Bound by Fate

by Maddie Taylor

  “You’re a big boy, mate, a really big boy. I think you can handle us.”

  “How long after the birth of our child before I can paddle your naughty behind?”

  “Six weeks. If it’s a boy, considering your size, maybe eight.”

  “Know that I’m keeping a tally of your infractions and plan to get someone to watch our little one so I can see to your correction at length and in private.”

  She angled her head back and looked up into his handsome face, noting the lavender heat in his gaze hadn’t lessened one iota. With a smile she hoped conveyed how much she wanted what he promised, she murmured, “I’ll look forward to it, Roth. In fact, I’m counting the days.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Seconds passed like hours, minutes like days, and hours like an eternity for Beck who waited on one of the hard benches in the lobby of the clinic. Juna came out and gave him updates periodically, but mostly it was no change. Sometimes, when they weren’t running tests, he was allowed back to sit with her. Seeing her pale and motionless, her skin cool when he picked up her hand was heart wrenching.

  Word had gone out immediately of her condition. The fleet commander who was already in route to the colony arrived with his mate, Maggie, the day it happened. They held a near constant vigil, the same as him. Trask and Max Kerr had arrived not long ago, Lana and Eva, on their heels. He’d caught a glimpse of the general’s worry-ravaged face as he passed, and figured, after three days of this torment, he looked worse.

  Beck closed his eyes and rubbed his hands over his scratchy beard-roughened jaw. The swish of a door and the hum of a hushed but heated conversation made them pop open again.

  “Surely, there is something more you can do.”

  Ellar shook his head grimly. “I’m sorry, General. I’ve tried everything I know to do, Jarlan has been consulted as well, but despite our best efforts, she doesn’t wake.”

  “Perhaps, if she had a mate, there would be more we could try.” This came from Juna who stood next to the Primarian physic though her grief-stricken gaze was locked on him

  Beck was on his feet and moving toward them without conscious thought. “What does a mate have to do with it?”

  “If she transformed, her mate’s blood and body fluids could be used to restore her, in theory,” Ellar explained.

  “Not in theory,” Eva corrected from Adria’s doorway, Kerr at her back, his arm firmly around her waist. “That our princep stands here today is proof it is more than a theoretical concept.”

  “Would a close relative do?” Lana had both arms wrapped around Trask lending him her support. “At home there are transfusions.”

  “We’ve tried that, and it seems to be working on the other two victims, but they are human. Evidently, what this creature took from Adria, a Primarian, was much more.”

  “How so?” Beck demanded.

  “We’re not sure. They’ve all been drained of their vitality, their essence, which dangerously weakened their lifeforce. But the others are responding, they’re fighting to live.” The physic’s eyes cut to the general. “It’s almost like she’s given up. I’ve seen this with separation sickness, especially with fated pairs, but never in one unmated like Adria. In those cases, only the mate’s bond was strong enough to bring them back from the brink of death and allow them to heal.”

  Ellar’s prognosis cast a pall of silence over the group. It was broken only by the muffled sounds of Lana sobbing into Trask’s chest.

  Beck was stunned. Amy and the miner had been in worse shape than Adria. How was it possible they would survive but she wouldn’t? He couldn’t lose her. Fool that he was for stubbornly pushing her away, he deserved to, but she had so much promise. Intelligent, thoughtful, and selfless, with a talent to heal that would benefit so many others, it wasn’t fair for her to be taken so soon.

  Out of desperation, he stepped forward. “What if she had that bond? Would you try?”

  “I understand your concern, Kincaid,” Trask told him wearily, his voice ravaged with grief. “Adria wasn’t...” He paused, choking on what he would say. “She chose her studies instead. She wasn’t matched.”

  “Yes, she was, though not in the traditional sense.”

  “What are you saying, Beck?” Lana asked.

  “She bonded with me.”

  “I don’t think I heard you right,” Trask grated out, his voice vibrating with raw emotion. Beck didn’t need to know him well to ascertain it was in response to more than his sister lying near death.

