Stoan NaTakandey had been dreading this meeting since he watched Ty and his denya walk away. But it was inevitable. A man didn’t betray his mistress without consequences. He’d been summoned to her fortress and had no excuse to refuse the invitation. Not if he wished to continue living.

Commander Nina sat behind her desk. Few guests ever saw this space, and few of her retainers were invited here. This was where she did her work: planning her conquests, managing her territory, delegating her responsibilities. Stoan had sat on the bench opposite the desk exactly once, four years ago, when she hired him to do the jobs she couldn’t trust her normal operatives with.

She looked up from the computer pad she was working on when he took his seat. Her expression was grim and he knew this wouldn’t go well.

Then Nina did something unexpected.

She held up an old-fashioned metal key and placed it in front of him. “This was retrieved by your friend Tyral NaRaxos. One of General Droscus’s guard carried it.”

Stoan grabbed the key and studied it. It was brass and fit in the center of his palm, the teeth jagged and uniform. A twisting design in the metal made it look decorative rather than useful. But no one used metal keys anymore. “What is this?”

“I need you to find out. And I have someone I’d like you to meet. She’ll be assisting.” Nina looked up as someone entered the room behind him.

The hair on the back of Stoan’s neck stood up and his claws ached to spring out. His gut clenched, and he knew with absolute certainty that if he turned around his life would change forever. As if being controlled by puppet strings, his head turned, and he caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a human woman’s curvy figure.

Recognition tore through him, the universe realigning. Stoan’s mind revolted and his stomach churned. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not here, not now, not her. And even if his body recognized her as his denya, there was only one thought in his mind.

No!

This could not happen. Stoan wanted to shoot up from his chair and retreat until the memory of this woman, her very scent, was burned from his memory. The human was of average height, her blonde hair hanging in unstyled locks down over her shoulders. She wore no cosmetics, though her lips were a natural, biteable red. Her eyes shone a blue as bright as the oceans of his home planet of Beothea. But there was a dark bruise along the ridge of her cheekbone, a black eye nearly healed.

Stoan’s hand curled into a fist and his claws pricked the inside of his skin. Someone had hurt his denya. His heart pounded for blood.

No, not his.

He had set his path, he’d made his choice. This woman, this human, could never be his.

She raised her chin by the tiniest fraction and their eyes met. If Stoan hadn’t been sitting he would have staggered back. It was a punch to his gut, a knife burying itself deep inside his intestines and scrambling the life out of him. And on the heels of that pain, of that betrayal, desire surged. He came to life, his cock ready and his blood pounding, bidding him to take her, to claim her, to make her his.

No.

He was a civilized man, not a beast controlled by the ancient urges of his dying race. He clung to the thought as he forced himself to nod once and turn back to Nina.

Nina scrutinized him, her thick brows drawn together. She glanced back at the woman for a moment and then back to him. But if she saw anything in his response, in their interaction or lack thereof, she said nothing about it.

“This is Reina Draven,” said Nina, pointing to the space on the bench next to Stoan for the human to sit. “I believe you’ve met?”

They hadn’t. This connection would have bloomed then if they had. But her name pinged his memory. She was the friend of Dorsey Kwan, the human woman who had taken a Detyen to mate. The woman who had saved them all just by existing.

He had a message to give Reina, but not now. Not when Nina sat less than two meters away.

“No, ma’am,” said the human, her voice low and husky. It shot straight to his core and Stoan had already lifted his hand from its resting place on his knee, trying to reach for her before he realized what he was doing. He pulled back and leaned as far away as he could without giving insult.

The distance did nothing.

Nina raised her eyebrow at Reina’s denial, but she nodded towards him. “Stoan is an agent of mine. I require the assistance of both of you for a sensitive project.”

Stoan straightened. He didn’t trust Nina, and she spoke with a careful tone that let him know she planned to send them into this mission, whatever it was, woefully unprepared with sky-high expectations.

“What do you want?” Reina asked.

