Page 6 of The Hornet’s Hucow Pet

Brilliant, blinding violet flashes across my vision: the scintillating colors of a Lepidopteroid flying across a beam of sun, their butterfly-like wings sending light scattering.

It’s beautiful. I wish I could properly appreciate it instead of shifting uncomfortably, trying to ease the stabbing pain in my hip.

“Nova?”

I startle at the sound of my name in a deep, even voice, especially since the syllables are recognizable—if accented—even without the activation of my neural implant.

I turn and find an Arthropoid looking at me.

My body goes still. He’s as stunning as the butterfly, but for an entirely different reason.

He may be the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

Shoulder-length black hair frames angular features, full lips, and soulful monolid eyes. The sharp angle of his clean-shaven jaw does something to my brain, and the effect is only enhanced by his broad, muscled shoulders narrowing to a slender waist.

Stark blackwork tattoos decorate his arms, shoulders, and upper chest, fading through a honeycomb pattern to open skin at his wrists and neck. The design echoes the graphic ochre and black of his hornet-like abdomen. Slender wings rest against his side, tinting the light amber as it filters through. He has six legs, each with a segmented foot that ends in two crescent-shaped claws.

There’s a cold, intimidating edge to his aura.

I should say something, stand, at least nod.

But I’m frozen.

The intensity of his gaze holds me in place⁠—

A gaze that brims with hunger.

CHAPTER 3

ZYREN

It has to be her.

There are no other pale humans with blonde hair in the plaza—there are no other humans at all.

She turned when I called her name.

Sylvus taught it to me, the human syllables strange and flat on my tongue. He said it would help put her at ease.

She does not appear to be at ease.

Nova is tense, wary—like a startled prey animal debating whether to flee.

I can’t blame her. A wave of instinct sweeps over me. I want to sink my teeth into her neck, my stinger into her flesh. I want my venom to drain away all thought of resistance, and I want to make her mine.

Waves of instinct like this are foreign to me.

I’m a doctor, for fuck’s sake.

Something about the intensity behind her azure eyes grabs me. There’s a strange sense of weightlessness to her—a distance between her soul and her body—as if her pale features mark her as a ghost, a creature that doesn’t entirely reside on this plane.

It would be for the better if this were somehow another human, one I can simply walk away from and try to forget, and not the human I’ve been sent here to collect by an old friend cashing in a debt.

System by system, I force my body to relax. My weight sinks back into my legs. My wings cease their vibrating. My shoulder blades slide down my spine. I take a deep breath.

“Nova,” I repeat. “Sylvus sent me here to fetch you. My name is Zyren.” I settle into the habitual, professional tone that my friends call cold. It’s the best that can be done, given the circumstances.

She blinks, as if remembering herself. “Nice to meet you.” Nova shuffles back from the edge of the platform, jaw tensing—a common tell for pain, even among those trained to hide it.