by A. G. Wilde
So she’d been working tirelessly, not even taking breaks as she tried to complete as many jobs as she could for as long as the sun stood in the pink sky.
The animals were a great distraction from the mess that was her life.
Funny thing was, the “work” she was doing was questionable.
After the bathroom incident, when she’d thrown herself into working, she’d ignored Riv as she’d raked, shoveled, cleaned, and fed the animals.
He’d been hovering in the background, watching her, observing everything she did, but he hadn’t said a word nor had he approached her.
The following day, however, when she’d come out to do the almost-giraffe’s pen, she’d noticed about eighty percent of it had already been shoveled.
When she went to rake hay for the almost-crocs, most of that had already been done, too.
The same thing happened when she went to feed the plump woolly animals. They’d all already been fed except one enclosure.
That’s when it became pretty obvious what Riv was doing.
If he thought she didn’t realize he was making it easy for her, he must think she was dumb.
He was doing half the work but still leaving enough so she felt like she was doing something.
She didn’t know what his kindness meant.
She would ask him but every day, he woke before she did and came in after she’d fallen asleep.
Fine, she thought. That was fine with her.
At the start of the second week working on her own, Lauren rolled her shoulders as she closed the almost-giraffes’ enclosure.
She’d just finished shoveling their poop and had set the bucket down to the side. It wasn’t nearly full. She was sure the blue ninja had shoveled most of it before she’d gotten a chance to, leaving only a bit so she felt like she had something to do.
It was getting out of hand and she almost giggled, but she’d play along with his game.
She could bet he was hovering somewhere, watching her because he thought she was unaware.
Looking into the enclosure, she smiled at her handiwork. It looked much better than it did a week ago. She’d even cut some of the tall yellow-orange grass and put it in there. The animals seemed to like plopping their asses on it.
As she looked in, one of them stretched its long neck over the barrier and bumped her with its nose.
It was the animal’s way of greeting her and she rubbed its moist snout.
“See you later, little one.”
She snorted at that.
It was way bigger than her, even though it was a baby.
Smiling, she glanced up at the pink sky. It was a clear day as always. Clear, dry, and warm.
Her kind of weather.
She was dying to sunbathe but she just couldn’t afford to take a day off just yet.
Not when her host was still acting so strangely—not that he’d ever acted like a normal person.
Life was getting a sort of slow rhythm that she could enjoy.
It was quiet and safe so far out. At least, as safe as it was going to be.
She could almost forget the terror of the market and believe that the world was good.
Lifting her hand, she patted the almost-giraffe on the head.
Riv stood watching the female from the side of one of the buildings.
She was patting one of the tilgran’s on its head and he didn’t know why it was irking him.
Phekking everything was irking him.
Since that night, even the dawn of the light-cycle bothered him now.
He’d been waking extra early to come out and do the work before she got a chance to, so early he hardly slept at night.
Not that he could.
His nights were sleepless and what was worse was that every time he managed to close his eyes and drift off, he dreamed about one of two things.
It was either the mines or her.
Riv rolled his shoulders and began walking.
The female was heading to the ooga enclosure and his mouth set in a hard line.
He couldn’t work when everywhere he looked he saw her.
He’d thought that after so many days working on her own she’d have gotten bored and given up, but there she was, continuing to work as if she had endless reserves of energy.
He wasn’t sure what approach to take with this human.
He had no experience with females.
When he snarled at her, she didn’t shrink like he was used to other beings doing.
When he growled, she ignored him.
She wasn’t afraid of him.
She challenged him—
And maybe, just maybe, a little part of him liked that.
But the worst part about everything was that it seemed he had gotten used to her constant singing, humming, and chatting…for when she wasn’t close by, when he couldn’t hear her voice, the world suddenly became unbearable.
Without her, the silence he’d once cherished so much had become deafening.
Stalking in the opposite direction, he shook his head, trying to get rid of the thoughts there.
She was slowly driving him crazy even from so far away.
Feeding the last umu some grain, Riv sighed.
The female should be asleep by now.
He’d taken his time feeding the animals just so she would be well in bed before he entered the dwelling.
But as he approached the building, Riv squinted.
Grot was by the wall and the tevsi lifted its head as he came closer.
“You. What are you doing out…” His words trailed off as he saw the human.
For a second, he thought something was wrong with her and his life-organ thumped hard in his chest. But the subtle rise and fall of her tunic told him she was still alive and well.
Just asleep.
She’d fallen asleep sitting on the ground outside.
Moving closer, Riv swallowed hard.
Eyes closed, body relaxed, she looked as delicate as the flowers she smelled like.
A lock of her hair had fallen over her face and his hand reached out to move it away but, just millimeters from her skin, he paused.
What was he doing?
Glancing at Grot, he found the tevsi giving him a critical eye.
