“From Earth,” I said, standing up and holding out a hand to her while I clutched my torn clothing with the other hand.
Lucian’s mother looked at my outstretched hand as though I’d offered her a dead fish and she didn’t know what to do with it.
Suddenly I understood.
“Oh, sorry—on Earth when we meet someone for the first time we shake hands. But I’m sure you probably don’t have the same customs we do.”
“Actually, we do pat fingers.” She showed how by raising both hands and lightly touching the tips of her long fingers together. “But I’m not sure where your hand has been lately, dear. So I’ll just give you a verbal greeting if you don’t mind.”
“Oh…of course.” I withdrew my hand, my cheeks getting so hot I was sure they were going to catch my hair on fire. “Er…sorry.”
“That’s quite all right, dear. Welcome to Denaris.” She turned a laser-sharp look on Lucian. “Darling, might I have a word with you in the food-prep area?”
Lucian looked like he’d rather walk barefoot over a mile of hot coals but he only nodded. “Of course, Mother.”
“Thank you, darling.” And she led the way out of the richly appointed living room and around the corner.
“Whew…” I let out a breath. “Well that was awkward!”
“More than awkward—wrong.” Drace was frowning like a thundercloud. “You know, I just couldn’t find a Beta I clicked with and I thought it was the same with Lucian—but now I’m beginning to wonder. Did she and his fathers really decide he wouldn’t be allowed to bond with anyone because they didn’t approve of any of his choices? That’s fucking cruel!”
“I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully. “If that’s what they did to him, it is awful. But you’ve known him longer than I have.”
“Yeah, but we didn’t really start talking until you showed up, baby,” he told me. “C’mon.”
“Where are we going?” I asked as I followed him around the corner.
“To find out what’s going on. Just keep out of sight and be quiet.”
“Drace, no!” I put a hand on his arm. “We can’t do that—it’s eavesdropping!”
“The hell we can’t! Lucian is our bond-mate—we need to know what the fuck is going on with him,” he growled. “Are you coming with me or not?”
“All right,” I hissed. “But we’d better not get caught!”
* * * * *
Lucian
“All right now, tell me how you got into this mess and how you intend to get out of it? How can you possibly break a psy-bond? It’s never been done before!”
That’s my mother—she’s never been one to mince words.
Rapidly, I explained how Drace and I had ingested ylla rolls with pieces of the same bonding-bud in them and had become psy-bonded in the first place.
“But we haven’t sealed the bond,” I told her. “Which makes us think it will be possible to break it.”
“You haven’t sealed it yet you mean.” She made a face, a delicate curl of her lip that indicated disgust. “But I saw what you were doing with those…those people.”
“Those people are my bond-mates, Mother,” I said, frowning. “Even if their status is only temporary, I won’t have you speaking ill of them.”
“But, darling, just look at them,” she nearly wailed. “Another Alpha—one of the Claw Clan no less? And that…that girl. If she’s a La-ti-zal I’ll eat my diamonds!”
“She is a La-ti-zal,” I snapped angrily. “I have witnessed her power first hand.”
“Oh, and what’s her power then? Whoring?” my mother demanded.
Of course then I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“She’s…a Binder,” I said reluctantly. “Rylee is a Binder.”
“A what? But I thought you said you were trying to get free of them! Not bind them more closely to you!”
“We are trying to get free of each other.” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my voice. “But we were told by Tanta Loro—”
“What? You went to the Sea Witch?” My mother looked near fainting again—something she was prone to in her more dramatic moments. “This just gets worse and worse!”
“She was the only one who offered us any hope, Mother,” I said grimly. “Even the Empress’s own physician said we would be stuck together for life. Tanta Loro at least showed us a way out.”
“And what way is that?” she demanded.
“There is a certain…artifact we need to get in order to sever our bond.” I didn’t want to tell her too much.
“What artifact? How can it possibly help you?”
