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Olivia laughs. “I had the honor. And can I just say, damn woman. I had no idea you were hiding the divine body of a goddess beneath your clothes. If I wasn’t madly in love with Janik, I’d be shooting my shot and saying to hell with those Bohnari males wanting wives.”

My face is on fire. I’m also stupidly flattered. “Too bad for me, I guess.”

“Damn right.”

“You two need to quit,” Quinn scolds. “You’re making it uncomfortably hot in here.”

Olivia waggles her eyebrows at me, and I can’t hold back my snort. Carefully, I push myself upright and Lindsey rushes to put a bunch of pillows behind my back for support.

“Thanks.” I settle against them. “How long was I out? And you’re sure Alik’s all right? Can I see him?”

“Slow down,” Lindsey says with a small laugh. “You’ve been out for less than twenty minutes, we swear Alik is okay, and a soon as Vornak gives you the go-ahead, I’m sure you can see him.”

“Is he awake?” I can’t get past the sight of him lying there, unresponsive.

“He woke once, but the last we checked he was sleeping again,” Olivia answers.

“Are you sure he’s sleeping and not in whatever state he was in earlier?”

Lindsey strokes my forehead. “He’s sleeping. When he woke up, he was talking. Slowly, and he didn’t say much other than to ask after you and make sure you were the one who was okay. Once Vornak assured him you were safe and unharmed, it was like the exhaustion took him and he passed out again.”

I startle. “Wait, he was actually speaking? Like real words and sentences?”

“That’s what Vornak said. It sounds like whatever hold the madness from the mating fever had on his mind had been broken,” Quinn tells me. “You did it, Devon.”

Oh my god. I cover my mouth and almost weep with relief. Alik was actually alert and talking?

A knock on the door interrupts us. It opens and Vornak sticks his head in. “Bless the gods, you’re awake.”

He walks over to me and runs a handheld scanner from my head to my feet. The device beeps and whatever the readouts on the screen are must satisfy him, because he nods.

“All your vitals are stable and back to normal. Your temperature is within the range it should be, and you don’t appear to be suffering any adverse effects from the shock your body went into,” Vornak says.

“I’m pretty sure it was just an adrenaline crash.”

“That is quite possible, but it’s always better to be sure. The prince just found his heart’s fire. He couldn’t lose you already.”

My stomach hurts at the thought. “When can I go see him?”

“Now, if you’re feeling up to it,” the healer announces. “He’s still asleep in the room next door, but I don’t believe you’ll disturb him if you’d like to sit with him for a while.”

That’s all I need to hear to throw back the blanket and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

“Somebody’s in a hurry to see her man,” Olivia sing-songs.

It’s my luck that a pair of slippers are on the floor. I slide my feet into them and ignore my friends as I walk out of my room and into Alik’s. He looks so peaceful. A complete contrast to how he’s been from the moment I first saw him when we all disembarked from the Bohnari shuttle on the day of our arrival on Bohna. He’d greeted us directly, but briefly. Then, he left us with Horek and some guards to show us our new home.

Up until I started sneaking into the pit, I’d only seen him a handful of times. He tended to avoid all the brides. Of course, no peace was to be had while he was imprisoned, although I hate to use that word, even if that’s what it boiled down to. To see him like this makes my heart skip a beat.

I quietly bring one of the chairs to his bedside and take a seat. What am I going to say to him when he wakes up? More anxiety-inducing is wondering what he’ll say to me. Will he be happy I’m his heart’s fire? We’re all kind of assuming I am—me included—given the fact that right after we had sex, he was talking like the person he was before. What else is there to assume?

Unless, he just needed a warm body to fuck. That’s a thing here. Not every woman is the heart’s fire of her Bohnari mate. Some couples have dated and fallen in love or at least liked each other well enough they decided to get married. Or mated, I guess, since their definition of a relationship differs from ours on Earth. Have I hyped up the best sex I’ve ever had to mean more than it actually did?

“Devon?”

I gasp at the way my name is said in that familiar, husky voice. No longer stilted, but smooth and silky like the sleep bonnet I had made out of mendash. When I look at Alik, his eyes draw my attention. They glow with a reddish-black light that’s similar, but so different from the way all the other Bohnari’s are when they stare at their mates.

“Hey.” I clasp his hand in mine, not even thinking twice about touching him. “How are you feeling?”