Love Galaxy (The Intergalactic Dating Show #1)

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sorin

L eaping up into the small room, I push Chloe out the open door, close it and snap the lock into place. If she protests, I cannot hear her over the wailing wind.

“I am going to kill you, Drah’os.” Turning to John Smith, I lunge for him.

He trips and falls through the open trap door to lay sprawled at the foot of the ladder. In an instant, I follow, yanking him upright.

“You wouldn’t dare,” he splutters, burrowing his chin into the collar of thickened skin designed to protect his throat. His tail is flicking. If it were long enough, I do not doubt he would have it wrapped around my throat.

“Oh, yes, he would.” Briar scrambles down to stand by my side. “In fact, I’ll do it myself.” Her face is deathly pale, and a dark bruise is forming across one cheek.

The sight of it feels like a knife to my gut. “We will toss your body to the wind, and it will tear your flesh from your bones.”

“The wind will turn your bones into dust,” Roan agrees. “Until there is no trace of you for anyone to find.”

John Smith jumps, evidently having failed to notice my brothers. “The show?—”

“No camera can survive outside,” I remind him.

“And you already turned off all the cameras in here.” Briar points to the one clipped to the bench, whose red light is noticeably absent. “You fucked up.”

I collect the only knife remaining in my kitchen. I do not need to slice through his throat to kill him. I could easily stab him through the heart. Or mayhaps I will cut off his limbs one by one, until he is begging for my Briar’s forgiveness.

“You cannot murder him,” Killan says, crossing his upper arms over his chest and leaning against my kitchen table. We might as well be discussing such mundane topics as crop rotations for all the emotion he is displaying.

“Don’t you start telling me what we can and can’t do.” Briar glares at my older brother, as if he is not more than two feet taller than her and more than twice her weight. As if she is willing to fight him, too, for a chance at revenge on John Smith. “After all the crap he’s put us through, I’m pretty sure killing him will be cathartic.” She smiles, her eyes sparkling. “Like therapy, only without the enormous price tag.”

Killan seems to droop where he stands, making it abundantly clear he does not believe he has time for our threats. “Really?” he demands, as if he is confronting a room full of younglings, not grown enough to know their own minds.

“Really,” she agrees, pressing her fists to her hips, then she winces, wrapping an arm around her stomach instead.

“You are hurt,” I almost drop the knife in my haste to help, but she waves away my concern.

“How about we take a vote?” She perks up at the sound of her own suggestion. “That’s actually a great idea. All for murder, raise your hand. I mean, hands.” And she lifts her right arm into the air.

Roan and I both copy, raising two right arms each. Then, for good measure, I raise my left arms too. The tip of the knife’s blade scrapes against the ceiling.

“Do I get to vote?” John Smith demands, but nobody pays him any attention.

Rather, Killan grabs Roan’s raised hands and yanks them back down. “Scudding fools,” he snaps. “Do you really think nobody will notice when the director of the most popular reality TV show goes missing? They will come asking uncomfortable questions and disrupting our business.”

“You are still thinking about the farm?” Roan yanks his arms free of Killan’s grasp and moves to stand by my other side. As he passes John Smith, he knocks the Drah’os Male with his shoulder.

“Yes,” Killan straightens to his full height. The tallest in the room, he is trying to cower us. “Someone has to think about the farm. Someone has to think about all of you.” He sweeps his lower arm in an arch, gesturing at Briar, Roan and me. “You do not really want to kill someone. You, Sorin, are angry because your Mate was threatened. You are not thinking clearly. By morning, you will realize what you have done, and you will hate yourself for it.”

“Party pooper.” Briar crosses her arms too, jutting out her lower lip. “We also might wake up tomorrow morning and feel really fucking proud of ourselves.”

He gives her a long, hard look.

She does not quite meet his eye.

“Briar,” I step in front of Killan, blocking him from her line of sight. “I will do this for you if?—”

“No.” She is reaching for me before she has finished speaking her denial. She wraps her arms around me and presses her face to my chest. The curtain of her hairs falls forward, hiding her expression, and I tuck some stands behind her ears, trying to glimpse her face.

“No?” I whisper the question, not wanting anyone else to hear.

She sighs, and I feel rather than see some of the fight drain out of her muscles.

“I wanted to pretend for a moment that we might really do it,” she confesses into the broad expanse of my chest.

I wrap my arms around her, holding her close. “Me, too.”

