Page 43 of Roar Letter Word

She looked around some more, not seeing the shifter, but Bruce came walking toward her with two men following him. She could tell right away they were from Nova Aurora just from their size.

She wondered who they were but gave it little thought in her fatigue. She put a smile on and looked at Bruce. “Have you seen Mahes?”

He shook his head. “No, but this is Zorrtan and Iasia. They wanted to talk to you.”

She looked past him at the men. They gave her a smile, and she tried to force one of her own, but she could hardly focus.

She was worried about Mahes. She felt bad about how she left things with him.

“We are here to talk to you about doing more performances here. A whole tour on Nova Aurora.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Oh?”

Iasia, the shorter, younger male, nodded.

“Yes,” Zorrtan said. “We know how talented you are. We figured that you would certainly be popular on Nova, but tonight proved it. The crowd went wild out there.”

She looked at Bruce and then back at the men. As flattering as it all sounded, she wasn’t in the right headspace to take anything in.

“We wanted to discuss a tour with you. We know you probably have a lot of questions, but we can sit and discuss them now. We want to get this locked in as soon as we can.”

She swallowed and put on the best smile she could. “I don’t talk business right after a concert. If you don’t mind just giving Bruce a number to contact you with, I would be more than willing to get back to you when I’ve had some time to rest. Mentally, it’s just a bad time for a meeting right now.”

She moved to pass them, but the guy grabbed her arm. “Yeah, you see, that isn’t going to work for us.”

She looked at him confused, but his hand came up, shoving a rag over her mouth, and everything went black.

TWENTY

MAHES

Mahes sat in Addie’s dressing room and watched the entire performance on a big-screen TV. He couldn’t have been in the crowd, not as the King of Tellahn. She probably wouldn’t have liked seeing his face throughout the show anyway. She was rather adamant about him staying away until the show had come to a close. Plus, the confusion and anger about the mating mark really had her rattled.

Because of his feelings for her, he had wanted to see her do the one thing she loved as much as she loved him … seemingly anyway. The words had poured out of her mouth in anguish the night before, standing naked in the bathroom with the water running on high. The look on her face after saying it was like she had been struck in the chest with an arrow.

It was beautiful. But then came the mark when they were making love. He should have told her about it more clearly beforehand. He knew that as he watched her singing and dancing in front of his people.

Her voice was captivating, as were her dance moves and the way she interacted with the crowd, all of it. It was obvious she had been doing it for long enough to not feel intimidated by a crowd of literal aliens.

The king’s body and mind were flooded with contradictory emotions and thoughts as he watched his beloved strum a guitar and run up and down the stage with a thousand-plus eyes on her. He heard them cheering for her, the ground a constant rumble of feet and avid screams.

One of his most rampant emotions was, of course, brimming anger. He hadn’t trusted Bruce since the moment he’d met him, but Addie had put him in his place about it. He was literally hired to do exactly what he was doing. But it was his methods that rubbed the king the wrong way.

When he arrived at the venue, taking the secret entryway back door inside, he had been greeted by the slithering snake. He wore a suit, and the king could tell just from the gleam of the fabric that it was one of Nova Auroran silk.

He bristled at the sight of it.

“Addie wants you to wait in her dressing room for her so you can talk after the show,” Bruce said, the dome of his head looking like a polished ball under the backroom lights. “I have to talk to her first, then she will meet you.”

Mahes knew that Bruce was getting off on talking to him … royalty … like he was a simple commoner. But Mahes kept his cool, grunting as he pushed past the man he thought of as scum on his boot.

He’d gone straight to the dressing room, which was decorated with succulents and flowers, as well as a slew of congratulatory cards. Small bulbs the color of roses rimmed the mirror where he presumed she had applied her makeup, giving herself one final push of confidence. It made his heart sink, wishing he could have been there to fill her ego. He also felt rather silly that he hadn't thought to bring her any gifts of his own.

Sitting in the back room, he found out that Bruce had been advertising her as“King Mahes’s Mate.”He cracked his jaw and knuckles, knowing that Addie would have been mortified by that, likely feeling that the attention would have been disingenuous.

But from the king's seat, it didn’t look disingenuous at all. She looked like a woman with passion bursting out of every pore of her skin. Nova Aurorans weren't clueless about music. There was a rather rich history that he hadn’t had the chance to explore with her. A week truly wasn’t enough time to share the bountiful grandeur and complexities of his planet.

The new emotion coursing through Mahes at the speed of a runaway train was true fear. Watching Addie jump around, sing, dance, smile, and play for the audience was greatly entrancing, but it also made her vulnerable. He knew she must know about the vulnerability within her world that came with a price. Obsessed fans, others who stalked her to catch a glimpse of her without a bra on taking out the trash, absolute strangers thinking she owed them something because of her worldwide fame. She knew all that, but on Nova Aurora, it was different.

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