by Stacy Jones
Aria nodded readily. “He makes me feel safe. I trust him, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone, even Foster. He knows I can take care of myself, but he’s always got my back. He’s right there if I need him.”
Holding her mom’s gaze, she added, “I think I love him, Amá.”
Her mother gasped and pressed her hands to her chest, smiling widely, her eyes going misty.
Aria kept going, imagining Kix now. “He’s quiet. Thoughtful. And, yet, he’s… intense. Definitely a man of few words, but I can see so much going on behind his eyes, so much happening under the surface. He’s also very… perceptive. It’s like he knows what I’m feeling before I do, like he knows me, all of me, even the parts that aren’t pretty, and he accepts me. I love that. I love him.”
She didn’t intend to mention the dragon. He wasn’t hers, not like Tirox and Kix were. Hell, she’d met him, if you could call it that, for all of two seconds and all of that was spent fighting. But, the words seemed to spill from her lips of their own accord before she could stop them.
“He’s scarred. You can see how much pain he’s endured. I know what that’s like, to have been hurt. He could’ve turned cruel, angry, vicious, uncaring, but he didn’t, not entirely, anyway. He still tries to protect others, complete strangers, even when it would be easier not to. It was odd. The moment I looked into his eyes, I felt like I knew him.”
“That sounds like a very… complicated man, mijita. Almost like he is different men,” her mom commented with a suspicious glint in her eyes.
Aria whipped a startled look up at her mom.
How the hell does she always see through me like that?
As if she could hear that thought, her mom cocked a haughty eyebrow and smirked, just slightly, before her expression settled back into a demand for answers.
Well, fuck.
Thinking back over what she’d said, she realized she’d given entirely too much away with her descriptions. How was it that all her training flew out the damn window the second she was around her parents?
Aria tried to backtrack, stumbling over a denial while her mom’s eyes narrowed further and further. Finally, she sighed and gave a smile that was half grimace and all guilt.
Her dad was glancing between them, looking confused before it seemed to click and he stared at her almost comically wide-eyed.
Her mom rubbed her forehead and muttered, “I always knew you were the difficult child.”
“Amá!” Aria gasped.
“Well, you are! I get my hopes up you’re finally going to get married and give me grandbabies, and then you come in here trying to be sneaky telling me about three men! Three! Why can’t you be more like your brother? He has a wife, children, a safe career!”
She exploded into rapid-fire Spanish, half of which was lost on Aria, because she was speaking too quickly. She caught the gist though, and her cringe deepened.
After a few minutes of ranting, her mom calmed and blew out a long breath. Staring at her closely, she asked as if she couldn’t quite believe it, “Do you really love them? All of them?”
“I… yes. Two of them, anyway. The third I just met recently, but there was… a spark there. The minute I looked into his eye… sss, I felt like I knew him.”
Her mother frowned, but she began to look curious despite herself.
“And they’re okay with this? They don’t try to kill each other?”
“Actually… it was their idea.” Before her mom could voice the doubts Aria could see spreading across her face, she interjected, “Like I said, they’re foreign. They do things a little differently than we do. I’m not saying they’ve never shown a little jealousy, but the three of us have become close. We’ve made a… family, of sorts. We trust and depend on each other in a place where trust is damn hard to find.”
“Language, mijita,” her mom scolded, but it was automatic. Aria could see the wheels turning in her mind.
Her dad was still gaping between them, clearly shocked, but waiting to see how her mom handled it before making his own feelings known.
Aessa…
Aria heard a whisper and whipped a startled look behind her, but no one was there. A feeling of vertigo hit her when the faint impression of hands cradling her body, stroking her hair and face, feathered over her skin, at complete odds with the sensation of the chair under her and the box fan to her left fluttering her hair across her back.
“Kix?” Aria whispered.
Open your eyes, my heart.
“Tirox… ”
“Mijita, I will not say I understand. But, I want you to be ha… ”
Aria looked back at her parents when her mom’s voice faded out.
“Amá? I didn’t hear… What the hell?” she faltered, rearing back when she saw her mom’s mouth was still moving, but she couldn’t hear the words any longer, like someone had hit mute.
Pain spiked through her temples. Aria hissed, pressing her palms to her head, and squeezed her eyes shut.
The pain intensified but with it, little by little, came clarity. Her senses sharpened as she sat—lay?—there. It was like she’d been trying to run through quicksand and was now back on solid ground, like a fog had been blanketing her thoughts, dampening her emotions, but she hadn’t realized it was there until it began to lift.
Aria sucked in a sharp breath, and her eyes sprang open.
She knew what was happening.
She didn’t need to find a way to escape this place. Her men had come for her.
Speaking quickly she said, “Amá, Dad, I have to go. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I need you to know I love you both.”
With a lump in her throat, Aria stared at her parents for a heartbeat longer, memorizing their faces, before she closed her eyes and let go.
Chapter 3
Kix felt Aria’s intentions across the distance separating them, felt the sting of her rage and need for revenge before it shifted to determination, and knew what she was planning.
Then, shocking the crux out of him, he got a flash of an image from her.
