Chasing Dare Read online

  Dare moaned with need when he pulled away from her mouth and looked at him through an aroused haze.

  “Mine!” Balduen growled low, the sound rolling like a wave through the shower. Dare shivered from the intensity of his deep-blue gaze, goose bumps breaking out on her skin. There was nothing normal about this, she knew that something about this would change them forever. How, she didn’t know, but he was waiting for her response.

  “Yours.” Dare's whisper ended on a scream as he plunged deeply inside of her.

  Dare panted almost breathlessly as she recovered from the shock of having him buried completely inside of her. Looking up into Balduen’s face, she could see his eyes had become an even darker blue, his body shaking as he held himself still. Dare could see an almost pained expression on his face as he panted heavily.

  Dare adored that he fought so hard for control, so she could adjust to his size, but she had recovered from her surprise and didn’t want his control. She needed him to take her, to erase the memories of the doctor’s touch and what he put inside of her.

  Pulling herself up slightly, Dare drove her hips back down onto him and rotated her hips, causing both to moan from the pleasure. Balduen’s hands tightened on her hips for a moment, and Dare thought he would try to hold her again. She made a soft cry of protest that barely escaped her lips before he pulled out quickly and drove deeply back in.

  “Oh God…” Dare gasped as Balduen didn’t try to hold her in place. Instead, he began a forceful, possessive pace that left her panting, moaning and begging him for more.

  His powerful, untamed strokes soon had her shattering around him; her body shaking from the strength of her release, she went limp around him as he roared out his own.

  Dare gasped at the feel of him jerking inside of her, the heat of his seed a welcoming surprise. She sighed in contentment as she imagined that heat spreading through her body from her head to her toes. She could almost imagine an increased warmth in her stomach and her head, making her a little drowsy.

  Balduen leaned his forehead against the shower wall near his hand, his other hand easily holding Dare close to him, as he tried to regain his breath and his strength.

  “Ours now.”

  Balduen didn’t even try to understand what his beast meant as he turned his back to the wall and still holding Dare, slid down until he was again sitting on the floor.

  Dare sighed as Balduen wrapped his arms around her and held her close to his chest as if afraid to let her go. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she rested her head on his shoulder not wanting him to let her go yet. She hadn’t felt this sense of peace in a long time, long before they were taken, and she wanted to enjoy it for a little while; with him.

  It took several long minutes before Balduen felt normal enough to think clearly. Other than feeling like he’d just lost half his strength and energy, he felt incredible. Burying his nose in Dare’s hair he inhaled deeply. Surprised, he did it again.

  Dare’s scent changed. Drastically. The scent that she’d come in the room with was almost completely covered with his own scent now and there was a strong hint of a new scent that he’d never encountered before and couldn’t really describe. His beast purred slightly at the new scent, telling Balduen that it must not be a bad thing. In fact, he really enjoyed the scent and nuzzled her neck again.

  “Only ours soon.” His beast purred with contentment.

  “Yes. She’s ours now.” Balduen agreed with a smile at the sound of Dare’s light snoring against his shoulder. He lightly hugged her to him, trying not to wake her, feeling complete and at peace for the first time in longer than he could remember.

  “All are ours.”

  Balduen ignored the beast’s cryptic response, and his light snores soon joined Dare’s.

  Chapter Ten

  Balduen woke slowly, unsure what had startled him awake.

  “Waken, they will come if you don’t.” His beast roared in his head.

  “What are you talking about?” Balduen asked drowsily, but didn’t argue as he stood awkwardly with Dare in his arms. Reaching out with one hand he turned off the now freezing water that they had forgotten to shut off earlier.

  “They speak below that if you both do not come out of this room shortly they will come in. Hurry. Cover our mate.” Beast urged.

  “Dare… you need to get up, or they will come up here.” Balduen gently shook her to try to wake her.

