by R. R. Banks
After just a few seconds of feeling calm and in control again, however, I heard the loud pounding and again became afraid. I sat up in the bed and pulled the covers up around me, pulling my knees to my chest like I always did when I felt scared. It was a protective position that made me feel like I was retracting into my shell. Too many memories of nights spent just like that in my bed at home, or in the corner of my bedroom, or even, on particularly horrible nights, curled in the closet just like that so that I could try to guard myself as much as I could.
"Samira?"
I heard my name added to the pounding and instantly recognized the voice as belonging to Ty. He was standing at the front door to my house, knocking insistently on the door and calling me. When I listened to his voice, however, I realized that it was not anger or frustration, but genuine concern and worry for me that was causing him to call out to me so loudly. I gathered my blankets close around me and hurried across the house to the door.
"Yes?" I said, pulling the door open and stepping behind it as much as I could to conceal myself while still being able to look at him.
I could see Ty's eyes scanning what of my body he could see and then snap up to mine, a look that somehow combined intrigue and shame crossing his face. He was even more gorgeous now that I was looking at him in daylight. Rather than the Mohawk style I had seen among most of the other men, Ty wore his stark white hair down and loose except for a braid down the center of his head that reached to the base of his neck. I am not a small woman, yet he towered over me, making me feel small and delicate. This was something I had never felt, and I loved it. I wanted to explore more of it, to see just how powerful he was and how well he knew how to use that power.
"Ty?" I said, realizing that he hadn't said anything since I opened the door.
He shook his head hard like he was trying to bring his thoughts back into reality and gestured behind him.
"The king and queen want you to come to meet them and to have breakfast in the meeting hall. Usually human visitors have to report to them first, but since you were a bit of a surprise, they weren't in the hall last night when you arrived and said that it was fine to have your greeting this morning."
I was confused by the formality of it, and by being described as a "surprise".
"I thought that Zuri told everyone that I was coming."
"She did, but we didn’t get the communication until right before your arrival. Ero sent the message when he arranged transport back here, but the transportation officials didn't let us know until the day before you got here. "
"I don't understand. If they didn't tell everybody that I was coming, how did they have a house ready for me and how did they choose you as my guard?"
A bit of panic was starting to build in my chest. It was that feeling of being out of place and unwanted. I didn't want to be an imposition to anyone and my mind was suddenly reeling with plans for how I was going to get myself back to Earth now that the shuttle was already preparing to leave and there was no way I would be able to get back on it before take-off.
"You aren't an imposition," Ty said and then suddenly looked shocked.
I looked at him, stunned. He had just responded to what I was thinking, using my exact words to comfort me.
"How did you know that I was thinking that?"
He stuttered for a few seconds like he was trying to come up with words to explain what had just happened, and then I noticed his eyes had dropped again. Without realizing it, I had stepped out from behind the door and was standing fully in front of him. My blankets had slipped down slightly and he could plainly see that I sleep naked with the top of the blanket barely covering my nipples and the two sides wrapped around me closed just beneath the apex of my thighs. His eyes lifted to mine and felt my breath deepen slightly. I had known this man for just a few hours, but in that moment all I wanted was for him to touch me. The feeling was overwhelming, deep and intense like it was something that had always been in me but that I was just discovering.
Instead of fulfilling that wish, however, Ty turned his eyes away from me and cleared his throat softly. I gathered my blankets closer around me reluctantly and stepped backwards into the house.
"Do you want to come in while I get dressed?"
He shook his head.
"I'll just wait here."
Feeling slightly hurt, I closed the door and went back to my bedroom to get dressed. I wasn't sure what to wear. He had mentioned the king and queen, but I knew from Zuri that they weren't like the kings and queens you hear about from history classes at Earth. She described them as kind and approachable, people who associated with the rest of the tribe that they ruled with compassion, affection, and respect. Still, they were the monarchs and I didn't want to offend them with my clothing. I wished Zuri were there to help me.
Suddenly I felt like I heard Ty's voice in my head telling me that I would look beautiful in anything. It sent a shiver down my spine and brought a flutter to my belly. Smiling to myself for reasons that I didn't fully understand at the time, I draped my blankets back over my bed and dressed.
Chapter Four
Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit.
Ty sighed and sagged back against the door to Samira's house. How could he be so stupid? Tuning into the thoughts of another person was extremely intimate, which is why it was something that only mates, with a few very specific exceptions, shared. It was part of the bond that occurred between the men of his kind and their women, and it allowed them to stay fully connected. This could be very helpful when they needed to find each other, when one needed the help of the other, or they wanted to express something private to each other without anyone else hearing it.
The fact that he could already connect with Samira was startling to say the least, considering they had never even touched each other much less bonded. Now he had been dumb enough to not only listen to her thoughts, but reply to her both speaking to her and sending his own thoughts to her. He knew he was probably scaring the hell out of her, or at the very least making her think that she was crazy. He hadn't even decided yet what he was going to do about these intense feelings he was experiencing for the stunning but so young woman that was now dressing in the house behind him. This was not a good time to start toying with her by listening to her thoughts and sending her his without her understanding what was going on.
