Odin (Alien Adoption Agency #5) - Tasha Black Page 0,1

be looked after.

Well... she had checked off almost all of them.

Don’t hold a torch for me forever, Liberty, she heard the holo-recording say in Wyn’s warm voice. You have too much love. Find someone to share it with. Someone who can burn down the walls you’ve built around your heart.

She had dutifully promised him she would at the time, but she hadn’t really meant it. She suspected that loving this little one would be fulfilling her promise well enough.

And she loved him already.

His little brow furrowed in his sleep, and she instinctively brushed the pad of her thumb against his cheek, feeling gratified when his expression smoothed again.

“What in the nine tails of Boramatt is this?” the red warrior demanded.

Liberty spun to face him, but he was talking to a gawky young man who held the reins of a shaggy animal harnessed to a utilitarian-looking cart.

“It’s your transport, sir,” the boy said, stepping back with a faint buzzing sound that told Liberty he had cybernetic ankles and maybe knees too. She was surprised to find that kind of augmentation this far out from the central ring.

“We’re going to the highlands,” the red warrior spluttered. “This thing will take two days to get there.”

“There’s an inn at Five Points,” the boy pointed out nervously.

“I know there’s an inn at Five Points,” the warrior roared. “I don’t want to stay at that inn. I thought I had a gadabout reserved.”

“We d-don’t have gadabouts,” the boy stammered.

“Then what is this?” the warrior asked, tapping a metal circlet on his wrist to reveal a holo receipt. “It says Gadabout.”

Liberty couldn’t resist leaning in to read it. It did indeed say Gadabout.

“Th-that’s her name, your honor,” the boy said, indicating the shaggy, cow-like creature whose harness he held.

They all turned to behold Gadabout.

The creature blinked back at them, chewing indifferently on the long blue-green grass that nearly reached her snout.

Liberty tried and failed to hide her smile.

The warrior huffed through his nose and offered her his hand to help her into the cart.

She took it, expecting it to be dry and rough.

But a hot spark went through her the moment their flesh touched. She felt a honeyed warmth spread through her limbs, like nothing she had felt in a very long time.

She let go of his hand the instant her bottom hit the seat, feeling thoroughly confused and a bit horrified.

Calm down, Liberty, she told herself sternly. You’ve had a big day. Your body is going a little haywire. Crossed signals. That’s all.

2

Odin

Odin bit back a roar at the sensations caused by her simple touch. He knew what it meant, even if he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge it.

She is not my mate. I do not accept her.

But the storm raging in his blood assured him he was wrong. Every cell in his body pulled him inexorably to the small Terran female.

And in spite of the thousand reasons this was bad news, his dragon bellowed out his joy in Odin’s chest.

He ignored the dragon and swung himself into the cart next to her, willing himself not to inhale her intoxicating scent.

But the dragon observed her approvingly. His primal side loved the way she curled her body around the infant, her slender arms rounded in an instinctive position of protection.

Odin turned his head away so the dragon could see no more.

But it didn’t care.

Mine, it said, with a heady confidence that made Odin want to break something. My mate.

Odin gave a cluck and flicked the reins.

The lazy ox-yak lumbered forward, as the cart’s wheels groaned in complaint.

Odin groaned too.

“Are you okay?” the female asked.

He hated the way her voice sent a shiver of lust down his spine, hated how calm and polite she was. Didn’t she feel this uninvited desire too?

“I’m fine,” he barked. “But this low-tech contraption is going to mean an extra day of travel to the highlands.”

“And you don’t like the inn the boy mentioned,” she remembered helpfully.

He fought twin urges to scream with frustration and to pin her to the cart floor and claim her right then and there.

The cart went over a rut and the female jostled against him, maddening him at the briefest contact with her soft, warm flesh.

He hadn’t asked for any of this. Odin was a soldier. He belonged in the field. He neither wanted nor deserved the luxuries of civilian life - least of all a mate’s embrace.

They hit another bump, but this time he was ready to brace himself on his side of the cart.

He glanced over