Craving Maul (Star Joined Book 1) Read online

  “We need to talk on the bridge, or at the least away from your cabin,” Marketh says to me through our connection.

  “Why?” I ask.

  I can feel my annoyance growing as I look back to the cabin door. In there is She, the one my body is starting to ache for. I can feel the ache from the center of my chest down to my loins.

  “Maul, snap out of it!” Marketh rebukes me as he yells again inside of my head.

  My head snaps back in his direction and I growl deep in my chest at him. “What is it?!”

  The orb shoots off down the hall and I stomp along after him, my body shivering now. I’m in need in the worst of ways. I can already feel it. The longer I’m away from her… Shit, this must be part of the bonding. All the videos I watched tried to explain the need, even my mother and father tried to explain it.

  But… No, nothing could explain the feeling I have now.

  My soul feels like it’s at two ends of a wormhole, stretched impossibly thin. My chest aches with the loss of her nearness.

  Stars in the deep dark, am I fucking going crazy? When have I ever been poetic about anything?

  Following Marketh’s zooming orb, I pass a few staterooms before coming to a steep metal staircase leading up into the bridge’s cockpit. When I called this a smuggler’s jump ship, I wasn’t talking about one of those little skiff’s that fits a couple of people in seats with barely any room for movement. This ship is a mid-sized reconnaissance ship, turned almost pirate. What it lacks in weapons it makes up for in armor and an array of sensors and stealth. This thing has the long-drive engines that allow us to jump from further distances than a regular hauler, but at a price. It can’t carry huge payloads. It’s a smuggler’s wet dream though. We can’t go up against a battlecruiser but with our array of sensors and stealth tech, we wouldn’t need to.

  When I stand up on the deck of the bridge, my eyes temporarily widen at the sight before me. There are two large suns orbiting each other. The little distance numbers on the large screen show we are quite some distance away.

  I’m confused. This is a region I’m not familiar with and the sight before me shouldn’t be there.

  “Where are we?” I growl as I continue to watch the suns.

  They’re quite beautiful, one a white dwarf and the other a massive red. Watching them on the screen here in our ship gives the little binary system an almost peaceful look to it.

  “We are in an uncharted binary system out in the rims. Well, I say uncharted by the Tribunal. Since it is an empty system with no planets, they have more than likely lost interest in it. But it was a navigation point in the ship’s logs.”

  Waiting for him to go on is like pulling my own teeth. I know he wants me to ask why we’re here. Finally, when I realize he won’t be volunteering the information, I ask, “Why are here? Did we break down? No fuel in the tanks?”

  “Oh no, Maul, we have enough fuel to go a good long while. We’re here because you gave me command of the ship while you were… enjoying your new-found mate. I used that authority to make an authoritative decision.”

  “So you stopped for a honeymoon? Seriously, why are we not on the way to Rathturia?”

  “Not exactly, there are a couple of reasons. One being the amount of chatter I picked up through the interstellar communication lines coming through multiple bands. We have increased traffic heading towards Rathturia, more than normal, and it’s coming from odd places. It seems you might have kicked up a hornet’s nest with your rampage.”

  I can see his silver orb almost shivering with annoyance by the end of his explanation.

  “Fuck, that’s not good,” I grumble. “But it’s still no reason to have us parked here, is it?”

  “Well, some of that traffic is through the back channels of the Tribunal. When you picked this ship up, you had no idea how powerful its computer systems were, did you? This thing hacked through the lines of a couple of Tribunal backchannels faster than it took me to find them in the first place. To be frank… This ship scares me with what it can do.”

  I shake my head. I can tell Marketh means what he just said. It’s not often that he is ever outdone by a computer. More surprising to me, though, is that this ship was just sitting there.

  “Do we have any idea if they have a tracer or bugs on this ship? Something they can follow us by?”

  “No, that was the original reason for stopping here. I wanted to make sure of that and well…”

  “Well, what?”

