“Because she is an Interstellar Bride. She has thirty days.”
The woman humphed, clearly unsatisfied by that answer. “You allow her to control you? Have you become weak on that wild planet? Claim her whether she wants it or not. I want grandchildren. I want you home.”
“If you arrange transport for a visit, let me know. Goodbye, Mother.”
The screen went black. I felt both of my mates’ emotions through the collar. Frustration was black like sludge.
“Have I done this to you?” I asked. “Am I making you unhappy?”
Maxim turned at my words, saw us there. He closed his eyes briefly and I felt happiness and sadness mixed. It wasn’t like a scale where they balanced out. It was a sick mixture of emotions that warred within him.
“Have I made you weak?”
I didn’t want that. Not at all. Both men were strong and powerful, even without their roles on the planet. To be brought low by a female was emasculating on Earth. How they felt would be even worse.
“Rachel, you have done no such thing,” Maxim said, coming up to us and brushing my hair back from my face. “You have dark circles beneath your eyes.”
I didn’t need him to be worried about me now. Yes, I needed sleep, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t talk.
“Is that why you won’t fuck me, because we’re not mated?” I glanced over my shoulder at Ryston. I didn’t wait for him to answer, for I posed my next question at Maxim. “Are you considered less because I have yet to tell you to claim me? Does she think I am leading you around by the balls?”
Maxim laughed then, a rare occurrence. “Mate, you definitely have me by the balls.”
He must have felt the shift in my mood, for he took my hand, placed it on his chest.
“When you see me and Ryston, what are your first thoughts?”
I frowned, but replied, “Big. Powerful. Commanding.”
He nodded once. “Yes, we are all those things.”
Ryston’s hands went to my shoulders, his touch warm.
“But if you deny us? If your heart does not belong to us, then what will we be?” He put a finger over my lips. “The answer is nothing. Without you, we are nothing. I know you have your thirty days, but you must know that while we will be bossy brutes outside the bedroom and dominate you in bed, you are the one with all the power.”
I didn’t really understand.
“You can have your mate and make your mother happy,” Ryston said. “Take her home, Maxim.”
Maxim looked over my shoulder at his second. “What the fuck are you saying?”
The anger that had dissipated as he looked at me spiked once again.
“You have a family that loves you and wants you back. You don’t need to make a new life here. You have your mate now. Your life is complete. Go home.”
Maxim took a step back, then another. Slashed his hand through the air. This was the first time I’d seen him truly flustered.
Turning, I looked up at Ryston. “What are you saying? You don’t want to be my mate? His second?”
Ryston lifted his chin. His pale eyes somehow seemed darker, more intense. “If it will make Maxim happy. All we’ve ever wanted since we were banished to this planet was to be accepted, to return home. Now we can, thanks to the Prime. There’s nothing keeping Maxim here, especially now that he has you. He is a revered warrior, a veteran, who was blessed with a mate. He can return to Prillon Prime. Maxim, go home.”
“What about you?” I asked, studying him.
“I am not so lucky. Once my family saw how I’d been integrated by the Hive, they wished me well and informed me that they never wanted to hear from me again.” He put his hand up to his face where the metal glinted from the light in the room. “I might be a veteran, but I am not revered. No one on the home world will be happy if I return. There is nothing for me there. My life is on the Colony.”
Ryston had been rejected because of the Hive parts? They thought less of him because his temple was a little silver and his eye had a bit of metallic glint in the right light? Were his family members out of their minds? “That’s ridiculous.”
“It is the way of the war. There are things we can’t come back from.”