He had been chastising himself for a few minutes when he felt the door give way behind him and fell back. Samira let out a scream and he turned as he fell so that he came down on his hands rather than on his back. His fall had caused her to fall and land on her back, which meant that he landed over her, his hands on either side of her and his face level with hers. They lay there for a few tense seconds, staring at each other. Their breaths came out ragged, mingling between them and surrounding them with a sound that only partially concealed the pounding of their heartbeats.
Ty could see something flicker in her eyes. It looked like desire and when she licked her lips, he almost lost the control he had been struggling so hard to maintain around her. She was even more startlingly beautiful when he was this close to her, but she still looked so young. He felt like he would be taking advantage of her if he gave into his craving for her at that moment, and if he did that he would never be able to forgive himself.
She was not tiny like Eden, Eliana, or Leia, but taller like Zuri. The extra inches made it so that their bodies lined up perfectly and he had to move extremely carefully to get out of the position hovering over her so that she didn't feel his raging cock pressing down on her. It was like it had a mind of its own, straining against his pants as it tried to get to her, just knowing that hers was the body it was made for.
"I'm sorry," he muttered, climbing backwards and standing up.
He wanted to reach down to help her up, but he worried about being able to maintain his self-control if he touched her in that moment. It was already taking everything that he had not to sweep her off of her feet and carry her back into the bedroom where
he could spend the rest of the day bonding with her. He didn't want to test his capacity to withhold himself if he touched her skin, even just her hand, in that second.
"It's alright," she said, standing up and brushing herself off, "I'm sorry I didn't realize you were leaning against the door."
He looked at her fully and saw that she had put on a pair of tight black pants and a black shirt that hugged her curves and dipped low over her breasts, creating an enticing swell of cleavage. His mouth watered and he felt his heart start to pound. They needed to get out of her house as soon as possible.
A few minutes later they were walking through the compound toward the meeting hall. Ty noticed that she was able to keep up with him without struggle thanks to her long legs and a fast pace that made her breasts bounce and her long, thick hair sway across her back. Suddenly she turned to him.
"You never answered me when I asked how the house was ready for me if nobody knew I was coming until right before I got here."
"That house was originally intended for Zuri. It was the one chosen for her when she came here the first time for her teaching position, and when she left so suddenly it was just left there without anybody living in it. We assumed that whoever took her place as the new exchange program professor would end up moving into that house, but then we found out that Ero had gone after her and that she would be returning with him."
"So if that is the house that was supposed to be hers, where is she living now that she's back?"
Ty glanced at her strangely. He assumed the human girls would have filled her in on all of the gossip from the planet, especially the mating between Zuri and Ero considering she was Zuri's friend.
"She's with Ero. She's his mate, that's why he went after her."
"His mate?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"They didn’t tell you any of this?"
"Everything was kind of a whirlwind. I wasn't even expecting to see Zuri again for months. I had no idea that she had come home so quickly after leaving. I was staying in her house after an issue with my stepfather and she showed back up, and then the next morning Ero got there and it was all very fast after that. I didn't ask any questions."
He could see the hurt and fear in her eyes and felt the need to comfort her. Ty lifted an arm and rested it gently around her shoulders. He worried that she would pull away from him or be intimidated, but she didn’t. Instead, she seemed to relax a bit at his touch. She stepped a little bit closer to him so that her hip brushed his as they walked.
"May I ask what happened with your stepfather?"
He wasn't even sure what the term meant, but from the way she said it he could tell that whoever that man was, he had done something terrible to her. Samira must have noticed the hint of uncertainty in his voice because she glanced up at him with a smile.
"You don’t know what a stepfather is, do you?"
Part of him wanted to pretend that he did so that he didn't look dumb in front of her, but at the same time, he knew that the goal of the exchange program with Earth was to bring humans over so that they could educate the Denynso about the cultures, customs, and history of the planet and its people so she was probably not surprised that he was unsure of some of what she said. Finally he shook his head.
"My mother and my father got divorced when I was pretty young, then she married…," she hesitated as if she couldn't bring herself to say the word that was right at the tip of her tongue. She closed her eyes and let out a breath, "she married her second husband, which is what a stepfather is. Does that make sense?"
She didn't say it like she was mocking him and Ty realized that he really enjoyed learning more about the other planet, even if it was something that broke his heart even to think about.
"I guess. I mean, I get what you are saying, but I have to admit I don't really understand it. We don’t have divorce among the Denynso."
She looked surprised.
"You don't? Everybody just stays married no matter what?"
"Well, no. We don't get married. We bond. There is only one other person in the entire existence that can create a bond with each of us, and once we have found that mate and complete the bond, it is for life. There is no such thing as two mated people just deciding that they no longer want to be mates and then finding new mates. They are with their mates, or they are alone. That's just the way it is."
