“The alien is here.”

I glanced up from my computer. “Thank you, Madeleine.”

She nodded and left. After my initial meeting with Dane, Madeleine had bounded into my office and demanded to know everything from what he looked like to what he said. I’d told her the information was confidential, and, when she’d continued to press me, I’d insisted rather snappishly she go back to her desk. She knew as well as I that, while the meeting may have been confidential to the public, she was exempt from such restrictions. That, in conjunction with my brusque tone, had led to her stalking around the office with a sour expression on her pretty face and little to say by way of socializing for the past few days.

Under normal circumstances, I would have apologized with pastries and a fresh scoop of gossip by now, but I didn’t care this time. My interaction with Dane had my insides twisted up in ways I’d never felt before, and I didn’t want to share that with anyone because I found it both embarrassing and exhilarating. Whatever those feelings were, they were my own, and I wanted them to remain that way.

I hadn’t been able to stop fantasizing about him for three days. The image of his toned, capable body hovering over mine came too readily to my mind, and the sound of his low voice purring huskily in my ear was almost like a memory even though it had never happened. Every time I thought back to our conversation and mused about how to approach him this time around, my thighs craved to feel his fingers and my core scorched. Alien or not, the man was sexy.

Getting to my feet, I snatched the same folder I’d brought with me last time from one of the piles on my desk and strode from my office. Madeleine barely looked at me as I breezed past her, but I didn’t bother to smile or make a brief comment either. Questions whirled in my head, a new one added to the mix with each step I took. Would he be willing to talk about the treaty this time? If he wasn’t, how was I going to get him to cooperate? Was it possible that he would never agree to a ceasefire and the extermination of the human race would be on my head? And why, oh why, was I so ridiculously attracted to him?

He was sitting in the same chair as last time when I entered the room, and he was staring at me with the same gaze that stripped me of all premise. Beneath those ghostly eyes, I felt naked, but this time I was titillated by the feeling rather than uncomfortable.

“Hello, Dane,” I greeted him cordially, keeping my tone light and friendly. As I closed the door behind me, I offered him a smile. He returned it with an inquisitive tilt of his head. I took no offense and moved to the chair opposite him, placing the folder on the table. “I hope you’ve been well for the last few days.”

“Quite,” he said. He sounded surprisingly stiff given his thoughtful expression.

“Good.” I yanked the seat back and sat down, scooting forward until my arms could rest comfortably on the table. Propping my elbows up and intertwining my fingers, I rested my chin on the tops of my hands and asked, “Have you given any thought to what we discussed last time?”

Dane moved very slightly. It would have been imperceptible if not for the rattling of his chains when he did. “Yes,” he replied softly, his voice slightly hoarse.

It was a simple response, but it was layered with meaning. I could hear through the silken arcs of the syllable that he was answering for more than thoughts about the treaty, and tingles of pink blossomed unbidden across my cheeks. I cursed myself internally for blushing so soon into our meeting. Thus far, I’d imagined myself to be doing a bang-up job at maintaining my composure. In one word, he’d taken all of it and crushed it into powder, leaving me flushed and warm like a shy schoolgirl with a crush.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. It sounded like my throat was full, my words round and a little garbled, and I cleared my throat to play it off as a physical glitch rather than an emotional one. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t tug my eyes from his, which were delving into me like they sought my deepest thoughts. My torso involuntarily bent forward millimeter by millimeter, closing the gap between our faces. From this short distance, I could smell him now, and the scent was intoxicating. It was woodsy and earthen, but it was also fresh and clean as snow.

A deep, guttural growl rolled from the back of his throat, predatory and animalistic. His eyes narrowed as he regarded his prey. Every inch of his body was statue-still down to the last colorless hair on his head. He was poised, ready to strike and lethal. We were close, so close, and his heady essence was pulling me ever closer…

My stomach pressed against the table’s edge, jarring me back to reality, and I jerked away. Dane didn’t flinch, but his expression changed noticeably to something unreadable. My breath came in short bursts. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding it. Trying to collect myself, I picked up the folder, tapped it on the tabletop a couple of times, and laid it back down again.

“Shall we?” I asked rather breathlessly.

He didn’t answer, but he gave me one short nod in response. I reciprocated with a nod of my own and flipped the folder open. Inside, there was a thin stack of papers and several vivid photographs. I slid the photographs to the side.

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. I looked up at him again. “I have to go get a pen.”

He was still looking at me with that same unreadable expression, but he said, “You do not need a pen.”

“I have to record what we—”

“You have to record nothing.” His tone was stern, and his gaze matched. “My demands are simple.”

Surprised, I sat back in my seat and rested my hands on the chair’s arms. “All right,” I said indulgently. “What are your demands?”

“You will release me. You will release my warriors into my custody. You will order your military to stop attacking and imprisoning A’li-uud.” He said each demand like he was ticking off a list and my eyebrows lifted higher every time he added a new one. “You will provide me one of your ships. You will allow us to locate and return all surviving members of our fleet to their crafts without risk of assault if the crafts are still intact. You will not inhibit our return to our planet—”

“Your intention is to retreat?” I asked, stunned and a bit smug at having interrupted him for a change.

His eyes narrowed again, but this time it was with dangerous disdain rather than lascivious hunger. “No,” he said in his clipped way. “My intention is to meet with the Council.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what—”

“The Council,” he continued, returning things to normal with his interjection, “is A’li-uud authority. They must be consulted if you wish the war to end by any other means than the annihilation of one side or the other.”

My hand itched for a pen to scribble down what he’d just told me. I was certain nobody knew of this Council. “I thought you were the leader, though. That’s what you told Sergeant Hawkins,” I said mildly accusatorily.

“I am the leader on this mission,” he clarified. “I am the only Elder who came to Earth, and I was only a warrior when I first arrived.”

“How did you become an Elder, then?” I asked, leaning forward and utterly intrigued.

“My brother was Elder when we made our journey from Albaterra to Earth. He made me Elder in his place when he returned home.”

“Why did he return?”

Dane looked at me with reservation on his handsome face. “He was injured,” he explained slowly. Then, speaking in a strained voice of reluctance, he added, “And he fell in love.”

My breath caught in my throat, and I gaped at him. “With—with a human? He fell in love on the mission?”

“Yes.” His chains clanked against the chair as he shifted his weight again, but he didn’t look away. I was quickly learning that A’li-uud were keen on eye contact, or at least Dane was. “He put many years of unwavering dedication into the Elderhood. He wanted to put that same amount of dedication into her.”

I was rendered speechless. It became known when our astronauts returned from the resource mission with knowledge of the A’li-uud that one of their crew had remained behind because she’d fallen for one of the aliens. However, I never would have fathomed one of those who incited war on our planet falling in love with a human he was supposed to kill. Frankly, I would have found it unbelievable if I’d heard it from the news or some of my co-workers. Coming from Dane, however, it was every bit as believable as my own name.

“That’s commendable,” I murmured.

“Perhaps,” he replied, suddenly cool. “But it leaves us with thousands of stranded warriors and no authority.”