A sudden bubble of hope forms in my chest. “Home? You mean Earth?”
A crinkle of confusion appears on his forehead. “Earth? No. Home. Altrim, Ulfaria.”
The bubble of hope bursts with an almost physical pop of disappointment. “What’s there?”
“My planet. My kingdom. Your new home.” He says these things so matter-of-factly, as if every word wasn’t destroying me.
I swallow hard. What’s the best way to handle this? Do I appeal to him? Play along? Argue?
The sudden prick of tears in my eyes takes me by surprise. I don’t usually cry. I prefer to suppress my emotions, and bury myself in work.
Blinking furiously to ensure none of the moisture spills over my lower lashes, I take a deep breath, then immediately regret it as the aching pulse between my legs is renewed. How in the capital eff am I meant to have a serious conversation with Khan’s scent constantly distracting me?
I wish I did actually have a cold. This would be a lot easier.
“Look,” I begin at length. “I’m sure… Ulfaria… is a lovely place, but I don’t actually want to go there. I need to go back to Earth.Myhome.”
His hooded, glittering eyes narrow for a brief moment, and I try to work out what emotion I just saw flicker across his face. Was it pity? Anger? It definitely wasn’t lust. I’ve seen enough of that over the past few hours that I can recognize it easily. “No,” he says. “You’re my mate now. I claimed you.”
In shock, forgetting I’m on a stool, I lean back and almost go flying, only just regaining my balance in time.
The huge alien male sitting opposite me doesn’t miss a thing, and the corner of his mouth lifts when he realizes how close I came to going ass over tit.
Embarrassment makes me angry. “I don’t care what you think you did,” I say furiously, shoving my still damp hair over my shoulder in an attempt to recover some kind of dignity. “I don’t know what’s going on, what you think you’re doing, what you think you’re entitled to just because we… had sex… and you then helped me wash… and fed me wallpaper paste. But I have a home, on Earth. I have an apartment I lovingly decorated, and a job I’ve given up everything for. Literallyeverything. You don’t get to swoop in and snatch all that away from me.”
Khan has been listening intently during my rant, his face growing darker and darker. I should probably be treading carefully right about now, but I’m honestly beyond giving a crap.
“I saved you,” he says thunderously.
“Savedme?” I can’t prevent the disbelief in my tone. “You kidnapped me! Then you made me…” I blush, remembering how wanton and desperate for him I was. Even worse is the fact that I still feel that way. If he came over to me now, and I breathed him in…
“The Buruwr had the winning bid. Do you know where you would be now if I hadn’t rescued you from him?” Khan says in a low, menacing voice.
“No.”What is a Buruwr, anyhow?
“Tied to a cold table, naked, beaten, every one of your holes being used with no regard for your safety or wellbeing, let alone pleasure—”
“I don’t want to know!” I bleat.
He keeps talking anyway. “On Ulfaria, I’m a king. You will be my queen. You will have anything your heart desires—”
“My heart desires that you take me back to Earth!”
“—and in return, I will breed you; we will have many heirs. You’re an Omega, that is your purpose.”
“The fuck it is!” I’m on my feet now, shaking. “My purpose is to live on Earth, where I belong, with my family and friends, not to mention the career I worked my butt off for! You don’t get to kidnap me and decide what my life is meant to be like!”
He can’t know that he’s hit a sore spot, but he has. I don’t want kids. Never have, never will. The women in my family seem to think that’s all females are good for: to be barefoot and pregnant, serving some entity with a penis. I don’t share that view, not in the slightest. I might be submissive in the bedroom—and god knows, I struggled enough admitting that to myself—but outside of that, I’m an independent woman, through and through. My art led me to my career, which I excel at, and which has become my purpose in life. And nothing is going to change that, especially not some freakishly large, alien alpha. I don’t care how good the sex is.
“You need to take me home, right now!” I continue, but even as I’m speaking, the fight is going out of me. Khan has gotten off his stool and is now approaching me, and his scent…
“Hush, little Emma,” he says quietly, “there is no need to fight. Fate has brought us together, and this,” he reaches out and traces the mark he put on my neck, “has bonded us forever.”
His slightest touch causes a hot, wet gush between my thighs and I clench them together, biting back a whimper of desire. The bite is sore and even so, the way he’s caressing it, the way he’s looking at me, somehow makes me want to throw myself into his arms.
Desperate to get away from my own need for him, I take a step back, then another.
But Khan pursues me with an unreadable expression on his face—until my back hits the wall with a dull thud.
