by Chloe Cox
Every eye in the room turned to look at Andromeda.
Kragen growled. But he held fast.
“And who is she?” the queen asked.
“My mate,” Kragen said. “Andromeda Knowles.”
The queen’s expression barely changed at those words. But the entire room came to alert.
“And does this Andromeda Knowles know where you are hiding Runevok ka Davos?” the queen said eventually.
This time Kragen did not suppress his growl. It rumbled throughout the room, reverberating down the walls.
“I will not betray my brother,” he said. “And neither will she.”
“You betrayed him when you broke rivka,” a young Leonid spat from somewhere behind the prince. “You betrayed us all!”
Kragen let his gaze fall on the young Leonid. A trainee, perhaps, or a new graduate of guard training. A pup.
Kragen could drain him of his kuma in but a moment. The hunger told him to. The hunger screamed that his mate was near.
He bared his fangs.
“Stop!”
It was Andromeda. The sound of her voice calmed him, and at the same time hardened his cock.
The queen smiled this time, and waved a single hand. The young impertinent Leonid staggered visibly, as though he’d been struck.
“Speak, Andromeda Knowles,” the queen said.
This time, Kragen forced himself to look at his mate. It might be the last time he ever saw her. So he turned to look at her, and the bond between them, head on.
She was so godsdamned beautiful.
The fire within raged. The hunger roared. And the rest of him…loved.
He loved this human female.
Kragen saw it now. What he’d seen the times he’d drank her kuma, what he’d seen of her heart—that was all real. If it had just been the hunger driving him, he would have claimed her long ago, consequences be damned. The hunger did not have a conscience. It was an animal, a primal thing. It did not care if Andromeda lost her home. It did not care if she had her eyes open when she chose to submit.
Kragen did.
As he looked at her the need for her swirled inside him, snarling, a savage thing caged only by how he felt. He did not just see beauty in her eyes. He saw the amount of love she could carry, the gentleness, the bravery of someone who was physically weak but stood strong with a warrior’s heart. He saw the face she made as she was overcome with pleasure. He saw everything.
The only thing holding him back, the last thread of his Dominant control, was the promise he had made to her.
I will not harm you. You will have your say.
“Speak,” he said, echoing the queen.
Andromeda swallowed. But she stood straight, and she stood tall. And she looked right at the queen.
“Kragen did what he did for the greater good,” she said. “He found a drug that can slow the progression of the kravok. He wanted to save his brother, but he wanted to save all of you, too. I know breaking rivka is a taboo, but to me…”
She hesitated, and looked at Kragen. He curled his massive hands into fists, but stood still.
“To me, it means he would do anything for family.”
“And how do you know all this, Andromeda Knowles?” the queen asked.
“Because I’m his mate,” Andromeda said. “I don’t understand how or why, but I know it’s true.”
And she peeled back what remained of her dress to fully reveal the mating mark on her breast. As Kragen saw it, it began to glow with his. He could feel the heat from where he stood.
“And yet you are unclaimed,” the queen said, smiling. “I find it hard to believe that a Leonid would leave his true mate unclaimed this long.”
“Then I’ll prove it,” Andromeda said.
And before he could order her to stay still, she took the few steps to Kragen, reached out her hand, and touched his face.
For a second, Kragen was consumed with heat. With fire. With light, emanating from the very place where she touched him. He was aware, on the edge of his perception, that the room filled with a bright, white light, that every Leonid there reached for his weapon, that only the queen remained unafraid. He was also aware that the queen was insane.
Because Kragen was hanging on by a single thread of honor.
And then, suddenly, she was gone.
Andromeda dropped her hand, and stepped away. Kragen shook with the effort of holding it in—but he did not move. He did not break.
He would not break.
“My Gods,” the queen whispered. “Why have you not claimed her, Commander?”
His voice rang deep and rough.
“I knew what I had done,” he said. “She could not know. She will not be harmed.”
It was all he could manage, in words. Words were fading. His knowledge that Andromeda could not submit unless she understood the consequences was fading. What he knew as Kragen was fading.
Control was fading.
All that would be left soon was the alpha. The Dominant. The animal hunger.
The queen, however, looked to Andromeda—and laughed in amazement.
“This must be excruciating for him,” she said. “You cannot know, of course.”
Andromeda’s brow furrowed and she glared at the queen. Glared. Even in his fever, Kragen was amazed.
“You don’t know what I know,” Andromeda said. “And even if you don’t agree with me that Kragen is a hero, you must know that everyone on Earth will have seen the video of us by now. Everyone knows we have a mating bond—the first human-Leonid mating bond. And pretty soon everyone will know what the real consequences of the mating sickness are, too. And it’s pretty obvious you have your own political problems with the treaty, unless I hallucinated that assassination attempt fifteen minutes ago.”
The room held its breath. Even Prince Rhazian seemed shocked. Kragen wanted to laugh. He had never been prouder.
“This is my real offer,” Andromeda went on. “You let Kragen live. You honor him, for what he did for all of you. You let Rune live, too, and you treat him with the drug Kragen found.”
