Taming the Giant Read online

  She had no answers but she felt an overwhelming need to get back to Bram. As much as she could, she hurried.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Well, you certainly came back quickly. Did you have trouble finding the Sacred Grove?” Ren looked up with weary eyes from a strange black contraption he was staring into intently. Alanah had heard him call it a “microscope” when she was in his lab earlier but she had no idea of its function other than to make Bram’s best friend look tired and worried.

  “I found it all right,” she said, shifting her hips uncomfortably. “But the priestess sent me back here again to…to visit Bram.”

  “She did?” Ren looked surprised. “Well, all right. He’s resting comfortably now but I have to tell you, Princess, he’s not out of the woods yet.” He nodded at the door to the room where Bram was sleeping. “You can go in.”

  Alanah started to go…then hesitated.

  “Ren,” she said uncertainly. “When I was at the Sacred Grove, the priestess said something to me…she, uh, seemed to understand things I didn’t quite understand myself.”

  “Well, Yolla is very wise.” Ren nodded. “She’s been with the Mother Ship since well before most of us were born. What did she say?”

  “She said…she said…” Alanah was having an extremely difficult time talking about this. It was embarrassing in the extreme. “Ren,” she said at last. “Did…does the bonding fruit I ate…does it make you feel…feel strange in any way?”

  “Oh my Goddess, the bonding fruit!” Ren clapped a hand to his head. “Oh Princess, forgive me! I’d forgotten that you ate that. I meant to warn you but then that witch gave Bram the plague and everything else flew out of my head!”

  “Warn me of what?” Alanah’s heart began beating faster. Her physical symptoms had gotten worse and worse on the way home from the Sacred Grove until now she felt she could barely stand still, she needed Bram so much. “Warn me of what Ren?”

  “The bonding fruit can have certain…aphrodisiac qualities.” Ren coughed delicately into one massive hand. “And this is a new strain of it—I tinkered with the seeds some before I planted them. So let’s just say they should be…ah, especially potent.”

  “The priestess seemed to know I was feeling…feeling needy.” Alanah felt her cheeks go rosy red with a blush but somehow she forced herself to continue. “She said I should go to Bram and then I…I would know what to do.”

  She knew what she felt like doing—she felt like climbing in the bed with her giant and riding him until he filled her with his seed. But she couldn’t do that—could she?

  “Oh?” Ren’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh,” he breathed, apparently getting her meaning. “Well, yes…” He cleared his throat. “That is the effect that bonding fruit can have on a female.”

  “The priestess said I should, uh, visit Bram.” Alanah twisted her fingers together nervously. “But you’re the physician. Will it…will it hurt him if I, uh, visit with him?”

  “Oh. Ahem…well…” Ren frowned, his cheeks getting somewhat red. “I don’t think it would hurt him but it might hurt you, Princess. Ah…” He ran a hand over his hair. “Did Bram explain to you about ‘bonding’?”

  “He said that after a Kindred and his bride are…are together, they are able to hear each other’s thoughts,” Alanah looked longingly through the wide glass window into the room where her giant lay.

  “That’s true but a bond is more than that,” Ren said seriously. “It’s the entwining of two souls—essentially, when you bond with a Kindred you tie your life force to his.”

  “I don’t understand.” Alanah shook her head. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that if you bond with Bram and he dies, there’s a good chance you might die too,” Ren said in a low, serious voice. “And frankly Alanah, I’m sorry to say that right now, I can only give him a fifty percent chance of survival.”

  “Even with the medicine you gave him?” Alanah asked, tears stinging her eyes.

  Ren nodded regretfully. “I’m trying to find a more complete cure but I keep running up against blank walls. This poison, whatever it is, works incredibly quickly and is more deadly than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  “It killed all our men in the space of a year,” Alanah said bleakly. “My father was the first to be infected but he held on the longest—he was one of the last to…to die.” Suddenly, passion and determination welled up in her and she turned to Ren. “I’m not going to lose Bram the way I lost my father. The priestess told me to give him what he needs and to take what I need from him. And right now there’s only one thing I can think of—one thing I need.”

  “But the risks—” Ren began.

  “I don’t care about that,” Alanah told him fiercely. “I’d rather risk dying than lose another man I love to this plague. I’d rather die than live without Bram.”

  Before he could say another word, she marched past him and opened the sliding metal door to the quarantine room with a whoosh. Inside the door there was a smaller chamber which Ren had called a disinfection unit. It blew strange smelling air on Alanah’s head and body before a second door, which opened into Bram’s room, slid to one side.

  The moment the door was wide enough for her to get through, Alanah ran to her giant and climbed on the massive bed beside him.

  “Bram!” she murmured, stroking his pale cheek. “Oh Bram, sweetheart, I’m here.”

  “Alanah?” His low voice was hoarse and his eyes, when he opened them, were still more red than white. His sapphire irises were dim and dull—they hardly glowed at all. “Alanah,” he murmured again, reaching out to take her hand. “You…you shouldn’t be in here. Not…not safe.”

  “It’s perfectly safe for me,” Alanah promised him. “I’m not male—I can’t get the plague.”

  “Still…don’t want you to see me…this way,” he whispered.

  “What way? As the man I love?” Alanah demanded. She stroked his cheek again and kissed his mouth.

  The soft touch of his lips to hers seemed to do something to her. Her body, which was already feeling hot and needy, suddenly blazed with desire. Her pussy throbbed and her nipples ached.

  “Oh Bram!” she nearly moaned, and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him more deeply this time. Then she moved lower, her hands exploring the broad width of his muscular chest, then lower still, searching under the plain white sheet for his shaft.

  * * * * *

  Bram’s entire body stiffened when he felt her small fingers curl around his cock. He was still weak from the plague the witch had given him but not so weak that he couldn’t react to Alanah’s touch. Still, he knew what she was doing wasn’t right.

  “Alanah…little one, no!” he protested, trying to pull her hand away. “No, we shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” When she pulled back from him, her gray eyes were blazing. “Because we might bond? I want to bond with you, Bram. In fact, I want to do it right now.”

  “It’s not safe,” he protested. “I’m sick, little one—very sick. If we bond I might drag you down with me.”

  “No, you won’t.” Alanah lifted her chin. “Ren said the same thing but it’s not what the priestess in the Sacred Grove said.”

  Bram frowned. “You spoke to Yolla?”

  Alanah nodded. “She said I should take what I need…and give you what you need in turn. Bram…” She looked at him pleadingly. “I ate that bonding fruit down on the planet to prove to my people it wasn’t poison, remember?”

  “Gods…” He ran a hand over his face weakly. “Yes, now I do, little one. Damn, I wish I’d been able to stop you from doing that!”

  “It’s done now and it can’t be undone.” Alanah stroked the length of his shaft again. “Bram, please—I need you. Need you inside me.”

  He frowned. “I shouldn’t let you. If I die—”

  “Then I don’t want to live either,” Alanah told him passionately. “Please Bram, don’t let us be parted. Trust the words of the priestess—let me g