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Chapter Three

Retmor

“Long night?” Tekfan asks me as I drop down onto one of the chairs in the second-floor control room.

I sigh and run a hand over the top of my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever get that noise out of my head. How do you do this every night?”

I just arrived on Earth this morning. I moved into the fifth-floor apartment. I was excited and eager when the night began. After all, I’m here to find a mate. I’ve made the sixth-month journey to Earth to meet the perfect Little girl for me and bring her back to Eleadia to be my life partner for the rest of our days.

There are eight of us staying in the apartments above Club Zoom right now, but the only Eleadian male I knew before arriving is Tekfan. We’re from the same neighborhood on Eleadia. He arrived five nights before me.

He chuckles. “It is loud. That’s for sure.”

I scrunch up my face. “Loud? Loud is when birds screech in the sky or someone’s Little girl howls in pain when she falls on the playground. That stuff they call music downstairs shook my teeth inside my head.”

Tekfan nods, still grinning. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t think so. I could feel the floor up here vibrating even before we went downstairs.”

“You don’t have to go down there every night if you don’t want,” he informs me. “I’ve heard of men easily finding their mate right from this control room. They spot her on the monitor or even sense her in the building.”

“Really?” I rub my chin. The idea is tempting. It was fun at first, entering that dance floor and being flocked by females. I felt important. But it grew old fast.

The majority of the females who come to the club every night do so out of curiosity. Their own males are shorter and smaller than Eleadians. They want to see what all the hype is about.

I’ve met several human males because they manage and work at the club. All of them are nice and very helpful. They even try to keep the females from climbing all over us on the dance floor when it becomes necessary to intervene.

Eleadians are a peaceful people. We aren’t accustomed to conflict, nor do we tolerate it, so we tend to be polite even in the face of what appears to me to be sheer chaos every night.

“How many nights of this will I have to endure before I find her?” I ask, mostly to myself.

“Hard to say. Some of our men are here months; some find their mate the first night.”

“Oh, if only I had been that lucky.” I lean back in my chair. “There must have been hundreds of females down there tonight. Is it always that crowded?”

“Yep. John says there’s often a line outside that reaches several blocks.”

I shake my head in shock. “Just to get a glimpse of one of us.”

“Yep. Most of the females have no interest in being chosen. They’re taking a risk. They know the odds are slim, so they come to get a look and then leave when they’ve had their fill. It’s just as well since we would know as soon as they enter if they were our mate or not. The quicker one female leaves and another comes in, the higher our chances are that the right female will step onto the dance floor.”

I draw in a deep breath and sigh. “I can’t grasp what it will feel like to just know.” Tekfan can’t either of course. Until it happens, there’s no way to explain it. I get that. It’s perplexing.

Zack, the club manager, comes into the control room and pulls up a chair next to us. The rest of the Eleadian males have gone up to their apartments to sleep. I’m still wired from the excitement that was my first night at the club.

“How’d it go?” Zack asks me.

I wince and reach up to shake my ear lobes. “What?” I shout, playfully. “I can’t hear you. My ears are ringing.”

Zack laughs. “I get that a lot. Apparently you don’t have dance clubs on your planet.” He shrugs. “Of course, why would you if you don’t have any women? The entire invention of the dance club was to create a space for men to pick up women or vice versa.”

I lean back in the chair. “Nope. We have nothing like this.”

“But you have music? I hope so because one of my musicians was recently chosen.” Zack’s brows lift.

I nod. “Yep. I heard about that. I haven’t met her yet because I was on my way here, but you must be talking about Sara.”

“Yes.” Zack grinned. “She left with Raevion.”

I nod again. “He’s a great guy. I’m sure she’s very happy.”

“I hope he doesn’t stifle her music. She really loves to sing.”

Tekfan chuckles. “No fear of that. Raevion is a producer.”

Zack sits up taller. “Really? I didn’t realize that. I’m so glad. I rarely get to find out what happens to anyone who leaves Earth. Do you happen to know about the woman who fainted and was whisked off by a man named Kalbrac? I’ve been worried about her. She was sick.”

I smile. “We know Kalbrac, too. They’re on their way back to Eleadia. She had a pituitary tumor. The doctor on the mothership removed it. She’s totally healthy now.”

Zack grins wide. “So good to hear. I guess you guys have full communication about all kinds of things even while you’re en route to and from Earth.”

I nod. “We do.”

Zack’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he leans to one side to pull it out. “Sup?” he says into the speaker of the device.

“Boss, it’s Roger. We have a small problem down here.”

I remember Roger as one of the bartenders.

“What’s up?” Zack asks.

“There’s a woman sleeping behind the stage.”

Zack frowns as he stands. “Did you wake her?”

“No. I went back there to get a case of water to restock the bar and saw her. She didn’t move. I didn’t disturb her. I was kind of freaked out, to be honest. I hope she’s just sleeping. She could be drunk and passed out or worse, I suppose.”

“Be right there.” Zack turns to us. “Sorry. Gotta go sort this out.”

He opens the door to the control room, and all the blood drains from my face. I jump to my feet.

