Riya Meets Tarren
Please enjoy these bonus scenes featuring two of the characters from the upcoming Night of the Zandians (Zandian Brides Book 1) These scenes were deleted from His Human Possession because they slowed the plot down too much.
Riya struggled to drag a lifeless human to the shelter of their crashed carriercraft. If he wasn’t still breathing, she would’ve left him to incinerate in his crashed battleship. But she couldn’t leave an injured soldier out there to die alone. Not when she could do something.
Although how much she could do was questionable. With only a few lunar cycle’s training as a medtech and no field experience, her skills were being sorely tested. And damn, she had no idea how hard it was to drag a body!
“Out of the way, let me,” barked one of the huge Zandian warriors. He easily tossed the human over his shoulder and ran for entryway, hustling her in front of him. Another bomb exploded nearby and the sound of answering laserfire from their battleships overhead told her they hadn’t lost yet.
But it sure didn’t look good.
Not that she knew anything about warfare.
As soon as they reached the entryway, the Zandian dropped his burden on a nearby mat and turned on her, brows low. “You don’t go out there. Your job is to stay in here and tend to the injured, female.”
Her jaw clenched. “It’s Riya, not female.” As long as she was risking her life alongside theirs, the Zandians ought to think of them as individual beings, not some human slave army. “And there are injured out there in greater danger of dying.”
“Riya.” He took a threatening step forward, towering above her. She had to fight not to flinch as he leaned down and got in her face. Muscles rippled and bulged under his lavender skin and a deep gash ran down the length of his cheek, wetting his face with dark purple blood. “I will bring them in. Leave again and I’ll warm your ass.”
Her face grew hot and something squeezy happened between her legs. She’d seen both Master Rok and Lundric smack their human mates’ asses on occasion and every time it had created an explosion of flutters in her belly. Was this how Zandians punished their females?
It seemed shockingly intimate and rather…pleasurable.
But surely it must hurt. Even so, the thought of this huge warrior warming her ass left her stammeringly stupid for a full five seconds before she recovered enough to snap, “Then get back out there, another ship is downed beyond that one.”
“You’re giving the orders now?” She thought she detected amusement in his voice, but it was hard to tell. “That’s cute.” He turned to the door.
“I don’t know your name,” she called to his back. It seemed important. She ought to know the beings she might die with.
He turned with a glimmer of a smile on his hard face. “Tarron.”
“Be careful, Tarron.”
He’d already stalked out and she didn’t know if he’d heard her.
It didn’t matter, though, because she had a wounded soldier to look after.
#
Riya blinked back tears as she covered another dead body with a sheet. Humans and Zandians alike had given their lives already as the war raged just beyond the thin metal hull of the ship that served as their home base.
Tarron staggered in and fell, the side of his body badly burned.
She rushed to him, grabbing a Zandian crystal on the way. At least with the Zandian warriors, she had a better tool. Their systems responded to the crystal embedded in their planet. It fed them and gave them energy. It aided in their healing. Of course some were so far gone, not even the crystals helped.
She pressed the crystal against an uninjured part of his belly as she ducked under his arm to help him to an empty cot. “Tarron–you’re going to be all right,” she soothed. It was the same thing she said to all of them, even though it wasn’t true. Even though it looked more and more like they would all be dead by the end of the next planet rotation.
He groaned as he sank to a sitting position and allowed her to peel the singed fabric of his tunic off his torso.
She gritted her own teeth at the charred flesh she found beneath.
One of her human patients groaned loudly.
“Go to him,” Tarron said. “He needs you more than I.”
She shook her head. “I’ve done all I can do for him. You, I can actually help.” She sprayed an antiseptic and analgesic over both the cut on his cheek and the burns on his trunk. “I’m sorry,” she said when he turned his head away, blinking his eyes. “That was stupid of me. Did I spray it in your eyes?” She’d been stumbling around half-dead, half in shock since they’d crashed on Zandia, but something about this big warrior had her babbling, pulse picking up speed every time his brown-purple gaze met hers.
