Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
I should have known those sap-skulled males couldn’t handle a simple plan.
“What,” I demand, glaring at the intruding omega, “are you doing here?”
Sofi hovers outside the flap to my healing tent, looking like my worst nightmare and a wet dream rolled into one.
Her pale softness is on perfect display: milky rolls, dips, and swells wrapped in light blue fabric.
The color is striking against her warm, dark hair and the glowing coals of her azure irises.
My body reacts the way it ought to. Cocks lengthening. Knots pulsing to life with dull throbs.
I lock my lungs in place, refusing to breathe in her perfume. This is a healing tent, gods-dammit. I cannot relieve the aching need she inspires while I’m working.
“I’m here to help,” she chirps. Her tone is bright, yet somehow false. My eyes narrow.
Then the omega smiles.
And I am utterly enraged.
Who put these cringing creases on her face? Why do her eyes look sad while her lips curl up? And her scent—because, fucking hells, I can’t resist it—is the same salted sweetness I sensed when we met.
“Come in,” I grunt, stepping aside. “Be quick about it.”
My subordinates are elsewhere, dealing with the aftermath of Rask’s impromptu bootcamp. No one knows what’s gotten into him over the last couple of days, but he’s sprained a lot of cadets’ wings.
I have my suspicions, of course.
And now they are standing right in front of me.
“I was bored.” Sofi shrugs, still offering the strained smile I loathe. “I figured you might need an extra set of hands. Maybe with a couple of useless extra fingers.”
Sorrow continues to mar her scent, but her eyes laugh, beaming up at me. I suddenly feel as if my center has collapsed into a black hole. Sucking at the edges of my soul.
What in the seven hells?
I distract myself by plucking off my speks, wiping the lenses on my breeches as I stalk to the far side of the tent. My tails whip rudely while I give her my back.
“You’re meant to be in training,” I chide, recalling my original point. “Then you have your evening meal with the Zortaire.”
Mention of our king surrounds her lush aroma with distinct sourness. If it weren’t maddening to inhale, I might be impressed by Zolkan’s complete and total failure.
He managed to upset her this much? In two days?
Surely, it should take at least three.
“Yeah,” she replies. “I’m not doing that.”
Her open, amused defiance has me whirling toward her. She doesn’t seem particularly humorous, though. In fact, as her spine straightens, she looks almost… regal.
“Unless…” One of her brows arches. “… someone is going to make me?”
Morfu’s hells.
She’s been here less than a span and she’s already figured out that no decent alpha could—or would—ever make an omega do anything.
I need to remember to recheck the intelligence ranking for humans. Didn’t the Galactic Council say it was lower than ours? Is it possible they only tested the males of their species? Because this female is impressively bright.
“It’s for your own good,” I grumble instead of conceding. “You must be claimed by a strong alpha to fend off unwanted attention during your heat. And Zolkan is the strongest of us all.”
Sofi crosses her arms under her bosom, revealing more of her rouge nipples. Gods help me.
“First of all, I’ve told all of you a hundred times, I don’t have a heat. And, secondly, he’s rude,” she snaps back. “And he said it was painful for him to sit next to me. So I’m sparing him the torment.”
Like I said: sap-skulled, hard-horned male.
If I had this omega beside me during every meal, I would eat very well.
Try as I might, I can’t ignore the hurt lurking in her blue eyes.
A sigh heaves out of me. “He did not mean to offend you, human. It is merely a fact: unbonded alphas experience physical discomfort when they’re around an unhappy omega.
Our biology urges us to fix everything for you.
It was a handy impulse for mated pairs. Distinctly inconvenient for the rest of us, though. ”
Sofi blinks. “Oh. So, Rask…?”
I nod. “Also likely suffering around you. Yes.”
“And… you?”
My cocks kick. She’s quick.
“As a healer, I am immune to such things,” I lie, casting her a sardonic look. “Naturally.”
She grins—a true expression of delight. My vision tunnels momentarily.
“Of course you are,” she agrees, astutely sprinkling her words with sarcasm. “In that case, I suppose I came to the right place.”
Came to the right—?
She doesn’t leave me wondering. Instead, the omega hops onto my exam table, making herself at home.
“I need something to do,” she informs me.
“Zolkan told me he can’t send me home—and he can’t keep me here forever.
So, eventually, I figure I’ll need a skill.
