Alone.
Varin shook his head to push my melancholy aside; I could feel the brush of his will inside my mind. We were one mind. Truly the Hive had succeeded in connecting us. My second scoffed and turned to face Lady Rone. “And this female is human? From your world?” Varin asked. “Will she be disrespectful and argumentative? Like you?”
I expected the female to protest. Instead, she burst into laughter. “I hope so.”
Varin and I were one in our confusion.
Rachel walked to the display screen and pulled up an image I strained to see. The picture was of a female. Young. Beautiful. Long dark hair and solemn dark eyes. Her lips were full and ripe, and my cock hardened with need.
“Oh.” Rachel’s word was a quiet whisper of upset.
“What is wrong?” I demanded.
“She’s a prison transport.”
Varin growled. “The female was kept imprisoned on your world?” Our minds merged in shock and protective rage. “What barbaric place is this Earth?
“How long?” I asked.
“Are you sure you want to know? I mean, she’s here now. It doesn’t really—”
“How. Long.”
Lady Rone cleared her throat. “Seven years, two months, seventeen days.”
“Seven years?” Varin exploded, moving to the screen to see the data himself. “Your people placed her in a prison for seven years? Why? Why would you do something so evil?”
Rachel scrolled through some data, reading the Earthen language faster than either I or Varin could. We hadn’t read text since before our capture, and now I felt the strain when I looked at the data. The Hive had broken more than my body. I felt ashamed. Ignorant.
“Let’s see, at age seventeen—oh dear, she was a minor tried as an adult—”
“She was a child?” I fought for control, my rage at the mistreatment of this female, of any female, pushing me beyond my limits.
“Thomar. No.” Varin closed his eyes and forced icy calm to enter my mind. Resolve to protect the female now. “We cannot change the past. She will not be harmed again.”
Lady Rone was speaking softly, reading to herself. “She was convicted of…”
“Tell us. Now,” Varin demanded.
“Murder. She was convicted of first-degree murder.”
“What does this mean? ‘First degree’?”
Rachel scrolled so that the female’s face once more filled the screen, and I stared at the soft skin, shining hair. Now that I knew more about her, I easily recognized the look in her eyes for what it was. Despair. Grief. Loss of hope.
“First-degree murder means she planned it out before she did it. Premeditated. It wasn’t an accident. It’s the worst crime you can commit on Earth. She killed someone in cold blood.”
Ice-cold fury settled in my gut, and I knew Varin shared my emotion as he turned to me with a scowl. “Only a female who was not protected would be forced to such an act.”
“I don’t know—” Rachel mused.
“Go. Protect her. She has suffered enough.” I ordered Varin out of the room, and he left at once. Looking at Rachel, I studied her small, easily breakable bones, the delicate curves of her petite body. Human females were very, very small in comparison to the other races. Leaning back, I rested by head on the bed and closed my eyes. “Varin will protect her until she can claim another.”
I heard Rachel’s sigh. “We’ll see. I was in jail, too, but not for murder.” She sounded worried.
“Do not worry, female. You are mated. Your warriors would never allow anyone to hurt you.”
Prillon warriors protected their females at all costs. Varin would protect the sad-eyed human until another could claim her. Or he would claim her for himself.
I needed to speak to the doctor. If there was any way to free Varin from the death sentence we currently shared, I intended to do so. I did not fear death. Varin deserved a mate, a life. Varin was a warrior of honor. Strength. He had kept me alive during our captivity. I would gift him back that life now. There had to be a way to break the connection between us, remove the collars the Hive had surgically implanted deep inside our spines.
“I need to speak to the doctor. Alone.”
Lady Rone watched me, and the look in her eyes made me wonder if she knew what I had been thinking. She nodded and left me to stare at the image of the female staring down at me from the screen.
I would make the only honorable choice I had left.
I would set them both free.