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And for the first time in my memory since I was in Academy, when the dull blades rained down on me and I tried to keep my mouth shut and could not halt the wordstopfrom escaping my lips to end the drills, I lost control of my discipline. I needed to taste her scent, more than I needed to breathe.

I knew since the vision that Adriana was my Fated Mate, but I needed toknow,to confirm it with a taste of her being, and now it drives me mad.

“Nothing to forgive,” says Titus. “She is an incredible creature. There is not a more worthy mate in the universe.”

“And her scent is full of hate. This fake marriage will only entrench her hatred,” says Gallien, his mind rushing with calculations, but there is a note of sorrow as he stands. “Her hate will grow each day. She was ready to be a prisoner, but she was to be a martyr, not this. It will be a public humiliation, each day that she stands by our side. It will be a caricature of marriage that will drive her farther from us.”

I crack my knuckles, longing for battle, where I ascend into pure instinct, directing my troops as I wield my blade. “We will lose her. We knew this when we made our plan. That it would drive her from us. But wewillend this war.”

Titus paces the room, his boots clicking against the marble as he walks to the thrones and back.

Gallien’s eyes narrow slightly as he focuses. “Mark-10 production has increased six thousand percent. Princess Evelyn Surkao turned the Mark-10s from a conception into reality.We’re building new factories every day. With this marriage, we will have the route to the battle-lines to ship in thousands of the Cyborgs, led by triads of Aurelians into Obsidian’s flank. He’s stretched too thin in his conquest, and we’re pushing him back. Even when Obsidian learns of the alliance between Pentaris and the Empire, it will be too late for him.”

“He will retreat. Even that battle-mad beast will not throw lives away for nothing. He will sue for peace. Once he accepts he cannot win the war, he will give up. We still have his pregnant Mate. Doman, convince your Queen Mother to negotiate using her. The carrot and the stick.” Gallien is cold and rational—but he too wants that poor woman freed.

Titus’ lips curl back in distaste. He hates the necessity of the captive. It sours all three of our minds every time we think of Fay, locked deep under the palace, pregnant to the point of bursting, her breasts swollen up and leaking milk.

“He will not retreat.” I look from Titus to Gallien, and Titus stops pacing, leaning against the marble throne. “I just tasted our Fated Mate. One taste, and I understand Obsidian in a deeper way. He will not trust Queen Jasmine to release her, even if he surrenders.” I speak of my own mother in the abstract way, because the woman who raised me, who played with me, whose laughter I grew up hearing is gone whenever she puts on the mask of Queen.

Wear a mask too long and it molds to your face.

“Obsidian will make one last attempt. He will charge on Colossus itself. He will draw his forces too thin, and he will be eradicated forever. The scourge of the Priests and the Old Ways will be ripped from the universe forever. But we willnotunderestimate the War-God. He’s strong, and his followers would go into hell itself if he commanded it. And he has everything to lose. Wemuststamp him out… before some other one of their prophecies comes true.”

Gallien runs his hand over his buzzed scalp. “The wedding proposal will be voted on by her government. And she will accept, because she does not trust any other to lead for her entire sector, and not just for their own home planet. Three years will feel like nothing to us. But it is a long time for a human. Perhaps, in these three years… perhaps she will soften to us. Perhaps she will see something in us she does not hate.”

He clings on to hope of his mate. He felt my aura change with a single inhale of her scent, and he aches to feel the same.

Titus paces the room once more, faster, striding up and down with rhythmic, metallic thuds of his combat boots against the polished floor. “Lose all false hope, Gallien. She hates us to the core. She hates our essence, and the more she knows us, the more she will find to hate,” he snarls. “This is how she views us. Aliens who would force her into marriage, to bend her to our will. She will view this marriage as a personal sacrifice. It will harden her, until there is no way in.” He runs his fingers over the diamond at his neck, and his hand forms a fist around it, squeezing tight.

I shake my head. “Do not underestimate her. Her one goal is to stop alien boots from ever setting foot on her planets. We must use caution. She may try to wriggle out of this yet.”

Gods, but it’s hard to think. The memory of her scent is driving me wild, clouding my thoughts when I need them to be precise.

It takes every ounce of my will to stop myself from pulling the ring off my finger once more, just for a singular moment of tasting her scent.

A shiver runs through my body as I imagine my tongue over her body. Kissing her, from her lips down her neck, laving her breasts, sucking on her nipples as they harden under my mouth and she moans in pleasure she cannot suppress. Sliding my tongue down her body, between her legs, tasting her.

The ring on my finger blunts the scent of my mate, but the rage boils up in my again, as I imagine pressing myself into her, sliding every inch of my cock deep inside, her body unable to resist me as she screams out my name.

That would be a conquest sweeter than slaying the War-God. That would be my purest ecstasy. To bind her to me, to hear her anger turned to lust and love as she gasps out my name, to make her my queen.

I stomp up and down the throne room like Titus as my cock swells up once more, maddeningly hard, as the image that drives me insane fills my mind.

Adriana, her belly swollen up with my son, as she gives herself to me fully, her body the vessel for my heirs to grow, her bondage to me fully complete.

5

ADRIANA

Irush back to my ship, my pace at the verge of indignity as I stride back to the hangar bay, two sets of Aurelian guards keeping up easily with their long-legged gait when I hear the prince’s roar.

I know that scream of conquest and rage is his, and his alone, and not his battle-brothers’. Some instinct tells me. It is the roar of a beast, his true nature that he disguises in robes and crowns, and it makes me quicken my pace to a jog, a frisson running down my spine as the hairs on the back of my neck stand.

My ship seems out of place in the hangar bay, filled with pure white, predatory Reavers. My own ship is a bland, dull gray that matches my uniform, the neutrality of the Administrators who are supposed to give up all ties to their home planets when they are elected to serve. I go up the ramp, and when the doors close behind me, I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. I’m not safe in my ship—any one of the Reavers could cut through our shields and armor with their Orb-Beams—but having a few more feet of metal between me and the royal triad is a relief.

I brush off the two Administrators who hail me. The look in their eyes is like I have become a stranger. It tells me that theyhave gotten the news—that the details of the wedding proposal were sent to them to vote on, and now, instead of their Prime Minister, I am a pawn. I ignore their calls, stalking straight to Aeris’ quarters, knocking heavily at the door.

“Come in.” Her voice is gentle as the tide slowly creeping up on you as you sleep on the beach, until your feet are soaked, and you never saw it coming.