Amber sat down and rearranged the books. “We can do this another day, if you want? I can tell you’ll likely be too distracted to continue tonight.” Her tone was teasing, and I found that I liked her. My mate deserved good friends.
“Would that be okay?” Derek asked, his voice strained. I placed my hands under his shirt instead, hoping that would help calm him. He made a strangled sound as soon as my fingers made contact with his belly. I let my fingers trail the top of his pants, caressing him without going further under his clothes, even if I really wanted to. That would wait until Amber had left though.
“Yep!” she replied, standing back up and collecting her books. “I’ll text you tomorrow and we can plan our next study session.”
Derek nodded. “Thank you.”
She waved him off. “If I had a boyfriend that hot, I wouldn’t waste time on studying either. But we still need to, so I’m only giving you today.”
Why was she referring to me as hot? Could she feel my temperature from over there? Was I getting sick? Gods, I hoped not!
She closed the door behind her, leaving me alone with my mate. “I’m so glad I finally found you,” I whispered into his ear, nuzzling his neck.
He made the cutest sound, a mix between a whimper and a swallow. “You, um,” he began, sounding nervous. “You said I was your mate.”
“You are,” I replied, kissing his cheek. Damn, he smelled wonderful. I let my nose trail down his neck next, letting his scent fill me.
“What does that mean?”
Oh, right. My exploration would have to wait; my poor mate knew nothing about this stuff. “You and I are fated to be together. That is what it means. Where I’m from, we have mates. Like you have boyfriends here. Only we never part.”
After Juno found Remi, we’d all started researching how people did matings here and it sounded awful to me. People could cheat and hurt their partners, finding others more interesting and leaving them broken hearted. I was glad I never had to deal with that. And neither did Derek.
It was weird having this conversation when I couldn’t see his face, so I lifted him and turned him around on my lap. His face was beet red and he was biting his bottom lip. I placed my thumb to his lip, trying to pry his teeth off it. “Please don’t bruise your lip, darling. I like your pretty lips intact.”
He sucked in a breath, staring with wide eyes at my lips. I licked my top lip, loving how his breath stuttered again. I leaned in, unable to stop myself from claiming his lips, and then my slate rang, midalmostkiss, alerting me the rulers needed my attention. I sighed, leaning back from Derek’s tempting lips. Our first kiss would have to wait.
“Sorry, darling. My rulers are calling so it must be important.”
Trise’s face projected from my slate, causing Derek to fall off my lap in fright. “Nolen! Do not kiss your mate!”
I grabbed Derek before he hurt himself on the floor, and gave all the rulers an incredulous look. “Why am I not allowed to kiss my mate?”
No one could keep mates apart, and from their joy earlier, it couldn’t be because they were against our mates coming from another world. Could it?
Derek began to shake next to me and I felt his fear. Our short kiss had been enough to affect him.
Trise continued, not realizing Derek was shaking in my arms. “Remi fainted when Juno kissed him. You need to come home with your mate before you kiss and mate. We fear he’ll faint, too.”
Chapter Seven
Derek
So that was why Remi had fainted. I was honestly just a passenger in my body at this point; it was all so confusing. Nolen was from another world. He was my mate, too. Whatever that meant, I would find out soon. I hadn’t had any time to work through our first encounter, since Amber stormed into my room, likely thinking me standing her up meant we were doing it in my room instead of the library. She was way more forgiving than others would’ve been.
“We’ll see you soon,” one of the women said, ending their call. I hadn’t heard the rest, too busy processing everything. It had actually helped when Amber forced me to study. I’d been able to focus on something else for a few minutes, even if my body was hurting from being apart from Nolen. I’d put his T-shirt on, all too pleased to smell him everywhere.
My entire body ached as I shook with some kind of foreign force.
“Darling? We need to pack before we leave. Anything you need with you? A week’s worth of clothes should do, or you can borrow mine. But we need to hurry to the portal.”
Portal?
“Wait, what?” I asked, finally catching up. “We’re leaving? And there’s aportal?!” I could hear my voice break, was it because I was shaking?
What were they even doing here? Were Juno and Nolen a sort of alien species? I actually didn’t care if I was an alien mate. I had never felt this at ease before, no anxiety or unease as long as Nolen was next to me. It might be ‘stranger danger’ or something close to it, but I didn’t care. I felt the truth of Nolen’s words. He was speaking thetruth; I just needed to catch up on everything.
“There’s a portal leading to my world close by. It’s deep inside a forest and hidden with glamour from people and animals if they should wander close. My rulers told me we needed to come home before mating. I don’t want you to faint like Remi did, and we can’t hold off on mating either. It won’t be comfortable for us to wait. Especially not you.”
