Chapter Six
Trunk
The walk to the public transport is quiet this morning.
Ines keeps pace beside me, her tablet tucked under her arm, her dark curly hair pulled back from her beautiful face. There’s a distance between us that wasn’t there two days ago. She doesn’t stand as close and doesn’t look at me the same way, with that sparkle in her eye.
I keep replaying yesterday. The path back from employee housing and the way she stopped walking and turned to face me, her hazel eyes direct and unafraid.
Am I your mate?
The question hit like a blow to the chest. And the answer came out before I could soften it.No. We are not compatible.
I’d scented her and the answer was clear.
So why do I feel like this?
Enthralled with the sharpness of her questions. The way her mind works, always connecting pieces, always digging deeper. How she whispered “thank you” to the crystal in the mine like itcould hear her. The pout of her lips, the softness of her skin and the twirl of her curly hair. I want it in my claws.
I enjoy having this small human by my side. She’s easy to talk with and I feel myself telling her things I wouldn’t normally tell anyone.
When I inhaled her scent that first night at dinner, part of me had expected, even hoped, that she would be the one.
She wasn’t.
I can smell her right now, and I find something else. A scent of arousal floats in the air from Ines that started yesterday on the walk to employee housing and hasn’t faded. It is only there when I am near.
She’s attracted to me and probably wishes we could act on it.
But humans don’t work like Xylan. They pleasure mate. Casual encounters without bonds or commitments. She wants something I can’t give her, not without a claiming, and the scent says claiming isn’t possible between us.
“Roxy’s lab is on ground level?” she asks, breaking the silence.
“Yes. Near the science wing.”
Ines nods, her stylus already out, ready to take notes. Professional to her core.
I find myself noticing the curve of her breasts underneath her button up shirt. The way her green gloves grip her tablet. The sway of her hips as she walks.
I look away.
Not compatible, I remind myself.Focus.
We reach the public transport station and the platform is crowded with Minecorp employees heading to their shifts. Ines is telling me about a story she wrote years ago, something about a factory on New Earth that was dumping chemicals into the water supply. Her voice is animated, her hands gesturing as she describes tracking down witnesses who were afraid to talk.
“The hardest part was getting them to trust me,” she says. “They’d been burned before by reporters who were bought out by the companies and twisted their words. I had to?—”
The crowd surges and she stumbles slightly. Without thinking, she reaches back and takes my hand.
I freeze.
Her gloved fingers wrap around mine, tugging me forward through the press of bodies. She’s still talking, guiding me toward the transport doors like this is the most natural thing in the world.
No one takes my hand.
I’m unmated. I wear the green gloves of the unmated. The only reason anyone would clasp hands with me is for a compatibility test, and that’s done formally, deliberately, with witnesses. Not casually, in a crowd, while chatting about old journalism projects.
A group of miners nearby stare openly. I see the shock on their faces. The disapproval. This human female is holding my hand in public like we’re... like we’re...
