by Kate Rudolph
Emily walked stiffly to the door and got in when Oz was done. “Are you alright?” he asked. He pulled them back onto the road and wished he could let the autonav take over, but it was tied into the vehicle tracking system and wouldn’t work without it.
Emily nodded. “Don’t worry about me, just get us out of here.”
“I can multitask,” Oz assured her. But she was talking, she was breathing steadily. She didn’t look gravely injured, so he had to trust that it could wait.
The patrol didn’t find them again. The highway took them out of the city and Oz turned to dingier roads for cover. He debated ditching the car again, but unless they went into one of the small villages and stole another one, they wouldn’t have a way to get back, and he didn’t want to draw more attention to them. Not yet. Not unless they had another choice.
So that just left one more question.
“You look like you’re thinking too hard,” Emily said.
Oz shot her a grin, some of the tension leaking out of him. “I have enough untraceable credits to rent a room in one of the travel inns along the road. They don’t ask questions seeing as their clientele...”
“Rent by the hour?” she asked.
Oz furrowed his brows, “I’m not sure what that means.”
“Prostitution? Or other seedy business?”
Was that common on Earth? He’d heard stories about the planet, but they’d been about exploration and technology, about the great feats of humans. Nothing... seedy. He’d wondered if humans who came from Earth would be different than the ones he’d met, if they’d have impossibly high standards or be horrified by the darker parts of Zulir society. But it appeared humans had problems of their own.
“Something like that,” he said, “though I’m fairly certain we have to rent for the whole night. Our other choice is to sleep in the vehicle.”
Emily looked around and sighed. “I feel like the safer choice is to avoid people, isn’t it? I’m sure we can make do. And it’s not that cold outside. We can always sleep under the stars. People think camping is fun for some reason. Maybe I’ve been missing out.”
This woman. This wonderful woman.
Oz pulled the car over and turned toward her. “You’re—”
Whatever he was going to say was lost when she leaned over and sealed her lips against his.
Chapter Nine
SHE WAS KISSING HIM.
She wasn’t supposed to kiss him.
Whoops.
No, screw that. This was awesome.
Emily gripped the sides of Oz’s face so he couldn’t pull away, a little desperate to keep hold. And when his mouth opened under hers she moaned. He let her lead, let her explore and taste and do anything she wanted to him. For half a second she was scared to cut herself on his fangs, but it turned out they weren’t quite as sharp as they looked. She could ignore the aches in her body and the pain shooting up from her calf. She wanted to climb across the car and straddle him, then keep kissing him all night until she forgot what it was like not to kiss him.
It had taken her suddenly, this urge. No, that was a lie. Riding that bike together had been a revelation. Never had her body been so in sync with another. He hadn’t told her when to move, she’d just known, and they’d evaded guards, sped down streets, done it all without talking. They hadn’t needed to.
Kissing him was just an extension of that.
They were alive.
They were alive!
God, Oz tasted so good.
He was the one to pull back, and after a second Emily let him go, even if he did have to pull his face out of her hands.
Electricity seemed to crackle in his eyes, and she wanted him to let his wings out and wrap them around her. She wanted to feel all of him.
Her friends had talked about attraction before, had discussed the men and women they wanted, and Emily had never quite understood it. Sure, she saw that people were attractive. She understood it in an academic sense. But what she was feeling for Oz was anything but academic.
She could feel him in her blood.
Oz licked his lips and Emily almost launched herself back at him.
Okay, she’d gone crazy.
She didn’t want to be sane.
Oz took in a deep breath and reached for her hand, brushing his lips against it. “I’m not sure about humans, but that means something to a Zulir. We don’t kiss just anyone.”
Emily’s heart fluttered. He was looking at her so intensely that it was like he could see into her soul. What did he want her to say? She wasn’t sure what it meant. She knew she wanted to kiss him again, to crawl all over him until she didn’t know where he ended and she began. She wanted more. She wanted him to look at her like he was looking at her now, like she was something special, like he couldn’t look away. But it wasn’t like she was ready to declare her love or anything. It was a kiss, not a proposal.
But she couldn’t leave him hanging. “It means something to me too,” she said. “I’m not sure what. But something.” And then she forced herself to look away. If she didn’t she was going to rip his clothes off and have her way with him on the side of the road. And she didn’t want her first time to be in the passenger seat of an alien car on an alien planet after escaping from alien police.
Emily slumped forward. That brought her back down to earth. Or, well, Kilrym technically.
She could feel Oz move, but she didn’t look over at him. She didn’t trust herself. Either she’d launch herself at him and they’d be right back where they were, or she was going to burst into tears. One option sounded much better than the other, but she really couldn’t do either.
“A kiss—” he cut himself off and Emily still refused to look at him. “Let’s make camp,” he said instead.
She wanted to ask what he’d almost said, but she held the question back. Nothing was going to come of anything between them. It couldn’t. They belonged on different planets. This whole thing was a confusing nightmare and she just wanted it to be over with.
