Page 30 of Kameer's Mate
MANDY
I squirmin my seat at the dining room table, aware of Kameer’s unblinking gaze on me. Unlike humans, Darrvasons don’t seem to have a problem with staring, and the fact that my mate rarely blinks makes this habit of his all the more unsettling. Though I haven’t displeased him today, or at least I don’t believe I have, nerves keep flitting in my stomach and I can’t seem to sit still.
Will he always make me nervous?
Or will I eventually start to feel more at ease in his presence?
He refills my cup of water and nods at my plate. “Aren’t you hungry, pretty human?”
I pick up my utensil. “Of course. Famished.” My cheeks heat when I realize the double meaning of my response, and I quickly glance away, unable to hold his intense red gaze for another second.
We eat in silence for a few minutes, and I feign a particular interest in the Darrvason fleet, constantly staring out the viewscreen at the huge alien ships and smaller shuttlesthat move between them. The hyperdrive bubble appears more luminous than usual today, though since Kameer doesn’t seem alarmed by it, I’m not particularly worried.
He clears his throat, and I glance in his direction but don’t quite meet his eyes. We’ve been mated for four days now, but he still strikes me as a complete stranger. I don’t know a thing about him, other than that he’s an engineer and he’s in possession of great wealth.
I’m curious about his wealth, and I’m close to asking him why he’s so rich. But I remind myself that in order to maintain distance between us, to stall the formation of the heartbond, it’s better if I don’t learn anything about him at all. If I start to see him as a person…
Ugh. That sounds bad. Okay, I know he’s an individual, as real as any human, but I must allow him to remain a stranger to me, the brutal male who bought me, paid actual money to secure me as his mate. I must do whatever I can to keep my upper arms from tingling.
Sadness descends as I realize I must also stop finding solace in his arms. How strange that I never realized how lonely I was, how starved for affection, until he came into my life. But, lonely or not, I cannot belong to him forever.
I think about the first spanking he gave me and try to convince myself he’s cruel, only to remember how calmly yet authoritatively he’d scolded me before delivering the punishment. He hadn’t shouted at me or called me names, nor had he given me a cold silent treatment that lasted for days.
Most surprising of all, after spanking me, he’d held me in his arms and offered me comfort.
My throat burns at the memory of how shockingly intimate it felt to sit on his lap after he’d reddened my bottom. He'd stroked my hair and my back while murmuring to me in a gentle tone.
If I’m being honest, I’ve been expecting true cruelty from him, yet he hasn’t delivered. He’s shown me the opposite, and I’m not sure how to take it.
Will he ever be intentionally mean?
Will he ever be like… my father?
I swallow hard and wish I weren’t making the comparison, but I can’t help it. Though my father has never laid hands on me, he’s scared me plenty of times and made me feel completely rotten. Honestly, given his frequent fits of screaming, it’s a surprise morality officers only visited our quarters once, on the day they took me away and delivered me to Kameer.
“Are you all right, Mandy?” The concern in the Darrvason’s voice is enough to make my throat burn.
Fucking hell. Why can’t he just be mean?
Why can’t he make it easier to hate him?
I lift my chin. “I’m fine. Just thinking about how much I miss my family. That’s all.” It’s not a complete lie.
A hesitant look comes over him. “Would you like to see them soon?”
“Of course I would.” Well, maybe not my father, but I can’t exactly exclude him. He would take great offence, then my mother and Tasha would suffer for it.
“Perhaps I could arrange for you to see them soon.”
“I would like that. Thank you.” Does he mean it? I push away the surge of hopefulness, not wanting to later experience the crushing blow of disappointment. Even though I ought to embrace such a letdown. It would make holding Kameer at a distance a bit easier.
“I must confess,” he says in a thoughtful tone, “I envy you for your family. Do you have any grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins? Or just your parents and sister? I looked you up inJansonna’sdatabase and learned the identities of your parentsand sister, though I didn’t delve into any possible extended family.”
Oh, man. My spirits sink as I finally meet his gaze. It makes perfect sense that he envies me for my family. How many of his friends and family members perished during the Darrvason-Yelltzin war?
“Um, no grandparents. They died when I was younger. My mom was an only child, and my father had one brother, my uncle Tony, but he didn’t procreate, and he died during an uprising several years ago. He was a security officer and got ambushed by a group of rebels.” I don’t mention that it was during this time, in the midst of his grief over losing his only sibling, that my father became obsessed with the idea of marrying me and Tasha off to Founders. He looked down on rebels so much that he wanted to get as far away from them socially as possible, and only a few Founders have participated in rebel uprisings.
“I am sorry about your uncle,” Kameer says. “Were you close to him?”
