I’ve been saying her name wrong this whole time?
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring dishonor to your name by pronouncing it wrong. Forgive me!” I drop my chin to my chest, embarrassed. How could I have not noticed?
She leans forward, using her index finger to tilt my jaw back up to hers.
“I like my name, anyway you say it. We’re in this together, right?”
“Always.”
I close my eyes as she presses her lips to mine. The heat of her body lets me momentarily forget myself. I moan into her mouth, searching it with my tongue.
Lena pulls away, and I hear a heavy foot thump on the floor.
“Enough, you disgrace the Proving, hopeful. Sleep now, before you shame your family name any further.”
My eyes shoot open just in time to see the guard coming my way, tranquilizer gun in hand.
The guard pushes me back down into my seat.
“Stay put, female, he’s fine,” he says gruffly.
“Fine? He’s fucking unconscious!” I yell back at him.
How in the hell am I supposed to let Kitaico handle all the talking while he’s slumped forward in his seat?
This whole situation is fucked, but I’ve never let anyone push me around on Earth and I won’t start now.
“Hey, noodle head!” I yell at the guard, who was returning to his seat.
He stops dead in his tracks. A sigh escapes his alien lips before he turns around. “Female, sit down and?—”
I cut him off, throwing a pillow from the chair at his head. The soft square hits him right between the eyes with a dull thud. With yet another sigh, the guard turns and aims the tranquilizer gun he used on Kitaico straight at me.
“What the actual fuck, are you going to shoot?—”
* * *
When I wake, I’m in what looks like a space-age prison cell. The bars are made of some orange laser light. I have a feeling that if I touch them, I’d get burned. I’m sitting on a cot and slumped against the wall. My shoulder stings when I rouse.
“Are you okay?” Kitaico’s worried voice asks.
“Kitaico?” I scan the room, looking for my mate.
He’s not too many cells down. He’s sitting on his knees, looking directly at me when I find him.
“What are they going to do with us?” I ask, knowing that I probably should have kept my cool better than I did in the pod.
“I assume they’ll want to question you, confirm you’re not a spy…and then question me about, well, us,” he mumbles.
“Will they try to separate us?”
“No, not once they understand what we are…what you are. They’ll never dare to separate us once I’ve proven that I am worthy of a mate.” He smiles reassuringly.
“You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I know you’re going to be an amazing mate.” I smile, wishing I could touch him.
“I am proud you see me as such”—his grin is sadder than my own—“but there is one last test to the Great Proving. I must defeat another hopeful in combat—to prove that I can properly protect a female.”
“And you already did! You saved us both from that exile. I mean, you barely knew me, and you saved me from the whale monster when I arrived here.” I try to talk some sense into him. There’s nothing left to prove to me.