“Don’t look at me like that. You should be on my side,” he murmured. “Instead you curl beside her every night as if she belongs to you.”
Maybe you’re jealous she doesn’t belong to you.
Well, newsflash to himself, HE DIDN’T WANT HER TO.
Crouching lower, he reached for the human, pausing for just a second before his shoulders stiffened and he completed the action of lifting her from the ground.
For a moment, she groaned and burrowed her face against him, causing every part of his body to freeze except his cock.
That particular body part grew stiff and jerked.
He almost returned her to the ground so he could decide on another way to get her inside.
But she didn’t wake.
In the moments it took him to pause and watch her settle back into sleep, he became acutely aware of how she’d settled against him.
When she was unconscious, he wasn’t the monster who was trying to get rid of her. He was just a comfortable male for her to snuggle into.
For just a second, he could pretend this was true. He could pretend reality wasn’t the opposite.
The familiarity of her body was strange—like he’d memorized every line of her frame, every curve from when he’d had her against the cleansing room’s wall that night.
This was the exact reason he’d been keeping away from her.
She made him think of things he would never have and reminded him of things others had, but not him.
Never him.
Walking inside, he went towards his room. The door slid open and the hiss made her snuggle farther into him.
Phek him, if this wasn’t going to come back and bite him later. Resting her on his sleeping cushion as gently as he cou
ld, he stepped back and looked down at her.
Phek.
He should have taken her to her room, not his.
It was strange seeing someone in his bed.
Grot padded in behind him, looking over the sleeping cushion at the human and then back at him.
“What?” Riv whispered as harshly as he could without waking the female. “It’s temporary.”
Grot made a low sound in his throat as if he disagreed and Riv frowned at the tevsi.
He hadn’t realized it till the human arrived, but he and Grot didn’t see eye to eye on several things.
Probably because Grot had an advantage in that department.
His cock pulsed as his gaze fell back on her and he thanked Raxu that Sohut wasn’t home.
He couldn’t imagine his brother’s reaction at finding out that he, Rivenendrus U’xol Cal-Pholy, was so wholly affected by a female, he was losing his edge.
As La-rehn groaned and snuggled farther into his sleeping cushion, Riv turned around and hurried from the room.
The longer Riv stayed, the more his cock ached, and the more it ached, the more he felt like doing something stupid like waking her and telling her how he felt.
That would be the worst thing he could do and he was already having a helluva time trying to stick to his own rules.
25
Her entire body ached and when she opened her eyes, it felt like she’d had a steamroller doing laps over her muscles.
At first, it wasn’t clear where she was, but as soon as her eyes opened fully, Lauren bolted upright.
What the heck was she doing in his room?
Had she walked in there by accident?
She knew she’d been tired, but…
Tensing, she looked around her.
Riv wasn’t anywhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, the door was closed and, judging from the placement of the covers on the bed, she’d been alone all night.
Releasing a breath, Lauren fell back against the mattress, trying to get her thoughts together.
The mattress was firm.
Hard, like its owner.
And it smelled like him—a heady musk that smelled like dried hay and spices.
It made her feel strange and reminded her she was definitely in the wrong place. For the life of her, though, she couldn’t remember how she’d ended up in his room.
She’d walked back to the main dwelling, sat with her back against the wall for just a few minutes as she’d watched the moons…and then she’d woken up there.
Bracing upright, she took in the room.
It was mostly sparse apart from different gadgets against the walls and gadgets thrown on a table in the corner. He had a trunk with clothes against one wall, too…and that was it.
As she eased herself off the bed, she grit her teeth.
Her muscles must have seized up in the night. That only happened when she exerted too much energy and her body couldn’t handle the pressure.
Creeping as quietly as she could toward the door, she perked her ears for any sound.
When she heard nothing, she crept from the bedroom and headed to the main room.
Grot was nowhere to be seen, but the smell of something cooking caught her attention. Her stomach growled immediately.
She was about to follow the smell when Riv suddenly appeared with a bowl in his hands.
He looked surprised to see her and she only knew this because he wasn’t wearing his shades and face covering.
Green, piercing eyes hit her and widened a bit.
He did a quick scan from her feet right back to her eyes before he turned and set the bowl on the table.
“How did you…” He cleared his throat, pretending to set the bowl properly. “—how did you sleep?”
“I slept well…” Her voice was cautious as she observed him.
It had to have been him who’d placed her in his room. Only, she couldn’t imagine him doing that.
“Good,” he said, his gaze finally moving her way again. “You should wash and then eat.”
That made her glance down at herself and she was momentarily taken aback.
She was filthy.
She was smeared with mud and whatever other particles from her last day of work.
She hadn’t gotten a chance to take a bath the night before. But her stomach growled again, demanding attention.
