The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty

“Cruxan,” she said, laughing, a little breathless as she felt him dip his hands underneath the furs, stroking over her flesh. “You make the absolute worst model, you know that?”

“Or the best,” he growled in her ear, nipping at her sensitive flesh.

She pushed his chest and he fell back onto the furs he’d brought to the hot spring with them. They had it spread out on the soft sand of the shore to keep the granules from sticking to their skin. They’d already taken a nice, long soak inside and Crystal felt pleasantly warm and flushed, despite the nip in the air.

She was naked underneath the heavy fur cloak that Cruxan had draped over her shoulders, but he remained unclothed, lounging back on the blanket, seemingly unaffected by the chill. And certain parts of him were definitely unaffected by the chill too.

Crystal swallowed, her eyes running over his hardened cock, before her gaze dropped down to his likeness, sketched out clumsily on her tablet. She feared she’d never be a good enough artist to capture him the way she wanted to, to capture him the way she saw him.

But she’d been trying to for the better part of the last hour. If only he would stop trying to distract her.

“Now hush and stay still,” she told him, trying to keep her voice strict, or else he would sense her amusement and he’d be even more relentless.

He exhaled but did as she requested, seemingly content to simply watch her. She felt those blue eyes on her like a touch and she squirmed a little as she continued to work on her drawing, deepening the lines she’d sketched out over his shoulders, deepening the muscles present there.

She didn’t know how long she worked on her drawing, but eventually, she took a rest when her hand began to cramp up and set her tablet aside.

Drawing her knees up to her chest, she hugged them and rested her chin on top, watching Cruxan watch her.

“I think you like looking at me, female,” he murmured, his lips quirking up into an arrogant smirk.

She valiantly tried to hide her smile and just narrowly succeeded. “You’re full of it.”

But yes, she did like looking at him.

He grinned and he reached out to trace across her toes, which were peeking out from underneath the fur cloak.

Her breath hitched. Just the barest touch from him and it sent her reeling. How did he have that kind of control over her body?

Her gaze couldn’t help but trace down him, as if to prove his words right. Her mouth went a little dry at the obvious masculinity of him, at his constant arousal, at the absolutely wicked look in his gaze.

When her eyes ran over his hardened cock, her tongue darted out and swiped over her bottom lip, wetting it. Though he’d been generous in giving her pleasure, he had yet to allow her to touch him.

And true to his word, he hadn’t pushed her for more. She couldn’t count how many orgasms he’d given her that day—with his hands, with his tongue—but not once did he press her for sex.

“You are beautiful, female,” he rasped. “Maybe it is I that wishes to draw you. You want to give me the tablet?”

She flushed at his compliment. She wasn’t used to them but he gave them to her readily, whenever he could.

“No,” she whispered, smiling, feeling a little shy at the prospect of him drawing her.

“You want to give me a kiss then?” he purred. “If you will not give me your tablet.”

Thatshe could do.

She rose to her knees and crawled over to him, sprawled on his back. She kneeled next to his head and leaned over, brushing his lips at a slight angle, smiling into it.

She didn’t know if she’d ever smiled so much in her life. She didn’t think so. It felt like a lifetime of smiles had all emerged over the past few days.

When she pulled back, his eyes blinked open and he reached up to stroke a strand of hair that fell between them. The way he was looking at her made her freeze—it frightened her actually—and she pulled away, scooting back before sitting down.

He didn’t say anything about her retreat, just leaned up on his elbow, letting silence fall between them.

Nervously, she tucked that same strand he’d touched behind her ear, wondering why she’d felt a sudden jolt of fear.

Because she’d seen his feelings for her? Right there, in his gaze?

He was so open about everything and she was…not. It was a difference between them that might never be bridged.

“I wanted to speak with you about something,” Cruxan said, after a lengthy long pause, his voice hesitant.

“Okay,” she said softly, swallowing. The mood had changed so suddenly, so swiftly, that she felt the tension just simmering under the surface.

“I must return to Otala tomorrow,” he said.

Immediately, Crystal looked down at the fur blanket, eyeing the grey and black and white hairs.

She’d feared as much.

She knew this would happen eventually.

So why did those words feel like her heart was being squeezed right out of her chest?

He continued, softly, with, “I want you to come with me.”

