Shaking, I wrapped my fingers around the cool metal. I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted to walk into the Vice Admiral’s office, hold up my wrists so she could see the cuffs there and tell her to stick my next mission where the sun didn’t shine.
But that would mean people were going to die. Who and how many? I had no idea. But Commander Phan and I were making progress. Our last trip out there to take down the mines, I’d heard the buzzing. It was more than I’d heard before. And there were more minefields hidden in space. Dozens of them. More deploying every day, beating us. Killing us.
What was my happiness when an entire battlegroup was depending on me to keep them alive? Thousands of warriors, their mates and their children?
I couldn’t be selfish. I wasn’t raised that way. Protect and serve. That’s what I did. Nowhere in the job description did that include falling in love with an Atlan and going off to live on what amounted to a glorified prison colony. I’d have great sex, make wonderful babies, and spend the rest of my life wondering what my happiness was costing the rest of the Coalition.
And then there was Angh. My Angh. But he was Warlord Anghar, a legendary warrior and soon-to-be recruit of the Intelligence Core himself.
Our mating wouldn’t just cost the I.C. one Hive Communications specialist, but two.
“I want you to be my mate, Kira.” His huge hand tunneled under my hair and gently turned my tear-streaked face up to look at him. His thumb swiped the wetness away. “I will give you everything. Everything I am and everything I have is yours.”
I couldn’t do it, couldn’t look him in the eye and say what I had to say. So I leaned forward and kissed his chest before resting my cheek there. His chin settled on top of my hair and I caressed the dark swirling designs in the cuffs as I confessed.
“I want to, Angh. But I can’t. I’m not what you think I am.”
“And what is that? You are mine, Kira. I can feel it. My beast knows that he is yours. The way you give yourself to me, I know you feel it, too.”
Tears. More tears. His voice was so gentle, so deep and honest. I wasn’t supposed to tell him anything, but I couldn’t hurt him and not tell him why. I might have to walk away, but he’d know the truth first. “I’m not an instructor at the Academy. Well, I am, but that’s not all I am.”
When he remained silent, I took a deep breath, fought off the shuddering of my diaphragm that made my voice wobble, and forced the words out. “I am a top level I.C. operative. I can’t tell you what I do, or who I report to, but I have two more years on my contract and they own me, Angh. Own everything I do, including deciding if I can take a mate. I can’t get out of it and I’m not sure walking away would be the right thing to do.”
His hand ran down my side to my elbow and his fingertips traced over my now forgotten injury. For me, it was nothing. Over. For him, it was something else and I felt him putting the clues together like a master strategist snapping the final pieces of a puzzle into place. “A Hive Soldier gave you that bruise.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
He sighed. “I knew when I saw you in the battle simulation that you were more than you seemed, mate.”
“I’m not your mate, Angh.”
“You are mine, Kira. Whether you wear the cuffs or not, my beast and I know who we belong to.”
I smacked him on the shoulder, although it did nothing to him and made my palm sting. “Damn it, Angh! Yell at me or something. This sucks. It’s not fair. You want to be with me and I want to be with you. And this stupid war is going to ruin everything.”
There was no reaction from him this time, he was solid and warm, an immovable object. “War is never easy. And we are warriors, not innocent children. We know the cost.” He lowered his hand to my lap and pulled the smaller cuffs from my hands, dropping them onto the floor next to the bed, out of sight, as if they were inconsequential. Nothing. “I know you cannot tell me much, but I must know, if you walk away from the I.C., will warriors die?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
“How many?”
“Thousands. Maybe more.” If we didn’t bring down the minefields, and the battlegroups were pushed back or destroyed, entire worlds could fall.
He moved again, lying down in the bed and pulling me into his arms. My tears were gone, but the salty taste lingered when I licked my lips. “I’m sorry, Angh. I don’t know what to do.”
“I do.” He wrapped his arms around me and pressed me to his chest, held me close. “You will rest, mate, and in the morning, I will return to The Colony and you will do what needs to be done to save lives and win this war. I admire you, Kira. I knew my mate would be fierce. Strong. But you are honorable as well. You are a warrior in heart and mind and I cannot sacrifice thousands of lives for our personal happiness. You are right, my one true mate. As much as it hurts both of us, you are right. We cannot be together.”
I sobbed and he held me. It was painful, and beautiful, and it broke me in so many ways I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover.
When the comms unit attached to his armor that had been tossed to the floor buzzed a few minutes later and Vice Admiral Niobe requested Angh’s presence in her office first thing in the morning, I knew we had both made the right choice. We couldn’t be together, but Angh was wrong about one thing. He wasn’t going back to The Colony. He was going out there to fight, just like I was. Commander Phan needed him to help her defend Battlegroup Karter, not me. They were a powerful unit that could hear the Hive and that skill, their powerful combination, couldn’t be ignored.
I already had my next assignment, a recon mission to extract a top I.C. weapons specialist from a Hive Integration Unit on one of the outlying sectors. I had to leave in a few hours, about the time Angh believed he would be transporting back to The Colony.
A few more hours and then I had no idea if I would ever see the warrior I loved again.
I didn’t sleep. Neither did he. We held each other. Touched, breathed, kissed, stroked. We made love, slowly. It was tender and precious and good-bye.