Page 31 of Alien Jeopardy

Unfortunately, reading the descriptions only intensifies my apprehension.

“Style build and drag?” I read out loud. “Puzzle organ fun? Lost in ice?” What the actual… “These must be mistranslated,” I say, directing the comment at the host.

He just smiles at me, his mouth stretching wider than a human’s, complete with what seems like too many teeth.

Mmm. Nope, I don’t like that.

I step back instinctively, which pushes me closer to my guy Rex’s chest. Ahem, not my-mine. My partner. That’s all I mean.

Rex says something, then removes one hand’s grip on me to tug at the brightly lit wheel.

Good god, I hope we don’t get puzzle organ fun.

That sounds like a bad time. A realrealbad time.

I tilt my head, my nerves ratcheting up with every additional tick of the wheel against the marker.

Oh, shit. My eyes widen as the ticker slows, swinging back and forth over the segments screaming ‘organ puzzle fun’ and ‘style build and drag.’

My hands fist at my sides, curled so tight my fingernails dig into the soft flesh of my palms. Please, please, not organ puzzle fun.

I have the distinct impression that I don’t want to know what a Roth’s idea of organ puzzle fun entails.

The wheel finally creaks to a stop, and I slump against Rex.

Whatever this challenge means, we’ll be doing it.

Style build and drag it is.

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Ka-Rexsh

My little human mate is all whimpers and stress, the scent of her anxiety souring the natural, delicious spice of her musk.

‘Style build and drag,’ the wheel reads, something the Roth announces easily, the mechanized translator telling my Ell what we’re up to.

“Do you understand, my pretty one?” I ask her, needing to reassure her and knowing all the same that she won’t parse one word from my lips.

The Roth host waves his arms, attempting to direct us off the stage, the smile on his face all but a threat. I tamp down the growl that threatens in my throat, effectively blocking my female from his view.

I might have volunteered for this, but I do not trust the Roth not to hurt my mate.

I haven’t trusted anyone in a long, long time.

“We must do as they say,” I tell my mate, and she makes another high-pitched burble of unhappiness as I carefully carry her past the Roth and to the side of the stage.

I don’t pay any attention to the other couples on the stage, though the other Draegon offers me a friendly enough greeting with the rustle of his wings. A good male, that one.

Perhaps the others in this competition need a way off our planet and out of their circumstances as much as I do. I wanted a mate, of course, but winning a way out of the Draegon home planet and the hardscrabble life there was the main draw.

Now, though, with the pretty human pressed up against me, all delicious soft skin and spiced scent, it’s…

She is everything.

She is so much more than the way off the war-torn planet of my species.