Crystal bit her lip, her fingers reaching out to trace the swirls in the fur, dread pooling in her belly. Dread so heavy that it made her feel nauseous.

“Luxiva,” Cruxan murmured after a long pause. Even her heart hurt at that word. “Will you look at me?”

Stop being a coward, she thought. Cruxan deserved more than her complete withdrawal, so she swallowed her fear and met his eyes.

Gone was his amusement, the teasing look in his gaze. In its place was a guarded expression that Crystal didn’t think looked right on his features. She’d never seen it before. She never wanted to again.

She felt her answer rise up, choking her.

“I can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”

Cruxan shifted ever so slightly, the move so small that she almost missed it. A slight bunching of his shoulders. That was all.

“Why?” he asked, his voice soft.

How could she even explain it to him?

“I…” her voice failed her, but she owed him an explanation at the very least, didn’t she? “I’ve thought about it, I have. And I knew that you would have to go back to your home at some point.”

A slight wind rustled through her hair, making her shiver.

“I feel like if I went with you…I might not be able to leave,” she whispered, looking at him.

“You can leave whenever you wish,” he said carefully. “You know this.”

She shook her head, “That’s not what I meant. I meant that I would not want to.”

He made a sound of frustration in the back of his throat, looking away, his gaze flitting across the steam rising above the hot springs.

“I do not understand you sometimes,” came his quiet rasp.

Crystal had come to the realization that she felt consumed by him. She didn’t know when it had happened. She didn’t know when she’d started to fall in love with him. Perhaps at first sight even and that was why she’d fought against him so hard in the beginning…because she’d recognized something in him.

But she’d also come to the realization that she’d felt this way before. Only, it had been in a much different way. She’d been young then, thinking she’d found her first love, thinking that all her fairytale dreams were finally coming true at the ripe age of seventeen. Only those dreams had turned into one nightmare after another and she’d turned her back on her family in the process. She’d lost years of time with them.

And she’d swore to herself to never let it happen again. She wasn’t that same young, naive girl who just wanted to be loved. She was older and much, much wiser. She didn’t have the luxury of falling head over heels in love, not when she knew the consequences of that kind of love.

And Cruxan?

She could fall head over heels for him. Easily…if she wasn’t already.

That scared her.

“My sister is pregnant. I don’t know if I told you that,” she said softly. “I’ll have a niece soon. A niece that I want to at least meet one day, whose life I want to be involved in. Because she’s my blood. My sister is my blood and the only family I have left. She helped me when I was at my weakest point because she loved me more than her disappointment in me. And I can’t…” Tears spilled over her cheeks, her voice going a little wobbly. “I can’t turn my back on her for a second time. I don’t get to love you, I don’t get to have you and have my family. I always had to choose.”

Cruxan’s jaw clenched and he finally turned those blue eyes back onto her. And she stared into them like it was the last time she would see them, already feeling like her heart was shattering into a million pieces, now that it was left unguarded by the walls he’d torn down.

“If I went with you to Otala, I would not want to leave you,” she whispered, her vision going blurry with her tears. “Cruxan, I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything. They sat in silence—sad and tense, yet somehow peaceful—for a long time and she sat, shivering, waiting for him to speak, to say anything at all.

Finally, he broke that silence, but only to say, “We should go back before it gets any colder.”

“That’s all you have to say?” she whispered.

“I do not know what you want me to say, Crystal,” he rasped, looking at her, seemingly at a loss for words. “You have made your decision. That much is clear to me. I think I knew it all along, but I had hoped—” He cut himself off with a harsh exhale. Quietly, he finished, “I had hoped you would change your mind. That the last few spans would change your mind.”

Crystal wiped her cheeks, feeling her tears on the back on her hand.

“I cannot fault you for choosing your family, female,” he said quietly…but the soft anguish in his voice almost broke her.

“Will you hate me for it?” she whispered. Because she selfishly didn’t know if she could bear that, even after she’d just broken both of them.

“Nix,” he murmured quietly. “I could never hate you.”

And that knowledge made her want to cry even more.

“Come,” he said, standing from the fur blanket, before dressing. He never quite met her eyes. “Let us return to Kroratax.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

When Cruxan guidedthe hovercraft down in front of his dwelling, his heart ached in his chest because he knew what would come next.

