Chapter 13

My eyes crack to morning light, my body jostling all over the place as Abraxas moves around. I realize very quickly that I’m on his back, that he’s essentially strapped me to him with his tail. He’s walking in human form—or however you want to call it when he walks on two legs instead of four—and he seems more than recovered from last night’s brush with death. He’s sleek. Agile. Glowing. Strength coiled in tense muscles.

“What the …?” I groan, trying to extricate myself from his grip. I have no chance in hell of ever getting a one-up on this guy. He’s not just two or three times stronger than me; he’s like fifty times stronger than I am.

He looks up at a massive tree, and then he unsheathes the claws in his knuckles. With little effort, he scrambles up the trunk, digging ribbons of wood from the bark as he scales it effortlessly. I choke back a scream as we ascend fifty feet, a hundred, higher, and then we’re on a tree limb and he’s crouched down with his tail twitching behind him.

“What are—” I start, but he cuts me off. I’m still wearing the translator, but somehow, he understands what I’m saying anyway. Starting to think he knows a lot more English than he’s letting on. I would absolutely love to know how he knows it.

“Shush, female. Hunting.”

I look over his shoulder and down the length of the branch, toward a bird with orange-gold plumage and a curling tail. It’s like the one I saw last night, but it’s not glowing. Instead, it’s curled up in a nest made entirely of dead insects with shiny exoskeletons. I’m not sure how the nest stays together, but it’s pretty, a shimmering circle of turquoise and purple chitin.

Abraxas stalks along the branch while I do my best not to look down. It’s not that I have a trembling fear of heights or anything, but we are way up here. Skyscraper high. Also, last memory I was conscious for, we’d just fucked. And also maybe my vagina was glowing.

This is a sudden turn of events.

With a low growl, Abraxas takes off down the branch, startling the bird—or whatever it is—into the air. It drops toward the ground, and he follows, leaping off the tree and snapping his wings out to either side. I can’t help it: I scream like a lil’ bitch. Wind whips my hair around my face, stinging my eyes and sticking to my lips.

Abraxas snaps his wings back in and turns into a dive, plummeting toward the earth at such a violent speed that I feel dizzy. My stomach ends up in my throat like I’m on a rollercoaster or something.

The bird hits the ground and tries to run off, like an ostrich or an emu. Abraxas slams into it, snatching its neck in his massive mouth. Blood spatters the ground, and I fight back a wave of PTSD-induced trauma from yesterday’s near swallowing incident.

A quick shake of his kill, and Abraxas seems satisfied that it’s dead.

“What … what the fuck?” I whisper, but he doesn’t respond. He can’t. He’s dropping down to all fours and trotting off into the woods with a dead bird clutched in his jaws. Shadows streak around us, blurs of ink-like blackness that smudge the cheerful woods and the beams of sunshine breaking through the trees. His shadows. Like the creatures from last night that tried to eat him, the man blurs the edges of reality with his very existence.

The ship comes into view—his ship, specifically—and I feel weirdly like I’ve just come home.

That scares me. That scares the fucking shit out of me. Remember: I’ve only been here for ten of this planet’s days. I was kidnapped. I was nearly sold into sex slavery. Jane is out there somewhere. The lawyer got swallowed by a worm-blob monster. A crazy moth prince is stalking me. I almost got chained to a brothel wall. I was swallowed.

This is not my home; this is a hostile alien planet.

Abraxas hops up into the ship, spitting the bird’s corpse onto the floor, and then setting me gently on my feet. I sway for a moment, hands grasping his tail to stay upright. He waits patiently for me to find my feet, splits that massive mouth into a grin, and then heads into the bathroom.

I can just feel Zero-One-Zero-One’s eyes boring into my back. Err, if not her eyes then I guess her cursor? IDK.

I whip around to see the damning text hovering on the screen.

“What the hell happened to you last night?!” she demands, and I sigh. No way in hell I’m going to tell her that I fucked Abraxas, but I can give a partial truth, can’t I?

“He’s all healed up. Good to go.” I offer a thumbs up that she can’t see.

“He’s healed up? So you found the antivenom?” If she weren’t a random computer running off solar power that I strongly suspect is an AI chatbot, I’d find her enthusiasm charming. “I knew my people were pioneers of preservation and medical science.”

