A Barbarian Bonding (The Instinct Book 2) Read online

  A Barbarian Bonding

  The Instinct

  Marie Harte

  A BARBARIAN BONDING

  Mandy Jacobs sought a job on planet Ussed because it took her far from her problems on Earth. Her goal has been simple—keep a low profile. Not that easy to do when two larger-than-life barbarians are keeping an eye on her. Avoidance seems like her best plan of action…until danger from her past comes calling. Soon on the run from an old enemy, a new enemy, and hunky warriors with a crazy notion to claim her, she’s running out of options.

  Zehn and Lore have bonded, but they’re in need of a female to complete them. When they see Mandy, they know. She’s the one. But the stubborn human female needs some persuading. And some saving, since she’s got humans and a rival clan after her. With time not on their side, Zehn and Lore must convince Mandy that she belongs with them. And that if she’ll let herself, she’ll find acceptance in the arms of not just one, but two barbarians who have nothing but love to give.

  The Instinct

  A CIVILIZED MATING

  A BARBARIAN BONDING

  A WARRIOR’S CLAIMING

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and plot points stem from the writer’s imagination. They are fictitious and not to be interpreted as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locations or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  A Barbarian Bonding

  Copyright © May 2017

  No Box Books

  Cover by EDH Graphics

  All Rights Are Reserved. None of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations used for reviews or promotion.

  http://marieharte.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About the Author

  Other Science Fiction Romance Releases

  A CIVILIZED MATING Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Welcome Resort, Planet Ussed, 4th Quadrant

  Earth Year 2437

  THE BINARY SUNS shone brightly over a tropical paradise people spent a fortune to visit. Zehn understood the draw, but then, he’d been born in Ussed’s western cradle, on blessed barbarian lands. Yet even the East promised true beauty.

  At the offworlders’ Welcome Resort, dense, flowering maffet trees provided a canopy around the luxury getaway. Fountains of clear water turned from lavender to blue when the wisps of clouds shifted, blocking the rays of one sun. Overhead, masses of bright color cawed as they flew by, the gentle ondi birds always a sight.

  Zehn drew in a breath and sighed. The sweet scent of honeyed flowers and urgan rum tantalized guests to venture onward. He wouldn’t have minded joining them, but he had duties to keep him busy.

  A multitude of visitors crowded the courtyard. They came from all corners of the Five Galaxies, some humanoid, others not. Zehn understood their many languages, courtesy of the resort’s translator subtrans education packs. He hadn’t been thrilled to use alien technology, but in order to work in the resort, he’d had no choice but to undergo communication training. And he had to admit it helped.

  A giant red, slug-like creature slowly scooted by him, her eyes blinking in a rhythm that mesmerized if stared at too long. “If this isn’t the most gorgeous view! Tal, are you seeing this?”

  The grumbling Felcan male with her waved tentacles in the air and snapped back, “Of course I’m seeing this, female. I have eight eyes.”

  She ignored him, oohing and aahing over the landscape as she left a trail of ooze in her wake.

  Another female, this one likely Venetian with her mostly humanoid appearance, green skin and overlarge eyes, ogled Zehn and his partner, Lore. “Oh, I’m taking in the sights. Loorie, Babrea, are you guys seeing what I’m seeing?”

  The women with her tittered and drew closer.

  “I can die happy now. I’ve seen a real barbarian.” The redhead sighed.

  Barbarians, he’d been told, were an exotic treat all their own. Zehn exchanged an amused glance with Lore but said nothing. As security for Welcome Resort, he and his partner were required to patrol, look tough, and take care of problems.

  The females could stare all they wanted. Felcan ooze didn’t qualify as something he needed to handle. On cue, a discreet clean-up team hustled to wipe down the area with a purifying mist, then hurried back into the resort to make room for more new arrivals. The females gradually drifted away.

  Zehn and Lore had been stationed in the visitor transport dock, where the newly arrived landed or teleported in. Personally, Zehn disliked the mass of chaotic energy from the ships and teledecks. The planet had enough vitality without needing artificial bursts from offworlder tech. Such advancements, though deemed necessary by the offworlders, didn’t do anything but pollute the planet, in Zehn’s opinion. Ussed didn’t stand for it either, as evidenced by the lack of “advancements” on the known regions of the world.

  Welcome made use of an invisible dome, what they called their tech barrier, to allow technology inside the resort.

  Outside Welcome, alien tech didn’t work. Meaning no phasers, vid calls, or space-jumping, thank the Maker. Though rightly called barbarians, in some ways Zehn and his brethren were far more civilized than half the creatures arriving on Ussed to vacation.

  Ah, finally. Lore, sounding eager, sent the telepathic message, nodding to a hulking Earther stalking a pair of Taethen. Trouble. Something to break up the day.

  Not smart of the human. Though the Earther had more muscle mass, Taethen fought dirty. Half as tall as a barbarian, strong, blue, and prone to invisibility, the Taethen were known to pull pranks on those they considered inferior.

  Zehn liked them. Then again, he’d never been the butt of a Taethan joke.

