Page 8 of The Pregnancy Pact

With a firm, abrupt movement, the Asterion twisted in his seat to place his glass firmly on the bar before swiveling back to me.

“Human female,” he said, “I am going to offer you a kindness and advise you to return to your ship, lest you place yourself in a harmful situation. Drixus is nowhere an inebriated female, on her own, should be.”

I heard what he was saying. A detached part of my brain even recognized the wisdom. But alcohol muted my better judgment.

“I’m not alone,” I smirked, picking my glass back up and tipping it his direction. “You’re here.”

His dark brows rose. Likely at my stumbling attempts to flirt.

“Not for long,” he answered cooly. “I am tired of this nonsense, and am going back to my ship.”

“Why don’t you take me with you, then?” I giggled. “You could escort me home, if you’re so worried about it.”

To my horror, I felt myself losing my balance. Swaying. Why was I swaying? Was the room tilting? We weren’t on a space ship, so it shouldn’t be tilting.

I suppose I must have been worse off than I realized. Apparently, I was so bad the alien either felt some measure of sympathy for me making a fool of myself, or found the sight so degrading on a woman my age that he couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Let us go.”

Rising, he tugged on my arm, pulling me up with him. I swayed, stumbling backwards against the stool. He reacted by catching me, removing my cup—again—and saying, “Here, here,” with some irritation, I thought. I didn’t mind. He was gorgeous, he had an arm around me, and he was leading me from the crowded, smoke-filled, noisy, bright room. I couldn’t have cared less about why he was leading me or where we were going. Instead, I leaned against him, smiling, happy for the first time in forever.

Genuinely happy.

It’s not happiness, that tiny, tiny small part of my brain warned. It’s the blitza. That’s all it is. Tomorrow you’re going to wake up more depressed than ever and nursing a hangover.

Shut it. I drooped against the Overlord, resting more of my weight against him. He was neither incredibly tall nor impossibly broad, like many of the alien species. For all that, he took my weight like it was nothing.

“You’re very strong,” I breathed, smiling up at him. Stars, he was beautiful. How had I ever been satisfied with my human husband? Charlie hadn’t even aged well. He may have had women all around the Citadel, but that had to be due to the general lack of human men. He’d been balding and growing a pot belly—which hadn’t stopped his female admirers, apparently. However, he was a human man with some influence. Which had probably helped.

Memories of my ex helped lift the blitza-induced haze.

Damn him, I thought, my emotions spinning rapidly from admiration for the alien to disgust at my ex-husband.

The sad truth was, no matter how he’d looked, no matter what quiet dissatisfaction or loneliness I’d endured, I would never have cheated on Charlie or left him without good cause. I’d made my vows and I’d intended to stick to them until the day I died, never mind the love that faded each year with being ignored, being slighted, being jabbed with quick, stinging taunts. None of that, I’d told myself, was real cause for divorce. I’d meant to persevere.

Honestly, in some ways, painful as the truth was, finding out Charlie was cheating had come as a weird sort of relief. It meant I could get out of my cold, stale, uncomfortable marriage with a clean conscience. And I had.

But that didn’t make me feel better that I’d given twenty years of my life to the unscrupulous idiot.

It wasn’t a waste, though. He’d given me my sons, and I would take the trade of a sad, lonely marriage any day for the sake of my boys.

I suppose my shifting moods must have been obvious. By now, the Overlord and I were outside the crowded, noisy common areas and in the quieter corridors when he said to me, “Are you well, female?”

I glanced up. The sculpted lines of his face were slightly blurry. I blinked a few times until they righted themselves.

“I suppose,” I sighed. “Just thinking about my husband. He cheated on me. Quite a few times. Probably more than I’ll never know,” I laughed harshly. “That’s why I’m here, ultimately. I divorced his ass. An Official helped me get a job on a space ship. And that’s how I’m—I’m here,” I mumbled. When the alien didn’t comment or react, I added, “Sorry. I really doubt you care about my life’s story.”

“No,” he agreed, in straightforward alien fashion, “but it does explain why a human female of your age and temperament is visiting the pleasure houses of Drixus.”

I stiffened, pulling away from him. A woman of my age and temperament? What the hell was that supposed to mean? That I was too old and too—what, cranky? —to be here?

“Excuse me!” I said, jerking my arm free of his.

“What?”

He halted, gazing down at me like he hadn’t the slightest idea why I was offended.

Being an alien…no, being a guy, he probably didn’t.