Page 2 of Aria's Desire

Spar’s jaw dropped. Taking Aria completely off guard, she lunged forward and kissed her right on the fucking lips. Eyes going wide as saucers, Aria had time to squeak in a very un-badass way before Spar was gone, grinning at her from a couple of feet away.

“Ooh girl, if I was into chicks, I’d be chasing your ass with a vengeance!” Spar scanned her from head to toe, a considering look crossing her face as if actually thinking about doing just that, alarming the hell out of Aria, before she shook her head and muttered, “Nah, I’d miss penis too much, and you wouldn’t share, you greedy bitch. I mean, four? Really?”

Aria felt her face spasm at that. Catching it, Spar’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, you’re still in denial. Well, whatever. That’s brilliant! Make tiny guns for my army of winged octopuses. Octopi?” What she said seemed to sink in because she blinked and snickered. “Goddamn, our lives have gotten weird. Well, weirder.”

Spar was… eccentric, but she was also dependable, deadly, ruthlessly honest—even when social niceties dictated she shouldn’t be—and the single most unshakable person Aria had ever met. The woman had nerves of fucking steel.

Spar didn’t talk about her past often, and only in the vaguest terms, but Aria knew she’d been a spy before being abducted by aliens and crash-landing here, and suspected she’d done her share of wetwork for the agency. Living that kind of life required a strength of character, fortitude, and a certain amount of… mental fluidity. That Spar wasn’t batshit crazy was a testament to just how strong she was.

That wasn’t to say she was completely sane, either.

Fortunately, her questionable sanity made her one hell of an asset here on an alien slave planet. The woman could slip into any role with ease, playing the small, helpless victim to lure in her prey, or, as she had during their recent takeover of the neighboring aquatic arena, a visiting buyer looking to purchase male slaves to satisfy her sadistic appetites.

She and Rellik had saved their asses with that performance.

“Off to the fabricator room for me! You and the dragon man still heading out tonight?”

“Yep.”

“Sweet. You should have sex with him.”

Not giving Aria time to come up with a response to that unexpected and shockingly offhand statement, Spar strolled off, waving her hand in the air and signaling at least twenty octoflies to converge on her from their various hiding places.

Chapter 2

Shaking her head, Aria walked farther into the arena.

“Hey, friend!” called a peppy voice from a ways off.

Turning, Aria caught sight of a cute, redheaded woman riding a massive, alien wolf creature like it was a pony. A very slow-moving pony, who was all but walking on tiptoes in an effort to keep the ride smooth and bump-free. Returning Victoria’s wave, Aria smirked.

Ever since Vee told her mates she was pregnant, they’d become even more protective of the small, bubbly woman. Her pets—Tesha, the giant wolf beast, and Snitch, the shapeshifting squirrel-dragon—were worse, hovering around her constantly and carrying her whenever she’d let them.

She wasn’t even showing yet, her stomach still flat and the purple stain on her nose—the warning sign of pregnancy thanks to the clone body’s base genetic material—still faint. Aria couldn’t imagine how they’d all act once the small woman was waddling around with a massive belly.

At the thought, that yearning in her chest panged again, and, again, she shoved it down.

Aria had gotten her clone upgraded with Snitch’s ability to go invisible along with most everyone else but declined her friend and head medic, Lilac’s, offer to make it fertile, as so many others had.

Aside from being needed to lead attacks and incursions, Aria had a constant target on her back as the leader of this revolt. She couldn’t take the chance of bringing kids into that kind of danger.

Once she was finally past the houses and away from the people, Aria stopped and scanned the purplish golden sky. Almost immediately, she felt the weight of someone’s gaze on her. Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and honed in on the feeling.

She could almost always sense when someone was watching her, an instinct sharpened to a keen edge from being a gladiator for years, but for certain people, that knowing felt different. Instead of feeling threatening, the weight of their gazes was an unfurling in her stomach, an unclenching of a fist. Welcome, electric, warm.

That held true for her mates, Kix and Tirox, but they weren’t the only ones.

It was also true for Rellik and Thrasin.

Despite her best efforts to keep the males out of her mind, to smother her feelings for them, she had a constant awareness of them when they were near and felt their absences like an ache when they were gone.

Zeroing in, she opened her eyes in time to see Thrasin appear as if by magic, his massive dragon form flying above, suddenly visible and big enough to block the suns. As she’d known they would be, his white eyes were locked on her.

Unable to tear her gaze away, Aria watched as he landed gracefully and began to transform.

Pulse spiking, Aria stood rapt as she watched Sin, her Sin, appear.

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