Tempting Auzed: The Clecanian Series Book 4

by Victoria Aveline

  Her stomach did a little flip, and a wave of heat prickled up her neck. Peering over to where Wilson sat curled up and darting glares between the two men, she noticed Noito had moved. He’d inched far enough to his left so that he could see her again.

  Be aloof? I wonder if direct would work too.

  Without waiting for permission, she drew herself up fully, looked directly into Noito’s eyes, and said, “Your staring is making me uncomfortable. Stop.”

  Her abrupt matter-of-fact tone registered like a slap, and he lowered his gaze; dark green tinged his cheeks and forehead.

  When she looked back to Auzed, he was peering down at her, his mouth twisted into something that seemed like approval. Not exactly a smile or a frown, but still, he seemed to like that she’d taken charge.

  After a couple more yesses and nos along with a “Lily, ma’am” and an “I’ll do my best,” he paused. Whatever the Queen said next had his stare turning furious. He shot another glance at her and then stomped away. “But isn’t there a way… No, she… I understand.” He lowered the communicator and stood staring at the wall for a moment. Whatever he’d just been told had not been good. She could practically see the livid heat rising off his body. Without turning or saying a word, he slid his fingers across the communicator and held it back up to his ear. “This is Auzed. I was told you requested I call.”

  There was a wince threatening to form on her face at the restrained anger in his voice as he carried on another conversation. She tried to follow, but he was so tight-lipped that it became impossible.

  Her attention drifted to Noito. He’d been staring at her again but quickly dropped his gaze when he saw her looking. Should she ask him questions? Would he know anything about what the regents had decided?

  She jumped when she turned back to find Auzed only a few feet away, glaring at the ground and holding the communicator out to her. Tentatively she took it. “He-hello?”

  “This is Queen Dasa. King Bet and I have come to a decision concerning you and Auzed. He has already agreed to our terms. I just need you to agree as well.”

  Alex’s stomach felt overfull all of a sudden. “Okay.”

  “We will raise no charges against Auzed for entering our territory or killing the sefa, but in return, we’d like you and him to stay in Sauven for a week. In that time, you’ll be allowed to move around freely. After the week is out, you may return to Tremanta.”

  “Okay.” She said it slower this time, holding her breath against the inevitable but.

  There was a moment of silence before the queen spoke again. “I’m sure you can see the position we’re in. There’s no real way for us to corroborate your story, but there’s no way to disprove it either. We ask that since you are not mated to Auzed, you allow the people of our city to speak with you while you’re here.”

  “To just speak with me?” There had to be something she was missing.

  “Well…if you’re recognized, we would, of course, expect you to remain here with your mate. We feel it is our obligation to give our people the opportunity to at least attempt to recognize you before you leave. Tremanta has so many humans already, after all.” She could hear the tinge of disdain in Queen Dasa’s voice as she said this.

  “And what if I refuse?”

  It was the king who spoke next. “Then Auzed will be considered a convict, and although we will not be pushing to detain him, he will be stripped of his title and deemed unfit for any future marriages or children.”

  “Ah.” She chanced a glance at Auzed and found him glaring at Noito as if the poor guy had had anything to do with this. How could she deny the simple and seemingly reasonable requests of the regents if Auzed’s whole future was on the line? “I guess I accept, then.”

  “Wonderful. We’ll send a messenger tomorrow with details.”

  “Could… Hello?” Alex lowered the communicator and grumbled, “I guess goodbye isn’t a thing here.” She stared at Auzed’s unmoving frame. Both she and Noito seemed to grasp how furious Auzed was and remained lost for words. “Uh,” she finally mumbled, “do you think I could call Lily now?”

  Like a shot, Auzed was crossing to her. She took an instinctive step back, but he only snatched the communicator away and then stalked toward Noito who, to his credit, remained still. “The Queen explained to me that Lily is not available at the moment. She will be alerted that you wish to speak to her and will contact you at her earliest convenience,” he explained as he gestured toward the door, making it clear he wanted Noito gone.

