I’d never felt more human than I did right then. With his thumb bumping my rib, sweat salty on my lips, my pulse hammering a low beat, and the ache of his passion between my legs.

I opened the fist squished between us and placed my hand flat to his chest. His heartbeat answered mine— thump, thump, thump . I smiled, and pressed my nose against his skin. His scent invaded me, heady and so human that in the moment it seemed he was. His chest rose and fell under my touch, over and over, making me feel ready to close my eyes and nap for the third time in one day.

I glanced up at him.

He still watched. He always looked at me, but when he looked at me this way it was as though only I existed for him. As though for him there was no colony beyond this cave. No universe outside of right here.

Nothing other than me .

And it was the loveliest most wonderful feeling.

My thumb made the same pattern on his chest that his did on my side.

Oh, but if there’d been men like him on earth…Everything would’ve been different.

“Thor.” My voice came out scratchy.

“Yes?” He leaned in.

I resisted the urge to meet him halfway. “If there’s no women born here, do Warriors ever relocate to live on their mate’s home planet?”

His breath fanned my face. “No, La La. Must live here for sake of Colony.”

I swallowed, my throat as raw as my voice.

“Need next warriors born here.” His brow scrunched as though somewhere under all that Warrior logic, he actually got how shitty this was to be the one who has to do one-hundred-and-eleventy percent of the sacrifice.

I broke his gaze. “That’s what I thought.”

Thought ? What in the actual hell was I thinking?

I withdrew my hand from his chest and rubbed my neck. He’d say yes and then what—he’d just mosey on back to earth with me? An intergalactic warrior on an army base. Totally doable.

I eased back, but his smothering warmth seemed to follow. But no really , what was I suggesting? That he’d come with me? As in that I’d actually mate with him?

Marry a guy I’d known for what, three damn days?

Marry a fucking alien ?

A scalding flush rose through my neck up to my face. Crazy . His crazy was catching. And crazy wasn’t a word I used lightly.

He’d normalized the ridiculous.

This was total insanity.

His touch tightened on my side, forcing my attention back to him. “Some wives missing home.”

I stared at him. Of course, they did. They were taken from everything they knew.

“But when mated you will see, much joy to have here.”

I snorted softly and shook my head. Joy . He said the most adorably naive things. Maybe for a Baratican just being mated equated to happiness.

But real actual joy— was that even something humans were capable of?

“Have Uncle?”

My attention sharpened. I’d forgotten I mentioned that. “Yes.”

“Missing family?” The sympathy that played out in his expression brought a mist to my vision.

“Yeah, but he’s about the extent of family I have.” I ran a knuckle under my eye. “And he’s not even my real Uncle.”

“Not real?”

“No, Uncle Syd was my mother’s boyf—” I rephrased, “—betrothed for a while. He looked after me when Mom was…” My throat closed. In and out of rehab; prison, her dealer’s bedroom . I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, then continued. “…when she was away.”

“Uncle did look care of you?”

I rolled onto my back. His touch shifted to my belly. “Not as well as he could’ve.”

The stalactites had already begun to dim. Soon, if he didn’t open the box at the back of the room, it’d be dark in here.

He leaned up onto an elbow and for someone who ran hot in every way, his voice dropped a thousand degrees. “Did hurt La La?”

“God, no.” I glanced at him. “He just kept handing me back to my irresponsible mother every time she showed up claiming that she’d cleaned up her act.”

His gaze moved faster across me. Clearly, he didn’t understand my meaning. He had no reference point for my earth problems.

Maybe I’d never left this cave, but I’d bet money there was no addiction, neglect, or child abandonment in a world where offspring were so preciously rare.

Where parents were made up of men like this one. Thor . A fearless sweet man who treasured what was his. A man who couldn’t possibly understand what life had been like for me.

“It’ve been difficult legally, but he could’ve fought for me. He could’ve tried . He could’ve done something.” I looked back at the ceiling. “But it was like her wrongs were invisible to him. Like how I felt was invisible. He just didn’t see the seriousness of things. Or he turned a blind eye.” There seemed to be toffee in the back of my mouth. Sticking things together. Dripping acidic sweetness down the back of my throat. “She didn’t know how to provide the things a child needs. She didn’t know how to keep one safe.” I closed my eyes, and pulled my feeling’s in tight, then rolled to face him. “This is why the ritual is important, Thor. You need to know a person before you reproduce with them. Mine should never have had children.”

He grabbed my jaw. “Wrong.”

