Page 27 of Their Human to Entice

I’m about to grumble more about how little I am enjoying watching one of my mates try to woo a male who is not me when Nia gets upset at the lack of attention Kal is giving her.

“Is it me?” She asks more to herself than to Kal.

He does not catch how her shoulders slump when she asks because he is purposefully not looking at her. I see it, and it causes a flare of panic to roar to life underneath my scales.

She turns her eyes to Kal, narrowing them in what looks to be anger, before asking him directly. “Do you think I’m ugly, or is it because I probably can’t have kids that you won’t sleep with me?”

Kal cannot stop himself from looking down at Nia now. In fact, many of the brothers have heard her since she has grown loud with her words. Her sadness from her first question morphs into a kind of outrage that I might find amusing if she was not upset because my brothers are unwilling to bed her.

Kal opens his mouth to speak with her, but then his eyes look toward me. His expression is worried, confused, and a little scared. It does not help that I have pushed away from the table and am stalking toward where they are sitting.

“It is not that you are not beautiful,” Kal stumbles over his words as I near them. All eyes are on us now, and all conversations are silenced since this is the most entertaining thing happening in the tribe. Kal keeps talking, probably against his better judgment since he knows I am not eager to have another male speaking to my mate about her beauty. “I would be honored to share your bed, obviously. Many of us would be honored.”

“Then what’s the issue?” Nia asks. She glares at me when I stand on the opposite side of the table from where she sits next to Kal. She gives me a brief once-over with anger in her eyes before settling her gaze back on Kal, who is looking very much at me and not letting his eyes stray at all. “If you’d be honored, then why am I still not getting laid?”

“Getting laid?” I hear one of my brothers ask somewhere at another table.

“Lovemaking, my Ralleth.” Olivia’s voice is too loud, much like Ralleth’s, but I can hear the laugh in her voice as she watches all of this. Or maybe she is laughing at her male, not knowing what it means. It is for the best that she explained loudly, though. Human females have so many different ways of saying lovemaking, and we only know a few.

“You are not getting laid,” I stress the words as I sit myself in an empty chair. My hard gaze is focused on Nia even though she refuses to look at me. She refuses to give me the satisfaction of taking her attention away from a male she is pursuing. “Because you have yet to ask the right male.”

The room is silent as they all watch our conflict play out. Kal is trying very obviously not to look at Nia, and I can tell he wants to be away from the two of us. I have no intentions of doing anything to him since it is clear to me and everyone else that he was not trying to seduce my mate. In fact, he may have protected everyone else from her attempts at wooing by sitting and listening to her all morning. He should be considered a hero to the others since he is the only one who was ever in danger of upsetting me.

Nia’s jaw ticks back and forth before she finally whips her head to face me. Her tight curls bob around her face. Then, with a frustrated sigh, she pushes it all back. “What do you even mean?”

“Exactly what I said.” I shrug and lean back in my chair.

Lyath is sitting where I left him at the other table, and I only spare him a quick look to make sure he understands things are fine and I will not be starting a fight in the dining hall. He beams at me with a bright smile before returning his gaze to Nia. He is as excited for her to know the truth as I am because she might finally be with us in all the ways we wish.

“And who is the right male?” Nia throws her hands up in exasperation, and it is then that I notice the tears pricking her lower lashes and the slight quiver in her voice.

Oh, no, this is not how this was supposed to happen. She is a strong, stubborn female. I do not want her to break because none of my brothers have offered to bed her.

“Because no one will even pay me any attention, and I’m mated to someone who doesn’t want me. So who is the right male, Beren?” Her voice rises as she asks her question, and I can see her struggling to keep the tears at bay.

I lean forward, placing my elbows on the table. “Why do you assume I do not want you? I have mated you have I not?”

“You mated me so I wouldn’t be forced back to Earth,” Nia wipes at her face, keeping a stony expression even as we both know she is wiping away the evidence of her tears. “No one else wanted the broken female, right?”

“Broken?” I tilt my head to the side, trying to figure out what she could possibly mean by that.

I mean, obviously, she is not thinking clearly because she also thinks I only mated her so she would stay on our planet. I do not know why she suddenly thinks I am altruistic when I have made it abundantly clear I am greedy and possessive. Two traits that do not go well with a selfless male. It is the second part of her statement that hurts me the most, though. Why would she think she is broken when she most certainly has never seemed anything but whole to me?

“I might not be able to have young,” she says, her eyes narrowing on me like she thinks I am acting confused as a means to hurt her instead of genuinely not understanding her. “It’s why no one else wanted me, right?”

“I do not know why my brothers did not want you. I do not care why they did not want you because it only meant that I could have you. Why should I care if you can bear young or not? Lyath and I have known for years we were not meant to have young. You being my mate does not change that fact at all.”

“Wait,” Nia holds up her hand before rubbing her eyes with it like she is all of a sudden tired. I do not know how when it is still so early in the morning, but her nightmare last night did seem to be a terrible one. Maybe she struggled with sleep after we left her room. “So, wait, just—“ Nia looks back up at me, her tears gone and a new fight seeming to light in her eyes. It has a thrill running down my spine when I see it. Yes, this is the female I mated. “Why did you mate me?”

I cannot help the smile that tugs at my lips at my female finally starting to ask the correct questions. “I feel as though I have made it clear that I am a very selfish male. Selfish and greedy if I am being honest.” I lean across the table and snatch one of her hands in mine before she can pull it back to the safety of her side of the table. “I have wanted a female since I knew it might be possible. It is true I did not know what you looked like or who you were when I mated you, but the goddess would not have me mate someone I would not cherish and care for.”

Nia does not try to tug her hand away from me. She does not let her eyes leave mine. No she stays frozen for a moment with her mouth slightly agape as she takes in my words. I am sure there was a better way to say the things I have longed to say to her, but I am not a male used to saying sweet things. Sure, I say them to Lyath after I have been especially cruel to him, but he is the only one who hears my sweet words. Even then, he often makes fun of how unnatural they sound coming from me.

“You want me?” Nia finally asks.

“I do.”

“This whole time?”

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