He looked to Tylara, his military commander. She was quiet for a long moment. “I would suggest that the Vishra’s sister ship, the Jagata, be the one to stay. It is the one most able to defend itself, should anything happen. I also believe that as we journey home, we should establish communication imager relays so that we’re not cut off from Earth entirely.”
“Agreed.” Kyber slid his hands in his pockets and sensed their approval in his plan, their relief to have a mission to accomplish. A sigh eased out of his throat. One problem solved, but so many other questions still to answer.
Mythri’s eyebrows arched. “What does the empress think of your plan, sire?”
“She doesn’t know about it.” The empress thought he was a monster. He forced a wide smile as he stood to indicate the meeting was over. “I’m afraid this is an idea that’s only just become concrete enough to mention. As Her Majesty is recovering from a sparring lesson with Lady Arjun, I haven’t had time to speak to her about it.”
Tylara snorted. “Hardly a lesson at this point, sire. Your One is a quick study. Bren has to work to stay ahead.”
Rising from his seat, Farid turned for the door. His eyes twinkled. “It’s good for my One to have a challenge from someone she knows isn’t holding back on her.”
“She has the Kin Guardians for that, too.” Tylara brushed at the sleeves of her dark blue uniform as she followed Farid. She glanced at Kyber. “The empress did quite well while you were away, Your Majesty. Not just with learning to fight. She’s made an excellent impression on all my staff. Johar says the Guardians quite like her as well.”
The Royal Guardians would protect and serve the imperial family whether they were likeable or not, but hearing Tylara compliment anyone was unusual.
“I agree. Farid and I have been training her with the diplomatic corps, and I’ve been most impressed with how quick a study she is.” Mythri’s smile was kind and sincere.
“I have no objection to your new plan, sire. I think it’s excellent.” Worry flashed over Haakesh’s normally good-humored expression, and his One tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. He spoke plainly, as was his nature. Kyber had always liked that about him, until now. “However, I think I speak for everyone when I say that we respect your One very much, but it has been noted that she’s withdrawn from her duties and her interactions with the public since your return. She seems unhappy, and we’re concerned that the reunion of the imperial couple has not been as amicable as we might hope. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances, but I’ve heard rumblings in the fleet that the reason we didn’t leave as soon as you returned is because you may decide to leave the empress on Earth, thus defeating the purpose of our expedition. I’m sure our new mission will curtail that rumor, but…” He drew a breath and let it out, covering his One’s hand with his. “I hope, for your sake and Empress Jana’s, that you can find some peace between you.”
“I’ll take all of that into consideration.” What else could Kyber say? He had threatened to dump Jana back on Earth and leave her at Arthur’s mercy. Not that he could ever have followed through with the thought. Even at the height of his rage, he couldn’t imagine doing such a thing to anyone. He wasn’t that cruel.
He sighed. Jana. Anun, their bond was a tangled mess he’d never undo. Listening to his people sing her praises stung. While he wasn’t here, she had become the woman he’d always known she was capable of being. A leader, respected and obeyed by beings vastly more powerful than she was. It was unsettling to know that she was more perfect for an emperor now than she ever had been, but he was less a ruler than he had ever been. And she wanted to be rid of him. He snarled, the beast awakening with a vengeance, dragging him to his basest instincts. Every time he thought he had a handle on it, it slammed into him when he least expected it. The memories, the horror, the agony. Of what Arthur had done to him, of what Jana had done with Arthur.
He froze, hissing as every sense went on alert. His claws and fangs slid forward as the power within him reacted to an attack that wasn’t forthcoming. The group still standing in his doorway turned back to stare at him in confusion, and Kyber shook his head. Some painful awareness awakened within him. Something pressed against his skin, as if pins were digging into his flesh. It niggled at the back of his mind, like a memory he couldn’t recall or a word that hovered on the tip of his tongue. He rolled his shoulders, pushing the sensation away.
