“Now you sound like him.”
I shrugged. “It is our way.”
“Is that what you are going to do for Ethan? Protect and provide for him?”
A gaping hole opened under my heart and swallowed it whole. “I do not know. I am not sure what he wants. He is human. I do not know what a male of your species needs to be happy. To fall in love. To choose a mate. I lied to him.”
Adrian walked over and bravely, or stupidly, reached out and took one of my hands in her much smaller one, offering comfort. “He will forgive you.”
“How do I make my mate love me?” An Atlan Warlord had thirty days to woo his female once he found her. In that time, she was legally bound to him, under his protection. The mating cuffs ensured they remained together at all times, the slightest separation causing both parties physical pain.
I had no mating cuffs to keep Ethan with me. There were no mating laws written in my favor. I was female, not male. I did not have the right to simply claim Ethan was mine and then take him away for a month to win his heart. He was not an InterstellarBride and I was no Coalition fighter. I had no rights, no way to keep him at my side.
She sighed and dropped my hand. “Excellent question. I don’t know. I never figured that part out.”
“How did you make Kovo love you?” I wanted the entire story of their mating later, when we had time to share every detail. For now, I needed the basics. The truth.
“I heard him roar in pain. I was touring the Atlan prison with my family and I heard him. I knew he was mine, so I just refused to let him die.”
“How did you know? You do not have a beast? Do you?” I studied the now intriguing human, wondered what secrets she kept.
She held up her hand and pointed to an odd birthmark on her palm. “Turns out I have an ancestor from Everis. Our best guess is my Everian Hunter bloodline decided he was my marked mate.” Her smile turned dreamy. “And his beast liked me back.”
“Kovo is yours.”
“He is.”
“Ethan is mine.”
“Okay. I feel you. Let’s go. But we have to find a mirror on the way. There is something you need to see before you leave.”
I tucked my helmet under my arm and walked out into the corridor carrying my rifle case. “What would that be?”
Adrian jogged along beside me with a huge smile on her face. “You’ll see. You’re gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. But you look a little… different than you did when the guys left.”
14
Ethan, Silver Scion Base, Well Past Midnight
Warlord Bahre hunchedover in the back of the van like a tank with a pulse, arms crossed, jaw tight as titanium.
“No survivors,” he growled, his gaze darting to me. “Scion. Coalition. Human. I don’t give a fuck. If they’re inside and not in a prison cell, they’re dead.” He paused to make sure no one had anything to say before putting his helmet on. The rest of hisrah-rah, lets-go-kill-some-stuffspeech came through the volume adjusted comm unit in the Coalition helmet on my head. “We move fast. We run our scans. We take their DNA and we turn this place into ash. Any questions?”
No. There were no fucking questions. We’d all been over the plan at least fifty times. Jenkins and I were probably both idiots for being here, but we both believed the bad guys inside this building were the same ones we’d been tracking the last couple years. The assholes who’d killed people we loved.
We both needed to be here for very personal reasons.
The hum of the van’s air conditioning systems was low but constant, like a coiled predator purring just before it struck.The aliens had launched ReCon drones and then split into two teams. Jenkins and I were with the three Atlan Warlords, Bahre, Egon and Kovo. The Prillons and Everian Hunters had taken a second vehicle to breech the rear loading docks. The Prillon Commander, Helion, had offered to call in more Coalition forces from the Processing Center to assist with the infiltration.
Warlord Bahre had scoffed at the offer. The big guys were going in the front door, full armor, full beast mode, weapons blazing. The dead cyborg’s memories indicated there were less than a dozen of the Silver Scions at this location. Warlord Egon assured me that what they couldn’t shoot, they would tear apart with their bare hands.
Me and Jenkins—we small, weak humans—had been ordered to stay behind the Warlords and shut the fuck up. They’d given us Coalition armor and our own ion blasters, but as far as I could tell, the only reason we’d been allowed to come along at all was because Kovo refused to leave me back at Bahre’s compound where I’d have a chance to be alone with Lyra.
She was still unconscious in their fucking ReGen pod. Hadn’t moved in two days, when she should have been completely healed after just one. She wasn’t healing. The copper-skinned Prillon doctor promised me they were doing everything in their power to save her. They were trying to reverse whatever they had done to fuck her up. Didn’t take skilled detective work to figure out the alien doctors had played god with her DNA and she was paying the price.
Their healing treatment wasn’t working. Apparently, her body was fighting the change back to whatever she’d been before. An Atlan. Kovo’ssister.TheLady Lyra. An alien I couldn’t stop thinking about.
She’d lied to me. About everything.
