Page 4 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin (Alien Fated Mates #1)

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“ I ’m not going to run,” I chanted quietly, power walking as cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The walk back to my dwelling from the archbuilder’s office took twice as long as it should have, my legs growing stiffer with each innocent sound I flinched at. Squawking woodskies, doors closing… A squelch in the mud behind me revealed a passerby on their way to the bakery. Blanting bad luck. I’d left Lorne to escape alpha assholes—one in particular—and here they were, popping up all around me. First Raz, and now the archbuilder.

The fear of starting somewhere new was nothing like the terror I’d experienced at Reinik’s hands. I thanked the goddess Sola every rotation that our bond had never been completed. Now, it only took the presence of an alpha male to set me on edge—any alpha male.

Small puffs of pink dust kicked up around my feet on the path. The safety of my unfinished dwelling was three steps away. The thrown-together walls barely kept out the rain, but it was home, nonetheless. My drumming heartbeats would slow in a moment, and I’d fall apart where no one could see.

“Hey. Hey, Makir, I’ve finally caught you.”

I jumped. Raz’s toothy grin chilled me. My lungs strained when his hand clamped around my wrist, taloned fingertips clicking together where they circled. I had no recollection of holding my breath until my lungs screamed for air.

“Don’t you think it’s time to take a meal with me as you promis-s-s-ed?”

Promised? Did I promise?

I froze in his grip. In my panic to leave the archbuilder’s, I’d forgotten to try and avoid Raz. I was tired of declining his increasingly less polite offers to provide me with more suitable living quarters. Even if I only had one ration bar left and it rained daily for the rest of my life, I would still not agree to move into Raz’s guestroom. No one would have that kind of control over me again.

My breathing grew shallow and rapid while my mind blurred. My parents had passed my raising to my brother, but they had drilled into me from an early age how serious promise contracts were to Lornians. The thought of breaking a promise sent my stomach spinning.

I must have nodded because before I knew it, Raz had pulled me into his dwelling and firmly closed the door behind him. The next minute I was seated at his table with a cool drink in front of me to accompany the fresh cold sweat breaking out behind my blue-furred knees.

Around Raz and the archbuilder, I was prey. Nothing more than a hunted bush-tailed montie. Only, with the archbuilder, my desire to submit was so amplified that eye contact was as much of a problem as my voice. I could barely eke out a three-word sentence. My escape from the archbuilder had left me fumbling for a reason to escape this dinner. Alpha males would be my demise, but a bully I could deal with. And Raz was a bully. The archbuilder though… He was something else altogether.

I had to avoid touching the archbuilder at all costs .

Raz plunked a dish down in front of me. Now that I was out of the archbuilder’s presence and Raz’s scaly grasp, I could focus a little. The honey-scented flowers in the center of his table filled my nose, mixing with the savory smell of herbed meat. The tiny graneth flowerheads drooped over a tall container and bounced when the table jostled, dusting it in pollen. Covered with a blue cloth, the table was the same color as me.

I gulped. The dishes were patterned with stars, and the tart and sweet hiscus I favored filled fluted glasses. My tail swished over Raz’s polished floors. Not a speck of pink dust lingered anywhere except where it fell in small clumps off the ankles of my jumpsuit. Warta, the stringed instruments Boola played, thrummed from a speaker in the background.

This is not a neighborly meal.

“How was-s-s your meeting with the archbuilder?” Raz asked tightly.

My accommodations proved to be a sticky topic. “G-ood.” My voice wavered. “We meet again in two days.” I sipped my hiscus, the coolness of the glass causing condensation on the outside, wetting the skin on my palms. The rigid set of my shoulders loosened when I filled my fancy glass a second time. Raz’s house smelled of roasting meat, and my stomach rumbled.

“Ah, glad you enjoy that. Hiscus is a new offering at the market—I thought I’d splurge.” He leaned toward me. “No expense is too high to celebrate our special occas-s-sion.”

What special occasion?

He lifted his glass to mine. “And when will your dwelling be ready? I’m looking forward to seeing your nest.”

You’re never seeing my nest, asshat. “I must get my own then. Who is the hiscus seller?” My tail-wrapped calf would’ve revealed how fake my confidence was to anyone who knew me, but Raz bought it .

Creep.

“No need for that, Makir. I would love to sh-sh-share with you.” His toothy mouth widened over my name, and a cold shiver straightened my spine into a steel rod. I wondered if his jaw completely unhinged, like those of some of the lizard-like creatures on Lorne did when they captured extra-large prey.

He pushed the mouthwatering meat toward me on its star-patterned plate. “Please try some mantu. One of the hunting parties had fresh meat for sale and gave me some excellent advic-c-ce on preparation.”

