The silence in the chamber was deafening, almost like a loud roaring of nothingness in my ears. I clutched Roxanne’s side, pressing her up against me, and waited for someone to speak with my heart tattooing my ribs.

“Very well,” Vi’den said finally. “We will discuss your proposal and send for you when a decision has been made.”

Roxanne glanced up at me, her eyes wide and confused. “But you didn’t even hear the terms of the treaty,” she said, looking back at Vi’den.

“We do not need to hear terms,” Ma’ris chimed in from his seat beside Vi’den. I had to strain to hear what he said through his bubbling, underwater-sounding voice.

“But—”

“Our warriors have returned to Albaterra,” Vi’den said gently. “If we agree to a truce, you and the others will simply return to Earth and go about your lives. If we do not, we will bring you back for further discussion. It is always in the interest of the Council to preserve life. As you have vivaciously pointed out, we have neglected to uphold that value as of late. We will see that does not happen again.”

Roxanne seemed hesitant to leave as if she wanted to speak more on the matter, but, eventually, she nodded her agreement.

“Then, it is settled,” Vi’den resolved. “De’inde, you will be brought before the Council tomorrow to disclose your version of events from the mission up until this point. For now, we release Roxanne into your care.”

She stiffened, and I knew she took offense to his wording, but she wisely remained quiet.

“Thank you,” I said considerately, inclining my head in a show of respect. Vi’den inclined his in return, and we were bid from the chamber.

* * *

My arms tightened around Roxanne as our feet slammed into the snowy ground. She gasped upon impact, but her breath returned to her much more quickly than the previous times we’d traveled by wind. “I think I’m getting used to that,” she wheezed.

I grabbed her by the wrists and shoved her backward, flattening her back against the cabin door. She stared at me with her mouth open, stunned.

“Do not ever walk away from me again,” I growled.

Then, I crushed my lips to hers.

As her sweet, gentle taste flooded my mouth, I finally allowed myself to face the truth. I was in love. The spunky, sophisticated, beautiful Ambassador had stolen my heart, and I never wanted her to give it back. I’d bucked against the growing feelings I’d felt since I’d met her, determined I should never feel for a human what I could feel for an A’li-uud, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. I belonged to her.

Roxanne’s tongue broke through the surface of my teeth, and she quickly became the aggressor. Her body, which was generally cooler than mine, had become hot and soft with urgent lust, and she seemed to relinquish control to her primitive instincts. She pressed her chest against me, and I remembered the gorgeous sight of her luscious breasts in the darkness of her ship quarters. Immediately, my nether region swelled, and I became as urgent as her.

Sweeping an arm downward, I caught her by the backs of her knees and lifted her into the air, supporting her back with my other arm. She reached down and fumbled with the door until it swung open, and then her hands were on me, framing my face and pulling my mouth toward hers. I kicked the door closed behind us as our lips met again. She moaned against me, filling me with an even greater need, and I growled in response. My teeth sought her lower lip to tug at it sensually as I meandered blindly through the small cabin to the bedroom.

When I laid her on the bed, she looked up at me through long, charcoal lashes. “I won’t,” she whispered.

I pulled back in confusion. “You—”

“I won’t walk away from you again,” she clarified softly.

Staring into her eyes, so green and vivid and absolutely glowing, I felt something inside me become whole. I leaned down and closed the space between our mouths again, and, as I did, I murmured, “I love you.”

A smile broke over her sensual lips, and she reached up to yank my head downward, pulling me into the most passionate kiss we’d shared yet. Our tongues twisted together until I couldn’t tell whose was whose, sliding over one another with slick ease. Her sugary flavor was mind-blowing and sent me into a tailspin of lust.

“I love you too,” she breathed into my mouth.

They were the words I’d never known I wanted to hear and the words I’d never known I needed, and they instantly settled somewhere deep inside my chest and swelled until I was sure I was going to burst. My hands began working on their own accord, reaching for the zipper on her jumpsuit and yanking it downward. Her breasts sprang free, and she moaned into the space where those beautiful words had just been.

I broke the kiss and dove downward. Her nipples were already on end, and I took one between my teeth. Roxanne purred in response, a sound that delighted me with ripples of pleasure, and I rewarded her with a flick of my tongue. Her back arched slightly upward as her fingers sought my hair and curled around my tresses. She used her grip as leverage to urge my head further downward, a silent request I obliged.

“Taste me,” she groaned. “Please.”

I seized her jumpsuit by the hips and wrenched. The gray fabric slid out from beneath her back without a hitch, but it gathered around her waist and stubbornly refused to cooperate further. I hooked my fingers into either side of the suit, snagging her panties at the same time, and started shimmying down. As I did, Roxanne’s body came into view inch by inch, and I became entranced by the beauty before me. Her hips arced out on either side in smooth, perfect curves. Her thighs were soft and thick with hard, tensed muscles beneath her silken flesh. And the folds between her legs were nothing short of idyllic: thin, delicate petals awash in a musk of erotic perfume.

