“It is the Luxirian way,” he told her. “Instincts are powerful forces. Once it is awakened, nothing can stop it. Fated mates simply cannot survive without the other. That is a fact. If you were to die, it would be like half of my soul ripped away. No being can live a half-life.”
“You don’t even know me, Kirov,” she said, even though her tone was gentle, even though her heartbeat was suddenly racing in her chest.
“That will come in time,” he said. “But even you cannot deny this. You feel the Instinct binding you to me, as it is binding me to you.”
Lainey swallowed, the hairs on her arms standing on end despite the heat.
“I—I don’t know what I feel,” she said.
Kirov’s lips turned up, but something about it struck Lainey as sad. And the fact that he might be sad, or disappointed, because of her struck her in her very core.
“I wish to show you something tonight,” he murmured after a brief moment of tense silence. “I want to take you somewhere.”
“What?” Lainey whispered, her brows furrowing. “But Vixron—”
“We will be cautious,” he said, his blue eyes flashing golden for a brief moment in the sunlight. “I…I need to see you. Where it is just us. Where we do not have to whisper when we speak, where I can touch you without worrying that your guard might see.”
Lainey couldn’t help but soften at that.
“Will you come with me?” he asked again.
And because Lainey was a total sucker, she nodded.
Even though she thought it might be the biggest mistake of her life, she nodded.
Chapter Ten
Later that night, when the moon was high overhead, Kirov returned from the command center, impatient to see his female.
Every moment that he was apart from her felt unnatural. Luxirians needed to be around their mates. It was a compulsion, a need.
How he’d managed to leave her was a mystery to him. How he’d managed to withstand the passing time…he didn’t even know. He hadn’t made any progress on his work, his mind completely consumed byher, not his latest project, which was an anomaly in itself.
So the moment that Kirov landed his hovercraft on the terrace, he had to calm himself. If he was too hasty, Vixron might be even more suspicious than he already was.
The guard was stationed inside the dwelling. The females were nowhere in sight, had probably long gone to their sleeping platforms, and even Kirov wondered if he would find hisluxivasleeping.
“Ambassador,” Vixron nodded, coming to his feet, from the fire pit.
“I must return to the command center, but Vaxa’an wished for me to check in with you,” Kirov said, the lie falling easily from his lips, especially if it meant he could spend some time with his female, away, alone.
“The females went to sleep long ago,” he told Kirov. “I do not expect them to wake until the suns rise.”
He nodded and said, “Good. I will see about relief duty for you tomorrow evening so you may rest a full night, yes?”
“Thank you, Ambassador,” Vixron said, though his eyes were careful.
Kirov inclined his head and then left, shutting the door firmly behind him. He made a show of walking back to his dwelling, but then did what he did the previous night: cut down the alley and quietly stride along the backs of the dwellings until he was right back where he started.
Her window was open and his breathing hitched with anticipation.
Luxirians had better hearing, better senses overall, than most species, so Kirov employed every technique he’d been taught during warrior training to ensure Vixron wouldn’t hear him as he approached the window.
Peering inside, he saw her. She was sitting at the foot of the sleeping platform, idly playing with the device he’d made for her. She’d figured out how to retract it back into its spherical form and she tossed it back and forth between her hands.
Fates,she’s beautiful, he thought, awed, his body aching at the need he felt for her. He’d never thought that a need and desire this potent was possible, even though Luxirians had always been known for their fierce intensity when it came to matings.
His cock was almost constantly hard and aching, even when he wasn’t near her. Just the memory of her, her scent, her eyes, her lips, her voice could make his Instinct prowl in his chest, urging him to return to his female so he could mate her thoroughly. So he could mark her, fill her with his seed, so every male around her knew that she washisandhis alone.
