Deep, Hard, and Rough by Jenika Snow

inside all Aktulla males when they found their mate. Her face
and body, fuck, she was so battered. “ Fallina .” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. She was alive, but growing weaker
by the second.
                Someone
or something had beaten the shit out of his mate, and a red haze covered his
vision, pushing away all other emotions. He wanted blood on his body, blood from
the one that dared harm what was his, spraying forth from the creature that
dared laid their hands on what was his.
      Mine .
    His feelings for her from the moment he saw her, the
way he wanted to kill for her, protect her, and mate with her the likes as he
had never felt, made him realize she wasn’t just a female he wanted to fuck,
but his female, and most likely his
brothers’ also by the way they acted toward her. Once they smelled her blood,
they would know without a doubt she was theirs as well. She was their mate,
that one female that would bear his offspring, and be his other half. Half of
her face was swollen to the point that one of her eyes was closed shut. A large
ugly colored bruise marred one side of her face. Scrapes and cuts littered her
legs and arms, and on her inner forearm was a deep wound that was steadily
seeping blood.
    Quickly pushing the drums out of the way to get to
her, Erak reached out and ran his finger along the smooth, uninjured part of
her face. “Luna, can you hear me?” There was no response. “Luna, Fallina ?”
    He scooped her up as gently as he could, knowing he
needed to get her to the infirmary and have Genet examine her. No doubt his
brothers would realize she was their mate as soon as the scent of her blood
called to them. When she was safely in his arms her head lolled to the side.
    “It’s okay, love. I’ve got you.” She was so very
tiny compared to his species that he held her tighter, feeling possessiveness
and need claiming him. He needed to protect her, nurse her back to health, and
show her that she was his, and he would never allow anything to hurt her again.
He would break bones, tear flesh, and destroy anything that attempted to take
what was his, and she was his, irrevocably.  
    He lifted his hand and pushed her auburn colored
hair away from her face. Nausea settled heavy within him, and he got an
up-close view of the wounds that marred her face. Raw fury encompassed him as
he thought about the creature that did this to her. He strode quickly out of
the cargo dock and up into the cockpit. Her wounds needed to be tended to
immediately.
    “Genet, Raimi. I need your help,” Erak said, his
voice a booming bark that would alert them to the fact he was barely holding on
to his primal instincts. He strode with purposeful strides into the infirmary. The
silver examination table sat in the center of the sterile room, with an
overheard viewing light right above it. There had been too many times to count
when either he or one of his brothers had been upon that table getting one of
their many wounds tended to. Aside from the exam table there were several
storage lockers that held any and all state-of-the-art medical equipment that
they would need. A sanitation room was to his right, and a monitor that would
allow them to see internal injuries to his left.
    “Genet, she has injuries all over, but I don’t know
if any of them are life-threatening.” The gash on her arm worried him the most,
but then again the swelling in her face told him she had been hit many times.
Did she have internal injuries? Thank the heavens Genet had been trained for
situations like this. All Erak had was some
battlefield medical training, but it was mainly the kind that was “patch it up
and get back out there fighting”. Gently laying her down on table, Erak took a
step back to allow Genet look her over. While his brother examined her, he
looked over his shoulder and saw Raimi staring at her with the same intensity
he felt when he stared at Luna. He could sense the realization that Luna was
all of