He’d heard of a male’s abilities being enhanced after Harmonizing, but he hadn’t anticipated it being to the extent where he got images from Aria instead of just feelings.
She was going to escape. Alone. Without them to help her or watch her back.
He managed to signal Tirox in the tube across the lab before the sedation vapor could knock them out, but he quickly learned that wasn’t the only thing they had to worry about. He watched as the Gaelli workers activated probes to descend on the other gladiators’ heads.
Out of desperation, knowing he was running out of time to make it to his mate before she did something dangerous, Kix focused on the workers, but he had no idea if what he was going to try would work.
His gifts were stronger in this body, and stronger still since bonding to Aria, but influencing another being’s mind was something of legend, an ability that hadn’t been seen in among his people in the last six generations, at least.
Still, he had to try.
The Gaelli had something of a hivemind. If he could influence one of them, it should prompt them all to leave. Picking one at random, he concentrated.
Your duties are complete. Leave.
Over and over, he projected the thought. Pain spiked in his temples the longer he tried. He felt blood drip from his nose, but he didn’t stop.
He could feel it beginning to work, he just had to push a little harder. Gritting his teeth, he strained against that barrier, pressing against it until spots began swimming in front of his eyes.
All of a sudden, he felt something give way, like a membrane being pierced. The workers slowed, hesitating, glancing around as if trying to remember something. Redoubling his efforts, Kix kept up the mental projection. Finally, just as the pain in his head turned to agony, they turned as one for the door and exited the lab.
Kix, Tirox, and half of the other gladiators were free of the probes, but only him and Tirox were still awake.
&n
bsp; When the door slid shut behind the last Gaelli, Kix sagged against the supports and closed his eyes for a moment. If he could see himself, he knew he’d find the glow of his eyes dim and his skin dull. He was weak, drained, but there was no time to rest, not with Aria unprotected.
When the feeling of Aria’s doubt and fear filtered through the agony in his head, it was enough to pull him away from the edge of unconsciousness.
Opening his eyes to slits, he slurred, “Can you break free?”
Tirox was already raising an arm, lined in the bone-like spikes he seemed to be able to release and retract at will, before Kix could finish his question. He slammed it against the clear surface of the stasis tube again and again until it finally shattered with a loud crack, and the tinkling of shards against the kineticrete floor.
Kix felt the male’s urgency to find Aria and thought for a moment he would leave without him, but after staring at the door for a second, he strode to Kix’s tube with only a slight scowl on his rough face.
Before Tirox could land the first blow, Kix held up a shaky hand and pointed at the data display.
Tirox growled and shot him an irritated look. Kix could feel his usually unshakable patience fraying and knew he was too worried about Aria to bother with niceties or appreciate direction. Kix understood and quickly told him the code to open the tube.
He would’ve fallen to the floor when the supports withdrew and the front of the tube disappeared if Tirox hadn’t caught him. Without pausing to let Kix get his feet under him, Tirox hauled him up with an arm around his back and half drug him to the door.
“Make it open, bright one, or I will tear it down.”
Swaying slightly, Kix braced a hand against the door and blinked hard, sifting through the thoughts he’d picked up from the Gaelli, searching for the correct code. The door was biometrically locked, but, thankfully, there was a datapad in case something went wrong with the biometrics.
He got the code wrong the first time. A warning popped up, telling him he had one more try before they were locked in and alarms sounded. Sucking in a deep breath, he pushed past the pain and exhaustion. Tapping on the unfamiliar symbols a second time, he was rewarded when the door slid open with a soft hiss.
Pushing off, he stumbled into the hall and turned left with Tirox on his heels. Kix could feel his aessa and let their bond guide him to another door not twenty lengths down the hall.
Entering the code again, they stepped inside, letting the door hiss closed behind them, but both jerked to a stop after no more than two steps. Kix’s hearts turned to ice in his chest as his gaze landed on Aria, limp and stripped bare in the stasis tube.
He knew she was unharmed, but it didn’t matter. Finding her unconscious, vulnerable, felt like someone had gutted him.
He’d never seen Aria helpless. She was so fierce, so fearless. Brave, protective, formidable. Her soul was usually so bright, the brightest he’d ever felt. It drew him in like a qalija to flame. It was no wonder he obsessed over her, no wonder she filled his thoughts, his hearts, until he knew he could never be whole again, not after having bathed in that brightness.
Seeing her like this, defenseless and her soul’s shine muted, was more than he could bear.
Something in him snapped. He already knew he would kill or die for her, but even in the bloodiest tournaments he’d tried to hold on to his civility. From the moment he’d begun to awaken, he’d tried to reclaim his empathy toward his fellow beings.
But, seeing his aessa—the one whose song matched his own—helpless, any sense of mercy he’d held burned to ash.
In that moment, he knew without doubt or remorse, he would watch worlds burn to protect her, to spare her even a moment of pain.
Kix felt his fangs descend, felt his claws sting as they lengthened, and his bioluminescence flash in a threat display as savage instincts slithered through his mind. He needed to take his mate to deep, dark waters. Once she was safe, he would track down his prey, hunt it from below where it wouldn’t see his strike coming, and color the water with its blood.
