by Mira Maxwell
My favorite part of sex with him is quickly becoming the time just after we both come. He kisses me passionately while he slowly moves inside of me, drawing out every second of pleasure. Neither of us wants to break the connection that we’ve formed.
I’m still lost in my pleasure, letting my hands roam his body and letting my lips kiss him freely. He breaks our kiss and his head snaps up, looking at the doorway. Dread pools in my stomach as I follow his gaze to the doorway, already knowing what I’m going to see before I look.
“Branyx,” he says at the same time I see him standing in the doorway, fists clenched tightly at his side with a look of venom and rage on his face.
Twenty
LODYN
“You’ve forsaken your oath…you’ve been unfaithful to your warrior brothers,” Branyx says, spitting the words at me in his state of rage as I quickly pull on my pants so I can get him out of this room and away from Margo. He charges me before I can make sure Margo is out of harm’s way.
I hear her squeal as she jumps off the bed and slams herself against the far wall.
“I should kill you myself,” Branyx yells, engulfed in rage. His arms are gripping me by the waist, trying to bring me down. I push him back toward the door and we both crash into the corridor. Using my feet, I’m able to push him off of me but he’s pumped up on adrenaline and he comes right back at me.
I get my arms up and land a few punches to his ribs and face. He blocks me and returns the punches, connecting with my face.
“What the fuck is going on?” Kjallak yells. He appears in the corridor but he hasn’t made a move to intervene yet.
“He’s an oath breaker and I’m going to kill him,” Branyx yells.
“The fuck you are,” Kjallak says. Now he decides to join the fight. My next few punches make him stager back. Kjallak takes the opportunity to bring him down and keep him down by pinning him to the floor. Kjallak grabs some ties off of his waist and secures Branyx’s hands behind him.
I fall to the floor, sliding down the wall, breathing heavily. Fighting another Attalan is significantly more exhausting because we can match each other’s strength. In this case, Branyx is a bruiser. He’s strong and stubborn and he can bring down hundreds of his enemy before he’ll even register that he’s tired.
He props Branyx against the wall opposite me, giving us plenty of room between us.
“You two,” Kjallak grumbles. “Explain to me what’s going on here.”
He stalks back and forth down the hallway between us, troubled by our current situation. Before either of us can say anything, Margo appears in the doorway of the sleeping quarters, now dressed but looking disheveled.
“Ah,” Kjallak says, stopping in front of Margo. “I think I already know.”
“I walked in on him fucking her. He has broken his oath…for a human.” He speaks as if he is spitting venom. As if it’s worse to break the oath when it’s a human versus an Attalan.
“She is my fated mate,” I say, finally finding my voice. I wipe my hand across my face, wiping away the blood that flows freely from a cut above my eye.
“You lie,” Branyx says, looking at me for the first time since Kjallak put him in his place. “Your mate can’t be human.”
“I didn’t know either, but it is true. I felt the connection the first time I saw her aboard this ship. I fought it for as long as I could but ultimately, there’s no fighting it. Our connection is too strong.”
“Shit, brother,” Kjallak says. He’s standing in front of me, looking down at me with fascination on his face. He sits across from me then and I’m unable to anticipate what’s going to happen next. “What is it like?”
“The connection?” Kjallak nods his head in response to my question. “It’s like we are told. I can feel her emotions; like now, she is scared. And she wants to come to me and stop the bleeding above my eye, clean it for me so it heals without infection. She is wary about what will happen to us all now.”
Kjallak looks over at Margo standing in the doorway. She hasn’t moved. “It’s amazing that it can happen with a human. There was always talk of the first leader of the guard defecting to run off with a human, but we always thought it was a just a story. Gossip that is spread and changed over time.”
“I don’t know the truth of that story, but I know the truth of our connection. There’s no living without her now that I’ve had her.”
“Sounds to me like you have a greedy cock,” Branyx says, still unwilling to believe me. “You are weak and gave in to the pleasures your body seeks.”
“Shut it, Branyx,” Kjallak says.
Now that things have calmed down, Margo walks over to me, kneeling down by my side. Using a towel, she wipes the blood away and looks at my cut.
“It’s fine,” I say, “It’s already healing.”
We look at each other and she uses our telepathic connection for the first time to tell me how sorry she is that we’re in this mess.
“I’m not sorry. I prefer this to sneaking around. It eases my guilt,” I say. She sits down next to me, tucking herself into my side. She’s right where I need her to be. “So what happens now?” I ask Kjallak.
He looks at us steadily for a few minutes before making his decision. “Sleep for now. We’ll leave in the morning.” There’s a steady growling sound coming from Branyx’s direction but I ignore him for now.
“Leave for where? You’re taking me back to the city?”
“No,” he says, leaning closer. “I’ll calm him down and talk some sense into him. We’re all going to finish this mission together. Just give him some time.”
I don’t see how that’s possible, but then again, Kjallak does have a way of convincing others to see things his way. And Kjallak and Branyx are closer, they’ve been fighting together for years. I’ve been in the guard for just more than a year now and moved up the ranks much faster than a lot of the other warriors. It didn’t sit well with some of them, Branyx included. He’s never given me the respect I deserve as a guard in a higher position than him.
