Primal Heat

by Crystal Jordan

  “I know.” Her gray gaze flicked to him, but they were calm pools of silver that matched her clothing. They told him nothing, gave him no hope that he’d ever truly reach her. “Removing him from power is a nice way of saying you’re going to kill him.”

  He offered a nod. “Yes. One way or another, he will die for what he’s done. To my species and to yours. People on Earth have suffered because of him, too.”

  “Yes, they have.” Her shoulder dipped in a brief shrug. She bit her lip and her fingers slipped up and down her bare arm. He forced himself to look away. He wanted to kiss every inch of that creamy skin, wanted to strip the silver rishaami away until all of her was as bare as the one smooth arm.

  Her full lips compressed and she stared hard out the window. “You’ll leave as soon as Arthur’s taken care of?”

  “Of course.” Why would he tarry longer? He’d only come here for her. A pulse of her upset strummed along their connection, but he didn’t know what caused it.

  “I see.” Her head bowed, her forehead resting against the thick glass. “Your people must miss you. It’s your mother who’s serving as regent while you’re here, right?”

  “Yes, Empress Dowager Dhyaana.” His eyebrows drew together at the odd question, but better an innocuous conversation than horrible tension. Aside from the nightmares, the last few weeks had been far better than any since they’d first bonded. It was good to just have her here, to look at her and savor her presence.

  Jana turned to prop her shoulder against the window and crossed her arms. “She was okay with you leaving everything behind and having to rule?”

  “Not much upsets my mother. She’s like Farid that way.” He chuckled, a flash of his mother’s serious face going through his mind. “Though ruling Suen is something she’s used to. She was regent from the time I was twelve until I came of age. She’s ruled the planet longer than I have and done a fine job of it. I had no qualms leaving her in charge.”

  She tilted her head, and her red hair swung against her cheek. “Farid’s father killed himself after his One died. Were your parents Ones or just married?”

  It was odd to speak to anyone who didn’t know the entire history of each member of his family. Sueni children learned about them and could probably recite more facts and figures about him than he could remember about himself. He tapped a finger on the sleek metal surface of his desk. “It’s not unheard of for Ones to be unable to face life without each other, but my mother is possibly the strongest person I’ve ever known. She lost her One, dealt with a traumatized child and a rebellion, and held everything together.”

  “Never flinched, huh?” She hugged herself tight, her voice subdued, bleak. “She sounds perfect—just the kind of woman who should be an empress.”

  He didn’t understand the bleakness, but he’d talk about whatever she wanted to talk about. “Not perfect, but an amazing woman. She loved my father very much. I remember how they were together before he was killed. She was very different after that, sadder, more sober, but she never backed down, and that saved our people, our planet.”

  Perhaps his cousin was right that it was his father’s needling that made his mother loosen her control, made her laugh. He’d been so young when it all ended.

  “She must miss you.” Jana sighed, staring out the window again, this time toward the planet below them. Did she want to return so badly, then? His gut clenched tight with dread. Her voice went soft. “I can’t imagine going so long without seeing my parents.”

  “I miss her.” He tried to smile and failed. His mother had been his touchstone for most of his life, given him a model of control to emulate, especially after they’d lost his father. Something else to feel guilty about, his father’s death. He’d thought he’d outgrown it, but the cycle continued. He shook his head, groping for something else to think about. “Mother’s only demand was that I bring home a bride and preferably a grandchild or two.”

  “Or two?” Jana glanced at him for the briefest moment, her eyebrows arching. “She expected your One to be a baby-making machine?”

  He shrugged. “If I had found you as soon as I arrived, and if I’d managed to get you pregnant right away, we could have had a child by now.”

  “Yes. We could have.” Regret welled in her eyes and she returned her focus to Earth, refusing to look at him. He could see her face in the window’s reflection.

  Swallowing, he shifted in his seat, uncertain what to say. With the exception of his mother, there had been very few women he’d tried to connect with in his life. He’d never needed to. Without the easy bond he and Jana had once shared, he didn’t know how to get her to want to stay with him. How to break through and reach her was a question he couldn’t answer. “According to the royal vizier, if I survive long enough to father children, I’m supposed to have two.”

  “Your mother might be disappointed with only two.” Jana laughed softly. Her chin tucked to her chest, her eyes closing. “And did the vizier promise that those children would be with your One?”

  Every drop of blood drained from his face at the firm confirmation that she planned to leave him. He pressed his hands flat to the top of his desk to keep from toppling over with the pain of it. “No, he promised me nothing except that I would be emperor.”

  But there would be no children, no life, no future, no hope without her. There would be only his duty, his throne, his cold, empty existence.

  “Are these children supposed to be powerful Kith like you?” Conflicting emotions filtered through their link, hurt and longing and dread.

  His claws slid forward to scrape against the metal desk, the sound sending a chill down his spine. He cleared his throat, forced the words out. “Yes, one would rule Suen and the other would succeed the royal vizier.”

  She pulled in a deep breath and the emotions stopped flowing between them. Her tone was one of mild curiosity. “So, two boys, then?”

