Page 35 of Roar Letter Word

“He suggested that I perform here. He said it might lift my spirits a little.”

Mahes nodded, then came around the table and sat. He leaned on the table, the cords of his muscles standing out like snakes in the grass. Addie felt a pulse in her pussy.

“Do you agree with him? Will that lift your spirits?”

Mahes was difficult to read despite being a shifter who could be rather extreme in their expressions of rage and arousal. His neutral expression seemed deceptive, but Addie wasn’t ready to call him out on it yet.

And she was legitimately excited about performing again. It had only been a week, but she had missed home desperately. Performing would be like bringing her home to the planet with the man she was starting to feel something other than simple lust for.

She landed forward on the table. “I do agree with him. I have really missed performing. It means a lot to me that you called Gerri like that. You’re very sweet.”

Addie reached out for his hand, and he took it. The indifferent look on his face disappeared a little, a spark of joy at her touch giving Addie an irrevocable sense of power. He nodded, then kissed her hand with velvet lips.

“As long as you think it is a good idea, then I am open to it,” he said.

He was coming around, and that was all Addie needed … for the time being, anyway.

SIXTEEN

MAHES

To say that Mahes was put off by Bruce’s presence was an understatement. He was a shifter who could pick up vibrations from the air like the fine-tuning of an instrument. It was interpretive, a lot like music.

It was similar to telepathy. Not quite, but within the same range. Some people, mostly humans, were better at keeping it shrouded. Like Addie, for example. She had the benefit of being his mate. That blinded him to a lot of her shortcomings and added symphony to the air of the melody, blocking her thoughts and feelings with the most success Mahes had ever known.

But Bruce was a different story. Men weren't as practiced at hiding their ill intentions. He wasn’t exactly dictating them into his ear, but his strokes were bold, neon, and bitter-flavored. He felt it the second he walked outside, spotting Addie with her arm outreached, touching the son of a bitch’s arm.

He knew she would see it all as plain old jealousy. A poisonous emotion as archaic as greed, gluttony, the whole gamut. Plus, expressing that emotion might push her even further away than he’d already felt she had been.

Then she told him about the concert. He wasn’t crazy about that either. His first thought was that it would break her heart to see no one show up, which would only drive her back to seeking stardom on Earth. But there was another thought as well worming inside his brain, one that was more inconvenient and highly un-sexy.

What if people actually did show up? What if she was a smash hit on the planet and blew up in popularity just as much as she had back home? That would mean accepting a reality that made Mahes furious beyond comprehension.

It made his primal need for her swell and feel exposed. It was a shifter's nature to feel possessive of his mate. He wanted her for himself and only himself. He didn’t want to share her with a stadium full of screaming people. The idea of her dancing and singing on stage in such a vulnerable state also made him sick. He hated the emotions surging through him like knives crawling along with skin. It made him feel ancient and rather controlling.

But the way her face lit up talking about it was enough to keep his mouth shut about it. It worried him when he imagined her performing with a venue packed with screaming shifters that she just may realize that she loved it more than she would ever love him. If she had come close to the realm of love, anyway.

He had been raised in a culture that told him that his mate would be devoted solely to him. He adored the idea, dressed it up, and romanticized it. He had seen it through the relationships of other royalty around the planet. He envied it even though he didn’t seek it. So the idea that he had finally found his mate but saw that she was already so madly in love with something else made him feel like a betrayed lover.

But he still couldn’t tell Addie any of that. She wasn’t a shifter, so she wouldn’t understand. He knew she would try to understand as much as she could, but only in a way that was practical and dense.

So Mahes let her go on about the concert, beaming with passion and zeal. He had seen a similar light in her eyes when they made love. He continuously brushed off comparisons, knowing the sneaky sense of malice they could brew, and told himself that it was her happiness that he wanted more than anything.

The king tried to get back to work on royalty-related matters, but he couldn’t find his focus. Otis announced to him that Bruce would be joining them for dinner, and he couldn’t help but grumble aloud.

Ruzyll was nearby, cleaning the guest room. He sauntered into the king’s office, leaving the door ajar.

“Not a fan of this Bruce fellow?” his chief of staff asked.

Mahes bristled, but then he realized how fruitless it was to lie to one of his own kind. Other than Addie, no one knew him better. He rose from his desk and moved around to the front to lean up against it. He brought his fingers to the edge of his nose, feeling the whisper of a thunderous headache coming on.

“I have my thoughts about him, yes. I don't think he's good for Addie. I sense some ulterior motives lurking.”

Mahes didn’t have to look up to know that Ruzyll had raised his eyebrows. Mahes continued without a single word from his trusted chief.

“I know, I know. It’s probably just jealousy distorting my thoughts. I have never had to deal with another man being around my mate. Especially someone she's known for years."

Mahes dropped his hands from his face to see Ruzyll tilt his head. His response wasn’t one that the king would have predicted.

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