Page 27 of The Alien Warrior's Mate

Korben slid his hand over Enthara’s body, his head lowered. The wind picked up and gently threw long brown strands of his hair in front of his face. His lips inched down in a look of dismay.

She wanted to wrap her arms around him and give him a big hug. He’d protected her from killer alien wasps. A hug was the least she could offer.

But a sudden itching over her skin kept her in place. Her nails ran up and down her arms, trying to sooth the irritation. Puzzled, she glanced around her. The alien bush was completely orange. Completely. From root to leaves.

The flowers were like nothing she’d seen before. They were huge, about the size of a full-grown cabbage. Like a cabbage, they seemed to have several layers—almost like petals but pressed closely together.

She reached out to touch one, amazed by its beauty. Korben snatched her wrist. His purple eyes, still somber from the damage to his metal pet, pinned her in place.

“Sah-ah,” he said in that deep, guttural tone of his. He rattled a string of words that she couldn’t process, but the way he was shaking his head was clear.

She dipped her chin. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

As if he thought that she would turn around and disobey him—which was ludicrous given, at this point, he’d been right about the evil lion guards and the crazy alien wasps—Korben picked up a stick.

Sara eyed him as he cautiously approached the flower, keeping a giant space between him and the bloom. She would have found it funny—this imposing alien warrior wary around this innocent flower. But the moment that stick made contact with the center of the bloom, the flower came alive like a crazed demon.

It opened its mouth and shrieked, revealing dangerous teeth that looked like a miniature version of an alligator’s. In one big crunch, it snapped the stick in two before falling asleep as if it wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Her heart screamed bloody murder and she backed all the way up from those particular evil plants.

She neededoffthis planet.

Now.

Sara longed for her home where the only plant that she owned was a half-dying fern her aunt had given her for her twenty-second birthday. Where wasps were just generally annoying and not man-eating horrors. Where rain didn’t destroy everything in its path.

She wanted her own damn bed.

Sara scratched at her arm.

And a nice, long shower. With freaking hot water.

Her nails scraped against her skin more intently.

And normalcy. Just a long, boring day where nothing interesting happened, she didn’t meet anyone, and no one cared to meet her.

When could she get back to those? To home? To earth?

Korben grabbed her hand. He held it up to the light filtering through the thick shrubs, his eyebrow nubs pulled together. The flatness of his lips told her that something was wrong.

She inspected her hand and gasped. Though her skin was dark, the underside of her wrist was a light, honeyed-brown. She could see little bumps rising on her flesh, popping out like an allergic reaction.

The urge to scratch rose in her again, so strong that she felt like she’d die if she didn’t relieve the irritationnow.

Korben held her hand firmly. “Sah-ah, ned sadsae.”

“Let me go.” She gritted her teeth, struggling against him so she could scratch. “Get your handsoffme.”

His fingers tightened on her wrists. “Sah-ah.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, drawn from the irritation of her skin and her inability to disentangle her hand from his.

She had to…

She had to scratch.

She had to scratch, or she might as well go whistle at the wasps and offer herself up as a sacrifice. She might as well throw some rocks at the lion guards and taunt them until they shot her to death.

---