Kyro - A.G. Wilde Page 0,6

bumped into her. His grunt broke her concentration and she moved out of his way.

She wasn’t sure if it was the same yeti as before or if their species was just generally impolite.

Nevertheless, when she looked back to where the animal had been, she realized it was gone.

Shrugging it off, she took one more opportunity to scan the crowd of beings in front of her, squeezing the handle of the basket tight as she felt a little hope at the thought of seeing Kyro walking in the throng.

But he wasn’t there.

It seemed he had gotten tired of playing his little game with her.

Well, it was fun while it had lasted, she told herself.

Only, there was still that feeling of disappointment as she turned around to enter the market.

For once that entire day, she’d been genuinely amused by something—humor that hadn’t been based on self-deprecation, negativity, or pulling from her own depression.

It had felt good to be free.

3

He didn’t know why he was following her.

Boredom?

Interest?

A need to embarrass himself?

He wasn’t sure.

All he knew was that following her gave him some form of pleasure he hadn’t anticipated—took his mind away from things even. So, he had continued.

He told himself it was because he was Vorti—because of his love for data.

His people thrived on information. The more they knew, the more powerful they could become.

It was that power that brought about their fall. Vorti were almost extinct. Finding one was rare.

Since the end times began when the Great War started, what was left of his people had scattered across the galaxy, taking refuge wherever they could.

They hid, like he was doing now. Hid in plain sight.

It was all they could do to survive. All they could do when most races who knew of their existence saw them as being dangerous.

It had been something he hadn’t understood as a youngling, back when the Great War had begun. But after he was taken, he’d learned pretty quickly—beings feared what they did not understand, and most beings did not understand the Vorti.

Most beings. But not the High Tasqals. They were different. They hadn’t feared his people. They had seen what others didn’t see—they had seen the Vorti as weapons to be used.

It didn’t help that the Vorti were nothing like the propaganda the Tasqals broadcasted about them to all worlds. Fighting their power only made things worse.

So, he’d done what all Vorti were doing to survive.

He’d deconstructed his eyebrows, smoothed his skin, hid his reflectors, cut off his chets—all to look like the Borxclan.

Glancing down at his hand, he turned it and moved his fingers.

Five fingers instead of his native three. It was a constant sacrifice he had to keep.

He had to hide. Not only from the Tasqals, who would hunt him but also from the general population of known worlds.

It had been years, but he still could never be sure if the Tasqals’ lies about his people’s aggression, deceit, and untrustworthiness were known as lies. Many worlds were still loyal to the Tasqals.

For that reason, he only indulged in his one Vorti trait that he could use without giving away his truth—his attraction to data.

Still, regardless of him being Vorti, he had to admit that there was something else constantly drawing him to the human female.

It was not just down to his love for data or his interest in studying other species.

He wasn’t following her now because he was doing any research.

Watching her weaving her way through the crowd, Kyro tilted his head slightly, trying to figure out what it was that pulled him from his quarters to walk through the market with no true purpose.

The human was walking some meters ahead of him, and even with the many aliens weaving in and out between them, his eyes were locked on her and her only.

She had a way of walking that made her hips sway with such ease, her entire body looked like it moved with the ease of fluid. Even underneath the unbecoming brown thing the Restitution had provided as clothing, he could see that there were curves. Soft, round curves everywhere.

He could imagine those curves were like how a calm river moved and twisted gently.

This was why his brothers had been bewitched by humans.

Human females were soft everywhere. Soft and inviting.

It made a male want to...

He had to stop walking as his cock throbbed in his trousers. He hadn’t even realized he had become aroused.

Qrak.

He should head back to his quarters.

He really, really should.

Yet, his eyes still sought her out amid the throng.

Every