Chapter 19

Abraxas has given me some strange vegetables (or fruits? roots? herbs?) to peel while he hunts. The rain has slowed to a gentle mist, but that’s not much better on my skin. He wants me to bundle up in the clothing he brought back the other day, and then we’re going to leave. He’s confident that he can protect me from the worst of the rain—even more confident that his clever tongue can heal any burns I might sustain.

“Shit,” I grumble, trying to yank the weird papery wrapper off the purple-fleshed yam thing in my hand. Its skin is thin but tough, like the bark of a birch tree, and it’s driving me nuts. I was not cut out to be an alien homemaker. I pause. Wait. Abraxas does both the hunting and the cleaning. He’s the provider and the homemaker, and I am … affectionate? That seems to be enough to satisfy him. I smirk. “At least I can take alien dragon DP like a champ.”

I giggle at my own joke. Double penetration jests are always good for a laugh. Then I think about my family. I think about that hollow feeling in my chest when Officer Hyt took Tabbi Kat away, when he told me that I wasn’t his problem, that mated humans can never go back.

I hate that.

I almost wish I were the Imperial Princess, so I could make some changes. I almost wish Moth Guy didn’t have to die. I curse when my hand slips, and I cut myself with my own fingernail. We don’t currently have a knife for me to peel these with, but Abraxas seemed to think the skins would come right off.

They don’t.

They’re stubborn.

Out of frustration, I toss the yam out the doorway and it hits something. I hear it smack into a surface—there’s a distinctive grunt—and then it plops on the ground. I go still, hand hovering in midair over another alien vegetable.

The pressure in the air changes. My throat goes dry. My lips part. My naked body reacts like I’m being caressed by an unseen hand.

I smell him before I see him.

Cardamom and honey. Moth pheromones. The prince is coming.

I look down and there he is, striding across the clearing as he pulls his gloves off, finger by finger. He reaches up to rub at his forehead, and I just know that I hit him in the face with the alien yam.

Abraxas. Oh God, what if he’s not okay? What if Moth Guy got him?

The prince’s dark eyes, as endless as a starless sky, sweep my nude form with fire and precision, searing intent and ardor into me. When we look at each other, I feel that strange falling, an emotional tumbling, like I’ve just crawled into bed at home, tucked beneath the covers. Safe. Comfortable.

Waiting to be fucked.

I shove up to my feet and take a sudden step back, nearly tripping over the furs from last night’s makeshift bed.

No, no, no.

“Good morning, Princess.” Moth Guy looks me over from down below, his massive horn-like antennae shifting forward as if to scent me. His blizzard-white wings spread wide and then gently fan forward, stirring the air, suffocating me with that scent.

He walks right over to my den and climbs the side of the ship like it’s nothing, landing in front of me in his military suit and boots. His cloak—err wings—sweep the floor as he looks around with another scowl.

“You’ve mated him.”

He sounds like he wants to kill something.

No. Not something. He sounds like he wants to kill Abraxas.

“Stalker moth guy,” I whisper back at him, trying to play glib when really, I’m terrified. His presence here, it’s not a small thing. It’s a big one. A very, very bad one.

“Rurik.” He slaps the pair of gloves against his palm and stalks over to me, putting his bare hand on my cheek. My knees drop me to the floor and he follows as I gasp in pain. I hit the metal hard. “That’s my name. You can also call me Your Imperial Majesty.” A long pause as he forces a cruel smile. “Or … husband works, too.”

I slap him, and he snatches my wrist, gritting those insane teeth of his. Like a vampire. He has three on either side of his mouth. The rest of his teeth seem relatively normal. He snatches my wrist and brings it to his face, inhaling deeply and then letting out a hiss.

“Will you submit to a medical examination?” he asks me, and I kick him in the face. I try to anyway, and I almost manage it, but he uses his knee to pin my thigh to the floor, shoving me onto my back and locking my wrists down with his horrifically strong grip.

It doesn’t help that I’m naked. It really doesn’t help. That smell. My body. I’m fighting a losing fucking battle here. I’d rather suffocate than breathe in another lungful of that tainted air. My body has other ideas. She wants it. She doesn’t care if this moment is breaking my heart. I’ve chosen Abraxas, and I want this moth to fuck all the way off. I lied when I said I didn’t want him to die. I do. I just want him gone.

“Where is Abraxas?” I whisper, and His Imperial Majesty looks at me like he has no idea what I’m talking about. “The Aspis male! Where the fuck is he?”

A roar shatters the jungle followed by the frantic flapping of thousands of wings as creatures flee the woods. Because that sound? It’s a sound of rage.

It’s Abraxas.

It’s my mate.

The moth prince smiles at me, pinning me to the floor of my own den.

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll track him down, cut his tongue out, and skin him alive for daring to touch my future queen.” He taps a device at his ear and snarls into it. “Bring us up.”

“If you kill him, I will kill myself.” Now it’s my turn to smile as the prince directs those endless eyes back to me. His wings spread open behind him, an obvious sign of distress. Oh, he’s easy to read. “Then we’ll both die. Try me, asshole.”

He punches the floor next to me with his fist and snatches my chin with his other hand, nails pricking my skin.

The ship heaves around us, lurching to one side and then the other before my stomach flips with the sensation of velocity. It’s as disorienting as an amusement park ride, this rapid feeling of going up, up, up. The ground groans around us, the heavy vines snap, and when I lift my head to peer past the prince, I can see a dizzying rush of tree trunks, green canopy, and then endless sky.

I pull in a sharp gasp.

“You will submit to a med check.” He leans in and puts his mouth near my ear. I can hear the hiss and whisper of his real words beneath the translator’s dulcet, pompous tones. “And you will never see this planet nor your own ever again. When I am king, I will destroy them both.”

We come to a sudden stop, so sudden that I fly up off the floor and then slam back down with enough force to conk my head. Only … I don’t hit my head because he catches it in his hand. Our eyes meet, and it happens all over again.

I have traveled through time and space to find you, his gaze says.

I want to scream. Of all the things that have happened to me, this is the worst. When he looks at me, it feels like I’m right where I’m meant to be. My free will has been stripped. Abraxas was right: these creatures are parasites. Fucking parasites.

Rurik shoves up from the floor, and I try to follow.

But I can’t.

My limbs feel heavy, and a dizziness sweeps over me that makes the whole world spin. I roll onto my stomach and crawl, naked and dazed, toward the nest. I don’t look at the bright lights outside the ship, the sterile metal walls, or the prince as he studies me over his shoulder.

With the last of my strength, I crawl into the nest, roll down the gentle incline into the furs and black out with Abraxas’ scent all around me.