“This is so messed up.” She took my hand in hers, the act small, but a gift I would never forget. “So, the poison erased your memory and the doctors put your beast to sleep. But why didn’t you talk to me when I sent the comm to your ship?”
I stilled inside, every cell quiet and alert. “There was no comm.”
“Oh yes, there was. I went to the bride center to call you. I was pregnant. Even though you didn’t remember who I was, I wasn’t going to keep you from being a father.”
“You did not contact me.”
Her voice rose in tone and grew louder with her rising anger. “Yes. I did. I went down to that stupid place, plastered a fake smile on my face for Rowan so I could get in, showed my pregnancy test to Warden Egara, and we put a comm through to you—wherever you were. Somewhere out in space. On a ship. Warden Egara said the only way she could get access to you at all was because of some IBPWP—something. It ended with numbers.”
“Interstellar Brides’ Program Warden Protocol. The numbers represent the planet and processing center where the comm originates. It is a way for our mates to contact us in extreme emergencies, no matter where we are.”
“Well, you didn’t want to be contacted. The guy running the comm on the ship said you were not accepting outside communication. From anyone.” She took a deep breath and blurted out the last. “Not even me.”
Not accepting outside communication?
That was a standard response, sent in the event any fighter in the fleet received a message when he was not on the ship. Some operations required stealth. The Hive had managed to intercept communications in the past, troop locations, operational details. When Helion sent out a secret team, no one was told when we left, nor when we returned.
And if anyone tried to contact one of us?
Gods be damned. Fuck. All of this. Stefani’s pain. The time lost. All because I’d been deployed on a secret operation, and not on the ship, when she tried to reach me.
It was as if the gods themselves schemed against us.
She had done all things honorable and right. She had accepted my beast and welcomed his claim as soon as we’d met. She saved my life, rushing me to a ReGen pod, when I’d been weak and unconscious from the poison in my system. She had remained at the center, waited for me to waken, to reunite with me. Make my claim official.
I had rejected and abandoned her after claiming her body and promising her everything. Still, when she discovered she was carrying my child—our daughters—she had reached out across space and time to find me. To tell me the truth and invite me to be part of their lives.
Never had I known of a female treated so poorly, respond with greater strength or honor.
I had rejected her, hurt her, and denied her at every turn. By my own hand or another’s, I was not worthy of her.
I had never been worthy.
Turning to face her, I gently held the hand she had gifted to me and lifted the other to her face. “You are a female of worth, Stefani Davis. I cannot imagine what you have suffered. There are no words to express my remorse. You deserve so much more than I have given you.”
There they were again, shimmering in her eyes. Tears. Proof of the pain she suffered at my hand.
No more.
“I understand now. I do. I just need time.” Her quiet voice trembled. I leaned down, unable to deny myself this one fucking selfish moment, and kissed her. I was gentle. Reverent. She was a divine. A goddess. A spectacular and powerful female.
“I will return to Miami today. I will give you time, my Stefani. All that you need. I will cause you no more pain. I cannot bear it.”
She nodded and leaned into my hand. “Thank you for understanding.”
“Anything you need, I shall provide. Right now, you need time to heal.”
“Yes.”
I kissed her once more when she dropped me off at the airport. I avoided LAX and the annoying police stationed there. Stefani placed a call to her sister, mate of Warlord Kovo, and said something about the FBI.
A private plane waited to take me back to Miami.
Once there, I used the processing center’s comms to contact my family on Atlan. I left very specific instructions for them regarding my daughters, who I hoped, one day, they might have a chance to meet.
That done, I summoned Kovo and Adrian to a meeting. Elite Hunter Rowan volunteered to assist me. He left the processing center and returned soon after with Stefani’s sister, Adrian Davis, and her mate.
“Why are we here, Velik?” Warlord Kovo approached me first, his mate safely blocked from my view. I approved of Kovo’s caution. I was an unmated male known to have mating fever. Had my beast raged, I would have killed anything and everything in my path. Male or female. Animal. Once the beast lost control, nothing stopped his killing frenzy but death.
