The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven

Chapter Ten

Crystal’s breathing went tight and she automatically took a step away from Cruxan when she sensed his anger.

Her gaze flitted to the ground, though she watched him carefully from the corner of her eye. Crystal could see anger like words on a page in a book. Clearly. Black against white.

Cruxan’s gaze cut to her. She felt her shoulder come up, just slightly. She hated it. Hated that it was her automatic reaction, as if her shoulder could shield her entire body.

What she hated more was that years after she’d left Leo, she still did it. Just another souvenir he’d left forever imprinted on her mind. An instinct, a reaction, formed only by that dark period in her life.

“What is wrong, female?” he asked, that deep, husky voice caressing her skin. She didn’t want to think his voice was nice. She didn’t want to react to it the way she did. But it couldn’t be helped. He had a nice voice. Then again, so had Leo.

Crystal had to force herself to face him, had to force herself to look him in the eye. She didn’t want to backslide. She’d been doing so well…at least until her abduction.

She wasn’t the same person she’d been then. She’d been a girl. She was a woman now, who’d built up a life in a new city, who’d made friends, who’d made plans for her future, for a career. She wasn’t that young naive, foolish girl anymore, scared and frightened all the time.

“Nothing,” she said, though her voice sounded strained. She deliberately relaxed her tensed muscles and asked, “What do you see?”

“Come,” was all he said, still studying her in a way that made her feel exposed.

It didn’t take them long to reach the black sand of the desert. Crystal eyed it with distaste, remembering the gritty sensation in her mouth when she’d fallen in it yesterday, trying to escape from that male. Looking at the scene in front of her now, she could see nothing but sand. The forest was the only landmark in that desert, though she spied a mountain range just behind it.

“Bastard,” Cruxan growled, eyeing the sandcraft that they approached.

Wait.

“That’s his,” Crystal said, brows furrowing as she whirled to look back at the forest. “But that means they’re still here! Erin must be close.”

“Nix, female,” Cruxan said, his tone gentling. She looked over at him. “I brought a hovercraft when I tracked you. I had it here. He took it and left his.”

Dread and disbelief churned in her belly. Her eyes went back to the horizon, as if she could see them in the distance.

Erin.

“But…but we have to find her,” she whispered. She met Cruxan’s gaze. “We have to.”

Erin, alone with that male…it made panic rise in her veins. Erin was strong, but there was no telling what he’d do, especially considering he’d been about to sell them off to these Mevirax.

Was that where Erin was now? With them?

Cruxan approached her, his footsteps crunching in the black grit covering the ground. “They are long gone, Crystal.” She jerked, hearing her name on his lips. “Possibly even last night.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, not wanting to believe what he was saying. “No, they must be around here.”

“Female…”

Crystal’s shoulders sagged. She looked out into the desert of Luxiria. If that male had taken a hovercraft then there was no telling which way they’d gone. But then she remembered.

“You can track them, can’t you?” she asked, suddenly hopeful, her widened eyes looking at Cruxan. “You tracked us here.”

“Tev, but there were tracks, female,” he said gently. “And you.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “Your scent. You left the strips of your tunic for me to find. They led me to you.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “And you can’t…you can’t smell Erin the same way? Maybe she left signs like I did.”

“She is not my female,” he said and Crystal’s pulse pounded in her throat. “Your scent will always be stronger, more potent to me.”

He said it so easily. She didn’t want to linger on those words, on the meaning behind them.

“We have to try,” she said, looking up at him. “Please. She’s…she’s like a sister to me. I can’t just leave her out here with that male.”

Cruxan held her gaze. Crystal wasn’t above begging, especially if it meant saving Erin.

She saw when he gave into her. It wasn’t something she was used to feeling. Victory.

Hopeful, breathless, she watched him go over to the abandoned sandcraft. He hopped in, tried to power it on. When the engine wouldn’t start, he disappeared underneath the console, but his quiet curse made her stomach drop.

When he reappeared, he told her, “He destroyed the starter pod.”

She realized what he was saying.

“He stranded us here?” she asked.

“He did not want us in pursuit,” Cruxan said, jumping down off the sandcraft, landing surprisingly gracefully for someone so large.

“So what do we do now?” she asked softly, trying not to freak out. They were a long, long way from the Golden City, that much she knew. They’d traveled all day on that damn sandcraft and that sucker could go fast. “How are we going to find Erin?”

“Do not worry, female,” Cruxan said, approaching her. Her body jolted when his hand cupped around her arm. Startled, her eyes flashed up to his. He was so close and his body was so big that she couldn’t see around him. Even still, she felt his pulsing heat, even through the layer of his long-sleeved shirt, the same shirt that hung off her body like a robe. “We can still find her.”

“How?”

“My hovercraft has a locator, one Jaxor’an should not know about. We need to have access to a Com system to track it, but we can track it.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, a bud of hope beginning to bloom. “So where is the nearest Com system? Back in the Golden City?”

“Nix,” he said. “Kroratax.”

The name sounded familiar. It took a little while to place it but then she remembered. “That’s where Beks lives. With…Lihvan?”

“Tev,” Cruxan said, inclining his head. “He is the Ambassador of that outpost. It will take us…perhaps five spans to reach on foot.”

“Five days?” she asked, incredulous. “Why don’t we just head back to the Golden City? Surely it can’t take that long.”

“Because you saw the land when you journeyed here,” he said. “It is unforgiving land. There is no water, no game. The days are hot and the nights are cold.”

Crystal understood now. It would be a shorter distance, but it was more dangerous.

He must have seen the fear on her face because his other hand clasped her other arm, until he was holding her in place before him. She blinked, trying not to get flustered by his nearness, especially as bare-chested as he was. Even then, she could feel waves of heat pouring off his body.

