Page 155 of Crown Prince's Mate

“He is a man. And he will die like any other.” Doman’s hard voice cuts through my uncertainty.

I pull my legs against my chest on the bed, rocking back and forth from the anxiety. “Doman, you don’t need to do this. Give him Fay, in return for our lives. Give him Fay and negotiate peace. He has a son now. He’lllisten.”

Doman shakes his head, ever so slightly. I can feel the torture in his aura, the torture I cause. His blue eyes seem to stare right through me, and his aura grows in my mind. I let it happen, letting his awareness take over mine, until the room fades.

I remember. I remember, but it’s like I’m living the moment just as he did as he pushes his childhood into my mind.

An image, so clear I can see every one of the faces in the bunkroom. It’s his early childhood, when he joined Academy. Hundreds of Aurelian boys are in his year. Most are shirtless, in light pants, some lounging in the bunkbeds, others doing pushups, some hard at work reading through tomes of knowledge to prepare their minds. They all so vital, lean, hungry young men ready to be forged into weapons.

One by one, their ivory skin goes grey, colorless as corpses. Others have black brands imagined on their hearts, a third of the species, signifying the boys who joined Obsidian’s forces. Many of them turn grey and lifeless, their eyes staring out blankly at me. Near half are gone when the memory ends.

“Dead. So many dead. I killed some of them myself. Others died under my command. I have to end this, Adriana, the only way it can be ended.”

He grabs his battle-robe, donning it, and tightens his belt. He returns the hilt of his Orb-Blate to its holster and looks down at me as I rock on the bed, agonized by the terror of losing him, conflicting emotions churning in my mind.

“I will kill Obsidian. I will become the War-God. And I will unite the Aurelian Empire once more, under my flag, to face what is coming for us all.”

He made me love a different version of him. One that was almost human. I knew he’d have to go to war, that soon, he’d be up against Obsidian’s forces.

I thought he’d be on Colossus, his fleet surrounded by Orb-Batteries and the ancient defenses of the Aurelian home planet, drawing Obsidian into a trap. I thought the four of us were linked, that we were working together. We swam into the cavern with the krakens, we bedded on icy tundra, I showed them my home and kissed them on the moonlight canopy.

Beautiful memories, corrupted by his lies.

“You should have told me,” I whisper, heartbroken.

“I don’t want to die with you hating me, Adriana.” Doman’s voice comes out in a rasp, the first indication that he admits the danger in his plan. He’s no longer treating me like one of his soldiers needing a morale boost.

“I don’t hate you,” I sigh, tears dripping down my cheeks. Tears of defeat. I can’t fight any longer.

No matter what I do, what I say, there’s no way to stop what’s coming. My triad is going to war in the Arena of Blood.

“I don’t… I don’t know what I’d have done if you told me your real plan. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore. Prophecies, creatures that hunger for us… all I know is I can’t live in a world without you three.” I lift my head from my knees, lookingDoman straight in his glowing blue eyes. “Kill him, Doman. Put the War-God down. End it. Just end it.”

Sudden exhaustion overcomes me. I lay back in the bed, staring up at the white ceiling. Gallien pulls me to his body, resting my head against his steady heart. He has no fear. Only a cool readiness.

Titus doesn’t say a word. He comes to bed, the mattresses pressing down with his bulk, and squeezes himself under me, while Doman undresses and takes his spot to my left. The three aliens fill the bed, wrapping me in an embrace of ivory skin, rippling muscles and warmth cocooning me. Their musk fills my nostrils, and I run my hands gently over their skin as I sink into their auras.

I don’t want to sleep. A moment unconscious is a moment without feeling the triad. I explore them in my mind as I listen to their rhythmic breathing, the drum of their heartbeats in unison. Three auras. Three consciousness, so different from my own.

The Aurelians are stone in my mind, even as they rest. Titus is already asleep, the habit of a soldier who can steal a blink of rest at a moment’s notice. None of them have a thread of anxiety, even a hint of fear, even though they will be in a battle for their lives tomorrow.

They are three sturdy, impenetrable, centuries-old consciousnesses that seem unbreakable.

It’s an illusion.

Soon, my invincible triad will go up against the one force in the world that could shatter them.

44

PRINCE DOMAN

My eyes flick open in the same bed I’ve awoken in for so many decades.

This time it’s different. Adriana is next to me, and she’s in my mind.

I breathe in, tasting her scent, and my cock stirs in response. I rise from the bed, and my triad awakens with me, two sets of colored eyes staring back at me where yesterday there was flint grey.

Now they are complete.