Page 16 of Owned By Two

I turned to Blor. “Well… I suppose this is it.”

He cupped my neck and shoulder in his powerful hand. He gently stroked the smooth skin of my cheek with his scaly fingers. “Yes. I wish it could have been for longer. Much longer.”

“So do I,” I wanted to say, but couldn’t bring myself to voice it.

I only then realized just how close to the edge the tears in my eyes were to cascading down my face. I had focused on thoughts of my father and our past as a way to ignore the emotions flowing through me like a crawling river.

“I…. I had a nice time,” I said weakly.

“I had an amazing time,” Blor said.

He smiled, but it too was broken with painful distracted emotions.

He thought for a moment before extending his large hand toward me in a motion that must have been as alien to him as his traditional form of greeting was to me. He glanced over at the assistant and I realized he had learned it from watching her perform it just a few moments earlier.

I smiled and shook my head. His eagerness to please me was the final straw. The first tears of a torrential downpour seeped from the corners of my eyes. I launched myself forward and wrapped my arms around him. He lowered one hand to the small of my back and stroked my hair with the other.

I felt warm and safe in his arms in a way I never had with the stranger that was my father.

I hugged him tighter and let the tears roll. I wasn’t sure why I was crying. I was only grateful I wasn’t weeping. Perhaps if I had been alone with him, without the assistant there in attendance, I might have done.

I straightened up. Blor wiped the tears from my cheeks. I was overcome with emotion once more at the thought that a creature so big and powerful as him could be so gentle with me.

He reached down and tore a corner of his robe off before handing it to me. A pitiful laugh escaped my lips and I used it to first wipe the tears from my eyes and then blow my nose.

“Thank you,” I said with a snotty nose. I must have looked a sight.

I turned toward the shuttle and knew that if I didn’t get on it now, I never would. Instead, I would head back inside the Seeding Facility and finish what I had come there to do…

And so I stomped toward the shuttle, up the ramp, and stopped at the entrance. I waved at Blor as the hatch door whirred into place, wiping him from view.

The shuttle immediately began to rise. I stumbled as I hastened toward one of the chairs. They were luxury armchairs that could be converted into flatbeds. I hastily snapped the restraints into place across my chest.

I peered out the window as the ground rushed away. My eyes were fixed firmly on Blor’s form, previously so big and imposing, as he shrank and became smaller and smaller until he was nothing but a tiny speck on an equally tiny speck of a planet as we raced into the heavens of the endless night.

I leaned back in my chair and let the memories of the past few hours wash over me.

They had been short — too short. I could have done with living them for a few more days yet but I was glad I had at least those few to cling to. I clutched them close and knew that so long as I lived, I would never lose sight of them.

Nor the alien mate attached to them.

8

BLOR

I didn’t head back insideuntil the shuttle had disappeared from sight, all the while hoping Lizzy would change her mind and we could be together again.

But it didn’t return. And I knew then I would never see her again.

The assistant waited patiently until my attention from the shuttle was broken. Then she smiled confidently at me and clasped her clipboard close to her chest. “Shall we continue with your Steyatt?”

I blinked in surprise. “Continue how?” I asked. “My mate has left.”

“The circumstances are… regrettable,” she agreed, “but they are not unsalvageable.”

I looked her over to see if she fully understood the significance of what had just happened. I had bonded with a female and now she had left me. Anything I did during Steyatt would be purely physical now. There would be no deep spiritual connection the likes of which I had shared with Lizzy.

But wasn’t that what I had come to the Seeding Facility for in the first place? To sate my Steyatt? I was never meant to bond with a female at the Facility, not during Steyatt week. I was only supposed to resolve the sexual frustration many alien males felt this time of year.

---