Page 10 of His Human to Adore
“We need to discuss mating first,” Xoth says.
“Mating?” I ask, my voice going up an octave and then feeling childish for acting so embarrassed about it. “I don’t even know if I want to mate him.”
“Don’t worry about that yet.” Kendra shakes her head. “Olivia wants to explain the mating. We’re supposed to take you to the great hall and tell you that Dath is being a fucking moron.”
I narrow my eyes at her and frown at the way she’s speaking about the demon I kind of like more than I should. I shouldn’t be getting upset. Not when I barely know him, and I don’t even know why she’s saying he’s being a moron. Maybe he is?
Kendra smiles when she sees my thunderous expression but doesn’t make fun of me, even though I am ripe to be ribbed since I’m falling for an alien that I spent a single night cuddling.
“He thinks he isn’t supposed to mate a human female,” she says, watching my face to see how I react. “He hasn’t told me why, but he’s certain the goddess wouldn’t send him a human to tempt him.”
If my heart wasn’t already broken, it would be shattering into a million pieces right now. “He doesn’t remember me?”
“Not in the slightest,” Kendra says it like it isn’t actually gutting me to hear it.
I force myself not to cry, at least not in front of these people I barely know and who are basically my prison wardens. I can’t keep the sting from my throat or the tears from welling up enough to make my eyes glassy, though. It’s almost enough to piss me off and takes some of the burn away from the rejection that isn’t even a rejection because the damn demon doesn’t remember me at all.
Kendra wraps my hand in hers as she leans closer to me. “Hey, hey, don’t be sad about that. He’s going mad with missing you. He just doesn’t remember you, which gives us plenty of opportunities to show him that whatever his bullshit reasons are for not wanting a human mate are stupid.”
“So, let me get this straight.” I try to take a deep breath without my throat constricting. The only thing keeping my tears at bay is the smile that Kendra wears, even though her mates are watching us both with frowns and uncertainty. “He doesn’t remember me, and he doesn’t want me?”
Things couldn’t be any worse. I’m over here brokenhearted for an alien I barely know, and he wants nothing to do with me. Or he wouldn’t if he even remembered me.
Kendra waves her hand like my concerns aren’t that big of a deal, which only upsets me more. “You need to understand the demons can be kind of dumb.”
“Very dumb.” Erkoz nods his agreement. A smile lifts his lips as he continues talking. “You should have seen Almaac with his mate, always running off to the trees instead of claiming her.”
I’m actually surprised by what he says because I’ve been trapped with Almaac and Diane in this house, and they seem inseparable. The adoration in his eyes, when he looks at her, is so pure it would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside if I wasn’t completely hollow with sadness. It does kind of make me feel better to know that he didn’t claim her immediately, though. Maybe Dath will be the same, or at least, I can hope he’s the same.
Kendra keeps talking when she sees that Erkoz’s words have made me feel a bit better. “So, we’re taking you back to the great hall. We’re hoping the pain you both feel will lessen the closer in proximity you are since it definitely seemed like you got worse and worse the farther from him we took you.”
“No shit,” I mumble.
“Again, sorry about that, but you’ve responded to your mate a little differently than everyone else has, so we didn’t know you guys were physically tethered to one another.” Kendra actually seems upset about that part of it, which makes me feel better, but I still don’t appreciate that no one was listening to me when I tried to tell them I was in pain when they were taking me from him.
“I told you,” I say, leaning forward across the table. “I said over and over how I needed to go back, and no one listened to me.”
“Deja, you and your demon are weirdly tied together in a way that none of us, even the other demons, know about.” She says it like it’s supposed to make me feel better for being ignored. She must see her explanation isn’t good enough because she continues. “You said you didn’t want to mate him, and he was going to claim you if you stayed. We gave you a choice. Does it suck looking back on it? Yeah. But I’d rather you hate us for giving you a choice than you being forced to mate him when you didn’t want to.”
It’s the first time she’s said that to me. They’ve all apologized, but none of them have really put it out there in black and white. My choices were to tie myself to a demon after five minutes on this planet or leave with them. My face burns in embarrassment, but Kendra continues like she didn’t just put me in my place. “It didn’t help that Dath was just one giant growling hiss for the last week. He finally used actual words today, and they were still ragged and forced like he wanted to go all feral again.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan, then?” I ask, trying to brush off my embarrassment. If Dath doesn’t want to mate with me, I’m not about to force him into it. I mean, I know how I feel about him, and it’s weird that I want him and want to be with him and, for some reason, feel completely hollow without him. Kendra says he’s being dumb, though, so maybe he’ll want to mate me once he remembers who I am or how I made him feel. At least, I’m hoping he’ll want me when he meets me again.
“Does it still hurt if one of the males touches you?” Kendra asks and looks up at Xoth and then nods at him. He holds his hand out in front of me, and I raise mine to it, not wanting to touch him since we found out the first day that having one of them touch me, even accidentally, felt like a fire was burning me. I touch him for all of half a second with the tips of my fingers before ripping them away, invisible flames licking at my skin. “Good, it hurts when he touches females, too.”
“Who touched him?” I ask, my lips pulling back slightly. I’ve never been a jealous person, but I’m not about to sit by and let someone touch what’s mine. Mine? I might actually be a lost cause.
“I did, and I’m going to touch him again, but only with your permission,” Kendra is still smiling as she leans back into her mate’s lap. “He’s going to be an idiot, Deja. I want to know if you want to force him to see what an idiot he is.”
My teeth grind together at the thought of Kendra touching him again. The idea that he’d want anyone to touch him at all, that isn’t me, makes my heart break. If what she’s saying is true about not wanting a mate? He may try to hide that the touch of other women pains him. I’m hoping he’ll see me or be near me and only want me, but if he’s set on not taking a mate, then what if he tries to fight that?
“Okay,” I lean forward, trying to hype myself up for this plan. “What do I need to do?”
The pain in my chest lessens with each step we take back toward the great hall. I still feel empty in my heart, but it’s not an all-consuming sadness like it was. By the time I enter the giant door that leads inside, I’m able to smile without forcing it. I realize just how different I feel by being so far from Dath as I grow closer and start to feel more like my normal self.
Alien men who look somewhat like Dath fill the dining hall. They’re all various shades of red, with horns and big black eyes. Some of them smile at me as I walk toward the tables and some even wave. I thought they might not like me since I’m the reason they’ve had to trap one of their friends in his bedroom for the last six days. Instead, they all look at me like they’re glad I’m there. Like I belong.
“Dath’s female finally joins us,” one of the men says as he pulls out a chair near Olivia and Ralleth for me. “We were starting to think his bad mood had scared you away for good.”