“And the rest of it?”
He looked at me now, and I knew he’d already buried the rest of his emotions so deep I’d have to force them back to the surface. “Look, I felt it all, Grigg. These fucking collars don’t let us hide anything. You were feeling territorial, and it wasn’t just about Amanda.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know where it came from.” Grigg looked so lost, so out of his element that I believed him. Which was just fucking sad, and further testament to how badly his unfeeling asshole of a father had fucked him up.
“It’s normal, Grigg. It’s called love. Concern. Affection. You’re my cousin, and I love you. I’d die for you, kill to protect you. It’s perfectly normal that you’d feel the same. That just makes us a family. And all those feelings now extend to our mate. I feel it, too.”
“I’ve never felt any of that before.”
“The fucking collars,” I muttered. “I know. But now you know.”
“Know what?”
“What family is supposed to feel like.”
Grigg rubbed his chest and I felt the pang of emotion that was ripping him to shreds. He had no idea what to do with all of the sentiment, so I helped him out with a bit of distraction. “So, back to our mate. I think we might have a problem.”
“The guilt?”
“Yes. She’s hiding something. Those collars sense everything, even that.”
Grigg frowned, his mind now focused on solving a real problem, something he could deal with so much more efficiently than his unfamiliar emotions. “What do you suspect?”
I hated to say it, but when I’d found out our mate was coming from a new member of the Interstellar Coalition, I’d done some research. “I looked up her planet, read every report about Earth.”
“And?”
“Her people are primitive, still fighting wars over resources and land. In many parts of her world, women are still denied basic rights and education. They are treated as slaves without honor or power in their own right. They allow their poor to starve and die in the streets. They kill over skin color and religious beliefs. They’re barbaric.”
“She’s no longer an Earthling. She’s a citizen of Prillon Prime. She belongs to us now.”
“Yes, officially.”
“But?”
“She had two men with her at the processing center. She said they were her family, lied to the Warden, but they were not related to her. Suspicious, the Warden reviewed the recording of their conversation.”
“And who were they?”
“Spies. Apparently, Amanda is a spy for her government.”
Grigg’s eyes widened. “Amanda, a spy?”
I nodded.
“Yes. She’s the first Bride. It makes sense to use the program to their advantage. I assume they sent her here to send information to Earth, to steal advanced technologies that the Coalition has denied them.”
“I see.” I could literally feel his mind working, calculating odds, formulating a plan. “And how do you know this? Is the information about our mate reliable?”
“Absolutely. I asked the primary Warden on Earth, Lady Egara, to dig into her past.”
Grigg leaned forward. “I thought Earth just found out about the Coalition. And I know Commander Egara. What is his mate, a Prillon Lady, doing on Earth?”
The answer to that question was sad, indeed. “Both of Lady Egara’s mates were lost in a Hive ambush a few years ago.”
“Gods have mercy.” Grigg frowned at that and I felt his sadness over the news. “No children?”
“No. And she refused another match. She was taken from Earth years before official contact was made with the planet. I don’t know the details, but after her mates’ deaths, she offered to serve on Earth as the leader of the Bride Processing program there. In any event, her loyalty is to the Coalition. I trust her information.”