“That’s my business,” I said shortly. All you need to know is that I’m working on it.”
“Well you’d better work on it quickly,” she snapped. “Do you know what would happen to your fathers and I if it were to become known that you were bonded to another Alpha—an Alpha of the Claw Clan? Who do you suppose they would think was playing the Beta’s role in all this?”
“I told you, Mother, we haven’t sealed the bond so neither of us is playing the Beta’s role,” I said through gritted teeth. “I know how bad this looks but don’t worry—I’m taking steps to correct it. And I swear it won’t impact you or my fathers.”
“It had better not.” She crossed her arms over her chest and did her best to look down at me disapprovingly, just as she had when I was a small boy. The effect was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I was two feet taller than her now, but somehow she still managed. “If the ladies on the Fashion Council found out that my only child was bonded to an Alpha of the Claw Clan—”
“Don’t worry, they won’t.” I had to work to keep my voice calm and even.
“Just be certain you don’t seal the bond or do anything else to strengthen your ties with those two either,” she continued, as though I’d bonded myself to a couple of scruffy, disgusting indigents. No doubt to her, that was exactly what Rylee and Drace appeared to be. “Better no bond-mates at all than the wrong kind of bond-mates.”
A sudden weariness overcame me—a sorrow so old it seemed it had been part of me forever.
“Yes, Mother,” I said. “So you’ve been telling me my entire life.”
Who could believe such a thing? That it was better to live a life of constant loneliness and emptiness rather than try to fill the void with someone of an “unacceptable” class or clan? That it was better to be alone than try to find someone to love outside the narrow strata of society my parents approved of?
I had.
I who had chosen to bury myself in my work and abstain from any kind of love because there were no “suitable” Betas to bond with. I who had sworn to myself that having a Triumvirate bond with another male and a female we both loved meant nothing to me.
I who had lied to myself for years.
“Now I’m not going to say anything to your fathers,” my Mother said, interrupting my bleak thoughts. “Because I know you’re going to get this fixed. And when you do, darling, I promise we’ll try again to find you some suitable Beta to bond with and then the two of you can find a nice girl from the right class and clan to take as a mate. All right?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say I didn’t want anyone else besides Rylee and Drace…but then I stopped myself because it was ridiculous. We were on a quest to be free of each other. Why would I tell my mother I wanted to stay with them?
“Now, darling—” she began again but just then Rylee ran in to the food prep area, her torn clothes clutched in one hand and her eyes wild.
“Lucian, it’s Drace!” she exclaimed. “Come quick—he just collapsed!”
Chapter Eighteen
Rylee
Lucian’s mother trailed behind us as I led Lucian around the corner to where Drace was out cold.
We’d been standing there, eavesdropping for all we were worth and listening to Lucian’s mother go on about social class and finding the right people to be bonded to when he’d suddenly put a hand to his head and then to
his throat.
“What?” I asked, looking up at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Not…sure.” He shook his head as though to clear it. “Feel…strange. Dizzy. My throat burns.”
“Burns?” I asked but just then his eyes rolled up in his head and he started to fall.
He was way bigger than me so even though I was right beside him I couldn’t do much to stop his fall. I could only slow it down a bit. He was huge and really heavy—all muscle as I had observed on numerous occasions. So the most I could do was ease him down to the ground and turn him on his side, in case he threw up. Then I ran for Lucian.
I rapidly explained the details of Drace’s collapse as he listened to his breathing and felt for a pulse.
“A burning in the throat, you say?” he said, frowning when I finished talking. “Damn it—he must have ingested some of the morata poison he sucked out of your thigh. I told him how dangerous it was!”
“What? But why wouldn’t it affect him until now?” I demanded. “I mean, he was plenty frisky earlier. Uh, I mean…” I blushed and trailed off when I saw Lucian’s Mom was listening in, a slightly disgusted look on her face.
“It’s slow acting when orally ingested—slow acting but twice as deadly. Even anti-venom won’t save him now—not that I have another dose of it. The only one I had I gave to you.”
