Close Obsession (33 page)

After a while, he turned to look at her. “Yes, Mia,” he said wearily. “I’ve killed humans. Some in self-defense, some for other reasons. I’ve had many interactions with your kind over the centuries, and not all of them have been good. Is there anything else you would like to know?”

Mia moistened her lips, staring at him. “Would you have killed Peter that night? In the club? If I hadn’t stopped you?”

“You didn’t stop me, Mia,” Korum said coolly. “I had already made up my mind to let him go with a warning. His offense was not grave enough to warrant anything more.”

A breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding escaped her lips in relief. “I see.”

“Of course,” he added, his eyes glittering, “if he had touched you more – if he had slept with you – the outcome would’ve been different.”

Mia’s heart skipped a beat. “You would’ve killed him for that?” she whispered, a shiver running down her spine.

Korum didn’t answer, just looked at her evenly . . . and she knew that what she had always sensed about him was true.

He
was
dangerous – not to her, but to everyone else. As civilized as he appeared on the outside, as advanced as the Ks were with their science and technology, at the core, he was a predator. A predator with a violent nature and a deeply ingrained territorial instinct.

A predator who apparently loved her as much as she loved him.

* * *

That evening, Marisa and Connor came over for dinner again, and Korum prepared a smaller version of the feast he’d made the previous day. Her sister was positively glowing, her skin flushed with healthy color and her eyes sparkling. Her appetite was back to normal, and she was again eating all her favorite foods. Whatever procedure Ellet had performed on her seemed to be having the promised effect.

Connor was beyond grateful. “I finally have my wife back,” he confided to them when Marisa went to use the restroom. “The last few weeks have been hell – I was so afraid she would need to be hospitalized for the rest of the pregnancy. The horror stories we’d heard about women with her type of condition . . .”

Korum smiled at him. “I’m glad everything worked out. Ellet is quite skilled –”

Mia felt a pang of jealousy at his praise of the woman who had been his lover, but she did her best to ignore it.

“– and she was more than happy to help in this situation.”

After the dinner was over, the four of them decided to go see a movie – the latest James Bond thriller featuring a K villain. Korum was highly amused by the premise, particularly the parts where the human agent managed to outwit the evil K and use the Krinar’s own technology to thwart his plan of exterminating all humans. The villain was played by a human actor who actually did a fairly decent job of imitating a K with the aid of computer graphics, but Mia still found his performance inadequate. Marisa and Connor really enjoyed it, however, and peppered Korum with tons of questions on their way back to the house.

As Mia observed their interactions, she realized that her family was completely enthralled with her lover. They’d never seen his truly intimidating side, and they’d never had a reason to fear him – the way Mia did in the beginning. Instead, to them, he was a fascinating foreigner who could entertain them with endless interesting facts and stories, a generous benefactor who had already given them the priceless gift of improved health, and a kind boyfriend who treated Mia like a princess.

And Mia loved it. Never in her wildest dreams would she have expected her family to get on so well with her alien lover. She’d thought they would be frightened and worried sick about her – and they probably would’ve been if Korum hadn’t put in the effort to win them over. That, more than anything, showed her how deeply he cared. He’d known that her family was important to her, and he’d made sure that they would be comfortable with their relationship – or at least as comfortable as they could be knowing that their daughter’s boyfriend was not human.

Her thoughts turned to the future again, and she felt a familiar ache in her chest – the same sensation she always got when she thought about the inevitable end of their relationship. He loved her, but surely that couldn’t last forever. How long would she remain young and pretty? Ten years, twenty if she was lucky? Granted, some of the actresses these days looked amazing even into their late forties and fifties. Maybe Mia would as well, particularly if Krinar medical prowess extended to cosmetic procedures as well. She pictured Ellet giving her a facelift and almost shuddered at the thought of the beautiful K seeing her when she was old and wrinkled.

Finally, they arrived back at the house and said goodbye to Marisa and Connor, who picked up their car and drove away.

Smiling, Mia waved to them and came into the house, where Korum was already sitting on the couch, studying something in his palm.

Hearing Mia come in, he looked up and gave her a smile. “You were very quiet on the way back,” he said, regarding her inquisitively. “You didn’t like the movie?”

She approached and sat down next to him. “It was entertaining,” she answered, shrugging.

“Then what’s the matter? Are you still upset about what happened earlier today?” He reached out and took her hand, lightly massaging her palm in a way that made her melt a little inside.

“No.” Mia stared at the large hand cradling hers so tenderly. Her fingers appeared tiny and delicate in his grasp, the pale color of her skin contrasting erotically with his darker hue. “Well, maybe. I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it too much. The movie was a good distraction, actually . . .”

“So then what?” He clearly had no intention of letting it go.

Mia raised her eyes to meet his gaze. “I was just wondering about the future, that’s all. I know I should focus on the present and enjoy what we have right now, but I just can’t help it sometimes –”

He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly, his lips stopping her next words. “We’ll talk about this when we’re back in Lenkarda,” he murmured, pulling back and looking at her with a rather enigmatic expression on his face. “Don’t worry about anything right now. It will all work out, I promise.”

Surprised, Mia blinked at him, and then she remembered that he’d mentioned something similar a few weeks ago, when they were still in New York. Unbearably curious, she opened her mouth to ask him another question, but Korum kissed her again and all rational thought left her head.

Picking her up, he carried her upstairs to their bed, and Mia didn’t have a chance to think for the rest of the night.

