Page 76

ADRIANA

A s Titus holds me tight, pulling me up against his heavy bulk, his breathing gets heavier.

His cock starts to stir, his heart pounding, and he runs his hands down my back, gently cupping my ass with his huge palms as he pulls me deeper into his embrace.

After the darkness, I cherish the reality of him, the musk of his scent, the hard lines of his body. Every sense is attuned.

A sharp thread of worry grips me, and I put my hands on his chest, pressing on the ridges of his chiseled abs. He lets me go, looking down at me with primal need, his nostrils flaring, searching my scent for any hint of need. I give him the best smile I can manage and walk towards the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got to walk.”

“You’re not walking alone.”

I shrug. “I saw what happened. How many warships? Thirty? With Reavers? Shadowing me in the halls of your ship might make you feel better, but it’s not going to change anything if Obsidian recovers fast enough to send his fleet to hunt us before we get into Aurelian Empire territory.”

I sound like a bitch. Sure. These two just saved my life, they dove back into the blackness to get me.

But it’s the truth, and I need some space.

And I need to test Titus. There’s a new crazed look in his eyes, animalistic, unable to process his own failings, unable to accept that his Fated Mate was nearly taken from him.

I need to know he’s not going to try and control every second of my life going forward.

Titus strides to follow me, when Gallien cocks his head, ever so slightly. The big man stops in his tracks, scowling, and turns to face his battle-brother as the doors open for me.

“Escort. Two triads,” commands Gallien, and from the hallway, six hard-faced Aurelians fall in line, four behind me, the leaders of each triad striding with long legs in front of me. They clutch their blades, ready for more of Obsidian’s men to appear within the very halls of the Imperator.

I can’t resist the urge to glance back. Through the wall of marble flesh and white robes, Titus is watching me.

The hurt in his eyes—that I want to be away from him, in this moment, when his world was ripped in two, drives a knife into my stomach.

He’s too unpredictable right now, and as his cock stirred up when I embraced him, I didn’t trust him.

He’s terrified of losing me, and if he Bonds me to him, he’ll be able to feel me, wherever I am, every second of the day. Maybe he didn’t think of ripping off the ring and breeding me right there and then, but sooner or later, the thought is going to come to his mind.

The two Aurelians in front of me don’t ask me where we are going as I walk through the halls.

They never glance back, even as we come to a junction with three different hallways leading off.

I realize they are in constant communication with the other members of their triads.

The ones behind me relay which way I start to turn, so the two leading seamlessly move as if they can predict my movements.

I make my way to the place I know Doman will be once he has finished up on the bridge.

We get to the huge set of doors, guarded by two triads who have a new darkness to them, a tension around their eyes.

Even an Aurelian, brave enough to throw himself into combat without thought, is unsettled by the Rift.

There’s nothing you can do against that force but pray.

No strategy, no Orb-Blade, and no armor can protect you.

You’re gambling every time, and it could drive you mad.

The triads throw the doors open, and the throne room sprawls before me. I hesitate for a second at the doorways, taking it in, before entering.

This is just a taste of what will be in Colossus, the home planet of the Aurelian Empire.

Synonymous with wealth and power, opulence and decadence that goes against everything Obsidian represents.

The two triads follow me soundlessly in as I walk up to Doman’s throne, reaching up and pulling myself onto his enormous marble seat.

The triads don’t even blink at me sitting in their commander’s throne. They simply walk around the thrones and stand behind me, guarding me as I sit cross-legged against the cool stone and wait.

A half hour later, and the doors are thrown open, Doman striding in. There is no trace of the fight from earlier, the black eye fixed in the med-bay.

He waves, and the two triads from behind me leave.

“How did you know I’d come here?”

“I just knew,” I say, as he walks towards the throne, stopping ten feet away from me.

“The throne suits you.”

The edges of my lips curl up. “We outlawed monarchy millennia ago. There’s many things that are poison for the long-term survival of a system. Monarchy is near the top.”

“And where do alien threats rank?”

