Pursued: A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance (Raider Warlords of the Vandar Book 4) by Tana Stone (ebook reader txt) 📗

She started, then appeared to remember herself and where she was. “Why wouldn’t it? You know I lived on a Zagrath-controlled planet. I heard plenty of Zagrath curses while working in the mines under imperial control and run by imperial soldiers.”

That was a reasonable explanation, but that did not explain her battle instincts. No female who’d spent her life working in a mine would know how to fight like she had. No, those moves only came from long hours of practice and plenty of actual grappling. None of which the empire would allow for a female miner living under their rule.

“You maintain that you were running from the empire?” I asked, my gaze locked on hers and my chest still heaving both from exertion and fury.

Her eyes did not waver as she returned my stare. “It’s the truth. You found me. You saw the state of my ship.” She lifted her bound hands to her face and the fading bruises. “You saw what they did to me.”

“Mmmm.” I’d also seen the steely determination in her eyes that was not common in humans who’d lived under imperial rule. It was the same iron will I saw reflected in my raiders’ faces every day.

My pulse raced as I studied the female. Every fiber of my being told me not to trust her and not to be lured by her beauty, while my body ached to taste her again. I cursed the weakness of my flesh and the swelling of my cock.

Spinning away from her so she could not see my growing arousal, I strode to the fireplace and braced my hands above the inset hearth. I focused on the cool stone even as I bit back a wave of disgust with myself. I’d doubted her earlier, yet I’d let her move freely about my warbird. It was true she hadn’t found anything aside from the battle ring, but if she wasn’t what she claimed to be, I could have exposed my raiders and my horde to danger. All because I’d been too flustered by my arousal to do what needed to be done.

I was Raas now, and that meant the safety of my horde came first, even above my own desires. And as a new Raas, I could not allow myself the indulgences of my predecessor. I had not led enough battles or claimed enough bounty to take a female as a prize. Even one who ignited something within me I’d never felt before. I curled my hands into fists. Especially not one who was lying to me.

I turned back to her and saw that the challenge in her gaze had softened.

She drew in a wavering breath. “Listen, I don’t know how else I can convince you that I’m telling the truth. You’re the one who found my ship floating in space, with no fuel and little food. It’s not like I asked for a Vandar horde to board me.”

Her words were persuasive, but they didn’t fit her. Alana was no weak female, no matter what her breathy sighs and quivering voice wished to convey. No, the real her had snapped at me back in the battle ring, her words acerbic and her movements skilled.

I looked intently at her, then her words sunk in. I did have a way to make her tell the truth. It wasn’t something I thought of because lying was not something Vandar did, and especially not a Raas. A Raas never lied. But he did have ways to force others to reveal the truth.

I walked closer to her. “You have told me the truth about yourself?”

She lifted her chin slightly to peer up at me. “Yes, Raas.”

I bent and made quick work of untying her feet and then her hands. “Lift your arms.”

She hesitated, then slowly raised them so they were straight up over her head.

I took the hem of her baggy gray shirt and swept it up and over her head in a single fast motion, leaving her chest bare and her breasts exposed.

Alana sucked in a breath as the beige skin around her nipples pebbled from the cool air. She didn’t cover them with her hands, though. Instead, she kept her gaze on me as she grasped the waistband of her dark pants and shimmied them down over the swell of her hips. When the fabric pooled at her ankles, she stepped out of them and kicked them to the side.

When I’d started to undress her, I wasn’t sure if I’d get the combative Alana or the temptress one, but the darkening of her eyes told me she was as eager to seduce me as she was to fight me. Her talent for adapting was impressive, and I suspected it was also something she’d practiced a great deal.

Wrapping an arm around her, I flattened a palm to the curve of her lower back and jerked her body flush to mine. Her breathing quickened, and the vein in the side of her neck throbbed.

“You know that the Vandar are raiders, and we take what we want,” I murmured, lowering my lips to brush against the tip of her ear. “Since I am Raas, I can claim you as mine.”

She bobbed her head up and down without speaking.

“Is that what you want?” I asked.

“Yes, Raas.” Her voice cracked.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of her warm skin, fresh from a fight. My hardness pressed against the heavy leather of my kilt, straining to break free. All I would need to do would be to drop my kilt and the only remaining barrier between our bodies would be gone. My body shuddered as I imagined plunging myself into her heat, and I ground my hips into her. It would be so easy to surrender to this version of her—the version who was pliant and inviting. But I didn’t want the lie. I wanted the truth.

Squeezing my eyes tight, I