“Why didn’t you bite me like they wanted?” I asked, as if the other stuff wasn’t enough.
Both men were staring at me as if I were a little baby bunny and they were ravenous wolves. No, they weren’t wolves. They were like vampires, ready to bite me, to claim me. Mark me as theirs.
“As I said, you are our mate, but you are not ready to be claimed,” Styx said. The spot where my name was inked into his chest was red, irritated from the needle. As a healer, I wanted to pull out a wand and take away the pain, but I doubted he even felt it. And maybe I wanted him to feel it, just for a few minutes. I wanted to be the reason his chest burned. I wanted to mark them both. Wanted them to know they belonged to me.
The thought was savage and instinctive, a thought no educated woman should have, but there it was anyway. My pulse pounded, and my breasts grew sensitive and heavy with the possessive, primitive thoughts. Maybe I was turning into an animal here. Maybe it was in the freaking water, making me as wild as they were.
“Then why am I here?” I asked. The large table was between us, but it was no impediment if they wanted me. They were holding back. They’d held back with the others, too, but I sensed a difference now. A coiled gentleness.
Odd, yes, but I knew instinctively they wouldn’t hurt me. They’d protected me from their fellow Styx members. They’d killed the attacker on the transport pad, argued and bargained with a Prillon officer. They wouldn’t hurt me.
“Because you are our mate,” Blade said. They kept repeating the words, but my mind continued to rebel. Logic refused to accept that forever was this easy. That two males, as gorgeous as they were, would want a registered nurse from Los Angeles who wasn’t from their world. It didn’t make sense.
“But I’m not one of you.” I pointed to the now closed door. “They made that point very clear.”
Styx put his hand to my name, now permanently embedded in his skin. “You are one of us now. They know it. They witnessed your name inked into our flesh, the piercings. There is no doubt. Soon, everyone will know.” He came around the table, his eyes squarely on mine. If a singing leprechaun came dancing into the room, I doubted he’d glance away.
“But what about my team? The mercenaries? I can’t just stay here on Rogue 5 and belong to you. I need to find them, to save them.”
“I agree they need to be found, those who did it brought to justice, but not by you. You are a healer, Harper, not a warrior. Leave this to us. We have contacts within the Fleet. Your people are not forgotten. Trust us. Let us take care of it. Tracking our enemies is not safe for you.”
“Why not? I can go back to Zenith. I would have an entire battalion there keeping me safe.” There were plenty of Coalition fighters in the Latiri system, more than enough warriors on Zenith to protect me. Hell, if I had to, I could ask to be moved to a medical station on Battleship Karter.
“They don’t know who this enemy is. We do,” Styx countered.
“And that makes me safer, being closer to the enemy?” I sighed, feeling like I was hitting my head against a wall.
Styx straightened to his full height, his bare chest expanding as he stared me down. A move to intimidate, but all it did was make me want to touch. Learn. Taste. “How did they know your team was going to be on that planet? How did they know exactly where you were? And when?”
Those questions had been hovering in the back of my mind, but the only potential answers were terrible. Horrible. My mind refused to accept them. “No.” It was all I could say.
“Yes, Harper. You know the truth. There is a traitor among your people. Someone told them where you would be. How many guards would be with you. Exactly where to land. You were betrayed.”
“No. That’s impossible.” I shook my head and took a step back, but I wasn’t convincing anyone, especially not myself.
“You are safer here, with your mates,” Blade added. “Ivar has been assigned to discover the truth. To find the scavengers from Rogue 5 who did this to your team and finish them.”
“What about my team?” The thought of them dead or turned into Hive made me nauseated. “Where are they? I can’t just forget about them. We have to find them.”
“Ivar will find them, too. Rescue them. I have given him permission to contract with the Everian Elite Hunters for help,” Styx added. “None of the warriors will be restricted by following Coalition protocol. They will do what needs to be done to end this. No matter what it takes.”
I’d met some Hunters, knew their abilities. And based on what I knew of Styx members, they didn’t like following rules. Maybe it would help if they didn’t have bureaucratic bullshit to deal with. God knew the government and military back home moved a lot faster when a team of SEALS went in than when something got buried in a bureaucratic committee. “Okay. But I’m just supposed to stay here and do…what, in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs? Wait for the Coalition to track me down and send me to military prison for desertion?”
“There will be no prison, mate,” Blade said. “We will take care of that as well.”
“How?” Even if I wanted to stay with these two, I just couldn’t see a way out of this mess. “I don’t want to be an outlaw. I’m not—that’s just not—I can’t live like that.” I knew myself well enough to know that I didn’t operate that way. If I gave my word, I kept it. I didn’t break the law. I didn’t rebel. I was a healer, not a fighter. And I’d signed a contract. I had pledged to serve Earth out here, pledged to help. At least for a while longer. Two more months. I’d planned to sign up for another two years. But I could change plans. I could not live with becoming a deserter. A liar. How many human warriors would die out there because I wasn’t there to help?
“You will learn to trust us, mate.” Styx’s voice brooked no argument, and since I didn’t see a way out of any of this at the moment, I let it go and hoped like hell Styx and Blade knew what they were talking about. I wanted to trust them. I wanted everything they told me to be true. They were dangling happily-ever-after in front of me and, like a lovesick fool, I wanted to run toward it.
“We will take care of you, Harper. In every way.” Blade’s deep voice, his intense gaze, did more to me than any kind of foreplay with a guy from Earth.
“You know who you belong to.” Styx’s gaze darted to the base of my neck, where I was sure my pulse was racing at a thundering gallop beneath my skin. “Your body knows.”
I slo
wly shook my head. “You have to bite me, don’t you?” I put my hand to my neck. “They wanted you to do it here. Now. They wanted to watch.”
Styx closed the distance between us. Growled. I refused to retreat. “They will not witness such an intimate act. When we bite you, when we inject our mating serum into your flesh, it is a very personal act. I refuse to share it.”