SCAR'S CONQUEST Page 2

  Then her stomach cramped, her body convulsed. Camilla dropped the other two fruits to the ground as the newly acquired contents of her stomach came violently back up. She wretched and heaved up what she'd just eaten, not realizing that someone stood behind her until he spoke.

  "Are you all right?"

  Camilla spun around, looking for the source of that deep, familiar voice, wiping her mouth on her forearm. She didn't like the idea that he'd seen her throw up. She didn't like being watched at all. And again, her translator chip didn't tingle or buzz as it normally did when she spoke with someone from another planet. What was up with that? She hadn't encountered a planet yet, unless Earth had colonized it, that used a language anything remotely like any of the human languages.

  When she didn't see him, she shouted, "Where are you?"

  "I'm here."

  He was closer than she thought, gazing at her from the shadow of the biggest tree she'd seen yet.

  Camilla remembered his face, the shifter who had saved her. He watched her now in his human form. How could she forget someone who looked like him? He appeared wild, untamed. His eyes were black as space and moved with quickness she wasn't accustomed to. His dark hair fell to his shoulders in thick waves, framing a face that was all hard angles. His face was saved from being too severe by the seductive shape of his mouth and the desire that lit up his gaze as it moved over her.

  His body could only be called magnificent. Men back home spent hours in the training facilities to look half that ripped and muscular. The man had shoulders wide as shuttle doors and a wide expanse of chest that welcomed a woman to cuddle on it. All of that tapered down into a small waist with abs she could use for a trampoline, and slim hips. His legs were just as impressive as his upper body, all long hard, sinew. A long silvery scar ran along his right thigh, the only flaw she could see. He wore only a swatch of cloth to hide his most private parts and the size of those parts beneath it really got her attention. If what was under there looked as good as the rest of him, well...

  Stop that. Focus. Your first priority is to find out what happened to your crew. The man was there after the crash. He has to know what happened to them.

  "Who are you?" she asked. They had to start somewhere. "And what is this place?"

  His forearm was pressed against a tree branch over his head. A corner of that sexy mouth curved up into a sly little grin.

  "Who are you?"

  "I asked first." Camilla didn't care how nice looking he was. She wasn't about to let him get the upper hand.

  "I'm Scar."

  "It's not hard to guess where that name came from." Camilla tipped her head toward his leg. "Now where is this?"

  "Home."

  "Excuse me?"

  "This is home."

  The first time he'd said it, she thought he was being sarcastic. After he said the second time, she realized he wasn't trying to be funny.

  "Okay, this is your home. Can you tell me what it's called?"

  His smile never faltered.

  "It's called home."

  Okay, now he was starting to piss her off. It was bad enough being sick at her stomach. Even though she'd just thrown up, the hunger was still gnawing at her fiercely. Scanning the ground at her feet, she spotted one of the other two pieces of fruit and scooped it up. At least she hadn't spewed on it.

  "That's not a good idea," he said before she could take the first bite.

  Camilla glared at him. "It is if you're fucking starving."

  "I'm sure you are starving. But if you eat more of that, you'll just be sick again."

  "I threw up because it's hard to tell how long I've been in this damn place unconscious with no food." Placing her hands on her hips was a mannerism that she'd tried hard to lose when she went through officer training. It was a defensive posture. Damned if she wasn't doing it now.

  "I seem to remember being pulled out of my shuttle with my head covered in blood," she pointed out. "Now there's not a mark on me. So how long have I been here?"

  "Three days," he said calmly.

  "Bullshit!" Did he think she was stupid? "Even the best medical crew where I come from couldn't pull that shit off. Where's my crew?"

  Lowering his arm, he stepped away from the tree and moved closer.

  Camilla held out a hand to stop him.

  "No, you just stay right there. I want some answers, wild man."

  "The other women who were with you, the ones who survived, are here in our village," Scar told her. "They're fine."

  "What about the one who didn't survive? She was my friend. What did you do with her?"

  Now that smug little grin of his faded.

  "We burned the body. The others held a gathering for her."

  He didn't have to say more. Camilla's heart sank. Her friend was gone, her body burned. She didn't even get to say goodbye.

  I'm sorry, Lila.

  "Take me to my crew, now." Camilla wasn't really surprised when he didn't respond to her best commander's voice. Somehow she just knew he'd start smirking at her again.

  "I think you should eat first."

  "You told me I'd throw up again," she pointed out.

  "If you eat that, you will." Scar tipped his head toward the fruit she still held in her hand. "I have something better. Follow me."

  Did she really have a choice here? He walked back around the tree and hauled a dead animal off the ground and threw it over his shoulder. It reminded her of images she'd seen of animals that had once lived back on Earth, but she couldn't remember what the names were.

  He'd killed it for them to eat. Her first instinct was revulsion. She wasn't accustomed to seeing the animals her meat came from. Back home it came in nice, frozen, air-tight containers, thank you very much.

