Awakened by the Giant Read online

  At the moment, anything felt possible. Calden didn’t like the idea of lying to FATHER or the Mentats but they didn’t understand Madeline—or any female, for that matter. They didn’t know how to care for a female or cherish her, Calden told himself. He did—therefore he had to protect Madeline and keep her safe from their prying eyes.

  Closing his own eyes, Calden dropped his head so that he could breathe in the aroma of her hair. Gods she was so sweet and tiny and perfect! He swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to protect her and assure her status at the station. Then, when he was sure she was safe and she had the self-termination unit removed, he would tell her the truth about her origins before asking her to bond with him. They would live out their lives together and never be alone again.

  He was certain it would work.

  Drawing Madeline closer, he dropped a soft kiss on the top of her head and at last allowed himself to drift off.

  Eleven

  Madeline caught herself humming a little tune as she attempted to twist her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and made herself stop. She knew she ought to be grieving and miserable—sad about the loss of the other members of her crew and guilty that she was the only one who had survived—not to mention devastated about the loss of her late husband. But somehow she couldn’t make herself feel all that.

  Instead she felt…happy. Which she knew was totally wrong, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She did know the reason for it though—it was Calden who was making her hum to herself and feel all warm and tingly inside. Every time she was near the big Kindred, her stomach turned to butterflies and her heart started to pound.

  You’re falling in love, whispered a disapproving voice in her head. Falling for him even though you know you shouldn’t. Shame on you, Madeline!

  But somehow she could scarcely even feel guilty.

  Part of that was because she was always so busy. She and Calden had fallen into a kind of routine. They got up every morning and had First Meal—she was really beginning to like his Kindred food, though she was sometimes homesick for Earth cuisine—and then waited until all the Mentats were hard at work to go to the enzyme baths.

  After their bath, it was straight to Calden’s lab where Maddy helped him catalogue and understand his new Earth specimens. He had cloned a calf, a lamb, a piglet, and a foal at this point—and they all seemed healthy so she had high hopes that they might live out a normal life-span instead of dying early, as some of Calden’s other clones had done.

  They worked hard all morning—had a quick but satisfying lunch—then went back to work until it was time to knock off for the night and come back to Calden’s quarters. Once there they often skipped supper in favor of making long, leisurely love to each other.

  Not that they were actually able to have penetrative sex—they had actually tried but there was no way Calden’s shaft could fit inside Maddy’s pussy, no matter how wet she was or how hard she tried.

  “Stop, nieka,” he had murmured the night before, as Maddy straddled his lean hips and attempted to get him inside her. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “It should be possible,” Maddy argued, at last giving up in defeat. “Women’s bodies are built to have babies, after all—this part of me is meant to stretch.”

  “Maybe in time you’ll be able to open enough to take me. Maybe…possibly, there will be a solution soon,” Calden had murmured.

  “Oh, are you working on something in your lab?” Maddy had asked eagerly.

  “Not exactly but there is something I have hopes for. No—please don’t ask me the details.” He shook his head mysteriously. “I don’t want you to be disappointed if this idea doesn’t, ah, bear fruit. But I have high hopes for it, right now.”

  “I hope it’s something that will help us be together,” Maddy had murmured, snuggling close to his side and pillowing her head on his broad chest.

  “I hope so too, nieka.” He had pulled her close and dropped a soft kiss on the top of her head as they cuddled together in the vast, Kindred-sized bed. “Now why don’t you let me taste you again? We know my tongue fits into your sweet little pussy just fine.”

  “Mmm…yes it does,” Maddy had murmured and despite her disappointment at not being able to take his shaft inside her, they’d had a very pleasurable night after all.

  She knew it was probably wrong and premature but more and more she found herself longing to be completely joined to the big Kindred. It was as though she had discovered a new hunger—the hunger to have him completely inside her, filling her, loving her…and bonding her to him forever. She wondered if they would really form the telepathic connection he had assured her all Kindred formed with their bonded mates and hoped they would.

  Maddy caught herself humming again and shook her head. She was so head-over-heels for the big Kindred it was ridiculous—and probably shameless considering that it had been only a little less than a week since she’d awoken in the slimy green nutrient bath and he’d caught her climbing over the edge to try and get to freedom. But she couldn’t help herself somehow—no matter how often she told herself that they were going too fast and she needed to put on the brakes, she just couldn’t seem to do it.

  Every time she was determined to start pulling away from Calden, he would come into the room or she would catch him watching her with a loving expression in those warm, topaz eyes and then, before she knew it she was in his arms and he was kissing her.

  And then kissing led to other things… Maddy shivered with desire as she remembered exactly what things Calden liked to do to her. They had explored each other’s bodies thoroughly by now but he never seemed to get tired of learning her all over again and neither of them could get enough of the other.

  The big Kindred especially seemed to love going down on her—he did it multiple times a night with such apparent enjoyment and enthusiasm that Maddy had completely lost all her earlier inhibitions about the act.

  How could she feel that her pussy wasn’t pretty enough or that she made too much honey when Calden was constantly remarking on the beauty of her body and saying how good she tasted and how he loved bathing her pussy with his tongue? How could she feel that she was too big or not thin enough when he was always calling her “nieka” which meant “tiny one” and telling her how delicate and perfect she was?

  He was so strong but always so careful of her that she had absolutely no fear of her gentle giant anymore. And since both of them loved studying animals—and Maddy enjoyed caring for them as well—it was almost a perfect life.

  Well, perfect except for the Mentats, Maddy thought with a shiver as she tried again to get her hair into a bun. Though she and Calden attempted to stay away from the big, scaly aliens, there was no avoiding them completely. They would still pass some of them in the long, circular hallways of the station as they went from Calden’s quarters to his lab and they occasionally still saw one or two at the enzyme baths.

  Grack-lor, especially was liable to be lurking around wherever they went. At least the big Mentat didn’t say anything to them anymore, Maddy thought to herself. He just stared—which was almost worse, in a way—but still better than him trying to start a fight or get one of the other Mentats to start a fight with Calden.

  “Ignore him,” Calden had advised her. “He cannot do anything without FATHER’s permission and we have given FATHER no reason to censure us.”

  “So you’re saying he’s harmless?” Maddy had asked.

  Calden shook his head.

  “No—don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that. The stories of things he has done to females from his home world…the things he brags about…” His stern features twisted in disgust. “Just the thought makes me ill. No—he’s not harmless. Whatever you do, don’t ever be alone with Grack-lor, Madeline. That would be a grave mistake.”

  “I promise I’ll give him a wide berth,” Maddy said. “You don’t have to tell me twice that he’s bad news.”

  But other than the silently