“Oh no!” I put a hand to my mouth. “Please, Lucian—can’t you heal him the way you healed me? Can’t you bite him and inject him with your essence and your immunity?”
He frowned and appeared to consider it.
“I could but Drace will not like it. He might even prefer it if I left him to die.”
“What?” I nearly yelled. “What are you talking about? How could he prefer to die? You need to bite him, damn it! Bite him now.”
He sighed. “You don’t understand, Rylee—in the Fang Clan, the Alpha bites for only two reasons—to heal and to pleasure his mates. The Beta, though he has rudimentary fangs, does not bite. So in biting Drace, I will be treating him like my inferior—my Beta—and stripping him of much of his dignity in the process.”
“Look, I don’t care about your crazy customs and who bites who,” I exclaimed. “Drace needs help and you’re the only one who can give it to him!”
“Lucian?” his mother said, interrupting our argument. “A moment, if you please?”
“I don’t really have time right now, Mother,” he said. “I’m trying to devise a way to save my bond-mate without emasculating him and making him hate me.”
“But think about it, darling—why save him at all?”
“What?” Lucian and I said, looking up at her at the same time.
“What do you mean, don’t save him?” I demanded.
“Think about it, darling—breaking a psy-bond, well—it’s very tricky. In fact, it’s never been done,” Lucian’s mother spoke only to him, ignoring me completely. “No matter what that Wave-Dweller witch told you, it’s likely to be impossible. So the only way you’ll ever be free of this…this person is if you just…let the bond die.”
“You mean if I let Drace die,” Lucian said flatly. “Don’t you?”
“Well…yes. But just hear me out,” she continued quickly. “You said yourself, treating him like a Beta is the ultimate insult. He’d probably rather die than have you do that. You should let him go with dignity, darling. Just let him slip peacefully away…”
“No!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “What is wrong with you?” I glared at Lucian’s mother. “How can you stand there and be so cold-blooded about letting someone die? Do you know that Drace just saved your son’s life not an hour ago in the desert?”
“And I’m certainly very grateful for that, dear” she said coolly, looking down her nose at me. “But maybe you’d better stay out of matters you don’t understand. As Lucian told you, treating another Alpha as though he was a Beta is the worse insult a male can give another male here on Denaris. It’s better to just…let the bond expire.”
I stared at her, disbelieving. She was talking about Drace like he was a carton of milk that was going bad anyway and should just be thrown out with the trash.
“Stop saying it like that!” I exclaimed. “Stop acting like it’s only the bond that will die! Drace is a person—a fine, upstanding, honorable guy, er—male. And just because he’s not of your social class or your clan doesn’t make him any less worthy to live.”
She put a beringed hand to her chest. “I never said—”
“Oh, yes you did!” I said. I turned to Lucian. “Tell me you’re not going to listen to this! Tell me—”
But I broke off when I saw he was already kneeling over Drace’s still form with his fangs extended.
“Lucian, no!” His mother’s eyes widened. “Don’t do this!”
He looked up briefly.
“I have to, Mother—Rylee is right. Even if Drace hates me for what I’m about to do, he deserves the right to live.”
“Fine.” Her lips thinned down to a white line. “Do what you want—throw your life away! Just don’t let anyone else know what you’re doing. The family status must be preserved at all costs.”
Lucian didn’t answer. Instead, he sank those long, gleaming fangs of his deep into Drace’s throat. I saw his mother from the corner of my eye, her face all pinched and angry.
“I cannot watch this,” she said stiffly, and left, picking her way across the floor as though the gorgeously woven carpet was land-mined with dog turds.
I watched her go, wondering how she could live with herself. Then I heard a shout and a scuffling sound.
Turning, I saw Drace with Lucian’s fangs still buried in the side of his neck. He was fighting and fishtailing, his back arching and his heels in their thick desert boots drumming on the floor.
