It wasn’t that I had not believed the stories—all mates in my culture shared some degree of the bond. But I hadn’t understood how absolutely all-encompassing those bonds were.
Mine, my inner beast growled.
Yes, I agreed, Nora belongs with us. The beast subsided.
As I entered the engineering bay, I inhaled deeply and blew out a breath slowly, working to calm the anxious knot that considering losing Nora had left in my stomach.
“Yes,” I murmured to myself as I headed toward the computer core, “Nora is mine. I will find a way to convince her to stay with me, no matter what.”
Even if that meant intensifying the mate-bond long before she understood its true meaning.
Half a sundrop later, I was still working through the issues with the computer.
Somehow, the Karlaxons had hacked into the computer software, despite all our precautions.
In order to dig out the virus they had installed, I had to go through every section of code, with the help of the computer’s self-diagnostics. The primary issue with that, of course, was that the computer itself was corrupted, which meant the diagnostics were suspect.
“Garlockian underworlds,” I cursed. “This is more flarking complicated than following a claarbeast’s trail at sunset.”
I spent the next several moments moving through each segment of the core, disconnecting it, and checking all the components before firing it back up again.
For once, I wished I had brought a second-in-command on this particular journey.
It might be traditional for a Drovekzian male to go alone to meet his mate, but I was beginning to think it was a stupid tradition.
I could be on the bridge kissing Nora right now.
My cock hardened at the thought, and I imagined sliding my hands down her sides and across her lush hips, reaching around to stroke her ass.
“Flark.” I really needed to get the scoutship moving so I could get us out of here, take us someplace safe where I could seduce her properly.
I ached to touch her, to feel her fingers running through my fur, to taste her from head to tail.
To feel her writhing beneath me in ecstasy.
And over me and beside me…
As I moved to the next section of the computer core, I imagined bending her over the bridge console, flipping up that white drapery she wore to reveal all her most intimate places.
By this point, my cock ached, my mating spines having grown fully stiff, more than ready to mate with Nora.
If I did not take her soon, make her my own, I might explode.
Moving to the final segment, I disconnected all the cables and counted in my head as I gave the computer time to spin down.
As I reattached all the elements, I imagined Nora’s mouth wrapping around my cock, her pink lips pursing into a pout as she sucked gently.
Part of me knew it was ridiculous to torture myself like this. But from the moment I had picked her up and carried her onto the scout ship, it had been all I could do not to carry her to my quarters and complete the full Drovekzian mating ritual. The one that would bind us together forever.
It didn’t matter what the computer said. Even if she wasn’t the absolute best genetic match, Nora was my match. She was perfect for me.
Now all I had to do was convince her that I was every bit as perfect for her.
“Warning,” the computer announced abruptly. “Karlaxon soldier detected en route to the bridge.”
A jolt of sheer terror flashed through my body. I could not lose Nora before we even had a chance to be together. The Karlaxons would do terrible things to her. I had seen females who had escaped from Karlaxon clutches.
Those women were never the same again, broken in body and in spirit.
I would never allow that to happen to my mate.
Almost without warning, my beast burst out of my skin, taking over our shared body and racing toward the bridge, one thought echoing in our mind in time to the beat of my paws on the floor.
I have to get to Nora before the Karlaxon soldier does.
Chapter Fifteen
Nora
The hiss of the door opening alerted me to Dax’s return. “Can you show me how to use this thing?” I asked as I turned to face him.
But it wasn’t Dax at all. It was one of those horrifying rhino monsters, and it was leering at me as it thumped onto the bridge. If anyone had asked me before what a leering rhinoceros looked like, I would have laughed. But there was nothing funny about this monster. His expression radiated menace.
If he got his hands on me, he would hurt me—and he would enjoy it.
I raised the gun instinctively, but I had already announced I didn’t know how to use it.
Can’t be too hard, right? Aim and pull the trigger.
I prayed silently that it didn’t have some kind of safety catch as I tried to remember anything I’d ever seen about guns on TV.
The beast took another step toward me and I squeezed the trigger. The rifle-shaped gun recoiled against my shoulder, knocking me back, leaving me disoriented for a second.
Unlike an Earth weapon, the sound it made was muffled, a puff and a thump rather than a loud bang, which allowed me to hear the rhinoceros-alien’s grunt as the bullet—or whatever these weapons used as projectiles—hit him.
It didn’t stop the monstrous alien, though. He kept moving toward me, his leer shifting to an angry snarl. He reached up and flipped down the face visor on his helmet just as I fired another round.
This one didn’t hit him at all—it slammed into a wall. I realized my hands were shaking, so I took another step backward until my back was against the gun cabinet, steadying me. I forced myself to inhale once deeply, waiting to shoot again until he was almost close enough to reach out and grab the gun. I didn’t know if his thick, scaly skin