But it wouldn’t be denied. Soon the niggle became a tug and the tug became an urgent yank that sent pain shooting through his skull. He groaned, bending forward and catching his hands on his knees. He might have kept right on going all the way to the floor if Farid hadn’t moved forward to grab his shoulder and hold him upright. Somewhere in the distance, he heard Farid’s voice shouting. People erupted into the corridor outside his office, diving into action. Answering Farid’s call? Kyber didn’t know, that hot blade slicing through his mind obliterated anything else.
And then he understood.
It was the connection with his One, ripping wide open, shoving past the barriers he’d erected to confine it, block it.
He saw through Jana’s eyes as she picked up his razer from the table by the wall, felt her resolve, realized without a shadow of a doubt what she was going to do.
“Noooo.” The sound that wrenched from his throat was that of a wounded animal, tripping over a low sob.
Jerking free of Farid’s grip, Kyber shoved his way out the door and spun for the stairway that would lead him down to the level with his chambers. He couldn’t wait for the multiveyor. His arms and legs pumped as he sprinted faster than he ever had in his life, pouring on every ounce of his superhuman speed, leaping down the stairs, desperation whipping through him.
Jana, no. Don’t do this. I forbid it. The tone was his most royal edict, words that should be obeyed without question.
He felt her derisive snort through their connection, sensed that she was shoring up her own defenses against his mental commands.
He was losing her.
His lungs burned with strain, sweat sliding down his face to burn his eyes. He reached the right level and shot out into the hallway. Every muscle in his body screamed with the imperative to reach her, to stop her, to save her.
Please, Jana. But he knew she no longer listened.
Rounding the last corner, he made the door fly open with a single thought and raced through, his hand already outstretched to rip the gun from her hand. The gun she’d pressed against her temple.
She’d already pulled the trigger, and the weapon discharged as it flew through the air, blowing a hole in the sanitation room door.
“No!” She leapt for the razer and missed, hitting the floor hard on her knees as a helpless, hopeless sob ripped from her. She was still naked and damp from their shower. Tears sheened her beautiful grey eyes as she stared up at him.
Relief wound through him as the weapon landed safely in his palm. He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed, struggling to catch his breath, to understand that he had gotten there in time. He’d never been more terrified in his life, not even when Arthur’s men had captured him.
“Give me the gun back, Kyber.”
“No.” Horror fisted inside him, and he stumbled back a step, clutching his razer tight.
“Please, Kyber. You want this. I want this. Hell, every Sueni you dragged with you wants this. Just give me the gun and walk away. That’s all you have to do. Just walk away.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “P-please, Kyber. Please.”
He shook his head so hard, his hair whipped into his eyes. “No one else wants this, Jana.”
“Yes, they do.” Her laugh was a harsh, painful sound. “You think it’s easy to hold my head up? You think it’s fun knowing that everyone who walks by me knows I whored myself out? That everyone thinks I was an idiot?”
“They don’t think that.” The words were especially bitter after the conversation he’d had in his office. “You obviously have no idea what they’re thinking.”
<
br /> “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.” Her eyes focused on the razer in his hands, a longing in her gaze so keen it sliced through him. Her voice was a low sob of air. “Our connection was so perfect, so pure. I hate myself for what I did to us. We’re broken. I broke us. I can’t live with myself anymore, Kyber. I can’t.” She swallowed, her fingers trembling as she lifted them toward him. “Give me the gun back.”
He gathered the power within him, focusing on the metal of the weapon, and made it shatter into a thousand unrecognizable pieces. He dropped them to the floor. “You will not kill yourself using my weapon. You will not kill yourself at all.”
A low cry of pain spilled from her as the razer turned to little more than metallic dust. “I did everything I said I would do. I saved you from Arthur, brought you back to your people, now just let me finish it.” Her palms pressed together in supplication. “I just want it to be over. It’ll all be okay for everyone then.”
“It will never be finished between us, Jana.” The words, the truth, jerked out of him while his body still trembled with shock. He’d almost lost her. His One. “It’ll never be okay without you.”
