Varek (Monsters & Mates #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER

ONE

The crate shouldn’t be winning.

It’s a stupid thing to be furious with, a half-busted shipping crate with one warped side and a split slat, but right now it has my full attention and all of my hatred.

I brace my boot against the bottom and haul on the top plank again. The nail screams, wood groans, and the whole useless thing shifts an inch before jolting back into place like it’s trying to evade my efforts.

“Pax.”

“I’ve got it.”

That’s a lie. We both know it’s a lie. The crate knows it too.

Sweat slides down my spine under my shirt, sticking fabric to my overheated skin already dusted with grime.

The warehouse is cooler than outside, all shadowed corners and old stone, and a constant faint draft sneaks in through gaps in the patched walls, but I’ve been at this long enough to work my temperature up anyway.

Dust clings to my forearms, pale against my warm brown skin, highlighting every scrape and old mark I’ve picked up in this place and my former life.

My already damaged shoulder is starting to ache where I slammed it into the edge of the crate trying to force the lid loose ten minutes ago.

Behind me, Varek goes silent in that way that isn’t really noiseless at all. It’s the silence of someone enormous and patient and very much still there. The air changes with him. It always does. Even when I can’t see him, I know exactly where he is.

It’s not just awareness. It’s pressure. While it’s not anything physical—nothing I can point to—the space between us stutters when he’s too close, like the world itself is bracing.

I tell myself it’s just him. He’s big, armed, and not human.

It has nothing to do with me. And it definitely has nothing to do with the bond pulling taut enough under my skin to feel like a warning.

I set my jaw and wedge the crowbar deeper under the splintered plank.

“If you say my name like that one more time, I’m setting you on fire.

” My voice comes out rough, accent a mess as always—bits of Coventry flattened by years in Australia, with the occasional echo of my dad sneaking through when I’m annoyed.

“You say that often.”

“And yet you keep testing me.”

A faint huff of breath behind me. Not a laugh, exactly. Varek doesn’t laugh often, not the way humans do. But I’ve learned the sounds he makes when he’s amused, when he’s irritated, when he’s pretending very hard not to be either. This one means he thinks I’m being ridiculous.

He’s right, which only makes me crankier.

I shove down hard on the bar. The plank gives with a loud crack, nearly sending me backwards. I catch myself on the crate and glare triumphantly into the gap I’ve made like I’ve accomplished something heroic.

“See?” I mutter. “Handled.”

Varek steps closer, and strain briefly creases his features. It’s gone so fast, I almost miss it. It’s almost like he’s adjusting to something that shouldn’t be difficult for him.

I frown before I can stop myself. Then immediately decide I imagined it, since Varek doesn’t strain. He endures.

I don’t turn again because if I do, I’ll have to look at him, and I’m already in a foul enough mood without adding that problem to the pile.

“Handled,” he repeats.

His voice is deep, rough-edged, too smooth in places it has no right being smooth.

English still sits strangely in his mouth sometimes, old consonants clipping hard, vowels lengthening where they shouldn’t.

He speaks better now than he did when we first met, but there’s still something “other” in it.

Something deliberate. Like every word is chosen and set down with care.

I hate that I notice that.

I hate that I notice everything.

The soft shift of leather when he moves.

The brush of claw against stone. The faint metallic scent that clings to his weapons no matter how carefully he cleans them.

The darker, warmer scent underneath that is just him, smoke and clean sweat and something mineral and storm-like that I still don’t have a proper word for.

The way his presence overwhelms the space without him even trying.

And, worst of all, how bloody beautiful he is. My body reacts before my brain can shut it down. Heat—low, sharp, unwanted—pulls firmly through my gut.

I go still.

Absolutely not.

Not him. Not like this.

I shift my stance slightly, angling away, pretending I’m just adjusting my grip on the crowbar and not dealing with the very inconvenient fact that my body has decided now is a great time to betray me.

“Don’t,” I mutter under my breath.

Varek’s head tilts a fraction. Like he heard it. Worse—like he felt it.

It’s deeply unfair for a male who has caused me this much grief to look like that.

I finally turn because pretending not to look is pointless when my body is already fully aware of him—aware, too, of the contrast. Him, all hard lines and impossible angles. Me, broader, softer at the edges, built for endurance, not display.

