Perfect. My mate was fucking perfect.

Abby

My mind was an endless stream of insults. I wanted to like these people, I really did. They weren’t making it easy.

I sat with Cormac on a large bench placed along the far wall of the celebration area. The main dining hall they all used for most meals wasn’t large enough to hold everyone at once, so they’d pulled the seating and put it out in the street. If this was a street.

I’d never been on an alien home base before.

Scratch that for a lie, but I refused to count Latiri 4 and the Hive base. That place was for war, a prison, not a home.

The dome sky looked brighter than I’d imagined it would. It wasn’t blue like the sky at home, but it was a bit blue and silver. Pretty even if unfamiliar. The buildings were not more than three or four stories tall, but they stretched in every direction, clean, well-kept streets between them that buzzed with small vehicles that gave it the energy of a mid-sized city. Color was everywhere. The base color of everything was silver, which I assumed was because this was Styx territory and their legion’s mark was silver. But on top of that, painted in giant swaths was every color imaginable. Cheerful lights hung in strings between buildings. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Some musicians played nearby; happy dancing music made my foot tap in time to the music even as I scowled at everyone who dared look our way.

These people made me mad. Not just angry, furious. Cormac had tried to tell me but I thought he was exaggerating or reading the situation incorrectly. But no. They were all afraid of him and they treated him like a monster, not a person.

“How long do we have to stay here?” I leaned against Cormac’s side, my head resting on his upper arm.

Cormac sighed, a sound I rarely heard from him. “Harper put a lot of work into this celebration.”

“And if we leave early, we’ll hurt her feelings.”

“Yes.”

That was my big, mean monster, worried about his sister-in-law’s feelings. I slid my hand beneath his elbow where it rested on his thigh and laced my fingers with his. “Okay. Just tell me when it’s been long enough. I want you to myself.” Cormac had said he loved me—in front of everyone. No one had ever claimed me like that, publicly, not caring who was watching or who might judge him or cancel a business deal. I craved him like a starving woman craved chocolate. I needed to touch him, to have him touch me. I needed his skin on my skin and his cock filling me up. I just needed him.