“Dude?” One of the aliens asks.

“He is a dude, too?” the other adds.

“Why don’t you two go ahead inside and ah…” Gen trails off, clearly flummoxed.

“Obtain some rest and food for your service. On the prince,” I finish for her. They nod once, then all but race inside Edrobaz. She squeezes my arm in gratitude, and I keep walking, Ni-Kee and Bex keeping pace beside us.

“Are you hurt?” Ni-Kee asks her, shooting me a careful look. Like she does not trust that I haven’t been the one to hurt her. Anger rises inside me, uncoiling like a venomous snake. “Did you hurt him?”

Gen laughs. “I’m hungry, I’m cold, and I’m tired, but I’m not hurt. And I didn’t hurt him. Much.” She raises one eyebrow, and Bex sighs, glancing between us.

The Crigomar starts up another plaintive roar.

“SO HELP ME, STEVE,” Gen thunders, and the roar cuts off quickly.

Bex’s eyebrows shoot up. “Uh. Did you just yell at a dinosaur?”

“She is goddess-blessed,” I explain. Bex’s brow furrows, and I realize with a sudden shock that she cannot understand me. I am going to have a long talk with my scientists at Perzivor.

“Riiiiight,” Ni-Kee says. “Prince Kanuz, it’s a pleasure to meet you, by the way. We’ve all been worried sick about you both. It sounds like you’ve got one hell of a story to tell. I’m Captain Jacks. This is Bex.” She nods at the brunette. “We’d like to help Gen adjust to life here, if you don’t mind leaving her with us.”

“She goes nowhere without me,” I hiss, snapping my jaws at her.

A familiar figure stands at the gate, a vicious energy sword strapped to his back.

“Prince,” Draz intones, dipping his chin in greeting, one fist raised toward me.

“First Warlord.”

“I would appreciate it if you stopped threatening my mate.”

“I would appreciate it if she stopped trying to take my mate from me.” No one will take her from me. My golden flower is mine alone.

“No one is taking me from you, Kanuz, calm your tits.”

Bewildered, I stare down at my precious mate. “I do not have tits. Even if I did, I do not know how I would calm them.”

Ni-Kee snorts, and Gen gives her a beleaguered look. “Here’s the thing, Kanuz, we’ve been in the jungle for—” She wrinkles her nose.

“Sixteen and a half days,” Bex supplies.

“Thank you, Officer Abbas. I can tell you right now that my crew wants to debrief, make sure I’m healthy, and I want to do the same with them.”

“But I want—”

“I appreciate that you may not have planned on this, but this is what is going to happen.” Her voice is icey calm, and I blink at her, loving it. My cock gets hard. I haven’t heard this tone from her before.

I grin at her, my cock aching. Her eyes narrow, a smile playing about her lips, and I know she can feel where my hardness nudges against her.

She raises her shimmering hand to my cheek, pulling me down to kiss my cheek.

“Let me touch base with my crew, Kanuz,” she whispers. “You go get intel on the Roth, check in with your warlords, and then we can reconvene and make a plan for how to protect Earth, if they haven’t already. And then…” She trails off, her small, smooth tongue licking across my cheekbone.

“And then I will ravage you, again and again.”

“I can’t speak Suevan, but I think I know what he just said.” Bex groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. “They’re just as insufferable as you and Draz.”

Ni-Kee rolls her eyes, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “Can you walk, Gen, or do you need him to carry you? We’ll get you cleaned up and clean clothes and some food, and we’ll debrief while we take care of you.”

Gen taps on my shoulder, and I let her down. “I can walk. I just left my boots behind.” She tugs the blanket around her shoulders.

“You really do look radioactive,” Ni-Kee says speculatively.

“I’ll tell Carmen and Tati to run some tests,” Bex says. “Do you feel sick?”

“I’m not radioactive.”

“She is healthy,” I snarl. “She was blessed by the goddess.”

“Easy,” Draz murmurs, his eyebrows raised.

Gen slips from my grasp, giving my hand a final squeeze, and then she disappears through the gate, flanked by her crew members.

My hands fist at my sides, clenched so tight my talons bite into my hide. I stare after her long after her shimmer has disappeared into the fading light, Draz watching me with careful eyes.

“She is safe,” he finally says, his tone ripe with understanding. “My mate feels a solemn duty to her crew. Is it true you received the blessing of the goddess?”

“Gen did.” My throat closes up, and I fight the need to chase after her. I do not want her out of my sight. I want her in my arms. I want her back, and I want it now.

“How?”

I sigh, and Draz closes the gate on the jungle behind us as we begin to walk through his city. “Take me to the Roth, and I will tell you. I long to make jewelry from his bones, but I wish to know what his race has in store for Earth.”

Draz is silent for a long moment, then nods once. “You have changed. She has changed you.”

“She is everything,” I tell him vehemently.

And I will keep the vow I made to myself to protect her, and her people.

I will get the information we need from the Roth, one way or another.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

OceanofPDF.com

GEN

The tree houses are just as fucking cool on the inside as they seemed on the outside. “This is your house?” I ask Niki, awed by the sight. Everything just… works. Flows together. Natural wood walls of the hollow trees—the myza—mesh with soft furniture and plush rugs.

“Yeah, but you’re welcome to bunk with the rest of the crew if you feel safer there than with the Prince.”

I snort, sure she’s joking.

She doesn’t laugh, and neither does Bex.

“Why are you both staring at me like that? I expect the third degree from the captain, but not you, Chaos Queen,” I tell Bex.

“Prince Kanuz has a reputation,” Niki says slowly. “Are you sure you are all right?”

“What, you think he Stockholm Syndromed me into falling in love with him? Not a chance. As if I would allow that to happen.”

Carmen looks up from where she’s drawing my blood, using a ridiculously advanced device that must be Suevan, because I can’t make heads or tails of it. She knows what the fuck she’s doing though, thank God. “Durand, you can’t will your way out of Stockholm Syndrome. You’ve been alone in what sounds to be a desperate situation for weeks now. We’re doing our due diligence to ensure that you’re safe.”

“Thanks,” I tell her acidly, yanking my arm away. “What, so you can believe that Captain Jacks is happily fucking her alien boy toy, but Durand is so bitchy that she must have had a lobotomy to fall in love?”

“You really are in love,” Bex says, her voice moony and eyes huge. “I want to hear all about it. All the dirty details.”

“Why can’t you understand them yet?” I ask, dodging her question. I don’t feel like being interrogated about my sex life. My excellent, really great, phenomenal alien sex life.

“We can’t figure out why some of us understand them and some don’t. Carmen, Tati and I have been working on it, but so far, it’s speculation. They’re symbiont tech. Cutting edge, even for the Suevans. We think there must be some kind of neural path rearrangement that they facilitate, but it might take longer on some than others. Tell me about Kanuz. He has quite the reputation among the Suevans. Has he forced you?”

“What?” I ask, aghast. “No. He’s been more gentlemanly than any guy I ever dated on Earth.”

“You didn’t exactly hang around with the cream of the crop,” Bex says.

“Your pulse just spiked,” Carmen observes. She winks at me, and I glare back at her.