Free Colun's Passion (Alien Mates Book Four 4) by Serena Simpson

for the fact that one day you will die. Never let it catch you unaware.”
    He stood and jumped from the boulder landing in front of Sara.
    “What are you,” she asked as she stepped closer to Colun.
    “What am I or who am I? My name is Voyager; I like to hang around these trials. I come for the amusement and the blood.”
    “The blood?” Her body pressed against Colun, his arm wrapped around her giving her security.
    “Yes, the blood,” He pulled back his teeth exposing sharp canines. “Many couples come here thinking they can get out of their current situation by soul-bonding. The trials are not happy when that happens, and they kill them. The blood and gore are fantastic. If your still around, I’ll take you to a couple marked for death.”
    “We’ll pass.” Colun was holding onto Sara tight as her body began to shake the more Voyager talked. “How do we get inside?”
    “I have not finished answering your potential soul-bonded questions. I am a Matra the other side of the Arbrin you are snuggled up against.” Voyager stood in nothing but a pair of jeans.
    He was tall, coming in at the same height as Colun. His chest was wide with ropes of muscle, hair covered him. The hair looked soft and fine; it was short; she bet just long enough for her fingers to play with. His canines were long, and his nails and toes were claws, but he could talk. His face was perhaps the most alien thing about him if you discount the nails and canine teeth.
    He was not human, but he wasn’t unattractive either. He had two eyes and ears; it was the shape of his head that made her hesitate. It brought back to memory the chart they used to show in school with man evolving from monkey to human. He could have been on that chart more advanced than anything they had when she was in school.
    Voyager was obviously intelligent, maybe even witty with a bizarre taste for blood. She gave a shrug at that, everyone liked different things. If she saw Voyager in a dark ally she’d scream and run like the devil himself was after her. If she saw Colun like this, she’d be intrigued.
    “No. no, no,” she whispered to herself. All aliens were off the menu, so why was she still wrapped in Colun’s arm? “Is that what you look like?”
    She looked up at Colun waiting for him to say no.
    “That’s me. I have some silver hair, and I’m a bit older than Voyager but he looks a lot like I do in my Matra form. It's rather uncanny the resemblance.”
    Voyager threw him a smile but refused to comment on why he looked this way.
    “You switch forms often?”
    “I do. Both of my sides need to come out and breathe. In the B&B we usually can be found in either form when we don’t have guests. You never know who will be sitting at the dinner table the Arbrin or the Matra. The soul-bonded don’t blink an eye. The children are used to it. We don’t hide who we are, just like I’m not asking you to change who you are.”
    The back of her neck itched with the need to apologize to him for her reactions in the parking lot. He didn’t deserve that. That little voice in the back of her head that was screaming caution kept her from apologizing, she needed to be sure about him before she was all in.
    “Now about when that door will open.”
    “I want to thank you for explaining the Matra to me. It was helpful.” She gave Voyager a smile that set Colun’s teeth on edge. She could see him bristle, and she liked it.
    “You do not want to thank me yet. I come to these trials to have fun not to make your lives easier. The door is opening; I suggest you do not hold hands when you go through, it will hurt less. That one is on the house.”
    He climbed back on top of the boulder and watched the door with vivid interest as they walked through shoulder to shoulder.
     
    *~*~*~*
     
    A claw reached out and grabbed her leaving thin ribbons of red on her arm and her leg. The animal that grabbed her threw her against a wall; the breath knocked out of her. Where was