Once she was fully undressed, I gently plucked her legs by the calves and spread them. She was looking down at me with her teeth chewing on her bottom lip and her eyes wide, and she was unable to hide the intense eagerness painting her dazzling features. I grinned saucily. Immediately, she recognized I was playing with her and responded with demanding insistence. Her fingers tightened around my hair and shoved, forcing my head to the apex of her thighs, and she widened her legs further to allow me better access.

My lips wrapped around her small, beadlike clit the same way they had wrapped around her nipple, and I began to suckle. My teeth grazed its surface ever-so-lightly, just enough to feel her shiver with the sensation. Somehow, from this angle, she was even more beautiful than normal. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were hooded as she peered down at me. Sheets of flowing black hair cascaded over her shoulders to the sumptuous mounds of sensitive flesh on her chest, and her nipples were peaked to the ceiling with arousal. She was a vision, a dream brought to fruition by sheer will.

Her head tilted back as I flicked my tongue out and danced it across her button, and I heard a low, powerful moan building in the depths of her throat. I wasn’t ready to take her to the brink yet; I still had more I wanted to try. Pausing my suckles for a split second, I pressed the flat of my tongue against her and allowed her small, involuntary gyrations guide my movements. Immediately, the moan broke through her lips and tumbled to my ears, and the love I felt beating for her in my chest seared with renewal.

“Take off your clothes,” she gasped through the moan, her voice quaking uncontrollably. “Come here.”

I didn’t want to obey her command. To taste her, to have mastery over her body in the most intimate of ways, was a gift bestowed upon me greater than any offered by the Elderhood. I wasn’t ready to give that up. The urgency in her tone, however, convinced me to heed her, and I straightened up. I shed my clothes in mere seconds and crawled up the length of her voluptuous figure. When I saw her eyes, however, I froze.

She was staring at my member with an expression I could not determine. It was either awe or horror. I glanced down at it, suddenly embarrassed. “Would you prefer to wait?” I asked gently, not wanting her to feel pressure.

Roxanne shook her head energetically. “No,” she insisted. She reached up and took my length in both her hands and I had to repress a groan of delight. “I’ve just never seen—you’re very big.”

“Is that a problem?” I pressed, concerned. “Will I hurt you?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she sat up slightly and leaned forward. One of her hands slithered between my legs to my scrotum, cupping it in her palm, while the other slid down to the base of my length. Then, with a devious grin on her face, she took me in her mouth.

Never before had I felt anything so intense. My muscles turned to jelly almost at once, and I started to tremble. Her tongue snaked down my shaft and circled around the helmet, flicking and stroking much like my tongue had on her sweet little bead. I was already slick with her saliva, and she used the gloss to glide her lips up and down in smooth, persistent strokes. My mind became fuzzier and fuzzier with each passing second, and I realized I was careening toward a climax at speeds unknown to me ever before. If she hadn’t paused to speak then, I would have lost it completely.

“Touch me,” she breathed, her voice muffled around me.

She returned to sucking and licking as I reached down to her nether region. My thumb found her button again, just like it had onboard the ship, and I started spiraling over the engorged sphere. Perhaps it was the stellar sensations she was creating on my groin, or perhaps it was the power of the intimate tryst we were sharing. However, as I looked down at her, I swore I could see her heart beating, her blood pumping, her very lifelines working their magic to produce the ethereal creature before me. It was the ritual of unification coming to life in front of my very eyes, and it was with the woman—the human—I loved.

“Oh, God,” she groaned shakily. She pulled her mouth off of me and looked up with desperation. I’d been so caught up in her that I hadn’t realized she was quaking, toeing the line that would break and send her reeling. “Dane, take me!”

She pressed her palms flat against my chest, easing me back until I was positioned between her spread legs again. Her fingers rounded my girth, and she tugged me to her with unintended roughness, eager to get me inside of her. She pressed my head against her pleats. I inhaled sharply, surprised by the warmth of her moisture. Then, she clawed her hand on my buttocks and pushed, sending me into her in one great thrust.

I groaned. She was so tight, so small compared to A’li-uud women, and she was slick with desire. I could feel her pulsing around me, or perhaps I was pulsing within her, or maybe we were both pulsing simultaneously… It was impossible to tell. We had become one, and buoyant joy intermingled with lustful hunger in my soul. Roxanne’s body curled upward in a tall crescent, her fingers grinding into my shoulders for leverage, and her eyes embraced me into her. It was love and need and passion and fulfillment all converging in one moment, surging through us as a single entity and joining us unconditionally.

“Faster,” Roxanne gasped, bucking her hips upward to meet mine.