Page 15 of Alien Jeopardy (Mated & Afraid #1)
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.
I want her more than the future somewhere else I dreamed about my whole life.
It’s like my idea of the future was a quick sketch in the sand, easily washed away by salt-water waves.
With her smiles and small noises and stamping feet, though, she’s crafted an entire museum gallery of scenes painted in vivid color, hung in gilded frames, each stroke a different promise of the future we could create.
She already makes my heart sing, and I don’t even understand the words to our song yet.
The thought makes me focus on the immediate moment.
This competition of style build and drag.
My eyes narrow as another Roth leads us to a clearing.
A course of some sort is laid out across a rock-strewn expanse of dirt and patches of grass, marked by red ropes.
Spherical lanterns bob and weave around the space, casting a warm glow in the fresh-fallen night.
Two lumps of fabric sit in front of us, and the Roth gestures to one of the bulging heaps.
“This is yours.”
One of the drone cameras flits around Ell and I, no doubt cataloguing our reaction to his sparse instructions.
Sparse or, more accurately, non-existent.
I grunt at the Roth as he steps closer to my mate, his gaze traveling over her exposed legs. A wing rustles as I pull it lower, trying to block her from his view.
She is mine to look at.
Ell makes a noise of annoyance, pushing at the delicate membrane of my wing in an attempt to break free of my grip.
I grumble to myself, but let her push past the shield of my wings. The Roth gives me a sly smirk before he tries to look his fill at my female.
A growl rips out of my throat before I can stop it, and I step towards the gray-skinned fool, needing to punish him, needing to show everyone that she belongs to me, and to me alone.
Until a small, warm hand wraps around mine.
Her touch is all it takes to pull me back from the brink of madness. I suck in a breath.
How could I have gotten so close to ruining my only chance at a future? A future as bright as the lights reflected in her eyes?
A delicate smile turns the corners of her lush mouth up, her nose crinkling adorably as she asks me something in that sing-song language of hers. She tugs me closer, as if that could have any physical effect on me, but I let her pull me towards her, and back towards the odd fabric-covered lump.
She stretches down, tugging the opaque material until it falls away, revealing a bevy of mechanical parts, odd materials, and a sign that reads “Build” in both our languages.
Her brow furrows as she asks something, gesturing to the array in front of us, then sighs in frustration, her cute petite, talonless foot stomping on the ground when she remembers we can’t communicate.
A smile of my own answers hers, unbidden but as natural as the stars twinkling to life in the night sky above us. She’s already a light in the dark for me.
Carefully, she begins to kneel on the dirt next to the parts.
“You’ll hurt your skin,” I chide, then lift her up easily, placing her in my lap. There is no reason she shouldn’t sit on me instead.
She huffs, saying something with words I don’t understand, but already picking through the pieces on the blanket spread before us.
“Hellllpmeyoutoucheeefeeliebastarrrrd,” she says, looking over her shoulder at me with a very grumpy expression.
“Feeliebastarrrrd,” I repeat, nodding my head like I understand her.
To my surprise, she tips her head back and laughs, a beautiful noise that enchants me. Stunned, I stare at her upturned face, so beautiful, so delicate and unlike mine, bathed in the light from the floating spheres and stars above us.
Her hand wraps around my wrist, and she repeats the same words.
“Hellllpmeyoutoucheeefeeliebastarrrrd.” She tugs my hand to the pieces in shambles in front of us.
“Feeliebastarrrrd,” I agree, liking this new game between us.
She makes a grunting noise that can only be interpreted as distress, and I realize she’s as serious about winning this competition as I thought I was… right up until I pulled her perfect round ass into my lap.
“Feeliebastarrrrd,” I say again, but this time, I stretch my arms out, taking a few pieces and staring at them.
I exhale loudly, realizing what it is they want us to build, and why, exactly, there are roped lanes in front of us.
These are Draegon rickshaws, the cheapest builds, and they want us to race them.
Heated displeasure surges within me.
Not just build and race them, but do it with style.
This is a challenge designed to humiliate, but not just anybody. No, this was created for me, and me alone.
Because before I was a soldier drafted into the king’s many wars, before my wings were strong enough to carry me, I did what many poor boys in the cities did.
I pulled a rickshaw just like this one. Spat upon by those who paid me to cart them around, ignored by others, invisible to those who could use their wings to travel, I was the lowest of the low.
But I made my way here, and I won’t let this reminder of where I started hold me back.
No, it will propel us both forward.
“Good.” The word erupts from me with savagery I didn’t expect, and I lift Ell from my lap and place her on the sheet she pulled off the pile.
It won’t take me any time at all to put this together, and whoever thought this would shame me will find themselves wrong.
I won’t be humiliated by the trials that have made me who I am.
I refuse to be.