by Marie Harte
“Hold it, old man.” Betar shot Winnu in the leg, and everyone froze for a brief moment.
Nala cried out and ran to his side. Orset and Set took a step closer until Betar threatened to shoot him again.
“Tell your little whore to come with me,” Betar ordered Set.
“No.” No way in hell.
“Then I’ll kill your family one by one. Then you. Her I’ll save for last.” Betar licked his lips, his salacious intent not lost on anyone in the room.
Anin glared, and real fear for her stole Set’s ability to speak. “You have not only crossed the boundaries of impolite behavior, but you’ve trespassed on familial ground. Two offences the People of Vas will not take lightly,” she said in a soft voice.
How the hell does she know that?
She stepped closer to Betar, and Set automatically blocked her.
“No, Nu. I would like to hear this male’s answer.” She tried to move around him again, but he wouldn’t budge.
He caught the fury in her eyes and shook his head. “No, Meena, please don’t—”
“Meena? Oh good. You treasure this one, do you? The way Ivar treasured Lita.” Betar sneered and aimed his pistol at Set’s heart. “I’ve waited years for this. But you Fas were always in one place or another, never home where you belonged.”
Before Betar could say another word, a heady perfume filled the air. Set took a deep breath and knew what Anin meant to do. His dick spiked, and he forced himself to remain calm.
“Meena, be careful. Harm yourself and I’ll paddle your ass.”
She gave him a tight smile and walked around him to Betar. “You really should listen to me.” Her scent was overpowering. Thankfully, she focused it on Betar.
Set took several steps back and dragged his father with him as well, before Orset fell prey to Anin’s scent.
“Holy shit,” Orset whispered. “What the hell is that?”
“My mate,” Set answered in a low voice. “Watch.”
Anin whispered something to Betar. She took the pistol from his slack hand and tossed it to Set. When Betar shook his head, as if to clear his mind, she shook her finger in his face.
“You were very, very rude, Betar. I think you owe the Fas family an apology. Don’t you?” she breathed into his face.
Betar apologized quickly.
“On your knees, I think,” she said, and Betar did as she suggested.
Then, with a swiftness that took Set’s breath away, she slammed her knee into Betar’s face. She laid him out flat on the ground before picking him up as if he weighed nothing and walked out the door.
“Meena, wait.” Set ran to catch her but wasn’t fast enough.
“You there.” She threw Betar at one of the men mounted on a rak. The rak shied and threw his rider. “Take this criminal back to the People of Vas. I want him arrested on charges of cruelty and mistreatment of a female.” She paused. “He called me a whore in front of witnesses.”
Somehow Anin had learned a lot about Ragga law in little time. Set and the rest of the men surrounding them stared in awe as petite, beautiful Anin began to rage.
“He shot the honorable Winnu Fas.”
A few of the men shook their head. “Stupid ass, I knew this was wrong.”
“Dumb. Really dumb.”
Three of them left. The remaining nine stood firm.
Set knew several as Ivar’s friends and cousins. Then he saw a rak in the distance stirring dust. Hell, not what they needed. A hot-headed Nu riding as if he had demons on his tail.
Anin released more scent. “I want all of you to come here.”
The men hurried from their mounts, and Set swore. Anin’s scent did have the ability to incapacitate a man, but first it aroused him past sanity. He doubted she could control so many at once. And Raggas weren’t puny Eyrans, like the men in the labs she’d encountered. They surrounded her, and her eyes narrowed. Pheromones settled over the small clearing like a blanket of lust.
The minute a hand reached for her, Set lost it. He growled and attacked.
And the shit really started.
13
Nu stared in horror as a mass of Raggas began fighting around Anin. He saw Set, but his brother could only engage so many men at once. Orset joined the melee, and the look on his face told Nu more than he wanted to know. Anin must have let loose her pheromones, because as he drew closer, his first thought was to fuck her, then brawl.
“Hurry up,” Set yelled when their gazes met.