He could keep me warm at night, if we brave the desert, her mind whispered.

The thought came out of nowhere, shocking her that she almost gasped. But an image followed the thought and she couldn’t help but see it. Them, curled up. Her, stroking over that hot, sculpted flesh, caressing the lines and dips, memorizing them by feel. Him, watching her, desire in his eyes as his hands trailed down—

Crystal remembered that he could smell her arousal too late. By the time she felt the telltale throbbing between her thighs—for the second time that morning—he let out a harsh groan and released her.

Crystal gasped, stumbling a bit on shaky legs, and started with, “I-I’m sor—”

“Do not apologize again, luxiva,” he rasped, his voice deeper than it’d been before.

Luxiva.

Crystal felt like she was spiraling. She knew that word. Knew what it meant.

Would she last five days, alone, with him? Would she be able to survive five days with him without doing something she’d regret, without doing something that might bring back old memories better left buried?

She had to.

For Erin’s sake.

“Can we just…” Crystal breathed, glancing up at him, looking away, before meeting his eyes. “Can we just forget about that?”

His gaze narrowed. “Forget about what?”

He was going to make her say it?

She steeled her spine. “My priority right now is finding Erin. If that means we have to trek through the wilderness of this crazy planet together, then fine. I know that you believe that I’m your—your mate, but I would appreciate it if you kept this purely, um, professional between us.”

“Professional,” he repeated slowly, elongating every syllable, making her face burn.

“Yes,” Crystal said. “I don’t want anything to happen. I don’t want a,” embarrassment coiled in her belly but she forced the words out, “relationship or sex or anything with you. And it’s not just with you. I don’t want those things with anyone.”

His face darkened, but she didn’t know what that meant.

“I’m not…” she trailed off, wondering how best to explain it. “I’m not…”

I’m not right, she was about to say, but she didn’t want to say that about herself. It sounded demeaning and she was done bringing herself down.

“I’m better on my own,” was what she finally settled on. “I just want you to know that upfront.”

“You are frightened,” Cruxan said, tilting his head to the side, as if it was just dawning on him, his voice alight with realization.

“Frightened of what?” she scoffed, though her tone sounded nervous even to her own ears.

“Of me,” he rasped, stepping forward again, pressing into her space. Crystal’s lips parted. “Of us. Because you feel it too. You know who I am to you and who you are to me.”

“That’s—that’s not true.”

“You sensed me,” he murmured, his eyes rapt on her. “Last night. Back in the clearing before I ever made myself known.”

Crystal shook her head, wanting to deny. On the verge of denying it.

“Tev. You knew I was there. You felt a stirring within you. You looked right at me, in the darkness, though I had not made a single sound,” he said.

Crystal wanted to deny his words. But found she couldn’t. It would make an even bigger liar out of her. And maybe for once, she wanted to live among truths, not half-hidden lies.

“My Instinct awakened for you right then,” he informed her. “Did you feel it?”

This was too much. She couldn’t do this. Not right now.

When he stepped closer, she reached out her hand to stop him. Her palm pressed into his bared flesh, just above the ripples of muscle over his strong abdomen. He was hot, his skin blazing.

The truth was…she had felt something. She couldn’t explain it, not then and not now. And certainly not to him. But she could admit to herself, quietly, in the safety of her own mind, that she’d felt something.

Something that had scared her, that had invigorated her, that had dismayed and excited her, all at the same time.

“I think,” she said after a brief moment of silence, feeling his heat pour into her hand, “that we should start moving. We have a long way to travel and it’s almost midday.”

Cruxan’s mouth thinned to small line, disappointment evident on his strange features.

Crystal snatched back her hand, feeling oddly guilty, as she took a step away from him.

Turning her back, she peered into the forest, wondering how long it would take to reach the other side, trying to think of anything but the male standing quietly behind her.

Just when she thought he wouldn’t say anything more, he said, “Deny it all you want, female. But the Fates have a way of making their will known. We are destined. We cannot change that, whatever we may wish.”

Shocked, she jerked her head back to him.

We? Did he not want this either? And why did that realization send a little pang through her? That should make her feel relieved, not hurt.

Their eyes clashed together as he said, “One thing you should know about me now, female, is that I am a very determined male. When I want something, I get it. If I have to claw my way up from the bottom, I will. I have before.”

Crystal shook her head. “Cruxan…”

“I will win you over. You are mine, as surely as I am yours. You may not realize that yet,” he said softly, “but you will.”

How did he make a threat sound so enticing?

“You can’t win me if I don’t want to be won,” she said, her tone edged. “And one thing you should know about me is that I don’t like high-handed, overbearing, and arrogant men.”

Cruxan grinned, so suddenly and so brilliantly that she momentarily lost her train of thought.

“It is quite fortunate then that I am a warrior of Luxiria, not a man from Earth.”

She gaped at him.

Then, with his blue eyes shining, he purred, “And you may sharpen those little claws on me anytime you wish, luxiva. Not only do I welcome it…” Her breath hitched, her eyes widening, as he leaned close. “I like it.”

Her belly actually quivered at those words. She was surprised when she managed to hold back her whimper.

Then he pulled away. He looked up to the sky as she tried to focus, to pull her brain from the fog that had just invaded her mind.

When his eyes returned to her, he jerked his chin back towards the forest. “Kroratax is in that direction. Are you ready?”

Was she?

No. Hell no.

But she was a liar, backed into a corner.

So, she said, “Yes. I am.”

“Then we begin,” he said, though his eyes glowed as he said it.

Crystal had the impression that he wasn’t talking only about their travels.