A Civilized Mating Read online

  A Civilized Mating

  Marie Harte

  If one barbarian is lethal, two are even more dangerous… in bed

  Earther Skye Jones arrives to rescue her friend from a barbarian kidnapping, knowing she’ll be throwing away her chances of a dream job on planet Ussed. But with her skills, she doesn’t anticipate being captured by a group of the sexy warriors. Or that she’ll fall for the sexy squad leader. If that weren’t bad enough, she’s brought back to their encampment, where she meets their clan leader, yet another hulking warrior that sets her blood afire.

  When the mating instinct takes over, Skye finds herself with not just one, but two bed partners. Her life isn’t meant to be lived among the uncivilized. Or is it? Before she can decide what she wants, the choice is taken out of her hands by an enemy clan. And if she’s not careful, she’ll lose a lot more than a stubborn heart.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement of the copyright of this work.

  A CIVILISED MATING

  Alpha Series

  Copyright © 2015 MARIE HARTE

  ISBN: 978-1-936387-82-3

  All Romance eBooks, LLC Palm Harbor, Florida 34684 www.allromanceebooks.com

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events, or locales is coincidental.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First All Romance eBooks publication: February 2015

  Chapter One

  Hovering over Planet Ussed, 4th Quadrant

  Earth Year 2437

  “Skye, you are so screwed. Don’t do this.” Skye Jones bit her lower lip in indecision, her finger poised above the button as she tried to talk herself out of a rash plan. With one push she’d be transported onto the planet she was so close to nabbing as her dream assignment.

  But if she went in without approval and made the mess she knew she’d have to make to rescue Lisa, she’d ruin two years of kissing ass and taking the worst assignments in the company to prove herself a team player. Could she do it? Abandon her dream job just so her friend wouldn’t be trapped with a brainless barbarian for the rest of her life?

  Decisions, decisions.

  Hell.

  She pushed the button, knowing she couldn’t leave her best friend in the hands of some ginormous native with control issues. As she hurtled through time and space protected by a Tempien shield, she kissed her future at Armlin United goodbye. Oh, planet Ussed. We could have been so good together.

  With all the training she’d had on western Ussed culture, Skye felt comfortable navigating the planet without a guide. She spoke fifteen of their dialects, thanks to a series of subtrans education packs. Expensive, but worth it, especially now. Along with a backpack of supplies, she wore standard western clothing—linen-like capri pants and matching tank top, cushy sandals—and had the requisite piercings in her ears and brow to pass as a resort attendant. She kept her hair long and free from dye, liking her ash-blond color, which would also help her pass as a native.

  What those on Earth would call alternative or punk in style, the Ussed people had adapted as the norm. But instead of dressing in tons of black and leather, they wore light colors and loose-fitting clothing to combat the heat. Body art was encouraged, self-expression more than a right; it was a way of life.

  From everything she’d read about the Welcome Resort—the place that should have been her promotion—beings from all over the four quadrants paid exorbitant fees to stay. At Welcome they could enjoy fine dining, pursue exotic activities, purchase items found from all over the universe, and expect unsolicited pampering. All pluses, no minuses. Well, that’s if one didn’t count on the barbarians to the east making trouble. Five hundred years ago, the West had made a pact with the East. To keep the barbarians from invading, they’d agreed not to encroach on eastern lands…and to allow the barbarians free access to the resort in exchange for their protection.

  From the vids Skye had seen, the Westerner’s had come out on top. They had a resort worth every penny spent. A gorgeous view of several interconnecting lakes, domesticated wildlife that added to the striking atmosphere, and a five-star rating. The planet looked much like Earth, but with a vibrancy lacking in her homeworld. And the people… Just, wow.

  Vids of the barbarians standing guard showed them to be at least seven feet tall with builds Mr. First Universe would envy. They didn’t use weapons either. Just their bare fists and the extremely effective animal hides that shielded them from all manner of attack.

