5. Bee
Bee
Iwake in Skylor’s bed with one of his hands spread across my stomach, his mouth against the back of my neck, and the distinct impression that my entire body has resigned from independent governance.
The room above his office glows with soft morning light, all glass and dark wood and impossible Layn fabrics that adjust to my temperature like they are flirting with me.
The nest still surrounds us, ridiculous and perfect, made of his shirts, blankets, textured alien cloth, and one of my blouses he stole from the floor with the solemn focus of a man preserving a national artifact.
I should be embarrassed by how quickly I accepted being tucked into the center of it.
I should also be embarrassed by the noises I made last night, the places my mouth has been, and the fact that my thighs ache in a way that makes walking feel like a future legal negotiation.
I am embarrassed by none of it, which is probably how civilizations fall.
Skylor’s breath moves over my neck, slow and warm.
His mark throbs beneath the edge of my jaw, not painful exactly, but aware.
The skin feels tender, swollen, alive in a way skin should not be alive.
Every pulse inside it answers the heavier pulse in his body.
*Mate*, something in me whispers. Not in words.
Worse than words. Biology with confidence.
His arm tightens when I shift. “Do not leave yet,” he murmurs.
The voice alone should be regulated. Low, rough, still sleep-worn, threaded with that Alpha authority that makes my spine straighten and my body soften, which is rude and contradictory and apparently my new brand. “I have a magazine to save.”
“You saved it yesterday.”
“I approved three campaign layouts and got claimed by an alien prince. That is not a full business strategy.”
His mouth curves against my skin. “Efficient morning.”
I elbow him lightly. He catches my wrist, brings my palm to his mouth, and kisses the center of it with a tenderness that makes joking suddenly dangerous.
My chest tightens. Tender Skylor is worse than terrifying Skylor.
Terrifying Skylor at least announces the threat.
Tender Skylor walks straight through every locked door in me and acts surprised to find the rooms already furnished for him.
The ring on his finger glows before I can say anything dangerously sincere. A blue projection flickers above his hand, and a male voice says, “I win.”
Skylor’s entire body goes rigid.
I twist enough to find the hologram hovering near the bed: another Layn male, leaner than Skylor, with sharper cheekbones, bright eyes, and ears rotating with shameless delight.
He takes in the nest, the bare skin, the marks on both of us, and grins like interplanetary scandal has personally enriched him.
“Zymlor,” Skylor says, voice flat with murder.
“I told Bryklor you would not last a week.” Zymlor’s gaze shifts to me. “Beatrice of Earth, greetings. Welcome to the family. I apologize for my brother’s temperament, his secrecy, and the fact that Father will now become unbearable about formal notice.”
“End the call,” Skylor growls.
“Bryklor owes me six vesh.”
“End. The. Call.”
“One more thing.” Zymlor’s grin sharpens. “Tell your mate not to be alarmed when the ring arrives. The royal jewelers are dramatic because they lack meaningful hobbies.”
The projection cuts out before Skylor can lunge through it. Silence falls over the bed.
I blink at the space where his brother’s face had been, then at Skylor, then at the ring on his hand, which has gone back to looking like a perfectly innocent piece of alien technology instead of a family group chat from hell. “I’m getting a ring?”
His expression shifts from fury to caution. “Of course.”
“Of course,” I repeat, because apparently that is a sentence now.
His thumb strokes my wrist. “You are my mate.”
My stomach does a strange little turn, not entirely bad, not entirely good either. “Right. Mate.”
His eyes narrow with the focus that always makes me feel both studied and stripped. “You do not understand.”
“I understand some things.” The ache between my thighs makes an excellent opening argument. “Many things, actually. Vividly.”
“Beatrice.”
The seriousness in his voice threads cold through the warm room. I sit up, dragging one of his shirts with me because nakedness feels less charming when his face looks like that. “What does mated mean exactly?”
His ears angle back. “In Earth language?”
“Sure. Let’s start with the planet where I pay taxes.”
“Married.”
The room tilts. I scramble backward too fast, tangle in three layers of Layn blanket, and drop off the side of the bed with a thump that knocks the dignity clean out of me.
Skylor is over the edge before the pain finishes registering, eyes gold, hands reaching. “Beatrice.”
“No.” I slap at the blanket, the bed, his arm, possibly the air. “No, no, no. Absolutely not. Married?”
