Page 11 of Mated to the Grumpy Alien

“I am Irick of the house of Reylira born on the northern continent of Perse, stolen from the moon Græpus by the Manx and transported to this planet against my will. And you, my be’lahshuk, were brought to me by the Tides themselves.”

I shiver at his words … because I seem to be doing that a lot. It’s partly his voice, deep, low, and intimate. But it’s also the way he says it. All those words I’ve never heard before, but he rattles them off like they’re supposed to make sense.

“I only know what like half those words mean,” I admit softly.

He scowls, giving a terse nod. “It is fine. I can be patient. You will learn.”

“Learn what?”

He stalks across the cave, his gaze never straying. “That you are mine.”

“Your what?” I demand, when he stops an arm’s length away.

“My love mate.”

Before I can protest, his hand lands on the back of my neck and the world once again goes black.

chapter

eight

Irick

“You sure she’s just asleep?” I ask Cyg, not bothering to subvocalize since my mate is still lying peacefully on the bed and there is no one else in the room with me. Initially, I had laid her on the bed on her back, covering her with blankets for warmth. At some point, she had curled on to her side, facing the wall, with the covers pulled up high and her hands tucked beneath her chin.

As peaceful as it is watching her sleep, I am eager for her to wake.

“Yes. As I have assured you once an hour for the past three.”

Sometimes, I think his bad attitude is getting out of hand. “Last time, when she was out so long, you assured me, it was because she was in shock.”

“I maintain that assessment. She had been on her own in the harsh cold for approximately four days before she found the village. That combined with the threats she encountered in the village undoubtedly contributed to her physical distress.”

“Stop reminding me,” I grumble, hating the reminder of how close I came to losing her. To never having her.

It is baffling to me how important this woman has become to me, even though I’ve only known of her existence for mere days. Only spoken to her in a language we can both understand once.

The idea that Torvin and those idiots in the village nearly killed her …

“You should not distress yourself. She will wake soon.”

“What?”

“Your blood pressure is rising. I was endeavoring to assure you that she is nearing the end of her REM cycle and will wake soon.”

“Right.” I bite out the word.

Yeah, I’m sure my blood pressure was rising. I don’t bother to tell Cyg that it wasn’t the thought of her sleeping that caused it, but rather the temptation to hike down the mountain and blast the village to rubble in retribution.

“However, as I will remind you, it was for the best that she was out when you installed her language processing implant.”

“Right,” I say again. Because I do know he’s right. When I was first captured by the Manx and they installed my own implant, it hurt like hell. It was much worse than the tiny twinge I felt when I’d installed the subvocal processor where Cyg was once stored before I’d been arrested back on Perse.

I’d known I was about to be arrested for hacking and that I would most likely end up on Græpus, so I’d installed a tiny AI sliver of my family’s Historian in my skull. The language processing implant was useful for talking to the locals, since it (mostly) automatically translated my thoughts to their language and thus I learned their primitive language almost instantly.

Cyg was much more elegant than that.

“Though she will wake shortly, might I suggest that in the future you avoid using that particular technique to stimulate her lynditsh nerve in an effort to calm her down? The technique seems … too effective on her.”