His gaze stays on mine one beat longer than necessary. His nostrils flare again. Before his brows drop and he says, “You may go.”
I go. Did I do a dignified turn and walk? I'll lie and tell Loora I did. But the floor is a very long way across, wider than an ocean, to the door. I take every step with my shoulders back, my notepad under my arm, and my chin level. The elevator doors open. I step in, and when they close, I press my back against the wall and tip my head up while my lungs work like I've just finished an Olympic run.
I tear my phone out of my pocket. My fingers shake on the pharmacy app. But I still manage the emergency suppressant refill. It pings before the car reaches thirty.
Ninety days. Across from his office. Very hands-on.
My stomach drops lower than the elevator. As I descend, I accept that Loora will be unbearable about this. She is going to say that she knew it. Knew from his picture that he was a panty-melter. She is going to force me to admit that she has all-knowing powers. Worse, she is going to order the most expensive sushi the restaurant has and laugh while eating it.
I hope this promotion comes with a raise in something other than my libido.
Chapter 2
Sky
The elevator doors close behind Beatrice Watson, and I remain still for exactly nine seconds. Nine seconds is a respectable amount of time. A ruler of Layn should be able to hold his body in place for the time it takes for Beatrice to leave my office smelling like warm vanilla, caramel, andmine.
Impossible. She smelled like mine. No other word fits, which is a problem because I do not intend to claim anyone before lunch. Or ever, really. Not going to happen. I need restraint, discipline, and the self-command my father would deem acceptable. He’d be proud of me, probably for nine seconds, until he accessed my pulse rate, pupil dilation, ear position, or the thin tear in the leather chair beneath my right hand.
Shit.
On the tenth second, the chair gives up. The leather splits under my grip with a soft, pathetic sound. I release it and process the damage. It is as alien as I am to her. I have never lost control.
Until today.
Her scent remains in the room, threaded through the cold air system and trapped in the folder she handed me. I should seal the report and send it to Legal, Finance, Security, and the terrifying human woman who manages executive procurement. Instead, I lower my hand to the binder and stop with my fingers half an inch from the cover. Touching it would be foolish.
I touch it.
The scent hits harder up close. Not perfume. Not soap. Not the warm brown gloss that coated her perfect, plump lips, though that has its own pleasant aroma. This is Beatrice beneath all of that. Warmth, stubborn courage, and the faint notes of her slick. I wipe my mouth because I am fucking drooling.
I step back from the desk and reach for the emergency kit inside the lower drawer. My fingers know the latch without looking. Every Layn stationed on Earth carries one. The humans call their crude version an EpiPen. Ours handles more than allergic shock. Earth pathogens. Atmospheric spikes. Toxic exposure. Sudden cellular distress. Anything this damp, cold, aggressively scented planet can throw at us while pretending to be harmless.
It is a virus. It has to be. There is no other explanation.
Fuck, there is one.
But, no. This is not mate sickness.
It cannot be.
It is clearly an Earth reaction. An airborne irritant. A contaminant in the office vents. A delayed interaction between my initial inoculation and too many roasted coffee beans before breakfast. I don’t care how desperate that sounds. I am not desperate. I am a fucking Ak.A prince. We don’t get desperate. Hell, we don’t get sick. But if we do, we handle it.
The injector fits against the side of my throat. I press the trigger.
Cold floods my bloodstream, sharp enough to lock my jaw. The medicine bites through my veins in a clean silver rush, spreading from neck to chest to gut. For one blessed breath, Beatrice’s scent dulls at the edges. The fever down my spine retreats. My mouth dries. The office returns to ordinary proportions: desk, windows, city, and one chair with an unfortunate upholstery wound. But that is okay. I was right. Just some Earth thing. Traveling between solar systems involves risk. The ice flowing through my veins means I am protected from a multitude of hazards.
I am safe.
Then, somewhere beyond the glass and steel of my office, Beatrice laughs.
The sound is not loud. Maybe she stopped by my receptionist's desk, or perhaps sent one of those small glowing texts humans accept as replacements for speech. Whatever caused it, her laugh travels through the corridor and slides under my door as if the room invited it in. It fills the office like warm fog, slicking over every surface until the air itself seems to know her.
The EpiPen is a damn lie.
Heat tears straight through the cold, rips through the medicine, and yanks it out by the roots. My ears snap toward the sound. My hand closes around the injector and cracks the casing. My mouth floods with the sweet, dangerous, glandular response that should not happen outside rut or claim. The emergency pen falls from my hand and clatters onto the desk.
Wonderful. Now the device has failed, the chair is dead, and I am salivating over an assistant editor who is alarmingly human. Completely human, with waves of soft curves, big brown eyes, and flat ears that do not even move. Who has brown eyes? How do they protect anyone from the sun? And those ears. Beautiful, useless little things. Embarrassing. She does not even reach my shoulders. She is so small. Tiny, really. Round. I resist the urgeto cup my palms and imagine how she might fill them. I will not. I will complete my mission and get back to Layn, where everything makes sense. Where the suns rotate in their normal color-changing pattern. Where the landscape is lush and green, not harsh gray concrete and stone.
