Both spent, I held her there, against the wall, my cock buried deep as we both fought for air.
“I don’t want to choose, Zed.” She whispered the confession with her lips pressed against my neck, her arms around me, her fingertips wrapped around the back of my head in a sensual glide I could mistake for nothing less than a caress. The feminine touch made me shiver, a weight growing in my chest I’d never experienced before.
That weight hurt, but it was a pain I knew I never wanted to live without. It was love. It had to be.
“I know, love. We’ll figure it out.”
Her salty tears ripped the new wound in my chest wide open and she nearly broke me with her trust. She was laying her heart on a silver platter, and the idiot, Calder, was too fucking stupid to take it, to understand its worth.
As I pulled my body free and tucked my cock back into my pants, I vowed to beat the living hell out of the stubborn warrior if that’s what it took. Axon wouldn’t be a problem. He understood, even before I did, what it would mean for the four of us to become a family.
I’d been arrogant and selfish when I’d been matched to her. As she let the tears fall, exposing how badly we had broken her, I realized it wasn’t about us, it was about her.
She’d been matched to all three of us.
If one had been perfect for her, one would have been what the bride protocols gave her.
I helped her adjust her dress, quietly thrilled that it was my seed coating her thighs, my scent on her skin. And my strength she turned to as
she curled up in my arms and let me hold her. Her tears soaked my skin through the uniform shirt, but I welcomed them as a badge of honor, of trust.
She was mine, and I wasn’t giving her up.
And if she needed both Axon and Calder as well, then I was going to make sure she had them. One way or another. The only thing that mattered to me was her happiness.
Long minutes passed as I held her cradled in my arms, content to keep her there, away from the noise and bustle outside.
When a knock sounded at the door, my first instinct was to ignore it, but Violet stiffened in my hold and I knew the magical moment was broken.
9
Violet
“Yes?”
The door slid open and one of the medical personnel bowed at the waist. “I’m sorry to interrupt, sir. Ma’am.”
The nurse, or whatever she was, seemed perfectly nice. She was quite a bit taller than I was. Thicker shoulders. She had on a green medical uniform, but the arm band she wore was red, just like the guys.
If she had any idea of what we’d been doing in the exam room, she gave no indication. This was good because one minute I was afraid I would die of pleasure as Zed fucked me up against the wall, then I was a crying, sobbing mess. I wasn’t exactly sure what was up either. I was exhausted, sated, confused, sore, pleased. Everything. My body wrung out from stress over Mindy, transport, and more orgasms in the last few hours than I’d had in the last year. My entire body was sore, well-loved, and alive. I felt alive, really alive, for the first time in years.
And my mates were going to make me give them up. Make me choose between them. And the thought was like a knife twisting in my gut.
“I have an urgent comm coming in from the IQC from Trion for Violet Nichols, mate of Zed, Axon and Calder, Elite Guards to the Royal Family. It’s an emergency comm.”
Zed tugged my hand, pulled me out of the room and into the main med unit area. There were displays and screens, monitors and data I didn’t understand. There were rooms like the one we had just exited forming in a circle around the central area, but I had no idea how many were occupied.
Trion? Emergency? “Mindy? Something’s wrong with Mindy?” My heart leapt in my throat and was glad to be guided. All my shallow personal concerns were forgotten. Mindy was more important than my transition to a new world, to three men who seemed to want to do anything for me. Yes, petty thoughts.
God. What was the matter with Mindy?
“Patching through now,” the nurse said, going to one of the control panels. I had no idea where I’d even find a comm—but at least I knew what it was since I’d seen and used one at the Brides Program center in Miami.
Zed stared at a wall and I followed his direction.
She moved her hands over one of the controls and one of the screens that had been filled with patient information went blank for about five seconds.
And then my sister’s mate, General Goran, appeared on the screen. Unlike the last time I saw him, where he was happy and full of love for his mate, he now looked like a broken man. Exhausted. Covered in dirt and blood. Behind him was a room that looked like it had been destroyed by an explosion.