He just didn’t want to believe it.

He helped Crystal off before jumping down and then they stood in front of one another for a little while, without saying a single word. It hurt to look at her. It physically hurt.

But he had done all he could, hadn’t he? What was left to convince her to stay? Blood was blood, family was family. He understood that better than most.

And he’d promised her, long ago, that he would not stop her if she wished to return home.

“You should stay with Beks and Lihvan this night,” he said quietly. Never again would he feel her sleeping against him. Never again would he wake to her.

The grief of that knowledge almost broke him. A part of him was in denial about it.

“I know,” she whispered, her voice clogged with her tears, which hadn’t stopped falling from her eyes since the hot spring. “Cruxan…”

He waited, but she didn’t—or couldn’t—say anything else.

He didn’t know why he told her—perhaps to reassure her—but he said, “Vaxa’an believes he will retrieve the crystal in the coming weeks. You will see your sister again soon. I know it. And I promise that I will continue searching for Erin and Jaxor’an, so that she can return to Earth with you if she wishes.”

She bit her lip when it trembled and Cruxan blew out a short breath, knowing that prolonging their goodbye would only make it that much harder.

“C-Cruxan,” she whispered. “I was falling in love with you. You have to believe that. I don’t want you to think—”

“Don’t,” he rasped, tensing up, feeling like a fist was squeezing his throat, his heart. “Don’t, female.”

And because he knew he wouldn’t be able to not kiss her one last time, he pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers. He pulled her scent deep into his lungs, tasted her tears, and memorized her taste, her heat.

Then he stepped back, far enough away so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach for her again.

“Go,” he murmured, his voice gruff.

When she didn’t move, frustration and heartbreak and sadness rose up in him.

He couldn’t watch her leave. It would tear him up, so it was him who turned his back. It was him who stepped up to his dwelling, opened the door, and stepped through it into the darkness.

But before he did, he looked back at her one last time and said, “I hope you find your happiness, female. I hope you find everything you want.”

And it wasn’t him.

And he had to accept that.

Then he shut the door, standing in the dark, numb. On the other side of the door, he could hear her. He could hear her wipe at her cheeks. He could hear the gentle sobs that shook her body and every single one tore at him.

He listened to her until she finally turned away. He heard her approach Lihvan’s and Beks’ dwelling.

And all he wanted to do was snatch her back in his arms. All he wanted to do was take her to Otala, the same thing that Vikan and even Kirov had done with their mates. They’d stolen them away. He wanted to convince her to stay with him, to never want to leave.

But he couldn’t do that to her. It was her choice. He’d always known that. He couldn’t force his will on her, not after everything she’d been through, or else he was no better than her previous partner.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, but eventually, he heard footsteps approach. For a moment, he wished they were Crystal’s, but he knew they weren’t.

Lihvan entered his dwelling, his face guarded and careful. One look at Cruxan made pity enter the male’s gaze and Cruxan could hardly bear to look at it.

“Don’t,” he growled, repeating the same words he’d said to his female.

“There is still hope,” Lihvan said, watching him. “Believe that.”

He shook his head. “I do not share your optimism. She was very clear and her mind was made up. She will not stay.”

“You never know what might happen,” Lihvan said, worry obvious on his features. He feared what Cruxan might do, that much was clear. Fated mates very rarely carried on alone, after their other halves were gone.

“Do not worry,” Cruxan said. “I will not journey to the blackworld so soon.”

“How can I not worry?” his friend growled. “You look as you did once you discovered your sisters and your mother after the Plague. And I was there. I remember.”

Cruxan didn’t know what to reply to that. That span had been a blur but he knew that this night he would remember in perfect clarity.

“I am leaving for Otala now,” Cruxan said quietly. “I cannot stay here. I will not sleep so I may as well start for the Otylia.”

“Cruxan—”

“Make sure she gets back to the Golden City safely,” he requested quietly. “Will you do that for me?”

Lihvan’s jaw clenched. “Tev,” he finally said. “I will.”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Cruxan.”

He looked at one of his oldest friends.

“Please have faith,” Lihvan pleaded. “The Fates must have a reason for this.”

“Do not speak to me about the Fates this night,” he said softly, heading for the door. He needed to leave this place, where everything reminded him of her. “I cannot bear the thought of them.”