Page 41 of You're Not My King!

I mean, if the shared experience of being kidnapped by aliens on a random Monday night didn’t bring folks closer, I had no clue what would.

I couldn’t say how long we sat there, but it was long enough for Beatrice’s mate todecide he was fed up with the separation and make his way over. From a distance, he’d looked unapproachable—a little scary, actually—but how he was with Beatrice made him into a completely different guy. The way he looked at her was adorable. Like she was giving him the entire world, his clawed hands curling protectively around her rounded belly while he nuzzled her forehead. If heart-eyes were a thing, this dude would have been a cartoon character.

I was happy for her, if only a little jealous.

“Sorry, hun, but I gotta disappear for a sec,” she said as she stood with her mate’s careful assistance. “TMI, but I need to pee for the hundredth time this morning. The little critter gives me no peace.”

I huffed a laugh. “No stress. We’ll be here.”

She smiled and threaded her fingers through her mate’s, who nodded respectfully to me before guiding her to the forest. It was heartwarming, and I tried not to imagine myself in her shoes, letting myself be unapologetically doted on by my own alien.

Minus the pregnant belly, of course.

“Are you mated?” I spoke without much thought, turning back to Johnny.

A splotchy blush rose on his cheeks as he steepled his fingers against his knee. “N-No,” he stammered, apparently startled by the question. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

He shrugged, dropping his gaze. “I’d like to be, but it turns out I’m not worthy.”

I was scowling before I even realized my face had changed. “Who told you that? Was it those A&R bastards? ’Cause they can go ahead and suck my?—”

“No, no,” he said quickly, eyes wide at my reaction, which, fair. “No one has stepped forward to claim me, just. So, my guess is that I’m either no good or I’m not an alien’s mate. I’ve even had a wander through most of the territories, and not a peep.”

I hummed, trying to think of something, anything, to offer. “Maybe they’re in a clan you haven’t visited yet?”

“Ly’zrd can sense their mates a hundred miles off. If there was someone out there for me, they would’ve felt the connection as soon as I arrived. Unless they were in love with someone else.”

The poor guy looked so disheartened, his droopy brown eyes filled with a mixture of blind hope and sadness, like he was desperate for someone to love him and was holding on to that possibility for dear life. My heart clenched, but I resisted the uncharacteristic urge to hug him.

“You really want it to happen?” I asked.

“Very much.”

“You can have my mate,” I joked, totally not equipped to deal with other people’s grievances—I could barely deal with my own. Johnny huffed a laugh, the sound flat, but I could tell it had cheered him up some. I nudged his shoulder playfully. “Don’t give up, dude. You never know what’ll happen. I didn’t expect to be abducted by aliens and sold to their king, but here I am.”

He laughed again, more genuine. “I just hope to Christ he’s not from the traitor tribe up north,” he said with a wince. “I’ve heard the chief is a twat to humans. No idea why. Most of the other clans harp on about how special our kind is to them, but that one… Yeah, major sketch vibes.”

I hadn’t learned anything about that clan yet. Or any of them, really—not properly—but I’d file that juicy detail away in my ‘ask Fiona’ box for later. I guessed that earning the moniker of ‘traitor tribe’ had to come with a pretty interesting backstory.

“But despite all that,” Johnny carried on, staring at nothing in particular as his lips spread into a lopsided grin. “I think this planet is pretty dead on. It’s my home, and it’d just be a bonus to have an alien take me as their mate.”

Silence fell between us, and Johnny got up to stir whatever was bubbling in the pot as I pondered. He wasn’t wrong. The planet itself was fine, and ignoring the fact I was technically a prisoner, I wasn’t badly treated. I was tied to a really sexy alien who knew how to use his dick, so staying made some sense—was logical, even—and I was a firm believer in working smarter, not harder. Making a home here would be a whole lot simpler than expending what little motivation I had left on getting back, and from the outside looking in, I probably seemed insane even considering it.

I mean, what kind of life was I so desperate to return to?

My family’s abandonment? The aftermath of an abusive ex? How fun. One of those problems had sorted itself out naturally, but I felt incomplete not having had the chance to fix the other.

I was still so sure that everything would have been fine if I had.

I sighed, glancing down at the little Cah-ka-rook-uh bug I hadn’t even realized I’d fished from my pocket. I felt a rush of warmth in my chest. I didn’t understand it and didn’t really want to, but it grounded me, soothed me, made everything outside my little bubble insignificant.

Maybe Johnny was right.

Maybe being here wasn’t so terrible, after all.

REUBEN

---