Hendry crossed his arms and leaned back, watching me. “But you decide for her what she needs or doesn’t need?”
I ran my hands through my hair with a growl. “I don’t know what she needs. Nothing feels right. She’s so small! I have never met another human, other than your Anne. I don’t know their culture or their customs. I fear I will break her.”
Hendry chuckled. “May I speak freely, commander?”
I slumped down in the chair next to him. “Please. Tell me how to deal with these human females.”
Hendry chuckled. “Hannah’s not the problem, Zane. You are.”
“What?”
“You’re the one who is holding back. You are the one rejecting your mate.”
I opened my mouth to deny his bullshit, but he lifted his hand. “Hear me out.”
“Make it good, Hendry, or I might decide to gut you and walk away.” The captain raised a brow, but didn’t rise to the bait. We’d been friends for many years, and I honestly wanted to hear what he had to say.
“She’s your match, Zane. Yours. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, and I’m going to lose her in less than a week if I don’t figure it out.”
“Do you remember my claiming ceremony?”
Oh, yes. I remembered. He’d fucked Anne hard and fast, both he and his second rutting into her like wild animals as she’d whimpered and screamed and begged them both for more. I’d been one of his inner circle, one of those lucky enough to witness the claiming and pledge my life and sword to their joining.
Hendry looked me dead in the eye. “I fucked Anne. My second took her as I restrained her, as I spanked her bare ass. We shared her body like two wild animals. I held her throat and I tied her down and I fucked her until she couldn’t remember her own name.”
I cleared my throat. Fuck me. I wanted to do all that to Hannah. All that and more. “Yes. I was there.”
“But that wasn’t the first time.” Hendry leaned forward, his gaze intent. “Your Hannah was matched to Prillon Prime, to you, using the recording from Anne’s NPU. Your Hannah experienced that claiming for herself.” The captain placed both of his palms flat on the table, as if he were trying to anchor himself for what he had to say next. “Hannah lived that, from Anne’s point of view. And that experience is what drew her to you. Don’t be tender, Zane. Stop holding back. She’s a submissive, and she’s sensitive to your needs. She knows you’re not giving all of yourself. She can sense it the same way you know she’s unhappy and uncomfortable around you. But she doesn’t know what you want her to be, Zane. She needs you to be who you truly are; she needs to know the rules. She won’t give herself to you, she won’t love you, she won’t trust you until you bare your soul to her and let out the beast.”
Chapter Eleven
Hannah
Zane was oddly quiet as we walked back to the transporter room. I looked up at him from the corner of my eye, but looked away when his gaze turned to me. Something was different. He was calm, eerily calm, as if Captain Hendry had given him a tranquilizer or something.
Hell, maybe my mate just didn’t really like my company. I’d given up trying to talk to him after the first few days. He was the king of monosyllabic responses, and I got sick of trying to pry information from him that he obviously didn’t want to give.
He fucked me every night as I took Dare in my mouth. They’d explained to me that only the primary mate was allowed to deposit seed in my pussy until I was pregnant with my first child. After that, my body was a free-for-all and both men could take me as hard and as often as they liked.
I knew that first night, when I said I wanted to go home to Earth, that I’d pushed Zane away, that I’d disappointed him. I regretted hurting him, but no matter how hard I tried to please him, he wouldn’t let me in. Since that first night, something wasn’t right between us. I felt the chasm growing, like a partial tear that kept ripping a bit wider each day. He was cold and hard, and while he still looked at me with desire, took me with a desperate need, there was also anger. The collar, while able to share the immense pleasure between the three of us when fucking, also shared other powerful emotions as well.
Where had the caring man I’d met in the medical station gone? Where was that mate? The one who bossed me around one minute and treated me like spun glass the next? The mate who held me down and suckled my nipples as the doctor made me come, then held me on his lap and rubbed my back to make me feel like I was safe. Where was the mate who had held me over his lap, spanked me until I cried, and then promised me that I’d never feel alone again? Where was my anchor in the storm? My master?
He was gone, and I was afraid I’d never get him back. I had grown to love Dare, I knew that, but being with Zane like this, walking beside each other in the corridor, not touching, not talking, not feeling anything from him but an impenetrable wall of ice? I couldn’t do that. Not for the rest of my life. I wanted more. I deserved more.
I hadn’t told Dare yet, but I had decided to seek a new match when the thirty days was over. Dare would be upset with me, and I would miss him, but I didn’t see an alternative. That meant I had four days left with my mates and then I’d move on and give Zane the freedom he so obviously wanted. I would not be his fuck toy, the woman he refused to speak with during the day, but would stick his cock in every night. I refused to love Zane, knowing he would never love me in return.
And even when we were together, the three of us, Zane fucked like a perfect clinician, but I could tell he was holding back. He wasn?
?t fully there with us, and I was tired of feeling like such a disappointment to him. Zane was not happy with me, and his pain hurt me. I needed to make my mate happy. I needed to be what he wanted, what he needed. And I was a complete and utter failure there. Zane was miserable, and his pain was breaking me. I had to leave so he could find a mate he wanted, a woman who satisfied him, a woman with whom he would share his darkness instead of hide it.
Maybe I would be sent to another battle fleet, as far away from Dare and Zane as possible? Could I ask the bride program here to send me away from Zane? I was heartsick, but seeing my mates every day would be so much worse.
I didn’t know what requesting a new mate entailed, but I intended to ask. Maybe, when Prince Nial went back to their planet in a few days, I’d go with him. Surely they could assign a new mate for me there? And I’d never see Zane or Dare again.
The thought felt like a knife blade in my gut, but I couldn’t live like this. I’d failed my mate. I wasn’t what he wanted or needed. It was time to let go.