Barbarian King’s Mate by Ivy Sparks
Chapter Nine
Daphne
Nissaya hustledme out of the court into a tiny room next to the main hall. The instant the door shut, I rounded on her. “What the hell just happened?”
Nissaya looked as confused as I felt, but she regained some composure. “Garath claimed protection for you as his mate. Now you have to perform the ritual in front of the entire clan.” Nissaya took hold of the thin top she had lent me to wear in place of Garath’s piece of leather. “Take these off. We have to get you ready for the ritual. There isn’t much time.”
I didn’t move. “Are you telling me that… Wait. What exactly are you telling me?”
Nissaya let her hands drop. She faced me like she was explaining this to a toddler. “You heard Father. He won’t believe you’re really Garath’s mate unless you prove it by performing the ritual. You must go through with this or you’ll be treated like any other alien.”
“What does that mean? What does performing the ritual really mean?”
“Isn’t it obvious? You must mate with him.”
She tried to untie the top again, but I shoved her hands away. “Hold it. Are you seriously suggesting I… I do it with him—in front of everyone?”
Just then, Garath burst in. He shut the door behind him and walked over to me. “Father is getting restless, and Zixor is out there whispering in his ear. We have to…”
“I’m not doing it!” I blurted out. “I’m not doing it with you in front of all those people. Forget it.”
Garath’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Zixor is ready to execute you on Father’s word. You saw that. We have to go through with this, and we have to make it real. He’s seen enough rituals to know if it’s real.”
“How can you even suggest this? How could you stand there and tell him I’m your…” I threw up my hands. “This is nuts. Just toss me back into the jungle.”
Garath zipped in front of me a lot faster than I ever would have believed he could move. “Stop, Daphne. I didn’t save you from the Vorlax to stand by and let you die now. This is the only way I can truly protect you. As my mate, nobody will harm you. You’ll have the protection of the entire clan. But if we don’t go through with this, Zixor will take you out to the jungle, and you won’t come back. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand it, but Jesus Christ! You can’t expect me to do it with…” I waved my hand up and down in front of him. The sheer enormity of what he was saying left no words to describe this situation.
He took a step toward me. After holding his hand and touching him so many times in the jungle, I couldn’t react when he placed both hands on my shoulders. He peered down into my eyes, and the intensity of his gaze erased everything else.
“Whatever you might think of me or my motives, this is the only way I could save your life. I’m sorry it came to this, but I really did it to protect you. You have to believe that.”
Looking back into his eyes, I believed it. He went through hell itself to protect me from the Vorlax. He wouldn’t have brought me here if he didn’t think this was the best way to keep me alive, and now he was doing the same thing.
“I didn’t think Father would react the way he did,” Garath murmured. “I thought he would give us a few days and, in that time, we could find a way to contact your ship. I didn’t think we’d have to prove it on the spot. But if that’s what it takes, I can think of worse things I would be willing to do.”
Those hands on my shoulders radiated their strength and power into my being. I could think of many worse things I’d be willing to do to get off this planet too. Hadn’t I been fantasizing about Garath ever since I saw him?
I didn’t think I’d ever get intimate with him—not really. I definitely didn’t think I’d have to do it with him in public with strangers watching, but in the end, was that really so bad? It beat getting killed. And if I was being honest with myself… I wanted him in that way.
I shut my eyes, and in the very bottom corner of my heart, I knew I was going to go through with this. I would just have to pretend the onlookers weren’t there. “All right. I’ll do it.”
His powerful fingers clenched around my waist. “I will get you out of here, Daphne. I give you my word of honor that I will get you off this planet and back to your own people.”
I opened my eyes, and his matchless gaze filled my entire world. “I believe you.”
Nissaya rushed in between us. “That’s great. Now get these clothes off. Get out of here, Garath. You know the rules.”
He backed away, but his eyes remained riveted on mine until the door cut off my view of him. He was still there. He was right outside. He was waiting for me.
