The Alien’s Obsession by Zoey Draven

Chapter Twelve

“Ten?” Lani asked, her voice rising in what Kirov assumed was astonishment. “You were only ten-years-old when you left home for this warrior training?”

“Tev,” he replied. “All males must leave for warrior training at ten rotations.”

“That’s…that’s crazy,” she exclaimed, her lips parted in shock. “You were just a little boy.”

Suddenly, her eyes dropped down between them to look at his exposed arms, where a multitude of scars marked his flesh.

He’d told her warrior training was…intense. She assumed that was where he’d received his scars. Some yes, but not all.

“These are also from battle, luxiva,” he told her. Vaxa’an had told him, in secret once, that humans tended to be more adverse to violence and war. He needed to tread carefully. “Soon after we completed warrior training…we were called to war. I was not on Luxiria for a long while.”

They were sitting on the banks of the stream, side-by-side, Kirov’s thigh pressed against hers. Lani had her small, pale feet in the water, since he’d told her it was warm from the mountain. He glanced down at them often, feeling affection, awe, tighten his chest.

Some moments, he still couldn’t believe that he’d found his fated mate. Some moments, even when she was with him, it didn’t feel real. Even when her scent filled his nostrils, even when her warmth was pressed into him, and her beautiful voice calmed the buzzing inside him, it didn’t feel real.

Softly, she said, “Kate told us about an attack on your planet. That it killed your females, most of them, and left the rest…unable to have children.”

Kirov’s gaze held hers as he said, “Tev, that is true. We went to war shortly after, for five long rotations.”

“Did you…” Lani began to ask, her fingers picking at the moss on her other side. “Did you lose anyone?”

“My mother,” he said and Lani sucked in a small breath. “Many lost mothers and sisters and their elders. Many lost sires as well, who took their own lives to be with them in the blackworld.”

“I’m sorry, Kirov,” she said quietly. “Did you lose your father as well?”

Kirov inhaled a sharp breath, his gaze sliding away, familiar guilt eating at his chest. “I may as well have.”

He saw her brows furrow, perhaps in confusion at his strange answer, but he didn’t wish to speak of his sire. Not right at that moment. He wanted to learn about his female.

Kirov changed the subject and asked, “Will you tell me about your life on Earth?”

Lani frowned, clearly wanting him to elaborate, clearly wanting to ask more. And at any other time, he might let her. Kirov didn’t intend to be secretive, didn’t intend to deliberately leave her in the dark about certain aspects of his life.

However, when it came to his sire, he was ashamed. Mostly about how he’d dealt with his sire’s situation. It was not something he was proud of and he didn’t want his luxiva to look at him any differently. Not that night, their first night where they could be alone, where they could talk and touch freely, without worry.

Nix. Selfishly, Kirov wanted her all to himself that night, without anything coming between them, not even long-held guilt.

Thankfully, his female seemed to read him well and allowed the change in topic.

“What do you want to know?” she asked, swishing her feet in the water.

“Everything.”

She smiled in a way that made him grin. A shy smile that Kirov would never suspect from a female like her.

“‘Everything’ would take a very, very long time,” she noted.

Kirov said quietly, “It is good that I want a very, very long time then.” Lani bit her lip. He said, “Tell me what you do on Earth. What your profession is.”

Her pink tongue darted out to wet her lips and his belly tightened in need.

“I’m a pianist,” she said.

Kirov’s brows drew together. “What is that?”

“I’m a musician,” she explained further. “A piano is a musical instrument. I’ve been playing since I was four-years-old. I guess you can say it’s my calling in life. My true talent.”

His expression softened, something locking into place about her.

“That does not surprise me,” he commented.

“Why?”

“There is something about musicians, tev? They see and hear the universe differently and translate it for the rest of us into something more beautiful.”

Kirov couldn’t read the expression that crossed his female’s face at his words. Perhaps…recognition?

“We have very few musicians here on Luxiria,” Kirov said softly, “but I have always found them fascinating. Perhaps because they are so different from me.”

“How?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

“I prefer hard facts, numbers, equations. The basis of technology are these things. They are…concrete. Unchangeable. But musicians, hearing them play their instruments…” he trailed off, finding it difficult to put into words.