“They’re up there. It was short-sighted of my people to let you cross into our lands. Short-sighted thinking is the greatest risk to any people. All you have to do to destroy a planet, or an Empire, is make people prioritize the now before the future.”

“What else spells death?”

I run my hand over the marble armrest of the throne.

“Individuality. If a planet decides that it has a unique identity which is at odds some way with the Pentaris alliance, they become paranoid. They view it as four against one. This kind of nationalism is poisonous. It grows over centuries, not decades, and one day, it results in a split.”

“I know that well. My days in Academy were before the civil war, before a third of our species turned against us. There were whispers, even then. A resentment towards a human queen. The idea that the Empire was losing relevance. Losing power. Planets declaring Independence, more and more Aurelians doing only their minimum hundred years, aged Aurelians long past their prime enjoying the endless summers of their retirements instead of going into the cryo-bays to make room for the new.”

“And yet, it took you by surprise.”

“Yes. Men I trusted. Men I grew up with. They’re against me, now.”

“It didn’t take your mother by surprise.

She orchestrated this whole thing. Every one of her policies was designed to hasten the inevitable split.

It’s been predicted in Pentaris for centuries now—we ran our models on Etherion.

But we projected the Empire would last two thousand more years, and that by then, the Priests and their forces would be powerful enough to take complete control, casting out the old loyalists. We didn’t account for your mother.”

“Is that what you think of her? Some omnipotent force, puppeteering the entire universe? She’s a person, just like you and me.”

“It does not take omnipresence to shape the future, Doman. I can only imagine the models she has access to. She changed the harem system—it made no functional difference, to allow women to leave, to give them a lump sum after serving three years. The harems were voluntary by this point. But to the kind of Aurelian who views humanity as property… oh, it rankled, Doman. But her Independence decree, that was the true genius. No one likes paying taxes. That’s why our Administration dresses in drab browns and lives on barebones ships.

Tax rebellion is a great threat to a democracy. ”

“She wanted what is best for humans.”

“Maybe at first, Doman. Maybe at first. Short-sighted thinking. That’s what she bet on.

That democracy could be manipulated, that planet after planet would declare itself Independent.

It started with the ones within the epicenter of the Aurelian Empire.

They knew they’d get protection without any cost to themselves.

Then it spread. One by one, planets declared themselves out of the jurisdiction of your Empire.

Then the Priests break off, civil war is declared, and they come crawling back.

Only now they’re not paying the original deal.

They’re paying so much in tax that each of those human planets has to turn themselves into a factory for your war effort if they want to be able to survive.

Because the Aurelian Empire is buying ships, and they are buying missiles, and they are buying parts for the war machine. ”

Doman shakes his head, slowly. “This grand conspiracy of yours. Even if it was true, you prefer the alternative? What do you think happens if your two-thousand-year projection was right and the Priests become so powerful they are in power? You think they let the Pentaris Alliance survive? These people aren’t playing, Adriana.

They aren’t going to use diplomatic tricks to get what they want.

They come with fire and pain, and you submit, or you are consumed. ”

“Better. Worse. It’s just reality. And you need to accept that your parents are doing what they can to keep the Aurelian Empire alive, just like I am working for Pentaris.”

He strides to me, and yet, from the perch of the throne, I am not yet at eye level to him.

“I’d let it die to keep you, Adriana. Doesn’t that make me worse than her?

Doesn’t that make me worse than Obsidian?

The Aurelian Empire is the only thing standing between trillions of people and death, but when you were lost in the Rift, I knew… I knew I’d let it burn.”

“That’s dangerous, Doman.”

“And where does that danger rank? Love?”

“It’s near the top. People do insane things for love. And even more to keep their family safe.”

His jaw clenches. The weight of the world is on his shoulders, but he can bear it. “I need your forgiveness.”

“You can’t think of me as lesser than your soldiers. Those six men that died. You said they knew the risks. I did too. I knew this trip had dangers. I went with you with my eyes wide open.”

“I told you we’d be safe. That he couldn’t find us in the darkness of space.”