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As the guards stomped past on the other side of the tree, my lips pulled back from my fangs in a silent snarl. Technically, Hyoo-mons didn’t have any rights because they weren’t legally considered sentient, so I’d be “stealing” the senator’s property. But these Tula had to know the Hyoo-mon was sentient, no matter what the law said, and yet they still kept her.
It was especially hypocritical considering the way the Grug had treated the Tula in the past. The gray aliens were a hive-mind species of vast intelligence that considered everyone else inferior. They’d also been the first in the seven sectors to achieve spaceflight, so they’d treated any other alien species like animals. A century ago, the Zaarn, Tula, and Sjisji had banded together to fight for our right to be considered sentient.
These lizard guards deserved to be punched, hard and repeatedly.
I’d have to settle for making them look incompetent.
The sounds of their passage faded, and a few minutes later, the tingling of my rulaa stopped. I took off, striding toward the compound. Now that I knew the guards weren’t in this immediate area, I could cover some distance without being as cautious.
Small flying lizards darted between the reva trees, chirping to each other. They leaped outward only to disappear into another of the balls of bright-green leaves. Something rustled through the undergrowth, stalking me from a few yards away. I caught a flash of purple—an oddity for this environment—but the animal wasn’t large enough to spike the alarm warning of my rulaa, so I ignored it.
Then a strange tingling crawled across my forehead and temples.What the frek?It wasn’t the same feeling as a warning, so what was it?
I stepped close to a tree trunk and froze, my ears straining.
Footsteps thumped toward me with the fast cadence of a two-legged being running.
I turned on the forward camera and edged my comp past the trunk. Movement in a blur of colors, tan and gold and brown.
The Hyoo-mon. It had to be.
I slid out from behind the tree, and she thumped into my chest. The impact didn’t move me—I was too much larger for that—but the entire universe nonetheless shifted under my feet.
My temples tingled like mad, and a buzzing noise came from behind me as the tip of my tail vibrated for the first time in my life.
The Hyoo-mon looked up at me with wide brown eyes set in a lovely tan face. She’d pulled her long hair into a tail, its dark-brown color touched with hints of gold and copper. She only came to my shoulder—all Hyoo-mons were short—and her breasts and hips were larger than those of a Zaarn female.
It did not matter. She was the loveliest creature in the universe.
My fated mate! My soul’s breath!
And she wasn’t safe. Not yet.
“Who’s following you?” I asked. “How many?”
Her smile dazzled me. “Sorry! All I’ve got is English with a smattering of Spanish swears.”
Frek! I’d gotten so used to being able to talk to the females we’d already rescued that I’d forgotten that the people on theDaredevilwere the only ones with translator chips programmed with the Hyoo-mon language.
Her hands flexed on my chest, fingertips digging in.
A jolt of desire shot through me, thickening my cock. I wanted to throw her to the jungle floor and take her right here, start the mating heat that would only be soothed by knotting her for hours and hours.
I jerked away from her. Not only would that be the stupidest thing I could do in the dangerous situation we were in, but also, she couldn’t understand my mating vow. The special wordshadto be said. She needed to understand them before I sealed the mating bond.
My tail didn’t want to listen to logic. It darted forward, reaching for her, the kron that had been blue my entire life now purple and vibrating.
“Oh. My. God. Is that a tail?” Instead of sounding horrified, she sounded delighted, which only made my kron vibrate harder as it stroked across her clothed shoulder.
She licked her lips, wetting them and making them an even more fascinating red.
I suppressed a groan.
“You, my man, are one gorgeous hunk of male flesh. Why couldn’t I have been bought by an alien like you instead of those lizards?” She touched me again, a lick of fire on my chest right over my heart. “I wouldn’t mind belonging toyou.”
Her words speared through me, and my cock gave an excited jump. I fought to keep my unruly body in check, but my tail escaped my control, sliding around her back, trying to pull her to me.
Something rustled the underbrush, jerking me back to my duty. I needed to get her to safety. Kirel’s mate Hay-Zul had made a translation program for written text. I pulled out my comp and typed,“I have an updated translator chip. I can understand everything you say.”
