29. Terra
TERRA
“I’m what?” Terra stared at him uncertainly.
“My fated mate,” he repeated patiently. “I have known it from the very first time we touched, back at the club.”
“That was barely a month ago, you know,” she reminded him. The way he was looking at her with such intensity was scaring her a little. But she didn’t want to upset him. “What…what exactly does it mean to be your, uh, fated mate?” she asked.
“It means we are meant to be together for life,” he answered. “I know that may be a lot to take in–”
“Yes…yes it is a lot,” Terra said. “Taurex, we haven’t known each other that long.”
“We don’t need to know each other a long time to know that we belong together,” he said earnestly.
“Don’t you see, Terra? I looked into your heart the first time you touched me.
I saw you as you are–I saw what a good mother you are, and a good daughter.
I saw that you were struggling but still managing to keep your younglings and mother clothed and fed.
I knew you were meant to be mine right from the start. ”
Okay, now his intensity was really beginning to make her uneasy.
He was talking about owning her–just like Viktor Orlov had and Terra didn’t want to be owned by any male.
Also, she hated to say it, but it creeped her out when he started talking about “seeing into” her heart.
She didn’t like the idea of her secrets being laid bare for him with a single touch.
“Look,” she said carefully. “I appreciate that you have really strong feelings for me, and I’m flattered–really I am. But I just haven’t known you long enough to know if we, uh, belong together forever. You know?”
Taurex shook his head.
“No, I do not know. How can you deny the bond between us? Do you not feel it? The pleasure blooms did–that is why they reacted as they did in the bathing pool. They smelled the mating pheromones coming from both of us.”
Terra put a hand on her hip.
“Well, if you knew that we were supposed to be ‘fated mates’ and knew they would react to the pheromones, then why did you let me go in there? Was it just so I would let them molest me so you could lick me later on?”
“No, of course not!” He reached up and began rubbing the base of one horn, as he did when he was worried or upset. “Gods, this isn’t going at all how I planned. I should have waited to tell you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have told me at all, because it sounds crazy!” Terra was thoroughly disgusted and upset now. She jumped off the bed, hugging her discarded towel close to her chest. “And to think I thought you were a good guy. But you just want to own me–just like that creep, Orlov.”
“It’s not that I want to own you–I want to Join with you,” he protested, holding out his big hands, palm up. “Please–just give me a chance. Once we’re Bonded and can hear each other’s thoughts, you’ll see that I never meant you any harm.”
“Hear each other’s thoughts?”
That was the last straw for Terra. She’d heard about the strange mental connection that the Kindred and Monstrum had with their brides, but she hadn’t known they could actually read each other’s minds. That was too much for her–too creepy.
“Well, yes. You see–” Taurex started to explain, but Terra didn’t want to hear anymore.
“That’s enough,” she told him. “I need some time to myself. I’m going to spend the rest of the night in the other room and in the morning, I want you to take me home.”
Taurex looked frustrated.
“I thought you feared to sleep in the other room because of the pleasure blooms outside?” he pointed out.
Terra lifted her chin.
“Well now that I know they were only coming after me because the two of us together were putting out some kind of weird ‘mating smell’ I’m not worried. I should be fine as long as I’m alone.”
And with that, she left his bedroom and went quickly to the room down the hall he had designated as hers.
Once inside, she tried to find a way to lock the door, but it was made of bark and vines, and she couldn’t find any way to secure it.
For the first time, it registered how foolish she’d been.
Taking a job with a huge, muscular alien and then letting him take her millions of miles from home where he could basically do anything he wanted to her.
Was Taurex going to turn ugly now? Was he going to come charging in, angry that she’d rejected him–eager to hurt her and take revenge?
The thought somehow hadn’t occurred to her before, and she shivered and wrapped the towel more tightly around her shoulders.
She barely knew the big Monstrum–why had she come all the way to freaking Mars with him?
What was wrong with her? Her sense of self-preservation, which had been finely honed from dealing with so many creeps at The Doll House, had utterly failed her.
And then her door opened, and he was there–a massive shadow in the doorway.
“P-please…” Terra put up both hands, the towel dropping away as she took a step back. “Please, don’t hurt me!” she begged. “I know I hurt your feelings–I’m sorry! But please–you know I have kids!”
Taurex just stood there, staring at her, his golden eyes glowing in the dim room.
“Hurt you?” His deep voice sounded genuinely confused. “Why would I hurt you?”
But Terra’s imagination was working overtime, and she couldn’t hear the honest emotion in his voice.
She could only see how big and strong he was and think how easy it would be for him to kill her and dispose of her body.
Hell, he could jettison her corpse out into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter if he wanted to–nobody would ever find her there and then Lisa and Cody would grow up without a mom and she would never see her own mom again, either.
“Please…” She was crying now, tears running down her cheeks. “Please, I’m sorry. So sorry…”
“No…I am the one who is sorry.” His voice felt heavy in the darkness. “I must have done something to make you believe I would harm you. But Terra, I never would–I would rather cut off my own arm than bring you the least amount of pain.”
His words gave her some hope, but her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. He was just so big.
“If you’re serious and you’re not going to hurt me then please…please just leave me alone,” she begged in a broken voice. “Please, I just need to feel safe right now. I need to be alone.”
“Of course I’ll leave you alone.” He took a step back. “I am sorry you no longer feel safe with me. I wish I knew what I did to cause you such fear.”
Terra thought about shouting, “You were talking about owning me! About making me yours and looking inside my head! Don’t you think that’s enough to freak any girl out?”
But she didn’t dare say it–because what if he was just toying with her?
What if he was waiting for her to say the wrong thing so he could get angry and shout and throw things or push her around?
She’d seen enough men get angry at being rejected during her stripping days to know that anything might set him off.
So she just stood there, naked and shivering, hoping to God he would close the door and leave her alone.
As it turned out, that was exactly what Taurex did. With a final,
“Forgive me for upsetting you,” he swung the door shut, leaving her in the darkness.
Terra grabbed the towel from the floor where it had fallen and climbed into the middle of the king-sized living bed.
She curled up into a ball and lay on her side, her eyes never leaving the door.
And though the mattress formed itself into a snug nest around her and almost seemed as though it was trying to comfort her, she didn’t get a single wink of sleep the whole night.