  “We had a special connection. It was stronger than anything I’ve ever known, and she told me she loves me. So, perhaps, I could be used to try some of your other solutions.”

  Ellar approached him. “Are you transformed?”

  “What?”

  “When humans mate with a Primarian, they take on certain of their mate’s characteristics.”

  “I thought that was only females,” Lana stated.

  “We don’t know what would happen in the case of a Primarian female and a human male—”

  “Since it’s never happened before,” Eva finished for him.

  “He looks the same,” Maggie observed, moving closer to look at his eyes. “They are the same light blue with none of Adria’s greens and deep blues. Not even a fleck.”

  “Take off your shirt.” This demand came from Juna.

  “What?” he asked again, aware he repeated himself, but this was bizarre. “More importantly, why?”

  “So, we can search for a marking.”

  “But doesn’t that only apply to fated mates?” Lana inquired in apparent confusion.

  Though it didn’t make sense to him, Beck reached behind his neck, grabbed his T-shirt, and, in a single tug, had it off, anyway.

  “Arms up, please.” Both Juna and Ellar scanned his upper torso, including under his arms.

  “There is nothing,” Juna stated in disappointment.

  “Maybe not.” The older man leaned in, and with his nose near Beck’s throat, he sniffed. He drew back in surprise. “He scents of her, not the other way around. How very odd.”

  A low growl resonated in the room an instant before Trask exploded across it, shoving the physic and Dr. Juna aside to get to his target.

  Beck, who’d been expecting a reaction—he’d been as protective of Becca in the past—didn’t resist when the bigger male slammed him against the wall. Not an easy feat since he weighed two hundred sixty pounds, but, from the look on the general’s face, he’d drawn from energy stores bubbling with rage. It all happened in what seemed like a nanosecond and before any of the other men could intercede.

  “You violated her!” he snarled in accusation while pressing a forearm against Beck’s throat.

  Unwilling to remain passive while his oxygen was cut off, he resisted, his hands coming up to curl around the beefy arm containing him. It was enough to allow a breath.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he managed to rasp. “It was consensual.”

  “She was an innocent and showed no interest in any male, ever.”

  “You’re wrong. No one would spare her a second glance because they feared this very reaction.”

  “You lie!”

  “You’re her brother. You saw what you wanted to see, but she dreamed of having what you and Lana, and the other mates have.”

  His last few words were barely audible as the big man pressed harder.

  “You have violated the treaty just as you’ve done to my sister. It is within my right to demand justice.”

  “Trask, stop,” Lana pleaded, tugging on his arm with both hands. “You can’t kill him!”

  “Can’t I?” he growled, not taking his eyes from Beck. “I plan to rip the bastard’s head from his shoulders for daring to touch her. Your friendship with him won’t stop me this time.” Without looking away, he demanded, “Someone get her out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere!” In a softer tone, which Beck suspected she used when trying to soothe her beast of a mate, she entre
ated, “Think, Trask. He might be the only one who can save her.”

  The arm at his throat didn’t let up, and he started to get lightheaded.

  “Consider Adria before you kill her only hope!” Lana cried, as she lent her strength to his against the enraged, irrational man who was gradually choking the life out of him.

  Hearing her reasoning, Kerr and Roth moved in, each taking an arm, and, where he and Lana couldn’t, their combined effort lessened the pressure of his grip. Beck gasped for air now that his windpipe was open again. Vaguely, he wondered at what point they would have stopped him, if at all, if not for Lana.

  “Listen to your mate, my friend,” the princep advised. “You know these pairings don’t follow a predictable pattern.

  “Yes, but this is a reach,” Trask growled.

  “Which proves my point,” Lana insisted. “Anything is possible when our species combine. Think of Ram, the first male of these pairings to transform.”

  Beck had met the master warrior on several occasions. It was hard to miss the vivid red striations—the same shade as Eryn, his mate’s—in his jet-black hair.

  “I agree.” Eva spoke up, championing Lana’s argument. “What if an opposite pairing—that of a Primarian female with a human male—produces a bond with an entirely different manifestation? It happens in botany with cross pollination all the time.”

