Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Maelic
Maelic woke to a throbbing head and oppressive heat.
What’s going on with the ship’s temperature regulator?
No—he wasn’t on the ship anymore. The escape pod. The crash. Memory of the last rotation slammed back: years hunting Barvarti’s slaver operation, going undercover, getting his evidence, being discovered. The emergency pod shot out of the sky, spiraling into… an X-Zone planet.
Goddess, damn it.
He straightened from his slumped position. The ropes around his chest pulled tight against the support post, pinching his wings. He blinked at the ropes, then up at the rough wooden beams above him. Crude construction. Organic materials. Someone tied him up, and his damper mask—
His hand flew to his face. Bare skin. No mask.
Oh, that was very bad.
The events of last night crashed over him in fragmented flashes.
Bioluminescent lights that weren’t wings.
His biology had been screaming mate. Stumbling toward her on pure instinct, half-feral and out of control.
Her scent—goddess, her scent—so overwhelming it had shorted out every rational thought.
He’d chased her. Pinned her. Marked her.
His cock stiffened at the memory, coremata swelling with blood, and his head pounded harder.
The pheromone rush hit him like a freight transport.
It was wild, unsteady, unstoppable. He hadn’t felt this out of control since he was a teenager, right before he’d gotten his damper. Right before his parents—
He shoved that thought down hard.
The ropes snapped easily when he pulled.
Years of bounty work had left him stronger than most Artaisan males.
He stood, wings flaring to relieve the ache, and tried to piece together what he’d done.
Fragments. That’s all he had. Her neck under his mouth.
The softness of her skin through clothing.
The little sounds she’d made—fear or desire, he couldn’t tell.
His hands on her waist, her throat, needing to mark her as his.
He had been completely out of control in way that rattled him to the bone.
Had he hurt her?
The question twisted in his gut. She’d barely come up to his chest. And he’d been feral, operating on pure instinct with no control. But if she’d tied him up, she’d escaped while he was unconscious. Pheromone overload had knocked him out before he did real damage.
Small mercies.
She’d escaped unharmed. The tension in his spine eased. He looked at the snapped ropes on the ground. Flimsy organic filaments. She’d probably thought they’d hold him. Cute.
He needed to see her. Confirm it.
No. He caught himself. He didn’t know her. Whatever reaction his body was having didn’t matter. He had to get off this backwater planet before Barvarti’s crew tracked him here or, worse, abducted more defenseless people to cart off to the slave markets.
He moved toward the barn door, taking in the boxy structure. Primitive but functional. The door stood firm as he pressed—perhaps locked?—but gave in easily when he put his weight into it.
Outside, the icy air hit him like a slap. He hissed, wings shivering involuntarily. His shredded jumpsuit did nothing against the temperature. Clouds obscured the sky, and a single sun was barely visible.
One sun. How depressing.
Her scent lingered in the air—faint but unmistakable.
His antennae perked despite his best efforts.
He maintained control this time and pushed on.
The small dwelling ahead displayed strings of.
.. something covering the roof. Decorative?
The whole place looked worn down, though he had no baseline for whether that was normal for this species’ taste.
A white substance covered the ground. He crouched, touched it. Wet. Cold. Revolting. He grimaced and wiped his hand on his thigh. Snow, his translator supplied belatedly, cipherbots still calibrating to the local language.
He needed to find the escape pod. Check if the comms were salvageable. Get a distress signal out to—
His gaze snagged on the treeline. Scorched trunks stood stark against the green, a swath of fire damage cutting through the forest. Old damage—not from his crash. Something had burned here once.
He frowned. The gravitors on the escape pod should have prevented anything like that. The scars were weathered, long-settled into the wood. Not his doing then.
He let out a slow breath. He didn’t like the idea of damaging land that likely belonged to his little captor.
He turned back toward where he’d crashed, scanning the ground. His damper had to be—
There. Near the house.
He moved fast despite his aching wings, scooped up the black mask, and examined it.
The mask was wrecked. The internal regulators were slag; the filtration system cracked beyond repair.
He’d never get this working again without specialized equipment.
Which meant he was stuck regulating his pheromones manually, on a planet where his biology had already proven unreliable and even dangerous.
Fantastic.
He pocketed the ruined mask. Leaving advanced tech on an X-Zone planet was a violation he didn’t need added to his growing list.
Movement from within the dwelling made him freeze.
Sore wings or not, he launched himself upward. His boots hit the roof with a muted thud, and he almost lost his balance on the slick surface. He crouched low, cursing the ice, and watched.
She emerged bundled in thick layers, practical against the cold. Smart. Artaisans were climate-adapted and hardy, but even he felt the frigid air. Seeing her appropriately dressed sparked an unexpected flicker of approval in his chest.
Her hair caught what little light there was—a warm brown, like rich soil, curling wild around her face. Soft-looking. He had a sudden, intrusive urge to wind his fingers through it.
Her eyes matched her hair when she glanced around, wary. Pale skin with a pinkish undertone stood in stark contrast to his white felted complexion. The creature was delicate compared to the females of his species—triggering every protective instinct he possessed. No wings. No antennae.
Definitely not Artaisan. His brows furrowed.
But his body didn’t care about taxonomy. His lumin glands pulsed, neck warming as they tried to release claiming pheromones into the air that no longer had a damper to filter them. The pull to go to her, to drop from this roof and finish what he’d started last night, was almost overwhelming.