“Maybe you should eat first,” he said, pulling out a chair for her.
“That’s mine?” Her gaze moved from the bowl to him and back, one eyebrow raised.
“It’s ogna soup. It should help you recover your energy.”
Lauren blinked.
Was this some kind of trick?
“Sit,” he repeated, motioning to the chair. “Eat. It is best when it is warm.”
Eyebrows still raised, Lauren moved forward, her eyes on him the entire time.
When he wasn’t scowling, he looked so…handsome.
Those piercing green eyes of his followed her as she walked to the chair and were now staring down at her with great intensity.
Settling into the chair, she tried not to wince as her tired muscles protested.
“And maybe don’t work so hard next time,” he snapped, before his tone softened. “It isn’t good to overwork.”
There was a scoop beside the bowl and, as she reached for it, Riv’s hand shot out and closed around her wrist.
A protest was on her lips when he lifted her hand, palm upward, something flaring in his eyes.
Eyes falling to her palm, she realized the blisters she’d been developing had gotten angry.
Her palm looked red and bruised.
When she looked up at Riv, she couldn’t read his expression, and when his piercing green eyes hit her and bored into her soul, she felt she had to say something.
“It’s nothing. It’ll heal.” She tried to pull her hand away but his fingers only tightened around her wrist, enough to hold her hand still but not enough to bruise her flesh.
“Your idea of what is nothing differs greatly from mine.” His gaze fell back to her hand. “You are losing the top layer of your hand.”
There was something notably different about his voice and Lauren looked up at him, disbelieving.
He wasn’t scowling…he wasn’t growling…he sounded normal—caring, even.
Considering that he’d stayed away from her for over a week, this was a surprising development.
Maybe something happened last night when she was asleep. Maybe they were in some kind of weird moon-cycle she wasn’t aware of. Because this Riv wasn’t the same Riv she knew.
“Both your hands are damaged.” There was something akin to gruffness there this time but when his gaze fell on hers, there was no annoyance or anger there.
Instead, he looked at her as if he was only just seeing her, as if something about her was being revealed to him at that very moment.
It felt as if she was looking in his eyes for ages before he rested her hands gently on the table.
“How is it that you are losing your hands?”
She smiled at that, unexpectedly, and Riv’s gaze followed the movement of her lips.
Suddenly, he was too close and this situation too strange. It reminded her she was female. He was male.
And it reminded her of that bathroom incident. The one they hadn’t discussed. The one she thought about every night. The one that made her wet when it shouldn’t because, well, it shouldn’t!
He’d completely and utterly rejected her.
How low was her self-esteem to still get turned on by his proximity?
“I’m not losing my hands,” she answered, keeping her voice as plain and unaffected as she could. “They’ll heal. It’s only blisters from raking too much. I probably—”
“This is because you were raking?” He gripped her hand again, careful not to touch the blisters, and stared at it.
This time, his expression was clear: growing horror.
“It’s nothing really…” she found herself
saying, her voice lower than usual. The look on his face almost made her feel sorry for herself.
“La-rehn…”
Lauren froze.
The way he said her name.
The complete concern there was startling.
“It’s fine, Riv.” She blinked. “It’s fine. I’ll just bandage it later. It’ll heal.”
Riv rested her hand on the table and sat beside her.
Next, the bowl in front of her was pulled away along with the scoop he’d placed beside it.
She could do nothing but stare as she watched Riv dip the scoop into the bowl and held it out to her.
She blinked.
“Wha—”
“Don’t talk. Eat.”
Lauren blinked again.
He didn’t wait for acquiescence. The scoop was brought to her lips and she only had a second’s thought before she opened her mouth and sipped on the warm fluid.
It tasted like what she’d expect a bowl of heated chlorophyll to taste like. Lucky for her, her taste buds no longer protested having alien foods.
They’d had a year to get over themselves. The hard meal bars had made sure of that.
Riv seemed to be focusing intently on the scoop as he brought it back to the bowl and refilled it. His eyes didn’t rise to meet her gaze or anything else in the room.
“I can feed myself, you know.”
“Debatable.” He put another scoopful at her lips. “Your hands are unusable.”
She took the food into her mouth and waited as he filled the scoop again.
“You don’t need to do this.”
He seemed to huff a breath through his nose.
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing.”
She swallowed yet another scoop. “Then why are you?”
Maybe she’d asked too much because he stopped moving, the scoop paused in his hand, which was outstretched halfway between them.
The seconds felt like ages as she waited for him to reply.
“Because, La-rehn,” his gaze finally met hers, “I’ve realized I’m a fool.”
His words left her stunned and for the next few moments, she took the scoops into her mouth as he fed them to her.
She wasn’t blind.
He was obviously going through something, processing something, or fighting something. Whatever it was, he still refused to meet her gaze.
