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“Please prepare the papers for signing, Commandant, and we’ll see you in the morning to sign them,” Mikol said as he strode back into the room.
Margoz nodded and bowed his way out of the room.
“Is His Highness all right?” Dartan asked, looking worried and Mikol shrugged.
“He’s exhausted and feeling ill again. He’s sleeping now. Florin, please ask the physician to send those pills he talked about earlier. The ones to help with the nausea.”
Florin nodded and left as Mikol turned back to Dartan. “Captain, why don’t you go to your rooms to pack up, both for yourself and Prince Kalen. The prince needs to rest for the rest of today and then tomorrow we’ll be leaving for Tygeria as soon as we sign the contracts. I believe he’ll want you with him. Send the rest of your men back home to Loros, but tell them nothing, other than that we decided to skip the betrothal and marry right away on Tygeria. I’ll inform Lord Nerol that we’ll be traveling to Tygeria for an immediate wedding.”
Dartan’s mouth fell open. “I-immediate?”
“We don’t have the luxury of time, I’m afraid,” Mikol said softly. “Not once those guards get back to Loros. I won’t have the prince’s good name defamed. I’ll tell Nerol we met by accident and were immediately attracted and decided then and there to marry right away. Fortunately, Tygerians are known to do this kind of thing. My parents will make the plans and invite Nerol and his new queen to attend a reception as soon as we have the details. In the meantime, I expect you not to speak to anyone about the circumstances of our first meeting. It doesn’t honor either of us.”
“Of course. You have my word.”
Dartan bowed and he, too, left the room, leaving Mikol alone.
Mikol sat down in one of the soft chairs the station kept in each room, in case humans ever stayed in the room. Blake had stayed there with Davos on one memorable occasion a few cycles back and had suffered greatly from sleeping on the “slabs they called beds.” He insisted they prepare “human friendly” rooms, and apparently this room was one of them. He wondered what Blake would think about all this when he found out about it.
Hells, he wondered whathehimself thought about it all.
Mikol closed his eyes and put his head back against the cushioned chair. He needed a bit of comfort right at the moment. He had hoped for a little time to get to know this young prince and make up his mind about him. From the moment he’d first seen him, he’d been beyond attracted to him. He was a beautiful man, but he was also young and highly emotional and dangerously reckless. He drank far too much too. Some of this wildness could be the circumstances, of course, and the fact he was feeling so ill, but probably not all of it.
One of the problems was that the out-of-control behavior he’d been displaying was calling to Mikol and making him feel—not exactly himself. Mikol remembered Davos telling him stories about how he and Blake had met years ago, when the war was still raging between the Axis and the Alliance, and Blake had been a captured lieutenant and a prisoner of war.
Back then, Alliance prisoners were dealt with harshly, and from the moment Davos saw Blake, he said he knew they were both in trouble. Blake, a young lieutenant in the Alliance army, had been spitting mad, blazing with defiance and hatred toward his enemies and utterly, absolutely beautiful and desirable. Even though at that time, Davos was the Battle Commander, and as the Dyson, he had immense power, he knew that Blake couldn’t keep carrying on the way he was doing, or even Davos wouldn’t be able to save him. Even worse, and just as dangerous, Blake’s defiance called strongly to the beast inside Davos, the savage tyger that was always lying in wait inside him.
In the years of the vicious war between the Alliance and the Axis, his tyger was never far below the surface, and Blake’s defiant, rebellious behavior called strongly to it. Davos had never told Blake how close he’d been at times to letting the tyger have his way with him. If Blake defied him too much, the tyger would emerge and make his fearful presence known. Not to kill him or injure him, because tygers didn’t kill or maim their mates, but to force him to submit. It would have been far too harsh for Blake, who was so stubborn—and yet so breakable. Not just his body, but his spirit, and Davos couldn’t stand the idea of dousing that bright spark inside him. It was in Davos’s nature to do so, however, just as the defiance and rebellion was in Blake’s.
But the beast inside him wasn’t gentle or loving. They were in danger of destroying each other if they couldn’t figure things out and find some way forward. They had eventually managed, but it had taken them months, or even cycles to accomplish it.
Mikol’s father, Prince Mikos had that same savagery inside him, somewhat sublimated by his actions on the battlefield. When Mikos first married Ryan, then thought his mate had utterly betrayed him, he had wanted to kill him. Indeed, he had been fully prepared to destroy him and had brought him to his cabin on the ship so he could beat him and fuck him to death. Thankfully, his love for the beautiful human had been too strong—the bond too unbreakable—and he hadn’t been able to go through with any of it.
The beast had also made its appearance known in Derrick’s wild recklessness and in Larz’s absolute defiance. It was something they didn’t talk about with the humans in the family—not ever. The humans probably had no idea how close they sometimes came to unleashing the beast inside their husbands. It was one reason why Davos had left Blake after he helped Derrick and Rhaegar to elope. He had to stay away from him so he wouldn’t do anything he’d later bitterly regret. And it was why his father Mikos refused to discuss his difficult relationship with his brother Larz and refused to reconcile. It even explained how upset Mikos was when Ryan once faced him in the Games.
The Tygerians might have done something unforgiveable to bring theirnobyosand loved ones back in line and following their orders. They weren’t able to risk that. Blake and Ryan had never completely understood, but they were simply loved and valued far too much to take any chances with them.
The fierceness of that trait had been passed down to Mikol in full force. Davos and Mikos had recognized it inside him when he was only a boy in training and was fighting other boys his age. They’d had to curb it back then and worked hard to teach him control. In fact, Florin was much the same, and they often had to watch out for each other and make sure their beasts were only released on the battlefield.
Mikol had to be careful because Kalen was already arousing those same dangerous feelings inside him, ones that Mikol was struggling to control. And he’d only just met Kalen.
They had little time to figure this out before they returned to Loros and Mikol took over the army there. That would be just one more thing they had to find their way around. He got up to go to the doorway to look in on the young prince, and a wave of unexpected tenderness swept over him. Kalen was lying on his back, one hand flung back behind his head, and he was deeply asleep, snoring softly in Mikol’s bed. He looked impossibly young, and Mikol felt a rush of possessiveness over him. He liked having him in his bed. It was where he belonged.
One well-shaped bare leg and a small, pale foot was out from under the covers and curled up around them. This man was going to be difficult, but his omak often told him anything worth having was worthfightingfor.
Mikol just didn’t want to be the only one in the fight.
He walked closer to the bed, looking down at the long, dark eyelashes that swept to brush Kalen’s cheeks. His pink, full lips that puffed out with each breath and that stubborn little nose that turned up ever so slightly on the tip. On second thought, perhaps he might be ready to go to war after all if this man would be the spoils of it.
But, if this had all been a ruse to entrap him…to make him comply with what he wanted, then it didn’t bear thinking about. He was afraid of how harshly he might react. The bonding was settling in place already, and he could feel it, so he wouldn’t hurt the young prince. But if he was untrustworthy or a liar, or if he had lied to him about having other men, then he’d have no choice but to rid him of all his bad habits. And Kalen should make no mistake…hewould.
Mind made up, he tucked the little foot back under the covers and watched as Kalen restlessly tossed over onto his side. Mikol went back into the other room and flopped down in the too-soft chair again and continued to stare broodingly out the porthole at the empty space beyond.
He really had no idea how to plan for all this—it was almost too much to even think about. How could he marry this person that he barely knew? How could he tame the wildness he saw inside him without hurting him or ruining what was growing between them?
Florin came back in the room and sat down across from him, not saying anything, but just watching him. Mikol glanced up at him. “Is the doctor coming?”
