by Nia Mars
If Koah is the alpha of our group, then Roax is the uber alpha. The air around him vibrates with his dominance. In fact, I can see from the corner of my eye that Dason is on his knees on the mattress. He’s pulled as near me as he could, however, without getting between me and Roax.
Roax shoves his fingers into the jumbled mess of my hair at my nape and pulls, tilting my face fully to his. “A wild one, aren’t you? Maybe you’ll be worth taming.” He draws a careful breath. “Your hair. That color. Like an exotic bird. Makes me want to cage you and keep you hidden, just for me.”
The dark tone of his words makes me tremble inside. I refuse to look away in submission. Instead, I channel every ounce of scavenger grit I have into a single sentence. “You’re welcome to try.”
He raises that sinister dark eyebrow once again. Amusement curls one corner of his mouth. “Am I?”
Okay, so all the other kreks are pretty overwhelming alone, worse yet, when Koah, Tiam, Uthan, and Dason are all together. But Roax? Overwhelming is too small a word for the man.
He lifts his left hand to my face, and he rubs his thumb over my bottom lip as he inhales deeply. Then his gaze drops to my chest where my thin nightgown does a terrible job at hiding nipples that are hard from the cool night air. His touch, his expression, everything about him has a careless ease, but something tells me he is holding himself in rigid control.
“Has one of them taken you yet, little bird?” The question is asked in the tone of a command. Refusing to answer is not an option.
My heart pounds. “No.”
His thumb rubs my lower lip again. “I don’t think I can be the first. If I took you first, I wouldn’t let the others anywhere near you. If I had you first, I’d probably kill whoever tried to be next.”
A cold shiver runs down my spine, yet I can’t pull away. His dark gaze holds me in his thrall.
I’m close enough to the bed so that the backs of my knees are touching the mattress. Dason is right there. He puts his arms around my waist. I welcome the support of his hard chest.
“Aw,” Roax mocks the both of us. “Look at your pretty lapdog trying to protect you. Isn’t that precious?”
“Stop.” Dason’s voice is harder than I’ve ever heard it.
Roax’s chiseled lips twist into a cruel smile. “Does the pup have teeth?”
Dason is vibrating. I can feel how much he wants to lunge at Roax, but he holds back to keep his arms around me. Because he knows a fight is not what I need. Gratitude washes over me, and I put my hands over his on my midriff.
Roaxe’s gaze drops to where Dason and I are basically holding hands. “How about we put the pup outside?”
Before I could snap at him, a brief knock sounds at the door, and then Taly pops her head in. Her gaze goes wide at the sight of the men. A second or two passes before she refocuses her attention on me, dipping her head in apology. “I’m sorry to bother you, Madam. I’m supposed to tell you that Krek Koah has been transferred to the palace’s medical facility.”
My heart leaps. I pull away from the men. “When?”
“Just now, Madam.”
“Thank you, Taly.”
As she bows and backs out, I’m already halfway to the bathroom, looking back over my shoulder at Dason. “Give me a few minutes, then could you please take me to the medical facility?”
I pee, then brush my teeth and wash my face. I don’t bother with a comb. I don’t bother with dressing either, just toss on my white robe.
When I come out of the bathroom, I find Dason and Roax staring at each other as if they’re about to lunge into a duel.
“Dason?”
He hurries to my side.
I take his hand, but then I pause at the door. I have no idea why I ask Roax, “Would you like to come with us to see Koah?”
He examines the robe I’m wearing as if he’s plotting how to get it off me. “Are you going to let me kill him while he’s at a disadvantage?”
“No!”
He smirks. “Then I think I’ll skip the tearful reunion. All that drama might be too heavy for me on an empty stomach.”
He sits on my bed, then lays back, pulling my pillow to his face and inhaling. He flashes an evil grin. “I’ll just take a nap in our bed. Do hurry back, Ava Mine.”
