Page 59 of Galaxy Gladiators Romance Box Set #11-19

Chapter Eleven

R aine

Max and I received a comm this morning telling us to return to the trailhead separately. I’m worried because they want me to descend first. When we were ascending, Max had said the weakest should be first. Although that described me on the way up, it’s definitely him now.

I had to help him out of bed this morning. He kept one palm on the wall as he pulled on his pants. I’d lay fifty-fifty odds he can make it back down the mountain without help.

I comm’d Octavia to see if she would change the rules, but she refused. Her exact quote was, He’s an Addai male. Unfulfilled mate-bond or not, he will return on his own.

My trek down is uneventful. Despite the fact I left only half an hour before him, he arrived over an hour later than me. I wonder if every step was difficult for him. When he arrives at the waiting hover, I hurry to his side with a bottle of water and a nutrition bar.

“Are you okay?” I ask, my brow furrowed in concern.

“I’ll be fine.” He inspects me from under lowered brows as if he wants something from me. He wants our bond severed too, right? The animal attack was harrowing, but it doesn’t change anything, does it? Seeing me hurt had to upset him. We’re friends, of course seeing me mauled wasn’t easy to watch. But any deeper feelings we may have are just an illusion. The result of his mate-bond.

If I thought he really cared for me, I’d want our mating to remain. What I said last night was true. He’ll make a fantastic mate.

We’re taken directly to the temple and are whisked inside. Max didn’t say a word on the ride here. Perhaps he can’t wait to be rid of me.

It felt like an eternity as I waited at the hover for him to come into sight. I had a lot of time to think about what I want. I have to admit, I’ll miss him, but this is for the best. What would the next fifty years be like wondering if my mate is with me because he cares about me or because without me he’ll go into withdrawal and die? That’s not a relationship, it’s a prison.

I’m taken down a corridor to a room with a shower, then given a soft robe similar to the one Max’s parents had me wear the day I arrived. It’s not yellow like Max’s coloring, though. It’s blue. Perhaps the pigment signifies we no longer belong together.

When I meet Max in the sanctuary, his mate mark is visible because his robe is designed to display it. I hadn’t noticed this morning, but it’s faint and flickering instead of the robust neon yellow it used to be.

Other than his parents and the priestesses, we’re alone. Max looks as if he can barely stand. His father has a pinched, disapproving look on his face, and his mother’s mouth is downturned in sadness. What a mess.

“Welcome to the ahnkarr , the ritual where your mate-bond will be completely severed. Madd Durrun Maximus, did you follow your instructions to the letter?”

“Yes, Priestess.”

“Raine Astoria Mellon, did you follow your instructions to the letter?”

“Yes, Priestess.”

“Madd, do you wish this bond to be severed?”

“If Raine wishes it, Priestess.”

How can my body flash hot and then cold in the span of a second? His answer is a shock. I assumed all along he wanted the mate-bond severed. I mean, I knew he still wanted to have sex with me, that was no secret. But I thought we’d both agreed we didn’t want to be mated.

“Yes or no, Madd Durrun Maximus,” the priestess scolds.

“Yes,” he says so quietly I can barely hear him even though he’s less than two feet away.

“Raine, do you wish this bond severed?”

“Yes,” I say. It’s for the best. My words were strong, but my heart is squeezing in pain. Is it? Is it for the best? My mind flashes me a picture of us at his parents’ age, going through the motions for decades because of some freak of biology.

I admit, I do have feelings for him, but what would it be like day after day, year after year to look at your mate with love and believe he only tolerates you out of need? I’m weak. Living like that would be death by a thousand papercuts. I’d rather have a clean break now and get on with my life.

She hands us each the end of a golden, silken rope.

“This rope signifies the mate-bond you have both requested to be severed. So let it be.”

She lifts a golden scimitar, the shaft of which is encrusted with jewels. After lifting it over her head, she swings it down, cutting the rope.

Max and I are standing, our halves of the rope dangling limply in our hands.

Since everyone in the room is focusing on Max’s chest, I do too. The yellow light, already weak, fades away. It gets fainter and fainter, then pulses, then disappears.

Although I knew the mate-bond was something real, palpable, that affected Max, I’m surprised to see the visible confirmation that we’re detached from each other. I feel different too. Separate. Alone. Lonely.

“The bond is severed,” the high priestess intones. “You may go.” She raises both hands, then sweeps them to her sides. It’s a clear indication the ritual is complete.

Max’s parents step forward and stand between Max and me, wordlessly confirming we aren’t close to each other anymore. When we’re outside in the fading light, I see Grace, Aerie, and Elyse waiting for me, their mates a few steps behind them.