“Err, yeah. Nice work.” I turn and follow Abraxas into the bathroom. He’s gargoyling (I just made that word up) beside the bathtub, clawed hands curled around the edges, wings tucked close, head dipped to the water. That long tongue of his slurps greedily as he lifts his eyes to mine.

Heat suffuses my cheeks. I’m pantless, by the way. Not by choice. I’m wearing white space boots and a torn pink top that barely covers my tits. I have the evidence of last night’s coupling between my thighs and very possibly a glowing vagina. How could I not blush?

The guy made me a nest and performed some sort of primitive mating dance by a vista. Who wouldn’t fall in love? Certainly there are worse choices for a boyfriend. Only this doesn’t feel like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend. It feels like we’re married, Costco card in hand, and signing a thirty-year mortgage.

Just … deeper than all that.

“Nice to see that you’re feeling better.” Do I sound awkward? I sound awkward. This is the weirdest morning-after I’ve ever experienced in my life. I take the translator from my head and approach him, but our entire vibe is different now. I feel it in my, well, in my everything when I get close to him.

He stares down at me with eyes like precious gems, his mouth disappeared into his ebon face, his clawed hands still gripping the rim of the bathtub. When I lean forward to put the translator on him, he dips his head toward me and closes his eyes. My fingers brush the sides of his face as he draws back and waits for me to talk.

I suddenly find myself at a loss for words. I think I was going to ask about antivenom, and how mating plays any part in that, but it seems suddenly strange to bring it up.

“Do you think I could have a minute?” I ask. He just stares at me and doesn’t move. “Like, to be alone?” Nothing. He’s still fucking staring at me. “Can I have some privacy?” Nada. Either he doesn’t get what I’m saying or he’s too stubborn for his own good. I am strongly leaning toward the latter. “Ugh, fine. Suit yourself, you dick.”

I turn away from him and head in the direction of the nest, praying that he isn’t going to follow. For a scant few seconds, he doesn’t. I’m alone in the nest, surrounded by furs. I sit down in the pile, pushing my auburn hair back with both hands.

I just fucked an alien. Like, literally. An alien. A dragon monster. He’s barely human. I’ve lost my goddamn mind. What would Jane say, hmm? I can hear her words now, echoing around my head. “Girl, he’s stacked, and he’s a provider. What’s so wrong with him being an alien?” Ugh, maybe Jane Baker isn’t the best person to condemn me for my actions.

Then again, maybe the fictional Jane has a point?

Curiosity kills the cat, but satisfaction brings it back. Satisfied is right. For a wild rut with zero foreplay, that was … Damn. I look toward the entrance to the room, at the beautiful new curtain hanging over the doorway. Abraxas isn’t there, so I take a moment to spread my legs and look down as best as I can. There’s no glow coming from downstairs, but as soon as I spread the lips of my vagina, I see it. Purple bioluminescence.

Uh.

What the hell?

I dip a finger inside and pleasure slams into me with bone-cracking ferocity. Those pheromones. Need surges through me in an impossible wave, and my lips part in panting. But not just for anyone—for him.

Abraxas pushes the curtain aside with a hand, crouching down in the doorway to stare at me. His mouth is twisted in a smirk again. In the beginning, I didn’t give him near enough credit. I thought of him as an alien—which he is—but he’s also a dude. He’s a goddamn dude, and I was stupid not to recognize that right away.

“What did you do to me?” I repeat, but he doesn’t answer, dropping down to all fours again and crawling toward me. His tail lashes out to snatch my wrist, and he forces my fingers to his mouth, that long, hot tongue wrapping around them and sucking them clean.

I’m trembling when he’s done, my eyes on his. They’re so beautiful, his eyes. Purple and sapphire and gold all at once. I could sit and stare at them forever. No, Eve! This is … it’s whatever he did to you. He put something inside of you. Like … those purple spirals on his dick. He gave them to you!

“Why do I have a glowing vagina?” I ask him, and he quickly switches the translator back to my head.

“We are mates. You are marked. Do your people not mark their mates?” He pauses there, tilting his massive head at me, horns shimmering.

It’s a legitimate, understandable question. Coherent, too. I can actually understand what he’s saying! I’m absurdly impressed with our current translator. We switch the headset over to him. I’m about to tell him no, but then I think about wedding rings and what they actually mean, and I’m not sure what to say.