And I want to learn how to assist a healer, like you. ”
Everything inside me crashes to a halt. Dismay swoops in. I open my mouth to deliver an eloquent, delicate denial.
“No.”
Sofi only smiles wider. “You can’t just say no. Why not? You aren’t affected by me like the others are, so what’s the problem?”
What, indeed?
At the moment, the problem is that I’m forty seconds away from ripping her off this table and shredding her dress in half.
Or thirds.
I’m not particular.
Not about this, anyway.
Sofi’s eyes snag on a tapestry hanging beside one of my exam tables. They widen while she scans the internal anatomy of a Roktusian male, huffing, “Huh. The balls really are tucked up in there.”
My brows pinch. Of course we have internal ballocks—the design protects our reproductive system. From my research, I know humans’ balls are exposed. They only possess two, though, like us.
It’s one of the only ways we are similar—for the most part, her people only have half the vital organs we do. One heart instead of two, two lungs instead of four. With that sort of biological deficit, it’s no wonder they’re at a disadvantage.
Instead of asking about the chart, she drops her attention to a nearby table. Her focus snags on my holotab. A gasped shriek flies from her mouth.
“You have a phone!”
The image her human word brings to mind is a smaller version of the comm units high-ranking Roktusians are cursed with. I grunt, lumbering over to show her the cumbersome device.
“It’s just my holotab. We use them for communication, when we must. Horrible things.”
Sofi gapes, snatching the flat device like it’s a lifeline. “What? Why?”
A nonsensical question. Everyone on Khanos knows screens are bad for our minds. We ran several studies on the tekk items the Galactic Council gave us before deciding they were incompatible with our brain development and lifestyle.
I must remember this human knows nothing of our world, though.
I try to keep my tone somewhat gentle as I pluck the holotab from her hands.
“They interrupt our lives and distract from what happens around us. Roktusians don’t believe in using machines to do what we should do ourselves—and we certainly don’t celebrate how harmful they can be for us or how they hurt our environment. ”
She’s from a planet on the brink of Desiccation. Surely, she understands.
But the human frowns. “Is that why you guys train using spears and knives instead of guns or… I don’t know… blasters?”
Gods. I’m not supposed to find the Prime Alpha’s omega this adorable.
Squashing the urge to chuckle, I shake my head. “The Galactic Council has outlawed all such devices. No civilized planet in our galaxy uses weaponry capable of doing large-scale damage. We have starships equipped for battle in space—but hand-to-hand combat is conducted with honor.”
Sofi listens, fascinated. “So, you’re saying, if you find out something is bad for you, you guys just… don’t use it? Or try not to as much as you can?”
I blink. “Yes. It is logical.”
She nods slowly, wide-eyed. Glancing away, she murmurs to herself, “That is logical.”
As I watch, she takes in all the extra tekk I have in here. Chagrin fills my center. A crease mars her smooth brow. “You have a lot more science-y stuff in here than any other part of the palace.”
Much to my great shame. I feel my horns darken as I clear my throat. “Yes. Well. I enjoy studying such things. And I believe there can be a place for more medical technology on our planet. I’m trying to convince other healers of its utility, but it is”—hopeless—“a process.”
Sofi’s rounded features pull into a pleading expression. “You can teach me!” she insists again. “I want to learn about this stuff. Everything.”
Her curiosity calls to me on a level it shouldn’t. Only Morfu knows why it makes my stupid cocks harder. I open my mouth to reject her request—again—but she cuts me off.
“Listen,” she pleads, a note of desperation winding into her voice.
“I just—I really need a friend here, okay? Someone other than Norabi to talk to and teach me about this place. She’s nice and all, but she’s also sort of terrifying in a possibly-eats-bones-for-breakfast kind of way.
Plus, I can tell she’s trying to sway me toward the Zortaire, and I—he—”
Sofi pauses to swallow, emotion clogging her final appeal. “Just… please. Let me come here sometimes and learn what I need to know. I promise I won’t bother you.”
She’s bothering me now, damn it. Looking so unnaturally beautiful. Trembling, with sorrow in her scent and tears in her opal eyes. Unearthing instincts I didn’t know I had.
A quiet rumble ignites in my chest, vibrating under my lungs. Revealing my answer before I can process it.
I don’t know what has me under siege—my nature, hers, or some unholy combination. But either way, I surrender.
“On one condition.”