by Presley Hall
The alien’s knuckles brush against the corner of my eye, and then… something strange happens. His breath hitches, and his entire body stiffens as his oval pupils dilate. He’s staring right at me, but his gaze is so unfocused that I’m afraid he might faint.
Then his eyes sharpen, and he drills his focus into me with a sudden overwhelming intensity. Goosebumps rise up on my arms, making me shiver.
“Rhael,” he says in a low, steady voice.
It almost sounds like a command, self-assured and proud.
I wipe my sweaty palms on the fabric of my torn nightgown, my heart slamming against my ribs.
What the hell does that mean?
8
Droth
Mine.
She is mine.
I know it just as surely as I know my own name. As soon as I felt the wetness that seeps from her eyes, something constricted inside my chest so tightly that it hurt.
And then a rush of certainty flooded me, so strong it nearly knocked me off my feet.
This woman is my mate.
The gods have brought her to me, after so many years of denying me the thing I’ve always wanted so badly that it hurt to acknowledge. A partner. Someone to create a life with, a world.
“Mine.”
I say the word aloud, as if I must put my claim into the world, make it tangible and real before she vanishes in the wind the same way she came.
She doesn’t answer. Very likely, she doesn’t understand me. I can’t understand a word she’s saying either—but it doesn’t matter, we will figure it out. Language can be learned. All that matters is that I’ve found her, that she’s found me.
I touch her delicate cheekbone and trace the line of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. The fingers of my other hand are running over the wet skin below her eyes. She is so perfect. A fragile shard of glass that must be shrouded in everything soft and safe, and yet also a fearsome warrior who will protect me just as I will protect her.
Until my dying breath.
Because she is mine, and I am hers.
Her eyelashes flutter, drooping as she gazes at me. I marvel at the way she looks, the way she moves, the way she reacts to every little thing. Bolts of fire shoot through my veins like a fever. Her head turns to one side as she unconsciously leans into my touch, pressing more of her cheek against my palm.
My body responds instantly, a fresh wave of desire rising inside me. I’ve heard stories of the mate bond, and I knew many bonded pairs back on Vox. But knowing of the bond and experiencing it for myself are two entirely different things. It is so much more consuming than I thought it would be, filling my senses until all I can think of is my mate.
On Vox, there is usually a ceremony involved, but we need no other authority outside of the gods to make this a true mate bond. My mother would have been happy to see it.
The woman’s eyes are fully open again, her gaze locked on me. Her irises are green, dark like the leaves on the berry bushes, the color so vivid that it contrasts starkly with her pale skin.
“Who are you?”
The question slips past my lips on a whisper, and I step closer. I haven’t stopped touching her face. I can’t bear to let go of this connection between us.
The skin beneath my fingertips is so soft and smooth. I thought she was royalty from her garb, but her skin is even further evidence of her noble birth. Nobody has such soft skin save for small children and those who do not labor in the wild.
I wonder at the fact that the gods brought the two of us together—a prince and a princess.
Where did such a female come from? How is she here, on this planet full of outcasts and criminals? How has she come to be imprisoned with the rest of us, when her soul is so clearly incapable of evil?
“Where are your people?” I ask.
I suppose they’re my people as well now. That is how it is done on Vox—when the mate bond forms, it represents a joining of two bloodlines, and all become family. I’ve never heard of my kind bonding with outside species, so it’s difficult to determine what the custom will be in our situation.
“Where are they?” I repeat. “Where did you come from?”
She shakes her head, and my heart clenches. For a moment, I think she’s denying the bond. She can, by her own right, deny it. That is how the mate bond works—it must be entered into willingly. If she chooses to reject the connection between us, I would honor her wishes, but I desperately hope that she doesn’t.
She keeps shaking her head, her brows knitting together, and I realize that it’s not a rejection. It’s confusion.
“Curse the fates,” I mutter, frustration filling me.
I just want to be able to talk to her, to ask if she feels the same fierce pull that I do. I want to ask how she came to be here.
At the sound of my voice, she blinks. Her little frown clears away and lifts into a smile. The water isn’t coming from her eyes anymore. Something has improved her mood, and it lightens my own mood to see her happy. Or maybe it’s just that my language sounds funny to her ears.
“Fuupa wombo?” she murmurs.
She still has that small smile on her face, and it grows as she repeats my words. Her grin is contagious, and she’s so beautiful it makes my chest ache to look at her.
“Yes, curse the fates.” I smile back, unable to help it.
The connection between us surges, and my stomach feels light. I step closer to her, daring to hope that she wants me as much as I want her. Her laughter dies, and her eyes go a little wide, but she doesn’t step back.
My movements are slow, deliberate, giving her plenty of time to turn aside or push me away if she desires, but she doesn’t. I wrap one arm around her small waist, drawing her toward me.
Her chest brushes against mine now as I look down at her. Her lips are expressive and pretty, and I want so badly to feel them pressed to my own. Her heart is hammering behind her ribs, so hard I can feel it, and my own is beating like a war drum.
