Page 45 of Secretly Mated To My Monster Alien Boss
“Staring at me won’t change my mind, Rexan,” he rumbled. “I am not coming back to Deruzia.”
On Earth, he’d found purpose. Freedom. Kiara. He wasn’t leaving, even if Rexan tried to drag him back through the portal, helped by the entire Ka’Nar troops.
“I was simply checking,” Rexan said dismissively.
“No need to check, my horns are still bigger than yours.”
Deryg wouldn’t admit it out loud, especially to Rexan, but he sometimes missed him. Their history wasn’t filled with only arguments and disagreements. He remembered those nights spent in the desert to prove to themselves they could survive, with nothing but a dagger and their banter with them.
Rexan huffed a laugh. “I was only checking if you were impaired.”
Deryg frowned. “Why would I be?”
He hadn’t sustained any serious injury during the attack. Hadn’t fallen to hit his head, no bullet had pierced his chest.
And he had no history of overindulging himself in any impairing powder or beverage, so–
Deryg went completely still.
“You,” he whispered, horrified eyes regarding his brother in a totally different light. “You sent it.”
Rexan threw his shoulders back. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He did. It was obvious from the way the corner of his upper lip twitched; an imperceptible tell to others, but Deryg had spent almost his entire life in Rexan’s shadow. He could read his brother.
“Don’t pretend to be dumb, Rexan, it doesn’t suit you,” Deryg said coldly. “You sent the f’tare.”
Rexan’s silence said more than he could ever admit.
Ice seeped deep into Deryg’s bones. Kevin had told the truth. A Deruzian had given him the crate.
“How could you be so stupid?” Deryg marched right in Rexan’s face. “Do you know what could have happened if other Deruzians had gotten a whiff of it? You would have jeopardized Deruzia’s chances on Earth. The humans would have hunted us back through the portal.”
Rexan nodded at the makeshift spear in Deryg’s hands. “It looks like you didn’t need my interference with that. Humans simplyadorehaving you here.”
“You could have made things so much worse.” Deryg fought hard not to raise his voice. He’d never wanted to actually hit his brother, not even during their last argument, but now… “What in the Nines were you thinking?”
“First of all, I thought I could trust human efficiency. I was wrong. The crate should have been deliveredtoday,” Rexan said. “And I thought you’d do your duty and inspect every single shipment that came into the building and you’d taste the f’tare in time to meet Leyra, and no other Deruzian would be affected. The f’tare was supposed to aid you in realizing the truth you had to run to another planet to avoid. But no. You probably opened it and it set you off so hard, you had to indulge in a liaison with that human of yours–”
“What did you say?” Deryg growled.
“I can smell her on you. When she came up to talk to me, I almost couldn’t believe my senses, but I told her exactly what–”
In the next breath, Deryg had Rexan pinned to the wall. His forearm pressed against his brother’s neck, uncaring of the surprise in his gaze.
“What did you say to her?” he growled.
From the stricken way Kiara had looked at him, Deryg should have known something sinister had happened while he’d been talking with Leyra.
“The truth,” Rexan wheezed out. Even with his airways partially blocked, he still managed to sound arrogant. “That Leyra is your mate.”
Deryg bared his fangs. Nobody could blame him if he committed the most atrocious sin on Deruzia–killing someone from his own family.
“That. Is. A. Lie,” he hissed.
“The contract between our families has been signed. The elders don’t care that you don’t want it.”
“Leyra doesn’t either.”