Silence fills my kitchen, then Briar is pulling back a little way so she can more easily tilt her chin up to see me. “I honestly don’t care what happens to Mr. Smith. I care only about you. So, so much, Sorin. I want you to be happy,” she confesses. “Killan’s probably right: murdering Mr. Smith isn’t what’s going to make you happy.”

I drop the knife, and it skids along the floor, stopping at Roan’s feet. My brother picks it up, his eyes narrowed, but before he can do anything, Killan wrenches the knife from Roan’s grasp and drops it into the sink.

“This is what is going to happen,” Killan tells John Smith, pointing a finger at his face. “You will finish filming LOVE GALAXY. You will show the universe how my brothers have fallen in love with their Females. You will advertise our farm favorably. And you will” — his voice drops as he glares at John Smith with so much hatred I am surprised the Drah’os Male is still standing under the weight of such emotion—“return Lydia to her home planet.”

“Briar, too,” I hasten to add. “If that is what she wishes.”

“It absolutely is not what she wishes.” Briar shakes her head, her hold around my waist tightening. “I’m not leaving you, Sorin. Not ever. I’ll be like a bad smell you can’t get rid of no matter how much you try.”

“Briar—” I start, confused as to why I am trying to convince the Female of my heart to leave me, except that I cannot imagine asking her to do anything she might regret.

“You don’t want me to stay?” She raises her expressive eyebrows in … confusion, I believe, releasing me and taking a step back.

Immediately, I miss the feel of her against my scales.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean—” I take a deep breath. “I want you to—” stay is what I had been going to say—“be happy,” is how I finish the sentence instead.

“I am happy.” She smiles, then winces, touching a hand to her bruised cheek. “I don’t think I’ve been happier in all my life. Well, being abducted wasn’t much fun. And I didn’t enjoy having to wear the same uncomfortable cocktail dress for two days straight, but still I’m?—”

“Cock’s tail?” Surely I would have remembered Briar wearing a cock’s tail… “Whose?!”

“What? No!” She hits me lightly on the arm. “Gross. Well, maybe… No. Well…” She shakes her head. “That’s not the point of this conversation. What I’m trying to say, you big idiot, is that I love you.”

I freeze.

Surely… Did she really say… Does she mean…

“Did you hear what I said?” She prods one of my booted feet with the toe of her own shoe. “I love you, Sorin. And I want to marry you… or what do you call it? Mate? I want to Mate you, Sorin. If you’ll have me.”

Roan shoves my shoulder. “Did you hear?” he hisses. “Scudding fek, Sorin, say something before she changes her mind.”

“Oh, I’m not going to change my mind. I’ve been thinking and thinking about almost nothing else for the past fourteen days. So when I say I want to stay here, I really, really mean it.”

“You said you wanted to murder John Smith when you did not really mean it,” Killan mutters.

Briar ignores him. “Sorin?” She takes one of my hands in both of hers. She is trembling, her palms hot and damp.

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. How can I find the words to describe all that I am feeling? My awe. My gratitude. My deep-seated hunger. When I look at Briar, I see my future, and it is a future I never before allowed myself to imagine. She is beyond my wildest dreams.

She is my everything.

“You want her to be happy,” Killan says, breaking the awkward silence echoing around my kitchen and sounding distinctly unimpressed. “She wants you to be happy. Congratulations. Now, can we get back to the matter at hand, before John Smith manages to complete his escape attempt.” And he grabs hold of our … prisoner? Director? Director-slash-prisoner? Before John Smith has made it halfway across the kitchen.

“His ship is outside,” Briar tells Killan, speaking over my shoulder. “So is Chloe.” She pretends to gag when she says the other Female’s name.

There are bruises on her fingers, I realize. And on her wrists. Physical proof, if any was needed, of how hard she fought to remain here with me.

“We will take them back to the main house,” Killan announces, “and then we will tell the other Females what has happened.”

“You know, Lydia might not be so mad at you if you stopped calling her female all the time . ” Briar calls to Killan’s back as he hauls John Smith up the ladder. If he hears her, he does not respond. Roan gives me one last glare, then follows our older brother.

For a moment, the sound of wind is almost deafening, and then the front door closes behind them. Almost tripping over my own feet, I pull the trap door closed, blocking out the rest of the world so that it is only Briar and me.

“So, about what I said a few minutes ago—” she begins.

“I love you.” The words tumble out of my mouth so fast they are almost indistinguishable from each other. Taking a deep breath, I attempt a slower version. “I love you, Briar. If you are absolutely sure staying here with me?—”

“Absolutely,” she interrupts, as she climbs onto the chair. Standing, she is finally taller than me, and she wraps her arms around my neck. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”