  That’s if a person could look beyond the handsome features of said security to bother. Hell, even Welcome’s security force was beautiful. Beyond odd, yet their system worked.

  Or it had, until her unfortunate friend had caught the attention of one of their guards. Now the idiot thought he had a right to own her. At least, that’s how the translation worded it. Lisa had stepped in it big time.

  Skye’s journey ended abruptly, and she found herself standing in Welcome’s visitor transport dock. It literally hurt her to see the beauty in the vids hadn’t been exaggerated, because she would never know the joy of living and working in the place. With a sigh, she stepped off the raised pad, hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, and made straight for the administrative building.

  And how do I know where to go? Why, I have the whole place memorized because it was supposed to be my new home in another month. One lousy month and it could have all been hers. “Shake it off, Jones. A friend needs your help. Move it,” she told herself. The tough love helped, and she did her best to focus on the here and now, not what could have been.

  Most of the patrons—both humanoid and not—arriving at the resort were affluent, famous, and in a few instances, infamous. Merchants, CEOs, alien mafia. It didn’t matter who you were. So long as you had money and left your weapons at the gate, you were welcome in Welcome.

  The double welcome didn’t entertain her as it once had. Now she could only shake off her missed opportunity to lead to bigger and better things at Armlin, and hope to hell Lisa was still okay.

  Skye threaded through several slow moving visitors and dodged waving appendages. A spiked tentacle drew a little too close to her, so she pushed out with a bit of telekinesis, so slight the creature shouldn’t have noticed it.

  Like most humans from Earth, she possessed a smattering of psychic skill. Humanity had evolved a century or two ago. Those people with large amounts of psychic ability got the great jobs. Others, like Skye, had to fight their way to the top using know-how and ingenuity.

  Though she came from a powerful psychic family, her main talents were useless unless she wanted a career in physical security. Um, no thanks. Security paid diddly, and those in the business normally had no necks, Y chromosomes, and no head for fashion. But to get her dream job—as a fashion buyer for Welcome’s resort—she’d steadily been working her way up the corporate ladder. From low-level gate security to protecting the boss’s daughter. Saving the foolish teenager from a kidnapping had proved fruitful, earning her a chance to take a placement test as a buyer for Welcome.

  One which she’d passed with flying, blazing colors. And then…

  “Oh my God, Skye. You have to come get me. Maht, that barbarian I was telling you about, somehow thinks he owns me or something. I mean, he’s hot as hell and the sex is phenomenal, but— The point is he won’t let me come back! I’m trapped on Ussed. Hurry before I end up married or pregnant by the big guy. And you have to promise not to tell anyone, or I’m worse than dead. I’m fired. Ask Mandy. She’ll fill you in.

>   “I’m in some weird colony on the eastern side of the border, on the other side of Lake Fryon. Look for the Cloud Tribe, Vyctore Clan. I—” It just stopped.

  The frantic call had woken Skye out of a sound sleep three nights ago. She’d replayed the audio until she had it memorized. She knew who the Cloud Tribe was. The Ussed barbarians populated most of the planet, with the tribes separated geographically. The Cloud Tribe was fifty thousand strong the last time a census had been taken. But she knew little about the individual clans. Time to find this Mandy and figure out what the hell was going on.

  Skye stepped up her pace, not surprised to see so many humans visiting. The resort had been started by humans who’d crossbred with the native population, so the place felt Earth-friendly. The natives looked human enough, save for various shades of skin, eye, and hair color. Even human hair dyes and contacts couldn’t pass for true Ussed vibrancy.

  She walked around a neon-green-haired resort attendant, nearing the entrance of the resort’s gates, and saw her first barbarians up close. Holy hell, they’re huge. The vids hadn’t done them justice. The two men guarding either side of the large entrance stood a good head and a half taller than Skye’s own five eleven. Muscular legs like tree trunks, broad chests, corded abs, and arms thicker than her thigh made her wonder why anyone would even think about messing with them.