  Trask’s head twisted, and he looked down at his prima. “You’re comparing my sister to a plant?”

  “What she’s saying is Adria’s life is worth giving this a try. Isn’t it?” Lana implored.

  A glimmer of lucidity the general had been lacking these past few minutes appeared. Hope sprang within Beck, not so much for himself, but for Adria.

  His gaze went to the observation window of her room where she lay wan and motionless, lacking the spark of life that made her who she was and the twinkle in her vivid teal eyes, much like the little star her brother had dubbed her.

  After a moment, Trask dropped his arm and stated in a much calmer voice. “If he fails, I can always rip his head off later.”

  “Stop threatening him,” Lana exclaimed in exasperation.

  “It wasn’t a threat, paulova.”

  “If I fail,” Beck rasped, “I won’t care if you do.”

  A hush fell over them at this declaration.

  “Excuse me, but aren’t we forgetting something?” Everyone turned to look at the petite, very pregnant Maggie standing in Adria’s doorway. “She isn’t getting any better while we’re standing around yacking.”

  “She’s right, and, now that things are settled out here”—Lana paused and looked pointedly at Trask as if daring him to say a word to the contrary—“we can go back inside and check Adria then get on with her healing.”

  “Check her for what?” Beck’s volume rose along with his bewilderment.

  Lana squeezed his forearm. “If I’m right, I’m hoping to show you.” She whirled and rushed to Adria’s door, calling over her shoulder, “Juna, Eva, help me.”

  Very gently, the women examined Adria’s arms and legs. Finding nothing, they turned her onto her side and loosened her gown enough to reveal her trunk and back—every inch smooth and unblemished.

  “I had hoped,” Lana whispered, her tremulous voice trailing off.

  Beck had, too, though he was unsure for what. At this point, he’d hope for magic and miracles. But his despondency increased because, through it all, she hadn’t so much as twitched.

  “Kerr’s is on the back of his neck. Let’s try there,” Eva suggested.

  “Hold her,” Lana urged then twisted Adria’s once glossy black hair that was now devoid of even a hint of color and swept it forward over her shoulder. Gasps filled the air. On the back of her neck, a neck he had kissed, nuzzled, and stroked, an abstract marking in swirls of gold and blue had appeared.

  “What is that?”

  “All Primarian males have a marking,” Kerr explained. He turned, pulled his hair aside to show his own. “It usually appears at the time of the male’s maturation. The symbol is familial, with each male in the line bearing the same design, though the color and location can vary. With a fated mate, the biochemical match between them is so exact and the cellular changes so profound after the transformation, the marking is replicated on the female—to scale, of course—in the same place.”

  The princep swept Eva’s hair aside and revealed a mark identical to his on the back of her neck.

  “But I have no such mark. You all saw that,” Beck contended. “I don’t understand.”

  They all looked to Ellar for his input, but he was frowning at Adria’s mark. “I’m afraid I’m at a loss as well, but that isn’t unusual when it comes to the unpredictability of human-Primarian mate bonding.”

  “Each pair is different,” Maggie told him. “Eva didn’t get her mark until she accepted Kerr as her mate. Mine didn’t appear until well after the breaching—”

  “And mine didn’t show up for over a year,” Lana put in, her eyes on Trask who was watching her as well. “It seems, with humans, love and acceptance is an integral part of the transformation.”

  “That explains it, then,” Beck stated quietly as he crossed to Adria’s bedside. “I have had strong feelings for her since the moment I saw her, but I fought against them because of the pain in my past. It took until this, when I thought I might lose her, for me to admit what I felt for her all this time was love.”

  “This is wonderful news,” Lana exclaimed softly as she reached out and took his hand. “The mark on her neck, which proclaims you are bound by fate like Trask and me, Kerr and Eva, and Roth and Maggie, also means you can save her, Beck.”

  “In theory,” Ellar clarified.

