Page 72 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

72

Mine to Protect

A nubis

I’ve spent my entire life learning how to kill and preparing for any emergency. I can make a weapon out of almost anything, assess my attackers’ vulnerabilities, and have vanquished six attackers at the same time without breaking a sweat.

Prevailing over a herd of giant lizards? I don’t have the skills for that.

What I can do, though, is protect my female. I don’t have time to argue with myself about the designation I just gave her. Nor do I want to. She’s mine.

I put myself between her and our attackers, wanting to give her time to escape while they deal with me and this pitiful weapon I made. Their hide looks thicker than my blade. I don’t stand a chance of deterring, much less subduing, them.

Once we hit the field of boulders, I have to concentrate on my forward movement and can no longer glance behind me. I can still hear them: the sound of their wide, stampeding feet, their snorts, and then their frustrated roars.

After a moment, I can’t hear their forward motion anymore. Just their embittered bellows.

I look behind to see them all gathered at the edge of the boulder field. Their bodies, although huge, are too squat to navigate around the tall rocks. They aren’t built to jump and hop across the tops like we can. They can’t make their way into the field with its compact collection of stones that goes as far as I can see in all directions.

“Sadie!” I call. “Look.”

She stops, turns, and takes a moment to absorb the situation.

“Really? We just escaped?”

Her chest is heaving with exertion as her smile widens. I make my way to her, then we both stand, looking behind us as we assess the situation.

A few of the bolder animals tried to muscle their way forward, but the boulders are too tightly packed for them to make any headway.

“I can’t believe we’re safe,” she breathes.

After long moments of watching and waiting with our spears still clutched in our hands, our bodies relax from high alert. Shortly after that, Sadie sits on the rock, then lies on it, still tensely gripping the spear in her right hand. I join her on the hard stone.

“I thought we were dead,” she says, her voice still shaky.

“Me, too,” I admit.

She rolls on her side to look at me, then reaches out to cup my chin.

“We need to talk.” She’s serious, and by the look of things, not happy. “You put yourself between me and a herd of two-ton killer animals. That’s crazy. This has to stop. I need to live and die on my own merits. You need to save your own life.”

“Sadie—” I start to protest, but she interrupts.

“This isn’t the last time something like this is going to happen. Next time, save yourself.”

We’ve had this argument before. All I needed to do was remind her that if she dies, I’ll die, too. That’s stopped the discussion before. But this time I don’t want to make the same argument. This time I need to tell her my emotions. Maybe speaking them out loud will make them more real to me.

“I won’t run away to save myself,” I say levelly. “I wish you’d quit asking, because this time and the next and the next the answer will be no. Not only is it foolish because we both know that if you die, I’m a dead male, but more important…” I pause to take a breath and gather my nerve. “More important is that I care for you. I won’t even ask if you approve of it. I’ll just tell you that in my mind you’re mine. Mine to care for. Mine to protect. Mine to touch and kiss and bring to completion. I’d die a thousand times to protect you.”

Sadie

His gorgeous blue eyes are staring at me with fierce sincerity. He’s unapologetic in his assertions. I don’t hear his words as possessive stalker crap. I hear them for how he meant them. This male cares for me. And I care for him.

I close my lids and take a deep breath as I collect my thoughts.

“This situation is horrendous, Anubis, because if you die protecting me, I die too. But I respect your feelings, and more than that…” I smile at him and roll closer, “it makes me feel terrific that you think of me as yours because I think of you as mine.”

Two drones have been following us since we left the hotel. They inch closer, more intrusive than ever before. Fuck them. I close my eyes and tilt my head, a clear request for a kiss. Anubis obliges.

I pretend for a moment that we’ve been hiking in a local park back home and have stopped to bask in the sunshine of planet Earth. I push away the reality of two suns and a herd of slow-moving dinosaurs heading away from us on a search for easier prey.

I dive into this moment. Just a female and a male. A male with fangs, claws, fur, and a tail as well as a heart as big as this planet. For a male who said he’s never experienced emotions before, he’s handling all this pretty well.

His huge palm pets my face as if I’m breakable, as his questing lips toy with mine. He’s not requesting access. No. He’s moving slowly, taking his time. Perhaps he’s memorizing every moment of this, just as I am.

“I’m afraid to say the words, Sadie. So I won’t declare them,” he whispers in my ear, as if the words are too fragile to be spoken out loud. “I have never experienced these feelings before I met you. I think I love you.”

I scoot closer and sling my leg over his hip, tugging our bodies together. Maybe it’s our bizarre circumstances, but I whisper back, “I think I love you, too.”

He releases a noise, like a deep, masculine hum, from the back of his throat, then his canine lips pull into his version of a smile. So foreign. So alien. So beautiful.

“Our seconds together are limited, like pearls on a strand, but we can quantify them and enjoy their beauty and adore each one,” he says.

He’s not looking at me. He’s inspecting the sky, acting as if what he just said wasn’t the most beautiful, most poetic thing any male ever said to a female.

“I adore you, Anubis,” I say.

He pulls me close, nuzzles my neck, gives my lips a quick kiss, then says with reluctance, “We should get moving.”