I quickly began setting up the equipment, placing a series of receivers around the edge of the transportal pad in the center of the structure and linking them with cables. I joined them to a control unit, which I handed to Luk 8th.
“It should be ready to go,” I said.
I watched as Luk 8thflipped the switch, but nothing happened. The control unit’s display was blank. He looked at me in confusion. “Why isn't it working?”
“Let me check something,” I said, stepping over the wire and onto the transportal pad.
In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to do. Something that I'd always been warned against. But in the moment, I didn't even think. You never, ever stepped into the center of a transportal when you were testing it.
So the absolutely predictable thing happened.
I was transported through the portal.
I felt a surge of energy around me; the ground shifted, and my legs buckled. I fell forward onto my hands and knees, but the floor was no longer there and the hard-hit I'd expected did not come. Instead, I felt like I was falling through space, tumbling over and over and over, while being pulled inside out.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the lights that flashed around me moving too quickly, a throbbing building behind my eyes.
I let loose a shout and, to my shame, curled into a ball.
When the feeling of falling ended, it wasn't with a thump. It just stopped. It was the strangest feeling; as if everything was new, but the same.
And I was naked.
Then my stomach heaved, and I vomited.
A moan from behind me had me turning far too quickly, and I slowed as my vision swum. I bent forward, resting my hands on my knees and looked around, searching for the source of the noise.
A slight form, curled up in a ball, was lying a short distance away. I don't know how I knew, because she was wearing a coat that swallowed her entire body, but I knew this was a woman. And she was in pain.
I could not have ignored her for anything. I felt compelled to help her—to make her pain go away.
I staggered toward her, falling to my knees by her side. She moaned again, and I rolled her gently onto her back. She had pale skin, not as pale as mine, and hers was smattered with little brown dots across her nose and cheeks.
She must be of superior rank to have such delicate markings in such abundance.
Her eyebrows and lashes were dark slashes across her pale face. A hat of some description was on her glossy brown hair, which curled freely around her shoulders. I was thankful that she was wearing a warm coat, because the temperature in this place, wherever that was, was not warm.
And then I smelled the most delicious scent and froze. My heart pounded in my chest, blood rushing through my veins, my lungs expanding as I took in great lungfuls of the deliciously scented air. I slowly bent my head to get close to her, my face a mere breath from her own, and breathed in deeply.
I became acutely aware of how naked I was as my cocks stirred. My body felt like it was on fire, despite the chill air.
Mine.
This woman was my mate. My one mate.
No. That’s just a myth. Not even Elites find their one true mate. Not anymore.
A surge of protectiveness for this small woman—this stranger—flooded through me, and my cocks jerked. I reached down with one hand to ease the ache in my groin.
I froze. What was I doing?
I must have hit my head. There’s no such thing as having a one true mate, and this woman is not Gnaggarrian.
This planet, wherever I was, was not like any planet I had been on. I looked around and up to the sky, seeing the clouds shift to expose stars that were completely alien to me. UnlessI was mistaken, this was not a planet in the Gnaggarrian Empire. And I knew my Gnaggarrian Empire planets very well.
The exile planet. I have to get back.
I felt a moment of panic that all my plans would come to nothing. But that was a problem for later. Right now, I needed to make sure that this woman was uninjured. I steeled myself to her scent, forcing myself to not breathe too deeply.