  His heart stammered in his chest as he watched her wake in his arms. Her slow smile and the slight blush to her cheeks told him she was remembering what they had done earlier. He’d like to relive that himself, but they didn’t have time, and he was definitely not going to let any of them come in and see her naked.

  “We need to hurry.” Dare was still a little sleepy when Balduen steadied her on her own feet and started handing her the clothes she’d left on the floor earlier. Wishing she had grabbed clean clothes before she had come in she pushed her legs into the pants, tying the knot and began working on her make-shift bra.

  Turning to look at Balduen, she saw him holding the ripped front of his scrubs with one hand while he peeled off the soaking wet T-shirt with the other. Dare’s jaw dropped at the sight of his chest. If possible, he looked even bigger than he had when he came in the shower earlier. The muscles in his shoulders and back bulged and flexed as he shifted, his biceps now almost as big as her thighs… and her thighs weren’t small! She thought.

  “Hurry.” Balduen was going to say more, but the look of admiration in her eyes as she perused his body had him momentarily speechless.

  “Hurry baby.” Dare gave him a brilliant smile and a wink, then smacked him on his butt as she shimmied her body between his and the shower wall to get into the bedroom.

  Looking at the clock, she saw that it was only eight forty-five, but they’d been in the shower together for almost four hours. And what a four hours it was! She couldn’t keep the smile off of her face when Baldy came out of the bathroom and went into the closet for new clothes. He was amazing, and she felt incredible. Better than she had in a long time.

  New clothes in his hands Balduen looked at Dare curiously before heading back into the bathroom to change. It wasn’t just her happiness that had him looking so closely at her, there was something else about her that was very different now, but he couldn’t place what it was yet.

  Was that a giggle? Did she really just giggle? Looking back around the corner of the door to stare at her, he couldn’t keep the smile from spreading on his own face. Her happiness was very infectious; he thought as he shook his head and went back into the bathroom to change.

  *****

  “They look fine to me, no reason for the panic or to storm the room!” Dr. Jose Camarasa was seriously irritated at Lucretia’s absurd behavior and demands.

  Thankfully, Brak had called him from the lab before listening to the woman’s screams that they storm the room and separate the girl and the Valendran.

  “How can you think that he’s fine? She had him trapped in the shower for four hours! You think that poor man is fine after being assaulted and raped for four hours? What the hell, is wrong with you?” Lucretia screamed at him, her arms waving wildly as she gestured dramatically to the ceiling.

  “Yeah, that happy shouting and roaring earlier was really hard to hear!” One of the Relian’s said laughing and punching another in the arm.

  “And that smile on his face! Oh, the horror!” Another added mockingly.

  “You fool! He was shouting for help! He was roaring in pain!” Lucretia was enraged that they weren’t taking this seriously at all.

  She was shaking with fury and would have stormed up the stairs to save him hours ago if Brak hadn’t kept getting in her way. The bastard had kept laughing at her attempts to get up the stairs until he finally had enough and had gotten Dr. Camarasa to go help.

  Obviously, the doctor was just as useless as Brak and the other men. She would have to find a way to save the Valendran on her own. He would be w
orth the effort though. She would make sure of it; she thought as she stormed into her assigned bedroom and slammed the door. It didn’t block the sound of their laughter.

  “She’s out of control.” Brak’s simple statement mirrored the thoughts of the doctor and the others.

  “I agree. I think she could be dangerous, more so to our experiment than to us. I will talk to Grai about her and her behavior. Until we know what he wants to do about her, I want all of you to keep a close eye on her. I don’t want her near that room or the test subjects. Is that understood?” The doctor leveled his gaze on Brak as he asked the question.

  The doctor was no fool and knew the only thing keeping Brak from Dare was his fear of Grai’s vengeance. He had heard all about Grai’s lack of patience where problem people were concerned. Apparently, Grai believed that elimination was a perfectly good solution to almost every problem, and he employed the strategy often enough to make an impression on his men.