Anin, Vas bless her, was holding her own. She had two men writhing on the ground by her while striking out at several others. Orset fought a pair and Nu leapt off his rak to take down three more.
Enraged at the small woman fighting grown Raggas, he did more damage than usual as he plowed through men he soon identified. Ivar’s fucking relatives. Uttering a war cry, he demolished anything near him. Set echoed his cry, and they fought like demons to get to Anin.
They found her unconscious on the ground minutes later, and Nu lost it. He killed when he’d meant to simply defend. It took Set and Orset to calm him down, and only because they kept reminding him that Anin needed help.
His mother ran outside. “Bring her in and let me tend to the rest of you. Oh, that Betar.” Nala fumed. “I only wish I’d been the one to knee him in the face.”
Nu blinked at his normally even-tempered mother. “I heard from a few friends in town that Betar was up to no good. The People of Vas are looking into some bullshit claim of his. But they didn’t authorize this.”
He followed the others inside, Anin in his arms. Staring down at her with concern, it took him a moment to notice his father sitting in a chair, bleeding from a phaser wound. Nu saw red. “I’ll fucking kill him.” He put Anin in Set’s arms and would have raced outside when Orset stopped him.
“You hold it right there.” Winnu stood and hobbled to his side, grabbing him. “We need you here. Your mate needs you here. Betar can wait.”
Nala told him she’d sent a signal to the authorities. While they waited for the tribunal to show, his mother and fathers stared at Anin.
“She saved our lives.” Nala stroked Anin’s pale face. “I don’t know how she did it, but she stepped in and stopped Betar cold.”
Orset nodded. “You should have seen her outside,” he said proudly before frowning. “I did my best to stay with her, but, ah...” He flushed.
“Yeah, we know.” Set nodded. “It’s a means of defense she uses. It’s probably best we don’t mention it to a lot of other people.”
“Truly.” Winnu agreed. “Nothing more identifiable as a Creation than those pheromones.”
Set and Nu looked at him, then each other.
“You know?” Nu asked, his voice gritty. He hadn’t rejected Winnu’s claims that she was his mate. The more he tried to deny it to himself, the more he sounded like a cowardly idiot. And after today there could be no more question of her importance. Seeing her in danger had put his every instinct on alert. By Vas, if anything happened to her...
“Hell, son. The first time I saw her eyes I knew.” Winnu gritted his teeth as Nala bandaged his leg. “Your father and I did our own share of exploring before we captured, ah, that is, before we found your mother.”
Nala rolled her eyes. “Please. I had to practically tie you to the bed that first time.”
“Woman, hush.” Winnu cleared his throat. “Point is, Orset and I met a few Creations in our day. None of them looked like this one, though. You two found a beauty, no doubt.”
“A woman who protected her mates well enough,” Orset said with pride. “It won’t take us long to finish up the addition.”
Set looked at him with a question in his eyes as he stroked Anin’s forehead. A small bruise had formed at her temple.
Nu surrendered to the inevitable. “Oh, hell. Yes, by all means. Finish the Vas-forsaken addition.”
“Nu Fas. Watch your tone.” His mother barely came to his shoulder, but when she scolded, Nu felt two feet tall.
“Yes, Mother.” He glanced at Anin and couldn’t help himself. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. “Will she be all right?”
Anin groaned and squirmed under Set’s caress.
“Thank Vas,” Set breathed.
He and Nu murmured to her that she was safe. The moment she heard their voices, she settled down nicely.
Nala smiled. “I really like her.” She stared at her boys. “You’re both going to mate with her? You’re finally going to give me second-children?”
Nu sighed and said at the same time as Set, “Yes, Mother.”
“Good.”
Nu couldn’t believe that in the short time he’d been home, Anin had won over his family. His parents had known Lita for years and never warmed to her. Yet they’d begun building a family longhouse because Set had fallen in love and convinced the others Nu had too.
He still needed to talk to Set about his propensity for lying. Getting poor Anin caught up in it all, making her pretend to be so tough when it was clear his meena was a true submissive.