“What am I going to tell my gynecologist?” I ask, wondering how the translator is going to handle that question. “I mean, once I actually get a gynecologist.” I’ve never been to one. Not keen to start going to one. Especially not keen to start now that my vagina glows purple.

He parts his lips to snarl at me, shoving the translator back onto me again.

“No one looks at my mate. Mine.” He nuzzles the side of my neck, and my breath huffs out of me. I want to explain to him that we’re not actually mates, that it was a one-time thing, that I’m human and I need to go home to be with other humans … but … I can’t. I can’t bring myself to say any of that. It feels like a blatant lie. “My apologies, female, for my poor mating last night. I was not in proper condition.”

He grabs hold of my waist with his tail and turns me over, putting me on my knees in front of him.

Holy fuck, he’s a horny bastard. That’s what I think, but you don’t see me complaining for good reason. I exhale and dig my fingers into the furs, suddenly desperate for another taste. Last night was fraught, but this morning is better. We’re not surrounded by darkness and hungry shadow monsters. I’m not worried that he’s about to die.

Instead, I get to savor the hot feel of his massive hands as he takes my hips, using his tail around my middle to hoist me up to a height that works for him. I’m biting down on my own lip as he presses his massive cock against my opening. There’s no way he’s going to—

I was going to say ‘fit’, but there are absolutely zero issues when he slides into my body, granting me that satisfied, full feeling again. I can’t breathe for the size and shape of him, but I feel weirdly complete. Happy hormones sizzle in my blood as I clutch desperately at the soft hides beneath me.

His hands hit the ground on either side of me, hard enough to shake the entire nest. His claws are out, protruding from the skin of his knuckles, and his arms glimmer with those beautiful markings. With his wing-hands, he takes my breasts and squeezes them in claw-tipped fingers.

A whimper escapes me. I have never felt anything like I’m feeling now. The heat of him. My own arousal. I’m as turned-on as I’ve ever been. At odds with his bestial nature and appearance, Abraxas is an affectionate lover, and my stomach somersaults when he drops his head near mine and rubs his cheek against me. That flexible spine of his comes in handy, allowing him to curl over and pay attention to my face when he otherwise would never be able to reach.

“So soft,” he growls against my ear. His real words—a guttural, rolling growl, like thunder—bring goose bumps up on my skin. The translator is nice, and it does an okay job of giving a deep, masculine tone to his words, but that’s not what he’s saying. What he’s saying is that sound, that wild male snarl and heat against my ear. “Such a tiny, sweet little female.”

Clearly, he doesn’t know me very well if he thinks I’m sweet. Then again, I saw the female that tried to rape him. If that’s what he’s used to, I’m a friggin’ peach.

Abraxas bites me then. It happens so suddenly that I don’t have time to be afraid. His teeth sink into my shoulder, and a groan ripples through me as he continues to fuck. The pleasure from my shoulder twists up in my belly, melding with the pleasure from between my legs, and my cunt pulses and squeezes on him as I approach a ridiculously fast orgasm.

Back home, my record was achieved alone—my Hitachi Wand was superior to any IRL guy I ever had—and stood at a whopping fifteen minutes. Which, I mean, is pretty good. Jane confessed to me just recently that she’s never had an orgasm which, I guess, is pretty normal for women our age.

Now? It’s been two minutes, and I’m about to come so hard that I might scream again.

Abraxas huffs a surprised sound against the side of my face, something that the translator repeats back to me as a very pleased, “oh.” His movements slow, like he’s savoring the feel of me, like it’s not something that he necessarily expected. “You want the mating rod?” he asks, but I have no clue what he’s talking about.

“Don’t … don’t stop.” I choke the words out, surprised that I’m able to talk at all. I’m the one with the translator on, so … “Fuck me, Abraxas.” He should understand that, right? He’s known that word all along. He said he knew right away that I wasn’t food. From my smell. I groan as my body pulses and flutters around him, and he makes the most pleased sound that I have ever heard from a man.

“Such a find, my female.” He growls and thrusts at the same time, driving his hips so hard into me that I let loose that scream I was holding back. Whelp, now Zero’s gonna know the truth. Do I give a fuck in that moment? Nope. My body sparkles under his touch. I don’t know how else to describe it except to say that I’m just a flicker of a person, a scintillation. And then he bites me again, and I’m not even that.

