Page 16 of Ashes & Aether

“I don’t wait well.”

“Then you will learn.” She steps around the table, putting the metal surface between us. A tactical retreat masquerading as a casual repositioning. “I don’t care how many centuries you’ve been fighting this war. Down here, you follow my rules. You do not interrupt my generals, you do not humiliate my command staff, and you do not walk into secured rooms without clearance.”

I push off the table and slowly stalk around the edge, closing the distance she just created. “Your generals are arrogant fools who were about to march your soldiers into a slaughter. I didn’t humiliate them. I merely illuminated their incompetence.”

Maggie holds her ground as I approach. I stop mere inches from her, and she has to crane her neck to maintain eye contact. Her scent floods my enhanced senses. It’s the tea she drinks, something herbal mixing with her own unique fragrance.

“They are my fools to manage,” she snaps, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “My chain of command. When you undermine them, you undermine me.”

“No one could undermine you, Maggie.” The words slip out, entirely genuine. “You terrify them. I watched them shrink when you spoke. It’s magnificent.”

Her eyelid gives that rapid, beautiful little twitch. She hates that I see it. She hates that I am reading her.

“Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” I ask innocently.

“Looking at me like I’m an interrogation subject.” She takes a breath, her chest rising against the crisp white cotton of her shirt.

“I look at you like you’re the most interesting thing on this miserable, gray rock.” I take half a step closer. The tips of my boots brush against the leather of her heels. “You build ice walls around yourself, Margaret Elmsleigh. You keep everyone at arm’s length. I’m just trying to figure out what you’re hiding behind them.”

“I’m hiding a very large gun,” she deadpans, not blinking. “And my patience is currently running lower than our ammunition reserves.”

A low, vibrating laugh rumbles in my chest. The sheer, unadulterated defiance pouring off her is an intoxicant. Human females usually swoon or stutter when I corner them. They blush, they giggle, they lower their eyes. Maggie stands in the shadow of an alien predator and threatens to shoot him.

The heat that had sparked in the corridor earlier returns, roaring into a full-blown inferno.

Avaren biology is not subtle. We run hotter than humans, thanks to our twin hearts pumping oxygen-rich blood through our veins. When we are challenged, when we are stimulated, the response is immediate and absolute.

My cock hardens, a heavy, aching weight pressing violently against the seam of my synth-weave trousers. The fabric stretches tight over the thick, ridged length of my anatomy, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination.

I don’t back away. I don’t attempt to hide it. I use it.

“You’re impossible,” she breathes, exasperation threading through her icy composure.

“I’m highly cooperative when properly motivated.” I lean down, dropping my mouth a breath away from her ear. “You just have to find the right leverage.”

She shivers. It’s barely perceptible, but I catch the minute tremble in her shoulders. Her control is slipping. I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin, a stark contrast to the cold concrete of the bunker.

“Back up, Orien,” she orders. The steel in her voice wavers, just a fraction.

“Make me.”

Maggie glares at me, her nostrils flaring again. She opens her mouth to deliver what I assume will be a blistering, expertly articulated dressing-down.

But as she draws a breath, her gaze inadvertently drops. Her eyes fall from my face, sweeping down the broad expanse of my chest, over the flat plane of my stomach, and land directly on the apex of my thighs.

She freezes.

The words die in her throat. Her lips part slightly, a soft, shocked exhalation escaping into the quiet room.

I am painfully erect, the thick ridge of my arousal pressing visibly against the dark fabric, pulsing with the frantic rhythm of my hearts. The synth-weave pants are designed for combat, not modesty.

For three agonizingly long seconds, Margaret Elmsleigh, the unflappable, terrifying commander of the British Isles, stares openly at my erection.

A flush of dark pink creeps up her neck, staining the collar of her white shirt, spreading across her cheeks in a glorious, uncontrolled display of flustered humanity. Her intellect is warring with her biology, and for this brief, shining moment, she has completely lost the battle.

I watch the pink color her skin, a feral, triumphant grin spreading across my face.