“How do you feel about all of this Kjallak?” I’m glad that he’s so calm about everything, but Branyx is right, I did break my oath.
“I never understood what the big fucking deal was,” he says. “You found a mate…it should be celebrated. Why can’t we fight and fuck, why does it have to be one or the other?”
“It can be both, I’ve proven it. Whatever happened in my body during the fight with the Salthu happened because of how strongly I feel for Margo.”
“Somehow we’ll figure it out,” Kjallak says. “Now, give me some time with Branyx. Lets see what we can figure out.”
I pull myself up off the floor, take Margo’s hand, and pull her into the sleeping quarters behind me.
“So we’re just supposed to go to sleep now? This is crazy Lodyn!” She tugs her hand out of mine and I reach for her again. She swats my hand away, clearly aggravated with our situation.
“We just need time to see what kind of magic Kjallak can work with Branyx.”
“No…no we do not need time. And there’s no way I’ll be able to go to sleep when it’s clear that both of them could just decide to kill you in the night.”
“They wouldn’t just murder me in my sleep. That isn’t how it’s done with warriors. And you heard Kjallak, he thinks it’s a ridiculous rule as well.”
“It still doesn’t make me feel any better.” She’s crossing her arms over her chest with a stubborn look on her face. I already recognize it as the physical way she shows her frustration with a situation.
“What would make you feel better?” I step closer and this time she lets me put my hands on her shoulders. “We take off tonight, fly into the mountains after my team. That way, if they decide to turn you in, they’ll have a much further ways to go to get back to the city.”
“You are very clever, my mate.” I lean down and kiss her on her forehead, right between the creases that wrinkle her brow when she is concerned. “We cannot take off i
n the middle of the night. There are too many mountains and trees, we’d surely crash and then we’d find ourselves in the same situation all over again. Not that I would mind, of course. I rather like being stuck out here with you.”
“How are you in such a good mood right now? Branyx wants to kill you. If he turns you in back at the city, they’ll kill you.”
“I feel relief that I can finally be honest about how I feel about you. You are my mate and I love you. Now my brothers know this as well.” I smile down at her and she starts to thaw a little. “And I am not that easy to kill. They’d need to catch me first.”
“You are incredibly fast.” She’s smiling and nodding her head at me. The next moment she steps into me and wraps her arms around my waist. “I love you too,” she says against my chest. I hold her tightly in my embrace, enjoying how perfect she makes me feel.
“We’ll try to get some sleep and take off after your team in the morning.”
“Okay. But you’ll stay with me tonight?”
“As long as you want me, I’ll be here.”
I lie awake long after Margo falls asleep. Her safety means everything to me and until I know what’s going on with Branyx, I can’t relax. I’m torn between staying here with Margo and leaving her for a short time so I can seek out Kjallak and find out what’s happening.
My curiosity wins out in the end. I move my arm out from under her and she shifts in her sleep. Freezing in place, I allow myself to breathe again when she rolls over, still sound asleep. I walk out of the room quietly and slip into the corridor. There’s no one at the back hatch so I walk over to check outside before searching out Kjallak. It’s quiet for now. It seems the Salthu are going to let this ship go for now.
I get to the bridge and Kjallak is sitting in a chair, watching the night.
“I’m getting used to this ship,” he says when I approach. “I could stay here…this would be my huge window looking out on the world.”
Ignoring him I get right to the point. “What’s going on with Branyx?”
“Once he calmed down he agreed to finish the mission.”
“And?” I ask, pressing him for more. There’s always more…it’s never that simple.
“And then we all go back to the wall. Branyx and I will keep your secret.”
“That’s his condition? That I return to the wall with you when this is all over?” Kjallak nods but it doesn’t sit well with me. “And he’ll keep everything a secret?”
“He did. Trust me, brother.”
“I do trust you, but that’s a lot to hope for. Branyx is bound by honor, he did not take it well, learning of my deceit.”
“We’ve seen many awful things together, the three of us. Not enough things in our lives make me feel the way I do when I look up at the stars and get a hint of what freedom must be like. I envy what you have found and I will help you defend it and keep it. My loyalty lies with you.”
“Thank you, Kjallak.” I grasp the back of his neck and we touch foreheads, a greeting of respect. “I just wish I had the same trust in Branyx. My instinct tells me he wants me back in the city so he can turn me in.”
Kjallak just shrugs. He’s not counting that out either. “It is possible. Let’s finish the mission for now. We’ll worry about what happens after when the time comes.”
I need to follow the same advice I gave Margo and take things one day at a time. It’s hard to do when I find myself looking forward to a future with her.
“So where is he?” I ask. I need to settle things with him as much as I can before we can move forward.
“I locked him in one of the rooms at the back of the ship. It looked like a storage area or something.”
“I’d like to see him. Can you lead me there?”
“Finally something to do. It’s too damn quiet around here,” he says, getting up and slapping me on the back. I follow him as he walks down the corridor to the back of the ship. “I’m surprised we haven’t had more animal activity at night. After the attack the whole area is deserted.”
