Not aCommanderwhose body interacted directly with some kind of planetary frequency.Not a gorgeous, massive male who could throw lightning around with a flick of his wrist.Whose strange, silver eyes were almost hypnotic.Too beautiful to be real.
The whole planet was terrifyingly beautiful.Everything pulsed as one.Alive.Connected somehow.But was the planetactuallyalive?Conscious?What was this place?What were those lights in his flesh?
Why could Ifeel him?
I was in trouble here.Significant, undeniable trouble.
3
Sloane
So,he had a name.Sorik.And a rank.And his town was calledSol’Virex.
"Dr.Sloane Carter."I held his gaze by force of will."Engineer and pilot.Research vesselAstraeawith the Nova Frontier Initiative.We came from Earth."
"I do not know this Earth you speak of.I do know you are fragile and weak.You will not survive out here alone."
Weak?Who was he calling weak?True, human biology was somewhat fragile, but that’s what technology was for.Life support suits.Weapons.
"I can and will survive alone, if I need to.”I had survival training.Gear.A ship to sleep in.For now.
The concern that moved across his face was immediate.Unguarded.He scanned the tree line with the quick, habitual efficiency of someone whose body had been trained to put itself between danger and anyone more vulnerable — a reflex so ingrained it didn't require thought.The storm nodes along his spine flared brighter, and I watched it happen despite every intention not to stare.I simply could not look away.
God, he was stunning.Sexy.The thought arrived without warning and without my consent.I shoved it down hard.Curled my hands into fists so I wouldn’t reach out andtouch.
Fuck.I really, really wanted to touch him.Run my fingertips over those lights.Discover what his skin felt like pressed to mine.What he tasted like.Did he have a penis?Like a normal man?Would it be hard and wide?Long?Did he have sex the same way humans did?
"The storm crystals in the cliff face," I said, turning my eyes toward the distant formations and away from the impossible lure of him."Do your people harvest them?I need to know if removal would destabilize the?—"
"I know what you need," Sorik interjected.
That tone.Was he talking about more than?—?
No.Couldn’t be.He was an alien.He’d never even seen a human before.My out-of-control body was playing tricks on my stressed out mind.Had to be.No alien was going to walk up to me in a glass jungle full of deadly fauna and obsidian trees and tease me.Flirt with me.
Right?I looked back at him before I could stop myself.
He had closed two of the six feet between us.I hadn't seen him move.He was simplycloser.The warmth radiating off his body hit me like standing at the edge of a fire — startling and immediate.It sank into my body.Deep.Compelling.His heat radiated through the space between us.I shouldn’t have been able to feel him.Somehow, I could.As if his body ran at a fundamentally different temperature than anything human.Hotter.Stronger.Like the storm energy living in his spine turned him into my personal beacon.
Every cell in my body responded.Heated.Leaned.Wanted to be closer.My breath caught.Audibly.I hated that.His silver eyes bored into me like he knewexactlywhat was happening to me.
Was this some kind of weapon they used on invaders?A test?Poison?Was I losing control of my body because of something he put in the air around me?
"The storm crystals," he said, holding my gaze, "can be harvested from the upper cliff deposits.The paths are dangerous.The pre-storm surges have already begun."He paused."I know the safe routes.I will take you to them."
"Why would you help me?"The question came out stripped of everything professional.Raw in a way I hadn't intended.But it was the question I needed answered more than anything else.Why.Why a stranger who owed me nothing would offer to risk his life for a human—alien to him—who had just fallen out of the sky.
He looked at me for a long moment.His silver eyes steady.Unblinking.The light along his spine pulsed once, slow and deep, like a heartbeat syncing to something outside himself.
"Because the storm chose you," he explained.“You are mine now.”
He spoke with the absolute certainty of a man describing an observable fact, like the direction of wind or the coming of a storm.
You are mine now.
Something cracked open in my chest.I didn't have a name for it.I didn't want one.
“I belong to no one.”