  “No, a boy and a girl.” He watched her closely for reaction. Her sharp withdrawal from their small connection pained him, one more demonstration of how hopeless it was for them. He could read her mind but refused to stoop so low. She deserved better than that from him. She deserved better than he’d given her for most of their time as a bonded pair. He sighed. “I’m not sure which would be the ruler and which would be the prophet. It’s not uncommon for a woman to be empress in her own right.”

  She finally met his gaze again, and her expression reflected genuine interest. “So, it’s the eldest child rather than the eldest male who inherits the throne?”

  He shook his head. “Not the eldest child, per se. It’s not even guaranteed to remain in my direct line—it can go to a child in another powerful family, usually related closely to the royal family—but more often than not it does run in the direct imperial line. The throne goes to the most powerful child in each generation. It’s all decreed by destiny, fate.” He rocked his hand back and forth through the air, trying to put into words what was so obvious, so entrenched, in his society. “Though, sometimes the destiny isn’t always clear, even to the most powerful vizier.”

  “That’s just…nothing like what I’m used to.”

  “Our cultures are very different.” He appreciated that about her, her differences from him, her unique perspective. If she went to Suen with him, she’d never be the kind of empress his mother had been, but she didn’t need to be. He just wanted her to be herself, and to be with him.

  “What happened to your dad?” She rolled her shoulders. “I felt a bit of upset when you thought of him.”

  Kyber swallowed, unprepared for the abrupt topic change, for the kick to his heart and conscience that came whenever he thought of the last time he’d seen his father. “He died.”

  “I caught that part.” She arched her eyebrows. “How? I remember…vaguely…from when we first bonded that it wasn’t a natural death.”

  Bracing himself for the wave of guilt that crashed over him, he met her gaze. “There was a rebellion in the empire when I was a c
hild. Ten, perhaps eleven. There’d been rumblings of one for years. There always are.”

  “People wanted out and you wouldn’t let them?” Her gaze narrowed and she propped her hands on her hips.

  He snorted. “No, you have to work very hard to get into the Imperial Alliance, but you can leave any time. It’s a federation of planets, not a dictatorship. This rebellion started as a protest against ill-treatment of Kin on one of the border worlds. Father was trying to sort it out peacefully but had little success. The behavior of the Kith on that planet was abhorrent. In the end, Father offered asylum to the Kin there and ended up bringing a motion to the Imperial Senate to revoke the planet’s membership.” He pinned his gaze to the desk before him, the events of that time lasered into his mind as clearly as if they had happened yesterday. He had the sick feeling that his time of imprisonment with Arthur would be much the same. “The ruling Kith of that world did not take the news well. Thus the rebellion.”

  She dropped her hands from her hips, her fingers brushing against her dress. “Did the senate kick out the planet?”

  “The vote went through after my father’s death.” A small, sour smile formed on his lips. “It was the first proclamation my mother made as regent.”

  “How did they kill him?” She pushed away from the window and stepped toward him, her soft boots making her steps a whisper against the floor.

  He let his head fall back against the chair, sighing. “You had to ask.”

  “Of course. This is a big deal to you.” She settled her hip against the edge of his desk, her scent enveloping him and making the beast writhe with the need to touch. “I remember that much from the short time I was in your head.”

  “Yes, you did see everything for a moment, didn’t you?” And he wanted her to see it all again, to know all of him, to let him know all of her. How would he survive being bonded to her from across the universe? It would be a thousand times worse than when he’d merely sensed her from Suen.

  “A very short moment. I don’t remember much since we were busy with…other things.” She didn’t define what other things she was talking about. Bonding. Sex. Hours upon hours of endless sex. Then her parents’ frantic pleas for her return, then his capture, then Arthur and the end of their bond. So swift a conclusion to something so bright with promise. Their love had scarcely had a chance to live before it died. Uncertainty flashed in her eyes, a return of the bleakness. “Unless you don’t want me to know. I would understand.”

  “It’s not that,” he hastened to reply. “It’s not a pleasant memory.”

  “Tell me.” Her fingertips brushed over the back of his hand, the first physical contact he’d had with her since the day she’d tried to commit suicide. The reminder sent contradictory feelings racing through him, icy fear for what had almost happened then, and white-hot lust for the deeper contact he craved now.

  He dragged in a deep breath. “One day, I sneaked out on my aileron—a single-person vessel like our fighter wings, but without the weapons. I was soaring above Suen’s highest mountain range, playing, having a bit of fun for once. I just wanted to have a moment where I wasn’t the prince, the heir apparent to the throne.”

  “That’s understandable.” She folded her fingers around his hand. “Even when they don’t mean to, our parents can put a lot of pressure on us to be what they think we should be.”

  “Yes, but pressure doesn’t make up for what happened. My father came after me himself, worried about the threats he’d been getting from the rebels.” He cleared his throat, forced himself to finish telling the tale. “They killed the Guardians with him first. Father…They…fired at him, disabled his aileron. He knew he was going down, so he crashed his ship into them rather than give them the chance to come for me.” Sweat slid down his face, and his voice was hoarse. “I can still hear him screaming through the comm. Feel through our connection that agonizing last moment of heat and violence from the explosion, the scent of his flesh burning. And my mother’s grief, her realization of what happened.”

