by Ivy Barrett
Her lips trembled and a fresh rush of tears trailed down her cheeks. She took another step back, but her legs wobbled, and then her knees gave out.
LeAuntiez rushed forward and swept her into his arms. Two more Brokvata had arrived, still LeAuntiez hesitated to leave. Her attackers must pay for what they were attempting. Abusing any female resulted in harsh punishment, but harming a potential mate meant death.
“Urrya, do you have this?” he asked without turning around. He didn’t want his men to see her naked body. Only he, and possibly Bron, would see her, touch her, and ultimately claim her. He’d had no idea these instincts could be triggered by anyone who wasn’t at least part Celestian, but the female in his arms was his soulmate. There were ways of confirming his suspicions—highly enjoyable ways—but already LeAuntiez was nearly certain.
“Do you want me to secure them or deal with them here?” His brother sounded as furious as LeAuntiez felt.
“Secure them. Bron will need to decide when and how they die.”
“Understood.”
Without further ado, LeAuntiez manifested his wings and leapt into the air, heading for the house he shared with Bron rather than the building where the potential mates had been assigned. He couldn’t protect her unless he was with her, and he desperately wanted to protect her.
Unlike the Ventori, Celestians didn’t require a mate to procreate. That’s why so many Celestian hybrids populated the galaxy. However, to truly be content, each Celestian longed for, often spent their lives searching for, their soulmate, that one person who could complete them in every way. LeAuntiez had never heard of a Celestian soul bonding with a human, but he couldn’t ignore what he was feeling right now.
She felt tiny and soft in his arms, though her continued shaking concerned him. “You’re safe, love. Relax. You’re safe.” She didn’t reply or respond in any discernable way. He looked down. Her eyes were tightly closed and she had rolled toward him, pressing her face into his shoulder. One of her arms wrapped around his waist, the other tucked up against her chest. She had to be cold. Luckily, they weren’t going far.
He landed on the railed redwood deck off the back of the house. Quickly dissolving his wings, he entered through the sliding glass door. He sent a pulse across the telepathic link he’d established with Bron.
What’s wrong? Bron responded. I thought you’d already gone home for the night.
Long story. Come quickly. One of the pods on guard duty attacked one of the females. Then realizing he hadn’t identified his location, he added, I’m at our house.
On my way.
LeAuntiez carried her into the living room and sat on the couch, unable to release her from his arms. He scanned her body, ensuring that she’d spoken truthfully. When he found no injuries beyond minor scrapes and superficial bruises, he lightly touched her mind and found a troubling mixture of fear, shame, and guilt. What did she have to feel guilty about?
Supporting her back with one arm, he stroked the side of her lovely face. “I know you’re frightened, sweetheart, but can you look at me?”
No response. Damn it.
Her skin was chilled from the flight, so he looked around for something with which to cover her. A small blanket was draped over the arm of Bron’s favorite chair, but it was just out of reach. With a reluctant sigh, he laid her down on the sofa and spread the throw blanket over her naked body. She curled up on her side, head pillowed on the padded end of the sofa, arms tucked up tight against her chest. LeAuntiez wasn’t sure if he should try to engage her, or just let her process the trauma in her own way. Gods, he hated being this helpless.
Bron arrived a few minutes later. He rushed across the room, but slowed as he saw the female on their couch. “Was she harmed?”
“Not physically, but I’m not sure the actual act would have been any worse.” Two seconds later and I would have been too late. He had his fucking cock out, ready to shove it inside her.
Bron’s hands closed into fists and anger rolled off him in malevolent waves. “Who did this?” His voice was so tight, so menacing, it sounded as if his teeth were clenched.
“They were in sector eight when I felt her fear. I don’t know if that’s where they were assigned or if they dragged her there.”
Bron thought for a moment then said, “If they weren’t assigned to sector eight then the sector eight guards would have stopped them. No. It was Wendar pod. This isn’t the first time they’ve fucked up. That’s why they were out there guarding the wasteland.”
