His breath grunted from him but he saw me now. The fight visibly reduced in his posture. I could pinpoint the moment he registered what he'd done.

  His teammates eased off and my beast shrank over me, his forehead touching mine right before stadium security and local police burst into the room.

  "Call for medical," one of them said.

  Omen was pulled away from me.

  The heat of his fur lingered on my palms when Lykree protectively grasped my shoulders while we watched the police escort him out.

  22

  BIRDIE

  "I'll be there before you leave."

  That's what Omen said to me this morning right before he headed out. He was meeting with his legal team after what happened last night. Heboa raised hell and the real threat of Omen losing his career loomed like a gathering storm.

  Last night was a whirlwind of chaos. Lykree fought to keep the press from releasing pictures of the grisly fight and Omen being escorted by the police.

  Once I told her what happened, she'd used that as a way to spin it with the reporters off the record. Most aliens took their matehood seriously and propositioning someone who was spoken for was highly distasteful, even to gossip mongers.

  And they all believed I was Omen's mate. They didn't know the truth. Lykree didn't know the truth.

  Our relationship was a ruse.

  Even if I'd blurred the lines.

  My brain had been unable to decipher reality from fantasy. When it came to Omen, I didn't know what was true or false anymore.

  My bags were packed, perched by the door. The minutes ticked down and I sat there, waiting.

  "I'll be there before you leave."

  As more time passed without him walking through that door, I thought I had my answer. It was just a tough pill to swallow because...

  Because I'd let the fantasy bleed into me. It was hard not to when Omen made it so easy, so believable. I understood, at that moment, why the young sunflower followed the bright star in the sky every day.

  Omen was the sun and it was hard to ignore his shine.

  Like all of his fans, I wasn't immune.

  What he thundered while he lit into Heboa only added to my uncertainty.

  Touch what's mine.

  Take what's mine.

  My nape prickled and I scrubbed the back of my neck, wiping away the uncomfortable sensation. Was it just part of the show? Was it his violent way of defending my honor, as someone who cared for me the way a close friend might?

  I already had a best friend back on Earth who was good at rearranging facial features. I didn't want Omen to be my friend.

  We'd arrived back at the suite past midnight. After his shower, he'd held me in bed, but we didn't talk about what happened. We didn't talk about anything. It was simply a few hours of quiet processing.

  He didn't ask me to stay.

  He didn't say we'd make a plan.

  He didn't make any vows or declarations.

  He said he'd be here before I left, that was all.

  My first alarm went off, warning me not to miss my shuttle.

  I waited.

  I paced the living room, anxiously chewing my thumb nail.

  My second alarm blared, warning me my shuttle would leave in an hour.

  And I waited.

  I waited until my third alarm roared, shrieking at me that my shuttle would leave in thirty minutes.

  There was no way I could move my flight to another time. Gloria expected me back tonight. Joe Royston from HQ was arriving and wanted the report I'd assembled in his hands by dinner time.

  Even with that in mind, I'd checked flights. Just to see. With the tournament over, everything was booked for days out. Shuttle services were inundated.

  My fingertips pressed into my forehead.

  Maybe this was a sign.

  And with how silent he was last night...

  Maybe he was embarrassed, and surely he was worried about his career.

  Maybe he thought I'd fucked up his life.

  Maybe I thought I fucked up his life.

  If we never met, if I hadn't hijacked his hotel room, he might not have played for the Galactic Giants next year, but at least he'd still have a career.

  After all this?

  Who knew if he'd be able to play noda ever again, even with Lykree's magic touch with the media outlets.

  I took a deep breath.

  This was the plan all along. I needed to remember that and get my head on straight.

  At the door, I gathered my bags and took one last look around. Might've been silly, but I etched this suite into memory because it was a place where I discovered something I thought was impossible.

  That one person could truly love another.

  A place where I, Birdie Clayton, stupidly fell in love with Omen Bainbridge.

  I swallowed the hot lump in my throat and shut the door behind me.

  "Your transport has arrived, Miss Birdie," Runi rumbled politely and took my bags.

  A soft smile curved my lips. The big buwore had finally warmed up to me in his own way. I patted his arm. "Thanks Runi."

  When I stepped outside, I glanced up, taking in the clear azure sky one last time. That's when I noticed...

  Across the street, on a giant electronic billboard taking up the side of a high-rise tower, was a picture of me and Omen. The one from the Waya Ris product shoot.

  This was my first time seeing it and I suddenly wished I'd never laid eyes on it.

  I bit my bottom lip, steeling my heart against the onslaught of emotion.

  Frey had captured the perfect moment, right before the kiss that started it all. Raw desire and beauty.

  In that photo, Omen and I fit together like puzzle pieces.

  I willed myself to look away and get into the transport.

  By the time I was on the shuttle, about to make the second portal jump, I'd already convinced myself this was for the best.

  "I'll be there before you leave."

  It was easier for me that he'd stayed gone.

  ****

  OMEN

  Embarrassment ate at my pride.

  The room was a chaotic buzz of conversation about my future as my agent and legal team debated with Heboa's lawyers who represented staff of the Galactic Giants.

