“Rav.”
“Let me guess? He broke down into tears, so worried about your wellbeing that he couldn’t speak over his sobs.”
Grigg snorted. “You’re an asshole.”
I stretched, feeling both exhausted and exhilarated by our time spent with Amanda. After what we’d done with her, I was surprised at how quickly he’d returned to his tense old self. Maybe if I could get Grigg to calm the fuck down, we could go back to our room and pull the blanket from her soft, warm body and—
“Stop thinking about our mate. You’re fucking up my rage.”
“So, your father. Let me guess? Your near-death experience was a blight on the Zakar name and the women at the palace are fawning all over him with their concern for the infamous Commander Zakar.”
“That about sums it up.”
“You tell him about our mate?”
“No.”
“What? He didn’t notice the collar?”
Grigg shook his head. “He only sees what he wants. The rest…”
“So you didn’t tell him. Why not? Maybe the women would leave him alone if they knew they had no chance of claiming you.”
“They never had a chance.”
“They didn’t know that. I’m sure you’re number one on so many mothers’ potential mating lists for their daughters that you are practically a household name back on Prime.”
His silence stretched and I let it ride, giving him time to come to grips with what I’d just told him. He was a brilliant warrior, but when it came to politics or women, he had about as much finesse as his father. A fact to which I would never enlighten him.
“I’m not going to tell him about her.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
He finally looked at me, and I was relieved to feel the tension coiling through our link calm as well. “I like the idea of him suffering their attentions. I might never tell him.”
“Fine. I don’t care about your asshole father. I care about Amanda. What are we going to do about her?”
That narrowed his attention. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you feel it when we were finished with her?”
“Feel what?”
“Her guilt.”
Grigg shook his head and returned his gaze to the view of the solar cluster on his monitor. “No. I’m sorry. I was—”
“Feeling fucked up and weird about your feelings toward me?”
Chapter Nine
Conrav
“Fuck, Rav. Why do you do that?” Grigg’s mouth thinned into a fine line and he refused to look at me. I’d never seen Grigg look embarrassed, not in all the years I’d known him.
I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder, hard. I squeezed when he tried to shrug me off. This was something we had to talk about. If our mating with Amanda was going to work, we needed to work this out. “Look, I don’t mind. I don’t want to fuck you, Grigg, but if allowing you to be a bossy asshole in bed gets Amanda that hot and bothered every time we’re together, I am yours to command. She was so fucking wet, so desperate for us, I couldn’t think. She loved it.”
“I know.”