LIAM

There is no pain quite like the unfulfilled mating heat in my groin.

Andrea curls up against me, her intoxicating scent filling the air around us. I understand why Rast is so protective of Amy, his human mate. I understand Vaan’s utter focus on Gwen. I get it, now. As Andrea shudders in my arms, her breathing heavy, I rub her back. Just moments ago, she came so very sweetly against my mouth that it nearly stole the control from my body. She’s so fragile yet spirited. I could crush her with my grip, but she trusts me implicitly. I love that I could pleasure her, but with the aching strain of my cock in my confining, irritating human clothes, it reminds me that I cannot do more.

I cannot rip off my pants and bury my cock between her thighs.

I cannot claim her pretty throat with my bite or give her the mating mark. I cannot give her my fires.

If I do, I’ll lose my sanity. I’ll become another ravening beast in the skies…unless she’s my mate.

But to make her my mate, I’d have to access the parts of my mind that I’ve walled off. And there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to give her my fires in time before I lose control of my sanity.

It’s a risk.

For seven long years, I’ve lived in the shadows of human settlements, trying to blend in to survive, in the hopes of one day returning to my land and my people. That if I can survive long enough, I can figure out how to get home. That this blankness in my mind, this loss of communication with any drakoni is nothing but temporary.

As I hold Andrea, I realize that the life I’ve been living is a cruel joke. I’m not drakoni, nor am I human. I’m an outcast in both worlds, and after seven long years of hiding, I’m coming to the realization that we might never get home.

I might never be able to communicate with my people ever again. I might never feel the warm comfort of another’s thoughts touching mine. Might never feel the simple pleasure of just knowing there are others nearby of my kind, having the constant sense of “belonging” that our joined connections brought.

I will never have a mate, either.

This thing between myself and Andrea…it cannot be. I can’t claim her. I can’t be human enough to be her male, and I am far too drakoni to make this work. If she touches me, I fear I’ll lose control. That all the careful mental shields I’ve put up will crumble, and I’ll attack her with the need to claim her.

Worse, that I’ll forget myself and spend my seed inside her and hurt her. My body temperature is much higher than hers, and her skin feels cool against mine. I know my seed would boil inside her and burn her from within.

“Liam,” she breathes, and I want to tell her that that’s not my real name. That I am Atalim, a drakoni warrior. I am not Liam, who pretends to be human and cannot be whole.

But…that’s who I am now. So I say nothing.

If I could choose, though…if I could claim a female as my mate and not lose my sanity?

Andrea would be mine.

Sleep eludes me that night. I need less sleep than most humans do, anyhow, but even when I lie down on the strange plastic sleeping space and pull her smaller form against me, I cannot relax. My drakoni senses are slowly flaring to life, and that worries me. I know the feelings swamping my mind are those of a drakoni male with a potential mate, because the urge to protect Andrea as she sleeps is overwhelming.

It would be so easy to give in. To turn her over and claim her pretty, pale neck. To sink my fangs in, open my mind, and give her my fires…and hope I do not tear her throat out. I don’t know if how I feel for Andrea—possessive, protective, obsessed—is because she truly is my mate, or if these are just human reactions because I grow increasingly distant from my drakoni half by the day.

That worries me and it only adds to the reasons why I cannot sleep.

Morning comes soon enough, and I leave Andrea’s side for a time, because I know she likes privacy to relieve herself and wash. Her cheeks are bright red with embarrassment when she looks at me, but she smiles and it makes my spirit sing just to look at her. In seven long years, I have never felt such joy. Perhaps even longer.

I hate that this thing between us cannot be more than this, though. Perhaps it will be enough for her if I mate her cunt with my tongue instead of my cock, and if I give her pleasure. If she is content with that, then I will be, too, I decide.

As Andrea does her morning rituals, I go outside and prowl around the building, taking in scents. Benny’s is still on the ground, but it grows fainter with every day that passes, and that worries me. I promised Andrea I would bring her brother back to her, but if we lose his trail, it might be an empty promise.

I cannot fail her. I must remember our purpose, so I’m not distracted when she’s at my side, her cunt smelling of her need and her eyes shining up at me.

Just thinking of it makes my cock ache, and I crouch low, closing my eyes and focusing on the mental strengths that have kept my mind locked for so many years.

Every drakoni is born with a mental link to his people. It is how we communicate with parents, how we acknowledge others in our territory, and how we speak. We do not use mouths and babble like the humans do. We let our spirits touch and open our minds on a different level.

It was when I was captured by the Salorians that I learned a different way. Because I was one of the strongest of my people and one of the largest in battle form, they wanted me to break and to recruit me into one of their armies. When I was captured, though, I wasn’t in battle form, and out of stubbornness, I refused to shift. Several torture sessions later and with the loss of many claws, I was tossed into the dungeons below the Salorian stronghold. There, I met an old drakoni male who’d been in the dungeons for many, many seasons. He was completely unbroken and ignored by his captors. Fascinated, I wanted to learn his secrets. To prevent the Salorians from taking over your mind, he told me, you have to close it off entirely. A bridge that is destroyed cannot be used against you. Old Jannis taught me how to visualize the walls to place in my mind, to detach from that part of myself that wanted to share my spirit connection. Putting up these walls meant cutting myself off from much of who I was. I could not switch to battle form, because in that primal form, my mind would be open like an outstretched palm. Like a muscle weak from disuse, I learned how to become better at such things—to the consternation of my Salorian captors. They tried to break my body, to force me to switch to battle form, but I resisted. When they could not make me bend, they tied me up and were to send me off to the deep mines, where I would be dumped with the other useless slaves, those too weak to fly and who served no purpose to the Salorian empire.

