by Selena Kitt
“Eight more times while you were eating your evening meal.”
“Eight times,” she breathed.
Did he somehow know she’d seen him with that woman, his hand pressed against the curve of her back, the same way he always touched Ruby as they slipped into his apartment?
She knew that being bonded, the way they were, made them interconnected in a way she only marginally understood. She was the human part of this pair and didn’t fully understand his alien ways or abilities. He had tried to explain it to her, how bonding with her felt for him, how much she meant to him, but she only had her own human frame of reference to go by.
“If I’m away from you for too long, it’s like I start to shut down,” he’d whispered into her ear in the dark in answer to her question, the solid warmth of his big body a reminder against her skin of his indelible presence. “We mate for eternity. There is no end for me to this bond. It’s unbreakable.”
“But I won’t live forever,” she had reminded him in a small, scared voice. “Shouldn’t you have bonded with… one of your own kind? I’m human, Bastian. I can’t possibly live as long as… how long do you live, anyway?”
“Your concept of time is strange to us.” He had pulled her closer to him, onto him, wrapping her in his arms, so no part of her was touching the bed. “I will always be with you, Ruby, and you always with me. There is no end. Your question is… irrelevant.”
He seemed to be able to sense things about her, even before she knew she was feeling them. And she, too, could tell when he longed for her, when he… wanted her. My God, the heat of his gaze when he wanted her. It was like nothing in the world, in the entire known universe. And he wanted her often.
Not that she was complaining.
Now the thought of him turning those hungry, glinting, silver eyes toward another woman made her nauseous.
He’d said their bond was unbreakable… but did that mean he couldn’t bond with someone else? Or at least, be with someone else?
Could bonded aliens cheat? Sure, they were bonded, but what did that mean, exactly? They weren’t married—not by Earth’s standards. On Earth, they were just in a standard “dating” phase. He hadn’t even met her parents yet! Not both of them, anyway. Just her father, who had cautioned her against starting anything with Bastian.
“We still know so little about them,” her father had warned.
Maybe he had been right after all, Ruby thought, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Maybe she had jumped headfirst into something she didn’t understand. Something she’d never understand. But here she was, bonded to an alien man, and she didn’t even know the rules.
Unbreakable bonds, my ass, she thought, biting down on her lip so hard, she almost drew blood.
The blonde he’d led into his apartment, the way she looked up at him and laughed at something he leaned down to say into her ear, seemed pretty interested in doing some heavy-duty bonding.
Just thinking about her made Ruby’s hands curl into fists. She was fantasizing about grabbing those blonde curls and yanking the little bitch bald. Such a rage rose up in her, she literally had to swallow the feeling down, and her throat burned.
“He’s calling again,” Clorah informed her, sounding cautious. “Do you still want me to hold your calls?”
“No.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. “Go ahead and answer.”
“Ruby!” Bastian sounded panicked. “Is everything all right? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours!”
“Bastian.” Even saying his name was like a stab to her heart. His voice was so much a part of her it was almost as familiar as her own. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do… what?” He sounded genuinely confused.
“This. This!” She threw her hands up and then curled up on the bed. “Me and you. Us. I just can’t. It’s too hard. It… it hurts too much. I’m…”
“I can feel you hurting.” His voice went soft, that sweet, golden tone that soothed her like nothing else. “Tell me. What is it?”
She wanted to tell him, but something in her throat blocked the words. The image of him with his arm around another woman just wouldn’t leave her alone. It clouded her vision and came to life the moment she closed her eyes. It was all she could think about, and the pain it brought on was like nothing she’d ever felt before.
“Ruby, love,” he pleaded, and there was pain in his voice, too. “Please. I can’t stand to hear you hurting…”
“It’s over.” The words pierced her heart like a knife. She felt like she was drowning in her own blood, her voice choked. “You need… something else. Someone else. Sebastian, just… forget about me. I was never right for you. This was never…”
She turned her face into her pillow and sobbed.
Sebastian gave a loud, strident cry like nothing she’d ever heard before. It was something raw, animal, a cry of pain, anger and frustration so deep it sent a chill through her. She shuddered involuntarily at the inhuman sound.
“End the call, Clorah,” she choked out. “End the fucking call!”
Then there was only silence.
And pain.
Ruby cried herself to sleep.
The room was completely dark. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her own face. She felt along the edges of the wall, finding a door, but it was locked. Sebastian was on the other side. She could hear him pounding on the door, but it sounded so far away. Her heart ached for him. She wanted him to break down the door, to pull her into his arms and tell her he loved her, that he would never let her leave him—
Ruby snapped awake when the light went on overhead.
“Arrival at the door, Ruby,” Clorah informed her.
