Chapter 30
ARDRUC
The reptilian pilot’s name was Bejo, his copilot was Karff, and after a night dangling in cages made from vines and branches, they disliked us a great deal.
Our money, on the other hand, they liked well enough.
After a brief, profanity-laden negotiation and my assurance their ship would be returned relatively unscathed from its underground storage, they accepted our terms and agreed to deliver us to their client on Fortusia once we had facilitated a first meeting between the Alliance envoy and the Vorsa, represented by Ka.
Once the deal was struck, Vorsa World released our guests at my request. We allowed them to use the vacant apartment recently occupied by Dr. Rg and provided a meal. I chose to ignore their complaints about the synthesized food, especially since they ate everything set before them.
We deactivated all computer interfaces in the apartment to prevent them from contacting anyone, and prepared to secure them inside to await the arrival of the envoy and our planned departure.
“We made a deal,” Bejo snarled from where he was sprawled on the sofa. “We can’t leave the planet without a ship. Why lock us in here with these…” He gestured at the two Vorsa hovering near the door. “Things?”
“For your own safety,” I said. “They do not trust you, and you may do or say something they misinterpret as a threat to us.” I growled. “You nearly killed my mate and I, so I would be well within my right to leave you imprisoned outside.”
“Shut up, Bejo. It’s a big improvement over a fucking cage.
” Karff headed for the bedroom. “They let us use an actual water shower instead of a sanitizer,” he said over his shoulder.
“And I haven’t slept in a real bed for months.
You can complain about the accommodations if you want. I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Wise choice,” I said, and backed into the corridor. “We will return when we are ready to leave. If you require anything in the meantime, inform your guards.”
“Asshole,” Bejo said. He propped his boots on the sofa’s armrest and pointedly ignored me.
I puffed smoke out my nostrils. At least they had sanitized their clothing and washed themselves and no longer smelled of body odor and engine grime.
Oddly, I sensed grudging respect from Bejo despite his combativeness.
Because we were now paying clients? Or because despite what they had done to us, we had shown them courtesy they likely rarely received?
I was not sure, but I felt less uneasiness about their presence than I had earlier—especially once I secured the apartment.
Elena’s familiar footsteps echoed in the corridor. I turned just as she came around the corner from the direction of her lab, accompanied by Forux. My hearts lightened immediately.
“Your tail is swishing all over the place,” she said with a smile as she rose up on her tiptoes to give me a kiss. She smelled strongly of one of her lichen samples, a rich fragrance I enjoyed very much. “I never knew it moved so much until these last few days.”
I sighed in feigned displeasure. “It is very unbecoming for a director of research to have a tail that swishes all over the place.”
“That depends on who you ask.” She raised an eyebrow. “I personally think it’s quite becoming for my dragon’s tail to swish when he sees me. If ever it didn’t, I would be very concerned that he no longer considered me his little mate.”
Her teasing was such a joy. “In serious academic or diplomatic settings, I may be forced to ensure my tail maintains a more formal disposition.” I slid my hand down her hip to cup the perfect curve of her ass.
“I would hate to think my little mate might misinterpret my decorum as a lack of desire to be deep inside her.”
Elena’s smile turned impish. “In that case, I would simply invite my dragon to excuse himself from the serious setting to find a nice, private spot where he could thoroughly reassure me that he did indeed desire to be deep inside me.”
I scooped her up so she could wrap her legs around my hips and I could kiss her thoroughly. “My playful little mate.” I rested my forehead on hers. “I am the luckiest man in the cosmos.”
“In this solar system, at least.” Her smile faded. “I’m so worried.”
“I know.” I kissed her again, very lightly. “We have much to worry about. But my hearts tell me we will prevail, and so will the Vorsa and their world.”
Her mouth quirked. “A gut feeling, Dr. Data Points?”
“My confidence in you,” I countered very seriously, while inwardly chuckling over this new nickname—or perhaps an old nickname now used fondly rather than in exasperation. “It is easier to believe in good outcomes when I know you are committed to achieving them.”
“Shameless flattery.” She tapped my nose with the tip of her finger and the rested it there. “Don’t think for one moment I’m susceptible to such obvious manipulation.”
Lightning fast, I caught her finger in my teeth. She yelped and then giggled.
Dr. Elena Regis giggled.
She took advantage of my astonishment to escape my teeth. “Are you going to put me down?” she asked, still chuckling as she inspected the little marks I had left on her fingertip.
“Only if I must.” I gave her one last kiss and put her back on her feet. “We have a full day’s work ahead of us, which is unfair when I want so much to whisk you back to our quarters or out to our forest shelter for an hour’s worship on my bed.”
“Oh, it’s your bed, is it?” she huffed. “And here I was thinking it was my bed too.”
She spun on her heel to leave, but I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back snugly against my chest. We fit together so well despite our different heights and body types. It was another reminder of how perfect she was.
“It is always our bed,” I murmured in her ear, and she shivered. “But when I share it with my mate, it is an altar and I must worship her upon it.”
I slipped my hand into the front of her pants and over her silky underwear. Through the fabric, I felt her heat and the little nub of her clit as I curled my hand around her pussy.
