Page 60 of Her Alien Neighbor

“You mean to tell me,” he growls, his voice low and ominous, “you allowed your mate to learn our secret before you could make her your mate? And now she is just…just out there with this knowledge, and can do whatever she wants with it?”

“She will not. I trust her, Luka,” I vow. “She will not tell a soul what we are.”

“How can you be so sure?” he shouts. “Do you realize it is not just you that she could hurt if she tells even one person? It is all of us. Axil, I have a wife, children.” He huffs a breath. “This is why I keep my distance from you all. I must protect my family.”

“We are your family!” I roar. “You do not get to leave us behind. I know that is your wish, brother, but you cannot. We came to Earth together, knowing the risks. You are quite lucky to have found Harper,” I say, softening my tone. Harper is not the source of my anger, and I do not want it to appear that way. “You found your mate before the rest of us. That does not mean you can pretend we do not exist. We are all seeking the same thing: what you have. We cannot mingle among the humans and assume something like this will not occur.”

“Yeah,” he says, and I can tell he is nodding on the other end. “You are correct.”

“I know she is my mate, Luka. I do not need my eyes to turn in order to be certain,” I tell him, scratching the back of my neck nervously. “Is it possible they turned, and I was not aware of it? They did not feel itchy…”

“No,” Luka replies confidently. “Vanessa would have told you. Harper said it was more terrifying than seeing me in my natural state because she was worried I was sick or injured.”

Then I ask him a question I did not care to hear the answer to before now. “How did you know Harper was your mate? Was it the moment your eyes turned? Or did you know before?”

He sighs, and I can practically hear the smile forming on his face. “I knew it before they turned. Looking back, I think I knew it immediately. The moment I first saw her, I was drawn to her. It did not make sense at the time. I remember asking myself whythisfemale? I had bedded so many before her, and none of them captivated me the way Harper did.”

I cannot help but smile as well, hearing him speak of his wife, my sister-in-law. She is a lovely woman with a kind heart, and we saw the changes in Luka immediately. We knew she was different. “What else?” I ask, now desperate to hear every detail of their story despite being present during their courtship. I was happy for my brother, of course, but I did not pay close attention while it was happening.

“There was something about her scent…” he trails off. “Most human females smell divine, but when Harper’s scent hit me, I felt it in my blood, deep within my cells. It was this intense, primal reaction that had my feet moving in her direction before I realized I had started walking. It pulled me.”

It is as if Luka is reading my mind. I have felt the pull he describes.

“Everything that followed only strengthened that pull,” he continues. “Her fear scent made me want to turn an entire city to ash. Her arousal scent intoxicated me, and her pleasure became my reason for living. Making her come felt like…like I could slaughter the king of Sufoi and his entire army with only one hand. It was a powerful, all-consuming type of pride.”

“Did you stop caring about your own pleasure?”

“Yes,” he replies instantly. “My pleasure was secondary. She did not let it remain secondary, though, which made me love her even more.”

“I, um, I am not sure I fully understand what love is,” I confess as blood rushes to my cheeks in embarrassment. “I am familiar with the definition of the word, and all of us have spent hours and hours watching expressions of this love in movies and on TV with Lady Norton, but how do you know when you have it?”

“I do not wish to sound too much like a human, brother, but you just know.”

“So it is this pull, then? Is that what you are saying? The pull that tells me Vanessa is my mate––that is love?”

“Not precisely.”

“Then what? What am I supposed to feel? Because what I am feeling now could only be described as pure chaos. I feel sick, but it is a nervous, excited sickness, and it is constant. She is all I think about. All I care about. I want nothing more than to make her happy and keep her safe. When I cannot be by her side, it feels as if my organs are being twisted and yanked apart from the inside.”

“That,” he replies simply, “is love, but it is merely the beginning of love. The start is thrilling and unexpected, and you never know what will happen next.”

“Right, and I do not like it. I want to know what will happen next.”

“You cannot, brother. That is not how it works.”

I sigh as I hang my head in my hand. This is so confusing. How do the humans live this way?

Luka chuckles at my obvious distress. “The best part of love comes later.”

“Later?”

“Yeah. When you look at your mate, and not only see her as the center of your world, but a partner to take on the world with. A friend. That is love, and it is the only kind of love that will last.”

His words make sense. We only see Luka and Harper once a year, but when we are in their company, it is clear they have that kind of love. A love that is also a friendship. “I envy you.”

“Why?” he says, sounding surprised. “It sounds as if you have found what I have.”

“I have not yet moved beyond the nervous, excited sickness, I am afraid.”

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