Page 6 of 20% Stud 80% Muffin (Alien Fated Mates #1)

6

W ith Geo sitting on the hover trailer behind me, I flew well past the stash of lamar I’d found on previous scouting missions. To avoid thinking about his presence, I let my mind drift to my brother and how proud he would be of me as we passed the shells of empty buildings below us. I’d extended the hover field around the trailer late last night when I couldn’t sleep. We had taken weeks to accomplish it as younglings, but the magnets I’d found in the wastelands had done the trick. Working with what little was available had become my specialty, and I’d awoken with renewed confidence and an operational hover trailer.

My confidence blew away like a flower heavy with feathered seeds in a windstorm when I couldn’t put off landing any longer. The puny Earthling would likely fall in a hole, get lost or, um…run his fingers down the length of my tail. I stopped that line of thought. I wasn’t responsible for him. This was a mutually beneficial work arrangement. Bay doors and storage for me, and lamar for him.

Debris was scattered around us in rickety towers too tightly packed to navigate the hoverbike and trailer through. Forced to land, I lowered us into unfamiliar territory.

“Blant,” I muttered under the engine’s whine. “Blant. How did I let this happen?” I groaned, leaning forward on my handles. The archbuilder would be with me all rotation.

This is it, I mouthed. Time to face the unavoidable. He still sat on the wide, flat deck, but his presence loomed so large he felt glued to my side. I turned off the ignition, leaving the air devoid of sound. The silence heightened the tension between us. Heat from the sun, now high in the sky, radiated off the tin and steel, adding weight to the moisture in the air. Like the inside of an oven, we would slowly bake in it throughout the day. I lowered tinted goggles over my eyes to protect them from the glare.

“This the spot?” His deep voice sent a shiver through me. The archbuilder eyeballed the busted concrete slabs interwoven with wire mesh. They were piled high, a teeter-totter of twisted steel and crumbling rock all that remained of skyscrapers long gone.

I fanned my face with my tail. This spot is fine. I wished I didn’t second-guess myself whenever the archbuilder came close. “I’ve never been here before, but today’s about finding new stashes of lamar, and this place seems likely to me.”

Geo squared his broad shoulders as he approached. I thought he sucked in a breath to hold his belly in as well. What odd behavior. Could that be how humans kept themselves cool? My nerves skittered as he neared, but we were going to be working together all rotation, so I needed a strategy. How close could I get before his pheromones turned me into a mindless omega ?

One step…two steps… Too close! My knees weakened, and heat spread low in my belly. I grabbed my tail to stop it from reaching for him. A sheet of dislodged metal a few steps away caught my eye. It should prevent my omega from taking control. I retreated behind it.

From my safe zone, I pointed in the opposite direction. “Why don’t you start over there?” I winced when my chest rumbled. The archbuilder advanced, inching his way forward, drawn in by my omega purr. But he would be the perfect height to tuck under my chin. Past alphas had told me I had an irresistible purr.

Unfortunately, I had no control over my purr in the presence of an alpha pumping out pheromones. Why was he pumping out pheromones anyway? He reacted like a new alpha did when exposed to his first omega—with no control. Tin panels clattered together in a symphony of trash as I scrambled backward.

“’Kay.” He dragged his gaze away from me, grunting and moved in the direction I gestured to.

I cleared my throat. “Try searching under the thickest panels. They seem to have protected the lamar and preserved it the best.” The increased space helped, but my reaction to this human set my mind spinning. I would have to work hard to keep my distance. His summer field-scented pheromones drew me in like a magnet.

He shook his round head right and left as if to empty it, and his face turned a dark pink shade. Geo’s skin was as unprotected as a newborn youngling’s, with only the hair on top and around his chin to shield it from the sun.

A short while later, he returned with a large stack of lamar. The balls of his shoulders bulged under the weight. And once he put it down he took a long drink from his container before he removed his short-sleeved shirt from under his overalls and wrapped it around his head. My mouth watered when I stared at the dark, sweat-matted fur covering the blocky muscles of his chest. Even though he stood far enough away to keep me from going into total submission, I could scent him. My nostrils flared as I inhaled sun-warmed fields and a male not afraid of physical labor. Divine .

“What are you staring at?” he growled, sticking out his chest and sucking in a deep breath.

No matter how divine his aroma, his personality screamed alpha asshole—everything I needed to steer clear of.

Remember, he’s an ugly, angry human, the color of the paste younglings eat.

Mentally scrambling for a neutral topic, I asked, “Do all humans turn pink in the sun?”