Since my arrival on Tern months ago, I’d been starved of fresh meat and living off ration bars. The hovery—or should I say, lack of a hovery—had returned little profit. Bonic would, no doubt, top up my credits if I asked, but I was doing this on my own. The savory aroma of the mantu filled the air, making saliva pool in my mouth like a wild beast.

“Oh, and the lovely things the baker did with my graneth. You mus-s-st try one.” A puffy triangle of bread was placed on the side of my plate, perfect for soaking up all the flavorful juices from the mantu.

The conversation was pleasant enough, but the way Raz’s forked tongue flickered on every ‘s’ heightened my urge to run. Fast.

I barely stopped the eager purr in my chest as the perfect combination of saltiness and pungent umami flavor melted on my tongue. “This is fantastic.” I forked up another mouthful. “The graneth puff is a perfect sponge. My compliments.”

Raz leered, his scaly torso all too visible with his top three shirt buttons undone. He reached to caress my hand. Little did he know how practiced I was in avoiding this particular move. A glass of hiscus was in my hand before any offense could be taken.

My mother would’ve been appalled at how I shoveled the rest of my dinner into my mouth, but it was so much better than my mealy ration bars, I couldn’t let it go to waste.

“The archbuilder has given me homework, and it’s been a long rotation.” I yawned, genuinely exhausted. “I’ll have to take my leave. I enjoyed the meal, thank you.” My chair glided back smoothly against Raz’s polished floors as I exited in a way that could only be construed as polite and neighborly.

“Leaving so s-s-soon? My guest room awaits you. Would you like to see it?” He gestured down his hall, his shirt gaping open farther as he maneuvered in front of the exit, blocking it.

Throat dry, my gaze darted around the room, hoping that a decent alpha would magically appear to rescue me. A heady disappointment had me swallowing hard. My promise to myself lingered beneath the fear. On Tern, you will be more than just an omega. You will be a successful hovic. You will make friends. You will be all the things you never knew you could be.

Chin high, I braced myself. With a grace inherited from my Tuniga lineage and reinforced by the High Hold’s defensive arts instructor, I spun on my heel, tail high. Raz’s hungry gaze ate up every movement. A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth before I crouched low and sprang up, deftly dodging under the arm barring my exit.

A stunned Raz called out, “Very well. Good night, Makir. I will see you s-s-soon. The offer still stands. You are welcome to use my guest room until your dwelling is complete.”

Adrenaline waning, the promise of that “s-s-soon” haunted me, and I ran the three steps to my door. The old tin stopped and stuttered when it caught on the uneven ground, but at least it acted as an alarm when someone entered. I expelled a tight breath and plopped down into a wobbly chair, my tail wrapped around my waist in a hug.

You did good. Be proud of yourself.

The moonlight streaming through the gaps in my walls only highlighted my need for a functional hovery, and my shoulders slumped. Why was my future in the hands of the archbuilder? When would my dwelling be ready?

The archbuilder abruptly ending our meeting flashed clearly in my mind. He had something against me, but my omega needs didn’t care. They went haywire around him and his summer fields scent. If only he weren’t an overbearing jerk. A round, furless jerk who barely came to my chin.

Something’s deeply wrong with my omega instincts.

My teeth chattered in the cold. The nest I’d hastily dug in the corner was too shallow and poorly lined for Tern. Curled into a ball, I contemplated my desire to submit to a human. Such an unattractive species. Damn, alpha pheromones baffled me.

He didn’t even have a tail. If my brother, Bonic, were here, he would compare his color to the tasteless paste we cleaned our teeth with as younglings and dismiss him with a flick of his tail. That option didn’t exist for me. I needed to get in the archbuilder’s good graces and get my business off the ground.

I jacked the last bolt into the wrap-around lamar windshield on Sisip’s hoverbike and slapped the dust off my jumpsuit. My clothes collected the dirt off my floor like rocks to an asteroid field. The polished floor of my dreams sparkled in my imagination, five hoverbike repairs out of reach.

The fuzzy tips of Sisip’s upright ears twitched. “Thank the goddess Sola, for the new windshield, Makir!” the lead enforcer exclaimed. “The windchill up the Starry Mountains has me close to donating a frost-bitten nose to my hometown cantina.”

What would her cantina want with a nose?

I laughed, dropping my torque wrench into a bucket of charging liquid. “Remind me to never visit that cantina.”

Sisip’s tawny ears twitched on top of her head. “I’d have your back. They wouldn’t put any of your lovely, furred appendages into drinks on my watch,” she said with a sincerity I appreciated, even if we both knew I would never visit that cantina .

“That crybaby, Warren, has the next patrol in the Starry Mountains sector.” She smirked. “I can guarantee you will see him soon.” She rolled her hoverbike out of what would one day be a bay and muttered, “Now, if only there was something to keep my hands warm.”