As I bend my head, she lifts her hands and rests them against my chest. My cock has calmed since the mate bond first struck me, but now it stiffens again, straining against my loincloth like a wild thing inside a cage.
Unable to resist her sweet scent, I brush my nose along her nose. Her entire body goes slack, almost completely held up by my embrace now.
My lips hover over hers, so close that I can feel her breath against my skin. She makes a quiet noise—barely audible, but there. A whimper, like she wants me to help.
The length between my legs swells even more. The pressure is too much.
It’s not the right way to go about things, but I want to lay her down and claim her right here on the ground. I almost did, earlier, when she opened her legs and looked right at me with such need in her eyes. If she asked for me to claim her now, I wouldn’t be able to deny her. I don’t think I could deny her anything at all.
Just as our breath entwines, as I am about to kiss my mate for the very first time, the foliage behind her shifts.
A loud screech rises up, and the gicnuk thunders out from the trees, its taloned feet thudding against the ground. It spreads its wings, revealing my spear still imbedded in one. Then it screams, the furious sound rocking through the forest around us.
My entire body tenses. I thought the beast flew away after I injured it, but it must’ve come back for the prey it dropped.
For my mate.
Protective fury wells inside me.
No. This creature cannot have her. She is mine, and I would die to keep her safe. I open my mouth wide, and the roar that blasts from my chest is enough to swallow the beast’s challenge.
9
Charlotte
For a moment, it felt like I was in some kind of dream, lost in a pair of strangely magnetic eyes. The alien man and I were pressed together, sharing warmth, sharing breath. His lips were so close to mine that all it would’ve taken was one tiny movement for us to kiss.
I think… I think I wanted him to kiss me.
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nbsp; But then a shrill screech sliced through the haze in my mind, and everything that was warm and soft came into snapping focus.
The bird.
That damn bird.
The monstrous thing screeches again, and the hair on the back of my neck prickles.
My legs feel frozen in place as I watch the man who was so gentle with me just moments ago transform into something else. His eyes turn dark and feral, and his mouth drops open as a roar tears from his throat. I notice in a daze that he has slightly elongated canines, longer than any I’ve ever seen on a human.
As the bird charges, the man lunges forward, shoving me out of the way so that I’m out of the beast’s path. I land on the mossy ground and roll, the air leaving my lungs for a moment. Despite my somewhat rough landing, I know he just saved my life.
Panting for breath, I scramble to my feet and dash behind a tree, peeking around its thick trunk to see what’s happening.
The man ducks beneath the bird’s snapping beak, darting in close enough to its huge body that he’d be crushed if the bird fell over. The bird cranes its neck and snaps at the man again, but he twists his hips and tucks himself under its massive wing. One moment, the spear is stuck in the wing, waggling awkwardly with every movement, and in the next breath, the weapon is ripped out from below.
The bird screams again. It lifts its wings and tries to take flight, but the alien warrior thrusts the weapon into the thing’s torso. Veins bulge in the man’s arms and his teeth are bared as he struggles to bring the massive beast down.
The bird arches and twists, its wings stirring up huge gusts of air as it tries to take flight—but then the alien roars again.
My heart is galloping in my chest. I’m terrified that the bird will win. I’m afraid it will carry this man away, and that it will come back for me next. The alien’s war cry rattles me to my core, and I dig into the tree with my fingernails.
The muscles in the man’s abdomen flex, his legs bracing as his shoulder muscles tighten. The skewered bird strains against the shaft buried in its torso, but in the end, it’s futile. The man somehow manages to bring a creature that must weigh several times what he does to the ground in an arc, slamming its body onto the forest floor like the strike of a hammer.
The bird gives a final, futile thrash of fury. Its legs swing wildly, and the scythes of its talons catch on the alien.
I’m far away, but even I can’t miss the gash that opens up in his skin. Something dark and blue falls from the wound, rolling down his skin like blood. No, it is blood.
The warrior doesn’t even look at the injury. He barely seems to notice it. The bird is on the ground, struggling to break the spear pinning it to the dirt. The alien yanks his spear from the bird’s chest and thrusts it down again in one fluid movement. As soon as the spear pierces its breast, the bird lets out a muted cry, beating its wing as death throes wrack its body.
The man goes flying, hurled backward by the bird’s final, jerky movements. He slams against the ground several yards away, and the bird finally goes still.
In the aftermath of so much noise and chaos, the jungle is deathly quiet.
I blink, trying to swallow past a suddenly dry throat.
This is too much. Too much of everything.
No way am I sticking around to see which one of them will have friends coming to look for them. I need to get back to the women from my ship, to people who can speak my language, to the wrecked spacecraft that we need to somehow put back together to get back home.
I turn and push away from the tree. My mind fills with visions of a thousand aliens arriving on the scene with spears and questions, and me not being able to answer a single one. Or a thousand giant birds diving at my head, as big as elephants and as pissed off as a flock of crows.
Maybe the other women aren’t even alive anymore. Maybe more birds came and picked them off one by one.
Maybe I’m alone on this strange planet.
Maybe I’m fucked anyway.
