Chapter 32
I turned over in my incredibly comfortable bed, unable to sleep.
My chest ached in more ways than one.
I took a deep breath, wiggling under the plush weighted blanket. I had kicked most of the pillows on the floor as I thrashed around. I had spent all day being pampered. I was primped, polished, massaged, and fully color coordinated.
Zale hadn’t shown up.
He must have left already.
He could have at least said goodbye - but then again, that was what he was trying to do.
I rolled over in the bed again, frustrated with myself. I didn’t know anything about him. I didn’t know how to contact him. I didn’t even know if he was still on this moon or had hopped on a spaceship and flown away forever.
I took a deep breath and focused on relaxing my muscles.
The door opened.
I sat up.
There was just enough light coming in through the window to make out a familiar shape.
“I made you wait for me,” his voice rumbled out in the darkness, and all of those twisted feelings melted away. “I meant to be here earlier.”
He hadn’t left.
He was here.
I squinted, unable to make out anything more than the vague definition of his shape. The tips of his hair glinted in the sliver of light coming through the curtains, illuminated with a soft sheen like moonlight did on Earth.
I felt the change in the bed as his weight settled on the end. His voice was closer, but he didn’t move as he spoke, staying on the far side of the bed.
“There are things we need to speak about,” he said, his voice deeper than I had heard before, the rumble vibrating in the lower registers, adding a bass thrum to his song.
I reached back and grabbed my translator off the table, pulling it into my lap. I tapped it, and the onscreen keyboard glowed, blinding me with the dim light that was bright for my eyes in the darkness.
“The first is that you are the mate my heart chooses,” he rumbled, and I looked up from the keyboard and stared in surprise at his outline, a warm glow wrapping around my heart at his words.
I still couldn’t see him very well, but his outline was clear at the far end of the massive bed.
There was still that light glow to the edges of his fur.
“When I first saw you move on the video screen, I knew that I would do anything to make you mine. I saw the fire inside of you, the joy for life so profound that you radiate it out to those around you. There is something special about you, and I wish to spend my lifetime with you.”
“Oh,” I said, gripping the edges of the translator.
Holy shit.
Zale fell in love with me at first sight.
I was brought back to that first moment my eyes met his. I was naked, chased by my captors, and there he was, larger than life on a screen that I was not supposed to see. He saw me. The warmth I saw in his eyes had hit a note in my chest, resonating despite the hectic turmoil of my situation.
It wasn’t just that he saw me at that moment.
He came to get me. He saved me.
He murdered those who hurt me.
In doing so, he sowed a seed in my heart that flourished in the light of his own care of me.
What I felt for him was more than any love I’d ever felt.
It was rooted deep in my primal need to find a partner who could protect me at my weakest, who could feed me and cherish me when things were more difficult than anything.
If this was love, then I had never loved before.
I didn’t know how to say that.
I wasn’t ready to say it.
I knew what he meant to me, but that was because of what he had done for me. He had saved me more than once. He had taken care of me. He had noticed the small things about me and strove to give me experiences I would enjoy, and that would enrich my life for the better.
But the thought of him leaving me had devastated me.
It reminded me how small and vulnerable I was in this vast world. Giving him all of my heart left me more afraid than anything I’d ever done.
Was that love?
I wasn’t sure.
No, I was sure, but I wasn’t ready to acknowledge it.
Acknowledging it meant that it would hurt more when he left.
I couldn’t let myself love him yet.
Not until I knew he would keep me.
Anytime I had been too hasty with my heart, I ended up burned so badly that the scars still ached to remind me of my own foolishness. I wanted to love. I wanted to let this warmth in my heart grow and glow with every beat.
But what if I let myself believe everything he was saying, and it turned out to be a lie?
What if I misinterpreted it through the lens of my own longing?
“I know this is sudden,” he sang. “But I want you. I want to mate with you and create children together who will be something new in a world that has grown stagnant without change. I don’t know how the osae will affect you yet, but the doctors I spoke with today said you shouldn’t be harmed when it fully takes root in you. ”
Whoa - slow down - alien shit alert.
My brain put on the mental brakes so hard I could smell the thought tires burning.
“The osae take root?” I typed out, squinting at him in the dim light created by an image projected on the translator tablet. “What do you mean it will take root?”
His fur definitely seemed lighter than normal.
Maybe it was the reflection from the crystal walls of the palace.
“It is what I wished to speak to you about,” he sang.
“Your species doesn’t have the osae, but you can.
It is a symbiote that transfers through intimate contact.
It has increased my species' longevity and physical durability, but also decreased our fertility to the point that cubs only come into being in matings that the osae have blessed. My osae sings for you. Both that and the findings from my medical team indicate that you can easily conceive and bear my young.”
Ok, I was cool with longevity and physical durability bonuses.
That was fine by me.
It definitely didn’t sound like the worst thing that had been in my body so far, that was for sure.
He reached out and put a hand on my ankle, the blanket in between us, and slid his thumb along the side of my foot.
A shiver ran through me.
I wanted more.
“Any mating between us can result in pregnancy,” he said. “I know this is not the ideal time to tell you. For that, I am sorry. I am deeply grateful that you now have the implant and the translator device.”
I bit my lip.
I had already risked that.
I had already thought about the consequences.
Cute little babies with adorable cat ears and a mixture of Zale and my features? A flutter of excitement ran through me. Out of all of my life, this was the first time I was truly taken care of. Sure, these aliens were a little murder happy - but none of that violence had been directed at me.