I want to beat him with my blue sateen slipper, but I want to see Koah even more, so I leave the bastard in my bed without another word.
“Is he always this bad?” I ask Dason as we’re flying down the hallway, while I’m doing my best to finger-comb my hair.
Dason rolls his eyes. “Usually? Much worse.”
THE MEDICAL FACILITY, on the other side of the palace, is barely larger than the med unit on Koah’s ship. I suppose, there are plenty of hospitals in the city, so the facility here would only be used temporarily, in an emergency.
Koah is on one of the empty half-dozen beds. His eyes are closed, his face sickly pale. A doctor is examining him, and the man bows to me as I rush in.
“How is he?”
Koah’s indigo eyes pop open. He offers a drawn smile. “Better now.”
When I take his hand, my gaze cataloging his new scars—two on his left arm and one on his jaw—his fingers immediately curl around mine. “I missed you, my Ava.”
The doctor turns politely to his instruments.
I lean in and press my cheek to Koah’s cheek, hug his shoulder. I need the contact. I need to feel his chest rise and fall, need to feel the beat of blood in his neck that matches his heartbeat.
He leans against me as much as he can, and I stay like that until my back cramps.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” I ask as I finally straighten.
Both the doctor and Dason have left the room. We are alone.
“Flew right into a trap.” Koah’s indigo eyes are drinking in my face. He is holding on to my hand with no intention of letting me go. “My ship was captured, but the other ships I took with me did reach Earth and fought the pirates. They took out any imminent threat. They’re returning as we speak.”
“Thank you.” My heart swells with gratitude. “Where are you hurt?”
Dason said Koah had been tortured. His scars are clearly healing, curtesy of the med unit. But then, why is he still in bed? Does he have some unfixable internal injury? My throat tightens at the thought.
“The pirates wanted me to tell them the Federation’s plans for cleaning up the Frontier.” He offers a weak grin. “I resisted.” His grin disappears. “They had some exotic plant from some godforsaken corner of the galaxy that can make a man talk against his will. They forced me to eat it. When I still resisted, they made me eat more.”
He flashes another half-smile. “I guess in large quantities, it’s poison. We don’t have it in the Federation, so there’s no antidote.”
Tears well in my eyes.
“Hey. Don’t worry about it.” He pulls me closer. “The doctors gave me something that speeds up my metabolism, so my body can get rid of the damn poison before it kills me. Hopefully.”
My heart races. “How long before you know if the treatment works?”
“If it wasn’t working, I would already be dead.”
A silent scream of protest howls through me. “Are you in pain?”
“Does feeling like I’m being disemboweled count?” He flashes a weak grin. “I’m fine. I’m through the worst.”
“We’ll ask for painkillers.” I look to the door, then back at him, wanting to go and get the doctor, but not willing to let go of Koah.
“I don’t want to be knocked out. I’d rather spend time with you.”
“What can I do to help?”
He shifts to the far side of the bed. “Lie down next to me, my Ava.”
We’ve done this before, lain in a hospital bed in the med unit on his ship on our way to Merim. He’d been weak because he’d given me his blood. And now he’s sick because he went to liberate Earth. For me.
As if summoned by my earlier thoughts, the doctor returns, stops
in the doorway, disapproval in his gaze as he takes in the sight of me next to Koah’s bed, clearly getting ready to get in. I don’t care what the doctor thinks. Koah is sick, and he needs me.
“Are you here to treat him?” I ask.
“To check on him.”
“Do it then and leave.”
My orders are followed. Being the Oath Forger does have its privileges.
As soon as I slip in next to Koah, he pulls me into his arms, my head on his shoulder, his lips pressed against my hair. “I like it when you’re fierce.”
“I like it when you’re not dying.”
“I don’t plan on making a habit out of it.”
I wrap my arm around his wide chest. “Thank you for saving Dason. He told me.”
“I thought I was dead anyway. I know you’re fond of the kid.”