“What’s wrong?” Tekfan asks.

I draw in a deep inhale. And I know. “It’s her.”

“Seriously?” Tekfan rises and follows me as I jog after Zack. A part of me wants to turn around and tell him to stay behind because my instinct is that I don’t want him to steal my girl. But then I remember that’s not possible. Fate lines up just the right female for each of us. She’s not ambiguous about it.

I catch up with Zack.

He glances back at me. He must read something on my face because he comes to a stop. “She’s yours?”

I nod. There’s no doubt. It’s more obvious by the second. Now that I’m on the move, I can scent her stronger. I wonder why I hadn’t noticed her scent earlier.

Zack shakes his head as he continues to lead us down the hall and into the stairwell. “I hope she’s not drunk. I hate it when a drunk woman gets chosen. It always worries me that she won’t feel like she consented when she sobers up.”

I glance at him. “I thought all of them fill out consent forms when they come in.”

“They do. But when they get drunk, they aren’t as aware of what’s happening. It’s too late, of course, but I worry.”

“There’s no need to worry,” Tekfan says. “The bond is deep and quick. It doesn’t take long for any female to know it was the right thing no matter whether she signed something, got drunk, or fell on her head.”

Zack winces. “All three of those things have happened.”

I chuckle. “Someone fell on their head?”

“Yep. She was a cleaning woman I hired to work after hours. That’s when I learned that was a horrible idea because one of your men saw her after hours and claimed her in the middle of the night. Her name was Christine.”

“Ah.” I smile at him. “She’s happily mated to Strogan. Someone didn’t sign?”

Zack winces. “Clara. She left with Kalbrac recently. She passed out when she entered the building and didn’t have a chance to sign. That didn’t stop Kalbrac, and he insisted it didn’t matter.”

“He’s right,” Tekfan says. “It makes no difference. Who was drunk?”

Zack winces. “Kendra. She left with Bialar. She drank far too much. He followed her into the bathroom where she was vomiting.” Zack glances at both men. “I hope I’m not giving away anyone’s deep secrets. I guess you all know each other.”

I nod. “We know everyone you mentioned, but don’t worry. We’d never say a word. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Zack shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, the bond. It’s mindboggling to us. The connection you all have with your women is so foreign to us. You never get divorced?”

Tekfan shakes his head. “We don’t even get married. Our bond just is. It’s not breakable.”

“So no wedding rings?”

I glance at Tekfan. We can’t tell Zack everything. We have to draw the line here. “Nope. No wedding rings,” I say. It’s true. We don’t have wedding rings. That’s not what marks our Little girls as ours. We mark them in a far more intimate way than a simple wedding band. Zack does not need to know our secrets.

My heart rate picks up as we step out of the stairwell onto the first floor. I take a deep breath. Her scent is stronger than when we were upstairs. I don’t need anyone to point me in the right direction. I follow my nose, exiting through a door next to the stage.

The lighting is dim back here. It’s clearly behind the scenes. Roger is standing behind the door, and he points toward the back of the stage.

I don’t need him to do that. I’m clear on where my Little girl is, but I nod toward him and turn to glance at Zack and Tekfan. “I’ve got this.”

Zack nods, his brow furrowed, but he doesn’t argue or try to follow me. He hangs back with Roger. Tekfan leans against the wall and mutters, “Guy’s been here one night and already finds his girl.” He’s grinning, though.

I turn and head farther behind the stage. Every step brings my Little girl’s scent deeper into me. It’s so strong now that it nearly brings me to my knees. When I finally spot her curled up on a small couch, I flatten my hand on the wall next to me, bracing myself.

She’s sound asleep. It’s very poorly lit back here, but I can see her fine. I certainly didn’t see her on the dance floor earlier. I would know for two reasons. One, I couldn’t possibly have avoided her scent. And two, I didn’t see a single female dressed like her.

I step closer and drop to my knees. My heart is racing. Fuck, she’s so precious. I guess I would think so no matter what she looked like. Her hair is brown and curly, and it’s longer than any female I saw tonight—down past her waist. I don’t have any other experiences to compare her to.

In addition, she’s dressed differently from any female who entered this club tonight. Most of the females I saw in this club were scantily dressed in short skirts and tiny tops. See-through clothes were the norm as if they thought they could attract one of us with their sex appeal.

The females on Earth have no understanding of what attracts an Eleadian male. For one thing, nothing does. The bond we feel is instantaneous when the right female walks through the door. We have no control over it, and neither do they. For another thing, we don’t care what they’re wearing. They won’t be wearing it for long.

My Little girl is dressed in a long skirt that reaches her ankles. She has on a strange blouse. It’s thick. Not see-through. And I think there are more layers under it.

Her small hands are tucked under her cheek, and she’s breathing through her mouth. She’s so deeply asleep that she has no idea I’m watching her. I almost hate to wake her and ruin her peace.

As soon as I rouse her, she will panic. I’ve heard it’s normal. She won’t understand the connection. It will make her very nervous. I get it. We Eleadian males are educated on what to expect. We’re prepared. Human females are not. They’re blindsided.