He could still feel the pain. He could still hear the loud, raunchy sounds of fucking coming from the nest and trap he’d put so much time and effort and credz into. He still felt the weight of his cousins holding his beaten body down as he heard Yl’ln screaming his brother’s name.
The betrayal, the anger, the need to protect his female turning into the realization that she waswelcomingthe touch of another male.
It was such a hateful, angry mix of emotions raging through him, so powerful that it was almost like he was back there. Trapped in that moment. Listening to Yl’ln’s moans and his brother’s grunts. Feeling his life crashing around him.
Then, the sweet warmth of a kiss on his lips. The warm, slightly metallic scent of the female that had been pestering her way into his brain.
Haven.
His eyes snapped open and there she was. In his arms. In his nest. Looking right back at him. The kiss had been so short andbrief, but it rushed over him like a breeze. The memories, the clinging emotions, were banished in the force of it, leaving him right there, back with her.
She blinked. Staring up at him as his arms tightened around her.
“When they finished,” he continued, reciting the old memories like a story, but not trapped in them like he had been just a moment ago, “my brother tried to have me killed. But he couldn’t do it. Not because he didn’t want to, but only because it made the family uncomfortable. My father still controlled the family and our power came from us being together. If we started turning against and killing each other like that, we’d break ourselves down from within. That was the only thing that saved me. My mother certainly didn’t care. My brother had bested me, so he had won her approval. And my father cared for neither of us, only the advancement of the family.
“So, instead of killing me, my brother proposed sending me to Rik-Vane. We did business there. We smuggled supplies to that place and got some… things in return. With the next shipment, I was kicked off and left there to die. It was certainly a death sentence. We brought supplies there, but we didn’t actually have any sort of foothold there. That’s not how Rik-Vane works. And while it was said thatIcould do that for the family, and that would be my task for failing to rise as my brother had, the reality was much more simple than that. Kldyn wanted me to die without losing the support of anyone in the family by killing me.”
That was another memory that was harsh and vivid in Vytln’s mind. Being tossed out of the ship like so much trash. Injured and untreated. The gang that lived on Rik-Vane and traded with them had not cared about him, only the supplies they’d traded for. Rik-Vane was a lawless place now, but it had once been afully functioning station, like any other, and it had factories on board. The weapons that could be made there were completely untraceable and all the more valuable for it.
The bottom feeders that lingered around, however, hoping for something to fall, something to scavenge, weren’t interested in the trade.
They’d take whatever scraps managed to escape the others’ notice. Anything useful. Anything… edible.
Rik-Van was a very desperate place. When people were hungry enough, they were willing to prey on anything. Or anyone. And an injured lvlt male, huge and muscular, represented a veritable buffet. If they were strong enough to take him down.
The first days on Rik-Vane were a constant fight. Vytln hadn’t earned his name yet. He hadn’t cultivated fear or respect. Having just lost everything, still with broken skin and broken bones, it was all a blur of pain and blood and screams. Honestly, he wouldn’t call them bad memories, though he’d certainly done things that he didn’t like to remember to survive. But after the betrayal of the female he’d wanted to mate, his brother, his entire family that he’d devoted himself to, the violence was somehow cleansing.
Though, maybe cleansing wasn’t the right word. Not now that he felt Haven in his arms, locking him in the present. Far away from those that had betrayed him. Now, he had a crew that he trusted more than himself, a captain he respected more than his father.
And maybe even a female that was smiling up at him and saw no one else. One who constantly got on his nerves, who dared to criticize his wiring, who climbed all over him like he was a ladder to help her reach high places.
One who banished the hurt from his past and focused him instead onto her.
This, he realized as she nuzzled her head against the arm she was using as a pillow, was cleansing. The fighting had been stabilizing. It was an outlet for all the anger he felt, but it hadn’t cleansed it away. It was always there.
Except when he looked down at this wild little thing that annoyed him so much. He couldn’t stay away from her. He didn’t even want to.
“Good job on getting out,” Haven praised, focusing back on him. “I’ve hearing of Rik-Vane. I know it’s not a good place to being.”
“It’s not,” he agreed, the simple statement not really sufficient to explain that place. But he found he didn’t really want to say anything else. He didn’t want her to know about Rik-Vane or the horrible things that happened there.
“You are being here now.”
“I am,” he agreed, and again, that simple statement didn’t do justice to just how impossible it was to escape Rik-Vane. The fact that Tanin got them out, carved a place for them in the universe, and helped protect that place no matter what…
Yes, Tanin was worthy of Vytln’s loyalty. Vytln was a far cry from being the prince of a criminal enterprise that practically ruled a planet, but he was happier here. There was less stress, less responsibilities, and, most importantly, he was surrounded by people he knew weren’t going to stab him in the back.
He was happy here. As happy as he’d ever been. He grumbled, he complained, but he’d never want to change a thing.
Or, at least, he thought he didn’t.
But this little pest was so determined to wiggle her way into his life, and he was having trouble remembering why he’d sworn to never mate or trust another female again. He was having trouble even remembering the pain anymore when he saw her there.
Haven smiled and, like she was reading his mind. “I don’t really liking most people. They’re not being that interesting. They don’t being tolerating of me either. I bothering them with my questions and curiosity. You don’t minding it though.”
“They’re just questions. It’s not that big of a deal.”
“It can being. When I pester people constantly.” She frowned, her gaze at his throat but staring beyond it at something in her memories. “When I breaking things because I am wanting to take it apart. When I am being annoying. When I am being thoughtless. I am too much. I know that.”