Baring his fangs, Kix lunged forward, fear and fury for the one who’d done this to her vying for supremacy. Tirox, stunned into initial stillness with him, reacted to his movement and matched his steps, a murderous growl rumbling from his chest.
Despite the aggression pumping through them both, after Kix input the code to open the tube, they caught her limp body between them tenderly, holding her with the utmost care. A blade clattered to the floor, but they ignored it, focused on their mate. They whispered to her, calling her name, trying to coax her out of the world being projected into her mind.
A long minute passed while Aria remained unresponsive. Uneasiness prickled the skin on the back of his neck.
He eyed the sensors affixed to her head then darted a look around, sifting through the thoughts he’d picked up from the workers, searching for some way to safely remove them. No matter how hard he searched, there was nothing telling him how to retract the probes, not after the tube had already been opened.
He’d made a terrible mistake, let fear overpower logic, and acted without caution.
On his world, Kix prided himself on his ability to solve even the most complex problems with cool-headed rationality. But, that was with weapons systems, integrating his people’s technology with that of visiting species, and the occasional mediation between his company and off-world traders. He was not accustomed to being emotionally invested.
He did not know how to cope with the knowledge that, without Aria, he would lose himself.
Kix had closed himself off sols ago, knowing his chances of Harmonizing to a female were remote. Even if he did Harmonize, the likelihood she would complete the bond after the Majaha ceremony where they delved into each other’s minds was so small as to be laughable.
Kix knew himself. He controlled it ruthlessly, but he knew he was prone to obsession and knew he harbored darkness inside him. Among his people, that made him a risk. No Caljaan female wanted a mate who might regress to their Azii instincts.
So, instead of allowing himself to foolishly hope he’d find a female to accept him, all of him, he’d locked away his needs and focused on his career. He obsessed over his work and controlled the darkness with the help of halai, a fighting style known for demanding perfect precision and discipline.
Aria changed all that. She held her own darkness and hadn’t shied away from him or shown any wariness to the obsession he knew he hadn’t been able to hide. She made him feel things he’d never felt.
She made him better, whole, but losing her would destroy him.
In turn, he knew he would destroy everything and everyone around him. He didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself.
Pulling the sensors off without knowing what that would do was beyond risky, but no other solutions came to him. He worried the longer he left them attached the more dangerous it was for her.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he steadied his breathing. When his hands were no longer shaking, he carefully removed the sensors from her head one at a time, his hearts stuttering in his chest at the droplets of blood that ran into her hair from where the needles had pierced her soft skin.
Once the last one was detached, he stroked the hair back from her face, tracing his fingers over her delicate features.
“Come back, my song,” he rasped.
With every beat of his hearts that she did not open her eyes, he lost a little more of himself. With every breath that passed her lips without her whispering his name in that husky, lyrical voice of hers, another piece was consumed by the darkness.
A long, excruciating minute later, her eyes fluttered open. He thought he was imagining it at first. It wasn’t until she reached up to still his restless touches on her face that he believed she’d come back.
“Aessa,” he groaned, relief flooding him so strongly he was dizzy with it.
Tirox tried to snatch her away, but Kix held on, lifting her higher against his chest. Cupping her chin tigh
tly in the crook of his hand, he parted her lips with his thumbs and dove at her, roughly sweeping his tongue into her mouth. He needed to taste her, to feel her heat before he could accept what his eyes were telling him.
Instead of pulling away from his aggressive assault as he expected, she moaned and kissed him back with matching hunger, her blunt nails digging into his shoulders to pull him closer.
Fire ignited in his veins at the first sweep of her tongue against his. His cock hardened, growing too long and thick to fit its sheath in the span of a single heartsbeat. The cool air of the lab felt like a shock against his heated length, but his natural lubrication slicked his shaft, lessening the sting.
Her hard nipples brushed against his chest with every breath, and the scent of her arousal made his mouth water. Her nudity had inspired fury only moments ago, but now it was all he could think of. Knowing there was nothing covering her cunt, nothing stopping him from lowering her body and ramming his cock inside her was driving him mad.
Crux, he needed her more than he needed to breathe.
He wanted to forget the danger around them, pin her to the wall, and fuck her until she sang for him over and over again. Only when she was hoarse from screaming her pleasure would he allow his own peak. Only then would he fill her with his spend until her cunt was full and he could see it dripping down her thighs.
Kix was so lost in her—in the feel of her bare body against his, her taste, her clutching hands, in fucking her mouth with his tongue, showing her what he wanted—needed—to do between her legs—that he didn’t realize he’d moved forward and had her pressed against the lab wall with her thighs wrapped around his hips until Tirox’s angry growl sounded in his ear, and he felt the sharp edge of the male’s arm spikes pressing against his neck.
Breaking free of her lips, he froze, panting hard as he stared down at her. Blinking, he realized he had one hand fisted tightly in Aria’s hair and the other wrapped around his shaft, aiming it at her opening.