I laughed, but it was dry and without humor. I ran my hand over my head. “I’m in love with Angh and I want to be with him.”
She did smile then, a slow, soft one. Her eyes held…pity? “You aren’t wearing his cuffs.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. I wouldn’t cry. Not here, not now. Nope.
“I refused them.”
“Why? You love him, that’s obvious. And he ripped a door off your classroom. I’d say it’s obvious to everyone on Zioria what he feels for you.”
I shook my head. “I can’t talk about it. I was going to let him go, but I’ve changed my mind. The transport window for The Colony opens up in a couple of hours. I’m sure he’ll be on it. I want to be with him.” I ached to find Angh and drag him to transport, hold my ion pistol to the transport technician’s head and force a transport if I had to. Now that I’d made up my mind, I wanted Angh.
Now.
“I’m leaving on the next transport window. I don’t care what happens.”
“If you didn’t show up to go do something I’m not supposed to know about, you’re AWOL now,” Melody reminded me. “They’re not going to clear you to transport anywhere. The Vice Admiral will throw you in the brig, or they’ll send you home.”
Yeah, she knew I was more than an instructor, but hadn’t said anything. I often disappeared from Zioria, had substitutes teach my class without me saying a word about it to her. She was my BFF here and I kept her clueless. Thankfully, she knew I did something, but she wasn’t sure what.
“I have to take the risk. I’ll call in favors. I have friends everywhere. Lots of them.” I could work from The Colony. There was no reason I couldn’t transport from The Colony for my missions. It would just take a bit of extra planning. If the Vice Admiral wanted me so bad, she could have me. On my terms.
Denzel walked up, stood behind Melody and put his hand on her shoulder. We both looked up at him.
“What’s the matter?” Melody asked. He looked grim, but while he had an easy smile, the man often looked that way. Perhaps that was a side effect of being captured by the Hive. Whatever it was, he still wasn’t as grim as Angh.
Denzel dropped something onto the table in front of me, the metal clanging as it hit the hard, polished surface.
I gasped.
Cuffs. Mating cuffs. I’d recognize these anywhere. But they weren’t just mine. There were four of them.
I glanced up at Denzel.
“He’s in the brig.”
My eyes widened and my mouth fell open. “What? Why? I thought you were both transporting back to The Colony?”
Denzel shook my head. “I came here with Angh to get you. My job was to keep him in check, to keep his beast in check. If he didn’t return with you, it’s my job to execute him.”
I stood abruptly, my chair scraping across the floor before tipping over. “What?”
“He’s in Mating Fever. Has been since the fighting pit. Since the first time he was with you.”
Mating Fever. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“He doesn’t have to die.”
“He does. The only way the fever can be broken is by a claiming. Claiming his mate.”
Me.
“But—”
Denzel lifted a hand, cut me off. “It’s too late for that now. He attacked the Vice Admiral. He ripped off his cuffs. Nothing is controlling his beast now. A delegation from Atlan is coming for him. He’s not fighting it. He’s prepared to die.”
Melody stood too, wrapped her arms around Denzel. “They won’t ask you to kill your friend, will they?”
“No, but I will. It is the honorable thing to do,” he murmured, then kissed the top of her head. “He trusted me to see it done. I won’t break that trust. Not in this.”