“I contacted your ship,” Max’s mom says. “I thought it best for you to leave immediately after the ceremony.” She cups my hands in between hers and leans next to my ear. “I never quit dreaming of Madd’s return. Sometimes when I thought of it, I allowed myself to imagine his mate, my daughter. Of course, it was always an Addai female in my fantasies, but I was so happy he met you, Raine. I’m sorry this isn’t what you want. Fare thee well.”

And just like that, I’m whisked away into a waiting hover and spirited back to the Devil’s Playground .

The women ask me a few questions on the drive, but I’m not talkative, so after a while they chatter amongst themselves and leave me to my thoughts.

I keep replaying the moment the light in Max’s chest went from beating, however dim and feebly, to disappearing. I feel hollow inside, bereft. Hot tears burn behind my eyelids. They linger even though I order them to disappear.

As I was being hustled into the hover, I caught a glimpse of him with his parents. Although he’s young and hale and hearty, and even though our mate-bond is severed and he should be feeling better, he looked almost . . . fragile. Fragile and lost.

A fragment of conversation drifts to me, “Off to Aeon II for Steele’s match,” Beast says.

“We’re leaving soon?” I ask, my voice soft.

“Tyree says wheels up in an hour,” his mate Grace says. “Well, not exactly wheels up, but you know what I mean.”

She gives me a meaningful stare, then leans close and asks, “Want to talk, Raine? You don’t look certain you want to do this.”

Do I? Do I want to fly off with these people I’ve become friends with over the last several months and leave Madd Durrun Maximus behind? Never to see him again?

My eyes dart to the three males in the seat in front of us. I don’t want them to hear my innermost thoughts.

“Can you guys keep a conversation going so us girls can have privacy back here?” Grace asks.

After Beast and Wrage begin a lively discussion of the latest intergalactic halchuck games, we girls get down to business.

“Max can be insufferable,” Aerie starts. I want to argue with her, but press my lips together after deciding her thoughts about my mate—my former mate—are inconsequential.

“But,” she continues, “he’s an amazing guy. Sure, he’s rough around the edges. What gladiator isn’t? And the way he looks at you . . .” Her eyes light up. “It’s like you hung the moon.”

“Well, not anymore. The high priestess performed a ritual that severed the mate-bond. He never really cared for me,” I inform her.

“When’s that going to happen?” Elyse asks.

“It happened already. In the temple.”

“So, he doesn’t care about you anymore?” Aerie asks, her tone sharp.

“No. It’s over.” I’m surprised by the mournful tone of my voice.

“Is that what you saw, Elyse?” Aerie asks pointedly.

“Are you talking about Maximus? The hunky gunmetal gray male we just left at the curb?” Elyse replies. “The male who, as we hovered away, looked at you like a starving male looks at food? That Maximus?”

“Wh-what?” I ask, my gaze flicking back and forth between them.

Wrage turns in his seat. “Hey, I couldn’t help but overhear. Did none of you see the male walk into the street and jog after our hover for a couple of blocks? Raine, are you seriously wondering if that male likes you?” He cocks his head at an ‘are you crazy’ angle.

“Really?”

Everyone in the hover, even the stranger who’s driving it, nods.

“Really?” I ask again just to make sure.

“Raine,” Grace grabs my hand. “Does it feel like your bond is severed? Because it doesn’t look that way to me.”

I sag against the seatback, my gaze sliding from one to the other as I try to read everyone in the hover. They’re all serious.

“For a smart female, I sure can be dumb,” I say under my breath.

“Yes,” Wrage agrees even though I didn’t mean for him to hear me.

Maximus

I know the mate-bond is severed. I feel more alone than ever in my life. It’s worse than when I was stolen at age five. Watching her hover away with her new friends felt like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

I resented the mate-mark since the moment it appeared, but now when I glance at my chest, I feel naked without it.

Just because the bond is gone, doesn’t make Raine’s absence any easier. I understand the feeling of heartbreak now. Until the moment the golden rope was severed in the temple, I’d wondered if Raine would change her mind.

What more could I have done for her? I saved her life yesterday. I brought her the deer at the seaside. I stayed away when she asked. I told her how much I cared for her. I hinted that I was only severing the bond because she wished for it.

The compassion in my parents’ eyes speaks so loudly of their concern for me. They’ve only known me for a few days, and during that time I was so focused on Raine, it’s a wonder they care for me at all. But they do.

“I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling,” Mema says as we hover home. “It’s obvious you love her.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” my father says. “Usually the mate-bond is only activated when a couple loves each other already. It makes their love stronger—unbreakable. Since yours began with no love, since it was entirely artificial, I assumed it would be only a memory by now.”

