Venomous Lust
Eok Warriors, book 4
Will he choose the mission of a lifetime, or the love of his life?
Commander Khal has been tasked with the mission of a lifetime by Prime Councilor Aav, the most powerful Matriarch in the Ring. He must locate and retrieve a weapon so powerful it could plunge trillions of people into civil war, chaos and violence. This is a dangerous mission – the mission he needs to prove himself once and for all as a worthy Eok warrior, just like his brothers before him. He is the Ring’s only hope for peace, and he won’t fail – no matter what the cost.
Hazel wants go to Earth to be reunited with her twin sister and she will stop at nothing to achieve that. When she hides under Commander Khal’s spaceship past curfew, she has no idea of the trouble she’s going to cause. Soon enough, she finds herself hurtling into space, far away from home and at the mercy of a stern and dominant Eok warrior who doesn’t want her there.
She is a hindrance to Khal’s mission, but he can’t seem to keep his hands off her anyway. As an intricate web of deception and betrayal threatens to thwart his plan, Commander Khal will have to choose between his lust for Hazel and his duty.
Can he reign in the urges of the Mating Venom, or will he – and the entire Ring – be lost to the Madness?
Publisher’s Note: This steamy, thrilling sci-fi romance is the third in the Eok Warriors series, however it can be read and enjoyed as a standalone.
Excerpt
Her presence at his back was like a beacon of madness, pushing him to the edge of a dark abyss out of which he would never crawl out of.
I should never have brought her here. I should have locked her up in the Myrador until we were safely away.
But she was a stubborn little thing, and by the time he had planned to shove her luscious form over his shoulder to bring her back to his private quarters, it had been too late. If she was in danger on Garana, she would be in even more if Khal showed any weakness to the ruthless commander of the red planet.
Gerkin had long since been lost to the bloodlust; he was never coming back from the pit in which his soul was rotting. He was as dangerous as Roohl, as vicious as Knut, and twice as bloodthirsty. Even his status as a fellow Eok didn’t mean he could be trusted.
I can’t go back now. Hazel will be mine, whether she wants it or not.
Now that they were back on the Myrador, the madness was receding. As the door to the loading dock closed, Zaxis left quietly, his face closed off and his steps hurried. He was smart to leave Khal alone with Hazel. In Khal’s current state, not much was needed to trigger an attack. And once he started, Khal wouldn’t be able to stop until the threat lay dead.
Khal waited until Zaxis had gone before turning to Hazel. Her green eyes—wide with fear—looked up at him and her round mouth hung slightly open. Her fear laced the air with irresistible pheromones and his seed stem answered, a low pain throbbing in his groin.
He wanted her so badly, his entire body ached for it. For the raw possession of male flesh upon female. For her sweet surrender, body bared and soul quivering with lust.
Not yet. Gerkin wants a ceremony for his troops.
“Stay where you are. Don’t come close.” His voice wasn’t his voice anymore. It was the underhanded growl of a beast, a sound designed to subdue and terrorize. But Hazel didn’t look terrorized, not as much as she should.
“What happened back there? Why did Gerkin back down when you mentioned Mating Venom? What’s the Mating Venom?” Suspicion brimmed bright in her gaze as she eyed him back, as brazen as always. “And what in the fuck did you mean by you will claim me?”
She took a step closer, her body, lush and female, radiating warmth. Her smell became stronger, spicier as fear gave way to anger. Her temper flared, making her silken cheeks blush.
That mouth—that Midnight God forsaken round mouth opened as she licked her lower lip and he got a glance of her pink, wet tongue.
Mating Venom dripped from his fangs, whispering crazy, savage thoughts in his mind of bare flesh covered in sweet-scented sweat and breathless whimpers of pleasure. Of Hazel, her eyes dark with passion.
“Do you have any idea what those males would have done to you if I hadn’t claimed you?” Khal’s growl twisted his words, turning them into an unveiled threat. Hazel’s eyes flashed brighter as her temper flared, meeting his in her anger. It only made the constant drip of Mating Venom in his mouth stronger, clouding his mind with a thick fog.
Take the female. Take her now before another tries to take her from you.
“What if I refuse to be claimed, ever think of that?” she shouted, taking another step. She was so close now, the smell of her breath tickled his nostrils. “What if I say no one gets to claim me, period?”
