Dekon: Fated Mate Alien Romance (Mated to the Alien Book 10) Read online

  She wasn't fifteen anymore. She wasn't some captured human on a far-off planet hoping to survive another day.

  With deceptive calm she pried the scumbag's hand off of her arm, twisting his wrist just enough to make it hurt.

  He didn't try and follow after her as she left the bar, and he didn't seem to have any friends.

  Still, her hands were shaking as she walked back to her vehicle.

  It's okay, she told herself. You're going to be fine. Nothing happened. They can't get you here.

  She repeated the affirmations to herself as she walked from the brightly lit sidewalk to the shadows where her vehicle was waiting. She was so distracted that she didn't even notice that someone was sitting in the passenger seat until she was already in the car.

  "Should I be worried?" Kyla asked her. Kyla was Amy's business partner, and she and Manda had grown close over the past few years. Unlike Amy, Kyla didn't try and be an older sister to Manda. She was happy to be her friend.

  It was refreshing.

  For a second, Manda was confused by the question. Then she realized where she was and what building she had just walked out of. "I'm not drinking on the job."

  "It's boring enough," Kyla conceded with an indulgent smile.

  That was true. But if she started drinking on the job, drinking in general, she had a feeling she wouldn't stop. Some temptations, some escapes, were better to avoid altogether. She hated the loss of control alcohol offered; she didn't want to grow to depend on it.

  "I know. My soulless was in there." And where had he gone? And why had he gone out the back? That was a bit weird. But Manda would think on it more in the morning.

  "That's strange," said Kyla.

  "I know. He had a drink, then he took off. Some idiot gave me trouble and I lost it. I don't think the soulless will get up to anything tonight. I'll catch up with him later." She had done this several times. And she knew she would do it again. Kyla and Amy were usually happy to let her do whatever she needed as long as she kept in contact.

  But Kyla didn't seem too concerned about the soulless. "What guy gave you trouble?" she demanded.

  "Not you too." Manda didn't need Kyla to suddenly become protective. She had Amy and Doryan and Braxtyn and Vita and Shayn and Naomi, not to mention her parents. Kyla was sometimes the only person who didn't drive her crazy with overprotectiveness. "I handled the situation fine. I'm an adult." She wasn't sure what magic words she needed to speak to get everyone else in her life to believe that, but she needed Kyla to understand.

  "I know that. But it doesn't mean I want you to get hurt." Kyla seemed like she was about to add something else, but she let the subject drop. "It's getting late. You can probably call it a night."

  "That's the plan." Manda's eyes were scratchy, and she was ready for bed. She hadn't slept well the night before, and if she was lucky she'd pass out right when her head hit the pillow.

  "Drop me off at home?" Kyla asked.

  Manda didn't know how Kyla had gotten to the car. Maybe she had just spotted her while she was on her own night out. But she lived just down the street from Manda, so it wasn't a big deal.

  They didn't talk much on the short drive. And once Manda was alone again, she was tempted to get on the road and keep driving. Who knew what kind of mood her parents were going to be in when they saw her? To call their relationship stressed was an understatement.

  Still, she pulled up to her own house and parked in her usual spot. The front light was on and she considered sneaking in through the back, but she was just as likely to be caught there as going through the front door. She reminded herself that she hadn't done anything wrong. She was twenty years old. She had a job. She didn't have a curfew.

  But her parents had failed to keep her safe in one major way half a lifetime ago. And they had never forgiven themselves. And they could never forgive her for being taken away.

  Her mother was waiting when she came in through the door. She had been sitting on the couch, and from the way the curtain was pulled back, she must have been looking out every few minutes. "You're late," she said.

  "I was working." Manda tried to keep her voice neutral. She didn't need to be defensive. She knew why her parents were worried. She had talked with her therapist about this a dozen times. Probably a hundred times by now. But she still felt suffocated at moments like this.

  "I don't like you working so late. And you could have sent a comm message." The insistence in her mom's voice made Manda's jaw ache.

  "Is Manda home?" her dad called from the kitchen.

  Yeah, coming through the back door would not have done anything. They had both their bases covered.

  "I'm home," she called back.

  Tension was thick in the air. Four years ago, her parents had arrived back on Earth, and she had seen them for the first time since she had been abducted as an eleven-year-old.

  But the time after her abduction and before her rescue had changed her. And then the time after her rescue but before her parents got back had changed her even further. She couldn't be that little kid again.

  Intellectually, her parents knew that. But they didn't seem to really understand it.

  Some fundamental trust had been broken between them. Manda knew it wasn't their fault that she had been taken. It wasn't their fault that they hadn't been able to rescue her. But there was still a shattered little girl inside of her who wished they had.

  "There's food waiting for you in the kitchen." Her mother said it quietly, as if she was afraid something might break if she spoke too loudly.

  Manda almost said that she already ate. It would be so easy to let this explode into another fight. To let the words ring out and declare that she was moving out for good. She could feel the anger fizzing on her tongue.

  Instead she nodded and went into the kitchen to give her father a quick greeting before grabbing the plate of food and heading up to her room.

