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Category: Erotica/Paranormal Erotica
Description: Blessed are those who just give into the darkness of Luvk... Earthling archaeologist Aisling Bjorn never really considered juggling multiple husbands for were-assassin duty on planet Luvk--a world of tiger folk subjugated by winged aliens--for a career. Her sanity is out of the question when surrounded by enormous muscled Tiger Lords cloaked in sexy leather pants. Their glorious bodies alone could incite riots on Earth. And they all want her. One thing's for certain, love or lust, everyone eventually succumbs to Luvks' FERAL FEVER.
eBook Publisher: New Concepts Publishing, 2011 2011
eBookwise Release Date: November 2011

23 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [500 KB]
Words: 110753
Reading time: 316-443 min.

Chapter One

(Earth year 2013 AD)

Knives became my friend years ago in Egypt. I didn't like leaving them behind. But I had enough sense not to question my commander about weapons and what I didn't see while staring through the shuttle craft's window across the burning sands ending at the base of the mountain where my superior officer swore a wormhole connected planet Slaken to the world of the Luvks. Or so an Earth girl reasoned. But Aisling Bjorn wasn't on Earth anymore and reason had been cast out the window with a proverbial bucket when I bailed on my home world about a year ago. Especially when Commander Goro had insisted we leave our knives in the shuttle today. Better to gulp back my questions and observe over Goro's shoulder where he toyed with the space shuttle's controls.

Surely the gateway was there in the glinting face of the blood red sedimentary rock. My vision just couldn't detect whatever indicated its presence. But this singular point in the universe was where we intended to walk into another dimension. Or something equally bizarre. Rarely did scientific explanations make sense after I joined the Order of the Marshals a year ago in that Big Apple New Age bar, The Awakening, because there really wasn't a scientific explanation for this wormhole. It merely existed, according to my psychic superiors.

And who could demand more explanation when you just woke up one day in a crazy dream that defied all the logic a girl absorbed studying the rise and fall of civilizations in archaeology? After all, the last thing archaeologists believed was that extraterrestrials built anything on Earth. Or that aliens even existed at all. But nobody on earth, including archaeology, knew about the Blood Wars or the extraterrestrials who made appearances in Earth legends as werewolves and vampires.

So, joke's on me. A secret doorway was about to lead my team into an alternate universe where cat-like people required a were-assassin Marshal to help them coexist with the winged beings here on this side of the portal, on planet Slaken. Since both populations are telepathic, meaning composed of higher-evolved psychics, my earthling peer and I, lesser-evolved psychics, will bond perfectly with the populations to complete were-assassin bonds. So, I'm going to become a were-wolf...

"How do you feel, Aisling?" Goro asked me in his calming half whisper of a voice without turning away from the shuttle's control panel.

"Ready to go."

"Like change knocks at your door?"

Yes, especially because my door is that I'm psychic. Or so The Marshals swear my powers of healing make me so. But I can't control my power. Even better, I'm going to intermarry with one of these higher-evolved psychics to create a political alliance through marriage. Why? Marshals have the upper hand in sheltered thoughts because were-wolves have impenetrable minds like lesser-evolved psychics. Like me. So, no mind control and a whole lot of terrifying power lay in my future.

"Just remember, the Luvks are matriarchal," Goro noted. "Their society is ruled by seven queens whose sons form a Royal Guard for each matriarch. But the provinces war among themselves. Adding healers to the picture instead of psychics who can remote view or kick butt with telekinesis should buffer the friction between warring groups by saving the wounded without causing conflict in interfering in other ways." Goro's tall black-leather-clad form climbed out of the pilot's seat. "That's what will keep you alive on Luvk."

But what I don't understand is why me? Goro's wife always said I shouldn't open a tuna fish can let alone touch a bleeding person until I learned to manage my psychic power.

"Let's go." Goro shot me a stoic glance before sliding his commanding gaze to my peer Johnson and strode across the shuttle's sterile metal interior. "Let's not keep the warriors waiting."

For some reason, I couldn't conjure a picture of these cat warriors in my mind. I'd never been one to gravitate toward vampires, werewolves, or cat people in fiction. I was a sci-fi girl. My thoughts were always on things lost to time and how they worked into the natural order of bigger things as well as how they had become lost to time. Science. Scientific mysteries are my passion. And one stared me down. That's probably why I was so gung ho about leaping through this invisible portal.

Goro headed toward the gaping sun-lit hatch, his long black hair swinging with purpose.

Finally. I shoved into the commander's shadow, throwing my light backpack of personal items over my shoulder, and followed him into the warm sunlight.

Bringing a couple things from home had been a silly act in grasping at my childhood baggage. But something comforting lay in the few pieces of clothing, a paperback novel--just in case I have a child so far from home and want to teach him to read and write his mother's tongue--a postcard image of Earth I lugged along for posterity. So, call me sentimental. The postcard was my adult equivalent of a teddy bear or security blanket. But the point is that I'm fully aware of the point.

Goro's swinging tails of his long black leather coat lured me toward the accumulated bits and chunks of debris at the mountain's base.

Time to experience something no other scientist would ever experience back on earth.

My heart squeezed out a tiny cringe.

For joy or fear? I'd been in space about a year now. Nothing short of amazing had happened. I landed a seat at the head of class in Marshal Law and everything in cultural studies from Quadrant One to Twelve they had managed to cram into one year. An anthropologist couldn't grumble about one second of said year. But now I headed into the unknown. Like an exalted Mayan volunteer who'd been wined and dined for a year but faced the ritual blade that would flay his hide into a priest's cloak as he became the symbol of fertility, the Xipe Totec. This was it. My future. Aisling Bjorn literally died today on her home side of the gateway in an act of sacrifice for humanity. Well, planet Luvk's humanity.

A stone hit the heel of my boot.

"Sorry," Johnson muttered.

Was he a better choice to marry into the Luvk society? The Luvks were warriors, combative, and always one wing shy of winning a fray. Apparently they could hold their own enough to operate independently of the Slakens. But Johnson was probably the best candidate for working with the Luvks. He could heal a wound with one touch resulting in a momentary flash of light that looked like the lights flickered. Me, I struggle to focus my psychic energy only to drive it all into a person and suck myself dry. I always collapsed into an unconscious heap afterward. The Luvks will think I'm weak. Most likely useless. Johnson was the best bet to secure a strong Marshal presence among the newly liberated colonials. But that left the elitist bastards for me to contend with. I just couldn't decide what the best option is for The Cause.