by Corin Cain
I mean, I can’t lie – I’m drawn to them. It doesn’t feel like they’re strangers when I can feel their devotion in my mind. And yet, there’s a darkness to the three of them that concerns me. Kreos is a beast. Daran has a thirst for vengeance, and Riff hates his own blood.
If I stay with them, it could get bad – fast.
I slide off my bunk and punch the button for the door. A moment later, I’m striding down the ship’s hallway. I hold my head up as I make the trek to the war-room. It feels like I’m walking to the gallows.
I press on the button for the door, but nothing happens. Of course. This is their most important room. It must be locked from the inside – the only one on this ship which is.
The door hisses open and I finally understand the men I’m dealing with.
Three brutal warriors are fixated on a floating globe that shows marked territories. I understand instantly that the different sections must be the mob territories. Most of the capital city of Taton is green, with some yellow and blue around the edges.
“Which color are you?”
Riff doesn’t look at me. He’s staring at the map. He points, though, and I see that the territory of my triad is a small swath of blue, by the periphery of Taton’s central city.
I watch the sea of green surrounding it and realize that these men are the underdogs. They aren’t the cartel rulers of Taton. They’re an upcoming gang – a group of hard-nosed fighters who want to claim the city, but have a lot of work ahead of them.
I shudder. “Your territories are small.”
Daran turns to me, and his eyes stay that deep, endless green. “With your help they’ll soon grow.”
My help?
Kreis grunts. “We control a casino. Small businesses. The import export trade.”
I look at the three men, suddenly suspicious. “What about human trafficking? Drugs?”
Riff shakes his head slowly. “Never human trafficking. Drugs… yes.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. I take a step back, and the instincts in my body scream at me to run. I feel like I’ve been blind this entire time. I’ve allowed myself to be seduced by the raw power of… of mobsters.
Drugs? I’d never considered the devastation they might be wreaking back on their home planet.
Daran grips my hand hard, looking into my eyes. I try to pull away, but he’s too strong. Kreos growls protectively, and only then does Daran slowly let go – but he continues staring into my eyes. “We took over the drug trade in our sector three decades ago. The year before, there were over six-hundred overdoses in the sector. Do you know how many there were last year?”
I slow my breathing. It feels like I’m going to hyperventilate. “How… How many?”
“None. We banned the practice of cutting drugs with other agents. People are going to do drugs regardless – whether we sell them or not. If it wasn’t for us, though, the drugs people would take could kill them.”
Fuck. That’s reasonable…
…but it doesn’t let them off the hook.
“And… and who owns the green territories?”
Kreos growls and slams his fist against a table. His aura burns with rage. “Don Slip’Nak.”
Daran looks too eager. “They belong to the man who killed my father, and chased me from my birthright. But now, you’ve given me the tools to take it back.”
I furrow my brows. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Daran’s eyes flash. “The Bond, my mate – the Bond. You’ve given me the strength of ten men. I will use it to kill my rivals.”
My jaw drops. I can feel devotion from Riff and Kreos, but I understand with horror that Daran views me as the key to his empire. He doesn’t feel love for me. He doesn’t feel the same urge to protect and care for me that his battle-brothers do.
He’s a general and I am a weapon to him.
Before I even think, I’ve slapped the seven-feet-tall warrior in front of me.
As the sound of my palm on his cheek rings across the room, Daran looks down at me with utter shock…
…and then his aura flares with annoyance. He steps forward, and Kreos growls menacingly, putting himself at my side.
“Explain yourself! Before I turn you over my knee and spank you,” Daran warns, with a dark undertone of need to his voice.
“You’re an asshole. You used me!”
A tendril of surprise flows through the Bond. “I didn’t use you. You’re my fated mate! We’re Bonded for eternity! I will care for you always, Petra. I’ll protect you, and I’ll cherish you. You deserve better than… than this,” he gestures to the small blue territory on the floating globe.
