Page 13 of Shielded Heart

Samantha shifted on her feet, squeezing her thighs together as an entirely new sensation flooded her.

“Why?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“Because I know what it’s like to go through difficult times,” he said, his gaze slowly running up her arm until his eyes met hers. The yellow markings on his face pulsed and his voice grew huskier when he continued. “But don’t mistake me for a hero; I’ve not acted selflessly tonight.” He raised his other hand and ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. “You’re beautiful, Samantha, and I find myself eager to be in your company.”

* * *

Arcanthus watched Samantha walk away,unable to remove his eyes from her until she disappeared inside the housing complex. Part of him longed to continue following her even knowing he’d already pushed too far. His little terran was a delicate flower in an unforgiving city—at least outwardly. Somewhere inside her was a tristeel core that would bend but not break. She was awash in discouragement and despair, alone and lost, but she wasn’t yet defeated.

Her vulnerability, though distressing, could be made to work to Arc’s advantage. As much as he hated that fact, he knew it would not stop him. The time he’d spent with her this evening had only confirmed what he’d known the moment he’d first seen her face—Samantha Dawn Wilder washis.

He adjusted his robe as he turned away from the building, clenching his jaw against the ache in his groin. His cock had throbbed almost nonstop since he’d seen her emerge from her apartment earlier today; at one point as he’d followed her through the Undercity streets, he’d been forced to duck into an alleyway and tighten his under wrapping over his pelvis to ensure his shaft didn’t extrude. The delay had become doubly frustrating when he’d stepped out of the alley and was unable, for several harrowing seconds, to locate her in the crowd. To his relief, she’d walked out of a nearby shop shortly after, and he’d resumed shadowing her.

His heart had pounded at the thought of losing track of her, and panic had briefly set in, heating his skin. That panic—as silly as it seemed—had been nothing compared to what struck him when the tralix knocked her down. His flare of rage at seeing her harmed had only been overpowered by his fear for her safety. Arcanthus had never forced his way through a crowd so quickly.

As Arc walked away from her building, he glanced down at his metal hands. As sophisticated as they were—they relayed information on pressure, texture, temperature, and moisture to his brain with immense accuracy—they wouldneverreplace the experience of touching anything with his own flesh-and-blood fingertips. He’d yearned to touch her with his own hands as he’d helped her out of the crowd, but even the contact between her skin and his cybernetic limbs had amplified the electric hum she produced in hisqal.

Though he’d not even seen her body—her oversized clothing obfuscated her shape—everything about her called to him. It had taken one glimpse into her dark, expressive eyes for him to know what she was to him.

After a few minutes, he arrived at his hovercar. It unlocked at his touch. He climbed inside, closing the door behind him.

“Damn it,” he muttered, releasing a shaky breath. “She’s mymate.”

Saying it out loud only gave the word new weight; it hung around him, thickening the air, and settled heavily upon his chest.

Mate.

There was no other explanation for the way she made hisqalreact, no other explanation for why he’d just spent half his day following a stranger through an entire Undercity sector as she, with steadily increasing desperation, searched for employment.

Obsessed, Drakkal grumbled in the back of Arcanthus’s mind.

“Yes, because she’s mymate, you ornery fur ball. That’s how it works.”

He powered on the hovercar’s engines but didn’t take hold of the controls.

His interest in terrans had begun recently, when he’d met one for the first time—Abella. He’d made no effort to disguise his want of her; some of his forwardness had been to provoke her mate, a foul-tempered zenturi, but the terran female’s looks had been tempting. Even more appealing had been something less tangible; something about her personality, her spirit, had drawn him in, something he couldn’t describe apart from it beingterran. He’d thought about Abella often and had even come to envy her mate for having her.

And yet Abella hadn’t triggered a fraction of the response in Arcanthus that Samantha did.Nofemale had.

“Don’t be stupid, Arc,” he said in an exaggeratedly guttural voice as he accessed the plexus through the hovercar’s onboard computer system.

After double checking that his safeguards were in place to make his source untraceable, he called one of his guards—a cren named Kiloq.

“Yeah, boss?” asked Kiloq when the audio connected.

Arcanthus flipped through several files on the hovercar’s holographic display. “Sending you some information. I need you to come to this address and keep an eye on this female. Discreetly—she can’t know you’re around.”

“Sounds good. Is she trouble?”

“No, she’sintrouble. She caught the attention of some thugs from the Blue Threshers. Do what you must to ensure they don’t touch her again.” Sweeping his fingers closed, Arc compiled the files and sent them to Kiloq.

“Got them, boss.”

“Bring your brother with you. I want you to keep track of her whereabouts at all times, and make sure she’s safe while she’s out.” Arcanthus turned his head, glancing in the direction of Samantha’s building, which was out of sight a few streets away. There was little to distinguish it from the surrounding complexes—they were all big, bland, dirty buildings with hundreds of windows that looked out on the windows of neighboring units. This place was meant as a start, but these sectors were often rife with criminals targeting the unfortunate and desperate. “Should anything happen, make her safe and report directly to me.”

“We’ll keep her safe, boss.”

“I know. That’s why I’m putting you on this. Check in later.”

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