“Spread the word. I have plenty more lamar,” I shouted to Sisip’s retreating back, and she replied with an over-the-shoulder wave. So what if I didn’t have any more lamar physically in my shop? I was only a few spare parts away from outfitting my hover trailer to haul as much lamar out of the wastelands as I could find.

My wristport pinged. I lifted my wrist, read the message, and exhaled. Then, with my eyes fixed on the ceiling’s overlapping tin sheets, I thanked the goddess Sola. To my great relief, my credit account icon turned from a dismal red to a gratitude-filled green. The timing couldn’t have been better. My fingers itched. No time like the present to purchase supplies for an extended trip to the wastelands.

The market was cheerfully busy, species of all colors: giant gray Rock Dwellers, white-winged Nacers and dark-skinned Boola chatted behind tables draped in the bounty the first season of Tern offered.

An enforcer armed with a blaster, a smile and no sense of urgency, leaned with one foot bent against the bakery’s wall. Crumbs littered the ground by his feet.

“Makir, Raz passed along your compliments.” D’ovey, the baker, gestured toward the door he stood in, drumming up business. “A graneth puff on the house.”

Still warm and smothered with honeyed graneth flower oil, the puff melted in my mouth. “Excellent strategy,” I teased the dark-skinned Boola, who handed out samples from his storefront. “I’ll take a dozen, please.” The baker’s lips pursed as he held in a knowing chuckle and returned from behind his counter with a still-warm paper-wrapped package for me .

My nose steered my steps toward the stand that boasted grilled mantu as my stomach grumbled. I purchased and then devoured a mantu skewer in two bites. Rich and smoky, it melted like velvet on my tongue. While I licked my fingers, I recited the recipe the stand proprietor, D’irk, told me back to him. “You ferment the mantu in fungus paste in a cool dark place for three days, then add graneth honey and char?”

“Yep. Three or four days, depending on how soft you want the meat.”

D’irk shared more recipes, but my focus narrowed on a dagger strapped to a fabric-covered wall of hunting supplies behind his grill.

Can I afford that?

Would a weapon in my possession give me the sense of security I longed for? Who knew what I would find in the wastelands? Or my own neighborhood, for that matter? As it turned out, the Fires That Cleanse hadn’t eradicated everything organic on Tern as initially thought.

“I’ll also take a reel of that thin line. How many credits for that dagger?”

D’irk tipped his head deeply, a Boola trait I’d picked up on. “Thirty-eight.” He unstrapped the dagger from the wall and held it out to me to inspect. “Are you a hunter?”

I gulped at the cost. It wasn’t unreasonable, but my credits were spread thin. It looked like I’d have another month of ration bars. “My brother and I used to trap bush-tailed monties on Lorne.” I deposited the dagger in my satchel, holding up my wristport for D’irk to scan. “Not the largest of prey, but they were tricky little beasts.” Even though my account was treacherously close to red again, I beamed as I shared my story.

“You should join us.” D’irk flipped his skewers on the grill. “I’m planning a hunting trip, new moon, with a couple more enforcers. We could use a fourth.” Many of the enforcers charged with policing Yurstille, the first and only settlement to be recolonized on Tern, held side jobs. Their shifts were so long that they were compensated with extended time off.

If I got lucky on the hunt—my tail twirled—it would mean no more ration bars. “Count me in. Sounds like an adventure.” I’d committed to trying new things, it was part of starting over on a new planet, and the weight of my worry over alphas and hoveries had lightened already. I added D’irk’s contact info to my wristport. With a hunting trip in the works, a knife was a must. It was a well-made purchase. I licked the last of the mantu from my lips and savored every drop.

About to turn around and walk back to my dwelling, I jolted to a stop. My skin tingled and my tail stood rigid, hyperaware of the attention suddenly on me. I found my fingers wrapped around the handle of my new knife inside the satchel that crossed my body.

Across the path from D’irk’s grill stood D’ovey’s bakery, and exiting it was the archbuilder. His eyes were locked on me and his lips were pressed into a rigid line. I don’t know how long he’d been standing there, but when he recognized my matching glare, he fumbled his fresh baking. His bag split open just as a Rock Dweller walked past and churned the baked goods into the ground. I snickered as I walked back to my dwelling.

With the final touches added to the bay doors for my hovery, I’d finished brushing up my drawings to include JayJay’s suggestions in preparation for tomorrow. I double-checked my alarm and emptied the containers collecting rain. It was forecast to come down hard this moon. Finally, I settled into my nest to sleep.

The meeting with the archbuilder was at seven suns, and I wanted to depart immediately afterward to maximize the rotation in the wastelands. I would desperately need the solitude to recharge after a sun in the archbuilder’s presence.