“This was one hells of a fuck-up.” LeAuntiez glanced at his best friend then back at the female. Emotion banded his chest as violent images flashed through his mind. He wanted to kill each one of them slowly, painfully, until their screams echoed in his mind long after they were dead. He fought back the bloodlust and focused on his mate, his potential mate. She still had to accept him. “What’s her name?” LeAuntiez intentionally avoided the females, not wanting to be involved in the drama surrounding them. Bron didn’t have that option.
“Kyla Harms. Her roommate is the virgin that has been such a pain in my ass.”
Something in what Bron said penetrated Kyla’s stupor. She sat up, blinked repeatedly, and clutched the blanket to her chest. Her gaze was suddenly wide and alert. “Erin. She’s still out there. You have to find Erin!”
“Did those males also attack—”
“No,” she cut in. “She was gone by then.”
Bron hated being interrupted. However, the fearsome chancellor made an exception for their traumatized guest. His voice remained patient and calm. “Do you know where Erin is?”
“She’s in the wasteland on a skimmer.” Kyla cringed, obviously expecting Bron’s next reaction.
“What?” he snapped, clearly shocked by the revelation. “How the fuck did Erin get her hands on a skimmer?”
LeAuntiez was thrilled to see Kyla responsive again, but Bron’s temper could easily send her back behind her protective silence. “My men are on site already, Bron. I’ll tell Urrya to organize the search.” He was trying to calm his friend, but Kyla took exception.
“Can’t you go?” The pleading in her vivid green eyes made him consider it. “You can fly. That will make her much easier to find.”
“Urrya can fly, as well as some of the others. He is my brother. I trust him implicitly.”
After a tense pause, she accepted the decision with a nod. She glanced at Bron then back at him. “What will happen to those men?”
“You’re a potential mate.” My potential mate, LeAuntiez added silently. “Their lives were forfeit the moment they put their hands on you.”
“But they didn’t…”
“Only because I interrupted them.” LeAuntiez hadn’t intended to get into all this tonight. She needed to calm down, rest until she recovered enough to explain how it had transpired. Several elements of the situation didn’t make sense. “I saw what was about to happen. Are you sure you want to defend them?”
She pressed her lips together, then lowered her gaze and shook her head. “You’re right. They wouldn’t have stopped. They knew I wasn’t willing, but they didn’t care. They need to be punished. But I’m not sure death is appropriate in this case.”
“Meaning?” Bron crossed his arms over his chest, looking every millimeter the unrelenting chancellor.
“I sort of started it.” Her admission came after another tense pause.
Bron shifted to the edge of his seat, features tense and disapproving. “What were you doing in sector eight? Does this have something to do with Erin being in the wasteland?”
She nodded, her silky black hair swishing forward to shield her face from view.
This can wait, LeAuntiez insisted. She needs time to calm down.
She needs to tell me the godsdamn truth! Bron glared at him, nostrils flaring.
She will. Just not right now! LeAuntiez returned his glare, just as determined to back him off. “Let’s get you something to drink. Can you walk into the kitchen or shall
I carry you?”
She looked up and made a face that illustrated her impatience. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.” Wrapping the blanket around herself as she rose, she was soon cocooned inside the soft material.
LeAuntiez led her into the kitchen and motioned for her to sit at the small table arranged near the bay windows. Bron loitered in the doorway, silent and brooding. No one did brooding better than Bronsen Savator.
“Coffee or tea?” LeAuntiez asked. If he hoped to have any chance of claiming Kyla, he had to tread carefully. Celestian courtships, like Ventori, could be intense. It was vital that she not associate his aggression with what she’d suffered tonight.
“I didn’t think the Ventori liked coffee.” She still sounded a bit dazed.
“I’m not Ventori.”
“Coffee, but not too strong. It upsets my stomach.”
He nodded once then turned toward the cupboards.
“If you’re not from Ventor, what planet are you from?”
“He’s Celestian,” Bron answered for him. “His planet was called Celestia. Like Ventor, and much of Earth, Celestia is no longer inhabitable thanks to the Skarilians.”