But even as the prisoners were transported behind the line of battle warriors, the skies opened up and tore the world apart…and when I awoke, I found myself here. Other drakoni sailed through the sky, screaming out their madness, and the females were all flushed with mating heat. I watched as they destroyed the world around me and knew they’d gone insane…

And because I could do nothing to help, I found shelter and hid away, their oppressive thoughts so wild and heavy that I could practically feel them in the air around us.

I shake my head to clear the memories. Those were dark days, and I do not care to relive them. My mind is stronger now, even if I feel isolated. I have had years to build my walls, and if it means I am alone, then I must be alone.

So be it.

A fat chicken waddles past, then perches atop a nearby rusted car hulk. I eye it. I could catch it and eat it raw, but it is not a human thing to do, and I’m not sure what Andrea will think. I could roast it…but I cannot use my fire. I clench my hands, hating how helpless I am like this. It has not bothered me this much in seven years. Why is it making me antsy now?

Of course, I know why. The reason comes out of the building a short time later, her hair pulled into a fresh braid and her cheeks pink as she smiles at me. She smells freshly scrubbed, with the floral scents of the soaps these humans like covering up her good natural sweat scent. Her clothes are changed as well, and in her bag I can smell the last traces of her arousal-scent on her clothing…and something else. Something from inside the store with the mating objects. Curious, I wonder what she brought.

Is it because she plans on mating with me?

Hot need surges through my body and blasts at the mental walls. I close my eyes, grinding a palm against my forehead as I try to concentrate.

Andrea is dangerous in her sweetness. Even her scent reminds me of last night, and the taste of her on my lips. Perhaps I will not even get that, if it weakens my defenses too much. Perhaps I cannot touch her at all. The thought is one that makes my spirit ache.

“Hi,” she says, and there’s an eager, shy note in her voice that rouses my drakoni side. I immediately move closer to her, drinking in her scent, studying the way she moves, the bit of hair she tucks behind her ear. “Got the scent?”

I nod and try to seem normal, composed. “Ready to go? Do you need anything from inside?”

She pats her bags. “I refilled my canteens and grabbed a few trash bags and, uh, some other stuff.” Her cheeks grow pinker. “I’m good, though. How about you?”

“Ready,” I say, and she looks surprised when my tone is a little curt. “I smell rain in the distance,” I explain. “I don’t like the thought of losing Benny’s trail, so we should get going.”

Her soft expression immediately changes to one of worry, and I want to bite off my own tongue for admitting that the trail grows weak. “You might lose his scent?”

“We’ll find him,” I promise her. “I won’t let you lose him.”

She thinks for a moment and then smiles at me, as if my promise has reassured her. “Let’s get going, then.” Andrea hitches her shotgun and pack over her shoulder, and when I point, she heads down the road.

I pause just long enough so I can watch her cocky, adorable swagger, my heart aching.

I need to pull back. Touching Andrea is too dangerous. It makes me want things…things I can’t have.

“Good god, I’ve never seen so many damn rats,” Andrea exclaims as we walk. “They’re everywhere.” She kicks at one that scurries near her boot and steps closer to me.

It takes everything I have not to reach for her, to put my hand to her waist and drag her close. I’m doing my best to keep my distance, so the hunger brewing in the corners of my mind remains distant. I know that one touch and I’m going to lose all control, so I pretend to concentrate on the invisible scent trails that scatter all over the concrete.

We’ve been walking through the city all day, passing old buildings called “casinos” and crossing under broken underpasses. Trash and debris from the remains of the human hive is everywhere, but the stink of them is long faded, except for the thread of Benny’s scent.

Andrea’s not wrong, though. The rats are indeed everywhere. They dart out from under garbage and cross the road ahead of us, peek out from storm drains, and their stink is overwhelming. They’re not clean creatures, these rats, and I get why she’s horrified at the thought of me eating one.

I glance over at my companion, and I notice that she’s walking oddly again. She favors her feet from time to time, trying to hide it from me, but I’ve caught her stumbling and picking at her steps when she thinks I’m not looking.

So I pause at a tree that’s cropped up next to an old red sign with human words on it. “We’ll take a quick break here.”

“I can keep going,” she says defensively. She shakes her head and surges forward, as if to prove me wrong.

“Andrea,” I call out, warning. “I am stopping here.” When she turns to give me a hurt look, I add, “For a few minutes only.”

Her jaw clenches and then she heads back, moving to my side. She sits on the edge of the curb next to me, not looking in my direction. I love her stubbornness, but not when she is in pain.

“Are your feet bothering you?” I ask.

She shakes her head, still ignoring me.

“Shall I remove your boots and check your feet for myself?” I keep my tone teasing, but she shoots me such a glare that I know I’ve struck a nerve. I laugh. “That’s my answer, then. Andrea, if you destroy your feet, I’m going to have to carry you. If we must, we’ll take breaks. We—”

“Every hour that slips away is another hour Benny’s ahead of us.” Her quiet voice makes me stop. “I don’t care if I have two blisters or twenty, but I need to find my brother. I can keep walking.”

I get to my feet, because even though she’s stubborn, I understand her. “Then we’ll keep walking.” I extend my hand to her.

She takes it, and I’m surprised at the surge of lust that washes over me just from the touch of her cool fingers. She casts a smile in my direction, and it takes everything I have not to grab her by her hair and pull her against me. I stay still until she walks past once more, and then follow behind her a few steps.

My reactions to her seem to get stronger with every day that passes. This is…not good for my mental walls. At what point will Andrea destroy them entirely?