  “Not in theory,” she insisted, whirling on him. “You’ve seen it happen time and again, including with the people in this very room, and it will happen for Adria, too.” Lana’s tear-filled eyes dropped to the pale, motionless form on the bed. “It has to.”

  “Tell me what I have to do to bring her back,” Beck demanded of the physic.

  “Well...” He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting from Trask to Kerr and to Eva, before addressing him. “You must join with her, Mr. Kincaid.”

  “She is unconscious and cannot give consent. I forbid it,” her brother exclaimed.

  “How is it different from when Kerr was unconscious, and you had me join with him?” Eva challenged. “It brought him back to me.”

  “But you were already mates, tested as a near perfect match. You were fated.”

  “As are they, apparently,” Kerr reminded him. “The marking is proof more convincing than any test. Step outside, Trask. Let Adria’s mate save her. It might be the only way.”

  “Will someone explain what is happening here?” Beck demanded, his patience at an end.

  “She needs you to join with her physically, Beck,” Lana explained.

  “But...she’s in a coma. No. That’s insane.”

  “I’m with Kincaid on this one,” Roth put in. “This isn’t separation sickness; he’s been at her side for three days straight according to her guards. Why do you think it will work for whatever this is?”

  “We don’t, but the presentation is very similar. And, because her life hangs by a thread and I don’t know what else to try,” Ellar stated honestly.

  Beck picked up Adria’s hand and gently squeezed her fingers. Unresponsive to the clamor happening around her, her breathing was easy, and she didn’t appear to be in pain. Her skin lacked its usual healthy glow but remained warm as she clung to life. She was in there, somewhere, if he could only reach her.

  “I’m not familiar with your mating customs, and while this seems wrong—”

  “You’re telling me,” Trask muttered.

  “I’ll do it,” he continued, ignoring the interruption. “I will do anything within my power to save her.”

  “Start slow,” Eva suggested. “Touch her. The oils of your skin will soothe her. Then add kisses with lots of fluid
exchange, that helped with Kerr. If needed, you can progress to—”

  Trask speared his fingers through his hair, and his low growl sounded again. “Stop! I can’t hear this.”

  “Then go,” Kerr ordered. “She is special to all of us, and you are standing between her and life.”

  Without another word, Trask stormed out, the door slamming back on its hinges so hard the wall behind it exploded in a shower of dust.

  “I’ll go after him and make sure he stays away.” As Lana headed out the door, stepping over the debris in her agitated mate’s wake, her muttered, “Somehow,” drifted back to them.

  “I might have better luck, so we will go as well,” Roth stated then followed her out with Maggie in tow.

  Of the same mind, Kerr led Eva to the door, where he turned back with a final word. “We are entrusting her to your care, Mr. Kincaid. Please, by the Maker, don’t fuck this up—”

  “Kerr!” Eva gasped.

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Because if this doesn’t work, I don’t know how I’ll explain to my general, who is also my cousin and my closest friend, what a colossal error in judgment I made.”

  “I have to make this work because I love her.”

  Eva laid her hand on Beck’s arm. “For us humans in these matches—acknowledging that is often where the healing starts.”

  Kerr guided his prima to the door and let her precede him. With one last glance at Adria’s lifeless form on the bed, he offered a last bit of advice. “My mate used extraordinary measures to call me back from the threshold of death. You will need to do so, too. Don’t hold back, man. Bring her back to us.”

  LEFT ALONE IN THE ROOM with only the woman he loved, Beck was at a loss. Although he’d made love to her many times before, in a variety of locations and positions, never had he done anything like this. He’d been called an alpha by women before, as well as bossy and dominant. It never surprised him because he didn’t disagree. But he’d always respected their right to consent.

  Leaning over her, Beck brushed the pale hair from her face. She didn’t react to his touch, just as she hadn’t since he’d found her in that horrific cage. He already tried talking to her, mostly whispered pleas for her to come back to him. And he’d willed her to open her eyes, to smile at him once again. He’d even appealed to his higher power to let her live, and her Maker in desperation. Nothing had worked, and this bizarre plan seemed more farfetched than anything else.