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Oh.

He’d turned out to be a lot chattier than I’d expected.

Someone should’ve told him that tall, dark, and stoic meant he was supposed to be the silent type.

“Time, I think?” I really didn’t have a goal, a plan, or a lot of common sense when it came to mate stuff.

I’d never thought I’d get one.

My family just didn’t get those.

How had I ended up with two?

I just couldn’t understand it.

Hugh coughed and I was pretty sure he was trying not to laugh as he pretended to be focused on Agent Murphy walking out of the conference room with several of who I thought were higher-up council members. “Eventually they’re going to stop overthinking the whole kink thing and then they’re going to notice something is off.”

Me.

I was off.

“I know.” That didn’t mean I had to like it, though. “There are two of them…and they’re aliens…and they’re…”

Weird.

And attractive in very different ways.

Okay, one was weird and the other was grumpy…but they were still cute if I forgot the whole mates from another planet thing.

How a nearly blank-looking alien could radiate frustration I didn’t know, but my mate could do it really well. Well, mate number two could do it. Mate number one was still looking at everyone like we were old-fashioned sideshow acts.

I was starting to understand how Great Aunt Gertrude had felt when she’d been in the circus, and I didn’t like it one bit.

I wasn’t meant for this much drama.

I knew that.

My family knew that.

The fates should’ve known it too.

Hugh went very still before he groaned. “Fates above. The professor?”

Smart people were kind of frustrating.

“And I’m pretty sure the grumpy one that’s talking to Toman. The one that just got English.” And a shiny new kinky vocabulary.

“He’s taking it better than the professor did.” Hugh was right but I wasn’t sure if that was good or not. My grumpy mate was still very neutral looking for someone who had gotten a lot of very strange information all at once.

“Just because he’s not freaking out like Professor Zorin doesn’t mean he wants a mate that’s…interesting.” Hugh didn’t like talking about anyone’s kinks, and normally that didn’t bother me, but it made the conversation slightly difficult.

His quiet groan said he knew it too.

He quickly shifted from drama to practical and business-like, though. “Thank you for being polite but I think you need to be more straightforward in this situation.”

Really?

“Um, you don’t like that, and I’m going to respect that.” Just because he didn’t like saying he had limits didn’t mean I wouldn’t respect them.