Page 30 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

They were warm under my palms, smooth except for faint ridges near the base. I gripped them, bracing myself, and his entire body went rigid.

The sound he made was nothing I'd heard from him before. Raw. Desperate. His hips slammed forward, burying himself to the knot, and his whole body shuddered as if he were coming apart.

"Mara–" His voice was wrecked. "Your hands… I can’t…”

His horns. I was touching his horns, and he was falling apart.

Good to know, I thought. Very good to know.

"Does it feel good?" I asked, and my voice came out steadier than I expected.

"Yes. Too good. I–" He shuddered again, his cock pulsing inside me. "If you keep touching them, I won't be able to–"

I tightened my grip.

He broke.

The knot swelled, locking us together, and he came with a roar that rolled through me like a struck drum. His whole body arched, his horns pressing into my palms, his cock flooding me with warmth. The sensation tipped me over the edge too – one final crest, the biggest yet, the world narrowing to a single point while my body clenched and clenched and refused to stop.

And then.

Something else.

It came through the scent-bond, I thought – through whatever chemical connection was building between us. A flash of emotion so intense it nearly drowned me.

Devotion. Not the word, the feeling. Pure and complete and terrifying in its totality. Devotion that had been building for three rotations, that had started with a trace of scent in a dataset and grown into something unshakeable. Devotion that had crossed the dark between stars to find me.

I was the centre of his universe. I had been the centre of his universe before he ever saw my face.

The flash faded, but the weight of it stayed. I lay beneath him, still locked together by the knot, and tried to remember how to breathe.

"Why me?"

The knot had gone down. We were lying on our sides, facing each other, his arm draped over my hip. My body was loose and satisfied, my breasts empty, my skin warm against his. The heat had broken, at least for now.

But I needed to know.

"You've said it before," I went on. "That you knew. That you found me in the data. But I don't understand how. I don't understand why that would – why I would matter, out of everyone."

His tail traced an idle line against my calf.

"The survey," he said. "Three rotations ago. A scout ship, passing your relay out in the dark."

"I know that part."

"The survey ships collect samples as they travel – gas, dust, the trace a place leaks into the black. We process the data looking for–" He searched for words. "Compatibility markers. Scent signatures that indicate a potential match for the serum."

"And you found mine."

"I found yours." His hand tightened on my hip, just slightly. "You have to understand – I have processed thousands of these surveys. Hundreds of thousands. In fifteen rotations of service, I have never found a match. Most analysts never do. The probability is–" The translator crackled. "Very low."

I waited.

"Your scent signature was in what your station had vented into the dark as the ship passed. A trace so faint it barely showed on the instruments." His eyes found mine. "I knew at once."

"How? How could you know from that?"

"Because my body knew." He said it simply, as if it were obvious. "The moment I processed that data, everything in me recognised you. Mate. Mine. The one I had been waiting for."