Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Of my fate.
Of Bothaki’s.
She lets me stew in my silence as she pulls the one oil from the shelf and uncorks it when she turns back to me. “A finger, please.”
Taking the hand I offer, she dips my pointer finger into the jar, coating it in oil once she pulls it out. Releasing my hand, Vabila demonstrates what I should do by touching her own throat, behind her pointed ears, and even the crescent shaped mark on her forehead just above her eyes. The same crescent on Bothaki and Halun’s faces.
A mark I don’t have.
A mark I watched them touch.
“Even there?” I ask.
Vabila just gives me a look. “Especially there.”
Well, okay.
She decorates my smock, one similar to her own, with a rope made of beaded jewels and precious stones that she wraps around the small of my waist, accentuating the curve. Her fingers glide along the rope of jewelry left behind that hangs loosely before she lets it drop against the smock hugging my body softly.
“There’ll be many more beautiful things waiting for you at home, but for now, these will do. I brought what I could.”
“More?” I ask, already overwhelmed with what is.
Vabila just smiles again, but this time when I smile back, it feels like I’ve found myself a friend. The very best kind. A sister. “He’s not the only one who’s been waiting for you.”
*
“If all we’re going to do is stand here and argue about it, I think we both have better ways to spend our evening, brother,” Halun says pointedly.
Ah, yes.
With him terrorizing the humans to make them suffer for a single male’s misdeeds, and me with my cock buried deep inside the warm wetness of my mate.
To each their own, I suppose.
I can tell he wants it to be the last word on the topic, but I can’t suppress the desire I have to give my mate something before it’s too late and what’s left of her world is gone. The things, and people, remaining here are all that she has left until I can show her what’s waiting across the universe. I don’t, however, want her last thoughts of this place to be war and destruction. I’ve shown Halun the memories Selinas trusted me with of her mother, but I’m not sure he understands how important it is to keep people like her in mind as he goes about his rampage.
“Halun, only do what you must,” I say, “but know that my mate has a mother here. Like ours at home.” I think of the books I know Selina risked a lot for just to read. “Things she loves are here. She’s never left here.”
Until now.
“If I thought the humans would have you, I’d let you go and take what you want, but—”
“Then, I’ll come back.”
“And if all that’s left is nothing for what they’ve done to you?”
I shake my head.
He and I both know the truth, no matter how many times he gets angry about the state of my body and face.
“Try to be a diplomat, Halun. Vabila did say the females here are important for us.”
Smirking, my brother, the would-be king, turns back to his post. Overlooking the front and head controls of the ship, he’s alone with me for now. Until our final meeting ends and the captain who will take us home returns with his males.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“I’ll come back here to get what she’s left behind—if I have to.”
Halun nods. “So be it. Take it up with our father.”
I will, but I don’t tell him that.
I head for the door, but pause to glance back at my brother who didn’t turn to watch me go. “And come back alive, I’ve missed you.”
That earns me a laugh.
As tired as it is.
“Oh, Bo,” he mutters, finally sparing me a look that speaks a fountain of words I know he never will. “You know I’ve missed you, too.”
It’s fine.
Those words will more than do.
A nod passes between us, and I take my leave from the ship’s head post, stepping beyond the sliding panel doors where the males wait to regroup in the space they were made to leave for us.
“Thank you,” I say to the crowd that parts to let me through.
I’m less angry than before as I make my way to the rear of the ship where I’ll find bathing and sleeping quarters, but most importantly, my mate. The frustration over my brother’s choice to send the rest of us home while he, and his Hallan army, remain on earth doesn’t quite settle the way I want it to, even if nothing I do will change what happens on this night.
Despite the closeness and adoration I share with my older brother, he will always see me as the younger one. In need of guidance and protection from him even as a grown Hallan taking missions on my own. I doubt the fact that my most recent mission ending the way it did will help that situation any.