She turned her head and looked at Bron, drawing the blanket up under her chin. “A common enemy. Is that how a Celestian ended up in the Ventori Protectorate?”
“We collaborated on several offensives before it became an official alliance, but the answer to your question is yes. We are both driven by our determination to stop the Skarilians.” Bron’s voice deepened, became a sort of audible caress, yet LeAuntiez was relatively sure Bron wasn’t doing it intentionally.
A possibility slammed into LeAuntiez’s mind, one just fantastical enough to be true. If Bron and Kyla were genetically compatible, maybe that potential had inadvertently triggered LeAuntiez’s bonding instincts. Bron and LeAuntiez had formed a psychic link when they became podmates. As well as allowing them to speak mind to mind, the link was also empathic. Perhaps Bron’s connection to Kyla then triggered a similar desire in LeAuntiez. It would explain why a pureblood Celestian was suddenly aching to claim a human female. To LeAuntiez’s knowledge, such a thing had never happened before.
Clearly uncomfortable with Bron, Kyla turned back to him with a tentative smile. “Do all Celestians have wings? Yours are one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.”
“Any Celestian can create what you saw, but they aren’t actually wings. Celestians can manipulate energy. When I want to fly, move very fast, or propel a large object, I disrupt the energy surrounding myself or the object. This results in the distortion you saw. We call it manifesting, and the ability can be used in any number of ways. Flight is just the most common.”
“Common?” She smiled as she shook her head. “There was nothing common about what you did tonight. Can you ‘manifest’ something now, maybe in a much smaller size? I’d love to see the phenomenon now that I’m less terrified.”
Shocked that he was indulging her, LeAuntiez cupped his hands, one on top of the other, and disrupted the energy inside the sphere. He slowly spread his fingers and moved his hands apart displaying the energy vortex he’d created. Light and color swirled and twisted. The effect looked similar to Earth’s aurora borealis. Sparks arced from the twisting mass to his hands, stinging his skin. The discomfort was well worth it when he saw the awe on Kyla’s lovely face.
“Wow. It’s even more beautiful than I remember.” She looked at his face, then back at the vortex, mesmerized by the colorful display.
He watched her reaction until his hands ached from the force of containing the energy, then he slowly tightened his hold, extinguishing the spinning ball. With a heavy sigh, he shook his hands, dislodging a fine layer of glittering ash.
Glancing at Bron, LeAuntiez found interest in his podmate’s gaze that hadn’t been there a few moments ago. If Bron and Kyla were compatible, rut wouldn’t engage until Bron touched her, but he definitely liked what he saw.
Why wouldn’t he? With silky black hair and big green eyes, Kyla was stunning. LeAuntiez had done his best to keep his thoughts and actions appropriate to the situation, but he was male and she was undeniably female. Her body was lushly curved and her skin was so soft he couldn’t wait to explore her.
Anxious to learn more about her, he filled the coffeemaker’s tank half full, then measured out the fragrant grounds. He turned on the primitive machine and leaned against the counter while he waited for the processed liquid to collect in the glass pitcher below.
Color had returned to Kyla’s cheeks and she seemed less afraid of Bron. Now that the crisis had been averted, LeAuntiez couldn’t help studying her more closely. Her features were delicate, well proportioned, with those thick-lashed green eyes and a small, straight nose. He’d yet to see her smile broadly, but her lips were full and he found their shape enticing.
With a predator’s patient stride, Bron slowly approached the table and sat facing her.
Kyla’s eyes widened and then she dropped her gaze to her lap. Her emotions were too convoluted for LeAuntiez to decide if respect or fear had triggered the reaction. Likely a bit of both. Bron was intimidating even when he wasn’t trying to be.
Smile at her, dumbass. LeAuntiez pushed the suggestion into his podmate’s mind. She’s frightened enough.
Bron cleared his throat and attempted a smile that ended up looking more like a grimace. “Did you know Erin before this began or were you thrown together by the kidnapping?”