  The man stepped backward while pointing to the bag. “These are clothes and other things. Please let me know if you need something else or if the clothing isn’t to your liking. I’d be honored to—”

  “She will tell me if she needs anything else. Don’t make me say it again.” Auzed crowded Noito. His words, filled with authority, boomed in the small space. He’d said he was a guard, but he sounded more like a soldier.

  Noito shot her one last look before leaving. Auzed watched him go with his feet spread and his large hands on his hips.

  The deafening silence fell again. Alex was beyond uncomfortable. Every move of her body felt shaky and awkward the way it did whenever she was about to ride the Goliath at Magic Mountain. “Jeez, Auzzy, no need to scare the poor boy.” As he spun toward her, she instantly knew her default of humor was not winning her any favors at the moment.

  “Au-zed. And yes, there was. You as good as told him you had no interest, and he persisted…in front of me. It’s an insult to both of us, yet he pushed again. He’s lucky I didn’t pummel him.”

  She made her way toward the kitchen and pulled out a few bottles she’d seen before. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink.” She sniffed at the contents of a few as he stood silently brooding across the room. “Which one of these is sweet, and which one will get me drunk?” she asked, pointing to the bottles strewn across the counter.

  He clenched and unclenched his fists, staring at her for a few moments. “Aren’t you going to ask me what the Queen said?”

  “I thought maybe I’d give you some time to cool down first.” She gave him a tentative smile she was sure looked awkward as hell. “But I can guess—stick to the lie and try not to get caught?”

  Auzed’s brows drew together, and his gaze briefly darted around and then back as though he couldn’t make heads or tails of her. “Yes. How did you know?”

  Alex shrugged. “’Cause we’re still here and you’re still upset.”

  “I might lose my job. They know we’re lying but can’t prove it. They’re bitter toward her for giving the humans shelter, and they’ll use me to make their disapproval known. My Queen believes they’re going to try to circumvent the laws so they can sway me. I can’t shake it off like you. Do you know what will happen if they sway me?”

  She couldn’t think about that. It was too much. This was all too much for her right now. Sensing her agitation, Wilson followed her into the kitchen.

  “Even if they end up not questioning me, they’ll check every detail of my story. Investigate as much as they can. There are loose ends, Alejandra. Witnesses who know I wasn’t in that area of the forest.” He stepped toward her and boomed, “Why don’t you care?”

  Her heart was pulsing in her ears now. She barely managed to catch a bottle as it slipped out of her sweaty palms. “I do care, but… ‘a lo hecho, pecho.’” Alex shrugged it off, but merely uttering the saying out loud made a spike of pain stab through her heart. She’d never go home. Never listen to her abuela rattle off the phrase again.

  Auzed stared at her, his eyes a little wild. “What?”

  She could tell he was holding his temper at bay…just. If she were smart, she’d get serious, sit down, and hash this out so he could get it off his chest and they could commiserate over their shitty circumstances, but fuck it. She was angry too. And scared. And sad. And a million other things, and the way she needed to deal with her emotions right now was to pretend like they didn’t exist. Panic
was swelling inside her already, along with bitter guilt and helplessness. She’d lied to save him.

  Didn’t he see that? If they’d told the truth, he would’ve been punished all the same, wouldn’t he? And she’d be hitching her wagon to some random alien. He was just upset, rightfully so, but she didn’t want to go in circles arguing with him right now. It wasn’t like there was anything they could do about it anyway.

  He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling. When he regained his composure, he looked back at her. “What about a chest?”

  She paused sniffing at the contents of each bottle. Had he understood her? “¿Hablas español?”

  Auzed blinked at her. “If you’re speaking another language, I can’t tell. My translator translates all Earth languages the same.”

