His Virgin Mate(24)
“Alexis Lopez. Tell me about your life. I want to know everything about you.”
Her eyes darted to mine, and she took a deep breath. “I’m boring. I swear.”
“Not to me.” I put my utensils down and leaned forward, focused, intent on anything she would tell me, any truth she may reveal. She was mine, and I wanted to know everything.
A small smile was my reward and she placed her hands in her lap, her fingers dancing over one another with her anxiety. I wanted to pull her into my lap and pet her, kiss and hold her until she forgot to be nervous. Until there was nothing but her…and me.
“I turned twenty-one a couple weeks ago. I was supposed to finish college, but my dad died last year and I didn’t have time to apply for financial aid, so I had to take a semester off. I just never went back.”
“What is college?” Some of what she said I understood, but not all.
She opened her mouth, frowned, tilted her head to look at me. “Wow. Okay. Ummm, college is a place of higher learning, a place to receive education and training for a special job, like how to run a business, or how to be a doctor, engineering and computer programming. Stuff like that.”
“And what were you studying to become?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought I wanted to go into graphic design, but I don’t like drawing on a computer. I prefer pen and paper. And there just isn’t any money in art, unless you get lucky or are some kind of genius.”
“And you need money on your world?”
Glass of wine halfway to her lips, she paused to stare at me with round eyes. “Yes. Don’t you?”
“Barter and trade is a primitive social structure.”
She laughed. “I am so on an alien world right now.” She sipped the wine, set the glass down and licked her lips. I wanted to lick those lips. “So, if you don’t have money, how do you pay for things? Buy things? Where do you live?”
“I am a Hunter.”
“I don’t know what that means. What do you do? Kill animals to eat?”
“No. I enforce the laws on our world.”
“So, you’re a cop?” Fingernails drumming the table, she frowned. “How did I end up mated to a cop?”
“I do not know your word cop, but I am one of the Hunters assigned to maintain order on Everis. I hunt criminals, determine punishment for crimes, settle disputes between parties in my region. Should a convicted criminal escape prison, I would hunt him and bring him to swift and final justice. Is that what your cop does?”
“Hell, no.” She stared at me, her gaze holding mine as if she were trying to see into my soul. I let her look. “So, you’re more like police, detective, judge and jury in one?”
I considered her words carefully. “Yes. We are highly respected. Most of us served, fighting in the Hive wars before being assigned to the Hunter forces. I am a Senior Hunter of the forces in this region. But my authority is respected anywhere on the planet, or within the Coalition Fleet. We have been called upon to track criminals to other worlds. Our tracking skills are legendary, and we are often hired by leaders of other planets to hunt their criminals and bring them to justice.”
“How do you track someone? Do you have special Spidey-sense or something?”
Spidey-sense? “I cannot explain it to you, mate. But know this, Hunters use instincts older than our race in pursuit of our prey. I can’t describe the feeling to you, but if I focus my thoughts on a person, on a criminal or a thing, eventually, I will find that which I seek. Even if I have to travel across worlds.”
“Wow. You’re a total badass.” Her words were barely more than a whisper and her pulse raced at the base of her neck.
“I am not an ass. I am a Hunter. And now, I am yours, Lexi. I will never leave your side, never betray you. I will kill to protect you, and avenge any who wrong you or bring you dishonor. I will bring you pleasure you can’t imagine, fulfill every fantasy and desire if you but ask. You are mine, mate. And I take care of what’s mine.”
“All because we share a mark?”
“Yes.”
The server refilled both of our cups and I watched, amused, as Lexi took a long drink, emptying nearly half the glass. The slight tremble in her hand worsened to a noticeable shaking.
“Are you nervous, mate?”
Lexi replaced the glass on the table very careful not so spill. “No. Yes. I don’t know.” Her gaze darted across the room to the long, green settee draped with assorted pillows, blankets and binding scarves. “I just don’t know what to expect. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Yes, you do.”