I went into a trance while Nissaya took my clothes off. I felt a pang of embarrassment when Nissaya pulled the top over my head and untied the drawstring around my waist. She left me completely naked, but after the initial shyness, I just couldn’t care about that anymore. In a second, I’d be screwing a stranger in front of a bunch of other total strangers. What difference did it make if this woman saw me naked?
She picked up a pot and raised a paintbrush. She drew complicated patterns over my body in dark blue paint. They started as intricate shapes on my shoulders, back, and chest, like the Kavians’ tattoos.
Then Nissaya continued down to my legs and to the ends of my arm. She even painted on my neck until the decorations covered everything without really covering everything. In a way, they calmed my nerves. They didn’t hide it all, but they made me feel less modest about everyone staring at me.
Nissaya set the paint pot aside and stood in front of me. She draped a gossamer slip over my body and straightened up to look at me. Her eyes glistened with so much compassion and understanding that I couldn’t get mad at her about this. “Listen to me,” she whispered. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Soon we’ll hear a gong outside and I’ll lead you back into the court. It will look different because the windows will be covered and there will be torches lighting the chamber instead.”
I caught my breath. This was it. Her confidential tone convinced me more than anything else that I really was going to go through with this. I couldn’t back out now if I wanted to. “Uh… okay.”
“I’ll lead you to Garath in the middle of the room. The clansmen are required to maintain a twenty-pace distance between themselves and you during the ritual—all except the shaman. He’ll walk around you chanting the binding spell, but he isn’t allowed to touch you. No one may come near you except Garath. Do you understand?”
I nodded fast and gulped down rising… was it fear or excitement? At least no one else could interfere. It would just be me and Garath.
“No one may make any sound during the ritual, either,” she went on. “Everyone has to remain completely silent.”
“Okay. Got it. Thank you for telling me. Um… Is there anything I’m supposed to do… I mean, besides the obvious?”
She shook her head. “Garath will show you what to do. Just follow his lead and you can’t go wrong. Once you do this, everyone will know you’re his.”
“His!” I blurted out. “What do you mean—I’ll be his?”
“You’ll be off limits to every other man.” Just then, a gong sounded outside the door. She seized my hand and towed me out. “Pretend you knew all along it was going to be like this, or else Father will get even more suspicious of you than he already is.”
I couldn’t nod. I couldn’t think straight. My heart banged against my ribs and my vision swam. The adrenaline coursing through me tightened my chest until I could hardly breathe. I would probably pass out during the ritual. That would be just swell.
She opened the door, and I stepped outside to meet the inevitable. I emerged into a scene completely transformed from the one I left not long before. The court would have been pitch dark if not for the torches. Heavy tapestries hung from the walls and blocked out every other trace of light.
Pungent smoke floated in the torchlight. Steady drum beats sounded from somewhere, but they came so quietly that they didn’t frighten me. In fact, the subtle vibrations soothed my shattered nerves.
The onlookers hovered near the walls, where the shadows hid them from view. I could almost convince myself they weren’t there at all. Only the clan King, Garath’s father, remained visible.
He sat unmoving on his throne. His expression gave nothing away. In the otherworldly environment, my mind played a trick on me to make me think he wasn’t there, either. He was a statue, a piece of furniture.
Zixor stood at his side as he leered at me, but I turned my eyes away and let him slip out of my awareness too. Garath occupied a place in the middle of the empty court. The torchlight shone fully on his tattooed chest and his eyes sparkled in that way I now knew so well.
Nissaya conducted me to the edge of the circle. My gaze riveted to Garath with such an all-consuming intensity that I only half-noticed when she released my hand and propelled me onto the open floor.
My momentum carried me toward him. Garath. He was the only person in the room—except for the shaman. This person—whoever it was—wore an elaborate costume of furs, bells, and trinkets. A carved, monstrous mask covered the entire head. I couldn’t even tell if the shaman was male or female.