Stoan heard sorrow and exhaustion. His need to comfort dueled with his need to claim, both instincts at war with the deeper one buried in his heart and soul. He kept himself rigidly still, suppressing the thrumming need within. He could not help her, he could not save her.

Nina steepled her fingers and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her desk. “You’re going to help me take something that Droscus cares about. Just as he took something from you.”

***

Was this what a blaster shot felt like?

It resonated through the hollow core of her chest and around that strange, insistent buzzing that had been growing within her since she walked into the room. Since she set eyes on the attractive blue alien. Though alien was the wrong word, Reina supposed. Humans were just as alien as his species, whatever it was. There was nothing indigenous to Tarni.

Commander Nina’s office was huge, easily as big as a hintrot court, the type of field where a popular ball game was played. Ten men could lay head to toe down on the floor and still not reach from one wall to the next. Despite the size of the office, the alien, Stoan, she reminded herself, was huge. His broad shoulders commanded the space of the bench opposite the commander and if he stood, she feared that he’d dwarf her. She was no petite girl, but Stoan exuded masculinity and power with his every breath.

He wore a long sleeved light brown robe and loose fitting, dark pants. Peeking out from the collar of his robe were strange geometric markings dark against his skin. They were mostly square and nearly black like a tattoo.

Reina forced herself to look back at Nina. Just like he took something from you. She made it sound like she’d been deprived of an heirloom or her lunch. Not that the rival general had killed her husband and kidnapped her brother. Not that his men had beaten her bloody and nearly taken her as well.

And all for what? A few pretty rocks?

Oh, Lex, she thought for the hundredth time, why did you drag me into this?

Seating herself beside Stoan, Reina could feel the heat radiating off his body. It was strong enough that she could practically feel a wall of it between them. But instead of keeping her out, she was invited in, connected to him in a way she didn’t quite understand.

It had happened in that moment before their eyes met. The strangest feeling had come over her. It was like she knew him. Not in the sense of his thoughts, fears, likes, and desires. No, it was something deeper than that, something molecular.

And if Reina didn’t know how to suppress her desires, how to hold everything that mattered in, she feared that she might climb right on top of him and find out if his mouth tasted just as good as those kissable lips looked.

She was going crazy. This was a weird manifestation of grief for a man she felt little loss for. Lex had claimed that he’d always be by her side, but in their marriage, he’d been off on jobs half the time and every minute he was home might as well have been a battle.

Reina hadn’t expected the call from Commander Nina. Not when things were finally beginning to settle into something like normalcy. One week before Reina’s life had tumbled into chaos after she received news of her husband’s mysterious death.

Just before he’d been murdered he’d sent her a transmission with evidence that implicated General Droscus, a man who ruled a large portion of her home planet of Tarni, in a scheme to steal from Commander Nina, the other planetary power and ruler of Reina’s home territory. In an attempt to cover up the scheme, she and her brother had been attacked and her brother kidnapped.

After that, Nina had graciously offered to house Reina until things settled down. As far as prisons went, the fortress was very nice.

Reina had a hundred questions and more, but she’d been left alone with no one but a floor maiden who saw to her needs and refused to speak about anything important. Reina knew her brother was now safe, though still recovering from his injuries. She knew Dorsey and that alien of hers—that alien of hers who looked a lot like Stoan—were nowhere to be found.

“I’m just an accountant,” Reina told Nina. Before everything she would have never spoken so plainly, with so much confidence. But now it felt like there was nothing to lose. What was the point in couching her language when everything was falling apart?

“You’ll do this because I said so,” said Nina, her patience clearly exhausted. “Though I cannot say when you will be needed. Trust Stoan and anyone he tells you to. Go with him when he calls, and all of your problems will be dealt with.”

“And if I don’t?” It was suicide to take this tone, but Reina had already survived enough deaths. She was immune.

Strangely, Nina smiled, but the expression disappeared as quickly as it came. “For some reason, you caught the general’s eye. It wouldn’t do for you to end up in the Citadel without a protector.”

Ah, there was the threat. She should have known. There was never such a thing as a real choice.