Chapter 5
FIVE
Drakkal kept his fists clenched at his sides as he stalked toward Arcanthus’s workshop.
Frustration, disappointment, worry, lust, and a small but resilient glimmer of hope were locked in a massive struggle, clouding his mind and making rational thought almost impossible.
Currently, frustration was the frontrunner.
Somehow, he retained enough willpower to resist the most destructive of his urges—like raking the hardlight claws of his prosthesis along the wall to tear deep gouges in the material, or slamming his armored shoulder into a door to dent the metal and break the door off its sliding track, or punching a wall until his hand was numb and bleeding.
None of that would provide any relief beyond a temporary, ultimately insignificant catharsis, an expelling of a modicum of the blazing, hungry energy thrumming through his body.
He growled. He’d been so close. So fucking close.
His body had reacted to the terran; his instincts had surged the instant he’d turned to discover that the sundrinker scent on the air hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, that she was there, that she was touching him.
He might’ve maintained control had things gone differently.
He might’ve maintained control if she hadn’t run.
Her flight had triggered instincts Drakkal could not ignore, had roused his desires to a feverish heat. His muscles had swelled—along with his cock—and his senses had sharpened. There’d been no choice but to give in, no choice but to give chase.
This was the aftermath—all this strength, all this energy, all this heat, and all for nothing. The prize he’d been meant to claim was lost. The relief he’d been meant to receive had been snatched out of his grasp. And his body refused to relax, his blood refused to cool.
She’s not going to disappear again. I won’t accept it.
Drakkal snarled as he reached the workshop door.
His instincts demanded he go back out there to continue the search for his terran, for his mate, but he knew that wasn’t the way to find her now.
Any trail he could follow had again gone cold.
But there was hope—he just couldn’t take advantage of it on his own.
That realization was a bitter one, further confusing the maelstrom of emotions whirling through him.
Tensing the muscles of his right arm, he pressed the access button on the wall.
The door slid open freely. He couldn’t deny his pang of disappointment for not having an excuse to break it down.
As Drakkal strode into the workshop, his nostrils flared with a heavy exhalation that did nothing to vent his frustration or ease the tightness in his chest.
Arcanthus was sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair with his cybernetic legs propped on the desktop and his matching prosthetic hands folded over his abdomen. He turned his attention away from the holographic displays in front of him and met Drakkal’s gaze.
“Oh, no. You have that look again,” Arcanthus said with a sigh.
Drakkal strode across the room, ignoring his rogue urges to tear into the couches with his claws.
“So what is it this time, Drakkal?”
Drakkal walked past the desks and paced in the space behind them. His ears, already low, flattened against his head, and the claws of his right hand were dangerously close to piercing his palm. His lips peeled back, baring his teeth, but only a growl emerged.
“Cat’s got your tongue?” Arcanthus asked.
Limbs nearly trembling with a fresh swell of rage, Drakkal spun toward Arcanthus. “Kraasz ka’val, you don’t know when to quit, do you?”
For a few seconds, all he could think about was knocking that smirk off the sedhi’s face.
That smirk only grew as Arcanthus lowered his legs and turned his chair to face Drakkal. “I certainly don’t. And neither do you. You went looking for her again, didn’t you?”
“Found her this time.” The heat and pressure in Drakkal’s chest intensified as he recalled the feel of his fingertips brushing over the hood of the terran’s coat. He raised his right hand, holding his palm toward the ceiling with fingers partly curled. “Had her right here.”
Arcanthus hummed thoughtfully. “But you botched it, didn’t you?”
Drakkal growled and lunged forward, slamming his hand down onto Arc’s desk. His claws clacked against the desk’s metal surface. “I didn’t botch anything!”
Arcanthus didn’t so much as flinch. His smirk faded, but a tiny, mischievous glint lingered in his eyes. “And yet here you are, upset and alone.”
“I’m not upset.”
“You don’t have to admit it. It’s clear in your every action, right down to your posture.”
“We’re not doing this right now, Arcanthus.”
Arcanthus tipped his head back and studied Drakkal from head to toe—and simultaneously from toe to head, as the third eye at the center of his forehead moved in the opposite direction of the other two.
He reached up and delicately tucked a loose strand of hair behind one of his horns. “It’s all right to ask, Drakkal.”
Drakkal’s brow furrowed, and the fires of his frustration cooled ever so slightly beneath a mist of confusion. “Ask what?”
