Page 6

“You earned it,” I telepathed to them, and they grinned at me, awash in the thrill of victory.

When we went back to dormitories, my head was swimming.

I couldn’t see out of my right eye, but I refused to go to the med-bay.

As if by a hidden signal, one of the triple bunks was emptied, and me and my battle-brothers limped to it.

I groaned as I slipped into bed. The other boys were bruised up, but when they looked at me, I saw not animosity but respect.

Lukas was hailed as the hero of the day for his cunning maneuver. He basked in it but then pointed to me.

“I might have won, but that royal cunt can take a real beating,” he said, and nods of approval followed.

After Academy, our year was split up, and I rose up in the ranks during my hundred years of service which for me, will never end.

Once your century in the army is done, some Aurelians choose to laze their days away on Colossus.

My triad will fight as long as the Aurelian army needs me, and it will always have need of me.

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 we are winning. 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.

“None,” I answer, trying to piece together the puzzle.

“She must know. She knows we are coming, and she knows we have Planet-Killers. That is the only possible reason she would leave the safety of her territory, and why she would come without guards,” says Titus.

“She knows even a single of her customary attack ship protection would be seen as a threat to our cargo.”

“We better plug that leak,” says Gallien. “Before Obsidian shifts in an ambush.”

That thought chills me. We’re currently traveling outside of range of the disruptors. At any moment, the War-God could guide attack ships in, destroying our precious cargo. We survive on secrecy alone.

“Her territories are protected completely from shifting. Her planet, Etherion, has massive drives. Going through her territory won’t just shave four months off the trip, it will keep the PKs safe… if we can trust her to make a deal.”

Gallien’s aura is taut with focus. “She came alone to speak. She will be open to something.”

I run my tongue over my teeth. “But if she knows we have Planet-Killers, she could never let us through. I had planned to hide them, to negotiate once we arrived for safe passage.”

Gallien turns off the water from his shower and grabs a huge towel, preferring it to the automated systems of the ship.

He wraps it around his lean, muscular frame.

“Let’s not ignore this any longer. Adriana felt the vision, as did we.

She is fiercely anti-Aurelian, just like the nationalist factions of Pentaris.

You saw the hate in her eyes when we witnessed her.

She would never risk coming into our territories… except to protect her people.”

That memory makes my cock stir. One moment, I was sparring with my battle-brothers.

The next, the vision came over me so deeply it was like I was there, watching her as she showered, water running down her feminine curves.

Her body was a river, the lines of her flowing into my mind, imprinting herself on me.

And her scent. Oh Gods, but her scent, tasting too right with every breath, driving me wild.

Her mind flowed into mine just for an instant, a glimpse of what could be if I Bonded her, a mind that sees every thread of a problem, a mind that could twist me into knots if I let her get the upper hand.

In an instant, I’m fully, painfully erect, my cock throbbing with a mind of its own.

The dull ache makes me growl. A single thought of her is torment, and I will not be freed until I’ve rammed every inch of myself into her, hearing her gasp my name as she writhes in pleasure so intense her mind melts.

Even with the blue-black ring around my finger, blunting my desires, it’s all-consuming.

Titus barks out the command for the waters to stop and for warm air to blow over him. “She fears we’ll use the Planet-Killers against her people.”

I scowl. “She must think we are monsters. We would never.”

Gallien’s eyes gleam, cold and intelligent. “She doesn’t know that. It’s four months extra travel if she doesn’t give us safe passage. Four months of traveling with precious, fragile weapons. She may hate us, but she will respect us. We have the leverage to demand passage.”

Titus steps out of the shower. “We can’t waste four months.”

I inhale sharply. For a strategic advantage, we will make the one woman who can complete us hate us even more. For full leverage, I need to make her fear me. She has to believe that I’m capable of turning her people into dust if she doesn’t let me in willingly.

I think of her, and I marvel at her courage. She’s coming alone, with a small delegation and no protection, into the territories of the alien species she fears and hates most.

“Our Fated Mate is a very, very brave woman,” I say, shaking my head at the complications of fate.