“He’s not a kid.”
“Growing on you, is he?” He kisses me on the forehead. “Do you like him more than you like me?”
“I like you both. Differently.”
The room is silent around us, and so is the palace. It’s not yet dawn.
Koah lifts his head and bends over me, and then his lips are brushing over mine, and I sigh in pleasure. When he deepens the kiss, I let him. He kisses me with a tender passion. His kiss is a homecoming, and I welcome him home. I love his lips on mine. I love the feel of his strong arms around me.
Because I’m half asleep already, I don’t fight my next thought.
I’m falling in love with him.
Chapter Seventeen
AS I WAKE UP LATE IN THE MORNING, I’m on my side, my face resting against Koah’s warm chest, his arms around me, on a bed that’s much narrower than what I’ve become accustomed to lately. A long moment passes before I remember that we’re in the med center and why. There are people in the room behind me, quietly talking. I turn around. Koah’s arms tighten for a second, but then he lets me go.
Every available surface in the room is covered with men. Big men. Tiam, Uthan, Dason, and Roax are all there. They’re all watching me in Koah’s bed with various degrees of resentment, but only Roax’s expression is truly murderous.
To ease the tension, and so I don’t feel quite so awkward, I slip out of bed and sit on a stainless-steel table pushed against the far wall. Every eye follows me. I pull up my knees and tug my robe to cover as much of me as possible.
Koah flashes me a smile before sitting up and turning to the others. “Since we’re all here, let’s have a debriefing. I’ll start.”
One by one, the other men look at him. It helps me breathe a little easier.
“As I already told Ava,” he begins, “I managed to fly into a pirate trap as soon as I reached the Breach. They were expecting me. They knew exactly what my ship can do. They completely outgunned us. They know that we have the Oath Forger. They captured me to interrogate me about her and the Federation’s anti-pirate plans. I’m sure they would have killed me in the end to make sure that my connection with the Oath Forger never happens. The only reason I got away was that Dason’s fleet showed up and distracted the pirates.”
The men nod and ask questions about the enemy’s technical capabilities. I don’t understand most of their discussion, except for their agreement that the pirates have both advanced technology and information which they shouldn’t have.
Koah finishes with, “I got the distinct impression that they have a spy inside the Zebet. They kept alluding to confidential information. For one, they knew way too much about Ava.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like that you’re from Earth.” He pauses, as if reluctant to say the rest, but then he does. “And that there are uncertainties.”
“What uncertainties?” Roax demands.
But before Koah could answer, Uthan says, “I received communication shortly before we came in here that the Zebet is coming to Merim in order to confirm the Oath Forger.”
Because all the men suddenly stiffen, so do I.
“What does that mean?” I ask Uthan.
Anger tightens his mouth. The golden rings move with his eyebrows as he frowns. “You came to us under unusual circumstances. You were not awakened to your calling. It was simply a coincidence that Koah found you.” He hesitates. “And the Zebet has learned that you tried to run away. Twice.”
Koah’s head swings to me. “You tried to run away again?”
Roax gives a dark chuckle as he looks me over in that supremely irritating, superior way of his. “Can’t handle the heat, pet?”
I try to give him my best death glare, but I can’t. It’s impossible. His bottomless black gaze demands submission, and my body responds. I look down at my knees, catch myself, then force my gaze back to his.
“We are pushing her too hard,” Uthan speaks up for me. “She’s overwhelmed.”
“Was she hurt?” Koah demands, moving toward me.
Uthan clears his throat. Koah looks at the others and stops advancing on me, stays where he is, in the middle of the room. I have a feeling that it’s because of Roax. If Koah pulls me into his arms, Roax might react.
Because the air in the room is already too full of testosterone, I say, “I’m fine. Nothing happened.”
But then Tiam says, “She was taken off planet by pirates.”
Thank you, Tiam.
Koah growls at him. “Why in hell didn’t you guard her better?”
