“She went to your rooms,” Lyko says, the pair stopping their easy conversation as I glance around the kitchen.

“She seemed angrier than a garwe roped to a wagon,” Ayro adds.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say glibly.

It’s a lie. It hurts that she hates me so much.

It hurts that I don’t know how to fix the hate she’s felt for my people for so damned long. And the female only wants to get back to Earth, while I want to keep her as mine. My jaw clenches.

Mine, forever.

I make my feet move down the cramped hallway, the artificial lights flickering as the engine thrums, the secondary core spinning to life as the primary cools.

The door to my room hisses open, and when I see her, curled into a miserable ball on my bed, shame floods me.

Tears dampen her cheeks, and her shoulders shake slightly.

She sniffles, looking up, her expression darkening when she sees me.

“Go away,” she says thickly, then flops over, facing the wall.

My heart aches. Did I do this? Did I make her cry? The human warlords had to explain tears to me, and I know they mean she is unhappy. They said that they also cry when they are mad or too happy, but I doubt the latter.

“Why are you upset?” I ask, finally stepping into my room. Her tiny pack hangs from a hook on the closet door, and the room is spare, neat. Suddenly, I wish I had more things in here to make her comfortable. A soft blanket or, I don’t know, pillows. Anything to make it seem more like home.

I want her to be comfortable here.

I don’t want her to cry.

“Why?” she finally retorts, sitting up and glaring at me.

I halt my approach, my eyes wide. The fact that this female acts like she could take me on, single-handedly… I love it. I love that despite her tears, her softness, she is still so feisty.

She will make a great queen.

I want that. I want that so badly that for a long moment, I cannot think past the idea of it, my plan to make her love me, to make her accept this fake mating as the truth between us. It overrides all my thoughts.

“Well?” She bares her teeth, and they are white and even and perfect.

“I wanted to make sure you are alright. It is clear to me that you are not.”

“No, no, I’m not alright. I’m not even in the same fucking galaxy as alright.” Her chest shudders as she inhales, and she fixes her watery gaze on me.

I want to help you. Talk to me, I try to say. Instead I stand, and I stare, and I wait, afraid to scare her off.

Silence must be the correct option, and I breathe a sigh of relief as she scrubs a hand over her face instead of running away, or trying to bash my head in again. Not that she would be successful in anything other than earning a headache for her troubles.

“Your… your scientists,” she spits, hatred in her gaze, “pumped me full of drugs to make me ovulate. To make me fertile. So that they could breed me. And now, I can’t sleep. I can’t do anything, because my body isn’t. Even. Mine,” she grits out, her green eyes wild and dilated. “I just want some goddamn sleep. It’s enough to make me consider your asshole offer to help.”

It hits me then, what she means. To help. She means to pleasure her. She is crying because she is frustrated… sexually.

I lick my lips, heat rising all over my body, enough to make my ash swirls spin and smoke slightly.

“Leigh, if it is pleasure you want, then I live to serve.”

“I don’t want you to touch me,” she says, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “But nothing takes the edge off.” She gestures to a small paper stuck to her arm. “Even the birth control hormones don’t work. The doctor said they might work. I hoped,” she sucks in a shaky breath. “I hoped they would. But they don’t. And it’s just getting worse.” Her voice is frantic, and my own desire is thoroughly dampened by her distress.

“You don’t want me to touch you,” I say slowly. “And I do not need to.”

She hiccups a laugh, brushing tears from her light-colored lashes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I smile at her, and it has an edge to it. I want to touch her. I have never wanted something so badly in a very, very long time. But this will be almost as satisfying, and if it helps her feel better, if it helps her feel more comfortable with me?

Then it might be the best idea I’ve ever had.

“I can make you come without even touching you.”

“Yeah, okay.” She rolls her green eyes, and there’s a hint of a sardonic smile on her face.

I concentrate, sending a ripple of my power to her, brushing it over her arm, the side of her neck, where that vein pulses against her fair, translucent skin.

Her eyes grow wide. “What the fuck?”

I inhale, closing my eyes briefly, reveling in the fresh scent of her arousal. Oh yes, I think I will like this very much.

“That is how I can help you, should you agree to let me call you mine, to call you my mate,” I say.

“Of course there are strings attached.” Her teeth make a horrible sound as she grinds them together.

I feel like the asshole she keeps telling me I am, but I don’t relent. I need to call her mine, and not just because it will help cement my claim that the Roth can and will mate humans successfully… when they are willing.

But because the purely selfish, horrible part of myself wants her to be mine, thoroughly and completely.

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CHAPTER SIX

Leigh

Disbelief and desire war inside me. My whole body keys up at Nydo’s touch.

Except, he’s not touching me, not at all. He stands across the room, his eyes glowing embers, his hair crackling with vivid orange energy.

And yet, I can feel him.

Liquid warmth trickles across my arm first, causing goosebumps to pebble all over my body. Then it reaches my jaw, like hot honey, dripping down my neck, my collarbone.

I close my eyes, overwhelmed.

Living for it, for the hot slide of the phantom flames licking across my shoulders, down my spine…

My eyes fly open.

“No.” My voice cracks on the syllable, and Nydo’s eyes stay fixed to me, his touch still on the small of my back.

“But you are enjoying it. I can feel how your body responds.” He sounds confused, but it’s hard to see anything but the otherworldly glow of his eyes, his hair flaming around his shoulders. “Have you not relaxed under my ministrations? Why do you tell me no?”

“I don’t want you to,” I grit out.

The strange, steaming sensation vanishes, and I shiver in the sudden loss of it.

“I meant only to help you.” Nydo blinks, and the orange is replaced by coal-black. “You weep for the need of release, and my… my species did this to you. You are hurting. Why not let me help you? Why not let me repair the wrongs they have done to your body?”

“Because you…” I sputter, trying to form words. I’m already lost though, my body begging for his warmth again, begging for release. “Because I don’t trust you. And I don’t even like you. Now get out.”

His jaw twitches, but it’s not anger that creases his brow.

Not at all.

He seems truly sad.

I blink, but the expression vanishes before I can be entirely sure.

“Where would you have me go?” His voice is a low growl that sets me aflame again, for an entirely different reason. “This is my room. We will land on the Hernus-12 Space Station tomorrow. You must wear my scent if we are to be believed.”

“So dress me in your dirty clothes,” I retort. His room? The fucking audacity of these Roth! “Go sleep in the captain’s chair. I don’t care where you sleep. Not my problem.”

“Perhaps, perhaps you have forgotten,” he says slowly, stalking towards where I sit on the bed. “That there are very, very few females left in the universe. Of any species, thanks to the virus that’s spread like wildfire. Maybe you have forgotten that the station we go to will be full of males. I know that humans’ senses are not nearly as evolved as many species, but they will be able to scent you the moment you walk off this ship.”