Page 4 of Captured By the Alien

He shook his head.

“If only it were that simple, human. No. I am not ill. I’m suffering fromteshekalehsh.”

Her lips moved as she repeated the unfamiliar word to herself. The engineered microbes in her temporal lobe should have translated it automatically but either she or they were struggling with the meaning.

“Teshekalehsh… some kind of… withdrawal effect? Is that right? Withdrawal to what?”

A rueful smile tugged at his mouth.

“To you, mykalehsha.”

“Me?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You’re suffering withdrawal symptoms because we’re not together?”

“We have been apart for a week, Kara. For true mates even a short separation has a physical impact, especially in the first year of the relationship. But perhaps not so much for you. After all, you are human.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. It had never occurred to her there might be a biological reason for her insomnia.

She’d thought she was just pining for him like a love-sick puppy. But if there was a physiological explanation for her yearning, then at least she wasn’t being an idiot.

Not atotalidiot, anyway.

Not that she was going to share any of this with him. She raised her chin.

“You’re talking bollocks. I haven’t been sleeping because I’ve been kidnapped and locked up by a giant blue asshole.”

“You haven’t been sleeping?” He cocked his head. “So youaresufferingteshekalehsh?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be suffering withdrawal from someone I hate?”

His lips quirked up at the corner.

“You hate me?”

“I loathe you.”

“I do not believe you.”

“AndIdon’t believe in all that fated mates crap.”

He sighed.

“I had hoped that our time together would have changed your mind. That our sexual compatibility would have convinced you we were destined to be together.”

Her cheeks warmed.Sexual compatibility.Such a clinical way of describing what they’d shared.

She’d never in her wildest dreams experienced the kind of earth-shattering sex she’d had with him. Those months they’d spent together on Minerva-6 had been the best of her life.

“Being good in the sack doesn’t make me yourkalehsha,” she said scathingly. “It’s just biology.”

“So you keep insisting. Nevertheless, among Vraxians it is well-known that not being able to touch their mate for prolonged periods, particularly in the first flush ofkalehsh,produces unwelcome side-effects. That, too, is biology.”

“Seems a bit cruel. What if one mate decides to skip town? Or has a fatal accident?”

“As I said, it ebbs with time. But for us,teshekalehshis very much an issue.”

“And I expect the cure is a roll in the hay?” She raised a brow. “Is that what you came here for? A shag? Because strangely, I’m not in the mood.”

His locked his yellow eyes onto hers.

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