  Once she was up there, she sat by her window and munched on the cold snack. She looked up at the sky and surrendered to the thoughts that she had been keeping at bay all day.

  She wasn't allowed to think about Deke during the day. If she did, she would go crazy.

  Well, crazier than she already had.

  If her relationship with her parents was complicated, it had nothing on the tangled mess that was Dekon NaZade.

  She couldn't call it a relationship.

  She hadn't heard from the guy in four years. But she could still feel him in her heart. She was supposed to be his mate. She could understand why he had left. At first it had made sense. But no letters? No messages? Nothing? It was hard to keep her hopes alive.

  Was he even alive?

  Yes. She knew that was true because he sent his brothers messages. She wondered if he'd found someone else. Maybe he didn't want a broken girl for a mate.

  Giving up on him was the smartest thing she could do. Her heart hurt every time she thought about him and what they were supposed to be. She was a fool for ever thinking... anything.

  But giving up on hopes and dreams was something to be done in the morning hours, not while looking up at the sky at midnight.

  She finished her food and dragged herself away from the window. As she lay down in bed she knew it would be a long time before she would actually sleep, despite her bone deep exhaustion.

  When she dreamed it would be of Dekon.

  Chapter Four

  The darkness wasn't Deke's friend, but after all of these years it was as familiar as one. Sometimes it felt like it was all he knew. Blood. Violence.

  The unrelenting question of whether he would live to see another day.

  It hadn't always been like this. He could almost remember being a different man once. A man who made different choices. A man who had a future to look forward to.

  But this wasn't the everyday darkness. This was something deeper. Something crueler.

  He realized he was dreaming, but there was no way out of it. The hazy awareness of the dream had him tight in i
ts grasp. He'd lived in the shadows for so long that they were starting to take over.

  Who was Dekon NaZade? He didn't know. Not anymore.

  Once upon a time he had thought he was an adult. Thought he was doing what he had to do. Back then he'd been nothing more than a boy in a man's clothing, pretending at things he couldn't understand.

  The dream wasn't violent. It wasn't bloody or scary. Just unrelenting darkness. Was this death? Had it finally caught up to him?

  As a Detyen, he was already living on borrowed time. Probably. He didn't think the blood from his Oscavian half would save him. Detyens died at thirty without their mates, and the Detyen in him ran strong.

  He couldn't go back and ask for salvation.

  He tipped his head back and breathed deep. It didn't smell of anything. There were no stars in the sky, no planets dotting his vision. The dream was causing his mind to wander--what else could he do but think when all there was was darkness?

  It was nothingness. And that was the only thing he had to look forward to. It was better than he deserved.

  Then the edge of his vision started to lighten. It was like a sunrise, and yet not. He wanted to look away, wanted to shield his eyes and turn and run.

  He couldn't trust the light anymore.

  He knew what the light could do to him.

  The light had been a lie before. He refused to trust it this time. He couldn't trust himself either. But he couldn't look away.

  A figure appeared on the horizon, haloed in that golden light and getting closer.

  She was taller than he remembered, her hair shorter, her face more defined. She was not the child he once knew.

  Manda.

  Denya.

  It wasn't the lightning bolt of recognition he had heard of. It had happened so gradually that now it was just a fact of his existence. He had seen her in dreams before. And every time she looked different. Almost as if he was not imagining her.

  But if he wasn't imagining her, what did that mean?

  She was close enough that he could see the flecks of brown in her blue eyes. He wanted to touch her. Wanted to see if her skin was as soft as it looked, and wanted to run his fingers through the delicate strands of her brown hair.

  But his hands had been used to bruise, his claws used to tear into enemy flesh. He couldn't touch her with those hands. He wasn't worthy. He had to back away. Had to turn and run and get away from her before he contaminated her with the monster he had become. It was the only way to keep her safe.

  But for every step he took back, Manda advanced on him. The darkness spread out for an eternity behind him, but as she got closer she brought the light with her.

  If he moved too far would she be engulfed by the darkness, would it overcome the light?

  Or would her light be strong enough to pull him free?

  Before he could do anything else, Manda reached out and grabbed his hand, yanking him forward. His feet seemed to lose contact with the ground, as if the friction there no longer existed. She tugged on him and started moving backwards, pulling him into the light.

  ***

  Deke looked terrible.

  As Manda pulled him closer into the light, she finally got a good look at him. His cheeks were all hollowed out. His blue skin was taking on a sickly green tone. Was he ill? She knew this was a dream. It couldn't be real. This Deke was not the carefree, laughing man she had once known.

  Blood and violence danced in his eyes, along with horror. She knew that look. She had once seen it looking back in a mirror. But she couldn't imagine a Deke that had earned that expression.

  This wasn't the first dream that she had shared with Deke. Over the past four years she had lost count. But they had become more frequent lately.

  He had never looked this bad before, but it had been close.

  She didn't like the way the darkness was clinging to him. She didn't know what it meant, and she wasn't eager to find out. She just wanted him to be safe. She wanted him ensconced in the light. She couldn't help but wonder if it was her own darkness that clung to him.

