She imagined it was the feeling the first animal with a brainstem experienced when a shadow passed over them in the primeval ocean.
Swallowing hard, she lost most of her bravado as they gathered around her. No one spoke. No one touched her. They simply stood, arms locked behind their backs and feet spread,observingher.
That, if nothing else, told her all she needed to know.
Taking a deep breath, she hoarsely demanded, “Which one of you is Vesta?”
The slim figure to her right, one of her escorts, dipped her head. “I’m Vesta Kincaid.”
“So you’re Sloane’s team,” she said, gaze crawling over each of them in turn. “Cool. Can one of youpleaseget these damn cuffs off me?”
A larger figure hopped into action immediately, like they’d been dying for something to do. Circling around her, they gently pushed her shoulders forward so they could disengage the lock on the cuffs. It was a sweet relief to have her arms free again.
Swinging them around to her front, she massaged her wrists with a muttered, “Thanks.”
“You are… Sloane’s consort.” Vesta’s tone was impossible to hear through the modulator, but her body language was as stiff as a board. “Have you allowed him to bond with you?”
Unwilling to give any information out until she knew exactly who she was dealing with and what their intentions toward Sloane were, she snapped, “No offense, but I’m sick to death of faceless elves demanding things of me today. You want answers? Take off your helmets and tell me what the fuck is going on.”
A ripple of unease went through the room. She watched as their helmets turned toward each other. A wave of silent communication happened, a whole conversation spoken through the tiniest shifts of muscle and tilts of their heads.
After several tense seconds, they seemed to reach a conclusion.
It was Vesta who removed her helmet first. The others followed. That familiar hiss of air from the seal disengaging went around the room like a discordant song. An array of elves stood before her, their helmets tucked under their arms, and every last one of them had eyes like Sloane’s — the saddest things she’d ever seen.
“Have you bonded with him yet?” Vesta asked again, in a much higher voice than one would expect from a highly trained military operative.
Cecilia looked around at the group, trying to memorize their faces and assign them to the scant information Sloane had given her. Instead of answering Vesta’s question, she demanded, “Are you going to help Sloane?”
“If we can,” a man standing farthest away from her answered. Rich magenta skin was accompanied by a dark beard and heavy eyebrows that made him look even more serious than the others. “That depends on your answer.”
Gripping the arms of her chair until her nails bit into the wood, she cautiously replied, “He told me that he’s not allowed to have a mate, and that if we were found out, they’d kill him.”
“Not necessarily,” a soft voice argued. It was the other escort, who’d revealed herself to have delicate features and a pixie cut. “The Starsbury Protocol states that when a member of the unit discovers their consort, they are to immediately separate themselves and report to a superior officer, with permanent separation the most likely outcome. Termination is only necessary in the event of a threat to the public.”
“Why?” she cried, gaze darting between impassive, colorful faces. “Why would that be the right thing to do? Don’t you all deserve to find love if you want it? Why?—”
“Because we’re too dangerous to the general population,” the one with the pixie cut explained. “The chemical changes a bonded elf go through are extensive and dramatic. The fear is that should we suffer mental disruption during that process, or were our consorts to leave us, we could do a disproportionate amount of harm to ourselves and others.”
“Sloane wouldneverhurt me,” she insisted.
“That is unlikely,” pixie cut agreed, “but I can only assume that the people who caused your injuries were not so lucky.”
Cecilia paled. “He was protecting me.”
“Correct,” Vesta interjected. “And that was when he wasn’t bonded. Imagine the damage he could do if you were and someone threatened you.”
“Well, then they’d fuckingdeserveit,” she snapped. “Are you really saying that he’d be wrong for defending me? If it’d free him right now, I’d fight all of you!”
The elves shared a long look. One of them, a younger looking man with impossibly dark, iridescent skin, marveled, “She’s very fierce.”
“The officers who brought her here told us to leave her cuffs on,” pixie cut replied, like Cecilia wasn’t even in the room. “They were terrified of her.”
Cecilia muttered, “Well, I don’t know aboutterrified…”
“She’ll make a good consort for Sloane,” the bearded one sighed. “If they don’t kill him.”
“Why would they kill him for finding his mate? You just said?—”
