by Presley Hall
Earth. I’ve never heard of it.
But Vox has always been a somewhat isolated planet. That’s why none of my men had multi-language implants already. On Vox, only diplomats, traders, and royalty would have need of translator chips. I should have had one implanted after my father’s death, but my uncle Drokar denied me that right when he usurped the throne and claimed power.
“Is this your planet?” she asks. “Or did you crash too? I noticed there weren’t any women or children in your village.”
I grimace. The story of how I came to be here is a bit less accidental than hers. I know that the circumstances of my arrival aren’t exactly innocent, but the reasons behind it are noble. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me and my men, but I wouldn’t dream of lying to her either.
“Nuthora is a prison planet. My men and I were banished here.”
“Prison planet?” Charlotte looks up at me with furrowed brows, but she doesn’t pull away.
I speak quickly, wanting to get the full story out before she has a chance to leap to conclusions. “Yes. We were imprisoned for rebelling against our king. My uncle.”
She stays silent, listening as I continue.
“My father ruled our country on Vox, our home planet. When he died unexpectedly, my uncle Drokar took advantage of our people’s grief and confusion, swooping in to claim the throne. What should have passed down to me was stolen from me.” My jaw clenches, old fury bubbling up inside me. “Perhaps I would have forgiven his actions if he were actually a fair and just ruler. But from the first moment he took power, his actions were harsh, corrupt, and self-serving.”
My warriors and Charlotte’s people are still gathered around us, and several of them move closer, absorbing my story as well.
“I had to try to make things right,” I continue, my voice hard. “I gathered those who were loyal to me, loyal to Toorin, and we planned a rebellion against my uncle. But my brother betrayed me. He told Drokar of our plans, and my uncle was ready for our attack. We fought hard, but by the end, only a quarter of my warriors were left. Those of us who survived were sent into exile, banished to this prison planet.”
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry, Droth,” Charlotte murmurs, and the sympathy in her voice cuts through my pain like a knife.
She understands. She doesn’t see me or my men as criminals.
“My men and I are honorable. But the rest of the people on Nuthora?” I hold her gaze as I speak, wanting her to understand the seriousness of my words. “The ones in the city? The bands of raiders and outcasts who travel from place to place? Those people will slit your throat as soon as look at you, so we try to keep our distance. The solar council uses this place to deposit dangerous criminals rather than keeping them imprisoned in their territories.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t speak. Encouraged by her rapt attention, I keep going.
“We’ve been here for five years, and we’ve made the best of what we have. I try to keep the morale high by promising my men a chance at vengeance one day—somehow. That’s what I hope for anyway. A miracle. Maybe the gods will send it.”
My heart swells as I consider what the gods have already sent me. Despite everything I’ve lost, I still feel like the richest man in the universe as I gaze at the beautiful woman before me. I smile down at her.
“I’ve hoped for many things, but never in my wildest dreams did I dare hope to find my fated mate on this planet.” I run my fingers along the curve of her cheek, tracing the delicate slope. “I never thought that you would be so strong, so beautiful. So perfect. You can’t know how happy I am that the gods brought us together. It’s like a dream that I never want to wake from.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows twitch downward, and she blinks. The softness in her expression fades a little, replaced by confusion.
I frown, running through the words I’ve spoken in my mind, looking for something I said wrong.
Before I can figure out what it might’ve been, Charlotte takes a step backward, alarm joining the confusion on her face.
“Fated mate?”
24
Charlotte
What the hell?
I can’t quite wrap my head around the words that just came from Droth’s mouth.
After everything that’s happened between us, I’ve considered the fact that I might be giving him the wrong idea, but this is a whole new level of insanity.
He thinks we’re… mates.
And even more, that we’re fated to be so.
I’m all for romance, for sweet stories about couples that are seemingly made for one another, but that isn’t what this is. It can’t be. I’m married. I’m not even the same species as him.
“No,” I whisper, my brows pulling together. “That’s not—that can’t be possible.”
Droth takes a step toward me, his palms stretched toward me, his eyes a little wide. Imploring. Something tugs in my chest as I look at him, that same strange pull I felt when he held out his hand to me in the clearing after he killed that bird.
“It can, my kira, and it is. The gods have chosen us for each other. We’re destined, a perfect match, two parts of a whole.”
I’m not sure what “kira” means, but I’m guessing it’s a term of endearment that has no direct translation. My heart skips a beat at the word, and I can’t tell if it’s happiness or fear.
Honestly, I have no idea what I feel right now. Or what I should feel.
I take another step back, and Droth seems to realize that he needs to reel himself in. He stills, holding his hands out as if to reassure me that he means me no harm.
I know that though. I still believe that. Or at least, I believe he poses no threat to my body.
To my heart? I’m not so sure.
“Don’t you feel it too?” he asks quietly. “The connection? The spark that lights between us? Our spirits are bound together.”
I can’t answer that. I’m scared to answer that. I’m afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I speak the raw, honest truth.