  “You. You stole my passkey,” the Earther shouted. “I want it back.”

  “Earthling, you lost it fairly in our game.” The smirk on the Taethen’s face was clear to see. Despite his blue skin, white head feathers, and large black eyes, the Taethan had a humanoid shape. “Come now. Did our play not make your transfer to the quadrant pass swiftly?”

  Thinking they’d need to protect the human from the Taethens, Zehn nodded to his partner, then watched as Lore moved to deal with the situation.

  The Taethan male subtly flanking the human didn’t get far. The human turned and shot him with a phaser.

  His partner looked horrified. “You killed him.”

  The Earther shook his head. “He’s stunned. But if you don’t give me back my passkey, I’ll kill him dead.”

  Is there any other way to kill someone than dead? Lore sent him.

  Zehn shrugged. Perhaps on Earth they rejuvenate somehow? He’d have to ask the new humans now part of their clan about their Earther practices. Or maybe he could ask the beauty he and his partner had been carefully monitoring for the past two months. He wondered how long she planned to ignore them and couldn’t contain a grin. Stubborn and not quite as shy as she pretended, Mandy of Earth intrigued him like no other.

  Lore agreed. Yes. She’s the one. He stepped in, grabbed the fallen Taethan, and handed him to his friend, who staggered under the weight of the unconscious male. “Give the Earther back his passkey.”

  The offended, conscious Taethan shook his head.

 
Lore narrowed his eyes. “Now, or I’ll do it for you.” Large, menacing, and his chest markers swirling with warning, Lore gave the impression of eagerness to follow through on his warning.

  The Taethan looked as if he wanted to argue, then smartly handed Lore the key.

  Lore turned to the human. “Here. Now prepare to leave.”

  The human blinked. “Leave? I just got here.”

  “You were told no weapons of any kind. The sensor should have registered this yet did not. Why is that?” Lore turned the small phaser over in his hands. “Perhaps because—”

  Look out, Zehn shouted.

  But Lore had already turned and shielded himself from a second phaser attack. The xechelln hide covering his forearms repelled the blast shot by the human’s associate. The blast did nothing but get absorbed into the arm-bracers and dissipate.

  Zehn would have rendered his partner help, but if a warrior was so weak as to not be able to defeat a human, what good was he?

  Lore must have caught some of this thoughts because he smirked before striking the unarmed human, rendering him unconscious. Then he lifted the male and tossed him into his compatriot. Lore made short work of the remaining man, disarmed them both, then handed them over to the Welcome security bots that dragged them away.

  The entire process took little time, but they’d managed to draw a crowd regardless. The many tourists had stopped to stare, so Zehn took the opportunity to ask, in a loud voice, “Does anyone else have weapons they wish to declare?”

  Three visitors willingly handed over a few items before the area cleared up. Welcome’s guides ushered everyone away from the transport dock into the resort with smiles and laughter. With the exorbitant fees the resort charged, their guests expected top treatment. Apparently a fight, with barbarians no less, had just cemented Welcome’s reputation as the destination place to be.

  A few females came closer to Lore, chattered and flirted, and stroked his arms with invitations for later play. Lore didn’t respond, though he did keep the notes handed to him, and Zehn noticed more than one woman leave with a dash of hope in her eyes.

  When Lore rejoined him after disposing of those notes, Zehn shook his head. “Not nice, teasing the visitors.”

  “Why not? It’s all part of the ‘Welcome Package,’ so I’ve been told.”

  Zehn frowned. “By who?”

  Lore nodded in the direction of the administration building. “The supervisor. Franklin.”

  Zehn didn’t like the small man, but he’d been told to behave himself if he wanted to continue serving as resort security. Since he and Lore needed the human female to come to them, they needed time to court her properly.

  Because of the East-West Treaty signed hundreds of years ago, western foreigners could not be attacked or kidnapped without repercussions. In return for leaving the rest of the planet alone, the westerners received barbarian protection. All three tribes rotated members in and out of the resort. But Zehn’s clan, of the Cloud Tribe, was located closest to the resort, thus many of their members had offered their services to keep the peace between offworlders and the native barbarian population.

  Zehn would much rather have abducted the female and returned with her and Lore to their village. But the resort had already lost two human females to Zehn’s clanmates. He and Lore had to be very careful about their interactions without drawing suspicion about their activity.

  They’d already decided on Mandy of Earth as their bond-mate. They just needed to show her how much she had to gain by joining with them. Clearly her ties to the resort had nothing to do with the people, since she buried herself in the admin building and didn’t leave it until the suns set. Her pattern remained unchanged, and Zehn knew the time had come to let her see their true intentions.

  “No time like the present,” Lore said as their shift ended.

  Zehn nodded. “But we must be subtle. She’s smart.” He glanced at the administration building. She’s watching us.

  I’m still not sure how she’s avoided us so long. Lore gave a rare grin. She’s a good choice for a mate. A real challenge.

  Zehn nodded, then frowned as he studied his bond-mate. You’ve gone too long without warring. Your energies have surged to excess.

  I can handle it.

