He sits on the edge of the bed with heavy lids and watches me work.
“You’re pretty good at that, you know?” He cocks a brow. “Don’t tell me I managed to save a huntress?”
I smirk and wave for him to lie back. A huntress? The thought makes me laugh. I don’t know how to tell him I’m a city-loving tattoo artist. Cities and tattoos probably aren’t even a thing on this planet.
He plops onto his bed with a thud, and I swear I can hear him snoring shortly after that.
After my dramatic rescue, throwing some of these weird little fish up to dry is the least I can do.
When I get about seven fish threaded on the line, I attempt to rip the cord to hang it up…but Kitaico made it look deceptively easy! No matter how hard I tug, I can’t get the line to snap like he did.
He must have had some knife or blade I didn’t know about.
I sneak over to the bed to see if he had set something down. I kneel beside him and check to see if he’s still sleeping.
His breath is even, and his eyes are shut. I don’t want to disturb the obviously tired alien, so I continue to snoop. When I stand, I catch the blue glint of something in his hand.
The silly guy must have been so tired he didn’t give it to me. I kneel on the bed and reach my fingers carefully over him to his far hand. I can’t make out the knife well. This half of the bed is shadowed in the darkness of the nook.
With my forefinger and thumb, I gently pinch the blade out of his hand.
The second my skin makes contact with what I assume was a knife, the hard nub opens like a petal. Before I can draw my hand back, it snaps shut over the meat of my palm, and pain courses through me.
Kitaico jerks and his hand grabs my wrist as he sits up like a bolt.
“Leeenuh, what are you doing?” He mutters, confused, before his hand tightens—his body goes ramrod straight as he flops back.
At this point, I realize it’s not a blade…it’s a barb and part of his body.
Stinging discomfort shoots up my arm as Kitaico writhes beside me. His face twisted in some rapture.
“Kitaico, what’s happening?” I yell, trying to tug my hand free.
His longer two head tentacles wrap around me, pulling my body flat against his. The air leaves my chest with the force of the movement. We’re face to face, our skin pressed up against each other, and his body is feverishly hot.
He grabs my other hand and forces our palms together. His hips grind, and I can feel his cock hardening.
No, no, no, no, no…
“Kitaico, this hurts,” I say meekly, my voice almost a whisper. My past traumas force me to be as quiet and as small as I can.
His eyes shoot open when I say his name again, and he releases me, pushing my body roughly into the far end of the bed.
The alien’s body pulses in waves of black and red. The chaotic display of color deepens my fear.
He looks at his palm, the barb retracting quickly into his skin as if it was never there. His eyes raise to me, his mouth agape.
“How did you—” he looks at his other palm, gently tracing a finger down it. “There’s no mark…”
I clutch my hand against my chest, the pain from his sting radiating all up my right side. There’s a red starburst mark around the wound, and it throbs torturously.
“Why would you do this?” His face is splashed with hurt.
“Me? I didn’t do anything!” I yelp, shaking my head, the stinging pain only deepening as the second tick by.
“You took my mating sting…but gave me nothing in return…” He looks at his palm once more. “Do you choose to reject me?”
His eyes don’t leave his hand.
“I don’t have a fucking stinger,” I tell him, tucking my injured hand under my armpit. I hold up the other palm and try to show him.
The alien takes my hand in his, prodding the flesh at the heel of my palm, looking for a bony barb that isn’t there.
“This can’t be.” He scowls.
“What can’t be?” I ask as fat tears run down my face. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to dull the pain now overtaking my whole body.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Kitaico asks gravely.
I shake my head. He lets out a painful-sounding breath.
“I have marked you as my mate…but you cannot reciprocate. You are my mate, but I am not yours.”
“I didn’t know, I was looking for a knife, I wanted to help!” The pain is making me ramble. I shake my head over and over again.
“I will belong to no one now.”
Kitaico is defeated as he stands. He grabs a square of woven cloth and dips it into one of the pools of water. He attempts to pass it to me, but I don’t take it.