I let loose with the sounds, screaming and writhing and shoving my hips back into him as best I can. His tail is rock-hard, giving us the perfect platform to fuck over. The nest shakes, the vines holding it together whispering as they brush against one another with his movements. His wing-hands never stop caressing my breasts, fingertips teasing curiously over my nipples, like he’s not sure what to do with them.

I’ll teach him, I think, and I don’t let myself dig any deeper into why I might have a thought like that when I most definitely am not staying here.

He keeps hold of my shoulder with his teeth, but whatever is in that magic healing saliva of his, it doesn’t hurt. Neither does my midsection or my face, despite my injuries from yesterday. Instead, I come so hard that it almost hurts, my belly muscles squeezing tight, my cunt matching their strength, fingers ripping up the fur beneath me.

Abraxas keeps hold of me with his mouth, moving his wing hands away from my breasts and using them to feel me up. I swear, he touches every part of me: my hair, my arms, my sides, my thighs. Where I really want them—on my aching clit—he doesn’t go. I’ll have to teach him about that, too.

But I … just had an orgasm with little clitoral stimulation. That’s insane.

I’m so sweaty and worked up, my body jerking beneath him as he finishes himself, that I very nearly come a second time. Just like last night. But, just like last night, he comes before my second wave. His body tenses above me, muscles rippling beneath his smooth skin, and he bites down a little harder. A small sound of surprise escapes me as he buries his body deep enough that I can feel his hips pressing into my ass, and then he relaxes all around me.

Snatches of shadow dance in the air, blurs and flickers, extensions of his powerful body. It’s as if he’s wearing a cloak of night around his sleek, predatory form. Abraxas settles down around me, relaxing, dropping to his forearms, laying his wings out on either side of us. He keeps his tail under my hips, his weight on his arms, so that I’m comfortable even with his muscular bulk on top of me.

I’m still panting, still fluttering around his shaft. He finally releases my shoulder and then proceeds to lick the wounds he left behind. They don’t hurt. Not even a little bit.

“I’m guessing …” I start, struggling with the thickness of my own tongue. I swallow a few times to gather myself, and he uses his wing-hand to tug the translator off so he can put it on his own head. “I’m guessing we’re stuck together again?”

He considers that question before putting the translator back.

“We are exchanging fluids,” he tells me, almost gently, like he thinks I don’t understand. “You know nothing of mating?” That last question is surprisingly earnest, and I feel my cheeks flush. I do know something about mating—with other humans. Not with … dragon aliens. Aspis. Whatever. I have a feeling that I shouldn’t bring that up right about now.

Translator goes to him.

I don’t say anything for a while. I can’t explain it, but I can feel what he’s talking about. Something with those spirals and his cock, like there are blood vessels connecting our bodies. I can feel him inside of me in a way that’s more than just penetrative sex. Sharing fluids. Not just sexual fluids, but … blood? Am I his antivenom? I don’t get it, but I don’t ask just yet.

It’s too intimate in here, too quiet.

He continues with his affectionate behavior, rubbing his head on me and making me so absurdly uncomfortable that I wish I could just hop off this ship and run far, far away. Uncomfortable not because I don’t like it but because I do. I’m loving this moment, and I know that I can’t love this moment because I need to leave. I need to find my best friend and go the fuck home.

“I … I don’t know what to say,” I admit, and he rumbles with what I’m damn near positive is a laugh. Translator, back to me.

“You were difficult to court. I am lucky.” He draws out of me with that same sharp pinch, that little bit of blood. I roll onto my back to look up at him, and there he sits, savage but beautiful, alien but somehow, human, too. I struggle to sit up and he helps me, tail wrapped around my waist for support.

I take the headset off and hold it out to him. He accepts it and slips it on.

“What’s up with the …” I swallow back my embarrassment, gesturing loosely at my pelvis with a shaking hand. “What happens when we … what’s that sensation? What’s the blood from?” Other than that initial pinch, there’s no pain. I’m not overly sore either. It’s just enough of an ache that I can remember the feel of his body in mine, no more, no less.

He cocks his head at me, waiting for me to crawl forward and steal the headset back.