Then again, she’d taken Betar and several others down. Betar had a broken jaw to prove it. Hell, Nu wasn’t sure what to make of Anin, other than he knew he couldn’t live without her, no matter how he tried to convince himself it was just about sex.
While he pondered his future, the authorities came and cleaned up the mess outside. Charges would be filed against everyone involved with Betar’s crazy scheme, but one point remained. According to the lead priest who’d arrived, The People of Vas validated Ivar’s bonding. Lita had been carrying a child of Ivar’s line when she died, so in essence, Nu and she had never bonded.
He hadn’t lost a true mate, but he’d lost a woman he thought he’d loved. Hearing the news, Nu ignored his family’s concern and focused on Anin.
He stared down at his future mate, not sure how to feel.
After two days of pampering back in the Fas brothers’ home, Anin was ready to climb the walls. Used to serving others, she didn’t know how to accept Nu’s and Set’s constant attention. At first, the novelty of it had been exciting. Nu and Set seemed to want her to accept their care. For that reason she’d tolerated it as long as she had, but no more.
Rising from bed, she pushed aside the fabric she’d been experimenting with and sought one of her lovers. It felt funny to think of them as hers. She still couldn’t believe Set had declared his love. It was taking a while to process. Set Fas loved Anin. A Creation. A woman he knew to be unnatural, one who could literally kick his ass if she put her all into it, and yet he loved her.
Nu, for all his gruffness, treated her with every courtesy. From what Set had told her, Nu intended to bond with her as well, a true threesome with dangerous men.
She wanted more than anything to say yes to them both, but she held back. Nu and Set had been taught to respect and defend women. She hoped Set wasn’t confusing duty with love. As though he thought he had to protect her and so saw her as his responsibility.
Nu hadn’t once confessed anything of his feelings. She and Set had given him space after that fiasco with Betar. Bad enough Nu had lived with a woman who’d hated him, but to know she had carried another man’s child. How sad and awful for everyone involved.
By Ragga law, his marriage to Lita no longer existed, in history or anywhere else. Records had been rewritten to show an amended bond between Ivar and Lita. Betar and his family would be pleased, or so Set had said. Personally, the whole of it confused Anin. She didn’t understand why Nu mourned that lost relationship. With all Lita had done to him, could he still care for her?
She’d burned with questions since her confinement to Set’s bedroom. Now that she proclaimed herself healed, she knew the time had come. Set meant well, and Anin recognized how she felt about him, but Set and Nu were a package.
As much as she loved them both, she couldn’t stay where she wasn’t truly wanted. If Set had taught her anything in their time together, it was to take what she wanted out of life. And she wanted both Fas brothers.
Anin found Nu outside caring for the raks. He turned when she approached. “Shouldn’t you be resting?”
“Any more rest and I’ll never wake up. I might just die of boredom.”
Nu smiled, a grin that reached his eyes and made her heart race.
“I wanted to talk to you.” She glanced around. “Where’s Set?”
“Right here.” Set popped his head up, and she managed to catch his gaze over the rak’s tall back. “Nu’s right. You should be in bed.”
“Relax, Mother.” Nu snorted. “The woman’s fine. See for yourself.”
Set rounded the animal and tilted Anin’s head, looking at her temple.
“Did you want to check my teeth, too?” she asked with exasperation, too scared of what she was about to do to worry about insubordination.
“That’s check my teeth, too, Sir.” Set spanked her bottom with a laugh. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to Nu.”
Nu busied himself with the rak. He and Set wore trousers and boots, their chests gleaming with an honest day’s sweat as they brushed and tended the animals. Warmth filled her, watching this vulnerable man who hid his emotions under a wall of silence like battle armor. For all Nu’s obvious strength, his heart had yet to heal from Lita’s cruel wounds.
“Do you still love her?”
Nu started at her question. “What?”
“Lita. Do you still love her? Is that why you can’t let the past go?”
14
Nu swore. Set stepped back, brushing the rak while he kept his attention on his brother.
