“Trust me,” he finished. His hand moved from my shoulder to cup my face, his thumb brushing my cheek. My brain screamed at me to pull away, but my body would not budge. “I’m not your father, Cleo. I’m not trying to control you or diminish you. I’m trying to understandwhymy entire being recognizes you as something essential.”
I finally gave in and leaned into his touch. I hadn’t meant to, but I was just so tired of resisting. “This is insane. We’re different species. We come from completely different worlds.”
“I know.” He was so close now that I could see the lines that fanned around his eyes, a thin scar on his chin. The subtle shift of colors in his vivid eyes. “But my marks don’t care about logic. They know what they recognize.”
“And what’s that?”
“You.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Brave, brilliant, impossible you.”
He was going to kiss me. I could see the intention in his eyes, feel the pull between us like gravity. And Iwantedit. Despite everything, despite all my walls and fears andveryrational objections, I wanted to close the distance and see what it felt like to kiss someone who made me feel like the only person in the galaxy.
His lips were a breath away from mine when the alarm sounded.
Sharp, urgent, the warning bell that meant crisis. Rezorjerked back, his hand dropping from my face, his expression instantly shifting from vulnerable to commanding.
“Stay here,” he ordered, already moving toward the stairs.
“Like hell.” I followed him, my heart still racing but for entirely different reasons now. “If something’s wrong, I can help.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but another bell joined the first, the urgent rhythm meaning immediate danger. “Come, then. But stay close.”
We ran through the darkening streets, guards materializing around us as we moved. People emerged from their homes, expressions worried, moving toward the village center where the alarm bells continued their urgent song.
Korin met us in the plaza, his eyes a distressed orange. “Lord Rezor, it’s the main grow facility. The storms… There was a rogue lightning strike that hit the climate control system. It just failed. Complete shutdown. Without it, we’ll lose everything inside.”
My mind was already racing ahead, cataloging what I’d seen of the facility’s systems, thinking through possible failure points. “Show me.”
Rezor nodded, and we ran toward the edge of the village, toward the massive dome that housed so much of their food supply.
Toward another crisis that needed solving.
And as I ran, I tried very hard not to think about how close I’d come to kissing a D’tran lord whose marks burned for me like fire.Tried. And failed completely.
CHAPTER 8
Rezor
The grow facility reeked of destruction.
Burned metal. Scorched plant matter. The acrid stench of overheated synthetic materials. I stood at the entrance, taking in the damage with a growing sense of dread that had nothing to do with the female standing beside me.
Scorch marks blackened the clear dome panels in jagged patterns that spread out from a central impact point. Lightning strike. Direct hit. The kind of thing that shouldn’t have been possible, but there it was. Evidence that our protected valley was slowly being overtaken by the never-ending storms.
Inside, several rows of plants were completely destroyed. Blackened stalks, withered leaves, the smell of death where there should have been growth. The climate control system sat silent and dark, no longer maintaining the precise temperatureand humidity that kept this part of our food supply alive. The forest provided food, yes, but this facility kept us from having to take too much from it.
If we couldn’t fix this, we’d lose everything in the facility within days. Maybe sooner.
And I couldn’t stop thinking about how, if this crisis hadn’t interrupted us, I’d be kissing Cleo right now.
I wanted to do much more than kiss her. I wanted to rut her, claim her, take her in every imaginable way. The need had roared through me when I touched her face. When I’d seen the want in her eyes, it hadn’t been civilized. It had been primal. A driving urge to possess that went beyond any urge I thought I’d experienced before.
My marks still burned with the memory of her skin beneath my palm. She’d leaned into my touch despite her resistance, and the sound she’d made was half protest andallsurrender. My body wanted to forget the crisis, forget my responsibilities, and finish what we’d started on that wall. But I was a leader. I had duties. People depended on me.
Standing here with Cleo beside me and my marks blazing hot enough to hurt, all I wanted was to drag her somewhere private and show her exactly whatdeep compatibilitymeant.
“Everyone back to your homes,” I ordered, my voice harder than I’d intended. The crowd that had gathered scattered immediately, mothers pulling children close, elders moving with careful haste. “Except engineers and guards. The rest of you, go.”
I looked up at the sky as people dispersed. The clouds were different tonight. Wrong. They pressed closer to the valley than they had even one sun-cycle ago, spilling over themountain peaks in ways that made my chest tighten with concern.