He glanced at his bare arms and stomped over to his duffel. After rifling around, he pulled out a container and spread white paste over his reddening cheeks, nose and arms.

“Ah…” My imagination cranked into overdrive. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth when his lotion-slick hands smoothed over his ropy forearms. Heat swamped my lower belly when his thick fingers spread the cream along his straight nose. When he rubbed back and forth over his bristly cheeks, I practically drooled.

“Happy now?”

He glanced at me, his fists squeezing open and closed before he cleared his throat and thrust the container toward me. “You want some?”

“Um…” His muscles shimmered in the sun. I coughed. “Thank you anyway, but my skin is not dry at the moment.”

“It’s sunscreen.”

“Sunscreen?”

I stacked a pile of lamar on the trailer and tried to piece together the broken translation. Sun checked out, but a screen kept flying insects out of dwellings. Flying insects were always worse at night. “Maybe tonight.”

Geo’s nose scrunched up, and he tossed the container back into the bag. “Whatever.” He turned his wide shoulders away from me and lifted an enormous steel beam, grunting before uncovering a hill of lamar. The puny human was much stronger than he appeared.

When my attempt at small talk failed, I busied myself collecting as much lamar as Lornianly possible. Many suns later, my hands ached from where the rough edges had pressed into them. Not heavy, but unwieldy, the clear sheets stretched my arms to the limit and left me walking the way I did after being on a double-wide seat on a hoverbike all rotation. I massaged my palm with my thumb. Maybe the sunscreen would help.

Geo sat on the edge of the trailer, his sweat-soaked shirt wrapped around his head, summer field scent oozing. Naked shoulders on display. He sipped from his water container, and his unnerving gaze fixed on me as I approached, arms loaded with lamar.

Focus, will you. So what if he’s strong and has nice shoulders?

I stumbled over a dip in the ground, but before the lamar could fly out of my hands, Geo stood opposite me, holding the other end of the pile together. He rebalanced the load and, in turn, me. “Thanks,” I said.

Silently, he walked backward, and I walked forward until we reached the trailer, where he grasped the top sheet, unloaded it from my arms and placed it on the trailer. Then he did it again…and again. Each time he turned to grab a new sheet, his eyes caught mine, until I stood there empty-handed and empty-brained.

Geo fidgeted with the shirt he’d wrapped around his head. “You’re staring again.”

Right, yep, I couldn’t keep my eyes off him. “I’ll…ah…get far away from you.” The corners of his mouth turned down while I stammered. “I-I mean…I found a good stash over there. I’ll just…” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder.

His chin lifted, and he screwed the lid shut on his water container. “Do what you gotta do.”

The archbuilder may have been an asshole, but we made a good team. By the time the sun was casting long shadows over Tern’s graveyard of remains, the hover trailer was loaded high with lamar. My half would be enough for my skylight with plenty left over for windshields. I could even put some in my dwelling. My tail danced behind me.

The archbuilder unwrapped the shirt from his head, slipped the straps of his overalls down, exposing the nearly black fur on his belly, and pulled his shirt back on. Though lazy, his gaze lit a fire in me, like the lowering sun’s rays that lengthened the shadows around us. I grabbed my traitorous tail before it swayed.

“Ready to head home, Archbuilder?”

His shoulders slumped but quickly rolled back again. “Call me Geo.” His voice, rough as gravel, slid over me. “Yeah, let’s hit the road. I need to check in with JayJay.” He inhaled another belly-sucking breath and widened his stance.

Hit the road didn’t quite translate, but he sounded civil, so I went with it. “Great work today, Archbuilder.” I could still be pleasant, even if he didn’t know how to engage in polite conversation. Not in a million annums would I call him by his name. That level of familiarity would not be wise.

After I secured the load and straddled my bike, I signaled the archbuilder to jump on the trailer. I turned the ignition and…nothing. The rump, rump, rump of my heart deafened me. No matter how often I depressed the lever, the familiar whoosh and hum never came.

“Blant.” I lashed my tail against the thick leather of my tall boots and bit my lip at the sharp sting. Why hadn’t I pulled my bike into the shade?

The newer model hoverbikes had integrated cooling systems. Unfortunately, after many suns under Tern’s hot rays, my standard model ignition was fried.

I knew better. As a blanting hovic, my job included fixing messes like this, not causing them. How many times in the past had I rescued Bonic when his starter mechanism had melted? Too many to count. I’d cherished the role reversal—me saving him for once. I stiffened my spine. I could handle this.

The archbuilder’s gruff voice interrupted my thoughts. “What’s with the delay?” His face had turned alarmingly pink. It looked as though it had swallowed the sun, and for a moment, I wanted to place my palms on his cheeks to soothe them.

