Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It doesn’t hit me.
It crushes me.
I manage to pace two steps inside the castle before my knees buckle.
Dear heavenly Stelaris.
Starry darkness swallows my vision. The Grand Hall narrows to a pinprick. I feel my chest moving, but no air hits my lungs. Instead, my hearts pound slower, their rhythm syncing into a soul-deep strum.
It harmonizes with a song in my center I’ve never heard before. Turning my entire being into a symphony of absolute rightness.
The throbbing beat echoes in my cocks. My claws. My fangs and battle scars and eyelashes. Every molecule of my body vibrating at the same frequency for the first time in my fifty orbits.
I try to inhale, but the air is too hot. Too thick. Too fucking perfect.
Slicing and sweet. Tart freshness steeped in the light of all three suns. Better. Richer. More.
How could I waste her scent on breathing?
And how dare anyone else exist so close to it?
To her.
My mate.
I nearly topple over, but my tail snaps straight, keeping me balanced as my legs slacken. I reach for the frame of the castle’s ancient portal, gripping the curved carvings with such force, my claws squeal against the stone.
My eyes, I think, dazed and frantic.
They must be as bright as our smallest sun, flaring with the light that only comes from mate recognition. I snap them closed immediately, a new, razor-sharp instinct rearing high.
No one can know. Not until she does.
Ahead, Rask and Norabi halt, turning to wait for me. When the burning behind my eyelids finally ceases, I chance a glance. Norabi’s expression creases with confusion, but there’s nothing to signify she’s seen my true reaction. Rask doesn’t, either. Although…
For a split second, he looks as if he actually has empathy for me. I know, his silver eyes seem to say. The omega smells much too good. I know it hurts.
It’s comforting. And infuriating.
I hate that he’s ever scented her. I’m also grateful to know I’m not completely insane.
When he blinks, darkness sweeps into his visage. One that has him dropping his chin, hiding his face as he kicks at the floor.
I can’t parse his reaction.
Because if I don’t get to this omega, I will die.
It’s an urgency I’ve never experienced before. One that feels akin to wandering the deserts without water for weeks, only to happen upon a river.
The way I race to the northwestern tower is the same way a desperate male would stagger toward that crystal-clear water. Or how a condemned person might run on trembling legs toward the goddess’s salvation.
My insides heat then cool, raw sensation snapping under my skin. I round the final corner to her corridor. The arched portal of her chamber looms ahead of me, firmly closed, but nearly glowing. Pulsing. As if the entire galaxy has shifted the laws of light to guide my path and bring me to her side.
I pause in the small, rounded alcove outside her suite, closing my eyes. Whispering a prayer of gratitude to the goddess. Preparing myself for this destined moment—the end of all our suffering. The salvation of our planet.
My mate.
Only, as I inhale, her scent shifts. The tartness transforms, darkening into something that makes my tail spasm and deflates my erections.
She is… sad. Afraid.
For the first time in my entire existence, I don’t think.
I just move.
Norabi and Rask both try to interrupt, but I can’t hear them. As I burst into the omega chamber, I can’t hear anything except sniveling cries. The haunting noises float out of the bathing suite. I vault over her mussed bed, propelling myself forward—
And then I freeze.
The human is in her bathing chamber. Hiding her face in her hands.
Naked and stunning.
Skin that gleams like the rarest pearl. Long, wet tresses in an unfamiliar color. Close to black, but warmer. Almost golden.
Such a rich, auspicious color. It matches the small dots on her shoulders and the charming thatch of curls over her core.
The rest of her body is similar to a Roktusian’s, but so different, too.
No tail, no wings, not even budding horns.
She is oddly flat and wildly curved at the same time.
Round hips. No plates of bone or bulging muscle.
Just smooth paleness with enticing touches of pink.
Her lips, the points of her teats. Full and fleshy, jiggling as she shakes.
Because she is weeping.
My thoughts whir offline once again, replaced by the instincts thrashing through me. Telling me she’s mine. To protect. To pleasure. To comfort and praise and worship.
Telling me, simply, to go to her.
So I do.
“Omega.” The word tears from the bottom of my very soul. She lifts her head, seeing me for the first time. Recognizing me, surely, as her mate.
Or so I think.
Until she screams.