Star Side

Chapter 41

"My mother had many mates," he said, only because he was pleased with my laugh. "She was—is? Chief. Very beautiful, very powerful, but I never understood. It is harder for one female to give many males young. And she..." A tickle of a mind wave across my mind gave me the impression of a wrinkled nose of disgust, though whenever Gilrack made that expression it was always obviously practiced. "She is not gentle. She is not kind. She is great and sometimes very fierce, and to some, ugly. But she has wings and the blood of chiefs, so she is chief, no, chieftess."

"We have another name for a female chief that I think works better here."

I felt his ears perk up against my cheek.

"Queen," I said. "That would make you a prince."

"Prince? Like...lesser...little chief?"

"A prince is a son of a Queen and can grow up to become a King, or chief."

Gilrack puffed air across my collarbone again, raising goosebumps across what bit of my chest was exposed above the towel. I felt a note of displeasure, but he didn't say anything to that. Perhaps he did not want to be in a leadership position, which I could totally get. Having to worry about other people constantly and tell them what to do and all that attention—ugh. There's a reason I came to the edge of the known galaxy.

His hand on my knee drifted, feather-light, across the top of the towel where it hesitated over my stomach. When I didn't protest, he gently set his hand against it. A thrill of satisfaction that wasn't mine rippled through my thoughts.

I pinched my knees together. "Um, that isn't, uh, what does that touch mean?" They were very, uh, not liberal with their touching. Touch was the same as clothes, I had to remember that.

"Mine," he rumbled. His mind waves were getting thicker again, less coherent.

"What? No, wait, don't go back—shit."

He was back to crooning again, and no matter what I asked only clicks were my answers.

It was like he thought we were already mated.

"I didn't agree to this," I told him.

He actually whined a little at that.

"No, really, I didn't. We are not mates."

His arms tightened around me, as well as the hand on my stomach. The hole on top where the corner of his wings didn't quite cover, like the opening in the top of a teepee, shrunk to a pin point.

Okay, so wrong thing to say, but seriously.

When his instincts once more retreated, though, his body relaxed and the teepee hole grew looser than before.

"I know," he said. "I—I'm sorry. Instincts..." His shame low-key stung like low-grade acid across my thoughts.

"Do your females have to worry about male instincts?"

He hesitated, and I took note of that.

"It's...it's all...not in order with us—with Gilrack and Jolene. Different...different kinds."

"Okay, I can get that."

"...I love you."

"Yeah, I heard that."

"..."

"Gilrack, let me go."

His body against mine spasmed as he reflexively tensed to tighten around me at the same time he tried to force himself to relax and step back.

"I...I can't."

"No, seriously, I have to pee."

"...Oh."