Chapter 11
Xabat
I pressed my face against the cool glass of the window, peering through the boarding as I watched the palm trees that had been thrashing violently just moments before, their fronds whipping like desperate hands clawing at the sky.
They were still swaying, but the movement had become almost gentle, a slow, hypnotic dance in the aftermath of chaos.
The howling winds that had filled my ears for hours had faded to a low whistle that threaded through the shutters.
Soon we would be able to leave our sanctuary... a prospect that filled me with more dread than delight.
I thought of Harper and our conversation earlier. I'd reached for the cuddwisg device, ready to activate it, to slip back into the human disguise so she would feel more comfortable.
But she'd stopped me, her small hand covering mine, her touch sending electricity racing up my arm. "No," she'd said, her voice quiet but firm. "I like your real face."
I'd stared at her, my breath catching in my throat as I searched for the lie, the politeness, the fear. But there was nothing. Just her, looking at me, really looking at me, and meaning every word.
Words that in that moment, simple and unadorned, meant more to me than anything ever had before.
I was in such trouble.
I was no novice when it came to females.
In my younger days, I'd had many partners, brief and intense connections that burned hot and fast. Quick pleasure exchanged in darkened quarters.
Couplings for one purpose only—sexual gratification, physical release without the dangerous entanglement of emotion.
But I'd never wanted a female like I wanted Harper.
I'd never wanted anything like I wanted Harper.
That primal, ancient drive written into my DNA by millennia of evolution screamed that she was mine. My mate. The one my soul recognized even when my mind rebelled against the impossibility.
But how could it be true? Xytol had claimed her.
My brother, my blood, had marked her as his intended.
Could the goddess be cruel enough to give one female to two brothers, to set us against each other in the oldest conflict?
Sure, there were some species where that was standard practice, where siblings shared mates without discord, but Kaelaks were not among them.
We were possessive, territorial, built for singular devotion.
For me to feel this pull toward her—this need that clawed at my insides and made my chest ache with longing—it defied all logic.
But logic had nothing to do with it.
Every time she smiled, something in my chest tightened—constricted like a fist closing around my heart and refusing to let go.
Every time she touched me, my skin came alive with recognition, every nerve ending singing out in response.
And when she'd looked at me with those eyes, bright blue and infinite, and told me she liked my real face?
The bond had snapped into place with such force I'd nearly staggered from it.
I was in so much trouble.
Because if Harper was my mate, then I was bound to her in ways that transcended customs, transcended worlds, transcended even death itself.
Losing her would destroy me more completely than any weapon ever forged, would shatter me into pieces too small to ever reassemble.
But claiming Harper might mean losing my brother if he still lived, might mean severing the bond that had sustained me through countless battles and endless loneliness.
An impossible choice that was tearing me apart.
Yet when she announced dinnertime, surrounded by brightly colored packages with absurd names like Cheetos and Doritos and something called Flamin' Hot Funyuns, it felt more meaningful than any formal dinner I'd ever attended.
We settled on the floor, our backs against the wall, the bags scattered between us like offerings at an altar to poor nutritional choices.
"You and your junk food," she chuckled as I picked up a bag and opened it, studying the neon-orange powder clinging to the twisted shapes inside.
Harper handed me something called Mountain Dew, a beverage so artificially green it practically glowed in the dim light.
"Tell me about it," she said, pulling her knees up to her chest. "About life out there. Among the stars."
So, I did. I described the vastness, the infinite darkness punctuated by light, the feeling of standing on a ship's observation deck, and knowing that thousands of worlds existed within a single glance.
I told her of space stations and markets where memories and experiences were traded like commodities, of worlds where physics bent and warped in ways impossible to describe.
I told her of planets and moons—some so beautiful they surpassed description, others so deadly the air itself was designed to kill with a single breath.
Pleasure moons where any vice could be fulfilled.
Prison moons where the gravity was so strong it crushed hope as surely as it crushed bone.
