Page 67 of Maid for the Alien Prince

I raised her chin once more—it was a bad habit of hers to constantly look down like that. “Look at me.”

She didn’t.

“I said, look at me,” I said more forcefully.

She did, although it might have been out of surprise at my tone.

“You are my Muri. My fated mate. My perfect mate. Everything that happened to you in the past has made you who you are now. If I could take the pain instead, I would do so, and gladly. You are perfect for me. Do you understand? I don’t want another mate. I never want any other mate. I want only you. And if your hip flares up again, I will do everything in my power to help you. I don’t care how much it costs or how long it takes. You will have the very best care.”

“And if I end up in a wheelchair again?”

“Then I will be the one to push it. You will never have to go through any of this alone ever again.”

The tears streamed down Camila’s face. When I tasted her lips once more, they were somehow both sweet and salty at the same time.

I pulled her to me and massaged her hip where her scars were. She shut her eyes and enjoyed the relief I appeared to be giving her.

“Palace or no palace, fortune or no fortune, staff or no staff, so long as I have you by my side, I am the wealthiest man in the galaxy,” I said.

She let out a whimper and fell into me, just as I fell into her, our bodies joining once more and becoming one both physically and spiritually. She completed me and I would do everything in my power to complete her.

“I love you,” I said, giving each word the respect it deserved.

Camila looked up at me and repeated the same words, “I love you too.”

I thrust once more inside her, claiming her for my own once again, filling her with my seed, and joining us together on a deeper, more spiritual level than we ever had before.

9

CAMILA

I awoke with grainy eyes and a sore, dry throat. I rolled over and smacked my lips, working some saliva into my mouth that simply wasn’t there.

I grunted as I forced myself up into a sitting position, my muscles protesting with each movement.

I looked over at Rayaw, his massive blue scaly form beside me, his breath soaring in and out of his throat, deep asleep.

I shrugged my shoulders and leaned my head from one side to the other, working out the kinks from the previous day.

It had been a surprisingly difficult few days—not that the task was hard, but the exertion itself had proven more challenging than I expected.

I thrust the sheets aside, threw my legs over the bed’s edge and placed my feet on the floor. I rolled my hips as I had done my shoulders and performed the same routine I had every morning for the past five years.

Ever since the accident had claimed my ability to walk.

Each day began with the same ten-minute exercise regime to work out the kinks from lying prone in a single position all night. It was the stiffness more than anything that caused the problems.

The doctors and physiotherapists had shown me half a dozen movements to help stretch my bones, muscles, and ligaments.

I shut my eyes and took a deep, calming breath. Even just the trip downstairs to the kitchen to get a glass of water was something I needed to warm myself up for, otherwise I could wind up falling down the stairs flat on my face.

I was certain our efforts to recruit the former estate workers would be successful for the most part—there would always be those who decided they now had a better, cushier position and would no longer wish to return to the palace.

In leaving the palace, they had been shaken from their daily routine and seen the galaxy was a large and diverse place where they could change the course of their careers whenever they wished.

Sometimes, the things that seemed like disasters could turn out to be the best things that ever happened to us. It forced us to change our view of things and re-appraise our position in the world and the goals and dreams we had given up on long ago.

Every cloud really did have a silver lining. You just had to know where to look for it.

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