Chapter 22

The next morning, Mia woke up in Korum’s arms. It was such an unusual occurrence that her eyes flew open as soon as she realized what was happening.

She was lying on her side, cradled against his body. They were both naked, and she could feel his semi-hard erection prodding at the curve of her buttocks. Startled, Mia turned around to look at his face and saw that he was wide awake.

At her sudden movements, he smiled and brushed his lips against her forehead. “You’re awake, I see.”

She nodded, blinking at him sleepily. “What are you doing here? You’re usually up much earlier . . .”

“I didn’t want to leave you alone,” Korum explained softly, caressing her cheek. “You seemed to be sleeping restlessly, crying out every couple of hours, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Touched, Mia burrowed against him, holding him tightly. “Thank you,” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I think I must’ve had nightmares after yesterday.” She vaguely remembered some dreams involving guns and blood, and she was surprised that she’d actually been able to sleep through the night. Undoubtedly, Korum’s presence beside her had helped in that regard.

He slowly stroked her hair. “Of course, my darling. It’s entirely understandable.”

“Do you ever have nightmares?” she asked, pulling back, the psychology student in her suddenly curious about the topic.

“Not typically,” Korum admitted, his hand now playing with her long curls. “I usually sleep very deeply for a couple of hours, and then I wake up. I can’t remember the last time I had a dream of any kind. It can happen for us, but it’s rarer than for humans. Our sleep cycle is somewhat different.”

“Oh, I see.”

“What do you want to do today?” he asked. “We don’t have any plans right now.”

“I was thinking we could have dinner with my parents again tonight, but I don’t know about the day . . . No beach, though – I don’t think I’m ready to go back there yet.”

“Of course.” His body tensed for a moment. “Why don’t we do something else entirely? How about a trip to Orlando? We could visit one of those theme parks with roller coasters and all –”

“What, like Disney World?” Mia gave him an incredulous look.

“Sure,” he said seriously. “Or maybe Universal. That’s the more adult one, right?”

Unable to help herself, Mia burst out laughing. “Really? You want to go to Universal Studios?” She pictured the two of them standing in line for the Incredible Hulk, and all the tourists freaking out at the sight of a K near their children.

“Yeah, why not?”

Why not indeed. Still giggling, Mia said, “Okay, I’m game. We can go to Islands of Adventure – that’s the part of Universal that has more roller coasters. How are we getting to Orlando? Driving?”

“Might as well. I don’t mind driving – it gives me a chance to see more of the area.” He grinned at her, looking so charming and carefree that she couldn’t help but kiss the dimple on his left cheek.

When her lips touched his face, however, she could feel his mood shifting. By now, she was so attuned to him that she realized immediately what he wanted. Sure enough, when she pulled back, he was regarding her with a heavy-lidded golden gaze. “This is why I don’t normally stay in bed with you,” he muttered before his lips descended on hers and his hand ventured lower between her thighs.

And for the next hour, they forgot all about Orlando, caught up in their own wild ride.

* * *

Two hours later, they were whizzing down the highway at over a hundred miles per hour. With anyone else at the wheel, Mia would’ve been scared out of her mind, but Korum’s reflexes were better than any race car driver’s and she felt utterly safe with him. For the first twenty minutes of the ride, he drove with the top down, but Mia’s hair kept blowing into her face, and they had to pull over to put the top up.

“I should really cut this mess,” Mia grumbled as they got back on the highway, trying to smooth down the curly explosion on her head. It was futile. Wind and her hair didn’t mix.

“Don’t even think about it,” Korum said seriously. “I love your hair long.”

Mia sighed. “Fine. Maybe I’ll just get it straightened . . .”

“Why? Your curls are beautiful. Leave them just as they are.”

“You’re weird,” Mia told him. “Most men like straight, silky hair, not this rat’s nest I’ve got going on here –”

“I don’t care what most men like. Leave the hair as it is.” His tone was utterly uncompromising.

Mia smiled to herself, mentally shaking her head. Even in this small matter, he had to be in control. It was strange that she didn’t mind it quite as much anymore, though nothing had really changed. She was still his charl, and he still had way too much power over her life. The difference was that now she knew that he loved her, that she wasn’t just a human toy to him.

A little tidbit from her encounter with Leslie nagged at the back of her mind. “Korum,” she said tentatively, “what exactly is this blood addiction you’ve warned me about before? Leslie said something about it yesterday . . .”

Keeping his eyes on the road, Korum asked, “What did she say?”

Mia struggled to remember the girl’s exact words. “It was something like her brother was addicted and he was walking around begging Ks to bite him every hour until they killed him . . .”

For a few seconds, Korum remained silent. “That sounds like a particularly unfortunate case,” he said after some time. “It must’ve happened not long after we first arrived here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember how I told you that we no longer require blood to survive? That it’s now basically a pleasure drug for us?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, it turns out that there’s a side effect to getting too much of this drug. The pleasure is so intense that it’s addictive for us – and for the humans we’re drinking from. However, for a Krinar to become physically addicted, he or she has to drink from the same human more frequently than a couple of times a week. Essentially, the Krinar gets addicted to the specific DNA signature in that human’s blood. It’s a peculiar side effect of the genetic fix that allows us to survive without blood. Some of our best scientists are currently studying this phenomenon and trying to figure out why it’s happening and how it can be stopped.”

Mia stared at him in fascination. “So what happens when you get addicted? Is it physically painful?”

“When the Krinar is separated from their human for whatever reason, yes. They can’t go longer than a few hours without getting their fix – and that’s a problem both for the human and the Krinar.”