“True, but maybe things are finally working in our favor,” I say as we reach the door. He turns something that looks like some sort of key before pushing the button that sends the door open with a whoosh.
I look around the room, thinking Branyx must be lying down when I don’t see him.
“What the hell?” Kjallak says, stepping into the room and looking around.
Cold, sheer panic strikes straight through my heart when I hear Margo’s terrified screams from down the hallway.
Twenty-One
MARGO
Panic overtakes me when I realize that the huge warrior standing over me isn’t my warrior, but Branyx. I scream without restraint when I see the knife in his hand. I scramble back on the bed and drop to the floor as far away from him as possible. My next thought is trying to find the closest weapon.
He stalks around the bed, coming for me and all I can do at this point is scramble over the next bed and try to push it between us. His eyes are terrifying. They’re cold and dead while he hunts me like an animal. He raises the arm that is holding the knife and holds it in the air, as if he’s waiting for the perfect moment to plunge the knife down.
I push myself further back and then there’s a blur in front of me and he’s gone. I know it’s Lodyn without looking, his anger consumes him, pulsing through me. They hit the wall so hard it leaves a dent. Lodyn looks like an alien possessed. He’s relentless. He’s an impressive fighter in general but something happens inside of him when he’s fighting for me that takes him to another level.
“How could you be so dishonorable? Trying to kill the one you are sworn to protect?” Lodyn is shouting at Branyx while they fight. His anger is palpable.
“If she is dead, there is no proof of your misdeed. No question of where your loyalty lies,” Branyx says.
“Killing another’s mate is unforgivable. Just thinking it makes you unworthy of wearing the guard uniform.”
Branyx wrestles himself free from Lodyn’s grip and takes off out of the room. Lodyn is right behind him and I hear Kjallak yell once they both get into the corridor. I pull myself off the floor and take off after them, still keeping my distance. Lodyn is down on the ground when I get there, bleeding from his abdomen. I run to him but he tries to shrug me off so he can get up and continue his pursuit.
Kjallak appears from the other direction, carrying his bow and arrow in his hands as he runs toward the front hatch. I help Lodyn up and we follow Kjallak. The front hatch has been thrown wide open, Branyx’s form running away from the ship in the dark of the night.
Kjallak quickly takes aim and then waits. “Waiting on your command,” he tells Lodyn.
Lodyn is standing next to me, holding his stomach as blood drips through his fingers. His breathing is labored and I can feel the conflict warring within him. Another few seconds and he’ll be out of range completely.
Trying to help him decide I say, “We can’t be together if it means taking the life of one of your brothers. You would never be able to live with that.”
He looks at me then, nodding, just needing to hear someone else say what he was thinking.
“Let him go,” he tells Kjallak.
Kjallak lowers his bow and we all stand on the ramp to the ship and watch until Branyx disappears into the night.
“It’s a one-way trip for us now,” Kjallak says. The night is unusually quiet around us as Lodyn pulls me close to him.
“It always was for me,” he says, leaning down and kissing my lips. “Are you okay?” I nod and kiss him again.
“Okay you two, back inside,” Kjallak says, walking past us into the ship. We turn and follow him back inside.
“Lets take a look at you,” I say to Lodyn once we’re back on the bridge. “What happened anyway?”
I sit him down on the edge of the console so I can have easy access to his wound. Pulling out the first aid kit from the side of one of the stations, I start cleaning the gash in his stomach.
“He stabbed me with his knife just outside the sleeping quarters. I turned to look at Kjallak for just a second and he struck. Not smart on my part.”
“Well there’s nothing to be worries about as long as we clean it, right? You heal so quickly.”
“That’s true, it will heal. But it is deep,” he says, looking down and inspecting the gash himself.
I’m cleaning it out with an antiseptic cream that will ward off infection when another thought comes to me.
“I don’t know how to ask this question without sounding morbid, but if you heal so well, how is it possible for you to die? I mean, Branyx wouldn’t have died if Kjallak shot him with an arrow, right? It would have brought him down and given you a chance to catch him, but you can’t be killed with an arrow, can you?”
He thinks about his response for a moment before he finally answers. “No, a single arrow will not kill us, unless the arrow pierces the back of our necks, just below our skulls. Essentially it would be like severing the head and we cannot heal from that. At least not yet. So we are vulnerable to infection and beheadings.”
“Well that’s…horrible,” I say, clamping his wound together with a special kind of gauze that seals out infection and helps wounds heal faster. “Something I’d rather not think about now that I’ve asked so many questions.”
He laughs but it sounds more like a masculine growl coming deep within his chest. “I don’t want to think about it either. There are so many things on this planet that could kill you, it keeps me up at night.”
“If I knew all of the things you know about the planet, it would probably keep me up at night too.” I’m finished bandaging his wound and he pulls me between his legs while wrapping his arms around me. I go up on my tippy toes so I can reach him for a kiss. Our lips touch and my thoughts instantly switch to something much more desirable. I bring my arms up around his neck and deepen the kiss, a soft moan escaping my lips when his tongue enters my mouth.