  "What's wrong?" she asked him. Maybe if he could tell her she could figure it out. Maybe she had to say something right to get the wisps of darkness to stop from wrapping around him and tugging away from her.

  But Deke was shaking his head. "I can't," he said. His whole body jerked with the motion, as if he needed to push her off of him and break free.

  Can't what? She didn't ask it, but it was a close thing. She was sick of not being told things. She didn't know where he was in the waking world. She didn't know why he was still away. And this was her only connection to him, even if it was fake, a specter created by her own imagination and longing.

  "Tell me," she demanded. She wanted to scream it, but the darkness around them was swallowing the sound.

  Deke tried to tug himself away from her, but she kept her hand tight and she wasn't letting go. She might even be strong enough to bruise, but at the moment she didn't care. "I'm not who I used to be," he warned, eyes still haunted and tone menacing.

  "That sounds like crap. I'm sick of your excuses." It came out more impassioned than she meant. More angry. But in the dream she could be as angry as she wanted. There were no parents to disappoint. No friends to think she was still a kid. Deke was hundreds, maybe thousands of light years away, but in the dream he was hers.

  And he deserved a piece of her mind.

  But Deke had things to say.

  "You may be sick of my excuses, but it doesn't make them any less true." The words burst out of him, almost strong enough to make Manda loosen her grip. "I keep saying them for a reason."

  Saying them to who? It certainly wasn't to her. She hadn't heard from him in years. And the dreams she usually had weren't like this. "Where are you? Where have you been?" If she just knew, it would settle something in her. If he would just be honest with her. If she could just find him.

  It was her secret, dark desire. To go hunt down Deke and drag him back home and make him answer for being gone for so long. He didn't have much time left. And judging by the weight of the darkness, he might have had even less time than she thought.

  Of course, this was just a dream, no matter how much her heart wanted to see Deke. His answer would mean nothing.

  "I don't know where I am. I'm in the dark." His voice was getting faint, and the darkness around him was overpowering her light.

  "Why does it want you?" Was she like Naomi, becoming psychic? Was this a portent of what was to come or what had been? Or was this just the dreamscape symbolism of a girl missing the man who was supposed to be hers?

  "That's all I have left." There was desperation in his voice. He wanted out of it as much as she wanted to drag him out. She could hear that. She could see it in those dark eyes of his that looked like they had lost all hope.

  In the dreams before, she had been cautious, afraid that if she took too much he would reject her. Even if they were her imaginings. This was her one link left to him. No word in four years. Not even a postcard.

  If the dream was all she had she didn't want to let go of it.

  But she was done with that. What had being afraid ever gotten her? Fear hadn't freed her from the aliens who'd held her captive when she was a kid. Fear hadn't gotten her a job with Amy and Kyla. Fear had done nothing but hold her back and keep her prisoner.

  The darkness had almost completely swallowed Deke and she wouldn't let it have him. She had a prior claim.

  Manda stepped close, keeping that iron grip on his arm and wrapping her other arm around him until she was flush up against him.

  She kissed him. She put all of her heart, all of her soul into it. It was all she had to give, it wasn't like she had any experience to call upon.

  She tried to absorb his taste, but it was faint, not even a memory, because she had never kissed him before. She had never kissed anyone before. But it was a good kiss. Something that she might have hoped for as a first kiss. His tongue swiped against hers, the texture a bit surpri
sing, but she wanted more. She wanted to feel all of Deke so much that it scared her.

  Was it possible to lose her heart in a single kiss?

  She hoped the real thing would feel just as good. She hoped that Deke would respond just as he did now, his lips moving against her, his tongue tangling with hers, his free arm going around her waist to hold her close. His tight grip was strong enough to make her feel safe, but not restrained. Deke might have bruised her heart, but she was already positive that he'd lay down his life before he hurt her body.

  She could believe this was real if she let herself. That it wasn't some dream full of cheap visions of light and dark. That it wasn't some desperate hope for a girl who had pretended that this man was hers since she was too young to know what she wanted.

  But it couldn't last. Dreams always ended. And sometimes they ended even before she woke.

  Deke tore himself away and pushed her back. Somehow his eyes were even more haunted than they had been before. He was breathing deeply, and for a moment his eyes flashed the bright blue that they went when he felt strong emotion. He shook his head twice, and then he turned around and ran into the darkness.

  Manda squeezed her eyes shut and held back the shout that wanted to claw out from the back of her throat. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't going to let this rejection define her.

  But as the dream faded around her, she couldn't help but feel like this was the answer to a question she hadn't asked. She had to let this go of Deke and the almost-bond between them, this non-relationship with a man who didn't want her.

  Otherwise it was going to tear her apart, and she would find a darkness of her own.

  Chapter Five

  Manda had everything she needed for a night out. Her coat, her communicator, her knife. She was just going down the street and didn't expect any problems.

  She did this every week. Had been doing it for years. And it would be good to get out of the house. Her parents had been walking on eggshells all day after their almost fight the night before. They were scared one harsh word would send her running away. As if she couldn't handle a simple situation. Manda didn't want to deal with this. She just wanted to enjoy one night of normalcy.