Page 6 of Needed in the Night (The Fortusian Mates, #2)

Certainly no description of what this moment would feel like had prepared me for its arrival, or come close to doing it justice.

My chest heaving and my hearts thundering in my ears, I fought to regain my equilibrium. The last few moments felt like an eternity, as if I had already lived a lifetime with my mate in the handful of heartbeats between the moment I caught her scent and now.

Carefully, I relinquished my grip on the counter and cask of ale and turned.

“Are you all right?” she repeated, her expression now wary.

Her gaze swept over me in a quick, evaluating way that reminded me of a soldier’s trained assessment, though my instincts told me she had not been a soldier. Interesting.

“I…am fine,” I said, my voice rough.

I was not fine, though—I was floating. Untethered. A onetime soldier, more than two meters tall and nearly one hundred and twenty kilos, now as light as a cloud.

“Well.” The corners of her lips turned up. “You must not see many humans around here, judging by your reaction.”

I must look like I had been struck by lightning. Gods, what must she think of me?

“Mikas.” Nubo’s sharp voice cut through my euphoria like a scythe.

He was not speaking in my earpiece, however—my employer was lumbering our way from the direction of the hallway that led to his office.

Like most Forbian males, he was enormous, as tall and wide as a Gandarian mule-ox and just as graceless, with spiky white hair, a wide-set pair of bulbous eyes, and thick arms and legs.

Today he wore a long caftan over trousers and had left his wide, thickly padded feet bare, as was customary for his species.

Nubo ignored me completely, his calculating gaze fixed on the human woman standing across the bar from me. My stomach dropped, and anger and protectiveness made a low rumble grow in my chest.

“I apologize for my bartender,” he said, his wide, blue face splitting into a grin. “Mikas pours very fine drinks, but sometimes he forgets his manners. I am Nubo Wex, proud owner of this establishment. You have come to audition?”

Lost in awe and wonder, I had nearly forgotten what had brought my mate to the bar. Oh, gods. My mate must be nowhere near a dangerous criminal like Nubo Wex.

“Yes, I have.” She gave him a tiny bow of greeting. “If the position is still available.”

“It is,” Nubo said, his grin widening. “What is your name, dear?”

My spines bristled, but if being called dear annoyed her, she did not show it. “Isla,” she said.

Isla . My true mate’s name was Isla. Two more beautiful syllables could not exist in the universe.

“Isla…?” Nubo prompted.

“Isla Mair.” She glanced at the dark stage. “Your notice said you’re looking for someone who can start immediately, but it doesn’t look like you’re really set up for a live performer.”

Warmth and desire rolled through me at the fearless way she met Nubo’s sharp gaze without blinking or backing down, even when he drew himself up and frowned at the implication of her words.

Keeping a wary eye on my employer, I busied myself making a Bacorian fullwell, the most complex cocktail I knew, as if an order for one had just shown up on my screen behind the bar. I did not want Nubo to feel my scrutiny and invite Isla to his office for privacy.

“The stage will be ready by tonight, or tomorrow at the latest,” Nubo said, and now he was all charm once again. “But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Are you prepared to audition for me now? ”

“Of course.” Isla took a small device from her pocket. “This will provide music for me to sing, unless you prefer I sing without it?”

“I think I would like to hear you sing in my office,” Nubo said, and I vibrated with unease and anger I fought to hide. “There is no need for you to audition on the stage.”

I nearly crushed the bottle of Bacorian brandy I held before I steadied myself and poured a measured amount into the glass. No way in hells would I stand by and watch her follow Nubo into his office, which was soundproof and could be locked.

“Respectfully, I disagree,” Isla said, with a smile that made my hearts stutter because it was so coolly polite and confident. “I would like to hear how music and voice sounds in your establishment. Not all environments are acoustically suited for live singers.”

In other words, she was auditioning the bar as much as Nubo was auditioning her. If it did not meet her standards, she was not likely to want the job. And judging by the tension in Nubo’s body and his long silence, I was not the only one who had come to that conclusion.

Everything about the way Isla faced Nubo indicated she had no interest in going to his office for a private audition, in whatever form that might take—or any interest in him as anything more than a potential employer if she liked the terms of employment.

She was not the desperate, easily manipulated singer he had said he preferred.

And I could not have been more pleased by that fact. Surely he would send her away.

Though it meant I would lose my apartment and must seek new employment, likely in some other city, I would leave my own job without hesitation just to ensure their paths did not cross. My future was with Isla, if she would have me—wherever and however that would be.

Nubo’s response sliced through my half-formed plans, then straight through my flesh and into the bone .

“Then by all means, go to the stage,” he said with a sweeping gesture. He raised his voice. “If our patrons are willing to listen to lovely Isla sing for us?”