The shaman walked around the ring in a shuffling, half-bouncing dance step. A gnarled hand waved burning incense all around me and Garath, while a low, husky voice chanted something in another language, one my ear translator didn’t know.
I migrated closer to Garath. The scene completed the illusion that we were alone. No one was watching, and if they were, they were just spirits or apparitions. I didn’t have to worry about them.
The shaman completed another few revolutions. That voice was so low and raspy I could only assume it was a man, but I could have been wrong. He closed in behind me to herd me closer to Garath, but through it all, I kept remembering Nissaya’s words. The shaman wasn’t allowed to touch me. No one was, except Garath.
The shaman migrated around Garath’s back, but Garath paid no attention to him. He kept his gaze locked on me. The unwavering certainty of that gaze held me in position. As long as I lost myself in his eyes, nothing could happen to me. He was right here in front of me. He was doing this for me. He wouldn’t let anyone harm me, including himself.
The shaman stopped next to Garath and handed him a stone cup. Garath lifted it to his lips and drank. I focused on him so deeply that I almost felt the cold liquid swirling around his mouth and going down his throat into his chest.
The shaman took the cup from him and gave it to me. He held his fingers in a way that there was no chance that our skin could come into contact.
I took a sip. It tasted like some kind of fruit juice—sweet and tangy and refreshing. It warmed inside me and filled me with a relaxed calm. Whatever was in this concoction made me even more acutely aware of my skin, and all I wanted was Garath’s hands on me. A sizzle of mind-crushing passion scorched through my being, and a sudden burst of aching desire snaked from my squirming insides into my crotch. I felt the burning desire from inside the hut. I wanted him. I wanted him to take me.
The shaman took the cup and went back to his incessant circling. He chanted and waved his incense at us and at the crowd, but my mind was now focused on Garath, and Garath alone.
The ritual part was over—all except the actual mating. No one had to explain it to me. The fevered pulse firing back and forth between me and Garath told me all I needed to know.
He took another step toward me. He overshadowed me with impossible dominance. His strength and chiseled bulk made me feel small and vulnerable and alive to every sensation and response.
He put out his hand, and his fingers curled around mine. I’d felt that hand touching mine so many times on our walk through the jungle, but never like this. Blistering heat and intoxicating sensations throbbed up my arm and throughout me.
He gripped my hand in his left and raised his right to my face. He traced one finger down my cheek to brush a strand of hair away. That feather-light touch excited me out of my mind. I wanted more—so much more than just that.
He didn’t dive in and attack me, though. He stood off, studying me more deeply than he ever did before. All mixed up in his expression, I beheld him struggling with an insoluble question—almost as though he couldn’t decide if he really wanted to go through with this.
At the same time, his eyes looked almost sad—not because he was going to do this, but sad for me, sad that I was away from home, sad that I lost Philippa—sad for a thousand things he couldn’t control.
He looked so deeply moved and took the ritual so seriously that I was overcome with a wave of compassion and longing for him too. He didn’t ask for this. He must’ve been suffering from this forced circumstance as much as I was.
Before I could decide what to do about that, his fingers came to the bottom of my cheek. I expected him to drop his arm, but he rotated his hand behind my ear, into my hair, and around to the back of my neck.
Those fingers closed around my head in a masterful grip that left no doubt who was in charge here. He took command of the situation, of me, of everything. My mind shut down and my body melted into that grip.
He pulled me toward him and my body touched his the way it did in the hut—except this was nothing like the hut. We weren’t lying against each other on our way to falling asleep—no way.
Garath twisted my right hand around behind my back. His fingers clenched into mine. A thunderclap of adrenaline went through me all over again when he locked that arm behind my back and pulled me in tight against him. His body tensed into a solid wall of iron muscle. I dissolved into such softness and velvet desire against that hardness that I couldn’t even think of resisting.