She got a soft, almost sad look in her eyes and Ty stopped walking so that he could turn her to face him. He wanted to be closer to her, just to look at her. The feelings building inside him were threatening to overwhelm him, and even though he felt guilty for even thinking about her that way, he needed to feel her near him.
"And they're happy?" she asked, looking up at him.
Ty nodded, reaching up to brush a strand of her dark hair away from her face. He traced the curve of her jawline with one fingertip. She was so beautiful. He had never seen any woman that looked like her, that was so breathtaking he literally couldn't stop looking at her.
"I have never seen Pyra, Gyyx, Ciyrs, or Ero as happy as they are now. Finding our mate is something that we look forward to our entire lives. We know that once we find her, we will be complete. The bond is something that can't be broken and I have never known a mated pair to ever be unhappy together."
"Never?"
"I mean, they argue, of course. There's always going to be bickering and disagreements between people who truly love each other. They don't last, though. Nothing keeps them from wanting to be together."
As they spoke their bodies had drawn closer to each other and Ty could see her trembling slightly. He touched her face again, bringing his fingers beneath her chin so he could tilt her face up to look at him again. He wondered if she could feel it too; if she understood what was happening between them and what it meant. She tilted her face so that her cheek pressed further into his palm and Ty started to ask her what she was feeling when he heard someone shouting his name from behind them.
Chapter Five
The sound of the deep, gruff voice calling Ty's name jolted me out of the peaceful calm that he had created between us and I stepped back away from him. His hand fell away from my face and I immediately missed his touch. He was so incredibly sweet, so caring and attentive in a way that I had never experienced. When he talked about the mated couples and how happy they were together, I felt my heart reaching out to him, seeming to melt with each of his words. There was something in the way he was saying them that made it feel like he was telling me much more than just about how they created partnerships in his culture.
What really stood out to me about what he had said was the concept of bonding as opposed to marriage. He hadn't explained what the bonding was or how they went about knowing that they both wanted to bond, and I was desperate to find out. The way he talked about it was so reverent and mysterious, but at the same time, when he said it I could feel a primal heat and energy come off of him. My body responded instantly and again I felt the need for him to touch me. It was unlike anything I had ever felt about another guy. The teenage boys that flocked around me and even the older students at the university had been a bore and even though I dated, I never felt a strong connection to anyone. Now all I could think about was Ty and the way I craved him.
"Tyant!"
The booming voice sounded intense and demanding, almost like whoever was yelling was trying to be forceful and intimidating to whoever was around to listen, but particularly to Ty. I saw Ty's eyes close briefly before he turned around to face the man walking toward us. He had the Mohawk of the other men and the long stride of a warrior. I immediately tensed. Pyra, Gyyx, and Ero seemed nice in the very brief time that I had had to interact with them, but I was quickly finding that I didn't like the other warriors very much. Their aggressive, almost violent personalities made me feel the same type of crushing oppression that I had become accustomed to feeling from my stepfather and I was not about to let myself feel that again when I had just so narrowly escaped him. I came here to get away from the things
that frightened me and held me back, if only for a little while, and the thought of them putting me right back into that feeling was something I couldn’t tolerate.
"The king and queen want you now," the man said as he approached.
He wasn't looking at Ty, but at me. I saw his eyes scour over my body and lock on my mouth. He licked his lips and I felt my body stiffen uncomfortably. There was none of the gentleness, the connection in his eyes that was in Ty's, and I noticed that his eyes remained a dark purple color rather than shifting occasionally to orange as I noticed that Ty's did.
Ty stepped up closer to me and I felt myself leaning toward him.
"We're on our way," Ty said.
"Maybe I should take over from here," the man said, "After all, shouldn’t our lovely new guest have a warrior to protect her like the other human women have?"
"Ciyrs isn't a warrior," Ty said.
"Ciyrs didn't escort Eliana when she first came here. Pyra did. But as we know, Pyra is extremely mated and has a little more on his plate than the rest of us do, so there seems to be a position open that requires a warrior to step in and take over. You did a fine job getting her to her house, but I'll take it from here. Why don't you go on back home and bake something?"
The words were so vicious that even I felt the venom coming off of them and I shifted uncomfortably. I didn't feel like a person in that moment, but more like a toy that these two men were batting around between them, trying to gain dominance over the other.
"She was given to me," Ty protested.
"Excuse me?" I said, taken aback by the words coming out of Ty, "Given to you? Is that what you men do on this planet? Just gather up the women as they step off of the shuttles from Earth and hand them out like party favors?"
Tears were stinging in my eyes and I felt like I couldn't be near either of the men anymore. While I was furious with the warrior for his arrogance, I was heartbroken by Ty. He had been so sweet and suddenly he seemed just like all of the other men who had come my way.