Page 57 of Married to the Alien Rogue

As they filed past, I finally noticed what he probably already had—the tails of every unmated male were blue and still. Not a single kron had activated for her.

“See.” Tark sidled up to me and dug an elbow into my ribs. “Told you.”

“This isn’t everyone.” There were hundreds—frek, there werethousands—of Zaarn sent to Roam. TheDaredevilonly held a fraction of them.

His elbow jabbed harder this time, and I winced. “Stop being such a stubborn frek,” he murmured.

I grunted.

Captain Wrin speared those of us remaining with his piercing gaze. “My ready room in ten.”

“We wanted to get Zo-Fee settled in,” Mol-Lee said, Hay-Zul nodding in agreement.

“It can wait,” Wrin said. “I want to hear about how she’s going to get us zurilium.”

“It’s okay,” Zo-Fee said to the other females. “I really want to talk about my ideas for zurilium, too.”

Numerous people still packed the light-blue hallway outside the shuttle bay, waiting for the elevator at the far end. We weren’t going anywhere for a few minutes at least.

Tark opened the door to his engineering workshop and grinned at Zo-Fee. “Want a look?”

“Yes!” She almost bounced with excitement.

I grunted and followed the two of them inside. Workbenches and racks of shelving filled the room, and equipment and machine parts covered every available surface. Tark pointed out various tools, and Zo-Fee made appreciative sounds and started asking questions using jargon I didn’t understand.

The pressure clogging my chest eased a little now that she had moved out of the immediate range of so many males. My friend might not have brought us in here for this reason, but I still felt grateful.

The mating pull drove me, urging me to finalize the mating bond. If my body had its way, I’d throw Zo-Fee to the cold metal floor and rut her here, knotting her and locking her to me for hours.

She deserved better than that. My mate deserved a comfortable bed and many, many orgasms before the final one. I wanted my tongue on her, my tail on her, my name on her lips…

“Raxnor!”

“What?” I snapped back to attention, the tone of Tark’s voice indicating he’d called my name a few times.

He pointed to the door. “The captain says the elevator’s free.”

Frek. I hadn’t heard Wrin either.

“Coming,” I said as Tark walked past me.

But a gentle hand stopped me, touching my arm. “Are you okay?” Zo-Fee looked up at me, and the concern in her eyes filled my chest with warmth.

“I—” My mouth snapped shut. I’d almost said I was fine, but it wasn’t true, and I’d promised my mate I’d stop hiding things. “It’s difficult to have so many males around you. It makes me… angry.”

Possessive.

Irrational.

“What can I do to help?”

Relief rushed through me at her offer. “If you could not touch any of them or let them touch you, it would help.”

“Keep my distance.” She nodded. “Got it.”

“Thank you. The fact that you would limit your actions for my comfort…” I squeezed her hand, trying to say all the things that tangled in my throat.

“You’ve been taking care of me for days now. I can do some things for you, too, you know.”

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