Page 60 of Alien Desire
“No, because you are both precious to me and I want you to be safe.” His hand is heavy on my belly and for the first time I feel the faintest of flickers within. A flutter so light I’m unsure if it’s real. It’s the baby moving beneath our conjoined hands. Our baby. “But I won’t make you come if you don’t want to, Emma. If that is really what you wish. I will take you wherever you want to go.”
“And then what? You leave us?” I try to keep my voice steady, not wanting the falter of my words to reveal how much the thought breaks me in two, as if the guardsman had swung their spears straight through me.
“I will not leave you. I will stay with you and our child. I am sorry for attempting to force my will on yours.”
“What?” I gape at him, unsure I’ve heard him correctly. Still, not allowing myself to hope. “You’d give up your chance to be leader? To find out who tried to have you killed?”
“Yes,” he says simply.
“For me?”
“For you.” The colours in his skin and in his eyes are bright and vibrant but still, calm, glimmering in the shadows of the room. I’ve never seen them like this before. “I love you, Emma.”
“I didn’t think that was possible,” I blurt out without thinking and my forehead crinkles in puzzlement. The blood rushes to my head, making me lightheaded and giddy. A warmth swims from the centre of my heart and glides through the whole of my body. He loves me? “How do you know?”
“How does anyone know they are in love?”
I think of all the things I’ve read or heard about love. The poems, the descriptions, the many attempts to put it into words. It is not an emotion I’d ever experienced before I met Tor, and even now I am in love with him, I’m still unsure I can explain it. “You just know. You feel it and you know.”
“Exactly,” he tells me with such certainty, it knocks me backward and it is only the firm pressure of his hand that keeps me grounded.
I stare up at him. A storm of confusion and fear and uncertainty swirls inside me. But he stares back calmly, the gold in his eyes deadly still, like silent waters. My brain races away laying out all the things that could go wrong, all the awful possibilities and tragic probabilities. I bring my fists to the sides of my temples, the tears streaking back down my face, but he pulls my hands away.
“This won’t end well,” I say gruffly, my voice hoarse with the effort of holding back this barrage of fears.
“It will be OK, Emma. Whatever you choose, it will be OK. I promise you that.”
And I know this is the truth. Because he loves me. Of course he does. We are so different and still learning but underneath it all there is love. A solid glowing source of heat that will sustain us through all our days. It burns right in the centre of my being. And suddenly I am so giddy with it, so drunk on it. This is better than kissing and sex. This is love.
He takes me in his arms and kisses my lips.
His scent billows around me. Not aggressive, not aroused. Passionate, deep and never ending. I sink against him, wilting into the sensation of his strong arms wrapped around me, and the pound of his heart fierce against my chest. I hear his heart beat too, along with the rush of his breath, both loud in my ears.
He is so precious — his heart, his breath. I think again of the very first time I’d seen him, how desperate I’d been to keep his heart beating, his breath coming. I’d known even then how special this Alpha was.
I will fight to keep him with me, always. And I will fight for our child too.
Before long our kisses turn feverish and hungry and he’s pushing inside me for more. Sex for us has become a tonic. Even though we can talk the same language now, we speak best with our bodies. And right now we need to tell each other how deep our love runs. The sex is a manifestation of our love.
We hold each other close, and the sex is slow and languid, as we treasure each part of the other with kisses and touches, and he coaxes my orgasm from me slowly, building it up incrementally so that when it comes, with him whispering my name in my ear, it is so powerful, it sweeps away all the doubt, all the festering worries, and leaves nothing but the knowledge that whatever happens we will have each other.
Chapter twenty five - Tor
She loves me and I love her.
Perhaps I have known it for some time but did not understand what it was, what was happening between us. But now we have put it into words, named this pull towards each other, it has given it formation in my mind and in my soul. Something solid and immoveable that I think will be lodged in my heart for as long as it is beating.
There is nothing that can separate us, regardless of mating or marriage or a claiming bite. These things seem temporary, whimsical in comparison to the infinite permanence of this feeling for her. We have already overcome crashes, monsters and assassins. We will overcome anything together. The birth of our baby, the plot to kill me. I am not concerned. We will return to Astia together in triumph. I have found an Omega — the first for a decade and there may be many more like her.
I have found an Omega and made her mine and my baby grows in her belly.
But in return she has made me hers. There will be no other Omega for me. No harem, no collection. Just her.
And she is coming with me. This is what she has chosen. Me. Us.
I don’t send a message to my planet to inform them of the assassination attempt. Most likely those behind it will understand for themselves that their plan has been unsuccessful, but I hope to take them unawares anyway.
So we pack up what little we have in this station, Emma insisting on tidying and cleaning and leaving a helpful log with Sheila for whoever visits this planet and this station next.
