“A few cycles.”
“NAID told me your species doesn’t acknowledge you as a full adult until after you take a mate, but you have a house?”
“It has been mine since birth,” he explained. “And yes. I will not be a full adult until our bond is reaffirmed by the Crystal. I’m currently in the first phase of adulthood. Your species doesn’t do that?”
“When we turn eighteen, we’re adults. Well, at least in the United States. Not every country is the same. We’re not unified like your planet.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine. You abducted me on my birthday.” It hadn’t been my best birthday, but also not my worst. My jaw clenched as my thoughts flashed back to my eighteenth birthday, the fall of my senior year. My grandparents had packed a suitcase and told me to either live how they wanted or get out. I’d chosen to be me and left.
“It was your birthday?” he asked, drawing my focus to him.
“Yeah.”
“Birthdays are important. It shouldn’t have happened like that. I wish I could have done it differently,” Kal said as he shifted closer. “In the future, we shall celebrate your birthday with the importance it’s due.”
Changing the subject, I asked, “How old are you?”
“Our planets’ rotations are not the same, so it is not equal. But I’m twenty-two by the Coalition's standard date, and you are twenty-six. Four rotations separate us.”
Oddly enough, it made me feel better that Kal was only four years younger than me. “You're not that old, and you’ve been looking for your mate?”
“We start searching for our mates when we’re fifteen. When we’re fully grown. I’ve dated several men, but it never worked out, and I wanted to find my soulmate. You.”
A sudden heat rushed under my skin at his words and made me resemble a tomato. “You only like men?”
“Yes. Do you not like men? Is that the issue between us?”
“No. I’m pansexual.”
“I don’t understand.”
My lips pursed as I thought of a way to explain. “I don’t care about people’s gender or sex. I’m attracted to who they are.”
“Most of my species is the same. I’m actually considered unusual by my people's standards for only liking men. My eldest brother, Hallonnixmin, is much the same because he only likes women.” Kal scooted closer. “So me being a man doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” I said honestly. Kal grinned, showing his sharp teeth, and my heart stuttered.
“Good.” Kal moved even closer until he knelt in front of me. “That’s very good.”
It would be easy to close the distance between the two of us and press my lips against his. I imagined kissing him would be pleasant. I scoffed. It would be more than pleasant if my crazy attraction to him meant anything, but a kiss would stir up questions about the future. My lower brain, which had zero qualms, didn’t care about the future. My dick wanted immediate gratification.
I took a deep breath and tried to think with my actual brain, which was harder than it should’ve been. “We should go.”
“Of course, my Seth.”
Kal chose an experience based on when they colonized a moon near an uninhabitable planet. They used the planet for resources, but it was filled with creatures called muk that ate anything.
He explained the experience wasn’t an accurate depiction of what actually happened. In reality, the drakcol worked around the muk, who didn’t possess higher intelligence. Whereas, in the experience, the drakcol fought a war against the muk, who were clever schemers.
Kal fitted a techplate on my chest to track my movements, then gave me a long plastic tube that was supposed to be a gun. He said, tightening the straps on my vest, “I haven’t played this one yet.”
“Well, let’s do it.”
The bare room was replaced with a hazy, red environment. The ground was rough and cratered, and jagged mountains cut the sky. My clothes transformed into a black space suit with blue lights. The unimpressive tube changed into a metal gun with vibrant orange lights, though I felt the smooth plastic beneath my fingertips.
Over the speakers, a voice began to relate the details of the mission like pretty much every first-person shooter game I’d ever played. We had to clear out a nest of muk from a cave north of us.