  I was watching my career spiral down the drain in real time. I'd barely escaped legal charges by the Thalewa police department on account of my clean record and the fact the chief was a huge fan.

  Meteor Mob's team management was this close to dropping me.

  Hell, they still might.

  I'd lost complete control last night and, I'd be honest, it scared the fuck out of me.

  I prided myself on my ability to remain logical. Rexer had given me a lifetime of practice. No one could goad me like my father, but I never gave in.

  Obviously that wasn't the case where Birdie was concerned.

  Things were different now.

  Apparently the beast in me was less reasonable when it came to any offense shown to my mate.

  Not that she knew. I didn't tell her what my bite meant.

  Last night, I should've fessed up but I'd been lost in my head. Afraid of what she might think of me now.

  The terror in her gaze when I'd finally resurfaced from my trance and truly saw her—it shamed me to my core.

  There were other civilized avenues I could've taken to deal with Heboa, yet the primal instinct in me, the one that only registered someone hurt my mate, was bent on culling the threat by physical force.

  As I sat there, listening to the back and forth while others decided my fate, all I could think about was Birdie.

  I should've been devastated. Should've been chewing my claws off and waiting with baited breath for a decision to be made. Should've been praying Heboa wouldn't demand an astronomical payout if that's what he angled for. Maybe I should've been begging management to keep me, too.

  The time on the wall said I had an hour left before Birdie's shuttle would depart.

  I should've told her how I really felt last night.

  I should've told her about my bite. How Rexer was wrong. Heboa was wrong.

  She was mine.

  This was real.

  This was real and I loved her.

  But I didn't tell her.

  I didn't tell her because I thought it would be unfair. At least after last night, after all that happened.

  I wanted Birdie to be with me because she decided to. Not because I manipulated her feelings during an emotionally unsettling time. Because if I told her she was it for me? That my bite was a one-and-done deal and I couldn't physically be with anyone else the rest of my life?

  If her feelings didn't match mine, she'd feel obligated.

  If her feelings didn't match mine, she'd pity me.

  The last thing I wanted was for Birdie to stay with me out of sympathy.

  I didn't know what I was going to say. I'd shamed myself by going after Heboa the way I did, yet I couldn't bring myself to regret it.

  If time rolled backward, I'd do it again and again.

  "I have to go," I whispered to Lykree when the time hit fifteen after ten.

  "Omen..."

  "Birdie's shuttle leaves at eleven." I glanced up at the clock. "I don't have time to stick around."

  Lykree looked over at the clock on the wall and frowned. "That's an hour slow. It's past eleven now."

  "What?!"

  I shot out of my chair and strode toward the door, snatching my hal-com out of the black box. These bastard lawyers were paranoid someone was going to record the conversation and required all coms to be secured.

  11:17AM

  "Fuck!" I shouted, silencing the room.

  "Omen, we still—"

  "I can't stay!" I was already moving through the door. My pulse whooshed in my ears as I ran through the halls of Tully Stadium, rushed into a waiting transport, and set the coordinates for the hotel.

  "I'll be there before you leave," I'd promised her.

  I dragged my hands down my face and roughly scrubbed.

  The transport sped, even if it felt like a whole fucking eternity passed before it arrived at the hotel. When I burst through the door of the suite, I called her name.

  "Birdie? Birdie you here?"

  Silence met me.

  Everything of hers was gone when I checked through the closet.

  The only item left was one of her pink sticky notes, the ones she'd littered her guidebooks and work papers with.

  I lifted it off the hallway mirror and read the short message scrawled in blue ink.

  I waited.

  -B

  23

  One week later...

  BIRDIE

  "PinkBum289 is discreet," Gram claimed, eating another square of cheese off her little plate of appetizers. "He'd never reveal himself so easily."

  "Is that why we've been here for three hours already?" Shelly fired back, indulging in more of the free wine. At this point, I'd have to carry her out.

  This was the worst possible place Gram could've chosen as a meetup point to buy contraband. That, and Gram never passed up free cheese.

  I glared at the bamboo railing in the rainforest biome of the botanical gardens conservatory where, a month and a half ago, my entire life had veered off track.

  Why did I agree to come here?

  Gram picked this place because she thought the adult tour day, with complimentary wine and charcuterie, would be the perfect cover to get her hands on a sentient thong.

  Shelly insisted on coming for moral support since she knew this place was a sore spot for me. Also in case we needed to bail Gram out of jail.

  I tried not to think about how this place was the start of what had turned into an adventure. One which left me saddled with a broken heart.

  Life was a series of decisions, and the choice I'd made to attend Monica's wedding—right here in this conservatory—awoke something in me I'd thought, for my entire life, was nonexistent.

  I rubbed my chest as if I could physically soothe away the hurt. It was impossible, but I tried, nevertheless.

  "I hope he brought the glittery red pair," Gram fretted, shoving another cheese cube in her mouth. "I paid extra to pick that darn color. My bingo partner swears the red ones are feistier."

  My eyes lifted to the glass ceiling as I mustered up more patience. I was scraping the bottom of the barrel today and I'd learned way more about my grandmother than I ever wanted to know.