“My body to yours. Vice versa. Blood and venom and antibodies.” He stands up on all fours and drags me along with him, his tail around my waist. Probably a good thing since I’m not sure that I could walk just yet.

This is … I’d say it was going to get old fast because I’ve never liked clingy boyfriends in the past. Somehow, I’m intrigued by Abraxas against my better judgment. Never in the history of life has there been a worse match than us two. He’s from some rando jungle planet; I’m from Earth. We could never really have a relationship.

But damn if he isn’t the best sex I’ve ever had.

Damn if I don’t like him for more than that.

He sets me down beside the dead bird and then gets to work stripping the feathers, roasting it over flames that he starts with a huff of embers from his own mouth. I glance over my shoulder to see Zero staring at me. Obviously, she can’t really stare at me, but you know what I mean.

“I might be blind, but my hearing works just fine. Were those mating sounds emanating from the nest?” She sounds suspicious. I mean, when I read her words, they seem suspicious. Still not sure if I can trust this bitch or not.

“He was fucking his blankets again.” I wave my hand dismissively despite knowing she can’t see me. My cheeks flame. Abraxas stares at me. He’s situated by the fire in ‘dragon form’, curled onto his side with shadows twisting and swimming around his body. “What? Don’t look at me like that.”

“I am pleased with you, female.” That’s what he tells me, the guttural growls emanating from his chest and throat translating directly into my ear. But I can still hear them, his true, untranslated words. His voice is beautiful, his language guttural and exotic. “You show great courage in darkness.”

I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but my cheeks burn even hotter. With a sigh, I finally tear off the last shredded remnants of my top, kicking the boots off and tossing them aside. What difference does it make if my top half is naked? It’s my bottom half that Abraxas is interested in. No, Eve, you liar. It’s all of you.

“Thanks, but I didn’t do much.” He won’t understand what I’m saying, but oh well. I look up at his eyes, half-lidded and oddly affectionate. My blush—and I’m not much of a blusher—burns hot enough that I touch my hands to my cheeks, just to cool the heat down a little. “What were those shadow monsters anyway?”

I go to hand the translator back, but Abraxas doesn’t take it.

“Night Feasters,” he replies easily, as if he knew what my question was. I give him a look.

“How much English do you really know? Come on, dude.” I scoot a little closer to him, trying to ignore the wetness between my legs. We’re cavemen out here. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go to wash myself off. But, uh, there’s a lot. He’s a big guy. “Where did you learn English? Little? Fuck? Female? You know an awful lot.”

He blinks at me, turning his head away and then scratching at his horn with a clawed back foot. Like a cat or a dog or something. Jesus.

“Slavers bring your species here. They speak in your species’ tongue. Your species speaks in the language of your species.” He looks back at me like duh, how else did you think I knew English? Something about his statement bothers me, a strange niggling in my belly that feels an awful lot like jealousy.

I purse my lips and cross my arms over my breasts to keep his wandering eyes away. And let’s be clear: they wander and linger. On my breasts. On my lips. On the mess between my thighs. On my face. My cheeks burn like the hideous twin suns that cook this damn planet during the day. It’s still light out now, but it’s turning quickly to twilight. We must’ve slept most of the day away together. Storm’s passed though.

“How many humans have you brought back here?” I ask dryly. “How many ‘mates’ have you had?” Not that I have room to talk. I wasn’t a virgin before yesterday either. “In addition, I’d like to know how many Aspis females you’ve mated. Just … I’m sure I can’t get pregnant, but I don’t want, like, some dragon STD.”

Abraxas slithers over to me in a blur of inky shadows, surrounding me with his massive form. He snarls in my ear, breaking up the headset with strange static, like his very presence is scrambling its ability to translate.

“Repeat.” He takes the translator and then he waits. I question my decision, but that same ol’ plucky spirit wins out and I do it anyway.

“How many mates have you had?” I ask, turning to look at him over my shoulder. He takes up every inch of available space, making the large hull area of the ship seem very, very small indeed. He growls violently back at me, mouth rippling with all those teeth. Teeth that were buried in my shoulder just minutes ago.

I reach up and rub at my shoulder, sending prickles of heat straight to my core. When I try to peer at the wounds, all I see are small pricks of reddened skin where his teeth punctured. He gives the translator back.

