Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection Page 27

  He didn’t let her enjoy the view for long, grasping her shirt to pull it over her head and unclasping her bra. A second later, her panties were pulled off her legs and joined the heap of clothes lying on the floor. He paused for a second, raking her naked body with a burning gaze, and then he bent over her, his hot mouth closing over her left breast, sucking on it. Mia moaned, feeling the pull of his mouth deep within her belly, and he sucked on the other breast, his tongue flicking over her nipple in a way that made her desperately wish his head was two feet lower. As though reading her mind, he touched her wet folds with his hand, one finger pushing into her opening, pressing on the ultra-sensitive spot inside her pussy, and Mia gasped from the intensity of the sensation, her body throbbing on the verge of release. Without removing his finger, he brought his mouth down toward her sex, his tongue finding its way inside her folds to tease the area directly around her clit. At the same time, his finger moved slightly within her, starting to find a rhythm, and Mia’s entire body tensed as the tingles of pre-orgasmic sensation began to radiate from her lower regions outward. His tongue flicked at her nub, first lightly and then with increasing pressure, and Mia screamed under the almost cruel lash of pleasure, her inner muscles clamping down on his finger and then pulsating with the aftershocks of the release.

  Withdrawing his finger, he flipped her over, pulling her toward the edge of the couch. Lifting her briefly, he placed her so that she was bent over the plush couch arm, face down and her feet on the floor. Covering her with his body, he began to push inside her, his cock penetrating her inch by slow inch. Mia was soft and wet from the orgasm, and her body accepted his gradual entrance, the tender inner tissues stretching and expanding to accommodate the intrusion. As he pushed forward, he kissed the side of her neck, and she shivered, the tension starting to build again. Her sex spasmed around his cock, and he groaned in response, sheathing himself fully within her. Mia inhaled sharply from the feel of his shaft buried to the hilt; he was impossibly hard and thick, and she felt like she was burning from the heat of him inside her, over her, all around her.

  And then he began to move, his thrusts pressing her deeper into the arm of the couch. Every muscle in her body tensed, and she cried out, each stroke intensifying the agonizing pleasure, until her world narrowed to nothing more than the cock moving back and forth within her body and she existed purely for the sensations, stripped down to the raw and elemental parts of her animal nature. She could hear the rhythmic cries in the distance and knew that they had to be her own, and then the massive climax swept through her, her inner muscles rippling around him and her entire body trembling from the shock of the orgasmic wave. And, with a hoarse shout, he was coming too, his hips grinding into her as his cock pulsed inside her with his own contractions.

  When it was all over, he withdrew from her, leaving her lying there naked, still bent over the sofa arm. Without his large body covering her, Mia suddenly felt cold—and the realization of what had just happened added to the icy knot growing inside her. Standing up on quivering legs, Mia bent down to pick up her clothes, refusing to look at him and trying to ignore the wetness sliding down her leg. With the heat of passion over, her anger returned, magnified by the shame of her unwanted response to him.

  “Mia,” he said softly, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him standing there, completely unconcerned about his nakedness. She turned away, putting on her bra, and using her shirt to wipe off the traces of the sex session before putting on her underwear. Pulling on her jeans, she felt slightly better, but the cold fury inside remained. Without even thinking about it, she walked over to the little purse she’d left sitting on the couch earlier this morning. Reaching inside, she pulled out the little device Leslie had given her and pointed it in his direction.

  “I’m leaving,” she said with icy calm. A stranger seemed to have taken over her body, and the normal Mia couldn’t help but marvel at her daring, even though she knew that her odds of success were nil.

  At the sight of the weapon, the golden glow in Korum’s eyes cooled.

  “That’s a dangerous toy you have there,” he said quietly, staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

  Mia nodded coolly. “Don’t force me to use it.”

  “So you walk out of here, and then what?” he asked with mild curiosity. “There’s nowhere you can go where I won’t find you.”

  Mia hadn’t thought that far; in fact, there’d been no thinking involved in her actions at all. It was too late now, though, so she just shrugged and said bravely, “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

  “Are you going to go on the run? Change your identity?” he continued, an amused note appearing in his voice. “None of that would work, you know.”

  “Because of the tracking stuff you put in me without my knowledge or consent?” she asked bitterly.

  Korum just looked at her, neither admitting nor denying it. “There’s only one way you could be free of me,” he said slowly.

  Mia stared at him in frustration, not understanding where he was leading. Now that the initial wave of fury had passed, the full stupidity of her actions dawned on her. He was right; even if she managed to walk out of his penthouse—a big if, given the laser-quick reflexes she was up against—he would catch her before she could go more than a few blocks. By pointing that weapon at him, she had only succeeded in angering him, and she felt a tendril of fear at the thought.

  “And what way is that?” she asked, deciding to stall for time.

  “You could shoot me,” he said seriously. “And then all your problems would be solved.”

  Horrified, Mia gaped at him. The idea of actually pressing the button and watching him dissolve before her eyes, like those shield posts at the colony, was unthinkable. She’d never had any intention of actually using the weapon. All she’d wanted was to regain some measure of control, to feel like she was in charge of her own life. She’d wanted to threaten him, to make him bow to her will, to make him feel the way she felt when he took away her freedom of choice. She’d never wanted to hurt him, much less kill him.