“Don’t you fucking justify a war based on what I deserve. You’re the one who wants this!”
Daran smashes the glasses from the table. They shatter on the floor. “That fucking Toad took everything from me! You’re damned right I’m going to take it back! Don’t be naive, Petra. We aren’t farmers. We’re not merchants. We’re warriors, and warriors fight!”
Riff slaps his fist down against the table in approval. I feel his pride flowing through the Bond. He wants desperately to become someone. The memory of his lowlife father is flowing through his DNA and he needs to become one of three mob bosses of the city; to prove that he is more than the genetics of a deadbeat.
I look over at Kreos, suddenly feeling so alone.
Kreos’ eyes are burning red. It’s not just me that brings color to them – the Bond merely unlocked it. The bloodlust flows in Kreos like electricity.
I thought I was linked to these men forever. I thought I’d never feel alone again. Now, there are three alien intrusions in my mind. Three powerful, primal beings that become beasts in both love-making and in war.
“Riff… Kreos… Please. You don’t have to do this. Daran is on a quest for vengeance, but it doesn’t have to involve you.”
Riff gently runs his hand down my arm. My body tingles in response, but I pull away. He shakes his head slowly. “You don’t understand, my pet. Without Daran, I was nothing. I would have ended up just like my father...”
Kreos nods. “Daran is our leader.” The thought is simple, as if it settles everything.
These three men are going to go on a suicide mission – facing off against a powerful mob boss, all in a desperate bid to claim the planet that Daran views as his birthright.
And me? If they’re killed, I’ll be left alone to grieve.
I rush away, slamming my fist against the button to open the door. Tears come to my eyes as I stomp down the hallway to escape those men – but there’s no way to escape their eternal presence in my mind.
17
Kreos
The sight of Petra leaving hurts my soul. I can feel her anger and fear through our Bond, and I ache to comfort her.
Daran turns his attention back to the globe. He tries to pretend that Petra doesn’t affect him, but I feel that tendril of confusion in the back of his mind.
“She’s right,” Riff murmurs slowly.
Daran snarls. “What in the will of the Gods do you mean: She’s right?”
I look to Riff and understand. “Our species lives and dies without finding their fated mate. We have gained her. If we go to war… We may lose her.”
Daran points to the swathe of green on the globe. “This city belonged to my father. When he ruled, there was order. Now, there’s violence, tainted drugs, human trafficking… Tatonia needs me to take back control. It is in chaos, and only I can bring it back to peace.”
He states the words, but I know his motivations go deeper than that. Daran aches to regain the throne. Tatonia, the capital of Taton, used to be his father’s territory. That is the city he views as his birthright. Daran and Riff are proud men, and I know they’ll not give up until the entire city is marked blue once again on the map.
The urge to leave this room and find my mate intensifies. My battle-brothers can feel it too. Daran’s face becomes an ugly grimace. “Do you want to go to her? Th
en go. But you deny your nature. You’re a warrior, Kreos. You’re a killer, and together we’ll cover the streets of Tatonia in the blood of our enemies. We’ll wash it clean of Don Slip’nak and his men.”
I growl. My mind is so conflicted. I ache to avenge the death of my own men, killed by the Toad cartel. So many of our troops have been picked off by Don Slip’nak’s assassins. We never had the opportunity to fight back…
…until now.
I flex and my muscles bulge like boulders. Petra has given me the tools I need to kill the cowardly Toads – to tear them apart with my bare hands.
She is my mate. She is my mate, by the Gods!
I can feel her. I can feel Petra in my mind, and that aura is so precious to me. She’s so fucking pure. She’s white snow, untrampled. She’s spring water, unsullied by blood. I ache for her, and I know that I can never let her leave me.
I shake my head and slowly turn to go.
“Damn you, Kreos! Damn you!” Daran’s voice echoes behind me, but I don’t hesitate…
…until I feel Riff shifting in my mind.