Every time I touched him, the first time I looked at him, every time I hear his voice, when he holds me close… It all feels warm, perfect, and so right.
I’ve never felt more safe, more cherished, or more drawn toward a man before. The actual, physical feelings that shoot through my body are so strong every time he’s near me. It’s almost supernatural. I brushed it off at first, thinking that it was just a reaction to being starved of affection for years as I played the part of Joseph’s faithful wife, but that’s not it.
Nobody has ever had the sort of pull on me that Droth has.
I’ve never been the type to act wild or reckless. I’ve never even had a one-night stand. Before Joseph, I had a very brief encounter with a former boyfriend that didn’t really count as sex. There was a guy I made out with at a club in college, but even when I was sloshed, I didn’t go home with him.
Before Droth, I would have considered myself a cautious, practical person. But on this planet, I seem to have thrown caution to the wind. I slept with an alien man within twenty-four hours of meeting him—more than once. We couldn’t even communicate at the time.
But he was like a flame, and I was a moth unable to resist. He was so perfect in every way, so honorable and true in his actions, so free with showing me how much he wanted me, so respectful of my wishes even when he didn’t like them.
Holy shit.
Is this what falling in love feels like? Am I falling for this man?
A certainty settles in my stomach, something I can feel in my body even if my mind still resists.
It’s true. Whether I wanted to admit it all this time or not, I’ve been falling in love with an alien. But is it because of my actual feelings, or is it because of some weird hormonal pull that his species has, explained away as magic?
Hell, maybe it is magic. But whatever it is, it’s out of my control, and that thought makes panic well up inside me.
This can’t be real love. It’s synthetic, like a dr
ug.
I start walking away before I realize I’m moving. It feels like I’m underwater, the world going a little blurry around me. I can’t handle this right now. I need to process this, to find some way to explain it logically, and come up with a plan or something.
I climb up the cable and slip into the corridors of the ship, my limbs shaking as my breath comes in short gasps. Most of the women are on the ground outside, having all gathered around to be implanted with those translator chips just like Droth and I were.
About halfway down the hall, I slip into an empty room and lean my forehead against the wall, closing my eyes as I try to get a grip on my emotions. After a few seconds, I hear footsteps behind me.
“Charlotte, I’m sorry.” Droth’s voice is low and rough. “I thought you understood. I thought you knew what the mate bond is, what it means. I wished so many times that I could speak to you, that I could explain things to you.”
“Well, now I know.” I swallow around the lump in my throat, keeping my eyes closed. “We’re… bonded, I guess.”
“We are,” he says gravely. “But it’s not a sentence. It’s not a decree. The bond does not remove choice. It won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, and neither will I.”
Droth’s footsteps grow nearer, closing the distance between us. I feel the heat of him behind me just before he takes my shoulders with gentle hands and turns me around to face him.
“Nothing has changed, Charlotte.” His expression is serious, his cat-like eyes dark as he holds my gaze in the ship’s dim interior. “Surely you know how I feel about you. You must’ve known well before this.”
I nod, because I’m not deaf or blind. Everything Droth does, from protecting me to giving me the most intense orgasms of my life, has been a demonstration of how much he cares.
And I care about him too. On the journey here, I finally gave up trying to deny how I feel. But now… I don’t know what any of this means. I don’t know what’s real; everything is so confusing and off-kilter.
“This isn’t how I thought my life would go,” I whisper, clenching my jaw as I fight back tears. “I didn’t plan on any of this.”
Droth’s eyes soften. “Neither did I. All I know is that you are meant for me, and I am meant for you. I’ve never met a woman as brave and caring as you. You saved Xevar without hesitating, and you stood by my side when you thought we had to fight. Charlotte, you didn’t even know me then, or my men, but you did these things anyway because that’s the kind of person you are. I know that we’re made for each other, and the mate bond is just that—a bond. A connection. Not a shackle. Not a cage. It guides me toward you, but it doesn’t dictate the way I feel. I know what’s in my heart.”
My own heart thuds hard in my chest, crashing against my ribs as if it’s straining toward the man before me. Droth’s strangely beautiful eyes are wide and solemn, and in them I see only truth shining back at me.
God, I want to believe him. So badly.
He’s become dear to me so quickly, and even though I know that I have to go home, or at least try, the thought of life without this wonderful man seems bleak.
My limbs feel sluggish and almost numb as remnants of shock still ripple through me. But my feet obey my command, stepping closer to Droth until we’re almost chest-to-chest. As the warmth of his large frame radiates into mine, my muscles relax, my body reacting to his proximity like it always does.
I reach up, my gaze locked on his beautiful, open face.
Please let this be real.
Hope flares in his eyes, and when my hands cup his cheeks, I watch his eyelids droop, almost like my touch is a drug.
Is this a drug? This mate bond he’s been talking about? Is it just a trick of pheromones or hormones?
But the way I feel about Droth… it’s not just about the attraction between us, the chemistry that draws us together. I’ve seen who he is, and the feelings I’ve developed for him have been because of that.
