Chapter 2 #2
The passenger door of Gabriela’s car swung open.
Broxen clenched his fists, pressing his claws into his palms.
Ana darted out of the car first, rushing toward the house until a call from her mother stopped her in her tracks. The little girl spun on her heel, hurried back to the car, and slammed the door shut. She was already running to the house again by the time Gabriela climbed out of the car.
Gabriela glanced toward Broxen’s home, and his heart stuttered. That look lasted only an instant, but it affected him in ways he couldn’t describe—and she hadn’t even looked directly at him.
As Gabriela was walking toward the front door, she paused abruptly, opened her purse, and pulled out her phone.
Within the first few seconds of her conversation, all the upset and sadness that had been on her face vanished.
It was replaced first by shock, and then by a big, bright smile that made her eyes sparkle.
She was far more animated for the duration of the call, nodding and grinning.
After dropping her phone back into her purse, she let out an excited squeal that he heard despite the distance and the closed window. Broxen couldn’t help but smile, too.
Composing herself, she straightened her coat, adjusted the strap of her purse a little higher on her shoulder, and tucked a few dangling strands of her long, black hair behind her ear. She turned her gaze toward Broxen’s home again.
It might’ve been a trick of the distance between them, but it looked like her smile widened just a little.
The tightness in Broxen’s chest intensified.
No female, whether human or any other species, had caught his interest like Gabriela had.
His past encounters with females had been brief, fueled by mutual lust and a desire for release.
It was different with Gabriela. It was something…
deeper, unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
And he might never have found her had things gone different. He hadn’t known this planet even existed until overhearing something in a seedy bar on the other side of the galaxy—that Earth, apparently, was a good place for a someone to go if they needed to disappear.
That had been exactly what Broxen needed to do.
Astius had been dead for two years by the time Broxen had arrived on Earth.
Broxen had spent his first year and a half in New York City, refining the English language that had been loaded into the neural transceiver implanted in his brain.
Attempting to absorb an alien culture. But he’d been without direction, without purpose, left on a strange world with strange people and their bizarre mannerisms. Between a mix of unofficial currency conversion and hacking, he’d been set up with more Earth money than he could ever spend, and yet…
he hadn’t known what to do with himself.
Eventually, the crowds, the noise, the huge buildings, and the overwhelming smells had all become too much.
He didn’t want to be reminded of his home city back on Turata—Nakonin—any longer.
So, he’d wandered, trekking across the country until he’d finally found McCall, Idaho—a place where he could have quiet, if nothing else.
And it was only here, unexpectedly, that he’d found a reason to carry on, a purpose.
Watching over Gabriela and Ana, even if only from afar, had given him meaning. It had eased the disorientation of being on an alien world where he felt like he understood so little even if his neural transceiver could translate every word in any human language.
Gabriela turned her gaze forward and walked to the front door, which Ana had left open.
Broxen willed Gabriela to look toward him again. He wanted one last glimpse of her face, one last look into her eyes, before he’d have to wait until tomorrow to see her again.
Though the view from behind…he’d be lying if he were to say it was unappealing.
It made him long for warmer weather, when she wouldn’t be wearing her big coat and boots.
During the summer, she’d often gone outside in sleeveless shirts and shorts that showed off her shapely legs.
A few times, she’d worn only a swimsuit that revealed every contour of her body as she lay in the sun, basking in its warmth while Ana played in a sprinkler on the grass.
Zorak akai, the way that material had hugged her full breasts, the way it had revealed her ass…
He groaned and gritted his teeth as his cock swelled, pressing against his jeans to produce a deep, throbbing ache.
Gabriela didn’t look back. She simply stepped across the threshold and nudged the door closed with her boot.
Broxen released a heavy breath through his nostrils. For several seconds, he stared at that closed door. Maybe she’d forgotten something in the car and would have to come back out. Maybe she would come over to set a time to get hot chocolate with him, or to say they should go now.
Those seconds stretched into minutes, and her door did not open again. The gloomy sky would soon be darkening, the temperature would begin dropping, and the chances of her coming out would only shrink.
Astius would’ve laughed about this—big, bad Broxen staring longingly at a female’s home, too uncertain to go and talk to her again.
And that thought…it hurt. It hurt because Broxen would never hear Astius’s laughter again.
He would never again be dragged into those painfully intellectual conversations Astius had been so fond of, he would never be forced to question beliefs he didn’t even know he held, he would never be challenged to be more than what he was.
No. That’s not true. By being here, by looking out for her…I am being more. I’m not who I was.
Yet Broxen knew he could stand here telling himself that until he died of starvation and the thought wouldn’t be true for merely thinking it. He knew better than anyone that actions were what ultimately counted. Wanting to change didn’t mean he had.
He shoved away from the window with a grunt and walked to the dining table, which was positioned between the kitchen and living room.
The cardboard box containing his latest haul from the local thrift stores was still atop the table, and this was as good a time as any to start digging in.
He needed a distraction now more than ever to stop himself from staring at Gabriela’s house all damned night.
Broxen opened the box, revealing the books it contained. Most of them had faded covers, yellowed pages, and creased spines; they’d been well-read, and he would eventually contribute to that wear by reading them himself.
Astius had spent years trying to convince Broxen to read in his free time.
Broxen had never understood the appeal—not until Astius was dead and Broxen had found himself on Earth with nothing but time to fill.
He’d followed Astius’s example of reading anything; any genre, any subject, whether it was made-up or factual.
He lifted hand, sweeping back his hair. His thumb claw scraped along his right horn.
If Gabriela saw him as he really was—if she saw him as Broxen kor’Stygos rather than Mason Lee—would she still be kind to him?
Or would she be frightened, disgusted? Even though the holoshroud made him look like a male human, she would still feel his backswept horns if she combed her fingers through his hair.
She would still feel his tail tucked along his leg if she bumped into him from the right angle.
She would still feel his claws if he trailed his fingertips over her skin.
“Bah,” he grumbled before reaching into the box and grabbing a book at random. He flicked on the kitchen light and carried the book over to the recliner he had positioned near the front living room window.
Placing his phone on the armrest, Broxen clicked on the nearby floor lamp, sat down, and flipped up the footrest. Only then did he look at the book.
There was a red rose at the top, resting over large, flowing white letters that dominated the majority of the cover. Johanna Lindsey. The title was written in pink text toward the bottom—Prisoner of My Desire.
Broxen lifted his gaze for a moment, glancing through the blinds toward Gabriela’s house.
Another human saying came to mind, one that had taken him quite some time to puzzle out; the title almost seemed too on the nose.
Broxen longingly staring out through these blinds wasn’t unlike the image he’d seen time and again in human entertainment—a prisoner looking out through the bars of his cell.
Muttering another curse, he opened the book to the first chapter and read. Though the neural transceiver provided translations for everything, he had to use his phone to research more context on a few of the terms. It didn’t take long to determine that this was what the humans called a romance.
He enjoyed such stories. They spoke to his own desires, to wants he wasn’t sure how to articulate, and gave him some sense of hope that those things could come to be. It didn’t matter if these stories were fiction; there had to be some semblance of truth at their cores, right?
Through those books, he’d learned about human females—about their bodies, about their desires, about their pleasure.
And for months, he’d yearned to apply those lessons to Gabriela.
He yearned to satisfy her, to please her, to give her everything and hear her cry out his name while she soared at the heights of ecstasy.
He could be the male for her. He could be…
her mate. She and Ana would want for nothing if they were his.
He would protect them and provide for them, he would show them the support, compassion, and respect they deserved.
Were Gabriela his mate and Ana his kit, he would give his all to ensure they had reason to smile every day.