I write about aliens for a living. I never expected one to read my stories — and come to claim me.
Margot pays the bills writing steamy monster romance late into the night, spinning filthy tales of women bred and claimed by creatures from beyond the stars. It's just fantasy. Until the night a real one steps out of the shadows of her room.
Xareth is a scout of the Starborn — eight feet of midnight skin, glowing markings, and coiling tentacles — and he crossed the dark between worlds because her longing reached him first. His kind mate only once, for life. And the moment his fever-bright eyes find her, he knows: she's the fated mate his blood has been waiting three hundred years to claim.
He's possessive, patient, and utterly certain. She's got one night to convince herself this is a fever dream. But the pull between a touch-starved alien and the woman fate chose for him only burns hotter with every breath — and a monster who's finally found his mate has no intention of letting her go.
This is a 2,000 word short story.
