She glared at him. “This is not looking promising.”
He should have been offended, but he wasn’t.
He was just pleased he wasn’t about to be killed.
He instead focused on Re-lee. “You must be mistaken. We are not mates.”
“According to our calculations, you two will make great mates,” Re-lee said. “Now, if you please, let us all take a seat and we can discuss this.”
Jenny crossed her arms. “I have nothing more to say.”
Karuk watched her as she plopped into her chair, an indignant expression on her face.
If she was that adamant about not being his mate, then he would not force her. He would not force any female to be with him. Though the idea of Jenny being mated with him brought him a bit of joy.
Even though she did not look happy about it.
Why did that very thought make his heart hurt, though?
He’d only just met her.
10
“This has got to be a dream,” Jenny muttered to herself as she sat in the little meeting room with Karuk, Polly and Re-lee. It probably would have been a lovely conversation, if they weren’t discussing the rest of her life, being chosen to mate with Karuk, like she was some kind of pawn to be moved on a chess board.
Regardless that she liked Karuk, because she did, but this was just too much to be thrown at her right now.
None of it seemed real.
“I assure you, it is not,” Karuk said, his voice low.
She’d finally gotten her emotions under control.
And she didn’t smack Karuk for his chuckling at her.
Which at some point, she was absolutely going to let him have it for that. How damn rude to laugh at her anger.
They both seated themselves in chairs side by side in the meeting room that Re-lee had brought her to, across from the others.
Of all the things to find out. That she’d been matched with an alien. She just couldn’t wrap her head around it. It’s one thing to want to be a part of this dating program from one’s own free will.
To be assigned a mate?
With no desire to be in it?
Her gaze darted over to Karuk.
As attractive as he was, it still frustrated her to be told she had to mate with him. Like she had no choice in the matter.
This was the shit she got away from Phil for. His designs to control her, with his ways of belittling her, made it hard for her to move away from him. Part of the reason he wouldn’t stop stalking her.
Coming here was a chance to be completely away from all of that.
Yet here she was, being flung back at a male.
Part of her wanted to scream and stomp and yell. Correction, a lot of her wanted to rebel against this.
After all, this was going to be her big chance. Her enormous opportunity to be a part of something amazing. World shaping. The things she was going to do here, to learn about, and to bring back to Earth? There were so many discoveries to make, to create.
