Page 40 of Alien Jeopardy

I can understand her. We can speak.

This will changeeverything.

The Roth don’t seem to care, still hanging onto me as if I’m a heartbeat away from incinerating them all.

As if I would dare make that last-ditch effort with my female in danger. The Roth have never been known for their brilliance, though.

“Get off me,” I growl.

Ell twitches against the chair she’s strapped to, and I ache with the need to go to her side, to comfort her.

“Can we trust you?—”

“I won’t do anything to hurt anyone,” I interrupt the small human woman, and she nods once, as if making up her mind.

“Let him go,” she tells the Roth, and reluctantly, they do as she says.

Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought the Roth would look to her as a superior officer.

“Yeah, I know that look. I’m Billie, by the way. They only listen to me because my best friends are married into the royal family. Don’t go putting me at the top of the food chain here.”

Top of the food chain? I don’t know what that means. Maybe she is hungry. My eyes narrow as I ponder her words.

She would be a good ally for us to have, should the situation on my planet further devolve. With the prince here, likewise participating in this game… it very well could.

“Thank you,” I tell her gravely, bowing my head. “I am in your debt.”

“Nah,” she says, grinning up at me in a way that makes Ayro glower. “I told her that if she still didn’t want to be mated to you at the end of this, I’d help her find a way out of the bond. You’re not gonna want to owe me shit if she doesn’t fall in love with you.”

If she still didn’t want to be mated to me.

Still.

She doesn’t want to be mated to me?

The translator must still not be working. Right?

“What happened?” A groggy voice cuts through my shock at Billie’s words, and I rush to Ell’s side, covering her hand in mine, desperate to touch her.

“They gave you a sedative,” I tell her, my thumb stroking softly over the back of her hand. “Then they injected the translator.”

“You might be sore there for the next day or so,” Billie tells her, not unkindly, stepping around me to place a small bandage at the puncture wound from the insertion device.

Ell ignores Billie, staring up at me with something like wonder on her face. Her fingertips graze the bandage on her neck, and her delicate throat bobs as she swallows.

“I can understand you,” she says. Her eyes flutter shut as she inhales.

I push the bright light overhead away from her, worried it’s hurting her human eyes. The brown is so different, so calming compared to a Draegon’s swirling iris.

There are no flames visibly stoked in her, but she is fiery nonetheless.

A worthy mate, if I can earn her trust.

Her love.

My chest tightens as I stare at her closed eyes, Billie’s words echoing in my mind.

She doesn’t want to be mated to me.