He lifts me back onto the mattress as if I weigh nothing, which is irritating under the circumstances because a woman should get to have gravity on her side during a crisis. “You are not injured.”
“I’m married.”
“Yes.”
“That was not a yes question.”
His brow draws down. “You accepted my mark.”
“I accepted a bite during sex.” His face goes still.
Oh, God. Oh, no.
I clutch his shirt tighter around me. “Skylor, on Earth, dude, you have to ask a girl first.”
“I did ask.”
“When?”
His expression shifts and he says, “Beatrice of Earth—”
I slap my hand over his mouth. I can't hear it again. Words stumble dazed out of my open mouth. “We were naked.”
He gives a sexy grin. Not appropriate. No. Not now. “Mates usually are. That's why you have to ask clearly.”
“You were inside me.”
“Yes.”
“I thought that was alien dirty talk.”
His ears flatten. The silence after that is horrible, not because he looks angry. Anger I can handle. It's the kicked puppy look that slays. “It was not dirty talk.”
“Skylor, I patted your cheek and said, ‘Bite me.' It's an expression. I was joking.”
His jaw tightens. “Did I appear to you as if I was engaging in humor?”
Oh, shit. When he uses that formal, I'm a prince, and you're a serf, voice. I'm in trouble. “I was trying to be cute."
"Doesn't matter." He drags one hand through his hair, the first truly messy thing about him all morning. “The marriage cannot be dissolved.”
My breath disappears. Like, I had it, and now I don't. “What?” His face is granite. He is as serious as Loora is about snacking. “No.” The word comes too fast, too sharp. “No, there has to be a form. A process. An annulment. A return policy.”
“There is no return policy for a soul match. It's permanent.” His eyes burn brighter. “You are my mate. My wife in the language of your world. My Omega princess in the language of mine. My family will recognize you. Layn will recognize you. My body already does.”
“My body got an orgasm and a bite. My body is what got me into this mess. It needs to sit down and shut up.”
His brows drop, and a muscle tics in his blue jaw. And that is not sexy as hell. It's not. “This is not only law. It is biology. Bond. Claim. Choice.”
“Choice requires information.”
He flinches. The flinch cuts through my panic for exactly half a second. Then the word permanent rings again, and the panic rushes back in, hot and humiliating. “I need to go.”
His hand closes around my wrist. Not hard. Enough. “No.”
My head snaps up. He releases me immediately, fingers opening as if burned. “Forgive me. I meant—”
“You meant, no.”
“I meant you are afraid and confused, and leaving while frightened will not help.”
“I am frightened because I apparently got married during what I thought was enthusiastic alien roleplay.”
“You are not trapped,” he says.
“You just said it can’t be dissolved.”
“That does not mean trapped.”
“That is almost exactly what trapped means.”
His mouth opens, then closes. For once, the man with all the answers has none that translate. The bond lurks between us, unsettled and tight, pulling toward him while every reasonable part of me wants pants, coffee, and a legal scholar specializing in extraterrestrial mating practices.
“I need space,” I say.
His throat works. “Space from me?”
“Yes.”
The bond recoils like I slapped it. His eyes flash gold, then dull with a control I can see costing him. “I will give you space.”
That should make me feel better. It doesn't.
I dress in the bathroom because my legs are still shaky and my heart is racing more than beating.
When I come out, Skylor stands beside the bed in dark trousers and nothing else, my blouse folded in his hands.
The sight of him is obscene in its beauty and worse in its vulnerability.
Tall, violet-skinned, broad-shouldered, marked by my nails and my teeth, ears held too still because he is trying not to show me everything.
He holds out the blouse. “This carries my scent. Take it.” The command is softer than usual.
I take the blouse because I am not an idiot. Also, because my body wants it, and apparently my body has been making executive decisions all week.
The elevator ride down to Athena feels like descending from one life into another.
By the time I reach my office, the desk holds the same files, the same computer, the same photograph of my mother I keep for courage.
The window shows the same bustling city.
Everything is exactly as it was, except my body knows the distance to Skylor’s office in steps, and my neck bears a mark that may or may not mean I am royalty somewhere I have never been.
I sit, open the Real Women campaign folder, and read the same line four times.
Loora finds me at ten with the slap of platform sandals and the rustle of a snack bag she carries like a holy object.
“Why are you looking like a sick puppy?” she asks, dropping into a chair.
“Also, you missed the all-hands email about the budget meeting. Apparently, every department is under orders to justify our numbers.”
“I was working from home.”