The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twenty-Six

When Cruxan woke next, it was to grey light pouring into his sleeping quarters. He felt drugged as he pulled himself from sleep, from pleasant dreams, but his exhaustion was at least partially alleviated.

“Good morning,” came his female’s voice.

His breath hitched and his sleepy gaze fixated on her, his pupils contracting at the sight of her.

Vrax, she was so beautiful. He could look at her all span and all night.

She was sitting up in bed, her back to the stone wall, the furs tangled around her legs. In her lap sat her tablet. At the end of the sleeping platform, there was tray laden with Kroratax’s best cured meats and a goblet of fermented Brew, though, by the smell, it had long gone cold.

“Or I should probably say good afternoon,” she teased.

Cruxan reached out his hand to touch hers, which lay next to her thigh. He reminded himself to trim and dull his claws, so that they would not cut her flesh accidentally. Humans were delicate and he needed to be careful.

Cruxan was pleased when she intertwined her fingers with his. Last night had been…a turning point. Or at least he hoped. He’d never wanted something more in his entire life span.

Last night had also been erotic and tantalizing and a true test of his self-control when it came to his luxiva. Just remembering it made his varx draw tight against his body.

The memory of his female’s touch, as it blazed trails of fire over his flesh, the memory of her soft lips on his, of her taste on his tongue, of her scent of desire and need as she—

Vrax, he needed to stop.

Swallowing, he rasped, “Was I asleep very long?”

“You needed the rest obviously,” she said, frowning a bit, as if his lack of sleep worried her. “You were completely dead to the world.”

His eyes flicked to her tablet, to the tray at the end of the sleeping platform. “Was someone here?”

“Beks brought some things over earlier,” she told him. “She brought food, though it might be cold by now.”

That news surprised him. Cruxan was usually a light sleeper. The slightest sound and he could wake…which accounted for how familiar he was with the lack of sleep, especially considering he heard everything.

But last night…he’d slept more soundly than he’d ever remembered. Was it because his mate had been tucked into his side? Because he knew she was safe and warm?

“I didn’t want to wake you,” she said, “but I didn’t want to leave either so…”

The knowledge warmed him.

Cruxan pushed up into a sitting position, the furs falling into his lap. His female was looking at him, her eyes running over his bare flesh, and he bit back a smile. Sometimes, she didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it.

“Luxiva,” he murmured.

She swallowed, blinking a little, before her gaze flickered up to him.

“Yes?”

Cruxan wondered if that morning was different, if she felt any differently than she had last night. But she was still there, wasn’t she? She told him she didn’t want to leave, had told him that she’d missed him too as he drifted off to sleep last night.

So, with that knowledge in mind, he leaned forward until their lips were close. But he waited, waiting for her to come to him, to tell him this intimacy was alright, that she wanted it too.

And she did.

Her eyes widened a little, a soft flush coloring her cheeks, but she leaned into him and, just like the night before, brushed her lips over his in a way that made his body feel both light and heavy, all at once.

They stayed there for a moment and Cruxan savored the feel of her.

But before things spiraled out of control like last night, he pulled away.

He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, feeling the softness of her skin, and murmured, “Now I understand why humans do this. It is rather…appealing.”

“What? Kissing?” she breathed, surprised. “Luxirians don’t?”

“Nix,” he told her, pulling away, though he was loathe to do so. He didn’t want to press her too much, not when she was getting used to them together. He didn’t want to overwhelm her…when all he really wanted was to hold her in his arms and kiss her until the moon rose. “We do not.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“Because…because,” her voice lowered slightly, as if sharing something she didn’t want overheard, “you’re so good at it.”

He barked out a laugh, grinning.

She flushed, but her brows furrowed. “Surely you’ve kissed another female before.”

“Nix,” he told her, his laugh tapering off. “I have not. Only you, luxiva.”

“Oh,” she whispered. “But…how do you know what it is then?”

“The others. Vaxa’an, Lihvan, Rixavox, Vikan, Kirov…with their mates,” he told her. “I have seen it.”

“Oh,” she whispered again.

“Does that please you?” he couldn’t help but ask, though he couldn’t stop his teasing tone from emerging. “That I have only kissed you?”

