes of his features glint in its rays. The darker gold
waves of his hair nearly sparkle, and his eyes shine a blue
so bright, I swear I’m looking into a cloudless sky. He looks
divine, like some sort of god descended from a faraway
mythical paradise.
I recognize his species. He is Ssedez, and I wonder he
hasn’t killed me; one of his warriors already tried several
days ago. But I’m a special kind of soldier, the kind that’s
not so easily killed. They attacked and destroyed our ship.
I was stabbed, given a wound that still festers in my side.
It’s his fault I’m stranded on this planet and had to spend a
week alone wandering its toxic jungle.
But for a reason I don’t understand, this Ssedez is not
attacking me, and I have no energy to fight him anyway.
“Your name,” he demands again.
There’s a ring of authority to his tone, and it makes me
want to do as he says. If I’m going to survive, I need medical
attention. I need his help. “Assur,” I answer, but the word
twists my stomach. It’s what my commanding officers called
me. It’s not my real name. “Assura,” I correct.
The burn, the fire, surges in my body again, and I can’t
stop the cry of agony escaping my lips. I fist my hands against
the urge to touch myself. It’ll only hurt. Breathing the air
of this planet infects me with an endless and unquenchable
need for release, even past the point of injury or exhaustion.
I feel something swelling under my head in his lap. I turn
my cheek and feel a long column of rigid flesh hardening
behind the leather of his uniform—his cock.
I don’t give a shit if he’s my enemy. I’m so desperate to
relieve the flames torching my insides, I’ll do anything to
be fucked, to have him thrusting that into my starved body.
I claw at his thighs, bite my teeth at the leather shielding
him from me. I’m moaning hungry sounds and hallucinating
about him fiercely pouring his come in my mouth. Then,
something is put in my mouth, a tube. It’s not a cock, but
I’m so hungry for it, I suck on it like it is one. A creamy
liquid pours from it into my mouth. I swallow it, starved
and praying it will satisfy me, not caring if it’s poison meant
to kill me. Dying would be better than enduring this any
longer.
But it’s not poison.
It slides down my throat and cools me from the inside
out. The feeling spreads through my chest and into my
limbs. I go motionless, the burn blissfully fading away. My
breath is heavy with relief, and I glance up into the Ssedez’s
face again and whisper, “Thank you.”
His ethereally blue eyes blanch in surprise and don’t
look away. He examines my face, and he must see something
he likes. Heat infuses his expression, desire contrary to
anything that should be possible for a Ssedez to feel for a
human.
Exhaustion overtakes me. My eyes fall closed, and he
lifts me. My cheek rests on his wide chest, and his inhumanly
strong arms support my weight. His voice rumbles beneath
my ear, his skin cool against the heat still fading from me.
The contours of his muscles are hard and chiseled
beneath my hands. The feel of him is alien, too, smoother
than human, refined like aluminum, not forgiving like human
flesh. His bare skin has the characteristic impenetrability of
his species. He’s not soft, and he’s cooler in temperature. I
burrow my overheated body into his, blissfully chilled by his
skin. I shudder, wondering if he’s like that everywhere.
All I can do now is rest against him, but later, I will
find out. The fever may have faded, but the desire that was
ravaging my body still echoes in my core like a dull murmur.
When I wake, I hope he’s there to fuck me.
To read more, buy it on:
Goodreads | Amazon | iBooks | Kobo | Google | Barnes & Noble