He forced himself to stay put. There was no way his body was actually driving him toward a female who wasn’t even Artaisan. It was absurd. He watched her trudge through the snow, his focus sharpening when she let out a harsh noise near the barn doors. What he assumed was a curse.
He snorted. She should be more panicked. He was a big, unknown male who’d chased her down and pinned her against a wall. Yet here she was, stomping toward the barn like she had every right to be annoyed instead of terrified.
A tinge of guilt pricked at him when she reached the door. He’d broken the lock getting out. Every instinct screamed at him to follow. He forced himself to hold his position.
For now, anyway.
Maelic watched her stomp into the barn from his perch on the roof.
She emerged moments later with the heating unit, muttering something he couldn’t understand. Her scent carried on the wind. It was inviting and comfortable.
His lumin glands pulsed in response.
He needed to leave. Find the pod and get off this planet. Instead, he stayed rooted to the spot and watched her.
She moved toward a section of damaged fencing close to the barn he had spent the night in. It was a primitive sort of barricade, made of wire construction and half-collapsed. She struggled with some kind of cutting tool, her movements jerky and frustrated.
He should go. This wasn’t his concern.
But she kept working, stubborn despite the cold. Some time passed. She wrestled with the wire, swearing in her incomprehensible language. The temperature dropped further and his wings gave a discontented twitch.
She yanked off one glove with her teeth, fingers red from cold. Foolish. She’d get hurt working like that.
Her hand slipped. Metal sliced into flesh. The sharp scent of her blood hit him.
His body moved before his brain caught up. He launched from the roof, wings catching air, and landed in the snow beside her.
She scrambled backward, landing hard. Those wide eyes fixed on him. She grabbed the cutting tool and brandished it like a weapon.
“Wone moar stap and I’ll—I’ll emphale ewe!”
He couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was clear. Stay back.
His focus locked on her hand. Blood welled from the cut, dark against pale skin. The sight of her blood was enough to make him want to rage. He crouched, making himself smaller. Less threatening. Gestured to her injured hand. She didn’t move. Just stared at him, trembling.
He needed to bandage it. Stop the bleeding. But he had nothing except—
His jumpsuit. The sleeve was mainly intact. He grabbed the fabric and tore it free, ignoring the cold biting into his now-exposed arm.
Her eyes went wide. She said something sharp, voice rising.
He ignored her protest and reached for her hand. She flinched but didn’t pull away. Good. He wrapped the fabric around the wound, careful to keep his touch gentle. The bones in her hand felt so fragile compared to his. Breakable.
“Thwat edn’t shanituary!”
Maelic still couldn’t understand the words, but her tone had softened. He supposed that was progress.
When he finished, he stood and offered his hand. She squeezed her eyes shut as if she expected him to hurt her. The guilt from earlier resurfaced, sharp and uncomfortable. He warily reached back down and pulled her to her feet. She weighed nothing and only came up to his chest.
He released her and turned to the fence. This species seemed to use very rudimentary forms of fencing. That sort of barrier would be unlikely to keep anything out. His brow furrowed at the idea of her domain being at risk of whatever sort of predator dwelled on this planet.
He pulled his quantum torch from his belt and crouched beside the damaged section.
She made a startled sound behind him. Likely hadn’t expected him to fix it.
The tool hummed to life, molecular bonds reforming under the beam. It was simple work. He moved meticulously, repairing each section. The cold bit into his exposed arm, but he’d dealt with much worse in his line of work.
It took him only a few moments to repair the fencing.
He stood and faced her. Her expression was... strange. Surprised? Grateful? Hard to tell with her species. The shape of her face seemed so smooth; displays of emotion weren’t as easy to decipher on one with such delicate facial features.
Her scent wrapped around him again. It was so overwhelming this close.
His cock stirred, lumin glands pulsing with the need to... no, that couldn’t be right. Artaisans did not form mate bonds outside of their own. She was definitely not of his species. This had to be a fluke. Something about her anatomy triggering his biology?
He tried to speak. “Sessa, ma da?”
What are you?
She startled, then shook her head. Made more sounds he couldn’t parse.
Useless cipherbots. He growled in frustration.
The sound made her jump, and another surge of guilt rocked him. He did not enjoy frightening her. She spoke again, slower this time. “Delaney.”
A name. That was her name.
He tried to repeat it. “Dalanee?”
She shook her head and corrected him. He tried again. Still wrong. She simplified it. “Del.”
“Del.” That he could manage.
She nodded, pleased with the minor accomplishment of communication they had established.
He pressed a hand to his chest. “Maelic.”
“Maelic?”
Hearing his name in her voice sent an unexpected warmth through his chest. His antennae perked with interest before he could stop them.
The wind picked up then, sharp with icy intent. Her hair whipped across her face. Without thinking, he shifted his wings forward, blocking the worst of the gusts. He wanted to wince at the action; they were still sore.
She looked up at his wings. Stared at them with an expression he couldn’t read. Fascination?
Snow spat out of the sky at an alarming pace now. He frowned at it.
She paused, the look she gave him incomprehensible, her gaze shifted down to her bandaged hand. She sighed but then gestured toward her dwelling and made sounds he interpreted as an invitation. The female said something that included “cocoa,” which his cipherbots had managed to translate.
A hot beverage. She was offering him hospitality.
He grunted acknowledgment. Letting her lead him inside was a terrible idea. But beyond his comprehension, he followed her anyway.
He moved with her toward the house, wings tucked tight against the wind, and tried not to think about how right it felt to walk beside her.