The queen leaned against one of the armrests on her throne, still smiling, still watching Andromeda.
“Do you know that no one has seen a Leonid male with an unfulfilled mating bond for over a hundred years?” the queen said. “I saw it once, when I was very young. There were very few survivors. I suspect, Andromeda Knowles, that if you required it, this entire ship would go down in flames, and you would remain unharmed.”
Andromeda blinked. Kragen closed his eyes, for just a moment. He saw it. If the queen decided against him, he saw himself doing it. Destroying everything within his grasp, everything but Andromeda. Falling to Earth with her in his arms, claiming her in a protective shield as they plummeted through the skies…
“I definitely do not require it,” Andromeda said very loudly.
“You are intelligent, human,” the queen said. “Which is good, because you will need to be. It is true that a treatment, as you call it, will be beneficial. I grant your requests regarding Runevok ka Davos. As to what we do with your Kragen…”
And at this, the queen finally looked at him. Kragen could feel her presence, the power in it, the result of a long, long mating bond with a mate who was her equal, strong enough to keep her bonded to a king who was far, far away. She was smiling.
“That rather depends,” the queen said.
“On what?” Andromeda said.
Their voices began to fade as another wave of hunger rose within his chest. Kragen had been fighting it since he looked at her again. Andromeda was the most beautiful female to ever exist, and he would not look away again. Her eyes flashed with determination, and her heart swelled with love and concern, even for those who would do her harm. Her brown hair fell around her shoulders as she argued with the queen, giving only brief hints of her slender neck. Her shoulders were back, her chest proud, her breasts full and demanding to be touched.
Through it all, her mating mark burn
ed.
No Leonid had endured this. No Leonid could endure this. But he would, for her.
The outside world began to fall away as Kragen felt another onrush of need sweep through him. He would not look away from her, but he would remind himself. No matter what happened, a female who did not understand her choices could not truly submit. And Andromeda knew nothing of the consequences. Didn’t she?
He could only see her now. Moving in slow motion. Her lips plump and inviting, her curves demanding of his attention. Her scent on his tongue.
She knows nothing.
She reached up to push a piece of hair behind her ear, revealing the two marks where his fangs had met her neck. Kragen made fists of his hands.
She knows nothing.
Andromeda turned, then, briefly, to look at him. His blood pounded a desperate rhythm in his head, his hands, his cock.
She knows nothing…
And then, he heard. The only thing that could have cut through his fever, clear as a bell.
“But you have not been prepared for mating,” the queen was saying.
“I’m tired of people saying that,” Andromeda said fiercely. “I know more about it than any human alive, at this point. I saw. I don’t know what I saw, but…”
She stopped, and turned back to Kragen. She looked into his eyes, and the bond between them flared white-hot. A link directly to his soul. To hers.
“I saw, when you drank from me,” she said. “I know what they’ll do to you. I know I’ll share in it. I know everything I need to know. And I know what my heart says.”
“Well,” the queen said, “my decision—”
But she never got to finish.
Kragen’s roar swallowed everything.
28
Andie had never felt anything like it in her entire life. Hell, she hadn’t even felt anything like it in the past forty-eight hours, and that was really saying something.
In that tunnel, after the explosion, after Kragen and Prince Rhazian had taken out all of those other Leonids, when Kragen pinned her against the wall…
She would have given in. She would have submitted unconditionally in that moment. She had needed it, more than she’d needed her next breath.
It was raw, and hot, and elemental. The bond between them had been so strong that she’d felt what he felt, and it had nearly knocked her to the floor. The weight of that desire, of that drive—she’d become a mindless animal. She’d needed him, and she hadn’t cared about the consequences. She hadn’t cared about anything at all beyond finding relief in his cock.
And then Kragen had pulled away.
Andie still didn’t understand how. Now they were walking, quickly, through a secret emergency tunnel, escorted by the Royal Guard and the queen herself, to the royal chambers, where…something would happen. Andie would make her pitch to save Kragen and Rune, basically. And then…who knew what would happen next?
She tried to focus, but the sudden rupture between her and Kragen had left her feeling cold and injured. It had been like losing, briefly, a part of herself. And now the bond was still there, but duller, and she knew that he was somehow blocking it.
What she’d felt in the tunnel…did he feel that all the time? How did he live with it?
And if he’d claimed her, like that…well, she didn’t want him to claim her because they were drunk with the hunger. She’d never know if it was real. Maybe it was childish, but she wanted to know that Kragen had chosen her.
He’s not choosing you. He’s made that very clear.
But before Andie could give herself that particular pep talk for the millionth time, the Royal Guard ahead of them came to a sudden stop.
The other Leonids, including even the queen, gave her a wide berth, even in the small space of the tunnel. Kragen was next to her, as he always was. Protective. Hulking. Andie could feel waves of hunger and desire and just maleness radiating off of him, and it made her weak every time she took a breath.
“We have arrived,” the queen announced behind her. “The guard will clear the royal chambers, and we will proceed.”