“Only one mate, female. If we separate, we will both die of a broken heart.” He seems exasperated with me, but how is it my fault that we only have one translator, and it’s a mediocre one at that? Better than the last one, but still. “Never more than one.” He puts his face right up against mine. “You see the dead female?” He draws back and stalks over to the edge of the ship.

Come to think of it, I didn’t look at the female’s corpse when we came back this morning. Call it a trauma-based reaction if you want, but I automatically looked away.

I stand up and move over beside Abraxas.

The female dragon—or Aspis, I guess—is little more than a skeleton. There are wildflowers growing through her bones, bright in color and rich in fragrance. My eyes widen and I glance over at Abraxas. He’s crouched down in his gargoyle pose, staring.

“Without my female, that would be me this morning.” He turns away from the door with a sweep of shadows. It doesn’t hurt when that ethereal darkness passes over me. It’s more … a gentle caress. I find myself following after him without even realizing that I’m doing it. Abraxas drags the bird’s body from the fire, tears a leg off with his claws, and then pushes it toward me. “Eat.”

It sounds less like a suggestion than it does a command.

I narrow my eyes on him, but I sit and take the food anyway. I’m starving. That, and I’m not about to have sweetbreads (aka organ meat) shoved down my throat again. Gag.

Gingerly, I pick the food up, blowing on the oversized drumstick to cool it. It’s quite literally the length of my arm, from fingertip to elbow. I take a careful bite, pulling crispy skin and juicy flesh from the bone. My eyes widen. Holy shit. It’s not just edible but delicious. I tear into the meat like a beast and Abraxas makes that rumbling sound I’ve learned to equate to a laugh.

“Strong females eat well.” That’s what he says to me. I ignore him, unsure how to respond to someone who keeps claiming that we’ll die of broken hearts if we’re separated. How can he possibly think something like that? Is he a hopeless romantic? He keeps looking at me with those hooded eyes, raking his gaze over my naked body. It shouldn’t be like this, right? I don’t look anything like a female of his species. And yet, he rejected a female of his species in favor of you. Eve, think about that.

“How old are you?” I ask, and then I remember that he can’t understand me. I give him the translator and he uses his tail to put it on his head. I repeat the question. Take the headset back.

“Mature adult male,” he responds, but since I have no fucking clue what that means, I make a number up in my head. Let’s call him twenty-nine years old. Just for kicks and giggles. He could be a thousand years old for all that I know. I purse my lips.

We switch the translator back and forth as we talk. A real, honest-to-god conversation. And all of this after we fucked each other senseless. Well … after he fucked me senseless. I’m not sure that he’d even let me fuck him or if I even could if I tried. I rode him for all of two minutes last night before he reversed our roles—and that was while he was on the verge of death.

“My birthday is coming up; I’ll be twenty-six years old.” I pause at his slow blink, like maybe the translator doesn’t know what to do with that. “What I mean to say is, I’ll be twenty-six Earth years old. Like, twenty-six rounds of my planet around its sun.” I hesitate, wondering how much he knows about space travel. He lives in a spaceship, but I have a feeling he knows very little outside of this forest and this planet. “I’m from a whole different planet, you know?”

“I am aware.” He finishes the rest of the bird by himself, and then he eats the large bone that I’ve just licked clean, snatching it up with his tongue and taking the entire thing down his throat in a single swallow. Yikes. My new boyfriend is … way not human. Not even close. I scratch my temple. “You were stolen and brought here to serve as a forced mate.” He pauses there to look up at me. “Or food.”

“Yeah, no shit.” I sigh. “I saw a sign when I woke up. It said, “Humans … pets, meat, or mates.” I wrinkle my nose. I can’t even believe we’re having a conversation here. He’s … weirdly easy to talk to. “I’m just lucky that you found me or I’d probably be dead. I don’t do well with ‘authority’.” I make air quotes that I’m sure he doesn’t understand. “Or ‘rules’. Forced mating … that would’ve been the worst.” I frown when my mind drifts back to Jane again. Not just her, but Avril and the male medic, Connor. To Madonna, the possum. I’m even entertaining the tiniest crumb of worry for stupid Tabbi Kat.

Abraxas’ wing-hand slides the translator off his head and puts it on mine, his fingertips tickling my hair. I shiver all over, and he grins at me. The grin fades relatively quickly as he considers how to respond.