  “My orders are to protect this experiment and those involved. Until those orders change, that is exactly what I intend to do. You would do well to worry more about that psychotic bitch, because right now she’s much more dangerous to the female than I am.”

  “I suggest you change the codes to the lab and any equipment she may have access too. The last thing we need is for her to get hold of something that she can use to kill the subjects or one of us.” Brak wanted to make it very clear to the doctor that he answered only to Grai and not to him. He stared down the doctor for long moments until the doctor looked away, before storming off to ride the perimeter again.

  After Brak left the room, the others quietly dispersed to attend to their duties while Dr. Camarasa went back out to the lab to change the codes as Brak suggested and make a private call to Grai.

  *****

  Dare was the first one to get into the bed that night. She laid on her side of the bed, nervously hiding most of her face under the comforter while she waited for Baldy to finish in the bathroom.

  After they had both come out of the bathroom earlier, they had both been starved and dug into the now-cold dinner still waiting on the bed. They really hadn’t spoken at all, and that was why Dare was so nervous. Was he regretting what they had done? Was she? Hell no, she didn’t regret it at all. But what if he did? Could she pretend it didn’t mean anything to her?

  Putting her nerves and her doubt aside she tried to remain calm as he slid into the bed beside her and pulled the comforter up to their noses.

  “Are you all right?” That really hadn’t been on the list of things she expected him to say first, and she was kind of lost for a moment.

  “Uh… yeah I’m great. Are you all right?” Maybe if she played this cool, she could figure out how he felt without him really saying it.

  “I’m wonderful Dare. Why are you so nervous?” Yet another thing she didn’t expect him to come right out and say. She had to give him credit; like her father, he was straight forward and to the point. Taking a deep breath she decided to be just as blunt.

  “I know things seem a little awkward between us after… well… you know.” Dare hedged, hoping that if she left things open-ended enough that he would jump right in and tell her how he felt.

  “I don’t feel awkward at all. In fact, I feel much closer to you. Do you not feel the connection that seems to be shimmering around us?” Dare took in the puzzled expression on Balduen's face and realized that he was being serious. Looking at him more closely she tried to see the connection he was talking about, but she didn’t see anything around either of them.

  “What do you mean? I don’t see anything.” Dare was so intent on finding what he was talking about that she didn’t realize she had sat up and was speaking out loud until he pulled her back down next to him and cuddled her up to his chest.

  “I didn’t say you could see it. I said you could feel it.” Baldy told her with a chuckle, his hands roaming her back in light caresses, needing to touch her.

  “How can you feel something like that?” Dare asked curiously, settling comfortably against Baldy’s side with her head on his chest. She felt much calmer since he had willingly cuddled her up next to him.

  “I’m not really sure. Honestly, I don’t think I would have been able to feel it before I connected with beast. But, what I feel is almost like an electric thread around the two of us, which binds us together. You don’t feel anything?” Baldy was curious if she felt anything at all for him.

  Dare was quiet for several minutes, trying her best to feel what he was talking about. But, she felt nothing like that.

  “No, I don’t feel anything around us. Maybe I can’t because I don’t have a beast?” Dare asked, hoping it was something like that preventing her from feeling what he did, and not that there wasn’t anything there for her to feel.

  “I do not know. I am unfamiliar with communicating with the beast and using his abilities; I might be wrong about what I am feeling. I have also never had a mate before, so I could be feeling what the other mated men normally feel, and I wouldn’t know it since I can’t ask one of them.” Baldy gave her a wink and chuckled slightly. His peaceful and playful demeanor was contagious, and she found herself squeezing him tighter and winking back.

  “So you think you’re just confused about the whole mating thing then?” Dare’s heart had skipped a few beats when he had brought up the mating again. She was hoping that he was still thinking they were mates and hadn’t changed his mind after what had happened in the shower.

  Having never been around anyone who had just learned they were mates, Dare wasn’t quite sure how this was supposed to work between them now. Were they supposed to act like a couple? Were there rules they had to follow? Were they already considered married?

