“What is the meaning of this disruption?”
I ignored the voice and took Bella’s hand, met her dark eyes, which sparked with irritation. Perhaps she was annoyed with her mates for leaving her behind. But she was not the only one irritated. She should not be here. But my mate was innocent in this. I aimed my anger at Evon’s sister, Thalia, who accompanied her. While Bella had only been on the planet for a few hours, Thalia should know better than to interrupt a military judicial hearing.
“My apologies, Commander,” Liam said. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and his fists were clenched at his sides. Yeah, he was pissed, too. “This is Bella, of Earth, my mate, and she has come to witness the proceedings.”
What else could he say? He wasn’t in a position to argue, only pacify.
“I was not aware you took a mate.” I glanced up, saw that it was Evon’s father who spoke. He looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “Is this true, Bella? Is Liam Chyron your mate?”
On the spot, Bella looked him in eye and lifted her chin. She refused both Evon’s and my touch, choosing to hold her hands loosely before her as she addressed the commander. “Yes. I arrived several hours ago. I am an Interstellar Bride, sent form Earth. I have been matched to Liam, Rager, and Evon.”
Evon’s brother spun about in his chair and he stared at Bella. I pulled her to a chair and we sat, Evon on her other side.
Bella kept her head up and looked quite like the queen. Not in coloring, for she didn’t have the bright red hair, but certainly in mannerisms. Bella wasn’t going to cower before this panel, nor her new father and brother-in-law. They were formidable; that was why they held such lofty roles.
“Yet I assume she is not yet claimed,” Evon’s brother clarified.
I watched as Evon’s jaw clenched and I wondered if his back molars might crack. While he was not removed from his family as Liam was from his, they had strong beliefs. They stood for a unified Viken with as powerful a conviction as Liam’s believed in the VSS. But his family was not open and friendly, easygoing and loving as mine was. My childhood in Sector 3 was idyllic without any of the pressure put upon my friends.
The fact that Dravon stated that Bella had yet to be officially claimed proved it. Yes, she was our mate, but until we’d claimed her—all three of us fucking and filling her at the same time—the bond could be broken. She could be sent to another. It was a sharp twist of a ruthless blade, pointing out this fact, this weakness and vulnerability to his own brother.
The fucker. I was the damn pacifist among the three of us, but right now, I hated Evon’s brother. He was an asshole that needed to be knocked down a few pegs.
Even Bella, who knew nothing about our ways, picked up on the wording, the interplay between siblings. Her back was ramrod straight and her eyes were narrowed. I put a hand on her thigh, felt it tense, but she quickly relaxed.
It was then I realized she wasn’t wearing that filmy white gown she transported in, instead warm clothing that covered her body modestly. Thank fuck Thalia had helped her. No doubt she would have come to this hearing in just a wrap Evon had draped over her. Would our Bella have arrived with her lush breasts and hard nipples obvious for everyone to see? I might be the calm one of our new family, but I would have had her over my shoulder and out of the room before she put her ass in a chair.
“The charges against me are severe. As I am innocent, I demand to know on what grounds you lay these claims at my feet,” Liam said, returning the conversation back to the situation at hand. His voice was calm, but as his friend I recognized his tenseness, that he was tightly coiled from this, from having Bella in the room. His stance was more Evon than Liam.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the panel member from Sector 1 added. “Your family has caused enough trouble through the years, but even your father has not resorted to murder.”
She was wrong, but the knowledge Liam had shared with me in the past was not pertinent today. Liam’s father was a killer, a cold-blooded, calculating murderer who rationalized every evil act with his fanatical belief in separatist politics.
“Murder?” Liam asked, his voice loud. “I am no murderer. I served long years in the Coalition Fleet, defending this planet. I have sworn an oath to the three kings, am a member of the Royal Guard, and have taken a mate shared by three sectors to unify the planet. I am innocent of your claims.”
Bella took my hand, gripped it tight.
Murder?
“A technician in the transport center was killed by an ion blast to the heart. Doctors estimate his time of death to be five minutes prior to the transport of stolen goods.”
Liam shook his head. “I had nothing to do with this. Why am I here?”
“Your security codes were used to initiate the transport and bypass IQC security protocols.”
Shit. They’d kept the murder quiet, and the use of Liam’s codes was shocking. No one shared codes. They were implanted in special quantum crystals just under the skin of our wrists. There was no sharing, no faking the codes. They were assigned randomly and programmed by the Coalition’s computer system.
The look on Liam’s face was half anger, half stunned. He’d only killed Hive and they were the enemy. And using his security code? Short of cutting off his arm or dragging him to a control station, no one could use it. Hell, no one would even know what it was. Liam didn’t even know what it was, a randomized sequence of over two hundred letters, symbols and forms made up from pieces of all the languages in the Interstellar Coalition. It was impossible to break.
“That’s impossible,” Liam began. “Based on your statement, you have an exact time for this incident. When did this occur?”
“Twenty-two fifty-three,” another member of the panel said,
his head down as if reading the fact from his tablet.
That was last night. Fairly late. Bella hadn’t arrived yet. Hell, I hadn’t even been tested yet. Evon’s testing had been first, yesterday morning. Liam’s had been just after dinner, several hours before the incident in question.
I heard Evon swear under his breath. We must both be thinking the same thing. Liam was most likely alone in his own quarters then. We only received access to the Mated Family Quarters this morning after we were matched.