2. Sky
Sky
The elevator doors close behind Beatrice Watson, and I remain still for exactly nine seconds. Nine seconds is a respectable amount of time. A ruler of Layn should be able to hold his body in place for the time it takes for Beatrice to leave my office smelling like warm vanilla, caramel, and mine.
Impossible. She smelled like mine. No other word fits, which is a problem because I do not intend to claim anyone before lunch.
Or ever, really. Not going to happen. I need restraint, discipline, and the self-command my father would deem acceptable.
He’d be proud of me, probably for nine seconds, until he accessed my pulse rate, pupil dilation, ear position, or the thin tear in the leather chair beneath my right hand.
Shit.
On the tenth second, the chair gives up. The leather splits under my grip with a soft, pathetic sound. I release it and process the damage. It is as alien as I am to her. I have never lost control.
Until today.
Her scent remains in the room, threaded through the cold air system and trapped in the folder she handed me.
I should seal the report and send it to Legal, Finance, Security, and the terrifying human woman who manages executive procurement.
Instead, I lower my hand to the binder and stop with my fingers half an inch from the cover. Touching it would be foolish.
I touch it.
The scent hits harder up close. Not perfume.
Not soap. Not the warm brown gloss that coated her perfect, plump lips, though that has its own pleasant aroma.
This is Beatrice beneath all of that. Warmth, stubborn courage, and the faint notes of her slick.
I wipe my mouth because I am fucking drooling.
I step back from the desk and reach for the emergency kit inside the lower drawer.
My fingers know the latch without looking.
Every Layn stationed on Earth carries one.
The humans call their crude version an EpiPen.
Ours handles more than allergic shock. Earth pathogens.
Atmospheric spikes. Toxic exposure. Sudden cellular distress.
Anything this damp, cold, aggressively scented planet can throw at us while pretending to be harmless.
It is a virus. It has to be. There is no other explanation.
Fuck, there is one.
But, no. This is not mate sickness.
It cannot be.
It is clearly an Earth reaction. An airborne irritant.
A contaminant in the office vents. A delayed interaction between my initial inoculation and too many roasted coffee beans before breakfast. I don’t care how desperate that sounds.
I am not desperate. I am a fucking Ak. A prince.
We don’t get desperate. Hell, we don’t get sick. But if we do, we handle it.
The injector fits against the side of my throat. I press the trigger.
Cold floods my bloodstream, sharp enough to lock my jaw.
The medicine bites through my veins in a clean silver rush, spreading from neck to chest to gut.
For one blessed breath, Beatrice’s scent dulls at the edges.
The fever down my spine retreats. My mouth dries.
The office returns to ordinary proportions: desk, windows, city, and one chair with an unfortunate upholstery wound.
But that is okay. I was right. Just some Earth thing.
Traveling between solar systems involves risk.
The ice flowing through my veins means I am protected from a multitude of hazards.
I am safe.
Then, somewhere beyond the glass and steel of my office, Beatrice laughs.
The sound is not loud. A friend must have called her from the elevator, or perhaps sent one of those small glowing messages humans treat as acceptable replacements for speech.
Whatever caused it, her laugh travels through the corridor and slides under my door as if the room invited it in.
It fills the office like warm fog, slicking over every surface until the air itself seems to know her.
The EpiPen is a damn lie.
Heat tears straight through the cold, rips through the medicine, and yanks it out by the roots.
My ears snap toward the sound. My hand closes around the injector and cracks the casing.
My mouth floods with the sweet, dangerous, glandular response that should not happen outside rut or claim.
The emergency pen falls from my hand and clatters onto the desk.
Wonderful. Now the device has failed, the chair is dead, and I am salivating over an assistant editor who is alarmingly human.
Completely human, with waves of soft curves, big brown eyes and flat ears that do not even move.
Who has brown eyes? How do they protect anyone from the sun?
And those ears. Beautiful, useless little things.
Embarrassing. She does not even come to my shoulders.
She is so small. Tiny, really. Round. I resist the urge to cup my palms and imagine how she might fill them.
I will not. I will complete my mission and get back to Layn, where everything makes sense.
Where the suns rotate in their normal color-changing pattern.
Where the landscape is lush and green, not harsh gray concrete and stone.
The silver ring on my left hand warms.
Of course it does.
