A series of gasps filled the vidfeed.
“Try taunting me in person and we will see how much ishing you will do once I’m done,” Kaede clipped.
“Kaede,” I hissed, shooting a quick glare at the male.
“You claimed Kaede?” B asked, her normally stoic face filled with joy. “Are you and my brother finally together?”
Smiling, I nodded. “Yes, we’ve worked out our differences and I have accepted him as my sixth mate.”
A series of congratulations filled the air. When I turned to catch Kaede’s reaction, I found him grinning wider than I had ever seen. His joy brought warmth to my stomach.
“I don’t see a mark on his neck,” Q noted, leaning closer to the camera. “Don’t you usually fuck up your mates’ necks as some Aldawi territorial instinct?”
“Q,” B hissed, smacking the male on the shoulder. “You can’t ask her something so private.”
“Personally, I don’t want to know what kinks either of you are into. Now that everyone is mating, it’s been all shooting stars and explosions,” Nyx complained, rolling her eyes.
“You’re just jealous because you haven’t gotten laid in a while,” Q scoffed.
“Can we please focus?” Kaede hissed, bouncing his knee impatiently. “If you want me to rejoin the family network, flooding the airways with chatter is not helping matters.”
“It’s not our fault you left in the first place, Kaede,” B snapped. “How do you think we felt when we learned that our brother removed himself from the family network without a word and that you created a private vessel in a waterfall base none of us knew about? Why should we allow you back into the loop after you were in such a hurry to leave?”
Turning in his lap, I studied my horned male as he struggled to form an answer. He must have a good explanation for his behavior, but the wrath of his sisters was difficult to face.
“Vowels, could you appear? You too, REI.”
A moment later, both our Oetsae appeared next to our chair, followed by a chain of exclamations from the vidscreens.
“Kaede can probably explain this better in person,” I began with a sigh. “But I’ll do my best. To save my life, he implanted the orb on my necklace inside me, connecting my mind to a symbiont.” I gestured to Vowels. “Then he also took on an Oetsae because he was badly injured—Q can confirm that. He didn’t know how the symbiont would interfere with your family network. Since he was already racing against time, he decided to remove himself—”
“Until I was comfortable hosting REI,” Kaede interrupted. “When I implanted an Oetsae, I didn’t know if that connection could spread through our AI network, forcing the five of you to share my fate. I was trying to protect you from the risk I willingly took on. I feared I might never be the same male again.”
“And theAbyss?” B asked, scanning the room. “Why did you keep that a secret?”
“It’s managed by five Oetsae who have integrated with the system, similar to the machines on Destima that use the orbs’ energy. I planned to use a combination of the dreamdome technology and the Oetsae to create a wormhole, but I wanted to start on a smaller scale. This ship wasn’t supposed to be in use yet. I was forced to fly theAbyssto catch up to Selena’s kidnappers. While you five were on missions, I was stuck watching Selena—”
“Hey!” I hissed. “You make it sound like I’m a chore.”
“Watching your mates was.” He shot me a grin before kissing my cheek. The shock on his siblings’ faces was priceless. I had to put a hand over my mouth to hide my giggles.
“As I was saying, the job was boring. I needed something to work on, and all of you know I’m a born tinkerer—an inventor. From the five different versions of my teleporting bodysuit to the multiple upgrades to my drones and weapons, I’m always looking for something to improve.”
The Fab Five all nodded along.
“Since I had a lot of time on my hands, I decided to design and build a new spaceship by myself. If it worked, I planned to make each of you a copy of my prototype, but like I said, this ship wasn’t even supposed to be flown yet. My options were limited to attempt to fix everything that happened that day.”
“We know.” B sighed. “We’re still picking up the pieces.”
“I just want to let you know that I love each one of you and I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did,” Kaede murmured. “I’m sorry that I left, though I was just trying to protect my family while doing my job. You know I wouldn’t try to hurt you on purpose. In the end, I failed.”
The four sisters glanced at each other as Q raised his hands in surrender. After a few moments, B finally broke the silence.
“We accept your apology. Welcome back, Brother. Congratulations, Selena, on becoming an official sister.”