“They can create something intricate, from something so simple,” she finished for him. “Notes. Sound.”

“Tev. They are creators. They make others feel things, unexpected things,” Kirov said. “So, nix, it does not surprise me that you are one of them.”

Lani processed his words slowly, letting silence develop between them.

Then, she said softly, “I’m glad you see music that way. It is how I think of it as well.” She exhaled a small breath and asked, “What types of instruments do you have on Luxiria?”

Kirov smiled, tilting his head up to look at the silver moon before he looked at her. “You will see when you come to Troxva.”

She raised her brow. “Oh really?” she drawled.

“Tev. The lunar celebration approaches. Musicians play then and it is a lively occasion with dancing and feasting. Among other things.”

Lani shook her head, chuckling. “You’re incorrigible, Kirov.”

“Nix, I am determined, luxiva,” he returned quickly.

“You really won’t tell me about the instruments?” she asked, her eyes dancing with amusement.

“Nix, you will see for yourself.”

Lani asked, surprising him, “What does luxiva mean?”

Kirov swallowed but he saw no reason to hold the truth from her. He’d already told her what happened between them, about his Instinct awakening, whether she wanted to believe it or not.

“It means ‘fated one.’”

Lani said softly, “I figured it was something like that.”

“Does this mean you have accepted it?” he asked, reaching over to touch a stray lock of her beautiful red hair, feeling how soft it was between his roughened fingers.

She bit her lip and replied, “I don’t know.”

It was progress, he supposed. Before, she’d denied it completely.

Silence dropped between them again.

In a low voice, Kirov said, “Is that why you move your fingers over surfaces? You are playing your instrument in your mind, tev?”

“Yes,” she murmured softly, looking over at him with a soft, almost sad smile that tugged at his chest. “I stopped playing piano for a couple years, once I moved away from home, from my parents. I thought not playing might make me happier because for so long I had attributed playing it with unhappiness.”

Kirov’s brow furrowed and he watched his female’s profile when she turned to look over the meadow.

“Not playing the piano was like…losing an arm. Or like losing a sense, like my hearing or my sight,” Lani said softly. “Maybe not as dramatic as that, but I felt it all the same. But I was rebellious and stubborn. I still am,” she amended when he leveled her a look and her lips quirked in a sheepish smile.

“But you began playing again,” he said, wanting to ask her so many questions, not fully understanding some of the meanings, some of the societal concepts behind her words.

“Yes,” she said. “One day, I was walking passed a music shop with my friend, Nadine. I walked passed it almost every day, but that day, Nadine suddenly stopped me and asked me to play a song for her. Nadine was my best friend and she begged me to and I couldn’t say no, even though I felt sick in my stomach to touch a piano again. Sick, but wanting to at the same time, needing to.”

Kirov listened silently, listened to Lani’s words flow from her, like she was confessing something. She spoke in a way that made Kirov think she was lost in the memory, until she was somewhere else entirely and not sitting right next to him, with her small feet drawing invisible patterns in the stream.

“I went in the shop with her. It was completely empty and I saw a small, cheap keyboard piano in the back. I sat down, put my fingers on the keys,” she whispered. Then she blinked and looked over at him, her eyes slightly wet with moisture, the sight making him restless because he knew that humans leaked from their eyes when they were sad. “And I played for two hours straight that day. My fingers remembered everything, how could they not? Music poured out from me because it had been locked away for so long. And Nadine sat there and let me play on that cheap keyboard. Even the shop owner let me stay, said I could come play whenever I wanted. And I did. I went back the next day, and the next, and the next, until I finally just bought a piano for myself. Since then, I played every day…until the abduction, that is.”

Kirov heard the longing in her voice, felt it reach into him until he could feel it with her.

“I was good, you know,” she said quietly, looking over at him.

“Tev, female?”

“Yes,” she answered. “I was classically trained. Some called me a prodigy. I was playing in grand concert halls for hundreds of people by the time I was thirteen. I had a future and then I threw it all away.”

“You said it made you unhappy,” he murmured, trying to understand. He was trying to figure his female out, but Kirov knew it might never be possible and that both frustrated and delighted him.