  As in the vids she’d seen, they wore little, just a loincloth that reached mid-thigh but bared a bit of flank and probably a great deal of ass. She had to clear her throat to swallow and forced herself not to look and see for herself. The only other clothing also not covering much of their bodies was the nut-brown, surprisingly shiny armor at their forearms and over their knee-high boots.

  They had sun-kissed skin, what looked like flesh-colored tattoos across their chests and shoulders, and like most Ussed natives, hairless bodies. Then again, with an almost tropical climate, what use had the Ussed people for hair? Both men did, however, have long black manes that easily brushed their chests. A tactical disadvantage, in her opinion.

  As if the barbarian closest to her sensed her scrutiny as more than mere curiosity, he met her gaze.

  Her heart nearly stopped. The man had golden eyes. Not yellow—gold. No discernable pupil or iris that she could tell, just a glowing, gold circle centered in the middle of a white orb. She’d have thought that would make him appear more alien, even off-putting. Instead she wondered what he’d look like in bed, wearing nothing at all.

  He grinned, as if sensing her wandering thoughts. Which, according to all her data, he couldn’t. The Ussed weren’t psychic. Thank God. But she wondered if they possessed some weird kind of pheromone, because almost all the women, and a few men, looked at them the same way she just had.

  She glared at him, ignored the way his grin faded as he narrowed his eyes on her, then flashed him her guest pass and hurried past him and the gate’s weapon sensor. She quickly found the inner courtyard of the resort’s massive welcome center. Several attendants came forward to greet the new arrivals, and she envied their smiles. Considering she’d made a half-assed plan with some impromptu help, she didn’t expect an individual greeting. She received welcomes and sincere smiles all the same.

  As she’d thought, the employees at Welcome loved it here.

  Friggin’ Lisa. Skye huffed and continued on her way, and no one stopped her as she entered the administrative building for resort employees only.

  When she reached the front desk, she saw Mandy, a fellow Earther. Mandy seemed to be in her mid-twenties, like Skye and Lisa. She was short, built on the curvy side, and like everyone else working at Welcome, beautiful.

  The young woman motioned Skye to a side room, then closed the door behind them. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m Mandy. We spoke a few days ago.” Mandy had long dark hair, doe eyes, and cheekbones Skye would kill for. Another reason to dislike the girl—except she’d come to Lisa’s aid when Lisa needed it.

  “I remember the call.” The brief vid conference with Mandy had burned itself into Skye’s brain. She took the girl’s proffered hand. “Glad to meet you. I appreciate you smoothing my way in.”

  “The pass won’t last more than two weeks. But it’s enough to get you past security. In case you haven’t noticed, the guards are huge. No one gets by them.”

  “Oh, I noticed.” Skye paused. “Are they all like that?’

  “Huge, handsome, and hung?”

  “Wasn’t sure about the hung part. Thanks for clarifying.”

  Mandy grinned, which eased the stress lines at her eyes. “Yeah. We all like the man candy. You probably realized it’s tough to take your eyes away from them.”

  “Do they emit a kind of attractant? Have some psychic mojo that wasn’t in my Welcome information packet?” Something to explain why even she’d been affected, when normally Skye could take or leave men, no matter how pretty they were. Her road to professional freedom had been her focus for so long that sex paled by comparison.

  Mandy shook her head. “Nope. It’s weird. The scientists ruled out anything psychic or hormone related. Just a freak of nature, I guess. You can’t help looking at them. I mean, male perfection, right?” She sighed. “I get why Lisa lost her way.”

  I do too, though this is typical for Lisa and her dealings with the opposite sex. Get in a bind, call Skye. Rinse. Repeat. “Interesting. Maybe it’s a genetic marker, a kind of advancement within the warrior people on Ussed.” And to be filed away for later, when she met this Maht guy. “Kind of hard to fight when you’re drooling over your opponent.”

  “Exactly.”

  Skye frowned. “So how is it Welcome doesn’t have more issues with the guards dragging women off with them? I mean, from what I saw, several guests would have been more than willing.”

