“I did not force her.”

Ga’Var nictitates at me, his ears twitching as he sniffs again.

“It is a mating scent I smell. I am positive because it makes me want to find the female and—”

A growl leaves my throat.

One moment, I am standing non-threateningly, and the other my hackles are out and Ga’Var is pinned against the corridor wall.

Surprise widens his features.

“Adee’ra,” I click, “is mine.”

So much for not disclosing that just yet.

“She has not chosen you,” he growls back and my hold on him loosens a bit.

He is right.

I practically held her legs open so I could have her.

So I could taste her.

I stifle a thrum at the memory of her soft folds, but her scent is still on my skin, my lips.

I want more.

“You are my womb mate, Fer’ro. But if you have forced the hyu’man…”

I let him go and he staggers a little. “I did not take her,” I say as I put my hackles away.

At least…not with my sazi. But I rekking wanted to.

“You are my womb mate. Why lie to me? I can scent her on your skin.”

“It is not what it seems,” I turn away from him. “There are more important things anyway. We must deal with those first. It won’t take long for the Gryken to realize we are here. We can’t linger.”

I can feel him watching me as I walk away but his words remain on my mind.

Adee’ra did not choose me.

I can only hope that she will.

Because I know now. I want her and nobody else is going to have her.

She is mine.

Chapter Twenty-Five

ADIRA

I’m warm and snug when I wake and I realize I must have fallen asleep.

It feels like someone is hugging me all across my body, holding me tight in a comforting hold.

Fer’ro.

My eyes flick open and I squint a little.

But as I come awake I realize there is someone standing before me.

Fer’ro…which means he’s not the one holding me.

My eyes jerk open fully then and my head flashes to the side as I look behind me. But I am alone on the bed.

As soon as I turn back to look at Fer’ro, I know something is wrong.

There is alarm in his gaze. Confusion. Wariness.

In the back of mind, I’m surprised at myself for being able to identify his emotions so clearly but the fact they are there concerns me more.

I almost do not want to follow his gaze but I do so anyway, tipping my chin so I am looking down at myself.

The skin along my arms crawls as soon as I see myself and I shoot upright into a sitting position.

My entire body right up to my neck is covered in black.

The ba’clan.

My eyes are wide as my heart hammers against my chest.

“What’s happening? They weren’t like this before I fell asleep.” I am almost afraid to move, as if doing so will cause something bad to happen, but my voice shivers anyway. “Did more of them migrate from you while we…”

I trail off, my cheeks growing warm at the thought.

My center still feels pleasantly sore.

“No,” he says. “Those are the same batch that migrated to you from the start.”

I’m shaking my head before the words form in my throat. “But…there weren’t so many before.”

“Correct.” His gaze roams over my body.

I’m naked…but not.

The ba’clan hide everything like some kind of skin tight latex suit.

“You have created a new colony.”

I blink at Fer’ro. “I’ve created a—what now?”

I heard him fine. I just don’t think I understand.

I don’t think I want to understand.

“A colony,” he repeats as he leans down and kneels before me, his gaze a little wider than usual.

“What do you mean?” My heart is starting to slam so hard against my ribs, I’m sure he can hear it. “You have to break it down to me like I’m a child. I don’t—”

“A new colony from the ba’clan that migrated to you.” His voice holds a note of wonder. “This only happens when…”

I gulp. My mind is screaming that I should get them off me but it’s a strange experience.

I can’t really feel them.

The sensation of being hugged it slowly going away.

I’m looking at myself, noticing that not an inch of skin is free, when I realize Fer’ro stopped talking.

My gaze flashes to his and he is staring at me as if I’m the fifth wonder of the universe.

“Fer’ro…is this a bad thing?”

The ba’clan haven’t harmed me yet but back then, they’d simply been on my arm.

If I’d had to lose an arm because of them, that could have been something I got used to. But now they’re over my entire body and, well, there’s no me if I have no body anymore.

“I…do not think so,” he says. “They will not harm you.” His gaze is moving over my skin—or, at least, the ba’clan that have fastened themselves to me.

“How do they feel?”

I try to calm my breathing and focus.

I can’t really feel…anything and that makes me nervous.

The aches that had been all over my body from the cuts and scrapes…I can’t feel even one of them.

I feel as good as I’d felt before the orbs crashed down from the sky.

“I feel…good.”

Fer’ro’s ears twitch a little and as his gaze continues to move over me, it pauses at the center of my thighs.

My cheeks warm and I feel the ba’clan pulse against my skin, as if they can sense my embarrassment.

They’ve covered me there fully too, hiding my nakedness.

I blink at them.

I couldn’t manage to get them off my arm before…what if I need to pee?

Fer’ro must have read my mind because he answers my question without me speaking.

“Tell them to move,” he says.

I blink at him. It can’t be that easy.

If that was the case, why hadn’t he suggested that from the start when they were on my arm?

“Just…tell them to move?”

Fer’ro isn’t focused on me. His gaze is still roving over the blank ink that’s all over me now.

“Move,” I say, but my brow furrows when nothing happens.

There’s a soft sound. A soft trill that comes from Fer’ro and when I look back at him, his ears twitch a little.

“With your mind. Tell them to move.”

I’m frowning at him now. Surely, that won’t work, but I do it anyway.

Move.

Nothing happens.

“I don’t think they work with me the same way they do with you.”

“They have bonded with you. To have formed a brand-new colony…” His gaze travels over me some more. “Tell them to move again. Do not say the thought,” he meets my gaze, “instead…think of them moving away.”

I nod at him a little as I try to understand what he’s trying to tell me to do.

Think of them moving away.

Like…imagine them?

I’m so nervous, it’s a conscious effort to calm myself.

I imagine the ba’clan moving away from my privates in much the same way I see them move like water across Fer’ro’s skin.

I don’t even feel it as they move away but my eyes widen as I see my skin being revealed.

I realize, belatedly, that I’ve just bared my privates in front of him once more.

Fer’ro growls and the seal closes, covering me again.

My heart slams against my chest.

I do not know what to think.

I just controlled an alien lifeform.

Fer’ro’s pupils are growing thinner as he rises and takes a step away from me.

He growls again and I barely see the tip of his tongue as he swipes it against the line of his lip.

I gulp, my heart slamming against my chest for a whole other reason now.

“I must fetch He’rox,” he says.

“No!”

I slip off the bed and almost stumble when my foot touches the floor.

Standing feels different. My weight feels different.

It almost feels like I’m floating a little.

I’m filing all this away in the back of my mind as I face Fer’ro.

“He’rox needs to tend to Mina. I can go to him. I don’t want him to leave the med bay for non-emergencies.”