Maybe he’s right. This mate bond isn’t a sentence. It only nudges us in the right direction, but the choice of whether to follow our feelings or not is up to us.
I swallow, feeling more nervous than I have since the first moment I met this alien warrior. Then I slide my hands around and thread them through the long hair at the base of his neck, rising up onto my tiptoes.
But before I can press my lips to his, a monstrous crack slices through the air.
I jump in shock, my heart slamming against my ribs. Droth’s head whips toward the noise.
Not even a second later, an explosion rocks the ground, followed by the acrid smell of smoke.
25
Droth
As the sound of the boom fades, my entire body is alert, tensed and ready for a fight.
Tugging Charlotte’s hands away from my neck, I press a quick, hard kiss to her knuckles before catching her gaze.
“Stay inside.”
With that command, I turn and dash out of the room, hurrying to the end of the corridor.
At first, I think it’s one of the females shooting at my men, but when I reach the end of the hallway and take in the scene below, my lips curl in a snarl.
A line of men is charging from the trees. Raiders, from the looks of it. Nearly twenty of them. Some have blasters, but most do not, thank the gods.
Every so often, one of the mines set into the ground explodes and sends a handful of raiders flying, but there are so many of them that it almost doesn’t seem to matter. A couple of them jolt before falling to the ground, taken down by one of the women’s rapid blaster fire.
My men are backed against the ship, their spears gripped tight. We had more advanced weaponry on Vox, but here, we’ve made do with the resources around us. Blasters and guns are rare on this planet, and it takes a heavy price to procure one.
The raiders are getting closer. The few who have been picked off have hardly made a dent in the line. We’re about to be overrun.
And then I remember what Jaro said earlier.
More blasters.
I run back down the hallway and pass through the double doors into the room where the translator chips came from. No women are guarding it now. As soon as I’m in the room, I start grabbing the mounted weapons on the wall. There aren’t many—not enough to arm all my men—but it will at least even the battlefield a bit. Time is running short, so I grab what I can, snatch up a box of ammunition cells, and bolt toward the end of the corridor.
I leap from the lip of the torn ship, sliding one-handed down the cable. My feet hit the ground with a thud as I land next to Axen, who’s holding his spear over his shoulder in a throwing position. I push a blaster to his chest, and he drops his long wooden weapon to grasp it. Quickly, I pass another to Kaide and shout for the men to grab more from the ship if they can find them.
The weapon I’m left with is a sleek, black hand blaster. Light, boxy, and deadly. I pop the fuel cell inside of the small compartment on the side and hold my forearm steady. The line of raiders is close now, having navigated through or set off most of the mines. I aim at the one charging toward me and fire. It’s been a long time since I’ve shot a blaster, and I hiss out a curse as the bolt goes wide.
A moment later, the line of charging raiders reaches us. Jaro appears next to me, his lips pulled back as he lets out a battle cry. Voxerans never fight alone if they can help it. A lone fighter in a battle is a dead one.
I pull the slide, and the blaster whirls, recharging.
Two seconds.
One second.
The whirling dies.
I take aim and fire, taking out a raider moments before he reaches me. He crumples to the ground, but three more take his place. They move as one and dive on top of me. One fires a blaster between us, and I’m vaguely aware of a sharp pain arcing through my body, gone just as quickly as it came.
Jaro shouts, throwing himself into the fray and joining me as I fight off the attacking raiders. He hurls one to the ground and follows that action with a stab of his
spear. The raider doesn’t get back up.
We take out a second man, working in tandem, and Jaro nods at me as the raider goes down. But the third man feints, ducking to the side before flying toward Jaro with his knife raised.
I aim my blaster, but before I can shoot, there’s another loud crack, and the raider jerks in midair before falling to the side.
I look up to see Charlotte standing at the mouth of the ship with a blaster in her hand, identical to mine. She’s got a hard look on her face as she stares down at me.
My beautiful warrior queen.
She lifts her weapon, taking aim again, and I want to be angry with her for putting herself in danger, but I find that I can’t be. I can only pray to the gods that we will all come out of this alive.
Blaster fire booms through the clearing, chased by howls of pain and shouts as both Charlotte’s and my people fight to defend their lives and the ship.
Nearby, Kzuri barrels toward a thick crowd of raiders. His spear is spinning and twirling, his body arcing and dodging. It’s been so long since we’ve had to fight like this, I’ve almost forgotten what a great warrior Kzuri is. He takes out several of our attackers, managing to hurl one man onto a mine. The boom reverberates across the clearing as the other raiders scatter away from Kzuri.
A scream slices through the air.
The sound of it makes my blood run cold, fear filling me like poison. When I whip my head around, I catch sight of several raiders crawling up the cable. One of them has already reached the top, and he has Charlotte pinned to the wall, dangerously close to the sharp, torn metal.
“Droth!”
It’s the first time I’ve heard her scream for me, and my entire body goes into overdrive. I have never run so fast in my life. The ground I eat up is a blur. I’m at the end of the cable, pulling myself up as fast as I can. All six of the raiders are in the ship now.