Elena gasped and squeezed her thighs to trap my fingers. My cock throbbed and my tail quivered.
“I am counting the minutes until I can be inside you here,” I said softly. “Think about that while you work in your lab today, little mate. I am counting each and every minute.”
She whimpered. Gods, I loved that sound. It emptied my head of nearly everything but visions of trapping her beneath me and making her scream my name.
I withdrew my hand and released her. “Time for work, Doctor.”
“Yes it is, Doctor.” She sauntered back toward her lab with extra sway in her step as if daring me to catch her and wrap my hands around those perfect hips. But I wanted her to anticipate what I might do to her tonight, so I watched her until she rounded the corner out of sight.
We must find time for another hunt in the woods before we left for Fortusia. My eyes and skin warmed with the desire to track her, and my nostrils flared to drink in her lingering scent.
Little mate, little mate…
With a chuckle, I headed for my own lab with a song in my hearts.
Elena and I finished our workday just after 1900 hours.
The Alliance diplomatic envoy was due to arrive at Nova Cal at 2200 hours, about an hour after we had been told the team of Engaren-based investigators would reach the location where Ka claimed the Nyvorans were stealing resources from the planet they had sworn to keep pristine in return for trade concessions and other benefits, as well as the good of this world.
I had envisioned spending the hours between leaving my lab for the evening and the envoy’s arrival hunting my mate in the forest and then worshiping her until she was sated and the omnipresent desires of my mating frenzy eased.
But the moment we met in the hall and I saw her anguished expression, that plan changed.
“I’m so worried,” she said and wrapped her arms around me. She was trembling. “I want to be there to see the evidence for myself when the investigators arrive. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t.”
So instead of hunting her in the forest, I cradled my Elena on our bed, wrapped her in my wings and pheromones, and cooed until she dozed against my chest. That my hearts were quiet and my body had adapted so quickly from what I had wanted to what she needed astounded me.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I know this wasn’t what you’d planned for the evening.”
“There is no need to apologize. I planned to spend the evening with you.” I rested my chin lightly on top of her head. “I am not suffering any hardship by comforting my mate when she needs me.”
“Even with the frenzy? We haven’t made love since…” Her voice trailed off. “Since we flew together yesterday.”
“Even so.” I kissed her hair. “My body adapts to your needs. And even if it did not, my hearts would never let me demand sex when you need quiet comfort.”
She still seemed troubled, so I cooed until she sighed and snuggled closer.
“Have you ever met this Violet Storey, the Alliance envoy?” I asked, my voice quiet. “The file says she is a human born and raised on Fyloria.”
“No.” She kissed my chest. “My mother’s note on the dossier said they’ve known each other pretty much all their lives, but Violet had already moved to Engaren before I was born.
She’s apparently one of the most senior and highly decorated members of the Diplomatic Corps.
” She snorted softly. “Of course my mother knows someone like that.”
“If she can help us ensure the Vorsa and their world are protected and freed from Nyvor’s custodial care, then I will be forever grateful to both your mother and to you for choosing to ask for her help.
” I laced our fingers together. “It is 2100 hours, little mate. The investigators should be arriving at their destination now.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Thank you for comforting me. I would have worn a path into the tile with my pacing without you.” She moved so she could see my face.
“If everything goes like we want it to, what do you think will happen to Nova Cal and the other research stations? The Nyvorans built them. The Vorsa don’t like them, so I wouldn’t feel right asking them to keep them.
And they just remind me how the Nyvorans betrayed this world and lied to everyone. ”
My chest ached. “I do not know what will happen to the station,” I said.
“Everything you say is true, and I agree the decision belongs to the Vorsa. My own hearts are torn. I have called Nova Cal home for more than two years. You and I met here and first made love on its roof. I will be sorry to see it go, or to leave it.”
“Me too.” She swallowed hard. “If we are able to stay, though, we will make a new home for ourselves—one that blends the ways of Vorsa World with our research needs. And I would like to see similar stations elsewhere on the planet, staffed with researchers we choose, who are as dedicated to learning about and protecting this wondrous world as we are. That’s my dream. ”
“Mine as well.” I breathed in her scent and settled her against my chest once more.
My dreams were all of Elena and a home here studying korae while my mate researched its fungi. When I pictured it, my soul was still and peaceful. But many things stood between us and realizing that dream.
Some time later, my sharp ears caught the faint hum of the landing beacons activating.
“The envoy is arriving,” I murmured to Elena, who had welcomed Forux into her lap when the sleepy arval demanded snuggles.
“Right on time.” She stretched and relocated Forux to the bed, where he resumed his nap. “The waiting was the worst part. I think I’m ready to facilitate the initial meeting between the first known plasma-based life forms and one of the Diplomatic Corps’s most decorated envoys.”
For all her earlier nerves, rather than appearing anxious, she seemed to have regained her confidence. That did not surprise me at all.
Dr. Elena Regis was brilliant and indomitable. She had simply needed to remember that—no small feat after the whirlwind of the past week. And in the future, whenever she forgot how wonderful she was, it would be my privilege to remind her.
She rose from the bed and smoothed her jumpsuit. “Ready?” she asked.
I kissed her hand. “Ready.”