Sheba gazed up at him, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Once again, you are scary as hell, my love.’
The corner of his mouth twitched, and he caught her face in his hands, kissing her with a desperate, crushing intensity that claimed every inch of her soul.
‘Remember,’ he murmured against her lips, ‘I intend for our love to endure for eternity, never forget that.’
They sauntered back to the table arm in arm. The Riders glanced up, their expressions curious.
‘So,’ Kainan drawled, leaning back with a smirk. ‘Where’d the ex-fiancée go? Did she find a better party?’
Idan sat back down, pulling Sheba onto his lap this time, his expression unreadable.
‘She had a sudden change of scenery,’ he rasped, his tone dry as bone. ‘I don’t think she’ll be back for dessert.’
Despite his god warrior alpha energy, Idan was not coping well on Eden II.
Over the next few days, as they waited for Issa to arrange a meeting with her father, Idan’s possessiveness dialed up.
Sheba began to notice his need to be close to her presence at all times, whether for relief or reassurance, which evolved into a cycle of check-ins.
Even within the modest square footage of her flat, if she drifted into another room for too long, his psionic reach would find her. Probing, seeking, making sure she was near.
She wondered if Sulfiqar’s impending threat was fracturing his composure, turning his protective instinct into a territorial cage.
‘Where are you going?’ he growled one morning, looming over her as she picked up a shopping basket.
‘The market down the street,’ she answered.
He peered out the window, eyes suspicious and narrowed.
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘Why?’
He swiveled to face her. ‘Because I have an indescribable pull to you, like an invisible tether linking our souls.’
She took his words in, blinking as she acknowledged to herself that she felt the same uncanny connection to him.
‘Also, because my Sacran heart belongs to you, plain and simple. You are the heaven-sent heat that purifies me and keeps my spirit grounded. You’re fast becoming my only sanctuary,and I need to know you’re safe in thisfokkin’ chaos of a city,’ he grumbled.
She sighed. ‘I’ll be fine.’
His jaw clenched into a stubborn set, and she relented.
Grabbing a jacket, he followed her out the door, his molten eyes tracking her every move.
He didn’t just claim her heart; he wanted her within his line of sight, a permanent fixture in his orbit that he could monitor, protect, and avow each waking second.
Sheba emerged from the sheets one morning while the room remained shrouded in pre-dawn indigo, unfurling her legs from Idan, who lay in a deep, rhythmic sleep.
She dressed, did her makeup and hair, and focused on the interview ahead for an all-important Director of Nursing and Midwifery position.
The role promised the permanence she craved. She was done with the transient nature of off-world field and combat clinics; she needed a workplace of concrete certainty.
Scribbling a brief note on the bedside pad, she slipped out and, in moments, was in a fly-cab heading to the centre of Eden City.
Two hours later, while immersed in her interrogation board’s rigorous questioning, a sudden, insistent pressure bloomed at the base of her skull.
It was Idan’s neural signature, a proprietary, golden pulse that thrummed with a demanding frequency.