Darkness ate away at the edges of his mind as his sanity faltered.
“You refuse my claim on you?” Khal asked, his hands twitching at his sides, the constant drip of the Mating Venom forming a growing abyss inside his mind.
“What if I do?”
Something dark and fierce broke its chains inside Khal. His hand shot out and his fingers curled behind her slender neck. His thumb dug into the soft flesh of her jaw as he tilted her head back, forcing her to look up, exposing the crazed pulse of her jugular. He could feel her blood coursing in a strong, healthy flow under his fingertips, enticing him to bite and claim this female who was his. Lava spread through his veins, seeping inside his body until he was no longer in control.
A beast made of fire and fury had taken his place. It was no use fighting it.
Khal bent, his fangs raking the delicate skin of Hazel’s throat. The female quivered and whimpered under his hold, but she didn’t fight him. He growled with approval as the sweet scent of her arousal came to his nostrils. His seed stem pulsed with need, his seed sack tightening imperiously as he flattened her lush, supple body against his own.
“You’re mine, Hazel,” Khal growled against her flesh. “The Mating Venom can’t be denied. But I still want you willing as I rut over you like the beast that I am.”
His words—words that would have sent any sane female cowering into a corner, crying out in fright—made Hazel moan in response. Her small hands flattened against his chest, but instead of pushing him away, they ran down his stomach and lower to the narrow of his hips.
When her fine-fingered hand closed over his throbbing seed stem, cupping its hardness over the heavy synthetic leather fabric, Khal knew. There was no waiting. No Ceremony to appease Gerkin’s troops.
He was claiming her now; no witness, no ceremony.
“Say you’re mine, Hazel,” Khal ordered her, his hands closing ever stronger around her body. He held on to her desperately, needing her approval, needing her to want him as much as he wanted her. He needed her like he needed air, like he needed blood in his veins, and muscles around his bones.
He wanted her with a physical pain, a torturous imperative to bond the female to him in a way that couldn’t be undone. In a way that couldn’t be denied.
Her body responded to his touch, all those female curves molding to his hardness, her soft, giving flesh clamoring for rough possession.
He kissed her again, just at the base of her neck, where her throat connected to her slender, long neck. The taste of her skin was sweet and salty as he lapped at it, her heart beating a crazy, fast rhythm.
His hand ran low down her body, closing on her glorious ass. He pulled her into him further, his seed stem digging into the flesh of her stomach. His lust for her was a living thing, consuming every inch of his body like a ravenous animal.
Above his head, Hazel moaned again, louder and more tortured. So much more feminine. Such a sweet surrender.
His hand slipped to her narrow waist, then to the front of her pants. His fingers opened the button and slid inside. Moisture and heat found his fingertips as he slid a finger between the lips of her sex.
Hazel jerked her hips forward, driven by her instincts to increase the sensation. The Mating Venom made her feel each of his strokes over her small nerve bundle stronger, more deeply. Each of the licks of his tongue over her skin massaged more of the poison into her bloodstream. He knew this was manipulation, that he was pushing her towards something she hadn’t chosen of her own free will.
But free will was an illusion. She had no more choice in the matter than he. The Midnight God had made her perfect for him and had placed her in his path.
He stroked that tiny nub, that bundle of nerves that made her body sing. Her sex swelled and exquisite wetness covered his fingers as she moaned and gasped under his touch. She was so responsive, so utterly and totally female. He wanted to feel her come around his finger, collapse in his arms in total surrender. As he kept sliding his finger into her silken depths, then coming out to circle her bundle of nerves, she grew restless under his touch, moving to push her hips closer, her breasts flattening against his chest.
She was almost ready for him.
“Say it,” he growled again against her neck, his mind gone to the lust, his life hanging on the sound of pleasure coming off her lips. “Say you’re mine, then I’ll let you scream my name until your voice gives out.”
“I’m yours, Khal.” Her voice was no louder than a dying breath, but he heard it anyway. “I’m yours for as long as you want me.”
“Forever. You’re mine until the Midnight God rips you from my hands, Hazel.”
Then he was lost to the Mating Venom, and all that mattered was Hazel and the Bond between them that nothing could break.
