Kyro - A.G. Wilde Page 0,45

even entertained the thought of having a life with her.

Coming to Xul for advice didn’t help. It only underlined the one thing he couldn’t do: confess.

How could he confess what he felt for Evren when she didn’t even know who he really was...what he really was.

Only Rokan knew, because Rokan was the same.

They both had a terrible secret no one else knew.

No one knew he was Vorti.

No one knew he was a shifter.

21

Evren yawned and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing a thick line of dirt over her forehead in the process.

The sun was high in the sky and, even though she had come to work late that day, she’d already managed to get through half of the shuttle already.

Her hands were beginning to feel calloused and rough under the work she was doing but that didn’t stop her. She’d already amassed a lot of credits and the pig-man was always happy to give her overtime.

Despite the credits though, she felt better in herself.

Not being in her apartment all day was helping too. She was no longer plagued with thoughts of unfulfillment. Now she had a goal.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked toward the shuttle where her little animal friend always seemed to show up.

He wasn’t there today and she wondered why.

Every single day since that first day, he’d shown up, watching her work no matter how long her days were and when she left for the evening, he would go home too, to wherever he went.

And every day she arrived, she half-expected him to not show up. But he always did. Except for today.

Maybe he had finally grown tired of her company.

Turning back to the shuttle she was scouring, her brows furrowed slightly.

Another thing was bothering her as well.

Through all this time, Kyro had been sending her messages on her datapad. Jokes mostly and a bit of chit-chat. But he hadn’t come by her apartment since that night and she couldn’t help but feel guilty about it.

It was probably her fault.

She’d scared him away with her indecisiveness.

She couldn’t tell a man she wanted nothing to do with him and then the next second invite him to hold her tenderly in bed.

That just didn’t work.

Most human men would’ve forgotten about what she’d said and taken the opportunity to seduce her. But not Kyro.

He was too gentlemanly for that. He respected her and she’d already learned that for a human in this new world, respect didn’t come easy.

He must think she was some kind of manipulative bitch. It was no wonder he was steering clear.

And the sad thing about it? She didn’t want him to.

She missed him.

There. She’d said it.

She missed him.

Missed seeing him. Missed speaking to him...like, really speaking to him. Not messages over the datapad.

Glancing over her shoulder once more, she looked at the shuttle behind her to see if the animal had arrived yet.

She missed the little creature too but the skunkat was nowhere to be seen. The animal reminded her of Kyro, and she wasn’t sure why. She guessed she was taking comfort in its visits because she couldn’t see Kyro herself.

Sighing, she tried to focus on the task at hand.

Maybe this was all a sign.

Maybe this was Kyro’s way of saying goodbye and maybe it was a sign that she didn’t have hope for a proper life on the base.

Maybe, it was the universe telling her to move on.

Kyro stared at his datapad, not seeing anything on the screen. The weight of his feelings, his conscience, it all seemed to increase as time went by.

In the silence, the device pinged.

For a second, his heart leaped. Just the thought of receiving a message from Evren had his lifeblood spiking.

But it wasn’t a message from her and as immediately as his heart leaped it fell like a ten-ton brick.

Instead, it was a message from Xul.

They were to head to Muk to search for the humans that might have been ejected from the slave ship they’d destroyed.

Kyro stared at the message.

He’d never been so unenthused about the prospect of going off base before.

In the next few minutes, he got ready, grabbed his gear, and was at the meeting spot, his brother Crex’s dwelling, in surprisingly record time.

When he arrived, Xul was already there and to his surprise, Rokan was there too.

“I didn’t see you leave the quarters.” He eyed Rokan. His fellow Vorti flashed him a grin.

“There are a lot of things you don’t see me do,” Rokan replied.

In other circumstances, he would have said