Page 11 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin (Alien Fated Mates #1)

11

“ J esus!” I jumped as a fountain of hot water heavy with sulfur doused me from head to toe, then I wiped the stream of water from under my eyes as it pooled in my steel-toed work boots. “What next?” I muttered, then turned toward the small backhoe digging out Makir’s pool. “Stop digging. We need to cap it!”

My crew stood buried to their ankles in Pepto Bismol-colored muck, and the geyser continued to jet into the air like an artesian spring. Bright moonlight glinted off a length of copper in my periphery. The long, wide tube I’d cleared out of Makir’s hovery lay beside a pile of excavated dirt. I raced through the courtyard, shouting, “Tino, Sully, with me.”

By the time we’d augured the tube deep into the hot water and capped the top with a temporary faucet, MacGyvered from parts Makir had salvaged from the wastelands, my arms were trembling with exhaustion.

JayJay, knee-deep in the milky slurry, rolled his eyes. “Still think it was a good idea to work through the full moon to get ahead?”

Maybe I’d been a little too ambitious in wanting to have everything perfect before Makir returned from his hunting trip. I pulled a bandana from my overalls and mopped the sweat from my brow. “Nice work. The orzfoam is on me this week.”

The Rock Dwellers bumped fists and cheered. Dang, my credits would take a hit this week. Those boys could throw down some beer. Totally worth it, though.

As my crew worked their way out of the thick goop, I burst into exhausted laughter.

“Boss man, you good?” JayJay asked, slogging toward dry ground.

Nearly bent over with laughter, I choked out a few words. “You look like you’ve been dipped in pink chocolate.” Mud dripped down their legs and speckled their bodies.

“You think that’s funny, huh, boss man.” Tino’s teeth flashed, and he scooped a handful of mud from his bald head.

“Chocolate?” JayJay’s brow rose, and a rivulet of grime tracked down his smooth gray cheek like a clown’s tear.

“Hey!” I called out, my breath stolen from me as Tino and Sully, huge hands slippery with mud, picked me up and threw me into the pool. I sat there for a moment, admiring the horizon where a soft yellow line separated earth from sky as the sun prepared to rise. All the while, globs of cotton-candy-colored silt dripped from my beard and oozed between the seams of my coveralls.

If Ginger were here, she would capture the moment on her phone to revisit and torture me for eternity. Complete with narration. ‘Here lies Geo, a man in search of his identity. Will he find it at the bottom of this idyllic watering hole alongside the mystical unicorns that drink here or… ’

More like a pig in a sty than anything remotely magical, I slid to the edge, where the same giant hands pulled me out. Their lawnmower-like laughter nearly deafened me.

“Very funny.” I flicked mud at Tino, then turned to JayJay. “Chocolate’s one of the greatest creations of humankind.” I wiped the mud from my arms and legs. “Creamy, sweet, delicious—”

I jerked to a stop. The hairs on my arm stood on end. Something was wrong. Makir was in danger and the need to get to him rattled through my bones.

The strange pull that connected me to Makir vibrated with tension. Alarm bells rang in my mind. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, drawing blood. Who the hell hunted in uncharted territory on a planet that hadn’t been studied since the Fires That Cleanse had been deployed? As soon as I saw him, I would shake some sense into Makir’s perfect blue head.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I pressed the heel of my hand over my heart to relieve the pressure.

JayJay lifted one of his pronounced brow ridges. “Boss man?”

Already jogging toward the sono, I shakily replied, “Something’s wrong with Makir.”

Sully hauled me back and hosed us all off in no time, washing away the mess but not the urgency.

“Com Sisip,” JayJay told Tino.

I clenched my fists. “Damn it, I couldn’t get to Makir even if I knew where he was.” Without a hoverbike, I was useless.

“I think you know how to find him, boss man,” JayJay said in a low voice. “Use your tether.”

Something poked at the recesses of my mind. Like a sixth sense, long dormant, newly awakened. “Tether?”

“Can you not sense your connection to Makir?” JayJay’s brows nearly sank into his forehead. “Human courtship must be very difficult if you can’t identify your mate. ”

A spike of fear jolted me back into action, and I ran toward JayJay’s hoverbike. “Let’s go. I can’t let anything happen to him.”

Tino bumped my shoulder. “We’re a team, boss man. We’ve got your back.”

