THE OFF WORLD COLLECTION (Short, Steamy Science Fiction Romances) (Off-World Series) Read Online Free PDF

looked down at him, and although hope was beginning to grow within her, she chose her words carefully. “You said I betrayed you, that you would find another---“She broke off, unable to repeat the terrible thing he had spoken to her, although it had been much on her mind through the lonely months.
    His answer was a shuddering groan. “I was wrong to hurt you with those words, Elena. I would not seek another mate. Yet I have tried to live without you, and I cannot.”
    She couldn’t hold back a little sob. “Oh, Rohan!”
    Falling to her knees, she clasped him to her. Then his arms came around her, and they held each other, rocking together on the carpet of flowers, murmuring broken words and phrases.
    “I missed you so much . . . so much.”
    “I need you.”
    “I need you, too.”
    She lifted her head, and his lips found hers in a long, greedy kiss that made her blood sing.
    “I dreamed of doing that,” he growled. “Dreamed of it every night. Your lips on mine, the way you taught me that first time.”
    “Oh, yes. Yes.”
    “It was wrong to leave you,” he ground out. “I was blinded by my pride and by what I have been taught to call honor. I could not accept that you had acted according to your own honor, in the only way left open to you. So I followed the orders of my commander to break off the marriage and return home.” He shook his head. “Our leaders are as irrational as your Council of Guardians, Elena. They have decided any commingling of the blood of our species would only lessen the Jalarans’ strength. A decree has been passed and sent to every city and village. No Jalaran may ever again mate with a human, and we are to keep apart from you in all ways.” He took a deep breath, his gaze raking her features. “But I had to disobey. And now I cannot go back.”
    She clung to him more tightly. Moisture clouded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as she stroked her fingers over the ridges of his forehead---once so foreign, now so dear to her. “If you can’t go back, what will you do?”
    Tenderly he wiped away her tears. “Do not cry, my cresteran,” he murmured. “Everything is going to be all right now that we’re together again.”
    She raised her gaze to his. “But where will we go?”
    “Somewhere safe. You and I, along with some of the other mated pairs who were forced to part as we were---we will all be safe, together.”
    Her eyes widened. “That’s what happened to Sophia! Karn came to take her, as you did me!”
    Rohan nodded.
    “We all thought she had wandered too far on a plant-gathering expedition and been captured---or killed.”
    “She is not dead. She is with Karn.” With a smile, he added. “And it is plain that she is happy to be there.”
    “But where is she?”
    “Far from here. Across an inlet of the southern ocean.
    She thought of the vast sea with its deep purple waves, dangerous currents, and huge predators. “How did you get there?”
    “In air cars we captured in battle from your soldiers, then repaired,” he answered. “My people have been using them for years. Our night vision is much better than yours. We fly in the darkness when you would not think to look for us. Karn and I, along with three of the other Jalarans mated to human women, searched for weeks, and we have found a place where we can make a home. No one will find us.”
    His expression took on a certain familiar smugness as he continued. “We’ve discovered a cave---an enormous cave with walls of rock that glows brighter than any I have seen. My friends and I found it with the mining equipment that I liberated from your engineers.”
    “Liberated?”
    He dismissed her challenge over his choice of words with a wave of his hand. ‘Our cave is big enough for a whole city. I have already started to build a house for us near one of the hot springs.”
    Her eyebrows shot upward. “Hot springs?”
    His lips stretched into a grin. “Yes, you will be able to take a hot bath whenever you