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Chapter Six

Xaixek

When the beautiful human washed the mud away, her sweet citrusy aroma began to drive me wilder. I didn’t know how much longer I could contain myself. The image of her silhouette submerged behind the waterfall nearly did me in. This wasn’t like me. I never ever let a thing get in the way of my mission.

She swore that she was innocent, yet her story didn’t make since. Our borders were secure and watched around the clock. No other cloaked aliens could’ve just entered the gates of the settlement without notice. If there had been a breach, surely King Crencik would have known about it.

I captured a tiny view of her slender frame. She was soaked. Her clothes clung to her frame like a second skin. It wasn’t hard to see straight through the thin and revealing fabric of her tunic. I forced myself to look away, even if it practically killed me to do so.

Resist the temptation. You have no idea what she might be capable of.

I quickly spun around before she walked from beneath the waterfall and set back to work, busying myself in building the rock wall instead.

Nothing good could come from fucking this human, as badly as I wanted to do it. I might as well just steer clear of her, but I couldn’t exactly keep my distance, either. Smelling her when she got close to me was the most difficult part. I needed to keep a watchful eye on her, but one thing was certain. She wasn’t getting out of this cave tonight, not with the barricade I had built.

The physical barricades weren’t the only walls that were put up. While I worked on keeping my thoughts to myself, apparently—so did she. I couldn’t read her mind. My aura gifted me with telepathic abilities of psychometry through close encounters with persons and objects, but they weren’t working on this human.

From the ropes I used to bind her hands with, I got nothing. When I plucked her out of the mud…nothing. Even when I held her in my arms and took the hits from objects being flung our way…nothing.

She was either exceptionally talented at encrypting her most secluded thoughts, or as painful to my pride as it was to admit—maybe something was wrong with me. I’d drained mostly all of my energy throwing down with the beast. Not too mention the dust storm and all the stress surrounding my uncle’s death. Or perhaps I was getting old and rusty. I shuddered at the thought. No, that couldn’t be it. I refused to believe that. My uncle Roult used to be able to read objects just like I was able to read both minds and objects, but he had lost his gift after he was almost killed in a space battle with rogue traders. The medics had saved his life and brought him back from the brink of death, but it came at a price. It was only after his recovery that poor uncle Roult to realize he’d lost his telepathic ability. His loss didn’t seem to change him. He still had a passion for metal working. Roult’s auras were golden, but mine were a mix of both my mother’s and father’s—white and gold—hence why my aura was referred to as blended.

I couldn’t believe he was gone. Gone before we could catch up. The last time I’d seen Roult was about a month ago. He had confessed to me at that time that he was going to stop feeling sorry for himself and find a mate. He took interest in the human females they brought from Earth, knowing that they wouldn’t feel sorry for him because he had lost his aura.

At the time, he had tried to coax me into putting my name on the list and attending the auction with him, but I’d respectfully declined. I disagreed with bidding for humans, but I didn’t try to talk my uncle out of it. He had his own life—and he could do with it as he pleased.

I lived my life on the design of the universe, and I wasn’t interested in altering my fate. I was thriving enough on my own, satisfied with the way my life had panned out thus far. Thus far…

I cut the human curios glance over my shoulder. Her back was turned away from me. My eyes inadvertently skated over her round backside, as juicy looking as a fruit that I could pluck from a tree. She was hunch over and shivering and I felt sorry for her. I removed a thick cloth from my satchel and took it over to her.

“What is this?” she asked, reaching up for it.

“You can dry yourself with it. Or wrap yourself in it. Either way, it will help remove the moisture from your clothes even while you’re still wearing them,” I told her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

Her innocent look would not change my mind.I wasn’t going to allow a murderous, conniving woman from Earth to put a wrench in my harmonic plans. I would hand her over to the king as planned and promised, and whatever happened to her after that was none of my damn business. I couldn’t allow myself to forget that she was there the night of my uncle’s murder, and his blood scent was draped around her like soaked linen. Well, it was…and now the scent was gone. What remained behind was her. She had seen my uncle in his final moments.With my power to read her mind proving unsuccessful, I would have to stick to the path I had already vowed to follow and bring her to the king in one piece.

It was a little embarrassing, but I was going to have to get someone else to read the bitch’s mind. What would I tell King Crencik now? That I couldn’t bounty hunt for him anymore because my auras had failed me.

As she got up and inched closer to the firm I’d started, her round breasts were swollen against the thin damp fabric. Her perky, pink nipples were erect and pointing through her tunic dress.

I took a deep breath and knelt to the cave floor. I retrieved a slumber mat from my satchel and laid it out for her. It was all I had being that I was a one-man operation. Practically everything I owned of value was in that satchel. I owned a podhouse on the settlement not too far from where Roult lived, but I was hardly ever there. The surfaces had probably started collected dust by now.

“Here is your bed,” I said.

She blurted out in a chuckle. “What?”

I frowned. Being laughed at my a human female was embarrassing.

“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t laughing at you, but how can I fall asleep here knowing you want to kill me.”

“Woman, you’ve just freshly washed my uncle’s blood off you and you’re worried about me killing you,” I grunted.

She grumbled and rolled her eyes.

“K’a. Down,” I instructed.

She gave me an appalled expression. “Excuse me? I’m not your pet! You don’t even treat pet like that.”