  I was regretting my decision to be the designated driver. I was sorely tempted to suggest we get an Uber so I could at least enjoy some wine that didn't come from a box while we waited for Gram's thong dealer to show himself.

  The tour group forged ahead as I slowed to a stop, lingering in this biome. My cheeks grew wet and I wiped at them with the backs of my hands, what little control I still possessed unraveling.

  "Dammit," I muttered, and sniffled. Now was not the time for the stupid waterworks to start.

  Don't think about Omen, don't think about Omen, don't think about Omen.

  The more I tried to shove it from my mind, the worse it became until a thick lump lodged in my throat and made it hard to draw breath.

  Never in my life had I experienced anything like this. I didn't want to do it again. I didn't want the love they portrayed in scripted drama.

  It was real.

  It was fucking real, and amazing while it lasted, but when it was over?

  The worst pain I'd felt. A pain I couldn't fix with some peroxide and a bandage. A physically and emotionally handicapping ache that dug into the roots of my soul.

  I just wanted to rip it out and forget.

  Forget Omen.

  Forget what he awakened in me.

  Forget all of it and just go back to my blissfully ignorant belief that there was no such thing as real love.

  My life was easier when all I had to worry about was the next bill to pay.

  Not this.

  Not coaching myself to get out of bed in the morning, to feed myself, to breathe and exist in a world where I didn't have him.

  I didn't care about the money. I'd dump it on the ground, douse it in gasoline, and light the fucking match if it meant I got Omen in the end.

  My phone was a constant temptation. I'd held myself back from searching his name to check up on him. To obtain any morsel of information from the tabloids.

  Was his career over?

  Did Meteor Mob drop him?

  Did Heboa sue him?

  There were too many questions I asked myself on the daily. I didn't need to feed into it, to torture myself, by looking him up.

  I took a deep breath, the familiar scent of ginger hitting me as if I'd conjured it from my thoughts of Omen.

  Shit, have I really gone bonkers?

  "Do you know how long it took," a gruff voice said from behind me and I stilled, "to find a shuttle that had available passage to Earth?"

  My vision went blurry and I closed my eyes against the new tsunami my tear ducts decided to unleash in that moment.

  Please don't be crazy, I begged of my mind. Hallucinating Omen's voice would be the absolute worst living nightmare.

  "Go on," he urged. "Guess."

  I felt a wall of heat at my back.

  Hallucinations weren't warm, were they?

  Hallucinations didn't have a scent like Omen—sultry, clean fur, a hint of soft leather and spicy ginger—did they?

  Maybe I was crazy, maybe I was full of desperate hope, but I wanted this a little longer, even if it wasn't real. So I murmured, "Seven days?"

  We'd been apart for one entire week. I couldn't imagine what hollowed shell I'd be a month from now.

  "Seven. Damned. Days."

  His large, callused hands flattened against my sides, his chest pressed against my back and his mouth found my neck.

  My shoulders shook with the sob that threatened to unleash if I didn't clamp my lips shut.

  "But I'm here now," he whispered beside my ear, "and I won't leave unless you tell me to."

  He was real.

  He was real, and he was here.

  I turned within his arms, peering up at the alien man who'd become an integral part of my existence.

  His hands framed my face, careful not to scratch me with his claws when his thumbs swiped away my tears that wouldn't take a hike and leave me alone.

  I croaked, "You promise?"

  His crooked smile was like the sun warming my frozen, slow-beating heart as he pledged, "I promise."

  He kissed me.

  The kind of kiss that said everything words just couldn't convey. He'd pull me down with it, drag me into a cocoon where nothing and no one else around me mattered but—

  I pushed against his chest, breaking the kiss as a curl of anger unfurled inside me. "Why didn't you call?!"

  His eyebrows shot into his hairline as if my sudden switch in gears shocked the hell out of him. "You never gave me your number."

  "What—"

  Wait.

  I ran over the past month in my head and realized he wasn't lying. At no point in time had we exchanged contact information. There'd never been a need since we were either together or could find each other at the suite each night.

  And, let's be honest, he was Omen Bainbridge. It wouldn't be hard to find him.

  Me on the other hand, well. I was just some random human from Ohio. My information wasn't plastered all over the intergalactic web.

  "Oh..." I lamely replied. "Then how'd you find me?"

  "Asha with the Daily Noda. She found a Birdie Clayton, but it ended up being your grandmother."

  "Oh no." I winced.

  "Yeah."

  My mother had never married my absent father, who we affectionately called sperm donor, so she'd passed her maiden name down to me, as well as Gram's first name.

  "After she chewed me up one side and down the other," he traced the tip of his thumb claw along the curve of my jaw, "she told me exactly where to find you today."

  Oh Gram, you crazy, meddling, loveable woman.

  "Hold on, are you PinkBum289?"

  His forehead instantly wrinkled. "Am I what?"

  Damn.

  So Gram really was here for a sentient thong.

  "Never mind." I brushed the disturbing thought away and couldn't hide the suspicion in my tone when I asked, "What did you give Asha in return?"

 

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