I frown. “A ship crashed only days ago.”
“Yes, but it crashed in the mountains.”
He knows where the survey ship is. “Did they survive? Where are they?”
He glances up at the mountains where we’d first taken shelter. “I don’t know about the other ship or if there were survivors, but I saw your ship crash on the lake, and I came to help.”
“You saved me.” But only me. “What about the others that drowned?”
He hesitates.
“You watched them drown.”
“I couldn’t help you all. I had to make a choice, and I chose you. I knew you could be my mate.”
I force myself to step back. The spike of longing almost kills me. I glance behind and see Ava creeping closer.
Eskar scowls. “Why do they want you back?”
“They’re my friends.”
“You belong with me.”
I take another step away from him even though my body wants him. “I don’t belong with you. I don’t know you.”
“My mating barb is under your skin. You are drawn to me, as I am drawn to you.”
“Mating barb?”
His tail lifts. Blue-white and tapering, but there is no tip, no spike like there should be, just the gap where it used to be. My ass cheek throbs. Oh…
“Shit.” A dozen thoughts all crowd my head. What does this mean? I can’t be his mate. I don’t know who he is, or why he’s here, or when I’m going home. Because I am going home. “But I’m human.” Is all I manage to say.
I know a little about the Paohl, and nothing about their mating habits. But stinging the first woman he sees doesn’t seem like a particularly good way to find a mate.
“You feel the need to complete the bond, and you kissed me in the water.”
“I needed air!”
Ava tugs on my arm. “The ship, the uniform, it’s all over two hundred years old. I don’t know what’s going on, but this is wrong.”
She has no idea how wrong.
Eskar frowns and looks at Ava. “Two hundred years? It hasn’t been that long. My ship’s the newest model, we were exploring this planetary system, this world, and we crashed.”
“Yeah, so did we.” The Paohl live for longer than humans, but they didn’t live for two hundred years. And he wasn’t born here since he’d been on the ship when it crashed. “How old are you?”
“I was forty when the ship crashed…this was my first posting.” He shakes his head. “It hasn’t been two hundred years.” But his voice wasn’t so sure this time. “It couldn’t have been.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Ava mutters. “Let’s leave him. We can find somewhere else to stay.”
But the sky is darkening like a bruise. Stars glimmer, distant and cold. I turn to her. “We can’t leave him. He’s alone. Like us.”
And there is the issue of the mating barb which is making my body crave all the wrong kinds of things when I should be thinking about survival, not sex. Though Eskar is very handsome, tail and all.
Ava jerks her chin at him. “Hey, Paohl, where’s the rest of your crew.”
Eskar regards Ava coolly. “Take your hands off my mate.”