  “Oh! That makes sense. To be honest, I don’t speak much Spanish myself. My abuela does, but my parents…” she rambled, feigning interest in a dark-pink bottle, and swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “Um, my parents were second-generation Mexican American and spoke mostly English at home.”

  Alex nodded and took a sip of the liquid, then made a face as the bitter substance similar to vinegar hit her throat. She closed her eyes and thumped her palm on her chest a few times.

  He remained silent, so she continued, “The saying doesn’t really translate, I think. My mom and abuela always said it when my brother and I did something we weren’t supposed to and got caught. It just means, what’s done is done. Gotta deal with the consequences now.”

  Alex tried another bottle, desperate for a distraction. What she wouldn’t give to be alone right now. Auzed growled, and before she knew what had happened, he’d stepped behind her and turned her around to face him. Wilson trumpeted a screech from the top of a cabinet above Auzed’s head.

  “It’s okay, Wilson,” she assured in a tremulous voice. The little creature scampered to a corner, where it glared at Auzed from afar.

  Alex leaned against the counter behind her and stared up at him. Keep it together. Keep it together. She was acting juvenile, and she knew it. He’d helped her so much, and he had every right to be pissed off. But this was her MO. She liked to avoid problems when possible. At least initially. She’d slink into her own mind and work through the situation alone, and then eventually, when she was ready, she’d address it. It drove her family crazy and was the reason she hadn’t worked up the nerve to officially dump Ray yet.

  “We need to talk about this. We broke the law. You have to take it seriously. What happens if we do leave in a week and they find out we never married? Because they know the Queen is lying to help us, they won’t accept us not marrying well. They’ll see it as a slap in the face.”

  “What would’ve happened if I hadn’t lied?” she asked without accusation. “Wouldn’t you have been in a similar situation? You’d have lost your job and all that for breaking the law and killing the sefa. And I’d be stuck here.”

  The light green of his eyes darkened as he thought through her question. “Maybe. But that wasn’t your choice to make.” He was less than a foot away, hands gripping the counter on either side of her.

  Her eyes stung. “What can I do, then? Should I make the lie real? I’ll do it. I’ll marry you.” Her vision grew glassy as she tried to hold his stare.

  His brows drew together, and he scanned her face. She didn’t think he realized it, but he moved closer to her. “You’d marry me?”

  “Is that what you want?” she asked, her voice thick. “Then it won’t really be a lie, and you won’t get caught.” Maybe that was the easiest solution.

  “Really?” he rumbled. His gaze slid down her body, lingering at her bare upper chest. She shivered. Anger thinned his lips. “I don’t like being toyed with, Alejandra. If I married you, it wouldn’t be to get out of a lie. And it wouldn’t be because you pity me or feel indebted or because you’re desperate. Don’t offer it again.” He grabbed a light-green bottle near her elbow and pushed it into her chest. “When you’re ready to actually deal with this, let me know.”

  He stalked toward the lift that went to the upper floor and was gone.

  Chapter 9

  That female! How was he supposed to make it through a week with her? He scanned his bedroom, looking for something to break. The wooden chairs in the corner would shatter nicely. He hissed out a calming breath—no. Destruction of a Sauven home they’d been kind enough to offer up would not help anything.

  Auzed paced back and forth in the room, wishing he weren’t hundreds of feet from the forest floor. What he wouldn’t give for a run right now. Or a gym. Or a lake. Anything to get out some of this aggression. The conversation he’d had with the Queen rang through his mind again. She’d begun by reassuring him she’d revealed nothing to the regents when they’d contacted her. She’d also explained she was solidifying his alibi even now. Contacting the two soldiers he’d been searching with earlier that day and apprising them of the situation.

  A bellow built in his throat at the shame of it. She would have to reveal he’d gotten himself in trouble, and she would have to urge them to lie for him if necessary. Their superior! What an embarrassment.