“Oh my God!” I gasped, rushing up to them. “Drace! Lucian—is he okay? What can I do?”
Lucian, of course, couldn’t answer me—he was too busy injecting his essence into the other male. It must have been burning Drace because he was trying to get free and a deep growl was rising in his throat.
I frowned. It hadn’t hurt or burned when Lucian had injected me. In fact, it had felt amazing. It…
My thoughts trailed off as my eyes came to rest on the crotch of Drace’s black trousers. There was an unmistakable bulge there, straining against the tight leather.
Drace wasn’t in pain—he was having intense pleasure. But from the look on his face, he wasn’t enjoying it—not a bit. His eyes were open now and his teeth were bared in a grimace of pure rage.
At last, Lucian withdrew and sat back on his heels, looking down at Drace.
“There,” he said dryly. “You won’t die now, at least.”
“You fucker,” Drace said thickly. In one swift move he sat up and punched Lucian squarely in the jaw.
* * * * *
Drace
“Stop it! Stop, you two!” Rylee was suddenly all over me, keeping me from punching my bastard of a bond-mate again by putting herself between us.
“Get out of the way,” I told her, trying to get around her to Lucian. “He deserves it and he knows it.”
“Lucian just saved your life!” Rylee exclaimed. She grabbed my face in both her soft little hands and made me look her in the eyes. “Do you hear me? He saved you—the way you saved him by carrying him out of the desert!”
“Yeah, well I didn’t treat Lucian like a fucking Beta to save him,” I snarled.
“I had no choice.” Lucian was sitting across from me, rubbing his jaw with one hand. “It was either bite you and inject you or watch you die.”
“You should have let me die, then!” I shouted. Inside the tight confines of my leathers, I could feel my shaft throbbing shamefully. It was wrong to take pleasure from the touch of another Alpha and yet Lucian had forced it on me, the fucker.
I wanted to kill him.
“Stop it!” Rylee insisted again. “Listen to me—both of you. I don’t understand why you’re being like this
and I don’t care! The fact is, you both saved each other’s lives because you care about each other. You need to accept that and move on!”
“I can’t move on from this,” I snarled. “He shamed me.”
“How? Why?” She looked at me, an expression of exasperation on her lovely face. “Stop fighting and explain this to me, damn it! Why is it okay for Lucian to bite and heal me but not to heal you the same way?”
“It is because the bite of the Fang Clan gives sexual pleasure,” Lucian said, answering for me. He sounded weary past the point of exhaustion and the look on his face was one of pure defeat. I could almost feel sorry for him—almost.
“So what if it gives sexual pleasure?” Rylee demanded. “I don’t care if Lucian biting you made you come in your freaking pants—at least you’re still alive!”
“A male without honor has no life,” I growled.
“Oh, so he stole your honor by biting you and injecting feel-good juice into your neck?” She put a hand on her hip. “Get over it, Drace. You’re acting like he bent you over the bed and…and did you up the ass!”
“I might as well have,” Lucian said shortly. “I told you he would not appreciate being saved in such a way.”
“Are you serious?” Rylee looked at both of us, her black eyes wide with dawning comprehension. “You really put biting on par with screwing?”
“It gives the same pleasure—it makes you come,” I pointed out. Although I hadn’t—it was a near thing, though. A few more minutes with my bond-mate’s fangs buried in my throat and I would have gone off like a fucking rocket.
Sick bastard, I thought but I didn’t know who I was thinking about—Lucian or me.
“And what’s so wrong with that?” Rylee wanted to know.
“It’s wrong because of the way our relationships work,” Lucian explained wearily. “Drace would have had no problem with me penetrating and injecting him if he were a Beta. But since he is not, I have denigrated his honor and his status as an Alpha.”
“So…you’re homophobic but only towards other Alphas.” Rylee shook her head. “I swear to God, this three-way stuff you guys have going on here is crazy confusing.”
Severed Page 17