  “The same reason we aren’t headed back to her home planet or ours. She’s got a transmitter implant.”

  “Fuck. Stars above and below… What kind and what’s it transmitting?” I ask as I mentally slam my head into the steel walls surrounding us.

  “Most likely the one she has is purely black market. This one isn’t the usual run of the mill, it’s a sneaky fucking devil. I don’t know what exactly…Well, shit.”

  Shit is right. The weight that had settled on my chest when I left my bondmate is suddenly lifted.

  “It’s transmitting where I’m at and what I see and hear. Or it did…” Her voice sounds throaty as she pulls herself slowly up the steep stairs.

  Her hair is disheveled and her eyes have deep, dark circles under the pale skin. My heart aches at the beauty of her face and body.

  I swear I hear a song deep in my brain somewhere where the words are too quiet to hear, but the melody is warm and soothing.

  Rushing over to her, I carefully try to wrap my arms around her but she must have used the last of her strength to get up the stairs. As soon as she feels my support, she collapses in my arms. A small puff of air comes out of her lungs. She looks up into my eyes as I sweep her small frame up off the floor and smiles at me tiredly.

  “Are you alright?” I ask quietly.

  She slightly shakes her head and says, “I don’t feel too good right now… I mean, I do now, that you’ve got me in your arms. But what happened last night, I couldn’t control. They must have put me under with lots of drugs. I’ve never been like that before.”

  Unable to control it, I rumble with a small laugh. “I’ve never felt the same as that either. It is a part of our bonding.”

  Her eyes fill with confusion as she repeats, “Bonding?”

  “Yes, that feeling was our bonding being fully established. Our fates intertwining. The calling my race has for our bondmate…”

  “Maul…” comes from Marketh. He’s still over by the front of the bridge.

  Ignoring him, I feel the urge to keep explaining to her, “It’s the calling that binds us to our souls, our marriage of life.”

  At the word marriage, her eyes pop open completely. “What do you mean by ‘marriage’?”

  Her voice has a quiver to it now. She’s no longer as relaxed in my arms as I carry her towards the captain’s chair.

  Sitting down in it, I say, “I believe that is what your society, and many others, call bonding to one for life, yes?”

  “I so did not just get married to you!”

  “Perhaps not like your species does, but as mine does. We are bonded now. It is why you…”

  “Maul!” Marketh snaps at me loudly. He also adds a bit of emphasis in my head to get my attention. “Listen to me for a second.”

  “What?!?”

  “We can’t be married…”

  She starts to squirm in my arms but I keep her held to me. She really isn’t that strong. Her race is puny, I am starting to think.

  She continues to talk as she tries to squirm out of my arms. Something about I’m wrong and there’s no way this could happen.

  “She’s still trying to transmit right now. I’ve isolated the frequency with the ship’s assistance but thankfully we are much closer to the two stars here. They are helping disrupt the transmissions.”

  “Will you be able to keep it locked down without using the binary stars as a shield?”

  “The ship should be able to…”

  “Stop moving, human. Marketh is talking
to me about your transmitter,” I say to my bondmate.

  I probably should have asked her name.

  “Did you just call me ‘human’?!”

  She stops squirming in my arms and for the moment her pert little ass is rested directly on my crotch. The heat from her body slips down into my pants, the naked flesh there resting against me is driving me insane. If I wasn’t talking to Marketh right now, I would be lifting up her frock to see what other kinds of differences we have between us.

  Like the little weird cavity on her stomach.

  “I’m Maul, what is your name my little bondmate?”

  “I’m... I’m not yours, despite what you… Fuck. It’s Alexus, but everyone I know calls me Lexi.”

  “Are you able to shut down the transmitter?” I ask as I try to think of what or who she could be sending the kind of data she’s sending.

  “Yes and no. I think she will need to be involved with the decision.”

  “What in the starry nights for?” Transmitters are usually a simple little removal process, even if it’s visual and sound streams. Location shouldn’t be an issue either.

