Ferun's Mate: Alien Breeding Romance (Celoch Breeders Book 1) Read online

  He held her afterwards. She was quiet for so long that he thought she might be sleeping, but when he looked down he found her deep eyes pointed up at him.

  “Did you like it?” she asked.

  “Is that a genuine question?”

  She cracked a smile. “No. I just want to hear you say it.”

  He returned her smile and attempted to flash his teeth as well. Her eyes widened and she clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “That is terrifying,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

  Ferun scowled, but he didn’t really mean it. He was still nestled inside of her and there was nothing she could do that would truly bother him.

  “My apologies,” he said, peeling her hand from his mouth.

  She was back to smiling. “It’s okay. Those teeth are going to take some getting use to.”

  Her hand moved to his shoulder, where her fingers began tracing circles once more. It was oddly soothing.

  She said, “You know, I was thinking, maybe you are a little lucky to have me.”

  He was about to remind her that luck had little to do with him receiving a female, but then he considered the larger picture. While he might have gotten Zoe on his own merits, they were all fortunate to have found the humans in the first place.

  “You’re correct. We searched for centuries to find life in our corner of the galaxy. To find beings that are so similar to—”

  “No, I meant you’re lucky to have me, as opposed to one of the other women. You’re actually really lucky you didn’t get one of the Martian girls. They’re all obnoxious and total prudes. They would have never had sex with you on the first night, guaranteed.”

  Ferun wondered why, and then decided that it didn’t matter. In Zoe, he had everything he would need.

  He was on the edge of sleep when Zoe tapped his shoulder and asked if they could wash up. The joint shower that had seemed so alluring hours earlier now felt like an ordeal, but he got through it. It was nice to have a good view of her naked body, though his drive to have intercourse with her was mercifully dormant for the time being.

  To say that Zoe hated the drying mechanism would have been an understatement. Ferun had always found the warm gust of air to be pleasant, but Zoe couldn’t get out of the shower quickly enough. He remembered how sensitive humans were to pain and asked her if it hurt. The question prompted her to launch into a story from her childhood that involved an animal and a hand dryer in a public bathroom. He didn’t understand most of it but was satisfied knowing that she hadn’t been hurt.

  Once they were dressed, he tried leading her to his own bedroom where they could rest. The sun had already set and the lighting in their home had dimmed accordingly. Ferun couldn’t remember the last time he felt quite so tired.

  Zoe, however, was not the least bit tired. Before they reached his room, she announced that she was hungry and Ferun soon found himself in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to prepare a dish that Zoe couldn’t name and could barely describe. She was more energetic than she’d been since he’d met her and he discovered that she enjoyed talking.

  A lot.

  The few words he managed to get into the conversation turned into platforms off which she would jump into new topics or recount a story. Like the story about the dryer, he didn’t understand most of the details, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. She appeared happy just to be talking to him, which in turn made Ferun happy, in spite of his tiredness and general preference for brevity.

  Hours later, after another, more exciting round of intercourse Zoe finally began to fall asleep. Then, it was Ferun who felt restless. Although his body was profoundly satiated, his mind would not go still. Selfishly, he nudged Zoe and managed to get another, markedly disjointed story out of her before she fell fully asleep.

  The room was beginning to lighten by the time Ferun accepted that it would be another night without rest. But this one was so much better than the one before it. He no longer had to imagine what his female would be like. She was here, in his arms, and she was nothing like what he’d thought she would be.

  And that was just fine.

  Author’s Note

  If you enjoyed my Celoch novella, I’ll be releasing two more in the next few weeks. Up next is the story of Lulu, an indecisive young woman from Earth who finds herself paired with the beautiful, but aloof Velak. If you’d like an email when I release the next novella, you can click here to sign up for my mailing list.

  If you’re so inclined, please leave me a review. It’ll help others find my book, which in turn helps me to continue my writing hobby. Thank you for reading. I’m so grateful you chose my little book in the starry sea of sci-fi romance options.

  -J. S. Betourne