He didn’t want to be different from her. He didn’t want to hold himself separate.
The helmet was a necessity, but the gloves… If the sovereign himself could defy convention and be rid of them, so could Sloane.
“I don’t,” he answered, offering her his hands in a pose very close to supplication. “You can take them off if that’s your preference.”
Cecilia traced the contour of one of his palms. Her fingertips trailed over the smooth, well-worn leather until she found the thick bar of his wrist. Slipping them under the edge of the glove, she silently began to strip it from his hand.
Pale purple flesh, callused from decades of hard training, was revealed by her careful work. Trails of fire were left in the wake of her touch, making the beds of his claws pulse and burn with the need to retract.
With his helmet on, his body hadn’t been exposed to enough of her pheromones to completely start the biological cascade that would trigger things like that, but he felt it there, hovering just on the edge.
When she got to the ends of his fingers, the metal claw-caps slipped off his natural claws with a softshwick.His right hand was left completely bare as she discarded the glove onto the garage floor.
“You have beautiful hands,” she noted, cupping it in both of hers. Cecilia turned it over to look at his scarred knuckles and tips of his claws. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an elf’s hands up close.”
“Gloves are traditional,” he explained, shoulders rounding as he unconsciously pressed closer to her.
“Why?”
Sloane watched his own fingers closely. The more she touched him, the more his nail beds burned, and as she pressed the pad of her thumb into the claw of his index finger, he caught the tiniest retraction.
So dangerous. So, so wanted.
“Because they hide our weakness,” he murmured. “When we meet our mates, our claws retract. Gloves hide it.”
“Oh.” A shadow passed over her expression before a bright smile erased it. “Well, that’s a fun fact most people probably don’t know. And I guess it’s a good thing that didn’t happen withme, right? You should probably end up with an elf. I mean, who’s ever heard of an arrant and an elf, anyway? That’s crazy.”
Something in him — pride, perhaps, or something more pitiful, like the childish need to be loved — roared with outrage at the thought.
“No,” he hissed, bringing his visor very close to her face. “I willnotend up with an elf. I’myourmate.”
Cecilia’s lips parted with an astonished breath. “But you just said?—”
“You ask me why I won’t take my helmet off. That’s why. The air filter is protecting you. If I take it off or if it breaks again, I’ll react to your pheromones and my claws will retract and I won’t be able to give you a choice.” His bare hand lifted to set his trembling fingers on the base of her throat, the most precious and private of places to an elf. In a raw voice she couldn’t hear through the modulator, he confessed, “I want to be your choice. That’s why I need you to teach me how to do this.”
“Wait— Hold on.” Cecilia sat back until her spine hit the dash. Fearlessly holding his helmet between her hands, she demanded, “Are you telling me I’m yourmate?Like how orcs mate with the kohl and nests and whatall? Like… like?—”
“We call them consorts,” he told her.
For once, he managed to shock her into complete silence.
Cecilia stared at him, gobsmacked, until she let out a concerning bubble of laughter. It only lasted a moment before she started nodding her head. Eyes wide and hands still gripping the sides of his helmet, she breathed, “Oh. Oh, okay. Yeah. No. That makes a lot of this make more sense.”
Tilting her head back, she unknowingly exposed the long line of her throat as she took several deep breaths. The urge to bite her, to pin her down with infinite care, made him clench his upper and lower fangs so hard they squeaked against each other, inadvertently sharpening themselves.
“Wow. Wow. Okay.Wow.”Cecilia laughed again, but this time it was a little less concerning. “So when you said you’d never hurt me, you meant that you’re, like,biologicallyincapable of it.”
“Yes,” he answered, a mite defensive, “but even if I wasn’t, I would have no reason to hurt you.”
“Sorry, yeah, I get that. I’m just kinda… thinking aloud here. You know, processing the bomb you just dropped while also trying not to be quite as turned on as I am. Give a girl a second.” She shook her head. “Man, it’s been a weird few days. I can’t seem to catch up.”
Taking her rambling complaint as an order to be silent, Sloane occupied himself with counting the beats of her heart beneath his palm. He suspected it was a bit faster than normal, which was somewhat gratifying, but he couldn’t know for certain until he had a vitals baseline for her.
Another task to add to the list.
“I have a mate. My stalker is my mate,” she muttered, dropping her hands to his shoulders. Her blunt nails dug into the armored padding there, making it creak. “Or… I guess Icouldhave a mate? If you took the helmet off?”
Sloane nodded.