  “Go ahead, Mia,” he said softly. His powerful naked body was relaxed, as though they were having a regular conversation—as though he didn’t have a deadly weapon pointed at him. “Go ahead and shoot.”

  Her fingers trembled, her palms slick with sweat, and she felt her eyes burning with stupid, unwelcome tears. “Please,” she said, not caring anymore that she sounded like she was begging. “Please don’t make me do it. I just want to leave . . . to go home. Please just let me walk out of here—”

  “Just press the button, Mia. And then you can go wherever you want.”

  Mia felt hot and cold, her stomach twisting with nausea. The tiny device in her hand was suddenly unbearably heavy, and her arm shook with the effort of holding it pointed at him. The tears spilled over, running down her cheeks, and she lowered the weapon, sinking down to the floor, her trembling legs unable to hold her any longer. Burying her face in her hands, she cried, bitter at her own cowardice, her own idiocy. She couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t kill him; she would have sooner cut off her own limb. How could she feel this way about him even now? What was wrong with her that she had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t even human . . . an alien whose kind had just murdered thousands of people?

  In the depths of her despair, she felt him wrap his arms around her, lifting her from the floor and onto his lap on the couch. “Hush, my darling,” he whispered, “everything will be all right, I promise. I wouldn’t have been able to press that button either—and I’m glad you couldn’t.” He stroked her hair gently while she cried into his naked shoulder. After a few minutes, her sobs began to quiet. Feeling embarrassed about her outburst, Mia tried to pull away, but he didn’t let her, lifting her chin instead to look her in the eye.

  “Mia,” he said softly, “I’m not taking you with me to be cruel. After everything that happened, the Resistance—or whatever is left of it—will be looking for you. They
don’t know the full story, and they’ll think you set them up. They’ll spare no effort in trying to kill you, and if they figure out how much you mean to me, they’ll try to capture you alive to use you against me. I’m sorry, but I have no choice. It’s simply not safe for you to be anywhere but in Lenkarda right now.”

  Mia stared at him, her vision still blurred by tears. She hadn’t thought about that, but it was true. As far as the Resistance was concerned, she was a traitor to all of humankind. They would definitely blame her for the huge loss of life she’d just witnessed. A terrifying thought occurred to her. “What about my family?” she asked, everything inside her turning to ice at the possibility that the freedom fighters might try to hurt those she loved.

  “Your family had nothing to do with it, and I doubt the fighters would be vengeful enough to needlessly harm fellow humans. But your kind can be very unpredictable, so I will make sure that several of our best guardians are stationed near your family, to keep an eye out for them.”

  Mia opened her mouth to ask, but he forestalled her. “And no, that wouldn’t be enough to ensure your safety. There are still a few key Resistance leaders unaccounted for, and they’re armed with some Krinar weapons. I expect them to go into hiding and leave your family alone, but they may be willing to risk everything to get to you. So until they’re apprehended, you will be safest in Lenkarda. And if you have to venture out, it will be with me by your side.”

  How convenient for him, Mia thought bitterly, he could now keep her prisoner with good justification. Of course, the Resistance would want to kill her—and they would be right to do so. She was responsible for all those deaths today . . .

  “How many people were killed this morning?” asked Mia, feeling like she wanted to die herself.

  Korum shrugged slightly. “I don’t know if the medics got to the ones who were burned fast enough to save them. Some of them might have died from their encounter with the shield.”

  “What about all the other ones, the ones who were hit with that red light?” asked Mia, her heart beginning to pound in wild hope.

  “They were knocked unconscious—and so were the ones who attacked our other Centers. They deserved to die, of course, but we decided to let your governments deal with them. It’ll be interesting to see what their punishment will be for violating the Coexistence Treaty and endangering your entire species in the process.”

  The relief that Mia felt was indescribable. The painful grip in her chest seemed to ease, letting her breathe freely for the first time since she’d witnessed the attack.

  And then Korum added, “Of course, we’re not going to leave it to chance. All those fighters now have surveillance devices embedded in their bodies, so we’ll know everything they do and everywhere they go. They’ve been effectively neutralized as a threat to us, and we can now use them to catch the rest—those that were not near our Centers today.”

  So he had succeeded in his mission of squashing the Resistance movement. Given the number of fighters lying on the field, Ks would now have thousands of walking, talking surveillance mechanisms all over the globe. It was quite clever really; why bother killing a human when you could use him instead? Pure Korum deviousness at work.

  She must’ve looked upset because he said, “Mia, stop worrying about this. The Resistance is over. It was a foolish movement to begin with. Just think about it. So they don’t like us being here and changing a few things. Is that really a good reason to risk so many lives? You have to admit, we’re nothing like the alien invaders of your movies. We have no desire to enslave humans, or to take away your planet. If that had been our agenda, we would’ve already done it. We settled here as peacefully as possible, living in our Centers with minimal interference in human affairs. That’s far better than what your Europeans had done to the American natives.”