I flinched at the sudden touch.

“Wrong—if not had children, would not be La La.” His touch lightened. “Right had children.”

Hurt blossomed in my middle. Nope . He couldn’t understand.

My chest heaved. “But it was not a nice way to be raised.”

“Still wrong.” He frowned deep, then released my jaw and gripped the base of my neck drawing me closer. “When Thor hunt first Jababeast, mother try stop. Said not my son. My son stay safe.”

I fell still. When he was young? My mind buzzed. I’d thought of him as perpetual—as this being with no real past, no childhood, just static as he was.

The idea of more reached out and grabbed me by the heart.

He’d had a childhood at some point in his long life.

“But father say yes, son ready. Son go.” He released me. “Thor went.”

I stared at him. “What happened?”

“Was not fun, La La.” He took my hand. “Was not safe. Not nice .” He looked at my hand in his. “But Thor return stronger.” Then he met my gaze, and the power contained there seized me in its thrall. “Thor return warrior.”

My head went light.

“Not safe made La La strong.” His words wrapped around me and pulled me in tighter. “Maybe that your warrior test.”

All my breath rushed out.

My warrior test …

I was strong. I’d survived alien abduction, escaped from human traffickers, and no matter what happened next, I’d handle that too.

I might not be perfect, but I was grateful to be myself. A self which was a construct of my imperfect past.

I let out a half sigh and touched his face. This barbarian warrior might just know some shit. He was enormous. Archaic. So over-the-top it was comical. And the most lovable thing in the whole goddamn universe…

I leaned in and pressed my mouth gently to his, and held there. Feeling flooded so swift, and so intensely, my eyes, my chest, and my soul, seemed to burn from it.

His lips moved slowly under mine, and the burn turned to tingles.

And just a hint of something that made me a believer in what he’d called joy .

I gasped and pulled back.

What was happening?

The look he wore, gentle and dreamy, made me want to melt into a puddle.

Melt into him .

Except…Except there were a hundred women counting on me.

My pulse roared. I’d known him only three damn days.

Perspective.

Wasn’t that what I told people? Break the situation down. Gain some perspective. I’d been torn from my home world, exposed to atrocities I’d almost ended up part of, then nearly raped and forced into marriage.

Held prisoner in a cave.

I tried to breathe purposefully the way I always instructed, and found the exercise a lot like running uphill at high altitude.

This was Stockholm, I reminded myself. This was psychological vulnerability at play. This was an emotional pressure cooker forcing feelings to a boiling point not achievable otherwise.

I didn’t— couldn’t —like a stranger so much.

This much.

Too much.

“So, you have parents?” I tugged my hand from his and tucked hair shakily behind my ear. “Does your betrothed get to meet them?”

I focused on what I needed to do. Take a long, slow breath through the nose, filling your lower lungs, then your upper lungs. Hold your breath to the count of…

“Parents move to spirit long time ago.” He gave a grimace that split me in two.

The held air ripped out of me. That advice had always sounded so good when I’d said it. Except now I couldn’t seem to manage the basics.

“Gone, many, many Crestonian lifespans.” His frown was an open gate to his sadness, and I couldn’t keep myself from falling through it.

My teeth clamped over my lip. How long had it been?

Hundreds of years without family?

I touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Thor. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be all alone for so long.”

“Unless mate.” His gaze grew so grave. “Warrior is forever.”

My hand clenched on his arm.

Forever .

Forever in loneliness. Forever waiting. Forever longing.

My teeth grit together. An unimaginable empty eternity stretched before me.

He brushed a sneaky tear from my face, an oddity which plagued me lately. “Don’t ouch for me, La La.”

I gripped him hard as I could.

“Not alone anymore.” He rubbed the delicate skin under my eye. “Found you. Living now.”

Guilt bore down on every inch of me. Because I wasn’t here to rescue him. He’d have to find someone else…

“You mean, once we’re mated, then you’ll age?” I held onto him as though we’d slip right down through the furs and fall through this many layered world of his. “That’s what you mean?”

His fingers held behind my ear. “No, bonding you already.”

My pulse howled like a whirlwind.

“Mating seal what tasting begin.” He tilted my face closer.

I braced, but not the thunder of my pulse, or the throb in my chest, or the bellowing warning within, could keep me from meeting him halfway.

He brushed his nose against mine. “La La, my only, only.”

Tension ribboned out of me like a cord pulled from my center, sending me unraveling.

He was, he was so… So only, only.