I feel a sheepish grin spread across my face, and I run a hand through my short faux hawk that I rock in this glamour. “Whoops, sorry. I got my outfits mixed up. You were not supposed to see that one… yet,” I explain, a little embarrassed that my fantasy was the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about what to put her in.
I wave my hand, and the lingerie disappears, replaced by a Galaxy Circus T-shirt, a pair of cutoff denim shorts, and leather combat boots. I give her ripped tights and a long-sleeved mesh undershirt below the galaxy circus top, and make her makeup punky like mine. She glances down at herself before looking back at me with a raised eyebrow.
“We match. We look like a couple,” she states, and I shrug, feeling smugly pleased at her observation.
“I know.” I don’t explain myself, instead grabbing her hand and walking in the direction of where we need to be. We stroll in silence for a little while, and Lila leaves her hand in mine, which thrills me more than it should. What the fuck is going on with me? I’m the warlock, I am one of the most powerful people in the galaxy and have a harem of aliens at my beck and call to see to my every need, yet all I want to do is spend time with this little Earth girl who causes my cock to harden just by the feel of her palm in mine.
I’d always been told that the intimate bond is like no other, but thanks to my parents, ours is nonexistent until they can return Lila’s memories. It’s there under the surface, and it’s why we both feel drawn to one another, but it’s nowhere near what it will be once we can act on it. Much like Saxon’s bond with Lila, it’s a surprise that it happened with a non-warlock. Intimates are supposed to be all about sharing your power base as well as a romantic and sexual connection, but Lila isn’t able to do that with me. I mean, I’m powerful enough as I am, so that doesn’t concern me, but I would have liked to have given her some of mine. That would have protected her from anything that might be coming for her in the future.
When I spoke to my parents, they said it may still be possible, but until we do the intimate ceremony, we won’t know. Now I need to explain this all to Lila and pray to every deity in the galaxy she will accept me.
The streets of Vegas are noisy and smelly, but it could be worse, we could be right on the strip. Thankfully we are on the outskirts and nobody pays particular attention to the two of us as we walk hand in hand. I swing our hands back and forth, excited that she still hasn’t pulled away, but she’s too busy holding her face up to the sun and enjoying being out of the artificial environment to notice.
“You know, you don’t realize how much it means to be able to go outside for fresh air until it’s taken away from you,” she tells me. “And when you are outside, you’re so busy running from one place to the other, or trying to protect yourself from the sun’s harsh rays, that you don’t even stop and take a moment to just enjoy it. I totally get the appeal of sunbathing now, even though I hadn’t in the past.”
I make a mental note to figure out how we can make it so she can have these things regularly. Once we leave Earth, we don’t tend to stay in one space all that often. We can land the circus pod on any of the other planets we visit, and we are free to leave and stay in their hotels or wander around and sightsee, as long as we return every evening to perform in the show, but for the times in between, I’m sure I can create an illusion or program one of the holorooms to provide her with what she needs. First, though, I want to talk to her about what I saw in the memory.
“Lila?”
“Hmm?” She faces me and finally realizes we’re holding hands, but instead of pulling away as I expected, she just gives my hand a squeeze and leaves it there. She finally looks around, noticing where we are.
“Oh, I thought we were going to be teleported closer to the site, but it doesn’t look like the pod could fit in anywhere here.” She strains her neck as she looks behind us without letting go of my hand.
“Oh, no, it’s a couple of blocks that way.” I nod in the direction we’re headed. “I asked Kirk to drop us a little farther away because I wanted to talk to you about my conversation with my parents and what I found in your mind.”
Her steps falter for a moment before she hurries to keep up. I’m not stopping, and I’m not letting go of her hand—partly for reassurance that she’s not going to run away, and partly because I hope she doesn’t hate me after what I’m about to tell her… or hate my parents. They are absolutely dying to meet her now that I know the truth. They weren’t even annoyed to hear about what I did to Elyan and told me they’d tell her father. I wasn’t going to argue about them assuming that responsibility.
“Okay, so talk,” she demands, and I can’t do anything but obey because I’ve been needing to tell her this.
“When I looked into your brain, I found a hidden memory, but it wasn’t one of yours, it was one of mine that had been removed from my mind and planted in yours.”
“Holy shit, that’s a pretty impressive power. Can all warlocks do that?” she asks quietly. I smile at her because the first sentence out of her mouth wasn’t about why my memory is in her mind or why someone planted it there.
“No, only the more powerful ones, and it was my parents who did it. It turns out you and I have met before.”
I explain what I had seen, and she listens without interrupting. The only outward sign that she is affected is her hand tightening in mine. When I finish that part of the story, she’s quiet, so I don’t hurry to continue. I want her to have a chance to absorb what I just told her.
“Okay, so my parents asked yours to remove my powers and memories if anything ever happened to them. But did your parents tell you why? What were they talking about when they put up the barrier?”
I run my hand through my hair in frustration, since that’s something I still haven’t managed to figure out yet. “No, they wouldn’t tell me. They said it was a matter of security. I tried to argue that I couldn’t protect you properly if I didn’t know why, but they wouldn’t budge.”
She looks disappointed but quickly shakes it off. “And I’m your intimate? Is this like being Saxon’s blood rose?” she inquires softly, and I stop and turn so that I am facing her.
“If you mean that you become the most important person in my world, then yes,” I answer, putting all of my feelings into it.
“And I won’t feel this until your parents return my memories and the powers they took from me?”
“No, probably not, but I’d like to think that you were attracted to me anyway. After all, your Skarrian attraction marks appeared on both of us.”
The frown she had been wearing eases a little, and she smiles. “That is true, but will you still need to feed from your harem until we join? You won’t need your harem after that, will you?”
I am beyond ecstatic that she hasn’t rejected anything outright and she seems to be accepting this, but I’m probably going to jinx it, because I need to make sure before I answer anything else. “You’re taking this rather well. Are you okay?” I ask cautiously, skepticism lacing my tone, and she giggles.
“Xavier, do youwantme to freak out?”
“No, no,” I assure her quickly. “I guess I just didn’t know how you would react, and part of me was expecting the worst.”
“In the last two weeks, I’ve discovered I’m an alien who is going to inherit an alien circus. I’m mated to a kraken shifter, dating a cyborg, and the blood rose to a vampire, so hearing that I’m the soulmate to a warlock isn’t any weirder than all of that. I guess I’ve decided to embrace whatever comes my way. If I don’t, I think you’ll find me rocking in the corner, chewing on my hair, talking to a ball of lint.”
