“I cannot face the others like this. They will think I forced you.” Which is even worse. “It is for the best. You do not want an alien mate, so my tribe will not accept you.”
She crosses her arms. “I never said I wouldn’t be your fake mate.”
“There is nothing fake about this.” I hold out my hand so she can see the charge lighting up my markings.
She touches one marking with the tip of her finger. A spark runs through me to her. It is almost as pleasurable as coming again. “I thought this only happened when you had sex…like Edilk?”
“I’ve had it before, and being close to you—”
“So any woman would’ve caused it?”
I hadn’t felt anything until I carried her today, but maybe it had woken the moment we took them from the clearing. “I do not know.”
Her hand falls away and I miss her touch. I had forgotten what it feels like to touch another for something other than a fight, or to heal a wound, or for warmth. I want to run my fingers over her hand. Up her arm. I want to brush my thumb over her lip and feel the wet heat of her tongue on my skin.
My blood heats and my meq hardens again. I will never lose the glow at this rate. And it means that any human woman I am close to, or touch, could restart the rut again. If I return home with her, will my tribe even trust me around women if I am unmated?
I already know the answer. I will not be allowed to return.
She frowns, her eyebrows drawing down as she looks at me. I have only felt so judged once, and that ended up leaving scars. But she holds no whip, and I don’t know what her judgement to be.
What will hurt the least?
Her agreeing that it would be best if I left—it is no secret that she doesn’t want a mate—or her agreeing to pretend to be my mate. Either way, I am going to be left with a hunger that won’t be sated.
Am I to be remain alone because of my birth order?
For a few heartbeats, I envy Orik and Vari. They formed an attachment within days of Orik joining us, sharing a blanket, and seeking pleasure with each other. Others have offered me the same, or they did. Now no one does because I have refused them all. One touch of my meq and they will feel the pleasure bumps and the ridge, and they will know my shame.
“So if Orik sees you like this he will know you are…in rut…and assume we have…um…been intimate?”
Her word implies an affection and pleasure, the kind shared between unmated men. “He will think we have mated.”
I feel her discomfort. Among the Honey, I am considered beautiful. My hair is like moonlight and my eyes are a light gold. My mother often bemoaned how my looks were wasted on a fourth born. To Mia, I am as strange as she is to me.
“It is fine. You do not need to do anything.” The words kill me to say.
She shakes her head. “You shouldn’t have to leave because of something you can’t control.”
I laugh. “That has been my entire life from my first breath.”
She stares at me as if I have given into the madness of the rut. Maybe I have. For so long, I existed but didn’t live. I thought only of restoring my family’s honor, but they probably think I am dead and expect nothing from me. It has been ten years; my tribe will have moved on without me. So for what reason do I exist?
“I’ll be pretend to be your mate, so you don’t have to leave or lie to your friends.”
They aren’t my friends. “They are my brothers. The men I would die for, and they would do the same for me.” While they do not know the truth. “And we will both be lying.”
“I need time.”
And I need to mate, as I do not want to feel the burn and pain again.
It would be better if I was dead.
6
Mia
If Sunif leaves, then I will arrive at the ship where more warriors in need of a mate wait. And while he is harsh, it is because of the life he has lived, and the pressure put on him. I begin to understand the way Sabine must have felt. Not everyone fits into the role they’re pushed into. She was suffocated in the colony and trapped by expectation.