“For help.”
“I was already going to do that.”
“Of course you were,” Arcanthus replied, rolling his lower eyes. “You’ve never once asked for even the tiniest bit of help, Drakkal.”
With a grunt, Drakkal dragged his hand off the desk, claws scraping the polished metal with a brief, high-pitched whine. “I was going to ask you, you horned asshole. That’s why I’m here!”
Smirking again, Arcanthus shook his head. “I know you’re just trying to spare yourself the shame of not having the courage to ask before I prompted you. You azhera and your pride.”
Drakkal lifted his hands and curled them into impotent firsts as he gritted his teeth.
The terran has had me out of sorts for weeks. Normally I wouldn’t let Arc get to me so easily… Normally, I’m the one getting under his skin.
Though that thought didn’t eliminate the emotional torrent within Drakkal—it didn’t even slightly diminish the storm—it restored a bit of his self-control.
“Let me correct myself, sedhi—I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. You’re helping me.”
“Why should I, if that’s the attitude you’re going to take?” Arcanthus asked with a shrug. He turned his chair back toward his desk. His lingering smirk suggested he was taking far too much pleasure in this.
“Samantha,” Drakkal replied through his teeth.
Arcanthus snapped his head to the side to glare at Drakkal, his expression instantly darker. “Even in jest, I won’t tolerate any threats to her, azhera.”
“Vrek’osh, I’m not threatening her. I’d never harm Samantha. Do you remember how you acted when you first found her? When you realized what she was to you?”
Arcanthus frowned. “I acted like a damned fool.”
Drakkal nodded. “More so than usual. But once you told me what she was to you, what did I do?”
“You called me stupid.”
“After that, damn it.”
“You helped. Which, for the record, is what I was about to do for you. I just can’t resist a chance to get your fur in a tangle.”
“Only thing that’s going to get tangled here is my hands around your neck, sedhi.”
Waving a hand dismissively, Arcanthus turned his chair forward again. “You’re sure about this terran, Drak?”
“Yes.”
“What are the odds? First that zenturi, then me, and now you. Terrans are one of the smallest alien populations in this city, and yet all of us are finding them as mates. Who do you suppose will be next? Thargen?”
Drakkal grunted; the thought of Thargen with a terran mate almost made the corner of his mouth twitch upward, but it wasn’t quite enough to break through his current mood.
“It’s just that you’ve been down this road before,” Arcanthus continued. “I only saw the aftermath of that a few years after it happened, but you were in a bad place because of it for a long, long time.”
Drakkal caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down, breathing out slowly to keep himself from making an angry retort. “This is different.”
“How do you know? Clearly, this female isn’t interested.”
“Because it is, Arc. It just is. It smells different, feels different… I feel different. She’s roused instincts in me that I’ve never experienced before. There’s no comparison between what I had back then and what I feel now. You ready to shut up and help yet?”
“Fine, fine.” Arcanthus shifted his attention to the many displays on his desk. “What do you want me to do?”
Drakkal moved to stand behind Arc and watch over the sedhi’s shoulder. “Hack the city surveillance system again.”
Arcanthus snickered. “We tried that the night you came home bare-assed. Lost her less than a minute after she left that alleyway.”
“This time will be different.”
“How can you know that?”
Drakkal clamped his jaw shut for a second. “I don’t. But it has to be. I ran into her on Orcus Street in the Viraxis sector about four hours ago.”
“That can be a rough part of town.”
“They can all be rough. You going to do it or not?”
“Of course, azhera. You know it always excites me when you ask me to break the law,” Arcanthus said with amplified huskiness in his voice.
“You break the law on your own every day.”
Arc’s fingers flew through the control screens on the displays, navigating options and commands faster than Drakkal could follow. “Yes, but that’s for money, not for you. This is completely different.”
Drakkal folded his arms across his chest and forced himself to remain in place despite his restlessness and agitation. “Just get to it.”
“I am.” Arcanthus continued inputting commands, pausing only to bring up another display. “But it’ll take a few minutes. Might as well tell me what happened while you’re waiting.”
Drakkal grasped the armored plate that encased the bicep of his prosthetic arm with his right hand and squeezed; his brain registered the pressure and warmth through his neural connections with the limb, and he could even make out a hint of his palm’s texture, but it wasn’t the same as feeling it with his own flesh. It would never be the same.