Page 18
“That’s fucking hot, you know that?” Aura growls, giving my ass cheek a squeeze. “You’re speaking my language.”
I tense under his touch, little sparks of electricity zinging through his fingers into my skin. Aura’s hungry affection steals my breath.
As we enter the central race field and the timer dings, Aura clutches my thighs and nips at my hip. He rumbles a low note as titillating tingles curl up from his gentle bite. I can’t help but kick and wiggle at the unexpected contact.
“Mine,” he growls.
“She looks like she has scales,” someone snarls.
Aura carries me toward the mingle celebration, and I notice the dragon guy squinting at Aura, a pink-banded woman under his arm. She’s chatting with another couple, and I think the women are friends.
Electronic dance music fills the colorful hall as Aura steps inside. He gently sets me down. As much as I know he’s built to battle monsters, I can easily sense his care and caution with me.
“Is it painful, your net?” he asks as we weave between dancing couples.
I look up at him and find genuine interest in his eyes. “Not anymore. The first months were rough. But they dose us with nanocytes which repair and maintain the merge. Once we’re healed, we only need boosters if we’re seriously injured. Now, I have to ask you something.”
Aura motions to a padded bench seat running along the edge of the room. I sit, and he joins me. On the table is a screen with a menu for drinks and food.
I set my flower on the table and clutch my hands together, trying to find the courage to ask.
Aura points to a screen above the bar. “They paired us.”
I see my name beside his and blurt what’s on my mind. “Did you know I was going to be here?”
He shakes his head. “No. Not specifically. My Storm wants a human. I can’t really explain it except that it gets excited with human females, not my own kind or any other alien species I’ve ever worked with.
My blood-brother found a mate last month through Abr, and she is great.
So here I am. And I found you. We made the orb. We are a match.”
“I appreciate the honesty. Sounds like you’ve checked your boxes.”
He grimaces a little and scans the room.
“But?” I ask.
Aura’s jaw muscles flex. He sighs deeply. “My people have not mated outside their species. I am breaking the rules.”
“That you know of.” I figured something was up since Abr listed this as his species’ first race and had little information on them.
“What are you saying?” Aura asks.
I drum a finger on the table, wishing I had my gauntlets so I could have something to fiddle with in my nervousness.
“My experience is that there are always people who smile to your face and do what they want behind your back. Maybe Amphirans aren’t like that, but I find it hard to believe that being the first species into space, giving you far more time to explore other worlds than most of us, not a single Amphiran has ever been disloyal to your species.
I would wager they were just silenced or disappeared. ”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.” Aura looks at me like he’s offended.
I don’t want to push Aura away. But I don’t want him worrying the entire time he’s here.
Even if we don’t end up together, he’s a protector and deserves a mate.
“I’m trying to tell you that you probably aren’t the first and aren’t alone.
” I scroll through the drink menu, feeling like I need something to take the edge off, and pick out a Galactic Gypsy, some mix of fruity alien alcohols.
Aura is quiet for a moment. When I’m done, he picks out a drink that looks like beer to me but has a name I can’t pronounce, then sits back and nods.
“You are probably right. As much as I’ve wanted to deny that my mothership and the others would disagree with my attendance, I wager someone else in the last few centuries has found a different mate.
My people are just increasingly focused on power and maintaining hierarchy, one I’m not interested in. ”
“So you’re a rebel Amphiran?” I ask as the server sets our drinks on the table.
“Yeah.”
I like the sound of this. “Have your own ship?”
“Yes.”
Inside, I pump a fist in the air. We could go anywhere if I end up with him. “Then you can do what you want.”
He nods and downs a fair portion of the beer. “I can. I was removed from service for refusing an arranged bond. They gave me options, but I wanted to choose a mate who felt right, a mutual bond.”
“Service? So you’re a soldier?” I ask.
Aura draws in a deep breath. “We are called Rogues. Our duty is to our motherships but also to our allies. Nebs attacked Vinym just days ago. I was there with my crew.”
I stare at the swirling metallic colors of my drink. It definitely looks cosmic. “Uh— Just to be sure— I’m not drinking some nebula’s baby, am I?”
Aura chuckles. “What?”
I point to the glass. “Looks like someone bottled a nebula.”
“Maybe in the Cicarron system.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve never left orbit. Worked on ships here and at Catalyst Five. That’s it.”
