The mark on my palm was now quiet. It didn’t hurt any longer, but my heart ached now, that pain exponentially worse. I’d spent one night with my marked mate—God, I couldn’t even wrap my head around that truth—and I wanted more. I wanted a lifetime. I didn’t have to know him for months to know that he was the one for me. The. One.
I’d go back to Earth and search the entire planet and I would never find a man more perfect for me than Kiel.
He was mine. My complete match.
It wasn’t kismet or serendipity. No, we’d been marked. Matched by fate, or God, or some unknown and unseen force that had somehow marked my palm and his—even though we were born clear across the universe from one another.
Kiel, the Hunter from Everis, was mine.
But I was leaving. Going back to Earth and choosing Wyatt over him. I would choose Wyatt over everything. While Kiel was my marked mate, Wyatt was my son. I could never walk away from him, never abandon him.
Nothing would keep me from him, not even true love with an unexpected and wonderful alien warrior, or ten light years of cold, black, empty space.
Rachel was helping me transport home. She’d shared her truth, ensured I knew it and would take it with me in the hopes that if women on Earth heard what she had to say, more brides would come to the Colony. She only wanted these warriors happy. While not everyone wanted a mate, most probably did. A family, children. Love.
Rachel, as it turned out, was pretty amazing. She knew my truth, knew the reason I would leave Kiel behind. I couldn’t tell him. No. He wouldn’t let me go. According to Rachel, he literally would not be able to allow me to leave. His need was beyond human, an instinct in the core of his being that would never allow him to leave me, no matter the circumstances.
Only death was strong enough to tear him from my side.
But he didn’t have a son with trusting blue eyes and dimples. He’d never felt the soft sweetness of chubby little arms squeezing his neck, sloppy wet kisses on his cheek, and the whispered confession of ‘I love you, mommy’ in the middle of the night.
I stood still and fought the tears welling beneath my eyelids like liquid fire. Wyatt.
I had to go home.
That was why, when Kiel came into his quarters, I leapt to my feet, then leapt onto him wrapping my legs around his waist. I had to walk away from him, let him go, but not right now. Not until Warden Egara said.
Soon though. Too soon, so I would make the most of the time I had left. I’d never been so aroused, so eager for a man as I was with Kiel. Even though he was from Everis, from another planet, he was all man. The way his shoulders felt wide and solid beneath my palms, his waist trim and firm under my wrapped legs, his rippling belly pressed against my mound, his bulging cock nudging against my eager pussy. One hundred percent pure, unadulterated man. And he was all mine.
For tonight.
“Well, hello,” he said, the corner of his mouth tipping up.
“Did you find him? Krael?”
Kiel’s face hardened. “No. But we will. I’ll be called out again soon.” He looked at me, stroked his knuckles over my cheek and I watched as his tension eased. “In the meantime, is there something you want?”
“Yes.” I wiggled my hips, brushing more firmly against his cock. “I want you naked.”
His chest rumbled with a very primitive, manly sound. “The mark makes us hot for each other. It keeps us…very eager until the claiming is done.”
I leaned in, ran my lips along the length of his neck, felt the slight rasp of his beard, breathed in his clean, dark scent. “I thought that was what we did last night.” I bit lightly at the tendon in his neck.
His big hands gripped my bottom, hoisted me up as he carried me to the bed.
Putting a knee on the bed, he lowered me down, even as I kept my hold. Looked up into his dark brown eyes. “A formal claiming ceremony is when I make you mine, Lindsey. I’ll fill you with my cock, fill you with my seed as our marks touch. Then, and only then, will we be joined forever.”
He’d fucked me the night before. More than once. I’d had his cum slipping from me all day, but I couldn’t remember him ever clasping our fingers together, making our palms touch.
I felt the desperate urge to say yes, to do just that. To make him mine. Forever. But that wasn’t to be. That would be selfish of me. Worse, cruel. If we were bound forever, he’d never be able to get over me or find someone else, another woman, to love him.
The very idea was like a dagger in my heart, but I would not deny him happiness, even if it couldn’t be with me. Kiel very much deserved to be loved.
He frowned, slid a hand up my body so he cupped my cheek. Looked at me. Really saw me. “What’s wrong? Why are you sad?”