Page 17

Simone

“ H ow are my favorite females doing this morning?” Rallan asks as he saunters into the house that Nia, Deja, and I are cleaning.

I shoot him a scathing look, but Nia and Deja both smile at him like he’s not public enemy number one. No, they both ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ over his simple question, all because they know it’s going to irritate me. Worst. Friends. Ever.

“This house is about ready for furniture, but we’ll leave that up for the males to do,” Deja says as she wipes her hands on her tunic.

I’ve been helping out with cleaning the repaired houses for the last couple of weeks. Deja helps me most days. When Nia can get away from her farm, she helps, too. This is the tenth home we’ve completely cleaned since the storms stopped.

The reason I’m out here so often asking for more work is that I can’t stand being in the house with Rallan and Vex.

Not without having more and more thoughts that make me want to be with both of them.

Deja and Nia help me out when they can because— fine, they’re good friends.

They also help me talk through my feelings for the two aliens.

If they had it their way, I’d tell Rallan and Vex I want them both, and it would solve all of my problems. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell them that I’m fine with wanting two of them. It’s the fact that two of them could leave me that has me not wanting to open up to either of them

“Oh good,” Rallan says, stepping closer to me like I’m not telling him to fuck off with all my body language. “Then you will not mind if I take my mate for the rest of the day. Vex and I have many things to discuss with her.”

“No, you—“ I start to say, but I’m cut off when Nia takes the broom I’m using from my hands, and Deja all but shoves me towards Rallan.

“She can go now,” Nia says.

“All yours. We can finish up here,” Deja adds.

I scowl at both of them, whipping my head around so I can see their traitorous faces when I all but hiss at them. “Are you both serious?”

“You have been ignoring us for many days now,” Rallan says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and tugging me to his side.

I grind my teeth together and look at him like he disgusts me, which only has him glowing.

“Come now, we all know your heart is softening to us even if you are still acting this way.”

“She was talking about you earlier!” Nia shouts as Rallan walks us out of the house.

I can feel blood boiling in my face, and I swear to myself that I’m going to kill my friends.

More humans are coming, so I’ll have new people to be friends with soon.

I don’t need Brutus and Judas as friends anymore.

“Are you going to tell me what you were speaking about, or should I return to your friends?” Rallan asks with a smile.

I take a deep breath, my nostrils flaring as I release it through my nose. “I would prefer if you dropped it.”

“There is no fun in that.” Rallan’s eyes flicker toward Nia and Deja, but then he nods to himself and turns back around. “But I am a good male to my mate. Even when she is being prickly.”

“Shut up,” I mumble, but my heart isn’t in it.

My heart hasn’t been in much recently except for beating faster every time I’m near Rallan or Vex or, even worse, both of them at the same time, which seems to be every morning.

As much as I like to talk a big game about pushing them away, Rallan has firmly planted himself in my heart and my bed.

Not that we’ve done anything in bed other than snuggle, but we do it every single night.

I tell him it’s because I fall asleep too easily when he’s doing my hair and that his scales keep me cool through the night.

He doesn’t believe me, but he also doesn’t push it.

Vex is always in my room in the morning, discussing with Rallan their plans for the day. I’ve started to pretend that I’m asleep because after barging out of my own room three mornings in a row, it became very clear they weren’t going to stop.

If anything, they’re making it normal for both of them to be around me.

No, not normal, per se, because I still feel a twinge of heartbreak every time I see Vex, but it’s grown less and less.

I even find myself wanting to talk to him like we used to.

I want to ask what has happened on Earth, why he’s here, and if he’s staying.

The only reason I don’t ask is because if he says he’s not staying, I don’t know how I’ll handle it.

That’s the main reason I haven’t been more curious about what he and Rallan think they’re doing when they talk about wooing me. If Vex isn’t staying, then I’m not getting my hopes up in making this work.

“Where are we going?” I ask as Rallan leads me away from our home and toward the tribe’s gates. Sometimes, we’ll leave the safety of the wall to visit Nia and her mates on their farm, but Nia’s still back at the house I just left.