“I don’t love Lita. I did a long time ago.” Nu dropped his hands in a bucket of cold water and dried them off. Agitated, he ran his fingers through his hair, sweeping the dark strands from a hard face steeped in pain. “She broke something inside me,” he confessed in a low voice. “I loved her, and she hated me. I still don’t know what I did that was so wrong.” He flushed and stared into her eyes. “You don’t seem to mind me all that much.”
Confused, she put a hand on his forearm. “I don’t understand.”
“When I fucked you,” he said bluntly. “You didn’t seem to mind.”
“Oh.” Nu didn’t believe in holding back, did he? “No, I liked it. I like when you and Set, ah, take me.”
“Make love to you,” Set corrected, his lips quirked into a smile.
“Lita knew me, or so I thought,” Nu said. “I gave her everything inside me.”
Everything you have yet to give to me. Anin nodded for him to continue.
“And she crushed it. She took other lovers, bonded with another line.” His hands gripped the towel tight. “She carried their child.”
“And to a Ragga that’s sacrilege, isn’t it?” She’d done her homework. Between their mother and her time spent reading while laid up in bed, Anin had learned as much about Ragga customs as she could. “Lita’s pregnancy was the final insult. And now her marriage to you officially never existed. And that makes you feel sad.” That she still didn’t understand.
Fury darkened Nu’s face. “No, it fucking pisses me off. I spent years pining that witch.”
Anin didn’t flinch, even in the face of his rage. A measure of trust. She knew he’d never hurt her. Nu Fas didn’t have it in him to hurt a woman unless she wanted it.
“Then why are you so silent and withdrawn?” Anin couldn’t help the tears. “Is it me? Am I reminding you of your poor choices? You don’t want a woman in your life again, do you? I should leave.”
“No.” He clamped onto her arms. “No, Meena. You’re what’s right with my world.” Nu gentled his hold and pulled her in for a hug. “I’m just afraid...”
“That she’ll prove to be like Lita,” Set said quietly as he caged Anin between them.
“I’m afraid I’ll scare her away. What I feel for you, Anin, it’s stronger than anything I ever had with Lita,” Nu whispered and kissed her. “You’re so
strong, but so fragile. I don’t want to hurt those tender feelings, and I don’t know how to stop myself.”
Anin put her arms around Nu’s waist and held tight. “You won’t hurt me, Nu. I trust you.”
Nu groaned, and she felt his cock stirring against her belly. “You don’t understand, Anin. When you’re with me, just touching you, I want. I need you.”
“You have me.” She sighed into his chest, kissing him with affection, with hunger. They’d left her alone for two long days and nights. She needed an end to this sexual fast. Not with anyone, but with the men she loved.
“There are things I want to do to you,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I’m not a gentle lover, Anin. Life with me will be intense.”
“He’s right.” Set spoke to Nu over her head. “You should show her what she’ll have to live with if she agrees to mate with us. And don’t keep me in suspense, either. If we’re all going to bond, I need to know what makes you tick. Yeah, I know, you and I don’t have to take Anin together all the time. We’ll still have our own private trysts with her. But if you’re going to brand her or beat her, I should know—”
“Don’t be an ass,” Nu growled. “I’m not going to hurt her.” He stared down at Anin. “Much.”
Her clit throbbed, and she layered kisses over Nu’s chest before centering on his nipple. She licked him then bit him hard before sucking on the small nub.
“Fuck.” Nu pushed against her. “I’ve been trying to be considerate.”
“That lasted a whole day,” Set murmured.
“Two days, you drun.” Nu tossed Anin over his shoulder. “But if you really want to see what all the fuss is about, let’s go back to my room. You want to watch, fine.”
Anin couldn’t wait.
“In fact, you can help.”
“Good.” The husky note in Set’s voice stirred her. “Now let’s go fuck our mate.”
Once in Nu’s bedroom, Anin was naked in no time. Nu and Set stripped to nothing and stared at her. Two hard, powerful men who filled the room with Ragga need.