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Pel looked her up and down. “You’re onmytime, Kim. Don’t forget that.”
An ominous sensation of unease washed over her. Her father was a lot of things, but he raised her to stick up for herself and speak her mind. Insistent banging on the door interrupted what she was about to say.
Frowning, Pel opened the door.
Kimber did a double take as Ethan stood there, soaked.
Chapter Eight
Ethan
“CanIhelpyou?”
Ethan held back a surge of anger at the man in a strange white robe who clearly wanted to mate with Kimber. The scents of his heightened testosterone and potent sexual desire were bitter to Ethan’s senses.
Kimber’s discomfort was palpable. What had this man said or done to make her energy so chaotic? He was about to burst inside and stand between her and the man, but she grabbed him first.
“Ethan, you made it!” Lurching forward, she looped her arm through his and tugged him inside. “I didn’t think you were going to come. How about that sketchy drive up the hill in the mud, huh? You know, you could have mentioned that you were coming. We could have carpooled.”
Pressing himself protectively against her, Ethan put a hand behind her shoulder. Her tight smile relaxed slightly, as if she were happy that he was here. His endtax ached. This was becoming a habitual reaction when Kimber was around. Not wanting to take his eyes off the man, he replied while holding Pel’s gaze.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Oh, you did.”
Pel was the first to divert his gaze like the submissive underling he was. Shutting the front door with a hard fling, he didn’t hide his irritation. “I didn’t realize you’d been in Ireland long enough to make friends, Kimberly.”
The mocking undercurrent in Pel’s voice was almost Ethan’s last straw. The warrior inside him growled to be let out. If he weren’t in this flimsy human form… if he was himself… Pel wouldn’t be alive right now.
He reminded himself that he had to continue as a human. Looking at her, he arched a playful brow. “Kimberly? When did you change your name?”
Her lips tugged at the corners, but she didn’t let the smile bloom.
The sound of Pel clearing his throat bounced off the cold castle walls. “I’ll have Linda show you to your rooms. Once you’ve settled in, please join me in the dining room. You were late for the group meditation, sadly. But we can all gather for dinner.”
“I’ll be leaving after we conduct the interview,” Kimber said hurriedly. “I hope you can understand the importance of getting the interview done in a reasonable timeframe tonight, considering the weather.”
A crack of thunder pounded the sky as if to make a point.
Pel looked as if he might argue, but he smiled wryly. “Why not check out your rooms anyway, in case you’d like to rest before heading back to Dingle?”
A painfully thin woman appeared in a black dress with a white apron tied over the top. She looked like a maid from one of the old-fashioned films humans liked to watch. When he first arrived on this planet, he became obsessed with the black and white movies, learning a lot about human life from them.
If life mimicked the movies, Pel would be the villain who tried to steal the girl, and he was the hero who would get her in the end. Slipping her a gaze, Ethan resisted the urge to take her hand. He wanted to make it clear to Pel Cappa that she was off limits. Maybe he’d never be the hero, but the sense that Kimber was his was too potent to ignore. He couldn’t stop the feeling any more than he could stop his hearts from beating. The mating instinct was getting stronger all the time.
He had to be careful. One wrong move could jeopardize his place as Luxxor’s next king.
The back of his neck tingled. Glancing to his left, he spied the barest of a shadows flit past him and melt into the wall. A growl stuck in his throat. As if reading his mind, Neb the Scrubber had followed him here, always watching.
“What was that?”
Ethan paused. “What was what?”
“That shadow.”
Had she seen the Neb in his shadow form? “Probably a ghost.”
Her face paled. “Not funny, Ethan. Did you see it too?”