“Fucking hell. Kreos is right. We have the most beautiful thing in the universe. What is Taton compared to our fated mate?”
Riff follows me out the door, leaving our leader behind us.
Daran has saved my life countless times. Guilts hit me, but I can’t let another man’s war come between the peace that Petra offers – no matter what.
I stomp down the hallway and open the door to the dorms, knocking hard on her dorm room as the other women look at us in shock and horror.
“Pe- Petra,” I say hoarsely, my throat aching as I force the words out through my crippled vocal chords.
The door opens, and I see her standing there in all her glory. I wipe the wet tears from Petra’s bright eyes, breathing in her perfect scent. Her curves are my drug, her scent is my joy, and her sweet cunt is my bliss.
I cannot give her up – not for anything in the world.
18
Petra
Riff and Kreos stand in front of me. There’s nothing I can say. I don’t understand why they followed me here.
“I don’t want to see you two right now. Go plan your fucking war.”
My voice is raw from crying. Tiana stands behind me, a welcome moral support.
Riff shakes his head. “Fuck the war. I’m not losing you to pride, Petra.”
Kreos reaches forward, gently taking my chin in his huge hand. I don’t want to pull back. I let his thick fingers trace the lines of my jaw. “You are more than life itself.”
His devotion flows through the Bond. For a moment, I see myself through his eyes.
I am…
Perfection.
I’ve never seen myself like this.
I am flawless in his eyes – a work of art. No, more than that… Something elevated above what human hands can even create.
I think to the way I stare at the greatest sculptures of antiquity. My wonder at those incredible words of art is nothing compared to the way Kreos drinks in my being.
My knees feel weak. I look up at the seven-feet-tall beast of a man and murmur: “You… You’d abandon Daran? For me?”
Pain flows through the Bond from Riff and Kreos. I understand what they’re doing. They’re giving up on the leader who gave their lives meaning.
Kreos just nods slowly, and I know how much agony the gesture caused him.
“Should I give you three some privacy?” Tiana clutches her hands together uncertainly. There’s no way she can fit past the hulking bulk of the two Aurelians standing at the doorway.
I barely register her words. The presence of the two men is overwhelming me. I just want to let them love me. Their gaze on me is worshipful, and I truly feel as though I’m their Queen.
Only Daran spoils the moment. I can feel his rage pulsing through the Bond. I ache to heal that man. I felt, during our love-making, a calmness to him – that there’s something broken inside of him that only I can fix. His own battle-brothers have left him. He’s so alone, and if I turn my back on him, he’ll never become the man he’s destined to be.
He walks in his father’s shadow, always.
I owe him. These three men saved me from a life of slavery. If I wasn’t picked by them, my body would be for sale right now in some off-world whore-house.
I stand on my tippy-toes, but Kreos still has to lean down to kiss me lightly on the lips. I never thought the warrior beast could be so gentle. Riff squeezes past and gently rubs my shoulders.
Tiana is still standing behind us, and she coughs discreetly. “Okay, I’m leaving now.”
She slides past Kreos and exits the room as quickly as she can.
I’m now alone with these two men – the warriors who chose me above honor and loyalty. The two men who forsook even their Bonded battle-brother to be with me. Riff grips my shoulders, massaging out the tension.
“He’ll come around,” Riff murmurs slowly, but I can hear the lie in his voice – and feel it in his aura.
I feel incomplete without Daran. I never considered that I could have feelings for more than one man at the same time, but now everything I thought I knew has changed.
I feel like I have two parts of a three-part whole, and without the leader of their triad, I’ll never be truly satisfied.
“I’m worried about him,” I whisper, and Kreos gently strokes the hair from my face. He looks down at me with eyes that are a swirling inferno. Blacks mix with crimson – and combined with his black tattoos and huge beard he just emanates danger.
Yes, despite his gruff exterior, I feel so fucking safe with him.
“Daran will do as Daran does.”