Dozens of terrifying possibilities float through my mind as I take off running, driven purely by panic. I try my best to dodge the branches and undergrowth of the forest, but my stupid nightgown keeps getting caught on twigs and brambles.
They scratch against my skin as I race by, but I can barely feel any of that. Something else is floating up through the panic in my chest, and I know it well enough to call it by its name.
Guilt.
My pounding footsteps slow as I think of the man and the way he smiled, the way he held me with such care. I remember the strange sense of belonging I felt in his arms, like he wanted me—just me, nobody else.
He was kind to me and he protected me, and I just left him there to die. No matter what other duties call to me, no matter how freaked out I am, that isn’t right. He doesn’t deserve that. I need to go back, to make sure he’s not dead at the very least.
My heart is still beating hard, fear still trickling down my spine like ice water. But a sudden certainty fills me.
I can’t leave him. Not like this.
Turning around, I begin picking my way back through the forest. After a few minutes, I catch sight of the bird and the man in the distance, both of them still lying on the ground. My heart does a little stutter in my chest, and I pick up my pace as worry eats at me.
Please be alive.
I don’t know why I’m so desperately concerned about this stranger, but I tell myself it’s for pragmatic reasons.
If he is alive, then there’s a possibility he can help me find my ship and the other women. The bird carried me a very long way, and the alien man probably knows the geography of this planet. Far better than I do, anyway.
The logical part of my brain, usually much louder than my spontaneous side, wonders if the alien is really as kind as he first appeared. After all, people pretend to be things they’re not all the time to get what they want.
He could be malicious. He could be dangerous. He could be a liar.
But he wasn’t just kind to me. He was brave too. He could’ve just run from the bird, possibly dragging me along behind him. But instead, he pushed me out of its path and attacked it to protect me.
And he didn’t hesitate. Not even for a second.
Urged on by my thoughts, my feet move even faster, and I sprint the last several yards to his side.
When I reach him, I drop to my knees in the grass, turning him over onto his back and scanning his body for wounds.
Bits of dirt cover his skin, and he’s got a few scrapes and cuts. There’s one gash on his arm that’s particularly bad, probably from where the bird swiped at him with its talons. The color of his blood is a dark purplish blue.
I grasp his strong chin and turn his head a little, checking for any injuries to his skull. I don’t see any blood in his dark hair, and there’s none on the ground beneath his head either.
He’ll probably have a nasty bump in an hour or so, but he should wake up soon if he didn’t hit his head too hard. I don’t know how alien concussions work, but I’m going to assume that they aren’t that different from human ones. Once he wakes up, I’ll have to make sure he stays conscious until we can get to someone who can help him.
My hand smooths his hair away from his face, and I lean over him, gazing down at his features. It’s nice, in a way, to be able to study him while he isn’t awake. It would feel too intimate if he were looking right back at me.
Without him watching me back, I don’t have to feel awkward for being curious about his strange beauty. He’s got beautiful, ornate markings up and down his body, like tattoos. They’re white and stand out starkly against his pearly blue-grey skin—curved and subtle on his ribs and hips, but sharp and bold on his arms and shoulders.
His cheekbones are high and chiseled. The kind that male models and movie stars back on Earth break hearts with.
I don’t mean to touch them, but I do. The sensation of his warm skin under my fingers is nice. I could probably touch his face all day, studying and exploring him. I brush
my thumb along the line of his jaw and marvel at the soft texture of his skin. There’s not even a hint of stubble.
Suddenly, his hand flies up. Strong fingers wrap around my wrist faster than I can blink.
“Shit!”
I gasp, my body jerking away on instinct. The man’s eyes are open now, wild and flashing, and his lip is lifted, showing off his sharp canines.
My heart lodges in my throat.
Maybe I was wrong about him not being a threat.
10
Droth
No.
I will not lose.
The gicnuk will not take my mate.
As I struggle through the fog of darkness and open my eyes to the sun, I’m tensed and on-edge, ready to keep fighting.
I will not lose this battle. I will protect my mate. I will destroy anything that tries to stop me.
There’s a figure hovering above me, touching me. I grab the thing brushing against my face, ready to throw it away from me. But then the figure comes into focus.
The first things I see are wide green eyes, and then the rest of my mate’s face sharpens into fine definition. Her mouth is open slightly, her nostrils flared. As she tugs her wrist away, a swell of guilt tightens my chest. I don’t want her to be afraid of me.
I unwind my fingers from around her wrist when she pulls against my hold again. Her eyes are big and round, and the sight of her frightened face forces clarity back into my groggy mind. I remember now. The bird’s claw struck me, but I managed to gain an opening and kill the beast. It’s dead. I can see its body over her pale shoulder, collapsed on the ground. There is no reason to keep fighting.
I inhale deeply through my nose and sit up. At my movement, the woman scoots backward like a startled animal. Her reaction breaks my heart. I wish I could make her understand that she is the only person in this world who need never fear me.
When I get to my feet, I hold my hand out to her. My head is pounding a little, but it’s of no consequence. There are more important matters to deal with.