He guides Leeenuh to a chair before shoving me into one facing hers.
The guard, blessedly, sits as far on the other side of the small cabin as he can.
“Kitaico,” Leeenuh whispers, drawing my attention back to her, “is everything still going to be okay? I mean, I guess we don’t need to worry about the exile now… but seeing you in cuffs has me worried.”
She furrows her brow as I shift uncomfortably in my seat. My arms are behind my back, the position not allowing me to sit naturally.
“Trust me and try to let me handle things from now on.” I know it has to be hard for her to contain her conversation. She’s not been understood for so long.
“I…I’m just being honest. I don’t think honesty can hurt us in this situation, can it? Are you mad at me?” she asks softly.
“No, sweet Leeenuh, you deserve to speak the truth…I just don’t want to be separated from you. We need to explain—” I look at the guard, who's now engrossed in something on his datapad, and lower my voice. “Your mark.”
“I mean, it happened. It was an accident, but I’m not upset that it did. My experiences with other species in space haven’t been good.” She rubs the mark through the makeshift bandage. My blood pressure spikes, thinking of anyone being cruel to the female across from me. How anyone could fathom doing anything but cherishing her is a mystery to me.
She is divine.
“But you, you are the exception. At first, I wasn’t sure if I could see myself”—she mouths the word mated before continuing—“to an alien stranger…but I know you now. I know that you’ll care for me no matter what and that your lack of a mark means nothing. We belong together. I fought it at first, thinking it was a, er, chemical response. But it’s deeper than that, Kitaico. I think this thing between us could work.” Her eyes are wet as she talks.
“Do you mean it, Leeenuh?” Hope wells in my chest. Could someone as wonderful as Leeenuh be who I’ve been fated for?
“It’s Lena,” she says with a chuckle.
Lena.
I’ve been saying her name wrong this whole time?
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring dishonor to your name by pronouncing it wrong. Forgive me!” I drop my chin to my chest, embarrassed. How could I have not noticed?
She leans forward, using her index finger to tilt my jaw back up to hers.
“I like my name, anyway you say it. We’re in this together, right?”
“Always.”
I close my eyes as she presses her lips to mine. The heat of her body lets me momentarily forget myself. I moan into her mouth, searching it with my tongue.
Lena pulls away, and I hear a heavy foot thump on the floor.
“Enough, you disgrace the Proving, hopeful. Sleep now, before you shame your family name any further.”
My eyes shoot open just in time to see the guard coming my way, tranquilizer gun in hand.
The guard pushes me back down into my seat.
“Stay put, female, he’s fine,” he says gruffly.
“Fine? He’s fucking unconscious!” I yell back at him.
How in the hell am I supposed to let Kitaico handle all the talking while he’s slumped forward in his seat?
This whole situation is fucked, but I’ve never let anyone push me around on Earth and I won’t start now.
“Hey, noodle head!” I yell at the guard, who was returning to his seat.
He stops dead in his tracks. A sigh escapes his alien lips before he turns around. “Female, sit down and—”
I cut him off, throwing a pillow from the chair at his head. The soft square hits him right between the eyes with a dull thud. With yet another sigh, the guard turns and aims the tranquilizer gun he used on Kitaico straight at me.
“What the actual fuck, are you going to shoot—”
When I wake, I’m in what looks like a space-age prison cell. The bars are made of some orange laser light. I have a feeling that if I touch them, I’d get burned. I’m sitting on a cot and slumped against the wall. My shoulder stings when I rouse.
“Are you okay?” Kitaico’s worried voice asks.
“Kitaico?” I scan the room, looking for my mate.
He’s not too many cells down. He’s sitting on his knees, looking directly at me when I find him.
“What are they going to do with us?” I ask, knowing that I probably should have kept my cool better than I did in the pod.
“I assume they’ll want to question you, confirm you’re not a spy…and then question me about, well, us,” he mumbles.
“Will they try to separate us?”