Garden worlds where the plants were sentient and sang to each other at dawn.
I told her about the crystalline beings who communicated through light.
About the Vorrath merchants who had three sexes and elaborate courtship rituals that lasted decades.
About nebulas that sang if you had the right equipment to hear them.
About quantum drives that folded space like paper and made the impossible possible.
About a life among the stars where anything could happen, where the universe was so much bigger and stranger and more beautiful than anyone could imagine.
And Harper listened, her lips slightly parted, her chest rising and falling with quick breaths, eyes bright as captured starlight. She leaned forward with each new detail, drawn in, mesmerized.
She was imagining it. Imagining herself out there, among the stars.
Imagining a life where the universe was hers to explore.
And I was imagining her there too, at my side, her brilliant mind drinking in every new discovery.
I was in so so much trouble.
The storm had quieted now, leaving behind a silence that seemed to pulse with unspoken possibilities. I could hear Harper's steady breathing—a rhythm that had become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat—and beneath it, another sound. A clicking. Her teeth chattering.
She lay on her plastic float, buried under at least a dozen beach towels, but it still wasn't enough to warm her.
The temperature was dropping, a creeping cold that seeped through the walls and raised the fine scales along my arms. She wasn't like me, able to register the cold without suffering from it.
The way her teeth chattered, the shivers dancing over her skin—they drew me like a magnetic pull I couldn't resist.
It was a bad idea.
A phenomenally bad idea.
I did it anyway.
I crossed the space between us in three strides. My decision was made before my mind could catalog all the reasons this was reckless, before it could remind me of boundaries and brothers and complications that tangled like thorns.
I didn't ask permission. I simply lowered myself onto the narrow float beside her, felt it shift and dip under my weight, and drew her into my arms.
She came willingly, fitting against me like she'd been designed for it, her soft breasts pressed against my chest, her head tucked beneath my chin. I wrapped myself around her, my legs bracketing hers, sharing the heat that radiated from my core.
Her shivering stopped almost immediately.
She released a sigh—soft, contented, the kind of sound that bypassed my brain entirely and went straight to something primal and possessive deep in my chest. My cock swelled, throbbing against the fabric of my pants.
Her muscles relaxed, tension draining out of her as she burrowed closer, seeking more contact, more heat, more of me.
Her small fingers curled into my shirt and held on, as if subconsciously worried I might pull away, anchoring herself to me.
I buried my face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her—sweet beneath the salt and storm, still uniquely Harper—and felt something deep inside me settle and ignite simultaneously.
She was dangerous.
She was perfect.
She was mine.
I lost track of time holding her. Minutes, hours—it didn't matter. However long it was, it would never be long enough.
When she stirred against me, the tenor of her breathing shifting as consciousness returned, I discovered I didn't have the strength to let her go.
Her eyes fluttered open, meeting mine with that same unguarded warmth that had undone me so completely the night before. No fear. No hesitation. Just Harper, looking at me like I was something worth waking up to.
"Hi," she whispered, her voice rough with sleep, her fingers still clutching my shirt like a lifeline.
I couldn't speak. Words had abandoned me entirely. I could only stare at her, memorizing the way the light caught in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, the curve of her lips.
Her hand slid from my chest to my jaw, her palm cradling my face with a tenderness that made my chest ache. She shifted in my arms, turning toward me instead of away, her body pressing closer, aligning with mine in ways that obliterated any hope of coherent thought.
"Harper," I managed, though whether it was a warning or a plea, I couldn't say.
She didn't let me finish. She closed the distance between us, rising slightly to press her lips against mine.
The kiss started softly. Tentative. A question asked without words, an invitation extended with breath and warmth.
I should have stopped it. Should have pulled away, created distance, remembered all the reasons this was wrong. My brother's claim. The impossibility of it all. The consequences that would follow.
But her lips moved against mine, warm and alive and devastatingly real, and every rational thought I'd ever possessed scattered like ash in a hurricane.