  He dropped to the ground and began a round of vigorous push-ups, his teeth grinding together. He focused on his breathing and attempted to see things from Alejandra’s side, even though his mind was screaming she was the cause of all his problems at the moment.

  She’d asked him what would’ve happened if she hadn’t lied. Truthfully, he couldn’t be sure, but in his heart, he knew what the sentence would’ve been, and it grated against his nerves to know she’d assumed right yet again. The Sauvenians took their laws and their borders very seriously. In the aid of a female or not, their judgment would’ve been harsh.

  Her lie might very well have been the one thing that could keep him out of trouble. But only if they could make it through this. And only if his Queen could make sure he wasn’t swayed.

  His arms shook as he pushed his body harder and harder. If he really sought to blame someone, he should be blaming the Queen. She’d asked him to enter Sauven illegally, after all.

  Auzed was a bit concerned with how willing his Queen was to lie. A part of him wanted to believe her actions were selfless. But another part of him, a part that’d learned strategy during his time as an intergalactic soldier, wondered if doing whatever she could to gather the humans and feed into their requests wasn’t more of a power play than anything else. Who would be more powerful in a world slowly dying of infertility than the leader who housed and protected the humans?

  He shook off the thought. Even if she were gathering power, she was still allowing the humans to live more freely than they would in other cities, so he supposed her actions could still be considered honorable.

  Turning and lowering to his back, he shut his eyes and practiced some breathing control. Alejandra had offered to marry him. The muscles of his body, now cooling down, shot tight in an instant. Despite everything he stood for, he’d wanted to take her up on her proposition. Even knowing she was only offering out of guilt. Even knowing she didn’t fully understand what their marriages were. And even knowing she had a male of her own back on Earth.

  Her personality irked. She was unpredictable and emotional and couldn’t take anything seriously enough, but…she sparked something in him. And his baser side whispered that he should take advantage.

  The regents had given them a proposition, though. They wanted to expose her to their people in the hopes she’d be recognized and any outrage at letting a human slip through their fingers would be quelled. He’d need to watch from the sidelines as all manner of Clecanians attempted to charm her away. What if someone did recognize her as their mate?

  The regents would be so overjoyed that they’d likely forget all about him and he’d be free to go back home. She’d remain here, of course, but with a mate. A flare of jealousy lit in his chest, but he brushed it away, sure it was just his want of a mate and not of Alejandra in particular.

/>   Yes, bringing her out to socialize with everyone was his best bet. With any luck, she’d meet her mate and he could go back to his well-ordered life. But he’d need to act like he cared. Any male would if others were blatantly flirting with their future wife, a human at that. He’d need to act as if the attention she received angered him. Thinking back to the furtive looks Noito had given her had his hands fisting. He might not have to fake it at all.

  A part of him did want her. The lie they were in together had him feeling more protective than usual. He just had to make sure he didn’t let himself get too attached. She wasn’t really his in any way. She was a human under his care, the same as the others at the Pearl Temple. Nothing more.

  He thought about her quietly getting drunk on the floor below him and groaned. No way to care for her if she stumbled drunkenly off the side of the house. Rising, he headed downstairs and promised himself his now-cooled and controlled temper would remain so. For the next week, a level head would be paramount.

  When he reached the main floor, he scanned the room. His stomach clenched when he didn’t see her. He searched all the corners she might have crawled into, then walked outside, praying she hadn’t fallen into the net below. Although the regents had claimed they were free to move about Sauven, they hadn’t provided them with any travel platforms. He’d have no way to retrieve her if she’d fallen.

  It was only after he spotted her sitting on the edge of the round porch that circled the house that he realized how hard his heart had been beating in his chest.

  She’d changed into silky white shorts and a matching shirt. She must not have realized how formal the attire was. The shimmering top was asymmetrical. Cut long in the back to cover a Sauvenian’s tail and angled up to a high hem in the front. If she lifted her arms, the bottoms of her breasts would peek out. Blood pulsed to his shaft at the thought.