“Melted starter.” With a glance over my shoulder, I jumped off the bike and headed to the closest scrap pile in search of the perfect trash to repair the starter.

The archbuilder reached for his wristport—to call JayJay, I presumed .

“Don’t bother. We’re out of range.” My voice wavered at our predicament. The situation was bad enough already, and now the archbuilder had to be dealt with too. The sinking sensation in my guts told me he wasn’t the ‘don’t worry, we’ll figure it out together’ type.

With every tormenting step, his footfalls echoed the way a giant ringa’s might—the often-mentioned, never-seen beast of Lorne. Although now that I thought about it, the ringa’s depiction in books uncannily matched my neighbor, if he were giant-sized. No wonder I had an aversion to Raz.

“Why the fuck are you over here playing in the dirt?” His voice rumbled, and the scent of summer fields and male overwhelmed me.

I scurried behind a thick sheet of metal to gain some distance. “I need to…”

“You’re a mechanic. Fix the damn bike.” His hands were on his hips as if to stop them from trembling.

“Listen.” I wanted to insert the word asshole, but if I’d learned anything from my parents, it was to always behave with the utmost decorum, so I held my head high and breathed deeply. I didn’t have to take his shit. “I need to fabricate a part, and I need to do it before the sun sets. It has to dry before installation.” My tail stood high above my shoulder. “Now, if you’ll sit over there and wait, I’ll get it done.” Uncurling each of my fingers by force of will, I pointed to some random place. Distance mattered, and he needed to move far away. Otherwise, I might drive my fist into his chin.

He stomped back to the trailer and leaned against it with a huff.

The sun dimmed to a beautiful velvety red, and the temperature dropped with the change. Even though I found the perfect mold in what appeared to be a previous sink drain, the clay disk I prepared resembled a youngling’s mud pie. As much as I willed it to be true, the spare wouldn’t be dry anytime soon. I carefully placed it on a flat piece of steel where it would collect the morning’s sun. Then, braced for the storm, I walked away from the archbuilder to break the bad news.

The archbuilder’s eyes followed my every movement. I cleared my throat unnecessarily to announce my arrival. Resolved, I forced my gaze to his face and worked my eyes up to his beard, but no matter how I tried, eye contact wouldn’t come. Would the rasp of his beard along my neck send me to my knees? I straightened my spine, stepped backward, and shook away those mutinous thoughts. “Archbuilder…”

“God damn it, will you call me Geo?” he growled.

The red velvet of the sky deepened further to a ripe purple. Sundown on Tern unfolded with more drama than on Lorne. The glowing orb resembled the pulse of blood through a heart, as if the sky wished to embrace it before it shut its eyes to the dark of night.

I swallowed hard. “We have to spend the night. The part I fabricated needs time in the sun to bake and dry.” My shoulders slumped.

“You can’t be serious. Do you even know what to expect spending the night out here?” With a voice like thunder, he would have scared away any lurking bush-tailed monties if we’d been back on my home planet.

“No, I don’t, but all your blanting shouting will only draw attention to us. Yelling at me will not change the fact that we are stuck here for the night. Are Earthlings always so whiny?” My tail flicked rapidly behind me.

Take that. I can stand up for myself, alpha asshole. I’m more than just an omega.

He tipped his chin to the sky and rolled his shoulders back—praying for divine intervention?—then walked back to the trailer, where he upended the bag JayJay had packed for him.

“Thank fuck.” The archbuilder stuffed everything back into the bag and scaled a concrete slab, then another, then another. To escape some unknown entity that might reach him in the night? He stopped when partially sheltered by a sheet of tin overhead and laid out a frame of bendy sticks.

Ridiculous human and his tree-top nest. Did he think he was a winged Nacer?

He glanced down at me every now and then. He opened his mouth to speak, or perhaps invite me to join him, but in the end, he wrapped some noisy fabric over his sticks and climbed into the dome without another word .

With nothing better to do, I set up for the night too. My body was tired, but my mind buzzed, so I busied myself with the spool of wire I’d purchased from D’irk at the market. I quickly transformed it into a line of snares circling my camp. I didn’t really expect any creatures to come in the night, and the traps wouldn’t be useful for anything too big, but the act helped settle my nerves.

I scratched out a dip in the center to bed down in, filled it with the tall graneth grass that had sprung up all around and settled in. My nose twitched. The spring-fresh odor lifted my glum spirits. Then, I pulled one of the soft graneth puffs from my backpack. A cold wind blew strands of hair across my face, urging me to put on the warm sweater in my pack. Much warmer, I bit into my meal but stopped after swallowing the first mouthwatering bite.

