“What are you doing here?”
Rohn briefly closed his eyes and searched for the remains of his patience. “I work here.”
Vox sat a potted green plant on his desk, a triumphant grin on his face. “Viola!”
“I believe the word is voila—and what is that?”
“A gift, for your mate. Terran females enjoy plants,” Vox said.
Jealousy burned through him like acid. Was it not enough that Vox already had a mate? He had to bring gifts to Rohn’s mate too?
Vox slung an arm across Rohn’s shoulder, all companionable, like they were the closest of friends. “I also wanted to have the talk with you.”
Rohn shrugged off Vox’s half-embrace. “We have nothing to discuss.”
“That is a shame for your mate, because this is a talk that every newly mated male should have. I want you, my friend, to feel comfortable to ask me any question, as I have vast amounts of experience pleasing my mate. I am sure there is much you do not know about Terran anatomy and feel too embarrassed to ask. They may look small, but they are compatible.” Vox paused. Rohn felt the base of his horns flush with mortification. “Very compatible.”
Why did the male continue to talk?
“Or maybe you would rather ask a medic? I can fetch Kalen.”
Rohn took a horrified step back from Vox. Bad enough the male intended to have a sex talk with him, but he wanted to drag in others? “No! No. Do not.”
Vox bent over with laughter. “Oh, the look on your face!”
Rohn growled and gave the pilot a harsh shove. Vox stumbled back a few steps but continued to find delight in his horrible teasing, wiping away tears from his eyes.
“I see you have too much free time and need me to keep you occupied.” Rohn handed Vox a scrubbing brush and the laughter died instantly.
“I cannot. My mate requires me. Our son has the colic. His tears only cease when his father holds him.”
Valle was the happiest, most content babe Rohn had ever seen. Granted, he had only encountered a handful, but the point remained.
“I’d say you’ve grown lazy, but you’ve always been lazy,” Rohn said. “Come. We will scrub out a filtration unit together, as long as you swear not to discuss Terran anatomy.”
“But it is so interesting. And soft. And pink. And squishy in the best places.”
His mate’s complexion was a warm brown. He did not think she had pink places, unless they were secret places that only a mate would discover. His tattoos warmed at the notion. He idly ran a hand over his shattered horn. Finally, after listening to Vox recount all the things that made his mate less angry with him—Rohn could understand how that would happen—he headed home to his mate.
The thought of having someone waiting for him made his steps lighter. He knew he couldn’t allow Nakia to stay. He was an unworthy male whose actions cost another male his mate. He bore the scars. Starfire, he was the cause that Nakia wore a prosthesis. Everywhere he looked, he saw the evidence of his failure. How would he ever possibly believe that a male such as him deserved to be anything but alone?
Send her back now, before he had a chance to grow attached. Before his resolve weakened.
Yes, that was why he arrived with a hot meal and the gifted plant, because he excelled at deluding himself.
Idiot male.
The aroma of butter, sugar, and melted chocolate greeted him at the door. That aroma. He had not smelled anything like it, since he first shared a plate of warm cookies on Earth with Nakia.
Inside, he found his mate swaying to music, eyes closed, holding a white ceramic mug in both hands.
He leaned against the door, watching her. She sang along to the rapid-fire lyrics, shimmying her hips, and a hint of a smile on her soft, pink lips. The simple joy on her face fascinated him.
She opened her velvety dark eyes and her smile blossomed. She always smiled for him. In that moment, he felt right down to his bones how good it was to come home to music, a warm meal, and the smile of someone who cared. In the span of one day, Nakia had made his one-room apartment—the place he only used to sleep and shower—into a home.
His resolve crumbled completely. He would never let her go.
“Hey. I made us cookies,” she said.
This female. Could she be any more perfect?
“I like cookies,” Rohn said, when he finally found his voice.
Nakia held out a plate of golden-brown discs. Still warm, the Terran treat melted in his mouth in buttery, chocolatey delight. He had not thought of the delicacy in sixteen years but the memory, the aroma, and the taste were completely bound up with his mate.
His mate.
He didn’t have the special blend of tea for the traditional ritual of newly mated couples, he realized. He became acutely aware of all the material things his mate deserved that he failed to provide. In fact, he had given her nothing but disgraceful behavior since she arrived the previous day and she still made him cookies.
“Thank you. This is too good to be from the reconstructor,” Rohn said.
“I brought the chocolate chips with me. Everything else came from the reconstructor.”
Rohn nodded. Real Earth chocolate had a unique bitter and sweet quality. Nothing else compared. “And I am glad that chocolate is not poisonous to Mahdfel.”
“You remember that?” A dusky red color rose in the her cheeks. “I was just being a selfish brat. I didn’t want to share.”
“I remember everything.”
As he savored the cookie, he looked around the clean, empty space. She cleaned. He had a system. He knew where everything was in his apartment and now, he could find nothing. What happened if he had to get ready in a rush? What if he needed his omnitool and didn’t have the luxury of spending ten minutes searching through drawers to find it?
“You moved my stuff,” he said.