Tiam growls back. “Why in stars weren’t you here?”
“A better question is why did she run?” Roax adds in his lazy, mocking drawl.
I hear all of that only faintly. I’m still stuck on the fact that the Zebet is coming to confirm me, to confirm whether I’m truly the Oath Forger. And I’m most decidedly not.
The jig is up.
Crap! Now what?
I have to tell them. I meant to tell them earlier. When I left the palace, I meant to be gone only long enough to gather my thoughts in peace somewhere else. Then I was going to come back and level with the kreks.
I’m back now. And they’re all here. No time like the present.
My throat is so tight, I can barely swallow.
I wrap my arms around my knees and draw a deep breath. “I’m not the Oath Forger.” And because that came out embarrassingly weak, I repeat again, stronger. “I’m sorry. I’m not the Oath Forger.”
All gazes swing to me.
“Why would you think that you’re not?” Uthan asks, nothing on his face but an honest desire to understand.
Before I can explain, Tiam says, “You can’t have it both ways, Ava. You ran away from us because you doubted that our feelings for you were real. You thought we were simply ‘compelled’ to want you because you’re the Oath Forger. If you’re not the Oath Forger, we can’t be compelled.”
His cold logic stops the panicky loop of thoughts in my head. I stare at him. I replay what he’d just said. One word jumps out above all others.
Want.
My heart flutters. “You don’t truly want me.”
Dason immediately walks over to me and sits next to the stainless-steel table. Because it’s a small, low table, he is able to lean his head against my hip as he looks up into my eyes. “I want you, Oath Forger.”
My gaze cuts to Koah. He nods.
Tiam suddenly has his heart in his eyes.
Uthan looks mysterious. If he has feelings for me, he won’t show them. I know he’s trying not to overwhelm me, and I appreciate it.
“I, for one, am going to fight it,” Roax says in that cool, don’t-have-a-care-in-the-world tone of his. “On principle.”
And in the middle of all that tension, his words make me smile.
“Can you honestly say that you’re not attracted to us?” Uthan asks in a quiet, kind voice.
I drop my forehead onto my knees and leave it there as I shake my head. I swear I can feel relief filling the room.
I lift my gaze to the men. “I might feel attraction, but that doesn’t mean I have any idea what to do with all this. I don�
�t know how to be what you need me to be.”
“Just let it happen,” Koah suggests.
“Form a family with all five of you? Have your children? How does that even work? All of us in the same bed?”
“At least some of the time,” says Roax. “I have to say, I’m not a fan of the idea either. I’d much rather have you to myself, Ava Mine.”
I try to picture it. My enormous bed, and in it Roax, Koah, Tiam, Uthan, Dason and me. All of us naked. My brain threatens to explode again. I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Why?” It’s Roax who demands on explanation. Of course, it is.
“For one, Tiam and Uthan have lovers!”
I look at Koah. Do you? He looks away.
I feel numb. I feel like my heart is floating in ice water. I might as well know the full truth. My gaze returns to Roax.
He says deadpan, “I have multiple.”
I don’t know what emotions my face is showing, but when Koah speaks next, his voice is a gentle plea for understanding.
“None of that matters now,” he tells me. “No one who came before matters. Now there’s only you. There’ll never be anyone else. We had lovers who never fulfilled our deepest needs. We settled out of necessity. We didn’t dare hope that an Oath Forger would come.”
My cold, numb heart beats faster at his words. I’m a fool five times over.
“Why is this such a big deal?” Tiam’s tone is sheer exasperation. “So we are not all virgins. It’s not like you are a virgin, my Ava.”
The words erupt from deep inside me, propelled by a volcano of frustration, louder than I meant them, echoing off all the stainless-steel surfaces around us. “But I am!”
The world stops.
Dead silence.
Five stunned, sharp gazes snap to me. Five pairs of the most intense and focused eyes in the universe fill with so much heat, I suddenly can’t breathe.
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