The whole osae thing - I was betting that they had plenty of medical data on us from when we were in the zoo. They definitely took blood and other samples. If these space elves had doctors who said their symbiote was going to increase my lifespan, I was absolutely down.
I just would rather be a mom with a partner than be a single mom.
I needed to make that clear if he was going to talk about leaving again.
“I don’t care about the timing. I care about what you want with me,” I typed. “I have always wanted kids, but I’ve never wanted to raise them alone. I want a partner who is there with me every step of the way to give our children what they need. You want that?” I asked.
“More than anything,” he purred. “You choose me, and I will never let you go. You will be mine. I will take care of you and our children and give you everything you need to thrive. You are cherished.”
I smiled at him in the darkness.
That was enough for me.
I set the translator tablet on the side table, turning off its screen.
I crawled forward on my hands and knees to him, feeling for him in the dark.
His hands found mine, and they slid up my arms. He hesitated as his hands felt the bandages the pamper team had placed over the small cuts on my elbows.
“What is this?” he hissed. “Who hurt you?”
Ugh, I just needed a good hard pounding - what was up with all this talking?
I pulled back away from him, grabbed the translator, and quickly typed into it.
“It was the guard who locked me in my room on your orders,” I typed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m okay.”
After the translator was done playing out the sentence, I tossed it, and it slid off the bed and clattered off the floor.
Whoops, no more talking.
I moved towards him, reaching out to grab his shoulders as I slid my fingers into his hair, digging into the thick, soft mesh of fur behind his ears. He leaned his head into my touch, his own hands going to my waist as I climbed into his lap, straddling him.
I sat down, pressing my center down against the hardening evidence of his desire for me in his trousers.
He smelled strange.
It was like his normal scent of oak and jasmine, but that strange something I couldn’t place was missing. He smelled different.
“It does matter,” he growled, the sound rumbling against me, tickling my more sensitive bits as I pressed against him.
He definitely needed a flower to the face while he did that.
“I am going to hunt him down and-” he began.
I cut him off.
“Shut the fuck up. I’m going to sit on your face,” I hissed at him, knowing he couldn’t understand me.
The thrill of my own aggression raced through me.
I wiggled so my feet were flat against the bed, and I stood, rising to my feet as I kept my grip on his fur for balance. Our proportions were so crazy that his face was in my chest, not against my flower as I had hoped.
I needed him on his back, or I was going to have to put a foot on his shoulder and climb him.
“Lie down,” I said and pushed him.
He gave into my touch, as there was literally no way I could move this mass of an alien man without him letting me, and he laid down on his back on the bed underneath me.
I giggled as I went down with him, my chest not quite large enough to smother his face, but enough to squish and remind me that they were oddly sore.
I put my hands down on the bed and my knees on either side of him and crawled up his body.
His hands tugged at the pajama bottoms I’d worn to bed.
I let him slide them off of me as I continued to crawled.
His fingers slid over my hip bones.
He caressed the sensitive spot right in front of them, and I shuddered as I placed my knee up over his shoulder. His other hand pulled the pajama bottoms off over my feet.
“I can smell your desire,” he groaned.
I slid my flower petals over his chin and landed on his pollen guzzler. Another rumble came out of him, vibrating me down to my stem, and I just about made honey all on my own as I let out a delighted gasp.
“Yes, more of that,” I demanded.
Then he licked me.
He slid through my petals as if they were made of ambrosia, a nectar so divine that armies would fight and die for the mere chance to taste it. And taste he did.
While he rumbled.
My knees clamped down as I arched up, clawing the air to get away from the sudden, delicious, overwhelming intensity of it all.
His arms locked around my hips, and he pulled me back down.
I bucked against his hold, only succeeding in sliding my flower wildly against his face as he ate my pollen like it was the first meal he’d had in years.
It was so much, so good, and it went on forever.
I exploded, twitching in his grasp as I made all sorts of nonsensical noises.
He continued to lick my petals slowly and carefully as I came back down.
Then I was on my back.
He was wiping his face on the shirt that had been on me a moment ago, and then it was on the floor.
He was on top of me.
My hands were on his cut abdominals.
His osae were slipping against the wet mess, sending aftershocks through me.
Then they were wrapping around my thighs, pulling me closer, pulling him closer.
His lips met mine, and I could smell the scent of myself mingled with him as his hips grazed my inner thighs, his body pushing against mine, holding me down, trapping me against the bed.
Then, his desire slid into me.
He spread me.
He wrecked me.
There was nothing but him, nothing but this.
There was nothing but the drumbeat of his heart and mine, the pounding thrum of our bodies together, the intense awareness of being put together, being full, being torn apart and utterly devoured.
He was so strong, and he wasn’t stopping.
He was making me his in every sense of the word.
When another universe exploded inside my body, pushing me towards an utter sense of present focus and delicious physical completion, he was there with me. He was rumbling, roaring, filling.
He was the heat inside me.
The heat that filled me.
The twitching, throbbing mess of everything I ever wanted.
And everything that terrified me.
“You are a mate worthy of an Emperor,” he murmured, his breath hot against my ear. My head rocked back as he stayed deep inside me, the fullness and deliciousness of the sensation driving all thoughts from me as his tentacles continued to slide in and on me.
I didn't give a fuck about being with an Emperor - I only wanted to be with him.
“I’m the perfect mate for you,” I murmured, knowing he wouldn’t understand me.
I didn’t understand it myself.
But it was the utter truth.