Page 110 of Tempting Fate

Time froze. Memories of long, dark days on the Galactic Reserve ship surfaced, throwing me into their icy depths. Uncertainty. Fear. The stench of unwashed bodies.

I dug my feet into the dusty grass, grounding myself, and focused on each breath. It was in the past. I was safe.

“Imani?”

I jumped and squeaked at a touch on my arm.

Airida’s steady gaze greeted me. His newfound confidence shone in his bearing, as upright as ever but with a relaxed ease in his shoulders. It suited him.

But guilt and fear twisted double knives in my gut. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” Not even for him.

He drew me close, stroked a gentle claw under my chin. “Then we stay.”

“But you won’t be safe.”

“She’s right. Someone else can attend to you,” Daiytak said.

What? The thought of it was just as bad as going into space, but I couldn’t argue, couldn’t be selfish.

Airida set his bowl down with a thud. “No.”

No? Oh, sweet man, this is not the thing to act out about. But warmth rose in my chest, blooming outwards, and selfishly, I couldn’t imagine telling him to go.

Daiytak let out a long, slow breath. “Then you’d better come up with another idea. You have less than a week.”

Well, that put quite the dampener on my friend arriving. I gave a faint smile and squeezed Airida’s hand, forcing a brightness I didn’t feel. “We’ll work something out. Kira will be here soon, and that will be a good distraction.”

He dug his feet into the grass. “More Lovers of Lietan?”

A walk would clear my head, but I couldn’t leave him alone, not after all of that.

I averted my gaze from the muscles in his arms, his shoulders. Why did he have to be so darn easy on the eyes? More to the point, why did I always have butterflies in my stomach around him? “Of course, kitten.”

But before we settled down to watch, I shucked out of his arms. “What about mate bonds?”

His headspines flared. “You know about that?”

“Yes. And if you knew, you should have told me. How can we keep doing this with that thing hanging over us?” No way was I getting alien married. I wasn't ready to tie myself to one person, one place, one lifestyle. Not when it always went wrong.

“Hanging over us?” His headspines drooped. “I cannot imagine anything more wonderful than knowing I was meant to be with someone and nothing being able to separate us ever again.” He sighed, and his face turned wistful. “I seem to have strayed from the gods and become entangled with the fates instead. As I understand it, our threads are entwined, and what will be will be.” Oh so gently, he linked his fingers with mine. “Can you walk away from me?”

I mapped the lines of his cheekbones, wishing life came with guarantees. Don’t think about everything else. Answer the question. “I don’t want to.”

“Then don’t. We have new lives, and we need to live them. And it might be better if we lived them together.”

Even with all the unknowns, I felt safe in his arms. But we wouldn’t be cocooned like this forever. Less than a week. “I need time to think.”

“I will wait for you until the stars dim in the heavens, my moonlight.”

I forced back the hot prickle of tears. Sweetest man.

He curled his lips in that kissable, arrogant smile. “But I recommend you decide to keep me while I am still young and strong.”

“And why is that, kitten?”

His tongue slicked out of his mouth. He coiled it into loops before sucking it in again oh so slowly, his eyes not leaving mine. “You wouldn’t want to wait years to discover how this feels.”

My pussy flooded with liquid heat. “You”—I jabbed a finger into his chest—“are trouble, kitten. And you know it.”