The pounding wasn’t just in her dream. Someone was hammering on her door.
“What time is it?” Ruby mumbled, trying to blink herself back into the real world, to differentiate her dream from the present moment.
“Five-fifteen,” Clorah said.
“In the morning?” she asked, incredulous. Had she really been asleep all night? She hadn’t even changed out of her office attire. “Is it Bastian?”
“No,” Clorah replied as Ruby stumbled her way toward the front of her apartment. “Unidentified female.”
“Huh.” Ruby touched the interface beside the door and it revealed a woman’s face on the screen, very pretty, framed by long, blonde curls. The sight of her made Ruby’s stomach clench.
“Ruby?” The woman spoke and she could hear her through the speaker. “Let me in! I need to talk to you.”
“It’s five in the morning.” She crossed her arms and glared at the screen. “Go home.”
“You don’t understand!” the woman cried, but Ruby had already touched the screen to turn it off. How dare she turn up here? And after Ruby had practically given Bastian to her! It wasn’t like she was the woman scorned here!
“Open the door!” More pounding.
Ruby rolled her eyes, touching the screen again, pressing “audio only.”
“Go away or I’m calling security,” Ruby snapped. “How the hell did you get up here anyway?”
“Bastian gave me his key card.”
This stopped her. Ruby touched the screen again, so she could see the blonde.
“Ruby, you have to come with me.” The woman’s voice caught and the emotion in it was apparent. “Please. He needs you.”
“What’s happened?” Ruby felt panic rising in her. Now that she was conscious, the pain she’d been experiencing in her dream intensified. Bastian was gone. She’d pushed him away, told him it was over.
“You don’t understand,” the woman pleaded, her face filling the screen. “Let me in.”
“Let you in?” Ruby blinked at her, feeling that rage returning. The image of this woman and Sebastian standing so close, talking and laughing, came back and hit her like she’d run into wall. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Go back to Bastian. You win. He’s all yours.”
Ruby lifted
a trembling hand to cut the connection, before this woman could see her burst into tears, but the blonde’s words stopped her.
“He’s my brother!”
Ruby blinked at the screen, incredulous.
“It’s true,” the woman cried. “Open the door and look at my eyes, Ruby. Look!”
“But…” She swallowed the rest of her sentence, her mind racing. She knew Bastian had a sibling on his home planet. She knew it was a sister—Mira, he called her—and that was the only family he had left. He had talked about bringing Mira here, but so far he hadn’t been able to acquire a passport for her.
“Ruby, please,” Mira pleaded. “Open the door.”
“Open the door, Clorah,” Ruby ordered, and the door unlocked and opened, revealing the beautiful blonde she had seen Sebastian putting his arm around.
“You have to believe me.” The woman was almost panting, like she’d been running. “Do you believe me?”
She looked into the woman’s eyes and knew it was true. All aliens had those strange, almost lavender-colored eyes. Those living and working among humans could easily take human shape but those eyes gave them away. Most now covered them with contacts to blend in. Whoever this woman was, she wasn’t human.
“You’re his sister?” Ruby asked, trying to let it sink in. “Mira? You’re Mira?”
“Yes!” Mira sounded so relieved, and before Ruby knew what was happening, the woman was hugging her. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you’d see us and think the worst. I asked Bastian not to tell you I was coming—I wanted to have time to acclimate. Your planet is… strange to me.”
“You came all the way here by yourself?” Ruby pulled the woman fully into her apartment and ordered Clorah to lock the door behind them.
“To Earth?” Mira looked puzzled. “No, my bonded came with me. But he was held up in… uh… imm… imam—”
“Immigration?” she finished Mira’s sentence.
“Yes.” Mira smiled her thanks. “Sebastian said your father might be able to help?”
“Yes, he will,” Ruby reassured, already feeling protective of her. Bastian’s sister. She should have known. She’d assumed far too much, and shame flooded her at the thought. “I’ll talk to him in the morning.”
“It is morning,” Mira pointed out with a smile. “But we’ve been bonded a long time—we can stand to be without each other for a while.”
“Ha.” Ruby smiled at that. “An old married couple, like my parents.”
“No, not like your parents.” Mira shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing around her pale face. Aliens could take any human form they wanted, an ability that Ruby envied. She’d like to morph into a tall, leggy blonde instead of having to live in her decidedly petite, curvy form. Plus she had to live with her red hair and freckles—even if Bastian said he loved them far more than she hated them.
“Ruby, we’re different from humans,” Mira explained. “Bonds are different from your… marriages? Is that what you call them?”
“Yes, marriage is what we call it.” Ruby smiled, but it faded quickly from her face as she tried to figure out what Mira was trying to tell her. “What do you mean it’s different? Different how?”