The pen reports all emergency use to my brothers. I authorized that safety protocol myself. At the time, it seemed responsible. Now its excellent connectivity is going to bite me in the butt. I learned that expression last week, and it has never been more appropriate.
Zymlor appears above the ring in a column of blue light before I can decline the call.
His laboratory on Layn shimmers in pieces around him.
Hydroponic arrays behind his shoulder. Red grow lamps.
Thin-leaf coffee cultivars refuse to thrive in our soil, no matter how much money, genius, or prayer he throws at them.
“Sky.” His eyes narrow at once. “Why did your emergency pen activate?”
“It malfunctioned.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“You have become very trusting of machines.”
“You have become a worse liar.” Zymlor leans closer to the transmission, and his ears angle forward with the focus that made him unbearable as a child and indispensable as an adult. “Your pupils are wrong.”
“My office lighting is terrible.”
“Your left ear is pinned.”
“Earth makes me tired.”
“Your skin tone is running hot.”
“You can't tell that from staring at me, so knock it off. There’s no need for a formal inquiry. The injector misfired. End of story.”
His ears twitch. He stares harder. The scrutiny would be unbearable, but years of receiving similar treatment from my father have prepared me. When he finally sits back, I draw a breath that I quickly lose when he says, “You dosed yourself because you scented an Omega.”
End the call. Pretend the signal failed. Earth networks do that often enough to make the lie useful. Instead, I stand in my office and glare at him. “There are Omegas everywhere on this planet. It is not like Stice. So, yes. I saw an Omega. I experienced a reaction. That's all.”
“So, you found your mate.”
“I did not say that,” I say with an unconvincing snarl. “I experienced an anomaly. I took the meds. That is why you sent them with us. For exactly these types of emergencies.”
Zymlor’s mouth tightens, but a half-smile still sneaks through. “What is her name? Your mate?”
I hate him.
I love him, but he can be the biggest pain in my ass. Another human expression that fits perfectly. Honestly, humans are so good at them.
I do not respond.
“The pen was not built for this,” he finally says when he cannot out wait me. “It treats Earth exposure. Toxins, viruses, atmospheric shock, venom, spores, chemical overload. A dozen ways this planet tries to kill us, other than mate sickness.”
“I know what the pen treats.”
“Then why use it?”
Because Beatrice Watson is a puzzle I still have to figure out.
So much about her remains unknown. What do those curves feel like?
Are they as soft as they look? Would her curls feel springy against my palm, or would they wrap around my fingers and refuse to let go?
Will her voice turn soft when she whispers my name in bed?
Who made her laugh? What makes her cry? I need to know that one, so it never happens again.
None of this leaves my mouth. These are just questions.
Questions anyone might have when they encounter something unique. Rare. Beautiful.
“The symptoms are manageable,” I say.
Zymlor’s expression changes. The teasing drains from his face so quickly that my own temper cools in response. “No. They are not. Not if you are denying the bond. Not if you are dosing yourself instead of acknowledging what your body is telling you.”
“There is nothing to acknowledge.”
“Sky.”
“One meeting, Zymlor.”
“One scent is enough.”
“She is human.”
“Many true mates are inconvenient.”
“She is not an inconvenience,” I growl. He smirks at my ire.
“She works for me,” I continue. “All kinds of human and Layn boundaries would be crossed. You know that.”
“I know there are no boundaries between mates. Both of our laws respect the bond. You are the one trying to fight it, which is worse than breaking any rules.”
“She is a journalist who feels strongly that Athena Magazine should return to its investigative roots. Guess what she wants to investigate first?”
He shakes his head. “Please do not say it.”
“Yes. The mate you think is mine wants to investigate coffee farming.”
“I said, don’t say it,” he repeats, pulling his fingers through his hair. His ears stay fully cocked in my direction.
“Oh, it gets better. The Amazon. Brazil.”
“That is actually much worse.”
“She is brilliant.”
Zymlor says nothing.
Shit. I said too much.
His ears lift. Slowly. Cruelly. “Brilliant?”
“I mean dangerous.”
“Of course.”
“Professionally dangerous.”
“Naturally.”
“To Layn interests.”
“Is that what your cock thinks?”
“I’m ending the call.”
“Please do. I would hate to provide emotional support for your mate sickness crisis.”