“It’s no memory,” I tell them. “It’s real.”

“You never shared how the mate-bond happened, son. Did you have feelings for each other before it happened?”

We’ve come too far for me to hold back now. I’m a stranger to them, yet their offer for me to live with them until I decide what to do with my life was heartfelt. I tell them everything.

“That would make a great vid. It would win awards,” Mema says with a grin. “Starting with her dire circumstances, then your generosity. There was romance and selflessness and as recently as yesterday you saved her life. It’s full of serendipity and chance. And winds up with love. If I was the writer, though, I’d make the ending happy. Tell me, son, she doesn’t love you back? She seemed to enjoy your company when the four of us spent time together.”

“She likes me. She cares, I know that. Because of the mate-bond she doesn’t think I care for her. She thinks it’s all chemistry. That because of it, I could never figure out if my feelings are real.”

Mema’s in the front seat. She turns to look back at me. “Perhaps now that the mate-bond is gone, she can trust that your feelings for her aren’t just the result of chemistry.”

“The ship takes off today,” I tell her, just wanting to get out of the hover and be alone in my room.

“Maybe it will take off without her.” Mema’s face isn’t concerned and sympathetic anymore. Is she teasing me?

“Look behind you, son,” my father says. “I could swear the female getting out of the hover in our driveway is Raine Astoria Mellon.”

For some reason, I control my urge to whip my head in that direction. Fearing it’s not true, I take my time, savoring the relief and anticipation for as long as I can before my hopes are dashed again.

“Raine,” I breathe when I see her running up the drive toward our front door. The hover’s windows are opaque from the outside; she must think we’re inside the house already.

She’s knocking frantically by the time I open my door and run to her. When I reach her, all I can do is whisper her name over and over as I lift her around her waist and twirl her in circles. It’s the only way to express my elation. In the space of a few moments, I went from the depths of despair, my shoulders sagging in dejection, to the height of euphoria, able to carry my female in my arms until she begs to join me in my bed.

I know my parents and the contingent from the ship who are waiting in the hover are all watching. I can only imagine I look like a lovesick fool, spinning my female in circles, a ridiculous smile on my face. I don’t care. Raine—my Raine—is in my arms again.

“The bond is truly broken, right?” she asks between my eager kisses after I set her down.

“Yes.” I pull back enough to see her face, to read her expression. Why is she here? I assumed she came back for me. Is she only here because something’s wrong? “Are you okay?” I try to peel back the bandage on her neck so I can check it. “Do you need something from me?”

She laughs. I’ve seldom heard it before. Not with me, anyway. I often heard it in the dining room as she talked with her friends. She and I always had more . . . urgent things to do.

“I don’t need anything, Max. I want things though.”

I cock my head in question.

“I want to hear your true feelings for me. Right now. Without the bond. And then I’ll tell you all sorts of other things I want.”

The silly smile evaporates from my face. I’m serious as I bend to her height and hold her cheeks in my palms as if she’s made of the finest glass and she might break.

“How I feel about you, Raine? It’s not about the mate-bond. I don’t need you. I love you. I just figured out I’ve always loved you. I don’t know if it started as soon as I saw this little human bite a huge Bahranian male at the auction house. That just sparked my interest. Maybe it was holding you in my arms that first time. Perhaps it was the way you accepted your predicament and immediately decided to cope with it without argument.

“Maybe it was your sass or the fact that I’m twice your size and you never let me intimidate you. I don’t know when I first loved you, but I love you now with no mate-mark in sight. You believe that, right?”

My chest is still bared to view, the same color as the rest of my body.

“It’s love? Not chemistry?”

“Yes. Love.”

“Even though I left you? Was willing to fly off without you?”

“Yes, Raine.”

“Can we be together? Have a do-over?” she asks, her gaze piercing mine.

“Yes,” I say with an indulgent smile. “Will you mate me in the temple?” I ask. I let my yearning show in my expression, so she knows I’m waiting for the most important words I’ll ever hear.

“That’s a big step,” she says. She pauses for the swiftest moment then says, “I guess there’s nothing to think about. I love you, you love me, and we’re perfect for each other.”

“Perfect,” I agree.

Although my heart was tearing in two, I noticed the High Priestess’s expression was disappointed when she had to raise the scimitar and cut that golden rope. I hope she’ll mate us if we ask nicely.

We comm Octavia to ask her to perform the ceremony.

“You two had me worried there for a moment,” she says.

“What?”

“I’ve never had a couple go through with the rope cutting after they returned from their quest.”

“What are you talking about?” Raine asks.