“Tusks take your females …” He trails off, and then a word comes out of his mouth that isn’t translated. It’s just him, speaking to me the way he said those few, scant English words before. “Humans.” Another pause. Back to his language again. “They take human females to breed.” His entire face contorts. “They violate them.” He looks at me, and I swallow hard.

All along, he could’ve saved himself by mating with me. At any time, he had the power and the strength to take what he wanted and needed from me to cure himself, and he didn’t. He was willing to die because of an ironclad moral code. He didn’t want that female dragon; he wanted me. That makes me feel so guilty that I could die. What am I going to do?

I curl my knees up and wrap my arms around them.

“I am the lucky one. I have found a lovely female.” That’s what he says. Shit, shit, shit. I hug my legs even tighter as his tail drifts over, the tip of it wrapping around my ankle and giving it a comforting squeeze. “But you are right. Any female Aspis would’ve eaten you.”

I laugh at that. It’s a tad bitter, but hey, I’ve seen firsthand that he’s right.

“No, really?” I ask dryly, wondering if the tone will be lost on him or if he’ll understand. He tilts his head at me again, and I get the idea that this is some sort of pleased response. He only does it when he’s pleasantly curious.

“As far as pets … I have seen humans on jeweled leashes. You would not have liked being a pet.” He says this in such a way that I shiver. There’s subtext there that I don’t care to dig into. Also, wow. He’s well-spoken and smart. I had no idea how deep his intelligence went. My cheeks continue to burn with shame.

We trade the translator, and his long fingers brush mine. My entire body wakes up, and I make a small sound that causes him to grin at me again. I can’t decide if that’s a real expression of his or something that he picked up from watching me. I would not be surprised if it were.

“What are the weird, uh, slug things?” I gesture randomly and uselessly around my head. He seems to like that, scooting closer to me. My body burns with his nearness, but I don’t acknowledge it. But damn, I want him again. I could go all night. “When I was at the market, I saw this big, gelatinous thing eat one of the other humans whole.”

Headset swap. He blinks at me with those beautiful eyes, and I find my fingers itching to touch his horns.

“You may touch me, female.” He sounds beyond amused. Also, apparently, he can read my mind. My eyes go wide, and my skin blazes pink with embarrassment. “I see you change color when you are embarrassed. How odd.”

“I’m not embarrassed,” I scoff, knowing he can’t understand me and not caring. I sweep my hair back, breasts thrust out for his perusal. I don’t even care. Seriously. I’m a mature adult woman. Not a problem to sit here naked with his cum between my legs. Nope. “Ugh, I would kill for a hair tie.”

I snap my fingers and put the translator on his head.

“Wait right here.”

I can feel his eyes on me as I pad over to his dragon horde room, spotting a cord right away that I can use. I tie up my hair with it and then snatch a hide from the nest, coming to sit back by the fire with it wrapped around my shoulders. If I sit a little closer to him than before, so what? He said I could touch him, didn’t he?

I take the translator back.

“The slug creature,” he says finally, as if he’s been considering it while I was gone. “I do not know what they call themselves. We call them Pests. They eat everything. They eat Aspis.” He turns his bejeweled eyes from the fire to my face. “I am grateful you were not eaten.”

That makes me laugh. I clap a hand over my mouth. This time, when I need to give him the translator, I scoot even closer and slip it onto his head, my fingertips lingering on the sides of his face. I trace the spot where I know his mouth is, from one side of his head to the other. He has small holes beneath his horns that I figure must be his ears. I delicately trace my fingers around them, and he shudders, spikes raising up along the length of his neck and spine, from the crown of his head all the way down to the tip of his tail. His scales ruffle, too, a bit like a bird’s feathers.

“Who is that moth dude?” I ask after regretfully drawing my hands back to my lap. “The one who challenged you with some spiel about imperial authority.” I swallow the strangest feeling down my throat, this odd sense of … something that happened when the moth guy and I looked at each other. It was weird. “When I first arrived on this planet, I was with five other people. Moth Guy, he came and purchased a female. And then he licked blood off of her, and took her away. I heard her screaming.”

When I take the translator back this time, Abraxas makes a chuffing sound that has my stomach twisting into a pretzel. I … oh my fucking God, I really like this guy. How? Why? The universe has never been so cruel as this.