I’m not exactly small myself. Thick through the shoulders, solid rather than carved, muscle built from years fixing machines that weigh more than a small house.

My tattoo itches under my sleeve, and the old scar beside my eye pulls when I scowl—which, lately, is often—dragging the expression into something more severe than I probably intend.

He’s a few feet away, broad shoulders nearly blocking the narrow lane between the stacked crates and shelves like he personally owns the air in it.

He’s tall enough to make the warehouse feel smaller than it is—which is impressive, considering this place used to store half a trading district’s worth of junk.

His dark hair is loose today, falling past his shoulders in thick waves that catches the pale light from the high windows. It should look messy. It doesn’t. It just makes him look even more unfairly put together.

The faint silver markings at his temples and throat stand out against deep purple skin that shifts in the light like oil over dark water. Not subtle either—proper alien. Nyxerian. No mistaking what he is.

Then there are the horns. Elegant curves sweeping back from his temples, sharp and clean, more like something sculpted than grown.

And his eyes, they’re bright silver.

Not human. Not even close.

They’re fixed on me with that steady, assessing look of his—the one that makes me feel like he’s weighing truths I haven’t even spoken yet.

It drives me absolutely bonkers.

There’s dried blood on the strap crossing his chest from earlier, when he helped haul in the carcass. Not his blood. He’s healed from the arrow wound now. Mostly. Better than he should have—at least by human standards.

Though maybe it’s slow for a Nyxerian.

I changed his bandages for three days straight before I realised what I was doing and got so angry about it, I nearly threw him out again.

His gaze flicks to the crowbar in my hand, then to the cracked lid of the crate. “You are favouring your shoulder.”

“I’m using my shoulder.”

“You struck it against the crate.”

“Were you watching me fail for entertainment?”

His mouth does that tiny thing again, the almost-smile that never fully lands. “No.”

“Liar.”

“I was watching in case you injured yourself.”

I stare at him. “The crate.”

He inclines his head once, solemn as a judge.

Honestly, sometimes I don’t know whether to kiss him or stab him. That thought arrives so casually, I nearly trip over it.

I look away first. “You can stop looming.”

“I am standing.”

“You’re doing it aggressively.”

One heavy brow rises.

That shouldn’t be attractive either. It is. Because apparently I’ve suffered enough in this life, so the universe decided to start making it funny.

I set the crowbar down with more force than necessary and pry the lid open with both hands.

The board tears free. Inside the crate are three wrapped bundles of iron fittings, a coil of wire, and—thank every god anyone’s ever invented—two small sacks of dried grain that I’d been hoping hadn’t been spoiled by damp.

“Finally,” I mutter.

I crouch to inspect the grain. It’s dry. Still good. Relief loosens something in my chest.

Food has become one of those things I can’t stop inventorying, no matter how much better my situation is than it used to be.

There are habits this place carves into you and leaves there.

I know exactly how much cured meat is hanging in the rear room, how many jars of roots I traded for two days ago, how much lamp oil is left, how many clean bandages are rolled up in the cupboard, how long I can keep everyone fed if the next supply run goes badly.

I used to count other things.

Hours on site. Shifts. Pay packets. How many days Thomas had been sober. How many drinks in he was when his voice changed and I knew I’d better say less. How many bruises a shirt could cover.

Now I count weapons, food, and exits.

Progress, I suppose.

Varek crouches beside me before I can stop him.

The movement is smooth for a male his size, graceful in a way that still catches me off-guard.

Nyxerians are built like warriors from a fever dream—too big, too strong, too fast—and yet they move with this horrible elegance that makes you understand exactly why so many species here fear them.

Also why some Glowranth want to own them.

My mouth hardens at the thought.

Varek reaches for the grain sack, and I slap his hand away on instinct, my dark skin brushing his—purple shifting under the light like oil on water, as always—as the contact cracks through me.

Pain lances up my arm and across my chest, piercing and electric, gone almost as quickly as it comes but vicious enough to steal my breath. Varek goes still beside me. Not just still but locked.

His breath halts abruptly enough that I hear it. For a second, I think it’s just the bond—just the same jolt that ripped through me. But then his jaw locks like he’s forcing something down.

Pain?

No. No way.