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There’s no nepotism in the Aurelian Army. I earned my spot as a captain, then a general. I earned my warship, and I made Lukas and his triad my second in command.

As I sit, recovering from the training bout with my battle-brothers in the personal gym of my ship, I look them over with endless respect. We’ve come a long damn way, the three of us, but some things never change.

“It’s good we learned lessons in trickery. This Adriana is going to be… difficult,” says Gallien, pulling himself up from the mat.

Titus is grumpy. He always is when he loses, and the victory of his team of two against me wasn’t enough. He wanted to be alive, by the rules of the bout.

As an Aurelian born of a Bonded human mother and not of the cryo-bays, I’m bigger, stronger, and faster, but when I go up against the two of them, I win only one out of three bouts cleanly.

“Don’t be so fucking pouty. You won.”

“I should have predicted you had a dirk in your boot. Hidden away. Cheating bastard,” he says with a shake of his head, his black mane shifting.

“Maybe if you cared more about fighting and less about looking pretty…” I can’t resist the jape, glancing at his gaudy chain.

“Yeah, yeah,” growls Titus, as Gallien helps him to his feet.

Our servants, Aurelian squires, are waiting patiently with water. They stood still the entire match, straight-backed, not wanting to betray themselves with a single shifting of their feet. They offer us water, and I drink deeply. In their last decade of Academy, they serve the warriors as support staff, but if my ship is boarded, they will fight like the rest of us.

I wave them away and lead us to the showers. We strip our pants off and get in, the waters flowing over our tired muscles.

I take stock of my battle-brothers, as I always do. The bullet wounds in Titus’ chest, the scar on Gallien’s leg where the Orb-Blade nearly cut it off. Blood had spurted, and he told me later he thought I was carrying him to the cryo-bays and not the med-bay.

The doctor had said it would be amputated, or Gallien would die. Gallien barked out that he would die, then, knowing that an Aurelian with one leg could not perform in battle, no matter how good our robotics are. The doctor cursed, but two weeks in the med-bay, and he came out on crutches.

The three of us have brushed with death too many times to count.

We’ll have to cheat that specter many more times before the war is over.

The warm waters rush over me, cleaning me of my sweat. This is the time when I do my best thinking—my body spent, at ease with the exertion, my mind free.

“Adriana will let us through her territories. She will see reason. We do not mean her harm,” I say, a statement meant to provoke discussion, not one I believe. It’s difficult to think of her logically. Every mention of her name and all I can think of is her naked body, the shame in her eyes as I tasted her need. I ache to lave every inch of her with my tongue, see the hatred turn to lust as she cannot resist a second longer and she instinctively spreads her legs for me.

“We’re escorting two Planet-Killers. If she finds out…” Titus runs his hands through his thick black hair, then adjusts his chain. His brutal exterior hides his cunning mind.

“We are. But not for use on her. If secrecy fails, then she will have to accept our interests align with hers. A demonstration of our power in the space between hers and Toad Kingdom. Those Toads are a threat to her, and our demonstration will slow their advances, make them think twice on trespassing near her lands.”

We’re all three avoiding the wrinkle in the plan, that ever-present knowledge of the one thing that complicates it all.

Gallien twists the black Bond-Disruptor ring around his finger. Every soldier in our army wears one, crafted to blunt us to our Fated Mate. That threatens the unity of our army. Any one of our triads could go mad with the scent of his Mate. We’ve all been tormented by the knowledge that she’s out there—and the ring blunts our most primal instincts, the instincts that could make us throw off honor and duty.

Only my younger brother, Prince Bruton, knows that Adriana is the one woman in the universe who can be linked to us.

“Fate’s a funny thing,” laughs Titus, with no mirth.

“Irrelevant. If she had told anyone of the vision, she would not be Prime Minister. We ignore it, as our soldiers must. We lead by example,” I say. If the crown prince, general of the armies himself, threw off honor to chase his Fated Mate, it would destroy us from inside, right on the cusp of victory. No one in our forces can know she’s ours, or the hypocrisy would be poison to morale. Every decision I made would be suspect.

“Once the war is won,” says Gallien, his voice steel. Discussion on the topic is shut down. “And wearewinning. We’re pushing Obsidian back. The Mark-10s are a work of art.”

“Bruton’s Mate is a genius,” states Titus, and our auras sour. By accident, he brought up Fated Mates once more. My younger brother, Prince Bruton, was just wedded on Colossus to the head scientist who led the cyborg project, designing and perfecting the killing machines which are turning the tide of war. I was happy for him, but when I watched him put the crown on her head, I felt a wave of envy, intense.

My smart-watch blinks, a top priority missive. I accept it. The row of coded text streams out and decodes in front of me, making me blink in surprise.

“Adriana Hart is on the border of our territory. She is with a small delegation.”

“How many fighter ships?” Gallien asks the question quickly, ready to do a mental calculation, his aura tensing. Even one ship could cut down a Planet-Killer, the long, thin, unarmored weapons that we are escorting.

Our huge, orbital Orb-Shift disrupters are spread through our territory as best as they can be spared, but they don’t reach this far. Secrecy is of the utmost importance. We’re unprotected, and if word of our mission spreads, Obsidian will send his ships through portals to destroy us. The fact that Adriana is on her way means there is a leak—or we’re close enough to her borders that her sensors picked us up, despite all stealth measures.