Ruwen: Mated to the Alien

by Kate Rudolph

  “Because one of our crew decided to jump ship for another freight run,” said Sung Mi. “We’re swinging near enough to Earth that we could drop you home. If you’re willing to work for the cost of the trip.”

  Lis didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not until she found Ru.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lome had owned the workshop on Honora Station for the better part of fifty years. In brighter days, he and his denya had been a well-oiled team, fixing up ships and selling used parts to any traveler that needed them. Ru had spent a good chunk of his childhood in this shop when his aunt or uncle passed through Honora.

  And now he was here by himself with a busted converter, praying that the man didn’t shut the door in his face.

  He’d put the trip off as long as possible after splitting from Lis. But delivering the package from Polai to his broker, Munq, had only taken an hour. Even so, Ru had lingered for several more minutes as Munq offered him a contract to extract an embedded agent of the Oscavian Empire from a hostile planet. But it was a two-person job, and it would take months to pull off.

  Two weeks ago, he would have said no out of hand. Or rather, he wouldn’t have listened to the proposal at all. Now, shaky though they were, he had options. He had… hope. The part of him that had long ago given up hope of living past thirty wanted to jump on the nearest transport ship to Hedonia and carry out his plans as intended.

  But the thought of taking pleasure from anyone but Lis repulsed him. She was his denya, and he belonged to her completely. Even if this was the end.

  Ru walked into the shop and saw that he’d startled Lome, who stood behind a waist-high counter working on the wiring of a circuit board. Lome was tall and broad, his skin a rich teal and his markings bright against it, and while he had to be edging on ninety, he didn’t look a day over thirty. That was how it was for mated Detyens. Even ones like Lome.

  Once he recovered from the momentary shock, Lome set aside his tools and straightened. “Now there’s a face I never expected to see again,” he said.

  He walked out from behind the counter and clasped a hand around Ru’s shoulders. Ru hugged him back. Lome was like another uncle to him. It was good to see family. And he didn’t exaggerate. The last time Ru left, he expected it to be goodbye for good.

  “I ran into a bit of trouble,” Ru told him, though it might have been an understatement.

  Lome thumped his hand against Ru’s back and let him go, a broad smile hanging on his face. “Starting wars again?”

  No one ever seemed to let that drop. By the gods, he’d been doing his job. “That was one time,” he insisted, “And it was more of a family squabble.” No planets had been destroyed, and it all ended up all right in the end.

  Lome shook his head and settled back against the counter. “So what brings you here?” he asked.

  “Converter blew out during my last job.” Ru held up the mangled mass of wires he’d pulled from the center console in the cockpit. “I need a replacement.”

  Lome’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ve never heard of a converter blowing out.”

  That was the problem with family. They were always asking questions and making uncomfortable observations. “Then, perhaps,” Ru conceded, “was blown out would be more appropriate?”

  “You’re a damn fool, boy.” The laughter evaporated from Lome’s face and now he stood before Ru as a Detyen elder chastising an unmated male nearing his end. “You think you can waste your final months simply because time is short?”

  Ru heard the fear there, and the heartbreak. It wasn’t only because they were nearly family. With every life cut short by this idiotic quirk in biology, they lost one more hope at regaining their place as a people. The Detyens were dying out.

  “Lome—”

  “No.” Lome waved his arms in front of him like he could put up a wall to keep from looking at Ru. “We said our goodbyes. Your aunt came crying here not two weeks ago. And your cousin, oh ho…”

  “I—” He didn’t want to think of Aunt Gwy crying or the scene that Tabra would have caused. It wasn’t his fault that he was nearing his birthday, and he didn’t know how to stop his people from hurting for it.

  But Lome wasn’t finished. “When we say goodbye, it’s for a reason—”

  Ru had to stop this. “I met my denya,” he said.

  Lome’s eyebrows shoot up. “When? Where? How? Where is she? Why are you still here?” The questions tumbled out, at first excitement, but the last one edging into sadness. Lome’s own denya had taken off long ago. Ru didn’t know all of the details and no one liked to talk about it.

  “She’s still on the station. I think.” He’d know it if she left. He’d feel it in his soul. And despite whatever nascent doubts lived in his mind, he knew that she would never leave him without saying goodbye.

  “Ruwen, if you are not the fool I’ve known you to be, you will find her right this instant and not let her out of your sight until she has accepted that you are hers.” His tone was deadly serious and Ru was reminded why he never wished to cross Lome.

  But he was not a boy any longer. And even though he cared for Lis and wanted her with every breath, he could not ignore the facts of their situation. “It’s not that simple,” he objected. “She’s not…”

  “Interested in men?” Lome scoffed, “I’ve never heard the bond form like that.” Neither had Ru, there was no such thing as a denya bond forming where desire and love could not.

  “She’s human,” he stated plainly.

  Lome’s eyes widened and he leaned forward. “Human?”

  “Yes. Not Detyen. And she’s… It’s complicated.” She was lightyears away from home, brought here by strangers and rescued or kidnapped by him. He wasn’t sure how she would define their journey together. Humans were not like Detyens. They didn’t bond in the same ways. He had dedicated his own heart to her from the first kiss, but even now as they found their pleasure in one another, she held herself back.