“I’ll beg. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’ll beg, Kyber.” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Her every emotion spilled out. Her pain, her desperation, her deep, terrifying loneliness. She was open to him as she hadn’t been since before Arthur.
He groped his way along the connection between them as he stepped toward her cautiously and laid a hand on her bent head. She shuddered and he felt how she tried to writhe away from the automatic reaction to her One’s touch. He refused to allow himself satisfaction that she couldn’t escape it any more than he could. Instead he followed the dark streaks of pain that flowed through her mind. It was unnatural, this anguish.
When he ran up against a wall in her thoughts, it took him a moment to understand what he was looking at. This wasn’t a barrier erected by her. It was shoved there…by him.
What she’d said about the bruise that never healed, that always returned, rushed back to haunt him. Horror exploded inside him as he realized exactly what he had done. In the moment of her betrayal, in his deepest moment of agony, he’d forced a block into her mind. And there it still rooted deep in her subconscious like a festering sliver, forcing her to relive what Arthur had done to her all day, every day. Literally. Her mind would have made every moment of it real. How his fists had struck her, how he’d hurt and humiliated her, how his fingers had wrapped around her throat to choke her and make her fight him, how he had loved the power her fear gave him.
Bile rose in Kyber’s throat as those violations poured through him, as he lived them with her. How had she survived like this? How had she held on? How had she kept from going insane all these months? He didn’t know. He only knew it took a strength he wasn’t certain he possessed himself. And he, her One, the person she was most defenseless against, had done this to her. Made her endure it over and over and over again.
Guilt so great it threatened to consume him crashed into him, rocking him back on his heels. His knees buckled and he crashed to the floor before her. “What have I done?”
Only her tears answered him. He closed his eyes, rested his forehead on her damp hair, and focused his power on the mental barricade he’d made. Grasping the ugly splinter, he tugged gently. It held firm. She shuddered, each of her sobs flaying him open like a blade. The beast within flailed helplessly at its mate’s pain. He ripped the sliver out with a sharp pull. Her hoarse scream echoed off the walls in their room and she collapsed against him, the darkness trapped within her flooding both their minds. He gritted his teeth, cradled her close, and rode out the storm, absorbing as much of her torment as he could.
“I’m sorry, Jana. I’m so sorry.” He rocked her, stroking his fingers through her short, silky hair. He’d never felt so unworthy to hold her. How could she have borne his touch the last week? She humbled him, just by being who she was. His One. He shook his head. No. He didn’t deserve to call himself that anymore. However inadvertent his actions had been, his betrayal was far greater than hers could ever have been. He kissed the back of her head, felt her stir against him, her mind finally grasping what had happened, what he had done to her, why she’d been unable to put the past behind her. If nothing else, at least now she could heal. He was glad for that but braced himself for the kind of vitriol he’d spewed at her.
“It was…it was because of you?” Through their bond, he felt the swift rush of her relief at the end of the misery, the shaky realization that it wasn’t something fundamentally wrong with her that had made her slowly lose touch with sanity.
He swallowed, wishing more than anything that he could change how all of this had gone. Starting with the moment he’d reached this planet. He’d made so many mistakes, had cost so many people so much. Easing her out of his embrace, he looked her in the eye when he confessed what he had done. “Yes, I…I forced you to relive it.” He shook his head, his hair sliding over his shoulders. “I’m so sorry…I didn’t know.”
A wan smile crossed her pale features, but the storm clouds had cleared from her silver eyes. “You were being tortured at the time.”
“That’s hardly an excuse for torturing you for months.” He shook his head, dropping his hands from her shoulders so he no longer touched her. The beast mewled at the loss of contact with its mate. His stomach lurched as he thought of the rough treatment he’d given her whenever he’d had any kind of contact with her since his return, how he’d made her beg before he’d allow her pleasure. He swallowed the gorge in his throat, and moved to rise, sickened by his own actions.
