Page 10 of Stolen By Her Alien Mate

I can’t fully explain this compulsion to go get my mate. The instant drive to find her and bring her back. The instant certainty that the name and image Cass pulled up is indeed my mate.

I just know. I know it in my bones. It feels right. The way it felt the first time I’d held my ion blade in my hand and felt it respond to my touch alone.

Some things feel right from the very first instant. This is one of those things.

But just like I know this unknown woman on a distant planet is destined to be mine, I know something else as well. Aislynn will never understand.

She’s sensible and practical, the least emotional of all of us, but also, she doesn’t want to understand. She doesn’t want to think about all she lost or remember who she was before that night when the Sovereignty raided the Telmarine Palace on Perse, where we—the youngest children of the clans—had been living in hiding since the coup.

Frack, maybe she truly doesn’t remember the girl she was back then.

The girl who’d been paired with her fated mate and then followed him around, desperate for every moment in his company. The girl who could hold light in the palm of her hand.

But I remember.

Now she is a warrior like the rest of us. She is as committed, if not more, than the rest of us to bringing down the Sovereignty.

She’s the toughest person I know. Tougher even than Draeden.

If I start talking about my gut feelings, she’ll probably punch me in the gut.

As if on cue, she stops me with a hand on my arm and says, “Kael, I know you. Neither of us were raised in the old ways. We don’t believe that nonsense about how the Tides of Be’lah have a plan for us all. Or that every moment of our lives is bringing us closer to our fated mate and our true destiny.”

I study her expression while carefully schooling my own.

She’s right, of course. We weren’t raised in the old ways. We grew up after the bloody coup that killed our families and shredded the fabric of our culture. And if you’d asked me yesterday, yeah, I would have said that the Tides could go frack themselves.

Still, I was older than she was when the coup happened. I remember the stories my father told me about the Tides, the Sullec Prophets, and his own Saliankas Ceremony where he met my mother. Nevermind the fact that my mother ended up being a selfish bitch who betrayed him. That’s besides the point.

Furthermore, I remember the countless ceremonies we were rushed through as children while we lived in hiding. I remember meeting girl after girl. I remember feeling nothing. Until her. Until Jaylerena.

Frack me, but I still remember it. After all these turns, I still remember the moment I first touched her, this tiny girl, barely older than Aislynn was at the time, with copper curls and the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen.

A lot of records were lost during the coup, so I don’t know for sure how old I was at the time, but I must have been around nine turns. I’d already met many girls. She was just another scrawny child. Another awkward encounter to get through before I could go back to sparring with Draeden. I barely even looked at her. Until I touched her.

The moment I cupped her jaw in my hands, everything inside me shifted. Touching Jaylerena sparked something inside that I’d buried deep until the moment today when I saw her image on the viz screen in C&C.

So I don’t say any of that shit aloud. I can’t say that to Aislynn because she doesn’t remember what it was like. She’s chosen to forget it. And, honestly, I can’t blame her.

Until today, I didn’t know what had happened to Jaylerena, but I knew there was a chance she might live.

It’s different for Aislynn. We all know that Caiside died. She and I were there together when he pulled that shuttle down onto himself blocking the passage. He died to save the rest of us.

He died and with him died her own fledgling powers.

For years, I would catch her holding her amulet in her palm, trying to make the sacred waters inside glow. They never did. They haven’t since that night.

Then one day, she took her amulet off, and I haven’t seen it since.

So yeah. Anything I could say about the Tides or my mate would only add insult to injury.

So instead, I use the one argument I know she can’t dismiss.

“Think about it. If she is my mate, then we’re a bonded pair. Think about what that would mean.”

Her eyes flash. “Do you want congratulations?”

“I don’t mean for me. I mean for the rebellion. Think about how today could have gone differently. If I was a healer, I wouldn’t be limping now. Our contact at the safe house would be alive.”