Page 57

I blink, and I’m in a muddy field, white marble walls surrounding the grounds. Above them are ornate white buildings, gleaming in the sun, their shapes designed so that they flow together. There is a pure white palace on the hills. It’s beautiful, but there is no time to enjoy it.

A blade is striking towards me, dull and black, and my own comes up to parry it. A grizzled old man, bald with veins bulging in his forehead, screams out commands.

“Faster! You’d be dead, you worm! Faster!” The ring of metal on metal echoes. I’ve taken those blades to my neck, my chest, and the boy in front of me has bruises all over his marble-white skin. He’s bigger than me, broader, with a thick neck and muscles grown more than mine, and he uses the strength to press down against me, growling and snarling as he pushes his blade against mine.

I let myself fall back, using his own weight against him as he stumbles, and I trip him. I’m on him in a second, my blade forgotten, wrestling with him in the mud as we fight. The other boys are screaming and yelling in encouragement until the instructor barks at them to be quiet. Their voices are distant. All there is, is my opponent, his panting breath, the anger in his eyes as we fight.

His hands are around my throat, my fingers poking at his eyes, when we freeze, looking at each other in confusion.

I can feel his rage. I blink, petrified.

“Good! Look, men, the first Bonded warriors! Soon, a third will join them to form a triad, and they will be whole. Pray you find your triad in academy, or you’ll be cast out, never to serve your hundred years! Tonight, we celebrate, but first, a demonstration. Ra’al, Orr, stand!”

I get up and extend my hand to my most bitter rival. We’ve been in academy for only two weeks, and we’ve been at each other’s throats, the top two of this year. He takes it and stands beside me.

“The Bond lets you feel each other. It makes Aurelians the deadliest fighting force in the universe. Don’t believe me? Watch how these two can fight. Augustus, Kriz, Blunden, Hadrian, form up! A fight until yield!”

Four boys are faced against us. They charge, yelling, and me and my battle-brother brace for their attack.

I blink again, and I’m in a tunnel. There’s no light except for my blade. Scorp surround me. They scream and chitter as my triad cleanses them. Endless battles flash by my eyes. Decades. Centuries. Space battles, killing slavers and liberating terrified men and women, Bullfrog warriors covered in warts that break my ribs with a punch. I fight in the dark, in the light of twin suns, in the gravity well of a black hole, shifting out moments before it sucks us in. A hundred near misses, a thousand triumphs, until I stand over a ruined planet.

The wind blows as Aurelians in battle-armor stand among the city. It is not reduced to rubble. All the buildings are intact, but the streets are stained with blood.

We came here and killed the Scorp. Every one of them is dead, but it was not a victory.

Fires burn, smoke to the heavens, and I see the shapes of humans, rent by Scorp claws, and I sob, the grief hitting me so hard I’m jolted back to reality. I’d heard the news of a planet overrun by Scorp. The death total had seemed like a bad dream, back then. Now I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Billions dead. All those fires are the burning bodies.

If I had been there, I’d have been driven insane. He endured it.

Ra’al grabs me in his arms as I cry, endless tears that wrack out of me so hard I can’t breathe.

Ra’al holds me tight against his sweat-slick chest. The hard ridges of his brand rub against me. “How can you live with it? How can you bear it?” I fight to say the words between sobs.

“By never letting it happen again.”

“All those years…all those wars…”

“Forging myself to protect you, my Mate.”

He squeezes me tight against his massive body. I cry against his broad chest, the only thing that gives me any sense of stability, until all my tears are gone. He’s seen horrors I can barely comprehend. He’s gone down into the tunnels and caves of those monsters, cleansing worlds of the Scorp.

But he couldn’t stop the onslaught from killing billions. Those souls weigh on his conscience. I understand the torment of his being, the storms of agony and pain that he could not do more.

Ra’al is a man who takes responsibility. He bears the burden of leadership.

“The universe is filled with danger, my Mate. But none of it will ever touch you. I will pacify the universe. I will take the swords from any who would cut you. I will not stop. Ever.”

His protectiveness washes over me like a tidal wave. I feel so vulnerable yet safe in his arms, as he squeezes me tight against his chest. His heart beats, steady and strong, once for every two of mine.

He leans his head back, wipes the tears from my eyes, and kisses me. He fists my hair possessively, pulling me into his kiss. His lips are tender at first, then hungry as his cock rears up against his shorts.

The Bond is dormant in my mind. I don’t know why it doesn’t thrum to life, but my own need for him does. I’ve seen the wars he won. The battlefields he triumphed over. He is the emblem of safety that I crave.

I reach down, eager, pulling his shorts down. His cock rears up, hardening, his aura pulsing with his hunger for me. I’ve got no panties under my cotton servant’s dress, and he lifts me up by the hips like I’m weightless, positioning me against his throbbing rod. He lets it pulse and spit pre-cum against my slit, moving my body back and forth and rubbing me against it. I ache for him, and he grips my hips firmly as he kisses me, pulling me down against his rock-hard shaft.

He impales me on his dick as he sits in front of me, and I wrap my legs and arms around him, as far as I can around his broad body, and we grind together, kissing and writhing. I forget everything, and so does he. His aura clears. All the pain and torment of his being clears like the winds blowing away a storm. I run my tongue over his sweaty chest as he fucks me, tasting the salt, aching to belong to him. He squeezes me tight against him, so I’m so protected in his arms as his cock throbs so deep inside me, and I feel my orgasm welling up.