  But those were not sentiments he was prepared to share with Lome.

  And Lome did not seem to care. “Do you want her?” he asked.

  “Of course.” With his every breath and the spaces between.

  “Is the bond true?”

  “Yes.” She was with him always, a shadow of her essence a presence in his consciousness.

  Lome nodded and Ru thought he was satisfied. But after a beat, Lom asked one final question. “Do you care that she’s not one of us?”

  “No.” The denial sprouted before any thought. So Lis was human, why should that matter. She was his denya, the only person in the entire universe truly meant for him. Frankly, it was a miracle that he was the only Detyen to ever meet his mate outside of the species.

  Lome looked at him, eyebrow raised, and said nothing.

  And that one eyebrow said it all. Ru was a thrice damned fool if he let Lis leave this space station without fighting for her. He needed her to know that he wanted her, not because of fate, or survival, or anything so vast. He needed her because she was his breath and he would do anything to keep her.

  He set his busted part on the counter and said, “I’ll come back for the converter in a few days.”

  “And you’ll bring your human with you?” Lome asked.

  Yes, he would.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lis left her fellow humans behind and went in search of Ru. At first, she planned to go back to the ship, hoping that he would eventually end up there. But as she turned down the hall outside the marketplace, her intuition pinged, telling her to go right instead of left.

  She had no reason to trust it, but Lis could feel a pull of some kind coming from that direction. She was absolutely certain that Ru was there. She just had to find him.

  Running on instinct, she took the hallways quickly, barely noticing where she went. In the end, she stumbled into a small cove of shops just in time to see Ru step out of one, the door closing behind him.

  The rest of the people in this section of the station might a
s well have ceased to exist. She could feel the universe shift, the axes realigning until it was only her and him, bound together through something greater than themselves.

  On the ship, it had been him and her against the universe. She’d felt security beside him, but everything that had grown with it had been too tangled. Now, off the ship and with the prospect of returning to Earth a real possibility, she could begin to differentiate the threads of the emotions running through her. What she couldn’t do was untie the knot in her heart that tightened every second she stared at Ru.

  The corner of his mouth lifted up in a smile and he stood up straighter when he saw her. The distance between them dissolved until they were standing face to face in the center of the walkway. Ru placed his hand on Lis’s back and led her a little way down the path until they could stand in a little recessed alcove.

  “I thought you were exploring,” he said, a finger casually drawing circles along her spine.

  “Two women from Seoul Station offered to take me back to Earth with them.” The words tipped out of her mouth without thought. But she couldn’t keep them in, couldn’t lie to him.

  Ru’s hand stilled on her back. “I see.”

  Lis leaned into him before he could pull away and said, “I don’t want to go.”

  His eyes widened, irises flaring a bright ruby. He sucked in a breath and tipped her chin up toward his face with his free hand. “Lis.” Her name dragged out of his lips like a prayer.

  “Are you dying?” She’d meant to ease into it, but standing so close to him, smelling his spicy, masculine sense and feeling the heat of his skin, it was all too real. She couldn’t let him die. She didn’t know what she would do in a universe without him in it.

  She could see the answer in his eyes the moment she asked. He froze beside her, his fingers practically digging into her hip. And then, very slowly, he nodded. “How did you find out?”

  Lis placed her hands on his cheeks and dragged his head down to swipe her lips over his. Her hands slid back until her fingers were grasped behind his neck. She held on so tight as if the power of her kiss would be enough to keep him safe, keep him alive. His mouth opened and she tasted his tongue, the strange ridges that had brought her to the heights of pleasure now delightfully strange and familiar.

  God above, she loved him.

  She pulled back as the emotion overwhelmed her, tears threatening to prick at the corners of her eyes. But emotion wouldn’t make her weak and Lis had more than enough experience in schooling her expression.

  She stayed clasped close to him, needing the heat of his body more than air. “The humans I met mentioned it. Were you ever going to tell me? How lo…” She couldn’t even finish the second question.

  Ru smoothed one hand over her head, gently patting her hair. “I didn’t want you like that.” Before the sting of rejection could even begin to bite he continued, “I want you to take me because you want me, not out of some damn pity.”

  For a moment, a sense of calm settled over Lis. And then the dam broke and she was laughing, the sounds coming out of her mouth full of mirth and barely human.

  But Ru was concerned. “What? Was it something I said?”

  Lis sucked in air, trying to get her breathing under control. Her fingers curled against his chest. “You say it like fucking you would be some sort of hardship,” she smiled. “I’ve wanted you inside me since our time in the holoplayer, before that, really.”

  “What are you saying, Lis?” he asked with a ragged whisper.

  The words, the acceptance, were so simple. “I’m saying I’m your denya.”

  Those words put the fire of FTL engines into him. They were moving so fast that Lis couldn’t keep track of the twists and turns. When he took her down a secluded hallway, she thought he was stopping for a quickie before they made it to wherever they were supposed to end up. But he led her up two flights of stairs and down another hallway to a non-descript door with a small plaque beside it with IC numbers written on it.

