“What can I do for you?” I ask as I flick open a claw and slice the seal on a crate of flares, then begin loading them into the defense system canisters.
“Your brother has told me many times, that he wants us to be a family and for you and me to…uh…” Tessi trails off when I look up at her.
She hangs onto a grab bar in the cargo area as the ship banks and heads for Mindor. “Look, I feeleverythingothers feel when I touch them or, as it turns out, when they touch me.”
So she knows I want her, that I’m jealous of my brother. That I’m heartbroken.
“I know you hate yourself for wanting the pain to end because you feel like that pain is your way of honoring Jezza, by not letting go of her memory.”
Stars, she stabs me harder than a Myndrous on rageroids.
I drop the empty crate, not because I’m done with it, but because I can’t focus on anything except what Tessi has said.
She doesn’t come closer. Tessi gives me distance like she already understands me. “He wants us together, you and me. And I love him. I want him to be happy. But I’m not going to push it with you. So I am here for you and whatever you want or need from me. I accept that there are sometimes two mates in Mindoran culture, but again...”
Radar comes up and sniffs me, then sniffs her. She pets him on the head and tells him to go to bed. Radar limps into the bedroom and curls up on the mattress.
“I’m aware we can want things but not go after them. Just don’t be a stranger. I will do my best with Rhysan. But he needs you. Not me. Formula and bottles solve one problem. But they can’t replace your love.”
I’ve seen the way she is with him. Rhysan needs her because she understands loss, emptiness, anger, and yet still became a good person, not letting those things consume her like I have.
She is too tempting. I need space to think and walk away from her before I do something I regret.
Radar picks his head up when I sit on the bed beside him. I pet him and admire the softness of his fur. “You’re a good boy, you know that?”
His tail thumps on the bed as he nudges my head with his.
It’s only a flash of an image, but it’s a perspective I didn’t see before. Radar remembers Tessi running to me. He saw the fear and determination in her eyes as she reached up and stopped the commander’s blade from piercing the top of my shoulder.
I blink and sit back. Radar pants in a half smile like it doesn’t bother him to remember such a moment. But I know now what I lost sight of. I risked my life to save hers, and Tessi returned the favor.
Zorin told me he wanted us to share her, to both protect her because he’s afraid he won’t be enough. But he is. And yet he has told Tessi the same.
I get up and peer out into the main cabin and see Tessi bandaging a cut on her arm in the medbay. I cross the hallway, glance out to see my brother notice me in the glass’ reflection and smile.
Tessi doesn’t see me enter. Her back is to me.
When her scent reaches me, my Shifter uncurls himself inside me, eager for a taste of hope. I reach around her and help her tape off the bandage.
“Thank you.”
She is gentle like my mate was, but carries a fiery streak in her that I only ever wished Jezza had. I can’t fight the monster any longer and slide a warm, rough hand up her neck. Her pulse increases as I tilt her chin and lean her back toward me. I inhale a breath of her again, and instantly know we are compatible.
Her shock is expected when my lips sweep over hers. But the fresh scent of need that rises from her body is something I didn’t anticipate.
She wants me as much as I want her.
But I will not take her. She is Zorin’s.
I just want one taste.
I brush my mouth over hers, and she parts her lips like I expect. Dipping my tongue inside, I find the velvet of hers and give it a long lick as I kiss her upside down.
Tessi’s breathing quickens as I pull back.
“Thank you for saving my son’s life, my brother’s, and now mine.” I glide my thumb over her skin, addicted to thesmoothness of her flesh and the way it changes to a redder hue as the musky scent of her need grows. “Rhysan needs you more than you know. We all do.”
41: Zorin