“Ah. They call themselves the Vestalis. We call them hypocritical fools. They claim they will clean up our planet, force the monsters away. They never do.” Abraxas turns to me and huffs my hair, making it ruffle around my head with his warm breath. It’s so oddly affectionate that I don’t know what to make of it. He seems to really be taking this mate thing seriously. If he gave me … if he gave me those spirals from his penis, how is he going to get another mate? What have I done?

Saved his life, that’s what.

“Do not worry, female. If he tasted her blood, then it is because she is his mate. The Vestalis do not get to choose their mates. Blood sings. It calls them. He will not hurt her.” He waits for me to hand the translator back, but I’m … I’m fucking speechless. I yank it off my head with a strange, sick fear in my chest. He takes it gingerly and uses the adjustable headband to put it on.

“What if … so you’re saying that whoever’s blood he eats, that’s his mate?” I pile on some more questions before we trade the translator. “Like, how are they mates? What does that mean exactly?”

Abraxas is clearly picking up on my panic. He folds his wings around me, and I feel so protected and seen in that moment that I want to scream.

If I stay here, I will never see my mother again. I won’t argue over golf with my dad. I won’t have lunch with my sisters. I’ll never get to see my little brother get married. I won’t ever eat cake. I won’t see chocolate let alone eat it. No wine. No hamburgers. No once-a-year cigars on Christmas. I won’t ever see another movie. I won’t ever read another book. No more fried chicken on a Friday night. Never be a homeowner. Never have a child.

I shove all of those fears into a box and slam the lid shut.

“Once he tastes her blood, he cannot choose another mate. He will die of a broken heart.” Aha. I see. This is where we are again. I can’t help but wonder if something very, very important is getting lost in translation. “But were she to be separated from him, she will be fine. It does not work both ways as it does with the Aspis.”

I push the translator onto him, heart pounding. If that stupid moth prince … well, at least that’s a relief. I mean, for me it is. Avril got the short end of the stick, eh? She was covered in my blood, and I’d been freshly wiped down, but … oh dear.

The moth man’s black eyes. Those fucking eyes. They cut right through me.

I bite my lip hard enough to make it bleed.

Abraxas leans forward and sweeps his long tongue over my mouth, obliterating my poor brain. I give him the translator back and he takes it, somewhat reluctantly it seems.

“How will we die of broken hearts? I don’t understand that.”

Headset swap again.

“When Aspis mates are separated, they die. It is without fail. It cannot be undone.” He seems upset, so I don’t press my luck. Swap.

“Don’t look at me like you think that I think … you’re not a mistake.” I tell him that with the translator parked firmly beside his horns, and I exhale, knowing that I am digging myself into a very deep, very troubling hole. I banish thoughts of the moth. If he dies, that’s his problem. He’s the idiot that ate the wrong girl’s blood. Or … the idiot that purchased the wrong girl. Maybe the blood was right? Gah. Shit. “If I had to go back and make that decision a million times over, I would save you every time.”

I’m terrified to hear that I actually mean what I’m saying. Abraxas is noble and intelligent, beautiful and strong. I … losing a creature … a man like this, that would be a blow to the entire galaxy. Assuming we’re in the same galaxy. Wait, what even is a galaxy? Like, scientifically? I have no clue.

I clear my throat when he sits up and curls around me, gargoyle style, so that I’m essentially sitting in his lap. He slips the translator from his head and gently pushes it across the floor with his tail, so that it’s out of reach.

Every molecule in my body reacts to his presence.

Thank God that Zero is blind. I can feel her cursor blinking aggressively at my back.

She’s going to know after this conversation that I’m full of shit.

“Female.” He snarls this in my ear, and it’s a word I can understand coming directly from his lips. His tail wraps my waist, and he lifts me up, hovering my naked body over his hard cock. His entire body pulses and glows from behind me, those beautiful shadows shimmering and dancing against my skin.

He slides me onto him, all the way down until my ass meets his pelvis.

Holy crap. I’m in big trouble. I am in so much trouble.

Because, suddenly, weirdly, the last thing in the world that I want to do is leave.

Yep. It’s the sex thing. And I have just walked myself right into an intergalactic thirst trap.