“Archbuilder,” I called out, “do you have any food?”

“My name is Geo.” He paused, then said, “I’m fine.”

Fine then. I was fine too. Only trying to be polite. I finished the puff and sucked on a strip of mantu. He was missing out. With the rest of my food tucked carefully away for tomorrow, I closed the latches on my bag.

“Night.” My voice echoed through the valley of junk.

The archbuilder grunted.

My lumpy nest left me tossing and turning, but sleep eventually found me. A series of ear-piercing squeals rang out, jolting me upright into the inky black night. Sharp teeth pinched my tail, shooting needle-sharp pain through the flesh, and I yelped before whipping it about, only to find a thickly furred creature the size of my forearm latched on to it.

“Makir?” The archbuilder’s sleep-roughened voice yelled.

“Get the blant off of me, you little ringa.” I danced around, my tail whipped furiously, trying to shake the creature off. My tail wrapped around its neck and squeezed, dislodging the toothy monster, and it scampered into the dark shadows.

“Makir!” A zipper came undone. “I’m coming …”

Rocks crumbled, followed by a loud “Fu-u-uck” and then nothing. The nothing had me scrambling toward the archbuilder. My night vision kicked in and fixed on Geo’s body where he lay motionless in the dirt. Adrenaline pumped through my veins while I begged the goddess Sola for Geo to have landed with no serious injuries. What had he been thinking? He’d walked straight off the concrete slab on which he’d perched his tree-top nest.

The clouds slipped away, exposing a bright moon as I rushed to his side. I scanned the fluffy tip of my tail over him to ensure nothing was broken, then cradled his neck with one arm and slipped the other behind his knees before carefully lifting him, my heart fluttering like a bird. As my flesh met his, a hot bolt of fire seared my veins.

Blant! Everything I’d been avoiding had launched into motion.

Geo moaned as the tether lashed at our contact like a wild beast, and my arms trembled under his weight.

Leave him! Run!

My forehead broke out in sweat and a desperate fear swelled beneath my skin. As much as I wanted to pull away and run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I couldn’t drop Geo. He needed me.

My final fight for independence had all been in vain. The connection wound around my heart, sheathing it in a heady warmth my omega craved. Despite giving up my freedom, I sighed as waves of contentment trickled down my spine. The bond tethering me to an alpha had been initiated.

“It’s okay.” I panted. “The archbuilder’s not so bad.” I gulped hard. “His roundness is cute. He’s a million times better than Reinik.”

Warm breaths against my neck assured me Geo was alive, but I much preferred him biting off my head to soaking my jumpsuit with hot blood.

I placed him inside my ring of snares. “I’ll be right back. You’re safe here.” I swept my hand over his gritty hair.

Though the air was cool, I continued to sweat—not from exertion, but worry—as I climbed over a ledge, then another and one more, until I reached his nest. My fingers fumbled with the zipper to his dwelling, where I crouched before I wiggled inside and snatched his puffy nest, water container and duffel .

A moment later, I was back at his side, arranging him under his crinkling nest. With careful fingers, I probed the back of his head and neck, then feathered my hands down his body, seeking anything broken. A significant swelling above his right eye and a deep gash along his thigh, the blood already thick and clotted, worried me.

I sucked moisture into my dry mouth and swallowed down a hard knot. His injuries needed to be treated quickly. He groaned when I smoothed my palms along his ankle, his skin hot to the touch.

I had no choice.

With great reluctance, I spread the fluffy tip of my tail and exposed the healing disk hidden inside. Lornians were forbidden from revealing this ability to outsiders for fear of exploitation. My stomach plunged as I fought against everything I’d been taught.

With my mind made up, I dabbed the suctioning disk over the worst of his injuries. His bleeding slowed, the swelling went down, and the skin around his gash closed.

I hauled his crinkly nest next to mine and lay beside him, my tail’s suction still in place over his heart to monitor him through the night. The tether between us hummed, the first step in completing a mating bond in place. I stared at the stars and sorted through all my emotions, trying to narrow down how bad it was. The thing was, no matter how much I wished to prepare for the worst, hope shone through. Maybe this time it would be okay?

Most Lornians dreamed of this moment their whole life, but my past experience with an incomplete bond had been a nightmare. My tail wrapped around my wrist, a bandage of comfort, and returned to Geo’s heart. The tether, though a thin connection for now, still anchored an unwanted alpha at the other end. A warm tear spilled down my cheek.

Please let this time be different.