Page 22 of Alien Healer’s Mate

“Delilah? Are you ready?” Kellat’s deep voice was softened by the door between them, but not by much. “The memorial is about to begin.”

“Coming!” she called back, patting her hair and then giving up on it. A messy bun would have to do; she didn’t have time to try and wrestle it into submission.

Before she hit the door release, she dropped to her knees. Leaning over, she looked into the shadows beneath the bunk.

Two small, glowing eyes looked back. The robot didn’t move, but its internal fans whirred softly.

“I have to go,” she whispered. “But I’m coming back. I promise.”

She reached out and brushed a finger along the warm metal of its back. The machine let out a tiny, mournful chirp that tugged right at her heartstrings. She lingered for a second, wanting to scoop it up and hide it in the folds of her skirts, but the thought of it getting stepped on in a crowd of giant alien warriors was enough to make her pull away.

Standing up, she smoothed the fabric over her hips and took a breath. She felt like an imposter, but she didn’t have a choice unless she wanted to head out in the joggers and hoody.

She hit the release.

The door slid open, and Kellat was standing there, his back to her as he checked something on his wrist-comm. He looked like a wall of leather and muscle, his silver braids hanging down his back against the leather of his jacket.

“I’m ready,” she said.

He turned and went completely still. His gaze started at her face and slid down slowly, over the curve of her neck, the dip of her waist, and the curve of her hips.

She felt the air leave her lungs. She’d spent her whole life being the funny one, the loud one, the one who filled the room with chatter so no one noticed she was barely holding it together. But under that look, she felt stripped bare.

His violet eyes darkened, the blue shading swirling into something heated and possessive. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t even seem to breathe. He just stared, his jaw tight as neither of them moved.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and hot, and for the first time since she’d woken up in that medical bay, she utterly forgot how to talk.

The cargo bay was cold as hell. They always were on this class of ship when the engines weren’t burning hot.

Kellat stood at the head of the fallen warrior’s pallet, his boots planted wide on the scored deck plating. The body in front of him had been carefully wrapped, the bindings crossed and recrossed in the same pattern that was worked into the leather shoulders of the uniforms the warriors in front of him wore.

A banner draped the torso, the D’Taak clan insignia stitched into the fabric in thread that caught the overhead lights in hard, bright lines.

Around him, the crew stood in silent rows. No one shuffled or coughed. The only sound was the faint hum of the atmospheric scrubbers and the creak of leather as males breathed. Warriors who had faced down the enemy without flinching stood with their gazes fixed on the floor. And every few seconds, one of them would slide a glance sideways… toward the small figure standing off to one side.

Delilah.

His fingers curled into fists at his sides. The gown had no business clinging to her like that, the iridescent fabric turning her into some ethereal creature too perfect for a cargo bay full of rough males. She looked like a Latharian noble-female. His noble-female. The primal male instinct to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her back to his quarters screamed in every cell he had.

He shifted his weight and the leather of his uniform jacket creaked, the sound too loud in the silence.

He needed to center himself. This was a handover ceremony, the final rite for a warrior who’d died with honor. He was here to speak the words, to offer the blessing that would send Daae D’Taak home to his birth-clan for his final journey to join the gods.

Instead, his gaze cut back to her. She was biting her lip, her blue eyes wide as they darted over the gathered warriors. She had no idea. No draanthing clue that the match program had matched her to him. That she was his.

He sucked in a breath, forcing the tension out of his shoulders. He clamped a lid on the possessive roar in his gut, shoving it deep into a dark corner of his mind.

Not yet.

She was still fragile, newly woken from a coma, and he didn’t know if the remapping her brain had managed while she was under was a permanent change, or if something could make it reverse itself. Something like a claim. He had no idea if hearing that she’d been matched would stabilize her or shatter her like glass. The shock of being matched to… to him could be too much.

His gaze drifted again. He couldn’t help it. The dress clung to every curve of her slight frame, tracing the narrow line of her waist and the soft swell of her hips. She looked edible. Fragile, but with a fire in her eyes that made his blood simmer.

Draanth, she’s perfect.

He wanted to crush her against him, to feel that heat of her skin beneath his palms. He turned back to the body, but not before he noticed one of the other warriors staring at her and not just looking at her because she was beautiful, or because they’d never seen females who looked like them before. No, this was the hungry look of an unmated male, a predator who had spotted prey.

He growled, the sound low enough to make the other warriors flinch.