  “It’s forbidden. The East-West Treaty stands so long as the barbarians don’t interfere with resort attendants or guests. And to be honest, the barbarians just aren’t interested in those outside their tribes. Well, until Lisa. There have been so few exceptions over the years it’s a big deal if it happens.”

  Skye perked up. Maybe there was a way out of this without losing her dream job or hurting Lisa’s future here. “Great. So then I just need to find Lisa’s supervisor and… Why are you shaking your head?”

  “Resort employees are forbidden from interacting socially with the guards. Maht abducted her, but Lisa was more than eager to party with him before he took her. One thing the Vyctore Clan don’t do is molest the unwilling. So even if Lisa claimed Maht forced her, no one would believe her.”

  Skye frowned. “I thought might makes right in the East.”

  “It does, but there’s more to it than that. The barbarians are a lot more complicated than the books let on. All I can tell you is that Lisa’s in way over her head. If Mr. Franklin finds out she’s not really sick but shacking up with Maht, she’s fired and no longer Welcome’s problem. And if you don’t get her back from Maht, she’ll end up becoming barbarian property. Then she’ll be stuck on the planet with no way out.”

  “But how can you say that if the employees and barbarians don’t mix? Maybe Maht will get bored with her and dump her by next month. Then all this won’t matter.”

  “I didn’t say they never mix, only that they’re not supposed to. Like I said, they rarely venture outside their own culture for mating, so it’s never been a big deal before. Lisa’s the first girl from the resort I know of who grabbed a barbarian’s attention. Barbarian mating is serious stuff. The last time this happened was a hundred seventy-five years ago. Some Hrasheen princess fell in love with one of them and took him back to her planet to rule her kingdom. Ever since the big stink her uncle made over the matter, Welcome’s policy about fraternization has become a huge deal.”

  “Great. So how do I go about getting her back?”

  Mandy pulled out a map. “I’ve noted the last known sightings of some nearby Vyctore clan outposts. I bet Maht took her to one of them. That or he’s already back at his village. Bu
t I haven’t heard any rumors about new mating ceremonies or foreigners in the village, so I’m betting he hasn’t committed to her officially yet.”

  “You haven’t heard? Heard from who?”

  Mandy blushed. “Kahl, one of the perimeter guards, is a friend. Just a friend. Sometimes we talk.”

  Skye would bet that wasn’t all Mandy wanted to do with him, but Mandy wasn’t her problem. Lisa was. Sometimes being a loyal best friend sucked. “Fine. So what’s the plan?”

  “Lisa told me all about you.” Whatever that meant. “You find her and Maht before he gets back to the village. Talk some sense into his hard head. Lisa said you have a way with men.”

  “I kick ass. I don’t know that that’s a ‘way with men’.”

  “Well, then kick his ass. But get Lisa back here in the next nine days, in time for the Green Moon Dance, or she’s fired. I can’t cover for her past that. Everyone at the resort is expected to attend.”

  “Terrific.” Nine days—one Ussed standard week. “I’ve got one measly week to find Lisa and drag her back here.”

  Time to get cracking…

  Chapter Two

  Talzec frowned at the scene taking place in the shade while his men trained in the hot sun of the weapons courtyard. The sounds of clashing steel, grunts, and swearing mixed with the tangy scent of blood and sweat. Those were familiar and welcome senses that Talzec prized in his clan—the strongest of the strong.

  Sex had its place as well. One of his warriors receiving ease by a female or fellow warrior was no big deal. But during the day, when the bastard should be training? Against the thick trunk of the maffet tree, Katan moaned as the female worked his cock with long draws of her mouth, moving enthusiastically and distracting more than a few of Katan’s peers.

  Before Talzec could chastise the undisciplined warrior for creating such a spectacle, Xav took over. The clan’s second in command—Talzec’s beta—joined the pair in the shadows, murmured something to the female, then waited while Katan finished. His groan of contentment annoyed the piss out of Talzec, who would never reward a warrior for poor behavior.