Chapter Eight
Aton
“Caid cannot be your mate! I am.” I stalked back and forth across the room.
Toni had dispatched the interloper before he and I could come to blows. What right did he have to show up and knock on her door? On Dakon, no one would dare to approach another man’s female—not unless he wanted to find himself facedown in the snow.
“Yes, you are.” She halted my furious pacing by wrapping her arms around my waist.
Her soft embrace mollified me somewhat, but not completely. I’d overcome a lot of challenges to get here, but facing a competitor hadn’t been anticipated. I buried my face in her fragrant hair and held onto what was mine.
“You don’t need to worry about him.” She rubbed her cheek against my shoulder. “You’re my mate. Nobody else.”
“You don’t often call me that,” I said. Almost never. Boyfriend, lover, her man—though laden with affection and intimacy, her Terran references didn’t carry the same weight as mate. Grudgingly, I admitted maybe Caid’s unexpected appearance had solidified the nature of our relationship for her.
“Well, we are,” she said. “That’s how I feel about you. You’re my partner, my other half. Together, we’re creating a new whole. Part Dakonian, part Terran.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Then can you stop growling now?”
“You said my growling was arousing.” She’d told me so many times. Hot was the word she’d used.
“When we’re being intimate—not when you might rip out some guy’s throat.”
“Oh.” That was exactly how I’d felt.
“Besides—he didn’t like me. When I informed him there’d been a mistake, he looked relieved.”
I scowled. “How can he not like you? What is wrong with him?” I resumed stomping. “He needs an attitude adjustment.”
She laughed at me. “First, you wanted to beat him up because you thought he wanted me—and now, you want to beat him up because he didn’t?”
“Well…well…” She was right; I was acting irrationally. My mouth twitched with reluctant amusement before I folded my arms. “Still, his arrival is upsetting. On Dakon, no male would ever attempt to lay claim to another man’s female.”
“I blame the Intergalactic Dating Agency,” Toni said. “First, Jessie gets me excited by telling me I have a match. Next, she reports your visa was denied, and you won’t be coming at all. When you get approved, she sends you over but doesn’t bother to tell me.” She threw up her hands. “Finally, she forgets you’re here and sends over another guy without any warning at all. What’s next?”
I hadn’t explained in great detail how I’d gotten to Earth, but I thought I’d been clear, and she’d understood. Apparently not.
She grabbed her phone. “It’s time Jessie and I had a talk.”
I removed the device from her hands and set it on the table. “Before you do, there’s something you should be aware of.” I raked a hand through my hair. I didn’t know all the Earth customs, rules, and laws, but I was pretty sure I’d broken a lot of them. Where did I start?
Begin with the beginning. “Remember I told you my friend had slandered me so my visa wasn’t approved?”
“Yes, and then it got worked out.”
I shook my head. “No, it didn’t. When Earth authorities forced me off the spaceship, they informed me I wouldn’t ever be allowed on this planet.” They’d warned my name would be flagged, so I didn’t bother to reapply, but took matters into my own hands. I couldn’t permit alien authorities to overrule the Fates, to destroy my chance at happiness.
“But… you’re here—so you did get a visa.”
“No.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Then how did the Intergalactic Dating Agency get you here? You can’t set foot on Earth without documentation.”
“The agency didn’t bring me. I came on my own.”
“On your own? How?”
“I sneaked aboard another ship.” The spacecraft had been sitting in the field outside the Meeting Place, waiting for an unexpected storm to clear so it could finish loading its cargo and launch. Whether passenger or freighter, every ship landing on Dakon departed with a load of illuvian ore. I hid in a cart of rock, and robos rolled it onto the craft. After takeoff, I emerged from the cargo bay and blended in with the other passengers.
Toni’s face went slack then she blinked and her jaw dropped. “You stowed away? You’re here illegally?”
“Yes.”
“How did you get off the ship? They would have checked your visa credentials.”
“I hid in a cart of illuvian ore again, and robos rolled it off the ship. Night came. The guards were fewer, and it wasn’t hard to slip past them.”
“This explains why you have no clothes, why you didn’t get housing, why the IDA didn’t seem to have their act together.” She paced the room. “What are we going to do?”
“Why do we have to do anything?” I asked.
“Because Caid will go back to the Intergalactic Dating Agency.”
“So? They’ll find him somebody else.”
“It isn’t him I’m worried about. You’re here illegally—technically, you’re a criminal. And I’m aiding and abetting, harboring a criminal.”
Her comment hit like a slap to the face. “Oh. I see. That makes a difference to you.”
“Yes…no…I don’t know. This puts me in a complicated situation.”
I thought it was pretty simple. We were Fated to be together.
“I’m an attorney. I could be disbarred over this. I wouldn’t be able to practice law. I could be arrested. I’d lose my firm, my reputation. The negative publicity would affect my entire family.”
I died a little inside. Could I lose Toni over this? I had assumed I only needed to get to her, and our bond would supersede all else. Despite her previous declarations of affection, obviously she didn’t feel the strength of our coupling as much as I did.
On my planet, females could break the mating bond, but almost never did. Terran customs were much different. Here, people broke their vows for any reason at all. A muscle twitched in my cheek. “You don’t wish to be my mate.”
She finally looked at me. “That’s not it at all.” She clasped my hands. “If I didn’t love you, this situation wouldn’t matter so much.”
It was what I needed to hear, but I could no longer trust words. I withdrew and moved across the room. Her wounded expression made me feel terrible; I never wanted to hurt my female. No matter what happened—even if she sent me away—I would always regard her as my mate. There could never be another for me. However, devastation cut so deep, the pain made me angry. “You’re more concerned about your work than us being together.”
“That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. You’re not being fair. You’ve known from the start you broke the law—this is the first I’ve heard about it,” she accused.
“I never kept it a secret. I told you what had happened.” I had explained how my former friend had betrayed me, and I’d been removed from the ship.
“Not so I’d understand.”
“How much plainer could I have made it?” Anger suppressed other emotions. “Your planet is the one with the confusing laws. If anybody should fail to understand—it should be me.”
“You understood the law enough to figure out how to circumvent it.”
“I did what I had to do to come to you.”
“You should have told me!”
“I did tell you.” I wanted to grind my teeth. “Maybe you should have asked more questions,” I flung back at her.
“You had me so bowled over, all I could think about was you, how you made me feel, and how lucky I was.”
“What if you had known the truth? What if I’d said I had to break a few of your all-important rules to get here? What then?”
She didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.” Heart shattered, I charged for the door.
She ran after me and grabbed my arm. “Where are you going?”
I stared over her head, unable to meet her eyes for fear of what I might see—or what I wouldn’t see. The sweet, soft looks wouldn’t be there. I wouldn’t be able to bear the emptiness. “I don’t know,” I replied.
I shook off her hand. She’d said she couldn’t think—well, neither could I. I needed space. Maybe in aloneness I would find clarity. I strode to the exit.
“Aton—”
I slammed the door.