Panic flared through their link, and her fingers bunched in his tunic. She swayed toward him. Her eyes were so wide, they threatened to eclipse her face. “Don’t…leave me alone like this. Please.”
“I won’t.” He covered her hands with his, disengaged her fingers from his shirt, and lifted her palms to his mouth to kiss them. “I won’t. Unless you’d prefer someone else stay with you. I can send for them.”
“No.” The anxiety spiked again, vehemence lacing her tone. Naked vulnerability shone on her face. “I don’t want anyone else.”
Closing his eyes, he let the sweet relief explode through him. He felt as if he’d been spared a trip to the executioner. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”
“Good,” she whispered. She tugged her hands from his and leaned in until she could wrap her arms around him and press her cheek to his chest. “Hold me.”
Yes. He needed that, too. More than the sex, more than even getting her to talk to him, he’d craved that closeness. It was why he’d searched for her so long, why he’d left everything behind to find her. He was completely unworthy to touch her, but if she wanted his arms around her, he would give her what she wanted. His palms slipped up and down her naked back, her skin cool and smooth under his palm.
They stayed there for a long, long time. He sent her pulses of comfort through their link, letting a low purr rumble in his chest to relax her. His eyes drifted closed and he sighed. It had been so long since he’d felt…calm. Quiet. Peaceful. He smiled, remembering Haakesh’s words.
Jana’s hands stroked his back in slow circles. His purr deepened, the feline loving her petting as much as the man did. She shivered, burrowing deeper into him. “Mmm. I’m cold.”
Pulling back a bit to brush a hand down her hair, he offered a little grin. “Well, you are naked and on a metal floor.”
“I know where I am.” The dreaminess evaporated from her voice, and she wrinkled her nose.
“Right, then. I missed my invitation to change the situation. My humblest apologies.” He kept his tone light and teasing and was rewarded by her sweet giggle. He gathered her into his arms, carrying her to their bed. Laying her on the gelpad, he pulled the bedclothes up to cover her nudity. “Let me get a chair.”
“No.” Her fingers closed spasmodically over his wrist. “Stay with me.”
“All right.” He
offered her a reassuring smile before he bent to remove his boots and then settled onto the gelpad beside her.
She rolled into his arms, and he caught her close. The beast reveled in the feminine scent of her skin, wanting to renew the bond between them, to allow no barriers ever again. The man knew that she’d been through so much, that wasn’t the best thing for her. She would need time, space. To think, to consider, to reconsider everything they were to each other and how they would move forward from here. If she even wanted to move forward. At this point, it might not even be possible to move forward. Some things that were broken could never be fixed. Their connection might be one of those things. He couldn’t be sure, and that terrified him, kicked him in the stomach, and he suppressed a groan. Leaning away from her, he stroked her hair away from her face. She stared up at him with those serious gray eyes, and he tried to smile at her but couldn’t manage it.
She was so beautiful. Emotion cinched tight around his heart. How would he ever live without her if the harsh reality of morning brought the decision that she’d rather not stay with a man who’d hurt her? What if she was determined to remain on Earth when this was all over? Once Arthur was gone, there would be no threat to her. If she wanted to stay, he wouldn’t stop her, and emperor or not, he knew he’d never deserve her again. If he ever had in the first place. He’d been so arrogant, so presumptuous. She was his One; therefore, she was his and only his, just as he was hers. Every other experience paled in comparison to connecting with her. When they’d bonded, he’d known she agreed with him, that they were in perfect unison.
Now, he didn’t know anything for certain. Not with her. Would she want to keep him? Should he keep her? Wouldn’t she be better off without him, leaving in the past all that being his One had put her through? He’d survived all that Arthur had to offer, the beatings, the blood, the numbing of his psychic gifts, but it was sheer torment to even consider surviving the loss of his One. She was strong enough to heal, to dismantle the walls she’d built to isolate herself from all she’d been forced to feel, to be whole without him, and he would be broken and alone all the days of his life. But he was the emperor. Shouldn’t he do everything in his power to make sure those under his protection had what they needed?
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