I paced like a helpless idiot, eyeing the hoverbike I had never learned to fly. The morning sun turned the sono’s pink walls an orange that reminded me of vomit.

The reply from Sisip was taking much too long. It grated on my nerves to ask Sisip for help, but my crew backed me up one hundred percent without bombarding me with a million questions, keeping my fraying sanity in check.

All the waiting left my imagination running wild to place my Makir in the evil clutches of an alien villain, about to be eaten.

My Makir?

Tino took a long drink from a container of javae as he exited the sono. “Sisip is putting together a team. We’ll meet them at the base of the Towhees’ aviary in one moon.” Tino relayed Sisip’s com, and three determined heads nodded back at me.

Damn it! It will take forever to assemble a crew this early in the morning.

“Bish, you need food.” JayJay gripped my elbow, yanking me out of my stupor.

In dry clothes and armed, the Rock Dwellers bristled with knives. Sully tucked me in front of JayJay like a child on his hoverbike. My cheeks burned, but I stuffed my embarrassment into the deep recesses of my mind as I white-knuckled the handholds. My unease grew so great I rocked forward on the seat, wanting to take control and leave everyone behind. I needed to protect Makir all by myself. Prove myself to him.

The downdraft of the engines coated us in a cloud of pink dust, and we lurched ahead. My connection to Makir hummed with tension and pulled directly toward the Towhees. Tether. I rolled the label over in my mind. We were tethered ?

Though I was one step closer to Makir, my foot bounced so hard against the hovercraft that JayJay clamped his boot over it to hold it down.

At last, the steep trail to the Towhees’ aviary, perched high above us in the shadows, opened before us. My foot resumed its restless tapping while we waited for Sisip, and once again my mind played havoc with my nerves conjuring visions of Makir in the venomous mouth of some giant alien.

In a haze of dawn-lit dust, three enforcers arrived with Sisip and dismounted. Loaded with gear, a blaze-orange spinal board hovered behind one of the bikes. Fuck! My heart drummed. Would Makir need to use that? A clock appeared in my mind. The second hand hung suspended, paused, and the next tick would mean detonation. We needed to fucking go.

After what felt like hours, Sisip stood before our search party on the dusty ground, legs spread wide, and spoke in a voice that demanded attention. “Thanks for volunteering to search on such short notice. I know for many of you, you’re sleep—”

“Let’s go! We need to go!”

“Can you lead us to him?” Sisip’s hand rat-a-tat-tatted against her thigh.

“Yes.” The word flew out of my mouth before I considered what it meant.

Sisip ignored my biting tone and placed JayJay and me at the front of the search party. Her gaze dropped from my shoulders to my waist before she pulled a belt out of her gear bag and wrapped it around me. Silently, she tucked a long dagger into the sheath that now hung at my side and patted it before her eyes caught mine. Though her face remained free of judgment, my cheeks flushed red.

I can’t even protect myself. How am I going to protect Makir? Trying to remain neutral, my eyes scanned Sisip up and down. She oozed confidence, and her hair was nice, I supposed. Is this what Makir finds attractive? She’s much more competent than me.

“Thanks,” I growled, “Let’s go.” The hoverbike vibrated between my legs and JayJay formed a solid wall behind me. To our left, Sisip’s hand circled in the air in a signal to head out, and the rest of the team shot off, filling the air with a loud drone.

With Makir’s rescue in motion, I focused one hundred percent of my attention on the strange link between us and slowly led the caravan. JayJay quickly figured out my hand directions and flew where I guided him, taking my cue from the tether’s strong pull. The dangerous vibes quieted, but replacing them was something just as urgent. I shook my hands out, trying to relax, but they wanted to grip the tether as if it were physical and yank Makir straight into my arms.

I can’t see a thing, so why do I know where he is?

“Doesn’t look like they camped here,” Sisip said as we arrived at their base camp. Four hoverbikes stood neatly parked below a giant rocky outcrop, and Makir’s beat-up duffel bag sat next to a dip in the ground that hadn’t yet been slept in. I fingered his pelts. His scent was too old to be fresh.

The Rock Dwellers’ sonorous humming broke my increasingly disturbing train of thought—jaws clamping over Makir’s head.

One of the enforcers approached me. “What are they doing?” he asked, as if I had a clue.

