I searched her eyes for the truth, but only strength shown back at me.
“I don’t,” she repeated. “It’s a little harder to wrap my head around Xokat, but give me a day or two. I’ll get over it. He said they should sell me to Ibaruta. How doesthatwork? I’m already married to Yiri Fucking Ahlon.”
“Yes, you are.”
Her focus shifted over my shoulder, and she frowned. “Hey. Is that Qhev?”
“Yes.”
“He gave you a ride? That was nice. I’m glad you two are getting along.”
With a grunt, I said, “He’s a surprising guy.”
Distracted, Cora broke out of my embrace and lunged for her furry little son. “No, Mr. Darcy, you cannot go in your boat.”
She scooped him up before he could get in the floater, but he squirmed until she put him down.
“Well, if you don’t want to get a little bit wet from my dress, you’re not going to like it when a ceket yanks you in the water andeats youeither!” Cora fussed over him, but the little monster darted past her and hopped in the floater anyway.
Cora spun on me, her finger pointing dangerously close to my nose. “You have spoiled our son!”
“I don’t think they’ll eat him,” I reasoned.
“You don’tthink?”
Before she could get any more worked up, I bent and activated the lid on the floater, a glass bubble meant to keep seawater out of the refreshments it was meant to hold. But it would do just as well to keep Cora’s cat safe and happy. I gave it a push into the water, and Mr. Darcy did what Cora called loafing, his paws disappearing under his body.
“He’ll be safe?” Cora asked nervously. “They can’t break it?”
“They can’t break it,” I promised. I was pretty sure, anyway. Not that it mattered because the cekets wouldn’t—oh, shit.
Cora screamed and tried to jump in the water after him when a young ceketdidtry to eat the cat and the floater too. But it wasfine. The glass did not break, and one of the elders swiftly herded the youngster away. Mr. Darcy leaned, trying to zip after them, but the floater stopped when it reached the preset distance limit from the deck.
“See?” I said, “He’s fine.”
By the time we sent Nerus and Kon away and Mr. Darcy finally came back to the deck, I was out of patience. I wanted my mate, and I wanted hernow. Whether that meant bathing her and holding her while she slept, or impaling her on my cock until she was so full she could barely breathe, I didn’t care. As long as I could touch her skin and feel her heartbeat’s reassuring rhythm.
Lifting her off her feet, I carried her inside. Her legs wrapped around my middle, and her arms went around my neck, but she still said, “Mr. Darcy!”
“He’ll be fine,Aneah,” I murmured, my lips moving over the soft skin of her throat.
She didn’t protest again as I kicked off my shoes and carried her to her soft pink couch. Sitting with my mate astride my lap, I looked at her, taking in the bruises on her throat, and the dried tear tracks in her ruined makeup, the mess of her dark hair, and the torn, ragged state of her dress.
“Aneah,” I breathed. There were no words in Eissoini for how I felt, seeing her like this. Horrified and murderous covered part of it, but there was a deep well of pride, too. Any fear that she wouldn’t forgive me for killing the mercenary was gone. Not only had she come to understand what I’d done, but she met me there, too. MyIbarchosen mate didn’t wait to be rescued. She didn’t weep for the foolish males who tried to take her. She dealt with them as they deserved, and disposed of the evidence without waiting around for someone else to handle the dirty work.
This was what I saw in her that first night on BMM. In a sea of batting lashes and pouting lips, myAneahstood solemn and still in my frame, a knockout in her fitted skirt and sexy shoes, her lips at rest, not smiling, and her cat eyes glittering with the strength of diamonds. She wasn’t a criminal. Just a human woman who’d never had anyone to depend on. Maybe all these human women who came to Bion 8KV were just a fearsome asmy wife. Maybe they had to be to take that kind of risk. ButIbarwhispered to me that this one was special. This one was life-hardened and stronger than she should ever have to be, long before I found her. I couldn’t be prouder to call her my wife, and I’d do everything in my power to make sure she never had to do a hard thing like this again.
But the knowledge that she could. That shewould… I swallowed back the painful lump of emotion in my throat.
Cora’s expression was gentle but teasing as she took my face in her hands, tipping my chin down so she could press a soft kiss to my lips.
“We’re okay, Daddy,” she said with a breathy laugh.
I nodded, releasing a long, shuddering sigh. “Tell me what you need. Sleep, a bath, food?”
Face scrunching, she squirmed in my lap. “I need out of this dress, for one thing.”
It was almost as stiff with dried saltwater as my own clothes, and probably irritating her delicate skin. It smelled like other males, death, and stale fear. Suddenly, nothing in the world mattered more than getting it off of her.