Chapter 9
Nakia
“If you mean thanks for picking up your dirty underwear, you’re welcome,” Nakia said. Something smelled good, besides her cookies. She sniffed the air and spotted the two containers on the counters, along with a fern. “Is that dinner?”
“You wished to converse. We can do so over a meal,” he said. The containers revealed two veggie omelets over field greens, served with crusty bread and butter.
Rohn plated her portion and pushed it across the counter to her. It tasted as good as it looked, savory and buttery.
“You met with the warlord’s mate today?” he asked, as if they had dinner chit-chat every night.
“Yes. What’d you get up to today?”
“Fires to put out. The usual. Is the meal satisfactory?”
She set down her fork, not willing to play this game. They needed to have a frank and open discussion about the situation between them, not chat about their days. She wasted years with Tim trying to talk around their problems, ignoring the real reason they grew apart.
Not again.
“If it’s not the leg, then what is it?”
Rohn drained his glass and starred at the bottom of the empty vessel. “I wish I had tea.”
Right. Talking to him was about as easy as pulling teeth. “I’ll make coffee.”
“Do not trouble yourself.” He rose from his seat.
“It’s easy.” Pressing a button on the coffee machine, it immediately began to brew. She prepped it earlier, adding water and fresh grounds while the cookies were baking.
“I’m not sure… what is proper.” He shifted from foot to foot, striking Nakia as nervous, a quality she never would have assigned to him. She followed his gaze to the two mugs she set on the counter and remembered reading about the Mahdfel wedding tradition of drinking tea. That was the entire ceremony, adding hot water to leaves and sharing the drink. But he wanted to send her back home, so of course he didn’t want to share a drink with her. Do not trouble yourself.
She felt a small annoyance that he suspected her of tricking him into marriage. They were already married, in a real and legally bindin
g way, tea or no tea. She didn’t need trickery.
“Relax,” she said. “It’s just coffee.”
“Stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Not from this room, from this conversation, or from his life.
He ran a hand through his hair, somehow making it more tousled and appealing. “What I said yesterday, I was wrong. I want you to stay,” he said in a rush. The base of his horn flushed a deeper color, almost like a blush.
“Yeah?” She didn’t know how to process that information. The world shifted and everything she thought—all her feelings of annoyance and frustration—was unfounded.
No, not unfounded, but based on outdated information.
“Adapt or get left behind, Sykes,” she muttered under her breath. Taking her time to pour the coffee, she gathered her thoughts. He wanted her to stay, which stole her thunder as she had steeled herself for a clash of wills, but she’d roll with it.
Still, she had to know, even if approaching the subject would be about as much fun as poking her tongue at a sore tooth, and just as compulsive. “Why did you change your mind?”
“I am too old,” he said, totally not answering her question. He moved to the bed, currently in the upright position. He slipped on a pair of black framed glasses—hello, super-hot—and picked up the pieces of the partially completed spaceship model. Without a word, he assembled the model.
At least he didn’t say she was too young.
“You still take your coffee black?” She loaded hers with sugar, no cream.
“Yes, please.”
She set his mug down carefully before perching on the edge of the bed, one leg folded underneath herself and cradling her own mug.
“For the record, I don’t think you’re too old,” she said.
“I am already gray. I can no longer fly, and I must content myself with watching the younger males do the thing I was made for. Poorly.” His gaze did not lift from the spaceship model as he spoke, his hands busy and demanding his attention.
“They fly poorly, or you watch them poorly?”
He looked up at her sharply. “If that is a jest about my eyes, it is in poor taste.”
Color drained from her face. “Shit. No. That’s not what I meant.” She had been on the receiving end of too many insensitive jokes about her leg and despised that feeling of being the butt of someone’s joke. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, annoyed and embarrassed with herself. “I was just trying to lighten the mood and fucked up. I’m sorry.”
He huffed but his shoulders relaxed, tension draining away. “Do not worry yourself.”
She leaned back and sipped at her coffee, watching him assemble the adorable tentacle kitty spaceship. For a man with such large hands, his fingers were nimble and had no trouble with the precise work.
“This is weird,” she said at length. He turned his gaze to hers, one tawny eye brighter than the other. “We need… If this is going to work, we have to talk to each other without fear of stepping on toes.”
“This will work,” he said, words confident but his tone uncertainty.
“Of course, it’s going to work. I want it to work, and failure is not an option.”
He raised a brow, as if amused.
“Look,” she set her cup down on the low table. “You’re older now. So am I. I’m thirty-two and I know my mind. We make a choice every day to make our marriage stronger, or let it wither.” Her words seemed a bit overly dramatic, but she wanted to drive home the point. “I know from experience.”
His throat bobbed with a swallow, but he continued to work on the model, as if keeping his hands busy soothed him. Nakia could understand that, having clean and baked cookies in a desperate search for comfort.
“You have experience?” The question hung in the air between them, fragile and full of sharp edges.
“I’m divorced. Have been for five years now.”
Rohn set down the model and turned his full attention to her. Nakia squirmed under the intensity of those tawny eyes. “Did he injure you? I will carve out the debt from blood and bone,” he said in a tone that left no room to doubt that he would do exactly as he said.