  So Lore liked to think. Mm-hmm. Zehn sent Lore a mental image of what he had in mind, saw Lore’s eyes glow with a familiar heat, and knew the time had come.

  Chapter Two

  HAD THEY CALLED her smart? Mandy drew back inside the administration building’s eastern alcove, hoping she hadn’t been spotted. Smart? Ha. Mandy considered herself beyond stupid, considering she shouldn’t still be on the planet, let alone allow herself to be constantly distracted by the sexy barbarians. So much for keeping a low profile.

  In the year she’d been at Welcome, she’d done her best to fit in. She discouraged attention, kept to herself, and had fended off her more serious pursuers with the silent treatment. Most of her fellow workers at the resort treated her kindly—she was in charge of handing out pay after all—and left her alone.

  Yet it seemed like every time she turned around lately, someone had been leaving her gifts on her doorstep. A flower, a sweet meat, some small gift. She knew the barbarians were to blame, because they constantly watched her. On shift or off, she forever felt their gazes on her, like a weight that seduced instead of frightened.

  And Lord knew, she should have been terrorized. Both males stood a good head and a half taller than her slight five foot three. They had plenty of golden muscle exposed by naught but loincloths, boots, and those animal hide arm-bracer thingies that covered them from wrist to elbow. Both possessed long, black hair kept out of their eyes by warrior braids at their temples. And the feature that truly stunned her, their golden eyes. A golden center in the middle of a white orb. She’d seen plenty of barbarians in her time on the planet, but the only one who’d had an eye color not gold was Lore. One of his eyes was green, and she found his heterochromia made him that much sexier.

  The very first time she’d spotted Lore and Zehn, she’d stared, entranced. For some reason, the two recent transfers mesmerized her. They weren’t all that different from the others who’d worked security, but she’d sensed these two to be more dangerous. Thus her campaign of avoidance.

  What did she get for staying out of their way? Presents. And those heated glances, as if they’d seen her naked and relished the fact. She’d never given them any hint she was receptive to their gestures, yet they didn’t seem to care.

  Kahl, one of the barbarians they’d replaced, had flirted, not minding her supposed shyness. But as much as she might have fantasized about sex with the big guy, something about him hadn’t felt right. Or perhaps she feared losing control, which she prized above all things. Lord knew the barbarians had a reputation for persuading a woman to lose all sense.

  Look at her friend Lisa. At Skye. Both women had seemed independent and intelligent Earthers. And both of them were now mated to barbarians, never to leave the planet again.

  The sex must be phenomenal, was all Mandy could think. She fanned herself, as much from the tropical heat as from impossible dreams about the giant warriors constantly plaguing her thoughts. Man, she missed sex. A lot.

  Mandy had a nice figure, but she didn’t think herself all that amazing when it came to looks. She had plain brown hair, plain brown eyes, and boobs—her saving grace. Too bad the wrong type had always seen what lay under the surface…

  She frowned, annoyed she couldn’t put that mess behind her. Lately, she’d been having nightmares, dredging up the ugliness from her past. Life should have been perfect on Ussed. Especially since no one knew she’d escaped Earth.

  Mandy was smart. She spent her days in the least desired position in Welcome, working inside a building that helped the staff, far away from the splendor outdoors, as well as far away from visitors. When she did leave, she stayed to the employees’ side of the resort.

  Had she been able to survive on her own i
n the jungle, she would have ventured east into barbarian lands. But they were sticklers about keeping offworlders out, and Mandy had no intention of sacrificing her freedom by mating into a clan. Not that they’d want her for more than a quickie anyway, but if they did, it made no sense to give up her independence to men fiercer than the ones she’d left behind.

  She sighed, wishing, as always, that she was the normal, shy Earther she appeared to be. It just wasn’t in her nature. Typically, when a man leered or acted rude, she’d respond in kind. Here, she had to pretend to ignore the behavior, particularly in the case of her boss.

  Had she not needed to stay in Welcome, at least for another few months, she’d have shoved Franklin’s head up his ass. But if she did that, he’d fire her, and the resort would shuttle her back to Vattikan 5, the small moon from where she’d pretended to come. The place had tight security, a heck of a lot better than Earth’s. On Vattikan 5, they’d surely spot her fake documents, discover her true identity, and return her to her owner. That could never come to pass.

  Just thinking about having to go back scared her senseless and opened up a mental door she thought she’d kept closed.

  “What the frell?” Natla, her desk partner, gaped at the blaze in the trash receptacle. “Quick, Mandy, hand me the extinguisher.”

  Mandy rushed to fetch it, putting out the fire—and her loss of control. “What happened?”

  Natla, a Venetian with a great sense of humor and Mandy’s favorite coworker, shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe something one of the employees tossed was flammable? Hard to tell now, though.”

  Damn it. Keep it together, girl. “Huh. Weird.” Mandy quickly turned the conversation to the fight she’d witnessed outside.

  “What I wouldn’t give to add one of them to my harem.” Natla sighed. She had four husbands and apparently was looking for a fifth. “I tried Kahl on for size, you know.”