I sigh deeply. It’s hard to accept. Riff and Kreos were willing to put aside their battle for me. What’s stopping Daran?
Riff steps back, sitting down on the bed. He has to duck to fit his head under the top bunk.
“It’s not my place to say it… but…” He gulps. “Daran is not whole.”
“Not whole?”
Kreos nods. The barrel-chested beast has never looked so vulnerable. “He was cloned from burnt DNA. He has a darkness to him that will never be tamed.”
“I don’t believe that! He can be saved – we just have to get him away from Taton! He doesn’t need to go to war.”
Riff brings his signature coin out. He slowly moves it from one knuckle to another as he thinks deeply.
“You’re asking the man to give up his life’s purpose. And beyond that – there are men on Taton who depend on us. We’re betraying them by leaving the outfit to be with you, Petra. Without Daran, Don Slip’Nak will come in and kill everyone who ever worked for us. He’s a merciless Bullfrog.”
A Bullfrog – the larger, more muscular sub-species of Toad that make up the bulk of their military and security. It’s easy to look at Toads – their blubbery, slobbering physiques – and underestimate them, but Bullfrogs are almost as dangerous as an Aurelian warrior.
My eyes grow wet. I understand the stakes now. There’s more than just my future and my happiness on the line. And yet, I can’t let Kreos and Riff just go. I can feel Riff’s flitting, wild aura darting and dashing in my mind. He feels like sand that I’m squeezing my hand around – sand that slips through my fingers. I feel that at any moment Riff could change his mind, choosing his loyalty to Daran over a woman who he only just met.
In contrast, Kreos is a rock inside my mind. I know deep in my heart he’ll always protect me, no matter what. He’ll always be my guardian angel, my beastly bodyguard. Kreos can feel me thinking of him, and he wraps me up in his huge arms. His biceps bulge even more obscenely than before, and I know that the Bond has strengthened him the same way it has enhanced me.
I’ve never felt so calm or safe in my life. This silent protector is my ward, my guardian, and my love. I let my emotions for him flow through the Bond and I feel his joy mirrored back. This one has been searching his whole life for me, and he’ll never let me go.
But how d
o I save Daran from his cruel nature?
I try to think when the ship suddenly rocks. Alarm bells ring out, and the entire vessel shudders like we’re being picked up and shaken by some incomprehensible giant.
“Stay here,” Riff snaps. He spins and slaps the button to open my bedroom door, before sprinting into the corridor beyond. Kreos follows, and I ignore Riff’s command – chasing after them to find out what the hell is going on. As we run through the corridor of bedrooms, screams fill the air. Tiana rushes after me.
“What’s happening?”
I turn my head as I rush after Riff and Kreos. “I don’t have a clue!”
I begin running towards the lounge, where I’ll be able to look out of the huge window and out into space. My fist slams against the button to open the door, and as it slides open my heart sinks.
Through the wall of glass opposite the doorway, I instantly spot three small ships, darting left and right, through space, firing barrages of lasers towards our ship.
Who are they? How did they find us?
The ships rush in closer, firing shot after shot that disperses against our shields – but our shields can’t hold forever. The three auras of the Aurelians surge in my mind – so similar that they merge into one. The three Aurelians are all three focused lines in my mind – without room for anything but facing a battle for our lives.
The whole ship lurches right, moving so fast that the ship’s stabilizing field can’t take it and I’m flung towards the couch, landing in a pile on the soft furniture with Tiana in my lap. We brush ourselves off and stare out of the window, unable to anything but watch as the three smaller ships barrage us with laser fire.
A resounding boom suddenly fills my ears as our ship’s battery fires back. The first enemy vessel explodes instantly into ash and debris as the three Aurelians fight back.
I can’t just watch. I need to see what’s going on – I need to help!
“Go into the kitchen and hide under the table,” I order, and Tiana nods tearfully, rushing out to find what promises to offer a modicum of safety.