  Then she caught the strong scent and it captured her senses. Blood. Her mouth watered even more, if that were possible, and her stomach groaned loudly in demand. Camilla couldn't remember wanting anything to eat more than she wanted whatever that animal was.

  What was up with that?

  Reluctantly she followed him. Well, she'd planned on feeding herself first anyway. Then he'd take her to her crew and she'd go from there.

  As she walked along, she couldn't help but think the back of Scar looked as good as the front of him. He had a nice ass.

  And it's going to be your ass if you don't figure out a way to get out of this place...

  Shaking her head at herself, she just kept moving.

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Camilla had tried, she really had, to allow Scar to build a fire and, to an extent, cook the meat from the animal he'd killed and skinned for them to eat. It was already a new experience for her considering she was accustomed to receiving meals that were already precisely cooked and maintained in electronic containers that heated them to the appropriate temperature when she was hungry.

  She didn't quite make it. He'd speared two large portions of meat on long tree branches. They'd barely had a chance to get warmed by the fire when she grabbed one and began to ravenously devour the mostly raw meat. In one corner of her mind, she was horrified by what she was doing. It wasn't enough to stop her from eating the juicy, red meat like an animal. She craved it, needed it. Instinctively she knew it would put out the unbearable burn in her stomach and it did that.

  Camilla glanced only once at Scar, who pulled the other portion of meat from the fire and sat eating raw meat just as she was. Well, he was a damned wolf part of the time. He had an excuse to act like a barbarian. What was hers?

  He quietly watched her while he ate and she didn't like the little smirk on his face. He found this funny, did he?

  "What?" Camilla demanded, swiping at her chin with the back of her wrist out of necessity.

  "I'm happy to see you eating." Scar gazed at her speculatively as he placed the empty branch that had held the meat he ate to the side. "It's a great relief to see you recovered."

  "I was injured pretty badly, huh?"

  Scar sat with his l
egs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. It really pissed her off to see him so relaxed when her whole damned world felt like it was falling apart. She knew that wasn't his fault, but still.

  "Yes."

  "Miraculous, isn't it?" Perhaps now she had an opening to get some answers. "How did I get better in only three days?"

  He shrugged nonchalantly. "Because I bit you."

  Oh, shit. He had bitten her right after the crash. Frantically she checked her forearm, not really expecting to find anything. Yet there was a jagged ring of wounds there, with old looking scabs. Hell, it looked as if she'd been bitten a couple of weeks ago, not three days ago.

  "You bit me because I was hurt?"

  "It was worth a try."

  Okay, none of this shit was making any sense.

  "How did you come up with that bit of logic?" she wanted to know.

  "The blood of my kind is strong, so I took a chance. My thought was to turn you right then and there in the hope that it would give you the strength to survive. It did."

  "What do you mean you turned me?"

  Scar pulled in his legs and rose into a crouching position, moving closer to her as he did. A lot closer. The scent of him drifted to her on the warm breeze blowing all around them, and Camilla breathed it in deeply.

  Damn, he smelled good. All sweaty male combined with something wild. Her nipples drew up into tight little points beneath what was left of the top of her uniform and heat pooled low in her belly.

  Oh wow. She had to get a grip. He was about to tell her something she probably wasn't going to like and her body was storming to life in a rage of lust like she'd never experienced before. And it was gaining more strength by the second.

  "When I say that I turned you, I mean that I gave you my bite. That means eventually you will be like me. My kind."

  "Whoa!" The dude had been in wolf form the first time she'd seen him and then changed into the man sitting at her side before her very eyes. Did he mean that's what would happen to her now? "What the hell do you mean? I know you're some kind of shifter..."

  His expression quickly became guarded.

  "Does that bother you?"

  "I'm not trying to insult you." She meant it. "And if all of this saved my life, I don't want to sound ungrateful. But you're sitting here telling me that I'm going to become what you are. And you're not the way you are now all the time. I remember that. So do you have any idea what's going through my mind right now?"

  His dark eyes locked with hers. "I might."

  "How? Did someone bite you?"

  "No, I've always been what I am."

  "You've bitten other people then?"

  "It's done now." Scar didn't answer her question. "It can't be undone. You'll become one of us. I've claimed you as my own."

  Juices gathered between her thighs now as she stared at him. No male, human or otherwise, had ever talked to her like that and gotten away with it. While his words pissed her off because she didn't belong to anyone, it strengthened the spark of excitement running through her mind and body like an electrical current. He said it with such authority. There was so much desire in his dark eyes...

  The bulge beneath the scrap of cloth covering his loins was obvious, straining. His desire for her was a tangible thing, hanging between them in a way that made her want to kick his ass or straddle him. Her fingers itched to touch him, to snatch away that cloth and see what was beneath it.

  "You have no problem with the fact that I've claimed you?" Amusement had crept into his expression as he cocked a brow at her.

  "You can say what you want to, but that doesn't make it so. I don't belong to anyone."

  "Your eyes tell a different story." His gaze lowered to her mouth and lingered for a long moment. "I think you want to be mine."