“Yes,” she told him, her tone shy even as she met his eyes boldly.

He growled, her possessiveness hitting him in the gut. He wanted her to be as possessive of him as he was of her. He wanted her to covet him as much as he coveted her.

Was that insane?

He didn’t care.

“Good,” he rasped.

That tension returned. He could feel it sizzling in his belly, thickening the air between them. By the look in his luxiva’s gaze, by the scent of her arousal floating up to the nostrils, he knew she felt it too.

He groaned, looking away, before he did something about it. His gaze flicked down to the tablet perched lovingly in her lap and his brows rose when he saw the drawing there.

It was him.

“I thought you wanted me nude, female,” he murmured.

“What?” she asked, her lips parting. Then she followed his gaze, to her tablet, and her face flamed. She jerked the tablet against her chest, breaking his gaze. “Oh my God.”

“Let me see.”

“No,” she said, obviously embarrassed that he had already seen.

“Why?” he asked, biting back his smile at her expression.

“Because you weren’t supposed to see it in the first place,” she told him.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about, luxiva. I am your mate,” he pointed out.

“Why are you smiling?” she grumbled, as if to distract him from wanting to see the drawing.

His grin widened, seeing her irritation, seeing her claws begin to come out, claws he’d desperately missed.

“Because you have been drawing me in secret,” he told her. “Is this the first?”

She bit her lip in response and his brows rose.

“There are more?” he rasped. When he realized there were, he said, “Now you must show me.”

Crystal’s shoulders sagged and, hesitantly, she handed over the tablet.

Cruxan took it from her, seeing her drawing clearly for the first time.

And it surprised him. It amazed him, actually, how she’d captured his exact likeness.

She’d drawn him sleeping, on his back, his head nestled against the cushions, his hair tangling in his horns. His chest was bare, the lines of his muscles deepened with darker strokes on the tablet, his hand outstretched towards her, as if reaching for her in sleep.

“You are…” he trailed off. He looked up at her. “You amaze me, luxiva. I have not seen something like this before.”

She flushed, obviously pleased by his praise, and it told him that she hadn’t been praised in her life nearly enough, not nearly as much as she deserved.

“Why are you shy about this?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “This is something to be celebrated, not hidden.”

“It’s just you,” she said quietly. “I show people my work all the time. But you...I don’t know. It makes me nervous showing you. I want you to like them.”

His chest warmed and softened at the vulnerability in her voice.

Cruxan couldn’t help but flip back through the tablet. And he saw several different kinds of drawings, his eyes raking over them, memorizing them, awed by them.

There were landscapes—both of Luxiria and what he assumed was Earth. He saw scenes of the pillerva forest. He saw a detailed, colored drawing of the tevvax bloom, which made her bite her lip when he looked up at her knowingly. He saw scenes of Earth, of beaches, of large cities unlike he’d ever seen before, of forests and mountains that looked nothing like Luxiria’s own.

Then he saw himself. Multiple drawings of himself, some mere sketches, others as detailed as the one she drew just that morning as he slept. Images from their journey, he realized, as if she’d studied him closely and carefully during that time for the purpose of transferring him to her drawings later.

When he looked at her, she said quietly, “You were on my mind a lot the last few days. I drew you because I felt like I needed to. It was like a compulsion.”

He flipped to the next drawing and what he saw made his lips quirk in realization.

“Here are your goblins,” he murmured. “At last.”

She gave him a shy grin that made his heart speed in his chest. He realized that she was unlike any female he’d ever been with because she made him feel things he’d never felt before. Strange things that both frightened him and humbled him.

She can destroy me if she wishes to, he thought.

Crystal held that much power over him.

“Yes,” she said. “Krane and Jron.”

She pointed them out and once again she surprised him. Her passion for her drawings was written on her face as she looked at them, pride in her creations evident.

Next to her numerous sketches were what he assumed were English words.

“This is your written language?” he asked, touching the thin screen, tracing the lines.

“Yes,” she said.

“What does it say?” he asked, slightly frustrated that he could not read it, though that was a limitation of his language implant. Perhaps, in time, he would learn to read her language, just as he’d come to speak it.

Would she still be on Luxiria by then?