  His stomach heaved and he stared blindly in front of him, not seeing the furnishings of his office, but the flaming ball of melting metal hitting a snowy mountainside.

  Jana’s hand tightened on his, her grip almost painful, pulling him back to the present. “Why were they after you?”

  “Because I was meant to rule. The viziers prophesied it.” He swallowed the bile, the self-blame. “I was young enough to be…malleable. Be taught the order of things with Kith and Kin, who should be master and who should be slave. If they couldn’t capture me, they’d kill us both and end the imperial line.”

  “Jesus,” she breathed. Her nails dug into his palm, tears welling in her eyes.

  He jerked his gaze away from her, unable to bear the sympathy. His words were a harsh rasp. “He sacrificed himself for me. My own father, gone. Because of me, because of my destiny, because I snuck out and was irresponsible.”

  Her free hand cupped his face, slid into his hair, urging him to look at her. “You would do the same for your own child. What parent wouldn’t?”

  “They could have had more children. He and my mother could have been happy.” How could he ever honor such a sacrifice? His father’s for dying for him, and his mother’s for living for him when it would have been so much easier to follow her One to the grave. Every mistake he made was an insult to them, to all they had done for him. He checked that thought, stopping it. Giving himself no leeway for human mistakes wouldn’t help him not make them anymore. Something else his cousin was right about. Something else he needed to learn. The realization didn’t stop the guilt.

  She stroked her fingers over his jaw. “We are so alike, you and I. We both have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. You expect yourself to be perfect because your father died, I expected myself to never show anyone when things weren’t perfect because my brother died.”

  As she had with him, he’d sensed this was a sore point for her, a raw wound, and he desperately wanted to talk about something, anything but his parents. “Tell me.”

  “I just…tried to be this perfect person for them, so they didn’t have to worry about me. But I always knew it was a lie, and it taught me to cover up everything bad. I always knew inside that I failed to be what they needed, whether they saw it or not.” Her eyes were sad, the gray of a storm-tossed sea. Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Like I failed you.”

  He was on his feet, her arms in his hands, towering over her before she had time to blink. He shook her. “You did not fail me. You saved me. If anything, I failed you. Failed you as a man, as a protector, as a One.”

  “We both failed then, because I didn’t save you.” She shook her head, her lips set in a stubborn line. “Bren and Farid and Johar and Tylara found you and made the plan that saved you. I was dead weight.”

  That kind of talk made alarm roar through him. “Jana, you can’t—”

  “I want to live, Kyber. Don’t worry. It’s not that.” But her gaze was still shadowed with old pains. “It’s just…I’m in touch with reality, okay? Let’s not make me into something I’m not.”

  “And what are you?”

  “I’m just me.” That bare shoulder twitched in a shrug. “No one special.”

  “No one special?” He shook his head, incredulity sliding through him. “Jana, have you heard nothing I’ve said? You were destined to be an empress. You were always special.”

  She sniffed. “That’s got nothing to do with me. That’s just who you are. I didn’t do anything to make that happen.”

  “Neither did I. I was born to be the emperor, Jana. I did nothing to earn it. It was my destiny. My father died because it was my destiny.” He moved his hand to her face, brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheek. “And you were destined to be my empress. You were always going to be special to me.”

  But not special enough to keep.

  Jana kept the thought to herself, unable to put voice to the pain that had grown within her for days. She could finall
y admit that things weren’t okay with her, and it was an amazing relief. Kyber hadn’t turned away from her. He was fine with her being…who she was. She’d liked being useful again, having duties that were her own and not just hand-me-downs from him. It gave her a sense of purpose. She liked that. She’d missed it.

  She’d also been frustrated as hell.

  Kyber stroked his fingers over her face, and her body heated. He hadn’t had sex with her since she’d tried to kill herself. At first, she’d worried that it meant he didn’t want her anymore, that her actions had sickened him and turned him away from her forever. However, he’d left the connection open enough that she could tell how desperate he was to touch her. He just…stopped himself, held back, caged the need. It was because of the guilt, because he worried about losing control of the beast, because he worried about hurting her.

  He ate with her, talked with her, spent time with her, but he didn’t sleep with her. He hadn’t once brought up the subject of her remaining with him. Now that he’d pointed it out, she felt the impenetrable barricades that kept their connection from breaking wide open. The link between them was no longer pinched, and he wasn’t closing her out, but it also wasn’t what it had been when they first bonded. They had, essentially, called a ceasefire and retreated to their own sides.

  On the one hand, it was good to have some quiet peace. It had been a long time since she’d had anything even close to tranquility in her life. She was the only one in her head, and it gave her time to think, to reflect, to begin to heal. The memories of Arthur were where they belonged—in the past, something that had happened months ago. She had some emotional distance now, they weren’t a constant parade through her mind. She’d broken down some of those others walls that Kyber had mentioned, shoring up others that would give her a buffer from the worst of what she’d been through. Not denying it had happened, but not centering her every waking moment around it either.