Page 147 of Tempted by Celestial Bodies

I pressed the incision to his lips and held it there for a long, pregnant moment. Like most humans after the invasion and near destruction of Earth, I didn’t believe in any higher power, but I found myself praying anyway.

His lips brushed my forearm. A hot, wet tongue licked at pooling blood, and heat coursed up my spine. I almost pulled away at the electric jolt that traveled from the top of my head toward my fingertips. Instead, I stayed frozen in place, staring at the Entari’s face.

Then his eyes opened, fixing me in a glowing red stare.

chaptertwo

eacus

Color.I couldtastecolor.

I took a deep drag, trying to drown myself in the incandescent taste on my tongue. The blood was metallic and earthy, but at the same time floral, the bottled sunshine taste of summer wine—the kind made from my family’s vineyards on the Entari homeworld. I wanted to get drunk on it.

The source of the taste twitched, and my hand shot up to hold it in place, my fingers wrapping around a slender wrist. An arm…

My eyes shot open, and thereshewas.

If her intoxicating blood flooding my mouth hadn’t been enough to convince me that the creature I fed from was a perfect match in a mate, then my first look at her face would’ve been all I needed.

Waves of dark brown hair fading to a startling purple near the ends framed a pale, round face. Her pink mouth hung open in shock, her eyes also wide. Even as distracted as I was by the strength of her blood filling my veins, awakening myxigia,her eyes caught my attention. One was brown, the same as the roots of her hair, while one was solid silver, whirring in completely separate movements from the rest of her expression, which seemed to be frozen in shock. A scar bisected the socket with the silver eye, running from cheekbone to brow.

Myxigiashuddered to life at the combined sight and taste of her, and a shuttered-out part of my mind opened. I took a mental step toward it as I latched my lips around her outstretched wrist and sucked. Her flavor exploded on my tongue once more, strengthening the warmth I felt growing in the newly discovered recesses of my psyche: the consciousness of my mate.

Suddenly her brows furrowed, and she wrenched her wrist out of my grasp.

A pained groan ripped its way from my lips at the loss, but it was drowned out by the fizzle of distress coursing through my mate’s newly established presence in my mind.

I sat up so suddenly that the female lurched back and nearly tumbled to the floor. I caught her though, my tail wrapping around her leg as my hands came to cup her face. Her lovely eyes widened in wonder, but she didn’t pull away. My wings flared out and came to wrap around us in a protective cocoon. I hadn’t yet identified what had caused her distress, but already my instincts drove me to shield her from whatever would seek to harm her.

A shining red glow lit the dark enclosure of my wings. The female’s eyes flickered to my chest, and she gasped. My markings glowed a deep crimson. While they had been black all my life, they would now glow every time I fed from my mate.

“You have awakened myxigia,” I murmured in awe.

“Your…” she started, only to trail off with a frown. “I understand you, but you aren’t speaking basic.”

I nodded. “Thexigiabonded us. Over time, we will not even need to speak to understand each other.” I hoped she would still speak to me even then. Her voice was lovely: smooth and melodic, lacking the rough rasp of my own.

She shook her head, and her already pale skin took on a ghostly tone. I knew aliens came in all different colors, and some could even shift hues at will, but this pallor didn’t seem natural to her. Perhaps I had taken too much of her blood, although the growing connection between us should strengthen her, helping replenish her supply.

Still, I flared my wings to let in more light and get a better look at her. The motion caused her to gasp, those perfect pink lips falling open. My gaze caught on them, but I refused to let myself be distracted from her wellbeing, studying her face carefully, discovering signs of distress in the furrows between her brows.

“Bonded?” she echoed.

I cocked my head. Perhaps her species were not blood drinkers—and perhaps she did not know the significance of such a feeding.

“When I drank your blood… that is how the Entari forge our mating bonds.”

Her eyes went round, the silver one whirring in circles so fast I was afraid she might be dizzy. The bitterness of panic bloomed on my tongue, a taste of what my mate felt as our psychic bond blossomed.

“Mating?But—but the database said you needed it for nourishment. You werehurt, and I was just trying to help you—” Her words came more rapidly, as if in mounting distress, but I hummed gently, stroking her cheeks with my thumbs, and pushing reassurance into the edges of my mind where she had taken up residence. She stiffened against the foreignness of my psychic touch for a moment, but then softened.

“Hurt?” I echoed. I hadn’t even taken a moment to think about how I had ended up here—whereverherewas. From the moment consciousness returned to me, all I could think of was my mate.

“I found you in an escape pod,” she explained, her words rushed for reasons I did not understand.

Images not from my memory passed through my mind—from her thoughts—a crashed ship, a stretcher carrying me to an empty medical bay. For now, they were just fragmented pictures.

“My ship encountered an unexpected asteroid field that knocked me off my trajectory while I was headed home from a diplomatic mission to the Intergalatic Federation,” I thought out loud as memory returned. “I didn’t have time to strap in safely before my escape pod launched. I must have hit my head.” My gaze refocused on her still-bewildered expression. “You saved my life.”

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