“Yes. ” He whispered the word against my lips. “When the Hive captured me, I would sing inside my mind until everything else faded away, until there was nothing but the music. I would imagine my father’s voice singing me to sleep. That was how I survived, how I broke the Hive mind control. Without their music, I would not be here with you.”
“I’m glad you are. Here. With me.”
“As am I.” He lifted his head and sang in a deep, soothing timbre that instantly made me think of sacred places. And home. And my mother.
I knew the words were in Atlan, but my translator gadget worked perfectly as he sang a song about a lonely warlord whose beast was lost, in pain and out of control. The beast fought in a terrible battle and when he returned home, there she was. His mate. The other half of his soul. The beast in the song feared she would not accept him, but of course, she did. He put mating cuffs on and the moment he did, his beast calmed—by some kind of pain—I was going to have to ask him about that—and the song ended with the warlord’s vows of eternal love and protection for the most sacred being in the universe, his mate.
Wow. Was that how Kai felt about me? The idea was exhilarating and terrifying all in one. Did an Atlan’s mate really have that much power over him? Because he was huge and scary and could rip Hive nasties in half with his bare hands.
As the last note faded, he turned to look down at me and I saw it all in his eyes. All the devotion, gratitude, love. Yes, that was love. I didn’t know how it was possible for him to fall in love with me in less than two days, but I was lucky enough to know love when I saw it. I’d seen love in my mother’s eyes. In Lavender’s. Kai’s emotions were real, and deep.
“Do the mating cuffs really hurt you?” The thought disturbed me. I didn’t want to be the source of Kai’s pain.
“Only when you are not with me. Some warlords’ beasts are so difficult to control, their mate must never leave their sides. The mating cuffs were designed to cause severe pain should the mated pair get too far away from one another. The risk of the beast losing control was too high. When we began mating females from Earth, we altered the mating cuffs so that feature could be turned off. The pain to your systems was too great. The effects on human females were much stronger than on our Atlan or Prillon females.”
“So I can be somewhere else and not be in pain? But you can’t?”
“No, I cannot.” His thumb was tracing my lip again and my pussy was wet and ready. After that song, my entire body was a puddle of want. “Nor would I wish to deactivate my mating cuffs. The pain reminds my beast that you exist, that he has a mate to care for and protect, that we belong to you and must maintain control in order to protect and care for you.”
“But—”
“The pain is a gift, mate. To a beast with mating fever, the reminder offered by the mating cuffs is not true pain, but a connection to our mate, a link we are grateful to have.”
“Mating fever hurts?”
“Like acid in our veins. Constant agony. It drives the beast mad until there is nothing left but loneliness and rage. The mating cuffs are very little compared to the constant torment of searching for a mate.”
“That’s why beasts go crazy and kill everyone? Even the people they know? Because your blood burns like acid?” That sounded absolutely horrifying. What if we had a son? Could I live with that being his possible future?
“Mating fever eats away at our sanity until there is no coherent thought, no logic, only suffering and fury. A beast who has spent years on the battlefield finds release the only way he knows.”
“By fighting.” Killing was more like it, but I didn’t want to say that. Not when I was realizing how close Kai had come to losing his mind. I lifted my hand to cup the side of his face. I needed to look into his eyes. “How close were you? To losing control?”
Our gazes locked and I saw the truth before he spoke it. “I was, as you humans like to say, hanging on by my fingernails.”
My turn to rub my thumb over his full, kissable, sexy lips. “And now you’re okay?”
“Yes.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes.”
His lips were deceptively soft. A big, brutal warrior really shouldn’t have lips this soft. “That’s crazy. I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t need to understand to accept. I am yours, mate. My beast will answer to no other. I desire only you. Need only you. Between my family inheritance and the rewards bestowed on warlords who survive the war, I am wealthy beyond what even I can comprehend. I can give you anything. We can live anywhere. I can build you a human’s fairytale castle. I can buy a ship and we can explore all the planets in the Interstellar Coalition. Tell me what you want, and I will give it to you.”
“I’m not complicated, Kai. I’m not fancy. I don’t need a castle. I just want you to love me.”
“That, mate, is already done.”
I swallowed over the lump in my throat and blurted my biggest fear. “And not cheat on me.”
Kai nibbled on my thumb, sending firebolts straight to my clit. “A beast desires only his mate. There are no other females for me. Only you.”
“Only me? Because every boyfriend I ever had, cheated. And my father was a real piece of work. He cheated on my mom and?—”
“Mine.” The beast’s growling voice broke through and I saw the wildness in Kai’s eyes as the beast fought Kai for control. Zero bullshit in that tone. None. He meant it.