  “It’s not so simple, Maul. I believe this is a consciousness stream. As in she is communicating with someone like we do. It’s been attached to her brain directly. To fully shut it down or remove it will be difficult, and impossible on the ship without a good nerve surgeon. That’s my guess, right now. But I am still running some tests on it passively. I need her to help lock it out completely to run complete tests.”

  “Those kinds of transmitters aren’t easily accessible, Mar. Where in the oblivion of space would she get that?”

  “Black market is my guess. The humans don’t have the necessary technology to produce them. Whatever the reason, she has one of these, and it’s too important for a simple slave to have one. Even if she’s an off-limits one,” he informs me. “One of the higher-up races in the Tribunal might have sold it.”

  “Oh stars and fucking dark matter.”

  She’s squirming so badly I pull her tight to my chest. She sits, curled in my arms like a child. She isn’t a small woman, I suppose, for her race. But to mine she would be petite at best.

  “… the hell are you ignoring me for?” Lexi asks as I tune back in to the outside universe. It’s a bad habit of my race, admittedly, that we tune out the universe as we work inside our own heads.

  “My apologies, Mate Lexi,” I say as I lean my head down to smell her hair. She’s been dirty for a while now, or at least she smells like she has, but I can still smell her scent so strongly. It’s arousing to know I’ve finally found my one. To know we will come to know each other’s bodies so completely that there will be almost no secrets.

  “I’m not your mate!” she growls out, but she seems very quiet still. I can tell she’s fighting our bond; it’s sending tremors across the threads of our souls.

  Pushing my will through the ties that bind us, I say “You are. Now listen to me, little one.”

  “No! Stop doing that! Whatever you’re doing!” she says as she pushes with her legs. “My whole job! My entire operation is destroyed because…” She begins to sputter before spitting out, “You couldn’t control yourself!”

  “I seem to remember your body writhing in arousal against me even as the heads were flying.”

  “Shut up, that’s not the point, you silver demon!”

  “Demon? What is a demon?” I ask.

  Continuing to talk over me, she says, “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

  The trashing she does with her legs and arms is slowly stilling as she berates me for being brainless and having no idea the amount of work she’s done.

  “Maul?” Marketh says to me in my head. “She is showing signs of great mental distress, but from the analysis our armband is picking up from her sweat glands, I see she has been heavily using serenity and several other chemical compounds.”

  “What do you mean ‘using’? As in more than a couple doses to keep her pacified?”

  “Yes. She shows far too much in her bloodstream at the current moment to be this functioning.”

  “Why in the universe…”

  “Stop doing that!” she growls out as she pinches my nipple roughly. It’s a measure of pain that brings me back from talking to Marketh.

  Pulling her hand from my nipple, my tail wraps firmly around her wrist to keep it still.

  Looking down at my tail, her eyes widen and she mumbles, “I knew you didn’t have three arms…”

  “Lexi, we need to talk about your transmitter,” I say to her. Now that she’s not rambling on about her operation being ruined, I pull her closer to my chest. “Also, we should speak about the amount of toxins such as serenity you have in your system.”

  “Yes, at those levels you are dangerously close to permanently pacifying yourself,” Marketh says as he floats closer to us.

  Staring at Marketh’s silver orb, she looks to me and back. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Marketh, your bondmate’s symbiotic partner.”

  “We’re not married!” she grumbles loudly to us both.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true. You’ve taken Maul’s first lusting, and no doubt many more to come. You, by all intents and purposes, are married on Rathturia and in the eyes of the Tribunal. No matter how much you wish to deny it.”

  I think her eyebrows will disappear in her beautiful hair as she asks, “First lusting? Like he’s never had sex before?”

  I can feel her whole body still as Marketh and I both remain silent for a moment.

  “No, there was no other before you. My race does not allow for… experimentation.”

