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Otho blinks at my words – like they’re a revelation to him.

They’d taken me from behind the towering walls of my father’s estate, and in the short time that followed, they’ve somehow showed me what life istrulymeant to be.

I shiver as I stare at them. My three beautiful, brutal, walking statues.

Brennan sighs softly, sadness creasing his perfect face. From that blank sadness, though, the shadow of a smile momentarily appears – all too brief, but beautiful nonetheless.

As our gazes lock, he mouths those same four words back to me slowly – as if not even wanting to say them out loud, in case the mere vocalization of them could somehow make them less real.

I mouth them back to him again.

You’ve set me free.

We don’t need words anymore – as if we’re Bonded together, just like in the Aurelian lore.

It’s as if we can talk to each other with thoughts, not words – just like Brennan can with the rest of his triad.

As we stand in silent connection, the sorrowful, alien warrior steps forward. There’s none of the rage in him that he had before. The mating energy is there – his desire for me burns hotter than the sun - but it’s as if he’s wound it into a tightly controlled ball.

All that explosive power beneath his statue-like exterior, but on the outside Brennan stands as still as the surface of a lake at moon rise.

Brennan is a body of undisturbed water – and I am a pebble, skipping on the surface. Despite the ripples I cause, I don’t know if I could ever sink underneath the alien warrior’s still surface.

Brennan takes a deep breath, and then shakes he head slowly as he approaches me.

“We can protect you from anything – we could hide you from anyone…” He fills his lungs again. “Anyone exceptthem. We can’t hide you from the Aurelian Law Enforcement – it wouldn’t be right.” He snorts softly. “Your father outplayed us.Touché.”

“What happens now?”

“Now, Natali? They’ll hunt us down. We broke one of the covenants of Aurelian law, and so we will face the consequences, or be branded Rogue. They’ll take us, and they’ll put us behind bars for a thousand years.”

Otho slams his fist against the wall. I wince at his ferocity, knowing that if a human had used that degree of force, every bone in his hand would have been instantly shattered.

But it’s the wall that’s left spiderwebbed with cracks now, and there’s no trace of physical pain in Otho’s slate-grey eyes. Only the pain of anger.

“Wecannotgive up!”

He roars the words out like a challenge – but I wonder what he means by them.

What are they giving up? The promise of forcing my father to surrender his Orb-Deposits?

Orme?

This was no longer just about gathering Orb-Material for the Empire.

Brennan closes the distance between us with two, long strides. The distance between us seems so small, now – but once they surrender it, it’ll become a gulf so wide we’ll never be able to cross it again.

Once Aurelian Law Enforcement catch up with us, it’s over. Only one man has ever escaped their prisons in the last thousand years, and he nearly brought the universe crashing into the heat of a devastating new war. Since then, security has only grown stronger. The walls of my father’s towering estate are as secure as tissue paper compared to the granite, steel and high-tech security of an Aurelian Penal Camp.

Brennan keeps shaking his head, and each movement seems to make him more certain in his decision.

“We can’t keep you with us, Natali – not now. It is one thing to hide you from your father’s forces. It’s another to keep you from the Aurelian Law Enforcement. We broketheirlaws – and we’ll have to face the consequences.”

“But…”

Brennan holds up one finger.

“No!I willnotput you in that danger. The young bloods on the force are hot for an arrest – and hotter on their triggers. If a stray Orb-Beam were to hit you – ifanythingwould happen to you – I’d take death over imprisonment; because life without you would be worse than death.”