He started the vehicle again and Emily stayed quiet. Eventually he turned them down one road and then another before finding a dirt trail and leading them even further away from the main road. Emily had been lost as soon as they left the apartment, but now there was absolutely no hope of finding her way back to civilization. If Oz wanted to abandon her...
But she knew he wouldn’t do that. He could have abandoned her to the patrol in the city if he wanted to be rid of her. Instead, he’d risked his life and his mission to keep her safe.
She was in danger. Her body from the things all the Apsyns wanted to do to it, and her heart from the protective Synnr warrior who kissed like the devil.
She’d lost track of time when they finally stopped, and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t care that they were outside. It wasn’t that cold. She’d live.
“Check the storage unit for any supplies,” he instructed as he unbuckled his safety harness and got out.
Emily looked in front of her for anything that could be a storage unit, but this wasn’t a human car. There wasn’t a glove box or a center console. She started pressing against random surfaces, hoping maybe she’d trigger something. Then she looked behind. There was a little space behind the seats, but it was empty. Was there a trunk? Was that what he meant?
He knocked on her window and shot her a confused look. “Is everything okay?” he asked, his voice muffled by the glass.
Emily opened the door and got out of the car. “Of course,” she said, trying to sound confident. She wanted him to think she could pull her own weight, even if she was floundering.
“The storage unit.” He nodded towards the back of the vehicle, where she would have expected a trunk to be.
Emily walked back there like she’d been planning to the entire time. Or she would have if her leg hadn’t suddenly decided that whatever it had been hit with earlier had done enough damage to make her pay. She stumbled and caught herself on the side of the car, holding back a ye
lp and biting her tongue in the process.
Before she could get her feet back under her, Oz was there, scooping her up like she weighed nothing—and with a lifetime’s worth of gymnastics muscles she was actually heavier than she looked—and carrying her back to her seat. He set her down gently and ran his fingers over her pant leg.
Emily couldn’t hold the hiss of pain back.
His fingers came away wet with her blood.
Oz reared back when he saw and his own hand smacked against the side of the door, bringing with it his own cut. Emily shouldn’t have found it funny. Really. She was bleeding. And must have been for some time. Maybe it was the blood loss that was making her feel a bit loopy. “Sorry,” she gasped around a laugh, and then without thinking she reached out for his wounded hand.
Their blood touched.
And white exploded behind her eyes.
OZ’S FINGERS TIGHTENED around Emily’s hand as awareness bloomed with him.
A Match.
Emily was a Match.
For him.
He looked at her blood smeared against his. Without thought, his wings flared out bigger than he’d ever felt before. He could feel the energy pulsing inside of Emily and he was sure that if he reached out he could join it with his own. Was that a faint outline of wings behind her? What would they look like?
His blood fizzed with the power of this thing between them. He’d listened to Matched people tell him what it was like, but he’d never understood until now. Nothing could have prepared him for this.
The ground seemed to shift beneath his feet, a realignment of everything he thought he knew. He’d known from the first that there was something about Emily, but he’d never imagined that it could be this. Matches were rare enough among the Zulir, and rarer still with alien races.
Had the Apsyns known?
Emily jerked her hand back and the connection between them broke apart. And yet, not completely. They weren’t bonded, they couldn’t call upon one another’s power or amplify each other, but he could feel the whisper of her in his blood, her spirit singing in his veins.
“What the fuck?” Emily clutched her hand close to her chest, her gray eyes wide and breaths coming in fast.
He tried to tell himself it wasn’t rejection. Emily didn’t know what a Match might feel like, how could she? But the fear he saw within her scared him. She couldn’t run. Not only because it wasn’t safe with the patrols surely still looking for them.
He couldn’t lose her.
Not this time.
“Remember what I said about Matching?” he asked. There was no holding the truth back from her, not that it had even occurred to him. This could change everything. If only he could find a way to get Emily to choose him.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips and Oz’s cock twitched. Now was not the time. But the taste of her was imprinted on his memory and he’d carry it with him for the rest of his days. He wanted more.
After a long moment Emily nodded. She let her hands fall to her sides but didn’t reach for him again. He couldn’t exactly blame her.
“We’re a Match,” he said. He tried to keep his voice matter of fact, tried to hide just how much this could mean. She couldn’t know how much this affected him. Not if he wanted her to keep her cool. “Blood to blood contact is how to tell. That was our Match flaring, telling us we could bond.”
She shifted her shoulders and glanced behind herself. When she looked back her expression was blank. “So I have wings now? Where are they?” She reached out before dropping her hand and Oz realized his wings were still flared out. He didn’t want to retract them, especially when he saw the way she kept tracing over them with her own eyes. He liked that. He wanted more.
“No, you don’t.” When her shoulders sank he added, “Not yet. We’d have to bond for that to happen.”
“I thought you said we were?” She looked confused.
