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And here she is.
Not Suevan, it is true, but perfect nonetheless. And to think, the southern separatists were against finding a way to interbreed with other species. Idiots.
I pinch the small part of her ear, and she goes still under my hands. I grit my teeth, trying to push down the thick wave of desire and concentrate on inserting the miniscule translator into the tiny opening of her ear canal.
It slips in, and she tenses under my hands. The device crawls along her i
“She is in pain,” I yell, anger burning through me. “My mate is in pain,” I say. I am not the only one yelling for the medic however. Kanuz is near frantic, the yellow-haired human dropping to her knees.
Another human female screams, a garbled stream of words that my translator interprets as fecal matter and other foul words.
None of us are paying attention to anything other than the women we’ve mated to when their ship explodes, sending spirals of flame and heat into the dark Suevan night.
My mate’s eyes go wide, her mouth open in a silent scream, showing off her tiny flat teeth, and then she melts into me, unconscious.
Everything in me screams to haul her away. I have to get her to safety.
“It’s the separatists,” Alvez screams at me, whipping his tail in a frenzy behind him. He hauls his own mate to his chest. “We were short-sighted. We should have shielded this place. We are too exposed here.”
“Separate,” I bark the order. “We lead them through the jungle, and we do not make it easy on them by staying together.” I should have known they would try something like this. “Reconvene at Edrobaz,” I shout over the chaos. “Protect the females, they are the future of our people.”
“Do as he says.” Prince Kanuz hauls the yellow-haired woman over one shoulder, her head lolling.
The Acriset tree, the bustling hub of this outpost, explodes a moment later, sending bark and shrapnel through the clearing. The rest of the couples, the older ones, scream as pieces of wood sail by them. One bleeds from a head wound, and her mate drags her to the safety of the woods, surrounded by the others, all ready to fight.
By the hand of Sueva, I am relieved I cleared the few families from it two mornings ago to prepare for tonight. The feast is ruined, our mating ritual luckily over before the separatists struck.
The tables and meal can be replaced, the ceph flutes remade, but the people ca
My legs stretch as I break into a run, holding my beautiful female tight to my chest, swearing vengeance on the short-minded separatists attacking us.
I will make them pay.
OceanofPDF.com
CHAPTER FIVE
OceanofPDF.com
NIKI
My lids are too heavy. Something’s crawling inside my ear, scratching so damn loudly I can hardly hear myself think. Every time I slap at it though, trying to dislodge whatever nasty’s crawled inside, someone holds my wrist back.
I have weird dreams, too, of exploding ships and an attack on the Suevan city.
Attack on the Suevan city…
My eyelids fly open, and I sit up with a gasp, my heart racing a mile a minute. The knowledge that something has gone terribly, completely wrong, weighs heavy on me, and my adrenaline kicks into overdrive.
“Calm yourself,” a deep, gravelly voice says.
I clap a hand over my ear, fishing for whatever has crawled inside. “Get it out, get it out,” I say, deeply unsettled, but too woozy to do more than clutch at my head.
“It ca
A scarred, green face swims into view, and my eyes go wide.
Draz of Edrobaz. The night’s events come rushing back to me, and I lay back down, my mouth dry and my head pounding.
The ship. Oh my God, the ship blew up. My crew.
“What happened?” I rasp, blinking up at the stars, twinkling in patches of deep black through the jungle canopy. Okay. We’re in the jungle. Animal sounds rush at me, the startlingly loud chirp of insects, the calls of an alien creature that I can’t place. A large white flower blooms in the night, a living moon suspended from a green vine. A fire crackles beside me, blinding me as I glance at it. “Is my team safe?”
“They were well last I saw,” Draz says.
A cool rag swipes across my brow, and I turn my head. He’s sponging my forehead off. The sides of his mouth curl up, showing a hint of fang. I swallow, because despite the scales, the green color, the flattened nose— he’s almost handsome. Brutally so, his jaw too square and brow too strong to be human… but there’s something undeniably attractive about him, all masculine power.
The packed-on muscle of his chest still on full display doesn’t hurt, either.
What the fuck is going on?
“We split up to make it harder on the perpetrators. We will reconvene with your team at an agreed upon location up in the mountains.”
“The perpetrators of what? Who are they?”
“There are separatists who do not approve of… the hard choices we have had to make.” He says this carefully, unblinking, so still and alien that a shiver runs down my spine. “They blew up your ship.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to process. So that was real. The ship is gone. A wild laugh tears from my throat. “I guess I’m not getting my candy tonight.”
“Can-dee?” The word sounds strange coming from his mouth, and I realize it must not have translated. He’s repeating it in English.
“Sweets. I love sweets. Sugary, gummy, sweets.” Fuck. And I’m not getting them. They’re all gone. Blown to smithereens.
The ship is gone. My throat constricts. A luminescent green insect floats over the flower, drawn by its glow and delicate fragrance. The winged insect crawls along the petal, long proboscis darting from its mouth, surreal as it drinks from the—
Snap.
The petals slam shut around the glowing bug, and it makes a high pitched chirp that cuts off quickly.
My eyes go wide.
“Sweets,” he repeats, and I swivel my head towards him. I can’t shake the feeling that something has crawled into my ear, and I give my head a careful tilt, trying to loosen it.
“I am furious that the translator embed has affected you thusly, my wife.”
I stare at him. The fire casts strange shadows across the planes of his face. Surely, I heard him wrong. I sit up slowly, smashing the palm of my hand against my ear.
“No,” he hisses, circling my wrist with his talon-tipped fingers. “Do not hurt yourself, wife. Why would you do such a thing?”
The translator must be misfiring. It must be wrong.
“Why do you keep calling me that?” It comes out hoarse.
His thumb slides down my forearm. I jerk away from him.
“Because you just wed me. We are mated.” A satisfied smirk punctuates this statement, and all air seems to leave my lungs.
It takes me a moment to get enough oxygen back to formulate a response.
“What do you mean we just wed?” Maybe these aliens have a different definition of the word. Maybe my translator is glitching.
“It means you’re mine now, little human.” There’s a predatory hunger in his eyes.
I don’t give him an inch. My throat’s gone dry, my heart flipping in my chest, but he doesn’t have to know that.
“Not according to any laws on Earth.” I’m not entirely sure how I’m managing to form coherent sentences at this point.
That strange barking sound comes from him again, and I realize he’s laughing again.
Did I think he was polite and respectful earlier? Anger curls through me.