“It is a surprise, but it will be one you like, I think.” Rallan doesn’t look down at me with his stupid smile, but he does place a hand on my back to keep me moving when I want to grind to a halt.

“Come on,” Rallan laughs as he sees me trying and failing to stop moving while he continues to push me gently yet firmly to get me to keep moving forward. “You cannot let your mates do one nice thing for you?”

“I don’t have mates,” I snarl.

This time, when I grind my heels into the grass. Rallan stops next to me, his hand still on my back. He pauses for just a moment before kneeling in front of me, his hand wrapping around my hip and tugging me closer to him so I’m all but standing between his legs where he’s squatted down.

“You have two mates,” Rallan says. His gaze is filled with amusement, but there’s a hardness to it that I don’t see very often.

“One of them you have already mated, and I am very jealous it is not me. I would give anything to be a male you are actually mated to, but that does not change the fact that you are my mate, and I am yours. Can you accept this?”

My throat feels rough and dry as I work to swallow.

My molars scrape against one another as I try to force myself not to say something cruel.

I know I should if I want to keep my distance from Rallan and Vex.

I should keep using hurtful words and bad attitudes to keep them at arm’s length.

The only problem with that plan is that it isn’t working.

If I say something awful to Rallan right now, he’ll shake his head and call me an insufferable female. He’ll still crawl into my bed tonight and take care of me. In the morning, I’ll wake up in his arms, my face nuzzling close to him because deep down inside, I know I want him. I want them both.

“I can accept that,” I whisper, my eyes staring straight into Rallan’s.

I might sound meek right now, but it’s only because I haven’t allowed myself to voice this out loud.

I’m still the same me, but maybe now I can admit that I might have fallen for two aliens when really I should’ve fallen for none.

“Good.” Rallan beams, his face turning more boyish and playful. “Then you will also accept that Vex is trying to make things right with you. I know you may not trust him after how he left you here, but you are not speaking to him at all.”

“I thought you hated him,” I grumble.

I push at Rallan’s chest to try to make some space between us. He falls back on his ass and pulls me even closer to him until I’m standing between his outstretched legs. He holds my hips tight until I’m plastered against his chest. If I tilt my head downward, our faces are close to one another

“I did,” Rallan says in a soft whisper. The air tickles the tip of my nose as he speaks, and his tongue flicks out against my lips.

“He was the male who stole your soul from me. The male who promised to keep you safe and cared for and failed so spectacularly. I hated him until I saw his entire being breaking when I told him of how you came to be in my life. I hated him until I saw the look of helplessness wash over him at knowing he failed as a mate. And when I realized he was broken over what happened to you, I decided to give him a chance to redeem himself.”

“He broke up with me,” I say, the emotion in my voice coming out even though I hate being vulnerable. Not in general, because Nia and Deja have both seen me cry plenty of times. I don’t want to be vulnerable in front of someone I am trying not to fall for.

“I think you should at least speak with him before you decide he is irredeemable,” Rallan says, moving one of his hands up to my shoulder and then cupping the back of my neck. “I think you will find he has done much more for you than you realize.”

“You trust him?”

I don’t know why it’s so important for me to know if Rallan trusts Vex or not, but now that I’ve asked.

I’m holding my breath while I wait for his answer.

I’ve grown to trust Rallan’s judgment on a lot of things.

Even though he acts like an idiot most of the time, he’s pretty intelligent and has a good sense of spotting bad intentions.

“I do,” Rallan says, and then his lips twitch up in a smile. “My brother trusts him even more. I am almost positive he likes Vex more than he likes me.”

“Why do you think that?” I lean into his hold, not missing how his eyes widen as I relax into him.

He covers his surprise quickly, knowing he might scare me off if he makes too big of a deal of me allowing him more liberties. His hand slides lower on my back to gently cup my ass as his other hand stays on the back of my neck. I whimper, needing more touching, more closeness.