  Still sitting on his lap, Mia looked away. If Korum was telling her the truth and John had lied about the meaning of charl, then the entire Resistance movement was misguided at best—and criminally irresponsible at worst.

  “And do you honestly think it would’ve been a good thing for you to have those seven traitors as your rulers? Because, believe me, that’s what they would’ve been. They wanted power, and they didn’t care who got hurt as a result of their actions. Do you really think they would’ve been content to live quietly among humans, obeying your every law and selflessly sharing Krinar knowledge?”

  Now that Korum put it that way, Mia could see the implausibility of what John had originally told her. Maybe the Resistance leaders had thought they could somehow control the Keiths once the other Ks had left—but that could’ve easily been a dangerous assumption to make. Mia mentally kicked herself. Why hadn’t she probed further into the Keiths’ motivations? But no, she’d blindly gone with what John was telling her, too caught up in her own personal drama to fully think about anything else.

  Korum sighed, and she felt the movement of his chest. “Look, it won’t be so bad being in Lenkarda, believe me. Aren’t you the least bit curious to see how we live?”

  Mia looked up at him again, feeling completely drained. “Korum, I just can’t . . . I can’t simply leave everything and everyone—”

  “What if I take you to see your family in a couple of weeks as we originally discussed?” he asked softly. “Would that make you feel better?”

  “We’d go to Florida?” asked Mia in surprise.

  He nodded. “You could spend a few days with them before we have to go back.”

  She smiled, the pressure in her chest easing further. “That would be wonderful,” she said quietly.

  He smiled back and gently brushed a curl off her face. “And hopefully, by the end of the summer, we’ll catch the rest of the Resistance fighters—so if you still want to come back to New York then, we’ll return here and you can finish your last year of school.”

  Mia blinked at him, hardly daring to believe her ears. “You’ll bring me back here?”

  “I will . . . if you still want to return by then.” Getting up, he placed her gently on her feet. “Now put on a shirt and some shoes while I get dressed. It’s time to go.”

  ***

  Korum allowed her to take her purse with its entire contents, the weapon excluded, and nothing else. When she protested that she needed her computer and her clothes, he laughed. “I promise you, there’s plenty of everything where we’re going,” he explained with a smile.

  “What about my passport?” she asked, and then realized that it was a stupid question. She might be heading to a foreign country, but she sincerely doubted she would be going through airport security. Somehow, Korum had managed to travel there this morning and then come back to New York—all within a span of a couple of hours. No, thought Mia, they likely wouldn’t be traveling by airplane.

  Her suppositions turned out to be correct.

  He led her into his office, holding her hand as if afraid she would bolt. Walking toward the back of the room, he held his other hand in front of the wall and it slid open, revealing stairs that likely led to the rooftop.

  “Come,” Korum said, and she followed him with hesitation, her pulse racing at the thought of where she was going. It was too late to turn back now—not that he would have let her—and Mia felt a heady mixture of excitement and fear rushing through her veins as she walked up the stairs.

  They exited onto the rooftop, and Mia looked around. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see—perhaps some alien aircraft sitting there. But there was nothing. The roof was empty, with the exception of some evergreen shrubs growing in neat rows around the perimeter. The rain had mostly stopped, but it was still wet and humid outside, and Mia could practically feel her curls frizzing up from the moisture in the air.

  “What are we doing here?” she asked in surprise. “Is someone coming to get us?”

  Korum shook his head and smiled. “No, we’re going by ourselves.”

  “How?” asked Mia, burning with curiosity.

  “You’ll see in a s
econd. Don’t be afraid, okay?” He squeezed her palm reassuringly.

  Mia nodded, and Korum let go of her hand, taking a step forward. Extending his arm, he made a gesture, as though pointing at the empty space in front of him. All of a sudden, Mia could hear a low humming. The sound was unlike anything Mia had heard before—too quiet and even to be the buzzing of insects.

  “What is that?” she asked warily, wondering if Korum intended to teleport them somewhere. Mia had no idea what the limitations of K technology were, but she did know that Krinar physics had to have gone far beyond Einstein’s theories; otherwise, the Ks wouldn’t have been able to travel faster than the speed of light. Who knew what else they could do?

  Korum turned toward her, his eyes glittering with some unknown emotion. “It’s the sound of the nanomachines that I just released. They’re building us our ride.” And Mia realized that he was excited, pleased to be going home.

  Something began to shimmer in front of them. Goosebumps appeared on Mia’s arms as she stared in fascination at the strange sight. The shimmering intensified, as if a bucket of glitter had been thrown in front of them—and then the walls of the aircraft began to form in front of her eyes.

  Barely holding back a gasp, Mia watched as the structure assembled itself, seemingly out of nothingness. The walls slowly solidified, thickening layer by layer, and then a small pod-like aircraft stood in front of them. It appeared to be made out of some unusual ivory material, with no visible windows or doors, and was smaller than a helicopter.

  Mia exhaled sharply, releasing a breath she had been holding for the last thirty seconds.

  “It’s called advanced rapid fabrication technology,” Korum said, smiling at the look of utter astonishment on her face. “It’s one of our most useful inventions. Come with me.” And taking her hand again, he led her toward the newly assembled structure.