Danika, Personal Quarters, Two Days Later
Hot, solid muscle pressed to my back, Thomar lay wrapped around me, his arm over my waist, holding me close.
Blinking away my exhaustion, I opened my eyes to find Varin lying before me, his shoulder my pillow, my hand resting on his chest as if it belonged there.
Naked, surrounded and protected by my mates, my muscles felt like heated candle wax, still warm and pliable but with no strength. After Thomar had wrapped me up like a burrito in the black sheet and carried me out of the medical station, Varin clearing our path to what I later learned was our new private quarters, they’d fed me. Bathed me. Fucked me again. Ordered me to sleep. Awakened me with a mouth on my pussy and another at my breast. We hadn’t left the room in nearly two days, and we’d barely spoken more than a handful of sentences to one another.
Seemed that once my guys decided to get naked, they couldn’t stop. Not that I was complaining. Except for the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to walk right for a week. The thing in my ass, this Anal Training Box, as they called it, had filled me up over and over, getting bigger, stretching me open. And holy shit, it wasn’t nearly as big as Varin’s cock would feel. Not yet.
I was sore and bruised and used up in the most delicious way. I hurt. My core had been empty for a long time. When I broke her in, I did it with style. I didn’t care if I was sore or tired or hungry. I’d never been more relieved in my life.
My mate, Thomar, had decided to keep me. Claim me. I felt the shift in his mind the moment he’d made the decision, his cock buried deep as he held me bent over the bed in that medical room. I’d nearly cried with relief. I didn’t have to try to find a new mate in thirty days. And despite what the two wardens had told me when I was still on Earth, I didn’t trust the “system.” The law, the bureaucracy had failed me over and over in my lifetime. That was just on Earth. What could possibly be more confusing and convoluted than the laws governing a Coalition of Planets with over two hundred worlds?
Thomar still intended to die. I could feel the intention every time he touched me, but I would have some time to come up with a solution. Now that I’d had a taste of them both, there was no way I was giving up on him. I understood pain. Suffering. Torture. Knew that Varin suffered torture as well as watching someone he cared about suffer. In my opinion that was ten times worse than experiencing it oneself.
Somehow he was protecting me from the worst of his mental struggles. I could feel my guys’ emotions, but many times the last two days I had suspected that Thomar and Varin could actually read each other’s thoughts, like full telepathy, vampire-movie style. Many times I’d seen first Thomar, then Varin wince as if in pain or stop moving simultaneously, becoming frozen statues as they dealt with something going on inside their heads.
I didn’t know what to do. Touching them seemed to help bring them back to reality, but sometimes that didn’t work and I had to simply wait.
Waiting terrified me.
Something was wrong with them, and it was serious. They refused to say anything more than what they’d already told me, that Thomar and Varin were linked by mating collars that the Hive had imbedded in their spines. That there was no way to remove the collars without killing them. That the only way for Thomar to spare both me and Varin a lifetime of suffering was for Thomar to die and set Varin free.
But not until after Thomar formally claimed me with Varin in a mating ceremony.
Which left me with the option to refuse them until I had this figured out. Thirty days suddenly did not seem like long enough. I needed more time.
Time to call in the big guns. I was going to go see that golden doctor myself and find out exactly what I was dealing with.
Alone. No bullshit. No overly protective, scowling mates glaring down the doctor. If there was a way to save Thomar, I was going to find it. I very much liked these two. I wasn’t in love with them, not yet anyway. Not that I would know. I’d never been in love before. The only person I’d ever really loved was my little brother. I’d fought for him, too, and been sent to prison as a result.
I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“I can feel your upset, female. Tell me what hurts you so I may take care of it.” Thomar’s rough voice came from behind me, and I smiled as his hand moved over my thigh, traced the contour of my hip and waist, moved up and down in a soothing glide of male heat.
“Just thinking about the past. It’s nothing. I left it behind on Earth.”
“Apparently you did not.” Varin was awake now as well, his free hand crossed over his chest so he could stroke my cheek.
Holy shit, being surrounded, adored, and soothed by two massive warriors was heaven on Earth. No, on The Colony. Heaven on The Colony.
How weird.
“Does this planet have an actual name? Or is it literally called The Colony and that’s it?”
Varin’s thumb traced my bottom lip. “This planet has a designation number in the Interstellar Coalition of Planets database. However, as far as I know, before we colonized the surface and began our mining operations, the planet had no other name.”
Somehow that seemed sad to me. No idea why. Just sad.
Thomar squeezed my hip. “You will not succeed in distracting me. I will know what troubles you. You will tell me now. We saw your file, we know you have killed a human, as Lady Rone stated, ‘in cold blood.’ You will tell us why you were forced to such an act. Who hurt you? Tell us everything.”
Bossy much? “Why do you assume someone hurt me?”
Varin cleared his throat. “We can feel you, Danika. You are not violent or aggressive. You are a female. Weak and in need of protection. We demand to know what happened to you so we can comfort and protect you.”
“Speak,” Thomar ordered.
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.” No freaking way. That was a deep, dark rabbit hole I had no intention of visiting again. Ever. I had blood on my hands, but my brother was safe and happy and had just started college. He was going to be all right, and I was finally free. So yeah, over and done. Not going back there. “I left Earth for a reason. The past is the past.”