“I get things done, don’t I?” Kaede smirked, tucking his hands behind his head. “I can promise you this, though: I’ve been around you long enough to know how to read you. I’ve never betrayed you, and I won’t start now, especially since we share a mate.”
“I believe you.” Z reached out and gripped Kaede’s shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. “I will work on my triggers and jealousies. It’s going to be hard, but I still regret missing out on her pregnancy with our cubs. Pregnant Aldawi females typically don’t allow males around them—not even their Shadows—yet she wants her clan to surround her. It’s a tradition that has been ingrained into me, and I need to work on changing, especially if we are supposed to be leading together.”
“You will love Selena while she’s pregnant.”
“Why is that?”
“Outside of craving sex and massages, she’ll need a lot of rest.” Kaede shot a glance at the vidscreen, absorbing the peaceful scene of his sleeping clan. “I don’t know about you, but I am looking forward to some peace after everything we’ve been through.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Selena
A gasp ripped through me as I jolted awake, flinging my eyes open to a pair of suns glowing through the waterfall curtain covering the nestroom dome. Lifting my hand to block the blinding rays, the familiar stiffness which made my movements sluggish was a clear sign that I had once again slept for a long time.
Four thick golden threads extended from me, all twisted in a dance around the mental strand representing the nestmate they were connected to.
Xylo’s teal, Odelm’s pale green, V’dim’s turquoise, and Z’fir’s emerald—they were all accounted for, forming a protective barrier from the rest of the Circuli mental web.
A pure golden strand expanded from me, though it was no longer the direct focal point of the whole web. It split at the barrier my clan now occupied.
“It’s your clan web,”Vowels explained.“I helped you form a core, and now any of your Circuli mates can rule the web and manage its occupants in your place. They are your mental support and gatekeepers between you and the rest of the Circuli citizens you rule.”
He was right. Tracing my clan’s mental threads once again, I could see the core he had established. The web’s strands were thicker there, almost the same size as my connections to my nestmates.
“Does that mean we are all trapped on Destima?”
“Not quite. As long as one member of your clan’s core remains on Destima at all times, the Circuli mental web will hold. It’s the only solution I could come up with that would allow your clan freedom to leave this moon while keeping Destima stable while you are away.”
“After everything I’ve been through, it could be worse. I am this moon’s leader, and with my new responsibilities as its mental web’s host, I am willing to sacrifice for my people’s comfort. They should believe their new home is a safe environment. Even though I would love to travel with my whole clan, leaving at all is a relief.”
My eyes caught on a pair of familiar violet and sapphire threads tied together with a golden ring at their base. They sat near Xylo’s mental sphere on the core barrier.“Did I do that?”
“You unconsciously moved them to your inner circle when you organized the web. The rest of your citizens are a part of the outer circle unless you bring them in. It is what Circuli Queens do. They surround themselves with allies directly outside their core, leaving the outer circles to those they have no business with. By bonding clans together through the nestqueen, webs become easier to manage.”
“Though that creates a greater need for the unmated to find a nestqueen willing to take them in.”
I frowned at the thought of how much of a disadvantage an unmated—or rejected—Circuli male suffered in their society. Without a clan, he was desperate due to his instinctual and biological demands, and he was relegated to the outer ring of his home planet’s mental web, like a reminder of the burden he was considered by his peers on Circul.
“No wonder Odelm has so many insecurities,”I pathed to Vowels, my distress bleeding into my mental voice.“He had it worse than they told me. He was given a temporary place within a clan and moved up their planet’s mental web to a more central location, only to be rejected for not surrendering a part of him. I knew there was a mental web, but they’ve never explained how it works, probably because they didn’t think I would take over, at least not as quickly as I’ve done. However, now that I am its leader, knowing how Odelm suffered drives me to prevent that pain from happening to others.”
“You can’t rule without a support system,”Vowels warned.“The best thing you can do is to keep everyone—unmated and mated—on the same outer ring, organizing clans by nestqueen like you started with Kaica’s nestmates. You should only move those who are important to you and your clan closer. This will give you quick access to contact whomever you need and keep the other citizens on the same level, making their mating status less impactful.”
“Will it work?”I studied the hundreds of golden threads. Now that I had grown used to the web’s strange appearance, I saw that each thread was laced with a thin trace of color representing the mental shield it was connected to.“What if I mess it up?”
“You are their Queen,”Vowels reminded me in a soothing tone.“You are allowed to make mistakes. Only learning from your failures and correcting them is important.”
“You’re right.”
Stretching one hand up, I pretended to grab the purple marbled planet hanging in the sky. Lunkai would soon be the new capital, and I still hadn’t visited, even though Destima was its moon. There was still plenty I hadn’t been able to see because I had constantly been thrust all over the place.
“When do you think I will have the chance to explore the Aldawi empire?”
“Whenever you want… once your clanmates are fully healed. That is the only thing holding you back now that you have a clan core.”
“Selena?” Zirene asked gently, his tone holding a sense of caution I had never heard from him. He sat on the nestbed, at a distance from my Circuli nestmates surrounding me. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine.” Lowering my hand, I turned my face in the direction of his voice and winced as a series ofcrackstraveled up my stiff neck. “Waking up to Lunkai shining bright in the sky reminded me that I haven’t visited the territory I am supposed to help lead.”