  “Well, that’s neither here nor there,” she says as she twists slightly, her face facing me now. “You’ve fucked up my one chance of saving my sister. What the hell were you doing there?”

  “I’m doing an investigation for the Tribunal.”

  “Well, were you supposed to go on a rampage like that?”

  Pausing for a second as I think back to the blind rage I felt as I saw my soul sitting in a cage, I have to admit to her, “No, but it is of no matter, I’ve found you. I will have to figure a way to explain this to the Tribunal.”

  “Speaking of which… Well, maybe not speaking of, but we do need to discuss your transmitter. I have it blocked by the ship as of right now, but we need your help in shutting it down,” Marketh says.

  “No fucking way,” she screeches as she wiggles so hard she slips through my arms enough that I must let her go.

  Sliding to the floor, she stands up wobbly on her feet. Her frock has ridden up quite high on her thighs. The smooth silkiness of her mons on display makes my mouth go suddenly dry.

  Taking a dry gulp, I say, “Come here, my little Lexi.”

  “No!” she yips as I pull at her through our bond. It is instinctual. I can feel her through it now and I can feel her distress.

  “Come back to me,” I say opening my arms. “It’s easier for the both of us when we are touching right now. Our souls need it.”

  “There is no way I’m shutting anything down! How the hell you figured out the serenity…” she says with heat as her body begins to sway from side to side. “No way. You need to take me back, like right now. Figure something out! I can’t… I can’t…” she trails off in a whisper.

  I’m out of my seat before she collapses there on the deck. Swiftly, I sweep her back up into my arms. “Little Lexi, you are hurting yourself. We are together now. There will be no taking you back. I’m so sorry.”

  Tears of frustration well up in her eyes and slide down her cheeks, “No!”

  “Maul, the drugs in her system are hitting her again. I suspect the bond is helping her combat them but she must have been given a very lethal dose before we got there. We need to get her back to your room and allow her to rest.”

  Carrying her back towards the captain’s cabin, I say to Lexi, “Dear soul, I’ll help you find your sister, but you cannot keep fighting our bond. It is
protecting all three of us right now.”

  Her eyes slowly closing, she asks, “Why?”

  “She knows nothing about us, Maul, be… cautious.”

  Looking from the silver orb to Lexi I say, “Because, dear soul, if you die we all three die.”

  “Why the hell would you tell her that?” Mar growls in my head.

  “Because we’re a family now,” I say out loud to her sleeping form and the small orb floating beside us.

  “Fuck…” Mar mutters as he whizzes back the other way. “I’ll be on the bridge. Use your head if you need to speak with me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Lexi

  My stomach roils, churning with sickness. I want to puke. I want to rip my own insides out.

  “Be calm, little Lexi. This will soon pass.”

  I twist and turn, fighting the bonds that hold me to the bed. I can feel him inside me, trying to soothe me.

  A speck of light in the darkness.

  My head throbs painfully, in perfect harmony with my pulse.

  I can’t open my eyes. My lids are like lead.

  Is this a nightmare? It has to be…

  But if it was, why do I feel so fucking sick?

  “Your body is purging itself of the toxins,” he answers, the silver demon who called himself Maul.

  I don’t know why, perhaps it’s because it’s been so long since I’ve been able to feel normal emotions, but I feel a sudden surge of rage towards him.

  “You did this to me,” I snarl accusingly and lash out.

  I hit something and he grunts. That little grunt gives me an immense feeling of satisfaction so I do it again and again.

  “I did not drug you, dear soul,” he grunts after taking a particularly hard hit to the chest.

  That’s right, he didn’t drug me, Yarrel did. But Yarrel did it to help me. To condition me.

  “You’ve ruined everything. Everything,” I seethe as the events of the past forty-eight hours replay in my head.

  Six months of training. Six months of preparing, of drugging myself with serenity, of putting myself in extreme jeopardy... all for nothing.

  All because this alien couldn’t stop from thinking with his big alien dick!