  Camilla just bet he was reading lust in her face. Her body was quickly becoming a hot, trembling bundle of want. That was something, because she couldn't remember the last time she'd had good sex and she'd never been this damned excited. She was trying hard not to stare at his crotch and failing. The walls of her pussy were clenching hard in need.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  "Desire and ownership are two different things," she pointed out.

  "No, they're not."

  That got her attention. Camilla glanced up into his face now and the intensity she read there took her breath away.

  "Whatever you most want, whatever you need, in time becomes your master." His deep voice brushed over her with a heat far different than the atmosphere around them.

  Sweat broke out on her forehead as she stared at him.

  "I've wanted a lot of things in my life." Camilla tried to sound confident and in control, but somehow she didn't quite hit that note. "Some of them I got, some I didn't. None of them ever mastered me. No man has either."

  "Nothing has mastered you?" Scar whispered, leaning forward until his lips were nearly touching hers. "I don't believe that. Everything about you tells me that you desire power, control. You're the leader of your group, aren't you? You're a warrior. Doesn't that need to be strong and to lead govern your actions?"

  Damn him, he had a point. In her mind, she wasn't consumed by her ambitions of going as far as she could. But, yeah, she wanted it. And those ambitions had heavily played into the decisions she'd made in her life. It was a big part of the reason she had no one special in her life despite her loneliness and that she had no friends or acquaintances outside the service.

  Scar's lips brushed against hers, feather light. A gut punch of carnal sensation raced through her body at that simple touch.

  "And if that need for power can dominate you, then so can your need for me."

  "I don't need you," Camilla tried, sounding pathetic.

  "It's all right," Scar whispered. "The beast is in your blood now. It's causing you to need me. I'm going to make you crave me."

  Scar claimed her mouth with a kiss filled with such passion she was sure she wouldn't survive it.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Camilla had never been kissed like that in her life. The way his lips stroked over hers sent pulses of heat, hotter than the two suns hanging high overhead, through her blood to make it boil.

  He pulled her into the hard circle of his arms and she let him. While her mind screamed at her to get a grip, her body moved toward him like a magnet. Camilla pressed her hands to the muscled wall of his chest, his flesh was hot and slick with perspiration. His heart pounded beneath her palms as his mouth demanded more, his tongue sliding past her lips to explore.

  The kiss grew heated and intoxicating. Her breath shuddered into his mouth as their tongues began to duel. His hair tickled her cheek, softer than she would have expected, as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tightly against her.

  Scar moved so that he could lie down beneath the tree, and he took her with him. His hips ground against hers as he rolled her onto her back, and Camilla's heart raced as he settled himself over her. Her body craved his weight, loving the way he pressed her into the soft ground.

  Wild as he seemed to her, she half expected him to fall on her like a beast. He surprised her with the leisurely way his fingers worked at the buttons of her uniform top. There were only three buttons left and he made quick work of them while she struggled to breath. With his large hands he pushed back the ruined garment to reveal her breasts, his touch so gentle she barely felt it.

  His dark eyes moved over her and he growled low in his throat.

  "Hmmm, so ripe." Another growl, a sound of pure animalistic need.

  Camilla parted her thighs to the insistent nudging of his hips, wanting that pressure against her throbbing clit. Wrapping her legs around him, she moved with him. The rough fabric of her uniform was wet with her heated juices and she wanted them gone. Her inner walls quivered while his mouth poised over the tight peak of her breast.

  Scar pressed a kiss against her nipple and she nearly bucked him off in her excitement. Yet he would
n't be hurried. Slowly he gathered her to him, buried his face between the full mounds of her breasts, and inhaled deeply.

  No way she'd survive this. Not with him plumping and squeezing her breasts in his hands like that. Camilla's fingers speared into his hair, while he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, pushing the lust consuming her even higher with his tongue and teeth. The way he pulled as much of her into his mouth as he could made her toes curl. Camilla ground her pussy against him in an increasing rhythm as he suckled her with greedy abandon. When he moved to the other breast to give it the same treatment, she thought she'd lose her mind.

  She wanted his cock. Now.

  Scar looked up from the breast he suckled to meet her gaze. Camilla pushed her lower body up at him, wanting him to take it to the next level now that he'd started this. She wanted more. While in a corner of her mind she knew for many reasons she should not be doing this, she was completely powerless to stop it. She was a slave to this powerful lust that had taken her over.

  It also didn't hurt that she'd never gotten it on with a man who looked as good as this one either.

  A corner of his sexy mouth curled up into a confident half smile. Scar slid down her body. He took his time unfastening the ruined bottom of her uniform, and slid it down her legs with great care. Now she lay before him nude, and the desire that lit up his eyes took her breath away.

  He lowered his head and brushed a light kiss against the soft swell of her belly. Camilla's heart raced wildly as he did it again, his mouth moving lower. His strong hands pressed her thighs apart and he inhaled deeply. His eyes were nearly black now, gazing into hers.