The Rock Dwellers caressed the rocks as if they’d found a long lost family member. Sisip sidled closer to me. “They’ve been here nearly a year now, and all they’ve seen is the silty pale pink earth of Tern.” She idly thumbed the holster on her hip. “I’ve seen pictures of their home planet, and it looks a lot like this.”

Spikes of ebony stood before us as if they’d erupted from the ground. The morning sun glistened on the rocks and would have been beautiful on a different day. Right now, it was nothing more than an obstacle course made up of shattered rock so sharp it cut like glass.

My eyes fixed on where JayJay, Tino and Sully stood humming. Not unlike a holy pilgrimage, it was as if they were reconnecting and recharging their spirits, worshipping the rocks. My skin itched, a fire spread through my chest, and my muscles bunched and grew. Makir was close.

Enough of this singing already. It’s time for action .

A flash of white caught my eye, and I scrabbled up the rocks, cutting through the calluses on my hands for a closer inspection. The tiny pricks of pain were not enough to compete with the agonizing pulling of my muscles as they stretched to their fullest. My bicep expanded to the point it almost tore into two. First a tether, now this?

A white beaver, the same type of creature Makir had trapped when his hoverbike had broken down and trapped us in the wastelands, lay dead in the snare in front of me. My imagination concocted an alien creature strangling Makir in the same way, a sharp wire against his neck.

“This way,” I shouted, breaking the Rock Dwellers’ trance and capturing the enforcers’ attention. “This is Makir’s trapline. We need to follow it.”

An enforcer bent to collect the beaver from the snare. “Leave it,” I commanded, my voice shockingly deep, “we’ll collect it on the way back.”

JayJay’s long legs caught up with me in no time. He wove effortlessly through the jagged boulders beside me like a trained soldier. “Slow down, Geo.” JayJay grabbed my shoulder and placed leather gloves on my tattered hands. Tino and Sully were nearly invisible they trailed so far behind.

The enforcers’ voices rose and fell as they grumbled about the terrain cutting up their boots and exclaimed over the white beavers caught in the snares of the trapline we followed.

I leaped over boulders and stumbled over shale-like shards of rock. All force and no finesse, I battled against the final grains of sand as they dropped through the hourglass.

JayJay grabbed the back of my belt, jolting me. “Stop,” he rumbled.

I gasped, searching for an elusive full breath. We stood at the edge of a sheer drop-off, a vast plateau spread as far as the eye could see. Early morning mist parted, revealing a patchwork of wispy brown clouds intermixed with green grass.

JayJay’s brow ridges relaxed and almost disappeared into his forehead. “It’s beautiful.” A chorus of awe-filled breaths followed closely behind.

“Let’s go,” I grunted .

Panic consumed me. The bond rattled like a prison chain, and the fiery itch spread to my pulsing forearms. My internal GPS told me the most direct route would be straight off the cliff edge. I was tempted to jump and hope for the best, but the rational part of my brain took control, aided by JayJay’s quick save, and logic prevailed.

Tino lurched to a stop beside us overlooking the cliff, shading his eyes with a giant hand. “There! I see movement. Four bodies.”

My heart soared as I sped toward the blue fuzzy one. Rocks skidded out from under my feet as I descended—the curves of the winding path brought me closer with each expansion of my rib cage. Yet, my senses still warned of danger.

“Hello there, is all well?” Behind me, Sully’s baritone carried down the cliff to the plateau below as I surged forward.

“They’re waving us down.” Sisip’s voice grew distant as she directed everyone to continue along the same path.

A rock shot out from under my foot as I sprinted, nearly faceplanting and I slowed for a second to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my brow.

Finally, my boots sank into short grass. “Makir?” I shouted.

I rounded a boulder and my gaze landed on him, desperately assessing. Bent over with my hands on my knees, panting, I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

His arms dripped with blood, yet even amid the gore, my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. His glorious blue mane framed his face in a messy knot, highlighting the sharp angles of his cheekbones and square jaw. Deep shadows darkened his eyes, but he appeared fine. Crouched on his haunches, he butchered what must have been a mantu. Long and shaggy, its coat wouldn’t have looked out of place on a highland cow.

“Geo,” he groaned. His lavender eyes swirled and locked on mine, tail erect.

“You can’t be here! Blant this temporary bond,” Makir muttered.

My head spun. It felt as if I’d been shoved over the cliff’s edge. He didn’t want me here?