“I love you, Lana. I always will.” He kisses me, his arms wrapping around me as his hips keep pistoning and hitting my spots just right.“I thank the Pillars for you.”
Pleasure wars with even deeper emotions as I feel Kyte’s loss, his grief. But I also feel his love and answer it with my own. His knot is thickening, and I can’t stop the tidal wave that rushes through me at the sensation.
He thrusts hard and deep, then grunts in a way that sends another burst of heat through me. And that’s when the orgasm hits. I moan as my thighs shake, my eyes roll back, and Kyte claims my mouth again, both of us locked in pleasure.
Kyte’s heat mixes with mine and Ceredes’s, and I can still taste Jeren on my tongue. All of my Alphas in me. The thought pulls another series of shudders from me, my orgasm like an earthquake that doesn’t end. I moan and gasp, arching up as my body coils and uncoils around Kyte’s knot. He bites my shoulder again. Harder this time. Like an animal keeping me in place while he masters me.
He groans low in his throat. My breath hitches as another wave hits; aftershocks that light up every pleasure receptor in my body. I feel like I took ecstasy or I’m tripping on acid, but the truth is so much better. My Alphas. I’m high on them. On their love. On our bond. I send a silent prayer to the Pillars that it will always be so.
26
Lana
Iwake in a sprawl of arms and legs and Alphas.
Last night.
Last. Night.
I turn over and grin into my pillow. But then the feeling fades as I remember everything else—Kyte’s mother, Master Daviti—and sadness takes its place.
“Don’t do that.” Kyte kisses my shoulder. “Don’t let the happy go so soon.”
His grief is still there like a thorn in his paw, but it isn’t the pounding agony of yesterday.
“I’m sorry.” I roll over and cup his face. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”
“So am I.” He drops his head to my chest, and I hug him close.
We lie there for a long time, holding each other as the sun’s glow begins to fill our room.
Jeren rolls over and rests his head on my thigh. “I wonder what the fleet plans to do today. We need to get moving, take the war to the cyborg bastards.”
“If leadership’s smart, they’ll go ahead and send us upfleet so we can do some damage. Lana already proved her power is unmatched. That thing with the virudivan core? A master stroke.” Ceredes stands and stretches, his muscled ass bare in the golden rays.
I could chip a tooth.
Kyte snorts at my thought.
He can still laugh. Still have some flash of amusement inside his cage of mourning. I run my fingers through his hair as he presses his lips over my heart.
“Did we hurt you?” He looks up at me, those green eyes like bits of jade.
“No.” I run my finger down his horn, and he shivers. “Did I hurt you?”
He grins and runs his tongue to my nipple.
That sweet ache between my thighs starts up, but a quick knock on the door has my Alphas throwing the sheets over me and Ceredes diving back beneath the covers.
Master Harlan stomps in, turns an interesting shade of deep orange, then continues as if all four of us aren’t naked in bed together. “High Commander Bartanz has announced an assembly for all cadets within the hour. Report to the ballroom.” His eyes are fixed on the window, careful not to actually look at any of us. “He will address the entire fleet from here at the academy.”
I swallow back the bile rising in my throat. The last time I was with Bartanz in the ballroom, he threatened to take me from my Alphas.
“Are we going to war?” Jeren says it so nonchalantly, as if he’s asking about the lunch menu in the cafeteria not a bloody conflict.
“The war has come to us.” He sighs and finds Kyte, though he’s careful to keep his eyes off me. “I’m sorry about your mother. Councilor Ellarian was a hero to the fleet, the Savior of Latrides, the legend.” For the first time in pretty much ever, Master Harlan shows an emotion other than anger. He looks crestfallen, his chin dropping from its usual proud angle. “I don’t know if I ever told you, but I tried to make that run—the one where she fought off the Sentients from the attack on Latrides and chased them all the way to the Rift. In simulation, I tried so many times to best her skills, to find some advantage she’d missed. Hundreds of times, maybe thousands I made that run. Obsession is too kind a word for it. I was determined to best her. But not once did I ever get a better result and save as many lives as she did that day.”
Pride twists with Kyte’s sadness like the ribbons on a maypole.