Maybe this was all confusing for a human. To Oz it made perfect sense, but he’d known about this his entire life. “The Match flared and told us we have the potential to bond. But we’d need to make the conscious choice to complete the bond.”
“Is that a sex thing?” she asked, her tone strange.
A laugh burst out of Oz. “By Brazon’s bowels, no!”
“Oh.” She looked down and her cheeks turned red.
Oz could have slapped himself. He leaned in close and used his clean hand to cup her cheek, tilting her face up. He wanted to devour her, but settled for something he’d seen humans do once. He brushed his lips against her forehead and then rocked back, still holding her face. “The relationship between a Matched unit often has a romantic element, but it’s not a requirement. If something like that happens between us, I want you to know that I wanted you long before there was any hint of a Match. You’re an amazing woman, Emily.”
Her cheeks got even more red and her pupils widened until the black seemed to swallow most of the gray. “Really?” Even crouched as close to her as he was, he could barely hear the word she breathed out.
“Really,” he promised. But if he didn’t back up he was going to kiss her again, and they’d never get this conversation over with. He took a deep breath and continued. “Completing the bond happens when we call upon each other’s power and use it as our own.”
“How?” She pushed off her seat, limping past him. “I can’t keep sitting.” She limped a few paces before leaning against the vehicle.
Oz wanted to insist she was injured, but there was no sign of pain on her face. Either she was very good at hiding it, or the injury wasn’t as bad as it looked. And he could understand not wanting the claustrophobic feeling of being enclosed during this conversation. “I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like for a human,” he admitted. “I do know Matched humans, but we never talked about that part. I can introduce you when we get to Osais.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it and Oz’s stomach dropped. She was going to say she wanted to go back to Earth. He had to tell her the truth. But when he tried, he found he couldn’t. Not yet.
“For me, I can feel this presence inside of me, something sparking and begging to be used, but it’s not my own. And it’s not like my power. There’s a... protection around it. I’d need to consciously reach for it to use it. That’s you, the Match. And I think that if I used that power, and you did the same for the power that must be in you, that protection would go away and we would be bonded. Our potential would flow through both of us and we’d amplify each other. And you would have wings.” He could see the way her eyes lit up, and it felt almost wrong to tempt her that way. But if she wanted to stay in Osais maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad when she found out she had no other choice.
Emily closed her eyes and tilted her head back. A moment later she opened them again. “Yeah, I guess I can feel something. Is it weird to say that it kind of tickles?”
Did it? Oz wasn’t sure he’d use the exact same words, but maybe there was a slight discomfort. But the knowledge of what it could be was too great for him to care.
“How is your leg?” he asked.
Emily’s face scrunched up, then she glanced down to where her pant leg was torn and the skin stained red. “I think the bleeding has stopped. It’s more annoying than anything. Do you have something I can clean it with?”
He wanted to offer to tend to it for her, but Emily had scooted another few inches away from him and seemed to be silently screaming that she wanted time to herself. He opened up the med kit and grabbed items, handing them to her. “Bandages and cleaning solution.” And then he grabbed a small blue vial. “Healing cream. Should help the wound close fully.”
“Thanks.” She took the items, careful not to touch him. “I’ll get cleaned up then help set up the camp.”
There was no need for that, but she walked away before Oz could say otherwise.
His heart was heavy and fully to bursting at the same time. He’d found his Match.
But how was he going to keep her?
Chapter Ten
EMILY ENDED UP RIPPING off half her pant leg to get her wound cleaned. It looked bad. It felt worse. And she’d already sweated through her shirt and jacket from the pain. She didn’t know if she would have been able to walk without crying if not for the decades of practice she had of working through pain. The stupid cut was a surface injury. Hurt like heck, but nothing she couldn’t handle.
She couldn’t stop her gasp when she ran the cleaning pad over it and wondered if there was some kind of alien disinfectant on it. It stung. But when she slathered the healing cream on the angry red skin she immediately felt a cool, soothing sensation. Neosporin on steroids. She’d take it.
She wrapped the bandage around her leg and then looked at her scraps. She wasn’t going to litter, but the walk back to the vehicle seemed so far. Emily gave herself two minutes to rest, and then another three when that didn’t take long enough. By the time she walked back to the camp Oz had it all set up. All it needed was a blazing fire and roasting marshmallows and they’d be set.
Of course, the fire would probably give away their location, and she doubted marshmallows were something the Zulir knew about.
Pity.
She found a small bag to dump her trash and then all that Oz had told her rushed up to remind her just what a screwed up situation she’d been thrust into.
Matched.
What did that even mean? Sure, she understood the broad strokes of what he’d told her. They had some sort of genetic compatibility that would give her superpowers if she accepted it. But what did it mean for her future? Could she bond with Oz when she still planned to go back to Earth? And should she ask him the logistics about that? Every time she got close to approaching the topic, it seemed like something else came up.
Was he trying to keep her from asking?
Why would he?
Did Emily want to ask right now?