“Newly bonded couples can’t spend too long away from each other,” Mira replied. “Or they’ll die.”
“Ha ha.” Ruby’s smile returned, realizing Mira must be kidding around. “Very funny.”
“It isn’t…” Mira’s voice shook with emotion and her lavender eyes glinted silver. “It isn’t a… a funny?”
“Joke,” Ruby corrected. She had to be kidding, though, Ruby reasoned with herself. Bastian wasn’t going to literally die just because they hadn’t been together in… what was it, now, almost twenty-four hours? “It isn’t a joke?”
“No.” Mira shook her head, reaching out to grasp Ruby’s hands in hers, squeezing gently, as if the physical contact might convince her.
“But…” Ruby’s mind rejected the notion. It made her want to laugh, although she wouldn’t do that, because Mira looked so serious. “I thought your kind lived forever?”
“Time is different here. Everything is… different.” Mira sighed. “Things on this planet move fast. It changes us. And we don’t fully understand bonding with humans yet. I’m afraid for him, of what’s happening to him…”
“What’s happening to him?” Ruby remembered that howling cry of pain before the intercom cut off the night before. “You really think… it could kill him?”
“I don’t know.” Mira shook her head, her eyes wild, desperate. “I’ve seen what happens to newly bonded couples who are separated where I come from. They turn inward. They disappear. Inside themselves. They’re like a shell, nothing left.”
“And that’s happening to him?” Ruby whispered, her heartbeat coming faster, her breath turning shallow. “Right now?”
“He won’t talk to me,” Mira told her, gripping her hands hard now. “He went to his room and locked the door. At first, he called for you. He cried out… I’ve never heard him like that…”
That awful sound. Ruby remembered it and shuddered.
“And then… there was silence. Just… nothing.”
“Nothing?” Ruby blinked at her. “You don’t think… he’s gone?”
“I don’t know,” Mira cried, and she sounded like she was about to cry. “All I know is that he needs you, Ruby. You’re his bonded, and you’re the only one who can stop this…”
“Bastian…” Ruby said his name under her breath, the thought of him desperate for her, wasting away without her, seemed both impossible and heartbreaking in her mind.
“You have to go to him. Tell him you love him,” Mira urged. “You have to be with him, Ruby. If you don’t… I’m not sure what will happen.”
“Let me get changed…” Ruby murmured, moving like she was dazed. She couldn’t think. She felt kind of numb, like she couldn’t quite process what she’d been told.
“Please, Ruby.” Mira grabbed her blouse, keeping her from moving any further into the apartment. “Come now. Please.”
Ruby saw the tears brimming in Mira’s eyes and nodded, grabbing her bag from the floor under the table where she’d kicked it.
“Clorah, lock the door behind us.”
“Yes, Ruby.”
“Hurry,” Mira urged, taking Ruby’s hand as the two women rushed down the hall. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
Ruby stood back, her heart fluttering at the top of her throat, as Mira knocked on Bastian’s bedroom door. There was no answer from inside. No movement at all.
“Bastian, it’s Mira,” his sister called. “I’ve brought Ruby with me, like I promised I would.”
Still nothing.
“Say something,” Mira whispered, reaching out and pulling Ruby toward the door. “Talk to him.”
What could she say? Ruby’s face burned as she thought of her mistake—how she’d believed that he was cheating on her with another woman. Someone who turned out to be his sister. She was ashamed of her reaction, her assumption. How could she talk to him now?
“Bastian.” Ruby put her hand against the cool, smooth metal of the door. She swallowed, trying to think of what she could possibly say, when she heard movement inside.
“Ruby?” Bastian’s voice was low, full of gravel.
“Yes.” She swallowed a sob, nodding. “It’s me. Bastian, I… I’m…”
“Unlock the door,” Bastian growled. The door opened by itself, his telecom answering his order, revealing his bedroom, completely dark aside from the moonlight coming in from the window.
“Go on.” Mira nudged her, still whispering.
Ruby stepped into his room and the door closed behind her upon Bastian’s order. She jumped when she heard it lock.
He was sitting in a chair by the window, one long leg thrown over the arm. His face was turned away from her, so she could only see his profile.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warned hoarsely.
Ruby stopped
, feeling her whole body trembling at his tone. She’d never heard him like this before.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She heard him swallow, saw his throat working as he turned his face toward her, his eyes silver in the moonlight.
“Hurt me?” Her voice was high and breathy. “I don’t…”
“If you get too close, I’m going to take you,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice strained. She could see his hand gripping the arm of the chair, his knuckles pale. “I won’t be able to help myself… and I… don’t… want to hurt you.”