“Which one?” She bit her bottom lip, flirting just a little. Clearly she wasn’t oblivious to Bron, just not sure how to approach him. “The drug lord’s men kidnapped me and Erin, and then LeAuntiez kidnapped me from them.”
“LeAuntiez rescued you.” Bron was scowling again.
LeAuntiez gave up trying to coach him and glared at the coffeemaker. Why was the damn thing taking so long?
She shrugged. “We were never free to leave, so I consider each a kidnapping.”
LeAuntiez smiled to himself, finding this spark of spirit reassuring.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Bron pointed out. If this was his attempt at small talk, he definitely needed practice.
“Sorry. I’ve known Erin since I was six. She was around two at the time and I basically played with her like she was my very own living doll.”
Bron’s dark brows scrunched together and his lips pressed into a disapproving line. “Erin’s parents allowed such… disrespect?”
“Erin’s parents were uninvolved, but my mother put a stop to it as soon as she figured out what I was doing. Of course by then it was too late. Erin followed me around like a shadow. I honestly think she thought I was her mother. She was that starved for attention. It was really sort of sad.” She shrugged away the past. “We’ve been inseparable ever since, much to my mother’s chagrin. You see, her kind weren’t supposed to socialize with our kind.”
“It sounds as if you spent most of your time together,” LeAuntiez commented rather than asking her to clarify her cryptic words. “Did Erin live nearby?”
“You could say that. Erin comes from money, generations and generations of money. My mom scrubbed their toilets and tried to keep us both out of sight.”
Ah, that’s what she’d meant by the ‘her and our’ comment.
“Your mother brought you along to her place of employment?” Bron was still confused by the logistics, but LeAuntiez had figured it out. He was well acquainted with the expectations of affluent families and their staff.
“Your mother was a fulltime domestic? She lived with Erin’s family?”
Kyla just nodded, but Bron muttered under his breath, “You would know.”
Like Erin, LeAuntiez’s family had been enormously wealthy for many generations.
Not that their lofty titles and sprawling estates protected them when the Skarilians attacked.
“Did you help Erin run away? Is that why you were in sector eight?” Bron asked after a long silent pause.
Well, technically this
was later, but Bron knew damn well this isn’t what he’d meant. The bastard was avoiding his gaze as well. Clearly Bron knew this would irritate him.
“Yes.” She didn’t offer details.
“You were flirting with the guards to keep them distracted.” Bron’s tone was still even, but the muscle above where his jaws met twitched betraying his frustration.
“Yes, but that doesn’t excuse what they did.” She looked up as her tone grew more insistent.
“I agree with you,” he assured her. “I don’t care if you undressed right there in front of them. The moment you said no, they should have backed off.”
“I did not undress for them! They ripped my—”
“I never thought you did,” Bron stressed. “I was using it as an example.”
Her lips began to tremble again and LeAuntiez knew the next step was tears. He couldn’t take it when females cried, especially not this female. Hoping to interrupt her escalation, he quickly filled a mug with coffee and handed it to her.
She shifted her focus to take the mug and it seemed to help calm her. “Thank you. And I don’t mean for just the coffee. I know how close I came to being raped tonight.”
Her eyes were the same shade of green as the strands in Bron’s dark hair. LeAuntiez looked at Bron and found his gaze fixed firmly on Kyla. And Bron’s energy resonance, a vibration more individual than fingerprints or facial structure, shifted subtly, taking on an unusual rhythm. There was definitely something going on between the two.
Have you checked your compatibility score with any of the females?
Bron looked at LeAuntiez, a sly smile bowing his lips. Why do you ask?
You know damn well why I’m asking. Does she smell like your potential mate?
She smells amazing, he admitted, yet he didn’t seem adequately enthusiastic. Maybe he wasn’t convinced of what his olfactory center was telling him.
Find a way to touch her that won’t freak her out, LeAuntiez suggested. Your energy is modulating in a way I’ve never picked up on before.
