His to Claim: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance - Taylor Vaughn Page 0,60
of your parents and community to teach you the respect you obviously were never taught by your indolent race. It is now my bitter regret that I did not. For you have become so insolent, that not only do you think you may refuse to call me by my proper title, you somehow thought it was completely allowable to speak with another male while your Kel is away.”
I want to shake my head at all the crazy shit that just hissed and clicked out of his mouth. “So, this is about me talking to…” I’m so frustrated, I nearly say his name. At the last moment I substitute, “Another guy.”
“Another guy,” D’Rek repeats, his ridges once again going flat. “You will tell me the name of this ‘another guy.’”
Ugh, another wave of lust currents through me. I grit my teeth as I answer, “His name doesn’t matter, because we were just talking. Don’t females and males just talk on your planet?”
“There is no reason for a male and female of mating age to talk to each other in such a manner unless they are planning to mate without their parents’ consent,” D’Rek answers, as if that’s a law of nature, as immutable as the pull of gravity or the burn of the sun.
“On New Terrhan anybody can talk to anybody and it doesn’t mean anything unless they say it does,” I tell him, wishing I could roll my neck as I point this out to him.
“You are not on New Terrhan,” he reminds me.
“And I’m not a Xalthurian female!” I remind him right back.
As it turns out, he can blink. He does so in the next moment, his previously unseen lids, slamming down and coming right back up. Cold and deliberate. Then he says, “I have reviewed the garden tapes. You have met at the faun fountain and walked with this hybrid male of mating age nearly every day I have been gone. Even if you did not know our planet’s rule, he most certainly did. You will give me his name.”
“He was only escorting me….”
I stop myself, remembering N’Maryah, who’s done nothing but try to convince me to drop this asshole since we reunited. No, I can’t drag her into this mess. “I guarantee you, he did nothing wrong,” I say instead. “He just wanted me to teach him the New Terrhan language. That’s all.”
“That is not all,” D’Rek answers, his face resetting to cold. “You are protecting him. You will give me his name.”
“No, I won’t, because I don’t want him to get in trouble over some extremely stupid shit.”
“My planet’s laws are not stupid or feces,” he tells me with an icy tilt of his head. “You are a disrespectful hu’man whose defiance knows no bounds, and you seem incapable of understanding that our planet—the planet that rules over you—has laws, no one, including yourself, are allowed to defy. This is why you must be punished.”
Another wave of crazy intense lust crashes over me, then, but I bear down in order to squeeze out, “No, your stupid ego is why I must be punished. That and nothing else. I’m not going to play your game. I’m not going to kowtow to you because of some title that means nothing to me.”
The words course out of me, strong and defiant, despite the pain of my sexual need.
But they seem to have no effect on D’Rek. His expression remains unchanged as he says, “We will see.”
Then he places his large hand on my right cheek and turns my head, so that it’s facing the room’s left wall.
I find out why when he swipes a screen into the air and says, “S’Lei, have the guards bring in L’Than of the Bloodline Louxos.”
My heart sinks at the sound of L’Than’s name.
So he knew all along? What had this interrogation been about, then? Some kind of test, I guess.
One that I had failed.
Two guards enter, dragging L’Than between them by his knees. They must have hurt him badly, because his head is lolled forward, and though he’s not unconscious, he’s not fighting them at all.
My heart cries out in sympathy, when they set him up against the wall in my direct line of vision. Oh moons, his handsome red and brown swirled face is swollen nearly beyond recognition, but one of his eyes remains open as he stares at me on the bed.
Hot shame rolls through my body. Not just because no non-related male other than D’Rek has ever seen me naked,