A chorus of approval erupted from the regulars—except the Prylothian, who gurgled obliviously on his wine.

As Isla made her way toward the stage, Nubo turned to me, his eyes gleaming and expression nearly gluttonous. “You heard me, Mikas. Turn everything on for our Isla.”

Our Isla.

Rage filled me and the sickness in my stomach grew. Isla’s fierceness had the opposite effect on Nubo than I expected. Rather than send her away, he was all the more determined to keep her. He clearly considered her defiance a challenge.

Damn it. Damn it to all the hells .

Nubo’s gaze dropped to my clenched fists.

His expression dark with suspicion and anger, he stepped to the bar and lowered his voice.

“Unless you relish the thought of being on the street tonight with fewer appendages than you have now, you will keep your eyes and hands to yourself. As long as she does not sound like a screeching Hardanian war-pig, she will be my singer, and she will be under my protection from this moment on.”

No, she was under my protection. She was my hearts, and my world.

Isla, meanwhile, had climbed the steps to the stage and stood on the platform, her hands on her hips as she studied the bar’s interior like a queen surveying her lands.

And she watched us out of the corner of her eye in a way that made me wonder what she had been before she sought employment as a singer.

I caught a flutter of nearly invisible wings and a glint of light in a pair of eyes in the shadows along the far side of the bar, traveling along the wall near the ceiling. I could not see any details of its form, as if it was nothing more than shadow itself.

My spines bristled. A Pallasian shadowbat. A rare sight on any planet but their homeworld. I had certainly never seen one in Zaa’ga. But to whom did it belong?

The creature settled into a dark nook in the ceiling right above Isla. Her gaze flicked up, and a fleeting smile crossed her face before she returned her attention to the stage and the audience around it.

My unease turned to amazement and curiosity. Isla had a shadowbat companion? How many more secrets and wonders did my mate contain?

Nubo, meanwhile, was quite oblivious to my turmoil and not done making threats.

“You lay one finger on her,” he hissed, drawing my attention away from Isla and her mysterious shadow and back to him. “Or say something to her I do not like, you are a dead man, and she will join you in the incinerator one minute later. Am I clear?”

Rage and fear for Isla turned me cold. A thousand scenarios flashed through my mind, from removing Nubo’s head from his body to feigning indifference about Isla and everything in between.

Indifference he would not believe because I had already given myself away—at least that I found her appealing, not that I had recognized her as my true mate. So that was not an option.

Kill him? No, I could not. Nubo had many connections in the city. He was wealthy and powerful. Even if Isla wanted to flee with me, we would not get far.

And more importantly, my body, hearts, and soul had recognized her as my true mate, but Isla knew nothing about me but my first name and that seeing her had left me speechless.

She would have no reason to trust me, much less run from a crime lord or his cronies with me. The very thought was ludicrous.

To protect Isla, I had only one choice: convince Nubo I had no feelings for her beyond simple initial physical attraction and bide my time .

I forced my shoulders to slump as though he had cowed me. “You are clear,” I said, and activated the controls for the stage.

The lights came on, and suddenly Isla was surrounded by bright colors, like a flower in a garden. The sensor detected someone on the stage and bathed her in a spotlight that made her hair glow. Even her plain jumpsuit shimmered. My knees turned watery. I leaned against the bar to steady myself.

Evidently believing he had put me back in my place, Nubo slapped the bar top with his webbed hand. “Good.” He put his back to me to face the stage. “Whenever you are ready,” he called.

Isla raised her hand to acknowledge him, then used the device in her hand to play music. I recognized the melody: a Fylorian ballad about a woman longing for her lover who was away at war.

Before her mouth opened, I had the ridiculous thought that if Isla did sound terrible, she might yet escape Nubo’s attentions. Even as that vain hope crossed my mind, I knew her voice would be as beautiful as she was, and not just to my ears.

“ My love, I am waiting here at home for you ,” Isla sang. Her voice was truly lovely—pure and sweet, and a little husky on the low notes. I found myself caught between utter despair and joy like I had never known.

Gods, she was perfect.

I could not curse that Isla had come into Zaa’ga today in response to Nubo’s notice, but I cursed everything about Nubo, from his spiny hairs to his flat feet. Most of all I cursed his power to follow through on every one of his threats.

I stirred the very complex and very expensive cocktail I had just spent the past several minutes painstakingly making, poured it into a cup, and downed it in a single gulp without tasting it.

It could have been seawater for all I cared.

The burn of the liquor did, however, cut through my despair and enable me to think more clearly .

Isla and I would be colleagues. We could get to know each other as friends. I yearned to know everything about her and to share myself with her. And someday, if and when I earned her trust and we found a way to escape Nubo’s reach, I would tell her the truth.

Hopefully that day would come soon. Until then, I would ache for her with every breath and every beat of my hearts.