“I’m fine.” His brows were down like slashes and he appeared angry, but she noticed his gaze kept slipping to her bare legs. The air regulators had stopped working after the crash and the ship was hot. She’d taken off her leggings, running around in just her tunic and a pair of boots.
Something fluttered in her belly again. Did the huge Zandian find her attractive?
Hell, this wasn’t the time to think about such things.
Then again, if it was her last planet rotation alive, when else?
She gently applied a light bandage to his burns, then stepped in close to sew up the deep gash that ran the length of his cheek. He’d had it since the initial crash, but it hadn’t closed properly. Fresh blood still oozed from it.
She cleaned it thoroughly. Getting the right angle for stitching was difficult, and she ended up straddling one of the big warrior’s legs. His fingertips brushed her bare thigh. There was nothing suggestive above the move–but he didn’t remove them, either.
Did he like the feel of her skin?
Get your head together, Riya. You don’t even care for males.
Usually.
But perhaps that was because her previous experiences had been so bad.
She pinched the edges of his cut together and jabbed the needle through the skin. She must not have sprayed enough anesthetic, because he jerked, his hand convulsively closing around her thigh–no–around her ass. He squeezed the handful of her flesh hard as he dragged his breath over his clenched teeth.
Despite the battle raging outside, despite her exhaustion and hopelessness, her body responded. Heat pooled between her legs. Her breath stopped.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded breathless. “It wasn’t numb enough. I’ll spray some more.”
“No,” he barked, squeezing even tighter.
She couldn’t move with his hand so tight on her ass and damn if her petals hadn’t dampened with the nearness of his touch. She tried a little shuffle to the side.
He must’ve realized, then, because he relaxed his grip, massaging away the pain. “Forgive me,” he muttered gruffly, giving her tingling cheek a little pat before removing his hand.
Her breath dragged in and out of her chest, nipples tingled at the awareness of how close they were to the warrior’s mouth. And she shouldn’t be thinking of what it would feel like if he leaned forward and nipped one of them through her tunic!
She gave her head a little shake, trying to focus on dragging the thread through his cheek rather than on the insistent pulse between her legs. She rolled her lower lip into her mouth and worked her way methodically down the wound, making neat stitches. When she reached his chin it became difficult to angle her elbows and hands. She shuffled one way and the other, torquing her torso to get the angle right.
Suddenly the warrior reached his steel band of an arm around her waist and pulled her forward to straddle his hard thigh.
“Oh!” Her surprised glance flew to his face. Before she knew what she was doing, her hips rocked forward, seeking relief for the ache he’d inspired.
His eyes changed to a brighter purple and horns stiffened and leaned toward her. The flare of hunger in his expression probably matched her own, right before her good sense returned and she went scrambling off the saddle of his leg.
And a little snippet about Riya’s past:
Humans are not meant to be overly intelligent. I remember what was drummed into my head by the ocretion guards. Superior intelligence in humans is a weakness, a trait to be bred out. You are best when you are smart enough, but docile and pliant, ready to be filled with what we train you. To be a good slave, you must strive to fit our needs, because that is the only way to guarantee your success here.
I’d had enough of docile that night, though, that they started to come after Marina. I’d distracted them for lunar cycles, offering myself instead, even if it meant more pain. That night, they didn’t listen. So young, so pretty—and when they approached her sleep cot, sticks in their hands, I snapped. All of the rage that had built up over years of mistreatment poured out of me as I heard her screams of pain, screams for help.
When I couldn’t pull them off with my hands, and when they attacked my face and body with their shocks sticks set to the highest setting, I lashed out with the only thing I could grab, just trying to survive. And I killed them.
I’m not sorry, either, except that my actions may have worsened Marina’s plight. She was taken away and I never found out what happened to her; sometimes at night, I awake from nightmares of her screams and her small face, the blood on her body, the helpless look in her eyes. I will see her eyes until the planet rotation I die. No, I’m not sorry I killed those guards. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
And sweet Mother Earth saw that I was rescued from the Ocretion deathpod by the Zandians. My future it now wrapped up with them. Whatever may come.