He tilted my head, using the fingers laced into my hair. His eyes drifted down to my mouth. I panted for air, staring up into those devastating eyes. He looked so wild and animalistic and unforgiving, but his eyes never lost that searching concern.
He held me on tenterhooks with his lips a few inches away from mine. God, how I wanted him to kiss me and end my agony! My body shivered all over with insatiable desire. I grew wet at the thought of kissing him—really kissing him in torrential passion and release. I never felt this way about anyone in my life—certainly not my ex.
Instead of pulling me into his mouth, he gripped my hair and tugged my head even farther away. He studied me from afar, and his eyes examined me even closer. I couldn’t hide anything from him.
He seemed to be asking if I really wanted this, if I really wanted him. I pleaded with him with every ounce of my being, but I couldn’t say a word. No words could express how I felt at that moment.
All at once, he clenched his bicep, and before I knew what hit me, his mouth closed on mine. His lips consumed my whole soul in hot, rabid kisses that electrified me out of my mind. His tongue slipped into my mouth, and as he explored, I imagined him licking my clit with the same vigor. Would he take me to such heights?
I sagged in his arms under his complete control. I didn’t want to fight him. I wanted nothing but to kiss him. The devastating shudders coursing through me hurled me against his mighty frame, against the hard cock that pressed against his meager garments, and I felt my inner core clenching, rising to a climax. Was that even possible? Could someone climax just from kissing?
He clamped my arm hard into my lower back, and I arched into his grip. The harder he held me, the more I wanted him, but he was in no hurry to satisfy me. I longed to wrap my legs around him. I craved to wrap my whole body around him.
That kiss told me in no uncertain terms what Nissaya meant when she said I would be his. I fell into his hands and into his power. I would have gone on kissing him forever, but long before I wanted to quit, he pushed me back again. I tried to dive in and catch one last taste of his delectable mouth, but he gripped my hair and forced me to straighten up. He let go of my hand and untangled his fingers from my hair.
I trembled in anguished need. God, I needed him! What was wrong with me? I must have taken leave of my senses, but the devouring hunger ate me up inside. I could never rest until he satisfied it.
He squared his huge shoulders and trailed his fingers down my arms. I shivered again at that touch. The tiniest graze of his skin sent me over the edge into madness.
He migrated back to my shoulders and slipped his fingertips under the slip covering me. He hesitated there with his head tilted to one side. He scrutinized me with that questioning look to make sure I was okay with this. He never hurried. He did nothing unless he knew for sure I wanted it.
At that moment, I wanted him to rip the slip off. I wanted him to see me. I wanted nothing hidden from him. I wanted him to read my heart and soul. I wanted him to own every part of me, inside and out. I would have fallen on my knees and begged him to take it and everything else I had to offer.
I swallowed hard. How did this happen to me? I blamed the hut leaves for putting me in an altered state. I blamed them for making me react to him the way I did. I could do the same thing now. I could say the drink and the smoke befuddled my mind and intoxicated my senses, but deep down in my heart, I knew that was nonsense.
I reacted to him because I wanted him. I responded to everything he did. I would respond the same way regardless of anything.
He lifted the slip away and let it fall. Now everyone in this court could see how much I wanted him. They would see me with him, and in that moment, I wanted them to see. I wanted everyone to see. I wanted to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that I wanted him to take me, and not because anyone made me.
His gaze traced down my body to my feet and back to my face. His eyes widened, and I saw in his features an expression of utter devotion and unmatched desire. I might have been a queen for him to worship for all the veneration and focused importance he placed on this ritual.
This wasn’t just a roll in the hay for him. He considered it a solemn duty, and he wouldn’t take it lightly. He would protect me from anything. In him and only in him was I truly and unquestionably safe.
He inched forward, and this time I ached to kiss him. I wanted my arms around him. I wanted to protect his heart in mine, if that was even possible. I wanted to show him… so many things.
He didn’t linger and question now. His mouth closed with mine in equal fervor and his arms closed behind my back.