The thought sobered her but he focused as he listened to her voice.

“They’re just notes for book ideas, things I want to include,” she told him.

“Will you start on it soon? Your book?” he questioned, looking through more of her sketches of them, studying the words he didn’t understand closely.

“Maybe,” she said, still a little shy about it all. “Beks wants me to.”

“Why?” he asked, looking up at her.

“On Earth, um…” she looked down at the tablet then raised her shoulder in a shrug. “Well, my mother used to read to us. Stories and fairytales. They were our bedtime stories. It’s…just one of our customs, I guess. And Beks reminded me that there will be children again soon. On Luxiria.”

Cruxan felt his stomach jolt at that reminder. Vaxa’an’s mate, Kat, was due to give birth any span now.

“And well, Luxiria doesn’t exactly have a library full of fairytales,” she explained.

Realization hit him. “She wishes you to write those books. For her children, for the others that will come soon.”

“Yes,” she whispered, looking into his eyes. “To bring at least one of our customs here…reading to our children.”

Our children.

Longing like he’d never known squeezed his chest. He knew it was just a slip in her words, but they conjured images in his mind that he wanted. Images of his luxiva, heavy with his offspring. Images of their children, of little males and females, sporting their mother’s likeness, with golden hair and shy eyes, but they would be mischievous like he’d been as a youth and they would have his horns.

Cruxan’s breathing came fast, the image so real in his mind that it was like a premonition sent to him by the Fates.

“Cruxan?” Crystal whispered, reaching out to touch his forearm.

“And you, luxiva?” he rasped, his voice guttural and thick. “Would you wish to read to your offspring?”

She blinked, her lips parting. It took her a moment to reply, but eventually she said, quietly, “If I had them, yes.”

“And do you want them?” he couldn’t help but ask.

He heard her heartbeat increase, heard it thud, thud, thud in her chest.

“Yes,” she whispered, meeting his eyes.

Relief went through him.

“Do you?” she asked.

He grinned, reaching forward to brush back that stubborn strand of hair that kept tickling her cheek. “Oh, tev.”

Her cheeks reddened and she glanced back down to the tablet, breaking their gaze.

“You should,” he murmured. “Begin writing your book. There is nothing stopping you, tev?”

She set her tablet aside with a shuddering exhale, her eyes straying to the tray of food.

“You should eat,” she said, changing the subject. “You must be hungry.”

“Have you eaten?”

She nodded, meeting his eyes again. “When you were asleep. That’s all for you.”

Cruxan dragged the tray towards him. It was a lot of food, but Cruxan felt like he could eat three times as much. Reaching for the goblet of Brew, he made a face after he took a long drink.

Her small chuckle made him look over at her. “What is that?” she asked.

“Luxirian Brew,” he told her. “I would offer you some, but it is best taken warm. There is nothing like warm Luxirian Brew, especially here in Kroratax.”

She suppressed her grin. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Crystal watched as he started in on the tray of meat, seemingly fascinated by watching him eat, some of her earlier shyness gone.

It gladdened him. He liked her shy, but he also liked when she was curious and unapologetic about it.

“Do you have to do anything today with Lihvan?” she asked, shortly after he’d polished off the tray. “I can get out of your hair if you’ll be busy.”

He frowned at her strange human expression, but he shook his head, “Nix. My only plan is to stay here with you.” He crawled back up to her and her breath went a little uneven when he warned her softly, “I do plan on kissing you more. Much, much more. So, tev, I suppose I will be very busy.”

“Oh really?” she whispered, her eyes flickering down to his lips.

“Tev,” he growled. Then an idea occurred to him, something she might like. “Actually, there is somewhere I would like to take you. Once it’s dark.”

“Where?” she questioned.

“A surprise,” he said. “A place in Kroratax I like to visit often. Will you let me take you?”

“Are you asking me out on a date, Cruxan?” she asked, her tone teasing.

“A date?” he repeated, his language implant giving him an idea what she meant. “Like how humans court one another?”

“That makes it sound so old,” she noted, smiling. Then she said, “But yes, I suppose.”

“Then tev,” he said, “I am asking you out on this date. Will you come?”

Her small laugh made everything in him light up.

“Yes,” she said, “I will.”