That was sweet—in a brutally terrifying way.
“No. Tim and I drifted apart, and neither of us tried to fight to make it better.”
“He did not hurt you?” His gaze searched hers.
“Just my pride.” It hurt not being seen as valuable, as worth keeping. Then, because in for a penny, in for a pound, she said, “He cheated on me. The fact that I didn’t care that much was the sign we were over.”
A low and menacing growl eliminated from Rohn’s chest. If she hadn’t been staring directly at him, if she were alone in the dark, the sound would terrify her.
“So, you see, I know what happens when you don’t work at it. I’m not afraid to put in the effort. I’m worth it and so are you,” she said. His tawny eyes flashed at her words. She took that as a positive sign and said, “Besides, I chose you.”
“We do not choose. The match—”
“But I got to choose. I had two matches, both equal, and I picked you.”
“The other male would have been the better choice. Sentimentality should not have influenced your selection.”
She disagreed strongly with that but laid out the facts guiding her choice. “I’m not that infatuated little girl anymore, and I know you’re not the guy I built up in my head. We’ve changed. I get it.” The words dried up on the tongue when she tried to explain what took up all the space in her chest, growing until she felt she would burst. “This situation is… weird. Yesterday, my old life stopped because of a test. I don’t have my job anymore, my apartment. Fuck, I left behind my cat. Who knows if I ever see my family again? I’ll probably never see my friends again, either. And it’s terrifying knowing I had to give up everything, everything, and go marry some guy sight unseen.”
Material possessions were just clutter that she didn’t need, but to be suddenly cut off from everyone she knew without the chance to say goodbye? That hurt. Being thrust into a new stage of her life with no preparation was terrifying, and that’s why she grabbed onto the idea of Rohn so quickly.
“When one of those guys turned out to be you, I jumped at it. Not because I’ve been nursing a crush for sixteen years. Trust me, I’m over that, but because I remember how safe you made me feel. The world was falling apart, a building fell on me, I was so far from home—but I never felt alone because you were there.”
He reached for her hand, turning it over delicately and running his thumb across her palm. The bronze of her skin tone against the warm heathery purple of his made an odd pairing, but she liked it.
“There is no subtlety or room for finer emotions when it comes to the mate matching,” he said. “There is no choice. The test decides. We are given no warning that our female has been found. So rather than make a bungle of not being prepared, as I was,” he waved a hand, as if to indicate the formerly messy single room, “many males choose to live in anticipation. They shape their lives around the idea of a mate who may never arrive. It is a bitter existence, to constantly wait.” He shook his head. “With the old way, before the genetic test, at least you had to look your mate in the eyes.”
“The sniff thing?” She knew the Mahdfel used to do that and many still did, subtly sniffing women for compatibility.
“Yes, and if they had an unpleasant demeanor or you felt no connection, then you could always pretend ignorance.”
She hadn’t thought about the situation from his perspective before. He had as little choice in their arranged marriage as she. Less. All the literature regarding the Mahdfel stressed how devoted they were to their mates, honed by instinct and by generations of genetic engineering designed to exploit that instinct. They cherished their mates, almost compulsively, but from what Rohn said, it didn’t sound like they automatically loved their mates.
“What are your parents like?” she asked, suddenly curious.
“They have been gone
for many seasons, but they were fond of each other.” Fond. Not madly in love. Something in her face must have betrayed her thoughts because Rohn added, “I do not think a child ever knows the extent of their parent’s devotion to each other, but my father always had a smile on his face when he spoke of my mother. When she passed, he quickly followed.”
“That’s sweet. My parents are still living, still married, and in the same house I grew up in.” Her parents had been the rock-solid foundation of her life. “I spoke to my mom earlier today. She’s super curious about you.”
“Me?” He sounded genuinely surprised, as if he never expected anyone to notice him, much less be curious.
“Mmhmm. I wouldn’t be surprised if she starts finagling for a visit.”
“To Earth?”
Bless that man and the lost wonder to his voice. “Yes, Earth. Or here, I guess. Is that possible?”
He shook his head. “This is a battlecruiser. We must be prepared for incursions and cannot play host to visitors.”
“Oh. That makes sense.”
“We could have a holiday on Sangrin. Visit my mother’s family.”
Nakia perked up at that. “You’ve got non-Mahdfel cousins?”
He nodded. “My mother had several brothers. One of my cousins is the caretaker for the family property and my house.”
“You have a house?”
“Near the ocean. My parents lived there. It is small and I have not been there for several years, but I always planned to move there if I ever retired.”
“Okay, let’s do that. Vacation with my mom on Sangrin in your ocean-front house. Good plan.” She raised her fist and brought it to his, but he looked baffled. Gently, she bumped their fists together. “Go Team Nakrohn.”
“What?”
“You know, Team Nakia and Rohn. Us. Go us!” Another fist bump.
“Team Rokia,” he said—and it was perfect.
“This is good,” Nakia shifted on the futon, “Awkward. There’s no way for this not to be awkward. So maybe we should just get the awkwardness out of the way. Embrace it. Because we’re Team Rokia and there’s nothing we can’t do.”
Rohn Page 10