“No, not playing the piano. It was everything else surrounding it. It took me a long time to figure that out.”

“Tell me,” he murmured.

She smiled and looked up at him underneath her eyelashes. “Maybe another time. You’re not the only one allowed secrets.”

Maddening female, he thought, awed.

“That is fair,” he rasped. When he saw her suddenly shiver, little bumps spreading over her arms, he dragged her to him, her feet lifting from the water momentarily until she was settled between his splayed thighs. He positioned her so that her back was to his front, her lush backside settled against his hard cock.

“Does that thing ever go down?” she joked, sighing as his arms wrapped around her body, shielding her from the breeze that was beginning to grow colder.

It took him a little while to realize what she meant. He chuckled in her ear. “Nix, not since I first saw you.”

“That must be horribly inconvenient,” she commented, tilting her head back to look up at him.

Vaxa’an had seen him perform something called ‘kissing’ with his mate, Kat. It was a human expression of affection and Kirov’s eyes drifted down to Lani’s pink lips, desire tightening his belly.

What would it be like to kiss her? What would it be like to kiss at all? It was not an act that Luxirians performed with one another…at least not on the mouth.

Lani saw him looking and he watched those lips curl a little. In a tone that made him want to growl, she asked, “You want to kiss me, don’t you, Ambassador?”

“Tev,” he rasped.

Her blunt, white teeth flashed with her smile. But then that smile died down a little and she swallowed.

“I’m telling you now, Kirov,” she said, bringing his focus back, “that what happens tonight doesn’t mean that you’ve won me. It doesn’t mean anything like that.”

“Female,” he growled, her words making his Instinct…displeased.

“I can’t…” Lani licked those lips he wanted to devour, seeming at a loss for words.

Her eyes, her expression…they seemed almost frightened, which confused him greatly. She had to know that he would never harm her. Ever. He would rather die.

“I’m going home soon. I can’t develop feelings for you, Kirov.”

His muscles tightened, his arms pulled her into him even more.

“I am sorry to disappoint you, female, but you already have,” he growled in her ear and her breath hitched. “To deny that to me would be a waste of words.”

Lani licked her lips again and Kirov really wished she would stop doing that. It made it hard to think.

“I won’t deny that I’m attracted to you,” she said softly. “You know that I am. And if anything comes from that, I just want to be upfront with you about what it means. Or doesn’t mean.”

Her words irritated him. Vrax, she was…maddening.

She does not yet understand, he knew, calming a bit when he remembered.

Lani didn’t yet understand the power of the Fates, the power of their bond. She didn’t yet understand how closely they would be tied together. She didn’t yet understand how they could be with one another, in and out of the furs.

But he could make her understand.

He hadn’t yet won her mind and soul, but he could own her body and she could own his. He could give her unfathomable pleasure, make her cry out his name in ecstasy until it was burned into her mind, until she forgot every male that came before him, until she craved him.

Vrax, he was a Luxirian warrior, after all. They were known, not only for their expertise in battle, but for their ferocity and thoroughness in the furs.

It wasn’t a question of whether he could please her. It was a question of whether she would let him.

But what she was hinting at was telling him she would.

“You can think that for now, luxiva,” he growled. “Hold your heart close, for now. In time, you will give it to me willingly.”

There was that spark in her gaze. The one that said she was irritated but delighted at the same time.

His female liked to bare her claws and he would take them gladly, because when she got like this—whether she realized it or not—those walls came down, allowing him access.

Kirov’s hand cupped the nape of her neck and he tilted her face up to his.

“Kiss me, female,” he rasped.

Her breathing went ragged at the command and Kirov knew she was torn between tearing into him for ordering her to do anything or…she was about to do much more than kiss him.

This constant ebb and flow between them, this constant grappling, the push and pull…it drove him crazy. But she was perfect. Perfect for him.

Perhaps she didn’t realize it yet, but he was perfect for her too.

Her body trembled and he squeezed the back of her neck, running the pad of his thumb up and down, softly scraping his claw against her skin.

Lani licked her lips again. Drew in a breath.

Then she kissed him.