Alex nestled down on the sage green sofa cushions, propping her feet up on the weathered coffee table. Rile's face was open and peaceful as he laid his head in her lap and she traced circles with her glowing fingertip along his face. Her neuro-electric powers tingled across his hide, sending ripples of warmth throughout his body.
Alex kept tracing, circling around his throat, dipping into the hollows of his chest before making her way back up again. A satisfied smile blossomed on Rile's face as he closed his eyes, feeling contentment in a way he had never known before Alex.
"We haven't sparred in a while." Alex didn't stop stroking his face.
Rile shrugged. "There's time later."
"Why, Rile, I do declare, you are getting soft," Alex mocked in her Southern drawl that she usually held in reserve.
"Fine with me. I've had to be hard and sharp my whole life."
She ran her entire hand over his chest like it was an instrument she played for him alone. "I'm sorry about that."
"It ended well." He rolled to his side, stretched his golden-red wing toward the ceiling, and grinned as Alex watched, mesmerized. "Let's go to bed."
Not for the first time, Alex marveled that under all that anger and bitterness was a deep well of love and loyalty. She had been lucky enough to tap into it. Unbidden, she wondered what Gabe, Rile's oldest brother, was doing. She hoped he had found a sweet mate back on their home world, and they were busy having the babies that he so desperately wanted.
She couldn't have been more wrong.