“I’ll send the coordinates, and if you’re not back by the morning, we’re coming to find you.”
“I’ll see you soon,” she assured, cutting off the call and letting Apodis’ arm drop to the mossy ground.
“Are you serious?” she asked, her pulse ramping back up as all the pieces clicked together.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, moving his hands to her waist, but she felt sick, like she needed to get out of his grasp.
“Don’t touch me,” Gemini hissed, and Apodisrested his hands at his sides, though his body was strained with tension.
An avalanche of thoughts tumbled through her mind, a different kind of heat filling her body as she tried to get a hold of her anger.
“They were going to send a search party…” she said quietly, then felt a knot in her throat. “Oh my God, I might get fired! Why didn’t you tell me Castor was calling?”
“I’m so sorry, Gemini. I just… didn’t want you to leave.”
He sounded so pathetic, but that didn’t make things better. She squirmed, trying to pull away, but the knot held tight, a sharp pain ringing through her body.
“How long is this going to take?” she growled through gritted teeth.
She ceased her struggling when Apodis brought his hands to her waist once again, refusing to let her move.
“It won’t be much longer, but please stop. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You already did. You lied to me. What else are you lying about?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry for withholding information.”
And this wasn’t the first time…
“Just like you did with the omega shit,” Geminisaid. “God, I’m going to go back to camp and my crew’s going to be pissed and then I’ll need to admit that I’ve been genetically altered by some alien’s pheromones and if I don’t fuck someone during one of my horny spells, I’ll go crazy. Do you realize how insane that sounds?”
Apodis winced, though he didn’t loosen his grip, his tentacles lying prone on the moss like they’d been shorn from his body.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Of course you didn’t,” she said quickly, trying to focus her thoughts, trying to think logically and not lash out.
But it didn’t make sense. He had no reason to lie to her. Fuck, she was always going to leave, and if he had just told her the truth, she wouldn’t have had to deal with these repercussions.
If he had explained his suspicions right away, maybe she’d still be her normal self and not some genetic anomaly that the doctors on Earth would have no idea how to deal with.
Even as her mind whirled with frustration and anger, she remembered the first time she had caught his scent, and deep in her gut, she knew it had already been too late. Something had drawn her to him during her escape from Halley and Cassio’s flirting, something that made zero sense unless she had already been experiencing changes from Apodis’ pheromones.
Could they possibly have been that strong?Strong enough to draw her away from camp and change her forever?
Another growl slipped past Gemini’s lips as she imagined the smarmy look on Halley’s face.
What would happen if she went into another heat while they were traveling back to Earth? The thought of being stuck on a tiny ship in that state mortified her, more so even than the humiliation she’d experienced after Kenny and his chatbot went “official” on social media.
The tears welling in her eyes suddenly burst forth; the acknowledgement of all that had changed in such a short amount of time was too much. She pressed her cheek to Apodis’ chest, needing to avoid his pleading gaze. She hated the way she was soothed by his touch, his strong arms wrapping around her and his strange tentacles brushing along her back.
Gemini cried into the crook of his neck, waiting for his knot to deflate and trying to tell herself that everything would be okay.
CHAPTER 18
APODIS
Galaxies,Apodis had messed up.