Aura licks his lips and smiles at me like he can’t wait to show me the universe. “Cicarron is like that river, only metal flake that flows like water. It coats everything, and you almost can’t get it out. My ship went in with three others on a rescue mission. Only my ship came out.”
“I’m sorry.”
He hangs his head. “It’s just the nature of space and war.
The smartest and toughest survive. But when they survive, they come out of it two ways, cocky as shit or very aware of their mortality.
I am the latter. But there are many nebulae and galaxies that make even me breathless to bear witness to them. I would love to show you sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
Aura gingerly takes my wrist and tenderly runs a purple finger along a thread of my bodyweb. “Tell me more about this.”
After a sip of my fruity drink, I covertly study his high-tech wristband.
“It was a choice to help me keep my job and build a future in the ship thruster engineering field.
I have gauntlets, too, but they were taken because Abr considered them weapons.
I paid for the suit, not the gauntlets. But I did pay for the upgrades because I wired them up myself.
“And thanks for defending me, by the way. Not having my defense weapons was unnerving.”
Aura rests my arm back on the table and slides his fingers into mine.
“I saw you fight that Listhaetis and knew you didn’t want him.
But he also needed to be removed from the race because he’s dangerous.
A lot of species forget their heads when mating urges take over.
Even mine. I just knew the moment I saw you that I couldn’t let anyone hurt you. ”
His skin is hot against mine. The occasional spark leaves his hands and finds its way into the web that wraps down my fingers.
“Most humans look at me like I’m a freak.
When I saw your species in the catalog, I thought if anyone might be comfortable with me, it’d be you.
But I understand if you want to look for someone else.
I know I look like an aged-out stripper who’s trying too hard. ”
A smile cracks on his face. “I think you’re perfect the way you are.”
I’m not so sure. There has to be something that will eventually turn him away, make him want someone else, or just walk away.
But I try to be optimistic and enjoy the moment while it lasts.
At least I could have a good memory to hang onto.
“Anyway, I didn’t expect anyone to be interested in this.
” I wave a hand over my body. “So if you change your mind and want someone else—”
Aura lifts my hand, isolates my index finger, draws it into his mouth, and curls his electric tongue around it. He watches me closely as the tingles spread through my skin and tense the muscles in my forearm.
The soft, wet heat of his affection makes me swallow my doubts and resist a pant as my heart sprints in my chest. He draws my wrist to his nose, inhales me deeply, and rumbles, “You saw the orb, yes?”
“Y-yes.”
Aura shifts on the cushion, making the leather squeak softly. He leans in close to my ear until I can feel his warm breath on my neck and the electricity of him prickling my skin. “We are meant to be together. My Storm has decided. I have made up my mind. We have chosen you.
“Now it’s up to you to pick me or someone else. I won’t try to convince you to be with me. My life is not easy. And now you’ve got me thinking about all the Amphirans who disappeared without warning. But I won’t back down even if it comes with a lot of risk. I will do anything for you.”
He sweeps his nose up and down my neck like he can’t get enough of my scent. “But I am fighting a battle back home. I understand if you don’t want me . There are a lot of reasons other males would suit you better. They are gentler, safer.”
But I don’t want those things. I don’t want safe because it’s ultimately boring. I want a mate who can’t keep their hands off of me because I think it’s the only way I’ll believe they want me.
“I want a new life, Aura. I want to leave here. I have skills. I can adapt them. I can help. I am useful.”
“Those are great things,” he says. “But what matters most to my kind is loyalty.”
I find the courage to take his hand in mine. “That’s something we have in common.”
“Prince…” A voice calls out from a doorway, summoning my attention. Looking in from the hallway to the racers’ rooms is a woman, Aura’s shade of purple, with similar black hair. She speaks with another man who looks like them, too.
“Friends of yours?” I ask.
Aura lifts his head and looks. “Excuse me for a second.”
He gets up and walks toward them. The moment he’s gone, a Mindor I recognize from the field starts toward our table.
Oh, hell no. I pick up my drink and flower and hurry after Aura.
He’s already kept me safe from two big possessive dudes.
The last thing I want is to be away from him.
I might be capable of working on engines and thrusters without dying of electrocution, but I am not tough enough or strong enough to fight off many, if any, of the males at the races.
They’re far bigger and stronger than I am.
If I want to survive this packed heat, I need to stick with the one who wants to keep me safe.
“Aura?”
I hurry after him but slow when I notice the slump of his shoulders.
Something is very wrong.
Table of Contents
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- Page 17
- Page 18 (Reading here)
- Page 19
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- Page 53