  Dare hadn’t realized that she had spoken out loud until Balduen began to laugh… hard. He was shaking the bed with his chuckling and for some reason, that irritated her. Grabbing his side, she gave his skin a sharp pinch. Not enough to leave a mark, just enough to get his attention.

  “Hey! What was that for?” Baldy asked her with a grin on his face; his light-blue eyes flashed with hints of dark-blue.

  “That was for laughing at me! It’s not like I have a freaking clue how this is supposed to work. There weren’t exactly a bunch of you guys around when I was growing up so the lessons on Valendran mating rituals were not something that my mother regularly discussed with my sister and myself.” Dare defended her lack of knowledge on the subject. Baldy grabbed her hands in his own and placed a kiss on her knuckles.

  “I am just as uninformed as you are. Although, we all hope to find our mate, it is not something that we expect to find. So instead of going to the classes that would have explained all of this to me… well Niklosi and myself generally skipped those lessons in favor of the ones that we felt would have more benefit to us.” Baldy actually looked a little guilty, and it piqued Dare’s interest.

  “What other lessons did you choose to learn instead?” By the blush on his face, Dare expected it to have something to do with women. Did they even have porn or magazines like that on Valendra, she wondered?

  “We spent our time learning to fight and battle tactics.” Baldy didn’t even attempt to hide the gleam in his eyes when he said it, and Dare knew exactly what he meant.

  “So you spent all your time fighting with your friends instead of learning about the mating process?” Dare asked, trying hard to pretend to be shocked and offended. She knew she didn’t pull it off too well when he started laughing again.

  “We figured our odds were better that we’d end up fighting more often. In hindsight, we probably should have attended at least a couple of the classes though. Especially since I am the second one of us to fall victim to a mating since we arrived.” Balduen’s eyes glittered with amusement as he watched her reaction to his words. If Dare wasn’t mistaken, he was teasing her!

  “You poor baby! Who was this other poor victim? Did he have to be put down to remove him from his misery?” Dare tried to look s
erious, but the playful mood in the air between them wouldn’t allow for that, and her eyes crinkled at him in amusement.

  “Well we did lock them away from each other. Somehow she still managed to sink her claws into him and snatch him from us. It was hard watching him walk around with that smile plastered on his face… he was almost impossible to deal with after the birth of his twin daughters…” Just that easily, the mood in the room changed and Balduen wished he had kept his mouth shut.

  “Dare, I’m sorry…”

  “Baldy, don’t apologize. This isn’t your fault, or my own. We just got stuck in a bad situation.” Dare wasn’t sure what to say to him. This had to be the most screwed-up mating in Valendran history!

  “The doctor said you don’t have to go back until Monday, so that leaves us these three days to plan our escape. I’m stronger now and when I tried the bricks in the window today I had to stop myself from going through the whole wall. We can get out. I’ll protect you Dare.” Balduen squeezed her tightly, anxious to get her out of here. He wanted to leave now. To jump out of the window and run with Dare as far as they could. He would get them away even if he had to carry her on his back.

  “Something’s wrong. I feel it in the energy around us.” The beast interrupted Balduen’s thoughts easily.

  “I do as well. Is there any way you can find out what it is?” Balduen asked the beast, in his head, hoping not to frighten Dare.

  “The other female is very dangerous to our mate, but she is not the only danger. I will send out a call for additional sourcing to find it.” The beast replied.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Once our kind reaches a certain level of interdependence with our host, I can use our combined energy to send out a call to our brethren for assistance.” The beast responded.

  “What brethren? What assistance are you talking about? Are there others near that you can call for help?” Balduen was confused; he didn’t remember anything in his training about any of this.

  “Like other species, ours also comes from varied planets, but one original source. Although we are different, mostly due to our hosts, we can communicate and share energy among our own kind.” Beast explained patiently.