Page 10 of Needed in the Night
Maybe I could warn vulnerable applicants away somehow. A difficult prospect, given Nubo kept constant watch on the bar from his office and listened via devices around the bar. He likely eavesdropped via my earpiece too, though he had told me it only activated when we spoke to each other. I did not believethat at all. When it came to Nubo, it was most prudent to assume everything he said was a lie.
It was rather an open secret in Onat’ras that Zaa’ga was a way for Nubo to show legitimate income while the bulk of his fortune came from far less legal sources. He was just well-connected enough, and paid the right people, to operate in plain sight.
Other than citing how much money I made here, I would have been hard-pressed to explain why I stayed at Zaa’ga knowing the kind of person I worked for. Maybe I could have found bartending work elsewhere—if not in Onat’ras, in another resort city. But after so many years as a soldier, rarely knowing from one day to the next where I might lay my head, my desire to wander had all but vanished.
I busied myself behind the bar pouring drinks, mixing cocktails, and chatting with the regulars. At least I could count on their friendliness and generosity regardless of how many tourists wandered in and how freely they parted with their Alliance credits.
I had my back to the bar and my focus on uncorking a cask of Tocanian ale when an unmistakably human female voice came from behind me.
“Excuse me,” she said in Alliance Standard. “Who do I speak to about the audition?”
I glanced up from the cask and into the mirrored wall behind the shelves. The speaker was indeed a human female, with long blonde hair that shimmered in as many colors as a nebula and violet eyes that met mine in our reflection. Unlike the wealthy tourists who packed the streets of Onat’ras in their expensive and fashionable clothes, she wore a very plain long-sleeved jumpsuit, boots, and cross-body bag.
Human women often found my height, reptilian skin, and spines startling or even frightening, but her expression showed only polite inquisitiveness.
I had no time to wonder why that might be because in the next moment, her scent reached me—sweet, delicate, and light, like a single petal of a flower.
My world tilted ninety degrees.
My senses filled with peace, joy, and the comfort of home. Every thought and sensation that was not ofherdisappeared, swept away by a tidal wave of need, desire, and want. My body came alive and filled with warmth as if I felt the bliss and heat of sunshine for the first time.
In the mirror, her beautiful violet eyes held me in thrall.
Oh, all the gods above and below…I had to grab the counter with one hand to steady myself.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her eyes wide with concern. Her voice was the only sound I heard, as if the bar and everything in it had been muted somehow.
I tried to answer, but a dozen images flooded my mind: sleeping beside this woman…walking hand-in-hand with this woman…cooking and eating meals with this woman…this woman above me, her thighs astride my hips and her head thrown back in ecstasy. I heard her call my name in her release as clearly as I had heard anything else today. Blood rushed to my cocks and my head swam.
My mate. My true mate is here.
All Fortusians studied the science of our physiology in school. We understood our own genetics and biology almost as well as those who created us. Our ability to detect the proximity of a true mate—someone with whom we would not only be biologically compatible, but with whom we would resonate in every way—was one of the best and best-known aspects of our engineering. But after thirty-four years, thoughts of finding a true mate had receded until I seldom if ever considered the possibility I might experience such wonders.
Certainly no description of what this moment would feellike had prepared me for its arrival, or come close to doing it justice.
My chest heaving and my hearts thundering in my ears, I fought to regain my equilibrium. The last few moments felt like an eternity, as if I had already lived a lifetime with my mate in the handful of heartbeats between the moment I caught her scent and now.
Carefully, I relinquished my grip on the counter and cask of ale and turned.
“Are you all right?” she repeated, her expression now wary.
Her gaze swept over me in a quick, evaluating way that reminded me of a soldier’s trained assessment, though my instincts told me she had not been a soldier. Interesting.
“I…am fine,” I said, my voice rough.
I wasnotfine, though—I was floating. Untethered. A onetime soldier, more than two meters tall and nearly one hundred and twenty kilos, now as light as a cloud.
“Well.” The corners of her lips turned up. “You must not see many humans around here, judging by your reaction.”
I must look like I had been struck by lightning. Gods, what must she think of me?
“Mikas.” Nubo’s sharp voice cut through my euphoria like a scythe.
He was not speaking in my earpiece, however—my employer was lumbering our way from the direction of the hallway that led to his office.
Like most Forbian males, he was enormous, as tall and wide as a Gandarian mule-ox and just as graceless, with spiky white hair, a wide-set pair of bulbous eyes, and thick arms and legs. Today he wore a long caftan over trousers and had left his wide, thickly padded feet bare, as was customary for his species.
Nubo ignored me completely, his calculating gaze fixed on the human woman standing across the bar from me. Mystomach dropped, and anger and protectiveness made a low rumble grow in my chest.
