READ ON TO GET A PEEK INSIDE....


“What are these books?” I asked again. “And why did you bring so many?”

She sighed and began removing the remaining books, placing them in stacks on the floor beside her, sorting them in some mysterious way only she understood.

“They’re stories written by people and immortalized on paper. Some of these are hundreds of years old.”
That was the most Lily had said to me since I’d stood before her and told her who I was. I thumbed through the parchment I held. “This will burn quite easily. How does this make the story immortal?”

Rubbing her palms over her blue jean covered thighs, she tugged the sleeves of her hoodie. Earth clothing appeared to be soft and not very functional, and those were words I had learned in the last few hours. She looked up at me with a plea in her eyes and held out her hand. “It doesn’t matter. Just give that back, please.”

Please? Had she just said please?
Unable to deny her, I walked to her and placed the book in her outstretched hand. She took the item and twisted to place it behind her on the floor as I lifted another, similar looking book from the case, surprised to note there were six or seven more stacked beneath this one. All with the same name on the books’ sides.

“Darius!” Lily’s cheeks turned a very interesting shade of pink.

“Yes?” Interesting indeed. This book had a human name at the bottom of the thick cover. “Grace Goodwin. Her Cyborg Beast? The Colony?” I turned the rectangle over and absorbed the meaning of the words that covered the back side. I considered the ideas, wondering if my Cipher implant was malfunctioning. “Mated means pairbonded? For life?”

“Yes.” Lily lifted her hand to her face and covered her eyes. “Just give that back. Don’t worry about it.”

“Interstellar Brides? A colony? I did not know Earth had entered into any treaties or trade agreements with other worlds.” Was Velerion intelligence wrong about the small blue planet? Had Earth’s people made pacts we were unaware of?

“We haven’t. It’s fiction, okay? Make-believe.”

“Make me believe what, exactly?”

“It’s just a story. Imagination. None of it is true. It’s for entertainment. That’s all.”

“Interesting.”

“Not really. Just give it back.”

“Not yet.” I very much wanted to open this book and discover what human stories said of pairbonds and mating rituals.

With an irritated grumble, Lily had apparently decided her best course of action was to ignore me and devote her undivided attention to unpacking her cases and cases of books.

Which left me time to wonder at the entertainment I held in my hand. Lily appeared to be entertained by large males with bulging muscles and biosynthetic implants just below the skin. On the outside covering of the book, the male’s expression was serious and the words on the back spoke of war and torture. A beast of some kind.

Hoping to understand Lily a bit, I opened the book to a random page and began to read. The time I had spent in training simulations with Lily had accustomed my Cipher implant to reading in her language. However, the words shocked me. Made my body react with need. Lust. Desire. Everything I’d been fighting diligently to control since the moment I met Lily came roaring to life as the Beast man in the story boldly told his human female exactly what he would do to her body. The ways he would claim her. Fill her with his seed. Make her body writhe with pleasure. Pound his hard length into her wet heat and make her come over and over…

The book fell from my hands and landed with a soft thud on the floor.

This was what Lily had brought with her from Earth? Not clothing. Sentimental items. Jewelry. No. Lily had books full of hot, naked sex? Dominant males seducing their pairbonded females? Touching. Tasting. Claiming them for all time. The story had been told in the female’s perspective as her mate had filled her body. Touched her. Kissed her. The lust burning from the pages had me struggling to breathe. “Lily?”

“Yes?” Her clipped tone held little to no interest in my presence. She had moved on from organizing her books on the floor to placing them in groups inside the cabinets along the bedroom wall. As she’d done from the moment her wide eyes had landed on me with shock, she appeared to be doing anything and everything she could to ignore me.

This human female had already wrecked my carefully laid plan. Ruined everything. Nothing she did was expected. I had no idea what to say to her or how to approach her.

How to get her naked.

She’d barely spoken to me, but now she was humming, her soft, lilting voice going straight to my hard body in a caress I imagined would feel very much like the soft touch of her lips on my skin.
“Is that what you desire?”

“What are you talking about?” Her movements were quick. Stilted.

“The beast man in that story of yours. He took his female and held her against the wall, filled her body. Claimed her. Made her scream with release.”

“Oh, bloody hell.” She whispered under her breath but would not look at me.

“Lily? Answer me. Is. That. What. You. Want?” Because I was fully capable, eager, to take her against the wall and make her scream. The only name she would cry out would be mine.



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