“I can still smell it,” I continue. “I can still smell the dust from the building, the fire. I can taste it in my mouth, hear the screaming all around. Because of the Roth. And where am I going now, Nydo? Where are you taking me?” I slant my head at him. I’m not angry.

I’ve said what I needed to say, and I feel… slightly empty.

“To Roth,” he rasps, his brow furrowing.

In the next instant, he’s pulling his safety webbing off, closing the distance between us in two easy steps.

His hands cup my face, his gaze as tender as I’ve ever seen it.

“You are brave,” he tells me, his breath warm against my skin. “You are braver than many Roth warriors. You can do this. I will be by your side the whole time. I will let nothing happen to you.” A muscle twitches in his forehead, and his nostrils flare slightly. “I could apologize until I am pale in the face, but it will not heal what the Overlord’s troops did to your people, to you. I only wish that I had been ready to take the throne before he invaded Earth. I wish I had been strong enough to save my mother and stay behind with my brothers. I wish things were different.”

I swallow, and his fingertips skate over my jaw.

“I cannot wish these things into reality, though, my Leigh. I cannot change what happened to either one of us. I cannot apologize away the evils of what the Overlord has wrought. All I can do, my Leigh, is promise you that I will not hurt you. That I will protect you with every power I have. You mean…” He takes a great shuddering breath, then forges ahead. “You mean everything to me. Everything.”

I bite my lip, staring down at my knuckles whitening where I’ve gripped the safety webbing so hard it cuts into my palms. He follows my gaze, and his hands find mine.

They’re warm, and strong, and he unwinds my fingers from the webbing, then peppers soft kisses along the red lines across my palm left by the webbing. It makes my breath stutter, the way he touches me, the way he makes promises to me.

I don’t know what to think about him, not really.

He’s giving me whiplash.

One minute, he’s so damn sexy my toes curl in my little Roth-style boots, and the next, so fucking bossy I want to roll my eyes and slam doors.

And then there’s this.

This sweet, kind side to him. I narrow my eyes, trying to figure out if he’s sincere, or if this is just some weird calculation on his part to get me to calm down.

Just when I think I’ve figured him out, he surprises me again.

“Are you hungry? We didn’t have much time to eat.”

“I could eat,” I admit.

He unstraps my webbing, and I’m too tired to argue that I can do it myself. Maybe I should just let him take care of me.

“The settlement was weird, huh? Or is that what I should expect from here on out? Being attacked by the Overlord and then that ass Roghat trying to kill me or have sex with me…” I drift off.

There’s something I need to remember about the settlement. About what I just said.

It’s right on the edge of my awareness, but when I try to focus on what it is, what’s bothering me, it slips away.

“What?” he asks, at least in tune with me enough to know I’m thinking hard about something.

“Something about what Roghat said, back before he grabbed my neck.” I frown, touching my collarbone, where it’s still tender.

“I should have killed him for touching you.”

“We needed him.”

“I will get you more cream for your wound,” he tells me. “After I feed you.”

“I can feed myself,” I tell him, pushing back on his shoulders lightly and standing.

Stars and planets shine outside the window, illuminating the endless stretch of space.

“Why do you push me away?”

“I barely touched you,” I say, laughing. The sound dies on my lips when I turn back to him and realize he doesn’t mean the way I touched him. Physically.

He shakes his head, hurt clear in his eyes.

Guilt slams into me, and I bite my cheeks.

“Ugh,” I finally say, throwing my hands in the air. “I don’t know, Nydo! Maybe because everything about this is insane. I nearly died after your species ravaged Earth. A lot of my friends did. My family, too. Then I had to live with the fact that I’d somehow made it out okay, that I’d somehow lived, when everyone else I loved died. Everyone! Do you know what that’s like?” I let out a harsh laugh, on the verge of tears. “Then I got snatched up again, after I joined the Federation, because what the hell else was I going to do with myself? The Roth put me in a cell and injected me full of drugs for the sole purpose of making more of the species that already took everything from me.” I laugh again, and it scrapes out of my throat. “That’s why the women in our crew used to tell me I was the unluckiest. Because I barely survived the Roth attack, only to find out I’d lost everything, then landed in that prison, only to have the lost King of Roth decide I was his mate.”

He regards me for a long moment, his lips pursed.

My breath’s coming in short, frantic puffs, and he gets down on his knees before me, clasping my hands in his.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” I tell him, throwing up my hands. “I… like you. I know you’re not the same as the Roth who ordered the horrible things that happened to me. But just when I think you’re nice, just when I think maybe you’re different, you go and act like a jerk again.”

He cradles my face in his hands, and I tilt my chin up, refusing to let him see just how much he gets to me.

“I care for you more than I thought possible, Leigh,” he rumbles, his eyes as serious as I’ve ever seen them. “I do not know how to be… the male you want me to be. I am not perfect. I will never be perfect. But when I tell you I care for you, that I want to take care of you, I mean it. I want you to stay safely by my side, forever.” He bites off the last word, and my eyes grow wide.

“You mean until you’re secure on Roth and I can go back to Earth. I just, I don’t understand you. I keep trying, and every time I think I have you figured out, I get all mixed up again. I’m trying. You seem wonderful one moment, and the next, you’re back to being a jerk.”

“You like it when I boss you around.”

“I mean, yeah, in bed, maybe. But otherwise, no. No. You have to realize this goes both ways, this thing between us,” I say, motioning between our chests. “If you want me to really sell the fact that I’m your mate, that there is a way for humans and Roth to really work together, then you need to get used to cluing me in on what the hell it is you’re planning. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.” I heave out a breath, hungry and tired.

He growls at me, then takes my hands in his.

“You think I like it? You think I like that the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning is how not to die? How to keep myself and my brothers safe? But I’m trying to do the right thing anyway, because I’m tired of feeling like maybe I am the villain everyone seems to think I am. I’m a king, and death might be my only birthright, but I’m going to try to do the right thing.” Fire licks up his arms.

I flinch back, but to my surprise, they don’t burn me. They’re just… warm.

He rubs his thumb across my cheek, catching me off guard.

“I have never had to explain myself to anyone. Never had to think about anything other than my brothers’ and my safety. I am trying. But you have to remember, the Roth are not human. We are not raised like you, we don’t think like you.”

“What do you think like, then?” It’s the only thought my brain can hold on to long enough to ask. “How are we so different?”

“We are a species raised in battle and blood. We are taught to revere war, that power and might make right. That the strongest of all is the one to lead. That softness and… caring are death sentences.” His gaze slips over my face, and I get the distinct feeling he’s trying to tell me something else, something that he can’t quite put words to.