“The Quest isn’t designed to cleave you apart. It’s designed to bind you together. Most couples don’t come down the mountain for days after the cossus flower task. They hole up in the cabin and solidify their mate-bond. Congratulations, you’re the most stubborn couple I’ve ever met.”

Her words sting for a moment, but then she releases a throaty laugh. “I never bet against you, though. I stand to earn a pretty credit from all the other priestesses except Max’s mema. She never gave up hope because she thinks you’re wonderful together.”

There’s something about knowing the High Priestess has faith in us that makes me feel even more certain about the mating.

She agrees to perform the ceremony in two hoaras time. “All the priestesses are still here,” she says. “We’ll wait for you to get in your golden finery and return.”

I comm Beast and he immediately mobilizes, promising to get all of our friends to the temple on time.

Raine

Mema pulls me into the house, brings me to her room, and asks me to remove the blue gown I wore for the ahnkarr ceremony. She looks at it, the symbol of our breakup, as if she’d like to burn it. “You must wear the color of his mate mark. That blue dress should go into the garbage.” Her mouth is pulled into a moue of disapproval.

“He has no mate mark,” I mourn. Suddenly I’m bereft at the loss of his beautiful glowing markings. I never admitted it, but I felt tremendous pride knowing he was bound to me by that mark. My stupidity made the beautiful declaration of our bond disappear. I wonder if he’ll ever forgive me.

No. In hindsight it feels stupid, but we had to know our feelings were real and not the result of aphrodisiacs or his biological imperative to live. Now we know beyond any doubt. My heart is finally free to open up and love him the way I have wanted to since I realized he was preventing himself from orgasming in that hotel room so he would be ready to take care of my needs.

“It’s tradition for a bride to wear the color of her mate’s eyes, even before the mate mark is revealed.”

An hour later, we’re surrounded by our friends and family on the front steps of the temple. I have a somber moment, a lump forming in my throat about all my family back on Earth who won’t be joining me for this ceremony. They have to believe I’m dead by now. They must have been so worried, then desperate, then sad. They’ll always carry a different ache for me than I have for them. I know they’re safe, whereas they have to think I met a horrific end. I simply miss them. Terribly.

I pull myself back from the abyss of sadness and refuse to go there. That was my past. I’m ready to start my future.

We enter the sanctuary with its wooden pews and colorful tapestries depicting what must be stories in their holy books. Despite the misguided ceremony we just endured, I like this place. It’s quiet and comforting, especially when I look out at our friends and family watching us expectantly. There isn’t a person here who doesn’t want the best for us.

My deep breath expands my lungs as I relax into the feeling of safety. I’ve started with nothing here at the far reaches of the galaxy, and I’ve created my own family. Well, extended family. Now I’m going to be mated—for real—out of choice and love, not biology.

“Welcome,” Octavia intones, her voice resonant and joyous. “We come to celebrate a mating. A true connection and binding of two souls to be forever joined in one union.”

She has us kneel on a low padded bench about six inches off the floor in front of her. She gives us each a golden mask to hold. It’s beautiful and weighty; I think it’s real gold. It’s decorated with gemstones. Max’s is angular and masculine, mine is more rounded and feminine. There are no eye or mouth holes.

When she nods, indicating we should put them on, I only see slivers of light through my peripheral vision.

“This ceremony celebrates the connection of two beings,” she says as the bench slowly moves. I think it’s separating from one bench into two that are now facing each other. I miss Max’s warmth next to my side.

“Close your eyes and look inward. It is good to fall in love with your mate’s visage. These masks are to remind you that you are spiritual beings in a physical body. Your love will last a lifetime, and over time our visceral makeup changes. We grow old, our flesh changes.

“Focus inward. Pay attention to the feelings you have toward your mate. Cherish the person underneath the skin. Cherish who they are. Treasure their soul. Pledge your undying love and loyalty not only to their skin and bone, but go deeper. Promise to love the person within the flesh until the end of eternity.”

What lovely words. So true. I love Madd Durrun Maximus for so much more than what I see through my eyes. I know him . And I love him.

“The manifestation of the marks on the male indicate that the mate-bond is complete. It is created by true love. You had that, but were unable to recognize or trust it. What was severed can be restored as long as your hearts are open and true.”

My eyes are moist as she concludes the ceremony, binding us with much more beauty and pomp than when she tore us asunder.

The little bench moves again, and when she tells us to remove our masks, we’re knee to knee. My guy, my big, strong gladiator, has moist eyes and the sweetest, softest expression on his face.

“I love you, Raine,” he says without prompting.

“I love you, Max.”

I don’t know how we managed it, but we have a second chance.