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She snatched her hands away. Crossing her arms under her full breasts, she tucked her fingers into her armpits, making them inaccessible to him.
“I’m not afraid of you!” She jutted her chin, her eyes blazing. Despite the tear tracks on her flushed cheeks, Solon thought she looked beautiful and fierce—like a warrior princess.
“I can tell that you are,” he said quietly. “I just don’t know why. Why do you fear me? Is it because I look like a beast?”
“How can you ask me why I’m afraid?” she demanded, her voice laced with exasperation and irritation. “You’re a huge, scary, alien warrior who sent two other huge, scary, alien warriors to drag me out of my business to a place I don’t know! They didn’t even let me bring any of my aides or call my aunt! She’s going to be terrified when she gets back to the shop and finds me gone!”
Solon didn’t know what she meant by “aides” but it seemed like her worry for her aunt’s feelings was the most urgent item of business.
“You,” he snapped at one of the Agents who had dragged Abbey in. “Find out her aunt’s phone number and give her a call. Explain that Abbey has been taken to the HKR building and that from there we will proceed to the Monstrum Mother Ship where we will spend our Claiming Period for one solar month.”
“A whole month?” Abbey protested, her face growing worried. “A whole month alone with a guy I don’t even know?”
“The point is to get to know each other.”
Solon wished he could get to her hands again. Because she had no Chimera blood herself, he couldn’t send emotions to her as effectively as he could receive them from her, but he did have some skill in that area. If only he could have direct skin-to-skin contact with her again he might be able to send her feelings of comfort and reassurance to calm her down. He should have done that earlier, but her feelings of terror had shocked him so much, he hadn’t been thinking clearly.
“What if I don’t want to get to know you?” she asked tightly. “What if I just want to go home and forget I ever met you?”
Her words cut him but Solon tried not to react. He sensed he wouldn’t be able to get through to her until he figured out the source of her fear and helped alleviate it.
“You can’t go home,” he told her. “Once you’re officially drafted, you’re legally obligated to come back to the Monstrum Mother Ship and spend the entirety of the Claiming Period with me.”
Her face crumpled and her eyes went from angry to frightened in a heartbeat.
“Please,” she whispered in a soft, broken voice. “Please, I don’t want to go with you. Can’t you just leave me alone?”
That look on her face and the fear he knew she was feeling made Solon feel as though she’d reached into his chest and squeezed his heart in her soft little hand.
“Oh, lelka…” he murmured, the endearment slipping out before he could stop it. “I understand you’re upset with me right now, and I’m sorry about that. If I could leave you alone, I would, but I can’t. I’ve been dreaming of you for months.” Reaching out, he cupped one flushed, tear-stained cheek gently in his palm. For a wonder, she didn’t draw away from him, even though Solon could still feel the fear running through her. “You’re my fated mate, Abbey,” he said gently, trying to send feelings of warmth and caring and calm to her. “And I am yours. Whether you know it or not we belong together.”
For a moment he thought he was getting through to her. He felt a slight wavering in her steady current of fear. Something else—was it uncertainty? Confusion? Longing? Whatever it was, it came though to him as he Felt her.
Then her eyes hardened and she pulled away from his hand.
“Bullshit,” she hissed, her face going tight again. “This is all just bullshit!”
Solon drew in a breath. He was going to stay patient, he told himself. He was not going to let her upset him. He straightened up and stood over her as she knelt on the floor.
“Fine. We were supposed to have a Pre-Joining ceremony but I think we’d better skip that and just go straight to the Monstrum Mother Ship,” he said. “After all, the sooner we begin our Claiming Period, the sooner it will be over and the sooner you can leave me. Come on.”
Reaching down, he hooked one hand under her arm and pulled her to her feet. Then, never releasing his grip on her, he marched her straight through the HKR building until he reached the place where his shuttle was parked out back.
Opening the passenger side door, he boosted Abbey up into the passenger seat and then buckled her firmly in place.
She didn’t say a word or try to run but when his fingertips touched the back of her hand, Solon felt the fear current running through her like a river deep enough to drown in.
What was he going to do and how could he convince her not to fear him? He had no idea but he prayed to the Goddess he would think of a way soon.
11
ABBEY
Abbey stared straight ahead as she was strapped into yet another alien vehicle. Of course, she couldn’t see anything but she got the impression she was in the cockpit of a plane or a spaceship—that was because most of the blurs in her field of vision were especially bright and colorful—like the lights on a bank of controls, she thought numbly as the big Monstrum buckled her in.
He was taking her away—taking her and there was nothing she could do about it. He was going to get her alone and do what he wanted—do what Henry had tried to do and what Chris, back in high school, had succeeded in doing. And he was going to keep doing to it to her for a full month and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Nothing at all.