Andie snuck a glance up at the Leonid queen. Her name was Vana, and she was freaking gorgeous. And ageless. And well over six feet tall. She was a lighter shade of purple than her son, Prince Rhazian, but with the same silver hair. And the queen’s eyes were a dazzling, brilliant green.
Andie had no real justification for feeling this way, but somehow, knowing that the Leonids were led by a queen—and this queen—made her feel better about the whole Leonid Dominance thing. So they weren’t entirely space cavemen, and they weren’t like the dominant men she’d known on Earth.
Remember he’s not claiming you…
She shook her head, and followed Kragen into the center of what turned out to be a huge, beautifully decorated room. The room itself was oval, with a domed ceiling, and was lit by actual floating lights that swarmed along the walls, shifting colors, undulating, coming together and breaking apart. It was beautiful. So beautiful that, for a moment, Andie was transfixed.
And then she felt Kragen near her.
She looked up at him, even though she was afraid, every time she did, that she’d fall back into that animal state. God. He was so handsome. Had he always been this handsome? Andie was always so transfixed by those hypnotic silver eyes, and the things he said, and the things he did, but…
He wasn’t too bad to look at, either. Strong jaw, hard defined cheekbones, heavy brow.
Just looking at him, even with the dulled bond, she felt so much better. Andie sighed, and stepped a little closer. His presence wasn’t just comforting; it was somehow strengthening her. Even through the wall he’d put up between them since the tunnel, she could feel him.
And she understood now. Now that she’d felt that, back in the tunnel. She understood why he wanted to protect her, all this time. Because if she could feel all that, what would she feel if they executed him?
She shuddered.
Kragen noticed. He looked down, his eyes scanning her for harm, for worry. He couldn’t turn it off entirely, either.
Andie looked straight ahead, at the throne that the queen was now occupying. There was another throne next to hers, and Andie got the sense it hadn’t been empty for that long. So there was a king, somewhere. That was good to know. She took note, and filed it away for possible use. Because she was about to have to sell the Queen of the Leonids on an impossible ask.
Pardon Kragen. Pardon Rune. Save them both.
And since Kragen didn’t want her, if Andie was lucky, they could find a way to painlessly sever the mating bond. And then…
Andie didn’t want to think about what was next. She thought about Gramzy instead. And Gramzy would tell her to put one foot in front of the other until it was time to kick ass.
So she did it.
Andie argued with a freaking queen.
At one point she even touched Kragen, just to prove beyond a doubt that they were mates, even if he hadn’t claimed her yet. She hated having to do it, knowing that Kragen would feel it so much more intensely than she did while he dulled the bond between them. But she found she had complete faith in his self-control. He was a true Dom, after all. And she had needed to prove it to the whole room.
No one else needed to know that he didn’t really want her. That he didn’t think she knew enough, or was enough, or freaking something.
It was like an out-of-body experience. Andie watched herself argue and work some freaking magic that her grandmother would have been damn proud of, and the whole time she was feeling the bond with Kragen, feeling the strength she got from it.
Feeling it as though at any minute, she might lose it forever.
And then the queen’s voice cut through to her like the sharpest, deadliest blade.
“But you have not prepared to be a Leonid mate,” the queen said, her eyebrow arched. “How can you possibly know whether this is what you want?”
And Andie got pissed off.
She didn’t totally rem
ember what she said. But she remembered yelling.
And then suddenly Kragen was roaring.
The entire room went silent as Kragen erupted from his self-imposed waking slumber. He had been mostly silent this whole time, and Andie knew it was because he was fighting the hunger with all of his might. But now he exploded with silvery light, glowing with heat. With the hunger.
His eyes locked on Andie, and she shivered.
“Well, that is more like it,” the queen said dryly from her throne. “I think, Andromeda Knowles, you better finish what you were saying, and you better do it very, very quickly.”
Andie swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. Right. No pressure. For a moment, Andie froze. And then she remembered her grandmother.
Trust your heart.
“I know no one thinks I’m capable of understanding mating bonds and the risks and the consequences of being Kragen’s mate, or whatever,” Andie said, “but I now know more about it than any human female alive. I know Kragen sacrificed for me. I know a consummated bond would mean I’d feel his pain as well as his joy. And I know…none of you know. None of you know what I’ve felt, through that bond. I know. I know him. I understand. And…”
Andie swallowed, unable to say it. Because she wanted him. She wanted to submit to the Dom who’d made her come so hard she’d blacked out. She wanted to go on more adventures with the warrior who’d protected her. And she wanted to share her life with the soul she’d felt through that bond.
She wanted it all. And she wasn’t going to get it. So she couldn’t bring herself to speak.
But Kragen could.
“Leave us,” he shouted, his voice booming through out the oval room. “Now.”
His command was meant for everyone but Andie. But his eyes were fixed on her. He took a deep breath, his massive chest expanding, and while the Royal Guard scurried in her peripheral vision, he began to walk toward her.
Andie was rooted to the spot, unable to look away, unable to move. Only her heart moved, beating hard in her chest as the bond between them began to open.