  “Where are we?” she asked, almost out of breath.

  He glanced back and her and grinned. “My family’s suite. None of them are on the station now so we have it all to ourselves.” And from the fire in his eyes and the heat in her core, she knew they’d definitely need privacy.

  Back on Earth, the room might have seemed tiny. But after weeks on the ship and before that, being crammed into a tiny slaver’s cell, this place felt positively palatial. A small kitchen was tucked in against a wall with a living area laid out beyond it. On the far wall, faux windows looked out onto a simulated pastoral scene. They were on the interior of the space station, but from the looks of the windows, they were on some sunny, verdant planet. A sliding door hung open, and beyond it, Lis spotted a bed more than large enough for two people.

  Excitement and anticipation hummed through her.

  Ru closed the distance between them, looming over her and trapping her between the door and the hard wall of his body. Right then he was a little wild, his eyes full of animal hunger, the almost invisible markings along the edges of his hairline becoming visible as the lust within him grew.

  “Say it again,” he said, the words a gruff command.

  Heat curled deep within Lis. She reached up and traced her fingers over his cheek and out until she framed the point of his ear, watching him suck in a breath in pleasure as her fingers traced over the sensitive tip. “I’m your denya,” she said once more, firmer now that they were alone and he was looming, the promise of pleasure in his wild eyes. “And you’re mine.” She pulled his head down, but after a second pulled back. “You are my denya, right? This does go both ways?” The questions tumbled out between brief kisses.

  Ru’s lips curled against hers. “I’m not the sharing kind,” he confessed. “And I could no sooner betray you than harm you. Yes, I am your denya. The bond works both ways.”

  She could feel something almost physical snap between them with those words. Before Ru, she’d never contemplated the concept of commitment. It just didn’t exist. No one stayed loyal forever. But right now, she knew to the deepest depths of her soul that he was hers and she was his, and there was nothing on the planet that could possibly change that.

  * * *

  The denya bond was more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. Ru had never known that it would be a physical thing, or that it could begin to blossom before they completed their joining, but he could see a soft golden light haloing Lis even in the dim room. It could only be their bond.

  He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, a surge of tenderness overtaking him. "You're beyond beautiful," he said. And she was. The denya light illuminated her dark hair, making it a burnished gold. Those secretive soft brown eyes of hers were suddenly open to him. The bond gave him no power to read her thoughts, but he could see her desire clear as day. It was a desire that matched his own.

  It took more control than he would ever admit to trail his fingers gently down her shoulder and to her arm, where he linked their fingers together. He wanted to use his claws to tear off her clothes until she was naked and panting before him.

  His cock ached, thick and hard with desire. But this was their first joining, the beginning of their lives as one, and he would not dishonor that with some hurried coupling powered by hard driven lust.

  He'd save that for later.

  Lis seemed fond of the curve hugging bodysuits that were popular in the Brasix Consortium. Humans had made a home for themselves there and the styles flowed freely. Ru planned to buy stock in the finest clothiers there if it kept her kitted out like this.

  "What are you thinking?" Lis asked, a small smile quirked to the side of her lips.

  Ru leaned in and kissed the corner of her mouth, unable to resist. "I like your outfit," he said.

  She laughed. “Really? You’re thinking about my clothes right now?”

  Ru grabbed the zipper and pulled it down until the tops of her breasts nearly spilled out. "I'd like it even better on my
floor."

  She gasped as he pulled the zipper down further, all the way down to the bottom. And when he pushed at her shoulders and helped her step out of it, she didn't resist. And then she was before him, completely naked and more stunning than he could imagine.

  "You're a little overdressed, dear," she told him, the affectionate name coming easily from her lips. But she raised her fingers to her mouth and traced them over as if she could pull the word back.

  Ru stepped close and tilted up her face, his fingers on her chin. "Never hold your words back from me. Never hold anything back. Not between us." He would lay down his very soul for her, there was no need for walls between them. Not any longer.

  She dropped her hand and nodded, not able to move too much because he didn't let go. "I… this is all so new to me. I don't know how to do this."

  "Liar," he said as he leaned in and captured her lips, the curve of a smile caught between them. "I've felt your hands on me."

  For a moment she didn't respond, her lips busy with the much more intimate discussion. There was no need for words when the taste of every breath passed between them. But after a moment, she placed a hand against his chest, sliding it down to the center, finding the beat of his heart. It beat only for her.

  "Not sex," she said. "I've never done the relationship thing. Not like this, not with so much…" She trailed off, eyes stricken as she couldn't find the word.

  But the primitive, possessive side of Ru bared its teeth in a lethal grin, satisfied that he would be the only man to ever hold her heart. He leaned his forehead against hers. "I will never betray you," he vowed. "You are my denya, the one person I shall cherish above all others until I am no more than dust."

  Her mouth dropped open in a surprised, silent gasp, and after a pause, she swallowed and said, “Good.” He heard the promise in that word, all of the things that she didn’t know how to say. But Ru didn’t push. He didn’t need her to say the things that he knew were true, not when she stood naked before him.

  She reached down and placed her hand on the closure of his pants. “You need to be naked,” she teased.